Peer-To-Peer News - The Week In Review - May 3rd, '08

[JackSpratts]

Since 2002


































"Anyone with information on the lost pig, should email lostpig@coachella.com." – Syantani Chatterjee


"Half of my budget is rights clearances, if you can get them." – Toronto filmmaker Stuart Samuels


"If the RIAA wants to keep bringing these suits and collecting big settlements, then they have to follow the law and prove their case. It’s not enough to say the law could have been broken. The RIAA must prove it actually was broken." – Fred von Lohmann


"The build up of Placebo’s version is so climactic you need a post coital cigarette afterwards to come down from that intense, melancholic yet euphoric high." – Rachel Baker


"That's definitely our pig." – Bill Fold



































This issue is dedicated to the late Shawn O’Neal - our own Ramona_A_Stone.

I don't want to believe it.



May 3rd, 2008





Another Bad Day for the RIAA
p2pnet news

The case it and its masters, Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG, have been trying to build against a husband and wife accused of being illegal online distributors of copyrighted digital music has taken another nasty turn —- for Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony BMG and the RIAA.

RIAA lawyer Ira Schwartz had tried to argue MP3s made from legally bought CDs and stored on Pamela and Jeffery Howell’s PC were “unauthorized copies” of copyrighted recordings.

“I couldn’t believe it when I read that,” said Recording Industry vs The People’s Ray Beckerman.

“The basic principle in the law is that you have to distribute actual physical copies to be guilty of violating copyright. But recently, the industry has been going around saying that even a personal copy on your computer is a violation.”

In a case centering on New York social worker Tenise Barker, Connecticut district judge Janet Bond Arterton threw out out the RIAA’s infamous ‘making available claim which, “comprises the bottom line for all the Big 4 P2P file sharing cases,” p2pnet posted in February.

“Prove it!” - she said in effect.

This time around, the RIAA was demanding a summary judgement against the Howells, claiming they’d infringed Big 4 copyrights.

But, “Prove it,” said judge Neil V. Wake, in effect.

As Beckerman puts it, “the judge has totally eviscerated the RIAA’s theories of ‘making available’ and ‘offering to distribute’.”

In a court document, “the record in this case does not conclusively indicate that Howell was responsible for making the 12 downloaded recordings publicly available,” he ruled, going on >>>

A reasonable trier of fact could conclude that it was Howell who placed the copyrighted files into his shared file folder; Howell admitted that he downloaded KaZaA onto the computer, that he created the KaZaA user account through which the files were made available to the public, and that he authorized sharing other types of files. On the other hand, Howell has sworn that he did not place the copyrighted sound recordings in the shared folder, has testified that other users of the computer could be responsible, and has identified evidence purportedly showing that the Kazaa program was, without his authorization, making files not in the shared folder available for download. Viewing all the evidence in the light most favorable to Howell, there exists a disputed issue of fact regarding Howell’s responsibility for sharing the files. Accordingly, the recording companies’ motion for summary judgment is also denied with respect to the 12 copies downloaded by MediaSentry.

The recording companies motion for summary judgment also fails because they have not proved that a KaZaA user who places a copyrighted work into the shared folder distributes a copy of that work when a third-party downloads it. Under their theory, a KaZaA user transfers a copy of the work to a third party and is therefore liable as a primary infringer of the distribution right. However, in the KaZaA system the owner of the shared folder does not necessarily ever make or distribute an unauthorized copy of the work. The owner certainly does not distribute the copy that resides in the shared folder, for that copy never leaves its location on the owner’s hard drive. Rather, a copy of the copy in the shared folder is made.

The EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation ) added its voice, “to those speaking out against the RIAA’s efforts to tar and feather” the Howells, said p2pnet in March, going on:

“Instead of proving the Howells actually distributed music files, the RIAA claims only that they had songs in the Kazaa ’shared’ folder of peer-to-peer file-sharing software Kazaa, “without any proof that anyone other than their own investigators actually downloaded the songs from them,” said the EFF.

“If the RIAA wants to keep bringing these suits and collecting big settlements, then they have to follow the law and prove their case,” said senior EFF lawyer Fred von Lohmann, adding:

“It’s not enough to say the law could have been broken. The RIAA must prove it actually was broken.”

Says Beckerman of this latest ruling >>>

The 17-page decision:
» rejected the RIAA’s “making available” theory (in agreement with Atlantic v. Brennan, Elektra v Brennan, and London-Sire v Doe 1), noting that “Unless a copy of the work changes hands in one of the designated ways, a “distribution” under [sec.] 106(3) has not taken place”;
» rejected the “offer to distribute” theory suggested to the RIAA by Judge Karas in Elektra v Barker; -rejected the RIAA’s theory, accepted by Judge Karas, that “distribution” and “publication” are simply synonyms under the Copyright Act (in agreement with London-Sire v. Doe 1 and disagreement with Elektra v Barker);
» held the RIAA’s evidence inconclusive as to whether the defendant was the person who actually put the files in a ’shared files folder’; and -held the RIAA’s evidence inconclusive as to whether the defendant could be held liable under a “secondary liability” theory.

This is the Arizona case in which:

(a) the Court initially ruled in the RIAA’s favor,

(b) after receiving a “reconsideration” motion from the self-represented defendant, the Court recalled and vacated its earlier decision,

(c) the Court asked for supplemental briefs, responding to - among other things - the question of whether Mr. Howell’s mp3 files, copied from his cd’s, were “unlawful”, and the RIAA responded “yes”,

(d) the Electronic Frontier Foundation filed an amicus curiae brief on Mr. Howell’s behalf, and

(e) Fred Von Lohmann of the EFF participated in the oral argument.

Stay tuned.
http://www.p2pnet.net/story/15773





RIAA Requests File-Sharing Info from UA
Eric Evridge

University of Arkansas administrators recently received a formal request from the Recording Industry Association of America, a trade group that represents intellectual property and First Amendment rights of the U.S. recording industry, asking that the UA cooperate in addressing illegal file-sharing activities. And like at most universities across the nation, UA students are not happy.

"There's no reason why the RIAA should have the right or ability to do this," said Taylor Hunter, former on-campus resident and senior at the UA.

"How is it not legal to tap phone lines but it's legal to trace down people's IP addresses? It's needless," he said. "I think we could devote our time elsewhere, for a better cause. It's a needless process."

IP addresses are unique addresses that computer networks use to identify and communicate with each other; much like cell phone numbers, physical addresses or home phone lines.

The letter the UA received is requesting, under new RIAA policy, that institutions of higher education preserve all records containing file-sharing activities.

The UA does not immediately give the RIAA what it wants. There is a formal, step-by-step procedure that must be followed, said Scott Flanagin, director of Communications and Outreach, which is a division of Student Affairs at the UA.

"Here's what happens at the systems level all UA systems," he said. "The IT department attempts to identify the individual that was responsible for the Internet connection at the time of the infraction, the individual included in the letter sent to the UA."

From here, the letter is forwarded to that individual.

"The UA does not provide any identity of any individuals and will not unless there is a subpoena. If there is a subpoena, we will provide specific information if we can and if it's available to us," Flanagin said.

"That's some relief, I guess," Hunter said. "At least the UA is not so quick to punish."

In order for the RIAA and UA to cooperate to this point requires a lot of work and red tape, though, Flanagin said.

"They had to go through a lot of steps to get to this point. The RIAA attorneys may have sent a letter to the IT department saying whatever," he said. "They would have to file the letter to the official copy right officer, though. It would have to be registered to the copy right officer, who is in Little Rock, and it must be filed properly."

Once the letter is filed properly there, anything that pertains to UA campus students is forwarded back to Craig Brown from the IT department, and then an attempt to identify the person continues, he said.

"If no connection is found at the time or no person can be identified, then we notify the copy right officer and nothing more is done on our campus," Flanagin said.

How the UA identifies students breaking the rules is unclear.

"There's no way to know," Flanagin said, when asked if there was a problem with students using another student's computer to illegally share or download music. "It's like open Internet networks - there's no way to know."

Students should be aware that the UA doesn't give any legal advice and students should consult a personal lawyer should they receive a letter, he said.

An article published late last year highlighted the constitutional battle between downloaders and prosecutors.

Ned Snow, an assistant professor at the UA, argued in an article titled "Copytraps" that the automatic penalties for downloading illegally violate the First Amendment and are far too harsh.

Internet users face "copytraps," which is to say that when users encounter Web sites that falsely represent something as legal, sometimes there's no way of knowing whether the downloading is actually illegal.

"The very potential for 'copytraps,' with automatic penalties assessed against the innocent downloader, raises First Amendment concern," Snow said in the article. "The First Amendment comes into play because downloading is a form of speech. Downloading is the same as copying, and copying is a form of expression."

The argument continues saying that legal downloading is hindered by the fear of downloading illegally by mistake. The "automatic and severe" punishment of innocent downloaders makes Internet users wary to download legal content.

"Internet users who are aware of the law or who have fallen victim to a 'copytrap,' are much more wary of sites purporting to offer legal downloads," Snow said in the article.

The reluctance and wariness to download formulates Snow's argument. "Copytraps" might inhibit users from downloading legal material, and that inhibition is a clear restraint on speech protected by the First Amendment, according to the article.

Snow said most Internet users trust Web site operators to determine if their content is legal or not.

"Most Internet users continue to download without inhibition," he said in the article. "We haven't seen significant decreases in legal downloading. But that fact doesn't matter in the eyes of the law. First Amendment law makes it clear that the possibility of inhibition is sufficient to find a law unconstitutional. And that possibility is glaringly evident in the download context."

"Sounds solid to me," Hunter said. "It makes sense. Then again, I download music illegally and am a considered 'criminal' by law. Pretty ridiculous in my opinion. There are way better things to do with the time and money spent on this."

The recording industry loses revenue based on two forms of piracy: street piracy, the manufacture and sale of counterfeit CDs, and online piracy, illegally copying and downloading media, according to the RIAA Web site.

The Institute for Policy Innovation concludes that music piracy causes $12.5 billion in economic losses every year while more than 71,000 jobs are lost.

Though the RIAA admits calculating losses for online piracy is difficult, it states the "pirate marketplace currently dwarfs the legal marketplace," and that means investment into new music is compromised.
http://media.www.thetraveleronline.c...-3355876.shtml





Peer to Peer Media Sharing on the Rise?

There was a sharp rise in Recording Industry Association of America complaints against UST students in March.

University of St. Thomas and the RIAA

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) represents various recording labels and seeks out people who illegally share music files through peer to peer file sharing applications such as Gnutella and BitTorrent. The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) performs a similar role representing film and video entities.

Last year UST received 122 complaints for the entire school year and was on pace to come in well below that number this year. Recently, however, we have received over 60 complaints for this month alone. It is not known whether the spike in the number of complaints represents an increase in illegal file sharing by UST students, increased scrutiny by the RIAA or both.

The DMCA

The framework for these complaints comes from the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The DMCA outlines the rights and responsibilities of copyright holders and service providers. The act also requires that the university provide a publicly listed point of contact to receive and handle copyright complaints for computers connected to our network.

IRT serves as that point of contact. Under the DMCA the university is required to take action when a complaint is received regarding a copyright violation. When IRT receives a DMCA complaint we gather the basic information and turn the incident over to the Dean of Students’ Office disciplinary process. In the case of a repeat offense, IRT will temporarily block network access until the issue is resolved.

In most cases, complaint letters from the RIAA represent what is essentially a “cease and desist” request. There have been cases, though, at other universities where the RIAA filed suit against students or attempted to have students settle out of court to avoid a law suit.

Alternatives

Sharing copyright protected music and video files not only puts you at legal risk from organizations such as the RIAA but also can put your computer at risk. Many peer to peer networking applications can make your computer vulnerable to viruses and spyware.

There are many low-cost options available for accessing your favorite music or video materials, including iTunes, Rhapsody and Netflix to name just a few. Using these legal services will help ensure that you get a high-quality product. You also will avoid legal and financial risks that come with using tools that violate copyright laws. And lastly, they will make you a better UST net citizen by reducing your overall risk for spreading computer viruses, making better use of our shared connection to the Internet, adhering to the Responsible Use Policy, and reducing the amount of time our support staff is required to spend following up on copyright violation complaints.
http://www.stthomas.edu/bulletin/new...day4_29_08.cfm





Universities Baffled By Massive Surge In RIAA Copyright Notices
Ryan Singel



In the last 10 days, universities around the country have seen more than a 20-fold increase in the number of filesharing takedown notices from the recording industry, in an unexplained spike that seems focused on colleges in the Midwest.

The spike is not matched by an increase in actual file sharing.

"Universities are getting as many notices from the RIAA in one day as what they would typically get from all content owners in a month," says Mark Luker, a vice president of higher education technology advocate Educause.

Indiana University says that starting on April 21, the Recording Industry Association of America began sending 80 legal notices a day to the university, under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Typically, the university handles less than 100 such notices a month from the RIAA, the Motion Picture Association of America and HBO combined.

The DMCA notices include information about a specific IP address, file sharing protocol and named infringing file.

Indiana University's tech staff routinely compare those details against the university's logs to make sure that the allegations are accurate, according to Mark Bruhn, an associate vice president of IU's information technology department.

But many of the recent notices don't correspond to entries in traffic logs, which also don't show any overall increase in file sharing, Bruhn said.

"We are not sure now what we have is an allegation of copyright infringement or an allegation of possible future illegal behavior," Bruhn said."The whole thing is very concerning, to be frank. We don't know why they are doing this and I'm not sure they know what they are doing."

"They in fact can't know if the files being offered are actually the protected works of their clients -- how would they know if they didn't download and open them?" Bruhn said.

University of Chicago has also seen a recent surge, its CIO confirmed to THREAT LEVEL.

Meanwhile, the Chronicle of Higher Education reported Wednesday that George Washington University and University of Cincinnati are also reporting spikes beginning two weeks ago.

For its part, the RIAA denies there's anything new to the letters, sending along a stock statement to THREAT LEVEL.

"We are always making an effort to more effectively and efficiently detect infringing activity on the Internet, as we are continuously looking for ways to improve our ability to find and act on incidences of theft online. Having said that, there's been no change in our procedures."

RIAA spokeswoman Liz Kennedy did not respond to a follow-up request to explain the surge , and IU's analysis that notices were being sent without proof of infringement.

Luker finds the RIAA's position difficult to believe.

"It is for us hard to accept that students are multiplying their infringements by 30," Luker said.

Bruhn concurs.

"The RIAA says it is not new, but clearly it is," Bruhn said.

University of California at Berkeley's chief information officer Shel Waggener confirmed he'd heard of the spikes and suggested there was a political purpose driving them.

"Public universities are in a unique position since the industry puts pressure on us through state legislatures to try to impose what are widely considered to be draconian content monitoring measures and turn us into tech police forces in support of a specific industry," Waggener said.

The RIAA is also backing legislation in states such as Illinois and Tennessee that would require schools that get a certain number of notices to begin installing deep packet monitoring equipment on their internet and intranets, according to Luker.

"The number of DMCA notices that are sent to a university vary wildly from one day to the next, and no one, including the federal government knows how they send them out or what criteria they use," Luker said. "It is not reasonable in any way to use those counts as a basis for government actions."

IU's Bruhn says the school has typically treated the notices seriously, requiring first time offenders to take an online tutorial about copyright, suspending second time offenders from the university's net for two weeks and indefinitely suspending anyone caught a third time.

Bruhn, Waggener and Luker all downplayed the amount of file sharing occurring on campus networks these days, saying that the MPAA, for instance, radically overestimated how much movie piracy was attributable to college students. For more than two years, the industry claimed that more than 40 percent of illegal movie downloads came from college students -- costing the industry billions of dollars. Then in January of this year, the estimate was reduced to 15% for college-aged students, and only 3% occurring on campus networks.
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/200...ends-spik.html





Musician 'Duped' Into Anti-Piracy Video
Asher Moses

An artist featured in a new campaign pushed by the Australian music industry to discourage illegal file sharing and change the public's perception that musicians live like royalty says he was duped into joining an anti-piracy "witch hunt".

Frenzal Rhomb guitarist Lindsay McDougall, also a radio presenter at Triple J, told the Herald he was furious at being "lumped in with this witch hunt" and that he had been "completely taken out of context and defamed" by the Australian music industry, which funded the video.

He said he was told the 10-minute film, which is being distributed for free to all high schools in Australia, was about trying to survive as an Australian musician and no one mentioned the video would be used as part of an anti-piracy campaign.

Sabiene Heindl, general manager of the music industry's anti-piracy arm, Music Industry Piracy Investigations (MIPI), which partly coordinated the film and is pushing for it to be included in school units related to copyright and file sharing, said all of the feedback she had received so far from other artists and their managers had been positive.

She questioned whether McDougall had actually watched the film and said only 1-2 minutes of it discussed the issue of downloading and how it impacted musicians.

The film, which can be viewed at http://www.in-tune.com.au, features interviews with some of Australia's biggest musical acts including The Veronicas, Jimmy Barnes, Operator Please, Evermore, Silverchair and Powderfinger. They either could not be reached by the Herald yesterday or were overseas.
Heindl rejected suggestions McDougall had been misled, saying all correspondance and signed releases indicated the video was made with the support of MIPI and would be distributed to schools.

McDougall said: "I have never come out against internet piracy and illegal downloading and I wouldn't do that - I would never put my name to something that is against downloading and is against piracy and stuff, it's something that I believe is a personal thing from artist to artist."

"I would never be part of this big record industry funded campaign to crush illegal downloads, I'm not like [Metallica drummer] Lars Ulrich. I think it's bullshit, I think it's record companies crying poor and I don't agree with it."

Metallica were one of the first bands to sue people for copyright infringement and attracted scorn from internet users for helping shut down the peer-to-peer downloading tool Napster.

Record labels are seen as the big losers from music piracy. While artists benefit from having their music distributed to as many people as possible and are able to reap significant returns from merchandise and concert ticket sales, record label revenue is dropping rapidly as people buy fewer CDs.

"I don't think i'm going to sue anyone but I would say that already this morning people's opinion of me has been lowered," McDougall said.

"I'm from a punk rock band, it's all about getting your music out any way you can - you don't make money from the record, the record companies make the money from the record. If they can't make money these days because they haven't come onside with the way the world is going, it's their own problem."

Other artists were less scathing in their appraisal of the video. Wayne Pilkington, manager of Anthony Callea, said: "This video is a unique view on the changing nature of our industry. It's tremendous to see artists given the opportunity to provide a balanced first hand account of the music business as they see it."
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2008/...234943373.html





Lars Ulrich: "We've Always Been Fiercely Independent and Controlling"

Metallica's outspoken drummer talks embracing the Web and metal's new-millennium surge
David Downs

Rolling Stone caught up with Metallica at their Record Store Day signing event in northern California late last week. Drummer Lars Ulrich dialed us up to discuss the event and chatted about recording with Rick Rubin, bonding with his kids over Guitar Hero and learning to love the Web.

You went through four boxes of Sharpies signing autographs on Record Store Day. Can you talk about that marathon meet and greet?
I think the intense energy and all the love carried us through. I didn't even take a pee break! It's probably the longest we've gone for as long as I can remember. We used to be like, "Where's the beer? Fire up the Misfits!" It would be a lot more reckless. Now it's more personal and less about you and your beer needs. It's funny. You're at home chilling out in your backyard, being a parent, and driving your kids around town and you conveniently forget. At 9 a.m., I spent ten minutes wiping the shit off my nine-month old. At 12 p.m., I was in the dog park cleaning up dog shit. Then you get into a car drive down to Mountain View and go, "Holy shit!" By 2 p.m., they're saying how amazing you are. It's easy to forget in your own little bubble.

What did you take away from the fans this time?
I would say the main thing is that it continues to reinforce how varied metal fans are; how difficult it is to define who they are. You are talking about fans that cross all lines of age, gender and cultural backgrounds — it's not categorizable. You see parents there with their kids who say they finally found something in common through Metallica. I walked away totally humbled, whereas in my twenties and thirties there's these big black holes. I didn't remember walking away with that feeling.

You signed a lot of Guitar Hero controllers. Is that cool?
It's fucking way cool. Our kids love playing Guitar Hero and Rock Band. It's awesome. There's something really positive coming out of video games. It's so cool to sit there and have your kids talk to you about Deep Purple and Black Sabbath and Soundgarden.

What made Metallica want to be part of Record Store Day?
It was a no-brainer for us. It took three seconds to decide to do it. The record store has been such a huge part of our lives. When I was twelve, fourteen years old in Denmark, the record store was the Holy Grail and the guy who worked there was my hero. I would go two to three times a week and get Judas Priest, Accept, Triumph; this guy was like a God to me. In America it was places in San Francisco like the Record Vault where we'd sell our demos, T-shirts, hang out.

How would you feel on the day the last record store in America closed?
I'd do my best to try and be there playing "Fade to Black" as the last song, but I don't think it'll come to that. iTunes? I'm there as much as everyone else, I'm not against that. If you look at vinyl, fifteen years ago CDs came out and yet it continues to make more of a comeback. I don't think you'll be able to kill the record store, at least not in major cities. I'm worried about the smaller cities. I'm against these soulless megastores.

You were one of the first artists to sue over copyright infringement and voice concerns over aspects of downloading. Eight years later, with bands like Radiohead embracing the Net and yet charting, how has your stance changed, if at all?
We have FLACs and MP3s for sale. It was never about downloading per se. We have the Vault where you can download shows from twenty years ago for free, full-on and it's been there for years. You can download recent shows days after they happen for cost. Back in the day there was a much bigger question about "on whose terms?" We said, "Wait a minute, it should be about the artist." Then all hell broke loose and we sat on the sidelines for a while. We've always been fiercely independent and controlling; sometimes to a fault. That's why we exist and why all these people show up.

And as far as the next record goes ...
You know, this is our last record under contract with Warner, so we're looking at how we can embrace everything.

Like a 360 deal with Live Nation?
Mmm, we've never sold ourselves that way. No disrespect. We want to be as free a players as possible. We've been observing Radiohead and Trent Reznor and in twenty-seven years or however long it takes for the next record, we'll be looking forward to everything in terms of possibilities with the Internet.

What can you say about working with mad genius Rick Rubin on this upcoming album?
Mad genius? You've heard then. [Laughs] It's been a great year, and it's been a lot of fun — a chance to re-invent the wheel again. It's great to have someone who sits there and throws things in your face. He's not very methodical; it's all about the vibe and the moment. We were interacting and playing off each other more. There was little method to his madness, but you learn to trust him and roll with it.

Have you thought about the climate into which you'll be dropping this new album? What is the state of metal today?
I think you saw. Metal is fucking alive and well and doing better than it has in many years. It seems like most of the metal in the Seventies and the Eighties is still revered. It seems like most fourteeen year olds are into Deep Purple, Iron Maiden and Judas Priest, as opposed to some alternative, grunge and especially the rap-rock of the Nineties. When you've been around a while you tend to disregard cycles, but there is a resurgence way deeper and more penetrating into the fourteen-year-old mindset all over. It's unbelievable.
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/sto..._contro lling





Betrayed MSN Music Customers Deserve More from Microsoft

EFF Outlines Five Steps to Redress DRM Debacle

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is urging Microsoft Corporation to fix the problems it will cause when it shuts down the MSN Music validation servers, making it impossible for customers to transfer their music files to new computers or even upgrade their operating system.

In an open letter sent to Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer today, EFF outlines five steps Microsoft must take to make things right for MSN Music customers -- including a issuing a public apology, providing refunds or replacement music files, and launching a substantial publicity campaign to make sure all customers know their options.

"MSN Music customers trusted Microsoft when it said that this was a safe way to buy music, and that trust has been betrayed," said EFF Staff Attorney Corynne McSherry. "If Microsoft is prepared to treat MSN Music customers like this, is there any reason to suppose that future customers won't get the same treatment?"

MSN Music sold song downloads encumbered with digital rights management (DRM), allowing the music to be played only on approved devices. If you upgraded your computer or operating system, you needed to "reauthorize" your music files with MSN Music's DRM server. But last week, Microsoft announced that it would deactivate those servers because of the complexity of maintaining the technology -- meaning that customers face losing the ability to play their purchased music if they get a new computer or if the hard drive crashes on the old one. Microsoft's only suggestion for customers so far is to export all purchases onto a CD and then recopy it back onto new computers.

"Microsoft is asking its customers to spend more time, labor, and money to make degraded copies of music that was purchased in good faith," said EFF Executive Director Shari Steele. "This outcome was easily foreseeable from the moment Microsoft chose to wrap MSN Music files in DRM. Microsoft customers should not have to pay for Microsoft's bad business decisions."

EFF's letter also calls on Microsoft to eliminate DRM from its Zune music service now -- or at least to publicly commit to compensating future customers for the inevitable future DRM debacles.

"With MSN Music, Microsoft has admitted just how expensive, clumsy, and unfair DRM is. It's time for Microsoft to reject this sloppy technology, and for customers to demand something better," McSherry said.

For the full open letter:
http://www.eff.org/press/archives/20...ft-open-letter
http://www.eff.org/press/archives/2008/04/28





Court Sets Royalty Fees To Be Paid to ASCAP
Ethan Smith

Following a federal court decision Wednesday, three major online services will pay an organization representing songwriters royalties of 2.5% of their music-related revenues for music streamed via the Internet between 2002 and 2009.

Under the terms of the order, Yahoo Inc., Time Warner Inc.'s AOL and RealNetworks Inc. could collectively owe up to $100 million to the American Society of Composers Authors and Publishers, or Ascap.

The decision by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York applies to music that is "streamed" -- that is, heard as it is retrieved from the Internet, as opposed to stored on a hard drive and played later. United States District Judge William C. Conner settled the matter of what rate should be paid; whether a royalty was due at all was not at issue. He did not set differing rates for Internet radio -- broadcasts that play songs in an order the user has no control over -- and on-demand services that let users choose the songs they hear. Ascap's chief rival, Broadcast Music Inc., already has a licensing deal with online services.

Terrestrial radio broadcasters pay Ascap less than 2% of their revenue for similar licenses; the ruling said it was appropriate to charge online broadcasters more because they typically play more songs per hour than traditional radio stations. Online broadcasters already pay royalties to musical performers and record labels, through a body called SoundExchange. Terrestrial broadcasters do not pay such a royalty in the U.S. The new decision does not affect song downloads, for which composers are compensated using a different formula.

"The judge made it very simple and efficient to license music for the online world," said Ascap Chief Executive John A. LoFrumento. He added that expects the decision to serve as a template for licenses with other online services.
http://www.uptilt.com/c.html?rtr=on&...d5xp,2hpd,ibd8





House Bill To Create Anti-Piracy Czar Advances
Frank Ahrens

A House committee passed an anti-piracy bill yesterday that would stiffen penalties for illegally copying and distributing music and movies and would create an "intellectual property czar" at the White House level -- a job that the Justice Department warned would "undermine" its independence.

The bill, introduced in December by Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) and 17 co-sponsors and known as the Pro IP Act, is championed by a broad base of intellectual-property holders, including entertainment companies, auto parts manufacturers, drugmakers and unions. It now heads to the House floor, and advocates hope it will pass this summer.

In addition to creating the position of IP czar, the bill would amend federal copyright law to add resources to the fight against piracy and raise the ceiling on damages that could be awarded by a civil court to a rights-holder whose work had been pirated.

The authority of the czar remains a point of contention. The Justice Department blasted the bill after it was introduced, calling it unnecessary and worrying that an enforcement position at the Cabinet level could become easily politicized.

During yesterday's markup of the bill, committee members tried to mollify the Justice Department and head off a veto by clarifying that the czar would not make policy but coordinate anti-piracy efforts across government.

But the changes in language did little to persuade the agency.

"Establishing such an office would undermine the traditional independence of the Department of Justice in criminal enforcement matters," department spokesman Peter Carr wrote in an e-mail yesterday. "Establishing such an office in [the White House] would codify precisely the type of political interference in the independent exercise of DOJ prosecutorial judgment that many members of Congress and senators have alleged over the last couple years."

White House spokesman Tony Fratto said, "The White House has very serious concerns with the legislation."

The bill was initially and vigorously opposed by some in the tech community, most notably William Patry, senior copyright lawyer for Google, who called it the most "outrageously gluttonous IP bill ever introduced in the U.S." in a posting on his blog in December.

Patry and others opposed a section backed by the music industry that has since been struck from the bill. Referred to as the "compilation clause," it would have targeted users who illegally share music CDs, assigning penalties for each song pirated from a CD, rather than one penalty per disc. Even though the music industry lost the clause, it remains pleased with most of the bill. In March, Patry wrote on his blog that he was "very happy" the clause had been removed. He did not respond yesterday to an e-mail request for comment.

Early opponents fought hard to tone down what they said were the draconian elements of the bill.

"We just generally didn't like the whole tenor of, 'Oh, my God, we need to cut off people's toes' if they commit copyright infringement," said Gigi B. Sohn, president of Public Knowledge, a public-interest group that has advocated reducing some penalties for copyright violation. Sohn said her group is generally comfortable with the bill as approved yesterday but said Public Knowledge has its own six-point plan for revising copyright laws that it will seek to have introduced as legislation this summer.

Sohn's group advocates an "orphan works" copyright law that would allow a content-creator such as a musician or a filmmaker to use a piece of copyrighted material if the rights-holder cannot be found and would provide reasonable compensation if the rights-holder emerges.

NBC Universal chief executive Jeff Zucker is a lead backer of the Pro IP Act. Universal movies and NBC TV shows are among the countless works pirated in the United States and abroad, both on counterfeit DVDs and online.

The federal government estimates that U.S. businesses lose $250 billion per year in sales to pirated goods.

Zucker was pleased with the bill's progress yesterday.

"This is such an important step in combating this incredibly serious piracy and counterfeiting problem that's getting worse, not better," Zucker said in an interview.

The Motion Picture Association of America, the trade group of the big movie studios, and the Recording Industry Association of America, the trade group of the major music labels, continue to wage an expensive and sometimes unpopular campaign of education and enforcement against piracy, including lawsuits against individuals.

Asked if the worsening piracy problem meant that the campaigns have been ineffective, Zucker said: "I dread to think where we would be if those measures hadn't been taken."

NBC Universal general counsel Rick Cotton, head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Coalition Against Counterfeiting and Piracy, said the U.S.-based campaigns of the MPAA and RIAA don't reach every potential pirate, particularly those overseas.

Cotton said that NBC Universal movies and TV shows have been heavily pirated on DVD in Asia but that now several Web sites are popping up in China that offer pirated online versions of its content, compounding the problem. In Europe, online piracy is the bigger problem, and new pirate havens are constantly emerging, Cotton said.

For instance, the office of the U.S. Trade Representative added Spain and Greece to this year's "watch list" of countries that, in the view of the United States, are not tough enough on pirates. China and Russia continue to head the list.

A Senate version of the Pro IP Act was introduced last fall by Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) and is in committee.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...043003360.html





U.S. Targets 9 Nations on Copyrights

The Bush administration is accusing China, Russia and seven other nations of failing to protect American producers of movies, computer software and other copyrighted material from widespread piracy.

The administration on Friday placed the nine countries on a "priority watch list" that will subject them to extra scrutiny and could eventually lead to economic sanctions - if the administration decides to pursue complaints before the World Trade Organization.

In addition to China and Russia, the other seven countries targeted were Argentina, Chile, India, Israel, Pakistan, Thailand and Venezuela.

The administration named another 31 countries to a lower-level watch list, indicating it has concerns about copyright violations in those nations but they don't warrant the highest level of scrutiny.

Because of improvements in their efforts to protect U.S. intellectual property rights, four countries - Egypt, Lebanon, Turkey and Ukraine - were taken off the "priority" list where they were last year and placed on the lower-level watch list.

In releasing the annual report, which is required by Congress, U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab said copyright piracy is "one of the central challenges facing the global economy."
http://www.siliconvalley.com/news/ci...nclick_check=1





Reports: Beijing Court Hands Down First Jail Term for Copyright Infringement
AP

A Beijing court has handed down the first jail sentence in the Chinese capital for copyright infringement, state media reported Saturday.

Beijing is flooded with pirated DVDs and fake designer goods. The United States and European Union have been pushing China to do more to fight piracy, saying it costs their companies billions of dollars a year. The government has been trying to crack down ahead of the Beijing Olympics in August.

Xinhua News Agency said Zhou Cheng, 40, was jailed for one year and fined about $1,430 by the Chaoyang District People's Court on Friday.

The Beijing Daily newspaper said Zhou was the first counterfeiter to be jailed for copyright infringement in the city. Previously, DVD pirates were ordered to pay minimal fines.

Xinhua said Zhou was arrested last December for selling DVDs for about $2.15 each at a store in Chaoyang. He had nearly 11,000 pirated DVDs in his store.

Zhou could have been jailed for up to seven years, it said.
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/...Imprisoned.php





Record Companies Sue Project Playlist on Copyright

Nine major record labels filed suit against an online music provider on Monday, accusing Project Playlist Inc of a "massive infringement" of their copyrights to the songs of artists such as U2 and Gwen Stefani.

Project Playlist (http://www.projectplaylist.com) enables its users to easily find, play and share music with others for free, according to the suit filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.

The website compiles a vast index of songs on the Internet and users can "quickly and easily search the index for recordings by their favorite artists. At the click of a mouse, Project Playlist instantly streams a digital performance of the selected recording to the user, who can listen to it on his or her computer or mobile device," the lawsuit said.

"Project Playlist also has begun optimizing its site for use on iPhones and iPods," the record companies said in the suit.

The Beverly Hills, California-based company, an affiliate of KR Capital Partners LLC, also allows its users to embed their personalized playlists on social network sites such as MySpace, Facebook and Blogger, the lawsuit said. The record companies said projectplaylist.com gets more than 600,000 daily users, nearly 9.5 million average page views per day.

"In short (Project Playlist's) entire business amounts to nothing more than a massive infringement" of the record companies' copyrights, the record companies said.

They are seeking to enjoin Project Playlist from continuing to offer its customers free music and are also seeking unspecified damages.

Attempts to reach Project Playlist for comment were unsuccessful.

The nine record labels are: Warner Music Group Corp's <WMG.N> Atlantic Recording Corp, Elektra Entertainment Group Inc and Warner Bros. Records Inc; EMI Group Plc's Capitol Records LLC, Priority Records LLC and Virgin Records America Inc; and the Interscope Records, Motown Record Co LP and UMG Recordings Inc labels of Vivendi SA's <VIV.PA> Universal Music Group.

(Reporting by Leslie Gevirtz; editing by Gerald E. McCormick)





Did you receive a call from (913) 234-8181? Share the details with us and tell these callers what you think by leaving a comment.

SeanTR on April 27, 2008
I also got one of these "notice of copyright infringement" letters and receive a call practically every day from Caller ID PSC Group while I'm at work. They never leave any messages. What can I do? These claims are bogus... I hardly listen to music at all, let alone download it off the internet.
__________________________________________________________

Ashman on April 27, 2008
Here's all the addresses I could find for the PSC websites

PSC Group
1051 Perimeter Drive Suite 500
Schaumburg, IL 60173
1-847-517-7200
1-800-592-8003
Fax 1-847-517-7600
info-ILS@psclistens.com

13200 Metcalf Avenue Suite 100
Overland Park, KS 66213
1-913-402-4599
1-800-592-8003
Fax 1-913-402-4689
info-KS@psclistens.com

601 Carlson Parkway Suite 1050
Minnetonka, MN 55305
1-952-448-2300
1-800-592-8003
Fax 1-800-231-4915
info-MN@psclistens.com

For p2plawsuits.com
Recording Industry Association of America
1025 F ST NW 10th Floor
Washington, DC 20004
1-202-775-0101

PSC is Precision Systems Concepts ( chicago.bbb.org ) and is affiliated with Accertify LLC ( which started as Obexa LLC) and possibly SRI - Systems Research Inc. These companies handle fraudulent checks/credit card transactions and document processing. It is also being said that they simply supplied a VOIP system to RIAA and that's why the connected information in the phone database.

However if you look at the old registration information for www.SettlementInformationLine.com the original SSC website, you'll see that it was originally registered to

Bret Chapman
13200 Metcalf Ave Suite 100
Overland Park, Kansas 66213

which is the same address as PSC. It is now registered to Holme Roberts & Owen LLP in Denver. If they only sold VOIP access/equipment to RIAA, it seems strange they also registered the website, no?
http://www.callferret.com/913-234-8181.html





From the "Abuse Your Customer" Business Manual
Bill Houghton

This saga is why Big 5 Music Label executives are among the most hated businessmen in America. Last June, Universal Music Group sued to have a video clip of a 13-month old toddler dancing to Prince’s “Let’s Go Crazy” removed from YouTube. Universal argued that the author – the child’s mother, Stephanie Lenz – violated the copyright of the song, which plays in the background of the video.

At first YouTube complied, but Lenz argued back, saying that the song was an obvious case of fair use. YouTube agreed and re-posted the song. This is when the story gets fun…

The digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation supported YouTube in court. The case pivoted on when a copyright holder may legitimately complain about possible infringement.

EFF claimed that the use of the song in Lenz’s video was obviously fair use – and that the label’s demand to remove the song was essentially harassment. The specific law they cited was the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which recently has defined copyright on the Web.

Not understanding that discretion is the better part of valor, Universal turned and counter-sued the EFF. The big label argued that its initial complaint to YouTube was in itself a form a free speech – and the EFF suit represented a breach of Universal’s first-amendment rights. (Universal argued that use of the song wasn’t “obviously” a fair use – so a suit was warranted.)

Federal district court judge Jeremy Fogel in San Jose heard the case, and essentially found against everyone. The EFF hadn’t completely proven that Lenz’s video was “obviously” fair use. And Universal hadn’t shown that any of it’s free speech rights had been violated. Fogel did, however, give the EFF an opportunity re-file the complaint with a better argument that the fair use of obvious.

Well this month the EFF is back with Fogel’s requested proof that Universal should have known that the video made fair use of the song. They’ve re-filed their complaint — that Universal knew or should have known it had no grounds to complain under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. So now the drama continues.

So was Lenz’s use of the song “fair use”? According to US Copyright law, fair use is determined by four factors:

1. The purpose and character of the copy, including whether its purpose was purely commercial, or whether it’s intended for educational or artistic purposes.
2. The nature of the copyrighted work (which in this case is clearly a copyrighted work of music).
3. The amount and substantiality of the copied portion. In other words, did the copy steal all the best parts of the original?
4. The effect of the copy upon the potential market for the original work.

A cursory glimpse at Lenz’s video makes the argument pretty clear.

• The video was not intended for commercial purpose or to supersede the original. In fact the video furthers entertainment expression by use of the song – transforming it into a completely new work.
• The video uses only about 15 seconds of the overall work, which is about 5 minutes long. Longer 30-second clips of the song are ubiquitously available from other sources, including Universal.
• Because of the amateur quality and ambient noises, the video could never be reproduced or diminish the value of the original in any marketplace (actually, the song is barely audible).

In short – even Lenz’s 13-month old baby should have recognized the video’s use of the song is obviously within the fair use definition.

Meanwhile, Universal’s reaction is confusing. Surely they must realize the absurdity of their position. This suit is just one reason why music fans generally revile the Music Industry; why many major artists are defecting to their own indie labels; and why most Americans would rather illegally download songs than spend even 99¢ supporting this rancorous industry.
http://www.theseminal.com/2008/04/29...he-most-hated/





"Making Available" Transcript from March 28th Fordham Law School IP Law Conference

The following is an informal preliminary transcript of the "Making Available" panel from the Fordham IP Law Conference which took place on March 28, 2008. One oddity about the transcript, though, is that it omits the 'keynote remarks' by Michael Schlesinger. I regret their omission, because they were really odd. Mr. Schlesinger made the peculiar remark, to an audience which contained many foreign lawyers, that "making available" has been well established in United States copyright law for over 10 years. The only 'authority' to which he could point, however, was (a) the Hotaling case, which of course did not establish a broad 'making available' right, (b) a pro se case in which the issue had never been briefed by the defendant, (c) another case in which the issue had never been briefed, and (d) a jury instruction (not a decision) which is, of course, not a judicial precedent, and he totally omitted all reference to Atlantic v. Brennan, which had rejected the RIAA's "making available" theory altogether. Interestingly, this panel discussion took place on the business day before Elektra v. Barker and London-Sire v. Doe 1 came down, both rejecting a making available right. And of course a month later Atlantic v. Howell was handed down, rejecting the 'making available' theory from pillar to post.:

FORDHAM UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW
SIXTEENTH ANNUAL CONFERENCE
INTERNATIONAL INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
LAW & POLICY
Friday, March 28, 2008

SESSION X — COPYRIGHT LAW
Part C: The Role, Effectiveness and Issues in Infringement Actions against Individual P2P
Downloaders; Recent Legislative Initiatives
Aimed at Downloaders
———
1. What is the effect in the United States of the “making available” right? Comparative approaches in Asia, interpreting the “making available” right, and also the intersection with secondary liability
———

Moderator
Prof. Hugh C. Hansen
Fordham University School of Law, New York

Speaker
Michael Schlesinger
Greenberg Traurig LLP, Washington, D.C.

Panelists
Ray Beckerman
Vandenberg & Feliu LLP, New York

David Carson
U.S. Copyright Office, Washington, D.C.

Prof. Brian Fitzgerald
Queensland University of Technology Law School,
Brisbane, Australia

Prof. Jane Ginsburg
Columbia Law School, New York

Prof. Mary Wong
Franklin Pierce Law Center,
Concord, NH

PROF. HANSEN: Welcome. Basically what we are looking at are the role, effectiveness, and issues in infringement actions against individual downloaders. We are dealing with making available, the individual lawsuits, tactics, strategy, statutory damages, and privacy issues that are involved.
We will start off with the making-available right, which until recently nobody considered too much in this country. Now, because of the practical value of it and infringement actions against individual downloaders and with peer-to-peer software, it has become an issue.
We have a very good panel: Michael Schlesinger, who is going to give is a paper with an overview of the law; our panelists include Ray Beckerman, who is litigating this issue; Brian Fitzgerald, whom you all know by now from the conference, this and other times and everywhere, from Queensland University of Technology Law School in Brisbane; Jane Ginsburg, whom obviously everyone knows, and also she was written on this; and Professor Mary Wong of Franklin Pierce Law Center.
We are going to have the talk and then we are going to have some sort of a free-type discussion following that.
[SUBSTITUTE PAPER FOR SCHLESINGER ORAL REMARKS]
PROF. HANSEN: Just a show of hands. How many think under U.S. law, to the extent you understand it, that the acts of peer-to-peer network, of making something in a folder for further pickup, would be a violation of U.S. law?
[Show of hands]
PROF. GINSBURG: Absent the applicable exceptions. At least prima facie.
PROF. HANSEN: Prima facie. A good point. Thank you.
How many would say no?
[Show of hands]
Significantly fewer.
I think that’s all we need to do. I think the ayes have it. We can move on to statutory damages.
Ray Beckerman of Vanderberg & Feliu, you have been litigating this. You heard what Michael said, that he thinks the case law up until now has gone one way. He does say that there are other cases in which it has been disputed. Give me your take on the current state of U.S. law.
MR. BECKERMAN: Michael’s whole discussion of U.S. law was extremely biased, one-sided, and incorrect.
The Hotaling case was a very distinguishable case in which a library failed to keep circulation records. The court held that it was not going to reward a library for failing to keep circulation records. The issue is before the courts now.
The cases upon which Mr. Schlesinger relied are ridiculous. DePietro was a pro se case, where the defendant did not have an attorney and was not able to brief the issue. Atlantic v. Anderson was a case where the defendant had an incompetent attorney who never briefed the issue at all. The Capitol v. Thomas case is a jury instruction.
PROF. HANSEN: EFF, they’re not very good either.
MR. BECKERMAN: The Capitol v. Thomas case is not a judicial precedent. In fact, what happened in that case was that when they briefed the issue, the judge adopted an instruction that said that “in accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act, there has to be an actual dissemination of copies to the public by a sale or transfer of ownership or license, lease, or lending, which is the law.”
Then, during the trial, he entertained oral argument. The lawyer who was representing the defendant, who had not been paid and who had made a motion to withdraw from the case, which the judge denied, was asked by the judge: “So what do you have to say about the Hotaling case?” which was the RIAA’s only authority. In response to that, he said, “I have nothing to say about the Hotaling case.”
Now, in the cases where it has been fully litigated, where parties have litigated, you have six cases that declined to decide the issue and you have several motions that are pending.
That was another pro se case, just like DePietro, Atlantic v. Howell, where there was no attorney. The judge ruled in favor of the RIAA. Then, when the pro se litigant submitted copies of the briefs from Elektra v. Barker to the judge, the judge granted a reconsideration motion and vacated his earlier decision.
Meanwhile, Mr. Schlesinger left out the recent decision from Connecticut, Atlantic v. Brennan, Judge Arterton, which specifically held in no uncertain terms that there is no such thing as a making-available right, that there has to be a physical distribution of copies to the public. This was a case where the judge rejected a default judgment application by the record industry. There wasn’t even a defendant’s lawyer there to present a brief. But the judge familiarized herself with the law and made the correct decision.
PROF. HANSEN: So why didn’t the judges in the other cases familiarize themselves with the law and make the right decisions?
MR. BECKERMAN: They were not competently represented.
PROF. HANSEN: In this case they weren’t represented at all.
MR. BECKERMAN: Because that judge did the research to find out what the law was.
PROF. HANSEN: Okay.
MR. BECKERMAN: Now, meanwhile, of those cases that have been fully briefed, the Elektra v. Barker is the most fully briefed because that attracted a few amicus curiae. It has been pending for two years. The judge heard oral argument. It was brief in the spring of 2006. It was argued in January of 2007. We are all awaiting the decision. But I’m confident that he will agree with Atlantic v. Brennan.
Unlike the raising of hands by Professor Hansen, this is not a super-Congress here. We are not the United States House of Representatives or the Senate or the president or all three combined, which are required in order to enact a law in the United States. The law in the United States says that a distribution requires “a dissemination of copies of phonorecords to the public by a sale or other transfer of ownership or by license, lease, or lending.” That’s it.
PROF. HANSEN: Okay, Ray. Thanks.
You reject the idea that the intellectual elite, which I think is fairly represented here, should not run this country?
MR. BECKERMAN: The law runs the country. This is a nation of law, not a country of lawyers who are best paid by large content owners.
PROF. HANSEN: Ray, let’s not get ad hominem. You know what ad hominem means? You’ve got a losing argument and you’re desperate. So just stick to the merits.
Jane?
PROF. GINSBURG: Let’s go back to the so-called “umbrella” solution, whose author is in the room. When the WIPO Copyright Treaty put in the making-available right as part of the right of communication to the public, a right which does not exist in those words in the U.S. Copyright Act, the theory was that Member States could achieve the making-available right through either or both of the public performance right or the distribution right. The United States, I imagine, thought that it qualified on both counts.
But now we are in kind of an interesting position, because maybe our umbrella is sort of a naked shaft.
The public performance right as a form of making available for a download that is not also a stream is now coming into some question. I think Marybeth referred to this yesterday. In the ASCAP Rate Court proceeding, the district judge has taken the position that a download, at least a straight download (reserving judgment, I suppose, on the universe of limited downloads) is not a public performance. So that one route to making available has come under some question. That is not to say that the Rate Court is the last word, but it certainly raises the issue.
What about the distribution right? Well, Ray is quite correct to quote the language of Section 106(3). I suppose the question is whether “to distribute copies to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership or by rental, lease, or lending” means that the only type of distribution that our copyright law recognizes as triggering an exclusive right is a distribution that occurs by means of the transfer of ownership of a copy or by rental, lease, or lending. We are not talking about rental, lease, or lending when we’re talking about file sharing.
And we are not exactly talking about transfer of ownership of a copy because it is not the same copy in the digital context. It is much easier to talk about transfer of ownership of a copy in the hard-copy context. But what is happening in the digital context is that you are creating ownership of a copy in the hard drive of the recipient but you didn’t transfer ownership of your copy. That might leave one in something of a quandary.
But that’s not all there is in the Copyright Act about distribution. There are the arguments from the definition of publication, and then there are other parts of the Copyright Act, notably the definition of a digital phonorecord delivery, that I think calls into question the theory that the only kind of cognizable distribution that occurs in the Copyright Act is by a transfer of physical copies, a transfer of ownership of a copy.
I think we can have interesting discussions about whether the amendments to Section 115 and to Section 112 and other bits and pieces in the Copyright Act effectively enlarge the definition of distribution.
But I agree, we have to deal with the law, and I think those are interesting questions about how does one interpret the law.
I think it’s also fair to say that the courts have been fairly unrigorous about this. Those courts that have found that there has been a distribution, going back to the Playboy and Playmen case [Playboy v. Chuckleberry Publishing], which is a trademarks case but it talks about distribution, have taken the common-sense position that if the recipient ends up with copies and the recipient got those copies because of a process that was triggered by the defendant, that is a distribution. That is kind of a common-sense point of view.
But I think we do have to answer the question whether, common sense or not, the actual words of the Copyright Act taken together — not just 106(3) but 115, 112, et al. — gets you to that common-sense point of view, or whether in fact we don’t have an umbrella, we have just some tatters and we have a gap.
PROF. HANSEN: So what is your prediction, Jane? In the six vigorously defended cases with expert attorneys on both sides, what do you see the courts doing? Are they going to take a strict, literal approach, or are they going to take a commonsensical approach, or what?
PROF. GINSBURG: I actually think Section 115, the definition of a digital phonorecord delivery, and 112 pretty much get you there. I suppose I would also cite my co-author Jessica Litman, who has pointed out that the courts have done quite a job of interpreting the Copyright Act while ignoring the text. So in that case, common sense might prevail.
PROF. HANSEN: Mary, you raised your hand.
PROF. WONG: Yes, I did. I just want to make a couple of quick comments on the BitTorrent case from Hong Kong [Hksar v. Chan Nai Ming ] and also on some of the U.S. cases that are going through the courts.
First of all, I am not sure that everybody in the world, or at least maybe the non-intellectual elite, are on the same page when we talk about making available. For example, sometimes people talk about Article 8 of the WCT, which is actually a right of communication to the public including the right of making available by certain kinds of transmissions; or Article 6 of the same treaty, which is in many countries called the distribution right, which is the making available of physical copies.
A couple of interesting things about the BitTorrent case. The court did talk about for purposes of criminal distribution, which is the wording used in the Hong Kong statute, they did talk about the civil liability provisions. But they talked about the civil liability provisions in the Hong Kong statute not in terms of the distribution right, which is the right to issue copies to the public in the Hong Kong Act, but in terms of the Hong Kong equivalent of Article 8, the Hong Kong equivalent of the public communication right, which is the making available of copies.
So just some fuzziness, I think, around the language of a lot of national implementations, which might lead to a number of inconsistent decisions and results in the courts.
Secondly, on the American cases, I think it would be interesting to see — and we are all waiting for the Barker case and a number of the appeals, like in Jammie Thomas, for example, to see if the U.S. district courts are going to do anything about the deemed distribution rule, which was talked about a little bit by the Ninth Circuit in the Perfect Ten case in describing the Hotaling case. I haven’t gone through all the briefs of all these cases, but it will be interesting to see if the courts actually decide to take on that issue and to see whether or not they apply it, limit it, or what they do with it.
PROF. HANSEN: David?
MR. CARSON: Let me respond to a couple things.
Jane pointed out that if you look at the literal words of the statute, maybe you get into some trouble, even with the notion that transmission on the Internet is a distribution.
I think we are past that point because we have two fairly recent Supreme Court cases where the Court stated unambiguously that transmission on the Internet is distribution. We have the Tasini case, where the Court mentioned in the context of databases like the NEXIS database that that was distribution. We have the Grokster case, where the Court said what was going on in the peer-to-peer file-sharing context is distribution. So at least we know this much. We know that when the file is in fact transmitted to somebody else, you’ve got a distribution.
The more interesting question, and one on which I think reasonable minds can differ, is whether the making available in that shared file folder without more constitutes distribution. I think there are a number of arguments that you can make which suggest that it is sufficient.
The Register of Copyrights several years ago, in response to a question from the Chairman of the House Intellectual Property Subcommittee, opined that that was the case. You can go back to the Napster case in the Ninth Circuit, where the court said that when you make those files available in at that time the Napster system, you were in fact infringing the distribution right.
You have the Ninth Circuit more recently in the Perfect Ten case, which in fact was cited in a recent amicus brief in one of these peer-to-peer cases as rejecting Hotaling and as stating that you have to have an actual distribution, the Ninth Circuit seemed to suggest that the Hotaling-deemed distribution notion may well be an acceptable notion. I think you can read the Ninth Circuit Perfect Ten v. Amazon opinion as quite possibly endorsing the notion of deemed distribution, at least when the person who was deemed to have distributed actually has a copy of the work, which in fact was the case in Hotaling, which was not the case in Perfect Ten, which is the case in the peer-to-peer context.
PROF. HANSEN: So what’s your prediction of the six cases?
MR. CARSON: You never know how an individual judge is going to react. I think, once it goes up to the courts of appeal, there are these arguments, and there are some other arguments as well, which I think are likely to persuade thoughtful judges in concluding that the mere offering in this context constitutes distribution.
PROF. HANSEN: Okay.
Brian?
PROF. FITZGERALD: Just some quick comments.
Our definition of “communication” includes making available in electronic transmission. We drew that definition from the WCT and the WPPT. The Cooper case was about a sound recording, so for us that’s a WPPT issue. In Cooper the judge said that creating a hyperlink is not in itself a communication because, under our Act 22(6), the person who determines the content is the person who makes the communication.
Interestingly enough, when we introduced the criminal provisions, we introduced a distribution offense that includes communicate, but seems to be broader than that, potentially putting ISPs in this limbo-land of actually being potentially liable for distribution even though they haven’t made the communication as defined under our Act.
For us I would say that we haven’t had as many cases, but communication is regarded as a pretty broad right. At the time it was introduced, the examples given were people who were putting unauthorized software up on Web sites. That was probably before the P2P era, but that sort of scenario, putting something up on a Web site, would certainly be taken in Australia, I think, as making available for access, without more, as Jane says, without exceptions or other circumstances coming into it.
PROF. HANSEN: Okay.
Ray, if you are right, is there any way then to sue a downloader in a peer-to-peer case?
MR. BECKERMAN: Of course. You would use traditional copyright law principles. If you could prove that someone copied something through a peer-to-peer file-sharing network other than from an authorized user with a proper license, then that would be a violation of the reproduction right. And possibly disseminating a copy would be a violation of the distribution right. It would probably also be a violation of the reproduction right.
PROF. HANSEN: How would you prove that?
MR. BECKERMAN: The reason I say “possibly” is because there’s one issue that the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the U.S. Department of Justice squared off on in Elektra v. Barker. It was a position on which my client took no position. The Electronic Frontier Foundation took the position that under the 1976 Act no ephemeral transmission could actually be a violation of the distribution right even if it did result in a physical copy. The U.S. Department of Justice disagreed with that.
PROF. HANSEN: What do you think?
MR. BECKERMAN: I take no position on it. I think it’s probably true.
PROF. HANSEN: What’s probably true?
MR. BECKERMAN: I think the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s argument is probably true. But the Second Circuit, which is the law as far as I’m concerned, had a very difficult time with that issue. They suggested that there was a possibility, but they ran away from it. So I consider it a very tough, very difficult issue. I think they are probably right, but I don’t want to argue that issue.
PROF. HANSEN: We have twelve seconds. Unfortunately, we don’t have time for any questions.
Thank you very much, panel.
http://recordingindustryvspeople.blo...rdham-law.html





Warez Leader Is Chairman Of San Diego Republican Party
enigmax

This week, a 30 year old man was sentenced to 30 months in prison for his involvement in the so-called pirate ‘warez scene’. In what appears to be some sort of bizarre parallel universe, it’s been revealed that another notorious pirate has an interesting job - he’s chairman of the San Diego Republican Party.

Reading about the case of David M. Fish, this week almost seemed like an action reply of other similar cases of busts in the ‘warez scene‘. Operating between 2003 and 2005, Fish was found guilty of various copyright infringement offenses and was jailed for 30 months with a further three years on probation, which is pretty standard fare in these type of cases.

So image if you will, the amazing contrast between Mr Fish’s predicament and that of Tony Krvaric, chairman of the San Diego Republican Party. At first glance, they seem very different - but look closer.

To better appreciate the gap, here is some background on Tony Krvaric, courtesy of a Raw Story report and the Republican Party website:

Born and raised in Sweden, Tony Krvaric was inspired by President Ronald Reagan to come to America. Though only a youth, he vowed to one day become an American and pursue his American Dream. The first step was to start his own business, and in 1992 when the opportunity presented itself, he moved to San Diego.

After becoming a naturalized citizen in June of 2003, he decided to become politically involved. Having seen, first hand, the devastating effects of socialism in Sweden and the rest of Europe, he was determined to stand up for the traditional, conservative values that helped make America great.

So what does a politician have to do with warez? Well, the strange truth is that Tony Krvaric is none other than a co-founder of notorious warez group, Fairlight. Krvaric -who started his cracking career at the “West Coast Crackers”- was in fact one of the most well-known individuals in the Warez scene at the time. Fairlight remained active after Krvaric left in 1993, and several members of the group were eventually arrested by the FBI in 2004.

During Fairlight’s earlier days and their involvement in the Commodore 64 cracking and demo scene, although cautious, the members couldn’t have imagined the punishments that are given out today. Although Krvaric isn’t shy in letting the world know some of his history and present-day situation on the C-64 Scene Database;

Presently works as a full-service financial consultant for individuals and families who share his values - helping them grow, preserve and distribute their wealth. He lives in San Diego with his wife and four children. Is a member of the Republican Party.

The excellent article goes on to list other alleged infringements by Krvaric over the years, and although he appeared to leave Fairlight in 1992, there are suggestions that he was still in charge of the group as late as 2004. It’s not possible to say if this is true or not, but according to sources, the group appeared to be operational in late 2007.

Apparently, Krvaric has now sent an email out to fellow Republicans, trying to calm the waters:

Apparently there’s a hit piece floating around on me, “exposing” my wild high school, teenage years where I was in a computer club where we swapped Commodore 64 games (similar to how kids swap mp3 music files these days). This was in the 80’s, on a computer that’s long since defunct!

[In] 1990 I graduated high school, grew up and started my own business, and then in 1992 I came to this country, continuing the same business (selling computer and video game chips and accessories as well as some nonperishable foodstuffs, taking over my father’s business for a while after he died in 1994) until I left that field when the profit margins became too thin to make any money – around 1997 or so. That’s when I became a financial consultant, which I remain to this day.

I’m sure glad they didn’t look in to my elementary school years, as there’s some really embarrassing stuff that I did in 4th grade. BTW, I also heard a rumor that another fellow committee member (who shall remain unnamed) once made a tape copy of his friend’s favorite vinyl record.

I don’t know who is spreading this but just wanted to let you know what’s going on out there. Likely it’s someone who wants us to take our eye off the ball in 2008, be it the democrats, labor or someone else. Either way, we’re not going to let them get away with it. Thanks for your leadership.

I wonder which way the newly-convicted copyright infringer David Fish would vote - if he was allowed to? Speaking of voting, Krvaric - running for reelection in 2008 - registered his email address with the Registrar of Voters. No-one can accuse him of trying to hide anything, that’s for sure:

tkrvaric@fairlight.com
http://torrentfreak.com/warez-leader...-party-080502/





New Reactions from Sky, Virgin & BT

Virgin has been trying to calm the internet revolt against them for saying they would limit users' internet access for commercial ends, stating "We're not suggesting there will be any denial of access to those who don't want to pay." and then going on to confirm their previous anti-net neutrality statement: "VM could offer content providers deals to upgrade their provisioning if they want to ensure best access to to broadband subscribers.". They did not comment on their earlier statements about putting non-premium content providers on their slower "bus lanes".

A BT spokesperson gave us the following statement:
"... Unlike Virgin, we think the bandwidth we provide our users should be equal for all services and if services like the BBC iPlayer put too much strain on the bandwidth, both ISP's and content providers should educate the users on that issue so that users know when and why they may have to upgrade their account for more bandwidth if it exceeds 'fair use' terms. We always bear the consumer in mind first and have no plans to prioritize traffic from third party companies. We welcome all the Virgin customers who left because of the net neutrality issue and offer 'neutral' bandwidth."

Update: Sky has now also responded to us with a somewhat vague statement: “As video usage grows, it's natural that there will be a debate about the best way to invest in additional capacity. We want to be one of the UK's biggest and best ISPs so we'll always be guided by the desire to meet customers' needs for a high-quality internet experience."

Keep Virgin from destroying the internet...

The new CEO of Virgin Media, Neil Berkett, has openly stated in an interview that they think net neutrality is “a load of bollocks” and claimed they're already doing deals to deliver some people’s content faster than others. They would then put websites and services that don't pay Virgin in the "slow lane", meaning those sites would load slowly and cause most users to give up using them, feeling forced to use whatever Virgin wants to push through their network.

This is not the first time an internet provider infringes upon net neutrality, but it is the first time that an ISP so brutally states that they simply plan to limit internet access to a television-like system in which the access provider completely regulates the content you have access to.

Virgin Media has over 3.5 million customers in the UK and the real danger is that when they start applying this system to their network, all major internet providers around the globe will soon follow the trend. Because this is exactly what major ISP's have been wanting to do for years.

But we can stop it.

If the masses of the internet react against this, we will set an example of what happens when one provider tries to take away our freedom. We will make it very clear that any ISP who tries to infringe upon net neutrality will see its popularity go down the drain because the users don't accept it. And we'll see to it that only the providers who care about safeguarding our internet freedom have our support.

Speak out in any way you can and spread the word.
http://stopvirgin.movielol.org/





Bell’s Claims of Network Congestion Unproven, Say ISPs
Sarah Schmidt

The Canadian Association of Internet Providers accuses Bell Canada of advancing a bogus argument of a congestion problem to justify downgrading the services of heavy bandwidth users, in the latest salvo fired at the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission.

The legal brief, released Friday, is part of an escalating dispute before the federal regulator over Bell's unilateral move to downgrade the Internet services of targeted Internet users, including customers of its competitors.

What started as a commercial dispute before the CRTC about tech-savvy Internet users who share movie, music and TV files has now exploded into a larger fight over the rights of all online customers, who are starting to complain about degraded services for simple tasks, such as online gaming and speaking to friends overseas using the popular Skype program.

"Bell has provided not a single iota of evidence that there is a congestion problem in its network," argues the association, which is asking the CRTC to issue an immediate cease-and-desist order to stop Bell from traffic-shaping the network space it sells to its members.

What's more clear, the brief states, is that "Bell's campaign of throttling competitors traffic was initiated at precisely the same time that it decided to stop offering an unlimited usage plan to its retail Internet customers, a decision which Bell knew might cause its retail customers to migrate to the unlimited usage plans of competitors."

Bell, in its response to charges of illegal and anti-competitive behaviour, told the CRTC that it had no choice but to slow down the services of all customers who use up too much bandwidth. Before the use of traffic shaping, Bell told the federal regulator that 5% of users were chewing up 33% of available bandwidth.

The association characterizes Bell's defence as proof that it "fundamentally misunderstands or has consciously misrepresented" its throttling practices.

The Canadian Association of Internet Providers says Bell is expanding its use of deep packet inspection into all nodes of its network, and now touches services other than peer-to-peer applications, the initial target of traffic shaping. They now include voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services and Virtual Private Network Services.

Stephen Watts and his roommates are customers of an independent Internet service provider and a Bell wholesale Internet access purchaser. The router in their Ottawa home gives wireless access to four computers at a time.

Since Bell started throttling Internet traffic during peak hours last month, Mr. Watts says it's no use for the guys to go online to do simple things like downloading TV shows, Skyping, online gaming, and basic file sharing.

"It's horrible. At 4 p.m., you basically feel like you can't use the Internet anymore. Nothing's really working. Why does Bell think it can do this? It's not their Internet."

Michael Geist, Canada Research Chair of Internet and e-commerce law at the University of Ottawa, says the dispute is a key test for the CRTC and the power of the Telecommunications Act to rein in telecom giants. And Mr. Geist says despite efforts by Industry Minister Jim Prentice to stay on the sidelines, he's going to have to weigh in on this net neutrality issue.

"While it's true that Industry Canada may not be as receptive to a consumer-oriented message, this issue is exploding well beyond consumers and is splitting the business community."

Charlie Angus, digital affairs critic for the New Democratic Party, also wants Mr. Prentice to step in. He has written to Mr. Prentice, calling for transparent rules on Internet throttling so telecom giants can't arbitrarily regulate the web in their interests.

"This is an issue the consumer gets, the politicians don't. You can't get further from the cutting-edge than a politician in Ottawa. We really have to establish the ground rules. The telecoms didn't invent the Internet and they don't own the Internet," he said in an interview.

In the meantime, Mr. Angus says the CRTC should deliver a resounding message to Bell.

"I think there is a precedent for the CRTC to step in. They have regulated the need for competition. We need to broaden that. This is an emerging issue and an emerging threat. I don't think there is a better forum for the CRTC to lay out ground rules."

The CRTC has agreed to consider the dispute in an expedited manner. No date has been set for a decision.
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/can...html?id=472329





More Trouble With Ads on ISPs' Error Pages
Brian Krebs

Last week, Security Fix examined new research suggesting that some major Internet service providers are exposing their customers to security flaws when they redirect wayward Web surfers to ad-filled pages. I'm revisiting this controversial practice because another major provider of these services (for one of the nation's largest ISPs) was found to be similarly vulnerable.

As noted here last week, Earthlink and a few other ISPs are using a service from a U.K. company called BareFruit, which helps ISPs redirect users to ad-filled pages when they either request a Web site that does not exist or when they mistype a real domain, e.g., ww.example.com (notice the missing "w"). Researcher Dan Kaminsky found that BareFruit's servers contained a security flaw that would have made it easy for hackers and scammers to trick the ISP's customers into visiting phishing sites or downloading malicious software.

Kaminsky presented evidence that Verizon was among the companies quietly using BareFruit services, but that turned out not to be true. In fact, Verizon is using the DNS redirection services of a company based in Sterling, Va., called Paxfire. Shortly after Kaminsky was informed of this, he found that Paxfire's service was similarly vulnerable to attacks that could be used against Verizon's customers.

Paxfire's CEO Mark Lewyn declined to comment on the record for this story. Kaminsky said Paxfire corrected the security vulnerability not long after hearing from him about it.

But the vulnerabilities Kaminsky found in both Paxfire and BareFruit -- known as cross-site scripting flaws -- are some of the most common in almost all types of software. And experts say customers will continue to be at risk from other such flaws when ISPs outsource this portion of their network to third parties.

"These ISPs are treating something that used to be someone else's property or common property held in trust by the community and they are corporatizing it," said Paul Vixie, president of the Internet Software Consortium, which publishes BIND, the software that powers 90 percent of the world's domain name system (DNS) servers (DNS is what translates Web site names like example.com into numeric Internet addresses).

Vixie said that roughly six weeks ago Paxfire's Lewyn approached him with a revenue-sharing proposal to bundle Paxfire's technology into BIND.

"He told me because of the size of the eyeball footprint we'd have together that I'd be getting such a sizeable [amount of revenue] to fund my entire operation at ISC, and all I'd have to do is ship binaries that has his code in it," Vixie told Security Fix.

Vixie said he politely declined, but was privately stunned at the audacity of the request. Lewyn declined to comment about Vixie's statement.

Hijacking errant DNS requests -- particularly those in which a Web browser user asks to see a non-existent page on a legitimate, active domain -- "hurts trademark owners, and consumers, and must not be done," Vixie said. "I think something is going to have to be done to stop this, but it will be done by rules and laws, by various industries getting together to say if you do this the [Federal Trade Commission] or someone else can come along and say this is fraud. I don't think this is going to be solved by the business community."

Kaminsky casts all of this activity as the latest battlefront in the policy debate over "net neutrality," a concept that in policy terms has come to mean enforcement of open access online, so that cable and telecom operators cannot block or delay content that travels over their networks. At the center of this battleground are efforts by major ISPs to make it harder for customers to use services that can suck up huge amounts of Internet bandwidth, such as peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing networks like BitTorrent and Limewire.

Interestingly, I learned Monday that RoadRunner -- the high-speed cable Internet company owned by media giant Time Warner -- also is serving up ad pages when customers request an non-existent domain, or a subdomain that does not exist, such as subdomain.example.com. The company providing that service is Ontario-based Sandvine, an entity whose products also include a number of hardware devices designed to help ISPs monitor P2P activity and interfere with downloads from customers found to be exceeding a certain bandwidth threshold set by the ISP.
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/secur...l?nav=rss_blog





Web in Infancy, Says Berners-Lee
Darren Waters

The world wide web is "still in its infancy", the web's inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee has told BBC News.

He was speaking ahead of the 15th anniversary of the day the web's code was put into the public domain by Cern, the lab where the web was developed.

The future web will put "all the data in the world" at the fingertips of every user, Sir Tim said.

"The web has been a tremendous tool for people to do a lot of good even though you can find bad stuff out there."

Making the web free to use had a vital role in spreading its use worldwide.

There are now 165 million different websites around the world, according to internet research firm Netcraft.

Sir Tim said he was optimistic about the future of the web.

'Fantastic experience'

"The experience of the development of the web by so many people collaborating across the globe has just been a fantastic experience," he said.

"The experience of international collaboration continues. Also the spirit that really we have only started to explore the possibilities of [the web], that continues."

Sir Tim predicted that the web's ability to engender collaboration could one day see the web being used to help manage the planet.

"What's exciting is that people are building new social systems, new systems of review, new systems of governance.

"My hope is that those will produce... new ways of working together effectively and fairly which we can use globally to manage ourselves as a planet."

The ubiquity of the web gives the impression that its success was inevitable but that was not always the case, said Robert Cailliau, who worked alongside Sir Tim.

The decision by physics laboratory Cern to release the web code into the public domain was not a straightforward one, he told BBC News.

Technical proposals

Mr Cailliau helped draw up one of the early technical proposals for the web and later helped convince the directors at Cern to "give the web away".

"The difficult part was explaining to them the true nature of what the web was going to be," he said.

"We had to convince them that this was going to take off and it was a really big thing. And therefore Cern couldn't hold on to it and the best thing to do was to give it away."

He added: "We had toyed with the idea of asking for some sort of royalty. But Tim wasn't very much in favour of that."

He said competing technologies, such as Gopher, which was developed at the University of Minnesota, were also offering a method of using hyperlinks to connect documents across computers on the internet.

"If we had put a price on it like the University of Minnesota had done with Gopher then it would not have expanded into what it is now.

"We would have had some sort of market share alongside services like AOL and Compuserve, but we would not have flattened the world."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/h...gy/7371660.stm





Broadband 2.0 Poised to Reshape Web, TV
Bryan Gardiner

The advent of DSL and cable modems gave rise to a slew of popular web services, produced multibillion dollar companies and reshaped consumers' daily lives -- all with relatively wimpy "broadband" connections that top out at a mere 3 to 6 megabits per second (Mbps).

Now two of the largest ISPs in the United States are hoping to kick off yet another broadband renaissance, this time with home connections that promise to reach 50-100 Mbps, enabling a slew of high-definition content, better-quality video-sharing sites and even 3-D video. Call it Broadband 2.0.

Experts say this increased bandwidth -- when it becomes widely available -- will have a profound effect on everything from our social interactions on the web to the way we consume media.

"The YouTube philosophy is really the primary motivator here," says Connie Chang-Hasnain, a professor of electrical engineering at the University of California at Berkeley and expert in broadband communications. "Even grandmas post things on YouTube. But, right now, the resolution is terrible and there are some very predefined limits due to bandwidth."

All of that will change with 50 Mbps download speeds, she said, and by simply improving the sound and video quality of video streaming sites, you can dramatically change how a society learns, teaches and communicates.

"Basically, people are going to do a lot of the things they normally do today, but in a better, more satisfying, way," says Crick Waters, co-founder of Ribbit, a Silicon Valley company that sells an internet-based telephony platform.

Waters says that first and foremost, we can expect everything to go high-definition: We'll download HD movies from Netflix, upload HD content to YouTube, and watch more sophisticated HD content on our televisions. The added bandwidth may even spur development of extra goodies, like stereoscopic 3-D video and high-fidelity audio.

"Believe me, the minute someone puts the pipes out there, people will find a way to use them," Waters says.

While the technologies they use differ, Comcast and Verizon have both started offering ultra-high-bandwidth services to select customers that are as much as 25 times faster than today's average broadband speed of 4.8 Mbps, according to the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation. Comcast's new "extreme high-speed internet service" uses the latest version of cable modem technology, while Verizon's FiOS service delivers the internet to your home via optical fibers.

Both services are currently available only in relatively limited geographic areas. Earlier this month, Comcast started offering a service to some Minneapolis/St. Paul residents that features download speeds of 50 Mbps for a hefty $150 a month. During his CES keynote in January, Comcast CEO Brian Roberts said his company plans to expand this new service in 20 percent of the area it serves by the end of the year, as well as offer speeds in excess of 100 Mbps in two years.

Verizon's FiOS has a yearlong head start on Comcast's service, and Verizon currently offers it in parts of 17 states. Verizon said it will offer its fiber-to-the-home services to more than 18 million people -- half of the geographic area it now serves -- by 2010.

Obstacles remain for both companies. Deploying the services widely will take time -- and lots of money. And even if the companies sink their capital into second-generation broadband networks, there's the risk that customers won't pony up for them unless there is compelling content to go along with that bandwidth.

"If you put a 60 Mbps service out there, people are also going to want to have services associated with it. Yet no one is going to create those services unless the 60 Mbps is there," Water says. That hesitation may not last long, because consumers always find ways to use up whatever bandwidth is available -- and then some -- says Rudolf van der Berg, the author of a recent study on the future of fiber networks (.pdf).

Van der Berg predicts that the average household will need 50 Mbps download speeds (and 10-50 Mbps upload speeds) between 2010 and 2020. And even that might not be enough: "Every new advance … has enabled new services over the available bandwidth," he says.

In the end, the more bandwidth that becomes available to customers, the easier it becomes to develop new content offerings.

For example, Verizon suggests that its services might enable companies to offer not just HD programming, but multiple views of sporting events, wide-angle views comparable to an Imax experience, and ultra-large screens (beyond 100 inches). Eventually, the company suggests, we'll clamor for Super HD (2160 vertical lines) and Ultra HD (4320 vertical lines) television broadcasts, which could require as much as 256-480 Mbps of bandwidth.

In other words, whatever bandwidth you've got now is never going to be enough. Broadband 3.0, anyone?
http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/news/2008/04/broadband2





Verizon Profit Rises on Subscriber Growth

Verizon Communications <VZ.N> on Monday reported a rise in quarterly profit and stronger-than-expected growth in wireless subscribers, showing resilience in the face of a U.S. economic slowdown.

Verizon said first-quarter profit rose to $1.6 billion, or 57 cents a share, from $1.5 billion, or 51 cents a share, in the year-ago quarter.

Adjusted profit rose to 61 cents a share from 54 cents a year earlier, matching the average forecast on Wall Street according to Reuters Estimates.

Revenue rose 5.5 percent to $23.8 billion from $22.6 billion.

Verizon Wireless, its mobile venture with Vodafone Group Plc <VOD.L>, added 1.5 million net new subscribers in the quarter, higher than the average analyst estimate of 1.42 million from six analysts contacted by Reuters.

Chief Executive Ivan Seidenberg said the results showed "Verizon has weathered the current economic uncertainty."

"I am also confident of our position over the long term because we have further opportunities to drive revenue growth and further opportunities to eliminate costs," he said in a statement.

Residential access line subscriptions, however, fell 10.9 percent from a year earlier as customers continued to switch from their traditional phone lines to cell phones and alternative services from cable operators.

Wireline operating revenues fell 1.4 percent from a year earlier to $12.3 billion.

That fall, however, was helped slightly by growth in high-speed Internet subscribers. The company said it had a total of 8.5 million broadband customers at the end of the quarter, up 14.9 percent.

(Reporting by Ritsuko Ando; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/busin...s-verizon.html





Time Warner Spinning Off Cable Unit
Tim Arango

Jeffrey L. Bewkes, the chief executive of Time Warner Inc., continued to trim what has for years been the world’s largest media company by announcing Wednesday that it would completely spin off its cable company.

The news — which was not unexpected and follows an earlier transaction in which a portion of the cable unit was spun off in to a separate public company — came as Time Warner reported quarterly earnings that were largely in line with Wall Street’s expectations.

“We’ve decided that a complete structural separation of Time Warner Cable, under the right circumstances, is in the best interests of both companies’ shareholders,” Mr. Bewkes said in a statement. “We’re working hard on an agreement with Time Warner Cable, which we expect to finalize soon.”

Time Warner said Wednesday that it had a profit of $771 million, or 21 cents a share, in the quarter compared with $1.2 billion, or 30 cents a share, in the period a year ago, a 36 percent drop. That decline can be attributed, in part, to a gain last year from selling its Internet access business in Germany.

Revenue grew 2 percent to $11.4 billion. On average, analysts expected the company to earn 23 cents a share on $11.4 billion in revenue, according to Thomson Financial.

The company’s America Online division, whose performance is closely watched by investors and analysts, saw its revenue decrease 23 percent as advertising failed to make up for monies lost from fleeing subscribers.

At the end of March, AOL had 8.7 million access subscribers in the United States, a decline of 647,000 from the previous quarter and 3.3 million from the period a year ago.

Subscription revenue declined 38 percent, or $334 million, while advertising revenue gained 1 percent, or $3 million. Overall, AOL reported revenue of $1.1 billion, compared with $1.5 billion in last year’s first quarter.

Figuring out where AOL fits in to Time Warner’s constellation of media businesses has been a priority for Mr. Bewkes, and in this vein the company has been in discussions about a joint venture with Yahoo, which itself has been trying to fend off a takeover bid from Microsoft.

Time Warner’s other business units performed better. Its cable networks business, which includes HBO, CNN, TNT and TBS, saw revenue grow 10 percent to $2.7 billion.

The company’s film business, which comprises the Warner Brothers move studio, had a 4 percent in revenue to $2.8 billion. The division’s profit declined, however, to $183 million, from $243 million in the year-ago period, reflecting a $116 million restructuring charge from reorganizing New Line Cinema.

Revenue at Time Inc., the company’s magazine publishing division, remained flat at about $1 billion, but its operating income, before depreciation and amortization, rose 73 percent to $145 million. The gain was partly due to the shutdown of Life magazine a year ago, as well as lower restructuring charges in the is year’s first quarter. Time Inc. publishes magazines like Sports Illustrated, People, Time and Fortune.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/30/bu...er-web.html?hp





Judge Tells FCC to Rework Powerline Broadband Regulations
Eric Bangeman

Despite its glacially slow advance into the US broadband market, the Federal Communications Commission has championed broadband over powerline (BPL) as a "third-pipe" alternative to the DSL/cable duopoly in the US. An appeals court dealt the Commission and BPL backers a blow late last week, siding with ham radio operators by ruling that the FCC erred in its rule-making for the technology.

At issue are a series of tests conducted prior to the FCC's issuing its rules governing BPL deployment. The American Radio Relay League, a national organization of ham radio operators, sued the FCC last October in an attempt to have the rules enacted back in 2004 blocked. The ARRL and other ham radio groups have been consistently critical of BPL, arguing that the technology causes interference on their receivers.

Prior to filing suit, the ARRL had tried to get the FCC to act on its concerns, to no avail. In June 2007, the group sent a letter to the FCC asking that BPL testing by a New York utility be halted due to interference. That request, as well as others, was spurned by the Commission.

The decision handed down by the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia holds that the FCC erred during the rulemaking process. In drawing up the regulations governing BPL, the FCC relied on five different studies. The results were made public as required by law, but some portions of the studies were blacked out. The ARRL said that the redacted portions should be made public, while the FCC said they weren't relevant.

In its ruling, the three-judge panel said that federal law required the FCC to make all portions of the studies available, and that the Commission didn't adequately explain how it arrived at its criteria for determining when a BPL signal causes "harmful interference."

The FCC will now have to "make available for notice and comment the unredacted 'technical studies and data that it has employed in reaching [its] decisions,' and shall make them part of the rulemaking record," wrote the judges.

The ARRL applauded the decision. "Now that the Commission has been ordered to do what it should have done in the first place, we look forward to participating in the proceedings on remand, and to helping to craft rules that will provide licensed radio services with the interference protection they are entitled to under law," said ARRL CEO David Sumner in a statement.

Given the snail's pace adoption of BPL, sending the FCC back to the rulemaking drawing board should have little or no impact. In fact, the FCC should be able to adopt the same set of rules once again, as long as the process is fully transparent this time around. The biggest problem is a lack of interest in BPL by utilities and other broadband players. Since Google and Goldman Sachs famously dropped $100 million on Current Communications in mid-2005, high-profile BPL investments and deployments have been few and far between.

Standards-setting body IEEE is developing a standard to govern all aspects of BPL delivery, including data, VoIP, and video, but a May 2006 report by the Government Accountability Office characterized BPL as being in the "trial stage," and not a whole lot has changed since then. At the dawn of 2006, there were only around 6,000 BPL subscribers in the US; that number had grown to 75,000 by the beginning of 2007. Analysts estimate that number will hit 2.5 million by 2011, but that appears questionable given the current slow pace of deployment.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post...gulations.html





NSW Abandons Free WiFi Plan
Andrew Colley

THE NSW government has abandoned a project to provide free wireless internet in the state's key CBDs, declaring it too risky to warrant taxpayer funding.

The state's free wireless internet plan has been canned

NSW called on wireless internet providers to submit preliminary proposals for the project early in 2007. Late today NSW Minister for Commerce Eric Roozendaal said it was not feasible for the government to continue pursuing the project on technical and financial grounds.

Mr Roozendaal said that similar projects pursued overseas had been abandoned or encumbered governments with massive cost blow-outs.

“Most schemes sponsored by overseas governments have collapsed and require further funding to the tune of tens of millions of dollars.

"With technology changing so quickly, I cannot expose NSW taxpayers to that sort of risk," Mr Roozendaal said.

Consumers were already served with WiFi wireless services provided by libraries, cafes and hotels, he said.

The troubled WiFi project has faced lengthy delays getting off the ground, falling 12 months behind schedule since it was first announced in the government's innovation statement in November 2006.

NSW was expected to make a decision on the successful bidder for the tender to build the network in the second quarter of 2007 but it had still not been made by February this year.

The successful bidder was expected to be given access to government-owned buildings, traffic lights and water tanks to install WiFi hotspots.

In February wireless internet consultant Jonathon Withers said that the government had not examined the business case for the plan in sufficient detail before announcing it.
http://www.australianit.news.com.au/...-15306,00.html





Democrat Wants to Require Disability-Friendly Internet Phones, Video
Anne Broache

At the moment, most TVs and telephones must be outfitted with special features for people with hearing, vision, and speech impairments under U.S. law. Now an influential Democratic congressman wants to expand those requirements to their Internet counterparts.

The bill (PDF) being drafted by Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) would require, at least in some cases, dramatic changes in the way Internet phone- and video-related products are designed, while making it more difficult than under existing law for companies to claim exemptions from those requirements.

"The wizardry of the wires and the sophistication of the software programs do little for those who cannot affordably access or effectively use them," Markey said at a hearing here Thursday convened by the House of Representatives telecommunications and Internet panel he leads. "Our job as policymakers is to help ensure such affordable access and utilization, and this is what the draft legislation I have circulated is intended to do."

In some ways, the effort would simply build upon steps already taken by policymakers in recent years. Last summer, for instance, the Federal Communications Commission decided that voice-over Internet protocol providers whose services connect to the public-switched telephone network, such as Vonage, would be required to make their services compatible with hearing aids and telecommunications relay services, just as traditional phone operators do.

The Markey bill would extend those obligations to Skype-like equipment that allows users to swap voice, text, or video communications via Internet protocol technology. It would also go a step further, requiring them to support standard "real-time text" communication, an interactive data transmission method that replicates the feel of voice conversations more closely than instant messaging.

The bill also contains new rules for manufacturers of any gadget designed to receive or display video programming, be it Internet-based or otherwise. They would generally be required to equip those devices with the ability to decode and display closed captions, to deliver "video description" services (that is, oral narration designed for the blind and visually-impaired), and to present typical ticker-style emergency messages in a way that's accessible to the blind and visually impaired.

Furthermore, the devices would have to be designed so that on-screen menus are accessible in real-time to individuals with disabilities, and all remote controls would have to contain a "conspicuous" buttons for activating closed captioning.

Disabilities community weighs in

A variety of disabilities advocates voiced support for the bill at Thursday's hearing. (Its working title is the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act, although it has not yet been formally introduced.)

At the moment, federal rules require all TVs with screens larger than 13 inches to contain chips to display closed captions. But that's no longer sufficiently stringent as the popularity of videos delivered via cell phones, laptops, and MP3 players surges, said Russell Harvard, a deaf actor who played Daniel Day Lewis' adult-age son in the Oscar-nominated film There Will Be Blood.

"I and others who cannot hear are left out of this whirlwind of technological change (because) hardly any of these smaller devices display closed captions," Harvard said, urging Congress to take closed captioning law "to its next level."

Jamaal Anderson, an Atlanta Falcons defensive end, recalled that at draft time last year, his mother was forced to "interpret" video clips of him that appeared on Web sites of National Football League teams and news organizations for the benefit of his father, Glenn, who holds the distinction of being the first PhD recipient to be deaf and black.

U.S. Army Sgt. Major Jesse Acosta, a longtime soldier who lost his right eye and vision in his left eye during a mortar explosion in Iraq two years ago, said it's not acceptable that of his three favorite television shows--CSI: Miami, CSI: New York, and CSI: Las Vegas--only one of them has descriptive audio. The Southern California resident, who spoke on behalf of the American Council of the Blind, said he was also dismayed that crawling alerts on his TV screen about potential emergencies, like earthquakes or mudslides, went by unbeknownst to him unless a family member of friend happened to be there to relay the message.

In 2002, the Federal Communications Commission set rules that required video operators to provide that video description service, but a court overturned those rules, arguing that they were contrary to Congress's intent. Part of Markey's bill attempts to restore those rules, which Acosta, who spoke on behalf of the American Council of the Blind, applauded.

New regulations: Necessary or not?

Democrats on the committee generally seemed to support Markey's plans, voicing concern about excluding people with disabilities from new technologies. Some Republicans, however, said that although they shared Markey's goals, they were skeptical about the need for new legislation.

"New regulations may not be needed because the technology and wireless industries are already taking the necessary steps to make sure their products and applications are indeed accessible to all people," said Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.), the panel's ranking member.

Some Internet video providers, including NBC and Fox's joint Hulu.com venture and Apple's iTunes store, already offer captioned programming. Last fall, AOL, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo formed a coalition called the Internet Captioning Forum, coordinated by public broadcasting station WGBH in Boston, that's designed to standardize captioning practices for Web hosts and content providers.

"I think they have figured it out," Larry Goldberg, WGBH's director of media access, said of that effort at Thursday's hearing. "What they need to figure out is how to make it pervasive," and Markey's legislation should help "light that fire" under those companies.

Wireless companies, for their part, already make phones that use voice recognition, software that will "read out" or magnify screen information, and other features designed to help sensory-impaired users, said Dane Snowden, vice president of external and state affairs for CTIA-The Wireless Association. All cell phones are compatible with TTY, also known as Text Telephone Device, which allows deaf or hard-of-hearing people to communicate through text, and about 40 phone models are compatible with hearing aids, he added.

"If we can sell products that are more accessible, we sell more products," Snowden told the committee. "We have a vested interest in this and a proven track record."

His group, which represents major wireless carriers and manufacturers, supports the concept of Markey's legislation but believes the current draft would "unnecessarily burden the industry with little countervailing benefit to the disability community," Snowden said.

Another potential problem with the bill is that it allows unhappy customers to file private lawsuits alleging violations of the disability requirements, said Ken Nakata, a former U.S. Department of Justice civil rights attorney who now works for the consulting firm BayFirst Solutions in Seattle.

Such a policy could actually undermine the rights of people with disabilities, he argued. It was, after all, private litigation that led to what he called a "disaster for the disability rights movement"--a court opinion in a case involving Southwest Airlines' Web site that essentially found the Americans with Disabilities Act applies only to physical spaces, not businesses on the Web.

Markey indicated he would consider the suggestions as the bill is finalized and said he hoped legislation could be passed by year's end. A committee aide told CNET News.com that he expects the bill to be introduced formally before Congress' Memorial Day recess.
http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9933597-7.html





What's the Next Big Thing for the Wireless Industry?
Mike Antonucci

If it's wireless, it's trendy.

There's grand talk throughout the tech world about a wave of new networks and wireless innovation that will provide better Internet access, deliver streaming video and foster an array of consumer-friendly features. Although it's too early to be sure which companies or networks will be most successful, the optimists dominate the skeptics.

Moreover, the federal government's recent auction of desirable radio spectrum - significant portions of which were won by AT&T and Verizon Wireless - is considered a major catalyst for improved mobile services.

As constantly proclaimed by industry experts at "The Mobile Future" conference in Santa Clara last week, the wireless industry is supposed to revolutionize our lives. So, just how will that happen?

• Consider the prospect of two-way video on handheld devices. For instance, parents may be able to use cell phones to talk face to face with a son or daughter at college.

• Imagine using your cell phone as a checkbook, said Pradeep Khosla, dean of the College of Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. You would send a secure payment authorization from your phone to someone else's, and the bank would confirm the transaction electronically.

• Think about a cell phone that would download your latest travel information as you entered an airport, said Ted Selker, an associate professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab. It
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would confirm your boarding pass, alert you to a flight delay and give you a map that shows a Starbucks next to your gate.

• Or think about using the cameras in cell phones to search the Internet, suggested Bob Iannucci, senior vice president and chief technology officer at Nokia. People could snap a picture of the Eiffel Tower and then use the photo as a search prompt to get information. When the photo is recognized, you could receive tips from online guidebooks. Or think in terms of shopping: You could take a photo of shoes in a store window and download product details from the retailer's Web site.

Is there a realistic chance that these ideas, gathered by the Mercury News at the conference and in other interviews, could be deployed over the next several years?

"As far as identifying what the next wave of applications is going to be, no one really knows," said Frank Dickson, chief research officer for MultiMedia Intelligence, a business consulting firm in Scottsdale, Ariz.

Nevertheless, future wireless networks are expected to offer such robust bandwidth - highlighted by the high-speed transmission of rich multimedia content - that big innovations seem inevitable. Plus, the spectrum auctioned by the government (available because TV stations will relinquish it next year in a conversion from analog to all-digital signals) is considered highly effective at reliably spanning long distances with high-speed data.

"I don't think anybody knows for sure what's going to be on the network we have three years from now, but we do know it's going to be video-intensive," said AT&T spokesman John Britton.

Verizon declined to comment for this report.

The absence during the spectrum auction of major new rivals for AT&T and Verizon, which say they're planning sharply upgraded networks, has raised concerns about whether consumers will get the price and service benefits of healthy competition. But even if competition is weak, the convenience and efficiency of faster and more dependable online connections should prove compelling.

Don't expect to be able to download a 3-gigabyte movie to your laptop while heading by taxi to your hotel, said Professor Andrew Odlyzko, director of the Digital Technology Center at the University of Minnesota. But it will become a routine task during that time, he said, to download a 20-megabyte PowerPoint attachment in your e-mail.

Ultimately, improved networks and technology "will blur the lines between phones and computers," said Professor Jeffrey Andrews, director of the Wireless Networking and Communications Group at the University of Texas-Austin.

"Location-based services" could thrive on mobile networks with better bandwidth, assuming there's a feasible business model, said Erin Defosse, chairman of the Austin Wireless Alliance.

A classic example of a location-based service would be to use your cell phone to find the nearest branch of your bank. But Defosse envisions possibilities such as using your phone for a 3-D preview of a nearby museum. You'd be able to decide if the exhibits are worth the price of admission, and even determine that the building had a restaurant and an ATM - one of which might be sponsoring the preview.

None of the futuristic scenarios lack for challenges.

Some experts are doubtful that phones will have enough battery and processing power to support the most advanced applications or screen displays. Moreover, the needs and spending habits of consumers are moving targets, so figuring out how to make money with new services can be more formidable than the technological hurdles.

But Selker, an IBM researcher before joining the MIT Media Lab, knows his phone-as-boarding-pass project is doable. He tested the technology using reconfigured personal digital assistants in 1997 in New Zealand.

Khosla is working on the secure transfer of currency through personal devices with colleagues at Carnegie Mellon's CyLab.

And Iannucci is able to look ahead to the potential of object recognition with cell phone cameras based on work under way at Nokia.

"There's going to be better bandwidth as well as a proliferation of devices, and streaming video for sports and entertainment is a logical next step," said Dickson of MultiMedia Intelligence. "That much is safe to say."
http://www.mercurynews.com/business/...nclick_check=1





Nokia Confident Free Music Downloads Will Profit
Tarmo Virki

Offering unlimited music downloads to phone buyers will make money for Nokia as well as record labels, the handset maker said, dismissing talk the move would come at the expense of profits.

"We expect to make money both from our traditional device sales, as well as from the 'Comes With Music' service," said Liz Schimel, head of Nokia's music business. "I can assure you that we are looking out for everyone's interests in creating these new business models, including our own."

The new music offering from Nokia, the first cellphone maker to push heavily into content, would differ from any other package on the market as users can keep all the music they have downloaded during the 12 months.

Last week Nokia struck a deal with Sony BMG to offer the label's tracks in its "Comes with Music" service, adding to last December's deal with top record label Universal.

Having the world's two largest labels on board looks set to help Nokia attract smaller music companies and challenge the dominant pay-per-track sales model for digital music.

"This new model is innovative and creates a positive situation for all stakeholders, but it does require a different way of thinking for our content partners," Schimel said, but declined to go into details.

Reports on different Internet media have suggested the world's biggest handset maker was paying $35 to Universal alone for each sold handset; and some reports suggest Nokia would be paying an extra fee for each downloaded song after the first 35 songs, potentially eroding its close to 40 percent gross margins in cellphone operations.

"Recent articles that I've seen have fundamentally misunderstood the concept behind the Comes With Music model," Schimel said.

Such unlimited download models could offer a shot in the arm to the ailing music industry, which is struggling to find ways to make up for falling CD sales.

However, the success of Nokia's service could hurt CD sales further when clients who still buy their CDs turn to phones, said Mark Mulligan, research director at Jupiter Research.

"There is inherent tension in there," he said.

Changing The Apple World?

The digital music market totaled just $2.9 billion in 2007.

Nokia sold 146 million music phones last year -- if all of those had included the "Comes with Music" bundle, just an extra $20 per phone would make Nokia's service bigger than the total market.

"Comes With Music has the potential to equal -- and even exceed -- the current value of the business," Tero Ojanpera, head of entertainment and communities business at Nokia, told a news conference last week when unveiling Sony BMG deal.

"If we sell a single percentage of our total sales as Comes With Music bundles, the revenue for the music industry would be almost the same," Ojanpera said.

Total sales of Nokia's top music phones, the 5310 and the 5610, were more than 4 million during the January-March quarter. Unsubsidised retail prices for the phones were 215 euros ($334) and 280 euros.

With its iconic touch-screen model, Apple's iPhone shocked the handset industry last year, but at prices starting from 400 euros it has not captured a mass following in Europe.

Now, Nokia has stolen the spotlight from Apple in the digital music world, analysts said.

Record labels are looking to Nokia and others to challenge the dominance of Apple's iTunes as they have struggled to negotiate with the American group on a level footing when it comes to issues such as pricing.

"Comes with Music is one of the most exiting things out there in the digital music," said Jupiter's Mulligan.

"Apple is facing market perception of iTunes looking like yesterday's service. Basically, iTunes looks pretty much the same it looked 4 or 5 years ago," he said.

(Reporting by Tarmo Virki; Editing by Louise Ireland and David Cowell))
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...001008_pf.html





AT&T to Cut the Price of Apple’s New iPhone
Scott Moritz

AT&T is planning to put some extra shine on the even sleeker new Apple iPhone.

When the 3G iPhone is introduced this summer, AT&T, the exclusive U.S. iPhone sales partner with Apple, will cut the price by as much as $200, according to a person familiar with the strategy.

AT&T is preparing to subsidize $200 of the cost of a new iPhone, bringing the price down to $199 for customers who sign two-year contracts, the source says. Apple is expected to have two versions of the new iPhone, an 8-gigabyte-memory and a 16-gigabyte-memory model with price tags widely expected to be $399 and $499.

AT&T and Apple declined to comment.

At $200, the iPhone would be within reach of a much wider consumer market and give AT&T a strong magnet to pull lucrative customers away from rivals like Verizon Wireless (VZ), Sprint (S) and T-Mobile (DT). The $200 rebate or subsidy would be limited to AT&T customers and not available through Apple’s stores. The new iPhone sold by AT&T will likely be locked or programmed so buyers can’t take the cheaper iPhone to another phone service.

Subsidies of $100 to $200 are common in the U.S. phone market, where people buy their phones from their carriers. Lowering the consumer cost of the phone to win two-year subscribers is considered a small investment with a quick payoff. The average monthly wireless bill is around $50, so a phone company can recoup the phone’s cost in a matter of months.

The average iPhone user however, runs up a $100 tab each month due to the higher priced data and calling plan. This would give AT&T an even quicker payback on its $200 outlay. But AT&T doesn’t get to keep all the money it collects from its iPhone users. Unlike most other phonemakers (but like BlackBerry maker Research in Motion (RIMM)) Apple has a revenue-sharing arrangement that requires telcos like AT&T to pay somewhere between 9% and 25% of the money collected each month from iPhone users.

The new iPhone is expected to be released on the one-year anniversary of the original iPhone debut June 27 or thereabouts. A few weeks prior to that launch, Apple is planning to stop supplies of the older model iPhone, according to the source. This will help clear out inventory and stir up demand for the new device. It will also attempt to avoid the public relations pratfall Apple made when it cut the price of the iPhone without warning last year. To soothe the ire among people who bought the iPhone just before the sudden markdown, Apple issued store credits.

A few details about the new iPhone have also been confirmed by the source. The new iPhone will be 2.5 mm thinner than the 11.7 mm original. The iPhone will also have a GPS chip for navigation and other location-based services.
http://techland.blogs.fortune.cnn.co...es-new-iphone/





Illegal iPhones, Apple of Russian Elites' Eyes
Peter Finn

Ramzan Kadyrov, the strongman president of the Russian republic of Chechnya, seemed fascinated. The object of his curiosity was the latest must-have toy for Russia's elite: the iPhone.

At a business conference in the southern city of Krasnodar this year, Kadyrov sat with Dmitry Medvedev, Russia's president-elect; Dmitry Kozak, the minister of regional development, and Alexander Tkachev, the local governor. According to a journalist at the conference, the four passed the Apple phone back and forth as Kozak demonstrated its features to Kadyrov.

These powerful officials are not alone in their interest. There are approximately 500,000 iPhone users in Russia -- a country where the phone is not officially for sale, according to Eldar Murtazin, head of analysis at Mobile Research Group in Moscow, citing data obtained from Russia's cellphone operators.

"Russian people love anything that is forbidden," said Murtazin, adding that iPhone sales in Russia are the third-highest in the world, after the United States and China (where the phone also cannot be sold legally).

The phones are bought in bulk in the United States, and an 8-gigabyte model sells in Russia for at least $700, nearly twice the price in the United States. Still, the price of an iPhone in Russia has fallen dramatically since its launch in the United States last year, when they went on sale here for $1,800.

What was once exotic is now widely available at electronics stores and through Internet sales across the former Soviet Union. Besides Medvedev, other prominent politicians spotted using iPhones include Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko.

Sergei Bobovnikov, a dealer in Soviet propaganda art, said there was a line of about 40 people, mostly tourists, in an Apple store he visited on a trip to Miami. Bobovnikov and a friend bought seven phones, which they brought back to Russia and sold to friends at cost.

"It's a prestige thing," Bobovnikov said. "Having an iPhone is like being part of a club."

AT&T is Apple's exclusive carrier for the iPhone in the United States, and the phone is locked to prevent its use on another wireless network. But for about $40, Russian hackers will unlock the phone, install a Russian language pack, and make it work with Russian cellphone operators.

"You can have all the features except visual voice mail," said Maxim, a 16-year-old high school student who unlocks phones and did not want his last name published. "It takes about 45 minutes."

The phone has reportedly become commonplace at the Kremlin and in the corridors of Russia's parliament. But the use of unauthorized software to make the iPhone work in Russia raises some ticklish questions for the leaders of a country that has long been assailed for a flourishing trade in unlicensed goods. The smuggled and hacked iPhones deprive Apple of fees and the Russian treasury of import duties and taxes.

Medvedev's office said no one was available to comment, and his spokesman has previously refused to comment to the Russian media on the issue.

A spokesman for Apple in Moscow would only say that the iPhone is not for sale in Russia; officials at the company's headquarters in California did not respond to messages requesting comment.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...042503333.html





Forum follies

I Thought I'd Try to Save Everyone from Typing.
John Watts

Macs are overpriced underspec'd poncey toys for people with too much money. Macs are great value for money - you couldn't get the same spec for the same money elsewhere. OSX is great Windows is shit. Windows is great OSX is shit. 2GB is nowhere near enough memory these days. 2GB might not be enough for Vista but Macs run fine with it. OSX copied Vista. Vista copied OSX. Some boring shit about the finer points of Intel processor technology that's the equivalent of showing everyone how big your willy is except nobody is interested whatever. OSX is shit and Windows is shit; I run Ubuntu blah blah blah. I hate Steve Jobs he eats babies. Bill Gates eats the babies and their mothers. I run Cock-Rot Linux and it's the best in the world and I don't know why everyone uses Ubuntu when you can do everything using Vi and the terminal feature of my obscure mobile phone (which nobody ever rings 'cause I've got no friends). Some other boring comment about processors from someone who wants to show the world that his willy is bigger than the other processor posters (okay, one person read the whole post). Apple hardware is overpriced I hate anyone with an iPhone. Actually BSD is much better than Linux or Windows or OSX, that's why such a large percentage of people have it installed on their home machines. Doh, didn't you know that OSX is Unix and runs BSD. Actually it's not Unix 'cause Apple won't pay for the certification. Yes it is. No it's not. Fanboi something. Don't you know the whole fan-boy thing is old and so juvenille, just like your spelling. I still use a Lisa and it does everything I need it to. I use a Commodore 64 with a hard-drive and it's better than the Lisa. I don't know what I'm talking about and haven't read the article but I'm going to chip in with something irrelevant and wrong anyway. OSX sucks. OSX rocks. Bootcamp. DRM. iTunes. Steve Jobs is on first name terms with Satan. Bill Gates is Satan. I've got an iPhone and I love it. It really pisses me off that Apple has to put i in front of everything. Something about PPC versus Intel. Something completely without evidence comparing Apples and Oranges (pun intentional) proving PPC is and always will be better than x86. Something completely without evidence comparing Apples and Oranges proving x86 is and always will be better than PPC. GPL. Google. Linux. QNX. My Dad's harder than your Dad. My Nan's harder than your nan. Something anti-American. Angry riposte proving anti-American point. Thoughtful welll thought out riposte clearly disproving anti-American point that nobody will ever read because there's so much uninformed chaff above it.
http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/04...macs/comments/





iTunes Store Turns 5: Can Anyone Break its Dominance?
Christian Zibreg

Apple's digital music store just celebrated its fifth anniversary and had a Cinderella-like run so far. More than four billion music tracks and more than 125 million TV episodes have been sold since launch. The market share is estimated at or above 70% worldwide. Earlier this year, iTunes was believed to briefly have been the nation’s largest music retailer. TG Daily took a look at the store’s history, the environment and competing landscape to sum up its five years of business and look at difficulties it may be facing.

The iTunes music store (iTS) launched in a difficult time. Back in April 2008, memories of Napster and file-sharing networks such as Grokster were still alive and Kazaa was still thriving on illegal music file-sharing. Paying for music downloaded online was not a very popular idea among Internet users at the time and the only indication that times would change soon was the accelerating battle of the music industry against people who were sharing their music files through P2P services.

Apple launched the iTS in the U.S. on 28 April, 2003. The initially Mac-only service started with just 200,000 songs available on day one. Today, the service offers more than ten million tracks in the U.S. store alone. iTunes sold 275,000 tracks in the first 18 hours, passing the one million mark after five days. In the following October, Apple introduced iTS for Windows, effectively covering the whole computer market, not just the 3% market share Macs held back then – and the service was quickly accepted by Windows users: iTS for Windows sold million songs within three days. By December 15, barely 8 months after launch, iTS passed 25 million songs. A day later, Apple introduced iTS in France, Germany and the UK. As of March of this year, iTS has sold more than four billion songs worldwide.

Apple conceived its music download service not necessarily has a huge profit opportunity by itself, since much of the profit margin actually goes to the music publishers, but as promotional vehicle to push sales of iPods. A tight iPod/iTunes integration enabled iPod owners to shop for content for their iPods through their PCs and then easily sync the content to the device, all within a single application. Steve Jobs mentioned several times in the past that iTS "barely breaks even" but with today's numbers that isn't believed to be the case anymore.

Earlier this year, the iTS climbed to the number two spot in US music sales. During Jan-Feb, the iTS actually surpassed Wal-Mart to became the largest music retailer in the US, according to NPD Group's Music Watch survey. No matter how you look at it, that is an impressive accomplishment by any merit for a service that sells digital downloads only. Since its inception, iTS has been the market leader in its segment and is estimated to commands 85% market share in U.S. paid music downloads, according to Nielsen SoundScan. The international share has been hovering around 70%. A Digital Music News survey found that the iTunes app is installed on almost 30% of all computers worldwide, while the store has over 50 million active users. Consider this enormous volume of sales and impact and it's no surprise that the iTS revenue was substantial enough to decrease Apple’s gross margins during the first quarter of this year – simply because iTS sells low-margin products in high volumes.

Besides different geographies, Apple expanded iTS to Apple TV and mobile products by introducing Wi-Fi iTunes Store for the iPhone/iPod touch. Both devices are seen by analysts as Apple's a strategy to breathe new life in the iPod business that most recently grew only 1% year-over-year. Industry watchers believe the upcoming 3G iPhone may reveal a “true” mobile iTunes Store that isn't accessible only over Wi-Fi but also over a carrier's mobile network. There are also rumors that Apple is in discussion with music labels to introduce an all-you-can eat subscription plan for the service. But despite its stellar success so far and future prospect, the iTS has challenges as well.

Not counting the competing services, most notably the Amazon MP3 store and eMusic, there are many concerns over a limited availability of movie rentals, Apple's clash with Hollywood and the music industry, limited localized content in regional iTS stores and the lack of Pan-European and international stores. The lack of movie rentals already took its toll on Apple TV, a device that Apple pitched as "the DVD player for the 21st century".

Apple's officials went on record during the Q2 2008 conference call to stress movie rentals on iTS were generally "well-received" but MacWorld reported that the company missed its self-imposed target of having thousands of movie rentals available by the end of February. Whatever the reason, the lack of move rentals was cited as the primary factor behind the failure of the Apple TV so far, prompting the company to release the "Take 2" software update for the device that brought movie rentals to the game. But Blockbuster and Netflix are moving into the set-top box business as well and are expected to offer a greater selection of movie rentals. It is not difficult to see that it is a critical time for Apple to expand iTS movie offerings. Otherwise, there will have to be 'Take 3' for Apple TV.

The lack of movie rentals or DRM-free MP3 songs from all record labels, not just EMI, is believed to be the result of Apple's wrong-footed relationship with the music industry and Hollywood. Apple took record labels by surprise and it seems that music executives have little choice but to bend to Steve Jobs and the uniform 99 cents-a-song pricing model. Every now and then, music execs are throwing poisoned darts at Jobs, clearly showing that there are tensions. The rebellion is led by Universal Music Group who accuses Apple of using the label's content to push the iPod sales. These thoughts are not echoed publicly by the Hollywood, but it is evident that movie studios want to deflect consumer electronics giant's attack on all fronts. Hollywood doesn't want to see Apple exerting the same kind of power on the market it has in the music business.

It's difficult to pin-point who the bad guy is. Some critics claim that content providers do not understand new realities, blaming them for the lack of a viable digital delivery strategy and wrong business models. On the other side, there are those who think Steve Jobs is to blame, because of his insistence to control the pricing of the content that isn't Apple's in the first place. They can't afford to pull the content completely off the iTS but are working actively to undermine the service dominance by exploring other services or developing their own services - such as recently introduced Hulu. Apple and the content providers will have to sit down sooner or later to work out the differences.

Real dollars are at stake here. A survey by In-Stat claims digital music sales will account for 40% of music sales by 2012. According to these findings, digital sales could soon offset the declining physical music sales. If Apple manages to keep a 70% international market share for iTunes, then, based on In-Stat survey presumption, iTS could account for 28% of all music sold in the world by 2012 - as suggested by Wired. As long as iTS is commanding a dominant market share and delivering the numbers, it looks like content providers can only profit by moving their content through the store.

But more competition certainly would not hurt either.
http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/37180/113/





Apple Now Selling New Movie Releases

Films available when DVD comes out
John Boudreau

Apple, which hopes to do for show business what it has done for digital music, is now selling new movie releases from major studios and independent film companies on the same day as their DVD releases, the company announced today.

New releases available for purchase this week through Apple's online iTunes store include "American Gangster" and "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly." Other catalog titles offered include "Juno," "Cloverfield," "I Am Legend" and "There Will Be Blood."

"What this shows is that digital media is gaining momentum on traditional media," observed Phil Leigh, president of research firm Inside Digital Media. "Ultimately, our televisions will be hooked to the Internet. We are going to pull up the iTunes page and get what we want on demand. Some of it will be free, some of it we will pay for."

New releases will sell for $14.99, while most catalog offerings are priced at $9.99. The movies can be viewed on video iPods, iPhones and computers, as well as a widescreen TV connected to an Apple TV. People who purchase a movie through iTunes can play it as many times as they like, just like a DVD.

Titles will be available from 20th Century Fox, Walt Disney Studios, Warner Bros., Paramount Pictures, Universal Studios Home Entertainment, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Lionsgate, Image Entertainment and First Look Studios.

In January, Apple introduced an online film rental service. Consumers can hold on to a rental download for up to 30 days. Once they start to view it, though, access terminates in 24 hours. Last month, the company said iTunes had surpassed Wal-Mart Stores as the nation's top music retailer. Since it was launched in 2003, iTunes has sold more than four billion songs.

Apple aims to provide the equipment for the digital era, as well. Its iPod music player helped create the digital music era. Now the company is pushing Apple TV, a "digital adapter" that connects consumers' computer networks with their living-room entertainment systems. The device enables them to view digital videos stored on computers on big-screen TVs, or even listen to digital music through stereo speakers. Apple TV has yet to catch on with the mainstream consumer.

"Apple changed its name from Apple Computer to Apple Inc.," Leigh added. "It's becoming evident why."
http://www.siliconvalley.com/news/ci...nclick_check=1





A Google Prototype for a Precision Image Search
John Markoff

Google researchers say they have a software technology intended to do for digital images on the Web what the company’s original PageRank software did for searches of Web pages.

On Thursday at the International World Wide Web Conference in Beijing, two Google scientists presented a paper describing what the researchers call VisualRank, an algorithm for blending image-recognition software methods with techniques for weighting and ranking images that look most similar.

Although image search has become popular on commercial search engines, results are usually generated today by using cues from the text that is associated with each image.

Despite decades of effort, image analysis remains a largely unsolved problem in computer science, the researchers said. For example, while progress has been made in automatic face detection in images, finding other objects such as mountains or tea pots, which are instantly recognizable to humans, has lagged.

“We wanted to incorporate all of the stuff that is happening in computer vision and put it in a Web framework,” said Shumeet Baluja, a senior staff researcher at Google, who made the presentation with Yushi Jing, another Google researcher. The company’s expertise in creating vast graphs that weigh “nodes,” or Web pages, based on their “authority” can be applied to images that are the most representative of a particular query, he said.

The research paper, “PageRank for Product Image Search,” is focused on a subset of the images that the giant search engine has cataloged because of the tremendous computing costs required to analyze and compare digital images. To do this for all of the images indexed by the search engine would be impractical, the researchers said. Google does not disclose how many images it has cataloged, but it asserts that its Google Image Search is the “most comprehensive image search on the Web.”

The company said that in its research it had concentrated on the 2000 most popular product queries on Google’s product search, words such as iPod, Xbox and Zune. It then sorted the top 10 images both from its ranking system and the standard Google Image Search results. With a team of 150 Google employees, it created a scoring system for image “relevance.” The researchers said the retrieval returned 83 percent less irrelevant images.

Google is not the first into the visual product search category. Riya, a Silicon Valley start-up, introduced Like.com in 2006. The service, which refers users to shopping sites, makes it possible for a Web shopper to select a particular visual attribute, such as a certain style of brown shoes or a style of buckle, and then be presented with similar products available from competing Web merchants.

Rather than relying on a text query, the service focuses on the ability to match shapes or objects that might be hard to describe in writing, said Munjal Shah, the chief executive of Riya.

“I think what they’re trying to accomplish is largely impossible,” he said. “Our belief is, there is not large-scale solutions.”

Mr. Shah said there had been a number of technology demonstrations by Google Labs researchers, such as a project in 2005 that used machine learning techniques to recognize the gender of a person in an image. However, the company has been slow to deploy its research, he said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/28/te.../28google.html





Uninvited to the Public Policy Forum Symposium

I have now been uninvited to the Public Policy Forum (“PPF”) IP program entitled INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY REFORM: INNOVATION AND THE ECONOMY on April 28, 2008, which will now proceed without me on the program.

It seems that strong pressure was brought to bear on PPF to have me removed from the program and that PPF capitulated.

The presentation that I would have made would have been based upon the presentation I gave at the 16h Annual Fordham conference in NYC on March 28, 2008 entitled:

WHY CANADIAN COPYRIGHT LAW IS ALREADY STRONGER AND BETTER THAN THAT OF THE USA - AND WHY THE USA SHOULD LOOK IN THE MIRROR RATHER THAN AT ITS “SPECIAL 301" WATCH LIST

Here is that paper, which documents several weaknesses in American copyright law and some 15 areas in which Canadian copyright law is already stronger and better than American law, many of which result in very substantial outflows of money to the USA. The paper also points out hypocrisy and inconsistencies in American positions on IP, including with respect to the US “301" mechanism. I was also asked to address a some points in patent and trade-marks law.

However, it seems that some interests do not want to hear about these points at this conference. I have done a lot of research in this area, and nobody has suggested that anything in the Fordham paper was inaccurate in any respect. In fact, it was well received.

I had looked forward to debating these points with Glen Bloom in particular on the panel in which I had been included, and others, who will also assuredly take a different point of view. Mr. Bloom is a registered lobbyist for Time Canada Ltd., Warner Bros. Entertainment Canada Inc., AOL Canada Inc., and The Canadian Motion Picture Distributors Association.

Since this is a program that could influence the development of Canadian law, I had hoped to provide at least some additional counterbalance to the overwhelming presence of spokespersons for multinational (largely American) based interests who will also include U.S. Ambassador David Wilkins, Michael Shapiro of the USPTO (who asked me two weeks ago for a digital copy of my Fordham paper) , and Perrin Beatty of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, which takes a very USTR friendly view of IP matters.

I would have expected more from the PPF, based upon their own language:

The Public Policy Forum's mission is to strive for excellence in government - to serve as a neutral, independent forum for open dialogue on public policy, and to encourage reform in public sector management. Four key factors have distinguished the PPF as a unique organization on the Canadian landscape.

First, the Forum stands resolutely in its belief that high quality government is critical to Canada's quality of life as well as to our prospects as a competitive nation in the global economy. High quality government requires a fundamental commitment to excellence in public policy development and public sector management - a commitment not only by those who govern, but also by business, labour, the academic community, the media, and the voluntary sector.

Second, the PPF has established itself as a neutral, trusted facilitator. It provides a meeting place where diverse and often opposing opinions and interests can be aired openly and debated, and opportunities can be sought for mutual understanding and collaboration.

Third, unlike other public policy organizations, the PPF does not sit in judgment of what government does, but looks at how public policy is developed and how the public service is managed. This approach has enabled it to bring together Canadians from all sectors of society and political viewpoints.

Finally, the PPF lives by its mandate of seeking membership that represents all sectors in Canada.
(Emphasis added)

More in sadness than in anger, I must say that I am disappointed in the PPF for capitulating to pressure in this instance. I am afraid that this episode may prove to be very symbolic of the overwhelming efforts and forces that will be brought to bear on the Canadian Government on the IP front in the future.

Everyone is entitled to their viewpoint. So, it is particularly sad, regrettable and ultimately ironic that an institution such as the Public Policy Forum would permit such blunt interference in the marketplace of ideas in Canada.

HK

PS: Michael Geist and the incredibly widely read BoingBoing are onto this.
Posted by Howard Knopf
http://excesscopyright.blogspot.com/...icy-forum.html





Golden Years of Television Find New Life on the Web
Brian Stelter

Is there still money to be made from “Matlock”?

Within the last few months, television distributors have opened up their libraries of classic content online, making thousands of episodes of programs like “The Twilight Zone” and “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” available free.

On Monday, Warner Brothers is expected to add a new twist, announcing the rebirth of the WB broadcast network as an Internet destination and offering programs like “Everwood” online.

In putting old episodes online, broadcasters are tapping into the “long tail” of niche content that the Internet has monetized. While executives are reticent about the costs involved, and while syndicated and DVD sales remain dominant sources of revenue, the repurposing of long-dead shows is creating another new revenue stream for distributors.

The online re-creation of the WB — a network that disappeared in 2006 when it merged with UPN to become the CW — will represent another step in that direction. While Warner Brothers would not confirm the plans, preferring to wait until a press conference on Monday, Bruce Rosenblum, the president of the company’s television group, said in an interview last week that “premium ad-supported digital destinations that are demographic-specific” are a key part of its strategy going forward.

Advertising-supported TV streaming sites like Hulu, Veoh and Joost are forming a time tunnel to 50 years of television — to shows like “Bewitched” and “Seinfeld” (and even 26 episodes of the 1966 drama “The Time Tunnel”).

“We have all this library content, and we’ve been surprised at how much interest there is in it,” Jeff Zucker, the chief executive of NBC Universal, said recently. “Frankly, if there is one person interested it — and there are streaming costs so you have to make sure you’re covering that — we’ve found it’s a new opportunity for our content.”

The online shows also create new payment opportunities for the writers, producers and actors of TV’s golden years. Royalties for Internet streaming were a pivotal issue in the writers’ strike that halted television production last winter. The Hollywood studios agreed to pay writers a 2 percent cut of the receipts for ad-supported streaming of all shows produced after 1977.

But online streaming isn’t making anyone rich, at least not yet. As Mitchell Hurwitz, the co-creator of “Arrested Development,” put it, the online popularity of his former program is “enormously rewarding in every way except for financially.”

“Arrested Development,” a comedy that never attracted a sufficient audience on Fox from 2003 to 2006, consistently ranks among the top three series on Hulu, an online video site founded as a joint venture between NBC Universal and the News Corporation last year. Mr. Hurwitz wasn’t aware of his show’s top-ranked status until Jason Kilar, the chief executive of Hulu, mentioned it at a broadcasting conference in Las Vegas in mid-April.

“Isn’t that crazy?” Mr. Hurwitz remarked in an interview last week, still showing surprise. “This was a largely unwatched show when it was on network television.”

“Arrested Development” has had a cult fan base for years, as indicated by its strong sales on DVD. Mr. Hurwitz called it the “perfect show” for on-demand viewing because of hidden gems — jokes that make sense only after the viewer has seen a full season.

If Web streaming had been widespread a few years ago, Mr. Hurwitz said, perhaps “Arrested Development” could have stayed on the air. He also suggested that the show’s streaming success could enhance prospects for a film based on the series.

Hulu now offers 3,000 full-length episodes of archived television shows, including ones as old as “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” from 1955. “So you could definitely spend some time consuming the content,” Mr. Kilar said modestly. Perhaps surprisingly, four out of five titles in the Hulu library are viewed each day. Clearly, an audience is pursuing the archives.

“Very talented people spend their lives telling these stories. It’s a bit unusual that they’re only given the stage for a very discrete period of time,” he said.

The archived shows “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “NewsRadio” and “Babylon 5” are also among the most popular shows on Hulu. The broadcast networks present many of the same shows on their own Web sites: for example, NBC.com offers episodes of “The A-Team,” “Miami Vice” and “Buck Rogers” and CBS.com shows “Star Trek,” “The Twilight Zone” and “MacGyver.”

Quincy Smith, the president of CBS Interactive, said he hoped the Web site streams would create community experiences around the shows “one ‘Star Trek’ episode at a time.”

Even TV Land, the cable channel devoted to classic TV, is starting to stream. Episodes of “Gun- smoke” and “The Andy Griffith Show” are now available on TVLand.com.

“The goal is to whet viewers’ appetites, and drive people back to the linear channel,” said Larry W. Jones, the president of TV Land.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/28/bu...ia/28tube.html





Zattoo Puts Live TV on the Desktop
Rupert Goodwins

A bit puzzling, this. Zattoo is a free live streaming TV service which, like so many, has its own client (Mac, Linux, XP and Vista) and does peer-to-peerage. Unlike the rest, Zattoo comes with all of the BBC's terrestrial and digital channels, ITV (local and regional), Channel 4, Five, and a bunch of other stuff you normally only find when flicking around on a dull weekend.

It works, too - I know I shouldn't be surprised when something like this just loads and runs under Ubuntu, but it did and I was. Registration is pretty light, the service (which has a million users worldwide and runs in quite a few countries) does IP localisation to make sure you can't be very naughty and watch what you shouldn't (although rumour has it that it's not the smartest suit in the tailor's when it comes to spotting proxies).

Video and audio quality is fine (a pal spotted that the feed was coming off-air from a Humax PVR), and it takes around 7-800 kbps in bandwidth. And it is really peer-to-peer; watching Netmeter, I could spot other people popping on and taking streams from me - and when I started up another client on another computer on the same network (you need two accounts for this, but it's easy to multiply regsiter), it reliably found and fed from the first computer, when that computer was watching the same channel. Haven't looked into the client in too much depth yet - it seems to be using the FAAD audio decoder and FFmpeg for video, both LGPL - but it works fine. And there's an EPG, just not terribly well populated.

So far, so good. Where's the catch?

That's where I get confused. I can't see one for users, although I can for the company itself. For a start, I don't know how they've got around the various rights issues that are keeping other people from running video streams of UK terrestrial stations. But I'm watching snooker in another window as I type this, so something's working (even if it's not me).

And the other question is: how on earth are they going to make money at this? It's P2P, which keeps the costs down, but it doesn't really matter how low the costs are if there's no income.

I'm sure they've got all that covered, though. Meanwhile, grab a copy of the software and give it a go.
http://community.zdnet.co.uk/blog/0,...tm?new_comment





Blu-ray: The Future Has Been Delayed
Eric Taub

Hot on the heels of last week’s report from ABI Research noting that many consumers may not see the picture quality difference between Blu-ray and standard DVDs comes the latest Blu-ray sales figures from NPD Group. And they’re not pretty.

According to NPD, sales of Blu-ray standalone players plummeted 40 percent from January to February, then rose a scant 2 percent from February to March. The general consensus was that once Toshiba dropped its support for the HD DVD format early this year, sales would increase.

In fact, sales of Blu-ray standalone players remain so low that NPD has not yet released actual numbers, for fear that it would be easy to identify individual retailers. The research group will start to give actual figures later this year, said Ross Rubin, director of industry analysis at NPD.

The end of the format wars clearly did little to boost Blu-ray’s prospects. Like others, Mr. Rubin said the much cheaper upconverting standard DVD players are winning consumers’ hearts and wallets.

The price of upconverting players is hovering around $70. And this week, Amazon is giving them away for free when consumers purchase certain Samsung TVs. The result: a 5 percent uptick in upconverting DVD player sales in the first quarter of 2008, compared to same quarter a year ago, and a 39 percent decline in players that don’t have that feature.

With Blu-ray players still costing more than $300 — and a number of players on the market still lacking some Blu-ray features like Internet connectivity — NPD now figures that Blu-ray’s future won’t be clear until this Christmas, when prices should drop to the $200 range.

ABI Research is even less optimistic. In a report released yesterday, the research firm figures it could take until October 2009 until Blu-ray gains a foothold in the market.

8:01 pm

Nobody wants a DRM crippled device that supports key revocation. The BluRay control freak DRM-perverts can go die in a fire.
- Posted by AC

10:53 pm

people have wised up. nobody is going to be locked into having to always buy and not be able to record your own discs. furthermore, the price of pre-recorded discs is outrageous. price all discs under $10 and people willscoop them up and not illegally copy them. hollywood and the drm laws are killing the market for hd movies. grred is being trumped by indifference. it’s about time.

- Posted by mr nyjet
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/0...-been-delayed/





Lennon's "Give Peace A Chance" Lyrics Up For Sale



John Lennon's handwritten lyrics for the hit song "Give Peace a Chance" will go under the hammer at auction in July and are expected to fetch 200-300,000 pounds ($400-600,000), Christie's said on Tuesday.

The lyrics are being sold by comedy writer and presenter Gail Renard, who was 16 when Lennon and Yoko Ono staged their famous "Bed-In" at a hotel in Montreal in 1969.

Renard and a friend sneaked into the Queen Elizabeth Hotel where the recently married Lennon and Ono were holding a protest for peace and became friendly with the couple.

According to Christie's, Lennon gave Renard some mementos, including the lyrics, telling her: "One day they will be worth something."

Lennon also helped launch Renard's early career as a writer by calling the editor of "The Beatles Monthly" magazine in London and instructing him to publish her piece about the bed-in.

During the "Bed-In" for peace in Montreal, which followed a similar stunt in Amsterdam, Lennon and Ono opened their doors to the world's media.

The highlight of the event came when Lennon led the recording of one of the world's most recognizable anthems "Give Peace a Chance."

When Lennon saw television footage of nearly half a million anti-Vietnam war protestors signing this song outside the White House in November 1969, he considered it to be "one of the biggest moments of my life," Christie's said.

The lyrics are being sold as part of Christie's Rock and Pop Memorabilia sale on July 10.

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)
http://www.reuters.com/article/enter...88596720080429





Red House over yonder

Supposed Hendrix Sex Tape Is Offered
Mireya Navarro and Jeff Leeds



In a twist on the recent string of sex tapes of Hollywood’s young stars, Vivid Entertainment plans to release what it says is a film from the vaults of classic rock: a sex film supposedly of Jimi Hendrix.

The film shows a naked man who resembles Hendrix, the guitar legend who died in 1970, wearing a bandanna in his Afro, having sex with two brunettes in a dimly lighted bedroom. His full face appears on screen for only a few seconds, with his eyes closed. In other portions there are flashes of his profile. But his hands, bedecked with rings, roam large on the screen at times. The film has no audio.

Vivid, a large maker of pornographic movies that is releasing the film this week, has created a 45-minute DVD, called “Jimi Hendrix the Sex Tape,” that combines 11 minutes of sex footage with a retrospective of Hendrix’s career in the 1960s (but with none of his music included). The company, which has also released tapes of Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee, Kim Kardashian and others, will sell it for $39.95 in stores and over the Internet, and will also offer the film for downloading.

But the identity of the man in the film, which has circulated among Hendrix aficionados for years, is fiercely disputed by experts and former associates. And the DVD arrives on the heels of a string of hoaxes involving star look-alikes and one other dead superstar. Internet news reports recently cast doubt on the claims of a New York collectibles dealer who said he brokered the sale of an explicit Marilyn Monroe film.

The marketing of the intimate moments of dead stars adds a strange new dimension to the surge of voyeuristic entertainment that has swept Hollywood, where sex tapes can be considered a means to stoke or revive careers. It indicates how far people will go — and how far legends may fall — as audiences clamor for unvarnished details of celebrity life.

Vivid Entertainment said that after an extensive inquiry led by private detective agencies, it stands by the Hendrix film as the real thing. “I believe that we did our due diligence, and as a result of that clearly believe that it’s him,” said Steven Hirsch, Vivid’s co-chairman. “If they said that it wasn’t him, I would never have put it out.”

Mr. Hirsch said he became convinced that the tape was authentic after tracking down the man who shot it with an eight-millimeter camera; they reached a monetary agreement “for his approval for us to distribute this.” But Mr. Hirsch and his lawyers declined to say how the man was located or to put a reporter in touch with him, saying they were bound by a confidentiality agreement signed at the man’s insistence. No one was able to identify the women in the film, Mr. Hirsch added.

According to the sex-film distributor Howie Klein, who sold the tape to Vivid, the film surfaced when a collector discovered a tin labeled “Black Man” in a box of rock memorabilia bought at an unidentified auction in London. Upon recognizing Hendrix, Mr. Klein said, the collector decided to sell the tape. It was offered on eBay, apparently unsuccessfully, more than a year ago, although it is not clear if the same collector was involved.

The collector approached Mr. Klein in July but insisted that his identity not be disclosed, Mr. Klein said. He declined to say how much he paid for the tape but indicated it was less than $50,000. Mr. Klein sold the tape to Vivid, he said, because the company had the resources to handle it better than he could.

The DVD includes commentary from two women who met Hendrix and say they believe the tape is real: Pamela Des Barres, the author of “I’m With the Band: Confessions of a Groupie” (1987), and Cynthia Albritton, better known as Cynthia Plaster Caster. Ms. Albritton is known for doing plaster casts of the genitals of rock stars, including Hendrix in 1968. (Mr. Hirsch said both women were paid for their contributions to the video but declined to be more specific.)

“I’m 100 percent sure it’s him,” Ms. Albritton, 61, said in an interview from her home in Chicago. “The facial bone structure is the same. The eyebrows and the mustache are true to the style he was wearing in 1970.”

But Kathy Etchingham, 60, one of Hendrix’s steady girlfriends during the ’60s, said via e-mail after viewing still photos from the film at the request of a reporter: “It is not him. His face is too broad and nose and nostrils too wide for Jimi. Also the hair is too low on the forehead.”

“He would never have allowed anyone to see that,” she said in a telephone interview. “In private he was very shy and would cover up.”

The film has also been dismissed by Hendrix collectors and historians. One expert said that the rings the man in the film is wearing do not resemble any he had seen in years of studying pictures and film of Hendrix. Charles R. Cross, author of the Hendrix biography “Room Full of Mirrors” (Hyperion, 2005), encountered the film during his book research. “It doesn’t add up to Jimi,” he said.

As a fan, he said, he felt the film was “horrible to watch,” as he thinks the man appears to be on drugs or heavily intoxicated. “I don’t want that to be what I think about when I think about Jimi Hendrix,” he said.

A spokesman for the Hendrix estate declined to comment.

Mr. Hirsch said he did not worry about a backlash from ardent fans of Hendrix, who died of drug-related causes at 27.

He said there was “a very, very small percentage who worship him in such a way that they just want to visualize and remember him onstage.” But, he added, “There are many, many more casual Jimi Hendrix fans who certainly will be curious to see the other side.”

Mr. Hirsch, however, played down the notion that he or fans would be interested in a stream of posthumous sex tapes from celebrities. “There are only about five real icons,” he said, including Hendrix, Monroe and Elvis Presley. “If I had Frank Sinatra, that would do awesome. J. F. K. would do great. I don’t know if, other than that, there are a lot of dead people that it would make sense to put out.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/29/ar...ic/29vide.html





Teenagers Fuck (And Other Lessons From The Miley Cyrus Debacle)



We're so confused. An extra day's digestion of the Miley Cyrus/Vanity Fair photo "scandal" hasn't cleared much up for us in the way of morals, betrayals, exploitations and career management of the young Hannah Montana star, but the public meltdown has alerted us to a more basic truth that is helping guide us through the fog of outrage. This isn't about Miley Cyrus without a shirt on or if she's been seen somewhere in her lingerie, or if her father dropped the ball.

It's simpler than any of that; this whole thing comes down to picture of a 15-year-old looking like she just got the shit fucked out of her. And if there's anything America loves more than a war, it's teenagers fucking.

And a culture war about teenagers fucking? Sign us (and Bill O'Reilly and Hilary Duff and the women of The View and...) up! We should have seen it coming last week when 14-year-old Taylor Momsen was seductively featured in her underwear on the cover of New York Magazine's Gossip Girl issue. Not to be outdone, the gang at VF — expert flesh-spotters from waaayyy back — coaxed their own peek at the bare back of a billion-dollar Disney franchise, adding signature flourishes of bedhead and smudged lipstick. To hear Cyrus tell it in VF, it was an "artful" touch by her photographer, and "you can't tell Annie Leibovitz no."

Subtle rape inferences aside, Disney can tell Annie Leibovitz no, and a few hundred million dollars' worth of Hannah Montana franchise decline will only illustrate how quickly the company would have interceded had it had the chance. The kicker, of course, is that the plunge is inversely proportionate to our interest in seeing Miley Cyrus (and Taylor Momsen, Hayden Panettiere, Lindsay Lohan and, years ago, Brooke Shields and God knows who else before her) appearing rode hard and put away wet. Is it right? Is it wrong? It doesn't matter, because teenagers fuck.

In fact, we were once teenagers fucking — underage, illegal, the whole thing — and we recall this being an issue then as well. The social critics who decried us fucking were helpless against our hormones and the mass-culture monolith that endorsed it all the way; the Miley Cyrus case reaffirms that dynamic more than a decade later. Except now, faced with the most mainstream "perversion" yet, a little more intellectually honest approach is required.

For starters, nobody was exploiting anybody — at least not any more than VF would have otherwise. A publicist probably blew it somewhere along the line, but Miley Cyrus is 15 — at least a year older than her target demo — and she knew what she was doing. She made a choice, and her apology was not for offending her fans but rather for acknowledging that, again, teenagers fuck. She is a teenager, and if she's not fucking yet, then she will be. This is not debatable. Naturally it would be criminal, but like millions of other law-breaking, fucking teens, she and her partner(s) will gleefully do it anyway. Hopefully they use protection.

Also, teenagers fucking is a billion-dollar industry. Juno, for example, would not have been a lucrative, laureled darling of both the Christian right and the hipster left had she and Paulie Bleeker not A) fucked and B) kept the baby they conceived. Superbad was a more pointed argument for the appeal of teenagers not only fucking, but fucking well. Then there's Gossip Girl and the cult of Britney, the latter of whose teen sexuality only spiked as a cultural commodity after she became a mother in her 20s. Crazy! But as the previous generation's iconic teenager fucking — with a partner like Justin Timberlake, natch (yes, guys are also teenagers fucking) — that's part of her brand.

Finally, while we respect the values and basic laws protecting minors from sexual abuse and exploitation, we do not think one photo or the tone of those around it compromises social order the way, say, a polygamist sect or a basement full of kids made with one's own daughter might. This is Miley Cyrus growing up in public like hundreds of teens before her and countless more to follow. She's a sexual creature at 15, just like the rest of us were, are or will be. Hannah Montana has its own universe, and if teenagers don't fuck there, great. Here, however, teenagers fuck, and love it or hate it, that's the world we crave. It hardly seems like news.
http://defamer.com/385422/teenagers-...-cyrus-debacle





Mickey Mouse Operation

Forget Miley Cyrus. Check out Disney's Chinese Underwear Ad.
Daniel Brook

The May issue of Vanity Fair hits newsstands tomorrow, but it's already made the cover of the New York Post. The issue features a photograph of Miley Cyrus, star of the Disney Channel's mega-hit Hannah Montana, clutching a satin sheet to her otherwise naked torso. Cyrus quickly disavowed the photograph, which was taken by Annie Liebovitz: "I took part in a photo shoot that was supposed to be 'artistic' and now, seeing the photographs and reading the story, I feel so embarrassed," she said in a statement. "I never intended for any of this to happen, and I apologize to my fans who I care so deeply about." Disney, for its part, shared Cyrus' outrage. Disney spokeswoman Patti McTeague told the New York Times that "a situation was created to deliberately manipulate a 15-year-old in order to sell magazines."

Reading McTeague's comment over coffee yesterday morning, I couldn't help but think of an advertisement I'd seen a few months ago while on a reporting trip to China. I was walking from my Beijing bed-and-breakfast to a nearby subway station when I was stopped in my tracks by a billboard that made the controversial 1990s Calvin Klein underwear ads look artistic by comparison. Staring down at the throngs of shoppers on Beijing's Xinjiekou Nandajie Avenue, a busy commercial thoroughfare about a mile west of the Forbidden City, was a white girl who looked all of 12, reclining in a matching bra-and-panties set adorned with Disney's signature mouse-ear design. In a particularly creepy detail, the pigtailed child was playing with a pair of Minnie Mouse hand puppets. In the upper left-hand corner was the familiar script of the Disney logo.

Not believing my eyes, and on an assignment that touched on images of Westerners in the Chinese consumer's imagination, I snapped a photo:



After reading of the Cyrus flap, I e-mailed my photo to Disney's McTeague. I was curious: How did the company square its position on the Liebowitz photo with its risqué billboard in China?

McTeague passed on commenting and forwarded the image to Gary Foster, a spokesman for Disney's consumer-products division. He called me from a business trip (to China) to disavow the ad. "It has caught us totally by surprise," Foster told me by phone from Guangzhou. He explained that Disney contracts with a host of licensees, who produce and market products for the Disney brand. Foster said that licensees are contractually bound to clear all advertising with Disney's corporate offices. "We have literally hundreds of licensees making our products. They are supposed to submit any kind of imagery to us before it is used, but it's hard to enforce that sometimes," he said.

Foster said he didn't know which ad agency prepared the ad, how old the model was, or where the photo shoot took place. But he was sure it was the work of a Disney licensee: Shanghai Zhenxin Garments Co. Ltd., which makes underwear for girls and teens. China is notorious for its intellectual-property pirates, and Disney is a frequent victim, with people illegally slapping the Disney name and logo on items all the time. Could this have been the case with the billboard, I asked Foster. "No. Unfortunately not this time," he replied. He assured me the billboard would be removed immediately.

It is legitimately difficult for a company as big as Disney to keep track of all its subcontractors. Then again, Disney has learned the hard way the importance of keeping track: Disney's response to the billboard recalls its response to exposés of labor conditions in the factories of its Chinese licensees', where subcontractors were actually breaking local wage, health, and safety laws. Here, of course, it's rules of taste and propriety that are involved, and the ad may play differently to a local audience than it did to me and Foster. The age of consent in China is 14, compared with 18 in Disney's home state of California. "I don't want to make excuses for them at all because it is not anything that we would ever approve, but in other parts of the world this is not unusual at all," Foster said. "In fact, in Europe, they have similar type of taste, if you will. Here in China that's not unusual at all, but it's not usual for the Disney brand."

It may be a small world, after all, but not everyone shares Burbank's mores, and you can't be too careful protecting your brand: You never know when a Chinese licensee, or an American glossy, will deviate from the Disney way.
http://www.slate.com/id/2190209/





Thex yer teef out

When Does Kinky Porn Become Illegal?
Chris Summers

A bill outlawing the possession of "extreme pornography" is set to become law next week. But many fear it has been rushed through and will criminalise innocent people with a harmless taste for unconventional sex.

Five years ago Jane Longhurst, a teacher from Brighton, was murdered. It later emerged her killer had been compulsively accessing websites such as Club Dead and Rape Action, which contained images of women being abused and violated.

When Graham Coutts was jailed for life Jane Longhurst's mother, Liz, began a campaign to ban the possession of such images.

Supported by her local MP, Martin Salter, she found a listening ear in then home secretary, David Blunkett, who agreed to introduce legislation to ban the possession of "violent and extreme pornography".

This was eventually included in the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill, which gets its final reading this week and will get Royal Assent on 8 May.

Until now pornographers, rather than consumers, have needed to operate within the confines of the 1959 Obscene Publications Act (OPA). While this law will remain, the new act is designed to reflect the realities of the internet age, when pornographic images may be hosted on websites outside the UK.

Under the new rules, criminal responsibility shifts from the producer - who is responsible under the OPA - to the consumer.

But campaigners say the new law risks criminalising thousands of people who use violent pornographic images as part of consensual sexual relationships.

People like Helen, who by day works in an office in the Midlands, and enjoys being sexually submissive and occasionally watching pornography, portrayed by actors, which could be banned under the new legislation.

She feels the new law is an over-reaction to the Longhurst case.

"Mrs Longhurst sees this man having done this to her daughter and she wants something to blame and rather than blame this psychotic man she wants to change the law but she doesn't really understand the situation," says Helen.

"Do you ban alcohol just because some people are alcoholics?"

She has an ally in Baroness Miller of Chilthorne Domer, a Liberal Democrat peer who has fought to have the legislation amended.

"Obviously anything that leads to violence against women has to be taken very seriously," says Baroness Miller. "But you have to be very careful about the definition of 'extreme pornography' and they have not nearly been careful enough."

She has suggested the new act adopt the legal test set out in the OPA, which bans images which "tend to deprave and corrupt".

But the government has sought to broaden the definition and the bill includes phrases such as "an act which threatens or appears to threaten a person's life".

Speaking from her home in Berkshire, Mrs Longhurst acknowledges that libertarians see her as "a horrible killjoy".

"I'm not. I do not approve of this stuff but there is room for all sorts of different people. But anything which is going to cause damage to other people needs to be stopped."

To those who fear the legislation might criminalise people who use violent pornography as a harmless sex aid, she responds with a blunt "hard luck".

"There is no reason for this stuff. I can't see why people need to see it. People say what about our human rights but where are Jane's human rights?"

Mr Blunkett echoed her views in a recent column in the Sun newspaper.

"Nothing can bring Jane back," he wrote. "But all of us have a duty to ensure that, in a world where there are enough crazy acts already, we don't allow others to incite, stimulate or gratify those with sick minds."

Could images like this be banned?

Recently, the much-publicised rompings of Formula 1 boss Max Mosley have served as a reminder that kinky sex is found in all walks of society.

And just as Mr Mosely is fighting the expose of his antics, calling it an invasion of private life, so Baroness Miller says the new law also threatens people's privacy.

"The government is effectively walking into people's bedrooms and saying you can't do this. It's a form of thought police."

She says there's a danger of "criminalising kinkiness" and fears the legislation has been rushed through Parliament without proper debate because it is a small part of a wider bill.

Deborah Hyde, of Backlash, an umbrella group of anti-censorship and alternative sexuality pressure groups, has similar concerns.

"How many tens or hundreds or thousands of people are going to be dragged into a police station, have their homes turned upside down, their computers stolen and their neighbours suspecting them of all sorts?"

Such "victims" won't feel able to fight the case and "will take a caution, before there are enough test cases to prove that this law is unnecessary and unworkable".

Another opponent of the new law is Edward Garnier, an MP and part-time judge, who questioned the clause when it was debated in the Commons.

"My primary concern is the vagueness of the offence," says Mr Garnier. "It was very subjective and it would not be clear to me how anybody would know if an offence had been committed."

But the Ministry of Justice is unrepentant, saying the sort of images it is seeking to outlaw are out of place in modern-day Britain.

"Pornographic material which depicts necrophilia, bestiality or violence that is life threatening or likely to result in serious injury to the anus, breasts or genitals has no place in a modern society and should not be tolerated," says a spokeswoman for the ministry.

She points out the law is not intended to target those who accidentally come into contact with obscene pornography and nor would it target the mainstream entertainment industry or those who sell bondage material which is legally available.

Yet opponents have also seized on what they see as an ideological schism in the new law, noted by Lord Wallace of Tankerness during last week's debate in the House of Lords.

"If no sexual offence is being committed it seems very odd indeed that there should be an offence for having an image of something which was not an offence," he said. With that partly in mind, the government is tabling an amendment that would allow couples to keep pictures of themselves engaged in consensual acts - but not to distribute them.

"Having engaged in it consensually would not be a crime, but to have a photograph of it in one's possession would be a crime. That does not seem to make sense to me."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7364475.stm





Government Plans Blocking of Child Porn Sites
The Yomiuri Shimbun

The ruling parties will introduce legislation for Internet service providers to block access to child pornography sites with major providers in favor of the move, sources said.

A project team of Liberal Democratic Party and New Komeito members will draw up a bill to revise the law prohibiting child pornography after the Golden Week holiday period. It will aim to have the bill passed by the Diet in the current session, the sources said.

If such a revision passes the Diet, it will be the first measure involving the legal blocking of specific Web sites, albeit in the form of a nonbinding guideline.

Under the blocking system, Internet service providers would use special software to block access to Web sites included on a police list of child porn sites, including sites using overseas servers.

Britain, Italy, Sweden and other countries have already implemented such a system, and it is claimed the approach has been effective in limiting child porn on the Web.

Under the current law, the sale and transfer of child pornography is a punishable offense, but downloading child porn images from Web sites to PCs or cell phones is not a punishable offense. Organizations commissioned by the National Police Agency have asked site operators to remove such content from the Web, but because their requests are nonbinding, they are often ignored. This is a major factor explaining why Japan has not been able to limit child porn on the Web, according to the sources.

The project team has decided that anyone possessing child porn should be punished. But it is far beyond the scope of the police to search every single person who might possess child pornography. Also, punishment for possession is unlikely to deter people from looking at child porn on the Internet. Taking these factors into account, the team concluded it was necessary to establish a system by which people could not access the sites in the first place, the sources said.

However, as the proposed guideline to block child porn sites will be nonbinding, Internet service providers will not be punished if they do not comply with it.

Still, major service providers are in favor of the plan, according to the sources. The project team was scheduled to hear the opinions of two major service providers and start discussing details of the approach used to block the sites.

Blocked Web sites will be limited to child porn sites to ensure that the guideline does not violate the freedom of expression, the sources said.

While Western nations make it clear that looking at child porn is illegal, Japan has left it unchecked, drawing international criticism for its lack of measures to prevent child pornography.

The problem of Internet child porn is that once an image is posted, it can be copied and pasted repeatedly. Blocking will be help break this vicious chain, according to the sources.
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national...02TDY01304.htm





Booksellers, Groups Sue to Block State Law

Powell’s, Dark Horse Comics are among plaintiffs who claim new law violates their free-speech rights

Portland bookseller Michael Powell and owners of a dozen independent bookstores and community organizations are suing the state attorney general and all 36 county district attorneys to block enforcement of a law forbidding the sale of sexually explicit material to people younger than 18.

Attorneys for the booksellers claim the four-month-old law violates their constitutional right to free speech and criminalizes material that would otherwise not be considered sexually explicit, like textbooks, comics or magazines.

The lawsuit was filed Friday, April 25, in U.S. District Court. No date has been set for a hearing on the issue. The booksellers and organizations are seeking an injunction to block the law. State Attorney General Hardy Myers and the district attorneys have not yet filed a response to the lawsuit.

Besides Powell’s Books Inc., other plaintiffs include Dark Horse Comics Inc. of Milwaukie, Annie Bloom’s Books in Multnomah Village, St. Johns Booksellers, Twenty Third Avenue Books, the Cascade Aids Project, Planned Parenthood of the Columbia/Willamette, the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund and the Association of American Publishers.

‘Totally impractical’

In the lawsuit filed by attorneys P.K. Runkles-Pearson and Michael A. Bamberger, the plaintiffs focus on House Bill 2843 that was signed into law July 31, 2007, by Gov. Ted Kulongoski. The law went into effect Jan. 1 and makes it a crime to provide sexually explicit material to a child through sales or viewing, if the material was meant to “satisfy a sexual desire.”

There are a handful of exemptions in the law for museums, law enforcement or publications. Bookstores are not included in the exemptions and they could be liable if they sell books about sex to minors, even if the material is in a textbook, according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit claims the new law violates the booksellers’ U.S. Constitution First, Fifth and 14th amendment rights to free speech and equal protection. It claims the law is “overly broad” and “promotes self-censorship by creating a chilling effect on the sale, display, exhibition and dissemination of constitutionally protected speech and expression.”

In an affidavit, Michael Powell said his six stores sold books of all types that could be considered sexually explicit under the new law. Those include the sale of books in stores and online on photography, graphic novels and health and wellness titles.

“Powell’s has in stock over 2 million volumes constituting over 1 million titles,” Powell said in his affidavit. “We receive on an average over 5,000 new titles per week. Obviously we cannot read each new title to determine whether there are any sexual explicit portions and if so whether such portions ‘serve some purpose other than titillation’ (even if I knew what that meant).”

Ken Lizzi, Dark Horse Comics’ general counsel and assistant secretary, said in an affidavit that his company store, Things From Another World Inc., often sells graphic novels and comics that could put it in legal jeopardy. The company publishes about three dozen comics or other books each month that might include sexually explicit content, Lizzi said in the affidavit.

“I believe the only way for Dark Horse to ensure compliance under the statute would be to refrain from publishing this material entirely,” He said. “Attempting to determine, book by book, what may fall under the purview of the satute, including whether there are any ‘sexually explicit’ portions and if so whether such portions ‘serve some purpose other than titillation’ (even if I knew what that meant) is totally impractical, unduly burdensome and surely would result in our over-inclusive self-censorship.”
http://www.portlandtribune.com/news/...41796678728800





Unintended Consequences

Spitzer Got Snagged by the Fine Print of the Patriot Act.

Something Strange: After 9/11, Treasury issued stringent new regulations that required banks to look for unusual transactions
Mark Hosenball and Michael Isikoff

When Congress passed the Patriot Act in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, law-enforcement agencies hailed it as a powerful tool to help track down the confederates of Osama bin Laden. No one expected it would end up helping to snag the likes of Eliot Spitzer. The odd connection between the antiterror law and Spitzer's trysts with call girls illustrates how laws enacted for one purpose often end up being used very differently once they're on the books.

The Patriot Act gave the FBI new powers to snoop on suspected terrorists. In the fine print were provisions that gave the Treasury Department authority to demand more information from banks about their customers' financial transactions. Congress wanted to help the Feds identify terrorist money launderers. But Treasury went further. It issued stringent new regulations that required banks themselves to look for unusual transactions (such as odd patterns of cash withdrawals or wire transfers) and submit SARs—Suspicious Activity Reports—to the government. Facing potentially stiff penalties if they didn't comply, banks and other financial institutions installed sophisticated software to detect anomalies among millions of daily transactions. They began ranking the risk levels of their customers—on a scale of zero to 100—based on complex formulas that included the credit rating, assets and profession of the account holder.

Another element of the formulas: whether an account holder was a "politically exposed person." At first focused on potentially crooked foreign officials, the PEP lists expanded to include many U.S. politicians and public officials who were conceivably vulnerable to corruption.

The new scrutiny resulted in an explosion of SARs, from 204,915 in 2001 to 1.23 million last year. The data, stored in an IRS computer in Detroit, are accessible by law-enforcement agencies nationwide. "Terrorism has virtually nothing to do with it," says Peter Djinis, a former top Treasury lawyer. "The vast majority of SARs filed today involve garden-variety forms of white-collar crime." Federal prosecutors around the country routinely scour the SARs for potential leads.

One of those leads led to Spitzer. Last summer New York's North Fork Bank, where Spitzer had an account, filed a SAR about unusual money transfers he had made, say law-enforcement and industry sources who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the probe. One of the sources tells NEWSWEEK that Spitzer wasn't flagged because of his public position. Instead, the governor called attention to himself by asking the bank to transfer money in someone else's name. (A North Fork spokesperson says the bank does not discuss its customers.) The SAR was not itself evidence that Spitzer had committed a crime. But it made the Feds curious enough to follow the money.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/123489





Gisele's Assets Dwarf A-Rod's
Chris Rovzar

Models are the new athletes!

Gisele Bundchen rakes in $33 million a year, the new Forbes list of the top 15 richest supermodels says.

That makes the Brazilian-born West Villager better paid than New York's most famous slugger, Alex Rodriguez (at least for now), who is signed to a 10-year, $250 million contract.

All 15 of the Forbes foxes rake in $1.5 million or more a year - which means each earns more than the average Mets player.

Kate Moss, 33, who comes in second to Bundchen, pulls in $9 million from her various contracts. Victoria's Secret models Heidi Klum, Adriana Lima and Alessandra Ambrosio come next, earning between $6 million and $8 million annually.

Though supermodels earn more than ever, they don't have the name recognition of the greats a decade ago, like Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell and Elle Macpherson. And, most, with the exception of Hilary Rhoda, 20, and Carolyn Murphy, 31, are from outside the U.S.

Models make money by scoring big ad campaigns and contracts. While runway shows may gain them recognition, they don't pay as well ($250 an hour) and only happen a few times a year.

Bundchen is so successful because she stars in nearly 20 campaigns a year and licenses her name out to a Brazilian shoe company. She also is the lead model for cash cow Victoria's Secret, which pays her $5 million a year to walk in their shows and pose in their catalogues.

Russian-born Natalia Vodianova, who made her name with Calvin Klein, earns $4.5 million. Czech Victoria's Secret model Karolina Kurkova and Canadian Daria Werbowy - the bug-eyed face of Lancome - each make about $3.5 million. They are followed by the list's youngest model, 19-year-old Gemma Ward, who pulls in $3 million.

Beauty & big bucks

Gisele Bundchen, 26: $33M

Kate Moss, 33: $9M

Heidi Klum, 34: $8M

Adriana Lima, 26: $6M

Alessandra Ambrosio, 26: $6M

Carolyn Murphy, 31: $5M

Natalia Vodianova, 25: $4.5M

Karolina Kurkova, 23: $3.5M

Daria Werbowy, 22: $3.5M

Gemma Ward, 19: $3M

http://www.nydailynews.com/gossip/20...arf_arods.html





Official Sees "Destructive" Barbie Influence

Imports of Barbie dolls and other Western toys will have destructive cultural and social consequences in Iran, the Islamic Republic's top prosecutor was quoted as saying on Monday.

Iran's conservative clerical establishment often rails against the perceived dangers of U.S.-inspired culture and consumerism, branding it "Westoxication."

But young Iranians are often keen consumers of such music, films and other goods from the West. Iconic toy brands can be bought in children's shops in the capital Tehran and elsewhere.

"The appearance of personalities such as Barbie, Batman, Spiderman and Harry Potter and ... computer games and movies are all a danger warning to the officials in the cultural arena," said Prosecutor General Ghorban Ali Dori Najafabadi in a letter to Vice President Parviz Davoudi published in the Mardom Salari daily.

Najafabadi, a high-ranking cleric, said Iran was the world's third biggest importer of toys and suggested this posed a threat to the "personality and identity" of the new generation.

"The unrestrained entry of this sort of imported toys ... will bring destructive cultural and social consequences in their wake," he wrote.

He added many toys were smuggled into Iran and accused importers of concentrating on profits at the expense of cultural values.

Iran and the United States have not had diplomatic ties since shortly after the 1979 Islamic revolution when the U.S.-backed shah was toppled.

The two old foes are now embroiled in a deepening standoff over nuclear work the West fears is aimed at making bombs but which Tehran says is aimed at generating peaceful electricity.

(Reporting by Hashem Kalantari; Writing by Fredrik Dahl; Editing by Randy Fabi)
http://www.reuters.com/article/oddly...48483220080428





Saudi Activist Blogger Freed After 4 Months in Jail Without Charge
Faiza Saleh Ambah

Saudi Arabia's most popular blogger was released Saturday after serving four months in prison without charge.

Fouad al-Farhan, 33, was detained Dec. 10 after authorities warned him about his online support of an activist group. At the time of his arrest, the Interior Ministry said only that his violations were not related to state security.

Farhan had used his blog to criticize corruption and call for political reform in Saudi Arabia, an absolute monarchy.

In a telephone interview Saturday, Farhan said he was happy to be free and described his time behind bars as "a unique experience." He said he had been "fairly treated" but would not comment on the specifics of his case.

"I will be blogging soon," he said.

The Interior Ministry did not comment on the release.

Farhan's arrest, believed to be the first of an online critic in Saudi Arabia, had been condemned by bloggers around the world, including more than 200 in the kingdom. In February, protesters demonstrated against the arrest in front of the Saudi Embassy in Washington.

Farhan's supporters continued his blog and set up the Free Fouad Web site, but Saudi authorities blocked both sites earlier this month.

Saudi Arabia restricts press and speech freedoms and does not allow political parties, civil rights groups or public gatherings. But since King Abdullah took the throne in 2005, official tolerance of criticism and debate has grown.

New York-based Human Rights Watch issued a report last month condemning the Saudi justice system, saying that those who protest detentions without trial or charge and other critics are often put behind bars.

The report cited the cases of Farhan, academic Abdullah al-Hamid and Judge Sulaiman al-Rushoodi.

Hamid, a prominent democracy activist, began a six-month jail sentence in March for encouraging a peaceful demonstration. He had previously spent a year and a half in prison for calling for a constitutional monarchy before being pardoned by King Abdullah in 2005.

Farhan, who was educated in the United States and owns a computer programming company, had said before his arrest that an Interior Ministry official warned him that he would be detained for his online support of a group of men, including Rushoodi, arrested in February 2007.

The government accused the group, made up of activists, academics and businessmen, of supporting terrorism. An attorney for the men has said they were arrested for their political activism and their intention to form a civil rights group.

Rushoodi was planning to sue the Interior Ministry for holding prisoners without charge.

Unlike most of the thousands of men and women who blog in the kingdom, Farhan uses his real name online.

Farhan's arrest had frightened Saudi bloggers but also made them aware of their power, said blogger Ahmed al-Omran.

"The arrest was scary and intimidating to bloggers but also empowering. It made bloggers know that their blogs are influential, and now they feel more of a responsibility and take their blogs more seriously," said Omran, 23, who blogs under the name Saudi Jeans.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...601470_pf.html





Bloggers Offer Glimpse of Uncensored Cuba
Andrea Rodriguez

Only a month has passed since ordinary Cubans won the right to own computers, and the government still keeps a rigid grip on Internet access.

But that hasn't stopped thousands from finding their way into cyberspace. And a daring few post candid blogs about life in the communist-run country that have garnered international audiences.

Yoani Sanchez writes the "Generacion Y" blog and gets more than a million hits a month, mostly from abroad _ though she has begun to strike a chord in Cuba. On her site and others, anonymous Cubans offer stinging criticisms of their government.

But it isn't simple. To post her blog, Sanchez dresses like a tourist and slips into Havana hotels with Web access for foreigners. It costs about $6 an hour and she can't afford to stay long given the price and the possibility someone might catch her connecting without permission.

It's a testament to the ingenuity and black-market prowess Cubans have developed living on salaries averaging $20 a month, with constant restrictions and shortages.

The connections Cuban bloggers are making with the outside world via the Internet are irreversible, said Sanchez, who this month won the Ortega y Gasset Prize for digital journalism, a top Spanish media award.

"With each step we take in that direction, it's harder for the government to push us back," she said.

On an island where many censor themselves to avoid trouble, Sanchez says Generacion Y holds nothing back.

"It's about how I live," she said. "I think that technically, there are no limits. I have talked about things like Fidel Castro, and you know how taboo that can be."

But she added that "there are some ethical limits. I would never call for violence, for instance."

Since taking over from his ailing brother Fidel in February, Raul Castro has lifted bans on Cubans buying consumer electronics, having cell phones and staying in luxury tourist hotels.

While the changes have bolstered the new president's popularity, most simply legalized what was common practice. In a typically frank recent posting, Sanchez noted that many Cubans already had PCs, cell phones and DVD players bought on the black market.

"Legally recognizing what were already facts prospering in the shadows is not the same as allowing or approving something," she wrote. Cuba's leaders are responding to the inevitable, "but they won't soothe our hunger for change."

Authorities have made no sustained effort to stop Sanchez's year-old blog, though pro-government sites accuse her of taking money from opposition groups.

Only foreigners and some government employees and academics are allowed Internet accounts and these are administered by the state.

Ordinary Cubans can join an island-wide network that allows them to send and receive international e-mail. Lines are long at youth clubs, post offices and the few Internet cafes that provide access, but the rest of the Web is blocked _ a control far stricter than even China's or Saudi Arabia's.

Still, thousands of Cubans pay about $40 a month for black market dial-up Internet accounts bought through third parties overseas or stolen from foreign providers. Or they use passwords from authorized Cuban government accounts that hackers swipe or buy from corrupt officials.

Sanchez said so many Cubans read her blog that fans stop her on the street.

Generacion Y takes its title from a Cuban passion for names beginning in Y. It offers witty and biting accounts of Cubans' everyday struggles against government restrictions at every turn.

Some of the bloggers hew to the belief that openness is the best answer to official surveillance.

"By signing your name, giving your opinions out loud and not hiding anything, we disarm their efforts to watch us," Sanchez wrote on her blog.

On a blog called "Sin EVAsion" ("Without Evasion"), Eva Hernandez dared to mock "Granma," the official Communist Party newspaper, for taking its name from the American yacht that brought Castro and his rebels back to Cuba from Mexico to launch their armed rebellion in 1956.

"Cuba is the only country in the world whose principal newspaper, the official organ of the Communist Party and the official voice of the government, has the ridiculous name 'granny,'" she wrote. Piling on the heat, she added that the name "perpetuates the memory of that yacht that brought us so much that is bad."

Generacion Y is maintained by a server in Germany, and Sanchez says the Cuban government periodically attempts to block her site within Cuba, though the problem is always cleared up within hours.

Administrators of the "Petrosalvaje" site also claim to struggle with government-imposed limits. A recent post called uncensored Internet access a "virtual raft" _ a reference to the rafts on which Cubans flee to the United States.

The government is also into blogging _ maintaining dozens of sites dedicated to promoting the island's image overseas.

"Raul needs time," reads a post on Kaosenlared.net, a forum based in Spain. "We are confident, calm and staying united in favor of the direction of our revolution." It is signed Rogelio Sarforat and was apparently posted from Cuba.

Reynaldo Escobar, Sanchez' husband and a former journalist for official media, now uses his own blog to criticize the government. He said Cuba pays supporters to flood the Internet with positive opinions.

He says he knows of nobody who would spend money to go on the Web and defend the system. "Everyone who argues in favor of the government is paid to do so, or does so because they have been asked to," he said.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...700910_pf.html





Cuba Lifts Ban on Home Computers
Michael Voss

The first legalised home computers have gone on sale in Cuba, but a ban remains on internet access.

This is the latest in a series of restrictions on daily life which President Raul Castro has lifted in recent weeks.

Crowds formed at the Carlos III shopping centre in Havana, though most had come just to look.

The desktop computers cost almost $800 (£400), in a country where the average wage is under $20 (£10) a month.

But some Cubans do have access to extra income, much of it from money sent by relatives living abroad.

Since taking over the presidency in February, Raul Castro has ended a range of restrictions and allowed Cubans access to previously banned consumer goods.

In recent weeks thousands of Cubans have snapped up mobile phones and DVD players.

But only now have the first computer stocks arrived.

Internet access remains restricted to certain workplaces, schools and universities on the island.

The government says it is unable to connect to the giant undersea fibre-optic cables because of the US trade embargo. All online connections today are via satellite which has limited bandwidth and is expensive to use.

Cuba's anti-American ally, Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez, is laying a new cable under the Caribbean.

It remains unclear whether, once the connection is completed, the authorities will then allow unrestricted access to the world wide web.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/h...as/7381646.stm





DIA Keeps Wi-Fi on the Mild Side
Michael Booth

Want to browse Vanity Fair magazine on the Denver airport's free Wi-Fi system? Sorry. You'll have to buy it at the newsstand, because DIA's Internet filter blocks Vanity Fair as "provocative."

You can't get to the popular gossip column perezhilton.com on DIA's Wi-Fi signal, either. Or the hipster-geek favorite boingboing.net. Or the Sports Illustrated swimsuit photos, even though the magazine's bare-breasted cover shot is on prominent display at airport stores, right next to Penthouse and Hustler.

Denver International Airport officials are erring on the side of caution in blocking access to certain sites through the free Internet browser offered to fliers. They say they're using prudent judgment in a public, family-friendly atmosphere.

But others see it as cyber-censorship that taints Denver's self-portrayal as a progressive economy.

"Give people some credit," said David Byrne, founder of the legendary art-rock band Talking Heads, who was blocked from boingboing.net. while connecting through DIA to an Aspen workshop last month. "And the more credit you give them, the more they respond. It's just trusting people's discretion."

Critics, like boingboing.net. editor Xeni Jardin and others, point out that DIA uses the same kinds of software filters employed by the repressive regimes of Sudan and Kuwait. Jardin is tired of her tech-update site getting blocked by private and government filters just because it occasionally posts respected artworks that might include nudity.

"This gets to the heart of what the Internet is all about and whose responsibility it is," said Jardin, who is based in California. "It seems particularly unfortunate that something as symbolic as the city's airport, a gateway to culture, commerce and the flow of ideas, would be blocked in such a fundamental way.

"The intent is understandable, but the outcome is bad for Denver."

Is it prudence or prudery?

Airport spokesman Chuck Cannon said the telecom office decided to use Webwasher's filtering system when it went from a paid service to free public Wi-Fi in November.

Officials preferred to deal with infrequent blocking complaints rather than angry parents whose children walked by a screen showing pornography, Cannon said.

With more than 4,000 Wi-Fi connections a day, the airport has received only two formal blocking complaints so far, he said. The filtering software appears to be blocking less than 1 percent of 1.7 million Web page requests a day.

As for Sports Illustrated being available at newsstands, but not on Wi-Fi, Cannon said, "That's a little different than pornography, though I guess others may disagree."

Who decides those delicate questions is exactly what bothers open-access proponents, including many American library systems. Local libraries and the American Library Association sued the federal government for threatening to withhold funding unless filters were installed on public computers. They lost in a U.S. Supreme Court appeal in 2003.

Denver's libraries now have a dual system: In children's areas, all computers are filtered for pornography and other objectionable content. Other computers give patrons a choice between a filtered session and unfiltered access — users 17 or under are supposed to choose the filter.

Byrne would like it noted for the record that he appreciated Denver offering Wi-Fi for free, a perk he doesn't get at all hotels or airports. But his amused blogging about the block was picked up and passed around the Internet by other techno-savvy writers.

"Software designed for the prudery and rigidity of Sudan is determining user experiences in the United States," wrote the ISP Planet blog.

Testing the filtering systems leads to the same kind of bewilderment that courts encounter when they try to define "obscenity."

DIA blocks anything displaying partial nudity or even provocative underwear ads. That cancels everything from major magazines to non-prurient sex-education sites. It does not block Wikipedia's illustrated entries for "pornography" or "erotica." It blocks the barely-clothed supermodels of Victoria's Secret, but not the aggressive profanity of a humor site like The Onion.

No fair googling for rules

Commercial Wi-Fi uses the filters as well — with the same contradictions. FedEx Kinko's offices charge by the minute for Internet access, using Smartfilter software to block nudity and other allegedly offensive material. Perezhilton.com., Vanity Fair and Sports Illustrated are OK, but Playboy is not, and you can't Google the word "erotic." If you try to Google "Smartfilter," you are blocked from accessing sites that discuss Smartfilter's tactics.

Boingboing and other sites, meanwhile, fight the system and try to pass on tricks for bypassing filters. Jardin hears from American military personnel overseas who get blocked from boingboing and other harmless sites.

"This manner of policing the Internet has been proven time and time again to be easily circumventable, with any number of means," Jardin said. "So what it does is just block traffic to legitimate sites. Like the locks on your suitcase only keep the nice guys out."
http://www.denverpost.com/ci_8455504





Facebook 'More Effective than Emergency Services in a Disaster'
Andy Bloxham

Social networking websites such as Facebook are more effective than the emergency services and media at dealing with disasters, a new report claims.

Researchers found that blogs, maps, photo sites and instant messaging systems were better at providing warnings, help and lists of how individuals were affected than traditional sources.

The research, published in New Scientist magazine tomorrow, was led by Leysia Palen, Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the University of Colorado.

Dr Palen’s team carried out surveys on the use of social media during the California wildfires last October and the Virginia Tech shootings last April.

During the Virginia shootings, they found the emergency services were slow to update their reports on the latest situation and the names of those killed.

Within just 90 minutes of the first deaths, however, a web page accurately describing the events appeared on web encyclopedia Wikipedia.

Twenty minutes after that, Facebook users had set up a group called 'I’m OK at VT’, which allowed students and staff to reassure the wider world that they were safe.

A Facebook discussion was also begun which authoritatively listed the victims and whether people were feared dead rather than confirmed dead.

During the California fires, web users on sites including instant messaging forum Twitter kept friends and neighbours informed of their condition, minute by minute.

They also used Google Maps to track the progress of the fire and mark areas where schools and businesses were closed.

However, the authorities struggled to display the sufficient up-to-date information.

The mass media were unreliable, the study found, as they struggled to access remote areas from which website users with an internet connection could easily report.

Media sites also focused on the 'sensational’, such as fires close to celebrities’ homes, which distorted the overall picture, the scientists said.

Professor Palen said her research showed that internet users could produce accurate information in disaster situations.

She said: “Members of the public play an absolutely critical role in disaster response.

“Now we’re seeing what happens when you superimpose a technological layer on top of that.

“Instead of rumour-mongering, we see socially produced accuracy.”

However, technology consultant Ron Langhelm, formerly of the US Federal Emergency Management Agency, said the differing web reports could confuse disaster victims.

He said: “We need to make sure that we don’t muddy that water.”

The American Red Cross already uses Twitter to exchange up-to-the-minute information about local disasters.

The US Geological Survey runs a site called 'Did You Feel It?’ on which Americans can report local earthquake activity.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1914...saster%27.html





On the Brink

Venerable newspapers face extinction

THE New York Times once epitomised all that was great about American newspapers; now it symbolises its industry’s deep malaise. The Grey Lady’s circulation is tumbling, down another 3.9% in the latest data from America’s Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC). Its advertising revenues are down, too (12.5% lower in March than a year earlier), as is the share price of its owner, the New York Times Company, up from its January low but still over 20% below what it was last July. On Tuesday April 29th Standard & Poor’s cut the firm’s debt rating to one notch above junk.

At the company’s annual meeting a week earlier, its embattled publisher, Arthur “Pinch” Sulzberger, attempted to quash rumours that his family is preparing to jettison the firm it has owned since 1896. Carnage is expected soon as dozens of what were once the safest jobs in journalism are axed, since too few of the staff have accepted a generous offer of voluntary redundancy.

Pick almost any American newspaper company and you can tell a similar story. The ABC reported that for the 530 biggest dailies, average circulation in the past six months was 3.6% lower than in the same period a year earlier; for Sunday papers, it was 4.6% lower. Ad revenues are plunging across the board: by 22.3% at Media General, for example. In 2007 total newspaper revenues fell to $42.2 billion, not to be sniffed at, certainly, but a lot less than the peak of $48.7 billion in 2000.

Much of this decline is being blamed on the rise of the internet, which offers free, round-the-clock coverage, and which has provided a new, better home for classified advertising, once the bedrock of most newspapers’ revenue. But some of the fall in revenues is actually due to the economic slowdown in America, and especially in the housing market, which contributes a large slice of classified advertising.

The credit crunch has also come at a bad time for a group of new newspaper owners, who used loans that were readily available until last summer to buy their way into the business, but must now be having second thoughts. Sam Zell, a property tycoon who bought the Tribune Company, the owner of papers such as the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times, is finding the going harder than expected. He is trying to sell assets such Newsday, a New York tabloid that is the subject of a bidding war between two other moguls, Mort Zuckerman and Rupert Murdoch, and perhaps other firms.

Mr Murdoch’s enthusiasm is a reminder that not all newspapers are suffering. He bought the Wall Street Journal last year, and is investing in a vigorous expansion of its political coverage and international news. This foray on to the traditional turf of the Times seems to be working: the Journal’s circulation is rising. Another flourishing outlet is the web-only Huffington Post, which is fast evolving beyond a series of political blogs into a fully fledged online newspaper with liberal sensibilities close to those of the New York Times.

Industry experts such as Lauren Rich Fine of Kent State University do not think that the Times is responding forcefully enough. “Now is the time to beef up its business section,” she says. Ms Fine also points out that although all newspapers are being buffeted by the internet, their ability to respond will probably depend on whether their audiences are national, metropolitan or local. The first category can afford to invest in distinctive international or business coverage, while the last can prosper by becoming “more intensely local”. But she fears for the big metropolitan newspapers, which may find themselves trapped in the middle.

Not all is lost, however. Plenty of innovation is taking place, particularly at local papers, as the latest “Newspaper Next” report from the American Press Institute, an industry group, makes clear. It quotes 24 examples of newspapers becoming “information and connection utilities”, through such offerings as local internet forums.

The hero for industry optimists is Brian Tierney, a former public-relations executive who led a group of investors that borrowed heavily to buy Philadelphia’s two main dailies. He has since revived them with a vigorous marketing drive. He is also finding new ways to drum up advertising, such as introducing a business column sponsored by a local bank. People said pigs will fly before our circulation rises, Mr Tierney recalled in a recent speech, before recounting how he celebrated a rise in circulation by projecting flying pigs onto the walls of the Philadelphia Inquirer.
http://www.economist.com/daily/news/...00&top_story=1





Reluctantly, a Daily Stops Its Presses, Living Online
Noam Cohen

With print revenue down and online revenue growing, newspaper executives are anticipating the day when big city dailies and national papers will abandon their print versions.

That day has arrived in Madison, Wis.

On Saturday, The Capital Times, the city’s fabled 90-year-old daily newspaper founded in response to the jingoist fervor of World War I, stopped printing to devote itself to publishing its daily report on the Web.

(The staff will also produce two print products: a free weekly entertainment guide inserted in the crosstown paper, The Wisconsin State Journal, and a news weekly that will be distributed with the paper.)

An avowedly progressive paper that carried the banner of its founder, William T. Evjue, The Capital Times is wrapped up with the history of two larger-than-life Wisconsin senators, the elder Robert La Follette (whom it favored) and Joseph R. McCarthy (whom it opposed). But in recent years, the paper’s circulation dropped to about 18,000 from a high in the 1960s of more than 40,000.

“We felt our audience was shrinking so that we were not relevant,” Clayton Frink, the publisher of The Capital Times, said in an interview two days before the final daily press run. “We are going a little farther, a little faster, but the general trend is happening everywhere.”

The transition in Madison, while long foretold — The Capital Times was doubly part of a dying breed, being the afternoon paper in a two-newspaper town — has hardly been neat and clean and cathartic.

More than 20 members of the newsroom staff lost their jobs, mainly through buyouts, but also through layoffs. Each departing journalist was profiled in the final paper, and lives on at the Web site Madison.com under the headline “A Fond Farewell to Talented Colleagues,” with a “class photo” taken next to the presses.

The new staff total will be in the 40s. This includes seven new hires in areas like Web producing and arts coverage. Copy editors, by contrast, are “exiting at a higher rate than reporters,” said Paul Fanlund, the editor who arrived from The State Journal in 2006.

The Web strategy, while seen as a long-term solution, is still a work in progress, Mr. Fanlund says. It revolves around a portal, Madison.com, which is owned under the same joint arrangement mandating that both Madison papers share revenues, though they are editorially independent.

The Capital Times will operate a nearly continuous Web newsroom and focus on repurposing online the cultural and entertainment material the staff will begin to produce in the supplement, 77 Square, to be inserted in The State Journal.

“If there is a window of opportunity for newspapers on the Web, it is locally,” said James L. Baughman, director of the University of Wisconsin journalism school in Madison. “The reason the online version of the Cap Times may have life is that opportunity.”

Once upon a time, the afternoon newspaper was the Internet of its day, Mr. Baughman said, giving afternoon baseball scores and stock market reports in a quick turnaround. It was the more lucrative slot as a result.

The liberal afternoon newspaper still has a sympathetic audience in Madison, but the changing pace of news is more important. “The political activism is there, you can’t deny it,” he said of Madison’s newspaper readers, “but they want the morning box scores.”

And while Mr. Fanlund takes pain to stress the need to continue the progressive editorials and watchdog role of the reinvented Capital Times, it is sports that serves as a perfect example of the changes he says have been long overdue.

As an afternoon paper that did not publish on Sundays, he says, his sportswriters would be covering a college football game and “it would be 48 hours until the articles would be read.” Those writers, who will be making the transition online, “see the Web as a new lease on life.”

But the decision to migrate online, and in free weeklies, necessarily involves reinventing the core mission at the newspaper and the core audience. The subscribers to The Cap Times reliably moved to The State Journal, a less progressive paper with the morning slot.

In its account of The Capital Times’s last daily press run, The State Journal reported that it had “succeeded in garnering most of The Capital Times’s former subscribers and will see its average daily circulation rise from 89,000 to at least 104,000 starting Monday.”

In the Madison weekly Isthmus, one columnist wrote that the new Capital Times suddenly looked like a rival going after the same “urban advertising market that Isthmus has cultivated for 32 years.”

While acknowledging the long, proud print tradition there, the columnist, Marc Eisen, wrote: “Cap Times editors and reporters see themselves as reimagining founder Bill Evjue’s progressive vision for the Internet age. But, functionally, the new editions are all about the advertising.”

Mr. Evjue is the old-world figure at the paper, the John Henry, of sorts, whose hammer — his typewriter — the staff still hears. The final paper showed him in a 1961 photograph pressing the button on new presses, embracing technological change.

The final editorial of the print daily pledged itself to Mr. Evjue’s purpose as “an independent voice for peace and economic and social justice that speaks truth to power each and every day.”

The editorial evoked him to give his endorsement of the steps the newspaper is taking: “He would caution us not to worry about the form The Capital Times takes, but rather to be concerned with the content and character of our message.” And, in its final words, to its final audience, wrote: “All will be well.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/28/bu...ia/28link.html





Attorney Generals Ask For FCC Investigation Into Satellite Merger
FMQB

More politicians have asked the FCC to take a closer look at the potential merger between XM and Sirius, as 11 state attorney generals have called for a probe into the merger. The 11 AGs, led by Ohio's Marc Dann sent a letter to FCC Chairman Kevin Martin yesterday, stating their concerns about the merger.

"The combination of these companies will result in a single corporation controlling access to all nationally-available satellite radio," they wrote. "Given the national footprint, we are disappointed that the Department of Justice Antitrust Division would permit this merger to proceed unchallenged or without the imposition of appropriate terms and conditions that would reduce the proposed transaction's anticompetitive impact, such as the divestiture of spectrum to allow the entry of a new entity into this market."

They added, "Given that the FCC looks to a broader public interest standard than does the DOJ in fashioning its decisions in this context, we urge the FCC to address these important issues and give due consideration to the many concerns of the states. Our offices stand ready to share with you our thoughts on the potential value of various remedial conditions available, such as mandatory publicly available interoperable receivers, a la carte pricing, and divestiture of spectrum."

In addition to Ohio's Dunn, the letter was signed by the AGs from Connecticut, Iowa, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Utah and Washington state.
http://fmqb.com/Article.asp?id=673781





Howard Stern Still Dominates Satellite Listening
FMQB

Arbitron has released ratings for satellite radio for the fall of 2007 and Howard Stern's Sirius channels are still the most-listened to stations on either service. The survey found that over half a million listeners had signed up for satellite radio since the Spring 2007 survey. As one would expect, the NFL on Sirius and holiday-related stations saw an increase in listenership in the fall as opposed to the spring survey.

Howard Stern 100 on Sirius is the most listened to channel on satellite, with a 0.04 AQH rating and a cume of 1,210,000 listeners 12+. His Stern 101 channel has a 0.01 AQH and a cume of 501,100. Over on XM, Opie & Anthony's Virus channel pulls in a 0.01 AQH 12+, with a cume of 171,300.

Sirius Hits 1 is the only other Sirius channel with over half a million cume. On XM, the '60's, '70's and '80's channels all cross the 500,000 cume mark, with a 0.01 AQH rating. The XM Top 20 on 20 channel had a cume of 1,049,200 and a 0.01 AQH rating. The fall data further shows that for all of satellite's many niche stations, the channels that play the hits still continue to be the top rated music channels.
http://fmqb.com/Article.asp?id=672010





No Power Use in Standby: New Zero-Watt Monitor

Computer monitors in standby mode will soon save far more energy. Fujitsu Siemens Computers has developed the world’s first monitor that requires no electricity at all in idle mode. The innovation is based on a new switch in the monitor that shuts it down entirely when the computer signal is absent and turns it on again when the signal reappears. With this switch, the display saves several euros per year in power costs. Beginning in the summer of 2008, this “zero-watt monitor” will be sold for the price of a conventional monitor.

At the end of a work day, the same routine occurs in most offices when the computer is shut down. But the monitor usually stays on—it automatically enters standby mode when there is no signal from the computer. Despite the minimal power consumption, this idle mode can entail tens of thousands of euros in additional power costs per year for large companies with several thousand computers.

The zero-watt monitor from Fujitsu Siemens Computers was chosen as “Innovation of the Year” at this year’s CeBIT computer trade show. The primary component is a circuit element in the power supply unit of the monitor that is switched by the PC. As soon as the video signal of the computer subsides, a relay—an electrically powered switch—with two switching positions automatically interrupts the entire electrical circuit of the monitor. When the computer signal returns again, the low currents that then begin to flow across the interface are sufficient to trigger the relay and thereby restart the monitor.

The zero-watt monitor, which will initially be marketed to corporate customers beginning in the summer of 2008, adds to the range of “green” IT products sold by Fujitsu Siemens Computers. This is another component of the long-term strategy of the company, which also stresses environmental compatibility in its laptops, PCs and servers.

Several years ago, for instance, some of the Esprimo Professional PCs were the first systems to be certified with the “Blue Angel” environmental label. The Esprimo P Energy Saving Edition, uses as little as around 87 kilowatt hours in its standard configuration, less than half of the 183 kWh needed on average by nearly four-year-old office PCs.
http://www.physorg.com/news128618190.html





Race Is on to Advance Software for Chips
John Markoff

In the computer world’s equivalent of “The Amazing Race,” three rival teams of computer researchers are working on new types of software needed to better use computer chips that can process many tasks at the same time.

Stanford University and six computer and chip makers plan to announce Friday the creation of the Pervasive Parallelism Lab. Besides Stanford, the backers are Sun Microsystems, Advanced Micro Devices, Nvidia, I.B.M., Hewlett-Packard and Intel.

Last month, Intel and Microsoft announced they were jointly financing new labs at the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to tackle the same problem.

All three efforts are in response to a growing awareness that the software industry is not ready for the coming availability of microprocessors with 8 or 16 or more cores, or processing units, on a single chip. Computer and chip makers are concerned that if software cannot use the new hardware efficiently, customers will have little reason to upgrade.

The Stanford lab, which will cost $6 million over three years, will be led by Kunle Olukotun, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science. Mr. Olukotun helped pioneer the idea of multicore microprocessors, which have since gained rapid popularity in both corporate and consumer computer hardware.

The most advanced corporate server microprocessor, as well as processors for video game machines, have up to eight cores. While today’s operating systems — the basic layer of software that runs a computer — can work with this type of hardware, software engineers widely acknowledge that most applications, ranging from corporate productivity software to multimedia programs, are not designed for efficient use of the dozens or hundreds of processors in future computers.

The separate university efforts will share some approaches, but will also try different experiments, including new programming languages and hardware innovations.

They will also rethink operating systems and compilers, the specialized software that translates raw programming instructions into something that computers can understand.

The Berkeley researchers have broken parallel computing problems into seven classes, each of them to be attacked using a different approach.

In contrast, the Stanford researchers said they were looking for new ways to hide the complexity of parallel computing from programmers and will use virtual world and robotic vehicles to test their ideas.

Beginning in 2004, Intel acknowledged that it had hit what was essentially a heat barrier in designing ever-faster microprocessors and aggressively shifted to multicore designs.

Now there is a rush to develop tools for mainstream programmers who have spent their entire careers designing software for sequential, not parallel, programming systems, said John L. Hennessy, Stanford’s president and a professor of computer science.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/30/technology/30lab.html





H.P. Unveils New Memory Technology
John Markoff

A team of Hewlett-Packard scientists reported Wednesday in the science journal Nature that they have designed a simple circuit element they believe will enable tiny powerful computers that could imitate biological functions.

The device, called a memristor, could make it possible to build extremely dense computer memory chips that use far less power than today’s DRAM memory chips, which are rapidly reaching the limit in how much smaller they can be made.

The memristor, an electrical resistor with memory properties, may also make it possible to fashion advanced logic circuits, like a class of reprogrammable chips known as field programmable gate arrays, that are today widely used for rapid prototyping of new circuits and for custom-made chips that need to be manufactured quickly.

Potentially even more tantalizing is the memristors’ ability to store and retrieve a vast array of intermediate values, not just the binary 1s and 0s as conventional chips do. This makes them function like biological synapses, which would be ideal for many artificial intelligence applications ranging from machine vision to understanding speech.

The H.P. researchers said that the discovery of the memory properties in tiny, extremely thin spots of titanium dioxide, came from a frustrating, decade-long hunt for a new class of organic molecules to serve as nano-sized switches. Researchers in both industry and academia have hoped they would be able to fashion switches as small as the size of a single molecule to someday replace transistors once the semiconductor industry’s shrinking of electronic circuits made with photolithographic techniques reached a technological limit.

Independent researchers said that it seemed likely that the memristor might relatively quickly be applied in computer memories, but that other applications might be more challenging. Typically, technology advances are not adopted unless they offer dramatic cost or performance advantages over the technologies they are replacing.

“Whether it will be useful for other large scale applications is unclear at this point,” said Wolfgang Porod, director for the Center of Nano Science and Technology at the University of Notre Dame.

The material offers a new approach that is radically different than another type of solid state storage called “phase-change memory” that is now being pursued by I.B.M., Intel and other companies. In a phase-change memory heat is used to shift a glassy material from an amorphous to a crystalline state and back again. The switching speed of these systems is both slower and requires more power, according to the H.P. scientists.

The memristor technology should be fairly quickly commercialized, said R. Stanley Williams, director of the quantum science research group at H.P. “This is on a fast track,” he said.

The memristor was predicted in 1971 by a Berkeley electrical engineer, Leon Chua. There have been hints of an unexplained behavior in the literature for some time, Mr. Chua said in a phone interview on Tuesday.

However, he noted that he had not worked on his idea for several decades and that he was taken by surprise when he was contacted by the H.P. researchers several months ago. The advance clearly points the way to a prediction made in 1959 by the physicist, Richard Feynman, that “there’s plenty of room at the bottom,” referring to the possibility of building atomic-scale systems.

“I can see all kinds of new technologies and I’m thrilled,” he said.

The original theoretical work done by Mr. Chua was laid out in a 1971 paper titled “Memristor — The Missing Circuit Element.” The paper argued that basic electronic theory required that in addition to the three basic circuit elements — resistors, capacitors, and inductors — a fourth element should exist.

The H.P. research team titled their paper, “The Missing Memristor Found.”

The H.P. team has successfully created working circuits based on memristors that are as small as 15 nanometers (the diameter of an atom is roughly about a tenth of a nanometer.) Ultimately, it will be possible to make memristors as small as about four nanometers, Mr. Williams said. In contrast the smallest components in today’s semiconductors are 45 nanometers, and the industry currently does not see away to shrink those devices below about 20 nanometers.

Because the idea of a memristor was invented almost 40 years ago by Mr. Chua, it is in the public domain, however the H.P. scientists have applied for patents covering their successful implementation of a working version of the device.

One of the most exciting aspects of the new devices is that they may consume dramatically less power compared with today’s microprocessors and memory devices, which must be continually refreshed electrically to maintain their state. In contrast, circuits made from memristors will require power only to switch and will hold their state for at least several years once they have been set in a particular state. Moreover, they can be made in the same kinds of semiconductor factories that the chip industry now uses without specialized equipment.

The most significant limitation that the H.P. researchers said the new technology faces is that the memristors function about 10 times more slowly than today’s DRAM memory cells.

The discovery was made when the H.P. researchers and a cooperating team of scientists at U.C.L.A. got widely different results in a technical experiment involving organic materials. Ultimately the H.P. team was able to prove that the dramatic changes in resistance they were seeing were coming from a contaminant, and not from the organic molecules.

“I’ll take serendipity, but it took us a long time to figure this out,” Mr. Williams said.

The researchers were eventually able to determine that the change in resistance came from the movement of oxygen atoms in the material in response to an electrical charge. Moreover, the changes were so significant that it was simple to detect the state of the device even at near-atomic scale.

After beginning to explore the properties of titanium dioxide, Mr. Williams said his group was at first baffled by the effect and were unable to produce it reliably. However, through experimentation they gained a solid theoretical understanding of the phenomenon. Currently they are building the devices from a sandwich of a pure layer of titanium dioxide and a second layer of the same material doped with a proprietary material.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/01/te...hp-Web.html?hp