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Old 20-06-07, 08:00 AM   #1
JackSpratts
 
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Join Date: May 2001
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Default Peer-To-Peer News - The Week In Review - June 23rd, '07

Since 2002


































"All Fred was trying to do at the time was build a better flying cake pan." – Phil Kennedy


"The initial results of DRM-free music [sales] are good." – Lauren Berkowitz, EMI


"It is huge. It's something that was a closely guarded secret not that long ago and now everybody's got access to it." – Lt. Gen. David Deptula


"I wish I could tell you that takedown requests were a rare thing in this business, but they're not. We receive them on a pretty regular basis, and we have yet to comply with a single one." – Ken Fisher, Ars Technica


"It’s funny how when you take away the free booze and take away the babes, people just aren’t as interested in hanging out." – New York State Assemblyman


"Most of the world's economies consist of poor people who have more time than money, and if there's any lesson to learn from American college kids, it's that people with more time than money would rather copy information for free than pay for it." – Cory Doctorow


"I hereby award our 'Moron of the Week Award' to Congressman Spence Bachus." – CLS


"I assume you’re on the marijuana and the LSD. You’re all under arrest." – Maynard James Keenan


"Opening that first bag of trash is the biggest step." – Christian Gutierrez


"Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity." – Antioch College motto



































June 23rd, 2007








HTTP Web Traffic Overtakes P2P

YouTube alone comprises 20 percent of HTTP traffic.
Robert Jaques

HTTP web traffic has overtaken peer-to-peer traffic for the first time in four years to become the biggest consumer of internet bandwidth, new research has revealed.

An analysis of one million broadband subscribers in North America, conducted by Ellacoya Networks, found that HTTP accounts for approximately 46 per cent of all traffic on the network.

P2P is a strong second place contender at 37 per cent of total traffic. The remainder is made up of newsgroups (nine per cent), non-HTTP video streaming (three per cent), gaming (two per cent) and VoIP (one per cent).

Breaking down application types within HTTP, the data reveals that traditional web page downloads (i.e. text and images) represent 45 percent of all web traffic.

Streaming video represents 36 per cent, and streaming audio five per cent of all HTTP traffic. YouTube alone comprises approximately 20 percent of all HTTP traffic, or nearly 10 per cent of all traffic on the internet.

"The popularity of browser-based video such as YouTube is having a significant impact on overall bandwidth consumption and on the distribution of application traffic on the network," said Fred Sammartino, vice president of marketing and product management at Ellacoya.

"The way people use the internet is changing rapidly from browsing to real-time streaming. We expect to see new applications over the next year that will accelerate this trend."
http://www.crn.com.au/story.aspx?CII...&src=site-marq

Ellacoya Networks press release.





On the other hand…

P2P Remains Dominant Protocol
Thomas Mennecke

Last week, a press release was issued by Ellacotya that suggested something quite startling - HTTP (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol, aka Web traffic) had for the first time in four years overtaken P2P traffic. The results were surprising, as BitTorrent alone has dominated the Internet with some estimates suggesting it can consume up to 60% of an ISP's traffic.

Yet within a few hours, Ellacotya's findings were quickly becoming headline news. Could it be true that YouTube, with its enormous popularity, had finally led Web traffic back to its previous glory?

Well there's Hertz, and there's not exactly.

Slyck.com caught up with several past and present P2P tracking firms to see what was occurring in the P2P landscape. First on our list was CacheLogic. However, we quickly discovered that CacheLogic is no longer in the P2P traffic caching business and no longer collects statistics on Internet traffic. Second on our list was BigChampagne's CEO Eric Garland. BigChampagne analyzes the population and trends of different P2P and BitTorrent communities. However, they don’t compare HTTP to P2P traffic. To further our investigation, Eric suggested we contact the up-and-coming P2P data caching firm, Oversi. Additionally, we headed over to Sandvine, a network management solutions firm. Our research found that Oversi outrightly refuted Ellacotya's claim, while Sandvine’s was more similar.

Oversi, which just received an 8 million dollar capital investment from Cisco, is an Israeli based company that specializes in caching P2P traffic. This file-sharing friendly approach to managing bandwidth allows consumers to enjoy the technological advances of the Internet while also considering the needs of non-P2P Internet users. Oversi's technology accomplishes this by caching the most heavily requested P2P queries and keeping the requested traffic inside an ISP's network. Great success.

To get a more rounded picture of HTTP vs. P2P landscape, Eitan Efron, the VP of Marketing at Oversi gave us his perspective on the issue. As many already suspect, Oversi's perspective revealed that HTTP wasn't out pacing P2P, and in fact P2P was on the rise.

"In some regions (e.g. US) and specific ISPs, the HTTP and P2P have equaled (on average) and both stand at around 35-40%," Eitan told Slyck.com. "But this [circumstance] is true for ISPs that heavily use traffic shapers and enforce heavy throttling of P2P (or for the few ISPs that charge by bandwidth). [It is]...interesting to note that even in these specific cases [that] P2P traffic continues to be on the rise"

Eitan articulated a significant point that others who picked up on Ellacotya's research didn't report. Because Ellacotya’s business focuses on traffic shaping (i.e. P2P blocking), Eitan feels their study would naturally contain less P2P traffic.

"As you can understand this report was done by a company that is selling traffic shapers which are used for heavy P2P throttling...they measured traffic patterns at their points of presence, so the numbers are obvious."

Reversing the study of Ellacotya, Eitan contends that in fact P2P traffic remains the dominant protocol of the Internet.

"We find the actual P2P numbers to be much higher (at least 50-60% of total traffic) in most regions and ISPs and in some cases to stand at 80% (even today)," Eitan told Slyck. "Another reason for the difference in numbers relates to the traffic you monitor and where you measure the traffic. Most ISPs that do use traffic shapers use them on a limited portion of their network. Most use traffic shaping to reduce their international bandwidth...at these lines. [And] due to the heavy rate limiting, the portion of P2P is lower than overall numbers. But the international/interconnect lines are only a portion from the entire bandwidth within the ISP. If you take the portion of P2P in internal traffic and the peering points to other ISPs (points of little/lower pain) you will find totally different numbers. Here is where you will find much larger portions of P2P."

Sandvine’s conclusion was more similar to Ellacotya's, however was not an outright endorsement. They did find however, that HTTP traffic is making significant gains thanks to YouTube and iTunes. Interestingly, Sandvine also points out that NTTP traffic, otherwise known as the Newsgroups, is making modest gains.

“Sandvine has been seeing a relative increase in HTTP traffic on service provider networks globally,” Paul Kilbank, director of products and solutions marketing told Slyck.com. "In a short period, HTTP traffic has grown to rival P2P file-sharing as the leading consumer of network bandwidth. This is mainly due to popular content sources such as MySpace, YouTube, iTunes and other multimedia content providers. It's also interesting to see NNTP traffic continuing at a modest level as an alternative way to exchange large video files beyond common P2P file sharing applications such as BitTorrent and Edonkey. Yet another recent development is growth in network storage traffic as network users adopt new ways to exchange files among family, friends and colleagues, or simply to backup their PC data offsite."

"All these trends highlight that content is king - people will quickly embrace new applications and services that are rich in content and easy to use. We fully expect the growth in HTTP-based audio and video streaming to accelerate with the constant emergence of new content providers."

The lesson learned here is that it’s too soon to jump on the “HTTP has exceeded P2P” bandwagon. P2P traffic still appears to be the dominant protocol, and perhaps most importantly, the Newsgroups continue to be a force to reckon with.
http://www.slyck.com/story1502.html





72 House Reps Oppose Satellite Radio Merger
FMQB

A letter signed by 72 members of the House of Representatives has been sent to FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, and Federal Trade Commission Chairman Deborah Platt Majoras opposing the proposed satellite radio merger.

The letter was authored by Reps. Gene Green (D-TX) and Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI) and signed by 47 Democrats (including Presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich) and 25 Republicans. In the letter, the House members state that, "On its face, we believe that sanctioning the marriage of the only competitors in the satellite radio market would create a monopoly which would be devastating to consumers." They add that "there is scant evidence that a merger would produce any cost savings that a combined Sirius/XM potentially might pass on to subscribers. Both companies are locked into numerous long-term expensive arrangements with their most prized talent and programming. In addition, Sirius and XM would face protracted obstacles to combining their platforms because they use different radio encoding technologies."

The letter concludes by urging the DOJ, FCC and FTC "to protect consumers, and protect competition, by denying this merger."

Just last week, House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) and House Judiciary Antitrust Task Force Ranking Member Rep. Steve Chabot (R-OH) sent a letter to Martin and Gonzalez questioning the proposed merger.
http://fmqb.com/Article.asp?id=425385





Bush Administration Attacks 'Shield' for Bloggers
Anne Broache

The Bush administration on Thursday blasted a congressional proposal that would shield a broad swath of news gatherers, including some bloggers, from revealing their confidential sources.

The latest draft of the Free Flow of Information Act would pose a grave threat to national security and federal criminal investigations by protecting far too large a segment of the population, a U.S. Department of Justice official told Congress.

"The definition is just so broad that it really includes anyone who wants to post something to the Web," Rachel Brand, assistant attorney general in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Policy, said at a House Judiciary Committee hearing here. She also argued it would protect "a terrorist operative who videotaped a message from a terrorist leader threatening attacks on Americans."

Justice Department opposition has bedeviled Congress throughout its numerous attempts in recent years to enact federal shield laws. Supporters say such legislation is needed in light of high-profile cases involving New York Times reporter Judith Miller and what free-press advocacy groups characterize as a sharp rise in subpoenas to reporters in recent years.

Laws recognizing some form of "reporter's privilege" already exist in 49 states and the District of Columbia--but, crucially, do not shield journalists from federal prosecutors. The Bush Administration claims there's no evidence that source-related subpoenas to reporters are on the rise and argues that it already has robust internal guidelines, including a requirement that the attorney general personally approve such subpoenas and provide an appropriate balance between press freedom and investigative needs.

This year's Free Flow of Information Act, which has been introduced in both the House and Senate, proposes a protection for a broader swath of people than earlier versions. It covers anyone engaged in journalism, which is defined as "gathering, preparing, collecting, photographing, recording, writing, editing, reporting or publishing of news or information that concerns local, national or international events or other matters of public interest for dissemination to the public."

Even those covered individuals could be forced to give up their sources under certain circumstances, including when it's clear that crimes have been committed, when "imminent and actual harm" to national security could occur, or when trade secrets, nonpublic personal information or health records are compromised in violation of existing laws.

The hearing, which lasted about three hours, highlighted again the tensions that have arisen as the traditional mainstream media continues to overlap and collide with Internet-based upstarts.

On several occasions, politicians from both parties questioned whether the bill should be so expansive as to include bloggers. Some bristled at the notion that the ease of publishing online could provide cover for those who want to leak sensitive information and get away with it.

"I'd say anyone who didn't want to face legal action would immediately try to put up a blog and try to get journalistic protection," said Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.), adding that he hoped to work with his colleagues to refine that definition.

But even one of the bill's opponents, George Washington University Law School professor Randall Eliason, said, "anything narrower is going to run into severe First Amendment problems."

William Safire, a longtime New York Times columnist and former Nixon administration speech writer, praised the bill's current definition because he said it focuses on the actions characteristic of journalists, not their affiliations.

"Whether you're a blogger or whether you're The New York Times or CBS or The Wall Street Journal, if what you are doing is aimed at informing the public, then you're a journalist, whether you get paid for it or not," he said. (The New York Times, the National Association of Broadcasters and other journalism groups have endorsed the latest bill, according to its sponsors.)

At Thursday's hearing, the bill's chief sponsors, Reps. Rick Boucher (D-Va.) and Mike Pence (R-Ind.), never directly addressed the issue of the journalist definition they crafted. Boucher told CNET News.com in an interview earlier this year that they intended to include bloggers "who are regularly involved in newsgathering and reporting." Any refinement of that definition would be left up to the courts.

Instead, the bill's sponsors continued to tout the necessity of passing their measure as soon as possible. The measure, Pence said, "is not about protecting reporters, it's about protecting the public's right to know."

Some Republicans said they opposed the bill more broadly because they believed it would give undue protection to anyone who publishes false or irresponsible information. Former Judiciary Committee chairman Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) cited a New York Times story last year about a government computer system to track money laundering by terrorists as an example of a situation in which a news outlet harmed American national security interests.

"I don't see very much responsibility there," he said. "It seems to me the burden of proof in showing a press shield will be used responsibly should be on the news media."
http://news.com.com/Bush+administrat...3-6191053.html





The Pirate Bay Launches Uncensored Image Hosting
Ernesto

BayImg, an uncensored image hosting service, is the latest side-project from The Pirate Bay folks. The main difference compared to other image hosting services is that they pretty much allow everything on there, freedom of speech above all.

ImgBay is one of the many side-projects The Pirate Bay is working on at the moment. Last month we found out that the Pirate Bay has plans to compete with YouTube, and now it seems that they also want to take on image hosting services.

Like most other projects, this one is also created to support freedom of speech and free culture. At BayImg we read:

“Freedom of speech is our foundation. And it doesn’t come cheap. You might have heard that old quote by Voltaire; “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” It’s really that simple. There are a lot of ugly opinions out there, but democracy ain’t worth much without the right to express those opinions.”

Users of the new service don’t have to sign-up in order to upload images. However, they can assign a “removal code” to uploaded images, in case they want to delete the files after a while, and tags to categorize images.

BayImg currently supports 100+ file formats, and supports uploading Zip and Rar archives. The maximum file size of uploads is 100MB, but as they say over at ImgBay:

“You’re crazy if you upload that much, then you should consider getting friends.”
http://torrentfreak.com/the-pirate-b...image-hosting/

Pirate Bay image host baying.com





Judge Deals Blow to RIAA, Says Students Can Respond to John Doe Lawsuit
Eric Bangeman

A federal judge in New Mexico has put the brakes on the RIAA's lawsuit train, at least in the US District Court for New Mexico. The case in question is part of the RIAA's campaign against file-sharing on college campuses and names "Does 1-16," who allegedly engaged in copyright infringement using the University of New Mexico's network. In a ruling issued last month but disclosed today by file-sharing attorney Ray Beckerman, Judge Lorenzo F. Garcia denied the RIAA's motion to engage in discovery. This means that the RIAA will not be able to easily get subpoenas to obtain identifying information from the University.

Last week, we covered one Boston University student's attempts to bar the RIAA from obtaining identifying data from the university via a John Doe lawsuit. It's the RIAA's tactic of choice: file John Doe lawsuits, file ex parte applications for discovery, serve the resulting subpoenas on the alleged file-sharer's ISP to discover the identity of the person to whom the IP address was assigned, and then offer the person fingered by the ISP a chance to settle the copyright infringement claims without a lawsuit. The problem with the approach is that it allows the RIAA to do an end-run around the legal process, as the would-be defendant never gets an opportunity to answer during the John Doe lawsuits and fight the RIAA's subpoenas.

The RIAA has argued that it would suffer irreparable harm unless immediate discovery was allowed, but Judge Garcia didn't find that argument convincing. "While the Court does not dispute that infringement of a copyright results in harm, it requires a Coleridgian 'suspension of disbelief' to accept that the harm is irreparable, especially when monetary damages can cure any alleged violation," wrote the judge. "On the other hand, the harm related to disclosure of confidential information in a student or faculty member’s Internet files can be equally harmful."

Judge Garcia also notes that there is "no reasonable way" to ensure that prospective defendants are made aware of the lawsuits and requests for disclosure—which is exactly how the RIAA wants it. He wants to ensure that the John Does are notified and "are given a reasonable opportunity to intervene in order to stop the disclosure of sensitive information."

Accordingly, the judge has ordered the record labels and the University of New Mexico to work out an "appropriate process" to ensure that individual Does will be informed that a subpoena has been issued. More importantly, those targeted will be able to respond to such requests to protect their own interests. The order directs the RIAA to contact the University's counsel, inform them that it is seeking discovery and try to agree on a "fair and reasonable process that would allow Plaintiffs to identify limited information about the subscribers." If they cannot agree, the court will intervene further. Interestingly enough, PACER shows that in the nearly four weeks since the denial of the RIAA's order, there has been no further action in the lawsuit.

This is a significant blow to the RIAA. If other courts decide to follow Judge Garcia's lead, the litigation process will become a lot more expensive and time-consuming for the RIAA, as the John Doe lawsuits would no longer be simple open-and-shut cases. Those suspected of file-sharing would be able to ensure that their interests are taken into consideration from the beginning of the legal process instead of only learning that they were the target of a lawsuit once they receive a settlement letter.

Whether other judges will act in a similar manner remains to be seen. Ray Beckerman told Ars last week that District Court judges in New York have proven unsympathetic to the arguments against ex parte applications for discovery, but the latest spate of file-sharing lawsuits targeting college students may lead to different results—especially if the universities involved decide not to capitulate to the music industry.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...e-lawsuit.html





Washington Woman Sues RIAA for Attorneys Fees
NewYorkCountryLawyer

A Washington woman sued by the RIAA has asked the Court to award her attorneys fees, after the record company plaintiffs (Interscope Records, Capitol Records, SONY BMG, Atlantic Recording, BMG Music, and Virgin Records) dropped their case against her after two years of litigation, in Interscope v. Leadbetter.

The brief submitted by her attorneys pointed out the similarity between Ms. Leadbetter's case and Capitol v. Foster. In the Leadbetter case, as well as Foster case, the RIAA sued the woman solely because she had paid for an internet access account, and then later in the case attempted to plead 'secondary liability' against her without any factual basis for doing so. This tactic had been repudiated by Judge Lee R. West in Capitol v. Foster as 'marginal' and 'untested' in his initial decision awarding attorneys fees, and in his later decision denying the RIAA's motion for reconsideration.
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/06/23/1338203





Yale Students Suing Over Comments Posted on Internet Site
AP

Two female Yale Law School students are suing an Internet message board’s former manager and several people they allege posted anonymous defamatory comments about them.

The women, who filed their lawsuit this week in U.S. District Court in New Haven, say the comments harmed their personal and professional reputations and cost one of them a summer internship.

They have asked a judge for permission to use the pseudonyms "Doe I" and "Doe II," saying that using their real names in the lawsuit could invite more abuse against them.

Their suit names Anthony Ciolli, former site manager of the Internet college discussion board AutoAdmit; and several people who posted comments under screen names such as "Cheese Eating Surrender Monkey" and "STANFORDtroll."

The lawsuit seeks the identities of the people who posted the disparaging remarks under those screen names and other pseudonyms.

Ciolli did not return an e-mail requesting an interview, The Hartford Courant reported Friday.

Neither AutoAdmit nor its founder, Jarret Cohen, are named in the lawsuit. Cohen said he wants people to feel free to express themselves on the site, and that the situation has brought it unwanted, negative attention.

"I don’t want the name of the site to be tarnished," Cohen said.
http://www.newstimeslive.com/news/story.php?id=1056808




Congressman Blames Internet for Child Gambling 30 Years Ago

Washington, D.C. is infested with Congresscritters. Now some of these species are monsters. Most I suspect are just morons. Unfortunately with all the perks for the position congresscritters are not an endangered species. One reason is that it’s against the law to hunt the vermin. I suspect that absent that law there would be a lot fewer of the critters pestering people.

One perfect illustration of the moronic breed of congresscritter is Spence Bachus. He recently questioned Radley Balko of REASON magazine who testified before Congress regarding the absurd ban on internet gambling. Now when I read the remarks by Bachus I was struck by the utter and complete stupidity of them. I made two assumptions I fear. I confess I prejudged the man. I assume he was a Republican and I suspect he was a Southern Republican. Somehow the combination of those two factors impacts on rational thought.

And I must admit to everyone that my presumption was correct. Mr. Bachus is a Republican from Alabama. Enough said, it all falls into place now. His House website runs photos of him, and then for a clue to the Theopublicans from Alabama it also runs a picture of a church. Just the church. Nothing else. No reason for it being there other than to hint when the congresscritter’s sentiments lie.

I tried to read up on the guy. After all if you are going to show someone up as a fool you ought to investigate them. He is an attorney and a Baptist and he’s proud of all the pork he gets for his district. He brags about how much money he spends on his website. Of course it isn’t his money so why should he worry. And like a good Baptist he brags about his “long campaign” “to ban illegal internet gambling.” Okay, first clue he’s a moron. It is only illegal when you ban it. You ban legal gambling not illegal gambling. A ban means it is illegal. You would think an attorney would get something that simple.

He says the gambling industry “preys on minors and gambling addicts”. Notice all those kids in the poker tournaments and how people shot up with poker chips, shoving those chips up their veins.

Do people have gambling problems? Sure. They have eating problems and so far no moron has tried to ban food.

It was his fundamentalist fervor to ban gambling that caused Bachus to go after Balko.

Bachus apparently wanted to prove how internet gambling with adult verification systems are routinely used by children to gamble away their fortunes. He asked Balko if he had ever read the biographies of some prominent poker players listed on a gambling website. He asked specifically about the biography of Ross Boatman. Balko said he had not read that biography.

Bachus now circles in for what he assumes is the kill. Ah, ha! Doesn’t Balko know that the biography says that when Ross was ten years old that he played poker for the first time with his older brother! Hell, if the boy wanted to marry his sister at 10 plenty of good folk down in Alabama wouldn’t have a problem with that. But the boy played poker! Jesus was weeping.

Now Bachus had Balko. He then comes in for the coup de grâce. He announces: “I guess the verification system didn’t work.”

Apparently the Congressman thought that the internet age verification system failed. The problem with that theory is that this was thirty some years ago and it wasn’t over the internet. Boatman learned to play poker, not on line, but at home with his brother. He first started gambling with other school boys in games behind the school gym.

Of course the age verification system didn’t work. How could it? Balko realized he was dealing with a brain dead Theopublican. He said: “I believe that all took place well before the age of internet gambling, Congressman.” Gee, Radley, so respectful. The Congresscritter had to digest this for a minute and said: “Okay, was it?” In other words the moron didn’t have a clue. But then he comes up with what passes as a clever retort back home. He wanted to know “why it’s still on the site today.”

Now try to comprehend that for a second. This is a classic non sequitur. That this fact appears in a biography on an internet gambling site doesn’t mean that Boatman started gambling on the internet in the 1970s. I can read about the assassination of Lincoln on the net but that doesn’t mean he was killed in an on-line chat room.

But Bachus wants to know why, if he isn’t right, that the bio appears on a gambling website. It is mind numbing to watch the Theopublican in action. Logic flies out the window entirely.

Prior to this little escapade Bachus was mostly known for his claim that jokes by comedian Bill Maher were "treasonous comments". On CNN he claimed that there "is a correlation between drug dealers and gambling sites" because "the younger someone starts gambling, the more likelihood that they become a compulsive gambler." Sort like the more times a congresscritter is elected the more likely they are to be a compulsive liar. Old Spence has been elected seven times. But then his district is something like 90% Theopublican.

It’s been a while and this site has been negligent. For that I apologize. I hereby award our “Moron of the Week Award” to Congressman Spence Bachus. The runners-up are the thousands of Alabamans who voted this idiot into office.
http://freestudents.blogspot.com/200...for-child.html





O.J. Simpson Book Hits the Internet

Passages of O.J. Simpson's manuscript "If I Did It," about how he could have killed his ex-wife and her friend, are on Hollywood-based TMZ.com's Web site.

TMZ.com obtained the book, which was to be published by ReganBooks until the father of Ron Goldman, who was slain along with Nicole Brown Simpson in 1994, won the rights to the book as part of the $33.5 million settlement of his lawsuit against Simpson.

In excerpts posted on the TMZ Web site Tuesday, Simpson apparently wrote he wants readers "to forget everything you think you know about that night because I know the facts better than anyone." In another passage, the former NFL football player-actor describes a murder scene in which "something went horribly wrong."

"I was still standing in Nicole's courtyard, of course, but for a few moments I couldn't remember how I'd gotten there, when I'd arrived, or even why I was there," Simpson wrote. "The whole front of me was covered in blood, but it didn't compute. Is this really blood? And whose blood is it?"

Simpson, who was acquitted on criminal charges in the deaths, was paid $900,000 in advance of the book being published.
http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Enterta...internet/6868/





Hacker Claims Harry Potter's Alleged Ending on Web
Jim Finkle

The mystery surrounding the end to fictional British boy wizard Harry Potter's saga deepened on Wednesday with a computer hacker posting what he said were key plot details and a publisher warned the details could be fake.

The hacker, who goes by the name "Gabriel," claims to have taken a digital copy of author J.K. Rowling's seventh and final book, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," by breaking into a computer at London-based Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.

For months now, leading up to the book's July 21 release, legions of "Harry Potter" fans have debated whether Rowling killed Harry or one of his best friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, in the final book.

Gabriel has posted information at Web site InSecure.org that, if true, would answer that question.

"We make this spoiler to make reading of the upcoming book useless and boring," Gabriel said in the posting.

"Harry Potter" publishers have taken great pains to keep the conclusion a secret and preserve the multibillion-dollar entertainment enterprise surrounding the boy wizard.

A Bloomsbury spokesman declined comment on the hacker's claims.

Kyle Good, a spokesman for U.S. distributor Scholastic Corp., would not say whether the posting was accurate, but did warn readers to be skeptical about anything on the Web that claims to have inside information on the book's plot.

"There is a whole lot of junk flying around," she said. "Consider this one more theory."

David Perry, a spokesman for computer security company Trend Micro, said there was a good chance Gabriel's claim could be a hoax.

"We've had hypes like this on the last couple of Harry Potter books," he said. "There is a very high level of spurious information in the hacker world."

But if true, it could be a problem for Bloomsbury. The "Harry Potter" books have been global best-sellers with fans buying some 320 million versions worldwide, and anticipation for "Deathly Hallows" is high.

In April, U.S. retailer Barnes & Noble said advance orders for the book had already topped 500,000 copies, setting a chain record. Scholastic plans to release a record 12 million copies of "Deathly Hallows" to meet demand.

A stolen copy of the sixth Harry Potter novel, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" surfaced in Britain about a month before its official release in July 2005. Two people were charged after reportedly trying to sell a copy to the London tabloid the Sun.

Four "Potter" movies made by Warner Bros. film studio, a division of Time Warner Inc., have brought in $3.5 billion in global ticket sales, and a fifth film is due in theaters in early July.

(Additional reporting by Bob Tourtellotte in Los Angeles and Kate Holton in London.)
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsO...28966520070620





Yes, the Screen Is Tiny, but the Plans Are Big
Louise Story

Bristol, Conn.

More than two dozen huge white satellite dishes surround ESPN’s 100-acre campus here, each transmitting and plucking electronic signals from the skies. Tucked inside that digital fence are 10 buildings, all devoted to producing and broadcasting ESPN’s cable sports programs. Deeper inside the campus sits another building, largely occupied by a team of 20-somethings and a few middle-aged managers, that produces sports content for just one device: the cellphone.

After some hits and misses in creating content for cellphones, ESPN thinks it knows how to keep up with its fans as they go about their days. Cellphones and other mobile devices, says ESPN, are natural platforms for its content. Consumers waiting in line, riding a bus or sitting in a cafeteria will use their phones to watch sports commentary or to check scores just as often as they glance at their wristwatches — or so the thinking goes. In ESPN’s view, it is only a matter of time, and mobile technology upgrades, until “phone watching” is as common as phone calling.

“People talk about it being the third screen,” says John Zehr, senior vice president for digital video and mobile products at ESPN. “I talk about it being the first screen because it’s the closest to you.”

ESPN isn’t alone. Other companies, like CBS and MTV, as well as news organizations like The Associated Press and magazine concerns like the Hearst Corporation, are investing in original cellphone content. After all, there is no other medium that most people carry with them everywhere, and some media executives are wagering that consumers will fill their empty moments — however fleeting — with mobile media content.

Apple Inc., meanwhile, is just weeks away from introducing the iPhone, a product that some analysts speculate may reshape how people use their cellphones and increase demand for content on mobile devices. “It may start driving people’s mind-set to think, ‘Oh, I can do this mobilely,” Mr. Zehr says.

But the mobile media model is far from proven. Only 44 percent of cellphone owners use data services like video or the Internet on their phones, according to Forrester Research. Among those who use phones for more than calling, 88 percent of them use messaging, mostly text messaging, and about a quarter surf the Web, but only 7 percent watch videos. Screen size and low resolution are problems, analysts say, and many consumers seem uninterested in content on their phones.

“A lot of what is being said is being driven by what is technically possible as opposed to any real understanding of just what people are doing,” says Mike Bloxham, research director at the Center for Media Design at Ball State University in Muncie, Ind. “Yes, it is possible to watch video on many of the cellphones people are buying,” he added, “but you have to look at how many people are doing that.”

But ESPN is clearly onto something. More than nine million people visit its cellphone Web site each month, a following that surpasses the audience of most computer-based Web sites. Some sports fans apparently cannot wait to reach their homes or offices to check the score of a Patriots game or to see if their favorite pitcher has tossed a no-hitter, so tens of thousands of them receive an average of 22 ESPN text messages on their phones each week. (Since the alerts began in March, baseball updates have been the most popular.) As he finishes taping a segment for the cellphone show “ESPN ReSet” — a recap of morning programs on ESPN — Trey Wingo, the show’s anchor, says mobile-content skeptics will be proved wrong. Mr. Wingo says that when ESPN made its debut as a cable channel in 1979, doubters said that “people weren’t going to watch a 24-hour sports network — it’s similar to what they’re saying about cellphones now.”

ESPN has already weathered some consumer indifference when it comes to cellphones. Early last year, it introduced its own pricey cellphone and cell service for sports fans. Despite a flashy Super Bowl commercial and lavish marketing, the phone received a ho-hum reception, and ESPN stopped offering it last fall. Still, ESPN employees here remain true believers: their phone failed, they say, because of consumers’ reluctance to change phone carriers, not because of any lack of interest in mobile content.

INDEED, ESPN’s content is perfectly suited for the mobile world. Sports fans, after all, like to closely monitor their favorite players and teams — timely information that fits comfortably into what media executives call “snack size” content. The News Corporation, steward of the Fox Network and Fox Studios, is so fond of short cellphone videos that it has trademarked a term to describe them: “mobisodes.”

Many mobile-content providers assume that consumers with more than a few minutes to spare won’t be attached to their cellphone screens. Instead, they will call their mothers to chat, find a computer or a television, or maybe even read a book. Yet executives at broadcast networks like ABC say that this assumption is worth challenging, and they are betting that consumers will also watch longer-form content on their phones. Last month, ABC began showing full-hour episodes of shows like “Lost” and “Grey’s Anatomy” on Sprint’s network.

“We’re sort of creating another opportunity for content consumption where there wasn’t one at all,” says Albert Cheng, executive vice president for digital media at ABC.

Mr. Cheng says people may think that short-form content works best on cellphones simply because that is the bulk of what has been developed. “We’re all experimenting,” he says. “I don’t think any of us really knows what people want on mobile.”

For its part, ESPN is not holding back. It already tracks what computer users read on its Web site to determine what like-minded sports fans want to view on their phones, and is pursuing a patent to protect the technologies underlying its multiscreen effort. The goal is to monitor individuals’ interests on the Web site and then use the information to match cellphone content to their tastes. If someone is watching a football game on ESPN.com and has to hit the road, Mr. Zehr says, chances are that they would like the game to appear on their cellphone 20 minutes later.

Some of ESPN’s most avid phone users do not sit in front of a PC in an office all day; instead they may work as chefs, store clerks, deliverymen and construction workers. ESPN also thinks that live events will be popular on cellphones; it is showing live clips from the United States Open golf tournament, for example. Mr. Zehr says he believes that for many viewers, ESPN’s mobile content will become more important than its Web content.

“You start to learn more and more about your fan as they migrate from platform to platform,” he says. “What we’re really doing now is customer relationship management.”

DESPITE ESPN’s ardor for mobility, some critics say media companies cannot get around the chief hurdle facing the cellphone: its tiny screen. Consumers are buying larger and larger television screens for their living rooms, and many may not like squinting at a 2.5-inch picture. ESPN, for example, is addressing that by offering video content with more close-ups and customizing graphics for the small screen.

Still, some analysts are skeptical.

“The experience of content on your phone is worse than almost any other venue you could think of,” says Charles Golvin, a senior analyst at Forrester Research. “If you have a choice between a phone and any other outlet for content, you’ll almost always choose the other outlet because it’s a better experience. The phone is the device of last resort.”

Mobile-content advocates counter that people may be reaching the point of last resort much more often than they did in the past — especially as commutes grow longer and as people generally travel more.

The popularity of DVDs has shown that people will view films on smaller screens than those at movie theaters because it is more convenient to stay home. If they can be induced to settle for even smaller screens, cellphone viewing at home may rise. (And, apparently, no room is sacred: some media executives say the bathroom is a popular place for cellphone viewing.)

One mobile content network, Go2, which runs mobile sites about golf, travel and other topics, found that 44 percent of its users visit Go2 on their phones while they are at home. And MTV Networks has noticed that its Nickelodeon video clips do well on cellphones, possibly because parents in their cars pass their phones to bored children in the backseat. Still, there is very little empirical data to track where people are when they use their cellphones.

Because of the small screens on cellphones, some media companies view the phones as tools, not as channels. Hearst has created several cell-based services related to its magazine content, but the company does not view the cellphone itself as a minimagazine.

One Hearst title, Good Housekeeping, created a cellphone database that allows shoppers to use their phones to check whether products in stores have the magazine’s well-known seal of approval. Esquire, a men’s magazine from Hearst, has created a cellphone site listing the best bars in America.

Hearst’s strategy is linked to what it sees as the limits of cellphone screens and the dangers of offering feature-length content on them.

“It’s not really what the phone screen is designed for,” says Sophia Stuart, mobile director at Hearst. “It’s designed to provide information, to give it to me quickly.”

Despite these possible limitations, media concerns are taking the cellphone seriously. When Cyriac Roeding joined the CBS television network as its head of mobile content two years ago, the first thing he did was to conduct a survey among viewers to find out how many tuned in with their cellphones at hand. He found that about 64 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds watch television with their cellphone almost always nearby.

“That gives you millions of people everyday who have their cellphones with them while they are watching our network,” Mr. Roeding says. “Basically you’ve got the ultimate glue between different mediums, and that’s the cellphone.”

He views the cellphone as a substitute for the television when viewers are not near a set. CBS News offers short clips of big stories throughout the day, and the actress Ashley Hartman stars in cellphone videos.

But the phone can also complement programs watched at home, Mr. Roeding says. Text messaging and other technologies on the phone will allow viewers to interact with advertisers and television programs — like the text-message voting that Fox has used to great effect on “American Idol.”

Underlying the interest in cellphones as the Next Big Media Platform is a generation gap: younger people use cellphones more than their baby-boomer parents do — and for a lot more than chatting. More than three-quarters of 18- to 26-year-olds use some type of data services — compared with 44 percent of the general population — and their time spent messaging, downloading content, watching video and surfing around the mobile slipstream is also higher, according to Forrester.

“For the younger generation, the mobile phone is their most relevant device,” says Dan Novak, an executive at MediaFLO USA, a cellphone video network. “They don’t want just clips. They want long-form programming, they want shows that are simulcast, they basically want a TV-like experience.”

In the end, the younger crowd is what gives hope to mobility zealots like Mr. Zehr at ESPN.

“I have a 5-year-old, and he doesn’t know that there are phones you can’t watch TV on,” he says. “People are more mobile than ever. They commute more, they travel more, they are out of the house. They are going to want mobile content.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/17/bu.../17mobile.html





Really, Really Rosie
Virginia Heffernan

Watched Rosie this morning. You know, Rosie O’Donnell. She’s that homebody who lives with her wife and kids and hangs out with her good-time girlfriends and says whatever she wants.

You thought she was off the air? Nah.

“What do you think of ‘Sicko,’ by Michael Moore?” Ms. O’Donnell asked when I tuned in. Her hair seemed sticky, her T-shirt looked slept in, and her double-wide face was washed out to abstraction by the glare of amateur lighting.

Ms. O’Donnell hadn’t seen Mr. Moore’s film, but she had an opinion: “It’s probably as brilliant as his other films. I think the man is a genius. He’s an American hero.” No one was around to say otherwise.

This is not the cutie-patootie closeted “Rosie O’Donnell Show,” and it’s not, of course, “The View,” which Ms. O’Donnell left in a contract-slamming huff on May 25, following a vicious argument with her round-table foil, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, on air.

Instead it’s Ms. O’Donnell’s online show, a video blog called, more or less, nothing. Whenever she Shanghais her obsequious pals Helene Macaulay (a stylist and makeup artist) and Janette Barber (a writer) into joining her, the show is called “Jahero,” after the three women. But in most of the broadcasts, she’s alone.

All the videos are pure Rosie, in the sense that with their unforgiving lighting and absent production values Ms. O’Donnell, the comic-actress-host, is revealing the last of whatever she was holding back on daytime television. The spectacle of her both humbled and emboldened this way brings to mind Ross Perot, Tina Brown and “Rocky III” — the big wheels who decided it’s time to return to the old gym and do something real.

Ms. O’Donnell’s videos feature no commercials, no scripts, no music, no wardrobe, no crew. Most of them are Rosie in front of her computer, staring at you at yours. (Even when others are in the video, Ms. O’Donnell unceremoniously crowds them out.) The show’s on any time you want, at rosie.com — click “movies” — and episodes are posted sporadically.

There she is, the fork-tongued lady, without bronzer to contour her face or concealer to hide her fatigue, or directors to keep her coloring within the political and professional lines.

And, man, is this girl good on screen.

How else to explain why these miniature videos, which seem to be nothing but the ramblings of an old comic who won’t be funny unless she’s being paid, are so watchable? Certainly Ms. O’Donnell doles out the odd tidbit of gossip, continuing to report, for example, that “they don’t want me” as the next host of “The Price Is Right,” though she longs to succeed Bob Barker. (“I’ve watched that show the entire 35 years that Bob Barker has hosted that show,” she explains, adding that the program would be good for her, but she’s not sure she’d be good for it.)

She doesn’t interview celebrities, she doesn’t tell how to make crafts, she doesn’t quarrel with right-wingers, and she doesn’t give things away. In fact since she left “The View” — Ms. O’Donnell’s been making these videos since March 27 — the episodes have become downright glum. (“Sometimes I’m sad,” Ms. O’Donnell says to someone who e-mails her. “Celebrities are sad. They’re real people.”)

Ms. O’Donnell seems to be experimenting with an emo style, the morose deadpan known to YouTubers but anathema to TV and stage veterans like herself. Sometimes she barely acknowledges her co-hosts. When she reads questions from viewers who dislike her, she doesn’t fight; when she reads fan mail, she doesn’t smile.

But the Rosie-unplugged thing works. In what might be a first for a television star, she’s really not faking anything anymore. She’s just the music-loving, Bush-hating, depression-suffering, overweight Ro that people love and hate.

In these videos she praises musicians, like the women of the True Colors Tour, especially her friend Cyndi Lauper and her new obsession, Beth Ditto of the Gossip. And you know she means it when she says of Jimmy Carter: “He is to me a Christlike figure in this earth.” That’s clearly Rosie.

And when she hiccups and stops thinking about Mr. Carter and says, “O.K., that’s like the seventh hiccup during a blog,” that’s her too.

Some videos are simply animated collages, one nominally showing support for the United States military. It features a heavy “Impeach Bush for War Crimes” element and images from antiwar protests, pictures of unidentified babies and snapshots of Ms. O’Donnell’s family (and one of Ms. O’Donnell and Ms. Hasselbeck looking chummy) to the tune of the dirgelike “Someone Else’s Tomorrow” by Patty Griffin. Though the video is called “i love r troops,” the material seems to have little connection to the title.

The set, if set it can be called, is an officelike room with shelving filled with knickknacks; you can also see a doorway, through which Kelli Carpenter, Ms. O’Donnell’s wife — they married in San Francisco in 2004 — and others sometimes pass. Ms. O’Donnell’s brief interactions with her entourage are often the best part of her videos, and they can come anytime.

One short, anomalous video showed Ms. Carpenter’s mother, Melanie Safer, in the sidekick seat. Ms. O’Donnell orchestrated a promotion for her mother-in-law’s company, an e-tailer that sells dance clothes, especially “liturgical dancewear.”

As Ms. O’Donnell has her hair and makeup done, she ably contains her mother-in-law’s entrepreneurial exuberance while not stepping on the promo. She shows rote compliance and evident irony. It’s a dexterous two-step, and it recalls Ms. O’Donnell at her best: being a superfan, but also making jokes.

Mostly, though, the videos allow Ms. O’Donnell to interact with her viewers, who write in. Recently one asked that she choose a show and a network and a time slot and stick with it. The viewer was tired of being unable to find her when she was needed. (The theme of viewers “needing” Ms. O’Donnell is a common one.)

As she read the question aloud, Ms. O’Donnell weighed it carefully. She didn’t urge the questioner just to stick with her online videos, nor did she make any promises about what would happen next in her television career. She did say, “Whatever I do, I’ll try — whatever I do — to stay my whole contract.”

But then she thought better of that. “I think, just, shorter contracts are better for me,” she said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/21/ar...on/21rosi.html





NBC Universal Rattling Saber Over Piracy

American companies are teaming up to take on the pirates, and the rhetoric from intellectual property rights holders at the networks and studios is getting dire.

In a document filed with the FCC on the issue of network neutrality on Friday, NBC Universal argued that approximately 60 percent of all internet traffic was unauthorized peer-to-peer sharing of copyrighted material. The statement went on to equivocate the traffic in unlicensed material with the drug trade and child pornography. And that’s on the heels of suggesting that more attention should be paid to protecting movie grosses than banks.

Earlier in the week, at a press conference in Washington, D.C. NBC Universal general counsel Rick Cotton claimed that copyright infringement is costing the economy of the United States “hundreds of billions of dollars a year,” more than all other property crimes combined, and that law enforcement is currently “misaligned.” A report from IP rights advocacy group Policy Innovation pegged the number at only about $20 billion last September.

He was speaking on behalf of the new “Campaign to Protect America,” an industry lobby group for the MPAA and other rightsholders with the backing of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. AT&T is listening, and has agreed with the MPAA to basically tap the Internet in order to stop piracy.

Cory Doctorow argued in an Information Week column that bits are only ever going to get easier to copy and that structuring our entire economy on information is ultimately unsustainable. Making a million iPhones requires factories and raw materials, but making a million copies of Shrek 3 no longer does.

In other words, we’re ultimately creating advertising for products we don’t even make, and are complaining when the people who make the products cheaply are unwilling to pay for the advertising. Congress and the FCC can continue trying to regulate this fundamental problem away by listening to the networks and studios, but no law or treaty can or will stop the practice of freely trading digital information, and no technological solution has yet worked, either.
http://newteevee.com/2007/06/18/nbc-...r-over-piracy/





Limewire based P2P now allows you to vote on your favorite songs like American Idol
Press Release

MP3 Rocket is proud to announce the release of their new peer to peer (P2P) software version 5.0. The new version 5.0 now allows customers to "vote" on their favorite songs, videos and pictures.

MP3Rocket was built from a popular branch of Limewire’s open source code. With this release it is the first time in history that any peer to peer network has actually allowed customers to vote and view the content that they enjoy most.

Paschal Rousseau, the customer support manager with www.mp3rocket.com, thinks that the new voting feature will be as big as American Idol in the P2P Gnutella world.

"When people can vote online for what they want the world will change. Digital freedom is a shot that has already been heard around the world. Distributed computing should be a basic right of all mankind. In my opinion, file sharing is a freedom that is here to stay, a freedom that no bureaucrat will ever be able to stuff back into the bottle."
http://www.webwire.com/ViewPressRel.asp?aId=39767





iTunes Now 3rd Largest Music Retailer in US
Jeremy Horwitz

According to a just-published NPD Group MusicWatch report for the first quarter of 2007, covering the sales of both physical and downloadable music, Apple’s iTunes has jumped in rank to become the third-largest retailer of music in the United States. iTunes now holds a 9.8% share of music purchases, ahead of fourth place Amazon.com at 6.7% and fifth place Target at 6.6%. Walmart remains the nation’s largest music retailer with a 15.8% share of the market, with Best Buy holding 13.8% for second place.

The MusicWatch findings are especially interesting in that 86.2% of the quarter’s music sales were in a physical (CD) format, versus a 13.8% share in downloadable format. Unlike Wal-Mart and Best Buy, iTunes gained share despite the fact that it only sells downloadable content. It leapfrogged CD-heavy competitor Amazon to gain fourth place in January.
http://www.ilounge.com/index.php/new...er-in-us/10402





EMI Says DRM-Free Music is Selling Well
Jacqui Cheng

Early sales indicate that DRM-free music is noticeably more popular than DRMed music, EMI senior VP Lauren Berkowitz recently told Bloomberg. The world's third-largest music label began selling its music without copyright protections last month through Apple's iTunes Store and reports back that sales have been "good."

Berkowitz said that sales of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon were up 350 percent in the week after iTunes Plus launched. That has since leveled off, but sales of the album are still up 272 percent since going DRM-free. As music industry blog Coolfer points out, digital sales for other EMI artists have risen as well, such as Smashing Pumpkins' Siamese Dream (17 percent), Norah Jones' Come Away with Me (24 percent), and Coldplay's A Rush of Blood to the Head (115 percent). During that same time period, CD sales for those same albums dropped by 15 percent, 33 percent, and 24 percent, respectively.

Although the iTunes Store was the first online store through which EMI sold its DRM-free tracks, Amazon recently said that it will also be selling DRM-free EMI songs through its newly-announced music store later this year. EMI has also struck deals with other online stores to sell its unprotected music, such as f.y.e. and 7digital.

The spike in sales can probably be at least partly attributed to the rush of users dying to upgrade their DRMed iTunes Music to the DRM-free versions upon initial release. However, EMI appears to be confident that its DRM-free music will continue to sell well, even after the initial excitement dies down. The other major music labels are rumored to be considering DRM-free music as well, but are taking a wait-and-see approach. Apple's Steve Jobs is also said to be putting heavy pressure on the remaining labels to follow EMI's lead. If EMI manages to maintain increased sales in its post-DRM world, though, Universal and Warner may in fact be tempted to drop the DRM sooner than later.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...ling-well.html





EMI Cashes in on Unprotected Music Sales
Don Jeffrey

EMI Group PLC's digital revenue may rise from offering music without software that prevents copying, based on early sales of unprotected recordings through Apple Inc.'s iTunes store.

"The initial results of DRM-free music are good," Lauren Berkowitz, a senior vice president of London-based EMI, said Wednesday at a music industry conference in New York.

DRM refers to digital-rights management software, used to stop illegal sharing.

EMI, the world's third-largest record company, broke ranks last month with other major distributors to start online sales of DRM-free recordings from its digital catalog. Apple's iTunes store, the largest online music seller, began offering unprotected EMI recordings May 30. EMI's catalog includes tunes by the Rolling Stones, Norah Jones and Coldplay.

Amazon to sell, too

Last month, online bookseller Amazon.com Inc. said it planned to sell EMI's unprotected music when it opens a digital-download store later this year.

Berkowitz said the early results from iTunes indicate that DRM-free offerings may boost revenue from digital albums as well as individual songs. She said that sales of Pink Floyd's classic rock album Dark Side of the Moon had risen since the DRM-free digital versions became legally available.

Other large recording companies, including Warner Music Group Corp. and Vivendi SA's Universal Music Group, have sought to stop illegal file-sharing of copyrighted music by encoding digital tunes with DRM software. File-swapping over the Internet has fueled a plunge in sales of physical recordings such as compact discs and has hampered efforts to sell digital music.

U.S. CD sales fell 21 percent this year through June 3 from last year, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs....NTERTAINMENT50





How Hollywood, Congress, And DRM Are Beating Up The American Economy

The United States traded its manufacturing sector's health for its entertainment industry, hoping that Police Academy sequels could take the place of the rust belt. The United States bet wrong. America needs new, realistic trade policies.

By Cory Doctorow

Not too long ago, back in 1985, the Senate was ready to clobber the music industry for exposing America's impressionable youngsters to sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll. For America, that was nothing new. Through most of its history, the U.S. government has been at odds with the entertainment giants, treating them as purveyors of filth.

Not anymore. The relationship between the entertainment industry and the U.S. government today is pretty cozy. Entertainment is using America's clout to force Russia to institute police inspections of its CD presses, apparently oblivious to the irony of post-Soviet Russia forgoing its hard-won freedom of the press to protect Disney and Universal. The U.S. attorney general is proposing to expand the array of legal tools at the RIAA's disposal, giving the organization the ability to attack people who simply attempt infringement.

How did entertainment go from trenchcoat pervert to top trade priority? I blame the "Information Economy."

No one really knows what "Information Economy" means, but by the early '90s, we knew it was coming. America deployed the futurists -- her least-reliable strategic resource -- to puzzle out what an "information economy" was and to figure out how to ensure that America stayed atop the "new economy."

We make the future in much the same way as we make the past. We weave our memories together on demand, filling in any empty spaces with elements of the present, which are lying around in great abundance. In Stumbling on Happiness, Harvard psych prof Daniel Gilbert describes an experiment in which people with lunch in front of them are asked to remember their breakfast: Overwhelmingly, the people with good lunches have more positive memories of breakfast than those who have bad lunches. We don't remember breakfast -- we look at lunch and superimpose it on breakfast.

We make the future in the same way: We extrapolate as much as we can, and whenever we run out of imagination, we just shovel the present into the holes. That's why our pictures of the future always seem to resemble the present, only more so.

So when the futurists told us about the Information Economy, they took all the "information-based" businesses -- which Neal Stephenson, in his 1992 novel Snow Crash, described as (music, movies, and microcode -- and projected a future in which these would grow to dominate the world's economies.

There was only one fly in the ointment: Most of the world's economies consist of poor people who have more time than money, and if there's any lesson to learn from American college kids, it's that people with more time than money would rather copy information for free than pay for it. Of course they would! Why, when America was a-borning, she was a pirate nation, cheerfully copying the inventions of European authors and inventors. Why not? The fledgling revolutionary republic could copy without paying, keep the money on her shores, and enrich herself with the products and ideas of imperial Europe. Of course, once the United States became a global hitter in the creative industries, out came the international copyright agreements: The United States signed agreements to protect British authors in exchange for reciprocal agreements from the Brits to protect American authors.

Developing nations today face the same economic conditions that faced America 200 years ago. It's hard to see why a developing country would opt to export its GDP to a rich country when it could get the same benefit by mere copying. To get developing nations to respect American intellectual property policies, the United States would have to sweeten the pot.

The pot-sweetener is the elimination of international trade barriers. Historically, the United States has used tariffs to limit the import of manufactured goods and to encourage the import of raw materials. Generally speaking, rich countries import poor countries' raw materials, process them into manufactured goods, and export them again. If your country imports sugar and exports sugar cane, chances are you're poor. If your country imports wood and sells paper, chances are you're rich.

In 1995, the United States signed onto the World Trade Organization and its associated copyright and patent agreement, the TRIPS Agreement, and the American economy was transformed.

Any fellow signatory to the WTO/TRIPS can export manufactured goods to the USA without any tariffs. If it costs you $5 to manufacture and ship a plastic bucket from your factory in Shenjin Province to the USA, you can sell it for $6 and turn a $1 profit. And if it costs an American manufacturer $10 to make the same bucket, the American manufacturer is out of luck.

The kicker is this: if you want to export your finished goods to America, you have to sign up to protect American copyrights in your own country. Quid pro quo.

The practical upshot, 12 years later, is that most American manufacturing has gone belly up, Wal-Mart is filled with Happy Meal toys and other cheaply manufactured plastic goods, and the whole world has signed onto U.S. copyright laws.

But signing onto those laws doesn't mean they'll enforce the laws. Sure, where a country is really over a barrel (cough, Russia, cough), they'll take the occasional pro forma step to enforce U.S. copyrights, no matter how ridiculous and totalitarian it makes them appear. But with the monthly Russian per-capita GDP hovering at $200, it's just not plausible that Russians are going to start paying $15 for a CD, nor is it likely that they'll stop listening to music until their economy picks up. The real action is in China, where pressing bootleg media is a national sport. China keeps promising that it will do something about this, but it's not like the United States has any recourse if China drags its heels. Trade courts may find against China, but China holds all the cards. The United States can't afford to abandon Chinese manufacturing, and no one will vote for the politician who hextuples the cost of Wi-Fi cards, brassieres, iPods, staplers, yoga mats, and spatulas by cutting off trade with China. The Chinese can just sit tight.

The futurists were just plain wrong. An "information economy" can't be based on selling information. Information technology makes copying information easier and easier. The more IT you have, the less control you have over the bits you send out into the world. It will never, ever, EVER get any harder to copy information. The information economy is about selling everything except information.

The United States traded its manufacturing sector's health for its entertainment industry, hoping that Police Academy sequels could take the place of the rustbelt. The United States bet wrong.

But like a losing gambler who keeps on doubling down, the United States doesn't know when to quit. It keeps meeting with its entertainment giants, asking how U.S. foreign and domestic policy can preserve its business model. Criminalize 70 million American file-sharers? Check. Turn the world's copyright laws upside down? Check. Cream the IT industry by criminalizing attempted infringement? Check.

It can never work. There will always be an entertainment industry, but not one based on excluding access to published digital works. Once information is in the world, it'll be copied. This is why I give away digital copies of my books and make money on the printed editions: I'm not going to stop people from copying the electronic editions, so I might as well treat them as an enticement to buy the printed objects.

But there is an information economy. You don't even need a computer to participate. My barber, an avowed technophobe who rebuilds antique motorcycles and doesn't own a PC, benefited from the information economy when I found him by googling for barbershops in my neighborhood.

Teachers benefit from the information economy when they share lesson plans with their colleagues around the world by e-mail. Doctors benefit from the information economy when they move their patient files to efficient digital formats. Insurance companies benefit from the information economy through better access to fresh data used in the preparation of actuarial tables. Marinas benefit from the information economy when office-slaves look up the weekend's weather online and decide to skip out on Friday for a weekend's sailing. Families of migrant workers benefit from the information economy when their sons and daughters wire cash home from a Western Union terminal in a convenience store.

This stuff generates wealth for those who use it. It enriches the country and improves our lives. And it can peacefully co-exist with movies, music, and microcode, but not if Hollywood gets to call the shots. Not if IT managers are expected to police their networks and systems for unauthorized copying -- no matter what that does to productivity. Not if our operating systems are rendered inoperable by "copy protection." Not if our schools are conscripted into acting as enforcers for the record industry.

The information economy is all around us. The countries that embrace it will emerge as global economic superpowers. The countries that stubbornly hold to the simplistic idea that the information economy is about selling information will end up at the bottom of the pile.
http://www.informationweek.com/story...leID=199903173





Never ever ever

Proposed Amendment Would Ban All DVD Copying
Mark Hachman

A proposed amendment to the current copy protection license governing DVDs would completely ban all DVD backups, and prevent DVD playback without the DVD disk being present inside the drive.

The proposed amendment was made public in a letter sent by Michael Malcolm, the chief executive of Kaleidescape, a DVD jukebox company which successfully defeated a suit by the DVD Copy Control Association (DVD CCA) this past March. The proposed amendment is scheduled for a vote on Wednesday, according to Malcolm.

A spokesman for the CCA said he was not aware of the proposed amendment, but added that he could not comment until the CCA had finished its deliberations. A spokeswoman for Kaleidescape said she understood that a final decision could take weeks, if not months.

The amendment is currently being considered by the Content Protection Advisory Council (CPAC) of the DVD CCA. If enacted, it would become binding in 18 months from the date on which the CCA notified its licensees, which include DVD hardware and software manufacturers.

The terms of the amendment, formally referred to as the "Unknown Specification Amendment," are just a paragraph long, and would basically eliminate DVD copying of any form, whether for the purposes of fair use or not.

The amendment reads:

"6.4. Certain Requirements for DVD Products. DVD Products, alone or in combination with other DVD Products, shall not be designed to descramble scrambled CSS Data when the DVD Disc containing such CSS Data and associated CSS Keys is not physically present in the DVD Player or DVD Drive (as applicable), and a DVD Product shall not be designed to make or direct the making of a persistent copy of CSS Data that has been descrambled from such DVD Disc by such DVD Product."

The amendment was proposed by Chris Cookson of Warner Bros., Ben Carr of Walt Disney Studios, Jeffrey Lawrence of Intel, Gabe Beged-Dov of Hewlett-Packard, David Harshman of Toshiba, and Andy Parsons of Pioneer Electronics, according to Malcolm as well as the attached letter proposing the amendment, and signed by the legal counsel representing the signatories.

To Malcolm, the proposed amendment was designed to put Kaleidescape out of business, and represented an unfair monopoly that should be broken up. The letter was addressed to several members of the Federal Trade Commission, key members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, Department of Justice staffers, EU regulatory bodies, and the chief executives of the companies the amendment signatories are employed by, as well as industry executives like Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer.

"The real purpose of this proposed amendment is to put Kaleidescape out of business by excluding the Kaleidescape System from the DVD playback devices authored by the CSS License Agreement," Malcolm wrote. "You should be aware before you vote on the proposed amendment that you expose yourself, your employer and the DVD CCA to serious and substantial antitrust liability if you vote for this amendment. Both state and federal laws outlaw anticompetitive conduct by businesses joining together to put a competitor out of business."

The DVD CCA has previously tried twice to add "managed copy" provisions to its licensing agreement, and both times the vote has failed, according to reports. Managed copies would either transfer the CSS key to the recordable DVD, which would require an additional CSS "replicator" license, or else use what is called "pre-keyed" media, which would include the CSS key already as part of the disc structure.

The proposed amendment would apparently add hardware restrictions to prevent DVD data from being descrambled and then copied. To date, that provision has been effectively enforced by litigation, which has effectively prevented mainstream software companies from copying or "backing up" DVD movies. A number of independent software developers, however, have published utilities or other applications for "ripping" DVD movies.

The proposed amendment would also prohibit software manufacturers to create "virtual drives," running a DVD image from a hard drive. The previous Kaleidescape case touched upon the company's use of ripping a DVD to a large internal hard drive, and playing back the movie on demand without the need for a physical disk to be inserted into the drive.

In the previous ruling settling the Kaleidescape-DVD CCA dispute, Judge Leslie C. Nichols of the Santa Clara Superior Court merely stated that the company had met its obligations to the CCA under its license agreement, without addressing the broader issue of fair use.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2148802,00.asp





Open Sourcers Rattle EU Sabre at BBC on Demand Player
Chris Williams

The BBC is being threatened with an anti-trust challenge in Europe over its use of the Windows Media format in its on demand service, iPlayer, which is in the final stages of testing.

Advocacy group the Open Source Consortium (OSC) will raise a formal complaint with UK broadcast and telecoms watchdog Ofcom next week, and has vowed to take its accusations to the European Competition Commission if domestic regulators do not act.

The OSC, whose membership comprises individual open source proponents and vendors, says the BBC is unfairly locking the public into Microsoft operating systems. OSC CEO Rick Timmis said: "We've got a broad and varied market place and it seems counter productive to round all your chickens in one pen."

The OSC compared the situation to the European Commission's prosecution of Microsoft over its bundling of Windows Media Player with Windows. That case was initiated in 2004 by complaints from other vendors, and resulted in European courts imposing a record fine on Redmond, which it is still appealing against.

The final decision to approve a Windows-only broadband player was made by the BBC Trust at the end of April. The public broadcaster's independent governing body approved iPlayer on the basis of its own investigations and a Market Impact Assessment (MIA) carried out by Ofcom.

Ofcom insisted that its process had been inclusive and open, and said any further progress on the matter was now in the hands of the BBC Trust. "We made recomendations which were taken on board by the trust," a spokesman said.

The OSC first raised anti-competitive concerns via letters to Ofcom earlier this year. In his response, Ofcom's director of competition policy Gareth Davies quoted the MIA: "On balance, we consider that access to iPlayer would be only one of many factors influencing the decision to purchase a new computer operating system, and is therefore this is likely to be a relatively minor concern."

Regarding the iPlayer's direct impact on the media player market, the MIA said it "would require a very significant assessment of the media player/DRM markets". Both OSC and Ofcom are liaising with the Office of Fair Trading on the issues.

The BBC has explained its choice of DRM in terms of the trust's specification that downloaded shows should be time bombed to become unviewable after 30 days. In a statement, the BBC told The Register: "In order to maximise public value, the BBC must balance extending access to content with the need to maintain the interests of rights holders and the value of secondary rights in BBC programming. Without a time-based DRM framework the BBC would not be able to meet the terms of the trust's PVT decision.

"It is not possible to put an exact timeframe on when BBC iPlayer will be available for Mac users. However, we are working to ensure this happens as soon as possible and the BBC Trust will be monitoring progress on a six monthly basis."

For streaming media, such as news clips, in the past the BBC has preferred to use the RealPlayer format, which does not have a time bomb function for downloadable video. The OSC insists that on demand streaming, or DRM-free downloads would be more in the public interest than an OS-specific format.

The iPlayer project has already had a lengthy and troubled gestation, going back to a first announcement four years ago. Since then it has been rebranded twice and reannounced repeatedly. In the meantime, terrestrial rivals ITV and Channel 4 have developed and delivered on demand programming over the internet. Recently, details have emerged (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/06...itv_c4_player/) of a bid to unite the competing players under the banner "Project Kangaroo".
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/06..._osc_eu_ofcom/





Industry Committee Demands a Canadian DMCA
Michael Geist

Just as parliamentarians voted to break for the summer, the Industry Committee (member list here) issued its report on counterfeiting and piracy, unambiguously titled Counterfeiting and Piracy are Theft. The report and its recommendations are stunning as they represent the most lopsided copyright related report since Sam Bulte chaired the Canadian Heritage Committee. The Committee acknowledges that the statistical evidence is "at best, very crude estimates", so it chose to adopt a 1998 OECD study that places global counterfeiting at US$600 billion (never mind that the OECD has just released a report setting the number at one-third that figure).

While no one supports counterfeiting, the Committee's zeal to address the issue is striking, even going beyond the roadmap from the Canadian Anti-Counterfeiting Network. In particular, the report makes the following recommendations:

• ratify the WIPO Internet treaties (seemingly because the U.S. has placed us on the Special 301 list)
• increase damages and penalties under the Copyright Act
• create a new offence for the distribution of pirated works
• create a new offence for the manufacture or distribution of circumvention devices for commercial gain
• create new administrative penalties for the importation of counterfeit and pirated goods
• create a new criminal offence for manufacturing, reproducing, importing, distributing, and selling counterfeit goods
• strengthen civil remedies for counterfeiting and piracy infringement
• increase the resources allocated to the RCMP and Justice to counter counterfeiting and piracy
• prioritize RCMP and Justice copyright enforcement
• encourage prosecutors to seek more significant penalties for counterfeiting and piracy violations, including imprisonment
• create a new IP Crime Task Force
• new border measures, data sharing, and the creation of an IP registry

The government will be required to respond to this report in the fall. While it may not accept all the recommendations, this report dramatically escalates the pressure for one-sided copyright reforms that mirror DMCA-style laws.
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/2049/125/





Blocked China Web Users Rage Against Great Firewall

Yang Zhou is no cyberdissident, but recent curbs on his Web surfing habits by China's censors have him fomenting discontent about China's "Great Firewall".

Yang's fury erupted a few days ago when he found he could not browse his friend's holiday snaps on Flickr.com, due to access restrictions by censors after images of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre were posted on the photo-sharing Web site."

"Once you've complained all you can to your friends, what more can you do? What else is there but anger and disillusionment?" Yang said after venting his anger with friends at a hot-pot restaurant in Beijing.

The blocking of Flickr is the latest casualty of China's ongoing battle to control its sprawling Internet. Wikipedia, and a raft of other popular Web sites, discussion boards and blogs have already fallen victim to the country's censors.

China employs a complex system of filters and an army of tens of thousands of human monitors to survey the country's 140 million Internet users' surfing habits and surgically clip sensitive content from in front of their eyes.

Its stability-obsessed government says the surveillance machinery, commonly known as the "Great Firewall", is necessary to let Internet users enjoy a "healthy" online environment and build a "harmonious" society.

Yang just thinks it's a pain.

"I just want to look at some photos! What's wrong with that?" said the 24-year-old accountant, typical of millions of young urban-dwelling professionals who are increasingly aware of and fed up with state intrusions into their private life.

Privacy, once regarded with suspicion in pre-reform China, has become a sought-after commodity among China's burgeoning middle class, according to Nicholas Bequelin from Hong Kong-based Human Rights Watch.

"Of course, it's the first thing people seek when they have the economic resources," Bequelin said. "We see this growing in China in the wake of ideas of ownership and property."

Privacy Battles

Away from cyberspace, the battle for privacy between China's secretive government and its increasingly active citizens has turned violent in recent months.

In Bobai county, in the southern region of Guangxi, hundreds of farmers smashed government offices and burnt cars after local officials imposed punitive fines on residents who had defied family planning laws and had too many children.

The battle for control of China's Internet, however, will remain much more covert than confrontational, according to Liu Bin, an IT consultant with Beijing-based consulting firm BDA.

He believes it will take a long time before the government loosens control over web content, especially because the Internet-savvy middle class is unlikely to take to the streets -- like the farmers of Bobai county -- over lack of web access.

"Many educated people feel they can accept the current status quo because it doesn't have much impact on their daily lives ... They have been living with government propaganda for over 1,000 years," Liu said.

Such an attitude grates on Du Dongjin, a 40 year-old IT worker in Shanghai.

Du has decided to sue his Internet service provider, the Shanghai branch of state-owned behemoth China Telecom, who he said had blocked a Web site that had carried financial software he hoped to market.

"If the court authorities aren't influenced and they can hear the case fairly, I will win," Du said.

Anonymous Grievances

Most frustrated Web surfers, however, would rather air their grievances in the relatively safe realms of Internet anonymity.

They still have their anonymity because a state push to have China's millions of bloggers register with their real names to ensure they only posted "responsible" Web content was abandoned after an outcry from the Internet industry and due to the impossible task of keeping lists of exploding numbers of users.

"The thirst for information in China is so strong, it is very difficult for the (Communist) Party to stay ahead of the curve," Bequelin explained.

Within days of the blocking of Flickr, links to browser plug-ins and how-to explanations to subvert the filters and see Flickr photos were gleefully posted on blogs and in chat-rooms.

Many posts were preceded by tirades against the censors for "harmonizing" Flickr.

One blogger posted an image of a voodoo doll, calling it the Great Firewall and inviting users to -- digitally -- stick pins in it.

Yang said restrictions on Flickr probably wouldn't motivate him to write a blog, much less push him down the road of "potentially dangerous" activism.

But he liked the idea of the Great Firewall voodoo doll.

"Have you got the link? Maybe I'll go stick a pin in it," he said.
http://www.reuters.com/article/inter...21813920070619





The Life of the Chinese Gold Farmer
Julian Dibbell

It was an hour before midnight, three hours into the night shift with nine more to go. At his workstation in a small, fluorescent-lighted office space in Nanjing, China, Li Qiwen sat shirtless and chain-smoking, gazing purposefully at the online computer game in front of him. The screen showed a lightly wooded mountain terrain, studded with castle ruins and grazing deer, in which warrior monks milled about. Li, or rather his staff-wielding wizard character, had been slaying the enemy monks since 8 p.m., mouse-clicking on one corpse after another, each time gathering a few dozen virtual coins — and maybe a magic weapon or two — into an increasingly laden backpack.

Twelve hours a night, seven nights a week, with only two or three nights off per month, this is what Li does — for a living. On this summer night in 2006, the game on his screen was, as always, World of Warcraft, an online fantasy title in which players, in the guise of self-created avatars — night-elf wizards, warrior orcs and other Tolkienesque characters — battle their way through the mythical realm of Azeroth, earning points for every monster slain and rising, over many months, from the game’s lowest level of death-dealing power (1) to the highest (70). More than eight million people around the world play World of Warcraft — approximately one in every thousand on the planet — and whenever Li is logged on, thousands of other players are, too. They share the game’s vast, virtual world with him, converging in its towns to trade their loot or turning up from time to time in Li’s own wooded corner of it, looking for enemies to kill and coins to gather. Every World of Warcraft player needs those coins, and mostly for one reason: to pay for the virtual gear to fight the monsters to earn the points to reach the next level. And there are only two ways players can get as much of this virtual money as the game requires: they can spend hours collecting it or they can pay someone real money to do it for them.

At the end of each shift, Li reports the night’s haul to his supervisor, and at the end of the week, he, like his nine co-workers, will be paid in full. For every 100 gold coins he gathers, Li makes 10 yuan, or about $1.25, earning an effective wage of 30 cents an hour, more or less. The boss, in turn, receives $3 or more when he sells those same coins to an online retailer, who will sell them to the final customer (an American or European player) for as much as $20. The small commercial space Li and his colleagues work in — two rooms, one for the workers and another for the supervisor — along with a rudimentary workers’ dorm, a half-hour’s bus ride away, are the entire physical plant of this modest $80,000-a-year business. It is estimated that there are thousands of businesses like it all over China, neither owned nor operated by the game companies from which they make their money. Collectively they employ an estimated 100,000 workers, who produce the bulk of all the goods in what has become a $1.8 billion worldwide trade in virtual items. The polite name for these operations is youxi gongzuoshi, or gaming workshops, but to gamers throughout the world, they are better known as gold farms. While the Internet has produced some strange new job descriptions over the years, it is hard to think of any more surreal than that of the Chinese gold farmer.

The Story





Frisbee Still Flying High After 50 Years; Disc's Inventor Never Thought Name Would Fly
Michael Liedtke

Wham-O Inc. changed the name of the Pluto Platter to Frisbee 50 years ago Sunday, flinging a new word into the cultural ether that still conjures images of carefree fun in the park and breezy days at the beach.

And to think Walter "Fred" Morrison, the inventor of the beloved disc, thought the new moniker would never fly.

"I thought Frisbee was a terrible name," Morrison, now 87, said. "I thought it was insane."

Frisbee instead became insanely popular, making the name as synonymous with flying discs as Google is with searching the Internet and Kleenex is with tissue.

But Wham-O doesn't allow the Frisbee name to be thrown around indiscriminately. When the Emeryville-based company sees Frisbee used to describe discs made by other manufacturers, lawyers dispatch legal notices seeking to protect the trademarked term.

Frisbee's name is a spin-off from a now-defunct Connecticut bakery, the Frisbie Pie Co. New England college students often tossed empty pie tins around for fun, a habit that led them to refer to the Pluto Platter as a "frisbie."

Wham-O co-founders Rich Knerr and Arthur "Spud" Melin first obtained the marketing rights to Morrison's invention in January 1957.

Less than six months later, Knerr made the fateful decision to embrace the nickname that the college kids had given the Pluto Platter. He evidently was unclear on how to spell frisbie, giving birth to a new word.

Morrison began experimenting with flying objects in his teens. He says he first tossed around a popcorn lid at a Thanksgiving gathering in 1937 and later graduated to cake pans.

When he first started to think of designing a flying disc, Morrison called it the "Whirlo-Way" in a tribute to the racehorse Whirlaway, which won the 1941 Triple Crown.

"All Fred was trying to do at the time was build a better flying cake pan," said Phil Kennedy, who teamed up with Morrison to write "Flat Flip Flies Straight," a book detailing the Frisbee's history.

By the time Morrison finally scraped up enough money to develop a mold for his concept, there had been reports of a spacecraft crashing in Roswell, N.M. Morrison ended up calling his first line of discs "Flyin-Saucers." After upgrading his design, Morrison then dubbed the disc the Pluto Platter.

Wham-O has been trying to capitalize on the Frisbee's 50th anniversary by releasing collector's editions of the early models. The privately held company says hundreds of millions of Frisbees have been sold, but won't be any more specific than that.

Meanwhile, Morrison, who lives in Richfield, Utah, is still collecting royalties off a name he didn't really like. "It just goes to show I am a bad judge of names," he said.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...06-16-22-29-08





Local news

Tax Credit for Film Industry Pays Off

Lawmakers refer to state as 'Hollywood East'
AP

Last week was a busy one for Connecticut's budding film industry.

Actor Leonardo DiCaprio was in Thomaston filming his new movie "Revolutionary Road." A casting call was held in New Haven for Steven Spielberg's latest "Indiana Jones" film. Crews were in Kent preparing for today's shoot of "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2" with "Ugly Betty" star America Ferrera and "Joan of Arcadia's" Amber Tamblyn.

State officials believe a new tax credit program, which kicked in on July 1, 2006, is fueling the burgeoning interest for filming movies in Connecticut. And they hope a new bill will lure digital media and sound recording industries while encouraging everything from a sound studio to post-production facilities to build a permanent home in the state.

"This bill that we passed this year makes the bill that we did last year look like nothing," boasted House Speaker James Amann, D-Milford, who never misses an opportunity to refer to Connecticut as "Hollywood East."

"It's good to have the tax credits, but we know that Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Canada, New York are going to try to compete with us now, because we are hot," he said. "So what we need to do now is build studios, we need to attract the businesses, we need to build the employee base, we need to do the education."

The bill is awaiting Gov. M. Jodi Rell's signature.

As of May, the Connecticut Commission on Culture and Tourism gave preliminary approval to 36 projects that will be eligible for more than $87 million in tax credits, according to the legislature's nonpartisan Office of Fiscal Analysis. State law creates a tax credit equal to 30 percent of qualified production, preproduction and post-production expenses incurred in Connecticut. The commission's film division is required to conduct an economic impact analysis of the credit program by March 2008.

But the numbers already look good.

From Jan. 1, 2006 to July 1, 2006, before the tax credit program started, about $750,000 worth of film production was conducted in Connecticut. From July 1, 2006 to Dec. 31, 2006, that figure jumped to $52 million. It's expected to climb to $300 million worth of production in 2007, said Kevin Segalla, president of Connecticut Film Center, LLC, a Stamford company that started up the same day lawmakers passed last year's tax credit bill.

"It's been nonstop every since," Segalla said.

The film center, which Segalla created with a fellow producer, Bruce Heller, encourages the motion picture industry to come to Connecticut and then provides moviemakers with everything from deals at hotels to assistance with the tax credits.

One of the biggest beneficiaries is Bridgeport, the state's largest city located along the Long Island Sound, about 60 miles northeast of New York.

Robert DeNiro and Sean Penn filmed "What Just Happened" there in April, and DeNiro is expected to return in August to film "Righteous Kill" with Al Pacino and rapper 50 Cent.

Action star Steven Seagal shot "Marker" in eight Bridgeport locations, and DiCaprio's "Revolutionary Road" and "Sisters of the Traveling Pants 2" is scheduled to shoot in the city this summer.

Other projects featuring Meryl Streep, Robin Williams and John Travolta are scheduled to shoot in Bridgeport and some other Connecticut towns this summer. In all, at least nine major movie productions are scheduled to film this year in the state.

"What this has done has truly created an enhanced sense of pride and excitement, which is great for the moniker of a city or town," Bridgeport Mayor John Fabrizi said.

The films have also led to more revenues, such as rental payments for city and private buildings, additional overtime pay for city police and firefighters, hundreds of rented hotel rooms and a boost in business for local retail stores.

Fabrizi praised the state's financial efforts to draw the film industry, but urged leaders to do more.

"They need to sustain that drive by not allowing other states to undercut their tax incentive," he said. "The state has to do everything within its power to ensure that they can be trendsetting and they can be above the tax incentives being offered anyplace else."

Twenty-one states offer economic incentives to the film industry, said Heidi Hamilton, director of the state's film division. While most offer some form of tax credit or rebate, Connecticut's 30 percent credit is among the highest.

California producer Alwyn Kushner, who filmed scenes for "Marker" in Bridgeport, said she would have made Seagal's movie in Rhode Island if Connecticut didn't offer a 30 percent tax credit.

"Whether it's a studio or independent filmmaker, it's so cost-effective to shoot (in Connecticut) because of the tax credit," she said. "It would be hard for any other location to offer more."

Fabrizi is hoping film-related companies will move to the city, joining sound companies and a Broadway set builder that already have set up shop. Ultimately, he'd love someone to take advantage of the state's proposed movie production infrastructure credit and build a studio in Bridgeport.

Connecticut has one such facility, Sonalysts Studios in Waterford. Hamilton said the state also needs another in the southern part to help New York-based directors and their crew who need to film projects in December through March.

"We lose productions because of our seasons," she said, adding how such a facility could also lead to more television production in the state.

Segalla said his company is close to announcing plans to open stages and post-production facilities in Fairfield County. Connecticut Film Center currently rents some facilities in the area for visiting film crews.

"There's a distinct lack of infrastructure here in the state right now, so these movies coming in are struggling to find all the things they need," he said. "When we put an infrastructure here, it will put us that much closer to building a permanent industry."

Once that infrastructure is in place, Segalla said he won't worry about competition from other states because of Connecticut's proximity to New York and its crew base, as well as the many talent who live in both states.

"I think we've set the bar at a great spot," he said. "And I think we're in a unique place here in Connecticut."
http://www.newstimeslive.com/news/st...&source=tabbox





Town Relents: GIS Data Goes Online for All
Neil Vigdor

After fighting for years to limit access to aerial photographs of Greenwich, Connecticut in a municipal database, officials announced yesterday that they will post them on the town's Web site along with supporting information on the location and dimension of landmarks such as wetlands, flood zones, open space and property lines.

The Board of Selectmen voted unanimously to release the information in the town's geographic information system for the public to download for free.

It also agreed to slash the price for electronic copies of the photographs and the data to $1 each on the advice of Information Technology Director Boris Hutorin, who told the board that the town should be consistent with pricing guidelines recently adopted for state agencies.

The town, which spent $3 million to create the database in 1997, currently charges $26 for electronic copies of the aerial photos and $53 for what is known as planimetric data.

"As much as I don't like reducing the price of something we paid $3 million for, if someone takes us to court, they're going to look at the state's pricing guidelines," said Selectman Peter Crumbine.

Updated more recently with newer photographs, the database known as GIS has been at the center of a protracted and landmark public records dispute.

Stephen Whitaker has had the upper hand in that feud, successfully challenging the town's denial of his 2001 request for an electronic copy of the photos and data all the way up to the state Supreme Court.

A self-employed computer consultant who works in Greenwich, Whitaker has been at odds with the town for several years over a number of policies related to the database, from the fees it charges for the information to the format it is available in to the decision to omit certain details about public infrastructure because of what officials say are security concerns.

The restricted information includes the location of fire hydrants, manholes, sewers, storm drains and utility poles.

First Selectman Jim Lash said the new guidelines were the primary impetus for changing the town's policy, though he acknowledged that Whitaker had consistently questioned the town's fee structure for GIS materials.

"In that sense, he's had some impact," Lash said.
http://www.greenwichtime.com/news/lo...,2363198.story





Charting America's Coastline

Smithsonian exhibit on the Coastal Survey is now at WestConn
Robert Miller

Every day millions of tons of cargo arrive in American ports, and millions of tons of cargo leave.

"The farmer in Kansas has to sell his corn," said Capt. Albert "Skip" Theberge of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Corps.

"He has to buy cars and clothes," he noted. "And 98 percent of all the cargo in the country comes into the United States by sea."

Nobody thinks twice about this.

That's because the Coast and Geodetic Survey's charts are so good that ships come and go without ever scraping their hulls.

"If we were bad, you'd hear about it," said Theberge, a retired NOAA officer and former member of the Survey who now works at the NOAA library.

The Coast and Geodetic Survey -- now part of NOAA -- is one of the nation's oldest ongoing enterprises.

To bring the Survey's accomplishments to light, the Smithsonian Institution created a traveling exhibit, "From Sea to Shining Sea: 200 Years of Charting America's Coasts."

The exhibit will be at Western Connecticut State University's Truman Warner Hall in Danbury from Monday through July 8.

To mark the occasion, Lt. Matthew Wingate, the Coastal Survey's Northeast Navigation manager, stationed in Narragansett, R.I., will speak at WestConn on Thursday.

President Thomas Jefferson started it in 1807, and while it took another three decades to truly become functional, it's now mapped over 95,000 miles of American coastline, as well as the nation's interior.

It's produced over 20,000 maps and charts, and set up the nation's system to measure tides and currents. In the late 1940s, one of its staff members even helped determine the correct speed of light.

"It's part of the nation's invisible infrastructure," Theberge said.

Wingate's job shows how far-reaching the Coastal Survey's work can be, especially combined with the other arms of NOAA, which was created in 1970 by combining the Survey, the National Weather Services, and the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries.

"I've worked on a survey we did in Hawaii between the islands of Oahu and Molokai,'' Wingate said. "We were able to overlay our maps with the work they've done to map the travels of the humpback whales.

"The bottom is mostly sandy, sometimes rocky, and by overlaying the maps, we were able to show that whales prefer to travel over sand rather than rocks."

Theberge said the Coastal Survey's own history has its rocky patches, especially in its first two or three decades.

At the turn of the 18th and 19th century, most of the maps sailors used along the Atlantic coastline had been drawn up by other countries, and none was particularly accurate. Because most of the trade and travel in the country was done via ships, the new country needed good maps.

Thomas Jefferson, the visionary, saw the need for the Coast Survey and authorized its creation in 1807. But Jefferson, the politician, was trying to deal with the aggression of the British navy. He ordered an embargo on American trade with England in 1807 that stifled trade and slowed the Survey's work.

The Survey got a further setback when its first director, Ferdinand Hassler, went to Europe to get the surveying equipment he needed to carry on the work. In 1812, war broke out between England and the United States, and Hassler could not return to America with the instruments he purchased until 1816.

Theberge said the Survey was also slow to get started because Hassler, with a staff of only four or five people, had to create a whole system of fixed survey points on the coastline before he could start to use trigonometry to measure distance and draw maps.

Impatient with his slow, exact work, the U.S. Congress removed him from the job and handed it over to the U.S. Navy. After a decade more, the Navy's survey work was judged "useless and pernicious.''

In 1832, Hassler once again became the Coast and Geodetic Survey's director and, with the job properly funded and staffed, it finally took off.

But Theberge said the Survey, while now part of NOAA, is still is staffed by 300 naval officers who are part of the NOAA Corps. That only confuses people more.

"They think we're with the Coast Guard," he said. "It's an identity thing."

The Survey's work continues.

When the U.S. moved westward, it mapped the Pacific coastline. When the U.S. built the Panama Canal from 1904 to 1914, the survey charted its path. It mapped the nation's major rivers, then moved inland, creating the topographic maps that now include the entire country. It mapped Alaska and the Philippines.

It was one of the first government agencies that did a scientific study in the shifts in the Earth's magnetic fields, allowing people who use compasses to account for that shift when figuring direction.

During the Civil War and the two world wars, it used its knowledge of tides, current, harbor and weather to plan transports of ships and soldiers.

Wingate said that today, thanks to the Global Positioning Satellite system, a staff of three or four can do what it used to take a crew of 50 or 60 to do. But he said the work is essentially the same -- measuring the distance between a set of fixed points, then triangulating other distances.

Because the coast is constantly changing, the survey has work to do. After Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast in 2005, one arm of NOAA --the U.S. Weather Service -- tracked the storm's progress and catastrophic landfall.

Once the storm cleared, the Coastal Survey team began flying over to survey the damage and what Katrina had done to the contours of the coast, the harbors and the Mississippi Delta, so they could be cleared for shipping.

"We also worked on hundreds of oil spills caused by Katrina," Theberge said.

And because shipping has changed, the survey's charts have to have pinpoint accuracy.

"You used to have boats that drafted 10 to 15 feet underwater," Theberge said. "Today, they draft to a depth of 40 to 90 feet."

And yet people think the world is fixed.

"I was at a party once and a woman asked me why we were spending government money re-surveying things," Wingate said. "What could I tell her? They used to measure the depth of channels with lead lines and some of our surveys are that old."

"Mariners understand what we do," Wingate said. "I'm not sure other people do."
http://www.newstimeslive.com/news/st...&source=tabbox





In Albany, Not Much Life in Lawmakers’ Nightlife
Nicholas Confessore

Martin Connor flicked his eyes down the bar, surveying all the unoccupied chairs. The room was too empty. The music was too loud. “I never see legislators here anymore,” he groused, lacing his fingers around a glass of pinot noir.

It was a Wednesday night at Elda’s on Lark, a bar and restaurant two blocks from the Capitol. Lawmakers would once have been strolling through the doors for a drink or three, or six. But Mr. Connor, a long-serving state senator from Brooklyn Heights, saw no familiar faces. “I keep thinking, I’m 62 — am I out of it? Maybe this isn’t the place anymore,” he said.

“Nah,” he decided. “There’s not an everybody place anymore.”

About 15 years ago, Albany was full of everybody places — bars and restaurants that were a second home to the lawmakers during the three or four days a week they spend in the capital during legislative sessions.

But Albany’s political night life, long in decline, suffered a new blow this year: the arrival of Gov. Eliot Spitzer. He declared it unseemly to hold fund-raisers in the capital. He has championed new laws under which lobbyists can no longer pick up the tab for a table full of lawmakers. And the governor’s people, it is said, prefer to spend their nights at the office.

“The bars may be suffering, but we hear the coffee shops are doing quite well,” said Christine Anderson, a spokeswoman for the governor.

But Albany was never known for its coffee shops. Lawmakers once flocked to the bars and restaurants near the Capitol for dinner, or drinks, or tomfoolery. Occasionally, they would meet for all three, and some still do. In April, an assemblyman was charged with drunken driving and speeding after, according to the Albany police, he was caught driving 65 miles per hour in a 30 m.p.h. zone.

But most tales of the old days never made the papers. The young woman who plucked the spectacles off a bookish assemblyman and said he could stay the night at her place if he could find his way there without them. The sumptuous dinners with a colleague from across the aisle or across the state. The booze. The late nights. The booze.

Those habits began to die out in the 1990s, many lawmakers say, when politics became more partisan. The nonpartisan hangouts downtown, like the Plaza Grill a few blocks from the Capitol, were replaced by new spots where people gathered with their own political kind.

But more significant, all agree, were the accusations of harassment and even assault made by staff members or interns, mostly younger and female, against older, more powerful men. They culminated in the 2004 conviction of a senior aide to Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver for sexual misconduct.

Stringent new rules enjoining lawmakers from fraternizing with interns followed, and with them came a far less forgiving atmosphere. This spring, a married Assemblyman was censured by his colleagues after admitting that he fell asleep on the floor of an intern’s apartment after a night at a sports bar. The intern was fired.

Ethics rules were gradually tightened too, beginning with a 2006 decision by the state lobbying commission limiting gifts to lawmakers to less than $75 per year per giver.

“It used to be that a lobbyist would call and say, ‘I’ve got some people from the Senate or Assembly, and there are 15 of them, and I want seven bottles of wine on the table, food — soup to nuts,’ ” said Paul Mancino, the owner of Lombardo’s, an Italian place a few blocks from the Executive Mansion. Politicians still tread the black-and-white tile floor there, but now they trickle in by twos and threes and they ask for separate checks.

Shortly after taking office, Mr. Spitzer brokered a bill with the Legislature that banned all but “nominal” gifts, which many lawmakers have interpreted as a prohibition on all but the occasional ceremonial baseball cap. Though there are loopholes — a lobbyist can still donate to a legislator’s political action committee, for example, which in turn could foot the bill for dinner — lobbyists, lawmakers and restaurateurs say the change has dampened Albany night life.

Some grumble about bad apples ruining it for everybody else. Others say that Albany’s old collegiality owed a lot to lobbyists’ largesse. As one lawmaker, who wished to remain unknown, put it, “It’s funny how when you take away the free booze and take away the babes, people just aren’t as interested in hanging out.”

Indicative of the new climate, perhaps, is a group of dinner companions calling themselves the Morality Caucus. It is composed of Craig M. Johnson, David J. Valesky and José M. Serrano, all Democratic state senators in their 30s and 40s. By Mr. Johnson’s account, their evenings rarely go past 9 p.m.

“We eat dinner early,” he said. “And once we eat, we like to go back to our hotels, call our families and call it a night.” Pause. “Really.”

There used to be so many fund-raisers every night, held by trade associations, elected officials or their parties, that you could stack them three and four deep on your schedule and still have to miss a few. Lobbyists and activists would make merry with lawmakers and drop off a check for a re-election campaign or a party committee.

But even before taking office, Mr. Spitzer — him again — pledged to hold no campaign fund-raisers in Albany, on the grounds that people might get the wrong idea about how bills become law.

And the big group dinners are gone, replaced by dinner cliques of lawmakers who are already friends.

On a recent Monday, for example, Michael N. Gianaris, a Queens assemblyman, called to order the regular meeting of the Smokey Bones Caucus, of which he is the chairman. The caucus — which includes Mark S. Weprin, Keith L. T. Wright, J. Gary Pretlow, Jeffrion L. Aubry and Andrew Hevesi, all Assembly Democrats from districts in or near New York City — gathers at a barbecue restaurant of the same name just outside Albany. The agenda is limited, mostly, to ribs, the Mets and the restaurant’s homemade doughnuts.

“Ten years ago we would have gone out with a lobbyist,” said Mr. Wright, who has been in the Assembly for 15 years. “My first year, I went to all those dinners.”

Mr. Aubry interjected: “I went to as many as I could!”

Mr. Wright continued. “Then I got bored. You’ve having dinner, and then the lobbyist says, ‘Let me tell you about proprietary colleges.’ ”

There were chortles all around. “It used to be, you might go to a bar and have a drink,” Mr. Weprin said. “Now you might go to a bar and there are interns there.”

“And then you get arrested!” Mr. Pretlow said.

“It’s a different time, a different time,” Mr. Wright said. “You got to be chill.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/18/ny...htlife.html?hp





Microsoft Muscles the NYS Legislature

Software giant moves to weaken NY Election law
Bo Lipari

The 800 pound gorilla of software development has moved forcefully into New York State, supported by voting machine vendors using Microsoft Windows in their touch screen voting machines and other systems. Over the last two months Microsoft and a cadre of high paid lobbyists have been working a full-court press in Albany in an attempt to bring about a serious weakening of New York State election law. This back door effort by private corporations to weaken public protections is about to bear fruit.

On Thursday, June 14, I recieved a copy of proposed changes to New York State Election Law drafted by Microsoft attorneys that has been circulating among the Legislature. These changes would gut the source code escrow and review provisions provided in our current law, which were fought for and won by election integrity activists around the state and adopted by the Legislature in June 2005. In an earlier blog I wrote about Microsoft's unwillingness to comply with New York State's escrow and review requirements. Now the software giant has gone a step further, not just saying “we won't comply with your law” but actively trying to change state law to serve their corporate interests. Microsoft's attorneys drafted an amendment which would add a paragraph to Section 1-104 of NYS Election Law defining “election-dedicated voting system technology”. Microsoft’s proposed change to state law would effectively render our current requirements for escrow and the ability for independent review of source code in the event of disputes completely meaningless - and with it the protections the public fought so hard for.

Adding insult to injury, these changes are being slipped into a bill that may be voted on Monday or Tuesday, June 18 or 19. That bill's stated purpose is to make “technical changes” to the recent law moving the date of New York's presidential primary to February. Because this bill involving the new primary date must be passed next week before the Legislative session ends (New York has jumped on the bandwagon to be part of the super presidential primary in February 2008) this grave weakening of the public’s right to review software would come along part and parcel with the primary date change. The players promoting this behind the scenes are relying on the fact that this reprehensible eradication of citizen protections won't be noticed until it's too late. If Microsoft and the vendor lobbyists had their way, the public would have known nothing about this until after the law passed. Well that much at least, didn't work. We’ve found out about this secretive move, albeit only four days before the bill containing this poisonous provision is to be voted on. The question now is will the Legislature approve this appalling weakening of our law?

Up to now, New York State has been rightfully proud to have adopted some of the strictest regulations regarding the new electronic voting systems in the entire nation. The Legislature has been patting themselves on the back for two years now for passing such an excellent set of laws. For the most part, they had a right to be proud. But now these powerful private companies are working the Legislature behind the scenes trying to quietly change New York Election Law to remove the public’s protections and to serve their private interests.

The big question is, will the New York State Legislature give in to these powerful corporate interests or will they stand up for transparency, security, and the public's right to know?

Take Action Now - It’s urgent that you call your State Senator and Assembly representatives on Monday, June 18, at their Albany offices, and tell them they must not weaken New York State’s escrow and review requirements. Remind them that the Legislature passed a strong law 2 years ago - they must not give in to pressure by voting machine vendors to undermine those protections.

Find your Assembly member’s contact information here:
http://www.assembly.state.ny.us/mem/
(Not sure who your Assembly member is? Click here to search by Zip Code)

Find your State Senator’s contact information here:
http://www.senate.state.ny.us/senate...ators?OpenForm
(Not sure who your State Senator is? Click here to search by Zip Code)
http://nyvv.org/blog/bolipariblog.html





Maine Becomes the First State to Pass Internet Neutrality Legislation
By bean

Maine has become the first state in the union to pass legislation on net neutrality. The resolution, LD 1675, recognizes the importance of “full, fair and non-discriminatory access to the Internet” and instructs the Public Advocate to study what can be done to protect the rights of Maine internet users.

Small business owners and members of the technology industry say net neutrality is good for Maine business because it allows small businesses to compete online with large corporations. Having net neutrality principles in place would make Maine an attractive place to launch tech industry start-ups. As a result of a 2005 decision by the Federal Communications Commission, net neutrality principles, which had been in place since the inception of the internet, were put in jeopardy. Following that decision, Maine Senator Olympia Snowe proposed legislation to reinstate net neutrality at the federal level. Maine’s resolution emphasizes the importance of net neutrality to Snowe’s home state and could provide the impetus for her to refocus attention on the issue.

Lawmakers and consumer advocacy groups had nothing but good things to say about the resolution:

“Maine is the first state in the nation to stand up for its citizens’ rights to a nondiscriminatory internet,” said Senator Ethan Strimling, the original sponsor of LD 1675. “The rest of the nation should follow suit and study what can be done to protect net neutrality.”

Shenna Bellows, Executive Director of the Maine Civil Liberties Union said, “Maine is once again leading the way in protecting the rights of its citizens. This resolution will help re-establish the internet as the free and open arena of democracy it was always intended to be.”

Tony Vigue of the Community Television Association of Maine said, “This important legislation puts Maine first in affirming that Internet providers should not be allowed to discriminate by speeding up or slowing down Web content based on its source, ownership or destination.”

“With a free and open internet young people are able to start businesses that compete in the global marketplace from their homes in Maine,” said Brian Hiatt, Maine Director of Communications and Online Organizing for The League of Young Voters. “Net Neutrality levels the playing field for Mainers.”

Save the Internet explains Net Neutrality:

“Network Neutrality — or ‘Net Neutrality’ for short — is the guiding principle that preserves the free and open Internet. Put simply, Net Neutrality means no discrimination. Net Neutrality prevents Internet providers from speeding up or slowing down Web content based on its source, ownership or destination. Net Neutrality is the reason why the Internet has driven economic innovation, democratic participation, and free speech online. It protects the consumer’s right to use any equipment, content, application or service on a non-discriminatory basis without interference from the network provider. With Net Neutrality, the network’s only job is to move data — not choose which data to privilege with higher quality service.”

You can read the resolution on Maine’s legislature website. You can read more about this at Maine Today.
http://www.lawbean.com/2007/06/16/ma...y-legislation/





Bush Official Goes Nuclear in Net Neut Row
Gavin Clarke

A San Francisco tech show degenerated into a shouting match today, after a pugnacious Bush commerce official squared off with heated supporters of net neutrality.

John Kneuer, the assistant secretary for communications and information, quickly lost his temper and began shouting back at Supernova 2007 attendees after taking flack for saying the free market - not government intervention - would protect internet innovation and access.

Taking a brief time out from shouting his responses at delegates who'd rejected his claims the free market has ensured consumer choice in US broadband internet access, Kneuer remarked in an aside: "I started out very politely."

That came seconds after he told delegates what they really wanted was for the government to mandate terms and conditions of internet service in the US.

"That's absolutely what you are asking for!" he shouted to counter-shots of "no!" and "there is no market place!", referring to the fact a handful of phone and cable companies control the lion share of broadband internet access and service in the US.

Increasingly, it seems, those companies will be allowed by the Government to charge for different levels of internet service - ending net neutrality.

Kneuer, who previously served with a Washington DC law firm representing telecoms companies, had fueled the crowd's anger during a short Supernova presentation.

Identifying delegates as "application providers", he said it was their responsibility to compete with broadband incumbents by offering their own service, founded initially on portions of the 700Mhz spectrum. This spectrum will be sold under auction once terrestrial TV providers complete their move to digital in February 2009.

He ruled out government action on net neutrality, with measures such as safeguarding packet prioritization and quality of service. "The end state of that is innovation in the regulator space outstrips the innovation in the application space," Kneuer said.
"The challenge is for the right application company to play in the access layer... this is a green field opportunity to have a radically different market participant to bring concepts of open access. If there is a pro consumer benefit to open access and if consumers need and want that, the carrier that brings that to consumers will have a powerful need and advantage and bring competitive pressures on other access layer providers.

"I firmly believe market forces are going to provide even more open networks and access much, much, much better than I can do as a regulator," he said.

The Bush administration, meanwhile, was challenged to donate a portion of the spectrum to academic institutions for research purposes. Speaking after Kneuer, a researcher for Cooperative Association for Internet Data Analysis (CAIDA) (http://www.caida.org/home/) expressed frustration that there's currently no reliable way to gather independent data on the internet.

Researchers are instead forced to rely on vendor figures or are refused information on the grounds of privacy or the law, principal investigator KC Claffy said.

"We need numbers on spam, but where do you get numbers on spam from - anti-spam vendors. These aren't the people you want to be getting numbers from when setting policy," she said. "Let's look at what a public network is really used for. We cannot answer that. And the carriers are about to ask us to pay for traffic, 99 per cent of which is spam! If the Commerce Department really wants to help us they will provide the research community with a really open network we can all study."
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/06...et_neutrality/





Worse than jail

Feds Cut Power, Phone, Internet of Couple Who Won’t Report To Prison
Leonid Shalimov


Fortified compound?

Federal authorities have cut phone, power and Internet service at the fortified compound of a couple convicted of tax evasion who have refused to report to prison.

It’s unclear what effect that has on Ed and Elaine Brown, who have solar and wind power generators at their 110-acre spread, where they have been holed up for months.

Authorities say they don’t think the Browns’ equipment is sufficient to keep the home running for long.

U.S. Marshal Steve Monier acknowledged Wednesday that waiting out the Browns could take months, but he said time was on authorities’ side. He said he hoped prison would seem like an agreeable option for the Browns after a summer without air conditioning and possibly a winter without heat.

The Browns, who insist federal income tax laws are invalid, were sentenced to 5½ years in prison in April. They were also ordered to forfeit $215,890 to the government — the amount the government says the Browns purchased in small postal money orders in order to avoid paying income tax on Elaine Brown’s dental practice income of $1.9 million between 1996 and 2003.

Authorities surrounded their property last week and cut its utilities this week.

“We have seized their phone and Internet service, and two days ago, we cut their power,” Monier said. “It’s a continuing effort to move them along to understand they need to do the right thing, and this is to surrender to us.”

Monier said last week’s heavy law enforcement presence was a surveillance mission. Ed Brown predicted then that authorities would try to take him by force.

But Monier said he has no interest in raiding the house or harming the Browns. He said he just wants justice served. “We are committed to ending this peacefully,” he told a newspaper.

“It’s unfortunate that the Browns are taking this position they have been throughout the process,” Monier said. “There’s been an outcome, and they need to surrender.”

Monier told the Manchester Union Leader his office was flooded with telephone calls Tuesday — at one point as many as 200 an hour — after Web sites implored federal authorities to leave the couple alone and urged supporters to call the Marshals Service, the governor and sheriff.
http://www.truthera.com/2007/06/16/f...ort-to-prison/





Grab a Cocktail and Listen to the Vintage-Chic Band
Nate Chinen

“When the band first started I was wearing cocktail dresses and we were playing ‘I Dream of Jeannie.’ ” Thomas M. Lauderdale, the founder of Pink Martini, offered that reminiscence on Wednesday night while surveying a full house at Carnegie Hall. As he must have expected, the line got a knowing laugh, followed by a round of applause.

Pink Martini, a canny pop orchestra based in Portland, Ore., has grown in size and stature since the mid-1990s, when its core consisted of four musicians instead of the current 12. The group’s first two albums, released on its own Heinz label, have together sold more than a million copies worldwide. Its third — another self-release, “Hey Eugene!” — enjoyed a triumphant debut last month, entering Amazon’s bestseller list at No. 1. (This week it was still in the Top 30.)

But Mr. Lauderdale wasn’t merely riffing on his band’s skyrocketing success. He was also describing an aesthetic — jet set, vintage-chic, more than a little campy — that lives on in the Pink Martini of today. While the “I Dream of Jeannie” theme was thankfully absent from the concert, there were songs that struck a similar nerve, like “Brazil.” (Customers who bought that item also bought “Que Sera Sera” and a new original called “Everywhere.”)

China Forbes, Pink Martini’s lead singer and chief songwriter, has a clear and precise instrument, the perfect voice to convey a cosmopolitan air. Her great asset is versatility, which she expresses in much the same manner as a United Nations emissary. When she sang in French, she put a shudder in her vibrato, channeling Edith Piaf; when she sang in Japanese, she adopted a coquettish and whispery tone. Tackling Arabic on one song, she managed a series of quavering microtones without sounding like a parodist.

Noirlike melodrama flatters Ms. Forbes, too: on “City of Night,” one of many songs she has written with Mr. Lauderdale, she delivered the melody as a clarion call. Her most commanding performance was on “Amado Mio,” a cha-cha with cinematic pedigree. (It appeared in the Rita Hayworth film “Gilda.”) Still, she was no match for Jimmy Scott, the venerable master of the torch song: Their duet rendition of “Tea for Two” was a one-sided affair, even with Mr. Scott squinting to read his lyrics off the page.

Mr. Scott functioned not only as a special guest but also as a cultural allusion, alongside Maurice Ravel, whose music cropped up twice in the concert, and Gene Krupa, whose trademark tom-tom rumble undergirded an instrumental called “The Flying Squirrel.” With meticulous arrangements for percussion, horns and strings — and of course, Mr. Lauderdale, leading from the piano with Liberace-like flair — Pink Martini generally suggested an alternate pop universe untouched by the influence of rock ’n’ roll or R&B.

One prominent exception was the title track from “Hey Eugene!” A picaresque tale set in an East Village bar it featured some superficially soulful horn parts and background vocals by Tracey Harris. The audience greeted this anomaly with the sort of wondrous glee that Ms. Forbes had proposed in an earlier song.

“Everywhere I go, I see/A world designed for you and me,” she cooed in “Everywhere,” surrounded by a gossamer cocoon of harp and strings. The sparkle of that fantasy, even more than musicianship or internationalism, just might be the secret to Pink Martini’s success.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/15/ar...ic/15pink.html





The Boys in the Band Are in AARP
Katie Hafner

DARREN REIS isn’t opposed to the band practice that takes place in his house every Tuesday night. But there’s only so much loud rock music he is willing to tolerate. So when the umpteenth rendition of the Monkees’ “Last Train to Clarksville” starts rattling the windows, he goes downstairs, knocks on the door and makes his entreaty: “Dad, do you think you guys could keep it down? I’m trying to study.”

The classic American midlife crisis has found a new outlet: garage-band rock ’n’ roll. Baby boomers across the country — mostly middle-aged dads who never quite outgrew an obsession with the music of their youth — are cranking up their amps and living their rock ’n’ roll fantasies.

The Tennyson Seven in Palo Alto, Calif., is typical. The two-year-old band includes Darren’s dad, Rob Reis, 53, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, who gets together once a week with five other amateur rock ’n’ rollers — some more-experienced musicians than others — to play the musical comfort food of their generation: the Beatles, Van Morrison, the Monkees and the Romantics.

The band won’t be signing with Virgin Records any time soon. But that’s beside the point. With one son at college and Darren, 17, finishing high school next year, Mr. Reis said he can think of no better way to spend middle age. “What do other people do?” he asked, as if only vaguely aware of his other options, none of which appeal to him in the least. “A fancy car? An affair?”

Mr. Reis has plenty of company. In his town alone, there is a profusion of such bands. The Tennyson Seven recently sent out e-mail messages to several Palo Alto schools offering to play free of charge at some fund-raising events. The reply, Mr. Reis said, was, “No thanks, we have our own dad band that plays for us.”

Mike Lynd, 55, who lives just north of Palo Alto in Redwood City, plays bass, drums and guitar in a six-person band called Space Available. Mr. Lynd, who has a day job as a marketing writer at Deloitte & Touche, said nothing quite compares to the therapeutic aspects of practicing riffs with a group of like-minded rock aficionados.

“I don’t know what has done me more good — Lexapro or Thursday nights jamming with the band,” Mr. Lynd said. “You’re working out a whole lot more than chord patterns when you’re playing music together.”

NAMM, a trade group that represents music retailers and equipment manufacturers, has noticed the increasing numbers of middle-aged rockers, and now oversees what it calls the Weekend Warriors program, a six-weekend series designed specifically for baby boomers to get back into playing in a band — or start playing in one. The program brings would-be rockers into music stores around the country and provides gear, rehearsal space, coaches and, for those in need, additional band members.

Joe Lamond, the chief executive of NAMM, started the program when he was working in a music store in Sacramento and began noticing a change in the store’s clientele. “I started seeing customers coming in who you’d think would have been shopping for their kids,” he said. “But they were shopping for themselves.”

Mr. Lamond said the program has burgeoned in recent years, as the rock ’n’ rollers of the ’60s and ’70s become empty nesters with time and disposable income on their hands.

Nostalgia provides the backbeat for this movement. “The music we carry through our lifetimes is music we listen to in our late teens and early 20s, because it was such an emotional time,” Mr. Lamond said. “That music is literally locked into your system — your brain, your body, your emotions.”

For those now in their 50s wanting to turn back the clock, that means playing “Brown Eyed Girl” and “I Saw Her Standing There.” And “Mustang Sally,” in the key of C.

“We recommend ‘Mustang Sally’ as a good starter song,” Mr. Lamond said. “A bad starter song is anything by Steely Dan, or Frank Zappa. Or Yes.”

Part of recapturing lost innocence means laboring under an illusion or two. Mr. Lamond recommends that the practice rooms be free of mirrors. “You don’t want to be playing your guitar, feeling like you’re 20 all over again, then look in a mirror and see some paunchy balding guy,” Mr. Lamond said.

Not only do many spouses approve of the bands, some even participate. Rob Reis’s wife, Julie, 54, is a singer in the Tennyson Seven.

And when such bands get the occasional gig, the faces in the audience tend to skew to the band’s own demographic, a fact that helps determine song choice. Mike Brown, who was trained as a classical pianist and came to rock ’n’ roll a bit late in life as the keyboardist for the Palo Alto band the Wildcats, said his band’s repertory is easily recognizable, with a staple of Beatles and Doobie Brothers. “We want everyone to know the song in the first couple of notes,” he said.

Playing together can also bring about some corporate bonding. Bryan Stapp, 44, the chief marketing officer for Quicken Loans, an online mortgage company in Detroit, has been playing guitar since he was 15. A father of four, Mr. Stapp is in a band called the Loaners with three of his colleagues.

When the Loaners are playing at company events and they start in on a Led Zeppelin song, or even Bruce Springsteen or AC/DC, sometimes the company’s chief executive, Bill Emerson, jumps in for the vocals. “It’s a great thing when your chief executive is singing an AC/DC song,” Mr. Stapp said. The Loaners were recently chosen to play at the Detroit International River Days festival later this month, opening for Dickey Betts of the Allman Brothers Band.

There are a few advantages to being an aging rocker. For all its attendant angst, midlife can be a surprisingly stable platform from which to play out. Instead of smashing a guitar onstage, you’re more likely to forget your reading glasses.

“There’s no drama,” said Carol Cheney, 43, a nurse who moonlights as a singer in Alter Ego, a seven-piece band in the Boston area composed of middle-aged parents. “We’re all at the crest of our life. Everyone is settled. We’re just very comfortable with each other.”

And it’s easier to afford decent equipment. Alter Ego, for instance, practices at the large suburban home of one of the members, a successful insurance executive whose spacious basement is outfitted with copious amounts of professional-quality amps, mixing boards and mics.

“Credit cards and old stock options help make up for all the cool toys we did without when we were young,” Mr. Lynd said. “Tuners, effects pedals, multiple axes, stands that cost more than my first car.”

Then there is the general improvement in the realm of logistical skills. “When I was a teenager in a band, nobody had his act together,” Mr. Lynd said. “Bookings were always botched. You only realized the band stuff didn’t fit in the station wagon when you were already late.”

Now, he said, some of his fellow band members get as much therapeutic value out of organizing their playing experience as they do from the actual playing.

To skirt the problem of scrounging for paid gigs, some bands play only for charity: the eight members in the Wildcats, perhaps the most popular Palo Alto dad band, play only for fund-raising events. The group has raised close to $100,000 over the past several years, to supplement the budget for Palo Alto public schools.

Connections help, too. For one recent paid performance at a country club for the Tennyson Seven, it didn’t hurt that the resident golf pro plays bass in the band. And the band isn’t above paying to play. It recently rented a pool and tennis club in Palo Alto for one night and invited a couple hundred friends to come listen.

But sometimes being a low-demand band means putting up with performance conditions that are not exactly the rock ’n’ roll ideal.

Mr. Lynd said that Space Available has become something of a fixture at weekend schoolyard concerts around town. “We’ll be playing at the Oktoberfest, alternately playing Jimi Hendrix and announcing that the bake sale is going to be over in five minutes,” he said.

When Wall Street — a New York-area band that often practices in Metuchen, N.J., and gravitates to the Allman Brothers Band, Queen and Tom Petty — played at a bar mitzvah recently, acoustics were a challenge: The musicians stood underneath a tent, while the guests wandered across three acres of land. Still, said Bob O’Connell, 42, the art director at Ladies’ Home Journal who is a guitarist in Wall Street, “we got an incredible response,” and several requests for cards.

By and large, the children of the band members, some in bands of their own, approach their parents’ newfound passion with surprising equanimity. “Every single one of our kids thinks it’s very cool,” said Ms. Cheney, whose band plays many of its own compositions. “They actually like the music we do.”

When Mr. O’Connell’s 13-year-old son, Robby, has friends over, they often bring their guitars. “It’s great when your kid’s friends know you as the dad who can play all the licks to ‘Black Dog,’ ” Mr. O’Connell said.

In spite of the occasional irritation that comes when the throb of a bass interrupts his studying, Darren Reis is also open-minded about his parents’ hobby. “They’re pretty good,” he said. “It’s not like they’re in a bad band or anything. The music they play isn’t my music, but there’s some cool stuff.”

And Mr. Reis considers himself one of the luckiest aging boomers around. “Every Tuesday I get live rock ’n’ roll in my house,” he said. “Nothing can beat that.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/17/fa...7dadbands.html





Genuine Windows is Ubuntu
mig5

I just did this for a laugh and didn't expect it to work. I went to microsoft.com using IE4Linux ( http://www.tatanka.com.br/ies4linux/page/Main_Page ) and tried to download Windows Defender, on Xubuntu. Of course, I was asked to do the Genuine Advantage test. I used the alternate authentication method (IE4Linux doesn't support Active X), downloaded and then ran the genuine advantage application (which took quite a while to start).

It gave me a code that I pasted into the authentication box, and to my surprise it verified me and forwarded me to the download page. This just goes to show how rubbish they're validation software is. I thought it was funny though, so I've uploaded a recording of it to rapid share, which you can get here: http://rapidshare.com/files/37580147/recording.ogg (the file is about 10MB, so it might take a while to get)
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=475709





Blockbuster Chooses Blu-Ray: is the War Over?
Evan Blass

In a huge blow to Toshiba, Universal, and the rest of the HD DVD devotees, rental giant Blockbuster has decided to stock only Blu-ray discs in the vast majority of its nationwide locations, although HD DVD titles will continue to be offered online and in the 250 (out of 1,450) stores that have been testing both formats since last year.

Blockbuster VP Matthew Smith revealed to the AP that the decision to go with Blu-ray -- which will reportedly be announced tomorrow -- stemmed from an overwhelming customer preference for those titles in the test markets, accounting for over 70% of all HD discs rented.

Interestingly enough, it seems that content -- and not price -- was the deciding factor for consumers, with Blu-ray-only hits such as the Spiderman and Pirates of the Caribbean films apparently outmatching equivalent HD DVD exclusives.

While it's still a little too soon to declare Blu-ray the outright winner, this Blockbuster decision only contributes to the momentum that Sony's darling has had of late -- momentum that at this point, might be too difficult for the other guys to counter.
http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/17/b...-the-war-over/





Blu-Ray Disc Coatings Starting to Rot?
Conrad Quilty-Harper

A thread over at the AVS Forums has highlighted a potential problem with the coating of Blu-ray discs, described by many as "disc rot" due to the mould-like spots that have made several owner's Blu-ray discs unplayable. The five page thread has reports from dozens of forum members, many of them discovering spots which can't be rubbed off on Blu-ray versions of "The Prestige." It's impossible to judge how widespread the problem is from a single forum thread, although it's not unheard of to see a product recall after a problem is discovered by users on a forum. It's also worth noting that for every user that has reported the spots, there's one or more people with discs that have no problem. If you've encountered the same issue, your best policy is to try and get a refund / replacement disc from the place where you originally bought it from. If enough people are reporting a problem, then retailers will be a much stronger voice than a bunch of consumers sounding off in the echo chamber that is "the internet."
http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/16/b...arting-to-rot/





Dell Apologizes for Overreaction to Sensitive Sales Tips
Ken Fisher

Few lessons in life are as obvious as the one which follows after placing your hand on a burning stove. If you're lucky, you learned this lesson watching someone else get burned. As Warren Buffett says, it's better to learn from someone else's mistakes rather than your own.

Yet, big companies still like to throw their weight around, even when the risk escalating a situation into a PR disaster. The best, recent example of this was the AACS Licensing Authority's reaction to the publication of various AACS encryption keys online. By sending out threats to web site operators, they ensured that the keys would be posted all over the Internet, and the matter drew national headlines. Not exactly the best way to keep things quiet.

Dell stepped in a similar mess last week when a former kiosk sales staffer wrote an article for the Consumerist which listed 22 tips for getting the best deal out of Dell. The PC giant reacted by sending a legal threat, although kindly worded. What followed, of course, made Dell look heavy-handed and out of touch. (See last weeks WiR – Jack.)

The silliest thing about it all is that the 22 tips are by and large all well-known strategies for getting the best deal out of Dell. There's nothing in the list that's damaging to Dell or particularly revealing—at least, certainly no damaging than what could already be found on forums across the Internet.

For its part, Consumerist replied with the tried-and-true maxim of the publisher: it's not our problem that you have a leak. "We came by this material entirely legally: we were provided it by a third party voluntarily, we did not use any improper means to solicit any Dell employee to breach any agreement he may have had with you," they wrote. "Therefore, we do not believe we are in breach of any law in reporting on this material and, as such, cannot comply with your demands."

Dell has since seen the error of its ways, posting a mea culpa on its corporate blog entitled "Dell's 23 Confessions." Confession #1: "Okay, we goofed. We shouldn't have sent a notice. To my earlier point, we appreciate the reminder from the community. Point taken."

This is a smart move by Dell, and it shows that the company is paying attention to users. Of course, it would have been smarter to avoid the whole fiasco, but by publicly apologizing and then listing off a number of their own tips (mostly sedated "rah-rah, Dell" stuff), Dell comes off looking less clueless than it could have.

I wish I could tell you that takedown requests were a rare thing in this business, but they're not. We receive them on a pretty regular basis, and we have yet to comply with a single one. So many of them end with "oh sorry, that was a mistake," that we're left to believe that these companies still feel like it's okay to try and bully smaller publishers, even when they know they don't have a leg to stand on. There's got to be more productive ways to spend that money than on lawyer's fees, but as one recent lawyer told me, the status quo is still shoot first, ask questions later.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...ales-tips.html





Online Sales Lose Steam as Buyers Grow Web-Weary
Matt Richtel and Bob Tedeschi

Has online retailing entered the Dot Calm era?

Since the inception of the Web, online commerce has enjoyed hypergrowth, with annual sales increasing more than 25 percent over all, and far more rapidly in many categories. But in the last year, growth has slowed sharply in major sectors like books, tickets and office supplies.

Growth in online sales has also dropped dramatically in diverse categories like health and beauty products, computer peripherals and pet supplies. Analysts say it is a turning point and growth will continue to slow through the decade.

The reaction to the trend is apparent at Dell, which many had regarded as having mastered the science of selling computers online, but is now putting its PCs in Wal-Mart stores. Expedia has almost tripled the number of travel ticketing kiosks it puts in hotel lobbies and other places that attract tourists.

The slowdown is a result of several forces. Sales on the Internet are expected to reach $116 billion this year, or 5 percent of all retail sales, making it harder to maintain the same high growth rates. At the same time, consumers seem to be experiencing Internet fatigue and are changing their buying habits.

John Johnson, 53, who sells medical products to drug stores and lives in San Francisco, finds that retailers have livened up their stores to be more alluring.

“They’re working a lot harder,” he said as he shopped at Book Passage in downtown San Francisco. “They’re not as stuffy. The lighting is better. You don’t get someone behind the counter who’s been there 40 years. They’re younger and hipper and much more with it.”

He and his wife, Liz Hauer, 51, a Macy’s executive, also shop online, but mostly for gifts or items that need to be shipped. They said they found that the experience could be tedious at times. “Online, it’s much more of a task,” she said. Still, Internet commerce is growing at a pace that traditional merchants would envy. But online sales are not growing as fast as they were even 18 months ago.

Forrester Research, a market research company, projects that online book sales will rise 11 percent this year, compared with nearly 40 percent last year. Apparel sales, which increased 61 percent last year, are expected to slow to 21 percent. And sales of pet supplies are on pace to rise 30 percent this year after climbing 81 percent last year.

Growth rates for online sales are slowing down in numerous other segments as well, including appliances, sporting goods, auto parts, computer peripherals, and even music and videos. Forrester says that sales growth is pulling back in 18 of the 24 categories it measures.

Jupiter Research, another market research firm, says the growth rate has peaked. It projects that overall online sales growth will slow to 9 percent a year by the end of the decade from as much as 25 percent in 2004.

Early financial results from e-commerce companies bear out the trend. EBay reported that revenue from Web site sales increased by just 1 percent in the first three months of this year compared with the same period last year. Bookings from Expedia’s North American Web sites rose by only 1 percent in the first quarter of this year. And Dell said that revenue in the Americas — United States, Canada and Latin America — for the three months ended May 4 was $8.9 billion, or nearly unchanged from the same period last year.

“There’s a recognition that some customers like a more interactive experience,” said Alex Gruzen, senior vice president for consumer products at Dell. “They like shopping and they want to go retail.”

The turning point comes as most adult Americans, and many of their children, are already shopping online.

Analysts project that by 2011, online sales will account for nearly 7 percent of overall retail sales, though categories like computer hardware and software generate more than 40 percent of their sales on the Internet.

There are other factors at work as well, including a push by companies like Apple, Starbucks and the big shopping malls to make the in-store experience more compelling.

Nancy F. Koehn, a professor at Harvard Business School who studies retailing and consumer habits, said that the leveling off of e-commerce reflected the practical and psychological limitations of shopping online. She said that as physical stores have made the in-person buying experience more pleasurable, online stores have continued to give shoppers a blasé experience. In addition, online shopping, because it involves a computer, feels like work.

“It’s not like you go onto Amazon and think: ‘I’m a little depressed. I’ll go onto this site and get transported,’ ” she said, noting that online shopping is more a chore than an escape.

But Ms. Koehn and others say that online shopping is running into practical problems, too. For one, Ms. Koehn noted, online sellers have been steadily raising their shipping fees to bolster profits or make up for their low prices.

In response, a so-called clicks-and-bricks hybrid model is emerging, said Dan Whaley, the founder of GetThere, which became one of the largest Internet travel businesses after it was acquired by Sabre Holdings.

The bookseller Borders, for example, recently revamped its Web site to allow users to reserve books online and pick them up in the store. Similar services were started by companies like Best Buy and Sears. Other retailers are working to follow suit.

“You don’t realize how powerful of a phenomenon this new strategy has become,” Mr. Whaley said. “Nearly every big box retailer is opening it up.”

Barnes & Noble recently upgraded its site to include online book clubs, reader forums and interviews with authors. The company hopes the changes will make the online world feel more like the offline one, said Marie J. Toulantis, the chief executive of BarnesandNoble.com. “We emulate the in-store experience by having a book club online,” she said.

The retailers that have started in-store pickup programs, like Sears and REI, have found that customers who choose the hybrid model are more likely to buy additional products when they pick up their items, said Patti Freeman Evans, an analyst at Jupiter Research.

Consumers are generally not committed to one form of buying over the other. Maggie Hake, 21, a recent college graduate heading to Africa in the fall to join the Peace Corps, said that when she needs to buy something for her Macintosh computer, she prefers visiting a store. “I trust it more,” she said. “I want to be sure there’s a person there if something goes wrong.”

Ms. Hake, who lives in Kentfield, Calif., just north of San Francisco, does like shopping online for certain things, particularly shoes, which are hard to find in her size. “I’ve got big feet — size 12.5 in women’s,” she said. “I also buy textbooks online. They’re cheaper.”

John Morgan, an economics professor from the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, said he expected online commerce to continue to increase, partly because it remains less than 1 percent of the overall economy. “There’s still a lot of head room for people to grow,” he said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/17/te...gy/17ecom.html





Back to a Garden Where More Than Jams Flower
Jon Pareles

Each year the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival insists it’s not just a hippie jam-band festival. This year two of Bonnaroo’s three headliners came from way off the jam-band circuit — Tool on Friday night and the Police on Saturday. Other performers on the three-and-a-half-day schedule spanned British rock, Canadian pop, soul, bluegrass, reggae, jazz and alternative hip-hop along with jam-band stalwarts like Sunday’s finale headliner, Widespread Panic.

But when the sold-out audience of 80,000 arrived, the sixth annual Bonnaroo stayed hippie. Tie-dye, long hair, peasant dresses and flowers were everywhere amid the organic food stands and recycling displays. So were smiling faces, pot smoke and the willingness to dance to anything with a beat. (“It’s invent-your-own-folk-dance night,” one of the New Orleans Klezmer Allstars said as listeners skipped and swayed to speedy Eastern European melodies mixed with a New Orleans backbeat.) Jam-band fans responded to instrumental details as well as the catchphrases of pop hits; they whooped for a hot solo. In the age of the ringtone-ready pop hook, Bonnaroo celebrates musical dexterity.

The festival is making itself an institution. This year its promoters, A.C. Entertainment and Superfly Productions, bought the central 530 acres of the 700 acres of farmland where Bonnaroo is held, about 60 miles from Nashville. (They lease the rest for campgrounds and parking.) And the festival uses its hippie flavor as both a touchstone and something to push against.

The reunited Police were a perfect fit for Bonnaroo. They were always a trio of virtuosos, packing jazzy inversions into three-minute pop songs. What disappeared when the band broke up in 1983 was a chance to hear the interaction of musicians whose blend and friction forged one of rock’s most original ensemble sounds. They left behind terse, neatly arranged studio albums and a few live recordings. Now on tour again, they are jamming other options. Their Bonnaroo set interspersed familiar arrangements with new ones, often within the same song.

The Police have their old strengths: Sting’s springy bass lines and his reedy, fervent, undiminished voice; Stewart Copeland’s drumming, with its mixture of thwacking propulsion and flurries of jazzy detail; Andy Summers’s resourceful guitar parts, creating the harmonies with watercolor transparency. They radically remade a few songs, but more often they switched in and out, delivering a verse or two of the hit version amid revamps of harmony and groove and some aggressive, extended guitar solos. There were sparks, teases, intriguing excursions and a few misfires, but the Police sounded vital, still fascinated by Sting’s songs and ready to tear into them anew. The band is too skillful — and too hardheaded — to return as simply a jukebox of old songs. It’s jamming.

Maynard James Keenan, the leader of Tool, mocked Bonnaroo’s hippie atmosphere: “I assume you’re on the marijuana and the LSD,” he deadpanned. “You’re all under arrest.” But Tool played a magnificent set, with songs that built from monumentally slow, earth-shaking intros to fast, intricate progressive-rock. In a way Tool could have been the Police’s evil twin, using equally intricate, quick-fingered music along with an infusion of harder rock to sound more menacing. Bonnaroo’s crowd danced even as Mr. Keenan sang about a Deadhead drug casualty in “Rosetta Stoned.”

Most of the Bonnaroo audience spends three or four days in campgrounds adjoining the site for a communal (and increasingly ripe-smelling) experience beyond the music. Since they’re in rural Tennessee for the duration, they don’t just show up for the headliners; they enthusiastically sample all sorts of possibilities. There was music from the five main stages, a jazz stage, a comedy tent and a few smaller stages, not to mention guitars and bongos in the campgrounds.

There were some jam-band circuit regulars in the lineup, like Xavier Rudd, Keller Williams, Sound Tribe Sector 9 and the String Cheese Incident. The bluesy Southern rock band Gov’t Mule opened its set to guests, including John Paul Jones (Led Zeppelin’s bassist, who also sat in with others during the festival) and the founders of Hot Tuna.

But all the jam bands at Bonnaroo could be easily be bypassed for other bands that deserved, and got, an equally euphoric response. They included the Black Angels, playing 1960s-rooted, ritualistic drone rock; Lily Allen, delivering funny, sassy, pop-ska kiss-offs; the methodical, eclectic instrumental band Tortoise; Annuals, who play shimmering, unfurling indie-rock anthems; James (Blood) Ulmer, who brought the splintered harmolodic approach of Ornette Coleman to power-trio blues; Regina Spektor, playing childlike-sounding but tough-minded piano pop; the Hold Steady, using big ’70s rock riffs behind spoken and sung tales of messed-up lives; and Dierks Bentley, a mainstream country star who’s fond of trucker songs.

There was a New Orleans contingent, with funk and feathers from the Wild Magnolia Mardi Gras Indians and a preview of the next album by Galactic, a New Orleans funk band that has teamed up with alternative rappers like Lateef the Truthspeaker. And there was a Philadelphia delegation too: hip-hop from the Roots, exuberant pop from Dr. Dog and jazz from the Philadelphia Experiment, including Ahmir (?uestlove) Thompson from the Roots on drums along with Christian McBride on bass, Uri Caine on piano and, at 2:30 on Sunday morning, the actress Gina Gershon (a non-Philadelphian) twanging a jew’s-harp.

This year’s Bonnaroo had a new addition: a jazz stage set up like a club, in a dark room with tables and wait service. It was constantly packed, with a line, for music primarily from the roster of Blue Note Records, which sponsored the stage in a wise marketing move. Since Bonnaroo’s audience prizes virtuosity and nuance, why not offer them in the highly evolved form of jazz? Younger musicians like the pianist Robert Glasper are already meeting contemporary music on their own terms; he played one piece based on a hip-hop groove from J Dilla, and another that mingled Radiohead’s “Everything in the Right Place” with Herbie Hancock’s “Maiden Voyage.” Older musicians, like the 80-year-old saxophonist Lou Donaldson and the organist Dr. Lonnie Smith, didn’t need updating at all.

Along with the flower-child clothing, there was another 1960s echo at Bonnaroo: antiwar statements and other political protests in songs and stage patter. Some came from politically minded performers like the Roots, the rapper and singer Michael Franti and Manu Chao, the polyglot European whose hopped-up reggae and ska tunes affirm human rights. But discontent with politicians and the war turned up all over Bonnaroo, from the Flaming Lips to the British trad-rocker Richard Thompson.

Spoon, which sets literate thoughts to tersely obsessive new wave rock, introduced a new song that had the chorus “Don’t make me a target,” while the bluegrass band Old Crow Medicine Show drew applause for a line in a gospel song, “I Hear Them All”: “I hear soldiers quit their dying, one and all.” Ben Harper and the Innocent Criminals ended their set with “Better Way,” a song with an internationalist beat, an East-West-flavored drone and determined lyrics — “You have a right to your dreams and don’t be denied/I believe in a better way” — and it sounded inspirational.

Bonnaroo’s weekend in the sun for hippie types who never saw the 1960s has its silly moments. But compared with hipster cool or mass-market consumerism, hippie idealism makes a fine alternative.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/18/ar...18bonn.html?hp





Another Summer of Love
Ruth La Ferla

JANIS JOPLIN looms large in Kim Matulova’s consciousness — not least Ms. Joplin’s free-form hair, flounced frocks and fingers choked with rings. “My style is, like, gypsy,” Ms. Matulova said last week, “something like a ghetto hippie.”

Ms. Matulova, an actress and musician who says she is into “into folk and hip-hop,” gives expression to her passions, wearing a breezy flowered dress, porkpie hat and boots stamped with the image of a prairie rose. It is a streetwise amalgam she describes as “an urban hippie thing — sort of Bob Dylan, but, you know, today.”

She is one in a trickle of style setters embarking on a latter-day magical mystery tour, revisiting the hippie aesthetic of their mothers or grandmothers and giving it a brash new spin.

In pockets of downtown Manhattan and in cities as far-flung as Miami and Los Angeles, young women in the vanguard are setting aside their trapeze and baby-doll dresses — and as often as not, their drainpipe jeans — in favor of a breezier, more audaciously colorful interpretation of boho chic. Their pavement-grazing frocks, bells and feathers, flares and cascading hair, recall the freedom that once was a hippie rallying cry, an invitation, quite literally, to go with the flow.

A departure from the structured shapes and rigorous geometry of the current ’60s wave, this look is blithely improvised, unencumbered and emphatically fluid. Which may be why, as temperatures spike, it is beginning to flourish at retail.

“People don’t want to have to think about what they’re going to wear — they just want to throw it on,” said Jaye Hersh, the owner of Intuition, a Los Angeles boutique that is hard pressed to keep up its inventory of neo-hippie staples like high-waist flares, floppy hats and gauzy long dresses with ethnic motifs.

“It’s a new summer of love,” Ms. Hersh declared. “The look is Haight-Ashbury — straight out of the ’60s.”

The resurrection of a style that first permeated the American mainstream in the mid-’60s and peaked in the sultry months of 1967, coincides with an influx of books, films and exhibitions commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Summer of Love in San Francisco.

The florid romanticism — and drug-induced haze — of the vaunted psychedelic era is being revisited at the Whitney Museum of American Art in “The Summer of Love: Art of the Psychedelic Era,” a show of concert posters from rock emporiums like the fabled Fillmore East in New York, the Fillmore West in San Francisco and clubs like UFO and Fifth Dimension in London.

Books like “The American Counterculture” chronicle the age of Timothy Leary, Sgt. Pepper, Procol Harem and Woodstock. The woozy euphoria and utopianism of the day were memorialized this spring in “Summer of Love” on PBS, a portrait of the event widely considered the peak of the counterculture movement, and in “Hippies,” a documentary broadcast last week on the History Channel.

The Age of Aquarius, and its decline, is also the subject of “Across the Universe,” directed by Julie Taymor, a glossy rock musical set to a medley of Beatles tunes and scheduled for release in late September.

The naïveté and renegade spirit of the hippie period, if not its aesthetic, are also alive on Broadway in “Spring Awakening,” a dark rock musical about adolescent sexuality and rebellion in 19th-century Germany. And it lives on on the runways in collections as diverse as those of Marc Jacobs, whose secondary spring line pulsed with patchwork effects and mixed floral prints,, and Roberto Cavalli, who paraded a sweeping gown with Art Nouveau flourishes and butterfly sleeves on his catwalk for fall.

Scholars of the hippie era are hardly surprised that such shows and styles are finding an audience. Among the young, the bohemian ’60s of Greenwich Village, Haight-Ashbury and Carnaby Street excite an unalloyed envy, said Martin Lee, the author of “Acid Dreams,” a social history of the psychedelic revolution. “People look back on it as a time of expanded horizons and possibilities, expressed as much in the fashion as in the music of the time,” he said.

Vibrant with promise, the hippie era promoted the upending of conventions, improvisation, a frugal, laid-back way of life and an appropriation of the influences of a rapidly globalizing society. “The concerns that emanate from that era are still pretty much with us,” Mr. Lee said. “We are engulfed and surrounded by them. That extends to fashion, too.”

Cella DeLuise, the owner of Nypull, a boutique selling hippie and rock paraphernalia on Lafayette Street in downtown Manhattan, ascribes her customer’s absorption with the hippie look to a desire to connect with previous generations. People are intent, she said, on reviving not just their parents’ music but their garb. “They are looking for some sense of their history in everything they do.”

Once a badge of rebellion, the pastiche of Victoriana, Native American feathers and beads and futuristic neon that defined the counterculture of the ’60s, has now been transmuted, others say, into little more than a style statement.

“Paisley, flowers, all that cotton and fringe — in a particular time, these things meant something,” said Albert Wolsky, the costume designer of “Across the Universe.” In contrast to a “very restrictive ’50s look, constructed on a scaffolding of girdles and brassieres, merry widows and garter belts,” he said, the flowering of hippiedom was an expression of “fresh air, a universal wanting to let go.”

In contrast, the current revival has little of the impetus that drove the original hippies. It is likely nothing more “than a cyclical fashion thing,” Mr. Wolsky suggested, “part of the endless recycling of styles that has been with us since the ’70s.”

Indeed, this pendulum swing is more reactive than inventive, a form of protest, yes, but only against the current glut of fashion juvenilia — the rampant little-girl look that exasperates some merchants.

“I sometimes walk into a showroom full of baby-doll dresses and ask, ‘Why are you doing this?’ ” said Lauren Silverstein, the owner of Amalia, a boutique in NoLIta. “ ‘Don’t you know people don’t want this anymore?’ ”

In its place her customers are craving a look she describes as “flowing, sensual, kind of sexy acid trip” — something akin to the dress Ms. Silverstein wore on Saturday afternoon, a sidewalk-sweeping halter dress from a line called Fourties, awash in Yellow Submarine tints of lemon mauve and green.

If those customers are in revolt, it is mostly against fashion literalism. Karin Bereson, a stylist and fashion retailer in New York, champions what she calls a hippie mix, “but one not done in a costume-y way.” Ms. Bereson, who favors clashing neon patterns that owe a debt to the psychedelia revived in the late ’80s at rave clubs in London, wears tailored men’s waistcoats layered over billowing maxidresses.

“My look is Pakistani tailor,” she said. At her downtown boutique, No. 6, she updates the flower-child style — all vintage Indian-printed voile dresses and bib-front coveralls — with unorthodox accents like unlaced white jazz shoes or studded gladiator sandals.

Beth Buccini, an owner of Kirna Zabête, the progressive shop in SoHo, is an advocate of a hippie revivalism that mingles the tough with the tender. “Accent your hippie look with neo-punk to make it modern,” Ms. Buccini urged.

At Teen Vogue, Gloria Baume, the fashion director and a self-professed neo-bohemian, observed: “The summer of love 2007 is very different from the original. On lower Broadway, young girls are wearing little corduroy or patchwork dresses mixed with modern elements: a piece of crystal, sandals in metallic or patent leather.

“It’s a look we’ve never seen before — ‘hippie’ mixed with patent leather. All of a sudden it all feels modern.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/21/fashion/21HIPPIE.html





GE, Pearson Discussing WSJ Publisher Bid
AP

General Electric Co. and Financial Times publisher Pearson PLC are discussing making a joint bid for Wall Street Journal publisher Dow Jones & Co., the Journal reported Sunday.

The joint venture would combine the Financial Times, Dow Jones and business channel CNBC in a privately held joint venture, the Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter. It would be owned in equal parts by GE and Pearson, with Dow Jones' controlling shareholders, the Bancroft family, keeping a minority stake in the new company, the report said.

The people cautioned that the discussions between GE and Pearson were preliminary.

GE spokesman Gary Sheffer declined to comment on the report. A message left Sunday night for a Pearson spokesman was not immediately returned.

The Journal reported Friday that Pearson, based in the United Kingdom, was trying to rally partners for a possible bid to rival Rupert Murdoch's $5 billion offer for Dow Jones.

Murdoch's News Corp., which includes the Fox broadcast network, Fox News Channel, MySpace, the New York Post and many newspapers in the U.K. and Australia, has offered $60 a share for Dow Jones, well above the mid-$30s range the stock had been trading at prior to his offer becoming public.

The Bancroft family initially rebuffed Murdoch's approach but then agreed to meet him to discuss concerns about his offer. Some Dow Jones shareholders and a union that represents Dow Jones employees say they are concerned that Murdoch may meddle with the Journal's coverage to suit his business interests -- concerns that News Corp. says are unfounded.

A Bancroft family spokesman said last week that family members are still working on a proposal to News Corp. for setting up a structure that would safeguard the Journal's editorial independence.

The potential GE-Pearson joint venture would have a hand in many sources of business news and financial information around the world. Besides The Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times and CNBC, it would own Barrons, half of the Economist magazine, and interests in business newspapers worldwide. It would also own the MarketWatch.com business-news Web site and a controlling stake in financial information compiler Interactive Data Corp., among other holdings.
http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/news...0,957649.story





GE, Pearson Drop Dow Jones Takeover Pursuit
Robert MacMillan

General Electric Co. and Pearson Plc said on Thursday they will not pursue a joint offer for publisher Dow Jones & Co. Inc., removing a potential challenge to a $5-billion bid by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp..

GE, the world's second-largest company by market capitalization, and Pearson, publisher of the Financial Times, said they had held exploratory talks over combining their financial news outlets with Dow Jones, home to the Wall Street Journal.

GE controls NBC Universal, which operates top U.S. business cable news channel CNBC.

"Following these discussions, GE and Pearson have decided not to pursue this combination," GE said in a statement. "Pearson and NBC Universal continue to discuss cooperative agreements between CNBC and the Financial Times Group."

Murdoch aims to compete with CNBC with a business news channel of his own, set to launch later this year.

A spokesman for the Bancroft family, which controls Dow Jones through its voting shares, had no immediate comment.

News Corp. declined comment.

Murdoch has bid $60 a share for Dow Jones, which has sought to encourage other potential suitors to make an offer.

No rival bids for the entire company have emerged, though MySpace co-founder Brad Greenspan has offered to buy a 25 percent stake.

Dow Jones shares fell 49 cents to $60.16 on the New York Stock Exchange. GE fell 14 cents to $38.65. News Corp.'s Class A shares fell 28 cents to $21.82. Pearson's shares fell 0.9 percent to about 831 pence on the London Stock Exchange.

(Additional reporting by Scott Malone in Boston and Jonathan Cable in London)
http://www.reuters.com/article/bonds...38475020070621





Chips Let PCs Get Turned on Remotely
Jordan Robertson

Your work computer just suffered a major meltdown. Maybe the operating system failed, or a virus crashed the hard drive.

Either way, your employer can now tunnel into your crippled machine remotely by communicating directly with the chips inside it, allowing authorized managers to power up and repair turned-off PCs within the corporate network at virtually any time.

The technology - which Intel Corp. introduced last year to rave reviews from computer professionals - represents a fundamental change in the way work PCs are repaired, updated and administered.

Now the world's largest chip maker is studying how to bring the same technology to the consumer market.

Santa Clara-based Intel envisions consumers one day signing up for a service that allows their Internet providers to automatically install security upgrades and patches, whether the PC is turned on or not. Once they return to their computers, users would then get an alert with a detailed record of the fixes.

In some ways it's the computer-industry equivalent of General Motors Corp.'s OnStar service, which allows an operator in a call center to open your car doors if you've locked the keys inside.

Intel is hoping consumers will decide that the convenience of having a round-the-clock watchdog outweighs the obvious privacy and security concerns raised by opening a new remote access channel into the PC.

Digital-privacy experts aren't worried about the use of such technology in the workplace, where employers may peek into any worker's machine at any time. But advocates said the same technology might raise questions about the level of control consumers are willing to cede to keep their machines running smoothly.

"It's a lot of power to give over to someone - people are storing a large portion of their lives in their computers," said Seth Schoen, a staff technologist with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. "My main concern would be to make sure consumers knew who they were giving access to, and what kind of access they're giving."

Intel's Active Management Technology only allows technicians to see a small amount of mundane but critical information, mostly configuration and inventory data. Only authorized IT managers already inside the corporate network can access the computers, and they cannot rifle through an employee's files, or see the Web browsing history, or gain access to other personal files, Intel said.

They can, however, install missing or corrupt files, and even reinstall the entire operating system by having the system boot from a remote drive on the network.

"The technology itself is privacy-neutral - it doesn't know who you are, it doesn't really care what you do," said Mike Ferron-Jones, director of digital office platform marketing at Intel. "Any policy decisions about what a user can do in a business environment with their PC, those are up to the business owner. (Active Management Technology) does not facilitate those policies in any way."

The top two personal computer makers, Hewlett-Packard Co. and Dell Inc., and retailers such as Best Buy Co., also offer remote tech support services for consumers - if the machines are switched on and plugged into the network.

Intel's technology opens up a new level of access.

Intel's Active Management Technology works by keeping a communications chip inside the PC active at virtually all times, as long the machine has battery or AC power.

Once an IT manager reaches out to that chip, it contacts the chipset inside the same machine, which jolts to life and can access certain core data stored on a memory chip that retains information even when the computer is off. Chipsets are responsible for sending data from the microprocessor to the rest of the computer.

The technology is only available in desktops with Intel's vPro branding and laptops with the Centrino Pro branding. Those brands indicate that the PCs have a full package of Intel chips, and workers with those computers should assume their machines are being monitored in this manner.

Intel said about 250 business worldwide with between 1,000 and 10,000 PCs each are now using the desktops. Laptop sales numbers are not yet available, as those machines were made available only about three weeks ago.

The technology is similar to the existing Wake on LAN feature, which also allows managers to boot PCs remotely, but Intel customers said the Active Management Technology is more secure and reliable because they can communicate directly with the chipset even in corrupted machines.

Richard Shim, an analyst with market researcher IDC, said IT managers have been asking for the technology for some time to speed their service calls and save the company money.

By giving them a uniform and reliable way to access their fleet of computers, the technology lets system administrators more easily manage widely dispersed machines from different manufacturers, Shim said. That lessens the need for the patchwork of hardware and software they have been relying on to perform some of the same tasks.

"It will help automate the process, and any time you can automate something in technology, it's a blessing," he said. "It addresses pain points that are common to all IT managers."

In one study of companies already using Active Management Technology, desk-side visits for hardware problems dropped 60 percent and trips for software glitches fell 91 percent.

"They're huge numbers - for us it's extremely costly to send a field technician out," said Matt Trevorrow, vice president of infrastructure services for Electronic Data Systems Corp., a provider of information technology outsourcing services that uses the new Intel technology and is offering it to customers. "It all comes back to getting the end user back to being productive."
http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/...ap3828676.html





YouTube Makes International Move
Darren Waters

YouTube has announced international versions of its web video service.

The video site, owned by Google, has launched nine versions across Brazil, France, Ireland, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain and the UK.

Each site is translated into local languages and has country-specific video rankings and comments.

"Video is universal and allows people around the world to communicate and exchange ideas," said Chad Hurley, YouTube co-founder.

"Our mission is to entertain, inform and empower the world through video."

More localised versions of YouTube will be rolled out this year.

More than half of all viewers on YouTube were now from outside the US, Mr Hurley added.

YouTube has also unveiled content partners around the world, including deals with France 24, Antena 3 in Spain, European football clubs such as AC Milan, Chelsea, Barcelona and Real Madrid, as well as organisations such as Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace.

"We want to create a YouTube experience that is a local experience," said Steve Chen, the service's other co-founder.

"It's not just about translating, it also about creating content unique to certain countries."

Legal threats

YouTube is now stressing its credentials as a platform not just for user-generated content but also for professional broadcaster and advertisers.

The company says it has more than 1,000 global partners, with more than 150 deals signed in Europe since March.

Mr Hurley said: "We respect copyright and we want to create new revenue streams to create opportunities.

"We have been working with rights holders to help them leverage new audiences."

Despite the assurances, YouTube is facing widespread legal action from copyright holders over the use of material that is being uploaded by the site's users without permission.

Mr Hurley said only a small amount of material on YouTube was being shared without approval.

He added: "The majority is original created work. We are also working on tools to help stop this happen."

He declined to say, when asked, how much money Google had set aside to fight or settle pending and future legal battles.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/h...gy/6757525.stm





YouTube Poses Major Malware Threat

Trojans can steal your data warn security firms
Rob Mead

Watching or downloading YouTube video clips could put you at risk from identity and data theft, according to two internet security firms. They warn that the recent expansion by YouTube into Europe could put users of the video sharing network at risk. Peer to peer networks are also blamed.

The chief YouTube culprit is the Ziob trojan, which poses as a fake video file and then bombards users with ads. The ads have the potential to contain ID stealing code according to Secure Computing and ComSentry Network .

What makes matters worse is that YouTube does nothing to filter content, so everyone who uses the site is at risk - no matter which country-specific version of the site they are using.

"The fact is, no one expects to find malware hidden in YouTube files. Yet the medium's popularity is highly alluring as a mass distribution vehicle for malicious code," says Secure Computing's Paul Henry.

"What's alarming is that - from a security perspective - many users and organisations will be blindsided and potentially seriously exposed."

ComSentry Network says malware problems on YouTube and other peer-to-peer websites highlight the need for companies to warn their employees about the risk such sites pose.

"Over the last seven days, two major threats have been exposed that relate to these sites: Pfizer lost the personal details of 17,000 staff members after a company laptop was used to access a P2P network that deposited a 'back door Trojan' on the device," says Alex Raistrick of ComSentry.
Zero-day threats

"By blocking sites like YouTube and banning P2P user agents at the user ID level, an organisation protects themselves from new and zero-day type threats propagated by these uncontrolled networks.

"By monitoring attempts to connect to them, a company can offer some friendly 'advice' to the users concerned - a little education perhaps on the potential cost of losing 17,000 employee records and the harm that those people may suffer in the long term thanks to your need to download the latest Paris Hilton album from E-Donkey!"
http://www.tech.co.uk/computing/inte...leid=243689287





iPhone-YouTube Deal: Bunch of Hype?
Tom Taulli

Today, Apple announced that Google's YouTube will be on the iPhone.

Yes, that's the kind of thing a PR person likes to handle. How can it not generate buzz?

But is this mostly hype?

I had a chance to talk to Dipanshu Sharma, who is the founder of V-Enable and an expert on wireless, and he thinks it is:

"Apple is trying all kinds of hype pre-launch, to the point that now they are misguiding the consumer. YouTube launched a mobile version of their site last week, which works on pretty much on any handset with a high speed network connection. To run a similar experience on iPhone, the user will have to be at a Wi-Fi zone because the cellular radio that it comes with is 2.5 G (EDGE ~100Kbps), which is very slow for video. If apple is expecting their customers to be sitting at a Wi-Fi Zone and log in to a T-Mobile hotspot at Starbucks to watch youtube, they are taking to small fraction of early adopters. It's not the mass market that has embraced the simplicity of the iPod. Creating false expectations may prove costly to Apple and its shareholders. I had a Nokia N80 with Wi-Fi and the only time I used Wi-Fi instead of EDGE was when I wanted to see if Wi-Fi worked. It's too much of a hassle to tell the phone which connection to use."
http://www.bloggingstocks.com/2007/0...bunch-of-hype/





AT&T Hires 2,000 Extra Workers for iPhone Launch
Sinead Carew

AT&T Inc. said on Thursday it has hired 2,000 temporary store workers to handle its much-hyped introduction of the iPhone, the first cell phone from iPod music player maker Apple Inc..

The biggest U.S. wireless service provider by customer numbers will be the country's only carrier to offer the device when it goes on sale June 29. AT&T and Apple said they plan to start selling the device starting at 6 p.m. local time in cities across the country.

AT&T spokesman Mark Siegel said the company hired the extra summer staff for its 1,800 stores in anticipation of "significant demand" for the device. AT&T's wireless division employs a total of about 58,000 people.

The iPhone was first announced in January and combines a music and video player with a Web browser and a touch-sensitive screen in place of a keyboard.

AT&T sales staff have received a total of 100,000 hours of training to sell the device, at "the high end of the normal range" with an average of 6 hours per employee, said Siegel.

Apple, which plans to start selling the phone in all of its 162 retail stores on June 29, did not disclose any plans around training or staffing for the launch.

Apple will also start selling the phone online on the launch date, but AT&T will first launch only in its stores.

"This is such an important product we want to make sure people are fully informed," when they buy it, said Siegel.

AT&T stores will close locally at 4.30 p.m. on that Friday to prepare for the launch, then reopen at 6 p.m. until 10 p.m. that night, according to Siegel.

"We want to free people from the rush of what they would normally encounter on a busy day," he said.

AT&T, which is requiring iPhone shoppers to sign up for a 2-year contract, has not yet revealed the service fees it will charge iPhone customers. The price of an iPhone will be either $500 and $600, depending on the storage space in the phone.

Apple shares rose 1.7 percent to $123.57 in early afternoon trading on Nasdaq. AT&T was 12 cents higher to $39.65 on the New York Stock Exchange.
http://www.reuters.com/article/busin...36610420070621





Tech Execs See Convergence Lifting Broadband Demand
Ritsuko Ando

Top telecommunications executives attending an industry conference this week forecast wireless, video and Internet services would increasingly converge, bolstering demand for Internet network capacity.

Cisco Systems Inc. Chief Executive John Chambers, speaking at the NXTcomm communications conference in Chicago, said demand for bandwidth would likely grow 300 percent to 500 percent each year in the next several years, a trend that will likely lift Cisco's sales of routers.

"The transition is going to happen much quicker than people anticipate," Chambers told reporters.

One of Cisco's clients, top U.S. telephone company AT&T Inc., unveiled at NXTcomm a video-sharing service for its next-generation wireless customers.

The service, called Video Share, allows users to send live videos to each other during phone conversations. A man at a baseball game, for example, can send live footage to a friend he is talking to on his mobile phone.

AT&T said the service, initially limited to a small market, was a step toward converging video and phone communications.

"Today, video share is a one-to-one mobile service, but you should expect this to quickly reach the other two screens, and that's the PC and the television," AT&T Chief Executive Randall Stephenson said.

Analysts have said Apple Inc.'s iPhone, which combines a cell phone with a music and video player, will fuel the launch of more all-in-one tech gadgets from competing consumer electronic makers.

Stephenson said AT&T's exclusive deal with Apple could help boost its market share.

Of the one million people who have shown an early interest in the iPhone, which should go on sale on June 29, about 40 percent were not yet AT&T's wireless customers, he said.

IPTV

In addition to "convergence," IPTV (Internet-protocol television was another buzzword at NXTcomm, with both AT&T and No. 2 phone company Verizon Communications Inc. touting the virtues of their advanced Internet and video networks.

Both AT&T and Verizon are rolling out advanced video services, which feature high-definition channels and video on demand, to fight cable television providers' "bundles" of video, phone and Internet services.

Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg defended his company's strategy of building an expensive, all-fiber network, called FiOS, saying it was necessary to ensure it has sufficient bandwidth.

Verizon said it now had nearly 500,000 FiOS video subscribers, up from 348,000 at the end of the first quarter. It also said it had 1 million FiOS Internet users. Not all FiOS customers have access to video, partly due to regulation.

"We're convinced that there will always be a need for more bandwidth," Seidenberg told reporters.

Ernie Carey, vice president of AT&T's Advanced Network Technologies, told Reuters on the sidelines of the conference that a top priority was to expand U-Verse, its IPTV service, called as quickly as possible.

"I would tell you my belief is the biggest challenge right now is finding ways to go faster in the build," he said.

Despite the upbeat comments, analysts said attendance at the conference in Chicago's McCormick Place, one of the world's largest convention centers, appeared low after a wave of mergers left the industry with just a handful of big players.

"It's because service providers have merged," said Jeffries & Co. analyst Bill Choi.

AT&T completed its acquisition of BellSouth late last year. Equipment providers, including Alcatel-Lucent, have also merged in line with the consolidation of their clients.

Analysts said equipment vendors at the conference seemed less eager to jostle for attention.

"The industry has benefited from some period of stability," said Stifel Nicolaus & Co. analyst Blair Levin.
http://www.reuters.com/article/techn...46685020070621





AT&T Quietly Offers $10 DSL Plan
Peter Svensson

Without any sort of fanfare, AT&T Inc. (ATT) has started offering a broadband Internet service for $10 a month, cheaper than any advertised plan.

The DSL, or digital subscriber line, plan introduced Saturday is part of the concessions made by AT&T to the Federal Communications Commission to get its $86 billion acquisition of BellSouth Corp. approved last December.

The $10 offer is available to customers in the 22-state AT&T service region, which includes former BellSouth areas, who have never had AT&T or BellSouth broadband, spokesman Michael Coe confirmed Monday. Local phone service and a one-year contract are required. The modem is free.

The plan was not mentioned in a Friday news release about AT&T's DSL plans, and is slightly hidden on the AT&T Web site. A page describing DSL options doesn't mention it, but clicking a link for "Term contract plans" reveals it. It's also presented to customers who go into the application process, Coe said.

The service provides download speeds of up to 768 kilobits per second and upload speeds of up to 128 kbps, matching the speeds of the cheapest advertised AT&T plan, which costs $19.95 per month in the nine-state former BellSouth area and $14.99 in the 13 states covered by AT&T before the acquisition.

BellSouth generally had higher prices for DSL before it was acquired, and the price difference persists, though AT&T did cut the price of the cheapest advertised plan in the Southeast region by $5 from $24.95 on Saturday.

The agreement with the FCC required the company to offer the plan for at least 2 1/2 years. Coe said he could not comment on future advertising plans for the offer.

The introduction of the plan, slightly before the deadline at the end of June, was first reported by The Tennessean in Nashville.

Another concession to the FCC is yet to come: a plan for DSL that doesn't require local phone service. AT&T has another six months to introduce that option, which should cost at most $19.95 per month.

Consumer advocates have fought for this so-called "naked DSL plan," because DSL can carry Internet-based phone calls for less than the price of local phone service. However, at 768 kbps, the download speed may be too low to appeal to the relatively sophisticated customers who use the Internet for phone calls.
http://apnews1.iwon.com//article/200...D8PREUVO0.html





Verizon's Fiber-Optic Payoff

Wall Street analysts who doubted Verizon Communications' aggressive move to build a fiber network directly to people's doorsteps are eating crow as the company subscriber rates for its high-speed Internet and TV service fly through the roof.

At the NXTComm trade show here Wednesday, Ivan Seidenberg CEO of Verizon said the telephone company had signed up its 1 millionth Fios Internet customer and now has almost 500,000 Fios TV subscribers.

Verizon has been building the Fios all-fiber network throughout its territory for the past three years. The network takes fiber directly to the side of people's homes and provides near-limitless bandwidth that can be used to deliver a "triple play" of services including high-speed Internet connectivity, telephone service and TV. The company already offers Internet service that runs at 50 megabits per second. And it's testing service at 100Mpbs.

While the largest phone company in the U.S., AT&T, took what appeared to be a less risky approach to broadband-network deployment--taking fiber only into the neighborhood and using existing copper lines to deliver service to homes--Verizon's Seidenberg was adamant from the start that the all-fiber network would give the company the headroom it needed to ensure growth for the future. In 2004, when Verizon started deploying Fios, naysayers said that the budgeted $18 billion it would take to dig up streets and hang fiber from utility poles made the initiative too expensive and too risky to bear fruit.

But now these doubters are being proven wrong, say analysts.

"Seidenberg did the right thing," said Patrick Comack, an equities analyst with Zachary Investment Research. "And (Ed) Whitacre (AT&T's former CEO) got it wrong. Kudos to Seidenberg for having the courage and long-term vision."

The Fios service has transformed Verizon's business.

"Five years ago, Verizon had 1.6 million broadband customers," Seidenberg said during his keynote speech on Wednesday. "Less than 10 percent of telcom revenues came from data. Today, we have over 7 million broadband customers, hundreds of thousands of video subscribers and for the first time in a long time, consumer revenue is growing again."

Much of this growth has been fueled by the success of Fios. Subscriber rates for the service have exploded as the company ramped up deployment during the past several months. At the end of the first quarter of 2007, Verizon reported that it had signed up 864,000 Fios customers, with a penetration rate of 16 percent. And now it has hit the 1 million subscriber mark. More important, Verizon is also selling video to almost 50 percent of those subscribers.

The video factor
Seidenberg said the company now has close to half a million Fios TV subscribers, which will likely put the company at about 200,000 net additions in the second quarter of 2007. Verizon ended the first quarter with 348,000 Fios TV subscribers. These are impressive figures, says Comack.

"Adding more than 100,000 subscribers in a quarter is impressive for any industry," he said. "And Verizon is probably going to do double that this quarter. It's crazy."

Video is turning out to be the most significant element of the company's bundle. Nearly 80 percent of all Fios video subscribers sign up for the triple-play package of services. Bundles are a key element to Verizon's strategy because they help keep customers loyal to the service.

It was this package, and the promise of better and more reliable service, that attracted the Bayer family of Massapequa, N.Y., on Long Island. Rich Bayer, the father of this family of five, said he was frustrated by the quality of his voice and Internet services from cable provider Cablevision Systems. So the family switched to Verizon, becoming the 1 millionth Fios customer Verizon has signed up.

The Bayers have been using the Fios Internet, telephone and TV service for about two weeks now, and Rich Bayer says he and his family couldn't be happier with the service. They also were surprised by "extras" that were offered, such as the multiroom digital video recorder. When the Bayers had cable service they had only one DVR, in the living room.

"Monday nights always turned into a big fight," Bayer said. "This one wanted to watch 24 and someone else wanted to watch American Idol. Now they can go to their rooms and watch whatever they've recorded."

Bayer said Fios is delivering more high-definition TV channels than he had before--Verizon offers 28 HD channels, Cablevision 25--and noted that his bill for Fios is about the same as it was for cable--about $160 a month for the whole package. (Cablevision announced on Thursday, however, that it will add another 15 HD channels next week for a total of 40 channels of HD content.)

Crossing swords over bandwidth
Cablevision is by far one of Verizon's toughest competitors. The company has spent millions of dollars in the past few years upgrading its network to deliver its own triple-play of services. And its services stack up well against those offered by Verizon, with Cablevision's highest level of advertised broadband service pegged at up to 30Mbps of download capacity. It also offers a special 50Mbps service.

The top tier of Verizon Fios broadband is up to 50Mbps. As of the first quarter of 2001, Cablevision reported it had a total of 2.1 million broadband subscribers, or roughly 46 percent of the available market in its territory, which covers parts of New Jersey, New York and Connecticut.

Cablevision has also done very well winning over Verizon phone customers. Cablevision ended the first quarter with 1.3 million voice customers, attracting a third of the available telephony market in its territory

As for Rich Bayer's comments about his experience, a Cablevision spokesman discounted them as pure Verizon marketing.
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1035_22-6192440.html





All the Films You Want to See, but When?
Joe Hutsko

THE DVD became the most popular way to view movies for good reasons. The discs are sturdy, and the crisp images do not degrade with repeated showings. They take up little space. Some DVD players are cheaper than buying a DVD movie.

So why would anyone want to watch movies any other way? There is the bother of going to the neighborhood video store or waiting for delivery by mail. But downloading movies over a high-speed Internet connection offers the promise of convenience. You can get them delivered when you want.

Promise is the operative word for this new method. There still aren’t a lot of titles available. Often the movies aren’t the latest releases. You may have to watch them on your computer monitor, not the 46-inch widescreen TV you just bought.

Consider what is probably the best movie-playing machine for downloads on the market today: the Microsoft Xbox 360, a video game console.

From setup to signup, to selecting a title and starting the show with a press of the remote’s play button, the Xbox 360 is simple. It is as easy to use as the on-demand and pay-per-view services familiar to most watchers of cable or satellite TV.

But at $400 for the model that includes a hard disk, which is needed to download movies, the Xbox is a big investment. If you aren’t a gamer, it is hard to justify spending that amount just to watch a few movies.

The Xbox Live Marketplace has only 165 movies available. Ross Honey, Microsoft’s senior director of the media and entertainment group, promised that more would be added each day. At $4 for a new release that can be saved for up to 14 days on the hard drive, the service seems competitive with a rental from a Blockbuster store. As with all downloadable movie rentals, once you start watching one, you have only 24 hours to finish before it expires.

There are scores of alternatives, but at this stage the movie selection is a factor for each one. Steve Swasey, a Netflix spokesman, said: “Whether it’s Netflix or Apple or Amazon or Wal-Mart.com, we’re all facing the same constraint: title availability.” Netflix, for example, has 80,000 titles on DVD, but only 2,000 for electronic delivery. Mr. Swasey said, “We believe DVDs will have a long life because the studios are not licensing vast amounts of content to anyone.”

Most of these services — including MovieLink, CinemaNow, Vongo, Amazon’s Unbox and Wal-Mart — send films straight to your computer. They require the installation of special movie manager software or a Web browser application specific to the service, but this isn’t much of a bother. You also need to provide a credit card number when you sign up on a service’s Web site.

The services, however, are intended to work only with Windows and its Internet Explorer. Apple’s iTunes Store is the rare exception that works with both the Windows and Mac operating systems. A movie generally takes about an hour to download, although most services let you start watching before the download is finished.

Netflix cleverly ties its “Watch Now” collection to a dollar-an-hour scheme. Subscribers to the $14.99 “two at a time” mail delivery plan, for instance, can watch up to 15 hours of movies a month. Netflix doesn’t download the movies, but streams them so you watch them as they arrive. Vongo offers a $9.99 a month all-you-can-eat plan to view as many of the service’s 1,000-plus “subscription” movies as you like. These include popular recent movies like “The Da Vinci Code” and “Click,” yet the older “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” is offered as a pay-per-view rental option, one of 300 titles costing $2.99 or $3.99 each.

CinemaNow’s twist is “Burn to DVD” movies for $3.99 to $14.99, but only 122 of its 4,000 movie and other video downloads can be burned to DVD. “Basic Instinct,” for instance, downloaded in about an hour and took about as long to burn to a blank DVD. The quality was not nearly as good as the store-bought DVD and barely better than an old VHS tape that has been played too often. But the downloads arrive with all the extras loaded on real DVDs, like outtakes, interviews with cast members and voiceover narrations by the director or writer.

MovieLink features more than 4,000 titles priced from $1.99 to $4.99 for rentals, and $1.99 to $19.99 to own. It was the most reliable of the services for watching downloads on an HDTV connected to a Windows Media Center PC. My copy of the movie “Fur,” starring Nicole Kidman, looked equally beautiful on both the smaller computer screen and an LCD HDTV in the living room.

Wal-Mart sells a DVD of the recent spy thriller “Breach” for $19.87, but the store’s online movie service sells a downloadable version for $14.99. It has nothing to rent, though. Wal-Mart said that new movies available for video download are for sale on the same day as the DVD release and cost $12.88 to $19.88. Older movies start at $7.50. Wal-Mart also offers the download of a second, portable copy of movie files that can be viewed on “PlaysForSure”-compatible devices like those offered by Creative and Archos. Amazon’s Unbox provided worthy rentals, like the recently released “Notes on a Scandal” for as little as 99 cents during weekend sales. But typically the online merchant rents movies for $2.99 or $3.99. The library of more than 3,000 movies for purchase and 2,000 for rent ranged from mainstream blockbusters to how-to videos like “How to Make It in Hollywood Before You Make It.”

The Unbox service can be linked to a TiVo subscription. Movies purchased or rented on the site can be directed to a TiVo and watched on a TV instead of a computer screen. But most of these services download the movies to the PC, so you have to take another step to get them onto a TV.

One way is to haul your PC (ideally a notebook) to the living room. Plug the video cable — it may be the S-video plug or the newer DVI or HDMI plug — into the back of the set. The easiest choice for watching movies downloaded by computer was the $300 Apple TV device, which acts like an iPod that uses your HDTV for a screen. (Apple TV does not work with standard-definition TVs.)

Apple TV syncs with movies and TV episodes downloaded from the iTunes store, as well as with music, photos and other videos stored on your Mac or Windows PC. Setup was a no-brainer in typical Apple fashion. The movies cost from $10 to $15 to buy. But the selection is limited to only about 500 movies and 350 TV shows, according to Apple. The service doesn’t rent movies, and the company would not comment on reports that it is in discussions with studios to offer rentals.

Apple TV also syncs movies and TV shows with video-capable iPods, which means you can start watching a movie on the train ride home, pause for dinner, then resume on the living room HDTV, right where you left off.

One upstart to keep an eye on is Vudu. The company promises — there is that word again — to offer 5,000 movies to watch directly on the TV without a PC, cable or satellite box. It says it has closed deals with seven major motion picture studios. The catch? Yet another appliance in your home. The Vudu device is expected to go on sale this summer, but no price has been announced.

The range of movie download options keeps growing, and the promise is there. But for now, most people will keep watching DVDs — at least until tens of thousands of movies are available online.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/21/te...sics.html?8dpc





Some Cities Will Get Early Look at ‘Sicko’
Michael Cieply

Hyped in Cuba, unveiled in Cannes, pirated on YouTube and rallied around last week in Sacramento by nurses chanting for the demise of the current health insurance system, Michael Moore’s documentary “Sicko” is finally ready to meet its American audience — or at least some of it — a week ahead of schedule.

Executives of the Weinstein Company, which provided backing for the film, an indictment of America’s health care system, said the documentary would open on Friday on a single screen at the AMC Loews Lincoln Square theater in New York.

Lionsgate, the movie’s distributor, will otherwise proceed with a planned opening in about 250 theaters around the country on June 29. But it is offering sneak previews this week in 27 markets where Mr. Moore’s politically tinged documentaries have played well in the past, including San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston and Philadelphia, the Weinstein executives said.

“This gets it started,” said Gary Faber, Weinstein’s executive vice president in charge of marketing, who said the early opening was intended to feed growing demand for the film and was not related to recent instances of the movie’s showing up illegally on the Internet.

The decision to bump up the opening came on a day when two New York tabloids, The New York Post and The Daily News, sharply split in their early reviews of “Sicko.” The Post called it a “botched operation”; The Daily News pronounced it “boffo.”

The film is expected to do well in markets that have traditionally been friendly to Mr. Moore, Mr. Faber said, and the boost of a New York opening (and the attendant reviews) could help its performance nationwide.

But a Weinstein spokeswoman said the company expected “Sicko,” which had a budget of about $9 million, to perform more like Mr. Moore’s “Bowling for Columbine,” which had about $21.6 million in ticket sales in the United States in 2002, than like his “Fahrenheit 9/11,” which took in $119.2 million at the domestic box office in 2004.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/20/movies/20sick.html





Moore Expects "Onslaught" to Follow "SiCKO" Release
Kevin Krolicki

Michael Moore thinks he has made an even-handed movie about health care that should appeal to the civic-mindedness and decency of all Americans.

And now he's bracing for the hate mail.

The gadfly director, who spoke to reporters at an unusual northern Michigan premiere for his documentary "SiCKO," said he expected the U.S. pharmaceutical and insurance industries to go on the offensive against his call for a sweeping overhaul that would give the United States a national health care system.

"I am anticipating the onslaught of attack," Moore said.

But he added: "My hope in this film was to reach out across the great divide that exists in this country and say you know, those on the other side, who may disagree with me, can't we find some common ground on this issue? We're all Americans."

Moore won an Academy Award for 2002's anti-gun documentary "Bowling for Columbine" and made more enemies on the right with a critical look at President George W. Bush's war on terrorism in his 2004 documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11."

"Sicko," which opens in theaters on June 29, details the painful stories of Americans who say they were denied life-saving treatment by insurers or forced to forego emergency treatment at hospitals because they could not afford to pay.

As counterpoints, Moore tours Canada, Britain and France and feigns amazement when confronted with evidence that those national health care systems provide better basic care.

Moore said he has been notified he could face federal prosecution for visiting Cuba to escort a group of Americans seeking medical care in violation of U.S. travel and trade restrictions.

"I am worried about it. They have notified me that I am being investigated for civil and criminal penalties," he said.

Moore agreed to screen "SiCKO" first in a heavily Republican area in his home state as a fund-raiser for the Antrim County Democratic Party.

The local Democratic party counted an active membership of just 30 when President George W. Bush took office and has struggled to field candidates in local races.

With a red carpet improvised from door mats, the Main Street premiere brought in over 880 people at two screenings on Saturday, a party representative said.

Moore said he hoped the documentary would shape the debate ahead of the 2008 presidential election, saying he thought most Americans were ready to accept sacrifices now to provide coverage for the 47 million Americans without insurance.

"If that means I have to wait four weeks for a knee replacement, I'll wait," he said. "I believe that the majority of Americans would agree with that."

Separately, Moore said he would not prosecute those already circulating bootleg copies of the still-unreleased documentary on the Internet. "I'm happy for people to see my movie. I'm not a big fan of the copyright laws in this country," he said.
http://www.reuters.com/article/enter...25301420070616





Michael Moore’s Movie Leaks to the Web
Mike Nizza

After a documentary leaked in a serious way over the weekend, the studio has decided to move up the opening. Michael Cieply tells it well.

“Sicko,” Michael Moore’s new documentary about America’s healthcare system, was too hot for quarantine, landing on YouTube for a weekend of free rides before the lawyers stepped in.

The movie is still available on file-sharing Web sites like Piratebay.org, where the movie popped up at least one week before today, and 18 days before its slated release.

So far, only those with enough technical expertise, bandwidth and time can take advantage of that, but it’s probably just a matter of time before bootleg copies hit the streets of New York and elsewhere.

There is little the movie studio can do to stop the likes of Pirate Bay, which operates freely in Sweden, at least for the time being. “Sicko” is already ranked on the site’s top-10 list with more than 1,800 downloads.

That number may grow to the tens of thousands in the next few weeks, if another file-sharing site’s tale to Atlantic Monthly is any guide:

On November 19, 2006, someone at a computer in Wharton, New Jersey, put a high-quality copy of a newly released holiday family film, recorded directly from the film reels, onto eDonkey, a person-to-person file-sharing network. Within weeks, that one file had been downloaded by 30,408 people on six continents (you can see the download locations on the map [pdf]).

Faced with that threat, Mr. Moore’s movie studio said it was “responding aggressively to protect our film,” including, according to Advertising Age, using a decoy strategy to confuse the online pirates. A company has been hired by the studio to flood the file-sharing sites with “downloads that are coded to look like ‘Sicko’ but often contain advertiser-supported content.”

Aside from providing some extra marketing, though, the measure is unlikely to stop illegal file-sharing. Sites like Pirate Bay make it very easy to find and size up popular content, with lists ranked by popularity and download counts on each file.

A much bigger threat lurks in the distance, as Pirate Bay threatens to unveil a “YouTube killer,” which supposedly will make it simple for anyone to easily watch pirated movies on a site unaffected by American legal pressures. That may make it a Hollywood killer, as well.

For now, the makers of “Sicko” seem to be pleased with the early interest, which now includes reviews on Web sites and YouTube (more here and here) to add to its mostly positive reviews during the Cannes film festival.

“Healthcare impacts everybody right in their homes, and it is not surprising that people are eager to see ‘Sicko,’ ” a Weinstein Company spokeswoman told The Los Angeles Times.

The divisive director himself has not yet commented on the leak of the film, though he tacitly endorsed the idea in principle a few months ago, a Wired blogger pointed out.

“I don’t agree with the copyright laws and I don’t have a problem with people downloading the movie and sharing it with people as long as they’re not trying to make a profit off my labor,” Mr. Moore said at the time.
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/200...ks-to-the-web/





Pirated Version of 'Sicko', Decoys Abound on Web
K.C. Jones

The decoys sometimes present ads. Sometimes they're blank.

YouTube officials took down an unauthorized version of Michael Moore's film Sicko, but not before movie fans made it available Monday on the Internet.

The new documentary, which criticizes the U.S. health care system, is scheduled for release June 29, but at least one unauthorised version began circulating on the Internet last week. YouTube took down the unauthorized version of Sicko, but copies had already spread.

Pirate Bay, a site that facilitates peer-to-peer file-sharing, continued to list the movie Monday, while Advertising Age reported that MediaDefender had deluged the Web with "decoy" files that look like the movie but do not contain it. Such decoys flood peer-to-peer networks with blank files or advertisements, making it difficult for people to find.

The decoys sometimes present ads. Sometimes they're blank. Representatives from MediaDefender said they would not comment on whether they sent out decoys for Sicko. The company does not disclose details about agreements with its clients, but MediaDefender contracts with companies to protect, movies, video games, anime, and software. It also assists law enforcement authorities.

On its website, MediaDefender states that "it would be easier to find a needle in a haystack than a real file amongst our countermeasures." The company also provides clients with alerts notifying them when pirated content has appeared on Usenet, newsgroups and BitTorrent sites.

Representatives from Sicko's distributor, Lionsgate, referred calls to the independent American film studio Weinstein Co.

A Weinstein representative did not immediately return calls seeking comment. In the meantime, Moore appears on his own YouTube page for Sicko. The page features a video of Moore soliciting stories from Americans who have been frustrated by their health insurance plans, as well as reader comments and clips from recent interviews.
http://www.itnews.com.au/newsstory.a...&src=site-marq





EFF Sides With TorrentSpy in MPAA Lawsuit
Greg Sandoval

As expected, the Electronic Frontier Foundation plans to file a friends-of-the-court brief in support of TorrentSpy, the search engine accused of copyright violations.

The top motion-picture studios filed a lawsuit last year against TorrentSpy and other search engines that locate torrent files. The studios allege in their suit that these companies simplify the illegal sharing of copyright content.

The magistrate judge hearing the case recently ruled that computer RAM or random-access memory, is a tangible document that can be stored and must be turned over in a lawsuit. If allowed to stand, the groundbreaking decision may mean that anyone defending themselves in a civil suit could be required to turn over information in their computer's RAM hardware. This could force companies and individuals to store vast amounts of data, say technology experts.

The judge has ordered TorrentSpy to create logs detailing users' activities on the site.

Fred von Lohmann, senior staff attorney with EFF, which advocates for the rights of Internet users, said the group has notified representatives from TorrentSpy and the motion picture studios of their intent to file an amicus brief that argues for a reversal of the judge's decision.

He added that EFF is also looking for others to join them on the brief.

"This is the first time the court has found that information found only in RAM is subject to preservation," von Lohmann said. "Companies may be obliged to begin logging and producing information about conversations that occur on digital phones, which are stored on RAM. Nobody is asked to preserve records for analog phone conversations."

Lawyers from the Motion Picture Assoc. of America argue that the law has always found RAM to be electronically stored information and that there won't be any significant impact to others besides those engaged in illegal file sharing.
http://news.com.com/8301-10784_3-973...47-1023_3-0-10





Marvel Wants to Flex Its Own Heroic Muscles as a Moviemaker
Sharon Waxman

This month David Maisel, the newly minted chairman of Marvel Studios, was discussing plot points in his Beverly Hills office with Edward Norton, the Academy Award-nominated actor whom he has cast as the star of a new version of “The Incredible Hulk.”

“It’s a nice environment,” Mr. Maisel said the next day, in an interview in that same office. “Some guys in their 30s sitting around and talking about a script, planning the movie. Edward is so into the Hulk.”

Mr. Maisel is actually 45, but the movie-mogul life he describes is true enough. Until recently a little-known deal maker trained by the former kingpin Michael S. Ovitz, Mr. Maisel has quickly become a serious Hollywood player. No longer content to leave the actual moviemaking (and most of the profits) to the studios, Mr. Maisel is able to green-light movies of his choosing at budgets up to $165 million, backed by $525 million of financing. “I don’t think there’s been a new studio making $100 million movies since DreamWorks,” he said. “We’re going Hollywood, but in a smart way.”

Whether Mr. Maisel’s claim proves true or merely another example of Hollywood hubris will be determined over the next several years, beginning in May and June of 2008 with the release of its first two self-financed films, “Iron Man” (starring Robert Downey Jr. and Gwyneth Paltrow) and “The Incredible Hulk.”

Until now, Hollywood’s major studios have paid to license Marvel characters to create blockbuster franchises — including the three “Spider-Man” hits, which have raked in close to $2.5 billion at the global box office for Sony Pictures — and 20th Century Fox’s “X-Men” and “Fantastic Four” movies. The latest, “Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer,” took in an estimated $57 million in its opening this weekend.

But Marvel makes relatively little money from these box-office bonanzas, because of unfavorable deals struck in the 1990s. A Lehman Brothers analysis calculated that Marvel made just $62 million from the first two “Spider-Man” films.

By making his own movies based on other Marvel characters, Mr. Maisel hopes to transform his division of Marvel Entertainment into a true filmmaking brand, maintaining control from script to release, keeping all the profits for the company and building a film library, while using someone else’s capital.

Paramount Pictures will market and distribute the movies, for a fee. (Universal Pictures, which made 2003’s “Hulk” by the director Ang Lee but sold back the rights to Marvel after its poor box-office performance, will handle that sequel.)

The financial model seems unusually favorable. Because most of the financing raised by Merrill Lynch (the $465 million revolving credit facility) is insured by Ambac Assurance, Marvel is not liable to repay its senior creditors if the movies tank. The Ambac deal uses the comic characters as collateral and thus requires no capital outlay by Marvel.

And on top of the profits, Marvel gets 5 percent of all film-related revenues as a producer fee.

Wall Street has already showed its approval, steadily lifting the company’s stock to Friday’s close of $26.78 from $19.43 a year ago.

“What they’ve done is take themselves from a niche licensing company and have really knocked the cover off the ball as far as execution where the stock is concerned,” said Brad Ruderman, of Ruderman Capital Partners. “If they can make appealing movies, I don‘t see any reason why they can’t be successful.”

But that if — making successful movies — has tripped up many a brilliant financial model in the past. And the favorable terms mask a hidden risk: If the movies are not successful, Marvel will forfeit the film rights to the characters in the deal, including Captain America, Thor, Nick Fury and the Avengers.

“It’s a convoluted, almost Rube Goldberg-type apparatus for generating higher profitability with minimal risk,” said Harold L. Vogel, of Vogel Capital Management. “But we all know the movie business depends on how profitability is defined. We know most movies do not actually make money, or a lot of money. So I don’t know that they come out ahead at the end of the day, even when you adjust for risk and the time it takes. Why go through all this, except to generate fees for Merrill Lynch and some lawyers?”

Veteran Hollywood insiders raised other caveats about the Marvel arrangement, including the company’s dependency on major studios for setting their marketing budgets and for overseeing distribution. The studios have been known to pay more attention to their own movies rather than those made elsewhere.

Additionally, Marvel’s slate of up to 10 films will be based on second-tier superheroes, who may not resonate with younger moviegoers. With the major studios continuing to pump out blockbusters based on the better-known Marvel characters, it could lead to a glut of the genre.

Tom Rothman, co-chairman of Fox Filmed Entertainment, was not worried, however. “It’s not a competitive issue,” he said. “We are used to competition. It doesn’t matter who you’re competing with. Ultimately, it’s a meritocracy.”

Some of Mr. Maisel’s casting choices have veered from the typical Hollywood bet. In the case of the $135 million “Iron Man,” for example, Marvel chose Mr. Downey, 42, to play the millionaire industrialist Tony Stark, an actor well beyond the demographic of the movie’s natural fan base of adolescent boys.

Mr. Maisel becomes animated when defending his hires. “Our films are as much about the man as the superhero,” he said. “These are great actors who will appeal to adults. We set this up to appeal to everyone.”

Mr. Maisel has been in Hollywood for more than a decade, but is largely an unknown figure to the public. A Harvard M.B.A. who collects comic hero figurines, he is slight and soft-spoken, citing major Hollywood moguls as his mentors and peers — Robert A. Iger, the Walt Disney chief executive, and Ron Meyer, the Universal Studios president and chief operating officer — though none so fondly as Mr. Ovitz, whom he reverentially refers to as Michael.

In 1994 Mr. Maisel, at the time a young executive at the Boston Consulting Group, wrote a cold-call letter to Mr. Ovitz, asking to be considered for a job at Creative Artists Agency. What he wrote was persuasive enough to win an interview, and then a job, where he worked on deals with Mr. Ovitz, and accompanied him to Disney during Mr. Ovitz’s brief reign there as president.

Mr. Maisel then joined the Endeavor talent agency for two years before landing at Marvel, where he was hired by Avi Arad, the entrepreneurial chairman and chief executive of Marvel Studios, who is credited with leading the company successfully after it landed in bankruptcy in 1996 during the stewardship of the financier Ronald O. Perelman.

Mr. Maisel aimed to develop Marvel Studios as “the master of its own destiny,” as he puts it. But that path has resulted in clashes with colleagues and created ill will in some relationships.

Mr. Arad left Marvel last year after a power struggle with his former deputy in which he tried to have Mr. Maisel ousted, according to two executives knowledgeable about the tension. One of those executives said that Mr. Arad had disagreed with Mr. Maisel over budget cuts to the new Marvel movies and the production timetable, which Mr. Arad considered too rushed.

Asked about the conflict, Mr. Arad said that he had left Marvel because he wanted to start his own company, Avi Arad Productions. Mr. Maisel declined to comment on the relationship, but said the budget and timing were in line with similar Hollywood productions.

Mr. Maisel has also clashed with Ryan Kavanaugh, a Hollywood financier, over credit for Marvel Studios’ financial formula. Mr. Maisel said repeatedly during the interview that he had devised the strategy. But documents from early 2004 indicate that Mr. Kavanaugh’s Relativity Management, which was hired as a consultant on the deal, made the initial proposal and the subsequent plans.

“We came up with the initial structure, the concept, created the models, the overall ideas, and brought in the various banks, and helped to do the transaction,” Mr. Kavanaugh said. Another adviser to the project, Gordon Steel, agreed: “Ryan came up with the whole thing. He drew it up, got everyone excited.”

Mr. Maisel declined to comment on the matter. Sid Ganis, a Marvel board member and the president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, said that Mr. Maisel’s determination saw the project through. “Someone had to have the guts to grab it and make the damn thing happen, and he did,” said Mr. Ganis. “It’s David, not as the architect, but as the contractor in this.”

Regardless, Marvel Studios is now Mr. Maisel’s house to manage. And despite the risks, Mr. Maisel is confident of his plan to release 10 self-financed films in the next five years.

“We’re doing this in as smart a way as has been done in this town,” he said, cradling his favorite statuette, Captain America holding a tattered flag in the ruins of 9/11. “These films are so important, we’re giving them all the care and nurturing we can.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/18/bu.../18marvel.html





Fantastic Four' Scores At Box Office With $57.4 Million
AP

Hollywood's superhero foursome is still fantastic at the box office.

The 20th Century Fox sequel "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer" debuted as the No. 1 weekend flick with $57.4 million in sales, slightly surpassing the $56.1 million opening of "Fantastic Four" two years ago, according to studio estimates Sunday.

Among other new wide releases, a favorite teen detective had trouble finding an audience as the Warner Bros. mystery "Nancy Drew" premiered with a so-so $7.1 million to finish at No. 7.

Opening in narrower release was the Weinstein Co. thriller "DOA: Dead or Alive," an adaptation of the martial-arts video game that pulled in just $232, 000. Playing in 505 theaters, "DOA" averaged a paltry $460 a cinema, compared to $14,499 in 3,959 theaters for "Fantastic Four" and $2,732 in 2,612 locations for "Nancy Drew."

The previous weekend's No. 1 movie, George Clooney and Brad Pitt's "Ocean's Thirteen," fell to No. 2 with $19.1 million. The Warner Bros. casino caper raised its 10-day total to $69.8 million, putting it on track to become the franchise's third $100 million hit.

Despite the big opening for "Fantastic Four," Hollywood revenue slipped for the third straight weekend. The top 12 movies took in $138.8 million, down 4% from the same weekend last year, when "Cars," "Nacho Libre" and "The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift" led with a combined $86 million.

The industry had a blockbuster May with "Spider-Man," "Shrek" and "Pirates of the Caribbean" sequels, but big films aren't holding their audiences after huge opening weekends.

After a surge early this year, attendance has slipped to just a fraction ahead of 2006, diminishing prospects of a record summer that many analysts had predicted.

"We've seen our advantage over last year slowly being chipped away," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Exhibitor Relations. "A lot of films are doing what these big summer movies do, open big and drop off fast."

The new "Fantastic Four" reunites the quartet of astronauts-turned-mutant- superheroes, played by Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba, Michael Chiklis and Chris Evans. This time, the comic-book heroes join forces with archenemy Dr. Doom ( Julian McMahon) to take down the Silver Surfer, an emissary leading a planet- destroying entity to Earth.

The studio and filmmakers toned down the action so the sequel could earn a PG rating to broaden the audience to family viewers. The first "Fantastic Four" was rated PG-13.

"A lot of the superhero comic-book movies are sort of geared toward being darker and edgier. We think `Fantastic Four' is a more family friendly group of superheroes," said Chris Aronson, senior vice president for distribution at 20th Century Fox. "We wanted to make sure to cast a wide net and go after the family audience, and it worked."

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Media By Numbers LLC. Final figures will be released Monday.

1. "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer," $57.4 million.

2. "Ocean's Thirteen," $19.1 million.

3. "Knocked Up," $14.5 million.

4. "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End," $12 million.

5. "Surf's Up," $9.3 million.

6. "Shrek the Third," $9 million.

7. "Nancy Drew," $7.1 million.

8. "Hostel: Part II," $3 million.

9. "Mr. Brooks," $2.8 million.

10. "Spider-Man 3," $2.5 million.

http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/...0_FORTUNE5.htm





"Shrek" Sinks "Pirates" At International Box Office

Captain Jack Sparrow took a back seat to that odiferous green ogre internationally during the weekend as "Shrek the Third" finished No. 1 with an estimated boxoffice of $46 million from 3,693 screens in 36 markets.

Disney's "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End," which had been on top of the overseas heap for the previous three weekends, finished No. 2 to the DreamWorks/Paramount Pictures International animated feature. In its fourth weekend, "Pirates" claimed 17,500 screens in 103 territories with estimated boxoffice of $32.6 million.

At No. 3 overall was Warner Bros. International's "Ocean's Thirteen," which in its second weekend pulled an estimated $26.3 million from about 5,000 screens in 38 markets, lifting its overseas cume to $67 million and $136.8 million worldwide.

Director Steven Soderbergh's star-laden caper bowed in six markets, of which Australia (No. 2 with an estimated $3.4 million from 356 locales) and Korea (No. 1 with $3.3 million from 190 sites) stood out. Its biggest market remains the U.K., with an estimated take of $4.5 million from 699 sites for a market cume of $14.2 million. This week brings openings in France and Brazil.

A more crowded international marketplace for the weekend saw the bow of 20th Century Fox International/Marvel Enterprises' "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer," which opened No. 1 domestically but landed at No. 4 internationally.

The latest in the adventure franchise grossed an estimated $25.4 million from 3,292 screens in 32 markets. The strongest territory for "Silver Surfer" was the U.K., where it finished in first place with an estimated $8 million from 474 screens for a per-screen average of nearly $17,000. Its early worldwide tally stands at $82.8 million.

"Shrek," which began a gradual foreign rollout May 17, bowed in 13 territories during the weekend, breaking records or finishing at No. 1 in at least eight. The biggest opening was France, where it placed No. 1 with a weekend tally of an estimated $12 million from 724 screens.

The third "Shrek" has grossed $107 million overseas so far and $404 million worldwide. The overseas gross for "Shrek 2" is $480 million; the original "Shrek" made $210 million.

Buena Vista International's "At World's End" bowed in China for a mighty $6.8 million from 979 screens, the biggest BVI opening in the market. The first in the series, 2003's "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl," drew $1.2 million in its China bow; last year's "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" did not play in the territory.

The overseas gross for "At World's End" is $547 million, making it the 10th-most-popular overseas release ever. With an $821 million worldwide cume, it ranks 16th among global hits.

Finishing at No. 5 for the weekend was Sony's "Spider-Man 3," which raised its overseas gross to $543.9 million on the strength of a $3.1 million weekend on 4,300 screens in 77 territories.

Sony's latest animation entry, "Surf's Up," has accumulated an overseas tally of $4.5 million thanks to a $945,000 weekend from 400 screens in Russia and Ukraine.

http://www.reuters.com/article/enter...33708420070618





Billboard Singles Reviews: McCartney, Lavigne

Paul McCartney was only a teenager when he wrote "When I'm Sixty-Four" for monumental 1967 release "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." Last year the former Beatle turned 64, and his grasp of melody remains supreme, the elasticity of his voice stunning. The impossibly simple "Dance Tonight," a relaxed pop song from new solo album "Memory Almost Full," features a carefree mandolin and long, nostalgic guitar notes. Also released to adult alternative album radio is the equally cheerful but more personal "Ever Present Past," which reaches deeper, sending the lines "searching for the time that has gone so fast" over a bouncy vintage-rock groove that conjures McCartney's rich musical past. Let's hope there's a song sitting in his drawer with the title "When I'm Eighty-Five."

ARTIST: AVRIL LAVIGNE

SINGLE: WHEN YOU'RE GONE

Avril Lavigne's "Girlfriend" propelled the singer-songwriter to a lofty pedestal: The 22-year-old now has the most No. 1 top 40 hits this decade (five) and is the No. 2 artist in the 14-year history of Nielsen BDS, behind Mariah Carey's six chart-toppers. "When You're Gone," the second single from No. 1 album "The Best Damn Thing," shifts the pacing from the frenetic head-banging of "Girlfriend" to a pensive, piano-driven power ballad. A poignant video clip adds to universality, featuring a husband leaving his pregnant wife for war, a senior who has lost his wife and a teen couple forbidden to be together. Splendid melody, visible message and ace production add up to likelihood of another No. 1 peak.

ARTIST: THE KILLERS

SINGLE: FOR REASONS UNKNOWN

"But my heart/It don't beat the way it used to," a feverish Brandon Flowers laments in "For Reasons Unknown," the fourth single from the Killers' inexhaustible sophomore set "Sam's Town." Indeed, things have changed since the Las Vegas boys dumped Bowie for Springsteen, creating a hook-filled blockbuster that fuses new-wavey melodramas with epic Americana. Destined first for alternative radio, this synth-free rocker opens with ominous multitrack vocals and grinding fuzz guitars and builds to a huge pop chorus as Flowers dances on the edge of a relentlessly pumped groove. As indie heroes like Arcade Fire begin to reveal a crush on the Boss, the Killers' bombast appears visionary. If anything, Flowers' heart beats louder and bigger these days.

ARTIST: MINNIE DRIVER

SINGLE: BELOVED

With her career thrust into first gear via FX cult hit "The Riches," Academy Award-nominated actress Minnie Driver returns in timely fashion with second musical venture "Seastories," a calming, thoughtful opus. "Beloved," written by Driver with producer Marc "Doc" Dauer collaborating on melody (he also helmed her 2004 debut, "Everything I've Got in My Pocket"), features misty organic instrumentation, with guitars from Ryan Adams and a consummate pedal steel solo from Jonathan Grabott. Driver, who was signed as a singer to a development deal with Island before acting became her focus, offers convincing sonic solace with graceful soft-sell vocals and a devotional lyric. "Beloved" makes Sunday morn a little sunnier.

ARTIST: DAMIEN RICE

SINGLE: 9 CRIMES

With the pressure of creating an album comparable to 2003's poignant, sensory "O," Damien Rice's sophomore effort, "9," delves into new themes and sounds without forgoing the haunting elements and ghost-like resonance that defined the Dubliner's acoustic-folk roots. Launch single "9 Crimes" pairs lazy piano arpeggios and lingering cello. The simplicity of Rice's arrangements remains a true testament to the artist's indie roots -- despite this track's appearance in, of all things, "Shrek the Third."

ARTIST: THE BRAVERY

SINGLE: TIME WON'T LET ME GO

From the New York-based rock outfit's second album, "The Sun and the Moon" -- which launched at No. 24 on the Billboard 200 -- the Bravery's "Time Won't Let Me Go" is quite the paradox: a lyric infused with melancholic nostalgia, whispering of "all these precious moments you promised me would come in time/So where was I when I missed mine" -- yet the pop instrumental palette inescapably lifts spirits, forcing requisite head bopping, with "ba ba pa ba ... ba ba pa ba" to the end.

ARTIST: HURRICANE CHRIS

SINGLE: A BAY BAY

Hurricane Chris' "A Bay Bay" has been heating up in his native Shreveport, La., and is now unraveling its melodic tentacles across the rest of the nation. A chorus laced with a child singing along in almost incomprehensible English adds the right amount of catchiness to a ditty about approaching the opposite sex. The chorus originated from a party chant hollered out for local DJ Hollywood Bay Bay, with Hurricane switching it up into a slang mantra. He raps, "Probably get drunk as a skunk and put the keys in the wrong car." Bless summer frivolity.

ARTIST: COLBIE CAILLAT

SINGLE: BUBBLY

Colbie Caillat put "Bubbly" on MySpace last September and by early this year had shot up to the site's No. 1 unsigned artist spot, a position she maintained for four months. Universal Republic jumped onboard during that run and stuck with the charming track as the first single from a July LP. Caillat is something of a female Jack Johnson, his warm vocals and a gentle acoustic arrangement effortlessly conjuring the idyllic California she calls home. Gaining quick acceptance on adult alternative album radio, this sweet-without-being-soppy tale of the first blush of new love is sure to enchant adult contemporary airwaves next.
http://www.reuters.com/article/music...45681220070618





Radio Reaching 232 Million Listeners Every Week
FMQB

Arbitron has released some preliminary statistics from its upcoming RADAR 93 study. According to its latest findings, radio is now reaching 232 million listeners during a week, which remains consistent with figures from a year ago. The 7100+ RADAR Network affiliated stations reach 82 percent of all radio listeners. RADAR Network affiliates also reach 84 percent of teens 12-17, adults 18-34 and adults 25-54, along with 85 percent of adults 18-49.

Arbitron also found that 96 percent of adults ages 25-54 with a college degree and an annual household income of $50,000 or more listen to radio during the week. And RADAR affiliates reach 85 percent of this demographic.

RADAR 93 also shows that 94 percent of Black, Non-Hispanics and 95 percent of Hispanics, ages 12+, listen to radio during the week. Radio also reaches 95 percent of Black, Non-Hispanics and 96 percent of Hispanics, ages 25-54, over a week. Radio also reaches 94 percent of college grads, ages 18+, as well as 96 percent of adults 18-49 with a college degree and an annual income of at least $75,000.

RADAR 93 will be released by Arbitron on Monday, June 25.
http://fmqb.com/Article.asp?id=425977





Yet Another Royalties Tier for Internet Radio?
Scott M. Fulton

While Congress continues to back-burner the debate over whether it's fair for streaming radio services to be charged as much as ten times their revenue in performance royalties, the US Copyright Royalty Board last week met for a roundtable discussion about whether yet another class of royalties that are already part of copyright law, should apply to Internet radio as well.

The class being discussed is the "mechanical royalty" - a fee collected for the right to make a reproduction of a recording, or what the law calls a phonorecord. The basic meaning of the royalty is quite sensible: When you have a record, and you want to make records off of that master for reproduction and possible sale, you owe a mechanical royalty fee for each reproduction. Historically, that fee has been set at a flat rate of $0.09 cents per copy.

A 2001 agreement between the RIAA, royalties agencies, and music publishers established that streaming services where the music isn't specifically selected by the listener by song, do not count as phonorecords as described by US law, and thus no mechanical royalties apply. This is why you can't pick your own tunes from any of these services. That agreement is not under dispute. What the CRB has brought to the table, according to an insider's report on the blog of broadcast law attorney David Oxenford, is the issue of whether a webcaster such as Last.fm or Pandora actually makes a phonorecord for itself in the process of streaming a copy of that to the listener.

The debate partially stems from the findings of a US District Court in New York last April, which ruled in favor of AOL, Yahoo, and RealNetworks.

Their contention was that they did not have to pay performance royalties to ASCAP and other performance rights organizations (PROs) for music which their customers download directly from them, as opposed to services which are streamed to them. In its defense, ASCAP cited laws which appeared to state otherwise, though the Court found flaws in those laws that created what it decided were unintentional overlaps, the effect of which might have been that PROs could have been paid twice for essentially the same rights.

Ironically, it was an amicus brief filed by the RIAA itself which swayed the court's opinion. The RIAA has frequently this section of US Code: "A 'digital phonorecord delivery' is each individual delivery of a phonorecord by digital transmission of a sound recording which results in a specifically identifiable reproduction by or for any transmission recipient of a phonorecord of that sound recording."

US Code goes on to cite an exception: "A digital phonorecord delivery does not result from a real-time, non-interactive subscription transmission of a sound recording where no reproduction of the sound recording or the musical work embodied therein is made." That part pretty much made the judge's decision quite easy, deciding, "Although...the streaming of a musical work does constitute a public performance, we conclude that the downloading of a digital music file, in and of itself, does not."

That deduction was reached by virtue of having decided that the delivery of digital music cannot be considered both a public performance and a mechanical reproduction. From the law's standpoint, it should only be one or the other. The fact that a streaming performance is liable for performance copyright helped seal the deal that a reproduction was not.

The RIAA has urged the CRB to come up with a hard and fast rule as to what constitutes a digital phonorecord with respect to streaming services, and this is the purpose of the roundtable having convened. But an examination of this and other rulings got members of the Board to start thinking this way: Maybe the act of delivering music can't be treated as performance and reproduction simultaneously, but what about what happens in the act of preparing that performance? Doesn't a streaming service provider have to make a mechanical reproduction then? And does that reproduction fit US Code's current description?

Already, the distributors of ringtones based on existing popular music recordings pay mechanical royalties to a group called the Harry Fox Agency (HFA), and those fees are most certainly passed on to their customers. So there is precedent for the concept of digital mechanical reproduction. And certainly the topic must be broached in some way, shape, or form, before it can be decided that mechanical copyright does or does not apply.

But it makes the debate over royalties for digital works all the more difficult for a Congress that may only have a month left to decide this issue, and which the district court mildly pointed out may not really understand the topic anyway.
http://www.betanews.com/article/Yet_...dio/1182445608





Internet Radio to go Silent on June 26?
Anne Broache

If you depend on the sounds of Internet radio to get you through your workday, don't be surprised if your headphones pipe out little more than dead air next Tuesday.

In protest of the elevated royalty fees Webcasters are poised to begin owing to the record industry next month, Internet radio operators are planning to stage a "day of silence."

So far, Live365 and AccuRadio.com have agreed to cease their music programming on June 26, save for brief audio public service announcements sprinkled throughout the day, according to a Wednesday report by Kurt Hanson of the Radio and Internet Newsletter,. So has the online presence of KCRW, the Southern California-based public radio station.

UPDATE at 6:03 a.m. PDT on Friday: SaveNetRadio, an advocacy group opposed to the copyright judges' action, has posted an updated list of protest participants, which now also include Yahoo, RealNetworks' Rhapsody, MTV Online, and more than 30 other stations.

Smaller Webcasters staged a similar protest five years ago in response to a similar rules change by the U.S. Copyright Royalty Board.

At issue are fee hikes that the Internet radio community says could bankrupt its services, particularly those run by smaller operators. SoundExchange, the non-profit collection entity that lobbied for the changes, has repeatedly argued the changes are fair and necessary to ensure artists are compensated adequately.

Opponents of the changes are still hoping for a reprieve before the July 15 date on which the royalties are scheduled to kick in. They are continuing to pressure politicians on Capitol Hill to pass bills that would overturn the royalty rate increases and align them with those required of other digital services, such as satellite. Some groups have also asked a federal appeals court to delay the rate changes.
http://news.com.com/8301-10784_3-9732642-7.html





Rock On: 12 of the Best Music Social Networks
Livia Iacolare

Internet radio may be facing uncertain times, but many musical social networks continue to thrive. If you’re in a band, these sites are essential for promoting your music: take note, and sign up for as many as possible to maximize your reach. For fans, meanwhile, we’ve included some great places to just listen to music. We won’t mention the obvious one, of course: MySpace remains the hub for music on the web.

Flotones

Flotones is a monetized social network for artists and their fans. The most interesting feature is the possibility to promote and distribute artist’s content via mobile phones (such as ringtones and mobile wallpapers). After you register and add your content, you’ll be able to promote your mobile content at your shows, on your website and on your MySpace profile. You’ll be asked to sign a contract before getting paid.

Mercora Radio 2.0

Radio 2.0 from Mercora is a social network with an integrated free music listening service (that sustains itself through contextual music-centered ads), as well as a personal-webcasting platform. Mercora Radio 2.0 will search your hard disk for all the music tracks you have legally acquired and then you are ready to broadcast your own music library to the world. Each radio station has multiple channels and each DJ can also create his own playlists.

MOG

MOG is a social network that helps you “discover people through music and discover music through people”. Basically MOG makes it easy for you to find new music to listen to by using custom filters and personalized suggestions. The site also provides users with news, reviews and streaming audio. MOG also features a music TV that continuously broadcasts videos taken from YouTube.

Last.fm

Last.fm, which you’ve no doubt used already, is a service that keeps track of what music you listen to, and then helps you discover new music based on your preferences. You can use Last.fm to listen to music, find out about artists you may like, get in touch with other people with similar music taste, discover gigs in your local area, as well as create charts that you can publish on your personal site. Last.fm also allows artists and labels to upload their own music and videos and promote them for free.

iLike

iLike, another familiar one, is a service to help you organize your music, share your music tastes, and discover new artists through your friends. iLike basically helps you discover new music based on what you’re already listening to. It lets you share music libraries with your friends, browse and sample their most played songs, and compare your compatibility scores. iLike will also send you music recommendations directly in iTunes.

JamNow

JamNow is a social network aimed at musicians that allows them to create audio content online in real-time. JamNow isn’t a site that simply makes you “post and listen” to audio content: its platform enables real-time music collaboration and lets you schedule live jam sessions and listen to musicians that are playing right in that moment.

MusoCity

MusoCity is a music-oriented social network. It provides accounts specifically designed for music fans, artists, musicians, music retailers and music venues. MusoCity is completely free to join and you can start browsing members profiles to make friends, discovering new artists, getting in touch with musicians in your area and finding events and music stores near you.

Haystack

Haystack is a social network centered around people who want to find music through friends and taste makers. You can browse music, pictures, videos and reviews of artists as well as build your own profile and personalize it with images and videos (you can even add them from YouTube). Artists are welcome to sign up directly or through their manager or their label.

Sonific

Sonific is a social network that offers a great way to promote your music, if you are an artist. It lets users put free music widgets with your music on their sites and promote it to their own audiences, for free. In exchange, Sonific users get free music to use and listen to (download is not permitted) and make their site look cooler - while you get free advertising for your music.

Midomi

Midomi is a network that makes it easy to discover new music and people. The cool thing is that you can search for music by singing or humming part of a song. All you need is a microphone and you will be able to connect to your favorite music, and to a community of people that share your musical interests. You can listen to other member’s voices, see pictures, rate singers, send messages and also buy music.

iJigg

iJigg is a online community that lets you comment on music and share songs. You can rate music and influence what becomes popular, as well as upload your own music to share it with the community and make new fans. You will need to decide whether to open a “listener” or “artist” account, which will give you access to different features (e.g. listeners can download free mp3 of their favorite music, while artists can upload their own music).

Sellaband

Sellaband is a music social network that turns the fans and listeners of bands into their producers, asking them to invest in a band or artist they support so that they will be able to get a recording opportunity. Every single investor that supports a successful band will take home a small cut of the profits made by them. Artists not only get financial support but also share 50% of the ad revenue coming from the free downloads of their music.

What did we miss? Leave more suggestions in the comments.
http://mashable.com/2007/06/22/music-social-networks-2/





Swarmcast Offers Faster Way to Download iTunes

Privately held Swarmcast, which specializes in streaming video over Web connections, on Tuesday unveiled a new application to accelerate video downloads from Apple Inc.'s popular iTunes store.

Swarmcast said its technology can help a viewer download movies, music or television episodes to their computers up to 10 times faster than usual. Such technologies are viewed as key to help Internet media proliferate, by making it easier for viewers to access entertainment off the Internet.

Swarmcast's technology, called the Autobahn Accelerator for iTunes, uses what it calls multi-source streaming. Many downloads rely on a single computer server to deliver information over a network, raising the likelihood of delays, while this application pulls video from several servers simultaneously.

"This is all about being able to bring a cable or satellite television-type of experience to folks watching video over the Internet," said Swarmcast founder and Chief Executive Justin Chapweske.

Swarmcast is funded by Bridge Capital Fund and Nippon Venture Capital.
http://www.reuters.com/article/techn...45242920070619





Dutch Police Arrest 111 Over Suspected Internet Fraud

Police in Amsterdam arrested more than 100 West Africans Saturday as part of a seven month long investigation into Internet fraud, they said.

Spokeswoman Sita Koenders told AFP that 111 people were arrested for being in the Netherlands illegally and "now we must investigate in what way they are implicated in Internet fraud."

Eight of those arrested were carrying false papers and they have been prosecuted. The others were detained and then released unless there were any extra charges against them, the police said in a statement.

In October, Dutch police launched Operation Apollo to fight Internet fraud scams operated by West Africans and notably Nigerians.

The scams involve sending emails all over the world promising recipients quick financial gains from a make-believe inheritance or fictitious lottery wins in exchange for 'processing fees' of several thousand dollars.

Those who pay up never hear from the supposed organisations again nor see a penny of their promised windfall.

Since Operation Apollo began, police have arrested 80 suspects, most of them from Nigeria, and seized from their homes lists of email addresses, as well as fake documents.

Dutch police believe over 2,000 Internet fraudsters are active in the country.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070616...BVHra3AzwjtBAF





Swedes Revolt Against Online Snooping
Louise Nordstrom

Want to know how much your boss earns? Or whether your daughter's fiance is in debt? For Swedes, it takes just a few clicks on the Internet to find out.

But many feel the Web has taken things too far, and proud though they are of Sweden's unusual history of openness, they have pressured providers to put some limits on a service that allowed Swedes to snoop through each other's finances anonymously and free of charge.

"Your neighbor knows what you're making, your brother-in law knows what you're making, and people around you can know whether you're on any records for outstanding payments. It's private and a bit embarrassing," said Hans Karnlof, a lawyer at the Swedish Data Inspection Board.

Things came to a head in November when a Swedish Web site, Ratsit.se, started publishing financial details, free of charge, from the national tax authority. The site has some 610,000 registered users — in a country of 9 million — and handled an average of 50,000 online credit checks a day.

Regular credit check companies are required to notify those they check. But on Ratsit, anonymous snoops could uncover financial information simply by typing in a name and clicking "search."

Authorities said Sweden's transparency laws were being abused, and pressured Ratsit and similar Web sites to impose some restrictions.

Information on personal income and debt is still available, but now costs money — $21 for 10 requests a week, and $3.60 for each additional request. A more extensive report, including information on financial and property assets, costs $6.90 per search.

And there's no more anonymity; anyone whose finances are viewed will be notified by mail and told who asked.

Openness is ingrained in Swedish society — its freedom of information act dates to 1766. Today Swedes have unfettered access to almost all records that the state keeps on the population. Only some 10,000 people who live under some form of threat, are excluded from the public records.

"This type of access to financial information is in no way available in other countries like it is here," said Karnlof, the data board's lawyer. "Visitors we've had from Ireland and Germany, for example — their jaws just drop when they hear about it."

But until the Internet arrived, citizens had to visit the local tax office to ask about others' finances.

"There's a big difference between sitting hidden at home and being reasonably anonymous, and trotting off to the tax office and ... telling a person eye-to-eye whom you want to check," said Karolina Lassbo, a 27-year-old lawyer.

Lassbo said she used Ratsit once "because I wanted to see what it said about me." But her curiosity got the better of her: "Then I checked friends and celebrities."

"I do think our service is justified because things like wages should be transparent," said Ratsit's chief executive, Anders Johansson. Employers use it to check whether potential hires are in debt, he said, and "A lot of people use it to negotiate their pay."

Ratsit's service was made possible by a 2003 change in the law protecting media freedom, which allowed Web sites to get publishing rights. That enabled Ratsit to become one of Sweden's most popular Web sites, but also one of the most controversial.

The Data Inspection Board was inundated with complaints, "like an avalanche," said Karnlof.

Apart from the privacy issue, fears that the online openness would aid identity thieves also pushed the National Tax Board into action.

While the law obliges the board to give out tax information, it doesn't say in what form. So tax authorities simply threatened to supply the information on paper, instead of electronically, which would have forced credit checkers to scan millions of records.

To avoid the hassle, the companies agreed to the new restrictions on how the material is accessed.

Before the new rules kicked in a week ago, Ratsit's traffic nearly tripled to over 140,000 hits a day, said Johansson, the company boss.

Ratsit expects credit-snooping to fall off by half, but is offering new attractions, such as a "singles index" showing how many people in a particular zip code live alone. It plans to include phone numbers.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070617/...54KX66zPSOOrgF





Bloody Hard to Run a Forum in Sweden – Lawyer Speaks
Mikael Pawlo

(Mikael Pawlo is Associate, Advokatfirman Lindahl, working with Internet law issues for Aftonbladet Nya Medier.

In a recent ruling by the district court of Stockholm, the publisher of the Swedish daily Aftonbladet was found guilty of hate speech (http://www.theregus.com/content/6/24265.html) and sentenced to a conditional sentence and fines. An anonymous user in a moderated forum on the Aftonbladet web site uttered the hate speech.

It has been debated whether the speech was removed from the forum quickly enough or not, but that is an issue not dealt with in this case. According to the court the crime was committed immediately upon publication.

The legal situation in Sweden regarding freedom of speech on the Internet is ambiguous. According to the laws regulating freedom of speech, the publisher has a strict accountability for everything published in his paper. Only during extreme circumstances should the publisher escape accountability. When it comes to the Internet, the publisher of a web forum can be held accountable if he is a registered publisher and works for a media company.

All serious media companies in Sweden have a registered publisher for their Internet editions. In the popular debate, it is often argued that the accountability of the publisher should be different depending on whether moderation is made before or after the publication.

If the moderation is made after publication, the publisher should - according to this line of reasoning - never be held accountable for the speech published in the Internet forums. The law of freedom of expression does not deal with this particular issue, and while there are no precedents it is hard to tell with certainty what the law is. However, for commercial and ethical reasons, few serious publishers would run an un-moderated forum. Without moderation, the forums for a major publication like Aftonbladet would contain massive amount of hate speech.

Why is this a problem? Should not the publisher be accountable for the web edition in the same fashion he is responsible for the printed edition? You could argue that a responsible publisher should not publish irresponsible content, like hate speech. However, such an approach will carry some negative aspects. This will inevitably lead to a situation where the free speech aspects of the Internet are not embraced.

A publisher can easily edit five pieces submitted to an editorial or opinion section in a printed edition, but he can not possibly edit 5.000 pieces submitted to the same section online. At least not if he will be held strictly accountable for everything published.

Hence, this will lead to a more restrictive policy on what will be published on the Internet. The 5,000 pieces can not be published, since they need thorough editing. The debate among peers will die or move to other forums, not run by serious and established publishers. From an economical viewpoint, media companies aiming at a higher standard for their forums through moderation will not be able to run open forums in the same fashion non-media companies may. This will create asymmetries in the market place. It is a side issue, but the all companies running forums on the Internet should compete on the same terms, notwithstanding legal technicalities.

I do not think the district court ruling was wrong in legal terms. However, I think we need to consider the legal realities of Internet publication. Maybe the law needs to be changed in order to preserve freedom of speech on the Internet.

To me it makes sense to make every user responsible for his or her speech combined with notice and takedown legislation. This will ultimately lead to a situation where Internet anonymity can not be preserved. However, the publisher should only disclose the identity of a user in extreme cases of hate speech and other legally defined harmful content. The publisher should be held liable upon non-removal of hate speech upon notification.

Notice and takedown policies are very hard to deal with in practice. A publisher facing a notice and takedown challenge will in most cases remove the content in question in order to escape responsibility. However, a serious publisher can distinguish between non-contentious notices and unreasonable notices. If the media companies and their publishers are held accountable for everything published in their web forums we will soon face an Internet where the possibility of a widened debate has been seriously damaged by law. Let us grasp the uniqueness of the Internet before it is gone. The Internet is not a newspaper.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2002/03...y_hard_to_run/





Ohio Hires Expert To Review Data Theft
Matt Reed

The state has hired a computer security expert to determine the likelihood of someone getting access to the data on a stolen backup storage device, Gov. Ted Strickland said Sunday.

Matthew Curtin, the 34-year-old founder of Interhack Corp., will begin Monday reviewing what's already known is on the device, whose theft was revealed on Friday.

Also on Sunday, Strickland said the device contained the names and case numbers of the state's 84,000 welfare recipients, who face "a remote threat of identity theft," and the names and federal tax identification number of vendors that receive payroll deduction payments from the state — about 1,200 records. Sixteen of those records contain banking information, he said.

Previously, it was revealed the device contained the names and
Social Security numbers of all 64,000 state employees, as well as information about 53,797 people enrolled in the state's pharmacy benefits management program and the names and Social Security numbers of about 75,532 dependents.

Strickland again said that he has no reason to believe the information has been compromised because getting it requires special equipment and expertise.

The device was reported stolen along with a $200 radar detector out of the car of a 22-year-old intern with the state's Office of Management and Budget. The governor has issued an executive order to change the procedures for handling state data.

Strickland and Curtin said the analysis of what's on the device should be finished on Monday.

The State Highway Patrol also announced Sunday that a post office box had been established in Columbus in hopes that the storage device would be returned anonymously.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070618/...ZBYF9RsZ.OOrgF





World of e-Sports Braces for Sea Change
Rhee So-eui

His fingers flying under the glare of bright stadium lights, the young man in a silver-and-white space suit makes hundreds of female fans swoon with his every move -- by using a keyboard and a mouse.

Video-gamer Lee Yun-yeol, 22, is playing "StarCraft," earning big money as he attracts tens of thousands of rabid followers in South Korea, where millions also tune in to cable channels devoted to live tournaments, and top players have achieved sports star status.

But this world of "e-sports" and virtual heroes may soon undergo some profound changes, triggered by the very game that has built its success in the last decade.

Blizzard Entertainment, a unit of French media and telecoms group Vivendi, last month announced a much-awaited sequel to its real-time strategy game "StarCraft." While ordinary gamers greeted the news with excitement, professional players and industry officials expressed concerns.

"StarCraft II" keeps the original storyline about wars among three distinct species, set in a gritty sci-fi universe. But the sequel offers new eye-dazzling, three-dimensional graphics as well as changes in the gameplay strategies.

Pro gamers who have built up their state-of-art skills over the years may find their edge dissipated with the new version. Game channels and professional teams also face a tough choice over when -- or whether -- they should migrate to the sequel, and abandon the successful, still-dominant original.

"There's high expectation for 'StarCraft II,'" said Je Hun-ho, director at Korea e-Sports Association. "However, whether it can succeed as an e-sport is yet to be seen. Users will make that call."

Lee, one of the first generation of professional players who earns upwards of $200,000 a year in prizes and endorsements, is more optimistic.

"It will be so much fun," said Lee, who has been playing the original "StarCraft" in pro leagues for more than seven years. "It might be hard to get used to the new game at first, but it will certainly be a refreshing change for me."

Blizzard is keeping mum on the official launch of "StarCraft II," which went into development in 2003. But the company insists that the game will provide a deeper, more complex and challenging playing experience.

"It's impossible to master," Blizzard's president and co-founder, Mike Morhaime, said in a recent interview in Seoul.

New Titles Emerge

In professional video gaming, South Korea is well ahead of other countries in the areas of commercial profit and gaming skills. Early broadband penetration and the success of gaming TV channels played a crucial role, along with the popularity of "StarCraft."

The "StarCraft" series has sold more than 9.5 million copies worldwide since its debut in 1998 and has led the development of e-sports.

Although the nearly decade-old game's graphics are showing their age, its complex strategy, time pressures and relatively short match times have made it the No. 1 choice in televised leagues.

In South Korea gamers focus on speedy play. A match is often completed in half an hour, so spectators don't get bored. "StarCraft" is also favored by broadcasters because viewers can easily follow overall game progress.

Lured by marketing potential, top companies such as Samsung Electronics and SK Telecom sponsor gaming leagues and teams. Even the South Korean Air Force this year formed a team, led by one of their top players.

But the world of professional video games is a constantly changing landscape. The original "StarCraft's" fortune has been waning in recent years, particularly in the United States and Europe, with the rising popularity of shooting games such as "Counter-Strike."

Even in South Korea, racing game "Kart Rider," sports game "Free Style" and shooting titles such as "Special Force" and "Sudden Attack" are gaining popularity as e-sports.

Game developers are cooperating with booming Internet TV services to promote new titles in competitions, as Web TVs are keen to enter the profitable game broadcasting -- dominated by established cable channels like OnGameNet and MBC Game.

"'StarCraft II' will be a leader in growing e-sports," said Kim Sung-ho, producer at game channel MBC Game. "But there are many other games that can succeed as spectator e-sports and we will see the game world continue to diversify."
http://www.reuters.com/article/techn...13126220070615





Where the Arts Were Too Liberal
Michael Goldfarb

London

THIS is an obituary for a great American institution whose death was announced this week. After 155 years, Antioch College is closing.

Established in 1852 in Yellow Springs, Ohio, by the kind of free-thinking Christian group found only in the United States, Antioch College was egalitarian in the best tradition of American liberalism. The college’s motto, not in Latin or Greek but plain English, was coined by Horace Mann, its first president: “Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.”

For most of its history the institution lived up to that calling. It was one of the first coeducational colleges in the United States, and at a time when slavery was being practiced 70 miles to the south of its campus, it was one of the first colleges not to make a person’s race a factor in admission. It was also the first to appoint a woman as a full professor. All this happened before Lincoln became president.

Later Antioch would incorporate pragmatism, that most native of American philosophies, into its curriculum, balancing a student’s experience of learning inside the ivory tower with regular jobs off campus in the “real” world.

Yet it was in the high tide of liberal activism that the college lost its way. I know this firsthand, because I entered Antioch in the fall of 1968, just when the tide was nearing its peak. So much of the history of 1968 reflects an America in crisis, but if you were young and idealistic it was a time of unparalleled excitement. The 2,000 students at Antioch, living in a picture-pretty American village, provided a laboratory for various social experiments of the time.

With a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation, the college increased African-American enrollment to 25 percent in 1968, from virtually nil in previous years. The new students were recruited from the inner city. At around the same time, Antioch created coeducational residence halls, with no adult supervision. Sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll became the rule, as you might imagine, and there was enormous peer pressure to be involved in all of them. No member of the faculty or administration, and certainly none of the students, could guess what these sudden changes would mean. They were simply embraced in the spirit of the time.

I moved into this sociological petri dish from a well-to-do suburb. Within my first week I twice had guns drawn on me, once in fun and once in a state of drunken for real by a couple of ex-cons whom one of my classmates, in the interest of breaking down class barriers, had invited to live with her.

My roommate began the tortured process of coming out of the closet, first by pursuing women relentlessly and then accepting the truth and allowing himself to be pursued by men. He needed to talk all this out with himself when he came in each morning at 4 a.m., and in the face of his personal crisis, there was little I could do to assert my right to sleep. It was a mad, dangerous and painful time, but I do think I was made stronger for having to deal with these experiences.

Each semester, the college seemed to create a new program. “We need to take education to the people” became a mantra, and so satellite campuses began to sprout around the country. Something called Antioch University was created, and every faculty member whose marriage was going bad or who simply couldn’t hack living in a village of 3,000 people and longed for the city came up with a proposal to start a new campus.

“It was liberalism gone mad,” a former professor, Hannah Goldberg, once told me, and she was right. The college seemed to forget the pragmatism that had been a key to its ethos, and tried blindly to extend its mission beyond education to social reform. But there were too many new programs and too little cash reserve to deal with the inevitable growing pains.

For the increasingly vocal radical members of the community, change wasn’t going far enough or fast enough. They wanted revolution, but out there in the middle of the cornfields the only “bourgeois” thing to fight was Antioch College itself. The let’s-try-anything, free-thinking society of 1968 evolved into a catastrophic blend of legitimate paranoia (Nixon did keep enemies lists, and the F.B.I. did infiltrate campuses) and postadolescent melodrama. In 1973, a strike trashed the campus and effectively destroyed Antioch’s spirit of community. The next year, student enrollment was down by half.

Most of the talented faculty members began to leave for other institutions, and the few who were dedicated to rebuilding the Yellow Springs campus found themselves increasingly isolated. The college that gave the Antioch University system its name had become just another profit center in a larger enterprise and not even the most important one at that.

Antioch College became a rump where the most illiberal trends in education became entrenched. Since it is always easier to impose a conformist ethos on a small group than a large one, as the student body dwindled, free expression and freedom of thought were crushed under the weight of ultraliberal orthodoxy. By the 1990s the breadth of challenging ideas a student might encounter at Antioch had narrowed, and the college became a place not for education, but for indoctrination. Everyone was on the same page, a little to the left of The Nation in worldview.

Much of this conformist thinking focused on gender politics, and it culminated in the notorious sexual offense prevention policy. Enacted in 1993, the policy dictated that a person needed express permission for each stage in seduction. (“May I touch your breast?” “May I remove your bra?” And so on.) In two decades students went from being practitioners of free love to prisoners of gender. Antioch became like one of those Essene communities in the Judean desert in the first century after Christ that, convinced of their own purity, died out while waiting for a golden age that never came.

I grieve for the place with all the sadness, anger and self-reproach you feel when a loved one dies unnecessarily. I grieve for Antioch the way I grieve for the hope of 1968 washed away in a tide of self-inflated rhetoric, self-righteousness and self-indulgence.

The ideals of social justice and economic fairness we embraced then are still right and deeply American. The discipline to turn those ideals into realities was what Antioch, its community and the generation it led was lacking. I fear it still is.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/17/op...7goldfarb.html
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F.D.A. Tracked Poisoned Drugs, but Trail Went Cold in China
Walt Bogdanich

After a drug ingredient from China killed dozens of Haitian children a decade ago, a senior American health official sent a cable to her investigators: find out who made the poisonous ingredient and why a state-owned company in China exported it as safe, pharmaceutical-grade glycerin.

The Chinese were of little help. Requests to find the manufacturer were ignored. Business records were withheld or destroyed.

The Americans had reason for alarm. “The U.S. imports a lot of Chinese glycerin and it is used in ingested products such as toothpaste,” Mary K. Pendergast, then deputy commissioner for the Food and Drug Administration, wrote on Oct. 27, 1997. Learning how diethylene glycol, a syrupy poison used in some antifreeze, ended up in Haitian fever medicine might “prevent this tragedy from happening again,” she wrote.

The F.D.A.’s mission ultimately failed. By the time an F.D.A. agent visited the suspected manufacturer, the plant was shut down and Chinese companies said they bore no responsibility for the mass poisoning.

Ten years later it happened again, this time in Panama. Chinese-made diethylene glycol, masquerading as its more expensive chemical cousin glycerin, was mixed into medicine, killing at least 100 people there last year. And recently, Chinese toothpaste containing diethylene glycol was found in the United States and seven other countries, prompting tens of thousands of tubes to be recalled.

The F.D.A.’s efforts to investigate the Haiti poisonings, documented in internal F.D.A. memorandums obtained by The New York Times, demonstrate not only the intransigence of Chinese officials, but also the same regulatory failings that allowed a virtually identical poisoning to occur 10 years later. The cases further illustrate what happens when nations fail to police the global pipeline of pharmaceutical ingredients.

In Haiti and Panama, the poison was traced to Chinese chemical companies not certified to make pharmaceutical ingredients. State-owned exporters then shipped the toxic syrup to European traders, who resold it without identifying the previous owner — an attempt to keep buyers from bypassing them on future orders.

As a result, most of the buyers did not know that the ingredient came from China, known for producing counterfeit products, nor did they show much interest in finding out.

China itself was a victim of diethylene glycol poisoning last year when at least 18 people died after ingesting poisonous medicine made there. In the wake of the deaths, and reports of pet food and other products contaminated with dangerous ingredients from China, officials there announced that they would overhaul the regulation of food, drugs and chemicals.

Beyond the three incidents linked to Chinese diethylene glycol, there have been at least five other mass poisonings involving the mislabeled chemical in the past two decades — in Bangladesh, Nigeria, Argentina and twice in India.

“This problem keeps coming back,” said Dr. Joshua G. Schier, a toxicologist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And no wonder: the counterfeiters are rarely identified, much less prosecuted.

Finding a way to keep diethylene glycol out of medicine, particularly in developing countries, has confounded health officials for decades. “It is preventable and we have to figure out some way of stopping this from happening again,” said Carol Rubin, a senior C.D.C. official.

In a global economy, ingredients for drugs are often bought and sold many times in different countries, sometimes without proper paperwork, all of which increases the risk of fraud, the authorities say.

The Panama poison passed through five hands, the Haitian poison six. In both cases, the factory’s original certificate of analysis, attesting to the contents of the shipment and its provenance, did not accompany the product as it moved around the world.

“Where there is a loophole in the system, a frailty in the system, it’s the ability of an unscrupulous distributor to take industrial or technical material and pass it off as pharmaceutical grade,” said Kevin J. McGlue, a board member of the International Pharmaceutical Excipients Council.

Uncovering that deception can be difficult. “It’s impossible to get anyone to do the trace-backs,” said Dr. Michael L. Bennish, co-author of a 1995 medical journal article on a poisoning epidemic in Bangladesh.

One reason, Dr. Bennish said, is the clout of local manufacturers. “We tried to follow up as amateur Sherlocks, investigators, but you don’t go down to the wholesale market and ask questions,” he said. “You are going to get your fingers burnt.”

A Crisis in Haiti

By the end of June 1996, the F.D.A. knew it might have an international crisis on its hands. A poison had found its way into fever syrup in Haiti, and the F.D.A. wanted to know if more of the same might be heading to the United States or, for that matter, to any other country. But to learn that, the agency needed to find the manufacturer.

This was not just any poison. Virtually every young poisoning victim who showed up at the main hospital in Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital, died.

Labeled pharmaceutical-grade glycerin, the toxic syrup was mixed into thousands of bottles of fever medicine. For months, parents gave it to children, then watched them die, in agony, from kidney failure. No one suspected the medicine until much later.

Officially, at least 88 children died, nearly half under the age of 2. But those 88 were only the ones doctors remembered or for whom hospital records could be found.

The F.D.A. traced the poison to a German broker, Chemical Trading and Consulting, but the company’s records were not much help. “They cannot trace glycerine lots to their manufacturer,” David Pulham, an F.D.A. investigator, wrote on June 30, 1996.

Chemical Trading had arranged for a Dutch company, Vos B.V., to sell 72 barrels of the suspect syrup to Haiti, records show. The agency dispatched an investigator, Ann deMarco, who made an unsettling discovery: sitting in Vos’s warehouse near Rotterdam were 66 more barrels labeled glycerin, all containing lethal concentrations of diethylene glycol.

“Some of this second shipment has been sold,” Ms. deMarco wrote in a memorandum on July 4, 1996. Although the missing barrels had gone to an industrial user, not a drug maker, the F.D.A.’s worries grew.

Ms. deMarco learned that another broker, Metall-Chemie, a German trader, had arranged for Vos to buy the barrels from Sinochem International Chemicals Company, a giant exporter in Beijing owned by the Chinese government.

But Metall-Chemie also did not know the manufacturer, and one of its officials predicted that the F.D.A. would have trouble finding that out. “It is difficult to get any information from Chinese traders,” Ms. deMarco wrote.

More complete shipping records would have identified who made the poison. But in this case, records provided few clues.

“The original source of the material had been obliterated on documents and product containers,” Ms. deMarco wrote to senior F.D.A. officials. “One trader referred to this practice as ‘neutralization.’ I was advised that neutralization is a common practice among traders in order to protect their business interests.”

With no paper trail, American officials turned to Sinochem for help.

Initially, they took an indirect approach. In July 1996, the American Embassy in China contacted the company and asked for a list of Chinese glycerin makers, without saying that it was investigating the Haiti poisonings. Sinochem, however, “would not reveal the names of actual manufacturers in order to prevent the prospective foreign customer from bypassing Sinochem,” an embassy official reported to Washington.

In early August, American officials asked Sinochem representatives specifically about the origin of the Haiti poison. “They want to investigate further and were unable (or unwilling) to give the name of the manufacturer at this time,” the officials reported.

Federal investigators sought help from senior Chinese drug regulators, who promised to help find the manufacturer, but said it “will take time,” records show.

When another month passed without any word from either regulators or Sinochem, the embassy tried again. Chinese regulators said they had done nothing to find the factory, according to a confidential State Department telegram from September 1996.

Sinochem did finally offer the manufacturer’s name: the Tianhong Fine Chemicals Factory in the city of Dalian in northeastern China. But Sinochem “refused” to provide an address, saying it was illegible. A telephone number would have to suffice, it said.
That, too, was unproductive. When American investigators called the plant manager, Zhang Gang, they were told he was not available. Send a fax, they were told. That did not work either. “The phone was always busy,” investigators reported.

Finally, they got Mr. Zhang on the phone, but he, too, refused to give out his factory’s address. He said that tests had found no signs of diethylene glycol, adding that “there had been no cases in China of poisoning resulting from the ingestion” of glycerin contaminated by diethylene glycol, investigators wrote.

After months of trying to trace the poison to its source, United States investigators were at a dead end.

“The Chinese officials we contacted on this matter were all reluctant to become involved,” a State Department official wrote in late September 1996, saying that drug regulators and the plant manager had insisted on communicating only on the telephone “to avoid leaving a paper trail.”

He added, “We cannot be optimistic about our chances for success in tracking down the other possible glycerine shipments.”

The following May, Mr. Pulham, who was part of the original F.D.A. investigative team in Haiti, tried to revive the investigation. “Is it possible to block-list all Chinese pharmaceutical products until we gain cooperation?” he asked.

The suggestion went nowhere. Five months later, Ms. Pendergast of the F.D.A. wrote her memorandum, imploring investigators to keep digging.

“China is turning into one of the major bulk pharmaceutical producers in the world,” she wrote. “Unless they have an open, transparent and predictable system for dealing with problems and other countries, it is going to be rough sledding in the years ahead.”

On Nov. 17, 1997, federal investigators once again questioned Sinochem officials. They denied any wrongdoing, saying that two certificates of analysis showed that the suspect shipment was safe, pharmaceutical-grade syrup. But when the F.D.A. asked to see them, Sinochem refused.

“The officials were not willing to explain why they could not provide the copies,” an American official reported at the time.

Chen Liusuo, who handled the glycerin sales, strongly disputed the F.D.A.’s account. In an interview with The Times, Mr. Chen said Sinochem cooperated. “We gave them everything they wanted,” Mr. Chen said, adding that the agency was satisfied.

“The product we sold was glycerin,” he said. “It passed through three or four companies after us. To find the problem you need to look at every link in the supply chain.”

A Chinese government official familiar with the F.D.A.’s inquiries said the Americans’ frustration might have stemmed from their misunderstanding about who regulated chemical companies, which led them to seek help from the wrong officials. “This was a truly tragic event, and we expressed our sadness and sympathy,” said the official, who asked not to be identified.

At the end of 1997, a year and a half after the F.D.A. began tracing the poisonous shipments, one of its investigators, Ted Sze, finally got inside the Tianhong chemical plant in Dalian. But glycerin was no longer made there, and Mr. Sze had no records to inspect. The plant manager, Mr. Zhang, told investigators that he had received no complaints about his products and that his company had not produced the poison.

Mr. Sze, now retired from the F.D.A., said in an interview that he had no choice but to accept the manager’s word and clear the company of wrongdoing. “By the time I went there, the plant was already shut down,” he said. “The agency can only do so much.”

The Experts’ Recommendations

The United States may not have gotten what it wanted from China, but the Haiti crisis did bring together health groups to search for ways to stop diethylene glycol poisonings. At a workshop in Washington in February 1997, health experts recommended that certificates of analysis be improved to allow users to “trace the product back through every intermediary, broker and repackager to the original manufacturer.”

The workshop participants also called for better testing of drug ingredients and asked governments to tighten oversight of drug manufacturing.

The next year, the World Health Organization offered many of the same recommendations. And a 1998 article in JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association, warned that failure to strictly follow the guidelines could cause poisonings “even in countries where quality control procedures are usually strictly applied.”

Much of this had been said before, yet the poisonings have continued.

Just as the JAMA article was being published, three dozen children began dying of acute renal failure at two hospitals in Delhi, India. A local drug maker had unwittingly mixed diethylene glycol into acetaminophen syrup, much as the Haitian pharmacist had.

The drug maker was prosecuted, but according to interviews and government records no progress had been made in identifying the supplier of the poison.

“My experience as an investigator tells me that many of these things will not be proven,” said Dr. M. Venkateswarlu, the drug controller general of India.

Finding counterfeiters often means pursuing leads across foreign borders, and no international authority has the power to do that. Dr. Howard Zucker, who helps to oversee drug issues for the W.H.O., said individual countries must conduct their own trace-back investigations.

But if the United States could not do that on behalf of Haiti, poorer, less influential nations would have little chance of tracking down counterfeiters.

After the Haiti poisoning, a more accurate, less expensive test for diethylene glycol was developed, but last year’s case in Panama shows that suppliers and governments do not always use it.

And as long as counterfeiters do not fear prosecution, the poisonings are likely to continue, experts say.

Dr. Mohammed Hanif, a prominent physician in Dhaka, Bangladesh, said the foreign suppliers of diethylene glycol were never prosecuted for the deaths of thousands of children from 1982 to 1992. “The traumatizing memories of those days still torment me,” said Dr. Hanif, who wrote a paper about the deaths from toxic medicine.

In Argentina, a court official said no one had been prosecuted for supplying the diethylene glycol that ended up in a health supplement, killing 29 people in 1992.

David Mishael, a Miami lawyer, knows the difficulty of assigning blame in these deaths. For 10 years, Mr. Mishael has unsuccessfully pursued legal claims in the United States and Europe against European traders that helped to arrange the shipment of toxic syrup to Haiti. “You can imagine the cost,” said Mr. Mishael, who is representing Haitian parents whose children died from the fever medicine.

He said Dutch authorities assessed a $250,000 fine against Vos, which tested the counterfeit syrup, found it impure and did not alert anyone in Haiti. But given how many died, he called the size of the fine “a joke.” A lawyer who represents Vos, Jeffrey B. Shapiro, declined to comment.

A few children survived after being flown to the United States by humanitarian groups. One of them, Faika Jean, was 2 months old at the time and nearly died en route. Now 11, she has learning disabilities as a result of the poisoning, said her father, Wislin Jean.

Ms. Pendergast, now a private lawyer and consultant, said China had the most to answer for. “Everybody else is just reacting to initial failures,” she said. “It needs to take steps to protect not just its own consumers but also consumers all around the world.”

After The Times reported in May that the Panama poison had been made and exported by Chinese companies as 99.5 percent pure glycerin, Chinese regulators said they would reopen their investigation of the incident. Three weeks later, the officials acknowledged some “misconduct” in how Chinese companies labeled the toxic syrup.

But most of the blame, they said, rested with a Panamanian importer who changed the paperwork to make the syrup look safer than it actually was.

The F.D.A. disagrees, saying the deception began with Chinese companies falsely labeling a poisonous product glycerin. “If the drums had been 99.5 percent glycerin, the deaths in Panama would never have occurred,” the F.D.A. said in a statement.

A Dissatisfied Customer

The F.D.A.’s Haiti investigation never did find more counterfeit glycerin from China, despite a global hunt. But its concerns, it turns out, were not unfounded.

In 1995, the same year babies began to die in Haiti, 284 barrels of a chemical labeled glycerin arrived in New York on container ships. Although the chemical was not intended for use in drugs, it was labeled 98 percent pure. An official with the company that bought the barrels, Dastech International, of Great Neck, N.Y., would later say, “It smelled like glycerin, it looked like glycerin.” But after one of its customers complained, Dastech took a closer look.

Although the chemical was labeled 98 percent pure glycerin, Dastech said in court records that the syrup actually contained sugar compounds — as well as diethylene glycol.

The exporter was Sinochem. Claiming that it was fleeced, Dastech tried to get its money back from the broker who arranged the sale, court records show.

It never did.

Reporting was contributed by Jake Hooker from Beijing, Hari Kumar from New Delhi, Anand Giridharadas from Mumbai, and Julfikar Ali Manik from Dhaka, Bangladesh.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/17/health/17poison.html





In Latest Scare, China Finds Fake Veterinary Drugs
Ben Blanchard

Almost one-fifth of veterinary drugs tested in China in the first quarter were not up to standard, the Ministry of Agriculture said on Thursday, unveiling a long list of fake products.

Still, that one-fifth figure is a slight improvement over the same period of last year, the ministry said, putting a positive spin on the announcement.

"Although more of the veterinary drugs tested were up to scratch, there remains a problem with the illegal production and sale of fakes," it said in a statement posted on its Web site (www.agri.gov.cn).

"There is especially a glaring problem with underground dens selling fakes," the ministry added, vowing tougher action.

It published a five-page list of problem drugs it had found, saying some claimed to be made by companies that don't exist, some falsely claimed to have government approval, while others had been banned long ago.

Others were just undisguised fakes.

"We will keep taking proactive measures, striking hard against the illegal behavior of the production and sale of fake and shoddy veterinary drugs, raise standards and guarantee the safety of food made from animals," the ministry said.

Fresh scandals involving substandard food and medicines are reported by Chinese media almost every day, and the issue has burst into the international spotlight since tainted additives exported from China contaminated pet food in North America.

The Beijing Evening News said that a former official with the food and drug regulator, Cao Wenzhuang, had gone on trial charged with accepting 2.34 million yuan ($307,100) in bribes and dereliction of duty. He pleaded innocent.

Cao's former boss, watchdog head Zheng Xiaoyu, was sentenced to death in May for corruption. He has appealed.

The government has been trying to reassure consumers.

Earlier this week, the agriculture ministry said tests of fruit, vegetables, meat and fish in major cities showed that more than 95 percent of products were up to standard.

Yet it admitted to a few problems. Malachite green, a cancer-causing chemical used by fish farmers to kill parasites, was found in some samples, as were nitrofurans, an antibiotic also linked to cancer, the ministry said.

Public fears about food safety grew in China in 2004 when at least 13 babies died of malnutrition in Anhui after they were fed fake milk powder with no nutritional value.

($1=7.620 Yuan)
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsO...28277720070621





Asian Cinema, Swimming in Crime and Cuteness
Dave Kehr

HORROR is over, gangsters are losing ground, and the coming thing is camp comedy dressed up in electric pink.

At least those are a few conclusions that can be drawn from sampling this year’s edition of the New York Asian Film Festival, which begins Friday at the IFC Center in the West Village. (On July 5 the festival moves to Japan Society, where it will present several titles as part of the society’s “Japan Cuts: Festival of New Japanese Films.”)

Now in its sixth year, the scruffy, fan-fueled Asian Film Festival continues to serve as a reliable road map of the new directions in Asian popular cinema. Let the uptown art houses take the latest, made-for-export costume epics, like “Curse of the Golden Flower” or “House of Flying Daggers.” The Asian Film Festival, which seems to run largely on the energy of its chief programmer, the film journalist Grady Hendrix (with sponsorships this year from the video label Dragon Dynasty and Midway Games, among others), has little use for such elevated fare. The house specialty is the disreputable genre film, made for the Asian domestic market with a fast buck in mind.

Asian genre films of course have been building a steady following in the West ever since the Hong Kong cinema broke out of Chinatown theaters during the 1980s and introduced filmmakers like John Woo and Tsui Hark. In the years since, Hong Kong has faded as the primary supplier of popular entertainment in East Asia, done in by financial woes and the suspicions of Beijing, while South Korea has emerged as the epicenter of Asian pop culture, both in film and in music.

South Korea remains the primary creative force this year, although the genre that led its renaissance — the brooding, violent crime film — seems to be in serious decline. Even at last year’s festival the genre seemed to be achieving a classical fullness with Kim Jee-woon’s stylish and philosophical “Bittersweet Life,” starring the matinee idol Lee Byung-hun as a soulful enforcer right out of Jean-Pierre Melville. But this year’s crop betrays dissatisfaction with idealized gangster heroes and a distrust of the form’s romantic roots.

“Cruel Winter Blues,” a 2006 film by the newcomer Lee Jeong-beom, picks up a plotline that was used to different effect in Takeshi Kitano’s 1993 Japanese film “Sonatine.” Sol Kyung-gu, the star of one of the founding films of Korean crime cinema, Kang Woo-suk’s 2002 “Public Enemy,” returns, older but wiser, as a respected elder hoodlum who thinks of nothing more than murdering the man who killed his boyhood friend; he takes a younger mob recruit with him (Jo Han-seon) and sets out for the small southern town where his enemy’s mother lives, the plan being to integrate himself into the community and strike when his nemesis pays a visit. But these two refugees from Seoul are soon lulled by the rhythms of village life, to the point where they seem to have forgotten their reasons for being there. As in all self-respecting noirs, the past will not stay past, and they must eventually face up to the task at hand, leading to a finish that is more poignant than cathartic.

Song Kang-ho, the sad-sack comedian who saved Seoul from a mutant sea creature in “The Host,” brings his comic diffidence to the gangster spoof “The Show Must Go On,” directed by Han Jae-rim. In a story influenced by “The Sopranos” and “Analyze This,” Mr. Song plays a “wholesale produce distributor” whose real interests run to include nightclubs and strip bars. His business isn’t going so well, and neither is his marriage; his wife is threatening to leave him and to take their daughter along.

For a spell, the picture coasts along on the familiar, formula gag of juxtaposing humdrum reality with the powers and privileges of a gangster’s life, as in a nicely underplayed scene that finds Mr. Song’s character summoned for a parent-teacher conference. Told his daughter isn’t doing well, he stuffs a wad of bills in the teacher’s hand and tells him to “look out for her.” But the violence increases and the tone darkens, until there is very little comedy left in the lonely, desperate character Mr. Song has become.

If Korean gangsters are softening up, their Hong Kong counterparts are turning into feral killers, red in tooth and claw. One of the few Category 3 (adults only) films to be released in Hong Kong since its return to mainland control, “Dog Bite Dog” is a viciously Darwinian drama about a boy raised to be a street fighter in Cambodia who is smuggled into Hong Kong Harbor to carry out an assassination. The violence is not of the stylized, exhilarating variety pioneered by John Woo (whose 1992 “Hard Boiled” will have a special screening at the festival), but of the sticky, sweaty, close-up gore of the new breed of American horror films.

Asian films have mostly been free of the curse of self-consciousness that has now turned practically every American movie into a winking takeoff on itself (like the “Pirates of the Caribbean” pictures). But while Hong Kong has not yet succumbed to a camp sensibility (Johnnie To’s “Exiled,” which will receive one showing in the festival but is set to open theatrically in New York on Aug. 24, is absolutely straight, sincere, classically constructed and one of the best Asian films in years), South Korea and, with even greater enthusiasm, Japan, have thrown themselves into the postmodern cauldron of self-parody and scrambled styles.

Perhaps as a reaction to half a century of Japanese industrialized cuteness — the “Hello Kitty” empire is only the tip of a pink rhinestone iceberg — films like the Korean “Dasepo Naughty Girls” and the Japanese “Memories of Matsuko” turn sentimental sweetness back on itself, using digital technology to create coloring-book worlds filled with Disneyesque animated birds, Day-Glo environments that seem less real than a dollhouse and characters so saccharine that they make the French “Amélie” (clearly an inspiration for “Matsuko”) look like a Kubrick film.

Japanese horror, on its last legs since Hollywood raided its talent, receives a sardonic send-off in Sion Sono’s “Exte,” a curdled spoof that puts the genre’s curious obsession with long, limp black hair to its ultimate use: Death takes the form of evil hair extensions, infiltrating human bodies through open orifices and multiplying therein. Who else can confront this scourge but a plucky young hairdresser, played by “Kill Bill Vol. 1’s” Chiaki Kuriyama?

A self-conscious cuteness is also at the base of Park Chanwook’s “I’m a Cyborg but That’s O.K.,” this Korean director’s first film since “Lady Vengeance.” Mr. Park has put his revenge trilogy behind him (“Oldboy,” “Lady Vengeance,” “Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance”), and is starting on a new path with this wildly experimental, unclassifiable film.

Executed with Mr. Park’s usual attention to the tiniest details of visual style, it is a sort of “David and Lisa” story in which a suicidal young woman (Lim Su-jeong) whose ability to communicate with the vending machines she believes to be her fellow beings leads her to a mental institution. There she meets and, after much effort, opens herself up to a no-less-disturbed young man, a skinny kleptomaniac (the hugely successful pop singer Rain).

The actors are attractive, the rainbow colors abound, the other inmates reveal their lovable eccentricities, a magnificent score by Mr. Park’s regular composer, Jo Yeong-wook, swells in surround sound, and yet the film is no endearing fable of nonconformism like “King of Hearts” or “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” but something ambivalent and disquieting. Happiness, Mr. Park suggests, is only another way of filtering out reality — insanity with a smile — but no less essential for that.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/17/movies/17kehr.html





Police Smash Global Pedophile Ring

700 People Arrested; 31 Children Rescued

Police smashed a global Internet pedophile ring, rescuing 31 children and rounding up more than 700 suspects worldwide, authorities said Monday.

Some 200 suspects are based in Britain, the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Center said. The ring was traced to an Internet chat room called "Kids the Light of Our Lives" that featured images of children being subjected to horrific sexual abuse.

The investigation involves agencies from 35 countries and lasted 10 months.

The host of the Web site, Timothy David Martyn Cox, 27, of Buxhall, who used the online identity "Son of God," admitted to nine counts of possessing and distributing indecent images, authorities said.

After his arrest in September, authorities were able to infiltrate the chat room and collect evidence on the other members.
http://www.wsbtv.com/news/13519573/detail.html





Q&A: How Police Cracked Online Porn Ring

A technology expert explains how police broke up a global online porn ring—and why their methods should be a deterrent to future networks.
Ginanne Brownell

British police spent months infiltrating one of the world’s largest online child porn rings. They arrested its ringleader, Timothy Cox, at his Suffolk home last September, then assumed his online identity to gather evidence on the Web site’s members. Their global investigation—dubbed Operation Chandler—led them on a trail stretching from Australia to North America and Europe, netting over 700 suspects around the world and rescuing 31 abused children. Yesterday, they finally made the case public after Cox was convicted of distributing indecent images and sentenced to jail for an indeterminate period—meaning he will be incarcerated until he is no longer considered a threat to children.

Cox was the ringleader of a chat room called “Kids the Light of Our Lives,” which allowed users to trade and watch live images of children being abused through file sharing and video streaming. “No investigation has rescued so many young and vulnerable people from a group of hard-core pedophiles,” says Jim Gamble, who heads Britain’s Child Exploitation and Online Protection Center (CEOP). There have been several other indictments, including the jailing last week of a man from Manchester who will serve seven years for child rape and a British music teacher, jailed in April for persuading young girls to strip in front of Web cams. Bill Thompson, a technology expert who teaches courses in electronic media at London's City University, spoke to NEWSWEEK’s Ginanne Brownell about the technology that led to these arrests. Excerpts:

NEWSWEEK: How did police find this ring?
Bill Thompson: In 2005 the cops in Canada arrested someone in Edmonton. Following that they were able to infiltrate two chat rooms in the U.S. that were being used. They found out about Timothy Cox because he was part of that community of pedophiles. You often hear about how police can tap our e-mails and look at what sites we are visiting, but often they get a lucky break in one case and that leads them to other people. So this was human intelligence.

How did they find all the others who were involved?
Well from what we can understand by reading between the lines—the police do not, of course, want to give too much away—they arrested him when he was away from his computer; they then went to his home and logged on as him and pretended to be him for 10 days. They gathered IP addresses and whatever details they could get to allow them to trace back to the others. So what that implies to me is that what this guy had set up was a private chat room running on his computer—he was administering it. It was not a public Web site, it was a piece of chat-room software, so you needed to know it was there, you needed to know the IP address, you needed to know a username and password. It would not be indexed by Google or anyone like that, not visible to the outside world. And from hints in what the police were saying, I suspect that once people made contact they were not actually sharing files directly from the chat room, they were sharing files by using things like instant messaging file transfer, peer-to-peer programs, Skype. Nearly every interactive program from MSN or whatever allows you to move files around. What people would do was establish contact through his chat room and trade images. They have not said that, but it is a strong implication that that is what was going on.

How do people find these sites if they are password protected?
I suspect it is different for different people. Some people maybe go to Google and are searching for images and find stuff of younger and younger children. They eventually find a Web site which offers child abuse. There is an e-mail address, someone who will then check you out before letting you know the full details. And the checking out is that you have to have stuff to trade. So you provide images of child abuse to them, which is a criminal act, and then once you are into the site there will be levels of access, levels of privilege. You become more and more trusted over time. One of the great things about this sting operation is it will worry everyone. Because anyone who is in one of these communities now is going to say, “Well actually one of the people I am talking [to] could now be a police officer. Maybe I have actually made a mistake.” So it could well have a significant deterrent effect. It will stop people trading because they will no longer trust the people at the other end.

Is this the first time where the police did what they did—went on masquerading as a suspected perpetrator?
It is the first time I have heard about them doing this. That does not mean it is the first time it has been done. [The police] may have decided to go public as a strategy, a tactic. It is an obvious thing to do.

Did advances in technology on the Web have anything to do with this?
In this context, no. Nothing that was done on this operation could not have been done 10 or 12 years ago. What changed I suspect is that police now are more clued up on how to do it.

Is this going to make it trickier for pedophiles?
Yes, it will. Say I am interested in trading child abuse. Now I am going to look at ways for doing identity verification for the person on the other end of the line. So for example with Web cams, if I have been talking to you for six months and I ask you to come up on your Web cam and you won’t, I know there is a policeman there. You can imagine well-organized groups will start using technologies which will make it harder for police to take over someone’s identity. There will be more done on the part of these people to keep themselves more secret. That is unfortunate, but it also means it will be harder to [be] accepted into the circle. The end result should be fewer images being traded by fewer people—but then the hardened people who have been doing this for some time will be harder to track down.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19314724/site/newsweek/





Kid likes kiddie porn

Student Accused of Downloading Porn on School Computer
AP

A 16-year-old student at Morgan School has been charged with hacking the school's computer security systems and downloading child pornography.

Clinton, Conn. police said the illegal Internet activity was spotted and the student was caught as a result of continuing surveillance by technology administrators.

Police said the boy, whose name has not been released, admitted downloading a program he found on the Internet that allowed him to bypass the firewall that limits Internet activity at the school.

Police said the boy was caught by experts who were monitoring activity on the computer.

The school computer and a second computer seized at the student's home have been taken to the state police technology forensics laboratory for examination, police said.

The student has been released to his parents' custody and is charged with computer hacking and possession of child pornography.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...06-19-07-57-36





Police Struggle to Come Up With File-Sharing Countermeasures
Hiroomi Yamamoto and Hiroki Ando

The exposure of investigation information from a senior policeman's private personal computer highlights the fact that police countermeasures against such a risk have stayed one step behind the problem, which is caused by computer viruses affecting Winny file-swapping software.

As many police officers still copy confidential information onto their private PCs as reference data for work, the police are being pressed to review the way such information is controlled.

On Wednesday, when information emanating from a private PC owned by a 26-year-old senior policeman of Kitazawa Police Station was found to have been compromised, the Metropolitan Police Department held a meeting to discuss the problem.

At the meeting, senior officers from the organization's criminal investigation, organized crime, public safety and other departments reconfirmed that measures to prevent similar exposures should be thoroughly implemented.

In March last year, when cases surfaced in which police information was accidentally placed online due to Winny-affecting computer viruses, the MPD issued officers instructions signed by chiefs of the Administration Bureau and the Personnel and Training Bureau.

Officers were urged not to use their private PC to store investigation information; not to take work PCs out of the office without permission; and not to record investigation information using privately-owned recording media.

Simultaneously, the MPD made all officers submit written pledges saying they would not use PCs with Winny installed.

In March this year, the MPD reviewed the situation: Division bosses interviewed officers to confirm they had not used Winny on their private PCs, and officers submitted printouts of their PC screens to prove that Winny was not installed.

The MPD has repeatedly taken such measures.

However, in the latest case of information being compromised, it was found that in addition to the officer from Kitazawa Police Station, several of his superiors, including a 32-year-old sergeant--the officer's direct superior--had violated the internal rules.

A senior police investigator pointed out that the latest case was caused by police customs, saying "I've often distributed copies of my deposition of interviews with suspects to younger colleagues. As my superiors at the time praised my documents as quality work, I instructed younger police officers to use them for reference."

Police officers in their 20s who do not have a great deal of investigative experience look upon interview depositions and other documents written by long-serving senior colleagues as job manuals.

Within the police force, it has been customary for junior officers to receive such documents from senior colleagues, and to refer to them when preparing their own paperwork.

About 10,000 pieces of information, such as documents and graphics, were compromised by the officer in question, including records of interviews with suspects and procedural documents related to past crimes.

The pattern of the latest incident is almost identical with that of a recent case in which secret information on Aegis destroyers belonging to the Maritime Self-Defense Force was exposed. In this instance, data stored on a magneto optical disk, originally part of an internal document, were distributed to a large number of other SDF personnel.

A senior MPD official said, "The senior policeman in question may have used the data in the PC as reference for his work, or some other purpose."

To prevent information being compromised, the National Police Agency has developed software that automatically encodes data when it is copied onto a PC.

Data files made with police officers' government-issued PCs cannot be read by other PCs unless they have the encoding software installed. Thus investigation data cannot be copied onto any kind of media.

The NPA instructed police forces nationwide to introduce the software in April, and it is likely the project will be completed by the end of this fiscal year, which ends March 31.

However, not all police officers are given government-issued PCs. As of April 1, about 198,000 PCs were being used for police work nationwide, but about 26,000 of these were privately owned.

Though the number of private PCs in police-related workplaces has decreased by about 51,000 from last year, police sources said it will be the end of this fiscal year at the earliest before all police officers have government-issued PCs.

Problems in the latest case were compounded because by the senior policeman in question told his superior he had only one PC at home, when he actually had two.

A senior MPD official pointed out that the internal measures have limits saying: "The inspection is based on voluntary reporting. Because superiors don't visit the homes of all officers, we can't do anything if an officer lies."
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national...15TDY03004.htm





Focus of Video Games Shifts to Lure More Casual Players
Doreen Carvajal

Critics may fume about violent killer video games, but top manufacturers are starting to beat some of their swords into beauty tips.

By fall, software developers will start introducing offerings aimed at nudging players to bond with Grandma, balance their hormones and eat their peas.

Ubisoft, the French manufacturer known for its top-selling Rayman game and Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon, is betting on a vocabulary-building exercise game called My Word Coach.

Also in the works is My Life Coach, which will be packaged with a pedometer and a portable Nintendo DS player that analyzes walking and rewards exercise and a hearty breakfast with game play.

Konami, the Japanese manufacturer of rough-and-tumble sports titles like Pro Evolution Soccer, is poised to offer a beauty care guide on DS consoles. The game player dispenses customized advice based on the player’s basal body temperature and hormone balance.

Those steps reflect an intensifying effort to attract a global mass market for portable video games, which are expected to hit $10 billion in sales this year, according to DFC Intelligence, a game research company in San Diego.

The strategic shifts in the game industry come as critics and government authorities are growing impatient with violence in video games. The justice ministers of the European Union vowed last week to press for stricter regulations on the sale of “killer games” to children

“These companies are doing this not because they want to make a better world to live in,” said Simon Egenfeldt-Nielsen, an assistant professor with the Center for Computer Games Research in Denmark who recently founded his own company, Serious Games Interactive.

Nintendo, he said, has shown that there is room for growth in the market for casual gamers with its popular DS hand-held consoles, which are easily operated with a stylus, and its new Wii, which mixes video games, physical movement and human interaction. “Wii has had a huge impact and so has its game Brain Age, which basically showed all the game industry that you don’t have to have great graphics,” Mr. Egenfeldt-Nielsen said.

Some top manufacturers recently created special departments to chase after family players, even using their own mothers as testers, as one game developer, Igor Manceau, said.

“When my mother played our game she was fine and had fun,” said Mr. Manceau, who is developing My Word Coach for Ubisoft from the company’s Canadian studios in Montreal. “But she needed me there to go through the game and select each one. So we started to focus on accessibility after that.”

The casual market has largely been dominated by companies like PlayFirst, publisher of Diner Dash, and PopCap, which develops simple and addictive games like its popular Bejeweled puzzles.

But in recent weeks, the bigger manufacturers have started to demonstrate their interest, including Skype, which announced that it would soon start a casual games portal that would give game developers access to Skype’s two million registered users.

Electronic Arts, in Redwood City, Calif., was the latest game developer to move into casual gaming by hiring Kathy Vrabeck, former president of Activision’s publishing unit, to head a newly created division, EA Casual Entertainment.

“With the creation of this new division you’ll be seeing and hearing a lot more about lighter entertainment forms for families,” said Tiffany Steckler, a spokeswoman for Electronic Arts in Europe. In Japan next month, the company, known for its FIFA soccer games, is introducing a wine guide game for DS players called Sommelier, part of a series that will include Sake and Bartender.

The company is also planning to bring out in August a karaoke-style game, called Boogie, for Wii players. The game allows users to sing and dance along with cartoon characters.

Some game developers are braced for a reaction from hard-core gamers who are already worrying in blog postings about whether their interests will be eclipsed by mass market forces. “It’s not about moving from our core franchises,” Ms. Steckler said. “This is about continuing to bring these franchises along and adding others.”

But clearly, game developers are desperate to reach out to those teaming masses. Ubisoft has been testing its new easy-play games in special labs in France and Canada after conducting hundreds of interviews to determine why some people were reluctant to play video games.

“The reason was always the same,” said Pauline Jacquey, who was recently named by Ubisoft to head the company’s new casual games division. “They thought they were losing their time because the game didn’t give them any value.”

As a result of the research, Ubisoft began exploring games with a purpose. My Life Coach, developed with a behaviorist, will advise players on nutrition and antismoking strategies without being judgmental, executives say.

Ubisoft’s goal is to double sales in the category to 20 percent of the company’s annual revenue, which amounted to more than $900 million last year.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/18/te...y/18games.html





Foundation With Real Money Ventures Into Virtual World
Stephanie Strom

For the first time, one of the nation’s largest foundations is venturing into virtual worlds to play host to activities and discussions and explore the role that philanthropy might play there.

The foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, is sponsoring events in Second Life, the online world.

The goals are to gain insight into how virtual worlds are used by young people, to introduce the foundation to an audience that may have little exposure to institutional philanthropy and to take part in and stimulate discussions about the real-world issues that it seeks to address.

“This is not just some fad or something new and interesting that we’ve grabbed onto,” said Jonathan Fanton, MacArthur’s president. “Serious conversations take place there, people are deeply engaged, and that led us to think that maybe a major foundation ought to have a presence in the virtual world as well.”

Second Life says it has more than seven million members, about one-third of them Americans. Each member uses a virtual self, known as an avatar, to navigate the virtual world.

The MacArthur foundation, perhaps best known for the so-called genius grants it hands out each year, has given the Center on Public Diplomacy of the University of Southern California $550,000 to stage events in Second Life, including discussions of how foundations can address issues like migration and education.

In one such event today, Mr. Fanton, whose avatar in Second Life is known as Jonathan MacFound, is going to discuss the role of philanthropy in virtual worlds with Philip Rosedale, the founder and chief executive of Linden Labs, the company that produces Second Life.

In an interview, Mr. Fanton said MacArthur planned to eventually open an office in a virtual world and make grants through it that will become actual grants in the real world. “We’re still figuring out how to do that,” he said. “All of this is a learning experience.”

Mr. Rosedale said making grants in the virtual world offered a way for foundations to explore concepts and develop programs before rolling them out. “You can start things very cheaply in Second Life, play with them and let them germinate, and then put more behind them if and when they take off,” he said.

Charities and other nonprofit groups are also beginning to migrate into the so-called metaverse, seeking ways of attracting new donors and hoping to educate a broader audience about the issues they address.

Adventure Ecology, a British group, staged a virtual flood in Second Life to show what global warming might bring, and a psychiatry professor at the University of California, Davis, created a way for his students to experience in Second Life what a person with schizophrenic hallucinations experiences.

“It’s a wonderful awareness-building tool,” said Beth Kanter, a nonprofit consultant. “You can walk someone through an experience there or sit down with them to discuss the work you’re doing in a way that you can’t in the real world or on the Web.”

The American Cancer Society has had success in raising real money with virtual walkathons in Second Life. Randal Moss, the society’s manager of innovation-based strategies and futurist, established an avatar in Second Life in 2004 — “It looks pretty much like me, maybe a little bit more muscular, with a little better haircut,” he said — and quickly noted that another avatar, named Jade Lily, was holding a silent auction to raise money for a charity.

His avatar, R. C. Mars, talked to Jade Lily and persuaded her to head a virtual Relay for Life, as the cancer society’s walkathons are known. A few hundred avatars did that walk in 2005, raising $5,000. This year’s walk has raised $82,000 at a cost of $4,200 — and it will not take place until the end of next month.

The benefits go beyond dollars. “We benefit by increasing brand awareness,” Mr. Moss said. “We’ve opened an office in Second Life, and through that, we will provide health information, link back to our Web site and provide space for community-based support groups to meet.”

More than 30 nonprofits have opened offices in a virtual business incubator in Second Life called the Nonprofit Commons that is operated by TechSoup, a group that helps other nonprofits with technology.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/22/us/22virtual.html





During Intermission, Cellphones Are Brandished in a Promotion
Andrew Adam Newman

Typically you are told to turn off your cellphone before a performance. But at a recent Saturday matinee of “Spring Awakening,” the Broadway musical that garnered eight Tony Awards last week, the audience was told to do just the opposite.

“Win Your Chance to Come Backstage!” said a flier inserted into the Playbill, which encouraged theatergoers to send the text message “bdway spring” to a five-digit number before the end of intermission.

After the show, Becky Mitchell, 18, received a text message that she had won, and she bounded onto the stage with Alyssa Navia, 19, a friend from Boston College, where both are freshmen. “This is my first Broadway show,” said Ms. Mitchell, who wore a rugby shirt and Ugg boots. “This is fantastic.”

The production’s company manager, John E. Gendron, showed them the trapdoors in the stage from which, only minutes before, two actors had risen from a dry-ice ground fog.

But what the play’s producers hope to make magically appear in the future are audiences. At the performance, 62 people sent text messages, which included their telephone numbers and e-mail addresses, in hopes of winning the contest. All of their information went into a database that will be used to pitch Broadway tickets and other promotions.

In exchange, contestants were sent a ring tone of a popular song in “Spring Awakening” and a photograph from the show to use as wallpaper on their phones. Both of the souvenirs are potential conversation starters with friends, whom the producers think of as would-be ticket buyers.

“Those are numbers talking to numbers talking to numbers,” said Damian Bazadona, president of Situation Marketing, who is working with the producers and the owner of the theater, Jujamcyn Theaters, on the pilot program. “A year or two years down the road, that’s how you’re talking to markets.”

Americans sent 18.7 billion text messages in December 2006, nearly double the 9.7 billion that were sent the previous December, according to CTIA, a wireless industry trade group. While various companies have tried to beat a path from consumers’ phones to their wallets, theater promoters, weary of phones ringing infuriatingly during denouements, have held back.

Until now.

“There’s a tendency for Broadway not to be an early adopter, but that’s changing,” said Jordan Roth, vice president of Jujamcyn, which owns five theaters in New York, including the Eugene O’Neill Theater, where “Spring Awakening” is being staged. “Most producers now are really looking for new ways to communicate with our audience.”

The musical’s producers are sharing data with Jujamcyn, which is signing up participants for Broadway Phone, its wireless service for ticket deals and show information. Since the production draws young audiences with its themes of adolescent angst, it was chosen for the maiden cellphone effort. “But our goal is to expand what we’re doing to many shows,” Mr. Roth said.

As for whether this will result in more ringing during performances, Mr. Roth said that it has not been a problem, but that the promotion might not suit every production. “Will it interfere with the show?” he said. “Yeah, that is one of the things that is open for discussion.”

About 8.5 percent of audience members have been sending text messages in the 14 contests that the production has done so far, but organizers expect participation to reach 10 percent.

For a similar promotion with a tour of the rock-oriented theatrical production Blue Man Group, an average of 16 percent of audience members sent text messages, Mr. Bazadona said.

In a tour that covered 60 cities in 90 days, about 50,000 people sent text messages. “This means that each night, 16 percent of the house is leaving the theater with Blue Man Group somehow represented on their mobile phone,” Mr. Bazadona said.

At the Eugene O’Neill Theater that afternoon, the two students were enjoying their behind-the-scenes access when Stephen Spinella, who plays several characters in the musical, strode onto the stage on his way out of the theater. He asked Ms. Mitchell what she had done to win the contest.

“I texted,” she replied. “One of my favorite things.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/18/bu...18theater.html





The Fine Print

While shopping for 78 records I came across one of the Victor Talking Machine Co. discs. This particular record was just another recording of Ave Maria, a single-side printing which, according to this page, was manufactured before 1909.

What caught my attention was the disclaimer on the back. There has been plenty of criticism of the record companies, under the flag of the RIAA, using numerous tactics that border on criminal to maintain their grip on anyone who listens to music. Most prevalent is the ongoing attempts to sue online music traders ("pirates") and get as much money out of them as possible without actually letting the courts get involved.

Only recently have some of these lawsuits actually proceeded into the courts, and I think to date the record companies have yet to win any of them. Anyone not familiar with the recent history of events is invited the peruse through Recording Industry vs. The People.

But don't get me wrong, the laws against copyright violations are indeed on the books. This is the probably the only situation in my lifetime where there's been a real reason to bring jury nullification back. While I'm sure my colleagues and friends would denounce their association with me if I were to walk out of a convenience store with a lifted pack of gum, not a single one of these people would hesitate to ask me to copy a song for them.

After all it was just pushed into their home via radio waves, and they have the right to record this song for their own personal use, so why can't they copy it from someone else? It appears that a significant portion of the population doesn't see anything wrong with copying music, and I have a feeling that we're just around the corner from a paradigm shift in the way copyrights are handled.

But enough of this, back to the particular Victor record.

The old Victor records had a label on the back of them stating the terms of usage. After all, you don't own the record you just paid for, you simply have a license to use it.

The label defines a price for this particular record - one dollar. I saw some similar records for sixty cents, but I purchased a record labeled one dollar. Using an inflation calculator we see that this record would cost $21.65 in 2006 (assuming the record was punched in 1906, 1907, or 1909). That's $22 for a single song.

But I didn't pay $22 for this record; I didn't even pay $1! But that's fine, it's old, scratched, and certainly not worth used what it was worth new.

Here's where it gets interesting. According to this sticker on the back of the record, "No license is granted to use this record when sold at a less price." So I purchased this record, but I do not have a license to play it. "All rights revert to the undersigned in the event of any violation."

The label doesn't provide any information on what I'm supposed to do with an unlicensed copy of Ave Maria. I could contact the Victor Record Company, but they sold assets to RCA, which was acquired by General Electric, which was sold to BMG, which merged with Sony. So do I contact Sony and inform them I have an unlicensed copy of Ave Maria? I'm sure they'd tell me to delete the mp3 off of my hard drive.

However, admitting I have an unlicensed copy of a record will certainly put me at risk of a lawsuit. Then I'd have to find an "expert" to testify in court that the unlicensed track is indeed embdded into this molded piece of plastic, and not stored on a hard drive. They'd probably drag the case through court, scour my hard drive, then drop the lawsuit and sue the antique junk store that sold me the record. After all, they were distributing unlicensed copies of music, which is clearly in violation of the law. "Any sale or use of this record in violation of any of these conditions will be considered as an infringement of our United States patents (...) and any parties so selling or using this record, or any copy thereof, contrary to the terms of this license, will be treated as infringers of said patents, and will render themselves liable to suit.
http://www.natch.net/stuff/78_license/





Piracy Beyond P2P: One-Click Hosters

Sicko, Hostel 2, the new Fantastic Four flick: You can get all those summer blockbusters via BitTorrent. Of course, there is a small chance that you actually might get in trouble for doing so, which is why more and more people turn to so-called “one-click” hosting sites instead, where all these movies are readily available for download as well.

One-click hosting has become a huge business during the last few years. The two market leaders RapidShare.com and Megaupload.com claim to each transfer more than a hundred terabyte of data every single day. Rights holders are slowly waking up to this trend — and suddenly realize that this is the cruel revenge of the market place for their file-sharing lawsuits.

Most one-click hosters have a fairly simple business model: They allow their users to upload a file without prior registration. Users in return get a link that they can forward to their friends or publish on their own website. Downloaders have to click through to the hosting website to access the file.

Paying members get access to the files they want right away, all other users have to wait in line. RapidShare makes its users wait up to a few hours until they can access their next download. This experience can be so time-consuming and frustrating that you would think no one in their right mind would use services like this. Or, as FON founder Martin Varsavsky recently put it:
“I have had a hard time understanding the massive popularity of these sites as they are much harder to use than Azureus. If anything they show that while people are not willing to pay for video content in iTunes or in cash, they seem to have not problem in paying for it in sweat.”

And in sweat they pay: Megaupload, RapidShare & Co. are hugely popular. The admittedly not too accurate Alexa index lists them as number 13 and 18 of the most popular sites on the web. Megaupload claims to have 1.5 million unique visitors per day. A RapidShare spokesperson told me that their site transfers a couple hundred terabytes of data on a daily basis. The company claims to have 1500 terabytes of hard disk space and 110 gigabits connectivity available for their customers.

There is also a huge ecosystem around each of the bigger one-click hosters. Indexing sites like Link.io list thousands of videos, applications, magazines and other files. There are tons of specialized tools and download managers available as well. Some are officially sanctioned by the hosters, others are meant to circumvent the restrictions imposed on free accounts. There are even some bizarre websites that offer paid accounts to make better use of your free RapidShare account.
http://newteevee.com/2007/06/17/one-click-hosters/





Steal This Film II Wants You

While sequels are all the rage in Hollywood, online file sharing, erm, not so much. So reactions in Tinseltown might be, how shall I say, ‘mixed’ when the new sequel to file sharing documentary Steal This Film (Google Video) is eventually released.

In the meantime, the producers are asking fans to join the League of Noble Peers and capture their own “15 frames of fame” by contributing video statements:

Express yourself to the full extent of your capabilities, using costume, mask or avatar, from Second Life or ‘real’ life, whether you’re young or old, drunk or sober — you are a Peer and we want to hear from you.

My contribution will be to suggest that they rename the project for release to Steal This Film II: Electric Boogaloo, but I digress. The sequel will include star turns from the likes of Mininova’s Erik, The Pirate Bay’s Brokep and Bram “BitTorrent” Cohen himself according to Ernesto at Torrentfreak.
http://newteevee.com/2007/06/07/stea...you/#more-1368





France Bans Blackberry Use by Officials

Government fears U.S. snooping, threat to state secrets

Blackberry handhelds have been called addictive, invasive, wonderful — and now a threat to French state secrets.

French government security experts have reportedly banned — with mixed success — the use of BlackBerries in ministries and in the presidential palace -- for fear that they are vulnerable to snooping by U.S. intelligence.

“The risks of interception are real. It is economic war,” daily Le Monde quoted Alain Juillet, in charge of economic intelligence for the government, as saying. With BlackBerries, there is “a problem with the protection of information,” he said.

Juillet’s office confirmed that he spoke to Le Monde but said he would not talk to other reporters. Officials at the presidential Elysee Palace and the prime minister’s office were not immediately available for comment.

Le Monde said information sent from BlackBerries goes through servers in the United States and Britain, and that France fears that the U.S. National Security Agency can snoop.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19330478/





Appeals Court Says Feds Need Warrants to Search E-Mail
Luke O'Brien

A federal appeals court on Monday issued a landmark decision (.pdf) that holds that e-mail has similar constitutional privacy protections as telephone communications, meaning that federal investigators who search and seize emails without obtaining probable cause warrants will now have to do so.

"This decision is of inestimable importance in a world where most of us have webmail accounts," said Kevin Bankston, a staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

The ruling by the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Ohio upheld a lower court ruling that placed a temporary injunction on e-mail searches in a fraud investigation against Steven Warshak, who runs a supplements company best known for a male enhancement product called Enzyte. Warshak hawks Enzyte using "Smiling Bob" ads that have gained some notoriety.

The case boiled down to a Fourth Amendment argument, in which Warshak contended that the government overstepped its constitutional reach when it demanded e-mail records from his internet service providers. Under the 1986 federal Stored Communications Act (SCA), the government has regularly obtained e-mail from third parties without getting warrants and without letting targets of an investigation know (ergo, no opportunity to contest).

But a district court held that the SCA violates the Fourth Amendment by allowing the feds to secretly seize e-mail without probable cause warrants. Under the SCA, the government is required to get warrants for any e-mails that have been stored on third-party servers for less than 180 days. (the SCA came into effect long before the days of eternal Gmail storage.) After that, it can use an administrative subpoena or a different court order, provided it notified the target of the investigation. (the feds missed their legally mandated deadline for notifying Warshak by nearly a year.) To make matters more complicated, the government argued that the definition of "electronic storage" in the statute meant the feds only needed warrants when e-mail had yet to be opened or downloaded.

"The DOJ reading of the statue in practical terms is that any e-mail you have opened it can obtain without a warrant," Bankston said. But the district court ruled that the Fourth Amendment holds otherwise. And the appellate court affirmed the lower court's decision, agreeing that e-mail users have a reasonable expectation of privacy, regardless of how old their correspondence is and where it is stored. From the decision:

"In considering the factors for a preliminary injunction, the district court reasoned that e-mails held by an ISP were roughly analogous to sealed letters, in which the sender maintains an expectation of privacy. This privacy interest requires that law enforcement officials warrant, based on a showing of probable cause, as a prerequisite to a search of the e-mails."

To reach its decision, the court relied on two amici curiae that presented compelling arguments for shoring up current privacy law with respect to e-mail. Both the Electronic Frontier Foundation (together with the ACLU and the Center for Democracy and Technology) and a coalition of internet law professors argued that e-mail is a vital form of communication in today's world and its privacy must be safeguarded under the constitution lest society's ability to engage in unfettered debate and discussion be eroded.

From the EFF amicus brief (.pdf):

"This case must be considered in the context of one overriding fact: millions of Americans use email every day for practically every type of personal business. Private messages and conversations that once would have been communicated via postal mail or telephone now occur through email, the most popular mode of Internet communication. Love letters, family photos, requests for (and offerings of) personal advice, personal financial documents, trade secrets, privileged legal and medical information—all are exchanged over email, and often stored with email providers after they are sent or received. These myriad private uses of email demonstrate society’s expectation that the personal emails sent and received over the Internet and stored with email providers are as private as a sealed letter, a telephone call, or even papers that are kept in the home."

From the internet professors' brief:

"E-mail has become so indispensable that it must be reasonable for us to expect that it is private. One who looks at our e-mails obtains a detailed view into our innermost thoughts; no previous mode of surveillance exposes more. When we compose private and professional e-mails, embed links to Internet sites in some, and attach documents, pictures, sound files and videos to others, we rely on the privacy of the medium. Society does not make us rely at our peril but rather accepts as reasonable our expectations of privacy in e-mail."

Because of the secrecy in which SCA investigations have been conducted, it's impossible to say how widespread this kind of government snooping into e-mail has been. "We don't know how often [it's happened]," said Susan Freiwald, a law professor at the University of San Francisco who submitted one of the briefs. "The only way to find this out is if the ISPs told us or the government told us. The information is not reported to Congress."

Bankston suggested that the practice was widespread: "It is absolutely routine. It is and has been the Department of Justice and presumably local law enforcement's standard practice for obtaining e-mails over the last 20 years."

There have been no previous constitutional challenges of the SCA, likely because ISPs don't want to cause trouble and targets of investigations don't know that their e-mail is being read. "This demonstrates the importance of judicial review," Freiwald said. "You don't ask an agency to set its own governing rules."
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/200...s_court_s.html





White House Aides' E-Mail Records Gone
Charles Babington

E-mail records are missing for 51 of the 88 White House officials who had electronic message accounts with the Republican National Committee, the House Oversight Committee said Monday.

The Bush administration may have committed "extensive" violations of a law requiring that certain records be preserved, said the committee's Democratic chairman, adding that the panel will deepen its probe into the use of political e-mail accounts.

The committee's interim report said the number of White House officials who had RNC e-mail accounts, and the number of messages they sent and received, were more extensive than previously realized.

The administration has said that about 50 White House officials had RNC e-mail accounts during Bush's presidency. But the House committee found at least 88.

The RNC has preserved e-mails from some of the heaviest users, including 140,216 messages sent or received by Bush's top political adviser in the White House, Karl Rove. However, "the RNC has preserved no e-mails for 51 officials," said the interim report, issued by committee chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif.

The 51 include Ken Mehlman, a former White House political director who reportedly used his RNC account frequently, the report said.

"Given the heavy reliance by White House officials on RNC e-mail accounts, the high rank of the White House officials involved, and the large quantity of missing e-mails," the report said, "the potential violation of the Presidential Records Act may be extensive."

Republicans said there is no evidence that the law was violated or that the missing e-mails were of a government rather than political nature.

The records act requires presidents to assure that "the activities, deliberations, decisions, and policies that reflect the performance" of their duties are "adequately documented ... and maintained," the report said.

White House press secretary Tony Snow told reporters he would not "respond specifically" to the committee's findings but said the RNC e-mail accounts "were designed precisely to avoid Hatch Act violations that prohibit the use of government assets for certain political activities." He added, "the RNC has had an e-mail preservation policy for White House staffers."

Congressional Democrats are investigating whether White House officials used RNC e-mail accounts to conduct overtly political, and perhaps improper, activities such as planning which U.S. prosecutors to fire and preparing partisan briefings for employees in federal agencies.

Waxman's committee is contacting numerous federal agencies to determine whether their records "contain some of the White House e-mails that have been destroyed by the RNC," the report said.

In a statement, Waxman said the panel's findings "should be a matter of grave concern for anyone who values open government." He said the committee will investigate "who knew about the violations of the Presidential Records Act, why they did not act earlier, and what e-mails can be salvaged from RNC, White House, and agency computer systems."

The committee's top Republican, Tom Davis of Virginia, criticized the report, saying the panel should obtain more conclusive evidence before accusing the RNC and White House of wrongdoing. The evidence thus far, he said, "simply does not support the report's breathless conclusions."

Tracey Schmitt, a spokeswoman for the RNC, said the report appears to present Democrats' partisan spin as fact.

"Not only have we been clear that we are continuing our efforts to search for e-mails, but there is no basis for an assumption that any e-mail not already found would be of an official nature," she said.

The report especially criticized Alberto Gonzales, now the attorney general, for actions when he headed the White House Counsel's office. There is evidence that under Gonzales the office "may have known that White House officials were using RNC e-mail accounts for official business, but took no action to preserve these presidential records," the report said.

Snow said of the claim: "That's an allegation. We'll respond to it in due course."

The report said the House committee may need to issue subpoenas "to obtain the cooperation of the Bush Cheney '04 campaign." It said the campaign acknowledges providing e-mail accounts "to 11 White House officials, but the campaign has unjustifiably refused to provide the committee with basic information about these accounts, such as the identity of the White House officials and the number of e-mails that have been preserved.

Eric Kuwana, the Bush-Cheney campaign's counsel, said the requested documents "have no articulated connection" to the panel's investigation "and very well may be the type and nature of political documents that are specifically exempt from the Presidential Records Act."

The House committee report said Rove's RNC e-mail account carried 75,374 messages to or from people with government, or .gov, accounts. It said the RNC has preserved 66,018 e-mails sent to or from former White House political affairs director Sara Taylor, and 35,198 sent to or from deputy director Scott Jennings.

"These e-mail accounts were used by White House officials for official purposes, such as communicating with federal agencies about federal appointments and policies," the report said.

It said the White House counsel in early 2001 "issued clear written policies" instructing staffers "to use only the official White House e-mail system for official communications and to retain any official e-mails they received on a nongovernmental account." Recent evidence "indicates that White House officials used their RNC e-mail accounts in a manner that circumvented these requirements," the report said.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...061800876.html





How to Lose the P2P Race
p2pnet.net news

"P2P (peer-to-peer) video only accounts for about 10% of file swapping right now, but it's growing at triple-digit rates," says Eric Garland.

Quoted in by Investors.com, he's the ceo web tracking research firm Big Champagne and, "more than 9 million people log on to a P2P network worldwide each day, and that grows each year despite intense efforts by the entertainment industry to shut down the ones that operate illegally," the story has him saying.

It goes on, "it's going to get even tougher to stop the flow. In addition to P2P networks, numerous Web sites have surfaced that offer enough video content to fill a movie rental store.

"These Web sites essentially are search engines like Google, but focused on video. They don't host the content but provide an Internet link that connects users to wherever the content is located, on a central server or someone's personal computer."

Investors.com also says according to "analysts," the corpulent entertainment industry, "will never be able to stop to flow of unauthorized copyrighted content across the Web" and, "Rather than trying to stanch the flow, the entertainment industry should do a better job at cashing in on the trend, they say.

"You can throw a police force at it, but it will still exist," says Stan Rogow, "a producer and writer with a string of Hollywood shows and movies to his credit," adding:

"It's just a new method of distribution."

Hoisting their non-Broadcast Flags

The entertainment cartels claim they have hundreds of sites distributing 'legal' music and movies. In fact, there's only a handful, and not one of them is successful.

iTunes is going great guns! - you say. But in truth, compared to what's happening in the real, independent online world, iTunes doesn't even register.

There is, however, an ever-increasing number of brand new sites going online, thanks to the efforts of independent innovators and creators hoisting non-Broadcast Flags.

MyBloop is one.

"Users can upload, and share, an unlimited number of files, listen to music, create playlists, back up files ---- and there's nothing to download or install," p2pnet posted in a Q&A with one of the founders. "They have total control of personal data and can keep private information from prying eyes, promises the group."

Britain's TV Links is another.

"Who are you?" - its FAQ asks, answering, "Commoners."

"Is this site legal?" - it goes on. "Don't make me call my lawyer."

But, emphasising the point made in Investors.com, "We provide links, nothing is wrong with that," it says, continuing:

Money? Register? Nope.

We do NOT support downloading - do NOT ask us for it, do NOT mention it.

In Toronto, Canada, Wassim has just opened TV Kalendar to organize tv show torrents and episode information.

"What's behind it?" - p2pnet asked him

"There are calendars available online that display show info and air dates, explained, going on:

After a long day at school, the last hassle one needs is having to track down what episode was actually missed (sometimes those number "sXXeYY" screw you over so you need to use episode info), and then having another couple of windows open with different torrent sites, AND having to chose a torrent based on seeder/leecher ratio, right language, and making sure it wasn't submitted by one of the "associations".

Enter html://www.tvkalendar.com.

Wassim, who's at the University of Toronto reading neuroscience and French, is also working on a sister site dedicated solely to anime, which'll organize both raw and fansub torrents, as well as animes uploaded to YouTube.

It'd pay the cartels to throw in the towel when it comes to trying to sue the P2P communities into toeing the corporate line. They'd be much better off working with them: that way everyone would benefit and the entertainment industry would start winning, instead of losing, customers.
http://p2pnet.net/story/12532





Xerox Rolls Out New Document Search Engine
Stephen Singer

Xerox Corp. on Wednesday introduced a "smart" search engine that it says will help users perform more relevant Internet searches.

Called FactSpotter, the software capitalizes on an increasingly popular field known as semantic searches that improve Internet research by analyzing the meaning of a question and a document to match the two for the best answer.

Developing the search engine is similar to understanding how brains process information, said Frederique Segond, manager of parsing and semantics research at Xerox Research Center Europe in Grenoble, France.

"Many words can be different things at the same time. The context makes the difference," she said. "The tricky things here are not the words together but how are they linked."

For example, a semantic search could help a user who wants to know who President Abraham Lincoln's first vice president was. Common searches using keywords "Lincoln" and "vice president" would not likely answer the question.

But asking the question in a semantic search would yield the answer: Hannibal Hamlin.

Segond, whose background is in math and linguistics, said the Stamford-based Xerox has been working on the project for four years. FactSpotter was introduced at a technology briefing at Xerox's research center in Grenoble and will be launched next year as part of Xerox Litigation Services.

FactSpotter promises to help researchers cut the amount of time required to find information by returning a specific portion of a search document that is relevant to the query.

"There's this explosion of content," said John Kelly, president of Xerox Global Services North America. "This is meant give you access to that."

The new product will first be offered through Xerox Global Services, a $4 billion annual business that provides document management and consulting services. Kelly would not say how much revenue Xerox expects from FactSpotter.

Naveed Yahya, chief investment officer at Fischer Investment Group in Pittsford, N.Y., said the product will not likely have an immediate impact on Xerox's bottom line, "but it helps them become a leader in the field," he said.

FactSpotter will initially be used to help lawyers and corporate litigation departments plow through thousands of pages of legal documents. Xerox also expects the technology to eventually be used in health care, manufacturing and financial services.

It's part of a growing field in which researchers are trying to adapt to a computer the complex workings of the brain.

Dr. Riza C. Berkan, chief executive of privately held hakia.com in New York, which is indexing enormous amounts of Web-based information to provide improved Internet searches, said researchers are using principles of human thought as it relates to language.

"All searches today are at the tip of iceberg. The bottom of the iceberg is when you ask the complicated questions," he said.

Peter Norvig, director of research at dominant Internet search engine Google, said his company is seeking ways to better interpret queries and the pressure is on to keep improving search engines.

"Most people are satisfied most of the time," he said. "We've got to keep making it better."

Google also offers customers the ability to do custom searches, which Norvig said is another way to perform semantic searches.

Shares of Xerox closed at $19.16, down 12 cents, Wednesday on the New York Stock Exchange.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...06-20-17-22-21





Google and Utility to Test Hybrids That Sell Back Power
Felicity Barringer and Matthew L. Wald

Google and Pacific Gas & Electric have unveiled their vision of a future in which cars and trucks are partly powered by the country’s electric grids, and vice versa.

The companies displayed on Monday six Toyota Prius and Ford Escape hybrid vehicles modified to run partly on electricity from the power grid, allowing the vehicles to go up to 75 miles on a gallon of gas, nearly double the number of miles of a regular hybrid. They also modified one vehicle to give electricity back to the power company.

The highly unusual test takes the hybrid, which is now familiar on American roads, a step further by using extra batteries to hold energy made and distributed by a power company. The technology is eagerly awaited by energy experts and environmentalists, but is not yet ready to go commercial because the additional batteries are not yet durable enough.

Google’s philanthropic foundation, Google.org, headed by Larry Brilliant, led the conversion and announced that it would be investing or giving away about $10 million to accelerate the development of battery technology, plug-in hybrids, and vehicles capable of returning stored energy to the grid.

Speaking on a sun-splashed dais in Google’s parking lot to an audience well shaded by one of its new solar arrays, Mr. Brilliant described the vehicle designed to give energy back to the grid as “a bit of a science project.”

But some observers, like the Stanford professor Stephen Schneider, who was one of the authors of the recent United Nations report on climate change, said that just getting this embryonic technology demonstrated by a company with Google’s heft was a victory in itself. “These guys have clout with hundreds of millions of young and middle-aged people,” he said, adding that what was necessary to jump-start a new type of car was a combination of reliability, affordability and “cool.”

The six vehicles are used by Google employees near the company’s Mountain View headquarters, and sit under a carport with a roof of solar cells. The cells are connected to the power grid, so they make energy whether the cars are charging or not. Dan Reicher, Google.org’s director for climate change and energy initiatives, said the carports were meant to demonstrate a switch from fossil fuels to solar power.

Google is using batteries from A123Systems of Watertown, Mass., a company that sells an aftermarket kit to convert the Prius to a plug-in vehicle.

The Prius that has been converted to allow two-way flows of electricity is a more speculative project. PG&E, the utility serving Northern California, will send wireless signals to the car while it is parked and plugged in to determine its state of charge. It can then recharge the batteries or draw out power.

The transactions will be tiny, a few kilowatt-hours at a time, worth a few cents each, but if there were thousands of such vehicles, a utility could store power produced in slack hours until it was needed at peak times, said Brad Whitcomb, PG&E’s vice president for customer products and services.

Some researchers say that utilities pay billions a year to power plants to stand by, ready to produce extra power or to provide small quantities of energy to maintain the frequency of the system at precisely 60 cycles a second. Plug-in hybrids could fill those roles, annually earning thousands of dollars each, some experts say.

But if a car gave all of its energy back to the grid, it would be left to run on gasoline, giving up the environmental benefit.

A plug-in hybrid can lower emissions of carbon dioxide and smog-causing gases. It can go three to four miles on a kilowatt-hour, experts say. If that electricity came from natural gas, that may mean under a quarter-pound of carbon dioxide is emitted each mile. In contrast, a car that gets 20 miles a gallon on unleaded gas emits about a pound of carbon dioxide each mile.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/19/te...9electric.html





I.B.M. to Show Stream Computing System
Steve Lohr

I.B.M. is introducing a high-performance computer system that is intended to rapidly analyze data as it streams in from many sources, increasing the speed and accuracy of decision making in fields as diverse as security surveillance and Wall Street trading.

The company plans to demonstrate the system, called System S, at a conference of Wall Street technology managers today. The announcement, analysts say, is a significant step in the commercialization of the emerging technology of stream computing.

Early this month Google acquired PeakStream, a start-up in stream computing, and industry analysts say its software could help Google improve its video search functions.

Stream computing is an effort to deal with two issues: the need for faster data handling and analysis in business and science, and the growing flood of information in digital form, including Web sites, blogs, e-mail, video and news clips, telephone conversations, transaction data and electronic sensors.

The conventional approach to computer analytics and data mining is to collect data, store it in a database program and then search the database for patterns or ask it questions. It is an effective approach, but also tightly structured and often time-consuming.

In stream computing, advanced software algorithms analyze the data as it streams in. Text, voice and image-recognition technology, for example, can be used to determine that some data is more relevant to a particular problem than others. The priority data is then shuttled off into a program tailored to work on complex, fast-changing problems like tracking an epidemic and predicting its spread, or culling data from electronic sensors in a computer chip plant to quickly correct flaws in manufacturing.

I.B.M. deems its System S research project ready to make its way into the marketplace. The planned announcement to the Wall Street group is the beginning of its effort to find industry partners.

The initial system runs on about 800 microprocessors, though it can scale up to tens of thousands as needed, I.B.M. said. The most notable step, researchers say, lies in the System S software, which enables software applications to split up tasks like image recognition and text recognition, and then reassemble the pieces of the puzzle into an answer.

Nagui Halim, director of high-performance stream computing at I.B.M. labs, said System S was a new model of computing that offered greater flexibility and speed. The approach, he said, was less machinelike than in conventional systems. “It’s a computing system that can morph and adapt to the problems it sees,” Mr. Halim said.

As I.B.M. moves toward developing a business in this area, it says it can either sell stream computer systems to customers or stream computing as a pay-for-use service over the Internet.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/19/te...19compute.html





Yahoo's Woes Run Deeper Than Semel

Investors welcome co-founder Jerry Yang as the new chief executive of the No. 2 search engine, but can he save Yahoo? Fortune's Adam Lashinsky weighs in.
Adam Lashinsky

The market cheered Terry Semel's departure Monday as chief executive of Yahoo. But when investors take a deep breath, however, they might realize that getting rid of just one guy may not actually cure the company's ills.

Yahoo's stock rose 3 percent early in the day on rumors of Semel's departure and then rose nearly another 5 percent in after-market trading on the news. The stock changed hands after hours at around $29.50, still down 32 percent from the January 2006 price of $43 - the peak during Semel's tenure.

But are the changes at Yahoo enough? First, there is Semel's replacement, company co-founder Jerry Yang.

The 38-year-old Yang hardly represents an injection of fresh blood, as Semel himself did when he was hired in 2001. As Rob Cox, of the Web site breakingviews.com, wrote wittingly of Yang's appointment: "He hasn't spent the past few years in an ashram. As a director, and, presumably, as chief Yahoo, he's been involved in Semel's strategic decisions."

That's an understatement, actually. Yang has been a permanent presence at Yahoo (Charts, Fortune 500) for its entire history, preferring not to have an operating role but willing to play emissary to various Yahoo constituencies.

Semel out as Yahoo! CEO

That Yang hasn't been willing to step up until now certainly could be viewed as a sign that he's finally ready. But one wonders if simply watching first the zany Tim Koogle and then the Hollywood operator Semel has prepared Yang to be a chief executive of an 11,000-person company.

Steve Jobs ran Apple (Charts, Fortune 500) before being fired and then returning. Bill Gates ran Microsoft (Charts, Fortune 500) for decades. Yang's entrepreneurial zeal, much praised in favorable press reviews Monday, is rather beside the point.

Yahoo subtly drove home one salient point about Yang: He's an engineer. Google (Charts, Fortune 500) famously is run by engineers. Google has beaten the pants off Yahoo in the technology department.

Yahoo hasn't been run by entrepreneurs.

On the contrary, Semel, who increased Yahoo's presence in Los Angeles and hired the television executive Lloyd Braun (a culture clash from start to end), is an entertainment guy who surrounded himself with entertainment guys. (Will Semel acolytes Jeff Weiner and Toby Coppell, both promoted to new positions recently, stick around?) In announcing the move, Yahoo chose to quote the one director on its board with serious technology chops, former Cisco (Charts, Fortune 500) executive Ed Kozel.

No word from supermarket magnate Ron Burkle or airline vet Gary Wilson or videogamer Bobby Kotick, the board's "presiding director." Message: Yahoo will get its technological house in order under its new engineer-CEO.

Yahoo CEO wards off criticism, eyes growth

It's also puzzling that investors ignored what essentially was a negative pre-announcement from Yahoo, which said Monday that second-quarter results would settle toward the low end of its previous projections. And for the worst of reasons: Weakness in display advertising, Yahoo's bread and butter business. The quarter is nearly over - it ends June 30 - so Yahoo left little mystery that relatively speaking, it wasn't a good one.

So what will Jerry Yang actually do as CEO? He says he doesn't want to sell the company. Fair enough. Yahoo clearly wasn't interested in selling to Microsoft, and if it had been, deal-guy Semel would have gotten it done. Yang could clean house, but promoting former CFO Sue Decker to president is another sign that Yahoo plans to stay the course Semel set.

Had Yahoo's board not replaced Semel immediately, or had it named Yang an acting CEO, it's possible investors could have inferred that the company was planning a truly radical move, like killing Panama (the ad-search platform) and reverting to syndicating search ads from Google. That idea is blasphemy in Sunnyvale - huge acquisitions of Inktomi and Overture plus a massive investment in Panama would be wasted - but everyone knows it'd be an immediate shot in the arm for Yahoo.

Where to meet the next Steve Jobs

From my discussions with the dissatisfied foot soldiers - and a few officers - who've left Yahoo in recent months, one of the chief criticisms is that Yahoo is focusing so much energy and resources on search advertising that the rest of the business is starving. Decker in particular, a former Wall Street analyst who insists on delivering on bottom-line promises to investors isn't likely to reverse this trend.

Last summer, just after the first time Yahoo's new ad-search platform was delayed, Yahoo held a one-day show-and-tell extravaganza at a swanky San Francisco hotel. The good times were right around the corner, Semel and his management team seemed to be saying.

Benjamin Schachter, a UBS analyst who has been bullish on Yahoo's stock for a regrettably long time, wrote Monday night: "This move means that 2007 will be a turnaround year and we will not likely see the results until next year."

Unfortunately, that's what everyone thought last year.
http://money.cnn.com/2007/06/19/tech...yahoo.fortune/





Report: Most Parents Would Support Federal TV Limits
AP

Two-thirds of parents said they are very concerned about sex and violence the nation’s children are exposed to in the media, and there would be broad support for new federal limits on such material on television, a survey says.

Yet the report, released today by the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation, found that two in three parents said they already closely track their children’s television viewing and use of the Internet and video games.

Only one in five parents conceded they should do a better job — about the same fraction who said their own children see a lot of inappropriate material. Most said they, as well as their children’s teachers and friends, have far more influence over their children than the media do.

"They’re feeling more in control of it than I would have thought," Vicky Rideout, who directed the Kaiser study, said in an interview. "There’s a common assumption they feel overwhelmed, behind the curve when it comes to their kids and the Internet, like they’re at a technological disadvantage. We didn’t find that in this survey."

Kaiser, which conducts health policy research, released its study at a time of intensified public focus on the impact of violence, sex and adult language used on television, the Internet, music, video games and the movies.

Earlier this month, a federal appeals court invalidated a Federal Communications Commission prohibition against accidentally broadcast profanities.

In April, the FCC issued a report to Congress saying lawmakers could regulate television violence without violating the First Amendment’s free speech protections.

The Kaiser study found that two-thirds of parents said they would support new limits on television content. The question did not specify what the rules might be, though it mentioned that some have proposed restricting the sex and violence that could be shown during the early evening.

"Clearly there’s a need for both the industry and our public servants to consider how to make this better," Tim Winter, president of the Parents Television Council, said in an interview. The council is critical of violence and sex in the media.

Jim Dyke, executive director of TV Watch, a coalition that includes some television networks and opposes government control of TV programming, said parents are doing a better job of controlling their children’s viewing habits.

"If parents can make these decisions and enforce these decisions, why should the government," he said.

While about half said they are very concerned that their own children see too much violence and sexual material, that was down from more than six in 10 who expressed such worries in a 1998 Kaiser survey. Black and Hispanic parents were more likely than whites to voice that concern.

About three-fourths rated exposure to inappropriate material as one of their top concerns as a parent, or a big worry. Television and the Internet were most frequently cited as the leading sources of angst.

While two-thirds said they closely watch their children’s media use, 18 percent said they should do more while another 16 percent said such monitoring is not necessary. Of those who said they need to do more, most said they haven’t because media exposure is too widespread or they were too busy.

The report also found:

—One in four said the media are mainly a negative influence on their children, about a third said they are mainly positive and slightly more than that said they have little impact.

—Three in four with children 9 or older who use the Internet at home said they know a lot about what their children do online. Most said they have checked their children’s e-mail, profiles on social networking sites like MySpace, and the Web sites they visit.

—About four in 10 who own televisions with V-chips — which can block certain television shows — were aware they had the technology. Of those, nearly half said they have used it.

The Kaiser survey of 1,008 randomly chosen parents of children age 2 to 17, has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4 percentage points. It was conducted last Oct. 2-27 by Princeton Survey Research Associates International, a private firm.
http://news.newstimes.com/news/updat...e=news_updates





Australia Announces Vast National Broadband Plan

Australian Prime Minister John Howard on Monday announced a 2.0 billion dollar (1.68 billion US) plan to provide fast and affordable Internet access across the vast country.

Howard said Optus, the Australian offshoot of Singapore telco Singtel, had been awarded a 958-million-dollar contract to build a broadband network in the bush with rural finance company Elders.

The joint venture, known as OPEL, would contribute a further 900 million US dollars to provide broadband of at least 12 megabits per second by June 2009.

"What we have announced today is a plan that will deliver to 99 percent of the Australian population very fast and affordable broadband in just two years' time," Howard said.

An expert group will also develop a bidding process for the building of a fibre-to-the-node (FTTN) broadband network, funded solely by private companies, in major cities.

Communications Minister Helen Coonan said wireless was the best option for rural Australia because it was impossible to install cables which would reach every farm and property across the country.

"It's been specially developed for rural and regional areas, where (with) fixed broadband you've got to actually run a fibre optic," she said.

Senator Coonan said the broadband speed of 12 megabits per second could "scale up" to very fast speeds as the technology evolved.

"It will be able to go much faster, up to 70 megabits a second and of course our new high-speed fibre network will be able to go up to 50," she said.

But the opposition labour Party attacked the plan, saying it was too little, too late ahead of this year's election and provided country people with a second-rate service.

"The government proposes a two-tier system -- a good system for the cities, they say, and a second-rate system for rural and regional Australia," labour leader Kevin Rudd said.

labour has proposed spending 4.7 billion US dollars to build a national fibre optic network which would cover 98 percent of the population.

The National Party, which is part of Howard's ruling Liberal/National coalition, welcomed the proposal but said it would continue to push for FTTN technology in regional areas.

Nationals Senator Barnaby Joyce said the fact that Australia was a vast country with a small population meant it would always be playing catch-up with other countries when it came to broadband.

"We'll always be catching up, always, because we are 20 million people in a country (the size) of the United States without Alaska," he said.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/Technolog...18999327.html#





New WiFi Record: 237 Miles
David Becker

A Venezuelan techie apparently has set a new record for longest WiFi link. Networking guru Ermanno Pietrosemoli established a wireless connection between a PC in El Aguila, Venezuela, and one in Platillon Mountain, a distance of about 237 miles, mostly using off-the-shelf equipment and a few hacked parts.

The previous record was 193 miles, between a balloon and an Earth-bound PC, which rather cuts down on the risk of signal-bouncing obstacles.

Pietrosemoli notes in the project description that one of the benefits of doing this kind of work out in the Latin American boonies is you don't have to worry much about signal interference.

And yes, I now feel a whole new kind of stupid for not being able to get a reasonable signal between home office and bedroom.
http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2007/0..._record_2.html





Blogger Learns How to Monetise Hate
Stephen Hutcheon

The man known on the internet as "the world's most hated blogger" is cooling his heels at an undisclosed location near Sydney, working on a way to climb back out of the very deep hole he now finds himself in.

In his first interview since arriving in Australia last week, Casey Serin says he's pressing ahead with plans to pay off his mounting debts and resurrect his reputation which hit the skids after a series of property plays went disastrously wrong.

His predicament is but a blip on the radar of reckless behaviour that would have gone unnoticed but for the fact he began blogging about it.

The blog - iamfacingforeclosure.com (or IAFF, for short) - started as a cautionary tale to warn other would-be investors of the pitfalls of property speculation. But it unexpectedly turned its author into the punching bag of the World Wide Web.

He has been mocked, pilloried, hounded and harangued in a way that would have driven most others to abandon their blogs, disconnect their computers and head for the hills.

The critics, who call themselves "haterz", have turned their pursuit of the 24-year-old American into a blood sport in which they vie with one another to pour industrial-strength vitriol onto their quarry and derail his efforts to redeem himself.

Currently there are about eight known blogs plus a Wikipedia-like collaborative site called Caseypedia targeting the aspiring entrepreneur.

And each day the haterz pepper his blog posts with snide comments, gratuitous advice and fill his inbox with invective, accusing him of cheating, lying, slacking off and deserting his wife.

"And the wily parasite finds a new host ...," commented one of the haterz after Serin revealed he had flown to Australia on a one-way ticket paid for by a supporter and was camped out as the guest of another.

Perversely, this flood of negativity is not all bad news for the Uzbek-born former web developer.

"I don't dislike notoriety because I feel that any exposure is good exposure as long as you leverage it properly," he said over a soy latte in Sydney.

"Leveraging" is one of Serin's two favourite words. The other is "monetise". He uses them a lot. And although he didn't say it in as many words, what Serin is doing is leveraging his notoriety so that he can monetise his blog and other projects.

The ads in Serin blog currently earn him between $US2000 ($2373) and $US3000 a month, a figure he hopes to be able to boost up to $US4000 by July. And that all depends on keeping his audience, which requires him to stick his head up from time to time so he can get whacked.

"That [income from the blog] is a really good thing for me because I'm able to have some income and pay for expenses as I'm working on higher leveraged things, like working on a book," he says.

He admits that it does get a little freaky at times when the haterz try to derail his business dealings, dig up personal details, or threaten to hit him with class action suits.

And he's become particularly protective of his wife, Galina, who has asked not to be dragged in to her husband's increasingly bizarre world.

"All I'll say [about Galina] is that we are talking. It's not like I ran away as some people are painting it as. I didn't leave her penniless," he said responding to reports that he left his wife with just $US300 in the bank.

Serin's story is a tragic tale of how one young man plunged into the real estate market thinking he could make a quick killing by "flipping" properties - buying low, selling high and pocketing the profit.

But Serin's execution was so inept that he soon found himself with $US2.2 million in borrowings and saddled with eight properties, most of which he had purchased with 100 per cent loans.

Some he paid too much for, some needed more extensive repairs than first thought and this was all happening as the property market began to soften.

USA Today is one of many media outlets that have used Serin to illustrate reports about the bursting of the US property bubble. The newspaper called him the "poster child for everything that went wrong in the real estate boom".

Adding to Serin's potential problems is that he admits to having falsified details to obtain some of the loans - loans that are known as "liar loans" because many borrowers were also fudging figures.

"The stuff I did is technically mortgage fraud, but it's not officially called that until someone prosecutes me and proves that that is indeed mortgage fraud," Serin explains. "It wasn't like I was trying to rip the banks off and steal money. I was trying to build a business. I made a lot of mistakes and now I'm trying to unravel this whole mess."

The banks have now foreclosed on six of the eight properties and Serin is waiting to see the final tally that he is going to be asked to repay.

In person, Serin presents as a likeable fast talker with an indefatigable desire to become a successful entrepreneur.

Although he has the looks of a Californian surfie, he actually spent the first half of his life about 2000km from the nearest beach. He emigrated from Uzbekistan - once part of the Soviet Union - to the US in 1994 with his parents and four siblings.

Serin is careful not to sound like he's boasting about his recklessness and when I ask him to smile for the camera, he says he doesn't want to appear to be too smug or happy. But he obliges with a slight grin.

Ultimately Casey Serin realises that his reputation is such that no one in their right mind is going to employ him in a "normal" job. So his only hope is, as he puts it, to use the publicity he's getting to earn an income - in other words to monetise that publicity.

I ask him how he wants this to end.

"I'd like to be known for a really creative comeback story," he says. "Because I have so many odds against me I want to to be able to show people that no matter how down you are or how big a hole you're in there's always a way out. You just have to stay positive."
http://www.smh.com.au/news/web/blogg...19071972.html#





Antitrust Complaints Prompt Changes to Vista
Stephen LaBaton

Microsoft has agreed to make changes to its Windows Vista operating system in response to a complaint by Google that a feature of Vista is anticompetitive, lawyers involved in the case said today.

The settlement, reached in recent days by state prosecutors, the Justice Department and Microsoft, averted the prospect of litigation over a complaint by Google that Vista had been designed to frustrate computer users who want to use software other than Microsoft’s to search through files on their hard drives.

Google had made its complaint confidentially as part of the consent decree proceedings set up to monitor Microsoft for any anticompetitive conduct after it settled a landmark antitrust lawsuit five years ago that had been brought by the states and the Clinton administration.

The federal government and the states were planning to file a joint status report by midnight on Tuesday in the consent decree proceedings that outlined the changes Microsoft would be making to Vista. State and federal lawyers were exchanging drafts of the report this evening. They said they had reached agreement on a remedy, although there was still some disagreement over the report’s language. The disagreement reflected tensions between the Justice Department, which initially sided with Microsoft in the dispute, and some of the states, which have supported Google and advocated a more aggressive stance.

Richard Blumenthal, the Connecticut attorney general, said this evening that he had not decided whether Connecticut would sign on to the settlement, although most of the other states were comfortable with the agreement. He said that he was continuing to press the Justice Department to permit Google and other competitors of Microsoft to participate in a hearing on the matter next week. He added that as a result of pressure from the states, the Bush administration had taken a position closer to that of the states that found merit in Google’s complaint.

“The Justice Department has moved and so has Microsoft,” Mr. Blumenthal said.

Executives at Microsoft and Google declined to comment before the report was filed with the court. Google has sought to keep a low profile in the dispute, in part because the Federal Trade Commission has recently opened a preliminary antitrust investigation into Google’s proposed $3.1 billion acquisition of DoubleClick, an online advertising company.

Lawyers involved in the proceeding said the changes to Vista would allow consumers to decide which desktop search program they want to use, and that selecting software from Google or some other company would no longer slow down the computer as it does now. They said that as part of the settlement, Microsoft would let Vista users know how to change their desktop search program. But the settlement would not require Microsoft to make all the changes that Google had sought.

The settlement closes another contentious chapter in the long-running antitrust proceedings involving Microsoft, which have been marked by tension between federal and state prosecutors.

In a letter sent to state prosecutors early last month, Thomas O. Barnett, the Justice Department’s top antitrust lawyer, had urged the rejection of Google’s complaint, state officials said. Google had circulated a white paper outlining its complaint to federal and state prosecutors a few weeks earlier.

But the Justice Department reversed course after state attorneys general reacted angrily to Mr. Barnett’s letter and said they would proceed against Microsoft without the Justice Department. The change in position was a rare recent instance in which the Justice Department’s antitrust division toughened its position in response to pressure from the states.

State officials said they were angered by Mr. Barnett’s letter in large part because before he joined the Justice Department, he had been the vice chairman of the antitrust department at Covington & Burling, a law firm that represented Microsoft and played a central role in settling the antitrust case. While at Covington, Mr. Barnett did not work on the antitrust case, although he did represent Microsoft in other matters.

During his first year at the Justice Department, and for several months as the head of the antitrust division, Mr. Barnett avoided working on any Microsoft matters. Officials said he has worked on the case since he received permission from government ethics officials. But state officials said his letter supporting Microsoft was the first time they knew of his involvement in the case.

Desktop search programs have become popular as the volume of information stored on personal computers has multiplied. The big money in the fight between Google, Microsoft and Yahoo is over advertising revenues from Web search engines. But desktop search programs help to build loyalty toward a particular search company.

Google maintained that its desktop search program, available as a free download, was slowed by an equivalent feature that is built into Vista. When the Google and Microsoft search programs run simultaneously, their indexing programs slow the operating system considerably, Google contends. As a result, Google has said that Vista violated Microsoft’s 2002 antitrust settlement, which prohibits Microsoft from designing operating systems that limit the choices of consumers.

Microsoft has replied that Vista was in compliance with the consent decree and that the company had already made many modifications to the operating system, including some that had been sought by Google. In a recent interview, Bradford L. Smith, the general counsel at Microsoft, said that the new operating system was carefully designed to work well with software products made by other companies, and that an independent technical committee had spent years examining Vista for possible anticompetitive problems before it went on sale.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/19/te...20softcnd.html





Google says Vista Search Changes not Enough
Ken Fisher

As we reported yesterday, Microsoft's "capitulation" to Google's antitrust complaint isn't as much a capitulation as the mainstream media was reporting. We inspected Microsoft's joint filing and found that Microsoft is not going to allow a complete override of the default search service in all Explorer windows, and that the company also rejects Google's concerns about performance.

In response, Google said yesterday that the remedies don't go far enough. Google chief legal officer David Drummond said in a statement, "We are pleased that as a result of Google's request that the consent decree be enforced, the Department of Justice and state attorneys general have required Microsoft to make changes to Vista."

Nevertheless, Drummond said that "Microsoft's current approach to Vista desktop search clearly violates the consent decree and limits consumer choice," and the proposed remedies "are a step in the right direction, but they should be improved further to give consumers greater access to alternate desktop search providers."

Google did not elaborate on its expectations, although they are not difficult to piece together. Google had argued that it should be possible to disable Vista's search entirely, and Microsoft has not accommodated this demand. Search still runs, and OEMs and third-party software companies have not been given a way to schedule or disable it.

Furthermore, Microsoft did not make it possible to change the search defaults in a universal way, instead keeping its search system as the default throughout most of Windows Explorer. In short, Vista's search boxes will by and large return Vista's own search results if you type text into them and hit return. Microsoft's changes appear to mostly involve links to the "default" third party program, not a drop-in replacement.

Google's disappointment was only partly echoed by California Attorney General Jerry Brown, who called the remedy a step in the right direction. "This agreement—while not perfect—is a positive step towards greater competition in the software industry. It will enhance the ability of consumers to select the desktop search tool of their choice," he said.

At this stage, it's unclear what recourse either Brown or Google has to change Microsoft's plan. Thomas O. Barnett, assistant Attorney General and head of the Department of Justice's Antitrust Division, said in a statement that the agreement reached between Microsoft and the DOJ "resolve[d] any issues about desktop search under the final judgments."

The DOJ and all 17 state attorneys general agreed with Microsoft's proposal. "Plaintiffs are collectively satisfied that this agreement will resolve any issues the complaint may raise under the Final Judgments, provided that Microsoft implements it as promised," according to the joint filing.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...ot-enough.html





Don't Wait for Vista SP1, Pleads Microsoft
Dan Warne

Proceed with confidence: Windows boss Steven Sinofsky and his winged henchmen.
Microsoft has launched a "fact rich" program to help customers understand why they should "proceed with confidence" in rolling out Vista across all their PCs.

"Some customers may be waiting to adopt Windows Vista because they've heard rumors about device or application compatibility issues, or because they think they should wait for a service pack release," the company said in a newsletter.

"To help partners and customers get the real story, Microsoft has created a comprehensive set of fact-rich materials illustrating how Windows Vista is ready today and tomorrow."

Despite the "fact-rich" materials being designed for both "partners and customers", the link supplied by Microsoft goes to a website which is available only to computer makers who are prepared to sign up to a non-disclosure agreement.

Microsoft Australia has promised to look into whether it's possible to get a publicly disclosable set of materials.

Without knowing what's included in the fact-rich program, it's difficult to know why people should proceed with confidence.

What we do know, however, is that Vista service pack 1 is, in the company's own words, designed to address "deployment blockers and high impact issues", suggesting that until the release of SP1, you will have to contend with ... deployment blockers and high impact issues. Hardly the basis for proceeding with confidence.

The company put out a call for beta testers to start testing SP1 back on 23rd January -- before Vista was actually released to home users.

In that announcement, the company said that service pack 1 won't won't be released until the "second half of this year", which could mean December 31, and there have been informal suggestions that it may ship even later than that.

No wonder the company needs a "fact-rich program" to convince people why they should "proceed with confidence" -- its own announcements must have given plenty of business IT managers shaky legs.

As one Slashdot reader put it back in January: "If they have known 'high impact issues' they should delay initial release one more time. This is supposed to be a stable commercial product."

SP1 is no minor update. Although Microsoft won't officially comment on its contents, we do know that Microsoft is at some point going to provide a complete replacement for the Windows kernel, moving from version 6.0 to 6.1 -- the same kernel found in Windows Server 2008 (codenamed Longhorn).

Microsoft's "fact rich" program announcement coincided with an embarrassing double-backflip today on its policy banning users from running home versions of Vista under virtual machines like VMware. It had planned to loosen the reigns, but pulled the announcement at the last moment.
http://apcmag.com/6458/dont_wait_for...eads_microsoft





AT&T Launches Cell-To-Cell Live Video
Dave Carpenter

AT&T Inc. on Tuesday launched what it said is the first service letting callers share live video between cell phones.

The new AT&T Video Share service won't apply to the iPhone, which uses an older network. AT&T has an exclusive deal to offer service for much-anticipated Apple Inc. device.

But the launch of the video service adds to the company's momentum as it gears up for the June 29 introduction of the iPhone, which it called a "game-changer" for the telecommunications industry.

Video Share was introduced in three markets -- Atlanta, Dallas and San Antonio -- to start with and will be available elsewhere in late July.

It works only on the company's 3G, or third-generation, wireless network and requires a Video Share-capable phone, AT&T said. The company said it will offer Video Share service packs for $4.99 and $9.99 a month, depending on included minutes. Without a plan, the service costs 35 cents a minute.

New AT&T Chairman and CEO Randall Stephenson told a telecommunications industry trade show in Chicago that the new service has the potential to expand rapidly beyond wireless-to-wireless.

"You should expect this to quickly reach the other two screens, and that's the PC and the television," he said at NXTcomm.

"Imagine watching television when a notice pops on the screen that a daughter or granddaughter would like to initiate a Video Share call, then immediately switching the television screen to accept the video and audio," Stephenson said. "With our powerful IP-based network and flexible IMS platform, these scenarios will eventually be reality."

Speaking just two weeks after taking the helm at San Antonio-based AT&T on June 3, he touted wireless as key to the future of the company and the industry, and said the migration from fixed service to wireless is accelerating.

AT&T hopes to benefit from that trend with the rollout of the iPhone. The combination cell phone, iPod and wireless Web device will be sold at stores owned by Apple and AT&T.

Stephenson said the company is "gearing up for this big-time," including adding hundreds of staffers at its 1,800 retail stores for the expected rush.

More than 1 million people have signed up for more information about the iPhone, he said, and nearly 40 percent of them are not AT&T Wireless customers.

"I really believe this is going to be a game-changer, not only for us but for the industry at large," he said.

Stephenson, formerly AT&T's chief operating officer, took over the top jobs following the retirement of Ed Whitacre Jr., who led the company for 17 years.

AT&T shares rose 23 cents to $40.24 Tuesday.
http://www.newsday.com/technology/wi...logy-headlines





Voice Chat Can Really Kill the Mood on WoW
Clive Thompson

Recently I logged into World of Warcraft and I wound up questing alongside a mage and two dwarf warriors. I was the lowest-level newbie in the group, and the mage was the de-facto leader. He coached me on the details of each new quest, took the point position in dangerous fights and suggested tactics. He seemed like your classic virtual-world group leader: Confident, bold and streetsmart.

But after a few hours he said he was getting tired of using text chat -- and asked me to switch over to Ventrilo, an app that lets gamers chat using microphones and voice. I downloaded Ventrilo, logged in, dialed him up and ...

... realized he was an 11-year-old boy, complete with squeaky, prepubescent vocal chords. When he laughed, his voice shot up abruptly into an octave range that induced headaches and probably killed any dogs within earshot. Oh, and he used "motherfucker" about four times a sentence, except when his mother came into his bedroom to check on him.

I still enjoyed questing with him -- he was a terrific World of Warcraft player. But there's no doubt that hearing each other's voices abruptly changed our social milieu. He seemed equally weirded out by me -- a 38-year-old guy who undoubtedly sounds more like his father than anyone he recognizes as a "gamer." After an hour of this, we all politely logged off and never hooked up again.

I had just experienced the latest culture-shock in online worlds: The advent of voice. Games that were governed by text are now being governed by chat, and it is subtly changing the feel of our virtual universe.

There are good reasons why so many multiplayer online games are launching with voice-chat software. Partly it's to welcome newbies, who often find that old-school text-chat is simply too complicated. Also, voice chat makes pell-mell action easier to handle: If you're running a guild raid with 50 people, it's much easier to bark orders than to type them out (which is why voice chat has long been popular on first-person shooters on Xbox Live).

But many players are now discovering that voice tweaks the social environment -- and sometimes kills off part of what made their favorite world so much fun.

After all, one of the great things about virtual worlds was that they were, well, virtual. You could adopt a brand-new persona, and leave your dull, dreary existence behind. Outside are the suburbs and your shift at Chick-fil-A; online is a land of snowcapped mountains where you sit astride a cat-like mount, while stars rain around you.

This lovely shift in identity was true even if you weren't a hard-core "role player." When I log on to World of Warcraft, I don't try to seriously pretend I'm a medieval person. I happily text-chat with fellow players about 21st century stuff like music, Lost, our jobs. But somehow this social activity never breaks the "magic circle" of the game, the sense that we're in a different place with different rules. Maybe it's because text-chat is inherently abstract; it's something that happens in our heads, in a sort of ludological backchannel of our minds.

But voice has much higher emotional bandwidth. It conveys a lot of identity: Your voice instantly transmits your age, your gender and often your nationality -- even your regional location too. (I can tell a Texan accent from a Minnesotan, and you can probably tell I'm Canadian by my nasal "oots.") With voice, the real world is honking in your ear.

This is particularly a problem for women, because often women thrive in MMOs precisely by downplaying their sexual identity. When Krista-Lee Malone, a student at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, did a study of the impact of voice chat on online worlds, women all told her they were treated differently once other players -- particularly younger men -- could hear their voices. ("They got hit on a lot," Malone says.)

Meanwhile, shy or geeky players have long thrived in text-based chat, where their social impediments matter less; but they wither when interaction becomes a cocktail party.

"Throw up a (Ventrilo) server, the girls stop talking completely, the shy people shut up mostly and all that is left are the 12- to 18-year-old guys, and it becomes a locker room," as one poster complained on a sprawling, superb debate on the Terra Nova blog.

Yet here's the thing: You can't deny that voice chat can bring a huge amount of positive social good, too. Dmitri Williams, a communications professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, did a study of World of Warcraft players for one month. The results? Those who used text-only chat experienced "drops in trust and happiness" amongst their fellow players; those who used voice chat did not.The fatter emotional signal of voice apparently helps cement online relationships. Indeed, some guilds won't even let you participate anymore unless you use voice chat, because text-only chat seems shifty.

And even I have to admit, voice chat will eventually allow for some awesome tricks. Imagine logging into World of Warcraft, realizing one of your friends isn't there -- and being able to call them on their real-world mobile phone.

Ultimately, this is about intimacy -- how much of ourselves we're willing to give away to strangers. Personally, I enjoy being able to construct identities carefully in text; that's because I grew up with text as my main online mode. It's possible that the impending generation of gamers will simply find voice chat more natural, in the same way that teenagers today happily blog about their personal lives and post pictures and videos of themselves. They regard personal revelation not as an incursion of privacy but a marker of authenticity.

Or maybe this will become a permanent culture clash, a sort of existential civil war in the game-o-verse. Perhaps gamers will demand their favorite online world create separate "text only" or "voice only" shards. This is one issue about which it's hard to shut up.
http://www.wired.com/gaming/virtualw...frontiers_0617





Censors Ban 'Brutal' Video Game
BBC

British censors have banned a violent video game from the UK for the first time in a decade.

The video game Manhunt 2 was rejected for its "unrelenting focus on stalking and brutal slaying", the British Board of Film Classification said.

It means the Manhunt sequel cannot be legally supplied anywhere in the UK.

The parents of a Leicester schoolboy who blamed the original game for the murder of their 14-year-old son said they were "absolutely elated".

The original Manhunt game was given an 18 classification in 2003.

Manhunt 2, for PS2 and Nintendo Wii consoles, is made by Rockstar Games.

The company has six weeks to submit an appeal.

The last game to be refused classification was Carmageddon in 1997. That decision was overturned on appeal.

David Cooke, director of the BBFC, said: "Manhunt 2 is distinguishable from recent high-end video games by its unremitting bleakness and callousness of tone.

"There is sustained and cumulative casual sadism in the way in which these killings are committed, and encouraged, in the game."

'Morally irresponsible'

The original Manhunt game caused huge controversy and was blamed for the murder of Stefan Pakeerah.

The boy was stabbed and beaten to death in Leicester in February 2004.

His parents believe the killer, Warren LeBlanc, 17, was inspired by the game.

Stefan's mother, Giselle Pakeerah, had condemned the sequel, branding the gaming industry "morally irresponsible".

"We have been campaigning against these games for a long time and the BBFC made the right decision," she said.

Police said robbery was the motive behind the attack on Stefan in Stokes Wood Park on 26 February 2004 - and not the video game blamed by Stefan's parents.

Manhunt's maker Rockstar North has always insisted its games are geared towards mature audiences and are marketed responsibly.

Leicester MP Keith Vaz, who campaigned with the Pakeerahs against the original version of Manhunt, praised the decision to ban Manhunt 2.

He said: "This is an excellent decision by the British Board of Film Classification, showing that game publishers cannot expect to get interactive games where players take the part of killers engaged in 'casual sadism' and murder."

Do you have any experiences of this game? Have you played it? Send us your comments using the form below.

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http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/h...re/6767623.stm





EU Examines Search Engines and Privacy Issues

European data protection officials are expanding their examination of the impact search engines have on privacy.
Paul Meller

European data protection officials are expanding their examination of the impact search engines have on privacy, after initially targeting Google Inc. last month, European Data Protection Supervisor Peter Hustinx said in an interview late Wednesday.

A panel of European data protection officials called the Article 29 Working Group decided Wednesday to request information from Google's rivals amid concerns that search engines are holding onto information about the people who use them for too long, Hustinx said.

Hustinx, a senior member of the working group, declined to name the companies. However, they are believed to include Yahoo Inc., Lycos Inc. and Microsoft Corp.'s Windows Live.com.

The working group will make a general assessment of the state of European citizens' privacy in relation to search engines at its meeting in October or December, he said.

"We will issue a generic paper from which national data protection authorities can address players in their jurisdictions," Hustinx said

Google does present specific problems, he added, because so many of its services pose a possible threat to privacy. He mentioned Google Earth and Gmail, Google's Web-based e-mail service. Compiling information about people from the various different Web services could compound the threat to privacy, he said.

Google has already replied to the letter it received from the working group last month.

"The use of the Internet the way Google is doing it could introduce tremendous privacy problems. We will study the company's response to our letter very carefully," Hustinx said.

"If the picture they give is not accurate or not justified we might find ourselves on a collision course," he said, but he added, "That's not my sense at the moment."

In Google's response, the company offered to shorten the time it keeps Web searches to 18 months from two years.

The company also promised to look at shortening the lifespan of cookies it deposits on computers. Google presently stores cookies, including ones that remember what language a person speaks, for 30 years.

Google's cooperation impressed Hustinx until now. "I welcome a big company that is investing in privacy. This isn't just window dressing," he said, echoing comments he made at a data protection conference last month in Amsterdam.

Broadening its examination beyond Google is an obvious next step, according to Danny Sullivan, who writes for searchengineland.com.

He compared the cookie policies of Google, Windows Live and Yahoo and found that Yahoo stores the data for as long as Google while Windows Live stores the information for 14 years.

However, Windows Live deposited far more cookies on computers than Google and Yahoo. Using a clean version of Windows Internet Explorer 7, Sullivan set it to reveal all cookies. Windows Live left 14 cookies as soon as he did a search; Yahoo left six, while Google left just two.

"Both Google and Yahoo have 30-year cookies. So where's the letter for Yahoo from the Working Group? And isn't 14 years from Microsoft excessive?" Sullivan wrote.

Yahoo and Microsoft both say they take privacy very seriously.

"Microsoft has a long-term commitment to providing customers with control over the collection, use and disclosure of their personal information. While we have not received formal communication from the Article 29 Working Party, we recognize that online search is creating legitimate concerns about privacy and are actively engaged with data protection authorities around the world to ensure that our practices meet the highest standards when it comes to protecting privacy," Microsoft said in a statement.

"Our users' trust is one of Yahoo's most valuable assets. That's why maintaining that trust and protecting our users' privacy is paramount to us. Our data retention practices vary according to the diverse nature of our services," Yahoo said.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,13...s/article.html





Coming to America: The EU Privacy Directive
Patrick Lamphere

The Senate is finally getting around to pushing a national data breach law out of the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation (thanks, TJX! ). This represents a major change in how the federal government views the privacy of personal information, shifting away from a mix of self-regulation, state laws and industry-specific requirements (HIPAA, GLBA) toward a comprehensive national policy. The road to this point has been long, but it's worth examining to understand what's ahead.

The EU Privacy Directive

Directive 95/46/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 October 1995, on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data (aka the EU privacy directive), was implemented to standardize the requirements for the protection of personal information across all the countries that make up the EU. The directive defines personal data in an extremely vague manner:

Any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person ('data subject'); an identifiable person is one who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identification number or to one or more factors specific to his physical, physiological, mental, economic, cultural or social identity; [...]

It then requires organizations that do business in the EU or with EU citizens to observe the following key points:

• Only the minimum personal data needed should be collected, and it should be retained for the minimum time necessary.
• Consent must be given by the person to which the data refers to collect and process the data.
• The directive attempts to reconcile the right to privacy with the right to free expression by carving out an exception for journalistic, artistic or literary expression.
• The subject has the right to know whom is keeping and accessing their personal data, and the right to examine the data and to have the data removed or changed.
• Personal data must be kept secure and protected from disclosure.
• Breaches of the directive may be enforced by member states.
• Each member state must set up an authority to monitor and implement the rules of the directive.
• Transfers of data to third countries must be limited to only those countries that ensure an adequate level of protection.

This last point brought the EU and the U.S. into conflict, because the U.S. had no comprehensive data protection law. After two years of negotiation, on May 31, 2000, the EU voted to approve the U.S. Safe Harbor principles.

Safe Harbor

The Safe Harbor framework was developed and implemented by the Department of Commerce to ensure an "adequate level of protection" for EU citizen data held by U.S. companies in accordance with the principles of the EU privacy directive. The program allows companies to "self-certify" annually. This list is then published and maintained by the Commerce Department. The principles of Safe Harbor are as follows:

• Individuals must be notified that information is being collected, to whom it is disclosed and the reason for its disclosure.
• Individuals must be given a choice to opt out of data collection.
• Transfers to third parties must follow the above two principles, or the company can require contractually that the third party comply with the principles of safe harbor.
• Individuals must be able to access the information about them and be able to correct, amend or delete information that is incorrect.
• Organizations must take reasonable steps to ensure the security and integrity of information.
• Organizations must have an "available and affordable" recourse mechanism for investigation of claims, procedures to verify that the company is adhering to the Safe Harbor principles and an obligation to remedy problems, including "sanctions sufficiently rigorous to ensure compliance by the organization."

Enforcement of Safe Harbor is left to private organizations that offer certifications based on the principles, civil lawsuits and, in certain industries, federal regulators (for example, the U.S. Department of Transportation and the Federal Trade Commission enforce the Safe Harbor framework with respect to airlines).

History of state laws

Of course, Safe Harbor principles don't apply to U.S. companies holding the personal data of U.S. citizens, so individual states started to address the issue of privacy, mainly by focusing on data breaches.

California was the first to enact a breach disclosure law in 2003. The main requirements of the law are that companies must notify customers if their unencrypted personal information "was, or is reasonably believed to have been, acquired by an unauthorized person." This notification can be by mail, e-mail or press release to statewide media. California also set down a much more stringent definition of personal information:

• An individual's first name or first initial and last name in combination with any one or more of the following data elements, when either the name or the data elements are not encrypted
• Social Security number
• Driver's license number or California Identification Card number
• Account number, credit or debit card number, in combination with any required security code, access code or password that would permit access to an individual's financial account

A majority of other states have followed California's lead and passed breach disclosure laws of their own. Unfortunately, the requirement for disclosure and definition of what constitutes personal information varies by state, making compliance difficult for firms that do business nationwide.

The Identity Theft Prevention Act

Into this convoluted environment, five bills were introduced in the Senate and two in the House addressing privacy breach disclosure. So far, Senate Bill 239 (the Notification of Risk to Personal Data Act of 2007) and Senate Bill 1178 (the Identity Theft Prevention Act) have been passed out of committee and on to the Senate floor.

While the two acts differ, the key points are the same. First, they both preempt existing state laws in order to clear out the confusion that exists currently. Second, they apply to any and every entity that stores personal information, with the only exception being for national security. While S.239 is strictly concerned with breach disclosure, S.1178 goes much further, requiring organizations to do the following:

1. Ensure the security and confidentiality of such data.
2. Protect against any anticipated threats or hazards to the security or integrity of such data.
3. Protect against unauthorized access to, or use of, such data that could result in substantial harm to any individual.

Both bills also create a national definition of what constitutes personal information. S. 239 defines it fairly narrowly as:

Any name or number that may be used, alone or in conjunction with any other information, to identify a specific individual, including any—

a) name, Social Security number, date of birth, official state- or government-issued driver's license or identification number, alien registration number, government passport number, employer or taxpayer identification number

b) unique biometric data, such as fingerprint, voice print, retina or iris image, or other unique physical representation

c) unique electronic identification number, address or routing code

d) telecommunication identifying information or access device

S.1178 uses a definition more in line with California's. It defines personal information as an individual's name, address or telephone number combined with a Social Security number; financial account number (such as a credit card number); a state driver's license or ID number; or the username and password or PIN to access accounts for financial services.

These differences will most likely be ironed out by the Justice and Commerce committees as they pass through those venues.

Disclosure requirements

Both bills require notification of the FTC, the credit bureaus and consumers in a timely manner. S.1178 defines that period as no more than 25 business days since discovery, and both bills allow law enforcement to delay disclosure if it would interfere with an investigation.

S.239 has some straightforward and Draconian penalties -- $1,000 per day per person’s data breached. S.1178 makes violation of the law an unfair or deceptive act under 15 USC § 57 and allows judges to "grant such relief as the court finds necessary to redress injury to consumers or other persons, partnerships and corporations resulting from the rule violation or the unfair or deceptive act or practice, as the case may be." (In other words, don't break the law, and if you do, don’t annoy the judge.)

Sound simple? Not so fast

So far, all pretty straightforward. But then it gets interesting. First, both bills have a clause for enforcement by the states. That's right, they're letting the states act as pit bulls:

SEC. 9. ENFORCEMENT BY STATE ATTORNEYS GENERAL.
(a) IN GENERAL -- Except as provided in section 8(c), a State, as parens patriae, may bring a civil action on behalf of its residents in an appropriate state or district court of the United States to enforce the provisions of this Act, to obtain damages, restitution, or other compensation on behalf of such residents, or to obtain such further and other relief as the court may deem appropriate, whenever the attorney general of the State has reason to believe that the interests of the residents of the State have been or are being threatened or adversely affected by a covered entity that violates this Act or a regulation under this Act.

Since I've never met an AG that didn't want to be governor (at least), and since identity theft is a hot-button topic with the electorate, this provision will ensure that the law is enforced with great gusto.

S.239 punts the administration of the law to the Secret Service. S. 1178 goes much further and requires the FTC to set up an "Information Security and Consumer Privacy Advisory Committee" to "collect, review, disseminate, and advise on best practices for covered entities to protect sensitive personal information stored and transferred." However, the bill specifically prohibits "regulations that require or impose a specific technology, product, technological standards, or solution." What does this mean? Most likely the establishment of an entity similar to California's Office of Privacy Protection, to define best or recommended practices.

The biggest change I see, however, is that these bills openly repudiate the long-held position of the U.S. government that, as the FTC's workbook on Safe Harbor puts it, "Self-regulatory initiatives are an effective approach to putting meaningful privacy protections in place."

In other words, we've finally come to realize that self-regulation by industry hasn't worked. The states have stepped in, creating the same situation of conflicting regulation that led to the creation of the EU privacy directive. The only question now is if the law that comes out of Congress will be a small step strictly focused on breaches, such as S.239, or whether we take the bigger step of forming a permanent committee under the FTC to monitor privacy as outlined by S.1178. Either way, the U.S. is finally moving away from the fractured environment of the past and toward a comprehensive privacy strategy.
http://www.computerworld.com/action/...intsrc=kc_feat





Bush, Senate Head for Showdown on Domestic Spying
Thomas Ferraro

President George W. Bush headed toward a showdown with the Senate over his domestic spying program on Thursday after lawmakers approved subpoenas for documents the White House declared off-limits.

"The information the committee is requesting is highly classified and not information we can make available," White House spokesman Tony Fratto said in signaling a possible court fight.

The Senate Judiciary Committee approved the subpoenas in a 13-3 vote following 18 months of futile efforts to obtain documents related to Bush's contested justification for warrantless surveillance begun after the September 11 attacks.

Three Republicans joined 10 Democrats in voting to authorize the subpoenas, which may be issued within days.

"We are asking not for intimate operational details but for the legal justifications," said Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat. "We have been in the dark too long."

Authorization of the subpoenas set up another possible courtroom showdown between the White House and the Democratic-led Congress, which has vowed to unveil how the tight-lipped Republican administration operates.

Last week, congressional committees subpoenaed two of Bush's former aides in a separate investigation into the firing last year of nine of the 93 U.S. attorneys.

Bush could challenge the subpoenas, citing a right of executive privilege his predecessors have invoked with mixed success to keep certain materials private and prevent aides from testifying.

Bush authorized warrantless surveillance of people inside the United States with suspected ties to terrorists shortly after the September 11 attacks. The program, conducted by the National Security Agency, became public in 2005.

Wartime Powers

Critics charge the program violated the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires warrants. Bush said he could act without warrants under wartime powers.

In January, the administration abandoned the program and agreed to get approval of the FISA court for its electronic surveillance. Bush and Democrats still are at odds over revisions he wants in the FISA law.

"The White House ... stubbornly refuses to let us know how it interprets the current law and the perceived flaws that led it to operate a program outside the process established by FISA for more than five years," Leahy said.

Interest in the legal justification of the program soared last month after former Deputy Attorney General James Comey testified about a March 2004 hospital-room meeting where then-White House counsel Alberto Gonzales tried to pressure a critically ill John Ashcroft, then the attorney general, to set aside concerns and sign a presidential order reauthorizing the program.

With top Justice Department officials threatening to resign, Bush quietly quelled the uprising by directing the department to take steps to bring the program in line with the law, Comey said.

Leahy noted that when Gonzales, now attorney general, appeared before the panel on February 6, he was asked if senior department officials had voiced reservations about the program.

"I do not believe that these DoJ (department) officials ... had concerns about this program," Leahy quoted Gonzales as saying. Leahy added, "The committee and the American people deserve better."

(Additional reporting by Matt Spetalnick)
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsO...38137520070621





Judge Gives Go-Ahead to Lawsuit Against Bush's Bank Transfer Spying Program
Michael Roston

A federal judge in Chicago last week rejected a motion to dismiss a lawsuit filed against a Belgium-based bank transfer clearinghouse that collaborated with an anti-terrorism spying program led by the US Department of Treasury. The judge's decision will allow two plaintiffs to press their case that the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) violated the Fourth Amendment and financial privacy rights of bank customers throughout the United States when it collaborated with president George W. Bush's so-called 'Terrorist Finance Tracking Program.'

"I don't think any corporate entity should be given a blank check to spy on Americans whether it's their telephone conversations or their financial transactions," said Steven Schwarz, the lead attorney for the case's two plaintiffs, in a Tuesday morning phone call with RAW STORY. "Maybe that's how they do it in other countries, but we have one set of rules, and nobody gets carte blanche to shred the Constitution."

SWIFT facilitates $6 trillion a day in financial transactions among thousands of banks in hundreds of countries. In June 26, 2006, articles in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Wall Street Journal, SWIFT was revealed by the media to have turned over considerable information its database to the US Department of Treasury. Schwarz alleged that the government initially had filed a more limited subpoena for information.

(Note: Counterterrorism expert Victor Comras wrote just after the revelation that the US government's monitoring of SWIFT transactions first was noted in 2002 in United Nations publications.)

Schwarz explained to RAW STORY why the action undertaken by SWIFT in assisting the government's program allowed an alarming fishing expedition to take place.

"You can think of SWIFT as gatekeeper, like if they have the keys to a warehouse," he said. "The government wants to get in and take a lot of specific items in there. SWIFT says 'Sorry, it's too hard to show you around, and give you this or that, why don't you just take a look around and take whatever you want.'"

James F. Holderman, the Chief Judge in the Federal Court for the Northern District of Illinois, agreed with Schwarz's argument that SWIFT appeared to have carried out an overbroad surrender of information to the US government.

"Unfettered government access to the bank records of private citizens [is] constitutionally problematic," the judge wrote in his decision, in which he allowed two of the four complaints to continue to be considered.

The banking cooperative defended itself in a statement released to Bloomberg News last week.

"SWIFT complies with lawful obligations in the countries where it operates and will vigorously defend itself against the plaintiffs' remaining allegations," said a spokesman in the article written by Andrew Harris.

Another attorney working on the case, Carl Mayer, warned that the banking consortium has great deal at stake in the case.

"SWIFT faces billions in damages after this week’s ruling," he said in a statement released to the press by the plaintiffs. "Federal bank privacy laws provide for $100 in damages for each illegal disclosure of customer records."

While agreeing that the government's financial spying program was most alarming to large, offshore institutional investors, Schwarz argued that his plaintiffs were not billionaires and all Americans should be worried about the financial privacy implications of the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program.

"Our plaintiffs are average Americans with checking accounts and credit cards," he said of Ian Walker and Stephen Kruse, who were named in the suit. "We're alleging that basic routine transactions were vacuumed up in a big data mining program. Some people may be fine with it because they think it may help catch a terrorist, but I think just as many people are uncomfortable with having their records sifted through in that manner."

Judge Holderman approved a 'change of venue' request by SWIFT to move the case to the federal district court in Virginia. If Schwarz's case holds up in the new district court, which is known for being more conservative and pro-government in its orientation, he said he'll begin his discovery process about three months from now.
http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Judge_...inst_0619.html





Subpoenas Issued over NSA Warrantless Wiretapping
By bean

The Senate Judiciary Committee voted Thursday to subpoena documents from the Bush Administration related to the government’s admitted eavesdropping on Americans’ overseas emails and phone calls without getting court approval. In a 13-3 vote, the Committee decided to authorize chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) to issue subpoenas for documents related to the NSA warrantless surveillance program.

Nearly any request is going to be met with tough resistance from the White House, and the confrontation over the documents “could set the stage for a constitutional showdown over the separation of powers.” The subpoenas have long been expected from the Judiciary Committee. If the Administration decides to ignore the subpoena, the Committee can find the President or Attorney General in contempt, ask for a full Senate vote and then force a U.S. attorney to prosecute. Typically, compromises are reached before a full vote is taken in the Senate. Bush could also challenge the subpoenas, citing a right of executive privilege his predecessors have invoked with mixed success to keep certain materials private and prevent aides from testifying.

Leahy issued the a statement after the vote which asked, “Why has this Administration been so steadfast in its refusal? Deputy Attorney General Comey’s account suggests that some of these documents would reveal an Administration perfectly willing to ignore the law. Is that what they are hiding?” He also stated, “We are asking not for intimate operational details but for the legal justifications. We have been in the dark too long.”

Though the NSA operated the wiretapping program, which did not comply with the law known as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that regulates intelligence wiretapping inside the States, the subpoenas do not cover that secretive agency. The House Judiciary Committee has also threatened to subpoena the NSA documents. In a hearing last month, Principal Assistant Attorney General Steven Bradbury refused the committee’s request to turn over the papers, but refused to assert executive privilege in doing so.
http://www.lawbean.com/2007/06/21/su...s-wiretapping/





U.S. General Laments Google Earth Capability
Kristin Roberts

The head of U.S. Air Force intelligence and surveillance on Thursday said data available commercially through online mapping software such as Google Earth posed a danger to security but could not be rolled back.

"To talk about danger is, if I may, really is irrelevant because it's there," said Lt. Gen. David Deptula, deputy chief of staff for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance.

"No one's going to undo commercial satellite imagery," he told reporters in Washington.

Deptula cited Google Inc.'s Google Earth, which gives Web users an astronaut's view of the earth and allows them to zoom down to street level. He said it had provided anyone with a credit card the ability to get a picture of any place on earth.

"It is huge," he said. "It's something that was a closely guarded secret not that long ago and now everybody's got access to it."

Asked if the U.S. military might try to implement restrictions or blackouts on imagery of some areas, Deptula said he was not aware of such an attempt.

"I don't want to speak to specifics, but not that I'm aware of," he said.

Instead, governments are trying to mitigate the effect through camouflage, concealment and deception, he said, providing no other details.
http://www.reuters.com/article/techn...40694720070621





Cyber Attack Hits Pentagon Computers

The Defense Department took as many as 1,500 computers off line because of a cyber attack, Pentagon officials said Thursday.

Few details were released about the attack, which happened Wednesday, but Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the computer systems would be working again soon.

Gates said the Pentagon sees hundreds of attacks a day, and this one had no adverse impact on department operations. Employees whose computers were affected could still use their handheld BlackBerries.

During a press briefing Gates said: "We obviously have redundant systems in place. ... There will be some administrative disruptions and personal inconveniences."

He said the Pentagon shut the computers down when a penetration of the system was detected, and the cause is still being investigated.

When asked if his own e-mail account was affected, Gates said: "I don't do e-mail. I'm a very low-tech person."

Navy Lt. Cmdr. Chito Peppler, a Pentagon spokesman, said Defense Department systems are probed every day by a wide variety of attacks.

"The nature of the threat is large and diverse, and includes recreational hackers, self-styled cyber-vigilantes, various groups with nationalistic or ideological agendas, transnational actors and nation-states," Peppler said.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/...s/4910162.html





ACLU Gives St. Louis Residents Video Cameras to Monitor Police Conduct in High-Crime Areas
Christopher Leonard

The American Civil Liberties Union launched a program Wednesday to give free video cameras to some residents of high-crime neighborhoods to help them monitor police after years of misconduct complaints.

The ACLU of Eastern Missouri began working on the project last year after television crews broadcast video of officers punching and kicking a suspect who led police on a car chase.

"The idea here is to level the playing field, so it's not just your word against the police's word," said Brenda Jones, executive director of the ACLU chapter.

The ACLU has given cameras and training to about 10 residents in north St. Louis, a high-crime, low-income part of the city that members said is plagued by police misconduct. The group hopes to expand the program to 50 to 100 residents.

Police spokesman Richard Wilkes declined to comment when asked how the program might affect police relations with the public.

"We don't have any opinions or feelings about it one way or another," Wilkes said. "Hopefully it records positive interactions between the police and the community."

Former police Sgt. K.L. Williams is overseeing the training, teaching residents how to videotape officers from a safe distance without interrupting arrests or searches.

"The citizens are not there to interfere with any police contacts," Williams said.

ACLU spokesman Redditt Hudson said the program will also include free workshops to teach residents about their rights when approached by police.

Project organizers have worked closely with police to make sure they are aware of the program's goals, Jones said.

The ACLU declined to release the names of people participating in the video monitoring.

Police conduct was highlighted in January 2006, when Edmon Burns was arrested after officers in suburban Maplewood noticed a man in a van acting suspiciously. They pursued him into St. Louis as the chase was broadcast live on television. It was not clear from the video whether Burns resisted officers.

Three of the officers were from Maplewood, and one was from the St. Louis Police Department.

Burns, 33, had a long criminal record. He was treated at a hospital and released.

The FBI investigated and handed the case over to the Justice Department, which concluded last month that there was insufficient evidence to charge the officers with violating civil-rights laws. Prosecutors said their decision was not an exoneration of the officers.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/htm...copcams20.html





Wiretap Charge Dropped in Police Video Case
Matt Miller

A case that attracted nationwide attention has ended with the dropping of a felony wiretapping charge against a Carlisle man who recorded a police officer during a traffic stop.

Cumberland County District Attorney David Freed said his decision will affect not only Brian Kelly, 18, but also will establish a policy for police departments countywide.

"When police are audio- and video-recording traffic stops with notice to the subjects, similar actions by citizens, even if done in secret, will not result in criminal charges," Freed said yesterday. "I intend to communicate this decision to all police agencies within the county so that officers on the street are better-prepared to handle a similar situation should it arise again."

Freed's decision came a week after a story in The Patriot-News caused a storm of criticism over Kelly's May 24 arrest by a Carlisle police officer on the wiretapping charge, which carries a penalty of up to seven years in prison upon conviction.

Kelly's father, Chris, called the withdrawal of the charge "fantastic." "That's what should have happened to begin with," he said.

District attorneys in two other midstate counties said they don't have policies regarding how police should deal with similar situations.

Police officers usually confer with his office before filing charges if they encounter cases that "are a little out of the ordinary," Perry County District Attorney Chad Chenot said.

"We handle these on a case-by-case basis," Dauphin County District Attorney Edward M. Marsico Jr. said. "The facts are always different."

Kelly was arrested under a Pennsylvania law that bars the audio recording of anyone's conversation without consent. Taking pictures or filming without sound in public settings is not illegal.

Brian Kelly said he spent 26 hours in the county prison after his arrest. He was released when his mother posted her house as security for his $2,500 bail.

According to the police and Brian Kelly, he was arrested after a pickup truck in which he was riding was stopped by an officer on West High Street for alleged traffic and equipment violations.

Kelly said he filmed the incident and was arrested after obeying the officer's order to turn off and surrender his camera. The wiretap charge was filed after the officer consulted a deputy district attorney.

The Patriot-News received more than 100 e-mails, phone calls and other communications from across the area, state and country in response to a June 11 story on Kelly's arrest. None of those messages supported the arrest, and several sharply criticized Pennsylvania's wiretap law, which is among the most stringent in the U.S.

Freed and other law-enforcement authorities also reported receiving e-mails and calls critical of the decision to charge Kelly.

Freed said he withdrew the charge after reviewing evidence in the case and state court rulings regarding application of the wiretap law.

Even in voiding the charge, Freed praised Carlisle police for their "hard work and cooperation" in the investigation of the Kelly case. He said the officer who charged Kelly acted in a "professional manner."

The law itself might need to be revised, Freed said.

"It is not the most clear statute that we have on the books," he said. "It could need a look, based on how technology has advanced since it was written."
http://blog.pennlive.com/patriotnews...d_in_poli.html





WFLZ Draws Ire From Britney Spears Over Billboards
FMQB



Britney Spears is threatening legal action against Clear Channel's WFLZ/Tampa over billboards for the MJ Morning Show that feature a picture of Spears with a shaved head. The billboards utilize a rather unflattering paparazzi photo of the bald singer along with a picture of the morning show host, and they are headlined, "Total Nut Jobs," "Shock Therapy" and "Certifiable." The MJ Morning Show airs on several stations across Florida, and the billboards, which first appeared in May, advertised the program in Tampa, Jacksonville and Clearwater.

TheSmokingGun.com posted photos of the billboards as well as a copy of Spears' legal letter that was sent to Clear Channel Communications, in which Spears' lawyer calls the ads "outrageous to the extreme." The letter calls for immediate removal of the billboards and implies that Spears will sue for damages if Clear Channel does not comply. The letter also notes that Spears' likeness "has a multi-million dollar value" and therefore she is entitled to "substantial damages."

The letter concludes, "We demand the immediate removal of the billboards, confirmed by documentary evidence and verified under penalty of perjury. We also demand an inventory of all Clear Channel billboards in any location containing [Spears'] photo... If Clear Channel continues to ignore the reasonable demands being made on [Spears'] behalf... it does so at its peril."
http://fmqb.com/Article.asp?id=425323





Citing Supreme Court Precedent, 11th Circuit Reverses Major Copyright Ruling
R. Robin McDonald

In a decision called "curious" by an intellectual property expert, a federal appellate panel in Atlanta has reversed its circuit's 6-year-old opinion in a major copyright case, declaring the ruling's mandate on behalf of freelance photographers to be "moot."

In doing so, the three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals interpreted a landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision that expanded freelance writers' copyrights in a way that limited the copyright claims of freelance photographers.

The panel's June 13 ruling in Greenberg v. National Geographic Society II, 97-03924-CV, reversed a separate panel's 2001 opinion, Greenberg v. National Geographic Society I, 244F.3d1267. That decision had been authored by 11th Circuit Judge Stanley F. Birch Jr., a noted copyright expert whose formal 11th Circuit portrait depicts him holding a copy of "Nimmer on Copyright," the definitive work on copyright law. Judges Gerald B. Tjoflat and R. Lanier Anderson III joined Birch in the 2001 ruling.

In reversing Greenberg I, the second appellate panel sidestepped a precedent which binds panels to an earlier circuit decision addressing the same issue of law unless it has been overturned either by the entire 11th Circuit or by the U.S. Supreme Court.

By declaring Greenberg I moot, the new panel -- Judge Rosemary Barkett, Senior Judge Phyllis A. Kravitch and David G. Trager, a visiting U.S. district judge from the 2nd Circuit in New York -- also resolved a long-standing conflict with the 2nd Circuit created by the Birch opinion. Trager wrote the Greenberg II opinion for the new panel.

Both cases deal with The National Geographic Society's placement of its entire magazine library on CD-ROM and selling it as "The Complete National Geographic."

In the 2001 case, Birch found that National Geographic infringed the copyright of Florida freelance photographer Jerry Greenberg. Sixty-four of Greenberg's photos had appeared in issues of the National Geographic. One of those published photos also was included in an animated photo montage designed exclusively for the CD-ROM.

But in nearly identical cases in New York that were brought against National Geographic by other freelance writers and photographers, 2nd Circuit judges have taken the opposite tack.

In Greenberg II, Trager asserted that the new 11th Circuit panel on which he sat had authority to overturn Greenberg I if an intervening Supreme Court case overruled a prior panel decision, or if "the rationale the Supreme Court uses in an intervening case directly contradicts the analysis this court has used in a related area, and establishes that this Court's current rule is wrong."

The intervening ruling on which Trager rested Greenberg II was the Supreme Court's 2001 opinion in New York Times v. Tasini, 533 U.S. 233.

In Tasini, the high court found that the Times' sales of its published news articles to online databases such as Lexis and Westlaw infringed the copyrights of its freelance writers whose contracts had never contemplated the advent of digital databases.

This week, Lawrence Nodine, a partner at intellectual property boutique Needle & Rosenberg, called the Greenberg II ruling "curious" for several reasons.

"Leave out for a second, the sitting 2nd Circuit judge," he said. "The rule is that you are bound by previous panel decisions of the circuit that should only be reversed en banc."

While an appellate panel would have authority to reverse a previous panel if there were a Supreme Court decision "on point," Nodine suggested that Tasini was based on a different set of facts.

And dicta -- any explanatory commentary included in the high court opinion that does not directly address the facts of the case under review -- "ought not entitle the panel [in Greenberg II] to disregard the previous decision," Nodine said.

"Whether or not the [Greenberg II] panel could reverse without an en banc [hearing] is a very interesting question."

For a decade, the Greenberg and Tasini cases have pitted publishers against freelance photographers and writers -- all of them seeking to define copyright law in the digital age. At stake are royalties and fees that publishers could be forced to share with freelancers whenever they reproduce and sell those freelancers' previously published works in merchandise designed for computer access.

As Birch noted in 2001 during oral argument in Greenberg I, "All this is about who gets the money, whether you [publishers] can get the money or have to share it with some author."

Florida lawyer Norman Davis of the Miami firm Squire, Sanders & Dempsey, who represents Greenberg, insisted that Tasini "has no relevance whatsoever to Greenberg I" and was not a proper basis for reconsidering and then mooting the Birch opinion.

Davis added that his client has not decided whether to ask the 11th Circuit to reconsider Greenberg II en banc.

In an appellate brief in Greenberg II, Davis suggested that the 2nd Circuit's rulings in other National Geographic cases "set up a conflict" with Birch's 2001 opinion "through the misapplication of Tasini" and argued that "any resolution of the conflict between the two circuits should be left to the Supreme Court."

National Geographic Society executive vice president Terrence B. Adamson -- a former Atlanta attorney who was a key assistant to then-Attorney General Griffin B. Bell and remains President Carter's longtime personal lawyer -- said he was "pleased and quite delighted" by Greenberg II.

"This is a very important case," he said. "It wasn't that we were selling a lot of product, but it is our archive. There are now almost 120 years of National Geographic. It's our whole history and archive of what this organization has been about."

The CD set, Adamson asserted, is not a new use of formerly published issues. "It's the same use. ... because the practice had been for 40 to 50 years to do microfilm and microfiche, which everyone understood" and which required no additional royalty payments to freelancers. "It's the same result if you put it on CD-ROM, or DVD."

The Tasini case was one of the most widely watched copyright cases to reach the Supreme Court in years. Freelance authors of articles previously published in newspapers and magazines, led by Jonathan Tasini, brought claims of copyright infringement against publishers and owners of electronic databases that had made the articles widely available via the Internet.

A federal district court found for the defendant publishers but was reversed by the 2nd Circuit, which ruled in favor of the writers. In a 7-2 opinion issued June 25, 2001, the high court affirmed the 2nd Circuit's appellate ruling.

Writing for the majority, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg determined that electronic and CD-ROM databases containing individual articles from multiple editions of magazines, newspapers and other periodicals could not be considered "revisions" or revised editions of the previously published issues.

"[T]he Databases reproduce and distribute articles standing alone and not in context, not 'as part of that particular collective work' to which the author contributed, 'as part of ... any revision' thereof or 'as part of ... any later collective work in the same series,'" she wrote, citing federal copyright law.

Under the terms of Section 201(c) of the 1976 revisions to the Copyright Act of 1909, Ginsburg wrote, "A publisher could reprint a contribution from one issue in a later issue of its magazine, and could reprint an article from one edition of an encyclopedia in a later revision of it, but could not revise the contribution itself or include it in a new anthology or an entirely different collective work. ...

"If there is demand for a freelance article standing alone or in a new collection, the Copyright Act allows the freelancer to benefit from that demand; after authorizing initial publication, the freelancer may also sell the article to others," she noted.

"It would scarcely preserve the author's copyright in a contribution as contemplated by Congress," Ginsburg concluded, "if a print publisher, without the author's permission, could reproduce or distribute discrete copies of the contribution in isolation or within new collective works. The publishers' view that inclusion of the articles in the databases lies within the 'privilege of reproducing and distributing the [articles] as part of ... [a] revision of that collective work,' is unacceptable."

The majority in Tasini also dismissed an analogy offered by publishers that digital databases were akin to microfilm and microfiche reprints, which have not prompted copyright infringement claims.

Ginsburg noted that databases "do not perceptibly reproduce articles as part of the collective work to which the author contributed or as part of any 'revision' thereof. ... We would reach the same conclusion if the Times sent intact newspapers to the electronic publishers."

The Greenberg cases stem from The National Geographic Society's creation of "The Complete National Geographic" -- a 30-disc CD-ROM set containing complete reproductions of every issue of National Geographic published in the magazine's history. Four of those issues included photos by Greenberg, who had reclaimed his copyrights from the National Geographic Society after publication.

"The Complete National Geographic" was powered by copyrighted software programs and included -- in addition to the magazine reproductions -- an animated montage of photos set to music and a Kodak commercial. The National Geographic registered a separate, and new, copyright for the CD-ROM set in 1997.

In Greenberg I, Birch -- writing for the panel -- stated that "common-sense copyright analysis compels the conclusion" that the National Geographic, in collaboration with a software company, has created "a new product ... in a new medium, for a new market that far transcends any privilege of revision or other mere reproduction" envisioned by federal copyright law.

Birch specifically dismissed arguments offered by National Geographic lawyers that the CD-ROM sets were merely a republication of a pre-existing work no different from converting the magazines to microfilm.

"[T]he critical difference, from a copyright perspective, is that the computer, as opposed to the machines used for viewing microfilm and microfiche, requires the interaction of a computer program in order to accomplish the useful reproduction involved with the new medium," Birch wrote. "These computer programs are themselves the subject matter of copyright, and may constitute original works of authorship, and thus present an additional dimension in the copyright analysis."

On remand, a district judge in Florida, using Greenberg I as a guide, awarded Greenberg $400,000 in 2004, three years after Tasini.

After the Tasini ruling, National Geographic again appealed, resulting in last week's ruling.

In Greenberg II, Trager, joined by Kravitch and Barkett, sided with his home circuit, which since Tasini has rejected claims against National Geographic by other freelance writers and photographers.

Like the 2nd Circuit, Trager acknowledged that Tasini had not addressed the issue directly. But he suggested that the high court had given "tacit approval" to microfilm and microfiche as non-infringing.

"Under the Tasini framework, the relevant question is whether the original context of the collective work has been preserved in the revision," Trager wrote. "Clearly, the replica portion of the ["Complete National Geographic"] preserves the original context of the magazines, because it comprises the exact images of each page of the original magazines."

But in direct contrast to Greenberg I, the Trager opinion asserted that software programs embedded in the CD-ROM did not alter "the original context of the magazine contents."

L. Donald Prutzman, a partner at Tannenbaum Helpern Syracuse & Hirschtritt in New York who submitted an amicus brief in Tasini for the American Society of Media Photographers, called Greenberg II "a reaction to the 2nd Circuit's decision -- on behalf of another photographer with respect to the same product -- which declined to follow Greenberg [I ]."

Prutzman said the 2nd Circuit, in Faulkner v. National Geographic Enterprises, 409F.3d26, determined that Tasini would allow publishers to reproduce previously published articles in digital format as long as they were presented as part of an entire issue. On the other hand, "The National Geographic product added a number of bells and whistles," he said. "There was a basis for a holding that it was a new product, not just an alternative form of the magazine."

Post-Tasini appellate court opinions suggest that, "As long as you reproduce the publication in the same form it was published you haven't infringed," Prutzman continued. "But if you disaggregate it into separate articles and make them separately available, then you have infringed."

Leon Friedman, a professor of copyright law at Hofstra Law School, who filed an amicus brief on behalf of The Authors Guild in Tasini, suggested that, contrary to the Greenberg II opinion, "I don't think Tasini dealt directly with this issue. ... I think people are reading a little too much into Tasini."

To reach the conclusion opined in Greenberg II, "You have to read a lot between the lines ... I don't think Tasini compels the result in this case." Because of that, Friedman said he suspects that the U.S. Supreme Court "would take that case" on writ of certiorari. After issuing Tasini, the high court denied cert in Greenberg I, which the Birch panel had published six days before Tasini was argued.

But New York attorney Charles S. Sims -- who filed an amicus brief in Tasini for The Association of American Publishers in support of The New York Times -- said, "The 11th Circuit was wrong in 2001 and corrected itself in 2007. The analysis that the Tasini Court used was one of the reasons why it was so clear the 11th Circuit was wrong. It's certainly useful that they have corrected their error and brought themselves in line with the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals."
http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?i...pos=ataglance#





Required Reading: the Next 10 Years

During my keynote at the iCommons iSummit 07, I made an announcement that surprised some, but which, from reports on the web at least, was also not fully understood by some. So here again is the announcement, with some reasoning behind it.

The bottom line: I have decided to shift my academic work, and soon, my activism, away from the issues that have consumed me for the last 10 years, towards a new set of issues. Why and what are explained in the extended entry below.

Three people I admire greatly are responsible for at least inspiring this decision.

The first is Obama. Six months ago, I was reading Obama's (really excellent) latest book. In the beginning of the book, he describes his decision to run for the United States Senate. At that point, Obama had been in politics for about 10 years. Ten years, he reflected, was enough. It was either "up or out" for him. He gambled on the the "up." We'll see how far he gets.

But for me, Obama's reflection triggered a different thought. It's been a decade since I have become active in the issues I'm known for. Over this decade, I've learned a great deal. There has been important progress on the issues -- not yet in Congress, but in the understanding of many about what's at stake, and what's important. Literally thousands have worked to change that understanding. When we began a decade ago, I would have said it was impossible to imagine the progress we've made. It is extraordinarily rewarding to recognize that my pessimism notwithstanding, we are going to prevail in these debates. Maybe not today, but soon.

That belief (some think, dream), then led me to wonder whether it wasn't time to find a new set of problems: I had learned everything I was going to learn about the issues I've been working on; there are many who would push them as well, or better, than I; perhaps therefore it was time to begin again.

That thought triggered a second, this one tied to Gore.

In one of the handful of opportunities I had to watch Gore deliver his global warming Keynote, I recognized a link in the problem that he was describing and the work that I have been doing during this past decade. After talking about the basic inability of our political system to reckon the truth about global warming, Gore observed that this was really just part of a much bigger problem. That the real problem here was (what I will call a "corruption" of) the political process. That our government can't understand basic facts when strong interests have an interest in its misunderstanding.

This is a thought I've often had in the debates I've been a part of, especially with respect to IP. Think, for example, about term extension. From a public policy perspective, the question of extending existing copyright terms is, as Milton Friedman put it, a "no brainer." As the Gowers Commission concluded in Britain, a government should never extend an existing copyright term. No public regarding justification could justify the extraordinary deadweight loss that such extensions impose.

Yet governments continue to push ahead with this idiot idea -- both Britain and Japan for example are considering extending existing terms. Why?

The answer is a kind of corruption of the political process. Or better, a "corruption" of the political process. I don't mean corruption in the simple sense of bribery. I mean "corruption" in the sense that the system is so queered by the influence of money that it can't even get an issue as simple and clear as term extension right. Politicians are starved for the resources concentrated interests can provide. In the US, listening to money is the only way to secure reelection. And so an economy of influence bends public policy away from sense, always to dollars.

The point of course is not new. Indeed, the fear of factions is as old as the Republic. There are thousands who are doing amazing work to make clear just how corrupt this system has become. There have been scores of solutions proposed. This is not a field lacking in good work, or in people who can do this work well.

But a third person -- this time anonymous -- made me realize that I wanted to be one of these many trying to find a solution to this "corruption." This man, a Republican of prominence in Washington, wrote me a reply to an email I had written to him about net neutrality. As he wrote, "And don't shill for the big guys protecting market share through neutrality REGULATION either."

"Shill."

If you've been reading these pages recently, you'll know my allergy to that word. But this friend's use of the term not to condemn me, but rather as play, made me recognize just how general this corruption is. Of course he would expect I was in the pay of those whose interests I advanced. Why else would I advance them? Both he and I were in a business in which such shilling was the norm. It was totally reasonable to thus expect that money explained my desire to argue with him about public policy.

I don't want to be a part of that business. And more importantly, I don't want this kind of business to be a part of public policy making. We've all been whining about the "corruption" of government forever. We all should be whining about the corruption of professions too. But rather than whining, I want to work on this problem that I've come to believe is the most important problem in making government work.

And so as I said at the top (in my "bottom line"), I have decided to shift my academic work, and soon, my activism, away from the issues that have consumed me for the last 10 years, towards a new set of issues: Namely, these. "Corruption" as I've defined it elsewhere will be the focus of my work. For at least the next 10 years, it is the problem I will try to help solve.

I do this with no illusions. I am 99.9% confident that the problem I turn to will continue exist when this 10 year term is over. But the certainty of failure is sometimes a reason to try. That's true in this case.

Nor do I believe I have any magic bullet. Indeed, I am beginner. A significant chunk of the next ten years will be spent reading and studying the work of others. My hope is to build upon their work; I don't pretend to come with a revolution pre-baked.

Instead, what I come with is a desire to devote as much energy to these issues of "corruption" as I've devoted to the issues of network and IP sanity. This is a shift not to an easier project, but a different project. It is a decision to give up my work in a place some consider me an expert to begin work in a place where I am nothing more than a beginner.

So what precisely does this mean for the work I am doing now?

First, and most importantly, I am not leaving Creative Commons, or the iCommons Project. I will remain on both boards, and continue to serve as CEO of Creative Commons. I will speak and promote both organizations whenever ever I can -- at least until the financial future of both organizations is secure. I will also continue to head the Stanford Center for Internet and Society.

But second, and over the next few months, I will remove myself from the other organizations on whose boards I now serve. Not immediately, but as I can, and as it makes sense.

Third, in general, I will no longer be lecturing about IP (whether as in TCP/IP or IPR) issues. No doubt there will be exceptions. In particular, I have a few (though because this decision has been in the works for months, very few) obligations through the balance of the year. There will be others in the future too. But in general, unless there are very strong reasons, I will not be accepting invitations to talk about the issues that have defined my work for the past decade.

Instead, as soon as I can locate some necessary technical help, I will be moving every presentation I have made (that I can) to a Mixter site (see, e.g., ccMixter) where others can freely download and remix what I've done, and use it however they like. I will continue to work to get all my books licensed freely. And I am currently finishing one last book about these issues that I hope will make at least some new contributions.

Fourth, these pages will change too. My focus here will shift. That will make some of you unhappy. I'm sorry for that. The blog is CC-BY licensed. You're free to fork and continue the (almost) exclusively IP-related conversation. But I will continue that conversation only rarely. New issues will appear here instead.

Fifth, some will think this resolution sounds familiar. In the beginning of the Free Culture talk I gave at OSCON 5 years ago, I said that talk was going to be my last. In fact, what I intended at the time was the last before the argument in the Eldred case. In my nervousness, I didn't make that intent clear then. The literally hundred of talks since (85 last year alone) should have made that obvious.

But again, this is not a resolution of silence. It is a decision to change channels. This new set of issues is, in my view, critically important. Indeed, I'm convinced we will not solve the IP related issues until these "corruption" related issues are resolved. So I hope at least some of you will follow to this new set of questions. For I expect this forum will be central to working out just what I believe, just as it has in the past.

Finally, I am not (as one friend wrote) "leaving the movement." "The movement" has my loyalty as much today as ever. But I have come to believe that until a more fundamental problem is fixed, "the movement" can't succeed either. Compare: Imagine someone devoted to free culture coming to believe that until free software supports free culture, free culture can't succeed. So he devotes himself to building software. I am someone who believes that a free society -- free of the "corruption" that defines our current society -- is necessary for free culture, and much more. For that reason, I turn my energy elsewhere for now.

So thank you to everyone who has helped in this work. Thanks especially to everyone who will continue it. And thanks the most to those who will take positions of leadership in this movement, to help guide it to its success. Just one favor I ask in return: when you get to the promised land, remember to send a postcard.
http://www.lessig.org/blog/archives/003800.shtml#003800





What Else Is New?

How Uses, Not Innovations, Drive Human Technology
Steven Shapin

I’m writing in the kitchen, surrounded by technology. There is a cordless phone, a microwave oven, and a high-end refrigerator, and I’m working on a laptop. Nearby is a gas range, a French cast-iron enamelled casserole, and a ceramic teapot. Drawers to my left hold cutlery—some modern Chinese-made stainless steel, some Georgian sterling silver. In front of me is a wooden bookstand, made for me by a talented friend and festooned with Post-it reminders of things to do (a method I prefer to my digital calendar). I’m sitting on a semi-antique wooden chair, though when my back is hurting I tend to switch to a new, expensive ergonomic contraption.

Perhaps you think I should have said that I’m surrounded by things, only some of which really count as technology. It’s common to think of technology as encompassing only very new, science-intensive things—ones with electronic or digital bits, for instance. But it’s also possible to view it just as things (or, indeed, processes) that enable us to perform tasks more effectively than we could without them. The technologies that we have available substantially define who we are. The nineteenth-century Scottish essayist Thomas Carlyle didn’t much like the new industrial order, but he did understand the substantive relationship between human beings and their technologies: “Man is a Tool-using Animal. . . . Nowhere do you find him without Tools; without Tools he is nothing, with Tools he is all.” Seen in this light, my kitchen is a technological palimpsest. Even the older items were once innovations—like my Brown Betty teapot, whose design goes back to the seventeenth century but which is still produced in England, not having been significantly improved on since. And even the newest items contain design or functional elements from the past, such as the QWERTY keyboard of my laptop, patented in 1878.

The way we think about technology tends to elide the older things, even though the texture of our lives would be unrecognizable without them. And when we do consider technology in historical terms we customarily see it as a driving force of progress: every so often, it seems, an innovation—the steam engine, electricity, computers—brings a new age into being. In “The Shock of the Old: Technology and Global History Since 1900” (Oxford; $26), David Edgerton, a well-known British historian of modern military and industrial technology, offers a vigorous assault on this narrative. He thinks that traditional ways of understanding technology, technological change, and the role of technology in our lives, have been severely distorted by what he calls “the innovation-centric account” of technology. The book is a provocative, concise, and elegant exercise in intellectual Protestantism, enthusiastically nailing its iconoclastic theses on the door of the Church of Technological Hype: no one is very good at predicting technological futures; new and old technologies coexist; and technological significance and technological novelty are rarely the same—indeed, a given technology’s grip on our awareness is often in inverse relationship to its significance in our lives. Above all, Edgerton says that we are wrong to associate technology solely with invention, and that we should think of it, rather, as evolving through use. A “history of technology-in-use,” he writes, yields “a radically different picture of technology, and indeed of invention and innovation.”

Consider the Second World War. When we think about the technologies that figured large in it, what comes to mind? Perhaps Germany’s V-2 terror weapons, with their emblematic role in Thomas Pynchon’s “A screaming comes across the sky.” Or the triumph of theoretical physics and metallurgical engineering at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These are the things that capture the imagination, and yet Edgerton offers an arrestingly different perspective, calling German investment in the V-2 project “economically and militarily irrational.” One historian wrote that “more people died producing it than died from being hit by it.” Edgerton estimates that although the Germans spent five hundred million dollars on the project, “the destructive power of all the V-2s produced amounted to less than could be achieved by a single raid on a city by the RAF.” Similarly, considering the cost of the atomic bomb against the conventional weaponry that could have been bought for the same money, “it is not difficult to imagine what thousands more B-29s, one-third more tanks or five times more artillery, or some other military output, would have done to Allied fighting power.”

So what forms of technology really pulled their weight in the war? Horse-powered transport, for one. Long past the age of steam—and well into the age of automobiles and aviation—the power of horseflesh remained critical. In the Italian campaign alone, the United States Army’s 10th Mountain Division used more than ten thousand horses and mules, and the great tank general George S. Patton wished he’d had many more:

In almost any conceivable theater of operations, situations arise where the presence of horse cavalry, in a ratio of a division to an army, will be of vital moment. . . . Had we possessed an American cavalry division with pack artillery in Tunisia and in Sicily, not a German would have escaped, because horse cavalry possesses the additional gear ratio which permits it to attain sufficient speed through mountainous country to get behind and hold the enemy until the more powerful infantry and tanks can come up and destroy him.

The Germans were better supplied: at the beginning of 1945, the Wehrmacht had 1.2 million horses in its ranks, and, altogether, the Germans lost some 1.5 million horses during the war.

Even today, horses aren’t quite history. In Afghanistan, the American Special Forces have had to rediscover how to use them. “Horses are actually an ideal way to get around there,” one correspondent embedded with the Green Berets has said. “No manual has ever been written on how to coordinate horse attacks with B-52s, so the Green Berets had to do OJT”—on-the-job training. “Early on, there was a cavalry charge with about three hundred horses where they had cut it so fine that as soon as the bombs hit the ridge the horses were riding through the gray smoke; it was quite an impressive sight.”

Technological palimpsests are everywhere; it’s the normal state of things. Darfurians are being slaughtered by Janjaweed militia mounted on horses and camels, while their Sudanese-government sponsors chip in with helicopters and Antonov cargo planes retrofitted as bombers. September 11th was a technological pastiche of new and old technologies (Boeings and box cutters), as was the 2003 Iraq invasion (stealth fighters, cruise missiles, and laser-guided smart bombs for the “shock and awe,” and jury-rigged sandbags and scrap-metal armor for Army Humvees when the Pentagon failed to provide high-tech alternatives). The Iraqi insurgents have revived the use of chlorine gas as a terror agent, a technology pioneered by patriotic German chemists in the First World War, and Saddam Hussein, whose aircraft dropped modern nerve-gas bombs on the Kurdish town of Halabja, was executed by hanging, a technology of judicial killing that goes back to the ancient Persian Empire.

Edgerton calls the tendency to overrate the impact of dramatic new technologies “futurism.” Few things, it turns out, are as passé as past futures. In the mid-twentieth century, a world was promised in which nuclear power would provide electricity “too cheap to meter,” eliminating pollution, forestalling energy crises, and alleviating world poverty; hypersonic civil air travel would whip masses of us around the globe in an hour or two; permanent settlements would be established not just on the moon but on the planets; nuclear weapons would put an end to war.

And so it goes. The “paperless office” was celebrated as long ago as 1975, in Business Week, but since then we’ve had avalanches of the stuff: global consumption of paper has tripled in the past three decades, and the average American worker now goes through twelve thousand sheets of paper every year. In 1987, Ronald Reagan announced that high-temperature superconductor technology would “bring us to the threshold of a new age,” but commercializing that technology has proved much more difficult than the original hype suggested. In 2000, Bill Clinton speculated that, as a direct result of the Human Genome Project, “our children’s children will know the term ‘cancer’ only as a constellation of stars.” (That would be nice, if only because it would indicate an improved knowledge of astronomy.) Predictions like these don’t inspire great confidence in the utopian futures now being spun around stem-cell research or nanotechnology.

But neither should we have great confidence in the more dire prophesies. In the middle of the nineteenth century, it was thought that railways would whirl people about the world with such vertiginous speed that their nervous systems could collapse under the strain. Decades later, it seemed that the telephone would be a socially disruptive force, causing aural communication to take place without any of the rich cues of face-to-face interaction, breaking down the barriers between public and private space, and making it intolerably hard not to be “at home” when one was at home.

Learning how to make new technologies is one thing; learning how, as a society, to use them is another. Carolyn Marvin’s illuminating book “When Old Technologies Were New: Thinking About Electric Communication in the Late Nineteenth Century” (1988) notes that, during the early years of the telephone, there was confusion about what codes should regulate faceless and socially clueless speech. The telephone operator, typically female, often had the responsibility of waking up the master of the house, and so joined the wife as a woman who could talk to the man in bed; Marvin writes that “sweet-voiced” telephone girls at the turn of the century “were often objects of fantasy.” It was also thought that, if just anyone could use the new device, its utility would be completely undermined. Marvin notes the firm opinion of the British postmaster general in 1895 that “the telephone could not, and never would be an advantage which could be enjoyed by the large mass of the people.” He was wrong, but understandably so. The story of how we came to terms with the new technology—how we adjusted to it, adapted to it, domesticated it, altered it to suit our purposes—didn’t come with the technical spec sheet. It never does. No instruction manual can explain how a technology will evolve, in use, together with the rhythm of our lives.

Old technologies persist; they even flourish. In that sense, they’re as much a part of the present as recently invented technologies. It is said that we live in a “new economy,” yet, of the world’s top thirty companies (by revenue), only three are mainly in the business of high tech—General Electric (No. 11), Siemens (No. 22), and I.B.M. (No. 29)—and all three go back more than a century. The heights of the early-twenty-first-century corporate world are still occupied—as they have long been—by petroleum companies (Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch Shell, and B.P., Nos. 1, 3, and 4), retailing (Wal-Mart, No. 2), automobiles (General Motors, No. 5), and finance (I.N.G. and Citigroup, Nos. 13 and 14). No Hewlett-Packard (No. 33); no Microsoft (No. 140); no Merck (No. 289).

The tendency to exaggerate the impact of technological innovation follows from an artifact of historical consciousness. When we cannot conceive what life would be like without e-mail, say, we correctly note the pervasiveness of the new technology, but we may incorrectly assume that the things we now do through e-mail could not have been done in other ways. Of course, we must know that many things now done through e-mail were once done, and to some extent are still done, by telephone, fax, snail mail, or actually stopping by to see someone. But we can never know how the technologies that existed before electronic communication would have developed had e-mail not become dominant, or what other technologies might have come along whose development was forestalled by e-mail.

In 1897, to move mail around the city, Manhattan started to equip itself with an island-wide system of underground pneumatic tubes, which soon extended from 125th Street as far as the Brooklyn General Post Office. Through the nineteenth century, the pneumatic tube had developed roughly in step with the telegraph and then the telephone. For a long time, indeed, pneumatic tubes seemed promising—perhaps they could shunt people around as well as mail—although, ultimately, it was the telegraph and the telephone that flourished, becoming the ancestors of the electronic communication systems we use today. Yet, had there been a century of continuous improvement, who knows what benefits a dense and speedy system of message tubes might have brought? A man working on Eighty-sixth Street could send a scribbled note, chocolates, and a pair of earrings to his girlfriend on Wall Street. To have left your wallet at home could be a mistake remedied in seconds. It’s a safe guess, anyway, that, while aware of a distant past containing such figures as postmen and delivery boys, we would be unable to imagine life without the pneumatic tube.

This kind of counterfactual history has a credibility handicap—we know how things did turn out but can only imagine how they might have turned out. Still, there’s no reason to assume that the technology we have is the only technology we could have had. The birth-control pill, we say, caused a sexual revolution, and perhaps that’s true. But it joined (and only partly replaced) many other methods of contraception, some of which—like the condom—have continued to improve in all sorts of ways since the advent of the pill. And it has been argued that the pill had a dampening effect on the development of other technologies, such as male hormonal contraceptives. Is the pill the best possible outcome? The answer depends on who you are, what you want to do, and the resources you command. As it turned out, the replacement of the condom as a sexual technology, so frequently announced in past decades, was premature. The emergence of AIDS caused condom sales to more than double between the early nineteen-eighties and the mid-nineties. And, for the first time, the old technology of the condom enjoyed an advantage previously monopolized by the new technology of the pill: it could be freely talked about in polite society.

Our obsession with innovation also blinds us to how much of technology is focussed on keeping things the same. The dikes of Holland maintain the integrity of the nation, and great ingenuity goes into preserving and improving them. We’re going to need a lot more, and more powerful, technologies of conservation: not just the technologies of levees and barriers against the ocean but technologies to maintain the supply of potable water, breathable air, and arable soil; technologies to maintain as much biodiversity as we can or want to maintain; technologies to preserve and renew our crumbling Victorian legacies of infrastructure (sewers, rail beds, roads, and bridges); technologies to stabilize and prevent the dispersal of radioactive waste. There may be hype attending new technological artifacts, but there’s money to be made, and spent, in maintaining them in usable shape. According to Edgerton, the take-home price of a P.C. is typically only about ten per cent of its lifetime cost, and sixty per cent of the lifetime cost of some military equipment is maintenance. The federal government spends twice as much on preserving highways as it does on building new ones. More than half of automobile-dealer profits come from servicing cars, less than a third from selling new cars, and much the same is true of the civil jet-engine business.

The importance of maintenance becomes even clearer if we take a global view. Edgerton notes that as things get older they tend to move from rich countries to poor ones, from low-maintenance to high-maintenance environments. In many African, South Asian, and Latin-American countries, used vehicles imported from North America, Western Europe, and Japan live on almost eternally, in constant contact with numerous repair shops. Maintenance doesn’t simply mean keeping those vehicles as they were; it may mean changing them in all sorts of ways—new gaskets made from old rubber, new fuses made from scrap copper wire. “In the innovation-centric account, most places have no history of technology,” Edgerton writes. “In use-centered accounts, nearly everywhere does.” John Powell’s marvellous study of vast vehicle-repair shops in Ghana, “The Survival of the Fitter: Lives of Some African Engineers” (1995), describes a modern world in which vehicles imported from the developed world initially decay, and then something changes: “As time goes by and the vehicle is reworked in the local system, it reaches a state of apparent equilibrium in which it seems to be maintained indefinitely. . . . It is a condition of maintenance by constant repair.” Much of the world’s mechanical ingenuity is devoted to creating robust, reliable, and highly adapted “creole” technologies, an ingenuity that is largely invisible to us only because we happen to live in a low-maintenance, high-throwaway regime.

Maintenance has implications for the identity of technological artifacts. There’s a traditional conundrum about “my grandfather’s axe”: over its lifetime, it has had three new heads and four new handles, but—its owner insists—it remains his grandfather’s axe. Philosophers have their proprietary version of the axe problem: “Locke’s socks” developed a hole, which he had darned, and then darned again. The socks kept the philosopher’s feet warm, but they troubled his head. Many people make their living repairing things; a very few make their living pondering whether repaired things are the same. But the identity of repaired and maintained things is not just a philosophical problem. The Bush Administration recently decided to build something called the Reliable Replacement Warhead, or R.R.W., a revised design for such weapons as the W76 thermonuclear warhead on submarine-based Trident missiles. The Administration argues that the technology is based on previously tested components and is just an updated version of the same thing. Critics disagree, seeing this as a new weapon that might be used to justify renewed testing. So judgments of whether the R.R.W. is or is not “the same” technology may well become central to whether or not there will be yet another post-Cold War round of the expensive and dangerous nuclear-arms race.

The astronomer Carl Sagan once said, “We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology.” If he meant that we are unfamiliar with the principles on which the technology around us works, he was right—there’s an enormous gap between the knowledge of makers and the knowledge of users—but this is exactly as it should be. As users, we typically want our technology to be a black box; we don’t want to be bothered with adjusting it, monitoring it, repairing it, or knowing about its inner workings. A sure sign of the success of a technology is that we scarcely think of it as technology at all. The Brown Betty teapot is very old and seemingly simple. Its design is superbly adapted to its function, but I cannot give an account of how its composition and its shape help it to brew a really good cup of tea. Does this mean that I know nothing about the teapot—or, for that matter, the phone or the fridge?

Knowing about technology is not the same thing as understanding the scientific theories involved. Just as innovators commonly understand the fundamentals of a technology better than subsequent users, so users can acquire knowledge that would never have occurred to the innovators. In 1817, Thomas Broadwood, a vastly successful English piano manufacturer, visited Beethoven in Vienna and, shortly after, sent the composer a top-of-the-line instrument. Which of these two men understood the piano better—the craftsman-entrepreneur whose product adorned drawing rooms throughout Europe or the deaf genius whose works are a glory of piano repertoire? Or, for that matter, Liszt, who later owned the piano, and could do things at the keyboard that no performer previously could, or the curator in the museum where it resides today? The Week in Review is edited and published by Jack Spratts. The piano is one thing to a pianist, another to a piano tuner, another to an interior designer with no interest in music, and yet another to a child who wants to avoid practicing. Ultimately, the narrative of what kind of thing a piano is must be a story of all these users. It’s a narrative in which we turn out to know a surprising amount about the technologies that have infiltrated our lives, and in which knowing only as much as we want and need to know about them is, in a sense, to know a lot. “The Shock of the Old” is a necessary reminder of just how important things are in our lives, and how important we are in the life of things.
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critic...urrentPage=all





It Might Pay to Follow Your Bliss
M. P. Dunleavey

REMEMBER the fable about the ant and the grasshopper? The ant works hard all summer, socking away provisions for the winter; the grasshopper frolics away each day. The ant warns the grasshopper that he’s being hedonistic and short-sighted. The grasshopper ignores the ant, and continues on his merry way — only to perish when winter sets in.

It’s a rather stern lesson about financial prudence, but there is a reason this tale has survived through the ages — and still preoccupies many researchers who study the eccentricities of human economic behavior. Why do the grasshoppers of the world have such a hard time emulating the ants?

The rewards of the ant’s strategy are obvious: by working hard, planning ahead and saving your resources, you end up healthy, wealthy and warm. The pleasures of the grasshopper’s life are short-lived — and ultimately lead to great stress and suffering (if not a dire end).

Yet economic research has demonstrated that most people find it hard to resist the siren song of “seize the day and spend what you have now” — even though a lifestyle based on constant consumption doesn’t enhance anyone’s long-term store of happiness and often puts people on shaky financial ground.

This conundrum also bedevils those who work in the field of personal finance. Why do millions of Americans resist saving for their retirements? Why do so many carry thousands of dollars in credit card debt?

The standard advice for those caught on the treadmill of “getting and spending” could come straight from the mouth of the ant: material kicks don’t pay off in the end, so mend your ways, plan ahead and financial prudence eventually will be its own reward. But this sort of finger-wagging makes few converts in the grasshopper world.

A more compelling approach may be to focus more on what makes you happier — because investing in your own well-being and quality of life may turn out to be more prudent and more profitable than you thought.

Tim Kasser, an associate professor of psychology at Knox College in Galesburg, Ill., studied 200 people who embraced Voluntary Simplicity, a movement focused “less on materialistic values — like wanting money and possessions and status — and more on what we called intrinsic values or goals,” Professor Kasser said. The three main intrinsic values were being connected to family and friends, exploring one’s interests or skills and “making the world a better place,” he said.

He conducted the study in 2005 with Kirk Brown, an assistant professor of psychology at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond. The researchers compared the attitudes and behaviors of this group with a matched sample of 200 mainstream Americans.

Although the mainstream group’s income was much higher, an average of about $41,000 a year compared with $26,000 for those aiming to live more simply, “we found the people in the Voluntary Simplicity group were much happier and more satisfied with life,” Professor Kasser said.

THAT doesn’t mean frugal people are happier, said Professor Kasser, adding that research findings on this topic are mixed. But the study found that when people invested more in intrinsic values, like relationships and quality of life, and less in consumption, it seemed to increase their happiness. And, the study suggested, there may be a financial gain to doing so. Those in the simplicity group were far more likely than the control group to say that they were careful about their spending, Professor Kasser said.

Christopher K. Hsee, a professor of behavioral science at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, has observed a similar pattern. He points out that when people use their purchases as a semaphore of status, there is “no natural stopping point;” there will always be a bigger house, a fancier car, a more expensive watch to go after.

When it comes to more basic needs, like food or sleep or friendship, most people naturally reach a point of satisfaction. “Consequently, people who value these types of goods may be financially better off,” Professor Hsee said.

As someone who struggles against her own grasshopper nature, wishing she had the foresight and impulse control of the ant, I like the idea that there’s another path to fiscal prudence. Working hard and being practical are ideal skills to have in life, but if those aren’t your bag, investing in a happier way of life may offer the same financial dividend. Too bad the ant didn’t know about that.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/16/bu...instincts.html





Not Buying It
Steven Kurutz

ON a Friday evening last month, the day after New York University’s class of 2007 graduated, about 15 men and women assembled in front of Third Avenue North, an N.Y.U. dormitory on Third Avenue and 12th Street. They had come to take advantage of the university’s end-of-the-year move-out, when students’ discarded items are loaded into big green trash bins by the curb.

New York has several colleges and universities, of course, but according to Janet Kalish, a Queens resident who was there that night, N.Y.U.’s affluent student body makes for unusually profitable Dumpster diving. So perhaps it wasn’t surprising that the gathering at the Third Avenue North trash bin quickly took on a giddy shopping-spree air, as members of the group came up with one first-class find after another.

Ben Ibershoff, a dapper man in his 20s wearing two bowler hats, dug deep and unearthed a Sharp television. Autumn Brewster, 29, found a painting of a Mediterranean harbor, which she studied and handed down to another member of the crowd.

Darcie Elia, a 17-year-old high school student with a half-shaved head, was clearly pleased with a modest haul of what she called “random housing stuff” — a desk lamp, a dish rack, Swiffer dusters — which she spread on the sidewalk, drawing quizzical stares from passers-by.

Ms. Elia was not alone in appreciating the little things. “The small thrills are when you see the contents of someone’s desk and find a book of stamps,” said Ms. Kalish, 44, as she stood knee deep in the trash bin examining a plastic toiletries holder.

A few of those present had stumbled onto the scene by chance (including a janitor from a nearby homeless center, who made off with a working iPod and a tube of body cream), but most were there by design, in response to a posting on the Web site freegan.info.

The site, which provides information and listings for the small but growing subculture of anticonsumerists who call themselves freegans — the term derives from vegans, the vegetarians who forsake all animal products, as many freegans also do — is the closest thing their movement has to an official voice. And for those like Ms. Elia and Ms. Kalish, it serves as a guide to negotiating life, and making a home, in a world they see as hostile to their values.

Freegans are scavengers of the developed world, living off consumer waste in an effort to minimize their support of corporations and their impact on the planet, and to distance themselves from what they see as out-of-control consumerism. They forage through supermarket trash and eat the slightly bruised produce or just-expired canned goods that are routinely thrown out, and negotiate gifts of surplus food from sympathetic stores and restaurants.

They dress in castoff clothes and furnish their homes with items found on the street; at freecycle.org, where users post unwanted items; and at so-called freemeets, flea markets where no money is exchanged. Some claim to hold themselves to rigorous standards. “If a person chooses to live an ethical lifestyle it’s not enough to be vegan, they need to absent themselves from capitalism,” said Adam Weissman, 29, who started freegan.info four years ago and is the movement’s de facto spokesman.

Freeganism dates to the mid-’90s, and grew out of the antiglobalization and environmental movements, as well as groups like Food Not Bombs, a network of small organizations that serve free vegetarian and vegan food to the hungry, much of it salvaged from food market trash. It also has echoes of groups like the Diggers, an anarchist street theater troupe based in Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco in the 1960’s, which gave away food and social services.

According to Bob Torres, a sociology professor at St. Lawrence University in Canton, N.Y., who is writing a book about the animal rights movement — which shares many ideological positions with freeganism — the freegan movement has become much more visible and increasingly popular over the past year, in part as a result of growing frustrations with mainstream environmentalism.

Environmentalism, Mr. Torres said, “is becoming this issue of, consume the right set of green goods and you’re green,” regardless of how much in the way of natural resources those goods require to manufacture and distribute.

“If you ask the average person what can you do to reduce global warming, they’d say buy a Prius,” he added.

There are freegans all over the world, in countries as far afield as Sweden, Brazil, South Korea, Estonia and England (where much has been made of what The Sun recently called the “wacky new food craze” of trash-bin eating), and across the United States as well .

In Southern California, for example, “you can find just about anything in the trash, and on a consistent basis, too,” said Marko Manriquez, 28, who has just graduated from the University of California at San Diego with a bachelor’s degree in media studies and is the creator of “Freegan Kitchen,” a video blog that shows gourmet meals being made from trash-bin ingredients. “This is how I got my futon, chair, table, shelves. And I’m not talking about beat-up stuff. I mean it’s not Design Within Reach, but it’s nice.”

But New York City in particular — the financial capital of the world’s richest country — has emerged as a hub of freegan activity, thanks largely to Mr. Weissman’s zeal for the cause and the considerable free time he has to devote to it. (He doesn’t work and lives at home in Teaneck, N.J., with his father and elderly grandparents.)

Freegan.info sponsors organize Trash Tours that typically attract a dozen or more people, as well as feasts at which groups of about 20 people gather in apartments around the city to share food and talk politics.

In the last year or so, Mr. Weissman said, the site has increased the number and variety of its events, which have begun attracting many more first-time participants. Many of those who have taken part in one new program, called Wild Foraging Walks — workshops that teach people to identify edible plants in the wilderness — have been newcomers, he said.

The success of the movement in New York may also be due to the quantity and quality of New York trash. As of 2005, individuals, businesses and institutions in the United States produced more than 245 million tons of municipal solid waste, according to the E.P.A. That means about 4.5 pounds per person per day. The comparable figure for New York City, meanwhile, is about 6.1 pounds, according to statistics from the city’s Sanitation Department.

“We have a lot of wealthy people, and rich people throw out more trash than poor people do,” said Elizabeth Royte, whose book “Garbage Land” (Little, Brown, 2005) traced the route her trash takes through the city. “Rich people are also more likely to throw things out based on style obsolescence — like changing the towels when you’re tired of the color.”

At the N.Y.U. Dorm Dive, as the event was billed, the consensus was that this year’s spoils weren’t as impressive as those in years past. Still, almost anything needed to decorate and run a household — a TV cart, a pillow, a file cabinet, a half-finished bottle of Jägermeister — was there for the taking, even if those who took them were risking health, safety and a $100 fine from the Sanitation Department.

Ms. Brewster and her mother, who had come from New Jersey, loaded two area rugs into their cart. Her mother, who declined to give her name, seemed to be on a search for laundry detergent, and was overjoyed to discover a couple of half-empty bottles of Trader Joe’s organic brand. (Free and organic is a double bonus). Nearby, a woman munched on a found bag of Nature’s Promise veggie fries.

As people stuffed their backpacks, Ms. Kalish, who organized the event (Mr. Weissman arrived later), demonstrated the cooperative spirit of freeganism, asking the divers to pass items down to people on the sidewalk and announcing her finds for anyone in need of, say, a Hoover Shop-Vac.

“Sometimes people will swoop in and grab something, especially when you see a half-used bottle of Tide detergent,” she said. “Who wouldn’t want it? But most people realize there’s plenty to go around.” She rooted around in the trash bin and found several half-eaten jars of peanut butter. “It’s a never-ending supply,” she said.

Many freegans are predictably young and far to the left politically, like Ms. Elia, the 17-year-old, who lives with her father in Manhattan. She said she became a freegan both for environmental reasons and because “I’m not down with capitalism.”

There are also older freegans, like Ms. Kalish, who hold jobs and appear in some ways to lead middle-class lives. A high school Spanish teacher, Ms. Kalish owns a car and a two-family house in Queens, renting half of it as a “capitalist landlord,” she joked. Still, like most freegans, she seems attuned to the ecological effects of her actions. In her house, for example, she has laid down a mosaic of freegan carpet parcels instead of replacing her aging wooden floor because, she said, “I’d have to take trees from the forest.”

Not buying any new manufactured products while living in the United States is, of course, basically impossible, as is avoiding everything that requires natural resources to create, distribute or operate. Don’t freegans use gas or electricity to cook, for example, or commercial products to brush their teeth?

“Once in a while I may buy a box of baking soda for toothpaste,” Mr. Weissman said. “And, sure, getting that to market has negative impacts, like everything.” But, he said, parsing the point, a box of baking soda is more ecologically friendly than a tube of toothpaste, because its cardboard container is biodegradable.

These contradictions and others have led some people to suggest that freegans are hypocritical, making use of the capitalist system even as they rail against it. And even Mr. Weissman, who is often doctrinaire about the movement, acknowledges when pushed that absolute freeganism is an impossible dream.

Mr. Torres said: “I think there’s a conscious recognition among freegans that you can never live perfectly.” He added that generally freegans “try to reduce the impact.”

It’s not that freeganism doesn’t require serious commitment. For freegans, who believe that the production and transport of every product contributes to economic and social injustice, usually in multiple ways, any interaction with the marketplace is fraught. And for some freegans in particular — for instance, Madeline Nelson, who until recently was living an upper-middle-class Manhattan life with all the attendant conveniences and focus on luxury goods — choosing this way of life involves a considerable, even radical, transformation.

Ms. Nelson, who is 51, spent her 20s working in restaurants and living in communal houses, but by 2003 she was earning a six-figure salary as a communications director for Barnes & Noble. That year, while demonstrating against the Iraq war, she began to feel hypocritical, she said, explaining: “I thought, isn’t this safe? Here I am in my corporate job, going to protests every once in a while. And part of my job was to motivate the sales force to sell more stuff.”

After a year of progressively scaling back — no more shopping at Eileen Fisher, no more commuting by means other than a bike — Ms. Nelson, who had a two-bedroom apartment with a mortgage in Greenwich Village, quit her job in 2005 to devote herself full-time to political activism and freeganism.

She sold her apartment, put some money into savings, and bought a one-bedroom in Flatbush, Brooklyn, that she owns outright.

“My whole point is not to be paying into corporate America, and I hated paying a big loan to a bank,” she said while fixing lunch in her kitchen one recent afternoon. The meal — potato and watercress soup and crackers and cheese — had been made entirely from refuse left outside various grocery stores in Manhattan and Brooklyn.

The bright and airy prewar apartment Ms. Nelson shares with two cats doesn’t look like the home of someone who spends her evenings rooting through the garbage. But after some time in the apartment, a visitor begins to see the signs of Ms. Nelson’s anticonsumerist way of life.

An old lampshade in the living room has been trimmed with fabric to cover its fraying parts, leaving a one-inch gap where the material ran out. The ficus tree near the window came not from a florist, Ms. Nelson said, but from the trash, as did the CD rack. A 1920s loveseat belonged to her grandmother, and an 18th-century, Louis XVI-style armoire in the bedroom is a vestige of her corporate life.

The kitchen cabinets and refrigerator are stuffed with provisions — cornmeal, Pirouline cookies, vegetarian cage-free eggs — appropriate for a passionate cook who entertains often. All were free.

She longs for a springform pan in which to make cheesecakes, but is waiting for one to come up on freecycle.org. There are no new titles on the bookshelves; she hasn’t bought a new book in six months. “Books were my impulse buy,” said Ms. Nelson, whose short brown hair and glasses frame a youthful face. Now she logs onto bookcrossing.com, where readers share used books, or goes to the public library.

But isn’t she depriving herself unnecessarily? And what’s so bad about buying books, anyway? “I do have some mixed feelings,” Ms. Nelson said. “It’s always hard to give up class privilege. But freegans would argue that the capitalist system is not sustainable. You’re exploiting resources.” She added, “Most people work 40-plus hours a week at jobs they don’t like to buy things they don’t need.”

Since becoming a freegan, Ms. Nelson has spent her time posting calendar items and other information online and doing paralegal work on behalf of bicyclists arrested at Critical Mass anticar rallies. “I’m not sitting in the house eating bonbons,” she said. “I’m working. I’m just not working for money.”

She is also spending a lot of time making rounds for food and supplies at night, and has come to know the cycles of the city’s trash. She has learned that fruit tends to get thrown out more often in the summer (she freezes it and makes sorbet), and that businesses are a source for envelopes. A reliable spot to get bread is Le Pain Quotidien, a chain of bakery-restaurants that tosses out six or seven loaves a night. But Ms. Nelson doesn’t stockpile. “The sad fact is you don’t need to,” she said. “More trash will be there tomorrow.”

By and large, she said, her friends have been understanding, if not exactly enthusiastic about adopting freeganism for themselves. “When she told me she was doing this I wasn’t really surprised — Madeline is a free spirit,” said Eileen Dolan, a librarian at a Manhattan law firm who has known Ms. Nelson since their college days at Stony Brook. But while Ms. Dolan agrees that society is wasteful, she said that going freegan is not something she would ever do. “It’s a huge time commitment,” she said.

ONE evening a week after the Dorm Dive, a group of about 20 freegans gathered in a sparely furnished, harshly lit basement apartment in Bushwick, Brooklyn, to hold a feast. It was an egalitarian affair with no one officially in charge, but Mr. Weissman projected authority, his blue custodian-style work pants and fuzzy black beard giving him the air of a Latin American revolutionary as he wandered around, trailed by a Korean television crew.

Ms. Kalish stood over the sink, slicing vegetables for a stir-fry with a knife she had found in a trash bin at N.Y.U. A pot of potatoes simmered on the stove. These, like much of the rest of the meal, had been gathered two nights earlier, when Mr. Weissman, Ms. Kalish and others had met in front of a Food Emporium in Manhattan and rummaged through the store’s clear garbage bags.

The haul had been astonishing in its variety: sealed bags of organic vegetable medley, bagged salad, heirloom tomatoes, key limes, three packaged strawberries-and-chocolate-dip kits, carrots, asparagus, grapes, a carton of organic soy milk (expiration date: July 9), grapefruit, mushrooms and, for those willing to partake, vacuum-packed herb turkey breast. (Some freegans who avoid meat will nevertheless eat it rather than see it go to waste.)

As operatic music played on a radio, people mingled and pitched in. One woman diced onions, rescuing pieces that fell on floor. Another, who goes by the name Petal, emptied bags of salad into a pan. As rigorous and radical as the freegan world view can be, there is also something quaint about the movement, at least the version that Mr. Weissman promotes, with its embrace of hippie-ish communal activities and its household get-togethers that rely for diversion on conversation rather electronic entertainment.

Making things last is part of the ethos. Christian Gutierrez, a 33-year-old former model and investment banker, sat at the small kitchen table, chatting. Mr. Gutierrez, who quit his banking job at Matthews Morris & Company in 2004 to pursue filmmaking, became a freegan last year, and opened a free workshop on West 36th Street in Manhattan to teach bicycle repair. He plans to add lessons in fixing home computers in the near future.

Mr. Gutierrez’s lifestyle, like Ms. Nelson’s, became gradually more constricted in the absence of a steady income. He lived in a Midtown loft until last year, when, he said, he got into a legal battle with his landlord over a rent increase — a relationship “ruined by greed,” he said. After that, he lived in his van for a while, then found an illegal squat in SoHo, which he shares with two others. Mr. Gutierrez had a middle-class upbringing in Dallas, and he said he initially found freeganism off-putting. But now he is steadfastly devoted to the way of life.

As people began to load plates of food, he leaned in and offered a few words of wisdom: “Opening that first bag of trash,” he said, “is the biggest step.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/21/garden/21freegan.html





Lilly!

Herman Munster's Identity Stolen



Thieves apparently didn't realize he is a fictional 1960s TV character
Ted Bridis

Did Internet thieves steal Herman Munster's MasterCard number? Crooks in an underground chat room for selling stolen credit card numbers and personal consumer information offered pilfered data purportedly about Herman Munster, the 1960s Frankenstein-like character from "The Munsters" TV sitcom.

The thieves apparently didn't realize Munster was a fictional TV character and dutifully offered to sell Munster's personal details — accurately listing his home address from the television series as 1313 Mocking Bird Lane — and what appeared to be his MasterCard number. Munster's birth date was listed as Aug. 15, 1964, suspiciously close to the TV series' original air date in September 1964.

CardCops Inc., the Malibu, Calif., Internet security company that quietly recorded details of the illicit but wayward transaction, surmised that a Munsters fan knowledgeable about the show deliberately provided the bogus data.

"The identity thief thought it was good data," said Dan Clements, the company's president.

Clements said evidence indicates the thief, known online as "Supra," was operating overseas. "They really stumble over our culture. He's probably not watching any reruns of 'The Munsters' on TV Land."

Herman Munster was portrayed by Fred Gwynne, who died in July 1993.

"Phishing" thieves often trick consumers into revealing financial secrets by sending e-mail requests that appear to originate from banks. A consumer's financial details can be worth $4 and $40 among online thieves, who can use the information to open fraudulent credit accounts.

CardCops eavesdrops on conversations among thieves in underground Internet chat rooms to monitor for stolen credit card numbers being sold or traded. It offers monitoring services to alert consumers whose information is compromised by hackers.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19334522/

















Until next week,

- js.




















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