Peer-To-Peer News - The Week In Review – February 7th, '04

[JackSpratts]

Quotes Of The Week

"This is the way constitutional rights are lost. Not in the thunder of a tyrant's edict, but in the soft judicial whispers of deference." - Justice David Sills.

"So 10 percent is non-infringing? That sounds like a lot of non-infringing files to me." - Judge John Noonan.

"The recording industry should give their PR people a bonus for creative prevarication." - Adam Eisgrau.





The Eagle Is Grounded

While America works to protect intellectual property, everyone else is innovating.
Thomas Goetz

In the late 1960s, the US cargo shipping industry was in trouble. The 2,000-vessel fleet that ruled the seas after World War II had dwindled to fewer than 900. New technologies - containers, automated loading - were taking hold on foreign ships while America clung to old methods. As a result, other countries were transporting nearly 80 percent of worldwide traffic.

So the government threw a lifeline: the Merchant Marine Act of 1970, which provided new protections and massive subsidies for the industry. As President Richard Nixon described it, the act would "replace the drift and neglect of recent years and restore this country to a proud position in the shipping lanes of the world."

It didn't work. Today, US carriers handle barely 2 percent of international cargo. The industry is dominated by nations like Panama and Liberia, so- called flags of convenience, where regulations are lighter and costs lower.

The US fleet was a classic victim of the efforts to save it. Rather than adapt to new economics, the American industry suffocated under overregulation and protectionism. Now the job gets done - goods move efficiently from place to place - but it's a rogue's business, rife with ne'er-do- wells and pirates.

The US is in danger of repeating the mistake, this time with intellectual property. In the face of new technologies and competition, the US is toughening patent and copyright protections. It's leaning on other countries - and its own citizens - to play by ever tighter rules. But if it's not careful, the US will drive its intellectual property offshore into a shadow world that, like shipping, is replete with piracy and rogue states.

That world is fast approaching. As the thicket of protections for IP industries - primarily agriculture, pharmaceuticals, media, and software - grows in the US, alternative ways of thinking are flourishing overseas. Researchers in Australia and India are sidestepping agriculture patents held by the likes of Monsanto and DuPont to develop competitive technologies and foods (such as a high-protein potato) that are, by design, open and unrestricted. In pharmaceuticals, India is skirting patents to create generic AIDS drugs that are orders of magnitude cheaper than those made by the transnational drug companies (see Lawrence Lessig's column on page 83). Media industries, meanwhile, are besieged by millions of MP3 traders and DVD bootleggers in open revolt against copyright protections.

And then there's software. Entire nations are making the leap to Linux. Last year, China began installing the open source operating system on 500,000 computers, with perhaps 200 million more machines on the way. That's bad for Microsoft but good for Linux, as China's vast pool of programming talent turns to developing the software further. (As a monopoly, Microsoft has the same market effect as a spurious patent or overregulation - reducing innovation and increasing prices.)

Taken together, these developments demonstrate how an alternative culture is arising in our midst - or rather, outside it. They reflect the gulf between IP owners, with their rigid sense of controls, and those who would seek to use that intellectual property with all the flexibility afforded by technology - the Internet, in particular. And that's not just a difference of opinion, it's a technological generation gap. As Intel chair Andy Grove recently told The Washington Post, the US needs to reassess its conception of intellectual property "for an era that is the information age as compared to the industrial age."

But so far, IP owners are doing all they can to lock in their old entitlements, pushing for increasingly restrictive laws and enforcement. The result: laughably broad patents (Monsanto claims to have rights to any and all genetic modifications to soybeans, for instance); the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (for five years used as a club to ward off technological innovations in software and media); and lately, patents awarded for software (even though it is already protected by copyright law). The MPAA and RIAA are even seeking permanent antitrust exemptions from Congress to more effectively defend against technology's inevitable progress. The shipping industry tried that one, too.

This conflict sets the stage for a trade war on an unprecedented scale. Last fall's World Trade Organization talks at Cancún failed in part because poor countries walked out in protest over US and EU intransigence on agriculture and drug patent issues. That's just a sign of the strife ahead; those poorer nations could become the next flags of convenience for a more liberal conception of intellectual property.

There's still time to avoid the shipping industry's fate: American IP owners can stop demanding maximum and extreme protections. The US Patent and Trademark Office can stop taking a head-in-the-sand approach - last summer it strong-armed the World Intellectual Property Organization into canceling a discussion on open source projects - and instead use the WIPO to forge a global policy that works for all nations.

By taking a flexible approach to IP, companies could capitalize on the next wave of innovation rather than shirk from it. But wait too long and this ship will have sailed.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/1...w=wn_tophead_7


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Homes and offices raided.

Record Industry Enforcer Raids Kazaa Offices
Sam Varghese

The enforcement arm of the Australian record industry has raided the premises of Sharman Networks and its proprietor, Nicola Hemming, in what it says is a bid to stop illegal copying of music through the Kazaa network.

Yesterday, Music Industry Privacy Investigations obtained court orders allowing its investigators to obtain documents and other electronic records about Kazaa's activities in Australia. Twelve premises were raided in three states this morning.

The premises of Brilliant Digital Entertainment and those of three universities - the University of Queensland, the University of New South Wales and Monash University - were among those raided.

Among other premises raided were those of Akamai Technologies AAP, NTT Australia, Telstra Corporation and NTT Australia IP. MIPI said proceedings had begun in the Federal Court after a six-month investigation.

MIPI said evidence had been obtained during the raids which would be used in the court proceedings.

Court action commenced in Sydney as Kazaa operates from offices in the suburb of Cremorne even though it is registered in the Pacific island of Vanuatu.

MIPI general manager Michael Speck said the action had been taken "to stop the illegal use of music through use of the Kazaa network."

"Kazaa has built a large international business through encouraging and authorising the illegal copying of music users of its network. It authorises this copying without seeking the licence or permission of the owners and creators of the music, nor does it pay any royalties to either the owners or creators of the music," he said.

The matter will return to court on Tuesday.

Sharman Networks described the actions as “a knee-jerk reaction by the recording industry to discredit Sharman Networks and the Kazaa software, following a number of recent court decisions around the world that have ruled against the entertainment industry’s agenda to stamp out peer-to-peer technology."

“There is no doubt this is a cynical attempt by the industry to disrupt our business, regain lost momentum, and garner publicity. The assertions by plaintiffs are hackneyed and worn out. It is a gross misrepresentation of Sharman’s business to suggest that the company in any way facilitates or encourages copyright infringement."

“Sharman bought the Kazaa software two years ago with the express purpose of building it into a legitimate channel for the distribution of licensed, copyright protected content which in turn financially benefits artists. This model has already proven to be successful.”

MIPI is established and funded by record companies and music publishers and acts as an anti-piracy arm for these organisations. It is affiliated with the Australian Record Industry Association.
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/...854054236.html


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Landmark P2P Case Back in Court Today
John P. Mello Jr.

"What the entertainment companies are trying to do here is overturn the rule that the Supreme Court gave us when those companies attacked the VCR," Fred von Lohmann, a staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco, told

Big Music and Big Movies will square off once again with Internet file-sharing services Grokster and Morpheus today in a California courtroom over what the "bigs" say is rampant copyright infringement taking place on those networks.

A lower court dismissed contentions that the owners of the services should be held responsible for copyright infringements perpetrated on their networks. Now the industry hopes a federal court of appeals in Pasadena will take a more favorable view of its arguments and topple the lower court's ruling.

"There is no genuine dispute that the raison d'etre of [these] networks is the unlawful exchange of copyrighted songs and movies," the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) argued in a brief filed with the appeals court. "The harm to [us] continues to be enormous."

Grokster and Morpheus have "unlocked the door to every video and record store in the country and invited every person to come in and copy as much as they want, in flat violation of [our] copyrights," the brief said.

But an attorney for the peer-to-peer (P2P) services sees the situation differently. "What the entertainment companies are trying to do here is overturn the rule that the Supreme Court gave us when those companies attacked the VCR," Fred von Lohmann, a staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco, told TechNewsWorld.

"They're saying that if you're a technology company, you have a responsibility to redesign your product so they're happy with it," he contended.

"That's never been the rule before," von Lohmann continued. "If it were the rule, there would have never been a VCR, there would have never been a photo copier, there would have never been an Internet because those are technologies that the entertainment companies are unhappy with."

Needless to say, the entertainment companies see the motivation of the P2P networks seeking protection behind the so-called Betamax decision as less than genuine. "They have wrapped themselves in the flag of technology and the Betamax case, and we just think that that garb does not fit them at all," Cory Ramos, an attorney with Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP in New York City, told TechNewsWorld.

"Baloney," declared Wayne Rosso, former president of Grokster and currently CEO of Optisoft, the developer of Blubster, Piolet and MP2P Technology. "It's a technology," he told TechNewsWorld. "It's the same as coaxial cable. It's a network."

However, according to the brief filed with the appeals court by the MPAA and RIAA, that's an inaccurate assessment. The brief claims Grokster and Morpheus failed to establish in the lower-court case that they have no control over their networks.

"They maintain regular systematic control of the system and their business," the brief argued. "It was undisputed, for example, that [they] currently filter or block certain material available over their networks, [such as] pornographic works, viruses and bogus files."

"Instead of employing their filtering to stop piracy," the brief continued, "[they] turned a blind eye to detectable acts of infringement for the sake of profit."

"The recording industry should give their PR people a bonus for creative prevarication," Adam Eisgrau, executive director of P2P United in Washington, D.C., told TechNewsWorld. "In other words, they're simply not telling the truth."

Any filtering on the network is done by individual users, not the makers of the P2P software, explained Eisgrau. "The members of P2P United have no central ability to control what individual users who have installed their software on their individual computers do with that software after it gets installed," he said.

"If the recording industry put 10 percent of the effort that it has put into telling untruths to policymakers about the nature of this technology into finding a creative solution for the marketplace, then artists would already be realizing revenue," he added.

At the hearing today, each side will be given 30 minutes to present its case and answer questions from the appeals panel of three judges, who could take several months to issue an opinion in the matter.
http://www.linuxinsider.com/perl/story/32754.html


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“A sad day in the history of civil liberties.”

Internet Cafe Ordinance Sparks War of Words
Mike McKee

A California state appeal court ruled Thursday that cities aren't violating the First Amendment by forcing Internet cafe owners to implement extreme security measures, such as security guards and video surveillance cameras.

But the decision, upholding an ordinance ostensibly aimed at curbing gang-related violence, drew an unusually sharp dissent from one justice, who accused the majority of blessing Orwellian "Big Brother" governmental oversight.

"The majority opinion represents a sad day in the history of civil liberties," 4th District Court of Appeal Justice David Sills wrote. "They see no infringement on privacy when a video camera is, literally, looking over your shoulder while you are surfing the Internet.

"This is the way constitutional rights are lost," he continued. "Not in the thunder of a tyrant's edict, but in the soft judicial whispers of deference."

Sills called the majority ruling an "emasculation" of the state right to privacy and an "infringement" of speech and press rights.

Faced with rising gang activity at Internet cafes -- the number of which had grown from three to 22 in two years -- the Orange County city of Garden Grove in 2002 placed a moratorium on more cafes. It also prohibited minors from visiting the cafes during school hours, required uniformed security guards on Friday and Saturday nights, and demanded the installation of video surveillance systems.

Cafe owners filed suit, claiming violations of their free speech and privacy rights. Orange County Superior Court Judge Dennis Choate agreed, saying the ordinance was overly burdensome and not narrowly tailored to avoid First Amendment problems.

But the Santa Ana-based 4th District disagreed on both grounds, saying that the city's "time, place and manner restrictions" on First Amendment activities were narrow and were adopted for legitimate governmental reasons.

"Given the well-demonstrated criminal activity observed at cybercafes, and their tendency to attract gang members," Justice Raymond Ikola wrote, "the court should not have second-guessed the city council's judgment and discretion."

Justice William Bedsworth concurred.

In his dissent, Justice Sills argued that the city's ordinance isn't warranted because violence had been reported at only five Internet cafes.

"That leaves 17 cybercafes which have experienced no serious problems, a fact which should be enough to require this court to affirm the trial court's injunction, not overturn it," he wrote.

Sills also accused Garden Grove of "picking on" Internet cafes, and said the court's majority had chosen to "fob off" onto private citizens the government duty of providing police protection.

"No city council would dare require private security guards for private residences or restaurants," he wrote, "even though -- I repeat -- there is just as much reason to impose such requirements if one sticks to the rationale of the majority opinion."

The justices' sniping in the ruling was extraordinarily tart, with the majority using footnotes to counter various of Sills' allegations, which included that they countenanced a Big Brother atmosphere and encouraged laws more restrictive than those of many communist countries.

In his most pointed jab, Sills cited a failed effort by Malaysia to register the names and identity card numbers of all Internet cafe customers.

"Apparently," he wrote, "my colleagues are willing to countenance infringements on the rights of cybercafe users which even the government of Malaysia is too ashamed to enforce!"

"Wow!" the majority responded in a footnote. "We will not respond in kind. We prefer to debate the issues on the merits."

Plaintiffs lawyer Ronald Talmo, a Santa Ana solo practitioner, couldn't be reached for comment.

But M. Lois Bobak, a partner at Orange's Woodruff, Spradlin & Smart who represented the city, was pleased with the decision.

"The ruling validates the city's underlying goal of trying to reduce the potential of crime at cybercafes," she said, "particularly crime involving minors."

Asked about Sills' dissent, Bobak said, "It's obvious that there was some pretty spirited debate among the justices."
http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1075219841269


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China Is Asked to Explain Subversion Laws
AUDRA ANG

More than 100 scholars, lawyers and democracy activists wrote a letter on Sunday to China's legislature and its highest court, urging them to clarify the country's subversion laws to prevent official abuse, a human rights group said.

The letter, which will be submitted March 1 to the National People's Congress and the Supreme Court, said current subversion law was "unclear and limits the people's right to speech and freedom," according to the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy.

"The definition and logic behind the laws are vague and makes room for abuse of the law," the center said, citing the letter.

China's communist government usually applies subversion laws to people pushing for political reform by signing petitions, posting Internet articles, distributing fliers or participating in demonstrations.

The letter came days after Amnesty International reported a "dramatic rise" in the number of people jailed in China for expressing opinions on the Internet.
http://www.kansas.com/mld/kansas/news/7850605.htm


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Hollywood Mogul Plays by Technology's Rules
John Markoff

The decision by Steven P. Jobs, chief executive of Pixar Animation Studios, to walk away from his partnership with Michael D. Eisner and the Walt Disney Company is the clearest indication yet that Mr. Jobs is becoming the personification of the digital media mogul.

The collapse last Thursday of the Disney- Pixar negotiations over a new distribution agreement appears to have been a clash of egos and business interests. But it was also very much a sign of the changing balance of power between the conventional media giants and the entrepreneurs wielding digital technologies that are rapidly changing the way media content is made and distributed.

Compared with the ambitious but often unfocused visions of executives in the dot-com boom, like the largely failed strategy behind the merger of AOL and Time Warner, Mr. Jobs is familiar enough with digital technology to see not only its capabilities but also to recognize its limitations.

And so in the case of the iPod portable music player and iTunes online music store by Mr. Jobs's Apple Computer, an easy-to-use hand-held computer and an accessible network database are transforming not music itself, but the way music is distributed.

The success of Mr. Jobs's digital film studio, Pixar, has come not from upending the business of distributing movies, but from employing computers as powerful creative tools for movie animators steeped in the traditional art of storytelling.

For all his talk of revolution over the years, Mr. Jobs has taken a disciplined, evolutionary approach to the media industry that has been remarkably successful: Apple is the leader in the music download market and Pixar's "Finding Nemo'' is one of the most financially successful animated films.

"With his fingers in music and film and computers, it is obvious that Steve can now hold his head up with the other moguls," said Danny Hillis, a former computer scientist at Disney's Imagineering division and now the chief technology officer of Applied Minds, a technology and consulting company in Glendale, Calif.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/02/te...pagewanted=all


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Internet Companies Trying To Turn Music File-Swapping Into Legitimate Business
AP

The music industry is giving all it's got to the fight against unauthorized file-sharing. But if you can't kill the beast, why not tame it?

Some Internet companies are turning peer-to-peer file-sharing into a legitimate business - and at least one major label, EMI Music, is taking the technology seriously.

The idea: Even when fans copy files from other music lovers' computers, record companies and artists can still make money.

Legitimate peer-to-peer, or P2P, file-sharing has attracted mostly small labels, and it's likely to stay a niche market. But at last month's huge Midem industry conference in this Mediterranean resort, an EMI executive urged people to give it a chance.

"We want to learn how to embrace P2P," said Ted Cohen, EMI's senior vice president for digital development and distribution. He believes it will take a year for the tide to change.

Services like Apple Computer Inc.'s iTunes Music Store have demonstrated that people are willing to pay to download music over the Internet, but such services do not use peer-to-peer technology but rather distribute music from a central server.

In a P2P system, a music fan grabs tunes directly off another fan's computer. Such systems lower distribution costs because files are available from multiple locations. They also save companies money on bandwidth.

Much of the time, using P2P system amounts to piracy. And because of unauthorized services like Kazaa, P2P has become something of a dirty word in the recording business.

The industry has even filed lawsuits against P2P companies and their users. Lawyers are headed back to court ty as the labels, music publishers and film studios attempt to persuade an appellate panel to overturn a ruling that cleared Grokster Ltd. and StreamCast Networks Inc. of liability. The entertainment industry also has a pending lawsuit against Kazaa's parent company, Sharman Networks Ltd.

Among companies trying to convince the music industry that P2P doesn't have to be all about piracy is Wippit, a Britain-based music subscription service.

For about US$50 a year, subscribers can download any of Wippit's tunes using P2P and save them in as many places they like - an idea that makes many big recording companies nervous. Other services limit copying.

Most of the 200 recording companies that have signed on to Wippit are independent, and there are huge gaps in what music is available.

But EMI, whose artists range from the Rolling Stones to Coldplay, is set to debut most of its catalogue on Wippit in February, said Wippit's chief executive, Paul Myers.

Myers says he's in talks with the four other major labels, and he hopes that two of them will join his service next month, though the deals aren't finalized.

"With the majors, there's a fear within those companies of the word 'peer-to-peer'," Myers said. "There's still a fear it's out of control."

PlayLouder, an Internet service provider for music lovers that's set to debut in Britain later this year, also will offer file-sharing. One of its investors is the influential indie label Beggars Group.

Mark Mulligan, a senior analyst with Jupiter Research in London, doubts that Wippit and PlayLouder can ever become mainstream because major labels are too worried that people will use them to make unlimited copies.

But "I think they're both major parts of the puzzle," he said. On the Internet, "one size does not fit all. Online consumers want to have different options."

Another file-sharing option may come from a German company, 4FriendsOnly.com, which teamed with the Fraunhofer Institute, the German research center that developed that MP3 music format, which is widely used for file-sharing.

Their service isn't available yet, but the idea is that fans should get a commission if they pass on tunes to friends who buy them. Fans who get a recommendation could listen a few times before access to the song ends - unless it is purchased.

Chief executive Jurgen Nutzel, who was showing the technology at Cannes, said people who might be less tempted to burn extra copies of songs for friends if they could get a commission instead.

"We hope we'll find customers who have an interest in friendly behavior, because they want to earn money," he said.

In the United States, Shawn Fanning, who pioneered music file-swapping on the original Napster, is reported to be working on Snocap, a P2P venture that would make money for the recording companies.

There's also Altnet, which is taking advantage of peer-to-peer technology - but in a way that disturbs many recording companies because it partners with and distributes music through Kazaa.

Fans who search for songs on Kazaa get the authorized files on Altnet marked with an orange icon, alongside the regular shares in blue. After downloading an Altnet item, another click gets a license and information on payments due. It uses concert tickets, DVDs and even laptops to encourage people to trade authorized files.

Derek Broes, the company's executive vice president, says that by pouring licensed content into the system, legal files will eventually outnumber the unlicensed ones.
http://www.etaiwannews.com/Business/...1075862029.htm


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New Morpheus4 Software Released Today Connects Users of All Major Peer-to-Peer File-Sharing Networks
Press Release

Morpheus Users Will Now Have Simultaneous Connectivity to Users of Kazaa, iMESH, eDonkey, Overnet, Grokster, LimeWire, Gnutella, G2 and Others, All Through Single 'Super' Application

StreamCast Networks, Inc., creators of the popular Morpheus peer-to-peer file-sharing software, today announced the release of Morpheus 4, a radically-enhanced new version of the application including early access to the new NEOnet technology platform. Morpheus 4 is available for free download at www.morpheus.com .

Users of Morpheus 4 will enjoy finding more content than ever before with direct connectivity to users of other peer-to-peer clients including Kazaa, iMESH, eDonkey, Overnet, Grokster, Gnutella, LimeWire, G2 and others, truly uniting millions of worldwide peer-to-peer users and including new features such as free VoIP voice chat permitting users to talk to others globally at no cost.

"Morpheus 4 is the best file-sharing program on the planet," StreamCast Networks, Inc. Chief Executive Officer Michael Weiss commented. "Before now, file-sharing software only allowed users of a particular peer-to-peer network to connect together. Now, Morpheus allows users to connect the networks together. We expect to see huge demand, as the creation of Morpheus 4 represents a new frontier for peer-to-peer technologies and brings us one step closer to a unified global exchange network for sharing everything from the user's own music, movies, photos and software without the need for Web publishing and other intermediaries."

Additional features in Morpheus 4.0 include:

* No spyware
* Integrated access to public proxy networks -- provides greater user
anonymity
* Hashed IPs -- conceals the user's IP address within Morpheus
* Privacy options to prevent others from snooping on users
* Integrated anti-virus protection with user's virus scanning software
* Advanced parental controls
* Built-in media organizer
* File-Shredder to completely delete unwanted files



"With the decisions handed down by the U.S. Courts, Morpheus remains the only U.S. based legally sanctioned peer-to-peer file sharing application. It was logical for us to take this next step in expanding the application's reach to millions of users," Weiss added. "By maintaining the features that have made Morpheus a P2P powerhouse -- including our spyware-free environment and proxy-server capabilities that help protect anonymity -- Morpheus is now truly 'The One' for P2P software. Morpheus 4 is ideal for content providers who want to efficiently distribute their digital media to an on-line audience of millions."

About StreamCast Networks, Inc.

StreamCast Networks, Inc., creator of the Morpheus software, is a leading global communications technology company that is revolutionizing Internet-based digital media and information distribution via new technologies that enable users to communicate with one another on an unprecedented global scale. Users have downloaded over 119 million copies of the Morpheus application software, according to figures provided by CNET's download.com .
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/040203/latu029_1.html


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Key Online Music Piracy Ruling Reviewed
Susan Kuchinskas

A federal appeals court Tuesday heard arguments in an entertainment industry appeal of a case that may decide the fate of file sharing on the Internet.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Pasadena reviewed the appeal of a lower court's ruling that cleared file-swapping services Grokster and Morpheus of copyright infringements occurring on their networks.

The appeal stems from a suit filed in 2001. The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), National Music Publishers Association of America (NMPA) and the Recording Industry Association (RIAA) sued Kazaa, Grokster and Streamcast Networks, owner of Morpheus, for contributory and vicarious copyright infringement. In April 2002, the court ruled in favor of Grokster and Streamcast. The claims against Kazaa and its acquirer, Sharman Networks, were separated from this suit and are still pending.

In his decision in that Los Angeles district court case, Judge Stephen Wilson wrote, "Just as in Napster, many of those who use (Grokster and Morpheus) software do so to download copyrighted media files, including those owned by the plaintiffs and thereby infringe Plaintiffs' rights of reproduction and distribution. Thus, for purposes of these motions, plaintiffs have established direct infringement of their copyrighted works by some end-users of Defendants' software."

However, Wilson was guided by a landmark 1984 Supreme Court ruling that said use of new technology to infringe copyrights did not justify an outright ban on that technology. Wilson said Grokster and Morpheus couldn't control how people use their software.

Brian O'Neal, a spokesperson for Streamcast Networks, said that the Morpheus software is very useful for a wide variety of legal distribution.

"I may not know how to build a Web site, but I have information I'd be happy to share with other enthusiasts," he said. "[With Morpheus], I can choose to put it in a shares directory that's safe and secure. This concept of distributed computing is far more efficient [than the central file server model] -- you don't rely on the power of a gatekeeper."

No executives from the RIAA, NMPA or MPAA were available for comment. A statement released by the MPAA said, "This case is not about Plaintiffs embracing or opposing technological innovation. It is about the conduct of businesses that intentionally misuse commonly available Internet 'peer-to-peer' technology to profit from copyrights they do not own for works they did not create."

The industry associations argue that, since Grokster and Morpheus block some files, such as viruses, they can and should block illegally shared files as well.

Adam Eisgrau, executive director of P2P United, a lobbying organization for file-sharing software vendors, said that statement is deliberately misleading, because filtering for pornography or other material is set up by individuals on their own computers.

"It's not dynamic software that on its own scours the content that people send back and forth," he said. "It's not centralized."

The P2P claque is feeling confident. Said Wayne Rosso, the former president of Grokster who's now CEO of file-sharing networks Blubster and Piolet, "Every judge in the world seems to understand our technology and how the law applies to it -- except for the RIAA and the movie industry. ...These guys can cry all they want to, but they're going to have to adjust to this brave new world."

Unfortunately, it's not over till it's over. P2P United's Eisgrau said the record industry is already lobbying congress to pass legislation to stop file sharing. And that would be a shame, he said. "Letting the law become the instrument of one parochial organization is really bad policy."
http://news.earthweb.com/bus-news/print.php/3308021


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Selling, not sharing.

Ex-Microsoft Employee Sentenced To Prison
Reuters

A former employee of Microsoft was sentenced on Wednesday to 21 months in prison for obtaining software meant for corporate use and selling it for personal profit, local authorities said.

Wilson Delancy, 36, was ordered to pay more than $4 million in restitution to the world's largest software maker for buying stolen software from another former employee, Kori Robin Brown, in order to sell it for personal gain, John McKay, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Washington, said in a statement.

Brown was sentenced to 17 months in prison last November for stealing software meant for corporate use. Because the products were sent via mail, Brown and Wilson were convicted of mail fraud.

The fraud scheme was initially uncovered during a crackdown on criminal theft of software at Microsoft's Redmond, Wash., headquarters late last year.

Microsoft has hired investigators and made changes to its internal ordering system in order to prevent future incidents, said Microsoft spokeswoman Tami Begasse.

"It's not new or current behavior," Begasse said.
http://news.com.com/2100-1014-5150016.html


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Microsoft wins Lindows fight in the Netherlands
Jan Libbenga

Resellers of the Linux distribution Lindows in the Netherlands were ordered today to stop selling the product. Amsterdam judge Rullmann agreed with Microsoft that in many ways Lindows is "profiting from the success of Windows" by infringing the Beast of Redmond's trademarks.

Within eight days Dutch resellers have to stop promoting and selling any Lindows product. The Californian company isn't even allowed to advertise in the Low Countries any longer and, even more remarkable, the judge has ordered Lindows to make its Web site inaccessible to Benelux-based web users.

Dutch resellers are disappointed by the verdict. However, reseller Mensys said that Dutch consumers will still be able to buy the product from retailers in neighboring countries. "So far, Microsoft hasn't challenged German resellers," CEO Menso de Jong told The Register. "And if Microsoft wants to block access to the Lindows site, I suggest users try the Google cache."

Still, the ruling is a major set back for Lindows. Last year Microsoft won a temporary restraining order in Sweden which prohibits Lindows.com from use of the marks 'Lindows', 'Lindows.com' and 'LindowsOS', pending a later decision on alleged trademark infringement. A judge in Finland also barred Linux vendors from using the Lindows name.

Microsoft also started legal action in France, Belgium and Luxembourg against Lindows.com and Lindows OS resellers.

Lindows CEO Michael Roberson hasn't responded yet to the latest ruling, but told reporters earlier that "Microsoft is using lawsuits as a battering ram to smash Linux, to prevent it from reaching retail stores".
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/35221.html


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Peer-To-Peer Networks Must Be Preserved
Dan Gillmor

PEERING TOWARD PROFITS: Last week, Lindows began offering Lindows Live, a free online version of the Linux operating system. But the company isn't the only one offering the software: Its users are becoming part of the distribution process.

That's because Lindows (www.lindows.com) is using peer-to-peer networks, where users share online content with each other. They're the same networks that music and movie moguls call dens of piracy. There's another side to these peer-to-peer services, as I hope a federal appeals court panel understood when it heard an important case Tuesday in Southern California.

It's not about copyright infringement for Lindows. It's about saving money in an entirely smart and, so far, legal way, says Michael Robertson, Lindows founder and chief executive. By his estimate, the company is saving tens of thousands of dollars a month in bandwidth costs over what it would have had to pay, using standard systems, to serve the same number of people.

Bandwidth is the capacity of the data pipes that carry information around the Internet.

Charges for bandwidth can soar for those who provide content to others, especially when the data consists of larger files such as software applications and video. Maintaining a server computer to which lots of people come to download files can be expensive if the demand is high. The most popular Web sites spread their data around to some degree, using Akamai and other services that store copies of in-demand material closer to where the demand is. But even there the costs can be prohibitive.

``The more successful you are,'' says Robertson, ``the more it costs you.''

Lindows has a business plan to make money on ancillary services it offers with the Linux operating-system download.

Artists in the digital age face a much more difficult situation.

Modern digital tools are giving artists an unprecedented ability to make first-rate music, video and more. Under the perverse economics of standard Internet data delivery, they risk financial harm if what they create becomes too popular.

Peer-to-peer solves the problem, because the users themselves store the material and make it available to others. The more popular it is, the more likely it is to be on a computer near you -- and the less congestion you'll cause in the overall network even as you've spared the originating site entirely.

Several companies are trying to commercialize peer-to-peer by creating proprietary systems that store material widely, deliver it on demand and keep track of where everything is going. ESPN's online arm uses one of these to get video to its customers.

But this is untenable for amateurs and companies operating at the financial fringe. The wide-open peer-to-peer networks, such as BitTorrent (www.bitconjurer.org) and Gnutella, among others, are the only good answer -- as thousands of artists have discovered.

Their success is one more reason to worry about the way the music and movie industries are trying to shut down peer-to-peer networks. Yes, some people use them for copyright infringement. But the copyright lobby would rather kill peer-to-peer or bring it under such tight control that it would be almost useless.

The arguments Tuesday before the federal appeals court panel could determine the legal future of peer-to-peer, though technology is outrunning the control freaks in any event. The copyright industry is trying to overturn a judge's ruling that the creators of peer-to-peer networks can't be held responsible for what people do with the technology as long as there are non- infringing uses.

As Robertson has shown, the legitimate uses are real. If this technology is lawyered back into the fringes or hobbled into uselessness, we'll lose something we need.
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercu...ss/7866625.htm


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Google Slaps Booble
Janis Mara

Search engine giant Google has demanded that newly launched adult search site Booble take down its Web site, a Booble spokesman said Thursday.

Booble officials claim its site is a parody, while Google disputes this assertion.

Twenty-four hours after Booble launched on Jan. 20, the Google Trademark Enforcement Team e- mailed the company asking it to take down its site, a Booble spokesman said.

Trademark issues seem to be occupying a lot of Google's time these days. The company is also involved in a trademark dispute with American Blind and Wallpaper, which filed suit against Google in New York Tuesday alleging infringement.

The Booble imbroglio has become a cause celebre online, with forums such as Slashdot debating the legal issues.

The adult search site says Google sent it an e-mail that says in part, "This Domain Name is confusingly similar to the famous GOOGLE trademark. Your Web site is a pornographic Web site. Your Web site improperly duplicates the distinctive and proprietary overall look and feel of Google's Web site...." The message also disputes that Booble.com is a parody because it does not create a composition that comments on the original.

The message concludes by asking Booble to disable the site, discontinue use of the domain name, transfer the domain name to Google, permanently refrain from any confusing or diluting use of the term "Google," and "cease and desist from using the Google trade dress."

"The Google demand letter as reproduced on the Booble site states a plausible argument as to why it is not a permissible parody," said Martin Schwimmer, a Mount Pleasant, N.Y. attorney specializing in trademark and domain name law.

A parody comments on the entity it is satirizing, Schwimmer said, but Booble in general does not do so. The one parody element Schwimmer noted is the bar beneath the search box, seemingly a takeoff on Google's "I'm feeling lucky" bar. The Booble version has various messages including "I'm feeling confused."

"This is a competitor. It's another search engine. It takes Google's logo and uses their layout, their white screen and colored letters, for the business of being a search engine," Schwimmer noted.

Booble does not use paid search as a revenue model, according to its founder, "Bob," a New York-based former Internet executive who refused to be identified further.

"That's fake," he said, referring to Booble listings that mimic the paid sponsorships on Google. "We get affiliate revenue from the adult sites we list," and that is the site's revenue model. Booble has a database of 6,000 adult-oriented sites.

"Do you really think anyone would confuse the two sites?" "Bob" countered in response to Schwimmer's comments, pointing out that Booble's top level page has a warning to those under 18 to leave immediately. Google has no such warning. "If I thought it was confusing, I would change it."

"Bob" said he started Booble as a joke and then got carried away, putting his own money into the venture. "I hope this is just the standard letter, the legal department did what they had to do and now will forget about it. But if they want a court to figure it out, so be it.

"We're using this as a platform to comment on what men are doing on the Web. Google is how people find pornography on the Internet. This is a parody of that. They claim we are defaming them by associating with them, but come on, get real!" "Bob" said.

Google representatives could not be reached for comment by press time.
www.internetnews.com/IAR/article.php/3306121


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EP Issues Report On Collective Music Societies
ILN

The European Parliament has issued a report on the importance and future of collective societies. The report argues that digital rights management technologies cannot replace the societies, which it argues ensure both equitable remuneration for creators and easy access by users to IP.

Report at http://www.shorl.com/hipryradrabrapre (save as pdf)


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Georgia Stayed With Controversial Database Despite Governor's Statement
AP

In a crisply worded statement last October, Gov. Sonny Perdue said he was ending Georgia's participation in a multi-state crime database that tracks the personal details even of law-abiding citizens.

Yet several months later, the state still was pumping information into the database. Top Georgia law enforcement officials even attended a meeting of its members -- two weeks after Perdue's announcement.

State participation appeared to come to an end -- again -- on Friday when the administration, confronted with documents obtained by The Associated Press, said they were now pulling the plug for certain.

``We thought it already had (ended),'' said Dan McLagan, the governor's communications director. ``There was a miscommunication.''

Orders were given Friday to terminate the state's participation, he said.

The multistate database, known as Matrix -- short for the Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange -- combines records submitted by the participating states with 20 billion database files held by a private Florida company called Seisint Inc.

Launched with $12 billion in federal funds in a response to the Sept. 11 attacks, it has been billed as a speedy way for law enforcement agencies to find records.

Privacy rights advocates are concerned about the inclusion of information on people not accused of crimes, as well as over the scope of the data, which could include marriage and divorce records and even fingerprints.

Georgia law enforcement officials were interested in the project when it was initially proposed and provided state sex offender and prison records for the database.

But last October, Perdue said the state was dropping out of the database. His announcement came after state Attorney General Thurbert Baker ruled the state could not share driver's license records with the database unless state law was changed.

``The state of Georgia will not transfer any additional information to the company responsible for the Matrix database,'' Perdue said in a statement issued Oct. 21 by his press office.

``I have held serious concerns about the privacy issues involved with this project all along, and have decided it is in the best interest of the people of Georgia that our state have no further participation in the Matrix pilot project.''

But records obtained by the AP under a public records request in Florida show that five Georgia Bureau of Investigation agents, including Director Vernon Keenan, attended a Nov. 5 meeting of the Matrix board of directors in Atlanta.

Minutes of the meeting show that Keenan told other participants that Georgia planned to continue sending data to the system, even though that appeared to contradict the governor's earlier announcement.

Still in the program are Connecticut, Florida, Michigan, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/sil...al/7837750.htm


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Pentagon Kills LifeLog Project
Noah Shachtman

The Pentagon canceled its so-called LifeLog project, an ambitious effort to build a database tracking a person's entire existence.

Run by Darpa, the Defense Department's research arm, LifeLog aimed to gather in a single place just about everything an individual says, sees or does: the phone calls made, the TV shows watched, the magazines read, the plane tickets bought, the e-mail sent and received. Out of this seemingly endless ocean of information, computer scientists would plot distinctive routes in the data, mapping relationships, memories, events and experiences.


LifeLog's backers said the all-encompassing diary could have turned into a near-perfect digital memory, giving its users computerized assistants with an almost flawless recall of what they had done in the past. But civil libertarians immediately pounced on the project when it debuted last spring, arguing that LifeLog could become the ultimate tool for profiling potential enemies of the state.

Researchers close to the project say they're not sure why it was dropped late last month. Darpa hasn't provided an explanation for LifeLog's quiet cancellation. "A change in priorities" is the only rationale agency spokeswoman Jan Walker gave to Wired News.
http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,62158,00.html


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Teen found Fermi lab supercomputers a perfect place for tunes.

UK Teenager Sentenced for Hacking U.S. Research Lab
Bernhard Warner

A London teenager was sentenced on Monday to 200 hours of community service for hacking into the computer system of a U.S. physics research laboratory to store his personal collection of music and film files.

Joseph James McElroy, 18, of Woodford Green, told Southwark Crown Court in London that he hacked into 17 computer systems at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory near Chicago over a two-week period in June 2002 to store and exchange hundreds of gigabytes worth of computer files with his friends.

The U.S. Department of Energy had sought 21,000 pounds ($38,000) in compensation for the breach, which forced technicians to shut down a portion of the computer network for three days, the court was told.

The government-funded laboratory does advanced research into subatomic particles, plus research on nuclear weapons.

In October, McElroy, a student at Exeter University in southwest England, pleaded guilty to violating Britain's Computer Misuse Act. The law, which covers a broad range of computer crimes from hacking to virus writing, carries a maximum prison term of five years.

Judge Andrew Goymer waived demands to repay the U.S. Department of Energy on grounds the breach at no point compromised the laboratory's confidential research data.

The laboratory, renowned for discovering the smallest elements of matter in the universe, has one of the largest computer facilities on the planet capable of storing vast amounts of research data.

For years, people have been hacking into corporate and university computer systems to store massive caches of film and music files when their own computers run out of disc space.

In such piggy-backing schemes, large institutions and corporations are chosen because the files can go undetected for long periods amid a sea of data.

A joint investigation between the Department of Energy and New Scotland Yard's Computer Crime Unit in Britain traced the break-in to McElroy in July 2003 after they identified his IP address, an identifier that matches computer users with their computer.

McElroy told police he was unaware the computers belonged to a government-funded research laboratory.
http://www.boston.com/business/techn..._research_lab/


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Movielink Discounts Extended Viewing
Dinesh C. Sharma

Broadband video-on-demand company Movielink on Monday announced a service that will let its customers extend the time over which they can watch movies they've downloaded. Using the new MultiPlay feature, customers can continue to rent a movie for additional 24-hour viewing periods for up to 30 days after the initial download, typically at a reduced price, the company said. For example, the initial rental of "The Hulk" costs $3.99, and the charge for each additional viewing period is 99 cents. Prices for initial downloads and subsequent rentals vary by title.

Under Movielink's regular service, rental costs range from about $2.95 to $4.99 per film. Once a film is downloaded, customers have 30 days in which to start watching it; they can watch the film as often as they like--but only within a 24- hour period that begins with the first viewing.
http://news.com.com/2110-1025_3-5152034.html


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Profits Seen In Peer-To-Peer Networks

Saratoga Springs -- Wurld Media aims to team with film industry on new digital media delivery systems
Kenneth Aaron

You may think you've seen this movie before: dot-com player with a nice wardrobe and expensive office furniture talks about shaking up the Internet.

Thing is, Greg Kerber's company, Wurld Media Inc. of Saratoga Springs, figured out how to turn a profit in the e-commerce arena once. And now he is turning his attention to digital media, the latest, greatest frontier on the Internet.

"Digital media delivery systems is the future," said Kerber, Wurld's chairman and chief executive. He is a Wall Street expatriate who still favors French cuffs, despite the much more casual attire that his bank of programmers wears at Wurld's Putnam Street headquarters.

The company, which employs 37 now and expects to add 30 more by year's end, is cooking up a way to help companies pump content to users -- and ultimately harness the peer-to-peer networks popularized by Napster and vilified by record labels and Hollywood studios to deliver sanctioned downloads.

Think of the marketing potential, Kerber said, of people on the Internet saying, "This album rocks," to scores of total strangers, and not only being able to give them the album, but also to hand the record label a cut.

"In the future, it's going to offer great potential to the world," Kerber said of peer-to-peer technology.

Wurld Media has been through its near-death experience -- it lived through an episode in 2001 when it couldn't make payroll -- and actually managed to turn a profit off its BuyersPort e-commerce program for the first time late last year.

BuyersPort pays commissions to shoppers who buy things from affiliated Web sites. A BuyersPort member who orders, say, a box of Bic pens from Staples.com receives a cut of that purchase. Alternately, not-for-profit groups such as the Special Olympics use the BuyersPort service to capture commissions from their supporters.

While BuyersPort is on its feet now, Wurld endured reams of bad publicity when it first started up. Morpheus, a file-swapping program akin to Napster, installed Wurld's software on users' computers without their permission.

That wasn't supposed to happen, Kerber said.

And the company, chastened, not only worked on an industrywide code of conduct for such software, but won over its critics.

"Wurld Media is clean and a great example of truly fixing a wrong," said Haiko de Poel Jr., who runs a Web site devoted to affiliate marketing.

Wurld Media declined to divulge specific financial data (it's privately held, with most of the stock residing in employees' hands). But the company is trying to raise another $8 million to carry it through its digital-media rollout.

Kerber points to the ESPN Motion service offered by the cable-sports network as proof of his contention that there is money to be made in moving digital media to consumers. More than 2 million people have subscribed to ESPN's free service, which downloads video clips of sports highlights to users' computers.

Instead of the herky-jerky streaming video that most people associate with the Internet, these clips are crisp and clear.

But it takes lots of network firepower to get video clips to 2 million people.

With more homes having high-speed, always-on Internet connections, analysts are counting on services such as ESPN Motion to pick up steam. Jupiter Research, a Connecticut firm specializing in business and technology issues, said last week that 21.5 million U.S. households had broadband access in 2003 -- a number that will climb to 46 million by 2008 -- and spark more companies to offer digital content online.

Instead of relying on a big bank of computer servers to push content out, Wurld's answer is to let users' own computers do the work. After the content is moved from a central location to outlying machines, those computers send the files along to other machines on the network.

"You're getting the consumer to do most of the pushing for you," said Joseph Hatch, Wurld's vice president of business development.

Ultimately, Kerber wants to create "media communities" -- chat-room-like places where users tout, and trade, the latest songs, video games, movies or other digital content.

Wurld will build the network and collect a piece of the action. So do the media companies responsible for the content. The users will provide all the storage and get the right to swap files. How much people pay for the right to download all this stuff is up in the air, as is which media companies want to participate.

"We have been discussing things with people in the industry," said Kerber, who admitted he was not wise to the ways of Hollywood -- and the importance of turning lunch into part of the deal-making process -- when he first showed up.

But he is wise at other things, like business, said Scott Dinsdale, a former digital-strategy executive with the Motion Picture Association of America.

Dinsdale is now a consultant for Wurld, which he says can provide the word-of-mouth marketing vehicle that studios and record labels may turn to, if they see the money in it.

Their current system, Dinsdale argues, works pretty well. "If you can start using peer-to-peer as a more effective marketing vehicle for products that are either in theaters or DVD, then you are starting to raise some eyebrows," he said.
http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories...ate= 2/4/2004


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Where Do You Get Your Music?

Washington Post Download Survey


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File-Sharing: Who's to Blame?
AP

A federal appeals judge on Tuesday questioned whether distributors of online file-sharing software should be held responsible for copyright infringement just because some people use the programs to swap copyright music and movies.

Arguing before a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, entertainment company lawyer Russ Frackman cited the 1980s battle over Sony's Betamax video recorder, which was found to have legitimate uses that did not violate movie and television copyrights. Yet 90 percent of the content flowing through file-sharing networks is illegal, he said.

Judge John Noonan, however, wasn't convinced.

"So 10 percent is non-infringing?" Noonan asked. "That sounds like a lot of non-infringing files to me."

Answered Frackman: "If 10 percent is commercially sufficient ... then let them build their business on that 10 percent."

The case's outcome could determine whether music and film companies can hold distributors of file-sharing software liable for illegally swapped music and movies online.

Attorneys representing a cadre of entertainment companies and copyright holders fielded questions from the judges along with lawyers for two firms that distribute file-swapping software.

The hearing was held to consider an appeal of an April summary judgment by U.S. District Judge Stephen Wilson in Los Angeles, who said Grokster and StreamCast Networks are not legally responsible for the swapping of copyright content through their file-sharing software.

On Tuesday, the judges focused much of their questioning on whether a 1984 U.S. Supreme Court decision in a copyright infringement case against Sony over its Betamax videocassette recorder can be interpreted to protect the file-sharing firms from liability.

That decision held that Sony was not liable for copyright infringement when people used its Betamax videocassette recorders to copy movies illegally because the technology had significant uses that did not violate copyrights.

Wilson applied the Supreme Court's decision in the Sony case when he ruled in favor of Grokster, which distributes file-sharing software by that name, and StreamCast, the firm behind the Morpheus software.

Frackman said Sony made money by selling the Betamax and could not control how consumers used it. But Grokster and StreamCast could filter the copyright content from their systems, like they do with computer viruses, but refuse to do so, because the free songs and movies are what draw their users and ultimately generate ad profits, he said.

"They give their software away for the very purpose of capitalizing from this ongoing relationship ... based on 90 percent infringement," Frackman said. "That makes Sony an impossible defense here."

Fred von Lohmann, a senior intellectual property attorney for San Francisco's Electronic Frontier Foundation who argued on behalf of StreamCast, said the firms' software is used to swap live music by Pearl Jam, Dave Matthews and Phish — songs which the artists have allowed to be freely distributed, he said.

"Two million songs by (The) Prodigy have been distributed with authorization," von Lohmann said. "The record is undisputed that these pieces of software are capable of substantial non-infringing uses."

Another member of the panel, Judge Sydney Thomas, questioned whether forcing the file-sharing firms to filter copyright content would ultimately do enough to quell file-swapping on the Internet.

"Aren't we just chasing the wind?" Thomas asked.

Frackman said Napster's failure as an illegal file-sharing enterprise because of legal action showed that courts play a major role in curbing such copyright abuses.

Legal experts said the panel could take months to rule. The 9th Circuit took about four months to return a decision in an appeal of the entertainment companies' suit against Napster in 2001.

A successful appeal would clear the way for the entertainment companies to pursue legal action against Grokster and StreamCast. The outcome of the appeal will also affect the entertainment companies' case against Sharman Networks, makers of the Kazaa program, which averages more users than any other file-sharing software.
http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,62161,00.html


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Is Broadband Broad Enough?

Telcos betting on "broadband lite" are sure to lose.
Michael Topic

The adoption of broadband has grown at an undeniably impressive rate, more or less unabated, in spite of the economy. So how come there is a growing band of less than impressed consumers asking "is this it?"

It comes down to expectations. Millions of broadband users grew up with TV: instantly on, full screen, quick-fire
channel flipping, uninterrupted service, 24/7. No muss, no fuss—and no waiting.

Now we’re asking these same consumers to put up with Web pages that load in minutes, not seconds; postage stamp-sized streaming video that starts and stops like rush hour traffic; and service levels that seem to vary at random. A flash file on a fancy Web page might need to load a couple of megabytes before it plays. If I want to see it within a second or two, I need tens of megabits per second of bandwidth. Most of us only have a few hundred kilobits per second, and then only if everyone else in the neighborhood is off line. For pure data delivery, it beats dial-up, but "that don’t impress me much."

Now that there’s a critical mass of broadband consumers, there’s talk about telcos returning to profitability through a "triple play": delivering voice, data, and television over the hundred-year-old technology that spans the last mile to our homes. Okay, let’s say they go head-to-head with cable, satellite, and terrestrial TV. It’ll need to be pretty amazing to get consumers to switch.

Star Wars creator George Lucas once said, "there are 24 frames per second in my films and none of them are optional." Telco TV over ADSL will have to deliver faultless, dropless playback. They might even need to promise it in binding consumer SLAs. When viewers channel hop, they won’t be willing to wait before they see the pictures move. Channel surfing has to be like TV: instant gratification.

With so much choice, consumers are going to need the equivalent of Google for audiovisual stuff, with preview thumbnails for the search results that load and play instantly. With so many shiny new wide screen plasma TVs in homes, HDTV will also have to be an option at some point. Given the current state of broadband provision, it’s very unlikely these performance goals can be met.

The digital television industry in Europe is already finding out that you can’t fill empty channels with reruns of old sitcoms and expect decent ratings. Offering a wide choice of genuinely compelling and relevant content matters to consumers. Telcos are going to have to commission new production or allow independent producers to distribute over their networks. I’ll believe that when I see it.

The fact is that if all I have is an ADSL line and there are three televisions in the house, the technology will be hard pressed to deliver a different video stream to each one, even with advanced compression like H.264.

There’s no getting around it. If companies want to profit from selling us voice, data, and video, they are going to have to install bags of bandwidth. Broadband as we know it is a transitional technology, designed to squeeze the last drops out of the investment in the last mile, not to satisfy real consumer needs. And it’s just too slow.

My money is on physics. Delivery via fiber to the home (FTTH), high-speed wireless meshes (WiFi and WiMAX), and purpose-built wireline data networks will always trump phone lines on steroids. Yet much of the investment in broadband provision still remains focused on sheep in wolves’ clothing: ADSL and cable modems.

Ironically, outlying rural areas are getting serious bandwidth long before more affluent urban areas, installed by community-based operators, because the established telcos won’t serve them at all. It seems that "rolling your own" is almost the only way to get ultra broadband service.

Like many people who couldn’t live without the Internet, the phone, and digital television, I want serious bandwidth and I want it now. The ultra broadband network is being built from the edge inward. Until it’s available to a critical mass of affluent, urban consumers, broadband won’t match the performance of analog television, or our good old phone system. Until it does, consumers won’t value it. The telco triple play may be a great strategy to return carriers to profitability, but not with today’s broadband.
http://www.alwayson-network.com/comm...d=2717_0_3_0_C


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Broadband Comes Up From The Sewer
BBC

Thousands of Scottish homes could soon get high-speed internet access through the sewerage system.

Scottish Water has launched a pilot scheme in Rosyth and believes leasing sewage pipes to broadband providers could drive down internet costs.

It also avoids the problem of digging up streets to lay wires and could bring access to remote parts of Scotland.

Scottish Water said the first stretches of cables would be installed by the end of this week.

Commercial director Chris Banks said it is a project that has been in the pipeline for some time.

"Our partner Fibrelink is financing the network, the fibre that actually goes down the sewers, we are simply renting out the sewers to them," he said.

Information sewerage highway

"Fibrelink will then contract with various telecoms providers on a neutral carrier basis, that is we can facilitate anyone hooking up to this and they'll be making the charges.

"Where Scottish Water gains is we will take a percentage of the revenues that are generated through the fibre."

He added that with 24,000 miles of sewers there was the potential for the pilot scheme to be a widespread success.

Two miles of cable will be laid in Rosyth over the next 28 days for full testing to begin.

The concept and cable have been in use in Europe for six years and are said to have proved cost effective.

The starting point for the pilot will be Dunfermline waste water treatment works, where the cable will be fed in and floated down through the pipes.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/h...nd/3452733.stm


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Mikerowesoft.com Row Rumbles On
Ananova

A Canadian teenager who surrendered his website to Microsoft in a row over copyright is selling a legal document they sent him, on eBay.

Mike Rowe, from British Columbia, has decided to put the 25-page document up for auction. He's keeping a second copy for himself.

The 17-year-old received the letter from Microsoft's lawyers earlier this month after he became embroiled in a row with the company over his mikerowesoft.com website.

Microsoft said the name infringed their copyright and wrote to Rowe offering him $10 in return for the domain. He wrote back demanding $10,000.

This week it was reported that Microsoft reached a settlement with the teenager who then surrendered the name to them.

A bid of $500 has been made for the inch-thick book containing copies of web pages, registrations, trade marks, and emails between Rowe and Microsoft's lawyers. The bidding ends on Feb 5.
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm...ews.technology


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Yahoo Composing Music Download Plan
Jim Hu and John Borland

Yahoo, rethinking earlier plans, is quietly exploring ways to develop a music download service as archrivals Microsoft and America Online place bigger bets on digital song sales.

According to knowledgeable sources, Yahoo bought music software developer Mediacode in December to help create a digital jukebox and media player--the key components in many music download services. The Mediacode team includes two founding members of Nullsoft, which created the popular Winamp music player and is now owned by AOL.

In addition, Yahoo also has begun kicking the tires of online music services as it rethinks its strategy, which hinges on streaming media, not downloads. For example, Yahoo has held discussions with Musicmatch, one of the largest Internet music services, in what could be a prelude to acquisition talks, according to sources familiar with the meetings.

Sources characterized the discussions as preliminary and said Yahoo has not yet made any offer. They added that Yahoo meets with companies often to discuss possible deals and has received inquiries in recent months from a handful of Web music services, including BuyMusic.com and Napster owner Roxio.

Yahoo declined to comment on any of these talks. "We do not seek to comment or speculate on market rumors," Yahoo spokeswoman Charlene English said.

Napster and BuyMusic also declined to comment. Musicmatch spokeswoman Jennifer Roberts would only say, "We talk to lots of companies, but we're just focused on running our business."

Jumping into music downloads would be a switch from Yahoo's past music strategy, which has focused on streaming audio and video through Launch, a subsidiary that it bought for $12 million in 2001. Yahoo also distributes Roxio's Napster music service, which lets customers buy music downloads and sign up for subscriptions.

Singing for their supper?
Launch depends on advertising to support a free version of its service, as well as subscription fees for a premium version. Yahoo does not report financial results for Launch, but sources familiar with the figures said the site is about break even.

Yahoo executives, including music division head and Launch co-founder Dave Goldberg, previously have disparaged music downloads as a money-losing business. Music-store companies have conceded that margins are slim to nonexistent, with sales consumed by licensing fees for record companies, delivery costs and credit card fees.

Few analysts expect music downloads to make money anytime soon. Apple Computer, whose iTunes Music Store dominates the market, makes its money on the sale of companion iPod music players and concedes the service is not yet profitable.

Still, many large companies, including Microsoft and Coca-Cola, now have plans to offer music downloads. America Online has also joined the game, taking a shortcut by bundling Apple's iTunes store with its online service. Even RealNetworks, which has bet on subscriptions through its Rhapsody product, recently launched a retail song store.

All of these companies argue they can't afford to stand still in a rapidly changing market where consumer demand is still being formed. If demand takes off, they are confident the services will become profitable. In the meantime, they can rely on music downloads as a "loss leader" to help sell related products, such as concert tickets, posters, T-shirts and even soft drinks.

Yahoo's management also is starting to see the value of a more comprehensive strategy, if only to defend against its own users defecting to rival offerings, sources said. "Theoretically, if you don't have it, they will go elsewhere," said a source familiar with Yahoo's plans.

For months, music insiders have been expecting Yahoo to up the ante in its music bet, a move they say would change the dynamics of the industry. As one the most highly trafficked sites on the Web, Yahoo is better positioned than most to sell music services. In addition, Yahoo could sell music through partnerships with high-speed Internet access providers such as SBC Communications.

"Yahoo seems to be a real obvious major player in the space," said Jeff Cavins, chief executive of Loudeye, which builds music stores for other companies. "Digital music for Yahoo is a natural way to create incremental revenue and profit."

Yahoo has made several stabs in that direction. Last year the company explored ways for Gracenote, a music database provider, to build software that would let Yahoo customers buy and play back digital songs, sources said. But the partnership never bore fruit, so Yahoo turned to Mediacode.

Mediacode, led by former Nullsoft engineers Ian Rogers and Rob Lord, has created software that lets people access their media libraries from multiple PCs. For example, songs stored on a PC at home can be played at work.

Finding the right match
Although Yahoo acquired Mediacode's engineers to build its own player, the company could hedge its bets by acquiring existing technology.

Musicmatch has attracted more than 160,000 paying subscribers, and it already has secured licenses to hundreds of thousands of tracks owned by the major record labels.

Musicmatch traditionally has guarded its independence, and said it doesn't require a partnership to grow. Still, it has suffered some recent setbacks.

In October, Apple dropped Musicmatch as its software provider for Windows iPod owners, opting to create its own application instead. Since then, Hewlett-Packard also dropped Musicmatch and decided to bundle iTunes with its computers.

Musicmatch said HP provided a much smaller customer base than Dell, its main distributor. It also has partnered with Coca-Cola in the United Kingdom.

"We've demonstrated our ability to be successful as an independent," Chris Allen, Musicmatch's senior vice president of marketing and strategic planning, said in an interview last week. "Our intent is to march forward along those same lines."
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