Peer-To-Peer News - The Week In Review – September 6th, '03

[JackSpratts]

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Students Must Now “Prove Their Innocence”

Tufts file-sharing crackdown?
Patrice Taddonio

Daily Editorial Board University sophomore "Tom" may not look like a criminal. In the eyes of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), however, he -- like thousands of other college students -- is a wanted man. Tom's crime? Using file-sharing programs like Kazaa or Morpheus to download music and movies.

Tom is one of thousands of individuals whose behavior is being targeted in the RIAA's recent file-sharing crackdown. Last April, the RIAA sued four college students who allegedly provided their peers with file- sharing services similar to Napster. This July, the RIAA took their anti-file-sharing actions even further, filing at least 900 subpoenas to universities and Internet providers and commanding them to release information about Kazaa users.

Combating illegal file-sharing on Tufts' campus is a daunting task. According to a questionnaire administered to the University's incoming freshmen, 19 percent of the class of 2007 download MP3 or other media files from the internet "several times a day." 18 percent do so "at least once a day," and 28 percent do so "once a week or more."

University campuses are prime targets to the RIAA for several reasons, one of which is the technological capabilities of modern campus communications networks. Thanks to the state-of-the-art internet connection technology offered at many institutions, college students can download and share media files with ease and speed. Therefore, the University atmosphere -- however unintentionally -- facilitates file-sharing.

Associate Professor of Sociology Henry Rubin teaches Introduction to Mass Media, which includes the issue of file-sharing and its impact on community and culture.

"Large bandwidth on campuses makes it easy for file-sharing to center around campuses," Rubin said.

Cutting back on available bandwidth is not a viable solution to the file-sharing problem. Although doing so would slow down and perhaps deter illegal file downloads, it would also slow down and complicate other, perfectly legal internet activities.

Additionally, large bandwidth can be a factor in attracting prospective students to universities like Tufts. "From a campus point of view, [bandwidth]...will be one of those things that, if made available at full capacity, will be an attraction to the best students in a competitive market," Rubin said.

Leslie Tolman, Director of Enterprise IT Infrastructure for Tufts Computing and Communications Services (TCCS), is one of several University staff members who work with the Dean of Students Office to deal with peer-to-peer networking, or file sharing, and its concomitant issues.

"There is a lot of file sharing activity at Tufts which is in no way illegal," Tolman said. As the previously cited statistics indicate, however, not-so-legal file-sharing does take place, and the University frowns upon it: "Should Tufts receive a subpoena, the University will not be in a position to intervene on behalf of students who are being investigated," Tolman said.

When alerted to the fact that one of its students has been involved in transferring or distributing copyrighted music, films, or software, Tufts is "required to remove the cited material from the Tufts network."

To deal with file sharing activity that violates the University's Responsible Use Policy for electronic resources (which specifically prohibits copyright violations), Tolman said that Tufts relies on "existing processes [that have been] in place for a while now."

Using a standard process, TCCS isolates the identified computer, restricting access to the Tufts network and notifying the student who registered the machine, Tolman said. "The student is required to remove the copyrighted material or provide proof that the accusation is false."

The University recently administered a questionnaire addressing file sharing habits to the class of 2007. The findings -- the first statistics of this sort to be gathered by the administration -- are below.

· 19% of the class downloads MP3 or other media files from the internet several times a day
· 18% of the class downloads MP3 or other media files from the internet at least once a day
· 28% of the class downloads MP3 or other media files from the internet once a week or more
· 13% of the class downloads MP3 or other media files from the internet at least once a month

Once the accused student has either removed the offending files or proven his or her innocence, Tolman said, "we respond to the original complainant with an outcome and unrestrict the student's computer."

Rubin predicts that the RIAA's crackdown "will scare a whole lot of people into restricting or discontinuing [their] use of file sharing programs." Tolman agrees: "Change is already afoot, witness the number of fee-based music services that provide a way to download -- usually higher quality -- music files legally," she said.

Students, however, are more reserved in their outlooks: "It will be impossible for the RIAA to stop file sharing," Tom said. "As soon as one sharing site is shut down, ten more will spring up to replace it."
http://www.tuftsdaily.com/articleDisplay.jsp?a_id=2150


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RIAA Decries Drop In CD Sales
Benny Evangelista

Sales of music CDs continue to decline, perhaps irreversibly, but U.S. recording industry officials said Tuesday the latest market data justifies their escalating battle against online file sharers.

For the first six months of 2003, shipments of CD albums, singles and other recorded music dropped by 15.8 percent compared with the same period last year,

according to a midyear report by the Recording Industry Association of America.

Overall, recorded music sales are down 31 percent since mid-2000, when the Napster online file-sharing phenomenon was in full bloom, said RIAA President Cary Sherman.

Moreover, sales of top 10 selling albums, which generate the bulk of profits for record labels, have dropped from 60 million units in 2000 to 34 million units last year, Sherman said.

"It's obvious we have a very serious problem," Sherman said. "Those are the revenue streams that have financed this industry, and they are shrinking."

Since June, the RIAA has been gathering evidence to file civil copyright infringement lawsuits against individuals who use file-sharing programs like Kazaa. Sherman declined to talk about when the suits will be filed, but the RIAA has previously said it plans to start suing file sharers by early this month.

Sherman spoke during a news conference on Tuesday on the progress of a joint committee made up of representatives from the entertainment industry and higher education that was formed to address the use of online file-sharing, or peer-to-peer, programs by college students.

"This is not a victimless crime; people are really suffering from the impact of peer-to-peer downloading," Sherman said.

But analyst Phil Leigh said the record industry has to realize that sales of prerecorded music CDs will probably never recover. Indeed, Leigh said, the industry's own sales figures indicate a crackdown on file sharing may actually hasten the decline of the CD.

"The prepackaged CD, without a shadow of a doubt, is over the hill, and it's all downhill from here on," Leigh said.

Leigh, an independent digital media industry analyst, said the "fear factor" caused usage of file-sharing programs to drop about 22 percent in the seven weeks after the RIAA announced its plans to sue individuals.

Yet Leigh noted industry sales reports show the drop in CD sales accelerated during the same period.

Meanwhile, he noted record stores report that blank recordable CDs are outselling recorded CDs, a trend that shows computer users are not only downloading songs, but copying and burning CDs.

With lawsuits against file sharers, "what (the RIAA) might end up doing is breeding more hostility among customers," he said.

During the news conference, however, Sherman said the industry had the right to take steps to survive as a business. "These people have no right to free music," he maintained.

Later, through an RIAA spokeswoman, Sherman said the "issue is not the decline in CDs; it's the decline in people paying for the music that they acquire. We need to get people back into the habit of paying for music, whether it's from record stores or a legal online service."
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl....DTL&type=tech


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Was Computer Search Illegal?
Associated Press

Lawyers for a New York woman accused of unlawfully sharing music over the Internet suggested Tuesday the recording industry acted illegally when it investigated her online activities and that a search of music files on her computer may have been unconstitutional.

The lawyers — Richard Ugelow, Glenn Peterson and Daniel Ballard — are asking a federal magistrate to delay at least until Sept. 10 ordering the woman's Internet provider to turn over her name and address to the Recording Industry Association of America, the trade group for the largest labels.


In court papers, the lawyers said they may argue that the RIAA violated state and federal laws by intercepting the woman's Internet address as its investigators scoured file-sharing networks looking for songs to download.

The woman, identified in court papers only as "nycfashiongirl," is contesting a copyright subpoena served by the music industry on her Internet provider, Verizon Internet Services, to turn over her name and address in preparation for filing a lawsuit.

She is the first to resist such a subpoena.

The RIAA, which has served more than 1,300 such subpoenas, accuses "nycfashiongirl" of offering more than 900 songs by the Rolling Stones, U2, Michael Jackson and others for illegal download, along with 200 other computer files that included at least one full-length movie, Pretty Woman.

The defense team said it also may argue that the music industry was improperly affiliated with law enforcement and thus its perusal of music files on the woman's computer violated Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches.

Matt Oppenheim, RIAA's vice president, called the defense arguments "surprisingly shallow," adding that the claim raising questions about the woman's Internet address "reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of how the Internet works."

Oppenheim also said the RIAA was not affiliated with law enforcement, so restrictions against unreasonable searches do not apply.

"The Fourth Amendment clearly doesn't apply to private parties. You learn that in first-year law school," Oppenheim said.

An outside lawyer agreed.

"Those are two more straws to grasp at," said Evan Cox of Covington & Burling, who has worked with the Business Software Alliance on piracy. "They're not going to get anywhere with that."
http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,60276,00.html


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Aiming at Pornography to Hit Music Piracy
Saul Hansell

The recording industry, struggling to curb music piracy, is shining the spotlight on another demon lurking on the Internet: pornography.

The industry is trying to enlist broader public support with a campaign intended to show that its nemesis — the peer-to-peer networks for swapping files like KaZaA and Morpheus — are used not only to trade songs but also pornographic images, including child pornography.

"As a guy in the record industry and as a parent, I am shocked that these services are being used to lure children to stuff that is really ugly," said Andrew Lack, the chief executive of Sony Music Entertainment.

Others ask whether raising this issue is more than a little cynical from an industry that heavily promotes music with sexual and violent themes.

"The entertainment companies have engaged in a deliberate and despicable campaign of lies to smear peer-to-peer technology for political purposes," said Philip S. Corwin, a lobbyist for Sharman Networks, the publisher of KaZaA, the largest file-sharing service. "They are trying to associate us unfairly with the most vile element in society, child pornography."

Pornography has been actively traded through file-sharing services from their start. But the record labels have recently started lending lobbying and logistical support to antipornography and child protection groups that are raising the issue. For example, Dan Klores Communications, which represents Sony Music and other music clients, has been promoting Parents for Megan's Law, a Long Island group involved with preventing child abuse that has been critical of child pornography available through file- sharing services, like KaZaA.

Their efforts are having some result. A bill has been introduced into the House, with the endorsement of the recording industry, that would require children to get parental consent before using sharing software. And on Tuesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing to look into the connection between file-swapping services and pornography, called by its chairman, Senator Orrin Hatch, a Republican of Utah.

The labels, which blame online piracy for declining music sales, are fighting the downloading services on many fronts. They are trying to make paying for music more attractive through legal downloading services, and in the case of Universal Music Group, the world's largest record company, slashing the price of most its CD's by 30 percent.

They are also trying to turn up the heat on those who continue to download songs without paying for them. This week the Recording Industry Association of America said it was going to start filing hundreds of lawsuits against individuals accused of swapping large numbers of copyrighted songs. The association also is planning to offer an amnesty program that would exempt from prosecution people who destroy all their illegally downloaded songs.

But in perhaps the most extreme sign of the industry's desperation, it is trying to focus the attention of lawmakers and others on how the peer-to-peer, or p2p, services can connect users with a range of ills including computer viruses, software that steals personal information and unwanted pornography.

"P2p stands for piracy to pornography," quipped Mr. Lack.The available evidence does not show that pornography on file-sharing systems is growing any faster than through other online vehicles. Indeed, the federally financed child pornography tip line run by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children found that 1.3 percent of the reports of Internet child pornography were related to file- sharing services so far this year, down from 2.1 percent last year. Nearly three-quarters of child pornography reported is on Web sites. The Web sites typically charge fees for access while the file-sharing services are free.

Mr. Morris of Sharman Networks, which is incorporated in the South Pacific island nation of Vanuatu and managed from Australia, said that most of the pornographic material on file-sharing services was not illegal child pornography but legal material intended for adults. Sharman Networks's affiliate in the United States, Altnet, which tries to profit by selling content through KaZaA, does offer some pornographic material for sale.

"While it may not be what you and I choose to do, adult individuals may share material between themselves the same way adults can watch it on cable television or buy it at airports," Mr. Morris said.

Other distributors of pornography have also embraced the file-sharing networks as a promotional vehicle. They distribute sample pictures and videos in an attempt to attract paying customers to their Web sites.

"The adult industry, like others, is against the illegal downloading of their videos," said Gary Kremen, the chief executive of Sex.com, a directory of sexually explicit Web sites, "but they are much smarter than the music industry. They see p2p as money to be made."
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/07/te...rtne r=GOOGLE


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File-Sharing Alternatives Grow

Legitimate online downloading programs charge fees for services, college students' response mixed
Riley Mcdonald

Picture this: An online music service where music plays instantly without downloading time, song information is always accurate, files are always of good quality and personal music libraries can be pulled up on any computer.

Does it sound too good to be true? Maybe not -- it's Rhapsody, the largest legitimate online music service. There is one caveat -- the service costs $10 a month, plus a per-track fee to burn songs to compact discs.

As record companies campaign to stop unauthorized distribution of copyrighted music, they are relying on a growing number of for-pay online music services to turn the tables on networks that allow illegal file-sharing by providing better services that consumers are willing to purchase.

The Recording Industry Association of America said the alternatives currently available should be enough to keep people away from illegal file-sharing services.

"There's a whole host of exciting options," RIAA Spokesperson Jonathan Lamy said. "In our minds, there's no excuse for people to steal music illegally when they have so many legitimate alternatives."

Others say legal online music services still have work to do in order to attract customers. Rhapsody offers 25,000 albums, but the selection is limited by artists, such as the Dave Matthews Band and Puff Daddy, that do not give permission for their work to be included.

Independent music also will suffer if for-pay programs grow in popularity, according to the Webmasters Alliance, a firm that represents online radio services. It contends that the RIAA is stifling independent music, both in the arena of online radio and through its support of services such as Rhapsody, which provides music only from record labels.

"The bottom line is that they're trying to take every single source of independent music and choke it off," Webmasters Alliance President Ann Gabriel said. "They want to promote their own member-level music."

Despite difficulties in drawing people to paid services they can receive elsewhere for free, the file-swapping phenomenon has sufficiently changed the media landscape so that record companies must find a way to adapt, Computer Science Prof. Alfred Weaver said.

"It becomes a question of economics," Weaver said. "Prices are falling. Record publishers are understandably worried. The question is -- can they price this art in a new and realistic way?"

It will take several years for a price tag on online music to stabilize, Weaver estimated. In the meantime, recording industry executives are working on other alternatives, particularly for college students, according to Lamy.

"Colleges are where the online piracy problem is the worst," Lamy said. "Students have more time than money, and they have ready access to high-speed Internet."

Higher education administrators and entertainment executives formed a committee over a year ago to address illegal file-sharing on university campuses.

"Downloading music or motion pictures can interfere with normal educational activities," said Shelton Steinbach, general counsel for the American Council on Education and a member of the committee. In its search for alternatives, the committee is exploring the possibility of providing students free or reduced-price music through university networks, with the price hidden in student activity fees. University officials said they worry about diverted staff time and have remained cautious about the idea.

"It needs to be discussed more," said Shirley Payne, ITC director for security coordination and internal relations. "We really are hoping that companies like Microsoft and Apple will jump in and fill the gap."

That is what Rhapsody and other legal music services -- such as Press Play and Apple iTunes -- are trying to do.

"It may be hard to imagine, but the fees charged by these services are going to seem worth it," Rhapsody's lead product manager Evan Krasts said. Legal music services rapidly are improving, working to provide music from all artists and expand to different media, Krasts said. Still, Rhapsody only has subscribers in the tens of thousands, as compared to Kazaa's millions of users.

Third-year College student Pete Croft said for-pay music services will never be able to count him as a subscriber.

"There's always another way to get music," Croft said.
http://www.cavalierdaily.com/CVArtic...16406&pid=1030


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Music Industry Claims MP3s Are Traceable
Will Knight

Recording industry lawyers have claimed that detailed analysis of the data in MP3 music files can prove the files were downloaded illegally from an online file-sharing network.

The revelation came with the release of court documents relating to a case against a New York woman. She is accused of sharing 1000 songs through a peer-to-peer file network, using the online pseudonym "nycfashiongirl". She claims to have made the MP3 files found on her computer from CDs that she owned.

But lawyers for the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), which represents the world's largest record companies, write in a court document: "The source for nycfashiongirl's sound recordings was not her own personal CDs."

The RIAA says the username of another computer user was found in the header of one of the MP3s. Headers are routinely used to store a song's title and length, but some MP3 compression software may also add information such as the username of the person who created the file.

The RIAA said that it also examined the digital fingerprints, or "hashes'', of the MP3s and found that some matched those of files previously see on file-sharing networks.

Markus Kuhn, a computer researcher at Cambridge University, UK, says the process of MP3 encoding involves variables that can create tell-tale differences between two files of the same song.

If an MP3 is copied digitally it will be identical. But making the first MP3 involves compressing the output from a
CD, meaning small errors in the sampling process may produce a slightly different final pattern of bits.

Different MP3-making software programs may also compress files in a different way, producing different end results. But Kuhn points out that to his knowledge no-one has yet shown how statistically reliable using such features is in identifying the source of an MP3.

MP3 compression reduces the size of CD digital music files by 90 per cent. This has made it possible to send music over the internet quickly and store thousands of music files on a computer hard drive. The loss in listening quality of the music is minimised by removing sounds in the original file that are calculated to be inaudible to the human ear.

The music industry has been granted more than 1300 US court subpoenas forcing ISPs to reveal the identity of users offering files for download through peer-to-peer networks. Those found guilty could face fines of between $750 and $150,000 for each song.

”so basically just use an id3 tagger and rebuild your mp3 collection with it. Then you can say you made em, since the hash and id3 tag would be unique.”

”or bacically we just finish the war that these bastards started!! If they can mess with you system, and your files, we should seriously start "messing" with them!. It is wrong on so many levels for them to be scanning everything that goes on just to see IF someone has something they shouldn't. The cops dont kick in your door just to see IF you smoke dope, or anything like that. They must have either probably cause or a search warrant. If an artist makes his own music into mp3's and shares them, and they get passed around, according to the RIAA that file has been bounced around enough for those bastards to check you out and see what else you might have, which is an unjustified invasion of privacy. Guys, it's time we stood up and made it very clear that this will not be tolerated. The laws are not for us, they are for them. If the law isn't on there side, they make up ones that are. I say screw the law!! If they wont adhere to it, neither should we. Defend your personal freedom of privacy, even if it means striking first! Strike on behalf of those who already have been summoned to court wrongfully and had their lives disrupted over nothing!!”
http://www.newscientist.com/news/pri...?id=ns99994111


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KaZaA Attacks Google with Writ - Forces Search Engine To Censor Links To Kazaalite
Paul Rotello

Sharman Networks, owner of the number one file sharing service Kazaa Media Desktop has invoked a provision of the controversial Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to force Google - the world's number one search engine, to remove all links pointing to Kazaalite.

Klite as it's known among file sharing aficionados is a "stripped" version of KaZaA, with all of the third party software removed, such as spyware. Klite operates using the proprietary Fasttrack network created by Estonian programmers and licensed to several different companies. Klite is not a licensee. Copyright experts expressed dismay that the DMCA could be so easily used to censor indirect items such as links.

On Sunday August 31st a Google search for "K Lite" returned the following line at the bottom of the screen,

"In response to a complaint we received under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we have removed 3 result(s) from this page."

During the same period however a search for "Kazaa Lite" produced normal, uncensored results. http://www.chillingeffects.org/dmca5...i?NoticeID=789

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RIAA Sue 'Em War Results In Sales Losses

The RIAA's sue 'em all campaign has resulted in a 22% drop in file sharing, but at the same time, CD sales have plummeted by 9.4% and, "Specifically, curtailing file trading may not improve CD sales, but instead may accelerate their decline," US financial analyst Phil Leigh says.

The prepackaged CD format has "seen its best days," he states. "The transformation of recorded music sales from physical distribution to Internet distribution is inevitable."

Leigh, a Raymond James and Associates vp, is quoted in Britain's Macworld. The magazine doesn't say where Leigh's figures come from, and at the time of writing, there was nothing on the RJA site breaking it down.

But, "The initial data is [sic] not encouraging for the labels as it suggests that the fundamental premise underlying their deterrence strategy is flawed," Leigh says.

What to do?

The labels should, "continue their steps in the direction of friendly consumer-use licensing terms for their content to the legitimate Internet music distributors," he says and, adds Macworld, he, "predicts that once the labels enjoy profits from the new medium, then movie studios will be 'right behind them', predicting a second wave of legal distribution services."
http://www.boycott-riaa.com/article/7543


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Anonymous Freenet P2P Software About To Improve

The Freenet Project aims to produce an anonymous P2P (Peer-To- Peer) file sharing program, which would guarantee the users security and privacy. As we can see from the recent news items, there definitely is a huge demand for a solution that keep the users safe from the authorities’ actions.

So far Freenet hasn’t gained too many users, even though the project has received some media attention. The software is not ready to challenge more popular P2P clients (Kazaa, Direct Connect..) in terms of usability. Also, the high security routing method has been extremely slow.

But there is hope that the routing issue will be soon solved, which would definitely help Freenet to gain more users. The Freenet Project is now inviting advanced users to test their next generation routing. The new method promises to be possibly the most efficient P2P network ever seen and still maintaining the security and privacy.

The core idea behind the Next Generation Routing design is to make Freenet nodes much smarter about deciding where to route information. For each node reference in its routing table, a node will collect extensive statistical information including response times for requesting particular keys, the proportion of requests which succeed in finding information, and the time required to establish a connection in the first place. When a new request is received, this information is used to estimate which node is likely to be able to retrieve the data in the least amount of time, and that is the node to which the request is forwarded.

Freenetproject.org

http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/4421.cfm


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Karaoke – Okay But Where Are The Lyrics?
Xavier Galland

I recently started to reorganised my MP3 files – all legally acquired of course, until last week I believed “peer to peer” was the name of some medieval knighting ceremony. As is often the case in that kind of situation I came across a number of files I had forgotten I had downloa... (oops! “purchased”) and I ended up spending more time listening to my files that actually sorting them out.

The whole experience was rather pleasant except for one thing. I don’t know about you but I am one of those frustrated and unacknowledged geniuses whose talent has never been recognised by society.

On that particular day my talent was of a great singer and I was ready to entertain my neighbours for nothing when I realised I had forgotten all the lyrics of the songs I wanted to serenade them with. How frustrating for me! Not to mention how lucky for them...

I did not give up however and I figured I could get all those lyrics on the Internet. Too right I could! I got online and within a few seconds had googled my way to the aptly named LyricsFind.com (at http://www.lyricsfind.com/).

The main quality of this site is that it cuts through the bovine excrement and gets you immediately where you want to be, ie in front of a song lyrics search facility. No fancy features of the “please register” or “sign up for our newsletter” type; just plain song lyrics – which is a good thing considering that this is what brought you there in the first place.

There are two ways you can find the lyrics of a song. First, you can click on a letter and get a listing of all the singers or groups whose name begins with that letter and the number of songs by them that are archived on the site. You can then click on a name to get a clickable list of these songs.

If you know exactly what song you want and are 100 per cent sure of the title you can simply enter that in a text box and click “Search”. It is very likely that the search engine will find it as there are literally thousands of archived songs on the site.

Worth noting is the fact that the look of the site is as attractive as its content is adequate.

Apart from the lyrics themselves the site has other sections including the traditional “What’s new” where you can check new additions, and a list of the “Most popular” lyrics on the site. The home page even offers a series of links to other lyrics sites. You can add yours to the list if you have one.

The Forum section – for which you need to register (free) – is rather uninteresting and, as such, is almost unused.
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/page...ess=1&id=20019


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ON FILM : Coming to a PC Download Near You: Films Go Online
Philip MARTIN

For some time now, people with the scantiest amount of Internet savvy, a willingness to trespass into gray legal precincts and the patience to wait the necessary hours for huge files to download have been able to watch movies on their home computers. Some of you might have watched The Hulk that way. A movie fan in Northwest Arkansas I know obtained a pre-release version of 28 Days Later that way.

We can argue about the morality of such acts or about the aesthetic compromises implicit in watching a movie on a computer screen. We might all agree the best way to see a movie is in a darkened theater surrounded by like-minded people, that the optimal movieseeing experience is communal. On the other hand, it’s better to watch a video than not see a given movie (though there are plenty of movies that ought to remain unseen). And there are far more movies than available screens, especially in Arkansas.

So there are any number of reasons you might be interested in hearing about Transmission Films (www. trans missionfilms. com), an online film distribution service that features independent and foreign films. Here’s the deal: You go to the Web site, browse through a library of films, and if you find one you want to watch you can download a copy of it for $1.99. The film will remain on your hard drive for five days before dissolving into digital ether — the transaction is analogous to a five-day rental.

Or you can buy a permanent copy for $9.99, which in essence is a license to download the film and either store it on your hard drive or burn it onto a disk (because the movie’s encrypted, the disk won’t play on a DVD player or on any computer other than the one it was downloaded to, but this will save you some space on your hard drive).

A third option is a monthly subscription. For $4.99 you get an all-access pass to the Transmission library; you can watch all the films you want for a month.

It’s got an interesting selection — films from Un Chien Andalou and Hiroshima, Mon Amour to a couple of Memphis filmmaker John Michael Mc-Carthy’s Southern exploitation movies. If you missed Doug Hawes’ documentary Killing Coyote, you can catch it on the Web site. Same goes for Roman Polanski’s surreal black comedy Cul-de-Sac. "We’re really niche-oriented," Transmission co-president Richard Matson says. "Instead of amalgamating a ton of content and just slapping it up there, we’re more of a curated library."

Matson — a Little Rock native who went to film school and has worked in the industry for the past six years — started the company with software engineer Jed McCaleb (also a Little Rock native) and producer Stephanie Sharis. While the site has been up and running for about a year, it only announced itself last week. Now it’s open for general business — all you need is a credit card and a PC (sorry, at the present time, Mac people can’t play) to participate. "We think this will be a good resource for people in Arkansas who don’t necessarily have access to independent film," Matson says. "Plus it’s a way to give some revenue to filmmakers."

It’s even possible that a film might be "discovered" online. "After debuting a film on Transmission, a filmmaker can approach theatrical and video distributors and say, ‘ I had my film on the Web for three months and X number of people from around the world watched it. This film does have an audience, ’" Matson says. "A smart distributor won’t see this as cannibalizing the audience, but rather as very clever film marketing that doesn’t cost him a cent."

One of the most popular films during the site’s Beta phase, German filmmaker Tomi Streiff ’s Wedding Cow, received a theatrical distribution deal after its run on Transmission.

Without getting too technical, the Transmission site utilizes peer-to-peer technology — it’s essentially a file-sharing system like Napster was. "But we’re obtaining the rights to the films that we’re selling," Matson says. "Right now we’re really the only solution out there in the movie world that’s using peer-to-peer."

Matson’s prime responsibility with the company involves film acquisition — he secures the rights to the movies from the filmmakers. Which is interesting, since few people make movies with an eye to having them wind up online. "No, they’re not going to come to us first, because they’re still interested in having Miramax pick them up," Matson says. But fiscal realities kick in, and people are beginning to realize that — if they’re lucky — sooner or later someone is going to be distributing their film online. "They just didn’t know where it fit, there wasn’t a distribution model for the Internet," Matson says. But then CinemaNow (www. cinemanow . com), an online distribution site for mainstream Hollywood films, picked up Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets before it went to video, and it became apparent there is a window for online distribution.

While Transmission Films is differentiated from larger services such as CinemaNow by virtue of its specialized content, the peer-to-peer model offers certain technological advantages. Transmission users have the option of viewing the films they select immediately, but if they choose to download the film they can receive the complete file in as little as half an hour. "You pretty much have to have broadband to use it," Matson says, adding that to download a file through dial-up service would take "hours and hours."

While the quality of the films on the site approaches DVD quality, Matson admits there are certain compromises. The Transmission version of Hiroshima, Mon Amour, he says, isn’t the equal of the Criterion Collection DVD. But the Criterion version lists for $39.99, and you can own the Transmission version for $9.99. E-mail:
http://www.nwanews.com/adg/story_Sty...?storyid=40278


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A Look At Music Piracy
Cristina Daglas

Freshman. Dorm room. Computer screen. Kazaa search: Mound/ Phish.

30 seconds later ...

Download complete.

What happens when this single download turns into a recurring habit? What happens when this student gets slapped with a fine of more than $15,000 in damages owed to the recording industry?

This individual has now been thrown into the shoes of four college students sued by recording industries for downloading and sharing thousands of files illegally.

Summer developments, good and bad

Throughout last summer, the recording industry brought subpoenas, lawsuits and online music stores to the surface in an effort to curb online piracy.

However, another group of individuals began discussion of an alternate approach to online piracy directed primarily toward college students, whom many believe to be the primary offenders. Talk began of a possible system that would ultimately allow colleges and individual college students to pay a small fee in order to legally access music online.

Two meetings were held in the summer months to discuss the possibility of a pilot program to test this fall at several colleges and universities.

Graham B. Spanier, president of Pennsylvania State University at University Park and co-chairman of the technology subcommittee of the Committee on Higher Education and the Entertainment Industry, said a higher-education board created last June has considered asking universities to foot the bill for electronic music.

"Representatives from higher education met with a broad range of executives from the music industry in New York to discuss the concept of universities paying a fee so that students would have extensive access to music electronically over the Web," Spanier said.

Online service providers attended the most recent meeting as well and are currently developing a potential program. Spanier also said recording companies, publishers, songwriters and performers were represented at the table.

"Solutions would require the cooperation of all rights holders to make this possible," Spanier said.

Individuals involved in the meeting's discussion have said some higher- education officials are hesitant to set up such a system that would block peer-to-peer networks such as Kazaa that in the eyes of some would then limit a student's "academic freedom." But universities may have to block these networks to please record companies and music publishers.

"It's difficult to say that all of the use of file-sharing programs is illegal," said Brian Rust, communications manager with the Division of Information Technology at the University of Wisconsin. He said students need to use similar types of programs in some music- appreciation classes to gain access to music that has been licensed for classroom use.

John Vaughn, executive vice president of the Association of American Universities, attended the most recent meeting. Although he said that the overall mood of the meeting was positive, skepticism does persist.

"Some music services aren't sure they are going to be able to adapt their style of operation to fit a campus. Some question whether a university would participate ... as well as the students," Vaughn said. "This would cost something. And now students are getting music for free."
http://www.badgerherald.com/vnews/di.../3f4e379b59379


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Sony's Linux DVR Can Record Two Weeks of TV
Posted by michael

from the brain-burn dept.

DoctorNo writes "Sony will introduce - in Japan only - a Linux based video recorder in early November which can store 342 hours of content with 500GB of hard drive space. As well as the highend machine, Sony will also offer a cut down version with a 250GB drive. They will be priced at $1380(500GB) and $1035(250GB). More information, specs , and pictures (Japanese). Add another to the list of consumer Linux devices..."
http://slashdot.org/articles/03/09/0...id=137&tid=188

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Bounty Hunters
David Neiger

Frustrated by university students downloading and trading music files in breach of copyright, the Australian music industry has decided to hit back by suing students and commercial pirates responsible for file sharing websites.

The Federal Court recently ruled that universities must hand over student or staff details if the recording industry seeks information about students or staff caught infringing copyright.

The University of Sydney, University of Melbourne and University of Tasmania have been instructed by the court to provide copies of millions of files to assist an investigation by the music industry.

Paul Robinson, chief operating officer of EMI Australia, says the entertainment industry is losing out to illegal pirating activities, despite the consumption of music increasing.

Robinson estimates the global figure for CD piracy at 28 per cent of all CD sales, which he says is costing the Australian music industry more than $150 million in lost revenue.

The music industry has set up Music Industry Piracy Investigations (MIPI), an anti-piracy unit charged with tracking down and prosecuting pirates.

MIPI has, until recently, focused on stopping the import and sale of pirate CDs. It has now turned its attention to universities to halt piracy of downloadable music files.

The anti-piracy unit claims caches of illegal music files are stored on servers at several universities. It has approached the universities to obtain copies of files, emails and server logs to use as evidence, as well as to obtain name and address details of the students responsible.

Tony Farrell, the executive director of finance and administration at the University of Tasmania, says that "MIPI has been seeking to conduct a broad trawling exercise through student and staff data" rather than going after specific infringers.

According to Farrell, this was like "searching every house in the street on the basis that they think there might be something of an illegal nature that occurred in one house" and was completely unacceptable to the universities, which have an obligation to protect the privacy of student and staff data.

But according to Michael Speck, general manager of MIPI, "total lack of co-operation from the universities compelled the three record companies involved to commence proceedings".

MIPI, on behalf of the record companies, wants "evidence of the infringements preserved and the details of the infringements, including details of the infringers, handed over", Speck says.

Although both the universities and MIPI are claiming victory, the court ultimately directed the universities to hand over student details and allow a MIPI forensic expert access to the back-up tapes and other data to obtain copies of the specific copyright infringements. Although the students themselves have yet to face the music, so to speak, MIPI has nevertheless won the right to obtain information from the owners of computer systems when an infringement takes place.

However, universities aren't the only targets in MIPI's sights. According to Speck, anyone or any organisation that profits from the file-sharing piracy will be investigated - including internet service providers.

"[The] internet industry knowingly makes a large profit from the illegal traffic of sound recordings," he says. "[MIPI will] pursue significant and commercial level infringers ... that is the people deriving the massive profits from this activity."

However, the music industry is not likely to pursue individuals who turn their album collections into digital music for portable players or to sit on the hard drives, so long as they don't share large amounts of it. "[MIPI is] not interested in the digital equivalent of home taping," Speck says.

By targeting internet service providers, the music industry hopes to starve the still free-flowing piracy on file-sharing networks. If MIPI is successful, it is possible ISPs will have to pay copyright fees to the music industry. Observers suggest this may result in higher internet charges being passed on to home users and businesses.

Infofile

Unlike US law, which the law permits the making of copies of copyright material for "fair usage" (such as copying a song to an MP3 player or PC), Australian law prohibits you from making any copies, even if you own the CD. This means that every time you rip files from a CD, you have committed a criminal act that, technically, could land you in jail for up to five years.

History of pirates

· 1993 The birth of MP3 means music files could be compressed to a manageable size.
· 1998 MP3 rippers allow users to easily copy songs from CDs, compress them, place them on websites and download them.
· 1999 Napster file sharing network allows millions of people to easily share and locate MP3 files stored on their hard drives. The US music industry launches anti-piracy proceedings against Napster's founders.
· 2000-2002 Napster shuts down, but other peer-to-peer networks that do not exist in a central location, such as iMesh and Gnutella, take its place.
· 2002 In a game of cat and mouse, the music industry moves to shut down peer-to-peer networks and infringers by going to court.
· 2003 Music Industry Piracy Investigations (MIPI) takes Australia's universities to court to weed out pirated music on school networks.

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/...050658496.html


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CRT Monitors Are Dead, Monitor Firm Says

Ours is still alive

By INQUIRER staff:

A MANUFACTURER of monitors has predicted that by the end of next year, cathode ray tube (CRT) monitors will be obsolete in 2004.

They've had a good run. The name "cathode ray" comes from a time 100 years ago when no one really understood the phenomenon.

According to CTX, LCD monitors only accounted for six per cent of total sales in 2001, compared to 94% of CRT sales. Last year, LCD monitors accounted for 42% of revenues and in this year, according to Peter Hollman, president of CTX Europe, these type of screens will amount to 54% of revenues. In Western Europe.

So what about the 46% of CRT sales? Hollmann claims these will mostly be sold into Eastern and Central Europe, where, he claims, price is "still the main driver".

He claims that LCD monitors will drive the CRT monitors out of the market. He says that's an irreversible process.

So, while you can, buy the biggest CRT screen you can for the cheapest price. But that's what we're saying, not him. We really quite like our iiyama CRT.
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=11372


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Two Kinds Of Burn
Adam Turner

DVD burners are increasing in speed and falling in price, enough to make it possible for smaller PC vendors to offer good-value systems with a DVD burner for less than $2000. However, the speed with which drive makers have combined both DVD-R/RW and DVD+R/RW formats into the one drive has been a pleasant surprise. Until Sony launched the first dual-format burner late last year, it seemed that the poor old consumer would be left to decide which format would survive, as was the case in the VHS-Beta debacle of the 1980s. While other vendors including Pioneer have now launched dual-format burners, the new DRU-510A is Sony's second-generation dual-format burner - although the differences between this and the original DRU-500A are minor. The original drive could burn DVD-R discs at 4X- speed, DVD+R/RW discs at 2.4X-speed and DVD-RW at 2X-speed. The DRU- 510A increases all DVD burn speeds to 4X, except DVD-RW, which is stuck at 2X- speed. As with the DRU-500A, the DRU-510A also burns CD-Rs (24X-speed) but burns CD-RW discs at the new high 16X-speed.

It follows the same design pattern as the DRU-500A and includes software, IDE power splitter cable and IDE data cable just in case your system needs it. Thankfully, Sony has improved the burning software by incorporating the full version of RecordNow DX from Veritas. This version is ideal for those who are unfamiliar with CD/DVD burning and those who wish to retain more control over what's going on. It's basically the same software Pioneer uses in its DVR-A05 and new DVR- A06 dual-format drive. We tested the DRU-510A with a 3.6GB burn on 4X-speed DVD+R media using an Athlon XP 3200+ PC, and the process took 13 minutes and 17 seconds, as expected. Although we used a high-speed PC to test the drive, you can get away with a much slower system burning at a full 4X-speed - even a 1GHz Pentium III would be fine, provided your hard-disk drive is fast enough to sustain the 5.4Mbps data transfer required. With new drives including improved memory buffers (8MB in the DRU-510A) and software that automatically adjusts the burning process for slower PCs, it's far more difficult to create a useless "coffee coaster" than it was in the early days of CD burners. If your PC's hard-disk drive can't keep up, the burning process now just takes longer. The original DRU-500A burner is still on the market, as are a number of older burners, but before you consider a bargain, be aware that many older drives (including the DRU-500A) require a firmware upgrade in order to burn 4X-speed discs. If you have an older DVD burner and you're having trouble using 4X-speed media, even if you're not trying to burn at 4X-speed, try heading to your vendor's website and checking for a firmware upgrade. There's no doubting the DRU-510A is a versatile drive but with other vendors such as Panasonic claiming that they will have 6X- and 8X-speed drives before the end of the year, I'd be tempted to wait.

Sony's DRU-510A DVD burner retails for $599. For more details call 1300 13 7669 or visit www.sony.com.au
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/...663722553.html


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Full Dorms Mean Files Will Flow, Violate Law
The university has a disciplinary procedure for file-sharing but does not monitor individual users.
Danny Woodward

Reports of piracy are likely to increase as students return to campus, said Sean Lanham, Information Technology security manager.

That’s mostly because the dorms are full again, he said. In the past year, he said, every report of piracy levied against someone at the university except one was for someone living in on-campus housing.

Lanham said he didn’t have a total number of reported violations, but he’s fighting to make it zero in the future.

So is the music industry.

The Recording Industry Association of America has recently issued about 1,000 subpoenas to universities nationally, asking for names of students who share files. The organization also sued four college students this spring, saying they operated file- sharing programs on campus servers. Those suits were settled with the students shutting down their programs and paying as much as $17,000 to the RIAA.

“The law is clear, and the message to those who are distributing substantial quantities of music online should be equally clear,” Cary Sherman, the association’s attorney told a New Mexico newspaper earlier this week. “This activity is illegal. You’re not anonymous when you do it, and engaging in it can have real consequences.”

That’s true at UTA, too.

If an organization such as the RIAA finds a student here in violation of copyright laws, they’ll write a letter to Lanham’s office. Lanham will, in turn, tell the help desk, Dean of Students Austin Lane and, if the student lives on campus, the Housing Office. Lanham also blocks that user’s computer from network and Internet access until the student removes file-sharing software.

“It’s definitely taken very seriously,” Lanham said. “If we don’t deal with it, they could sue you or the university, and the university is going to make sure they’re not liable.”

Lane said the penalty for file-sharing here can be as stiff as expulsion. Students first receive a warning from Lane and remove the software themselves.

“We typically discuss with them copyright violations,” Lane said. “We talk to them about laws and what to be aware of. A lot of times, students don’t even know they’re breaking copyright laws. They’re really clueless as to what they have done. It’s not malicious. But we don’t want students to take things that aren’t theirs.”

Lane said he has never disciplined the same student more than once, which to him means students are complying. No one has received more punishment than the warning.

“We lean more on the side of being educators and just making them aware of the guidelines,” Lane said.

But nothing in the university handbook outlines regulations about file-sharing, although copyright laws are discussed on the university Web site. Lanham said he plans soon to produce a document to educate about file-sharing.

“We need a policy,” he said. “This is for the protection of the university and the user.”

The last complaint filed against someone on campus was May 29, when the Interactive Digital Software Association found a student here had illegally downloaded a video game using Kazaa, a popular file-sharing program.

University guidelines prohibit installing programs like Kazaa on campus computers. But in dorms, when the computers are more likely private-owned, anything goes. Blocks on the network are designed to prevent such programs from working, though it’s not fail- safe.

“I’m not going to say we block it 100 percent,” Lanham said. “But we are taking steps. ... I think that if we removed the blocks, within minutes [peer-to-peer] traffic would skyrocket on campus.”

So the blocks will remain. They’re for students’ protection, Lanham said.

“At UTA, we don’t watch what you’re doing,” he said. “We’ve got plenty of other problems ... It’s reported to me from the IDSA or the RIAA or whoever it is out there. They’re the ones protecting that work for the owner.”
http://www.theshorthorn.com/archive/...082903-01.html


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captured characters from our (very long ago) past
lessig

The Stanford CIS has been working on a case for a long time to establish the public domain status of Peter Pan. (The Internet has apparently already recognized it. Check out the Google search on Peter Pan). We represent a Canadian author, Emily Somma, who has written a sequel to the public domain portions of the Peter Pan story, called “After the Rain.” Somma was threatened by the rights holders of the Peter Pan-related work still under copyright. The essence of their claim is that so long as anything Peter Pan related is under copyright/trademark protection, everything is. (The rights holder is a children’s hospital in England, which has meant (1) that service of our complaint has been severely delayed by the UK government, and (2) that we get lots of nasty letters from people who think a charity should have the right to do whatever it wants so long as it benefits children. I’m all for charities, and especially for charities benefitting children, but threatening an author who is simply building upon the public domain is not the stuff a charity should be doing.)

ANYWAY, while practicing my Danish (not really: I am totally language illiterate) I came across another wonderful example of this increasing practice.

According to this story, there’s a Danish character called “Gummi-Tarzan” that has been forced to drop “Tarzan” from its name by the ever-pleasant Disney Corporation. This because Disney believes it owns “Tarzan.” This because Disney has trademark protection in a bunch of Disney work that builds upon Edgar Rice Burrough’s “Tarzan,” even though Burrough’s Tarzan originates from 1914, and is therefore within the public domain. Nonetheless, from now on, Gummi-Tarzan must be referred to as Gummi-T.

The public domain was supposed to be a lawyer-free zone. So much for how things were supposed to be. (Thanks to Joergen Ramskov and Thomas Wesley Hinton for porting the story into a form that the I could understand.)
http://www.lessig.org/blog/archives/001448.shtml


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AnyDVD Is A Must Have Utility

Review Charlie D falls in love again
Charlie Demerjian

A FEW WEEKS AGO, I was raving about my love for Clone DVD , a tool for making copies of any DVD you are legally allowed to. It was easy to use, rather pretty, and had a pleasant user interface. Unfortunately, it won't let you do illegal things like copy CSS encrypted movies or even play with out of region movies. I deducted .1 out of 10 for that during the review, mainly because I knew it wasn't Elaborate Bytes who were forcing this 'oversight', but the MPAA and the throngs of lawyers they possess.

This still left me ducking my head with shame every time a friend brought over a stack of Japanese movies, and my DVD player thoughtfully flashed the 'wrong region, go away fool' message. Oh the scorn that was heaped on me, even the best tools did not help. How could I watch the legally purchased DVDs if both my computer and DVD player both choked on the discs? Was there no hope for this poor reviewer?

Actually, there was. In early July, a little company called Slysoft (here), based on the beautiful island of Antigua (here) had just the product for me, AnyDVD. It was love at first sight.

This little utility is little more than a driver that sits below the standard windows DVD driver and does some filtering on the fly. It will change region codes to one that your drive or software finds more acceptable, and remove all those little annoyances that drive you up the wall. Things like Macrovision, Scripts, and non-skippable commercials that drive you up the #(*&^$# wall are a thing of the past. Just pick settings from the System Tray icon, and check the things you no longer want to see, and you are done.

Before you start wondering how all this is done, let me backtrack and tell you a little about the installation. You download the software from SlySoft's site, and open the installer. It chugs away for about a minute, and then asks you to reboot. Once you do, there is an icon in the System Tray of a little fox head. Hovering over it gives you a little status popup, and clicking gives you a menu. Other than turn AnyDVD on or off, the only things you can do are on the settings menu, pictured above. If you have any trouble with the settings, you probably are to stupid to avoid choking to death, gumming a DVD, while mumbling 'shiny' over and over.

Other than turning on or off the features on a DVD, there is nothing that this software does. It just sits there and works. I have run it for just over 2 weeks now, and there has not even been the most minor of problems. They are actively developing the product, with a mind boggling 13 versions in the less than 2 months since it was released. While I have not encountered any, I would be surprised if any bugs were not fixed quickly. All companies should release software like this.

Overall, I think AnyDVD is a must have utility. I will forgo the usual numbered rating and simply say get it. If you have a DVD burner, or have a thing for movies, especially foreign ones, this handy utility will make life easy again. I am finally able to watch all those movies on my own TV, with my own equipment thanks to AnyDVD. There is a free 21 day trial, and you can upgrade that to the real version with a simple registry key after you buy it. It couldn't be easier.
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=11297


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Tipping Hollywood The Black Spot

The movie business is not doing enough to ward off the threat of digital piracy

AS HOLLYWOOD bosses know all too well, digital piracy could plunder their industry. The music business, where piracy has long been active, has lost a quarter of its sales already. Watching its plight, the movie moguls say, has taught them a lesson: listen to what the customer wants and keep the business model flexible. But investors are not convinced that Hollywood's leaders are on top of the piracy threat. Like Scarlett O'Hara in “Gone with the Wind”, says Gordon Crawford, an investor at Capital Research and Management in Los Angeles, many have decided to do something about it tomorrow.

It is true that movies are not yet as vulnerable as music. Hollywood starts from a better position. Its products are priced more reasonably than CDs. People want to watch all of a film, so there is no incentive to download a single track. It can take days to download a movie from the internet, unlike a song, which takes minutes.

But rampant DVD piracy may be coming soon, both in the form of traditional counterfeiting and downloading from the internet. Hard pirated copies are widespread, and will proliferate further with the spread of DVD recorders and burners. Already as many as 600,000 movie files are shared each day on peer-to-peer file-sharing networks such as Morpheus and Grokster, according to the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). That number is likely to soar as more households get broadband internet and compression technology cuts download time.

Movie industry bosses say that they are doing plenty to combat the threat. As well as helping local police with raids on counterfeiters, they are devising “digital rights management” (DRM) techniques, such as deleting content after the user has “consumed” it. They are also offering movies cheaply online and seeking new laws. This week they won a battle against pirates when California's Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment right to free speech cannot be used as a defence by someone publishing trade secrets on the internet—in this case, software to break DVD copy protection.

Next will come an Orwellian project to “re-educate” the young. With Junior Achievement, a volunteer teaching organisation, the MPAA has developed a
curriculum for use in 36,000 American classrooms which teaches that swapping content is wrong. Older file sharers will be hard to persuade, however, and hackers can usually get around any copy protection the industry devises. According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, 65% of people who share music and video files online say they do not care if material is copyrighted. Last month, the MPAA tried an emotional approach, with a series of adverts in which a set painter, a stuntman, a make-up artist, a grip and an animator explain how piracy hurts them, not just the big bosses. The campaign is unlikely to have much effect, industry-watchers say, as everyone knows how many millions the latest blockbuster grossed and how much the star got.

To frighten people, the big music firms are going after individuals in court. Movie firms reckon that this will help them too, though for now they are leaning on universities to stop their students file-sharing. One studio suggests that parents could be presented with a bill for their child's downloading activities at college, and degrees could be withheld until someone pays. Universities may stand by their students, however. For the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to withhold degrees, says a spokesman, the student would have to be a “serious recidivist”. This month a federal judge ruled that MIT, along with Boston College, need not obey subpoenas from the music industry seeking the names of students it suspects of being heavy file sharers, if only because they were filed from the wrong jurisdiction. Legal attacks may scare people, but risk alienating customers and making them try harder to rip off the industry, which cannot, even in America, sue everyone.

Although Hollywood executives say they want to listen to customers, most of their efforts have been to stop and punish downloaders, not to make their products more attractive—with one exception. Five studios have launched Movielink, an online site charging $3-5 to download a movie. But the service is still “clunky”, admits a studio spokesperson. It cannot beat a good video store either for range of titles or for having the latest releases. Customers do not end up owning the film.

Assuming it is not resigned to milking all it can from its customers while awaiting inevitable demise at the hands of the pirates, the movie industry should rethink its business model. Movielink might be improved. Prices might be cut to reduce the appeal of piracy. Hollywood should lower the price of DVDs from today's $15-20 to $7-10, says Tom Wolzien, an analyst at Sanford Bernstein, and go for volume. The studios have packed their DVDs full of extra content—director's cuts, and so on—supposedly offering more value. Why not sell a no-frills, cheaper version? asks James Roberts, a consultant at Mercer.

Studios might also change how they release movies. Opening a blockbuster in America but not in Britain, for instance, increases demand for pirate copies, as does holding back a movie from release on DVD and video. The studios need to shorten their release windows, says Michael Wolf, director of McKinsey's global media and entertainment practice. They have done this a bit already, he says—with simultaneous global “day-and-date” releases of, say, X-Men 2—but not enough.

In the 1980s, software companies used to fight online pirates with DRM technology. But they found that copy protection annoyed users, and got rid of it. The makers of Lotus 1-2-3, a spreadsheet program, abandoned it after finding that they had merely created a new market for software that could defeat copy protections. Now the music industry is realising that often some of the downloaders it labels as thieves are actually trying out music before they buy it, and that controlled, legal file-sharing could be a marketing tool. Viral marketing of that kind, says John Rose, head of the anti-piracy effort at EMI, a music company, could be powerful. Hollywood should take note.

The outlook would be much less grim if the entertainment business could do a deal with the firms that make electronic gadgets. For copy protection to work, hardware needs to spot it. So far, says an investor, Hollywood has not had the top-level discussions that it needs with consumer electronics and PC manufacturers. Part of the reason, he says, is that piracy is not being tackled by the bosses of media companies. The task gets delegated. But even if Sumner Redstone, chairman of Viacom, were sitting down with Sony's chief, Nobuyuki Idei, the discussion might not go far. The consumer-electronics industry has little to gain by making products that seriously hinder piracy, as these would be unattractive to customers and hurt sales.

If the movie industry does not work out its position quickly, says Mr Wolzien, it could go the same way as music. This might even mean that actors would be paid a lot less. Some are well aware of this. Several movie stars, says a studio executive, even offered to appear for nothing (nothing!) in the MPAA's anti-piracy adverts, but were turned down. This time, understandably, the industry pointed the cameras at its humbler members.
http://economist.com/PrinterFriendly...ory_ID=2024396


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New “Copy Proof” CD’s

Sony Disc Manufacturing successfully manufacture Kool Keith’s newest release “Thee Undatakerz” using Consumer Surround Sound Inc. revolutionary CS2CD format.
Press Release

Consumer Surround Sound Inc. (CS2), a privately held Delaware corporation, announces a major milestone. Sony Disc Manufacturing (SDM), a major disc replicating facility in Terre Haute IN, successfully manufactures CS2’s flagship product, the CS2CD. CS2CD version 2.0 allows DVD playable video and slide shows to reside on Compact Disc albums and singles, without interruption of traditional CD listening practices in CD players. Recommended DVD players include Panasonic, Toshiba, Pioneer, Philips, RCA, GE, Daewoo, Apex, all Chinese made DVD players and PC CD/DVD-ROM drives. Other brands may apply. Activate entertainment’s title “Kool Keith presents Thee Undatakerz” made the replication debut of the format at SDM through an exclusive replication agreement between SDM and 101 Distribution, the distributor of Activate’s current title.

“This is a big day for us, as well as for the music industry around the world. Everyone is looking for the format that will salvage and revive music retail. CS2CD is the only format that can do so” said founder and CEO of Consumer Surround Sound Inc. William Grecia in a prepared statement. “I have been developing the final version of the CS2CD for three years, and some believed this product would never reach replication at a major facility. Not only did CS2CD achieve replication status, but the process is plant friendly.” When asked about the accompanying CS2ADC technology on the CS2CD, Mr. Grecia continued to add “CS2ADC prevent full 1:1 faithful cloning of a CS2CD disc as a whole. Unlike other restrictive commercial “copy protections”, CS2ADC allow full CD audio playback in PC’s and DVD players. CS2ADC is the perfect balance between retaining consumers “fair use” rights, and the music industry need for a retail product that consumers cannot (re)create with a CD/DVD burner. Mass piracy and duplication of this format is not an issue for my clients.” When asked about the significance of a major record label’s replication facility manufacturing the CS2CD, he concluded “Major record companies can use this format to boost and revive retail. My indie clients are replicating at the same places the big guys are. My next goal is to make a big impression at the upcoming CES show.”
http://mi2n.com/press.php3?press_nb=56120


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The Era of Entitlement



What Alabama Judge Roy Moore, File "Sharers," and the Catholic Church Have in Common
Marci Hamilton

This is the Age of Entitlement. I do not mean entitlement only in the sense of the belief that one is entitled to a government handout. I also mean entitlement in the simpler sense of the belief that one deserves to get exactly what one wants - regardless of the law and despite the public good.

Four examples drawn from recent legal controversies illustrate this point. In each, the law made clear what the right thing to do was. But in each, the culprit insisted on doing something else - something they insisted that, illegal or not, they were entitled to do.

The "Entitlement" to Free Music

In my last column, I went to bat for the Recording Industry Association of America, applauding its decision to file copyright infringement suits against student infringers. I have not always been on RIAA's side, but on this issue, they are doing the right thing. In response, I received numerous emails from individuals who hold the belief that they have an entitlement to free music on the web.

They argued that their lawbreaking and copyright infringement are justified because they believe the market is inefficient; or the RIAA and its members take too much money away from the artists (so therefore file sharers are entitled to take even more?); or that CDs are too expensive; or that copyright law is not properly structured to permit full technological innovation on the web - or all of the above. One student even argued that he needed to take the music because he does not have a credit card!

In sum, they offered one reason after another why they were entitled to their free music now. But they offered precious few plans to try to alter the system through legal channels--for example, by boycotting the elements of the industry they oppose, or by lobbying Congress.

File sharers may invoke policy arguments, but actions speak louder than words: They are not interested in the good of the system, but rather in their own selfish advantage. And so they feel they cannot be expected to wait for the system to change - or to work for that result. Calling this attitude a sense of entitlement may even be overly generous. Selfishness may be a better, and simpler, word.
http://writ.news.findlaw.com/hamilton/20030828.html