Peer-To-Peer News - The Week In Review – June 12th, '04

[JackSpratts]

Quotes Of The Week

"The long-term strategic threat to the entertainment industry is that people will get in the habit of creating and making as much as watching and listening, and all of a sudden the label applied to people at leisure, 50 years in the making — consumer — could wither away." – Jonathan Zittrain

"We think Neely has crafted an as of yet unnamed new art form, one everyone should experience for themselves. – Carrie McLaren, Illegal-art.org

"We've set a precedent with the first case. There'll be more cases." – Gerd Gebhardt, president of the German Phono Federation

"Sharing files does not stifle creativity any more than playing an artist's music on radio does. If it really did reduce the financial rewards for manufactured boy-bands and made-for-TV pop idols this would be a strong point in its favour." - William Heath




Refried Wizards

I’m not a huge fan of Harry Potter – the movies anyway, although I thought the first book was aces. Since that one came out I’ve read them all. The porky follow-ups fell back on themselves derivatively and in spite of the tender age of the intended audience, left them shortchanged on plot development and imagination. To wit: Harry has a horrible vacation. Harry goes back to school in a funny way. Harry must do the impossible which almost gets him expelled (and killed). The bad guy gets away. The end. The stories are interesting if workmanlike and can occasionally reach novel heights but in the end they’re just not in same league as say Philip Pullman’s shattering “His Dark Materials” trilogy. That’s a mind blowing series. Staring with The Golden Compass it’s a trilogy that takes its’ rightful place alongside Tolkien and other children’s fantasy works of the first order. Harry is well, kids’ stuff in comparison, and the first movie acknowledged as much with it’s liberal use of cartoonish 3-D CGI and live characters that were buffoonish and two dimensional. Not that any of this hurts sales. The books and DVD’s fly off the shelves and into the hearts of adoring fans and a new movie opening seems to be a worldwide happening. Still one gets the feeling that if the filmmakers had just stepped back a bit from the Warner’s corporate play book the movies could have been magnificent, such is the wealth of raw material conjured up by Rowling. But they are what they are and ordinarily that would be that.

Not anymore.

There’s nothing ordinary about the interconnectedness of today’s internet and the ease with which artists can assemble, create and distribute their work. That’s just what’s happened to Potter the Movie. Not satisfied with the scope of the first film, Brad Neely a 27-year-old comic book artist from Austin Texas essentially gave it a different voice and put it up on the net as a new soundtrack. He calls it "Wizard People, Dear Reader," and after downloading the two files (68 & 72 megs respectively) and burning to disc, you simply run the picture, cue up the new audio and play it simultaneously. Faster than you can spurt “Alcazan!” you’ve got a “brand new” movie. The result is getting high marks and lots of laughs. When I heard they were short of bandwidth I put the files up too (complete with artwork) on zer0share, the little Waste open network devoted to contemporary and historic works in the public domain - and I got in touch with another host, Carrie McLaren of Illegal-art.org, a site devoted to exploring the tension between traditional media and technological advances. So the word – and the work – is getting around. Legally the new audio should fall under the “fair use” protections insulating it and the author (and me as one of the distributors) from suits by Rowling and Warners. Unlike “The Wind Done Gone,” the follow-up to “Gone With The Wind” told from the slaves point of view which the courts ruled was legal to sell, this type of digital prestidigitation has yet to be tested in law, and tested it will be at some point. Maybe not Neely’s “Wizard People, Dear Reader," but something like it created and distributed in this novel way. A boundary’s been crossed and we’re all getting closer to a point we can rework our favorite entertainments. But unlike making up new words while singing in the shower, this new style of media manipulation can be shared with the world at large on a whim – for better or for worse. The media megaliths will take note. If they can’t co-opt it they may settle for killing it - making another huge mistake on their part. It would be a shame if we let that happen.

As of this writing I haven’t experienced Neely's new combination of Hollywood image and Texas humor so I’ll leave to others the critical judgment of the work itself. For now I’m happy enough helping him bring it out of Austin.











Enjoy,

Jack.










MONOLITH
Sourceforge

Monolith is a simple tool that takes two arbitrary binary files (called a Basis file and an Element file) and "munges" them together to produce a Mono binary file (with a .mono extension). Monolith can also reconstruct an Element file from a Basis file and a Mono file.

In most cases, the resulting Mono file will not be statistically related to either file. If you compare the Mono file to the Element file, the Mono file will contain none of the information present in the Element file. In other words, the Mono file by itself tells you nothing at all about the data in the Element file. Only when combined with the Basis file will the Mono file provide information about the Element file.

Monolith can be used for exploring the boundaries of digital copyright, and the rest of this website is devoted to such an exploration. The core questions: What happens when we use Monolith to munge copyrighted files? What is the copyright status of the resulting .mono file? These questions are considered in depth below.

Things get interesting when you apply Monolith to copyrighted files. For example, munging two copyrighted files will produce a completely new file that, in most cases, contains no information from either file. In other words, the resulting Mono file is not "owned" by the original copyright holders (if owned at all, it would be owned by the person who did the munging). Given that the Mono file can be combined with either of the original, copyrighted files to reconstruct the other copyrighted file, this lack of Mono ownership may be seem hard to believe.

Consider this simple fact: for a given Element file and any other file of the same length (call it fileA), it is possible to choose a Basis file that, when munged with the Element, will produce fileA as the resulting Mono file. Therefore, if a copyright holder claims that she owns the information in all Mono files that are munged from her work, she is also claiming copyright over all possible binary files that are the same length as her work. For example, suppose that fileA is an MP3 of a Beatles song, and the Element file is an MP3 of a Britney Spears song copyrighted by Jive Records. It is possible to find a Basis file that, when munged with the Spears song, will produce the Beatles song as the Mono file. Jive Records certainly cannot claim copyright over the Beatles song (which is copyrighted by Apple Records), nor can they claim copyright over any other Mono files munged from MP3s of their songs.

What does this mean? This means that Mono files can be freely distributed.

So what? Mono files are useless without their corresponding Basis files, right? And the Basis files are copyrighted too, so they cannot be freely distributed, right? There is one more twist to this idea. What happens when we use Basis files that are freely distributable? For example, we could use a Basis file that is in the public domain or one that is licensed for free distribution. Now we are getting somewhere.

None of the aforementioned properties of Mono files change when we use freely distributable Basis files, since the same arguments hold. Mono files are still not copyrighted by the people who hold the copyrights over the corresponding Element files. Now we can freely distribute Mono files and Basis files.

Interesting? Not really. But what you can do with these files, in the privacy of your own home, might be interesting, depending on your proclivities. For example, you can use the Mono files and the Basis files to reconstruct the Element files.

Bring Taping Home

The Internet, despite all of the intellectual freedoms that it bestowed upon us, had an odd side-effect: it moved the "Copyright vs. Home Taping" clash into the public sphere. Home Taping used to be a private issue, since the act itself (the Taping) happened in the privacy of one's home. There were laws forbidding Home Taping, but they were unenforceable laws. The Copyright holders got their "blank media" taxes passed and otherwise gave up on their crusade to stop Home Taping. However, with the Internet, Home Taping has moved into the public realm, and the laws forbidding such Taping are suddenly enforceable. Now we have a royal mess: a public that is fond of Home Taping is butting heads with Copyright holders who are trying to enforce laws that have never been enforced before.

Monolith moves Home Taping back into the private sphere. There are laws that forbid combining a Basis file with a Mono file to produce a copyrighted Element file, but since such combining happens in private, those laws are unenforceable.

To best explain the logic behind Monolith, we need to explore the odd properties of digital information.

So read on… -js.


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Justice Department Ends Antitrust Review Of Movielink Venture

The government said Thursday it is closing an antitrust investigation into a video-on-demand service called Movielink, saying there was no evidence the joint venture was anticompetitive.

The Justice Department began the review in August 2001 after the service was created by Sony Pictures, Paramount, Metro-Goldwyn- Mayer, Warner Bros. and Universal Studios.

Critics worried that the service would encourage illegal collusion among the companies to push up prices. But the studios behind Movielink said they would not offer films to their joint venture on an exclusive basis. Several also signed deals with other video-on-demand companies.

``The evidence does not support a conclusion that the structure of the joint venture increased prices or otherwise reduced competition in the retail markets,'' the department's antitrust division said in a statement.

Video on demand provides access to films at any time and gives viewers the ability to pause, reverse and fast-forward. The films are either delivered over a cable television system or over high-speed Internet lines to a computer.
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/sil...al/8830638.htm


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Careless Coders Tempting Legal Troubles?
Michael Parsons

Most software developers regard "code-borrowing"--reusing existing software in their own work--as an acceptable practice, despite the legal minefield it could create for their employers, according to research due to be published later this week.

The anonymous online survey of more than 3,000 developers found that almost 70 percent of respondents keep a personal library of code that they freely carry from employer to employer. Such code is generally used without the lawful owner's knowledge or permission, according to Out-law.com, a site that provides legal advice on information technology and e-commerce.

"Reusing or copying code, though in some ways unlawful, I believe is common practice in software development," said one freelance developer who participated. "Most developers that I come in contact with (including myself) reuse, copy or even reverse-engineer code to make it work better or to include it in an application that we are programming."

According to Susan McKiernan, an IT lawyer with Masons, the law firm behind Out-law.com, the survey showed that there was a widespread acceptance of the practice of reusing and "borrowing" code.

McKiernan said the fundamental issue involved was whether a substantial part of the code had been copied.

"The problem lies in figuring out what is a substantial part of a software program," McKiernan said.

The courts say that you cannot define substantiality in terms of percentages of code, McKiernan said.

"You need to consider the skill and labor in design and coding which went into the specific bits of allegedly copied code," she said.

McKiernan points to one case in which a party copied only 2 percent or 3 percent of the total code, yet was found to have infringed copyright. In another successful infringement action, the developer had made considerable modifications and additions to the original software--making it visually very different and more user-friendly--but had nonetheless used the original software to take shortcuts.

The survey also revealed that developers do not realize that software does not need to be identical for copyright infringement to arise. Almost 90 percent said they would reproduce the way another piece of software functions, without copying any code.

"By consulting the original code and program, however, a developer could still be found to have copied a substantial part," said McKiernan.

Software companies also face a threat because the development work force tends to change jobs frequently, which increases the chances of employees and contractors introducing materials from previous employers, clients or elsewhere.

"The Internet adds a further risk, with the availability of software from anywhere in the world and the potential for code-sharing through forums and bulletin boards," said McKiernan.

And so does the pride that developers take in their software. Writing code is hard, and developers like to show off their work.

"I haven't met a developer who wants to hide his or her code," said one developer. "Developers are proud of their code and want other developers to see its brilliance (and feel proud if others use it). It's companies and managers who care about copyrighting code."
http://news.com.com/2100-1008-5226035.html


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McDonald's: Would You Like A Song With That?

McDonald's and Sony are teaming up to offer free music downloads, in a step that analysts said raises questions about fast food chain's long-standing relationship with Walt Disney.

McDonald's will launch a U.S. promotion on June 8, offering customers who buy a Big Mac Extra Value meal an access code worth one free song download at Sony Connect music store. The so- called Big Mac Meal Tracks promotion, which will run for six to 10 weeks, will later expand to Europe, McDonald's said.

The Sony alliance could represent a way for McDonald's to tap in to pop culture without relying on movie tie-ins with Disney. McDonald's still has about two years left on a 10-year promotional agreement with Disney.

Like competing services, Sony Connect lets customers buy songs and download them to portable music players. Customers can also listen to songs that have been copied, or "ripped," from CDs.

McDonald's and Sony were scheduled to announce their partnership on Thursday at a news conference in Los Angeles.

"I think McDonald's is trying to escape what I call the kiddyland box," said Jack Trout, a marketing consultant who heads Connecticut-based Trout & Partners. "I think Disney undermines their strategy for moving to the older set."

Disney said the two deals were completely separate.

"We have an ongoing relationship with McDonald's, and this has nothing to do with our agreement with them," said Disney spokesman John Spelich.

Nearly every major online music store--from Apple Computer's iTunes, RealNetworks' Rhapsody to Roxio's Napster--are forming joint ventures with consumer brands ranging from PepsiCo's Pepsi to UAL's United Airlines.

Apple's iTunes was the first to clinch such a deal, providing Pepsi drinkers with free downloads if they got a bottle cap containing numerical codes.

To date, iTunes has also partnered with Target and Ben & Jerry's, while Sony Connect has partnered with United Airlines.

Since late last year, McDonald's has been trying to revitalize its image with young adults. Its "I'm Lovin' It" global ad campaign, for example, incorporates hip-hop music in its television spots.

"The whole 'I'm Lovin' It' campaign appeals to a different age group," said Bob Goldin, an executive vice president with restaurant market research firm Technomic, stressing that Disney's appeal is more targeted to preteens. "They (McDonald's) needs to find marketing partners that appeal to that."

The Disney deal was reportedly worth $10 million when it was struck in 1996. It was considered a boon to Disney, giving the entertainment company access to customers in McDonald's 13,000 U.S. hamburger stores.

During its annual meeting two weeks ago, Larry Light, McDonald's global chief marketing officer, said that McDonald's and Disney were in discussions about the structure of the remaining portion of the contract.
http://news.com.com/2100-1027-5225854.html


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Study: CD Prices Sing The Blues
CNET News.com Staff

The average retail price of full-length CDs fell to $13.29 in the first quarter of 2004--a decline of 4 percent from the same period a year ago, according to a new study.

The top 50 CD sellers nationwide sold discs for an average price of $13.36, a drop of 3.1 percent versus a year ago, said a survey released Thursday by the NPD Group. Meanwhile, catalog CDs- -comprised of titles that are 18-months-old or more--dropped below the $13 threshold to $12.99.

NPD President Russ Crupnick attributed the decline in part to a changing market due to the file-sharing boom. In addition, competition for entertainment dollars has become tougher for the recording industry in an environment that saw DVDs and video games growing at double-digit rates, he said.

Universal Music Group slashed retail prices of its titles by 5 percent between the first quarter of 2003 and the first quarter of 2004. However, a study by Harvard University researchers who tracked music downloads said file sharing does not affect CD sales.

NPD Group earlier had said that digital song and subscription site consumers were buying up to 80 percent more CDs than those who did not subscribe.
http://news.com.com/2100-1027-5225657.html


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South Korea

Clean Internet Campaign Begins

A nationwide campaign will start this week to promote a healthier Internet environment as part of a government drive against Internet addiction, cyber-pornography and unsolicited e-mail messages.

The Ministry of Information and Communication (MIC) on Friday reported that the campaign is aimed at preventing children from becoming addicted to the Internet, which can happen through chat rooms, online gambling or pornography.

Pop culture idols will be named as public ambassadors to advertise the campaign. They will play a key role in the state-sponsored public advertisement to promote the ``clean Internet’’ campaign on TV networks this month, it added.

A new Web site will be launched to conduct research on and treatment and counseling for addiction to the Internet, an MIC official said.

Korea has a high rate of Internet use. More than two- thirds of all homes, or 11.5 million subscribers, have high-speed Internet connections.
http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/biz/...8232711890.htm


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Reed Allows Academics Free Web Access

200,000 articles may be available on the net but competitors accuse publisher of making token effort
Richard Wray

Reed Elsevier is allowing academics to put papers that have been accepted for publication in its print and online journals on to the internet, breaking with years of tradition and reigniting the debate over open access to academic thinking.

Until now the world's largest academic publisher has been a staunch opponent of open access, saying it poses a threat to the quality of academic research.

But it is now letting academics put a text version of their accepted articles on to their own websites, or sites operated by their institutions.

The move could make the 200,000 articles Reed Elsevier publishes every year freely available on the internet.

Karen Hunter, Elsevier senior vice-president, strategy, explained: "There was a desire in the market from many authors and many institutions to have an official record of their institution's intellectual output. We have listened and we have responded."

But rival publishers who have fully embraced the open access model and charge academics to publish their papers and then make them freely available to all over the internet, described the move as a cynical piece of public relations as Reed tries to defend its lucrative business.

Reed Elsevier has come under fire recently for the high subscriptions it charges universities and libraries for its 1,800 journals.

In March, chief executive Crispin Davies was forced to defend the firm's subscriptions in the face of critical questioning from the Commons science and technology committee.

Deborah Cockerill, assistant publisher at rival open access publisher BioMed Central, said Reed's move "merely scratches the surface of the fundamental problem with the traditional publishing model which is based on controlling access".

"They are offering a series of limited forms of access - so partial compared with open access so that it won't threaten the subscription model."

BioMed Central, in contrast, produces 110 journals in the fields of biology and medicine. It charges academics to publish their articles but access to the journal itself is free to everyone.

Reed, which has spent millions of pounds developing an online database of its journals known as Science Direct, is allowing authors to post only a text version of their published articles on the internet.

In addition each posting must include a link to the journal's home page - which operates almost as free advertising. Crucially, academics will not be allowed to put links to their papers in central academic databases, making it very difficult for anyone else to find the paper.

Ms Cockerill said these restrictions would counteract any potential benefit to the wider research community from Reed's decision.

"This kind of archiving is in many ways useless to the majority of scientists, mainly because no one will know the copies exist at all or where to find them," she said. In fact, Ms Hunter said, Reed does not expect the move to hit revenues.

"Science Direct is the official archive and the official source for the final article. That's the place that researchers should go."

Reed's change of heart was warmly welcomed by Stevan Harnad, professor of cognitive science at the University of Southampton and a leading proponent of open access.

"There will be the predictable cavils from the pedants and those who have never understood the real meaning and nature of open access: 'It's only the final refereed draft, not the publisher's PDF; It does not include republishing rights; Elsevier is still not an open access publisher.'

"I, for one, am prepared to stoutly defend Elsevier on all these counts, and to say that one could not have asked for more, and that the full benefits of open access require not one bit more - from the publisher."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/new...230217,00.html

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Nigeria Government May Scan Emails
Maputo
AFP

Nigeria plans to launch software that would help catch fraudsters who send scam letters via email, known as the 419 advance fee fraud, a meeting on the sidelines of Africa's World Economic Forum has heard.

The new technology, which would identify key words used in such letters, is likely to be made available to Internet service providers and government departments, Mustafa Bello, executive secretary of the Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission said.

"The introduction of new software, currently under discussion within the Nigerian parliament, will scan emails originating in Nigeria to look for keywords commonly found, especially relating to banking and the country's petroleum industry," Bello said late on Wednesday after a discussion on the issue on the sidelines of the conference.

"This will then be removed from the system and even traced back to where it originated, (to) allow police to arrest the culprit," he said.

The email scams, often from "the widow of and African dictator" or a "bank offcial", promise untold wealth in return for helping to transfer millions of dollars out of Africa. Many originate in Nigeria.

Victims of the scam have lost tens of thousands of dollars, and in some cases been attacked and robbed. They frequently fail to report their losses to the police out of shame and because they have been planning to act illegally.

South African Interpol spokeswoman Mary Martins-Engelbrecht said last year that in South Africa alone some 60 cases of advance fee fraud were reported every day.

The message from the "widow" or the "official" will ask for a name, address, bank details, passport and telephone numbers and a promise that in exchange, a major cut from the deal will be received.

The 419 scam - named after the section in Nigeria's criminal code on fraud - works on a simple principle: the victim is kept on the hook for as long as possible, paying money, with the carrot of a huge return at the end.

The cash never materialises and the scammer eventually disappears into thin air. In some cases, victims are lured into a trap, kidnapped and held hostage for ransom.

Bello said however that Nigeria was also trying to address the underlying cause of the advance fee fraud which was "not greed but poverty," Bello said.
http://smh.com.au/articles/2004/06/0...203598788.html


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And I own one

Linksys Wi-Fi Router Vulnerability Discovered
Marguerite Reardon

Cisco Systems has issued a patch for a security flaw in one of its Linksys routers that could give hackers access to consumers' home networks.

Alan Rateliff II, an independent security consultant, on Friday said he discovered a vulnerability in the Linksys WRTS54G 802.11g wireless router. The flaw gives hackers a free pass into the Web-based configuration page of the router when the firewall function is turned off.

When Rateliff originally tested the devices in March, he discovered that this vulnerability existed on two Linksys routers straight from the store. The default configuration on the products he tested used version 2.02.7 of the firmware, and they enabled access to the configuration page via ports 80 and 443.

When he tested new Linksys routers, using both firmware versions 2.02.7 and 2.02.2 earlier this week, he did not find the same flaw on routers that use the standard configuration settings. But he noticed that when the firewall is turned off on the devices, ports 80 and 443 are still open, allowing the configuration page to be easily accessed.

Allowing easy access to configuration settings on a router is a security risk. Hackers could change settings of the router to launch spam and virus attacks, without the victim ever realizing what is going on. Attackers could also gain access to devices attached to the router, such as laptops and PCs. With an open door into the network, attackers could target unprotected individual machines and infect them with worms and viruses.

"It's like giving a hacker a key to a locked door," Rateliff said. "There's no telling what he will do once he's inside. The scenarios are only limited by what we can imagine."

Rateliff added that broadband users on large national Internet service providers, such as America Online, could be the most vulnerable, because hackers tend to scan these DSL (digital subscriber line) and cable modem connections, looking for vulnerable targets.

"The larger the network, the larger the exposure to hackers," he said.

For the most part, this problem exists only when the firewall function is turned off. Considering that most people concerned about security would keep the firewall turned on, this may not be such a big threat. But Rateliff warned that people should check to make sure that their settings are correct when they install the Linksys routers. "You just have to be careful," he said. "There's no telling if someone else has changed the settings and then returned the product to
the store. When you get it home, you have no way to know that the firewall has been turned off and that you're now exposed to this other problem."

The Linksys home networking gear is among the most popular on the consumer market. The brand has more than 20 percent market share in the home and small-business Wi-Fi market, according to Synergy Research.

Cisco posted a beta version of the new firmware on the Linksys Web site on Thursday night. The company said customers using this version of firmware should not experience the problem even when the firewall is turned off. Rateliff said he has not tested the beta version of firmware yet.
http://news.com.com/2100-7349-5226918.html


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RA Joins File Sharing War
p2pnet.net

If having Big Music's breath on your neck isn't bad enough, the Recording Academy is, "strategically increasing its visibility and participation on Capitol Hill," it says in a statement issued after its Spring Trustees Meeting.

This new initiative will include:

Being a partner in the recently announced Recording Arts and Sciences Congressional Caucus;
Actively participating in Arts Advocacy Day;
The creation of an Academy Advocacy Committee;
And, in the next month or so, the Academy will be launching avenues through which our members can contact their Congresspersons directly through www.grammy.com.

Also, "after successfully launching Phase I of the Academy's public education campaign regarding the value of paying for music, 'What's The Download,' Phase II will launch this summer. Campaign tactics will include grassroots initiatives, radio and TV PSA outreach, and a new national initiative that will be announced at the end of summer."

What this boils down to is the above-mentioned congresspersons will be cosseted and stroked by entertainment industry celebrities and biggies, all of whom will be whispering hypnotically, over and over again, 'File sharing is devastating the music industry!' 'File sharing is devastating the music industry!'

Expect to see:

More righteous congress anger and press releases centering on the villainous file sharers
More proposals for 'stern new laws' to help remedy the desperate plight of copyright owners
who "have been left alone to fend for themselves, defending their rights only where they can afford to do so".
More entertainment industry school educational programs and efforts such as FastLink.

Stay tuned.
http://p2pnet.net/story/1611


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General Accounting Office Delivers a Report on Campus File Sharing to Congress
Brock Read

In a report sent to Congress last week, auditors from the U.S. General Accounting Office outlined some of the steps colleges and universities are taking to prevent illegal file sharing. The document contains few surprises, and it is unclear whether it will prompt lawmakers to alter existing federal policies.

The report, "File Sharing: Selected Universities Report Taking Action to Reduce Copyright Infringement," also discusses the role federal agencies play in cracking down on online copyright infringement.

The document, a copy of which was obtained by The Chronicle, is dated May 28 and has not been released to the public. The report collects the results of a study commissioned last year by members of the U.S. Senate Committee on Appropriations and the House of Representatives Committee on Education and the Workforce. Research for the project began in May 2003 and was completed in April of this year.

Auditors for the accounting office, which is the investigative arm of Congress, surveyed technology officers at 13 "major universities," and concluded that most computer administrators are aware of substantial file sharing on their campus networks. All of the administrators interviewed for the study said they had used or planned to use both technological controls and campus-wide education campaigns to try to curtail file swapping.

The study goes on to describe Operation Fastlink and Operation Buccaneer, a pair of federal law-enforcement programs created to combat online piracy of music, movies, and software. The programs have focused on the prosecution of organized, large-scale piracy networks, not on individual students, according to the report.

Ted Stevens, a Republican Senator from Alaska, and Harry Reid, a Democratic Senator from Nevada, were among the legislators who requested the study. Spokeswomen for both senators said they had little information about the report and did not know whether it would be used as evidence in any forthcoming committee hearings.

The report may have been commissioned at the urging of movie and record companies, said John C. Vaughn, executive vice president of the Association of American Universities. "The entertainment industry is trying to deal with copyright infringement on all fronts, both local and federal," he said. "I think they likely went to the committees and asked for a GAO report."

Together with the industry's recent lawsuits against people accused of piracy on campus networks, the study's focus on college file sharing has left some college administrators feeling singled out, according to Mr. Vaughn. "Some universities started to get paranoid: 'Why focus on us? It's happening all over,'" he said. "I think part of the reason for that is that we are a describable universe in a way the Internet at large isn't."
http://chronicle.com/free/2004/06/2004060204n.htm


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UMass Dartmouth Engineers Invent Wireless Music System
Deborah Allard-Bernardi

Anyone looking for a little musical enthusiasm to get going on the treadmill at the local gym knows that headphones with dangling wires can be a real nuisance.

They get twisted, caught under elbows and between fingers, and, when trying to fix the wiry mess, the headphones are almost always knocked off the runner’s head.

Adam Carvalho, 22, of Swansea, likes a good workout, but got frustrated with headphones that posed a distraction, and he didn’t want to listen to the music chosen by the gym and pumped out of its speakers.

What to do?

Being a computer engineering major at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, who graduated last week, he and three engineering buddies decided to invent a new way to listen to music at the gym.

"We kept snowballing the idea," said Carvalho. And eventually, they had it.

Their invention, called Air2Ear, is a unique blend of advanced wireless technology with the added convenience of having all of your favorite songs at your fingertips. The wireless headphones can be loaded with the user’s favorite music and pumped into their ears at the gym. The design is patent-pending.

Carvalho, and his teammates -- Joel McNamee of Salem, Steven Mooney of East Providence, R.I., and Christopher Yafrate of Raynham -- won second place for their invention at the fourth annual Student Design Contest for the northeast region held at the Rochester Institute of Technology in May. Their win also came with a $2,000 prize, which they split.

Carvalho said that going into the contest, "we were kind of intimidated." While UMass students worked out their invention with just $550, some of the colleges had $2,000 budgets or more. But, once they saw the other inventions, "we knew we had a shot."

They came in only behind the host team of Rochester Institute of Technology, which won first place for its new method of packaging transistors. Their design was privately funded and had no budget limitations.

"We received a lot of high praise," said Carvalho. "I’d like to see it in the gym someday."

If UMass gets the patent for Air2Ear, it will likely be sold to a company that can actually manufacture the headphones and sell them to gyms. Proceeds from the sale would be split between the university and the winning team members.

Basically, Air2Ear would either work as a free service or for a rental fee in gyms. The facility would be set up with the headphones, access points and a Web site.

Club members would be able to download their own personal music tastes on the Web site from home. Then, at the gym, the selected tunes would be ready to go. To start hearing the music, it would only take a press of the play button on the gym’s wireless headphones.

Hong Liu, an engineering professor and the team’s technical adviser, said the idea was entirely the team’s. After hearing their plan, Liu said she was confident they could pull it off. When they did, she said she entered them in the design competition. It was the first time Liu ever entered her students in such a competition in her 14 years as a professor at UMass.

"I’m so thrilled to see that they are our future generation," said Liu. "This group of students, they are so hardworking."

Carvalho, when designing the technology, said they needed to consider what club members would really want. They came up with a way for members to download some 250 songs. Music could be added and deleted as needed.

Plus, since the music is downloaded from personal compact disks or music file sharing sites, "it’s personalized" and there’s no commercials to listen to.

Now a graduate, Carvalho has applied to several positions in the computer engineering field. He is the son of James and Barbara Carvalho of Swansea, and the brother of Josh Carvalho.

"I’m ready to move on," said Carvalho.
http://www.heraldnews.com/site/news....=99784&rfi= 6


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Finding Free Computer Games On-line
Michael Klappenbach

The video game industry raked in more that $10 billion last year in revenues. With games going for $40+ per title it may be worth downloading free demos or reading reviews before buying anything. 99% of all new video games have their own website dedicated to keeping users updated on the latest news, updates, and possible sequels. On top of this the majority also offer free downloadable demos so you can try out a few scenarios of the game or a specific "mission". It's a great way to try out the latest titles before for you fork over your money.

Most web portals such as Yahoo, MSN, BBC, Excite, etc..., offer a wide variety of free games, both puzzle games and action games alike. Just go to the home page and search for "games" or "free games". Other sites such as MSN's Gaming Zone offers a good number of free multiplayer- capable games, while providing free multiplayer environment for store bought games such as Age of Empires, Galactic Battlegrounds, and much more.

If you're searching for that old computer game that you once had but now have lost, try doing a search on google or another search engine and you'll most likely be able to find it or some variation. I recently found the game Populous and Bard Tales, online. Both are a little dated but still good to revive some old fun.

There is one website out there where you can download your favorite classic video game and play it, all for free. www.classicgaming.com offers hundreds of classic video games to download for free from just about every game system that has been in existence. These games require you first to download an emulator and then the game. Once both have been downloaded you should be able to play the game in with it's original code though the emulator. I'll take you through a sample download that worked for me and has provided me with one of my favorite video games of all time, Galaga. Click on the following link to go to Classic Gaming's Vault. This page has specific instructions on how to download and play each of the classics, but for now, follow my tutorial and click on the following link to download an arcade emulator.

The following link has a complete list of emulators http:// www.classicgaming.com/vault/ arcademu.shtml the best and recommended one to download is the MAME which stands for Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator. There are different versions, so make sure to click on the one that applies to your machine. Once you've downloaded this emulator (we'll use the win95 version for this example) unzip to a newly created directory on your hard drive called /mame32. When completed, you're ready to download some classic arcade games.

Open up Classic Gaming's Vault screen again and scroll down until you see the list of classic video game systems and the alphabetical list of games offered under each system. Click on D-G under "Arcade Games" and scroll down until you see all of the different versions of Galaga. There are quite a few, and I only downloaded the Namco one, but the others should work. To the right, you'll notice the size and then the word MAME meaning that this particular download works for the emulator you just installed on your hard drive. Click on the first Galaga (Namco) to proceed to the download page.(yes it's only 22kb!!). The download screen should have two links, always try the BoraNet, Korea mirror first but be warned that it doesn't always work and has slow download times, and sometimes does not always included all of the files. WHat I do is first try the BoraNet, download it, if available and then try it out. If, the BoraNet does not work you're going to have to download by clicking on the first link. From this link you are taken to Fileplanet/Gamespy's downloads and after clicking "download" you are taken to a list of servers. They have fast downloads but they only have a few free servers so you may have to end up waiting in line before you can begin the download. It is very user friendly and tells you your place in line and the estimated wait time. If you can't or don't want to wait you can pay a fee to subscribe to GameSpy and have access to their dedicated servers. Once the download completes all you have to do is move/save it in the / mame32/rom directory and the run the emulator, select the game, and play. It's that easy.

I've spent the last few weeks downloading all different types of games all of them use the original code run through the emulator, and include classics such as Joust, Track & Field, 720 Degrees, Donkey Kong, and many more. They even include options or "Dip Switches" in which you can change certain game settings. This includes the number of lives, number of credits, bonus life, etc... Now instead of playing a 2 hour game of Age of Empires, I find myself more and more playing Galaga or 720 for hours on end!


My final bit on finding free games is a little risky and NOT recommended, but I'll tell you a little about it because most people know it's out there. Peer to peer file sharing has exploded over the last couple years and with the death of Napster, there were soon other programs to replace it such as Morpheus and Kazaa. Both Morpheus and Kazaa offer the ability to search for software files, and yes if you were to type in a current title you most likely would get some results from your search. The reason I don't recommend this is because of the following points:

1. There are a large number of viruses with peer-to-peer file sharing.

2. Files are not always complete and can sometimes take hours or even days to download and you're not guaranteed to get a complete download.

3. A lot of the searches from peer to peer come up with the correct names of games but have the wrong, sometimes harmful files in them.

4. It's illegal copyright infringement.
http://compactiongames.about.com/lib.../aa082502a.htm


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First Man Jailed Over Pirate DVDs

A MAN jailed today for selling pirate DVDs was the first Australian to be imprisoned under the Copyright Act.

Justice and Customs Minister Chris Ellison said Sydney Grant Priscott, 53, was sentenced today to nine months imprisonment with three months to serve and a $1,500 five year conditional good behaviour bond.

Priscott was found guilty by the Brisbane Magistrates Court of 28 charges relating to importing, possessing and exposing for sale counterfeit DVDs.

The conviction followed the discovery last year by Brisbane Customs officers of about 800 counterfeit DVDs concealed in a shipment of audio speaker stands.

Senator Ellison said the shipment of DVDs had been sent from Malaysia and was found at an address in the suburb of Coopers Plains.

Priscott was arrested and charged and released on bail but was later found selling the DVDs at the Eumundi markets on the Sunshine Coast hinterland.

"The sentence handed down by the court today is the first time that an Australian has received a prison term for offences against the Copyright Act," Senator Ellison said.

"This sends a clear message that attempts to flout Australia's copyright laws will be detected and punished."
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au...5E1702,00.html


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Why the FCC Should Die
Declan McCullagh

It's time to abolish the Federal Communications Commission.

The reason is simple. The venerable FCC, created in 1934, is no longer necessary.

Its justification for existence was weak 70 years ago, but advances in technology since then have eliminated whatever arguments remained. Central planning didn't work for the Soviet Union, and it's not working for us. The FCC is now an agency that does more harm than good.

Consider some examples of bureaucratic malfeasance that the FCC, with the complicity of the U.S. Congress, has committed. The FCC rejected long-distance telephone service competition in 1968, banned Americans from buying their own non-Bell telephones in 1956, dragged its feet in the 1970s when considering whether video telephones would be allowed and did not grant modern cellular telephone licenses until 1981--about four decades after Bell Labs invented the technology. Along the way, the FCC has preserved monopolistic practices that would have otherwise been illegal under antitrust law.

These technologically backward decisions have cost Americans tens of billions of dollars.

More recently, the FCC has experienced a string of embarrassing losses, when its grand telecommunications plans were repeatedly vetoed by the courts. A majority of the commissioners want to force local phone companies to pay government-mandated rates when long-distance providers like AT&T and MCI use their phone lines. A federal appeals court recently shot down that scheme and gave the Bush administration until June 15 to appeal to the Supreme Court. There's already talk about higher telephone bills becoming a campaign issue this fall.

Meanwhile, the FCC is hard at work, trying to figure out how to muzzle Howard Stern and make a national example of Janet Jackson's right breast. Commissioners are planning how to order voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP) companies to comply with arguably unlawful wiretapping requests from the FBI. In a sop to Hollywood, the FCC has decided that any device capable of receiving digital television signals must follow a complicated set of "broadcast flag" regulations. When those rules take effect in mid-2005, they will put some PC tuner card makers out of business.

These signs warn of an agency that is overreaching. If the FCC had been in charge of overseeing the Internet, we'd likely be waiting for the Mosaic Web browser to receive preliminary approval from the Wireline Competition Bureau. Instead, the Internet has transformed from a research curiosity into a mainstay of the world's economy--in less time than it took the FCC to approve the first cell phone licenses.

Even ardent supporters of the FCC should admit that there's less justification for its existence after the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which removed some barriers to competition. Local phone customers don't need to worry about the Bells' monopolistic practices, because they effectively aren't monopolies anymore. Cable customers don't need to worry much about monopolistic practices because of satellite TV. Eventually, fiber connections will transport every kind of data.

The original justification for existence of the FCC was to rein in an unruly marketplace. That thinking dates back to the 1920s, when Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover, an engineer by training, was worried about the unregulated new industry of broadcasting. Hundreds of radio stations had been launched, and the only requirement was that they register with the Commerce Department.

Conflicts began to arise. The Navy complained of the "turbulent condition of radio communication." But courts were already undertaking the slow but careful common-law method of crafting a set of rules for the new medium. An Illinois state court decided in 1926, for instance, that Chicago broadcaster WGN had the right to a disputed slice of spectrum, because "priority of time creates a superiority in right."

But Hoover and Congress didn't give the courts a chance. The Radio Act of 1927, followed by the Communications Act of 1934, gave the FCC unlimited power to assign frequencies, approve broadcasters' power levels and revoke licenses on a whim. The FCC already enjoyed the power to regulate telephone lines and eventually would accumulate the authority to regulate cable as well.

Abolishing the FCC does not mean airwave anarchy. What it means is returning to bottom-up law rather than the top-down process that has characterized telecommunications for the last 80 years.

In his excellent 1997 book "Law and Disorder in Cyberspace," Manhattan Institute fellow Peter Huber describes how the privatization process could work. Huber proposes that the government sell off standard units of spectrum--10kHz for AM radio, 6MHz for television, 25MHz for cellular, 40MHz for PCS--using existing geographical contours for each type of frequency.

"Once the standard parcels are defined, they can be sold to the highest bidders," Huber writes. "To keep for how long? Forever. Just like land." If just one UHF (ultrahigh frequency) television station in Los Angeles were permitted to transfer its spectrum to a third cellular provider, Huber estimates, "the overall public gain would be about $1 billion, or so the government itself estimated in 1992." Wireless technologies would be huge winners, if the spectrum were privatized.

What if disputes over spectrum arose? The answer is simple. Whoever owned the rights to that slice of virtual real estate would locate the illicit broadcaster, march into the local courthouse and get a restraining order to pull the plug on the transmitter. Trespass is hardly a new idea, and courts are well-equipped to deal with it.

One fear is that some predatory monopolist, a Microsoft of the airwaves, would end up owning all of the spectrum. That won't happen. First, the market value of the spectrum would approach $1 trillion, out of the reach of any individual corporation. Second, antitrust laws would remain on the books. The Department of Justice could wield the Sherman Antitrust Act to challenge unlawful conduct and block mergers.

Now is the perfect time to ask whether the FCC should continue to exist. Congress is considering revisions to the 1996 Telecommunications Act, and some courageous politicians are wondering out loud whether the hundreds of pages of legalese are still necessary. At a hearing last month, Rep. Chris Cox, R-Calif., asked whether "perhaps we should declare victory" and ditch the FCC. Beyond the economic cost of missed opportunities caused by regulation, it would also immediately save taxpayers $300 million a year.

It's true that imagining a telecommunications world without the FCC is not easy. But imagining a telecommunications world not dominated by Ma Bell was difficult two decades ago, and it was not easy for the Eastern European countries to imagine life without the Soviet Union.

Since then, those formerly communist nations have privatized resources formerly owned by their governments, with remarkable results. Estonia is Europe's new economic wonder: revenue from state-owned property is a smaller percentage of the economy than it is in the United States, and its economy is growing more than twice as fast as ours.

That should be a lesson. It's time for the FCC to go.
http://news.com.com/2010-1028-5226979.html


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Cities Say No to the Patriot Act
Kim Zetter

Forget drug-free and nuclear-free zones. A growing grassroots movement seeks to make the United States a Patriot Act-free zone, one city at a time.

Or, at the very least, the people behind the movement hope to make their cities constitutional safe zones.

In the past two years, more than 300 cities and four states have passed resolutions calling on Congress to repeal or change parts of the USA Patriot Act that, activists say, violate constitutional rights such as free speech and freedom from unreasonable search and seizure.

Barring that, the resolutions declare that their communities will uphold the constitutional rights of their residents should federal law enforcement agents come knocking on the door of local authorities for assistance in tracking residents. This means local authorities will insist on complying with federal orders only in ways that do not violate constitutional rights. The resolutions are not binding, however, and do not affect the federal government's actions.

The national movement was launched in 2001 by the Bill of Rights Defense Committee, an organization led by activist Nancy Talanian. Talanian first lobbied her community -- Northhampton, Massachusetts, a town of 30,000 people -- to stand against the act in November 2001, when few people had heard about the legislation.

Talanian and fellow activists urged newspaper editors to write about the legislation and hosted a public forum attended by 400 people, including Northampton's mayor and chief of police. Word spread quickly to other communities, four of which passed their own resolutions before Northampton passed its declaration the following May.

Two years later, 322 municipalities and four states -- Alaska, Hawaii, Maine and Vermont -- have Patriot Act resolutions.

Congress passed the USA Patriot Act swiftly in October 2001, 45 days after the Sept. 11 attacks, easing restrictions on the government's ability to dig up personal information about citizens and non-citizens, and obtain wiretaps and search warrants. Only one senator, Russ Feingold (D-Wisconsin), and 61 House of Representative members voted against the legislation.

Under the act, federal investigators can obtain individuals' library, financial, health and education records from cities while barring municipal workers from letting anyone know authorities have seized the documents. Officials can also monitor the activities of people who have not been identified as suspects and search a home or office without prior notice.

The municipal resolutions, crafted individually by each community, vary in language. They affirm, for the most part, that city employees aiding federal authorities in national security investigations will not violate the rights of people under investigation, such as monitoring political and religious gatherings where people are engaging in activities protected by the First Amendment.

Hawaii was the first to pass a statewide resolution, citing the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II as a motivating factor.

Talanian said fewer than five municipalities rejected resolutions brought before them. These included Boston and Petaluma, California, a small town north of San Francisco.

Fred Hemmings, a Republican state senator in Hawaii who voted against a resolution passed in his state, called the resolution a political play by leftists bent on criticizing the government.

"There are constitutional zealots that somehow believe, especially in times of war, that some of our adversaries should be protected by rights given to us by the Constitution," he said. "But the people on the left are forgetting that we're fighting a war against a nationless enemy. It has to be fought on completely new terms."

He said although he has not read the Patriot Act in detail, he believes "it does provide for adequate judicial oversight of any intrusion into a person's personal life."

But Councilwoman Kathy Lantry from St. Paul, Minnesota, where a resolution passed 6-to-1, took issue with the interpretation that only liberals are behind the movement.

"There are many conservative councilors around the country who have stated emphatically that there are many portions of the Patriot Act that are in direct violation to the way that many of us thought we do things in America," she said. "It's an easy out to say it's just a liberal issue."

Talanian said the community movements, which act independently of her national group and draft their own resolutions, consist of coalitions of disparate groups, from conservative libertarians to liberal civil rights activists.

"It's been very nonpartisan," she said. "There have been mixtures of political parties, as well as peace and veterans groups and student and faculty groups, working together."

Although the resolutions don't carry official weight, the communities say they hope to send a message to Congress to change or repeal parts of the act.

"Resolutions are powerful in that a city council can tell employees in their jurisdiction how they will behave," said Talanian. "They can say we don't want law enforcement to engage in certain activities even if authorized by certain legislation."

Although the resolutions don't prevent federal agents from monitoring or arresting citizens on their own, Talanian said federal authorities would be less likely to pursue surveillance without probable cause, since they don't have the resources to pursue every person who interests them without the cooperation of local law enforcement.

"It might create some checks and balance by reason of logistics or budget priorities for the FBI," she said.

Councilwoman Lantry said no one should underestimate the power local communities can have over how the federal government does its work.

"Maybe one tiny little city council in St. Paul, Minnesota, isn't going to change the way this country does business, but as others join in that cause, it will give pause to those passing policy that perhaps they didn't think about, and need to think about, the negative impact (of the legislation)," she said. "That idea -- that because we can't have a direct impact we shouldn't say anything -- is not the way our country works."

Talanian said the community groups don't oppose all of the Patriot Act's provisions. "We're not saying the entire Patriot Act should be repealed but that certain sections need to be debated to make sure people's rights are being protected."

She pointed to the recent case involving Oregon lawyer Brandon Mayfield, who was arrested by the FBI after it mistakenly matched Mayfield's fingerprint to one found on a bag related to the train bombing in Madrid.

"Brandon Mayfield illustrates what can happen if there are laws that are so elastic that they allow people to be picked up and detained and have their houses searched and their careers harmed using ways that are not effective for catching terrorists," Talanian said.
http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,63702,00.html


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Massive UK censorship

BT Puts Block On Child Porn Sites
Martin Bright

British Telecom has taken the unprecedented step of blocking all illegal child pornography websites in a crackdown on abuse online. The decision by Britain's largest high-speed internet provider will lead to the first mass censorship of the web attempted in a Western democracy.

The move, previously thought to be at the limits of technical possibilities of the internet and prohibitively expensive, was given the personal backing of BT chairman Sir Christopher Bland at a board meeting last month after intense pressure from children's charities.

Known as Cleanfeed, the project has been developed in consultation with the Home Office and will go live by the end of the month, The Observer can reveal. Other major players in the internet market, such as Energis and Thus, which owns rival Demon Internet, are said to be preparing to block banned sites.

Subscribers to British Telecom's internet services such as BTYahoo and BTInternet who attempt to access illegal sites will receive an error message as if the page was unavailable. BT will register the number of attempts but will not be able to record details of those accessing the sites.

A list of illegal sites compiled by the Internet Watch Foundation, the industry's watchdog, has been available for some time, but until now there has been no way to prevent people accessing them because most are based outside the UK.

The initiative would not have been possible a year ago, but improvements in computer processing speeds means that the company is now able to block websites, offensive pages and even individual images of abuse.

The move is the brainchild of John Carr, internet adviser to children's charity NCH, who wrote to Home Office Minister Paul Goggins last July urging action on paedophile websites after a successful campaign to block internet newsgroups (electronic message boards which paedophiles used to share images of children). Goggins approached internet providers last September to ask them to investigate if it would be possible. At first they were resistant, but BT came back to the Home Office last month to announce early tests of Cleanfeed had been successful.

Blocking websites is highly controversial and until now has been associated only with oppressive regimes such as Saudi Arabia and China, which have censored sites associated with dissidents. But many in the field of child protection believe that the explosion of paedophile sites justifies the crackdown.

'British Telecom deserve to be congratulated on this bold move,' Carr said. 'I expect every other service provider will now look at what they are doing to see if they can achieve a similar result.'

Pierre Danon, chief executive of BT Retail, added: 'You are always caught between the desire to tackle child pornography and freedom of information. But I was fed up with not acting on this and always being told that it was techically impossible.'
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_ne...232422,00.html


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Iran

New Wave of Crack-Down on ISPs

A dozen of small and medium-sized Iranian ISPs have been shut down over the last couple of weeks for providing VoIP Termination services, or failing to filter blacklisted websites, etc.

Based on a report by Labour News Agency (ILNA), Saeed Mortazavi, Tehran prosecuter, has told the ISP association representative that that they've been studying for six months to catch those ISPs who do not filter as intense as they should. Even Saeed Mortazavi, Tehran unpopular prosecutor, has particularly said that he "won't let the Imam Hossein's dearests to be insulted" by some Iranian websites.

Apparently, in the recent crack down, both IT Ministry and Judiciary have been involved: the minsitery to stop the VoIP that has terribly reduced its revenue, and the Judiciary to prevent people from accessing some radical anti-religious and anti-regime websites that are there in Persian.
http://stop.censoring.us/archives/010957..php


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Sex ‘n’ drugs ‘n’ radio

Move to Stiffen Decency Rules Is Losing Steam in Washington
Jacques Steinberg

After awards-show expletives and Super Bowl breast-baring, federal lawmakers began lining up to attach their names to election-year legislation to rid the airwaves of material they considered indecent.

The House of Representatives even passed a bill in March, on a vote of 391 to 22, that would greatly increase the financial penalties on broadcasters found to have violated so-called standards of decency.

But for all the legislative posturing, the prospects for such a measure reaching President Bush's desk before the November election appear far less assured than they did a few months ago.

In the Senate, a measure approved by the Commerce Committee in March has yet to be scheduled for discussion by the full body. The delay in bringing the Senate bill to the floor is tied partly to the broader politics of the Senate, where Republicans, who hold a slim 51-seat majority, have had difficulty passing major bills. But for the senators themselves, there is also the peril of investing too much political capital in a divisive issue, which has pitted some social conservatives and child- advocacy groups against big broadcasters and civil rights advocates.

In addition, the Senate version contains other controversial provisions - including one that would seek to curb violent content on television, not just sex and swearing - that the House bill explicitly avoided.

"This looks like a cheap date to me,'' said Charles Cook, the editor of The Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan political newsletter. "You come out for motherhood, apple pie and 'decency,' and you know it's not going anywhere.''

Moreover, in recent weeks, the issue of the war in Iraq - particularly the prisoner abuse scandal - has moved to the forefront of the national political agenda in a way that was not the case on Super Bowl Sunday, when the exposing of Janet Jackson's right breast during the halftime show caused such a stir. Politicians who push too hard on the decency issue may risk appearing to have their priorities out of whack.

The legislative push began earlier this year, at a time when the Federal Communications Commission, which administers the standards that radio and television broadcasters must follow, was beginning to move aggressively in response to complaints against broadcasters.

In April, for example, the commission proposed fining six Clear Channel radio stations a total of $495,000 for broadcasting a 20-minute segment of the Howard Stern radio program last year that largely dealt with anal sex. (In a departure from previous judgments, the proposed fine against Clear Channel - the $27,500 maximum that the law currently allows - was multiplied by the number of stations and the number of utterances found to be in violation.)

In March, the commission, reversing an earlier ruling, found that NBC had violated decency standards by broadcasting a single vulgarity uttered by Bono, the lead singer of U2, when he excitedly accepted an award during the Golden Globes in 2003.

The number of such complaints generally rises in election years, as do the public promises of politicians, both Democrats and Republicans, to address the concerns of the most vocal.

But this election year has been different. In response to the Stern and Bono decisions, some broadcasters have hewed to such a narrow line in recent weeks - tossing songs like "The Bitch is Back'' by Elton John off the radio, and carefully editing programs like the critically acclaimed "Prime Suspect'' by PBS - that fresh concerns have been raised, by civil rights groups among others, that self-censorship has gone too far.

The House bill was sponsored by Representative Fred Upton, a moderate Republican from southwestern Michigan. He said that mail from constituents offended by broadcaster behavior - particularly Bono's adjectival expletive - ran as high over the winter as mail on any other issue, including the Iraq war. At its core, the House bill would raise the maximum fine on a radio or television station found to have violated decency standards to $500,000 for each violation, from the current $27,500 cap.

Mr. Upton said that the penalties had not been increased in decades, and were considered such a slap on the wrist that they had proved of little use as a deterrent.

"These are the public airwaves,'' Mr. Upton said. "Every F.C.C. commissioner, regardless of whether Republican or Democrat, has called for higher fines, as over- the-air broadcasters have clearly skirted the line on decency.''

The Senate bill, sponsored by Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas, would raise the maximum penalty on a sliding scale - $275,000 for a single violation for the first offense, $375,000 for the second. The maximum penalty for subsequent offenses would be $500,000.

The Senate Commerce Committee, which unanimously approved the measure in March, narrowly defeated an amendment proposed by Senator John Breaux, Democrat of Louisiana, that would have extended to basic cable channels (including MTV and Comedy Central) the same indecency standards applied to the broadcast networks.

Some senators were concerned that the provision would lose a court challenge. The Supreme Court has generally held that, because viewers pay to receive cable stations, they should be held to less restrictive standards of decency and obscenity.

But unlike the House measure, the Senate version of the bill does wade into the subject of violence on television and its effect on children. The House explicitly avoided the issue of violence, in part because it would require drafting standards on what should be considered violent.

The Senate bill would also seek to roll back, at least temporarily, rules passed by the commission last year that would permit media conglomerates to own newspapers in markets where they already own radio and television stations.

The Bush administration has supported media companies in their desire to get bigger, and the House bill has no provisions that would thwart those ambitions. (The commission's proposed rules are being challenged in federal court, and have yet to take effect.)

"All players would confess that if the Senate media ownership provision remained in the bill, then it would not move,'' Representative Upton said.

If the Senate and House are able to forge common ground, the result is likely to involve some attempt - probably in a broader, unrelated bill, - to raise the penalties on broadcasters - though by how much is unclear. An additional complication is that broadcasters have long criticized the commission's guidelines about what it considers indecent, saying they are too vague. Neither the House nor the Senate bill requires the commission to clarify its guidelines.

"How do you know what's covered?'' said Geoffrey Cowan, dean of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California. "And if you don't know what's covered, how do you know what words to avoid?''
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/07/bu...07decency.html


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Clear Channel Is Said to Settle Accusations of Indecency
Jacques Steinberg

Clear Channel Communications, one of the nation's largest owners of radio stations, has reached an agreement with the Federal Communications Commission to pay more than $1.7 million in penalties to settle a series of indecency complaints, three people briefed on the negotiations said last night.

Barring a last-minute breakdown, the total fine that Clear Channel has agreed to pay - an estimated $1.75 million - would represent the largest ever negotiated between a broadcaster and the commission.

The largest penalty previously secured by the commission against a broadcaster involved Infinity Broadcasting, which agreed in 1995 to pay $1.7 million to the commission to settle complaints against Howard Stern.

Clear Channel's agreement with the F.C.C. also involves, in part, Mr. Stern's actions on the airwaves. The company is expected to admit that some of the material that it broadcast on its stations - including several segments of a Stern radio show during which anal sex was discussed - was indecent, according to one person close to the negotiations. That admission could prove a problem for Infinity, a unit of Viacom. The company has maintained that however offensive Mr. Stern's comments may be to some people, they do not meet the legal definition of indecent speech, and are thus protected by the First Amendment.

The agreement between Clear Channel and the commission would in effect settle any listener complaints made against its stations. Among the complaints are those concerning a 20-minute segment of the Stern show, much of it about anal sex, that Clear Channel broadcast last year on six of its stations; in April, the commission proposed fining the company $495,000 over that segment. (At the time, commission officials said that they had begun to examine whether it should penalize Infinity, which is Mr. Stern's employer and which broadcast the same segment on 18 of its stations.) The agreement also covers other listener complaints against Clear Channel, many of them yet to be made public by the commission. For Clear Channel - which suspended Mr. Stern's show on its stations in February and stopped carrying it permanently in April - the agreement represents an opportunity for political, as well as financial, finality on the issue, in an election year in which Janet Jackson's Super Bowl breast-baring has pushed such matters to the fore.

The proposed $1.75 million in fines would be on top of the $755,000 penalty that Clear Channel agreed to pay in March because of graphic and sexually explicit material broadcast in Florida on the "Bubba the Love Sponge" program, whose host, Todd Clem, has since been dismissed.

For the commission, and its chairman, Michael K. Powell, the agreement represents something of a trophy. Not only would the fines be the highest in F.C.C. history, but Clear Channel would admit that it had broadcast indecent material.

Clear Channel has also pledged not to go to court to challenge any of the complaints - including those that Clear Channel believes involved material that would not meet the legal definition of indecency.

A Clear Channel spokeswoman, Lisa Dollinger, did not respond to a message left last night seeking comment. A spokesman for Mr. Powell, David Fiske, declined to comment.

The agreement between Clear Channel and the commission, which could be announced as soon as this week, comes as the F.C.C. has been taking a more aggressive posture toward curbing sexual content and profanity on the nation's airwaves.

In March, the commission reversed an earlier ruling and found that NBC had violated decency standards by broadcasting a single vulgarity uttered by Bono, the lead singer of U2. That occurred while he was accepting an award during the Golden Globes ceremony in 2003.

Congress has also sought to be heard on the overall issue.

In March, the House of Representatives, by an overwhelming margin, passed a bill that would toughen the penalties for broadcasting material deemed to be indecent. A similar bill that includes a provision that would seek to rein in violence on television has been approved by the Senate Commerce Committee, though it has not yet been scheduled for discussion by the full Senate.

In the midst of the government's stepped-up interest in the decency issue, some producers and civil rights advocates have complained that the pendulum of what broadcasters consider appropriate has swung too far in the direction of self-censorship.

This year, for example, an Indianapolis radio station owned by Emmis Communications used its so-called "dump button" - an electronic delay device - to pre-empt the words "urinate," "damn" and "orgy" from being heard by listeners during its broadcast of Rush Limbaugh's radio show.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/09/bu...a/09radio.html


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Telstra ADSL Scrutiny Continues
AAP

THE competition watchdog today vowed to continue scrutinising Telstra's cut price broadband services until it was sure they were not anti-competitive.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission slapped a competition notice on Telstra in March after saying its decision to slash broadband prices was anti-competitive.

Rival internet service providers were outraged when Telstra in February slashed its retail broadband internet prices to $29.95 after making a deal with Optus and other parts of the industry to sell broadband capacity to them at $36.

If Telstra is taken to court under the competition notice and found guilty of anti- competitive behaviour, it faces fines of up to $10 million.

Telstra made two concessions on pricing under ACCC pressure. The first was rejected by the watchdog but the second, which gave ISP customers a choice between two pricing models, was initially welcomed.

However Telstra's offer was later criticised by ISPs who said accepting the low-end pricing offer, which would allow them to profitably compete with the $29.95 retail price, would make it difficult to move customers up to more expensive plans while maintaining profit margins, effectively forcing them to choose only one segment of the broadband market.

Some ISPs floated the idea of creating a subsidiary to specialise in cheap broadband, but Telstra expressly forbade ISPs from using such tactics to use both wholesale pricing models.

The ACCC engaged a law firm to collect statements from ISPs about the viability of Telstra's latest offer.

ACCC chairman Graeme Samuel today told a Senate Committee said the investigation into Telstra's broadband prices was far from over.

"It (the competition notice) will be removed only when we are satisfied that anti- competitive conduct has ceased," he said.

"We will continue that investigation over the next short while to ensure that Telstra doesn't continue to engage in anti-competitive conduct."
http://australianit.news.com.au/arti...-15319,00.html


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UK ISPs cutting back your bandwidth

Net to Net Tackles P2P

Net to Net Technologies the leading provider of IP DSL Solutions has announced new technology support in their IP DSLAMS to stop unauthorised Peer-to-Peer traffic from degrading the performance of DSL based networks.

An increasingly high profile issue for Service Providers is the problem of users downloading large volumes of music and video over the Internet on a fixed price link. The growth of Peer-to-Peer applications such as eMule and Kazaa hog bandwidth on shared networks and create dissatisfaction with network performance from other users which can lead to increased customer churn from valuable business customers who require a quality network service.

“Service Providers are increasingly using monitoring and manual cut off techniques to try to control this problem,” said Keith Hoult Managing Director Net to Net Technologies, “but this is in itself creating an Operating overhead and customer dissatisfaction as users feel they are being restricted unfairly.”

Net to Net Technologies' solution provides the Service Provider with tools to automatically limit the user to the bandwidth they have been allocated. The solution allows Providers to meet customer expectations and deliver on their service level agreements.

Rate Limiting technologies are common in high end switching and corporate networks but this is the first time such technology has been provided to ISPs using low cost DSL equipment. The system is based on IP Quality of Service prioritisation technology provided by Net to Net Technologies to help deliver real- time video and audio in applications such as CCTV and Video Conferencing.
http://www.lightreading.com/document...m&doc_id=54015


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ISPs Deluged by Peer-to-Peer Traffic, P-Cube Reports
Bill St. Arnaud

As much as two-thirds of the traffic that ISPs carry today is from peer-to-peer Web sites, and most of that traffic is caused by users downloading massive DVD files.

That's the assessment of ISP traffic patterns offered by Yuval Shahar, CEO of P- Cube. P-Cube is a venture-funded start-up that sells network devices to help ISPs throttle back peer-to-peer traffic.

Shahar says peer-to-peer traffic is shifting from users swapping small MP-3 music files to users simultaneously downloading multiple movies. "Napster was about swapping MP-3 files. Now it's mostly DVD movies, and the typical file is over 700M- byte. Users will set up 10 or 20 of those downloads in the background," Shahar says.

These news items and comments are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect those of the Canarie board or management.
http://www.boardwatch.com/document.asp?doc_id=53867


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Complimentary Wi-Fi access catching on

Where Entrepreneurs Go and the Internet Is Free
Matt Richtel

Linda Branagan would seem to be the ideal customer for entrepreneurs and telecommunications companies looking to make money selling wireless Internet connections. But, like thousands of business road warriors, Ms. Branagan often does not pay for the service because she gets it free.

At cafes, malls and downtown business districts, there has been an explosion of Internet access points, or Wi-Fi hot spots, that let computer users log on to the Internet for free. That growth is a fundamental reason - though not the only one - that technology start-ups, investors and industry analysts who had high hopes for Wi-Fi are scrambling to find sustainable business models.

Ms. Branagan, a director of a medical device research company, pays T-Mobile, a unit of Deutsche Telekom, $6 an hour for a wireless Internet connection when she is in airports if there are no free access points. But it is another matter when she is working outside the office in San Francisco.

"The Internet is free here," she said, as she sat doing research at The Canvas, an art gallery with a lounge and cafe setting in San Francisco's Sunset district. "Why would I pay T-Mobile?" she asked, when the cafe owners provide free Internet access to attract patrons.

The number of Wi-Fi hot spots has grown rapidly in the last year, with as many as 15,000 in operation in public locations, according to the Yankee Group, a market research firm.

But the difficulty of making a profit was made evident last month with the demise of Cometa Networks, a well-heeled Wi-Fi start-up backed by I.B.M., the Intel Corporation and the AT&T Corporation. Cometa, founded in 2002 to build a network of access points at retail outlets, announced on May 19 that it would suspend operations because it was not providing a suitable return to investors. Verizon Wireless, which said last year that it would build 1,000 Wi-Fi hot spots in Manhattan, has cut that number to around 500.

Meanwhile, thousands of free hot spots have been established by public agencies, mom-and-pop businesses hoping to attract customers and individuals working to build a grass-roots based network. A handful of city governments, some in cooperation with local businesses, are deploying free Wi-Fi networks in parts of Jacksonville, Fla., lower Manhattan and Portland, Ore., among other places.

"It's going to be hard for commercial carriers to make a profit," said Dewayne Hendricks, the chief executive of Dandin Group, a wireless Internet service provider based in Silicon Valley, who serves as technical adviser to the Federal Communications Commission on wireless Internet issues.

Mr. Hendricks said the remarkable spread of free networks was forcing commercial carriers to rethink their strategies.

"The infrastructure is being built from the bottom up," Mr. Hendricks said, referring to a municipal and grass-roots effort to deploy wireless connections. "How that plays out is potentially monumental," he said in affecting the way Internet access is provided.

Each Wi-Fi hot spot has a radio transmitter and receiver that is connected to the Internet through a broadband connection like a digital subscriber line, or D.S.L. The transmitter communicates with personal computers and enables them to send information to, and receive information from, the Internet. The transmitters typically have a range of 150 to 1,000 feet, though there is new technology emerging that could send a signal over several miles.

Because transmitters can be on different networks, a dozen or more hot spots can operate simultaneously in any given area, providing overlapping coverage. The connections do not interfere with each other because they are working on different radio channels. For users in big metropolitan areas like New York City and San Francisco, a free connection can almost always be found on blocks where hot spots are dense.

Even so, not all companies selling Wi-Fi service are struggling. T-Mobile, for one, has a well-established and profitable business model, said Roberta Wiggins, an analyst with the Yankee Group.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/07/te...gy/07wifi.html