Peer-To-Peer News - The Week In Review - December 4th, '04

[JackSpratts]

Quote Of The Week


"Kazaa does something useful, I'm not going to say that it doesn't. But turn that around--you're allowing millions of strangers onto your machine." - Simon Perry


"The days when [Hollywood] can go to Congress and get a blank check for everything they want are over, I hope." - Michael Petricone


"I don't think you'll ever see database protection. Something else you won't see this year is something known as the Induce Act." – Marybeth Peters


"We've been working with Internet2 for a while to explore ways we can take advantage of delivering content at these extremely high speeds, and basically manage illegitimate content distribution at the same time." - Chris Russell, MPAA


"The speed of these networks--up to thousands of times faster than ordinary Internet networks—-allows users to obtain copyrighted movies in minutes and music in seconds." – Cary Sherman


"I have a long extension cord." – Ken Schaffer












Outgunned On Copyright?
Declan McCullagh

Is the entertainment industry losing its clout on Capitol Hill?

At first blush, a lot of people might find that to be a laughable proposition. But a prominent architect of the Recording Industry Association of America's legal strategy confided to me last week that his colleagues are being "outgunned" in the legislative skirmishing over new copyright laws.

It may seem counterintuitive, but there is some truth to that statement. It explains why Marybeth Peters from the U.S. Copyright Office is saying that the entertainment industry won't get what it wants from Congress before politicians leave town for Thanksgiving.

That'd be fine by Michael Petricone, vice president for technology policy at the Consumer Electronics Association. "The days when they can go to Congress and get a blank check for everything they want are over, I hope," Petricone said.

The RIAA and MPAA remain more adept at importing celebrities, hiring former politicians and wielding the legislative process as an offensive weapon. Predicting what copyright legislation will be enacted in the last days of the 108th Congress is a risky business, but one thing is certain: The list of laws will not include the Induce Act, which is revered by the entertainment industry but reviled by technology companies.

The Induce Act is, of course, the controversial bill designed to target peer-to-peer networks. When it prompted a deluge of phone calls to Congress amid concerns it would imperil products like Apple Computer's iPod, its Senate sponsors ordered everyone to sit down at a table in closed-door negotiations. But no workable compromise emerged.

The trench warfare of copyright politicking tends to be predictable: The Motion Picture Association of America and the record labels staff the fortifications in the east while an assortment of technology companies hunker down in the west. Then they fire volleys back and forth until one side runs out of ammunition.

That's what usually happens. When the Induce Act materialized, however, the tech industry won by calling in the heavy artillery in the form of broader-than-usual alliances. By venturing beyond the usual cluster of Silicon Valley companies, the allies managed to prevent the kind of consensus from forming that has characterized recent copyright laws.

Among the new allies: the Association of American Universities, the American Conservative Union, the American Library Association, BellSouth, MCI, RadioShack, SBC Communications and Verizon Communications. Even The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal slammed the Induce Act in their editorial pages. (CNET Networks, publisher of News.com, also is on record as opposing the bill.)

Sarah Deutsch, a vice president at Verizon, said the Induce Act was temporarily defeated because the entertainment industry overreached, not because their lobbyists are losing influence. "It's very hard for me to believe that either the RIAA or MPAA could be outgunned on intellectual-property issues," Deutsch said. "If they're not succeeding, it's because they've drafted an overly broad piece of legislation that's garnered lots of opposition."

During the last decade, the tech industry has grown far more spendthrift in purchasing political favors. In 1992, the computer and Internet industry gave a total of $5.3 million while the entertainment industry spent a hefty $13.5 million.

By the 2004 election cycle, those numbers had almost reached parity--at $21.1 million from tech donors and $23.9 million from the entertainment industry. Looking exclusively at spending by lobbyists, the technology industry already handily outpaces its television and music counterparts.

Yet even fat checks from technology companies can't guarantee victory. The RIAA and MPAA remain more adept at importing celebrities, hiring former politicians and wielding the legislative process as an offensive weapon. "The content industries have always been more government-focused than the technology industries," said Consumer Electronics Association's Petricone. "The resources they can bring to bear in a legislative battle far, far outweigh those of anyone on the other side."

The next few days will put that notion to the test. With the Induce Act now moribund, attention is shifting to a package of copyright and peer-to-peer bills that may be glued together and voted on this week as part of a new Intellectual Property Protection Act. Candidates for inclusion are the Pirate Act, which would let the Justice Department file civil suits against infringers; a House proposal to increase criminal penalties for illegal file-swapping; and a measure to target the illicit use of camcorders in movie theaters.

As of Friday, the buzz was that the "omnibus" package will be stripped of its most objectionable portions and turned into a "minibus" copyright bill. That might give the entertainment industry some solace. But it's far less than its lobbyists had expected.
http://news.com.com/Outgunned+on+cop...3-5460597.html


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Hollywood Seeks Internet2 Tests, P2P Oversight
John Borland

The Motion Picture Association of America is in talks with the Internet2 research consortium, hoping both to test next-generation video delivery projects and to monitor peer-to-peer piracy on the ultrahigh-speed network.

Internet2 is essentially a vastly faster version of the Internet run by universities and technology companies, aimed at facilitating research into high-bandwidth hardware and applications, and helping researchers who exchange huge amounts of data. Student file-swapping traffic also has found its way onto the network, however.

The MPAA has been talking with the research consortium for several months, with an eye toward possibly joining the Internet2 group as a member, or simply opening up a collaborative relationship.

"We've been working with Internet2 for a while to explore ways we can take advantage of delivering content at these extremely high speeds, and basically manage illegitimate content distribution at the same time," said Chris Russell, the MPAA's vice president of Internet standards and technology. "Those would go hand in hand."

The Internet2 project has shown Hollywood the commercial potential--and the dangers--of a network powerful enough to allow a full DVD to be transferred even faster than an ordinary MP3 might be today.

Recently, researchers successfully sent data from Switzerland to Tokyo at speeds of 7.21 gigabits per second. That was enough speed to transfer a full-length DVD anywhere in the world in less than five seconds, researchers said.

Talks between Internet2 and the Hollywood group have been ongoing for almost a year, following a speech that former MPAA chief Jack Valenti gave to university officials focusing on the problems of piracy and the possibility of having any movie ever made available at a moment's notice.

That vision resonated with Internet2 researchers, who are already exploring new models of content delivery. At least one studio, Warner Bros., is already a member of the group, as is the Napster online music service. The two groups have been discussing potential collaboration since.

"This wraps together the broad interest we have in working with our members and potential members on advanced content delivery," said Internet2 Vice President Gary Bachula. "Obviously we're interested in making sure that's legal and safe."

Researchers have themselves been watching the growth of file-swapping traffic on the next-generation networks with some concern for several years.

University of Oregon researcher Joe St. Sauver presented a paper in early 2002 showing that on many spans of the network, file trades related to the Kazaa and Morpheus software accounted for as much as 30 percent of network traffic while school was in session.

The share of Internet2 bandwidth taken up by file-sharing traffic is today much lower, typically under 7 percent, although a large amount of network measurement traffic has been added to the total mix since 2002, pushing the percentage of all other applications down. St. Sauver said many universities also have added network control tools that can block or slow file-swapping traffic.

The rise of supercharged file-swapping services like i2Hub has caught copyright holders' eyes in recent months, however. Cary Sherman, president of the Recording Industry Association of America, testified to Congress early last month that the fast university networks posed their own special risk to copyright holders.

"The speed of these networks--up to thousands of times faster than ordinary Internet networks—-allows users to obtain copyrighted movies in minutes and music in seconds," Sherman told legislators. "Further, the closed nature of these networks, being available only to those engaged in academia, makes it more difficult for copyright owners to protect their works and to notify responsible parties of their infringement."

The studios launched their first set of lawsuits against file-swappers earlier this week. However, any relationship with Internet2 would go beyond simply finding and cracking down on copyright offenses, the MPAA's Russell said.

Hollywood executives are interested in part in figuring out how file-swappers' behavior might change when extremely fast connections are available, he said. This could help studios guard against future piracy, as well as control today's swappers.

The trade association also is interested in testing new video technologies, although no specific projects are under way. The MPAA is already working with the Cooperation for Education Network Initiatives in California group, which is seeking gigabit-speed connections for California communities by 2010, Russell said.

Some projects are already under way on Internet2 that show promise of expanding the role of networked entertainment with this power available. Researchers at the University of Southern California have demonstrated a high-definition video connection with 10 separate surround-sound channels of audio, streamed flawlessly from Georgia to California, for example.
http://news.com.com/Hollywood+seeks+...3-5458537.html


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Witnesses Tackle Kazaa Filtering Claims
Kristyn Maslog-Levis

Overriding severe objections from Sharman Networks' counsel, Federal Court Justice Murray Wilcox allowed an anti-piracy services provider based in New York to give evidence at the civil trial against owners of the peer-to-peer software Kazaa.

Tom Mizzone, vice president of data services at MediaSentry, told the Federal Court today that his company was able to identify Australian users of the peer to peer Kazaa software by tracking the IP address.

Mizzone said that the IP addresses allocated for Internet service providers in Australia could be traced through the "scanners" the company used in tracking down sound recordings and user information within the Kazaa system.

He added that MediaSentry was also able to detect the copyright infringing music files made available for download in the Kazaa system's shared folders. Mizzone told the court that his company was doing what any ordinary user of the Kazaa system was able to do. Aside from detecting files, they could also communicate with the users using instant messaging, he said.

Mizzone's statement is critical to the applicants' claim that Sharman Networks can use the Kazaa software to identify users who are downloading copyright-infringing materials and communicate with the users at the same time.

The respondents have maintained that they are not able to control how Kazaa users use the software and that trials of filtering have failed in the past.

Also this morning, Justice Wilcox dumped the majority of the respondents' affidavits for the civil trial saying they were not relevant to the case about copyright infringement.

The affidavits rejected by Justice Wilcox contained details of how the P2P technology Kazaa is being used to exchange legitimate materials. Justice Wilcox said he agrees that Kazaa can be used for the sharing of licensed materials and therefore court time should not be wasted discussing the issue.

Justice Wilcox added that the case should not be an "ideological debate" and it was about whether the respondents have infringed or authorised the infringement of the applicants' copyright over sound recordings.

Three other witnesses for the applicants were also called to discuss the record companies' attempts to discourage music piracy by deploying "decoy files" or "spoofing activity" on the Internet.

Decoy files are music files that look like playable materials but only plays 30 second loops of the song's chorus. Spoofing is a method where a peer-to-peer network is flooded with fake files of a certain title. If a user tries to download the title, he receives a "spoof" that has the same title as the requested song or video, but actually contains a message warning the user that he has attempted to break copyright law.
http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/busines...9168660,00.htm


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File-Sharing Lawful, Court Hears
Kirsty Needham

Australians make up less than 2 per cent of Kazaa users, with most living in the US, where the internet file-swapping service has been deemed lawful, the Federal Court has heard.

"The distribution is not unlawful or illegal in any way in the place where it is occurring," said Tony Meagher, SC, defending Sharman Networks and Altnet from accusations of piracy. The chief executives of the two companies, Nikki Hemming and Kevin Bermeister, watched in a packed courtroom.

Sharman and Altnet operate from Cremorne and Surry Hills, although they are registered in Vanuatu and the United States respectively. Worldwide, 100 million people are believed to use Kazaa software.

Six Australian record companies, and another 24 international record labels and artists, claim Kazaa infringes Australian copyright law by allowing internet users to swap illegal copies of songs. They want it shut down.

Mr Meagher said the central issue was whether Sharman and Altnet authorised the illegal use of Kazaa software by Australians.

The same principle had been dealt with in the 1980s, in cases involving double-sided tape deck and video cassette recorders made by Amstrad and Betamax in Britain and the US, he said.

Mr Meagher said it was plain that the double-sided tape deck was used to make infringing copies of songs and was even advertised for this purpose by Amstrad. But the House of Lords had upheld that there was no authorisation of this behaviour by the company because the product also had a lawful use.

Mr Meagher said the Kazaa software had lawful use, and Sharman and Altnet could not control the behaviour of users.

However, Tony Bannon, QC, representing the record companies, had earlier said that Kazaa's published "no-tolerance policy" on child pornography, including its threat to disconnect and bar users from the system, showed Sharman could exercise some control.

Mr Meagher differentiated between the free and paid version of Kazaa, known as Kazaa Plus. Consumers who pay for Kazaa Plus do not get four of the software components.

"I understand that if you pay more you should get more," said Justice Wilcox.

Mr Meagher replied: "If you pay you don't get the privilege of being bombarded with advertisements."

The missing software was used to deliver ads, which is how the companies otherwise earned revenue, he said.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/National/...oneclick=true#


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Anti-P2P bill May Slip Past Legislative Rush
Declan McCullagh

A top government official predicted Thursday that a proposed copyright law that has alarmed technology companies will not be enacted in the last-minute legislative rush before the holidays.

Marybeth Peters, the U.S. register of copyrights, told a conference here that the so- called Induce Act would not be part of the slew of legislation--including key spending measures--that Congress is expected to vote on before leaving for next week's Thanksgiving holiday.

"I don't think you'll ever see database protection," said Peters, who has been involved in closed-door negotiations this fall over copyright legislation. "Something else you won't see this year is something known as the Induce Act."

The database bill would create a new intellectual property right for collections of information, while the Induce Act would prohibit inducing anyone to violate copyright law.

That proposal, which goes by the full name of Inducing Infringement of Copyrights Act, represents the latest legislative attempt by large copyright holders to address what they see as the growing threat of peer-to-peer networks rife with pirated music, movies and software. Violations would be punished with civil fines and, in some circumstances, lengthy prison terms. But tech companies, librarians and consumer electronics groups are worried that legitimate hardware and software could be imperiled as well.

Peters also said that an unrelated huge copyright bill, called the Intellectual Property Protection Act (IPPA), had even odds of being enacted before Congress left town.

"Parts of this bill are extremely, extremely controversial," Peters said. "There's a 50-50 chance as I understand it that this bill could go (forward)."

The IPPA effectively bundles together a collection of bills, many of which either the House or the Senate have already approved. Some sections, for instance, authorize federal prosecutors to file civil lawsuits against file swappers, while others make it easier to launch criminal prosecutions against peer-to-peer users who are infringing copyrighted material.
http://news.com.com/Anti-P2P+bill+ma...3-5458680.html


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Cable's Rivals Lure Customers With Packages
Ken Belson

For years, consumers who wanted to cut the cord with their cable company found that getting television and high-speed Internet service often meant the inconvenience of finding two new providers.

That's now changing. Cable's two hungry rivals - phone companies and satellite providers - are stealing cable's disgruntled customers with cheaper all-in-one packages that bundle TV with Internet and phone services.

In theory, cable companies like Comcast, Cox and Time Warner Cable, a unit of Time Warner, are ideally suited to offer one-stop shopping for all telecommunications services, including new Internet-based phone services, with their single pipe into the house. But they have not been able to shake the perception among millions of consumers that cable companies charge too much for bad service.

Not surprisingly, cable's problem has created an opening for an ungainly alliance of regional Bell companies - Verizon Communications, SBC Communications and BellSouth - and the two biggest satellite companies, DirecTV and EchoStar, which runs the Dish Network, to lure away cable customers by selling each other's products at a discount.

Frustration with their cable company was what prompted Jonathan and Courtney Rothstein to subscribe to DirecTV when they moved two years ago from New York City to Chappaqua, in suburban Westchester County. The plan they picked from DirecTV was $20 cheaper than what Cablevision, the local cable company, offered in their new neighborhood. They also ordered a TiVo digital video recorder for $4.99 a month, and received free installation of the satellite dish.

"It was more for our money," said Mr. Rothstein, an architect. "The only thing with satellite is there are so many channels that I can't follow them all."

But the Rothsteins still face one problem. Their phone company, Verizon, does not offer high-speed Internet lines in their neighborhood. So they still have to pay Cablevision $49.95 a month for broadband service, about $15 more than Verizon's high-speed Internet line.

"When we moved in two years ago, it was really the only option, so I was hostage to the price," Mrs. Rothstein said. She will happily sign up with Verizon when it brings broadband connections to her area, she said.

With aggressive advertising campaigns like "Stop Feeding the Pig" that lampoon cable companies, DirecTV and Dish Network have attracted 24 million customers in the past decade with its low-cost pitch.

But to maintain that growth rate, the satellite companies knew they also needed to offer Internet access and phone lines. At the same time, phone companies crave the ability to offer television without having to invest huge sums of money.

"We feel good because we don't have to spend billions of dollars to provide our customers with video," said Ron Dykes, the chief financial officer at BellSouth which, like Verizon, sells DirecTV's service to its customers. "Our main objective is to replace cable."

SBC Communications, the most aggressive of the three Bells in recruiting satellite TV customers, works with Dish Network and has even invested $500 million in its parent, EchoStar.

The three Bells have signed up 325,000 subscribers for satellite TV so far this year, 13 percent of the 2.5 million new customers satellite companies have added over the period. Most of those customers were former cable customers.

During the first three quarters this year, the eight largest cable providers combined, excluding Adelphia, which is operating under bankruptcy protection, have lost 552,000 subscribers for basic cable services. Many of the losses have come at the weaker cable companies, including Charter Communications.

Still, 19 percent of American households now have satellite service, up from 12 percent four years ago, while cable's share of the TV market has fallen to 62 percent, from 66 percent, during the same period.

Some industry analysts say the partnership of satellite and phone companies has not greatly altered those industries. Others say the Bells will abandon the satellite providers once they start selling television programming over the fiber-optic networks they are now building.

"With the Bells poised to enter the video business, how long can these partnerships last?" said Craig Moffett, an industry analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Company. "They will go from a position when they were both aligned against a common competitor - cable - to a position where they are competing" against each other.

For the most part, the phone companies are just beginning to build fiber networks and assembling the programming necessary to sell television on their own. SBC, for one, has said it will offer programs from the Dish Network through its network, and struck a deal with Microsoft last week to acquire the software to do so. But until fiber lines become common, the satellite-phone alliance gives both industries a way to challenge cable's strengths.

The Bells are promoting big discounts - up to 20 percent off customers' monthly bills - if they order a television plan and a full complement of phone and Internet services. The discounts have also allowed the satellite companies to focus more on products rather than just price.

"We have been very successful at positioning ourselves as a low-cost provider," said John Scarborough, a spokesman for EchoStar. "Now we're positioned in a bundle with SBC, and we have the common objective of beating out the evil-doers of cable."

There are gaps in what the phone and satellite companies can offer, though. Satellite providers have fewer local and high-definition programs than cable companies, and satellite technology does not allow video-on-demand and other services that require two-way signals. Satellite customers also complain about losing television signals during rain and snowstorms.

Phone companies, too, have limitations in competing with cable. For one, they cannot deliver high-speed Internet connections to customers like the Rothsteins, who live too far from their local switching stations. That is a particular problem for customers in rural and suburban areas, and it limits the number of satellite customers who might otherwise sign up for broadband services from phone companies.

In the meantime, cable providers have responded aggressively to the new threat with advertising campaigns to promote cable-only features like free video-on-demand, their faster Internet connection speeds and cheap Web phone service.

"Bundles are where cable's priorities are," said Char Beales, the chief executive of the Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing, an industry-funded group. "If you look at the deals the satellite providers are putting together with the phone companies, they've definitely got bundle-envy. Cable is more consistent."

Still, she said it would take a long time to change consumer perceptions. Customer satisfaction surveys by J. D. Power and Associates showed that though the cable industry had improved in the eyes of consumers, it continued to lag behind satellite providers, which were considered friendlier and cheaper.

"It's hard for the cable industry to close the gap," said Steve Kirkeby, an analyst at J. D. Power. "Fundamentally, satellite customers are much happier than cable customers. And at the end of the day, there's no doubt that satellite is winning the hearts and minds of customers on cost."

For now, the phone companies are biding their time, riding on the satellite industry's coattails, until they can offer television programming of their own.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/22/te...satellite.html


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CD Company Slips Quietly Into a World of Creativity
Anne Midgette

The idea of a late style, or a cycle of works, is usually imposed on a composer after his death. Beethoven did not set out to write 16 string quartets, nor did he know that the last five were the culmination of his so-called late period. But the composer Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, 70, is defining the terms of his late period himself.

When his Seventh Symphony had its premiere in 2000, Sir Peter made it clear that it was his final symphony. He was now going to concentrate on string quartets. A cycle of 10 string quartets.

Even more unusual, he found a record company to commission him to do it.

Last week Naxos of America released the CD of the first 2 of Sir Peter's 10 projected "Naxos Quartets." Four more CDs are to follow at regular intervals. It's a huge commitment for the Maggini Quartet, a British-based, British-specializing ensemble that's faced with the task of learning the new works and presenting them in annual concerts at Wigmore Hall in London. (Nos. 4 and 5 had their premiere in October.)

What's really remarkable, however, is the involvement of a record company in commissioning new music. The conventional wisdom at most major labels is that it's hard enough to sell new music. Going out and helping it come into being is virtually unprecedented.

"Like all recordings of contemporary music," said Klaus Heymann, Naxos's founder and chief executive, "this is a not-for-profit project."

Naxos specializes in bucking conventional wisdom - and is now widely acknowledged as a rare success story in a struggling industry. A budget label - its CD's retail for about $7 in the United States - it works with a cadre of less-known (but often first-rate) artists like the Maggini Quartet and concentrates on familiar and unusual repertory, with surprising results. A disk of Walter Piston's violin concertos has sold 12,000 copies in the United States alone, and William Bolcom's "Songs of Innocence and Experience," a three-CD set released in October, made it to the Billboard classical budget chart.

Commissioning isn't an altogether new venture for the label: Mr. Heymann noted that in the past he had commissioned works from Chinese composers. But this project is different in scope and scale. And it may be the start of a beautiful relationship - between Naxos, at least, and other composers.

"Given the unexpectedly good sales of the first volume of the Peter Maxwell Davies quartets and the very positive publicity regarding this project, we may very well do this again," Mr. Heymann said. (The CD was released in September in Britain and Europe, where it has already sold more than 5,000 copies.) It's not a big risk for the label; rather than an upfront payment, this agreement involved royalties, both on the copyright and commissioning fee.

And Naxos didn't exactly gamble on an unknown. Sir Peter has managed the delicate balancing act of becoming widely revered, certainly in his own country, while writing serious and not very easy music. He lives in a distant corner of Orkney, the agglomeration of islands off Scotland's northern coast, and his music is strongly imbued with a sense of place: "An Orkney Wedding, With Sunrise," "A Hoy Calendar." Linked to this is a strong sense of community and of a composer's role within it. He has written extensively for children, worked within community organizations and schools (one cycle of 10 concertos, called the Strathclyde Concertos, was written for the Scottish Chamber Orchestra in tandem with an ambitious project in area schools that allowed children to follow the process of composition), and created the St. Magnus Festival on Orkney, held every June.

His music is both craggy and accessible. The Naxos Quartets - a cycle that the composer likens to a serialized novel in 10 chapters -open with rocky, beautiful bursts of activity, setting forth a landscape in which the composer deliberately seeks to evoke the green but uncompromising slopes of Orkney. The "chapters" may or may not trace the course of a life: the second quartet, which opens in an Orcadian fog, is dedicated to a childhood friend of the composer; and the third has been called an antiwar piece.

The first Naxos release comes at a time when Sir Peter has been particularly focused on the dissemination of recordings of his work. In September he started a new branch of his Web site that allows people, for a fee, to download his music or arrange it on custom CD's (music.maxopus.com). He's adding new recordings at the rate of 10 a month, hoping ultimately to make available most of the 300-plus works in his oeuvre. In this he's paralleling other composers who have bought back the rights to their out-of-print recordings, like the American Michael Torke or the German Karlheinz Stockhausen. Self-distribution may be the wave of the future.

But Naxos could create an interesting alternative if it pursues the idea of creating new recording projects with other composers.

"We would probably go for an American composer," Mr. Heymann said, "because the United States is our biggest market."

Nobody would be likely to turn him down.

"I think it's the first time that a record company's done anything like this," Sir Peter said. "I possibly would have written quartets, but it's nice to be given fixed deadlines, which I keep; it's a marvelous incentive."

"It's like being in the middle of a wonderful journey," he said of the project, as he prepares to finish the sixth quartet. As to the ending of his "novel": "I have imagined it," he said, then broke into an impish laugh. "But it may well change."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/27/ar...ic/27davi.html


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A Natural Experiment
James Boyle

Imagine a process of reviewing prescription drugs which goes like this: representatives from the drug company come to the regulators and argue that their drug works well and should be approved. They have no evidence of this beyond a few anecdotes about people who want to take it and perhaps some very simple models of how the drug might affect the human body. The drug is approved. No trials, no empirical evidence of any kind, no follow-up. Or imagine a process of making environmental regulations in which there were no data, and no attempts to gather data, about the effects of the particular pollutants being studied. Even the harshest critics of drug regulation or environmental regulation would admit we generally do better than this. But this is often the way we make intellectual property policy.

So how do we decide the ground-rules of the information age? Representatives of interested industries come to regulators and ask for another heaping slice of monopoly rent in the form of an intellectual property right. They have doom-laden predictions, they have anecdotes, carefully selected to pluck the heartstrings of legislators, they have celebrities who testify - often incoherently, but with palpable charisma - and they have very, very simple economic models. The basic economic model here is “If you give me a larger right, I will have a larger incentive to innovate. Thus the bigger the rights, the more innovation we will get. Right?” Well, not exactly. Even without data, the models are obviously flawed - copyrighting the alphabet will not produce more books, patenting E=MC2 will not yield more scientific innovation. Intellectual property creates barriers to, as well as incentives towards, innovation. Clearly the “more is better” argument has limits. Extensions of rights can help or hurt, but without economic evidence beforehand and review afterwards, we will never know. In the absence of evidence on either side, the presumption should obviously still be against creating a new legalised monopoly, but still the empirical emptiness of the debates is frustrating.

This makes the occasion where there actually is some evidence a time for celebration. What we really need is a test case where one country adopts the proposed new intellectual property right and another does not, and we can assess how they are both doing after a number of years.

There is such a case. It is the “database right.” Europe adopted a Database Directive in 1996 which both gave a high level of copyright protection to databases, and conferred a new “sui generis” database right even on unoriginal compilations of facts. In the United States, by contrast, in a 1991 case called Feist, the Supreme Court made it clear that unoriginal compilations of facts are not copyrightable. (The case is not as revolutionary as it is claimed to be. Most of the appeals courts in the United States had long held this to be the case. In fact, a tenet of the US intellectual property system is that neither facts nor ideas can be owned.) Since 1991 the U.S. Congress has managed to resist frenzied attempts by a few database companies to create a special database right over facts. Interestingly, apart from academics, scientists and civil libertarians, many database companies, and even those well-known communist property-haters, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, oppose the creation of such a right. They believe that database providers can adequately protect themselves with contracts, technical means such as passwords, can rely on providing tied services and so on. Moreover, they argue that strong database protection may make it harder to generate databases in the first place; the facts you need may be locked up. The pressure to create a new right continues, however, aided by the cries that US must “harmonise” with Europe. So here we have our natural experiment. Presumably the government economists are hard at work both in the US and the EU, seeing if the right actually worked? Umm.... No.

Despite the fact that the European Commission has a legal obligation to review the Database Directive for its effects on competition (they are three years late in issuing their report) no attention appears to be being paid to the actual evidence of whether the Directive helps or hurts in the EU, or whether the database industry in the US has collapsed or flourished. That is a shame, because the evidence is there, and it is fairly shocking.

Intellectual property rights are a form of state-created monopoly and “the general tendency of monopolies,” as Macaulay pointed out, is to “make things dear, to make them scarce, and to make them bad.” Monopolies are an evil, but they must sometimes be accepted when they are necessary to the production of some good, some particular social goal. In this case, the “evil” is obviously going to be an increase in price of databases, and the legal ability to exclude competitors from their use – that, after all is the point of granting the new right. The “good” is that we are supposed to get lots of new databases, databases that we would not have had but for the existence of the database right.

If the database right were working, we would expect positive answers to three crucial questions. First, has the European database industry’s rate of growth increased since 1996, while the US database industry has languished? (The drop off in the US database industry ought to be particularly severe after 1991 if the proponents of database protection are correct; they argued the Feist case was a change in current law and a great surprise to the industry.)

"Despite the fact that the European Commission has a legal obligation to review the Database Directive for its effects on competition (they are three years late in issuing their report) no attention appears to be being paid to the actual evidence of whether the Directive helps or hurts in the EU"

Second, are the principal beneficiaries of the database right in Europe producing databases they would not have produced otherwise? Obviously if a society is handing over a database right for a database that would have been created anyway, it is overpaying - needlessly increasing prices for consumers and burdens for competitors. This goes to the design of the right - has it been crafted too broadly, so that it is not being targeted to those areas where it is needed to encourage innovation?

Third, and this one is harder to judge, is the right promoting innovation and competition rather than stifling it? For example, if the existence of the right allowed a one-time surge of newcomers to the market who then to use their rights to discourage new entrants, or if we promoted some increase in databases but made scientific aggregation of large amounts of data harder overall, then the database right might actually be stifling the innovation it is designed to foment.

Those are the three questions that any review of the Database Directive must answer. But we have preliminary answers to those three questions and they are either strongly negative or extremely doubtful.

Are database rights necessary for a thriving database industry? The answer is a clear “no.” In the United States, the database industry has grown more than 25-fold since 1979 and - contrary to those who paint the Feist case as a revolution - for that entire period, in most of the United States, it was clear that unoriginal databases were not covered by copyright. The figures are even more interesting in the legal database market. The two major proponents of database protection in the United States are Reed Elsevier, the owner of Lexis, and Thomson Publishing, the owner of Westlaw. Fascinatingly, both companies made their key acquisitions in the US legal database market after the Feist decision, at which point no one could have thought unoriginal databases were copyrightable. This seems to be some evidence that they believe they could make money even without a database right. How? In the old-fashioned way: competing on features, accuracy, tied services, making users pay for entry to the database and so on.

If those companies believed there were profits to be made, they were right. Jason Gelman, one of our students, points out in a recent paper that Thomson’s Legal Regulatory division had a profit margin of over 26% for the first quarter of 2004. Reed Elsevier’s 2003 profit margin for LexisNexis was 22.8%. Both profit margins were significantly higher than the company average and both are earned primarily in the $6 billion US legal database market, a market which is thriving without strong intellectual property protection over databases. (First rule of thumb for regulators: when someone with a profit margin over 20% asks you for additional monopoly protection, pause before agreeing.)

What about Europe? There is some good news for the proponents of database protection. As Hugenholtz, Maurer, and Onsrud point out in a nice article in Science Magazine, there was a sharp, one-time spike in numbers of companies entering the European database market immediately following the implementation of the Directive in member states. Yet their work, and “Across Two Worlds,” a fascinating study by Maurer, suggests that the rate of entry then falls back to levels similar to those before the Directive. Maurer’s analysis shows that the attrition rate is also very high in some European markets in the period following the passage of the Directive - even with the new right, many companies drop out.

At the end of the day, the British database industry - the strongest performer in Europe - adds about 200 databases in the three years immediately after the implementation of the Directive. In France there is little net change in the number of databases and the number of providers falls sharply. In Germany, the industry added nearly 300 databases immediately following the Directive - a remarkable surge - about 200 of which rapidly disappeared. During the same period the US industry adds about 900 databases. Bottom line? Europe’s industry did get a one-time boost, and some of those firms have stayed in the market; that is a benefit, though a costly one. But database growth rates have gone back to pre-Directive levels, while the anti- competitive costs of database protection are now a permanent fixture of the European landscape. The US, by contrast, gets a nice steady growth rate in databases without paying the monopoly cost. (Second rule of thumb for regulators: Do no harm! Do not create rights without strong evidence that the incentive effect is worth the anti- competitive cost.)

Now the second question. Is the Database Directive encouraging the production of databases we would not have got otherwise? Here the evidence is clear and disturbing. Again, Hugenholtz et al, point out that the majority of cases brought under the Directive have been about databases that would have been created anyway - telephone numbers, television schedules, concert times. A review of more recent cases reveals the same pattern. These databases are inevitably generated by the operation of the business in question and cannot be independently compiled by a competitor. The database right simply serves to limit competition in the provision of the information. Last week, the European Court of Justice implicitly underscored this point in a series of cases concerning football scores, horse-racing results and so on. Rejecting a stunningly protectionist and one-sided opinion from its Advocate General, the court ruled that the mere running of a business which generates data does not count as “substantial investment” enough to trigger the database right. It would be nice to think that this is the beginning of some scepticism about the reach of the Directive, scepticism that might even penetrate the Commission’s review of the Directive’s anti-competitive effects. Yet the Court provides little discussion for the economic reasons behind its interpretation; the analysis is merely semantic and definitional, a sharp contrast to its competition decisions.

"Database growth rates have gone back to pre- Directive levels, while the anti-competitive costs of database protection are now a permanent fixture of the European landscape. The US, by contrast, gets a nice steady growth rate in databases without paying the monopoly cost."

So what kinds of databases are being generated by this bold new right? The answer is somewhere between bathos and pathos. Here are some of the wonderful “databases” that people found it worthwhile litigating over: A website, consisting of a collection of 259 hyper- links to “parenting resources,” a collection of poems, an assortment of advertisements, headings referring to local news, charts of popular music. The sad list goes on and on. The European Commission might ask itself whether these are really the kind of “databases” which we need a legal monopoly to encourage, and that we want to tie up judicial resources protecting. The point that many more such factual resources can be found online in the United States without such protection, also seems worthy of note. At very least, the evidence indicates that the right is drawn much too broadly and triggered too easily in ways that are profoundly anti-competitive.

Finally, is the database right encouraging scientific innovation or hurting it? Here the evidence is merely suggestive. Scientists have claimed that the European database right, together with the perverse failure of European governments to take advantage of the limited scientific research exceptions allowed by the Directive, have made it much harder to aggregate data, to replicate studies, and to judge published articles. In fact, academic scientific bodies have been among the strongest critics of database protection. But negative evidence, by its nature, is hard to produce; “show me the science that did not get done!” Certainly, both US science and commerce have benefited extraordinarily from the openness of US data policy. This is an issue I will deal with in a later column.

I was not always opposed to intellectual property rights over data. Indeed, in a book written before the enactment of the Database Directive, I said that there was a respectable economic argument that such protection might be warranted and that we needed research on the issue. Unfortunately, Europe got the right without the research. The facts are now in. If the European Database Directive were a drug, the government would be pulling it from the market until its efficacy and harmfulness could be reassessed. At the very least, the Commission needs a detailed empirical review of the Directive’s effects, and needs to adjust the Directive’s definitions and to fine-tune its limitations. But there is a second lesson. There is more discussion of the empirical economic effects of the Database Directive in this 2000 word column than there is in the 600 page review of the effects of the Directive that the European Commission paid a private company to conduct. That is a scandal. And it is a scandal that is altogether typical of the way we make intellectual property policy. President Bush is not the only one to make “faith-based” decisions.

The writer is William Neal Reynolds Professor of Law at Duke Law School, a board member of Creative Commons and the co-founder of the Center for the Study of the Public Domain.
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/4cd4941e-3c...0e2511c8.html#


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Don’t let this outrage happen to you: Answer the summons

Judge Gives $300,000 Fine In No-Show Screener Case
Academy member allowed copies to be made of promotional DVDs

A federal judge has fined a man $300,000 for allowing copies to be made of two movies he obtained as part of promotions aimed at winning the U.S. film industry’s top awards, the Oscars, Warner Bros. studio said Tuesday.

U.S. District Judge Stephen Wilson granted a default judgment against Los Angeles resident Carmine Caridi, who was a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and had received DVDs of “Mystic River” and “The Last Samurai” in 2003.

The judgment ends a chapter in last year’s industry ”screener ban,” in which the studios tried to crack down on the illegal copying of videos and DVDs into digital files that could then be posted on the Web and watched by anyone.

The studios believe illegal copying of films costs them more than $3.5 billion annually in lost sales of videos and DVDs. They fear billions more are lost from digital copies on the Web, and have mounted a huge effort to stop it, including suing people they accuse of copyright infringement.

Federal officials claimed Caridi, who acted in small parts in two of “The Godfather” movies, sent his DVDs to Russell Sprague of Homewood, Illinois, who digitized them for posting on the Internet. Sprague was later charged with violating copyright law and he pleaded guilty. Caridi was not charged.

Warner Bros. sued Caridi, but he never responded, according to court papers. He could not be reached for comment.

The Oscars are given out each year by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The awards often bring in more money for movie studios via ticket, video, DVD and television sales.
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6570559/


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Arrr mateys, it burns!

Studios Win 23.8 Million Judgment Against Pirate Site

A Malaysian resident who ran a website that charged users to watch pirated films has been ordered by a California court to pay 23.8 million dollars to movie studios.

The studios had sued Tan Soo Leong and company MasterSurf for operating the website Film88.com, according to the Motion Picture Association. The MPA's director of worldwide anti-piracy operations, John Malcolm, said MasterSurf set up an international web of servers designed to shelter the venture for liability. The trade group said Leong previously operated an almost identical Web site, Movie88.com, out of Taiwan until authorities there shut the company down. MasterSurf's primary servers were then hosted out of the Netherlands and Iran, but the MPA and a Netherlands anti-piracy organization used Dutch courts to shut down servers there, according to the MPA. Leong and MasterSurf also were barred from infringing on any of the studios' movies, and ordered to destroy any and all copies of copyright films that reside on servers or in other formats. Malcolm said the MPA "shattered" MasterSurf's capabilities and shut the company down. "This case shows that some people will go to extravagant lengths to profiteer from pirating movies," he said.
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/041124/323/f78l9.html


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LGT, Music Industry Settle MP3 Phone Row

LG Telecom Ltd., the smallest of Korea's three mobile phone operators, said yesterday that it has reached a settlement with music industry groups in a dispute over MP3 mobile phones sales.

In a statement, LG Telecom said the settlement was reached with three music industry groups, including the Music Industry Association of Korea, the Seoul- based lobby group that represents major labels. The mobile phone carrier said that it would soon sign similar settlements with two other music-related organizations.

Under the deal, LG Telecom subscribers will be able to download copyrighted songs from third-party music Web sites. The service will be offered free of charge to consumers until the end of June next year, the company said.
http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/SITE/da...0411240032.asp


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Court Nixes Lawsuit Fighting Copyright Law
John Borland

A lawsuit brought by a group of Internet archivists against recent congressional actions expanding copyright protections has been dismissed by a federal judge.

The case was led by Net pioneer Brewster Kahle, whose most recent Internet Archive project aims to make a huge digital archive of Web sites and other media. The court's ruling, issued late last week, marks another setback for a movement of activists and scholars against expanding legal protections for artistic works.

Kahle and his allies contended that Congress' lengthening of copyright-protection terms--even when an author's work didn't request further protection--had radically transformed traditional copyright law. They asked the courts to rule that much of this recent copyright law change was illegal, which potentially could have opened up large amounts of books, movies and music created in the 1960s and 1970s to public domain use.

In a decision made available Wednesday, federal Judge Maxine Chesney concluded that Congress did have substantial flexibility in expanding copyright protections without court interference.

The court relied primarily on last year's Supreme Court ruling that said Congress had the power to extend the term of copyright. In that decision, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg said the court was "not at liberty to second-guess congressional determinations and policy judgments of this order."

Kahle and another public domain-based archive had sought to distribute so-called orphan works, or books and other works that were still under copyright but no longer in print or available to the public. That was not possible under the recent round of copyright extensions, they said.

Kahle said Wednesday that the decision would be appealed, and that they had always planned to fight the primary battle in the appellate courts. The court had not directly addressed what he said was the primary thrust of the case--a change in laws to automatically renew copyrights, instead of requiring copyright holders to reregister, he said.

"The key component of the district court ruling is that the judge did not consider the main aspect of this case, which is the changing of the contour of copyright law from opt in to opt out," Kahle said. "That has dramatically changed what's under copyright, and even more ominously, changes the nature of what can be put on the Internet."
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-5466329.html


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Australia

Recording Industry, File-Sharers Face Off
Mike Corder

The next chapter in the global legal battle between the recording industry and file-sharing services is due to unfold here Monday when the owners of the hugely popular Kazaa software go on trial on civil copyright infringement charges.

"We don't want to shut down Kazaa, just its illegal activities," said Michael Speck, general manager of Music Industry Piracy Investigations, a body set up by major Australian record labels to target copyright infringers.

Kazaa's owners, Sharman Networks Ltd., insist that while they urge users not to commit music piracy, they have no control over what people do with the popular "peer-to-peer" software they provide. With Kazaa, songs, movies and television programs are freely exchanged without paying royalties to the copyright owners.

Industry lawyers say they will try to prove in the federal court case that Sharman can control the illegal use.

The entertainment industry already has sued file-sharing services in the United States. Two federal courts in California have cleared Grokster Ltd. and StreamCast Networks Inc. of liability, though the industry has appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Sharman is named in a similar suit whose ruling is pending in a lower court.

Michael Geist, a law professor at the University of Ottawa, said the U.S. cases should not directly affect the outcome of the Australian lawsuit, but all share the principle that a software developer is not directly responsible for the activities of its users, just as Xerox cannot be blamed for copying done on its machines.

It "is a common theme in copyright legislation worldwide," Geist said. He expects lawyers for Kazaa's owners to use similar arguments, "and the court may well respond in a similar fashion."

Alan Morris, executive vice president of Sharman Networks in Sydney, Australia, refused to comment on the case.

Kazaa already has one major court victory under its belt.

In December 2003, the Dutch Supreme Court ruled that Kazaa's Netherlands division cannot be held liable for copyright infringement.

A possible difference in the Australian case is the recording industry's invocation of a rarely used law that allows litigants in civil copyright cases to gather evidence. Investigators earlier this year seized evidence in a series of raids on companies and individuals linked to Kazaa.

A judge has rejected Sharman's efforts to throw out the seized evidence.

A forensic computer analyst is expected to be the first prosecution witness and was expected to tell judge Murray Wilcox what the raids uncovered.

The case - spawned by the largest copyright infringement investigation in Australian history - involves Australia's six major recording labels. Defendants include Sharman Networks, Sharman License Holdings and Sharman's Sydney-based chief executive officer, Nikki Hemming.

The trial is scheduled to last up to three weeks and Wilcox is not expected to rule until next year. If Wilcox rules that Sharman is liable for music piracy, another hearing will be scheduled to determine damages and compensation.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2004Nov26.html


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No To Filtering: Coonan

THE Federal Government had rejected mandatory filtering of the internet to stop child pornography, Parliament was told today.

Communications Minister Helen Coonan said the government had recently reviewed ways of preventing child pornography, including a British-style national internet filtering system but rejected it.

Senator Coonan said the study had found such a filter would cost around $45 million a year initially and $33 million a year in later years.

She said it also had the potential to choke the internet and drive up costs for consumers and small business.

"The biggest issue is not so much the money but such an expensive scheme would not necessarily solve the problem and small to medium ISPs (internet service providers) would be driven out of business for little or no benefit," Senator Coonan said. "What does work is greater information and parental supervision and that is the kind of program that the government is promoting."

The government has provided $30 million to educate parents about the perils of the internet and ISPs are required to provide cost-price filtering software to subscribers.

Senator Coonan's comments were triggered by a question from Independent senator Brian Harradine.

"Why won't the government at least for the start prevent child porn being transmitted into Australia either through the internet and ISPs or via satellite?" Senator Harradine said. "Why won't the government take that action since we've got laws against child porn?"
http://australianit.news.com.au/arti...-15319,00.html


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CA Slaps Spyware Label On Kazaa
Dan Ilett

Peer-to-peer program Kazaa is the No. 1 spyware threat on the Internet, according to Computer Associates International.

Through its PestPatrol research, CA found that Kazaa posed a greater threat than other programs in its top five spyware list because of its widespread popularity. Kazaa claims that its software has been downloaded 214 million times.

CA gave Kazaa a high "clot factor," its measure of how much a program slows a machine by adding unnecessary registry entries and directories. However, classifying a popular application like Kazaa as spyware is a delicate matter, and CA admits this creates difficulties in attaching labels.

"Kazaa does something useful," said Simon Perry, vice president of security strategy for CA. "I'm not going to say that it doesn't. But turn that around--you're allowing millions of strangers onto your machine. (Kazaa) is No. 1 because of the amount if copies it's got out there."

The company said that any other peer-to-peer file exchange programs, such as Blubster, Gnucleus and WinMX, could also degrade network performance and consume storage space because they are bundled with adware or spyware.

Adware program Ezula came second in the company's top five, beating Adopt.hotbar.com and GameSpy Arcade.

Perry said the difficulty in exactly defining spyware was one reason why the company often referred to certain programs as pests. He said that while the definition of a virus was clear today, spyware is a fuzzy area and that the top five probably wouldn't change much because the programs had a much longer lifespan than viruses.

He added that CA used the term "pests" as an umbrella phrase to cover around 30 types of annoying programs.

"Pest is a broader category. It includes spyware, adware and browser help objects. One of the things virus writers don't try is to come and sue you. Some of the producers of spyware we detect say to us 'Why are you claiming my software has any malicious intent?'"

However, CA's Web site clearly lists Kazaa as the top spyware threat. Sharman Networks, Kazaa's distributor, was not immediately available for comment.
http://news.com.com/CA+slaps+spyware...3-5467539.html


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Amid Dire Predictions, Classical Records Flower
Anthony Tommasini

Early this year the polemical British cultural critic Norman Lebrecht came out with what he called a "rock-solid prediction" that the year 2004 would be the last for the classical record industry. Though Mr. Lebrecht's dire prediction was absurd, his grim overall take on the field resonated. The major recording companies have been mired in financial crises for years, and some clueless leaders at the major labels have only made things worse.

After shedding staff and floundering artistically for years, two former behemoths in the industry, BMG Classics and Sony Classical, merged this year. Clearly the merger hasn't solved the problem. The combined company recently announced an additional 25 percent cut in staff at its offices in Germany. These labels are the humbled remnants of companies that once maintained the most distinguished catalogs in the business, RCA and Columbia. Could Peter Gelb, the president of Sony Classical, be jumping ship by accepting the post of general manager of the Metropolitan Opera starting in 2006?

Sounds bad, right? Yet I have seldom had so many exciting and important new classical music recordings come across my desk as in the last year or so.

Major labels like EMI Classics are championing contemporary music, as with the new recording of Messiaen's visionary "Éclairs sur l'Au-Delà," his last major orchestral score, in an exhilarating performance by Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic. Smaller labels are releasing invaluable explorations of the masters, like the mezzo- soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson's sublime program of Handel arias and cantatas with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, conducted by Harry Bicket on Avie. Koch International Classics showed that sizable companies are still open to offbeat projects of special interest, like the pianist Sara Davis Buechner's lovely program of piano works by the operetta composer Rudolf Friml, surprisingly fine music and a labor of love from Ms. Buechner.

Despite the financial struggles in the industry, it feels as if we are in the midst of a golden age of classical recording. So what's going on?

Several things, no doubt. Being forced to cut back production drastically has made label executives come up with projects that matter, recordings that truly contribute to the discography. "Smaller is better" may be a cliché, but that approach has paid off for the classical recording industry.

Perhaps for once the free market is working the way it is supposed to. At the smart labels, the shift of thinking recalls the golden days in book publishing when distinguished houses had small lists of authors they believed in, and they took the time to nurture and promote their works. Today publishing companies release far too many books, hoping that one will be a surprise best seller, like "The Perfect Storm" and "The Da Vinci Code," and cutting losses from books that don't catch on right away.

Among the major classical labels, EMI has had the smartest reaction to the financial challenges. The company has made choices among artists, choosing not to extend the contract of the tenor Roberto Alagna and making a major commitment to the remarkable young Norwegian pianist Leif Ove Andsnes. Fans of Mr. Alagna may question the company's choices, but at least EMI is making them and standing by its artists.

Though for 20 years the market has had a glut of the same core repertory, EMI understands when an artist has something fresh to say about familiar works, as with Mr. Andsnes's most recent release, joyous and sparkling accounts of two Mozart piano concertos (No. 9 in E flat and No. 18 in B flat), with Mr. Andsnes conducting the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra. Manfred Eicher, the principled producer at the Munich-based label ECM, who has released bracing recordings of contemporary music, has also made valuable contributions to the standard repertory, as with its release of the first book of Bach's "Well-Tempered Clavier," played by the Austrian pianist Till Fellner, a lucid, sensitive and refined performance.

In earlier times it was essential for an artist to have an exclusive contract with a recording company, though such relationships are rarer today. Deutsche Grammophon has made a long-term commitment to the splendid young Russian soprano Anna Netrebko, whose recent "Sempre Libera" is a radiantly sung program of Italian arias with the great Claudio Abbado conducting the Mahler Chamber Orchestra.

But the soprano Deborah Voigt is proving that with the right management and a sense of mission, you can steer yourself into projects without having an exclusive contract with a major label. This year EMI released Ms. Voigt's "Obsessions," a program of arias and scenes from her signature Wagner and Strauss roles, sung gloriously, with Richard Armstrong conducting the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. But also this year, Deutsche Grammophon issued Ms. Voigt's first foray into the role of Isolde in a live recording of Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde" from the Vienna State Opera, with Thomas Moser as Tristan, conducted with breathtaking intensity by Christian Thielemann.

Which brings up the issue of live recordings. A large market for complete opera recordings still exists, but these mammoth projects have become prohibitively expensive, especially in the United States, where the prospect of paying unionized orchestra musicians for the required number of studio sessions has ended many projects at their conception.

But as recording costs have soared, so has the capability of recording technology. Today, with digital editing techniques, a single wrong note or off-pitch tone can be replaced with the right one from another take. Consequently, more and more companies have begun to record operas and major symphonic works live, with the final edit compiled from several performances. The new "Tristan und Islode" offers arresting evidence of how successful this so-called compromise can be.

Moreover, the trend among major orchestras to compensate for the timidity of the major labels by releasing and distributing their own recordings on their own labels continues. LSO Live, the recording outlet of the London Symphony Orchestra, has just issued a spirited new performance of Verdi's "Falstaff," conducted by Colin Davis, recorded live last spring at the Barbican in London. Similarly the San Francisco Symphony has just released Michael Tilson Thomas's bold account of Mahler's Symphony No. 2, with the rich-voiced soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian and the affecting Ms. Hunt Lieberson as soloists.

Any notion that these ventures into self-produced recordings are just an experiment should be quashed by the latest entrant, the Boston Pops. Long a cash cow for the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Pops has just issued its first self-produced and self-distributed CD, "Sleigh Ride," a Christmas album conducted by Keith Lockhart.

In addition, the smaller labels are responding with heartening creativity to the business challenges in the industry and the cutbacks by the majors. Highlights this year include Nonesuch's "Voices of Light," a program of vocal works by Messiaen, Debussy, Fauré and Osvaldo Golijov, sung exquisitely by the soprano Dawn Upshaw, accompanied by the elegant pianist Gilbert Kalish. There is a gripping new release of orchestral works by Steve Reich, performed by the dynamic conductor David Robertson and the Orchestre National de Lyon, from Naïve.

And Naxos, the invaluable and adventurous budget label, may get top honors for the most significant contribution of the year with its release of William Bolcom's setting of William Blake's "Songs of Innocence and Experience," 46 poems by William Blake, in a live performance by the University of Michigan School of Music Orchestra and Chorus. This work, with over two hours of Mr. Bolcom's poly-stylistic music, is surely his masterpiece.

It is still hard to know how things will fare with the smaller-is-better approach at the major labels and the current trends toward self-producing among major orchestras. Also, distribution via the Internet is already transforming the role of retailers. In 10 years the classical recording business may look quite different from the way it does now. But despite the naysaying, the business will adapt and survive.

Meanwhile I can hardly find enough time to listen to all the discs that have come out during this golden era of classical music recording. Maybe I'll listen again to the blazing new Philips recording of Shostakovich's Symphony No. 4 with Valery Gergiev conducting the Kirov Orchestra in a live performance. Or the pianist Pierre- Laurent Aimard's revelatory and pianistically stunning account of Ives's "Concord" Sonata on Warner Classics. Or. ...
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/30/ar...old.html?8hpib


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On Guard at Fort Hood

Computer intrusion detection system stops both outside attacks and harmful spyware introduced into the network from inside.
Tam Cummings

The Directorate of Information Management (DOIM) at Fort Hood, TX, is waging a multi-front cybersecurity war as it provides information assurance (IA) for more than 30,000 computer systems in 600 buildings at the nation’s largest military post.

“We’re taking a proactive stance to make ourselves better and more relevant in our information warfare and cybersecurity mission,” explained Lieutenant Colonel Ed Morris, director of DOIM. “It’s clearly very important, from the highest levels, that we provide our customer base a secure environment to operate from, especially with our missions at home and in the Global War on Terror.”

The mission of the DOIM is to provide vital computer, telephone and data communications services to Army tenant organizations located on Fort Hood. The Army relies heavily on the logistical automation supported by the DOIM’s current computer and communications networks. One of DOIM’s most important responsibilities is ensuring uninterrupted and secure service for its customers.

IA is a major challenge confronting the DOIM. Attacks by hackers armed with viruses and worms, coupled with peer-to-peer (p2p) connections or unprotected laptops logging onto the Installation Local Area Network (ILAN), mean that assaults can come from multiple fronts and even from within the perimeter of the post.

Malicious users are continually updating their attack arsenal and releasing it onto the Internet, so the attacks are originating both outside the DOIM’s Internet gateway firewall and from inside its own boundary defenses. The result is that the Army has had limited visibility into the identity of the enemy or the origin of the formatted cyber-attack.

In response, however, the DOIM is fortifying its network security by increasing intrusion detection visibility on attacks originating in front of and behind the perimeter firewall.

“The DOIM IA response strategy enlists a counteroffensive program from the inside out. It integrates Army-approved intrusion detection tools, intense training and testing of personnel using the ILAN and use of the most advanced techniques and technologies to improve intrusion visibility-the final step to having the necessary countermeasures to respond,” Morris said.

The new strategy includes integration of a three-tier intrusion detection and prevention system dubbed SecureNet, developed by Dallas-based Intrusion Inc. Fort Hood is one of 12 posts using SecureNet, a monitoring hardware and software system designed to provide intrusion detection, prevention and data privacy.

Outside/Inside Threat

The traditional Army battle plan assumes identification of the enemy and threat, and its optimum response requires use of mature technological resources to achieve the desired results for short- and long-term military gain, control and victory. But the current IA threat is unique. Either unknown attackers who are often difficult or impossible to identify and who are dedicated to advancing technology for their own gain are mounting a continuous onslaught, or personnel unaware their own laptops or outside computers are harboring a sleeper virus or worm are innocently introducing attacks on the system.

Morris’ team discovered these “innocent” attacks often occur when deployed personnel return to Fort Hood and connect to the ILAN. Because there is a good chance these personnel have not kept their computers as up to date with patches and virus security as DOIM’s system, they can pose as severe a threat to IA security as any outside hacker.

Under Fort Hood’s arrangement with SecureNet, the DOIM has deployed an advanced intrusion detection system behind its perimeter firewall, providing a second measure of defense and offering a viable and visual threat visibility for its security team. The new intrusion system works like a sound and motion sensitive surveillance camera, but for data. Just as a bank uses a surveillance camera to monitor access into and within its vaults, the Fort Hood intrusion system monitors all data access through its Internet firewall.

DOIM’s “camera” is an intrusion sensor monitoring access into and out of the network. Constantly scanning for signature bites, these multiple sensors have been strategically placed throughout the Fort Hood ILAN, where they report real-time security events to a centralized management system monitored by DOIM information assurance engineers.

“Today, we’re able to spot suspicious or unauthorized access attempts from outside our firewall and respond with the proper countermeasures,” said Stephon Primous, IA systems engineer. “The programs talk to each other, scanning the system. Once the software suspects the traffic, it alerts us and shuts it down. It has the ability to perform detection and then prevention.”

The second security problem occurs when a user connects an already infected computer, such as a traveling laptop or (against policy) a personal computer, to the Fort Hood ILAN. Once the device is able to connect, it is already behind the perimeter firewall, and therefore not easily visible or contained. This type of vulnerability allows an infected machine to spread the virus or worm throughout the network, infecting other computers, its progress undetected at the perimeter.

SecureNet provides additional intrusion monitoring and prevention sensors behind the perimeter firewall and across its network infrastructure. This enables the IA team to quickly identify and contain inside vulnerabilities and limit damage to its systems. The new monitors also help to identify non-security-compliant computers, unauthorized PCs and machines performing operations not allowed by DOIM security policy.

Peer-to-Peer Risks

The DOIM is also stepping up enforcement of its policy prohibiting users from setting up p2p network communications. P2p describes common file-sharing programs employed by many computer users for downloading music and other types of files.

“The problem with p2p is that many of the sites our users hit can be an unwanted source for spyware insertions on the post,” said Major Bert Belisch, 1114th Signal Battalion operations and planning officer. “Once the user connects to a site, often a spyware program unknowingly gets returned to the user’s PC, along with the file downloaded.

“These spyware programs started out originally as just a nuisance to our users, but today, they’re beginning to impact the reliability of our systems and have even broader implications related to the security of our data,” Belisch said. “Now that we added the intrusion spyware sensor at the firewall, we’re able to spot and block p2p communication attempts originating from inside our network, thus eliminating a large source of spyware infestation problems at Fort Hood.”

The system also detects and blocks other types of spyware insertion attempts and outbound spyware notifications initiated from previously infected computers, such as a traveling laptop.

Now, for the first time, DOIM IA personnel have ready access to detailed internal network security data. They can rapidly respond to an attack in real time, often blocking many of the worst exploits automatically, before significant damage begins. Because the intrusion sensors are deployed in-line, Fort Hood can not only prevent the attack or worm propagation from occurring, but also automatically notify the IA engineer that an intrusion was identified, what action was taken to protect the system and identify its specific port and source.

This new intrusion system, combined with training and a Security Status Review (SSR) program initiated by the IA staff, has enabled the DOIM leadership to identify and prepare security trends data for the post. Closer inspection of the data ensures the Army makes more informed decisions about computer security policy.

“So today, the DOIM is able to get specific details about who we’re fighting and from where they came,” Morris said. “Once we get the enemy in our sights, we take aim and eliminate the offender. We will be able to clearly define our security strategies and mount the necessary Army resources to repel the attacks and advance our mission.”
http://www.mit-kmi.com/articles.cfm?DocID=716

[JackSpratts]

Peer-to-Peer for Grown-Ups

Laplink's subscription-based ShareDirect service permits safe file sharing outside secure networks.
Mary Landesman

Laplink's new ShareDirect offers a secure way for you to share files with coworkers-whether they are across the room or across the ocean.

ShareDirect is a combination application and service that offers a simple, Windows Explorer-based peer-to-peer method for sharing files between PCs running Windows 2000 or XP. By default, ShareDirect attempts to establish a direct client-to-client connection between the systems involved. Sharing occurs by invitation and applies only to the designated folder. You can create multiple shared folders, each with its own managed membership of sharers.

If the app can't establish a direct connection (for example, if a system is protected by a firewall), ShareDirect's Premium data- transfer service transports files via Laplink's relay servers. Whatever the type of transfer, ShareDirect encrypts all data to protect it from prying eyes.

I tested a shipping version of ShareDirect (version 1.0.61). Installation was fast and painless, and in moments I was securely transferring my files.

ShareDirect's subscription-based pricing is tied to how much data per month you plan to transfer to your PC from other members' PCs via Premium service; options range from 50MB ($40 per year) to 3GB ($250 per year). The $100 Personal Network Edition I tested offers three licenses, each with 400MB of Premium data transfers per month, and antivirus scanning of all files.

In a market dominated by insecure and anonymous P2P networks rife with malicious code, Laplink's ShareDirect offers safe, authenticated sharing between select users.
http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/artic...,118678,00.asp


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Lowdown On Downloads

Load up on pros, cons of some music services
Malcolm X Abram

The music industry is changing. Reluctantly.

After spending the last several years confused and confounded by the proliferation of music online, both legal and otherwise, the Recording Industry Association of America and the labels have accepted that downloading is the future of music, and the future is now.

It seems that every new month brings a new online music service, using a variety of business models. Microsoft is in the beta testing stage of its new store, and Virgin Digital, a subsidiary of the company that brought us Virgin Megastores, recently opened an online storefront.

Apple's iPods are being handed out to incoming students at some colleges. Other services are partnering with retail stores such as Best Buy and offering free trials, to ensure maximum exposure in what is becoming an increasingly crowded and very competitive market.

There's peer-to-peer file sharing, streaming content over high-speed connections and simple pay-per-song downloading. So far, song selection is the great equalizer, and the size of an online music service's catalog definitely matters. Pricing is also obviously important, but 99 cents per song looks to be the standard, with prices for full albums being a competitive variant.

There is no standard, but as always when new ways of generating googobs of money are discovered, a few companies have figured out how to do it right and have risen to the top of the food chain. We've test-driven four of the biggest and best-established services available, and tell you about them here with a minimum of technospeak.

ITUNES

iTunes is arguably the blueprint for the future of music distribution. Recently, it announced its 150 millionth download (Beth Santisteven of Ignacio, Colo., bought "Ex-Factor" by Lauryn Hill, in case you were wondering) and also opened shop in Germany, France and the United Kingdom.

Once again, Apple was on the cutting edge of something big (and profitable). With its track record, it was able to forge relationships with all of the major labels, back when the record industry was still scrambling to adapt to the new technology and making examples out of 12-year-olds with massive, though mostly symbolic, lawsuits.

As makers of the iPods, the most popular digital music players, Apple has a virtual lock on the market. Being the biggest distributor of both the music and machine means that it is easily able to set up security measures that limit users' ability to freely spread their purchased music. That's a very big attraction for the labels and a major reason that iTunes Music Store gets many exclusive tracks, including U2's new single, Vertigo, and the first new song in 14 years by indie rock legends the Pixies. It boasts a library of more than 1 million tracks, including 5,000 audiobooks, as well as links to movie trailers and music videos.

Ease of use: Like most Internet storefronts, iTunes is a bit cluttered, with new releases, top 10 lists and other effluvia, such as celebrity playlists. But it's well organized and pretty easy to navigate. The search function allows you to quickly find what you're looking for and once you pick an album/song, the layout simplifies.

Setup: After downloading and installing the software, it pretty much takes care of itself. When you run the program, the iTunes storefront opens immediately.

Pricing: Single songs are 99 cents and the cost of full albums is largely based on that price. Some recent releases can be had at discount — The Black Keys' latest, "Rubber Factory," is $9.99. Some older albums are only available in total and are priced accordingly.

The software is free. It comes prepackaged on all new Macs; the Windows version is available on the site.

Restrictions: iTunes uses a format called m4p or "protected AAC," which means users can listen to purchased music only through the iTunes software or on an iPod, not on other players. The obvious if inconvenient workaround for folks without iPods is to have iTunes burn a CD, then rip the contents back onto the computer in your desired format to download onto your player.

iTunes says users can share their music with unlimited iPods and up to five "authorized" computers if you have a network in your home.

REALNETWORKS

RealNetworks has been around since the days of Windows 95, and its free RealPlayer is pretty much a standard component of any store-bought desktop PC.

The RealPlayer music store claims a healthy 763,303 tracks, including a very good jazz selection from the usual suspects, such as Miles Davis, to avant folks like Sun Ra and saxophonist Archie Shepp. It simply can't match iTunes in terms of overall selection, but if you're not desperate for the latest thing or hot exclusives (it has some, but they aren't very impressive) Real's music store is a worthy contender.

Ease of use: The storefront's layout is simpler than iTunes, using a nice calming black background, fewer bells and whistles and a nice help section that includes a "getting started" and a list of compatible devices, which includes the iPod. Each artist is given a mini homepage with a list of available albums, and most have extremely brief biographical information.

Setup: Chances are you already have RealPlayer, but you may need to upgrade to version 10. Then you'll have to set up an account, which is a quick and easy process.

Pricing: If RealNetworks has one big advantage over iTunes, it's in the pricing department. Most albums are priced below $12, with many new releases (Usher, Nelly, Le Tigre) priced at $9.99. The RealPlayer program is free.

It also offers RealRhapsody, a music streaming service allowing users to listen to anything in the catalog for $9.95 a month, a pretty good deal. But those without at least a DSL connection shouldn't bother, because the load times will be interminable. Also, if your PC doesn't have a decent set of speakers or a hookup to your home stereo, it would be best to stick to the music store.

Restrictions: Real Networks has its own proprietary format called RealAudio, but there aren't too many PC media players that can't play the format, and the company uses its wider compatibility and lack of restrictions on purchased music as a selling point.

What's not a good selling point is the annoying fact that some albums are incomplete, with one or two songs simply not available (alone or with purchase of the album), and some albums are only available on a track-by-track basis. Consequently, hot rapper/producer Kanye West's 21-track "The College Dropout" carries a hefty $20.79 price tag.

NAPSTER

If you ask the music industry, the original Napster was the evil bogeyman that ruined the record business, the first big peer-to-peer network that connected the digital music collections of millions of folks.

The industry blamed Napster for ending its 15-year streak of bathing in the cash generated by music fans replacing their old records and tapes with CDs. Napster's popularity turned Metallica's Lars Ulrich into an activist, made many copyright lawyers wealthy and demonized founder Shawn Fanning.

Napster v.2 is a completely legal service owned by Roxio, makers of various digital media software, including programs people use to rip CDs. Napster has agreements with the big major labels and claims 700,000 tracks in its catalog.

Napster tries to foster a sense of community by giving users the option of viewing, in real time, what other connected users are listening to and browsing users' collections. Its selection is decent, leaning on recent materials, but it has a genre devoted to indie labels, such as Sub Pop, K7 and outre jazz champions ESP-Disk.

Ease of use: Napster follows the basic storefront blueprint. Subscribers get an extra "now playing" window where they see what they are listening to, but otherwise it's easy to navigate.

Considering the number of tracks, the search function isn't quite as exacting as it ought to be. A search for electronica artist Squarepusher returned the Scorpions, Skrape and the Zagreb Festival Orchestra with Michael Halasz, but no Squarepusher, and not even any artists with a "Q" in their names.

Setup: A reasonably sized 11 MB download for the full Napster and a quick three-step registration process will have you up and running in about 10 minutes.

Pricing: Most tracks are 99 cents apiece and most single-disc albums are priced from $9.95 to $12.95.

Napster comes in two forms. The full Napster is a subscription service similar to RealRhapsody; for $9.95 a month, users can stream music to their computers. The free Napster is basically a storefront, where users can purchase music.

Restrictions: The streaming service doesn't apply to the entire catalog, with many songs/albums tagged as "buy only." Members with the full service can download albums to their hard drives in a protected wmv format that allows infinite playback, but prevents burning and/or downloading to a portable player unless purchased. Like Rhapsody, Napster boasts compatibility with several digital devices (excluding the iPod).

KAZAA

Kazaa appeared on the heels of the original Napster and sticks with the peer-to-peer (p2p) system, which means that when you start the program, your computer becomes part of a network of users. A recent court ruling determined that p2p software is legal, so users need not worry about the RIAA suing them or their children.

Because the content depends on the users online at any given time, the number of tracks available is hard to determine. Obviously, for the whole shebang to work, users must be willing to share their own content, for which Kazaa rewards you with a participation level of high, medium or low.

It also requires considerable trust and honesty from users. We downloaded a file identifying itself as a DJ Shadow remix of NWA's classic (and unprintably titled) anti-police anthem, only to discover it was the familiar album version.

Ease of use: Kazaa is the least intuitive of the services listed here; it also uses a different system that takes some getting used to. The interface is cluttered and if you don't purchase Kazaa Plus, you will have to suffer a constant barrage of advertisements. The toolbar is customizable, so you can simplify it a bit.

There is a basic search function and a Search Agent, which will search the network every 30 minutes for 24 hours. You can have as many as 24 different searches going at the same time. But this means the program must constantly run in the background, sucking up system resources.

Setup: Fairly easy, but pay careful attention to the install process. It asks you to install several programs — some needed (the adware), but others, such as the Peer Points manager, which offers prizes for sharing files, are an unnecessary drain on the computer.

Price: Songs you get from other users are free. Kazaa has premium content that includes games and video as well as music. Single songs we found were 99 cents. But with time and patience, whatever you seek will probably be uploaded by a member eventually.

The basic software is free, but if you think you'll use Kazaa often, it's worth $29.95 for the Plus software just to remove all the annoying adware and the potential trouble it brings.

Restrictions: The biggest restriction is a lack of a Mac OS X version of Kazaa. Also, the adware version will drive any virus or anti-pop-up software you have absolutely batty, and may even cause the program to crash, so you'll have to disable them while using Kazaa.

Both versions of Kazaa software come with built-in virus protection, but in July PCWorld reported a security hole allowing malicious users to take over vulnerable PCs, and a worm was found in August.

The songs' formats don't have any proprietary restrictions, because Kazaa is just the means of distribution. As long as a file is compatible with your player, you're home free.
http://www.roanoke.com/entertainment...out/14719.html


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Japan

Man Gets Jail Term for Using Net File-Sharing Software
Kyodo News

Yoshihiro Inoue used the Winny program at his home in Takasaki, Gunma Prefecture, Japan on September 24 and 25 last year and enabled general computer users to download the Hollywood film "A Beautiful Mind" and another movie on the Internet, the ruling said.

The Kyoto District Court sentenced a 42-year-old man today to one year in prison, suspended for three years, for making films available on the Internet using file-sharing software developed by a Japanese inventor.

Yoshihiro Inoue, a shop employee, violated the Copyright Law by using the peer-to-peer file- sharing program, called Winny, which facilitated Internet piracy, the ruling said.

Granting Access

"The crime effectively negated the hard work of copyright holders and was malicious in the context of intellectual property right protection," Presiding Judge Yasuhide Narazaki said in the ruling.

Inoue used the Winny program at his home in Takasaki, Gunma Prefecture, on September 24 and 25 last year and enabled general computer users to download the Hollywood film "A Beautiful Mind" and another movie on the Internet, the ruling said.

Winny Creator Charged

In September this year, the creator of Winny, Isamu Kaneko, pleaded not guilty at the same court to a charge of developing the software knowing it would facilitate Internet piracy.

Kaneko, 34, an assistant at the graduate school of the University of Tokyo, is standing trial for allegedly facilitating breaches of the law.
http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/eb...pan-38509.html


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BitTorrent Servers Under Attack
Robert Lemos

A flood of data has hammered several of the tracking servers for BitTorrent downloads, according to LokiTorrent, a Torrent network hub.

The attacks apparently targeted the central BitTorrent directories used by people to find movies, music and other content on the file-swapping network, according to information posted Wednesday on LokiTorrent, a BitTorrent tracking Web site.

"We had a massive DDoS attack lasting almost 10 hours today," said the posting on the site. "It seems we were not alone in this attack, as many other torrent sites also fell victim to them. Us being up again does not mean these attacks may not happen again, but at least it means we had taken steps to prevent further attacks."

BitTorrent technology lets people download files from several member computers in a peer-to-peer network. Once a fragment of a file is cached on a PC, that machine then makes it available to other users, to speed downloads. Though distribution is shared, the technology still relies on central tracking servers to direct a downloader's software to different pieces of a file, which could be hosted on several users' PCs.

The distributed nature of BitTorrent makes the technology somewhat harder to attack but also makes defending the tracking servers that much more important.

This is not the first time online attackers have focused on distributed technologies. Web site caching service Akamai was hit by a massive data attack earlier this year.

It is unknown how widely the BitTorrent attack affected other networks. Neither a representative of LokiTorrent nor the creator of BitTorrent, Bram Cohen, could immediately be reached for comment.
http://news.com.com/BitTorrent+serve...3-5473754.html


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In brief

The Darker Side Of P2P File Sharing Review
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http://www.dvhardware.net/review/5351


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Sour Note: Couple Fights Downloaded Music Bill
Chad Swiatecki and James L. Smith

A national record company says John and Kim Harless owe $4,500 for music their two teenage children illegally downloaded from the Internet.

The Harlesses said they didn't know their children were doing anything illegal, and are determined not to pay.

The couple, both 42, were surprised when they received a FedEx package from Internet provider Charter Communications telling them that songs that had been illegally downloaded were on the family computer.

"I was dumbfounded," Kim said.

Kim knew their children, son John Wayne Harless III, 14, a Dryden High School freshman, and daughter Danielle, 17, a Dryden High School senior, listened to music on the computer.

But they said they thought it was legal to download music to a computer as long as the user did not burn a CD of it.

She said the Web site where her son got the music, www.KaZaA.com, encourages music file swapping and she believed that what her son was doing was legal as long as he kept the music on the computer.

A link on KaZaA's Web site warns users that it is illegal to use its software to pirate copyrighted works and users are responsible for making sure they obey the law.

Company spokesman Richard Chernela said in an e-mail the Recording Industry Association of America would be better off pursuing technological solutions to downloading rather than threatening its customers.

The suits are made possible because industry executives can monitor downloading traffic and trace it to the user's Internet service provider - Charter Communications in the Harless family's case.

From there, a complaint is made in federal court and the user's identity is subpoenaed from the Internet provider allowing the industry to alert the user that they could wind up in court.

Local Charter officials claimed not to know anything about the Harlesses' letter. But a few days later, a letter arrived from a Los Angeles attorney representing Capitol Records demanding the couple call Dennis Gerber, a mediator.

Kim Harless said Gerber told her a search of their computer showed 584 songs had been downloaded. The Charter letter indicated that 115 songs had been identified.

"(Gerber) told me I had to pay $4,500," Kim Harless said.

"I offered to mail him $100 and told him I was sorry that what my child did was wrong. He laughed and said 'make it $2,500 and put it on your credit card.' My husband said they can do whatever they want, we're not paying it."

Gerber declined to comment.

When she asked Gerber why they didn't go after KaZaA instead of teenagers, he told her they legally couldn't, Kim Harless said.

The RIAA began suing individual file sharers last fall, after federal courts ruled that file-sharing services such as KaZaA, Morpheus and Grokster, have legitimate data-sharing use and aren't responsible for their users' illegal actions.

More than 7,000 users nationwide have been sued since then, with about 1,300 settlements for far below the federal copyright infringement penalties of up to $150,000 per song.

RIAA spokesman Jonathan Lamy said file sharing is likely the biggest culprit behind a four-year sales decline that erased nearly one quarter of the music industry's sales

"We tried educating people on the effects that this has, but we learned that there needs to be a consequence for breaking the law," Lamy said.

"(Suing customers) is no one's preferred course of action, but the problem was only worsening and if it kept up there wouldn't have been a music industry to argue about anymore."

Lamy said most offenders choose to settle after the first warning.

But Kim Harless said that won't happen and has avoided what's likely a follow-up package waiting for her at the post office in Dryden.

Gerber offered Kim Harless a 10-day cooling-off period to decide how she was going to pay for the music, but she hasn't heard from him again since she told him that he would be contacted by a lawyer.

"We've been told not to pay anything," Kim said.

For all the trouble, Kim's husband wants to throw the computer in the pond.

"Had I known it was illegal, I would not have allowed my children to keep the songs on the computer," Kim said.
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&q=...TF-8&scoring=d


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Glickman: Piracy Is Theft

MPAA chief, speaking to college students, defends industry lawsuits
Lisa Friedman

Motion picture industry chief Dan Glickman predicted an "ominous" future for Hollywood despite a report Wednesday showing a record $64 billion in revenue during 2003.

Speaking before a group of George Washington University students, Glickman defended lawsuits that the Motion Picture Association of America filed recently against people it believes have illegally copied and shared movies online.

Piracy, he said, threatens to decimate Hollywood.

"The future is ominous," Glickman said. "We want to deal with this before it becomes catastrophic."

The entertainment lobby filed more than 200 lawsuits last month, and more are expected.

Also on Wednesday, the U.S. Census Bureau announced that movie and home video revenues hit an all-time high last year, increasing 6 percent over 2002.

Combined motion picture and sound recording revenues reached $78 billion, a 5 percent increase over 2002.

The figures were based on an annual company survey and included box-office totals, post-production services, film and video distribution as well as food and beverage sales at theaters.

In March, the Motion Picture Association of America announced $9.5 billion in domestic box-office totals, the second-largest in the history of the movies.

The Census Bureau figures on Wednesday showed even higher returns of $12 billion, with feature film exhibitions making up $8 billion of box office estimates.

Jack Kyser, the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp.'s chief economist, called the numbers good news for the Southland. He said the entertainment industry has grown over the past year from a $31 billion to a $36 billion industry in Los Angeles County alone.

"This is significant, and this is why efforts to try to retain production are important. It's the dollar numbers, it's the tax revenue generated, and, of course, it's the jobs," he said.

Fred von Lohmann, senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco, which advocates on behalf of file-sharers, ridiculed what he called Hollywood's double-speak.

"It's amazing to me how one moment they can be talking about their record results and the next moment they can be poor-mouthing about how they're going to go bankrupt," von Lohmann said.

"There is no question that they are enjoying their most profitable years in history. For them to argue that file-sharing is hurting their business is simply at odds with the facts," he said.

The MPAA estimates piracy costs the industry $3.5 billion annually in lost sales. That figure, however, comes strictly from traditional bootlegs of DVDs and videos, Glickman acknowledged.

He said the industry currently does not have any estimate of how much peer-to-peer networks -- which are the focus of the industry lawsuits -- actually impact sales.

But Glickman also noted that even bootlegged movies sold on street corners in the U.S. and overseas sometimes start with optical disc piracy. The problems of Internet piracy and bootlegging, he said, are intertwined.

"I think we have to take strong action now, before online piracy hurts the economic basis of the movie business," he said.

Glickman also faced questions from students who noted that piracy hasn't hurt box office profits or the wallets of Hollywood stars and executives.

"The people in Hollywood are making so much money as it is, how is my $20 going to make a difference?" one student asked.

Glickman acknowledged the MPAA faces a public relations battle in convincing people, particularly students, that file-sharing also robs lower-wage workers like makeup artists, grips and caterers.

But the bottom line, he said, is that piracy is simple theft.

"General Motors is filled with rich executives," Glickman said. "Does that mean you don't pay for the cars?"
http://www.dailynews.com/Stories/0,1...70274,00.html#

General Motors was sued for copying Jeep’s grill. Jeep lost. – Jack


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Yale Lobbyists Focus On Issues, Not On 'Earmarks'

Success of lobbying efforts often depends on national agenda; issues include federal funding, aid
Raymond Pacia

The visa-reform issue has topped Yale President Richard Levin's agenda this past year, drawing publicity during a visit from Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge in October. But Yale's lobbying efforts also extend to other areas such as federal funding for science research, appropriations for student aid and intellectual property law, continuing the University's push for favorable policies.

The University's federal relations office coordinates its agenda with individuals at Yale, Connecticut's Congressional delegation and national educational organizations. But the issues most of concern to the University, including tightened federal spending, proposals in Congress to curb peer-to-peer file sharing and restrictions on foreign visitors to the United States implemented by the Bush Administration after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, often follow the events in Washington. The success of University lobbying campaigns is often determined by the nation's domestic and international agendas.
http://www.yaledailynews.com/article.asp?AID=27584


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Better put it on the ‘net

Editors Say Yale Free Press Stolen
Sarah Mishkin

The entire run of the November issue of the Yale Free Press, a conservative student publication, was stolen over the Thanksgiving break, with no apparent suspects, YFP Editor in Chief Diana Feygin '06 said.

Approximately 2,400 issues, costing $600, were discarded, Feygin said. The magazine, which had been distributed to all 11 residential colleges and Swing Space, was stolen from all 12 locations. While YFP staff members first discovered the theft Nov. 19, the October issue of the YFP also disappeared from Silliman College the day after staff distributed it. Feygin said she is confident, but not completely positive, it too was stolen.
http://www.yaledailynews.com/article.asp?AID=27532


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Survey Finds CDs Will Stay Format Of Choice For Years
Evan Pondel

Digital music may be popular, but CDs are still the format of choice, and will be for at least another five years, according to a survey released Wednesday by JupiterResearch.

Digital music sales are poised to represent 12 percent of consumer music spending in 2009, with only 4 percent of listeners 25 and over partaking in file sharing these days, the survey found.

"The CD is not quite replaceable. It represents an $11 billion market, and many people still prefer the quality of the sound," said Michael Gartenberg, vice president and research director at JupiterResearch in New Jersey.

Among the advances likely to curb CD sales: automobiles that come equipped with digital music players. "But who knows how long it will take for cars to have some kind of audio device other than a CD player -- maybe 10 years?" said Ali Partovi, chief executive officer of San Francisco-based GarageBand.com, a place where artists can post their music online. "Until an alternate route becomes mainstream, people will still prefer physical music."

Despite the longevity of CDs, digital music subscription services are likely to outpace a la carte downloads in the next several years. Gartenberg said music listeners are more interested in gaining access to an entire library, as opposed to purchasing a track per download.

According to the survey, 16 percent of adults 25 and over are interested in downloading a 99-cent single, while 17 percent are tempted by subscription services. At the same time, approximately 30 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds are in favor of subscription services.

Partovi said subscription services would garner more popularity if certain downloading restrictions were eliminated. That means allowing people to keep their digital music, even if they are no longer subscribers. "But that would be hard for record labels to stomach. Hopefully, over time they will have more flexibility," he said.
http://www.dailynews.com/Stories/0,1...70340,00.html#


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Distribution big concern

Studios Taking Sides In Fight For Successor To The DVD

Three top Hollywood studios Monday threw their considerable weight behind one of two competing formats for the next generation of high-definition DVDs, citing in part the need to stem rampant piracy.

Paramount Home Entertainment, Universal Pictures and Warner Bros., which includes New Line Cinema and HBO, said Monday they would start releasing films in the HD-DVD format in time for holiday, 2005.

The announcement, while non-exclusive, escalates the battle between HD-DVD, developed by Japanese electronics makers Toshiba Corp. and NEC Corp., and Blu-Ray, backed by Sony Corp., Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., which makes the Panasonic brand, and Philips Electronics NV of the Netherlands.

HD-DVD already has the backing of the DVD Forum, an international association of electronics makers and movie studios.

Blu-Ray can store more digital programming than HD-DVD, but proponents of HD-DVD say it will be cheaper for manufacturers because it is uses technology that more closely resembles that used in current DVDs.

``We think HD-DVD has a clear advantage in cost of manufacturing, ease of manufacturing and it will offer the consumer a great quality product,'' Rob Friedman, chief operating officer, Paramount Pictures, said in an interview Monday.

Blu-Ray has the support of Columbia Pictures, which is owned by Sony, and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, which was recently purchased by a group led by Sony.

Blu-Ray also has wide support among consumer electronics makers and computer giant Hewlett-Packard, which said it will start selling PCs with Blu-Ray disc drives late next year.

Blu-Ray supporters said they did not see Monday's announcement as a setback.

``We're fairly early on in the time frame of these formats,'' said Andy Parsons, senior vice president of advanced product development at Pioneer, a major Blu-Ray backer. ``We have discussions with studios on a regular basis.''

News Corp.'s Twentieth Century Fox is a member of both the DVD Forum and the Blu-Ray Disc Association and has not said which format it would support. Neither has The Walt Disney Co.

Both formats promise increased storage capacity and movie resolution superior enough to get the most out of high-definition TV sets. And both would contain stronger anti- piracy protection, a key factor in the studio's anxiousness to adopt a new format.

Now, the software protecting DVD is easily circumvented and DVD piracy is an enormous problem for the industry.

Monday's announcements are non-exclusive and the companies said they will keep an eye on the market and may produce DVDs in both formats if consumers demand it.

But privately, entertainment industry executives say they cannot afford a format war and do not want a repeat of the confusion that slowed the early adoption of videocassette recorders when consumers were faced with choosing between Betamax and VHS.

Earlier this year, Bob Chapek, president of Disney's Buena Vista Home Entertainment, compared the format war to a train wreck and wondered whether both sides could find an option that would avoid a ``disastrous collision.''

Analysts say Monday's announcement could force a compromise between the two groups, perhaps resulting in machines that can play both formats.

``The studios should be pushing for compromise between Blue-Ray and HD-DVD and forget about trying to trump each other,'' said Harold Vogel, CEO of Vogel Capital Management in New York. ``For sure the consumer is going to be very confused. It's a disaster for retailers if they have to carry two different formats.''

Toshiba plans to start selling its first HD-DVD products, a player and a recorder, and a laptop with a built-in HD-DVD drive in late 2005.

Yoshihide Fujii, corporate senior vice president overseeing the digital media business, said Toshiba is targeting annual HD-DVD-related sales of $49 million in 2005, and expects that to climb to $3 billion by 2010.

Fujii said the spread of flat TVs is boosting the demand for high-quality digital movies and other content. But Monday's backing by studios to release such expected blockbusters as next year's ``Batman'' and ``Superman'' movies from Warner Bros. is critical to success.

``Even if we come out with the hardware, without content, it's just a box,'' he told reporters at a Tokyo hotel.
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/sil...l/10295209.htm


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Study: Subscription Services To Drive Digital Music
Dinesh C. Sharma

Subscription-based music services are becoming popular among young adults and will eventually outgrow a la carte song downloads, a new study predicts.

While 16 percent of online adults currently enjoy downloading 99-cent singles, 17 percent have been wooed by subscription services such as Napster and RealNetworks' Rhapsody--and that number is expected to grow, according to a survey released Wednesday by JupiterResearch.

The survey showed that the number of people interested in subscription services increased with age--19 percent of 13- to 17 year olds used the services, compared with 31 percent of 18- to 24 year olds. That number reached 37 percent for "music addicts," defined by Jupiter as those who have spent more than $45 on music in the past three months.

The study was based on a survey of more than 2,300 online adults. Jupiter also compared the results with a survey of more than 2,100 teenagers between the ages of 13 and 17.

Jupiter said the survey also showed that CDs won't be replaced by digital music in the next five years. Even in 2009, digital music sales will represent just 12 percent of consumer music spending, the research firm said. Nearly 51 percent of online adults think physical music is more valuable than digital.


"CDs offer higher sound fidelity, aren't burdened with awkward copy protection and are compatible with pretty much every way people listen to music," JupiterResearch senior analyst David Card said in a statement. "MP3 players and portable rentals could turn around that value perception, but it will take time."

The survey found that 41 percent of young adults between ages 18 and 24 burn CDs and 31 percent use file sharing. That compares with 14 percent of people over the age of 25 who burn discs and 4 percent who swap files.
http://news.com.com/Study+Subscripti...3-5473153.html


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Canadians Get iTunes On The Cheap
Ina Fried

Although Canadians had to wait awhile to get access to the iTunes Music Store, they are getting a comparative bargain.

Apple Computer, which opened the virtual doors on the Canadian store late Wednesday, is selling songs for 99 Canadian cents, which translates to about 83 U.S. cents, 16 percent less than those in the United States pay for their iTunes.

Americans looking for a bargain will have to do more than just profess their love of hockey or their distaste for President Bush. Because the Canadian store requires a local billing address, Americans will have to get a home in Saskatoon or Thunder Bay to get in on the lower pricing.
http://news.com.com/Canadians+get+iT...l?tag=nefd.top


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I Want My Moscow TV
Seth Schiesel

KEN SCHAFFER doesn't like blind spots. Never has.

On Oct. 19, 1957, days after Sputnik became Earth's first manmade satellite, Mr. Schaffer, the son of a Bronx truck driver, received a Heathkit radio for his 10th birthday. Inspired by the chirping from space, he soon became a world-class ham-radio operator, adept at Morse code.

"It was compelling that I could just go beep-beep-beep, the smallest possible muscle group movement, and I could send a signal that goes to China," he recalled recently. "I would never answer people from New Jersey or Long Island or anything. I wanted Mongolia."

Years later, in 1981, after detouring to invent a wireless microphone, travel with the Rolling Stones and make guitars for John Lennon, Mr. Schaffer installed a satellite dish atop his Midtown Manhattan apartment building and was soon pulling in broadcasts from the Soviet Union.

"I wasn't interested in HBO and free Showtime," he said. "It was not interesting to me. I was watching Russian feeds from Moscow to Cuba - and what they used to do after they finished the feed is, the Russians would send porno to Havana, or American films. And this was before Gorbachev and all that kind of stuff."

Inspired by the potential of satellites to open up communication, Mr. Schaffer soon built a satellite telephone operation connecting the Soviet Union with the West, a venture that he sold for millions in 1995.

Now, Mr. Schaffer, 57, is trying to abolish yet another blind spot. In short, he has devised a way to make home TV reception portable - with high-quality pictures to be watched, and channels to be changed, from anywhere in the world that the Internet can reach.

So far, he has put his PC-based innovation into the hands of a few dozen others willing to pay several thousand dollars. But he aims to reduce the price to less than $1,000 within a year.

"Kenny is not your everyday eccentric," said Jonathan Sanders, a consultant to CBS News in Moscow who has known Mr. Schaffer for more than 20 years. "Kenny is an explosion of genius wrapped in a very unconventional package that is bursting with energy. This is somebody who is doing the kinds of things that you read about at one time only in science fiction, things that no one else thinks are possible but that he is able to pull off."

So much was clear one Tuesday afternoon last month.

"So this is like the Russian version of a cross between 'E.R.' and 'Law and Order,' " Mr. Schaffer said. He was sitting at a desk in the apartment next to the Plaza Hotel where he has lived, at least part time, since 1968. Spread before him were computer monitors. On one was a live cable television feed from the apartment he keeps in Moscow. On another, a live London feed was displaying a somewhat risqué commercial for a British cellphone carrier.

The quality of the full-screen images bore no resemblance to what the rest of the world thinks of as streaming Internet video. It was not quite real television, but there was very little of the pixilation and none of the incessant stuttering familiar to anyone who has watched live video over the Internet. The main character appeared on the Russian medical drama, and Mr. Schaffer jerked back a bit. "Arrgh! That's my ex-wife!" he said, pointing at the actress, Alla Kliouka.

Mr. Schaffer popped out of full-screen mode, clicked, and switched the channel to MTV Russia.

In fact, Mr. Schaffer was controlling a dedicated computer terminal back in Moscow that was simultaneously connected to his Moscow cable box and a D.S.L. data line. The terminal, which Mr. Schaffer calls TV2Me, uses a small infrared emitter to tell the cable box which channel to display. Inside TV2Me are special computer cards that allow the unit to send high-quality video over a routine broadband data connection.

In his bedroom is a huge Sony plasma flat-panel television. He puts up the same Moscow channels that were on the laptop in the living room. Even on the big screen, the images are fluid and clear.

It was an impressive demonstration, but a somewhat ironic one as well. Sony, it turns out, has just developed a similar product, called LocationFree TV. Both TV2Me and LocationFree TV allow a user to view their home television from anywhere in the world that has a high-speed Internet link, even a Wi-Fi connection outdoors. The Sony unit is cheaper. The home base station of the Sony unit is smaller. Sony's user interface is slicker. But for all that, Mr. Schaffer's unit transmits a clearer picture over the Internet.

For now, he has sold only a few dozen TV2Me units, at prices ranging from $4,800 to more than $6,000. Many of his clients so far are well-heeled sports fanatics who simply must get their games when on the road. One client is a University of Oklahoma football fan. Another, a British rock star, needs his soccer.

Within a year, Mr. Schaffer hopes to reduce the price to less than $1,000. Right now, the product is based on a high-powered Pentium 4 PC running Windows, but by building special chips that can focus on only the tasks required for TV2Me, such a product can be made lighter, smaller and cheaper. The use of such chips is a big reason Sony's product is so much less expensive than TV2Me.

In fact, Mr. Schaffer says he may end up selling his entire technology. "I'd like to see this go to a company," he said, indicating that he already has buyers in mind. Mr. Schaffer is keenly aware of the copyright and other legal issues potentially posed by his technology, which does, after all, retransmit cable or satellite television signals over the Internet. He insists that each customer put his systems only to personal use.

"I want to stay absolutely within the law," he said. "On a personal level, I paid for this cable." What separates him from other cable subscribers, he said, is simply that "I have a long extension cord."

But he said he had turned down overseas sports bar owners who want to show American football to attract expatriate customers. And he has built roadblocks into his system meant to prevent users from sharing their video feeds with others.

For now, he says he has not heard from any unhappy networks or satellite or cable television operators. A spokesman for Time Warner Cable, the main cable carrier in Manhattan, declined to comment on either TV2Me or Sony's LocationFree TV.

But just as television companies at first largely ignored digital video recorders like TiVo, only to wake up later, devices like TV2Me may offer new challenges and opportunities to the entertainment industry sooner than expected. TiVo users sometimes refer to their practice as "time shifting," that is, watching television on their own time.

Mr. Schaffer refers to the use of his product as "space shifting," as in watching television in one's own space. (His Web site is www .spaceshift.net.)

More broadly, Mr. Schaffer hopes that his life of eliminating blind spots has done just a bit to make humanity safer. "I think the more that you eliminate borders between countries, people, ideas, the more likely it is that we're going to make it another couple of hundred years," he said. "That's what my motivation is."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/02/te...ts/02inve.html


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Antispam Screensaver Downs Two Sites In China
Dan Ilett

Lycos Europe's "Make love not spam" campaign has killed access to some of the Web sites of its target alleged spammers, Netcraft has found.

According to the Internet traffic monitoring company, Lycos Europe has successfully taken two Web sites hosted in China offline. The sites are bokwhdok.com and printmediaprofits.biz, according to a posting on Netcraft's Web site, dated this week.

"A distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack launched by users of Lycos Europe's MakeLoveNotSpam.com screensaver has succeeded in crippling several spammer sites, but some of the targeted sites remain available," the posting said.

Lycos Europe was unavailable for comment on the matter, but the company said on Tuesday it was not carrying out DDoS attacks, just slowing the bandwidth of its targets. It added that it had no intention of taking Web sites offline.

"I have to be very clear that it's not a denial-of-service attack," Malte Pollmann, director of communications services for Lycos, said on Tuesday. "We slow the remaining bandwidth to 5 percent. It wouldn't be in our interests to (carry out DDoS attacks). It is to increase the cost of spamming. We have an interest to make this, economically, unattractive."

Lycos Europe is a separate company from the Web portal that bears the Lycos name in the United States. It claims that it maintains roughly 40 million e-mail accounts in eight European countries.

The "Make love not spam" screensaver site appeared to have been taken down by its operators on Wednesday. It now shows a graphic and the words "Stay tuned."

On Tuesday, the Web portal denied claims that it had been hit by hacker attacks, saying a reported defacement of the "Make love not spam" Web site was a hoax. But Netcraft, among others, reported that the Web site was unavailable at several intervals that day.

Lycos Europe launched its antispam campaign earlier this week, offering users a screensaver that uses the idle processing power of their computers to slow down bandwidth that connects to spammers' Web sites.

Steve Linford, director of international spam-fighting organization Spamhaus, said on Tuesday that by attacking spammers' bandwidth, the portal could be attacking innocent users' bandwidth.
http://news.com.com/Antispam+screens...3-5474963.html


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Your Rights Online: NOAA Adopts New Net Policy
Posted by samzenpus

from the you-can't-handle-the-weather dept.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has adopted a new policy which applies to provision of all National Weather Service environmental information, including forecasts, warnings, and observations. In June, /. reported that NOAA was taking comments on the proposed policy. Hundreds of Slashdotters responded. And it made a difference: NOAA will make its data and products available in internet- accessible, vendor-neutral form and will use other dissemination technologies, e.g. satellite broadcast, NOAA Weather Radio, and wireless, as appropriate. Congrats to the Slash community for making a difference and helping to set US Govt policy.
http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/04/12/02...tid=103&tid=17


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Grrrl gets paid to rrrip

Using iPod Savvy To Mine A Niche
Cyrus Farivar

The signature white earbuds of the iPod seem to be sprouting everywhere. So inevitably, perhaps, a service industry is close behind.

For those who lack the time or the know-how to transfer their record collections to their iPods, an entrepreneur has created a service that will do the trick. The service, HungryPod, converts CDs to MP3 format and loads them into an iPod or any other digital music player.

Catherine Keane, 23, is the founder and sole employee of HungryPod, a company she started at the end of September. For prices starting at $1.50 per CD (and a $15 delivery fee, which is waived for more than 100 CDs), Keane will go to a customer's home or office, pick up CDs and take them back to her office on Seventh Avenue near Penn Station in New York.

Keane's service is one of a few enterprises formed to serve iPod owners. Another New York company, RipDigital, started offering its services nationwide late last year to convert music libraries to MP3. RipDigital does not load music onto iPods directly, but burns it to DVD; for an additional fee it will load an external hard drive with music.

Keane said she got the idea for her business from a friend of a friend who offered $500 for someone to load up her iPod. It was then, Keane said, that she realized that there might be a market for such services.

"That was a lot of money for something that was fairly simple," she said.

Paying to play that funky music

In addition, Keane is a music consultant. For a $50 fee, she will recommend similar artists based on a customer's current tastes. After that, customers can pay Keane to purchase CDs from an online music service, like Apple Computer's iTunes Music Store. (For that service she charges $25 an hour, plus the cost of the songs, at 99 cents each.)

Her tastes range from indie rock to Bob Marley to Michael Jackson, but she acknowledges that she is still learning. "My edge is not that I'm an expert," she said. "It's more that it's my job, and I'm willing to do whatever research it takes."

Keane says most of her customers are in their 20s and 30s and work in the financial sector--people who are very busy and have disposable income. She has ripped CDs for nearly 30 customers and provided consulting services for about eight.

So far, her marketing has been done through word of mouth and free online advertising at Craigslist.org. One customer, Joanna Lisi, 24, who works in sales for Gucci and found Keane through a mutual friend, said she had been very happy with HungryPod--so much so that two weeks ago she spent $750 on Keane's services, which included music recommendations and song purchasing from iTunes.

Keane uses an off-the-shelf PC with two CD drives to convert music from CDs to MP3, a process that can take a few days depending on the size of the collection. She loaded Lisi's 15GB iPod with 1,064 new songs in about 25 hours.

"Every day I find a new song on there that I didn't know was on there that I love," Lisi said.

Keane, who graduated in 2003 from the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Va., with a degree in English, lives with her parents in Stuyvesant Town on Manhattan's East Side. She makes enough money to rent office space alongside her father, a self-employed financial consultant.

She arrives at the office at around 9:30 a.m. and stays until nearly 7 p.m., and moonlights four days a week as an assistant varsity basketball coach at Marymount School, her high school alma mater.

Keane currently serves Manhattan, the Bronx, Queens and Brooklyn, and she plans to expand. "I try to think about it in baby steps," she said. Her next goal is to engage a Web designer to work on her site to accommodate e-commerce, a move toward offering the service more widely.

In business, of course, nothing is guaranteed, and Ms. Keane is philosophical.

"The reason I chose this is because it's been fun," she said. "I don't have any regrets, even if tomorrow it tanked."
http://news.com.com/Using+iPod+savvy...3-5473938.html

















Until next week,

- js.














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