Peer-To-Peer News - The Week In Review - July 8th, '06

[JackSpratts]

"It's quite possibly the most important privacy and free speech issue in the 21st century. We are trying to force the government to follow the law. We are trying to force the phone company to follow the law." – Kevin Bankston


"The RIAA's push to buy into these services strikes me as protection money. Buy in and we'll protect you from our lawsuits." – Kenneth C. Green


"People still want to have a music collection. Music listeners like owning their music, not renting." – Bill Goodwin


"The number of students using [for-pay] Napster at George Washington University dropped by more than half between the first and second year, from one-third to one-seventh of eligible users." – Nick Timiraos


"The movies are repetitive. It seems like there's about eight stories. It's like I'm seeing the same movie, almost." – Daniel Andres, 17


"Nobody builds servers as unreliably as we do." – Urs Hölzle


"Some of the teachers were like, 'Holy cow, look at this!'" – Francis Lunney





















Independence Day

I'd like to take this time to thank the French for giving us such a nice statue, and for listening to Ben Franklin and saving our colonial asses from those foppy British fucktards and our own neighbors who were their allies. Sure, now we hate them and love the Brits and all and that would normally be pretty unsportsmanlike but we returned the favor a few times during the last century at great cost to our young soldiers, and really now, they slipped us Vietnam, so we're even. Or will be as soon as we give them a big monument too. I was thinking maybe a giant Ferris wheel of Brie…

So I went to our annual fireworks show this week and it was swell thanks to the Chinese and the Italians. For fun I normally try to stand as close as I can to the rockets and then dodge the falling embers but this year I stayed well back. It was more relaxing although I almost got clipped by a speeding Kia. I enjoyed the picnics with the Mexican beers and the German sausages and the Australian hamburgers though I must say I've been eating a mite too well this week. Afterwards it was fun showing movies in the backyard. In the spirit of things I grabbed the 1976 King Kong but it was overdubbed in Russian – those crazy Ivans talked right over the English dialog like they were at the UN or something. That would've been tough going for the neighborhood kids. Many are new arrivals to America and can barely grasp English let alone Russian and English at the same time so thank goodness for high speed Internet! I did a quick search on Sweden's Mininova for New Zealander Peter Jackson's version and the nighttime screenings were saved.

But how about that shuttle launch? It was truly fourth-of-July perfect. I was so proud to be American - and so glad they didn't have to use the runway in Spain for a crash landing. Here's hoping the shuttle's Canadian arm doesn't turn up any bad tiles, otherwise they'll be stuck in that International Space Station for months. I'm keeping my fingers crossed but it looks good so far. Not like those North Koreans whose big new missile fell in the water. With stupid enemies like that who needs allies anyway? Gosh it’s been great celebrating our independence!












Enjoy,

Jack.















July 8th, ’06





Download Torrents at 100Mbps!
Chris Brunner

Worried about the RIAA or MPAA tracking your BitTorrent activity? Wish you could share back to the community, but afraid of being caught?

A shell free service called Silence is Defeat is offering the ability to use their 100Mbit full duplex connection to download any torrent you want. Since their connection is full-duplex and uncapped, torrents will download faster, and you can seed your downloaded torrents without giving away your IP address!

Here's how it works:

1. Sign up for a free shell at http://silenceisdefeat.org/ Instant lifetime activation through PayPal costs $1, or you can sign up for free via postal mail.
2. Use an SSH client like PuTTY to connect to your new shell account.
3. At the shell prompt, simply type "bt " and then the URL of the turrent you want to download. Don't use quotes. For example, bt http://example.com/thistorrent.torrent. Your turrent will nearly instantly download at incredible speeds. And the curses (simi-graphical) output will give you a readout of the progress. Once it's downloaded, you'll begin sharing, but the IP you're sharing from will be the IP of Silence is Defeat's server, not the IP of your home computer.
4. Download the file from SD and enjoy! I prefer an SFTP client like WinSCP, but you could just navigate to your public_html directory (type "cd publich_html" without quotes when you first connect to the shell prompt) and then download the torrent'd file at http://silenceisdefeat.org/~yourusername/ instead, which may be easier for those who don't want to use an SFTP client.

If you need any help, simply join #sd on irc.freenode.org - those guys are always very willing to help, no matter what the problem is.

Oh, and your SSH and SFTP traffic is completely encrypted, so not even your ISP will know what you're doing, and Silence is Defeat doesn't log your activity!

Enjoy =]

http://www.duggmirror.com/linux_unix...t_Web_Hosting/





µTorrent Upgrade
Jack

V 1.6 just released. With all the reds and greens they've created a little Christmas Cadeau but it works fine in the 4 days I’ve been running it. The menus are simpler, and with its improved cache management it might even be faster.





Free, Legal and Ignored

Colleges Offer Music Downloads, But Their Students Just Say No; Too Many Strings Attached
Nick Timiraos

As a student at Cornell University, Angelo Petrigh had access to free online music via a legal music-downloading service his school provided. Yet the 21-year-old still turned to illegal file-sharing programs.

The reason: While Cornell's online music program, through Napster, gave him and other students free, legal downloads, the email introducing the service explained that students could keep their songs only until they graduated. "After I read that, I decided I didn't want to even try it," says Mr. Petrigh, who will be a senior in the fall at the Ithaca, N.Y., school.

College students don't turn down much that's free. But when it comes to online music, even free hasn't been enough to persuade many students to use such digital download services as Napster, Rhapsody, Ruckus and Cdigix. As a result, some schools have dropped their services, and others are considering doing so or have switched to other providers.

To stop students from pirating music, more than 120 colleges and universities have tried providing free or subsidized access to the legal subscription services over campus networks in the past few years. About 7% of all four-year schools and 31% of private research universities provided one of the legal downloading services, according to a 2005 survey of 500 schools by the Campus Computing Project, a nonprofit that studies how colleges use information technology. Universities typically pay for the services, some with private grants and others through student fees. While a typical monthly subscription to Napster is $9.95, the schools have been able to cut special deals, funded in part by record companies.

Purdue University officials say that lower-than-expected demand among its students stems in part from all the frustrating restrictions that accompany legal downloading. Students at the West Lafayette, Ind., school can play songs free on their laptops but have to pay to burn songs onto CDs or load them onto a digital music device.

There's also the problem of compatibility: The services won't run on Apple Computer Inc. computers, which are owned by 19% of college students, according to a 2006 survey of 1,200 students by the research group Student Monitor. In addition, the files won't play on Apple iPods, which are owned by 42% of college students, according to the survey.

"People still want to have a music collection. Music listeners like owning their music, not renting," says Bill Goodwin, 21, who graduated in May from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. USC decided last year that it was finished with Napster after fewer than 500 students signed up, and it moved to Ruckus, hoping students would find that service more appealing.

Meanwhile, both Cornell and Purdue will no longer offer their students free music next year. An anonymous donor had paid for Cornell to offer Napster for two years, but the student government passed on a chance to keep the service by charging students a fee. "There hasn't been an overwhelming response to keep it," says Kwame Thomison, Cornell's student assembly president. "Students that enjoyed the service enough can pay for it themselves."

The number of students using Napster at George Washington University dropped by more than half between the first and second year, from one-third to one-seventh of eligible users. Alexa Kim, who oversees the Washington school's program, attributes the higher use at the start to the service's novelty and to press attention during the inaugural year. She adds that the university hasn't decided if it will renew its contract.

Colleges started offering the services in part because they were concerned that the recording industry might try to hold them liable for their students' copyright violations. So far no schools have been sued by the recording industry.

Universities also have another reason for reducing illegal downloading: The large amount of bandwidth used by movie and music downloads chokes universities' computer networks. The subscription services complement university filtering programs that can identify users who are misusing school networks. "The bandwidth that I recovered saved us $75,000 a year in network costs," says Matthew Jett Hall, assistant vice chancellor at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn. The university's Napster program requires users to pay $2 a month for unlimited downloads.

The Recording Industry Association of America says it has been happy with the progress the program has made so far. "Universities tend to move not all that quick to do things like this, so it's really quite an achievement," says RIAA President Cary Sherman.

Some schools that don't offer free downloads dismiss the subscription services as too costly for the results they achieve, especially because so many students now buy music from Apple's iTunes Music Store. "We were not in a position to offer an alternative to iTunes," says Lev Gonick, the chief information officer at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. "The alternatives looked like they had more sizzle than steak."

There is also little consensus among administrators about how successful the services have been in eliminating piracy. Although some say complaints from the recording industry have dropped sharply, no one can tell if that's because fewer students are engaging in illegal file-sharing or if the industry simply doesn't want to go after schools that are spending money to combat the problem. "The RIAA's push to buy into these services strikes me as protection money. Buy in and we'll protect you from our lawsuits," says Kenneth C. Green, the Campus Computing Project's director.

The RIAA denies the charge. "We do sue students and send takedown notices to universities that have legal services all the time," says Mr. Sherman. Universities have a particular responsibility to teach students the value of intellectual property, he adds, because they are "probably the No. 1 creator of intellectual property." And he disputes the idea that the subscription services have fallen out of favor. The number of campuses that subscribe will increase "pretty significantly" in the fall, he says.

Even at schools where more than half of the students use the services, few choose to buy songs. Only 2% of students at the University of Rochester in New York reported buying a song that they had downloaded from Napster in a fall 2005 survey of about 700 students. In the same survey, 10% said they downloaded songs from other services -- not necessarily legally -- after finding one they liked on Napster.

"There isn't that much we can do," acknowledges Aileen Atkins, Napster's senior vice president for business affairs and general counsel. "If they have an iPod, they're going to buy it on iTunes. It's a fact of life."
http://online.wsj.com/public/article...html?mod=blogs





Alliance
Web Copy

Alliance is a private and secure environment to share files and communicate with people you know.

It's free. It's easy:

1. Download and run Alliance
2. Invite your coworkers or friends
3. Share files and communicate with them!

Alliance is in constant development. The latest version was v0.8.25.1 as of this writing. If you want to try Alliance for Linux or Mac please check the message board.
http://www.alliancep2p.com/

Thanks litening!



What is CSpace?
Web Copy

CSpace provides a platform for secure, decentralized, user-to-user communication over the internet. The driving idea behind the CSpace platform is to provide a connect(user,service) primitive, similar to the sockets API connect(ip,port). Applications built on top of CSpace can simply invoke connect(user,service) to establish a connection. The CSpace platform will take care of locating the user and creating a secure, nat/firewall friendly connection. Thus the application developers are relieved of the burden of connection establishment, and can focus on the application-level logic!

CSpace is developed in Python. It uses OpenSSL for crypto, and Qt for the GUI. CSpace is licensed under the GPL.

What applications are available now?

The following applications are currently available with CSpace:

• Text Chat (who needs OTR, when you have security built from the ground up!)
• File Transfer
• Remote Desktop (based on TightVNC)
• How does it work?

Here are some of the salient points regarding the CSpace architecture:

User Identity
• All users create 2048-bit RSA keys for themselves.
• A user is uniquely identified by his RSA public key.
• Every user has a contact list, which is just a list of public keys known to that user.
• A user assigns names to the public keys in his contact list. This is done because it is easier to display & manage names rather than raw public keys.
• CSpace ensures that there are no duplicate names present in the contact list. This is done to allow a contact name to uniquely identify a public key in the contact list.
• To help with the exchange of public keys between users, a key server is used (somewhat like PGP key servers).

Decentralized Network
• A Distributed Hash Table (DHT) based on the Kademlia protocol is used.
• When a user goes online, a mapping from his public key to his ip-address is created in the DHT.
• CSpace also registers with third party routers, so that the user can receive connections even if he is behind a nat/firewall.

Connection Process
• When an application wants to utilize the CSpace platform, it establishes a local connection to the CSpace instance, and issues a connect request, say, something along the lines of connect(alice,TextChat).
• CSpace obtains the destination user's public key by looking up the name in the contact list.
• The DHT is used to obtain the destination user's network location (ip address).
• A TCP connection is established to the destination user's network address. In case the destination user is behind a nat/firewall, then a proxied connection is established using a third party router.
• A secure channel is established using the TLS protocol.
• The service name which was requested (say TextChat) is sent over the secure channel, and the destination CSpace instance responds with a success code.
• The application which issued the connect request is notified about the successful connection. CSpace proxies the data between the local application and the secure channel. Thus the application only sees a plain TCP connection to localhost.

http://cspace.in/

Thanks Dreamcaster!



That's What Friends in High Places Are For
Jeff Leeds and Sharon Waxman

Although collaborations happen all the time in pop music, they do not generally involve R & B hitmakers and Senator Orrin G. Hatch.

But the release of a music producer from a Dubai jail this week, quick on the heels of his conviction for drug possession, turns out to be a story of high-level string-pulling on the part of Mr. Hatch, the conservative Utah Republican and songwriter, along with Lionel Richie, the singer; Quincy Jones, the music entrepreneur; and an array of well-connected lawyers, businessmen and others, spanning cities and continents.

Dallas Austin, 35, who has produced hits for Madonna, Janet Jackson and others, flew home to Atlanta on Wednesday, after being released after midnight on Tuesday from a holding cell in a Dubai jail. Hours earlier Mr. Austin had been sentenced to four years in prison for carrying just over a gram of cocaine with him when he entered the country on May 19 to attend a birthday celebration for Naomi Campbell.

Senator Hatch made numerous phone calls on Mr. Austin's behalf to the ambassador and consul of the United Arab Emirates embassy in Washington — Dubai is one of the seven emirates — and served as an intermediary for Mr. Austin's representatives, the producer's lawyers said.

"The senator was one of a number of people who were very actively involved," said Joe Reeder, the Washington lawyer, who, with an Atlanta colleague, Joel A. Katz, spent 10 days in Dubai working to secure Mr. Austin's reprieve.

Mr. Katz, an entertainment lawyer, represents both Mr. Austin and the somewhat less musically successful Mr. Hatch, a singer and songwriter who has recorded religious-oriented albums. After hiring Mr. Katz's firm, the senator last year took in $39,092 in income from music publishing, according to financial documents filed in May under the Ethics in Government Act.

The senator declined to be interviewed or to confirm details of his efforts on Mr. Austin's behalf, but he issued a statement acknowledging his involvement and said he was asked by Mr. Austin's lawyers to help.

A spokesman for Mr. Hatch said that the senator was a proponent of rehabilitation for drug offenders, and that he had worked to revise federal sentencing guidelines regarding cocaine, and, through legislation in 2005, had advocated treatment for nonviolent offenders and the easing of restrictions on medication to treat heroin addiction.

In the statement Mr. Hatch said he was "confident that this talented young man will learn from this experience." He did not say if he requested that Mr. Austin seek treatment.

Until word of the pardon came through in a call to the One and Only Royal Mirage hotel along the Dubai beach, where Mr. Austin's lawyers waited nervously for news of their client's fate, the release of Mr. Austin was not a certainty.

"This involved multiple ambassadors, a prime minister, a prince, Lionel Richie, the senator and religious leaders in Atlanta," Mr. Reeder said.

"The uniting factor of all these people — the religious leaders, the political leaders, entertainment figures and prominent private citizens — was humanitarian considerations," he said. "Where should this man be under these circumstances?"

Randy Phillips, Mr. Richie's manager, said Mr. Austin "happened to know the right people, and better than that, the right people were ready to step out on a limb for him, which doesn't happen that often."

Although Mr. Phillips called the efforts on Mr. Austin's behalf "the difference between going home and being in 'Midnight Express' " — referring to the harrowing 1978 film about a novice American drug smuggler forsaken in the Turkish prison system — such pardons are not a rarity in Dubai, authorities said.

Mr. Austin's troubles began on May 19, when he landed in Dubai for the three-day birthday party of Ms. Campbell at the opulent Burj Al Arab hotel. While far from a household name, Mr. Austin is a leading figure in the pop music world who has worked with artists including Gwen Stefani, Michael Jackson, Pink, TLC and, lately, Mr. Richie.

According to published accounts, the police at the airport pulled Mr. Austin aside at customs and searched him, finding a small amount of cocaine. He was taken into custody and held at a detention center, the al-Rashidiya jail.

Several of the principal players in the negotiation recounted what followed, including Mr. Austin's lawyers, Mr. Richie and Mr. Phillips.

Almost immediately, several parallel initiatives were undertaken to try to influence the United Arab Emirates government to show clemency to Mr. Austin, his lawyers said.

Mr. Katz, of the firm Greenberg Traurig, hired three local lawyers, two from Dubai, and one from neighboring Bahrain, who ensured the reduction of the initial charge of drug trafficking to mere possession, the lawyers said. Drug trafficking can carry a life sentence in the United Arab Emirates, while possession carries a much shorter jail sentence. Discussions began over securing a pardon for Mr. Austin, focusing on the argument that he had carried only a small amount of drugs for personal use.

Mr. Katz also contacted colleagues, including Mr. Reeder in Greenberg Traurig's Washington office. A senior lawyer in the same office, Nancy Taylor, worked for many years on Mr. Hatch's staff in the Senate. Ms. Taylor enlisted Mr. Hatch, who is influential in Dubai because of his support for the United Arab Emirates-based company DP World in the controversy earlier this year over its contract to manage important American ports.

At the time of the controversy earlier this year, which resulted in the jettisoning of the contract, Mr. Hatch said the United Arab Emirates was a good friend to the United States. "We don't want to kick the moderate Arab nations in the face," he said at the time.

Meanwhile, Mr. Jones, the legendary producer, and his friend Joe Robert, a Virginia real estate investor with interests in the Persian Gulf, became involved. Mr. Jones has played mentor to an array of current young pop and R&B stars, including Mr. Austin. Mr. Robert is also a friend of Mr. Austin's.

Mr. Jones and Mr. Robert began making calls to their contacts in the Middle East, including senior officials in the United Arab Emirates. Reached this week on a yacht off the coast of Spain, where he was with Mr. Jones, Mr. Robert said: "I know Dallas Austin; I consider him a very fine, upstanding individual, notwithstanding the mistake he made." He added, "This is not someone that belongs in a prison anywhere."

Meanwhile, other efforts continued, including a call from Mr. Katz to Prince Abdullah of neighboring Bahrain, and from Mr. Reeder to former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who was consulted for a legal reference. Some of the principals said they believed that Mr. Austin's pardon had been secured from early on. Still, uncertainty weighed heavily on others, particularly Mr. Austin's lawyers.

Enter Mr. Richie, who enjoys a cult status throughout much of the Arab world and had performed twice this year in Dubai, where he has met various senior government officials.

In an interview Mr. Richie said that Mr. Austin's advisers arranged for the United Arab Emirate's consul in Washington, Abdulla Ali Alsaboosi, to call Mr. Richie for a character reference. "It was, 'Tell me what kind of guy is Dallas Austin,' " Mr. Richie said. "I said: 'Listen, this is a great guy. A gangster, a hoodlum, a thug, he's not.' "

Last Sunday Mr. Austin pleaded guilty to possessing 1.26 grams of cocaine and capsules of Ecstasy, telling the court he did not mean to break the law. The stage was set for a pardon by the ruler of Dubai, Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum. It came four hours after the plea, Mr. Austin's lawyers recalled. What remained was to execute the edict.

But that didn't happen until after the sentencing on Tuesday morning. Shortly after midnight, as American revelers half a world away celebrated Independence Day, Mr. Katz and Mr. Reeder got the call at their beachside hotel.

The lawyers quickly gathered their things and rushed to the airport, where they met Mr. Austin and boarded the next flight to New York.

On Friday Mr. Austin released a statement that said in part: "This unfortunate experience has had a profound effect on me, and I regret any grief caused to my family, friends and business associates."

The Dubai government gave no reason for the pardon. "In an issue like this it is not unusual," said Lt. General Dhahi Khalfan Tamim, head of Dubai Police, who said he was speaking in general terms and could not discuss the case in detail. "It is preferable to me that a foreigner who is caught in something like this be returned home rather than be kept here in prison for four years, costing us lots of resources."

Mr. Tamim noted, however, that Mr. Austin had technically been deported and would most likely not be allowed to return to Dubai.


Hassan M. Fattah contributed reporting from Dubai for this article.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/08/ar...ic/08pard.html





Who's Reading Your E-Mail?
BBC

New plans to scan e-mails for illegal images of child abuse may give the appearance that children are being safeguarded but they may not be as effective as they first seem, argues Technology commentator Bill Thompson.

Every time you send an e-mail it passes through a series of computers on its way to the intended destination.

Most of them are owned and managed by internet service providers, although if you use webmail from Yahoo, Google or Microsoft then it may take a different route.

But whoever provides your e-mail, the chances are they are having a look at every message you send or receive.

At the moment, their reasons are mostly benign, since they are looking for spam, viruses and other nasty stuff that we wouldn't want anyway.

Google mail users have got used to the fact that their e-mails are being read by a machine looking for context-sensitive ads to put on the same page, and most of us have encountered a company that reads all incoming e-mail looking for rude or inappropriate words, even if it sometimes appears absurd.

I used to edit an arts e-mail newsletter, and one issue was rejected by several recipients because it had an article on the Ars Electronica prize, but even with its flaws this helpful scanning is something that has obvious benefits.

And my internet service provider (ISP) helpfully lets me choose whether to have them look for spam or let it all through for me to deal with.

But if a plan being put forward by five US-based net companies goes ahead, the same approach could be used to look for e-mailed images of child abuse.

And the consequences for all net users could be more serious than just losing the odd legitimate message to the spam filters.

Digital fingerprints

AOL, Yahoo, Microsoft, EarthLink and United Online have joined with the US National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) to create what they call a "Technology Coalition" to look for new ways to safeguard children.

Their first initiative is a plan to create a database of the images of child abuse they find, and process each to create a "digital fingerprint".

They will then look at e-mail attachments and images traded over peer-to-peer networks, swapped on messaging services, or posted on websites to try to spot illegal images.

However, they haven't yet said what will happen if they find one.

I rather hope they won't simply call the police, since with millions of images of all types being sent over the net every day, the chances of some false positives, when an entirely innocent drawing of a tree happens to generate the same code as an image of abuse, must be quite high.

But the lack of detail is typical of this sort of proposal.

The real goal, as so often with big initiatives from large companies around areas of public concern, is designed to show that "something is being done" and to tell government - in this case the US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales - that the situation is under control and no new laws or regulations are needed.

The scheme may actually work, especially since recent research from Binghamton University, New York, indicates that every digital camera has a different "signature" that can be used to identify which pictures it took. Looking for photos taken with known abusers' cameras might pay dividends.

However, the initial funding for the new coalition is only $1m, or roughly four cents for each of AOL's 25 million customers; so the suspicion has to remain that this is an attempt to get friendly headlines rather than really make a difference.

Yet it may be enough to deter the sort of government interference in their business that ISPs in the UK seem to be about to experience, because while the Senate likes to talk about how it will regulate the industry, they rarely get round to passing any actual laws.

Internet morality

In the UK, things tend to take a different course.

Just last week, the British Board of Film Censorship expressed an interest in taking web content under its wing.

Vernon Coaker, a parliamentary under-secretary in the Home Office, told MPs that the government expected that "by the end of 2007, all ISPs offering broadband internet connectivity to the UK general public [will] put in place technical measures that prevent their customers accessing websites containing illegal images of child abuse identified by the IWF (Internet Watch Foundation)".

The clear implication is that if they don't do it voluntarily then the law will be changed to force them to do so.

The list of websites to which he referred is drawn up by the self-proclaimed guardians of Internet morality, the IWF.

The body, which has no statutory authority and no real legal powers, provides a hotline for people to report images of child abuse and works with the police to get sites hosting such abhorrent content removed.

Not content with this role, it also provides ISPs with a list of sites and web pages it has not managed to remove, but which it considers unacceptable or illegal under current law.

The ISPs then stop their customers from viewing the sites concerned, although generally they don't actually tell you that the material concerned is banned because it is considered illegal, they just return a "page not found" error.

Both schemes, one for tracking images as they are exchanged and the other for stopping web users from accessing pages that contain banned material, offer the illusion of effectiveness while doing nothing to deal with the real problem of adult paedophiles using the network to help them abuse children.

It is clear that most of the trade in these appalling images happens on restricted servers, and most of the files are carefully encrypted or obfuscated before they are sent over the public network.

The real danger with media-friendly announcements of new internet coalitions or self-congratulatory annual reports on the number of abusive images seized by the authorities is that it encourages a belief that the situation is somehow under control, when it so clearly is not.

The tension between our freedom to use the network and the need to safeguard children is a driving issue for the Internet's development, and we need to think far more deeply about it than we have managed to do so far.

There is no simple answer, and if we settle for one then we will neither protect children nor safeguard our liberties.

Bill Thompson is a regular commentator on the BBC World Service programme Digital Planet
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/h...gy/5132512.stm





EFF Defends Liberties In High-Tech World
AP

In March 1990, when few people had even heard of the internet, U.S. Secret Service agents raided the Texas offices of a small board-game maker, seizing computer equipment and reading customers' e-mail stored on one machine. A group of online pioneers already worried about how the nation's laws were being applied to new technologies became even more fearful and decided to intervene.

And thus the Electronic Frontier Foundation was born -- 16 years ago this Monday -- taking on the Secret Service as its first case, one the EFF ultimately won when a judge agreed that the government had no right to read the e-mails or keep the equipment.

Today, after expanding into such areas as intellectual property and moving its headquarters twice along with its focus, the EFF is re-emphasizing its roots of trying to limit government surveillance of electronic communications, while keeping a lookout for emerging threats even as the internet and digital technologies become mainstream.

In one of its highest-profile lawsuits to date, the EFF has accused AT&T of illegally cooperating with the National Security Agency to make phone and Internet communications available without warrants.

"It's quite possibly the most important privacy and free speech issue in the 21st century," said Kevin Bankston, an EFF staff attorney formerly with the American Civil Liberties Union. "We are trying to force the government to follow the law. We are trying to force the phone company to follow the law."

Shari Steele, the EFF's executive director, described the NSA program as "a place where technology and civil liberties collide in a big way."

The EFF was born July 10, 1990, as three men who met on the online community The Well grew concerned that the ACLU and other traditional civil-liberties organizations didn't understand technology enough to question government actions like the Secret Service raid.

"It's difficult at this stage of the game to remember how few people even knew the Internet existed," said John Perry Barlow, a co-founder who used to write lyrics for the Grateful Dead. "It wasn't on their radar."

Even the world wide web wouldn't be invented for another five months.

Software pioneer Mitch Kapor, another co-founder, said that even when a group like the ACLU had the will, it didn't have the technical know-how to consider how basic, constitutional rights would even apply to the online world.

"Nobody had done the thinking," he said. "The questions hadn't been raised."

So from day one, the EFF sought to become a high-tech ACLU and ensure that offline rights indeed transferred to emerging technologies.

Early on, the EFF took on government efforts to treat encryption technology as military weapons rather than speech, and later it joined other groups in successfully challenging -- on free-speech grounds -- congressional efforts to block online pornography.

The group also defended developers of file-sharing software, arguing that technology with legal uses shouldn't be barred even if others can use it to commit crimes, such as trading copyright music and movies.

There have been internal tensions along the way as the organization left Cambridge, Mass., for Washington, D.C., in 1993. The EFF started trying to influence legislation, and some in the organization grew uncomfortable with the need to compromise in that setting.

So the EFF moved once more, to San Francisco in 1995, and after dabbling with corporate issues like privacy policies and spinning off the TRUSTe privacy-certification program for businesses as a standalone organization, it redirected its energies to litigation.

Most of the EFF's 25 employees now work in a former sewing factory and paint warehouse in San Francisco's gritty Mission District, its cubicle-less offices having the makeshift, open feel of a political campaign rather than a law firm. Attorneys walk around sans ties and suits and hold impromptu meetings on colorful couches. Chewed up tennis balls scattered throughout provide evidence of a dog-friendly environment.

Although the EFF was among the few tech-focused groups when it formed, many other organizations now complement it.

The Center for Democracy and Technology, or CDT, formed by former EFF staffers in the rift over its role in lobbying, is housed in Washington and tackles issues before Congress and federal agencies.

The ACLU also became active in technology and led the online pornography lawsuits. In challenging the Bush administration's domestic-surveillance program, the ACLU sued the government, while the EFF sued AT&T.

The EFF's nonlitigation projects include ongoing funding for the Tor system for anonymous online communications and research last year exposing tracking codes embedded in color laser printers. Its staffers also testify at public hearings; one took part in an electronic-voting task force that released a report on security in late June.

But the bulk of the work is legal -- 60 percent to 70 percent, Steele estimated. That focus has left the group open to criticisms that by refusing to play the Washington game of compromising, its views are idealistic and sometimes extremist.

"They are the lawyers for the open vision of the Internet," said Peter Swire, the Clinton administration privacy counselor who sometimes tussled with the EFF. "They are the Left Coast advocacy group."

Companies targeted by the EFF say the group appears overly skeptical of intellectual property and the free market.

Paul Ryan, whose Acacia Research Corp. the EFF cited for "crimes against the public domain" for claiming patents on streaming media, said the EFF ignores the fact that without patent protection, companies have less incentive to innovate.

The EFF also has faced criticisms that, despite its many victories, its losses can establish legal precedents that make subsequent cases harder to win. In the file-sharing case, the EFF won twice in lower courts, but the Supreme Court narrowed a 1984 ruling that technology shouldn't automatically be barred because it had illegal uses.

"The decision to expend energy on cases and in some sense to work to get them to the Supreme Court is to really gamble with the outcome," said Danny Weitzner, who left EFF in 1994 to help form the rival CDT.

He said the EFF should have waited for a better case, so that the high court wouldn't be "deciding about whether kids could steal music."

EFF attorneys say that they can't always wait for the perfect case and could at least prevent a worse ruling.

Others say that by refusing to take risks, no rights will be left.

"People will always second guess what you do," said Lee Tien, an EFF attorney active in the AT&T lawsuit. "If you're going to be afraid to complain about something wrong, you deserve to have wrongdoing done to you."

The EFF continues to tackle issues like anonymity, electronic voting, patents and copyright, but the Sept. 11 attacks nearly five years ago have forced the EFF to spend more time on surveillance.

It has sought to require more evidence before law enforcement can legally track people's locations by their cell phones, and in January the group sued AT&T, saying the San Antonio-based company violated U.S. law and the privacy of its customers. AT&T and NSA officials declined comment for this article.

The AT&T lawsuit already has generate grassroots momentum for the group, which gets the bulk of its $2.5 million budget from individuals. About 1,400 joined the EFF and sent in contributions after the EFF sent a mid-May appeal that cited the AT&T case. The group now has about 11,500 dues-paying members.

Basic online rights are more established today than when the EFF formed, but EFF legal director Cindy Cohn said there's no shortage of cutting-edge cases.

"We're not near the end of the digital revolution in terms of new technology being rolled out," she said. "Just because some stuff is mainstream, there's still a lot of stuff coming down the road to raise new issues or raise old issues over again in slightly new ways."

The EFF, she said, remains committed to fighting the battles "nobody's talking about yet."
http://business.bostonherald.com/tec...ticleid=146978





Watergate Echoes in NSA Courtroom
Kevin Poulsen

It was perhaps inevitable that someone would compare President Bush's extrajudicial wiretapping operations to Richard Nixon's 1970s-era surveillance of journalists and political enemies. Both were carried out by Republican presidents; both bypassed the courts; both relied on the cooperation of U.S. telecommunications companies.

But there's some irony in the fact that it was AT&T to first make the comparison in a federal courtroom here, while defending itself from charges of complicity in Bush's warrantless spying.

Company attorney Bradford Berenson cited the case of The New York Times reporter Hedrick Smith, who'd been illegally wiretapped by Nixon's Plumbers as part of an investigation into White House leaks. In 1979, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that Smith couldn't sue Chesapeake & Potomac Telephone Company -- then part of AT&T's Bell System -- for installing the wiretaps at the Plumbers' behest.

The Nixon Defense was one of several arguments offered Friday by AT&T and the Justice Department in their bid to win summary dismissal of the Electronic Frontier Foundation's class-action lawsuit. The suit accuses the company of providing the National Security Agency with access to customer and non-customer internet traffic passing through AT&T's systems, without a warrant. (Disclosure: Wired News has filed a motion to intervene in the case asking the court to make public evidence filed under seal of AT&T's alleged wiretapping activities.)

Without confirming the allegations, AT&T said if it is cooperating with the NSA, it can't be held responsible, because -- as in the Nixon case -- it's serving as a "passive instrument or passive agent of the government," said Berenson.

"AT&T could refuse, could it not, to provide access to its facilities?" countered U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker.

Berenson replied that AT&T would refuse any clearly illegal request, and a courtroom overflowing with EFF supporters broke into murmured, sardonic laughter. In the back, late-coming observers unable to win a seat pressed their faces against the windows of the courtroom door.

The government's surveillance activities of the 1970s were an ever-present ghost in the nearly three-hour-long hearing Friday, in a case that's emerging as a crucial challenge of the law passed in response to Watergate-era abuses. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, requires the government to obtain a court order before performing electronic surveillance in national security cases, except for surveillance targeting only foreign nationals or for emergency wiretaps lasting no longer than 72 hours.

A related law allows private parties to sue a telecommunications company for cooperating in government surveillance that doesn't meet FISA's requirements or the demands of criminal wiretap laws. But that law grants companies immunity if the U.S. attorney general first presents them with a letter certifying that the surveillance is legal.

AT&T won't confirm or deny that it received such a letter. But Walker, who's privy to the government's classified evidence in the case, spent some time posing questions about how a letter would affect the litigation's outcome. EFF attorney Kevin Bankston argued that AT&T has a duty to know the law, and wouldn't be protected by a written request to assist in an illegal surveillance operation. "That piece of paper could not authorize the conduct that we allege here," Bankston said.

The government argued that the existence or nonexistence of a letter from the attorney general addressed to AT&T is one of the many secrets that cannot be disclosed without causing grave damage to the United States. The Justice Department asked that the entire case be dismissed on national security grounds under the rarely used "state-secrets privilege."

Never passed by Congress, the state-secrets privilege has its roots in English common law and was cemented into American jurisprudence by a landmark 1953 Supreme Court case titled U.S. v. Reynolds. In Reynolds, the widows of three men who died in a mysterious Air Force crash sued the government, and U.S. officials quashed the lawsuit by claiming that they couldn't release any information about the accident without endangering national security. The Supreme Court upheld the claim, establishing a legal precedent that today allows the executive branch to block the release of information in any civil suit -- even if the government isn't the one being sued.

"It is an area of the law where the degree of deference from the court to the executive is at its highest," said Justice Department attorney Peter Keisler, who argued Friday that the case must be dismissed because its basic allegations can't be addressed without harming national security.

Acknowledging or disavowing any cooperation between the NSA and a particular telecommunications company, for example, would help terrorists communicate securely. "What the terrorist does when he decides to communicate ... is balance the risk that a particular communication will be intercepted against the operational inefficiencies" of finding another way to talk, said Keisler. Identifying a company as cooperating with the government would take some of the guesswork out of that assessment, and could even subject the company to terrorist reprisals.

But Walker showed some signs that he was taking a more nuanced look at the state-secrets privilege, and might consider making some information -- such as the existence or nonexistence of the attorney general's letter -- available for use in the case. "The state-secret privilege is not unlimited," Walker said.

Walker asked if the government would oppose the court retaining an expert to help sift through the classified evidence and evaluate its sensitivity; Keisler argued that such an analysis wouldn't show proper deference to the executive branch, and suggested it might prove problematic to grant such an expert the necessary security clearance.

For its part, EFF argued that the case can go forward without access to any government documents or testimony, thanks to the written statement and papers provided by former AT&T technician Mark Klein, which purports to show AT&T establishing a secure room in its San Francisco switching center to transmit intercepted internet traffic to the NSA.

EFF technical consultant J. Scott Marcus, a former FCC technology adviser, performed an analysis of the documents. Marcus concluded that AT&T's taps suck down about 10 percent of all U.S. internet traffic. The operation can pick up traffic transiting AT&T's network on its way somewhere else, so even non-AT&T customers are intercepted, he wrote.

"AT&T has constructed an extensive -- and expensive -- collection of infrastructure that collectively has all the capability necessary to conduct large-scale covert gathering of (internet protocol)-based communications information, not only for communications to overseas locations, but for purely domestic communications as well," Marcus wrote.

The government dismissed Klein's and Marcus' statements as "hearsay and speculation" Friday.

"They don't know as much as they think they know," said Keisler. AT&T agreed. "Pieces of cable go into a room," said company attorney Bruce Ericson. "That's as far as they take us."

There were few clues to where the judge was leaning Friday, but as the hearing drew to a close, he asked both sides how they would want to proceed should he deny the government's motion to dismiss -- suggesting he's considering allowing some portion of EFF's case to proceed.

Speaking to reporters outside the courthouse, whistle-blower Klein said the evidence he provided was sufficient to make the case, without exposing any national security secrets. AT&T, he said, helped with "massive interception, without warrant, of everyone's information."
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,71227-0.html





Music Industry Sues Yahoo

Search engines new target for Entertainment industry
Nick Farrell

THE MUSIC industry seems to have started legal action against search engines for promoting software piracy.

The International Federation for the Phonographic Industry, which includes EMI, has sued the Chinese version of Yahoo, claiming that it provides links to piracy sites.

The IFPI says that it was currently negotiating with Yahoo, but if these talks fail then the full weight of the music industry will fall on the search outfit. In recent court cases against P2P sites, the operators have said that all they did was provide links to torrents, they did not supply the pirated material themselves. In suing the P2P outfits, they said, the music industry might as well sue Google or Yahoo.

This recent action has indicated that the entertainment industry is considering such a cunning plan. It is focusing its attention on China, where the government has just made changes in the law and fines distributors of illegally copied music, movies and other material over the Internet as much as 100,000 yuan ($12,500).

The music industry has already had some success against the Chinese search outfit Baidu.com.

This is because the Chinese law says that a Web site is jointly liable with the host of the pirated files for infringement "if it knows or should know that the work, performance or sound or video recording linked to was infringing".

Such laws do not exist in the West, otherwise, it seems, Google would have been sued a long time ago.
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=32800





U.S. Taking A New Approach In War Against Knockoffs

Companies are experimenting with pricing, pack
Elaine Kurtenbach

In its battle against near-universal Chinese piracy of Hollywood blockbusters, Warner Bros.' weapon of choice is a little white price tag smaller than a postage stamp.

Last year, the home entertainment giant began selling selected movies with price tags of only $2.75 in major Chinese cities, aiming to carve out a market for relatively affordable but high-quality, legitimate versions of movies in a sea of counterfeit products selling for less than a dollar.

"The reason why piracy's come along is that there weren't enough products at the right price soon enough," said Tony Vaughan, managing director of CAV Warner Home Entertainment Co., Warner Bros.' joint venture distribution company in China.

Warner's strategy has been "to build a legitimate, viable offering for the Chinese consumer," he said.

The war against rampant counterfeit movies, drugs and other products is moving from China's back alleys and sidewalks into boardrooms and laboratories.

Companies that once relied on lawsuits and police raids are diversifying their strategies, turning to competitive pricing and trying out new technologies to even up seemingly overwhelming odds.

Drug maker Pfizer Inc. of New London, Conn., is experimenting with attaching small radio-frequency identification chips to track packages of its erectile dysfunction drug Viagra, popular knockoffs of which are widely available. The RFID tags, attached to packaging, can be scanned by a pharmacist to detect product codes showing their authenticity, and presumably weeding out fakes.

Confronted with widespread piracy of computer software, Microsoft Corp. is using new products and advertising to promote the benefits of legitimate software. The new Windows Genuine Advantage program checks the authenticity of a user's software and provides access to Microsoft software and other benefits for Windows XP users. The company is also offering low-cost versions of Windows starter software in some countries.

"Do you really want an 'adventure?' " says a Microsoft banner greeting arriving passengers at Shanghai's Hongqiao Airport.

Lian Hoon Lim, a consultant at Kearney in Hong Kong, recommends a "portfolio approach" to clients: A combination of secrecy, careful research of local partners, new technology and business strategies, as well as legally enforcing patents and trademark rights.

"It's not a problem for which there is a clear silver bullet," Lian said. "The message is that people who want to do business in China have to expect to spend money to protect themselves."

Worldwide, sales of counterfeit products may run as high as $650 billion a year, the International Chamber of Commerce in Geneva estimates. The global black market for counterfeit pharmaceuticals is worth up to $32 billion.

In many industries, China accounts for the largest share of pirated products. Almost 70 percent of U.S. Customs seizures of pirated goods are traced back to China.

Despite the new initiatives, though, the pirates appear to have the upper hand. International criminal syndicates are devoting increasing technical prowess to foil anti-counterfeiting packaging and extend their distribution into major Western markets, said Lee Bromberg, head of the patent litigation department at the Boston-based law firm Bromberg & Sunstein.

"For every preventive measure companies take, the wise guys will find it and you're back to square one," Bromberg said. "I don't think the good guys are winning yet."

Still, from medical products makers in Salt Lake City to software designers in San Jose, Calif., companies are awakening to the need for varied approaches to coping with piracy.

"Intellectual property protection has made the transition from a lawyer's issue to a mainstream issue," said Jeffrey Bernstein, chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai.

In its effort, Warner Bros. turned to China's state-owned distributor for audiovisual products, making it a partner. Affiliated with the Culture Ministry, the Chinese company has its own vested interest in seeing piracy stamped out.

Vaughan said his team in Shanghai, recruited from top foreign companies and universities, is tackling piracy from the high and low ends of the market.

Commemorative albums and limited editions -- such as a John Lennon 25th anniversary DVD complete with miniature guitar case and sunglasses -- sell for $20 or more and have proved popular as gifts.

Warner also is experimenting with releases in China's provincial cities of cheaper, simply packaged DVDs that sell for less than $1.85.

Vaughan would not disclose any sales figures, but said they were in line with expectations.

"We're seeing some early signs that things are going in the right direction," he said.

In other industries, secrecy remains the mainstay.

Household names such as the spray lubricant WD-40 and Coca-Cola have managed to protect their businesses by using closely guarded formulas. Lian, the consultant, said he urges companies to keep some of their production processes outside China.

"The most effective methods are focused on keeping part of the production process secret," Lian said.

The radio-frequency identification, or RFID, tags that Pfizer and other drug companies are putting on their packages also are being adapted for use on cigarette packaging, specialty materials and jewelry, said Rod Chui of Hong Kong RFID, a high-tech firm in Hong Kong that is developing the products.

But such technologies are in their infancy and it's unclear whether they will deter piracy or be worth the added costs for companies.

Software and media companies, meanwhile, are running into other hurdles as they develop new encryption and so-called digital rights management technologies meant to prevent excessive copying on personal computers.

Sony BMG Music Entertainment faced lawsuits over flawed CD copy protection software that opened a potential security vulnerability when it was automatically installed on computers. Sony settled a number of lawsuits and offered a one-click "uninstall" application to remove the copy protection program.

Warner Bros. will go along with any standard meant to deter piracy, Vaughan said.

But in the meantime, it's working with DVD wholesalers to put key titles on store shelves alongside pirated products.

"That's part of the strategy of gradually converting the market," he said. "This is the beginning. There's a long, long way to go."
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/busine...cychina05.html

Thanks Multi!



Portable MP3 Player Ownership Reaches New High

One In Five Americans Aged 12 And Older Owns A Portable MP3 Player: Ipsos Research

Interest In Additional Multimedia Content For Portable MP3 Players Fueled By Teens And Young Adults, Reveals Quarterly Digital Music Study, TEMPO: Keeping Pace With Digital Music Behavior

Press Release

A new study by global market research firm Ipsos indicates that as many as one in five Americans over the age of 12 now own portable MP3 Players and one in 20 own more than one. And interest in viewing music videos, photos, TV shows and even full-length movies from these devices is especially strong among younger consumers who have experience downloading music.

New findings released today from TEMPO, the company’s quarterly study of digital music behaviors, show that 20% of Americans aged 12 and older now own a portable MP3 player. This marks a significant increase over ownership levels found one year ago (15%), and nearly double the proportion of owners found in April 2003 (11%). And in a sign that not only new buyers are driving this trend, 6% of Americans own more than one portable MP3 player.

Total headphone-MP3 sales reached $4.23 billion in 2005, according to the Consumer Electronics Association. These popular devices accounted for 85 percent of all factory-level portable audio sales last year, CEA statistics showed.

Recent TEMPO research also revealed some interesting demographic and diagnostic trends surrounding the use of Portable MP3 Players:

 Younger Americans are driving recent growth, with over half of teens now owning a Portable MP3 Player (54%), and one third of 18-34 year olds (30%). Older Americans are less likely to own these devices overall, but still represent a sizable and consistent presence in the market (13% of 35 – 54 year olds report owning a Portable MP3 Player).
 Males continue to lead females in Portable MP3 Player ownership, with nearly one quarter (24%) of U.S. males aged 12 and older owning a device, compared to 16% of females.
 Nearly half of music downloaders own a portable MP3 player (48%), and these owners use their devices an average of 12 hours per week. Younger downloaders use their MP3 Players more often (average of over 16 hours per week among teens), but have less digital content stored on their devices. Overall, there is an average of 700 songs or files stored on a U.S. music downloader’s MP3 player.
 Existing CD collections continue to be the primary source of MP3 Player content among music downloaders. Nearly half (44%) of the content stored on MP3 players is ripped from the owner’s personal CD collection, and another 6% is ripped from others’ CD collections. Fee-based downloads (25%) and files obtained from file sharing services (19%) are also common sources of content.

“Over the past year, the portable MP3 market has really matured, and we are now seeing not just new buyers entering this market, but also growing levels of multiple device ownership indicative of overall category satisfaction and habitualized behavior,” said Matt Kleinschmit, a Vice President with Ipsos Insight and author of the TEMPO study. “What is perhaps most interesting about this is that experienced portable device owners are now buying new players with a level of usage and storage capacity knowledge unseen just a few years ago. Understanding how these unique buyers are adapting specific players to different usage activities and locations will provide manufacturers and content providers alike with a compelling perspective on where the increasingly important portable media category may be heading.”

Desire for Access to Broader Multimedia Content Fueled by Young Downloaders

The recent TEMPO research also found nearly one-quarter of Portable MP3 Player owners believe their devices have the ability to play video, and interest in viewing music videos, photos, TV shows and even full-length movies is especially strong among younger consumers who have experience downloading music. Over one-third of music downloaders between the ages of 12 and 24 say they are extremely or very interested in viewing video content on their portable devices (39% - music videos; 33% - TV shows; 32% - full length motion pictures), compared to fewer than one-fifth among downloaders aged 25 – 54 (15%, 18% and 17%, respectively).

Even more than video content, however, radio listening is one of the most desired additional uses for portable MP3 players. Nearly half (46%) of teens and college-aged downloaders are interested in portable FM radio and 39% express interest being able to access satellite radio on their portable device. Older American downloaders are also interested in using their MP3 players to listen to radio broadcasts, with roughly one-third of 25 to 54 year old downloaders interested in FM and Satellite Radio capabilities (37% and 32%, respectively).

“These recent findings showing the desire for broader multimedia content on a portable device could suggest we are reaching a turning point in which consumers are truly recognizing the value of anytime, anywhere multimedia content on-the-go,” continued Kleinschmit. “While this phenomenon may have initially centered on music, younger MP3 player owners are clearly interested in a wide variety of broader content options for their devices. Given this demographic group’s strong levels of device ownership and heightened frequency of usage, it would be safe to assume that this appetite will continue to develop and prosper as continued usage and subsequent reliance on portably-accessed, on-demand digital content grows.”

Methodology

Data on music downloading behaviors was gathered from TEMPO: Keeping Pace with Digital Music Behavior, a quarterly shared-cost research study by Ipsos Insight examining the ongoing influence and effects of digital music around the world.

Data for general population statistics included with this release were collected between April 24 and May 2, 2006, via a nationally representative US sample of 1,112 respondents aged 12 and over. With a total sample size of 1,112, one can say with 95% certainty that the results are accurate to within +/- 2.94%.

Additional in-depth data on music downloaders were collected between January 13 and 24, 2006, via a representative sample of 1,517 US Downloaders aged 12 and over. With a total sample size of 1,517, one can say with 95% certainty that the results are accurate to within +/- 2.52%. To learn more about the methodology of TEMPO, please visit www.ipsos-insight.com/tempo.cfm
http://www.ipsosinsight.com/pressrelease.aspx?id=3124, http://www.ipsos-na.com/news/pressrelease.cfm?id=3124





Looking to Take On Apple's iPod, Microsoft Plans Its Own Hand-Held Player
Jeff Leeds

Microsoft has been developing its own hand-held music and video player to challenge Apple Computer's iPod and expects to have it in stores in time for the holiday season, entertainment industry executives briefed on the company's plans said last night.

Microsoft's digital device would be equipped with at least one feature the iPod lacks: wireless Internet capability that would allow users to download music without being connected to a PC.

Microsoft's device, which is similar to an existing player that uses the company's software, would also have a more advanced video screen, according to the executives, who did not want to be identified because they were not authorized to discuss the device.

The company has also held negotiations, the executives said, with major record companies and some major television networks in order to settle on terms that would allow it to sell music and video content online through a service similar to Apple's iTunes Music Store.

The portable player would represent Microsoft's most ambitious effort yet to compete with the iPod, which has generated billions of dollars in sales and turned Apple into the dominant retailer of digital players and music.

Until now, Microsoft has largely bet that hardware manufacturers like Samsung could come up with a device that would use Microsoft's software and cut into Apple's lead. But the company's plans to develop its own device are an indication that it may no longer be satisfied with that strategy.

"If this is true, then this is them trying to take more control over the situation," said Mike McGuire, vice president for research on mobile devices at Gartner, which tracks the electronics market. "In effect, they're basically saying, 'We think we can do something better' " than the existing hardware makers.

The shift is likely to anger Samsung, Sony, Creative Technology and other manufacturers that were persuaded to use Microsoft's software in their devices, because a Microsoft player would compete with theirs. The Xbox video game console, Microsoft's strongest move into consumer electronics, uses software that does not run on any other player.

A Microsoft spokesman, Mark Murray, would not comment on the company's plans.

A senior executive at a major TV network said Microsoft had not yet received commitments from the networks to supply programming to its online store. But the executive said that the networks would welcome competition for Apple in downloads.

Music industry executives in particular have complained about Apple's control over the digital music market and its power to determine pricing of songs and albums.

Steve Lohr and Bill Carter contributed reporting for this article.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/06/te...gy/06ipod.html





Microsoft Planning WiFi-Enabled Portable Media Player, Working on MVNO for Next Year
Peter Rojas

Ok, by now it's more or less an open secret that Microsoft is going to shift away from its current model and go straight after the iPod with a portable media player of its own, but we've landed some exclusive details about the new player courtesy of a trusted insider who is party to some of the discussions Microsoft is having with potential content partners.

Here's what we've learned:

Microsoft's new portable audio and video player will have a screen that's "bigger than that of the iPod video" (which isn't really saying much) and built-in WiFi so you can not only download content directly to the player (sort of like with the MusicGremlin), but actually participate in an Xbox Live-like social network that will help you connect with other people with similar taste and interests. Whether that's going to be the Live Anywhere service they introduced at E3 we don't yet know. But we do know the tag line they're pitching for the device combined with this new network is "Connected Entertainment."

But it gets better. To attract current iPod users Microsoft is going to let you download for free any songs you've already bought from the iTunes Music Store. They'll actually scan iTunes for purchased tracks and then automatically add those to your account. Microsoft will still have to pay the rights-holders for the songs, but they believe it'll be worth it to acquire converts to their new player.

Right now the new player is schedule to launch in November, but our source also tells us that Microsoft isn't stopping with a WiFi-enabled PMP, they're actually going to launch an MVNO next year using all Windows Mobile-powered HTC handsets. These handsets will let users connect to the same social network you'll be able to access over WiFi using the portable media player.
http://www.engadget.com/2006/07/06/m...yer-working-o/





Neutrality

Google Says Bill Could Spark Anti-Trust Complaints

Google warned on Tuesday it will not hesitate to file anti-trust complaints in the United States if high-speed Internet providers abuse the market power they could receive from U.S. legislators.

The U.S. Senate Commerce Committee last week approved sweeping communications reform legislation that would make it easier for telephone companies like AT&T to offer subscription television to consumers.

But it narrowly rejected attempts by some lawmakers to strengthen safeguards on Internet service, which had pitted high-speed Internet, or broadband, providers such as AT&T against Internet content companies like Google.

The battle centred on whether broadband providers can charge more to carry unaffiliated content or to guarantee service quality, an issue called Net neutrality.

"If the legislators ... insist on neutrality, we will be happy. If they do not put it in, we will be less happy but then we will have to wait and see whether or not there actually is any abuse," Vint Cerf, a Google vice-president and one of the pioneers of the Internet, told a news conference in Bulgaria.

"If we are not successful in our arguments ... then we will simply have to wait until something bad happens and then we will make known our case to the Department of Justice's anti-trust division," he said on Tuesday.

Cerf is visiting Bulgaria at the invitation of President Georgi Parvanov to discuss ways to boost information technology business and Internet access in the country.

The U.S. bill includes provisions aimed at preserving consumers' ability to surf anywhere on the public Internet and use any Internet-related application, software or service.

"My company, along with many others believes that the Internet should stay open and accessible to everyone equally," Cerf said.

"We are worried that some of the broadband service providers will interfere with that principle and will attempt to use their control over broadband transport facilities to interfere with services of competitors."

Despite extensive lobbying by the telephone carriers, prospects for a final law this year remain uncertain. Congress faces a dwindling number of work days because of the November elections.

If the measure passes the full Senate, it would have to be reconciled with a narrower bill approved by the House of Representatives.
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsAr...archived=False





Telcos Face Tough Road on 'Net Neutrality'

Senate win gives phone providers the upper hand, but not the decisive win
Roger O. Crockett

AT&T and other big phone-service providers had reason to celebrate last week. On June 28, the Senate Commerce Committee, chaired by Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), approved a bill that would free phone carriers and cable operators such as Comcast from key restrictions on how they set fees for delivering Internet content.

Many hailed the vote as good news for the likes of AT&T Chief Executive Ed Whitacre and his counterpart at Comcast, Brian Roberts. It means that the most significant piece of telecom legislation since the 1996 Telecom Act could be shorn of what the phone-service providers call unnecessary and burdensome constraints on their right to set prices for network use.

Tough road ahead
Those rules are particularly onerous to traditional phone companies like AT&T and Verizon, which are spending billions of dollars to lay fiber cables to deliver TV service to rival what's already available from cable and satellite providers. They want the freedom to set fees for Internet companies such as Google and Yahoo that push their own content over telco TV pipes. The telcos' argument: Constraints on the ability to charge higher fees for premium content—what proponents call "Net neutrality rules"—would mean less economic incentive to invest in network upgrades, slowing the speed of information sent over the Internet for everyone.

Judging from the Senate committee vote, it would appear that argument has won the day. But Whitacre better not break out the champagne just yet. A long, tough road remains in the battle over control of content riding over the Internet. The Senate committee vote has to be approved by a majority of the full body, and then reconciled with a draft of the bill in the House of Representatives. And it all has to be accomplished in a short legislative session interrupted by holiday breaks and the approaching November elections.

What's more, the longer it takes to get the law passed, the longer telecom companies have to do without a raft of other hoped-for goodies. For example, the Senate bill would make it easier for them to enter TV markets across the country and begin competing head-to-head with cable providers. The Senate bill also would prevent state governments from stepping in and regulating certain wireless and Internet-based phone services.

Horse trading
Victory in the full Senate isn't assured. The committee vote fell largely along party lines, with Democrats favoring strict Net neutrality and Republicans like Stevens against it. It may be difficult for the telcos to gain final passage in the full Senate, where Republicans have a slim majority, and may see more defections on this issue, UBS telecom analyst John Hodulik wrote in a recent report.

The upshot: All the horse-trading still to come means that a final bill might not be passed this time around, requiring the process to start anew in the next legislative session. Or, if a bill is agreed upon, some variant of Net neutrality or state regulation of other telecom services—unwelcome by the industry— could still find its way into the final draft.

Full passage would require Stevens to get 60 votes on his side to end debate on the Senate floor. But Stevens has stated that he does not have the necessary 60 votes. And, "the chairman is not going to bring it to the full Senate until he's confident that we have the 60 votes," says Matthew Flanigan, president of TIA, a trade group of telecom equipment suppliers.

Playing catch-up
The telcos and their supporters will no doubt lobby hard to win over the necessary number of senators. But with so many other issues of national importance before the Senate, that's far from guaranteed. And no bill at all before November would be a monumental loss for Whitacre and his telco peers and a victory for their chief foes, the cable companies run by Roberts and others.

Why? At the core of this legislative scrap is the wherewithal to deliver video services to customers all across the country. Phone companies are making a push into TV as cable companies steal customers with new Net phone products. By 2010, the telcos will have lost 20 percent of their voice lines to cable competitors, and revenue per customer will drop from about $40 per voice line today to less than $35, according to researcher Sanford C. Bernstein.

If the telcos don't soon match cable's three-product package of phone, Internet, and video service, they risk falling dangerously behind in the race to win customer loyalty over the next decade. "We expect accelerating access line losses (from phone companies) throughout the next three years" as cable companies are able to market their full lineup of products to their customers by 2007, Bernstein's Jeff Halpern told analysts in a recent conference call.

Fast track to TV

Another crucial element of telecommunications law centers on the process of applying for licenses to sell TV services in new markets. Currently, phone companies must apply for franchise licenses on a city-by-city basis—a process that could take years and slow the telcos' TV rollout to a crawl. AT&T and Verizon want legislation that lets them apply for a nationwide license.

The Senate committee, hoping to stimulate competition, is open to putting phone companies' TV plans on the fast track. Its bill essentially allows for TV franchising to be determined at the national level by setting a time limit of 90 days for local government to grant the franchise. If not acted upon after 90 days, the franchise is deemed approved for 15 years. But again, Stevens needs full Senate approval, and leaving TV licenses in the hands of national regulators looks as though it faces opposition among some in the full Senate.

Another part of the Senate bill that hasn't gotten much ink involves the interconnection of Internet phone services. The bill clears the way for Vonage and other providers of so-called Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services to have the same rights as traditional phone companies—but also the same obligations—when it comes to offering service. The law also says these Net-phone companies must offer emergency 911 service, and that any VoIP provider must have nondiscriminatory network access to offer E-911.

Running out of time
Industry experts also say that any new law is likely to have provisions around what's known as the Universal Service Fund, which requires telecom providers to pay into a fund that ensures rural and low-income areas get the same services as the rest of the country. The House bill does not address this, but the Senate version does. With universal service being a priority in Stevens' home state of Alaska, the senator will no doubt be squabbling with House reps to get it into final legislation, if the bill gets that far this year.

In reality, though, things like universal service are "a fly on the back of the elephant," says the TIA's Flanigan. The big issue remains Net neutrality. As Congress haggles over these issues in the coming weeks, the telcos hope Net neutrality doesn't find life again. To keep it down, they'll have to ward off lobbyists from the likes of Google and Yahoo, who want desperately to get it back on the agenda (see BusinessWeek.com, 6/08/06, "Web Titans' D.C. Blues").

For now, the big phone companies have the upper hand, with Net neutrality headed toward its grave. But with so much debate left in Congress and so little time to reach agreement, the issue is still on life support.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13725224/





Net Neutrality Has a Spokesperson
John C. Dvorak

The Net neutrality bill took kind of a weird turn despite its defeat, when the public got to hear the mouthpiece for the telecom industry, Senator Ted Stevens. Wow. Stevens, an Alaska Republican, made a 10-minute speech before Congress that was something of a cross between a comedy act by Professor Irwin Corey and testimony by Casey Stengel, both famous for flubs, non sequiturs, and double-talk.

Stevens is most famous for diverting federal money to Alaska and especially famous for his grabbing $453 million needed for post-Katrina rebuilding to construct two bridges in Alaska, including the infamous "bridge to nowhere." He may be inarticulate and weird, but he does manage to benefit his state at a cost to the nation as a whole.

Stevens now appears to be the front man for the telecom companies (they must be so proud!) regarding Net neutrality, and you can listen to his 10-minute diatribe here: {http://www.publicknowledge.org/node/497} Let me warn you in advance. It's incredibly painful. It's too obvious that this man has no idea what the Internet is exactly and no idea about the issues behind Net neutrality. It seems like a miracle that he can even find the crapper.

This shows you how desperate the telcos and cable companies are to get their way, as Stevens is also the point man for new telecom legislation. It's funny how the telcos argue against any government interference with the Internet but promote various telecom "reform" bills that benefit them.

WHAT IS NET NEUTRALITY? As a reminder, let me outline the idea and rationale for Net neutrality. The idea is that there needs to be legislation to prevent Internet providers such as SBC and Comcast from arbitrarily throttling services. They, of course, want to throttle Skype to make sure people use POTS. But they have been saber-rattling against Google and others who Ted Stevens says are getting a free ride on the Internet. I cannot even imagine how many millions of dollars Google pays to get on the Net. How this is a free ride is baffling. Oh wait, that's right, the man is an idiot. That's it.

Here is one of Stevens's explanations from his diatribe:

"They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the Internet. And again, the Internet is not something you just dump something on. It's not a truck. It's a series of tubes.

"And if you don't understand those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and it's going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material."

We are never clear who the "they" is.—Continue reading...

LAW NEEDED The idea behind Net neutrality is that it appears that there indeed must be something written into law to make the ISPs "neutral" in how they provide service. This is not about you paying more for better speed or anything like that. It's simply to prevent them from messing up the free flow of bits up and down the pipe. They cannot prefer one kind of bit over another because it interferes with their other businesses or because it interferes with some scheme of theirs.

Stevens, quoted in National Journal here {http://www.njtelecomupdate.com/lenya/telco/live/tb-KZJB1149794408372.html}, says that if telcos and cable companies began to abuse their position, then the Federal Communications Commission could look into it, and maybe something could be done about it when it happens. Emphasis on the word maybe. There doesn't need to be a law, he says. And he's not just a mouthpiece for the telcos: The lawyers should be pleased with him, as this quote assures them he is on their side too:

"…when it comes to the providers versus the owners of content, and all that sort of thing, that is a battle between billion-dollar people. They should hire their own lawyers, not the FCC."

Billion-dollar people, eh? Thus, if any of you billion-dollar bloggers get throttled or just get banned—cut out of the loop altogether—for revealing any uncomfortable truths, just sue 'em. You've got plenty of money being a content provider, right?

Unbelievable.
http://www.pcmag.com/print_article2/...=182569,00.asp





News From The North



The TankGirl Diaries


2.7.2006

Kristianstadsbladet: "Who Does the Culture Belong to?"

The cultural editors of newspaper Kristianstadsbladet participate the Swedish copyright debate with a good debate essay starting from the historical background of modern copyright debate, highlighting especially the role of the French author Victor Hugo - the world's most pirate copied author of his time - in initiating the international meeting in Berne, Switzerland, that resulted in the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works.

Kristianstadsbladet remarks that in his speech Hugo took a clear standing for the "cultural common good", and that this concept is important in today's filesharing debate as well. Hugo himself emphasized that whenever he had to make a choice between author's copyright and common good, he always priotized the common good and public's right to knowledge and information.

"Even if we don't think about it, we have a large pool of knowledge that we base our co-existence on", writes Kristianstadsbladet. "Old and inherited culture like songs, clothing, traditions and older literature are freely usable. We can learn from them and use them to shape new culture."

"An author, for example, can be influenced in any degree by Homeros, Bellman or Strindberg without having to pay any compensations to anybody. Such resources of knowledge are the cultural common good, and they are an important part of information flow in the society."

2.7.2006

One Year of Stricter Copyright Law Behind

The new, stricter Swedish copyright law criminalizing 1.3 million Swedish filesharers came into effect a year ago, 1. of July 2005. At the time, only Center Party and Green Party voted against the new law, while five other parliamentary parties voted for it.

The practical effects of the law on filesharing in Sweden have been minimal at best. Swedes were and continue to be among the most active filesharing nations, hosting the world's largest BitTorrent site Pirate Bay, being the superpower of Direct Connect with the largest number of hubs and users, and so on.

Six months after the new law came into force the first Pirate Party in the world was founded in Sweden, capitalizing on the political education work by the activist organization Piratbyrån (Pirate Bureau). The public opinion in Sweden is strongly for legalizing filesharing, and the media industry has failed miserably in its efforts to impress guilt about p2p downloading on the minds of the Swedish public. In Sweden being a 'pirate' is a positive thing.

So the will of the Swedish citizens is in direct crash course with the will of the media cartels and the copyright laws they have managed to dictate down to the EU member states from WIPO and EU Commission. The extent of this conflict will be measured on September 17 this year when the Swedes have their parliamentary election, with Pirate Party giving a democratic voice to the filesharers for the first time anywhere during the 6-year history of p2p.

4.7.2006

The French-Swedish Connection

Pirate movement is not only spreading in Europe, it is also starting to operate as an European-wide political force.

A good example of this is the forming of the connection between Swedish Pirate Party and its French sister party. The Swedes were the ones to start it but when it comes to pressuring your government and the whole EU with citizen activism, the French are of course masters in it. They know how to go to barricades and how to demonstrate so that something eventually gives in. Read this snippet from the French sister party's offer of help to Piratepartiet at their forum:

As I said before Sweden really needs to pay attention to France because of the "harmonizing" of laws within the EU and because of French people's close influence on the EU by their long tradition of citizen activism. The importance of this insight should *not be underestimated* - the way to get things done in France is precisely citizen activism, en masse, as witnessed by the recent demonstrations against the CPE.

They're geographically and culturally closer to the EU's power-centers.

French activists have a higher chance of making changes in the EU, as they have already done by creating debate about open-source software and patents through groups such as StopDRM and APRIL.

Here is a more detailed account of the developments in France so far, with a number of useful links for those interested in what happens in France:

During Christmas 2005 the French parliament was hijacked since people were away on vacation, and they managed to get a majority vote for a law that would have legalized file sharing for a fee added to the Internet bill.

This was widely reported as "file-sharing legalized in France."

It could not be farther from the truth.

After the law was passed, there was a wide reaction against it by established rich artists and elitist EU politicians, and the elitist government in power announced it would open a site http://lesTelechargements.com to "go into dialogue with the file-sharers."

There was no dialogue - the site was professionaly designed and aimed at explaining, in a typical elitist top-down manner characteristic of France, why copyright should stay like it is, and why file sharing is illegal. A new law, one of the worst in Europe, was proposed, that would give fines to people found to be sharing.

http://lesTelechargements.fr was launched by opponents of the law, to explain why they disagree. They use the heading, "File-sharing: .FRench debate, or .COMmercial war?"

However, the current government in power, although resented by the people, is passing a lot of heavy handed laws that are not designed to do anything but defend the status quo and the interests of large corporations and trade agreements.

There is also the DADVSI law that will make development of the French VLC media player illegal, that was just passed.

Since the population at large is not engaged enough to protest the law, like they did with the CPE, it will be passed. The only way of stopping things in this extremely confrontational culture, is by massive protest.

French politics are elitist, confrontational, heavy-handed. France is a founding member of the EU, and what happens there will have a lot of influence on Sweden, since Sweden is an EU member. Vice-versa, Swedish politicians could influence what happens in the EU, if they have a good proposal.

There are several organizations working on a political level, and more Swedish people should make contact with them, since both countries are EU members they could benefit from increased contact.

The French Intellectuals involved in this debate have more say over EU issues than Swedish intellectuals, just because of their proximity and because there is no language barrier for them!

Although there is a language barrier, this is less of a problem in computer subjects, since French people who know computers tend to know English better. I challenge all Swedish pirates to cooperate more closely with the French.

Good starting points (use Google to translate if you do not know French, and send these people an email in English)

StopDRM
http://stopdrm.info/
The most important organization in France, who arranged the March against the DADVSI copyright law (http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/March_ag..._copyright_law).

Audionautes Blog
http://www.audionautes.net/blog/
A blog by a teenager who meets regularly with French parlamentarians to explain technical details

April
http://www.april.org/
The main open source/free software organization.

Partie Pirate de France
http://www.parti-pirate.info/
Newly established. Does not seem like it has any formal organization yet, and only registres members by the pseudonym (nick) and not their real names.

Paris Power blog
http://parispower-pp.blogspot.com/
A blog by one of the people involved in the French Pirate Party

EUCD.info
http://eucd.info/
French site to mobilize against the wide-impact EUCD law

More about EUCD, DADVSI
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EU_Copyright_Directive
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DADVSI
http://www.videolan.org/eucd.html

5.7.2006

Belgians Join The Pirate Movement

The political pirate movement is spreading fast in Europe. The latest country to join the movement is Belgium, who has now its own Pirate Party. What started as a Swedish revolt has become an European-wide political revolution for reforming the media cartel dictated copyright laws and for defending citizen privacy against police state style control measures geared to serve private commercial interests. It is only a question of time when the movement's impact will be felt in the power centers of EU.
http://www.p2p-zone.com/underground/...222#post247222

http://reflectionsonp2p.blogspot.com/


Segelkarl will be on vacation until August.




Dutch Parliament Opposes Criminalization Of Violations Of Intellectual Property Across the EU

The Dutch parliament does not want the EU commission to make violations of intellectual property a crime in a directive. Last Friday, both chambers of the Dutch parliament agreed that the European Community has not "had any mandate bestowed upon it with which to attain the goals of the planned legislative action." This statement came after the representatives briefly met to discuss the highly controversial proposal from Brussels. But the only item on the agenda at that meeting was to see whether the principles of "subsidiarity and proportionality" required for the adoption of a directive were respected in a directive for "the prosecution of violations of intellectual property into the law."

The new proposal for a directive thus seems to be skating on thin ice. The EU commission plans to obligate member states to prosecute any intentional violation of intellectual property if the violation was committed for commercial purposes. Not only copyright, but also patents, trademarks, utility models, and the Semiconductor Protection Act are to be enforced by penal law. The draft from Brussels would give police far-reaching authority to search houses and seize evidence. Furthermore, industries threatened by illegal copies and forgeries are to be allowed to create joint investigative teams along with criminal prosecutors. If suspects are convicted, they would then face fines ranging from 100,000 to 300,000 euros or up to four years of confinement. (Stefan Krempl) / (Craig Morris)
http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/74989





Go-Ahead For Hacker's Extradition
BBC

A US request to extradite a British computer hacker accused of the "biggest military hack of all time" has been granted by Home Secretary John Reid.

Gary McKinnon, who is accused of breaking into US government computer networks, has been fighting extradition since his arrest in November 2002.

His family says he has 14 days to appeal against the extradition.

Mr McKinnon told the BBC he was "very worried and feeling very let down by my own government".

In May, a district judge sitting at Bow Street Magistrates' Court in London recommended Mr McKinnon be extradited - but the final decision rested with the home secretary.

'Order signed'

A Home Office spokesman said: "On 4 July the secretary of state signed an order for Mr McKinnon's extradition to the United States for charges connected with computer hacking.

"Mr McKinnon had exercised his right to submit representations against return but the secretary of state did not consider the issues raised availed Mr McKinnon.

"Mr McKinnon now has the opportunity, within 14 days, to appeal against the decisions of the district judge/secretary of state."

Mr McKinnon was first arrested in 2002 by the UK's National Hi-Tech Crime Unit for hacking into a series of computer networks used by the US army, navy, air force, and Department of Defense.

The US, in its case for extradition, said Mr McKinnon caused more than $700,000 (£375,235) of damage while exploring the computer networks at various US military institutions.

It said one attack at the Earle Naval Weapons Station took place soon after 11 September 2001 and made it impossible to use critical systems.

The US Department of Justice said it took a month to get systems working in the aftermath of this attack.

Mr McKinnon has admitted that he spent almost two years exploring these networks but has said he was motivated by a search for what he called "suppressed technology".

His lawyers had argued he could be sent to Guantanamo Bay as a terrorist suspect.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/h...gy/5156136.stm





Apple's Got a Secret
Dan Mitchell

EVERYONE knows about how much iPods cost. But how much does it cost Apple to make them?

Apple will not say, and that bothers Robert Renck, who runs the private research firm R. L. Renck & Company. Since January, Mr. Renck has been advising clients against owning Apple shares. His assessment came to light last week in a column by Herb Greenberg in The Wall Street Journal and on MarketWatch.com.

Mr. Renck has a rare sell recommendation on Apple stock, mainly because of its "penchant for secrecy." The minimal financial disclosure by Apple makes it a "have faith, trust me" stock, he argues. Because Apple breaks out its profits by geographic location (as it has traditionally done), rather than by product line, analysts and investors can not properly assess the business, he said.

Mr. Greenberg seems to agree. "Apple is a very different company than it was several years ago," he wrote on his blog. "The way it once disclosed segment information isn't necessarily relevant to the Apple of today" (blogs.marketwatch.com/Greenberg).

Geographic disclosure was adequate when pretty much all Apple sold were computers, Mr. Renck said. But the iPod has changed everything. Sales of Macintosh computers now trail those of iPod, which last year made up 46 percent of revenue. "Apple clearly has its feet in two separate and distinct business models, namely computer manufacturing and software creation, and the consumer electronics industry," Mr. Renck said.

Apple said it did not comment on analyst reports, but Mr. Greenberg noted that on a recent conference call with analysts, several of them asked Peter Oppenheimer, the chief financial officer, about the iPod's gross margin. To which he responded, "Our competitors would just love to know what our specific gross margins are."

"And we just don't want to help them."

One poster on the Greenberg blog went so far as to praise Apple for making things tough on analysts. "How about actually doing their job and analyze the company they are covering?" the poster wrote. "What a thought — actually doing some independent research without the companies giving them all the information on a platter. I applaud Apple for making the analysts work."

CRY, BABIES The blogger/photographer Thomas Hawk criticized the photographer Jill Greenberg for making toddlers cry and taking pictures of them. "Child abuse," he called it (thomashawk.com). Ms. Greenberg also works as a commercial photographer and has shot photos for corporations. Her artistic work, "End Times," is featured on the Web site of the Paul Kopeikin Gallery. A news release on the site says the pictures of distressed children are a commentary on religious fundamentalism and the war in Iraq (paulkopeikingallery.com).

Mr. Hawk does not buy it. Although "the children are not sexualized, I consider what she is doing child pornography of the worst kind," he wrote.

She took umbrage — going so far, according to Mr. Hawk, as to contact his employer. She called him "insane" in an interview with American Photo magazine. To get the kids to cry she said she gave them lollipops and then took them away. Others cried without prompting. "Maybe getting kids to cry isn't the nicest thing to do," she said, "but I'm not causing anyone permanent psychological damage" (popphoto.com).

In taking on Mr. Hawk, she may be playing with fire. Previously, he took issue with the tactics of an online camera dealer on his blog, bringing the wrath of his readers down upon it. Now the dealer is out of business.

SMOOTHIES FOR THE ROAD Why would anyone want a blender powered by a bicycle? "Because human beings love human power," according to the Web site for the Byerley Bicycle Blender, or B3.

Human beings also love smoothies, and the idea behind the B3 is to give entrepreneurs a convenient way to sell them at outdoor settings. Starting your own mobile smoothie stand would cost $1,399 (bikeblender.com).
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/01/bu...erland&emc=rss





This is a Test

** this is a backup of the site; i was one of the first to hit the page. enjoy. **
feel free to visit my blog http://silvrlabs.com/blog


{eon8} Complete
As of July 1st, 2006, the E8 Project has completed.
The purpose of this project was to determine the reactions of the internet public to lack of information.

History
The domain eon8.com was chosen, as it is short, easily remembered, and eon9 was already registered.

It was originally posted on www.msfn.org, but was promptly removed as 'spam'. It was enough time for it to be copied to other forums throughout December 2005.

Results
We were amazed to discover that the site was instantly linked with terrorism, simply for the fact that it seems mysterious. Evil was the number one first impression people had of the site, in spite of the fact that there are no threats on the site. The only thing Eon 8 says is "We don't want you here". Nothing else.
Other less disappointing opinions were social experimentation (which was correct), James Bond movie viral marketing, and promotions for video games.
For many people, being faced with a countdown timer was an instant reason to try to shut down or hack the site. This is a worrying reaction, that if someone doesn't understand something they must destroy it. As a result, the servers have been hit quite hard these last few days, but luckily 99% of the 'hackers' could easily be described as 'l4me n00bs'.
Another worrying example of paranoia was how quickly people would jump to conclusions, such as telephoning the registered owner of a dog seen in a photograph on a server that hosts a page that links to eon8.

Surprises
The folks at Unfiction.com were the most resourceful and inventive, they successfully managed to decrypt several of the 'codes' on the site, forcing them to be re-encrypted using more secure methods.

FAQ
What about eon5.com?
Nothing to do with us. Pure coincidence, but worked in our favor.

What about the 8th eon being the end of the world?
We picked Eon 8 because Eon 9 was already taken. We didn't know about the significance of this. Eon is a cool sounding word!

Why July 1st?
We didn't know how long it would take to get the word out using our subtle promotion methods. We allowed over 6 months.

What do the codes on the site mean?
They're mostly randomly generated integers encrypted with md5, but with certain letters removed and replaced. The Logs page is simply based on the current timestamp, encrypted and modified. You can't decrypt them, they really are random numbers.

What is the Deployment Map?
They're dots placed over major cities and several random locations, it was done mostly from memory. The random gif filename is an added touch to force a slight delay on loading, which looks more impressive in Internet Explorer, but not as much in Firefox.
What's the password?
There isn't one. If you did somehow manage to get in, you'd see an empty folder with a single text file that says "This is a decoy folder. Please connect to the internal secure network".

Can I see your website statistics?
Yes, click here.

Are you anything to do with Scientology?
Did you see anything talking about a Free Personality Test or Xenu? Use your brain.

Who are you, really?
The most I can tell you is I am a 23 year old web designer from Florida named Mike. I can't narrow it down anymore than that. When I say 'we', I really mean 'me'.

Conclusions
People take things too seriously and panic over the most trivial things. But at the same time there are many people out there who think things through without jumping to conclusions. You can't let pointless speculation rule your lives and force you to live in fear.

In Closing
Thanks to everyone who kept things interesting, especially to the folks at unfiction. Sorry there is no ARG for you to play, but at least you had fun while it lasted.


Click here for one Final Message from Eon 8

BE HAPPY
THE END
Sincerely, x21b

Happy birthday, mtcaptain. From 'ls224' (aka x21b). Yes that really was me in the #eon-8 channel
http://silvrlabs.com/deployed21b.php.html





Chomsky Publisher Charged in Turkey
Lawrence Van Gelder

Fatih Tas, the Turkish publisher of a book by the American intellectual Noam Chomsky, said yesterday that he and two of his colleagues were facing prison sentences as long as six years on charges of "denigrating national identity" and "inciting hatred," Agence France-Presse reported. Mr. Tas, owner of the Aram Publishing House, said that he and his colleagues Omer Faruk Kurhan and Taylan Tosun had been charged over the book "Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media," written by Mr. Chomsky and Edward S. Herman, which argues that corporate and government pressures distort news coverage. Mr. Tas said that Ender Abadoglu, the translator of the book, published in Turkey in March, was also likely to be indicted. Mr. Tas was tried and acquitted in 2002 for publishing "American Interventionism," a collection of essays by Mr. Chomsky that included criticism of the Turkish government's treatment of its Kurdish minority and of American arms sales to Turkey. The European Union has warned Turkey that prosecution of intellectuals and writers is harmful to its bid for membership.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/05/books/05chomsky.html





AOL Ponders Free Internet Service

America Online, the online unit of Time Warner, is considering offering its services, including e-mail, free to customers who already have a high-speed internet connection, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.

Under terms of the proposal, which comes amid AOL's quickly depreciating subscriber base, AOL would no longer charge subscription fees to users with high-speed internet access or a dial-up service from another provider. AOL customers with "dial-up" internet access through AOL would still have to pay a monthly fee of as much as $26, the newspaper said.

The Journal said AOL's total U.S. subscriber base fell by 850,000 in the first quarter to 18.6 million. At the end of 2002 the company had 26.5 million subscribers.

Nearly one-third of AOL's 18.6 million subscribers already have high-speed Internet access, and AOL expects that 8 million of its existing dial-up customers would jump on the new offer. Lost revenue could be offset by lower expenses, including layoffs in the company's already troubled marketing and customer service departments.
http://www.wired.com/news/technology...n_technology_1





AOL Said, 'If You Leave Me I'll Do Something Crazy'
Randall Stross

"YOU'RE going to listen to me."

This was the taunting command of an AOL customer service representative who sounded like a jailer twirling his keychain. The customer on the phone wanted to complete his business, but the person on the other end of the phone did not share a sense of urgency.

It is fitting that the customer service representative's wish to be heard has been fulfilled on a scale he never anticipated.

When Vincent Ferrari, 30, of the Bronx, called AOL to cancel his membership last month, it took him a total of 21 minutes, including the time spent on an automated sequence at the beginning and some initial waiting in a queue. He recorded the five minutes of interaction with the AOL customer service representative and, a week later, posted the audio file on his blog, Insignificant Thoughts (insignificantthoughts.com/2006/06/13/cancelling-aol/).

Shortly thereafter, those five minutes became the online equivalent of a top-of-the-charts single.

To listen as Mr. Ferrari tries to cancel his membership is to join him in a wild, horrifying descent into customer-service hell. The AOL representative, self-identified as John, sounds like a native English speaker; he refuses to comply when Mr. Ferrari asks, demands and finally pleads — over and over again — to close his account.

"By my count, he used the word 'cancel' 21 times," said Nicholas J. Graham, an AOL vice president and spokesman. "That's not counting the I-don't-need-it's, I-don't-want-it's and I-don't-use-it's. Add the other inferences, it's probably closer to 30." Mr. Graham, almost needless to say, was sharply critical of John's lack of responsiveness.

Some people who posted comments on the Web about the recording — about 20 percent of them, in Mr. Ferrari's estimation — found it so incredible that they declared it a hoax. But Mr. Graham said the call's authenticity had been internally verified, and he sent Mr. Ferrari a letter of apology. He said John was no longer with the company.

If John's behavior had been that of a person in the grip of genuine pathological madness, the recording of the call would not have drawn the attention of so many people, nor would it have been replayed on national television and radio programs. What one hears in John is an actor performing clumsily, to be sure, but working with a script provided by his employer that confuses "customer service" with "sales."

During his travail, Mr. Ferrari does his best to nudge John away from the script: "When I say, 'Cancel the account,' I don't mean, 'Figure out how to help me keep it.' I mean, 'Cancel the account.' "

People who left online comments about Mr. Ferrari's AOL call expressed delight, more often than disbelief, in seeing public exposure of an AOL experience similar to their own. "The same thing happened to me" is a refrain among the posts. Before the advent of the Web, an encounter with inept customer service was ours to bear alone, with little recourse or means to warn others. Now, Mr. Ferrari can swiftly post on the Web a digital "documentary" that recorded his dismal experience, and news-sniffing hounds do the rest.

With the enthusiastic help of users of Digg, the much-visited site that lets readers rate news stories, the online world found its way to Mr. Ferrari's door. (Actually, too many curiosity seekers arrived that day: the server that hosted his blog crashed hard when about 300,000 visitors tried to push through the door at about the same time.) YouTube did its part in spreading the word, by making available a replay of the AOL call that was part of Mr. Ferrari's appearance on the "Today" show on NBC.

YouTube was also the place to enjoy a new one-minute gem titled "A Comcast Technician Sleeping on My Couch." The technician, in Washington, had arrived at Brian Finkelstein's home to replace a faulty modem and had to call in to Comcast's central office. Placed on hold just like powerless customers, the technician fell asleep after an hour of waiting.

How should Mr. Finkelstein have responded? By writing a letter of complaint to some distant regulatory authority that will require years before it acts? Far more effective means are now at hand. He recorded, then uploaded the video clip with some humorous asides about missed appointments and unfulfilled promises, and got immediate satisfaction in the act of sharing. More than 500,000 viewers have watched Mr. Finkelstein's video "thank you" note to Comcast.

AOL and Comcast executives in charge of customer service may long for the good old days when they had to deal only with a finite number of federal regulators and state attorneys general, not a universe of millions of Web-savvy customers.

In 2004, AOL signed an agreement with the Federal Trade Commission about problems related to — care to make a guess? — subscriber's requests for cancellation. That was followed last year with an "assurance of discontinuance" reached with Eliot Spitzer, the New York attorney general, concerning — yes — subscriber's requests for cancellation. In both cases, investigations had revealed that AOL practiced a strange form of customer service, continuing to bill subscribers who had called to cancel, and had thought that they had done so, but who were marked down as "saved."

In the New York case, AOL agreed last August to pay a fine of $1.25 million and to put into place a new system, called third-party verification, in which any caller who starts off expressing a wish to cancel and ends up being persuaded to remain a member must declare this intention to a company hired to act as a disinterested witness.

AOL internally boasts to its employees that third-party verification is an "industry-first initiative to guarantee quality," but isn't this like a parolee showing off his electronic ankle bracelet as proof of how trustworthy he is? The public embarrassment of the settlement faded with time, but then Mr. Ferrari's five-minute recording undid 10 months of public relations repair work.

A company like AOL must now submit to unceasing accountability. On the Monday after the public debut of Mr. Ferrari's call to AOL, Scott Falconer, an AOL executive vice president, sent an e-mail message to company employees alerting them to Mr. Ferrari's blog post and warned, "On any interaction, you should assume that it could be posted on the Web."

The continuing customer-service problem at AOL is one beyond the reach of an attorney general's office: it is within AOL's rights to refuse to reorganize its procedures so that a customer can depart without having to run through a sales gantlet.

The employees who handle cancellation requests belong not to a Cancellations Processing Department but rather to AOL's "Retention Queue." They are referred to as "retention consultants" and "save employees," and their bonuses depend upon the number of members who are induced to stay with offers of new enticements and deals, not on the speed with which they help members leave.

After the embarrassment of Mr. Ferrari's call, an internal memo was issued that outlined a new "streamlined offer sequence" for handling cancellation requests, but the protocol still called for pitching two offers, if circumstances permitted.

When AOL customers call to cancel, the average duration of the call is 10 to 11 minutes. If we generously assume the shorter time, then the three million members who dropped AOL in the 12 months through March had to make an involuntary investment equivalent to 250 work-years in order to wriggle free.

Mr. Graham, the AOL spokesman, did not apologize about the company's deliberate decision to deny customers the option to cancel with a click of a button online. The customers' calls to cancel provide the company with an opportunity to lead customers to services or features they had not known about, enabling them, Mr. Graham said, to "find their Eureka moment" or to accept a tempting offer of a lower price.

Fifty percent of calls that begin with the intention to cancel end up with the member deciding to stay. If members decide to proceed with the cancellation, then the phone conversation can be treated as an exit interview, helping the company learn about what it should improve. Mr. Graham said that to do anything other than this would not be "good practice."

IF I were asked to think of an online company that provides exemplary customer service to its subscribers, Netflix, the DVD rental company, would come to mind well before AOL. When I took a look to see whether Netflix offered a way for a customer to cancel membership swiftly while online, I discovered that it provides a procedure — a click on a link, a click on a checkmark box, and one more click to complete — that would take no more than two seconds. No exit interviews, no last-ditch offers while I'm held captive on the phone.

Seeing how Netflix would be so protective of my time were I to leave makes me all the more unlikely to do so.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/02/bu...ey/02digi.html





AOL Updates Retention "Offer Matrix"

Another gemstone that tumbled out of the AOL retention coal mine after Vinny's call is this update to the ominously monikered, "Offer Matrix." That's apparently the sequence of goodies doled out to customers to dissuade them from stopping service. Take the red prophylactic, Neo.

The upshot is that as of June 23, ten days after Vincent's call hit the net, AOL ordered its retention specialists to only make TWO offers during a cancellation call. If a member says no to both, the account must be canceled. What a nice idea, a policy against having protracted arguments with your customers.

Nestled amongst the ultimatums is this line:

If members...are trying to provoke the Consultant into being unprofessional, immediately cancel the account.

As a matter of conjecture, this would seem to reveal that there's some in the AOL retention hierarchy who suffer under the misbegotten notion that Vincent somehow goaded John into acting like a jerk. Wow, they STILL don't get it. See you in the welfare check line, fellas.

Also, gotta love the capital C in Conultants and M in Members. What are we now, managing a cult?!

Smoking gun, after the jump...
New Cancel Intent Offer Sequence To clarify recent changes to the offer matrix, we are issuing a new cancel intent offer sequence to ensure the most streamlined call process and best member experience possible. Starting June 23, 2006, the offer sequence outlined below MUST be used for ALL cancel intent calls. When a member calls in to cancel an AOL account, you are to ONLY pitch the member two (2) offers. If the member declines both offers, then you must cancel the member's account.

Keep in mind with this offer sequence:
You are allowed to offer additional options if the member proactively asks.
Exercise common sense. If members are irate, use strong language, interrupt offer pitch to say they're not interested, or are trying to provoke the Consultant into being unprofessional, immediately cancel the account.
Credit cannot be given to members already on or being put on a commit PI.
Remember to uphold the Keep It Real standards and be true Member Advocates!

How the New Offer Sequence Helps You
With the new streamlined offer sequence you are now able to pitch an offer more tailored to the member's needs - faster. This ensures a better member experience while also reducing your talk time.
For example, with the combination of the AOL Advantage messaging with the PI pitch, you are able to directly show the value of AOL with the PI that best fits the member's needs.
http://consumerist.com/consumer/top/...all-185493.php





AOL Internal Memos, After Vinny's Call

A disgruntled employee mailed in a triptych of AOL internal emails that followed the cancellation call heard round the world, finally launching the call's recorder, Vincent, onto The Today Show, CNBC, CNN and even generated a comic strip, a Playboy parody video, and finally, our "Where is he now?" interview.

In these AOL company documents we obtained, Scott Falconer, EVP of Member Services, transmits a rah-rah to the troops, expresses concern and appreciation for their work, and reminds them to renew their dedication to Servicing the Member.

Underneath the gloppy gloo of corporate newspeak lurks an inconvenient truth: retention consultants need to keep a 60% saves rate to keep their job.

Gotta love Scott's touting of their "third party verification" as an "industry-first initiative." Yes, those would be the same Watchmen AOL had to hire when Spitzer went after the ISP for their anti-consumer retention policies last year.

There's also a tone in the memos that instead of an unmitigated PR disaster, AOL suffered a death of family member. Given the circumstances, that's not necessarily an inappropriate turn to take.

Source documents, after the jump...

Member Services,

Recently, some AOL Member Service calls were posted on the Internet that do not reflect our serious commitment to Member Advocacy. On any interaction, you should assume that it could be posted on the web.

You have tough goals, and no doubt it can be difficult to deal with a member calling very frustrated with some aspect of their service. But we must remember the importance of creating a good member experience by being straightforward, helpful, respectful, friendly, and positive during every interaction. Imagine yourself on the other end of the phone, how would you want to be treated? Being an advocate, on behalf of members, strengthens the very foundation of what AOL stands for. AOL is our members.

In every member contact, I need you to step into your Trusted Advisor role and respond to our members in a manner that shows we are on their side. I need you to really hear what our members are saying, actively listen to them as you work to meet their needs, establishing a sense of trust and mutual respect.

I am proud to be a part of this tremendous team and know it's your personal mission to watch over our members. Please continue to focus on building a strong business - a business with member advocacy at its core.

Sincerely,

Scott Falconer
EVP, Member Services

As follow-up to the message I wrote you on Monday, June 19, I cannot stress enough the importance of maintaining our unwavering standards of ethical and effective service during every member interaction.

The aftermath of the unfortunate, disappointing and unacceptable behavior of one of our former colleagues ha been severe. Following the posting of the recorded call on the Internet, various television and print media have featured the story, including a lengthy interview this morning with the former AOL member on NBC's Today show and on CNBC, casting a very negative impression of AOL and the great work all of us in Member Services do on behalf of our members every day.

While fulfilling our Member Advocacy Commitment (the "F" in FOCUS) is Member Services' number one goal for 2006, there is no time like the present to reiterate the commitment each of us has pledged to uphold on behalf of our valued members:

As the voice of AOL, I promise to conduct myself with integrity at all times, provide excellent service, and ensure a world-class member experience on every call or interaction.

The foundation of AOL is our members. The foundation of our relationship with our members is Member Advocacy. By being uncompromising in our adherence to our standards of behavior, we will maintain a relationship of trust with our members - trust that we are on their side and will provide them with a high quality customer experience. As you can see, withholding our highest level of service from even one member is all it takes to damage the trust and credibility you have worked so hard to earn.

With all of the safeguards we have in place:
*recording and monitoring of member interactions
*our Keep it Real policy, which details our standards of professionalism and ethical behavior
* and Third Party Verification, an industry-first initiative to guarantee quality in every single retention call Any attempt to circumvent our member promise is a violation of our practices, and we maintain a zero tolerance policy for non-compliance.

Please use this unfortunate customer interaction as a reminder that we must maintain our standards of conduct at all times, maintain the goodwill of AOL, and most of all, that we must keep our promise to Fulfill our Member Advocacy Commitment!

Regards,

Scott Falconer
EVP, Member Services

Dear Member Services Colleagues,

We have had a tough week here at Member Services. Although I am sitting far away from you here in Dulles, I am listening to your member interactions and I sincerely admire your response following the recent recorded call posted on the Internet. You are responding to member after member with even more consideration, respect and patience than before.

I hear many of you experiencing more challenges that you usually face with promises of recorded phone calls and the such. Amid all of this, you continue to demonstrate that respect and consideration are the rule, not the exception - all the while continuing to be the bedrock of our business.

As you continue upholding our commitment to Member Advocacy, I want you to know if you feel overwhelmed, please reach out to your leadership team for help. We're here for you as you are tirelessly here for our Members.

Before we head into the weekend, I want to take a moment to sincerely thank you. I want each of you to know, your commitment and faithfulness to our Members has not gone unnoticed.

Sincerely,

Scott Falconer
EVP Member Services
http://www.consumerist.com/consumer/...all-185493.php





Thanks to YouTube Fans, 'Nobody's Watching' May Return From the Dead
Bill Carter

For television writers and producers it has always been about getting your show on the air.

These days? Not so much.

At the moment the most talked-about situation comedy in the United States isn't on television at all. It's on your computer, though, and you can find it on www.youtube.com, where thousands of videos of all levels of quality are posted every day.

A comedy called — with intended irony, but not in the way that it has worked out — "Nobody's Watching" has been available on YouTube for about two weeks. As of yesterday it had been downloaded more than 300,000 times by a growing legion of fans.

Most remarkable of all, the talk that the show has generated has already caught the ears of executives at several networks, some of whom are wondering if maybe this is a virus they might enjoy getting infected with.

"Nobody's Watching" seems to be another example of a story that the Internet world loves: the power of the amateur over the professionals. It is also the story of "viral video," which is what YouTube is all about. People post a snippet of self-made video, and word spreads about how funny, shocking, stupid or embarrassing it is.

But the big story behind "Nobody's Watching" is that a sitcom left for dead 18 months ago may actually spring back to life — on actual television — because its creators were too passionate about it to let it die, and because it really might be funnier than most everything else that is passing for comedy on television these days.

The man at the center of the story is Bill Lawrence, creator of "Spin City" and "Scrubs." Mr. Lawrence knows how insane the television business can be. For example, for a few years after "Scrubs" made its debut on NBC in 2001, all Mr. Lawrence heard from network executives was that the show would never be a hit because it was a single-camera filmed comedy. Only multi-camera taped comedies worked, he was told.

In the last two years Mr. Lawrence said, he has gotten into arguments with network program chiefs who have told him, "The multi-camera comedy genre is dead."

Both stances struck Mr. Lawrence as ridiculous. "The challenge," he said in a telephone interview, "was to reinvent the genre."

That was the goal of "Nobody's Watching," which Mr. Lawrence conceived with two writing partners, Garrett Donovan and Neil Goldman, who had both worked on the Fox animated comedy "Family Guy."

Their thought was that most traditional sitcoms had begun failing not because of form but because of quality: they were all bad. And so they created a couple of characters, Derek and Will, from Ohio, who believed the same thing, and they decided to let them try to make a show of their own.

The gimmick is that the two characters come to California to make their own sitcom, but at the same time they are doing it in the form of a fake reality show conceived by some fictional network executives. The studio behind the (real) project was NBC Universal Television, so NBC had first crack at the show. But Mr. Lawrence said that it was clear from the start that NBC's programming boss, Kevin Reilly, though he liked the freshness of the idea, did not think it was appropriate for NBC.

So it wound up on the development slate of the WB network. That seemed a hospitable place because WB was youth oriented, and "Nobody's Watching" was a show definitely aimed at young viewers. Mr. Lawrence said all the younger executives at that network loved the show.

The show was cast with an eye toward keeping it fresh and innovative. The two leads, Taran Killam and Paul Campbell, had extensive improvisational backgrounds. Mr. Lawrence said he insisted they become inseparable for weeks leading up to shooting the pilot, and the actors indeed became fast friends.

The other important characters included a network boss named Jeff Tucker. (Mr. Lawrence credited Jeff Zucker, the chief executive of the NBC Universal Television Group, with being such a sport that he told them he didn't mind if they used his actual name.)

The pilot, which appears intact on YouTube, pulls no punches in disparaging sitcoms the creators clearly believe have damaged the genre. By name, "According to Jim," "Coach" and "Yes, Dear," among others, are mocked by the characters.

Mr. Lawrence acknowledged that that had caused a bit of a rift between him and Greg Garcia, creator of "Yes, Dear," though he said he loved and respected Mr. Garcia's newer comedy, "My Name Is Earl," which is shown on NBC.

All went well with "Nobody's Watching" until the testing phase. Then, Mr. Lawrence said, he and his partners journeyed to a "sweaty test-screening room" in the San Fernando Valley where issues were raised by the screeners about whether the premise was confusing. That seemed to Mr. Lawrence to be the unspoken concern of WB executives, although once it was spoken, the test audiences seemed to glom onto it.

Still, those young executives at WB encouraged him the show was a sure thing. Mr. Lawrence left for New York in May 2005, ready to hear "Nobody's Watching" announced on the WB schedule. "I was not in the business to fly to New York to feel like an idiot," he said. But that's what happened. WB passed on the show.

Now his precious baby was labeled a loser. "Who was going to pick up a show that the lowly WB had rejected?" Mr. Lawrence said. He and his partners pestered their agents to try to find it a home, only to have the agents begin to beg them not to make them mortify themselves that way.

In the eyes of everyone who counted, as Angela Bromstad, the head of the NBC Universal studio, put it, "It was essentially a dead project."

Mr. Lawrence resisted that fate, but he knew he could not hold onto his cast members very long. If they got other offers, they would be gone. Paul Adelstein, who played Jeff Tucker, was hired as a semi-regular on the Fox series "Prison Break."

The earth began to move just a few weeks ago. That's when Mr. Lawrence heard that the pilot had somehow made its way onto YouTube. He said he knows who posted the video but will not reveal the name because it looks as if it turned out to be a major favor.

In the first week that "Nobody's Watching" appeared on YouTube, it was not a featured video and attracted only about 4,000 viewings. But the reaction was powerfully positive from those who saw it, prompting the site to begin featuring it. Then the viewings exploded.

Even television executives have been downloading it. Ms. Bromstad said that the Comedy Central channel called last week and asked for a DVD of the pilot, and that ABC had also expressed interest.

But NBC retains a first shot at the show. Mr. Lawrence said that Mr. Reilly had called from his vacation in Mexico last week and said he wanted to take another look. The show's offbeat characters and rapid-fire dialogue might make it an ideal partner for another comedy on NBC, Ms. Bromstad said, a show the network has struggled to find a match for: Mr. Lawrence's "Scrubs."

Could it happen? Could a dead network show be revived because of the power of individuals supporting it on the Internet?

Ms. Bromstad was cautious in her prediction. "I think it will be interesting to find out," she said.

Mr. Lawrence said he believed this was exactly the kind of development that television needed to break all kinds of hidebound traditions, including presumptions about what people will and won't watch as comedy, and decisions that are made based on small organized focus groups.

"This is so much a better way to see if people are going to respond to a show," he said.

Of course even if a network does want to take a chance on "Nobody's Watching," there is still that issue of keeping the cast together. And Mr. Adelstein is already gone, right?

"We're hoping he gets killed off this season on 'Prison Break,' " Mr. Lawrence said. Mr. Adelstein plays a special agent on that series.

What Mr. Lawrence really wants right now is for so many people to start talking about his comedy pilot now featured on YouTube that some network executive will decide, "Now I can pick this up and I won't look dumb."
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/03/ar...on/03pilo.html





Site Tempts Video Makers by Offering to Pay Them
Peter Wayner

If creators of homemade Internet video get tired of producing something for nothing, they can post their work on Lulu.tv.

The Web site, which lets people upload and watch video clips, said last week that it would begin charging a $14.95 monthly fee for a "pro" account and putting 80 percent of that money into a special fund. Each month the money will be distributed among the video creators, with the biggest share going to the person who attracted the most viewers.

Free accounts with fewer features will be available, but those users will not share in the revenues. To get the process moving, the company is priming the pot with $5,000.

Other video sites are trying different approaches to bringing in cash. YouTube, the most popular of the genre, has a deal with NBC to promote its new television shows on a special section of the site. Revver.com will share 50 percent of its advertising revenue with those who post videos there.

Bob Young, the chief executive of Lulu Enterprises who also started the open source software company Red Hat, said Lulu.tv was an experiment inspired by the traditional television broadcasting world, where the networks buy shows from producers, and shows succeed or fail based on the ratings.

"The problem with that model is that it's very capital-intensive and it's so limited," he said. "On the Internet, there's an infinite number of channels. There's no reason why there can't be several hundreds of different 'Friends'-like shows because the market is so vast."

Lulu Enterprises also runs a print-on-demand bookstore (www.lulu.com) that pays 80 percent royalties to authors after they pay a binding fee and small per-page charge. Authors are responsible for their own editing and publicity.

Mr. Young said he wanted to find the most efficient way to get money directly into the hands of the people who created the most interesting videos, while working to block people who inflated their ratings with fake clicks.

Fred Vanderpoel, a creator of television commercials based in Hawaii, has posted lyrical videos on Lulu.tv in his off hours, documenting a triathlon and people like the musician Calvin Keys. He said the promise of payment would be a welcome incentive. "I'm interested in anything that will make money," he said.

But he said he was not yet sold on setting up a pro account. "I don't know if I would spend money to make money," he said.

Jon Gibs, the director of media analytics at Nielsen/NetRatings, said he was enthusiastic about the Lulu experiment. "If this ends up being a successful model, they could quite easily be making money off of advertising, and even move to a subscription model if it's high quality," he said.

The pro accounts might also help cut down on the number of junk videos found on other sites, Mr. Gibs said.

There will not be any advertising on the initial version of Lulu.tv. For now, Mr. Young said, the model should be as simple as possible. "Like any experiment, if you try to do too many things at once, it's hard to study the feedback," he said. "The more focused the experiment, the easier it is to see what works."
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/03/te...gy/03lulu.html





FF DOA?

ABC Looks Beyond Upfront To DVR, Commercial Ratings Issues
David Goetzl and Wayne Friedman, Thursday

ABC has held discussions on the use of technology that would disable the fast-forward button on DVRs, according to ABC President of Advertising Sales Mike Shaw, with the primary goal to allow TV commercials to run as intended.

"I would love it if the MSOs, during the deployment of the new DVRs they're putting out there, would disable the fast-forward [button]," Shaw said.

While MSOs risk losing some of their DVR customers if fast-forwarding were blocked, Shaw said the cable operators--who are beefing up their own local ad sales operations--"are in the same business we're in." "They've got to sell ads too," he said. "So if everybody's skipping everybody's ads, that's not a long-term business model for them either."

Shaw also threw cold water on the idea that neutering the fast-forward option would result in a consumer backlash. He suggested that consumers prefer DVRs for their ability to facilitate on-demand viewing and not ad-zapping--and consumers might warm to the idea that anytime viewing brings with it a tradeoff in the form of unavoidable commercial viewing.

"I'm not so sure that the whole issue really is one of commercial avoidance," Shaw said. "It really is a matter of convenience--so you don't miss your favorite show. And quite frankly, we're just training a new generation of viewers to skip commercials because they can. I'm not sure that the driving reason to get a DVR in the first place is just to skip commercials. I don't fundamentally believe that. People can understand in order to have convenience and on-demand (options), that you can't skip commercials."

Shaw said it's crucial for ABC and networks to hold these discussions with MSOs while DVR penetration is still in its early stages. DVRs are at around 10 percent of U.S. TV households. "It's in our interest and the MSOs' interest to figure out something that works for the two of us," he said.

The frequently outspoken Shaw made his comments Wednesday in a post-upfront interview where he offered up another round of no-nonsense commentary.

Looking back on the protracted upfront, Shaw said he was surprised that competitors at CBS and Fox were so quick to fold the tent and accept buyers' refusals to pay for increased ratings generated from DVR viewing. Shaw had argued earlier in the spring that the ratings jumps--which have reached double-digit percentages for top shows--had value, and he intended to charge for them. He continued that position early in the upfront until it became clear the two other networks weren't willing to hold the line, and had agreed to negotiate on "live" ratings only.

"I'm sure they told their upper management in their two companies why it wasn't a good idea for them to do so," Shaw said. "They and their management must have decided that the same thing we thought was important wasn't important."

Shaw said if he knew he'd be the lone proponent for negotiating on time-shifted ratings, he might have changed course. "Obviously, going back to last February, if I knew nobody else on the entire sell-side of the equation was going to open their mouths besides us, I don't know if we would have gone down the same track," he said.

Some research executives--even at networks with sales departments that acted differently--had argued before the upfront that ads viewed in fast-forward mode generated value for advertisers, since consumers were at least partly exposed to their messages. But Shaw said ABC was only interested in finding a way to receive compensation for un-skipped ads.

ABC's upscale audience, coupled with a strong performance in "A" counties and in leading markets, made his network a must-buy. "If you were looking for those attributes, with the programming on ABC that we deliver, are you going to move those dollars to CBS?" he said. "It doesn't make sense."

No shrinking violet, Shaw is the only sales chief at a major network to speak to the media as part of an upfront postmortem.

As questions fade about whether to negotiate solely on DVR ratings, Shaw said ABC will move aggressively to make deals based on Nielsen's new "commercial ratings," set to be unveiled at the start of the new season. He said ABC was interested in possibly using them as a currency in this upfront, but buyers felt implementing the logistics in such an abbreviated time period wasn't feasible. "We were too late in bringing that to the market for practical reasons," Shaw said. But, he added, "it's going to transform how people buy and plan television."

But Shaw said ABC executives will be fanning out to agencies and advertisers over the next two weeks to present an analysis of commercial ratings data from the last six months, which presents ABC in a favorable light. He added that some scatter business may be written based on the new ratings.
http://publications.mediapost.com/in...rt_aid=45 264





TV Is Now Interactive, Minus Images, on the Web
Maria Aspan

Many "Rescue Me" viewers weren't happy, and they weren't being quiet about it.

The June 20 episode of the series, on FX, concluded with a violent sex scene between the main character, played by Denis Leary, and his estranged wife. Bloggers and other online fans protested, saying that the scene depicted — and appeared to endorse — rape.

So the executive producer of "Rescue Me," Peter Tolan, who had written the episode with Mr. Leary, resorted to an increasingly popular site for television writers who want to defend their editorial choices. Mr. Tolan went to the Internet.

In a June 21 posting on the discussion boards of the Web site Televisionwithoutpity.com Mr. Tolan tried to appease "Rescue Me" fans. "Welcome to writing a television drama," he wrote at the end of his lengthy first message. "We're trying to do something different," he explained. "Sometimes we succeed, sometimes we don't."

His readers might have retorted, "Welcome to the Internet." Mr. Tolan is not the first television writer to defend his choices online, nor even the first to communicate via Television Without Pity.

But his attempt to reach out to his show's viewers reflects a growing awareness among television writers of their shows' online communities, as well as of a variety of ways to engage them.

Mr. Tolan did not respond to requests for an interview. But according to John Solberg, a spokesman for FX, Mr. Tolan now regrets trying to explain himself on Television Without Pity. Rather than defusing the controversy over the episode, his response "stirred it up more," Mr. Solberg said.

"If he had to do it again," Mr. Solberg continued, "he wouldn't do it."

Tara Ariano, a co-founder and co-editor of Television Without Pity, said she was surprised by the amount of attention Mr. Tolan's response had received. But she also sounded bemused by writers like him who debate their online critics without apparently anticipating any negative response. "Any way that you interact with your fans online is potentially reckless," she said. "When you write a script like that, you've got to expect some controversy."

That type of controversy might have been easier for writers and producers like Mr. Tolan to ignore in the past. Internet fans — and occasional writer interaction with them — have existed since the birth of the Internet, although until recently they were mostly confined to science-fiction or cult series, like "Star Trek" and "Buffy the Vampire Slayer."

But in the age of widespread broadband access, iTunes video and video sites like Youtube.com, television viewers are migrating en masse to the Internet, looking not only to watch their favorite shows online but also for ways to discuss and engage with those shows.

As a result, the blogs, communities like livejournal.com and message boards devoted to television shows are becoming more popular — and mainstream — forums for viewer discussion and feedback. And the people behind the shows have taken note. "As fractured as the media market has become, the Internet has become a great means of rising above the noise," said James Duff, the creator and executive producer of "The Closer" on TNT.

"The Internet is going to turn television into the equivalent of AM radio," he predicted. "People will be talking about their shows and watching their shows in the same place."

Many writers welcome the increased feedback from online viewers. "Television writers really work in isolation," said Ronald D. Moore, who, with David Eick, is the executive producer of the Peabody Award-winning Sci-Fi Channel series "Battlestar Galactica."

"You have to fight this feeling that you're doing this show for yourself, your wife and your friends, who are the only people you watch it with," he said. "The Internet really changed the immediacy of the contact" between writers and viewers. Networks and producers are now cultivating that contact, often creating Internet-based content to accompany their series and attract online viewers.

Mr. Moore releases a podcast to accompany almost every new episode of "Battlestar Galactica," while Mr. Eick appears in mockumentary-style behind-the-scenes "video blogs" on the Sci-Fi Channel's Web site, www.scifi.com. Even highly rated, more mainstream series like ABC's "Grey's Anatomy" and NBC's "Office" have thriving online communities devoted to viewer discussion, which have yielded attempts by series creators to engage those communities via writers' blogs or cast members' pages on myspace.com.

Mr. Duff, who writes a blog about "The Closer" for TVGuide.com, said he focused primarily on the production, rather than on the specific episodes or storylines.

"I'm not using my blog to supplement the program," Mr. Duff said in an interview. "If you have to explain what you said in a television program, then you've left some stuff out."

According to Michael Ausiello, a senior writer for TV Guide and TVGuide.com, certain shows lend themselves more to attempts to cultivate Internet fandom than others. "Serialized shows succeed more," Mr. Ausiello said, citing ABC's "Lost" and "Veronica Mars," which is in transition from UPN to the new CW, as examples. "You're not going to see fans of the procedural shows up all night dissecting the shows," he said.

As more television show creators communicate with their online fans, they often discover that their shows already have passionate, and often critical, Internet communities. Television Without Pity, a site that Ms. Ariano began with Sarah D. Bunting and David T. Cole in 1998 as Dawsonswrap.com, is one of the most prominent and established of these forums, with about one million unique visitors a month, according to Ms. Ariano and Nielsen/NetRatings. The site blends irreverent commentary on episodes of shows ranging from "The Apprentice" to "The Sopranos" with an array of discussion boards devoted to almost every show ever broadcast.

Although many television writers may keep an eye on its boards, few get directly involved with the fans, Ms. Ariano said. Rob Thomas, the creator and executive producer of "Veronica Mars" and one of the few such "show runners" to post openly on the Web site's forums, said in an interview that Television Without Pity functioned "as a big focus group."

"They're very intense fans," he added, "the really devoted ones."

But, Mr. Thomas added ruefully, as viewer response to "Veronica Mars" became more critical in the show's second season, the experience of reading the site was "like being in a room with a thousand ex-girlfriends," he said.

"The new shine wore off," he added.

Mr. Thomas conceded that his awareness of the fans' reactions had occasionally influenced the way he wrote "Veronica Mars." Fans hated a second-season character played by Tessa Thompson, he said, leading him to overcompensate in an effort to make the character likable. "I feel like I sold out a little," Mr. Thomas said. "She became a little saintly by the end. If I had to do it over again, I'd leave her a little more complicated."

The consequences of Mr. Thomas's communication with his fans may be relatively unusual. But other writers and producers interviewed also said they regarded their fans with a mixture of gratitude and caution. Mr. Eick of "Battlestar Galactica" said online fandom could "be a very powerful weapon to help you develop the audience of your show."

"But," he continued, "you can't rely on it too heavily, or the show becomes too inside, and you end up marginalizing your larger audience."

Mr. Moore, who reads fan boards and occasionally responds to viewer concerns via his scifi.com blog, said he felt obligated to acknowledge the devotion of online "Galactica" fans. "I was a fan, too," he said. "I'm always impressed; they really pay attention. It forces you to deal with the criticism. It's easy to read the good stuff."
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/08/ar...on/08fans.html





Missing You
Jack

Seems like it’s been forever since I’ve heard any of the music on the hundreds of out of print LP's stolen from my cars over the years. Like Lesley Duncan’s Moonbathing and Dirk Hamilton's various minor masterpieces and irreplaceable acetates and items so dear to a trembling heart. Stolen I say, not copied! Why couldn't I have been struck instead by dedicated uber pirates who in the dead of night open trunks and meticulously rip vinyl before gently returning them with surfaces swept clean, leaving me to wonder only why my discs were so pristine? What I would’ve given to be a "victim" of such reverence for ownership!





Hollywood Awakens to the Geriatric Demographic
Stephen Farber

WHEN Hollywood marketing gurus speak about "the older audience," they generally don't mean older by much. Box office tallies, for instance, are often reviewed with an eye to the percentage of moviegoers over and under the age of 25.

Studio specialty divisions like Fox Searchlight, Sony Classics and Focus Features might stretch the definition of "older" audiences to moviegoers between 35 and 50. Viewers in that range helped to make movies like "Sideways" and "The Constant Gardener" successful.

But where does that leave truly older audiences, fossils over 50 or 60 or even 70? To Hollywood these have been the perennially invisible men and women. Yet change is afoot. Some filmmakers and smaller distributors have discovered a secret society of mature moviegoers, and they have decided that this audience may actually be worth courting.

One of the most striking recent forays toward the older audience comes from Susan Seidelman, 53, who established herself as a hip young director when she made "Smithereens" in 1982 and "Desperately Seeking Susan" with Madonna in 1985.

Last year Ms. Seidelman made "Boynton Beach Club," a comedy about romance in a community for the elderly in Florida, starring a raft of 60-ish performers like Dyan Cannon, Sally Kellerman, Brenda Vaccaro, Len Cariou, Joe Bologna and Renée Taylor. Ms. Seidelman financed the movie independently, then tried to sell it to one of the studios.

"They all said to me, 'It's a nice movie, but we don't believe there's enough commercial potential in that demographic,' " Ms. Seidelman recalled. "That didn't compute for me. I'm over 50, and I go to the movies at least once a week. My mother is over 70, and she goes twice a week. My 16-year-old son barely goes at all. He's online all the time. I think people over 50 are the most under-represented audience." (Statistics compiled by the Motion Picture Association of America show that moviegoers 50 and older accounted for 23.9 percent of the total audience last year, up slightly from 21.3 percent in 2001.)

The film got the attention of audiences in South Florida and Palm Springs, Calif., when Ms. Seidelman engineered a limited release in those regions. Now, "Boynton Beach Club" will be seen around the country when Roadside Attractions releases it on Aug. 4.
Richard D. Zanuck, a veteran producer who is now 71, learned some lessons about the senior market 17 years ago when he and his wife, Lili Fini Zanuck, produced "Driving Miss Daisy" with Jessica Tandy and Morgan Freeman. No one wanted to finance it, but the movie went on to earn more than $100 million and won the Academy Award as best picture of 1989.

"After the movie succeeded," Mr. Zanuck recalled, "one executive told me that 'Driving Miss Daisy' was a 'nonrecurring phenomenon.' Millions of people went to the theater to see it. Why is that nonrecurring?"

Recent films that have tapped the older audience include "Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont," with Joan Plowright as a widow moving into a rooming house in London; "The World's Fastest Indian," starring Anthony Hopkins as a motorcyclist whose speed puts younger cyclists to shame; and "Mrs. Henderson Presents," with Judi Dench and Bob Hoskins playing unlikely partners in a burlesque theater during World War II. On Sept. 15 ThinkFilm will release "Keeping Mum," which stars Maggie Smith as a murderous housekeeper working for Kristin Scott-Thomas and Rowan Atkinson.

By some accounts it was "Ladies in Lavender," which featured Dame Maggie and Dame Judi as two sisters living on the Cornwall coast, that really opened eyes to the potency of this neglected audience. The movie was filmed in the fall of 2003 and played at the Toronto International Film Festival in the fall of 2004. Michael McClellan, vice president and film booker for Landmark Theaters, saw it and felt strongly that people who frequented his art houses would respond to the movie.

"But the studios didn't see a value in a film that would appeal to a niche audience," he said. "I was baffled by their response. I felt the cast and the period setting had a definite appeal."

Partly because of Mr. McClellan's prodding and partly because the film did big business when it opened in Britain early 2005, Roadside Attractions finally decided to distribute the film. Originally Howard Cohen and Eric D'Arbeloff, the chief executives of the company, had turned it down along with everyone else.

"We listened to all the naysayers who said 'Ladies in Lavender' was a plotless movie about two old ladies," Mr. Cohen said. The film grossed just under $7 million in the United States, which is impressive for a British period film. Mr. McClellan pointed out that since most of the admissions were at elderly discount prices, the actual number of paying patrons was larger than the grosses indicated. "It appealed to a more literate, literary audience," Mr. McClellan said.

"Mrs. Palfrey" opened at the end of last year in New York and Los Angeles in order to qualify for the Academy Awards. The initial reviews were only fair, and the movie got lost in the Christmas rush. To make matters worse, the marketing people forgot to submit Dame Joan's name to the academy for consideration as best actress, so the movie seemed doomed.

But when it played at the Palm Springs Film Festival in January, it won the audience award in that desert retirement community. The distributor, Jour de Fête Films, booked it immediately after the festival in two Palm Springs theaters, where it played for three months and grossed close to $100,000, with minimal advertising in the local newspapers. Jour de Fête began to open it in other cities around the country, and in cities where the reviews were good, the grosses were astonishingly high. It did big business in Seattle, Detroit, Boston, Minneapolis, Santa Fe and other cities.

On June 2 "Mrs. Palfrey" reopened at one of Landmark's theaters in Los Angeles and out-grossed three newer movies at the multiplex. It is now in its fourth week of reissue, and it will also reopen at the Quad Cinema in New York this summer. The film's director, Dan Ireland, commented: "How many films are made for an elderly audience? They respond because the film treats the older characters with humanity."

Most distributors, however, are still skeptical about this audience. When Ms. Seidelman initially found no buyers for "Boynton Beach Club," she decided to open the film herself in a couple of areas with a large elderly population. "I was calling the newspapers to place the ads," Ms. Seidelman reported. "My mother was handing out flyers and putting up posters in delis in West Palm Beach." (Her mother, Florence Seidelman, had suggested the story and is credited as one of the film's producers.) The movie earned $100,000 in its first week in just 10 theaters.

Mr. Cohen and Mr. D'Arbeloff had originally turned down the movie, just as they had turned down "Ladies in Lavender," but they started paying attention to the grosses. "The per-screen average jumped out at me," Mr. Cohen recalled. "And the movie was not just playing in art houses." In a mall in Orlando, Fla., Ms. Seidelman observed, the movie outgrossed "The Da Vinci Code." So Roadside Attractions decided to pick the film up for national distribution.

"It's an event movie for older audiences because it's about dating and sex," Mr. Cohen said. He noted that Dyan Cannon was in one of the emblematic movies about the sexual revolution of the 60's, "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice." "Now she's in an emblematic movie about senior sexuality," he observed. "This movie really shows that 60 is the new 40," Mr. D'Arbeloff added.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/02/mo...gvpDr80fZu0Sug





Oliver Stone's 'World Trade Center' Seeks Truth in the Rubble
David M. Halbfinger

INSIDE a flimsy temporary office on a dusty movie lot here, a young man sits in front of a computer, showing off a three-dimensional rendering of the collapse of the World Trade Center. It was assembled by merging the blueprints for the twin towers — the before-picture, you might say — with a vast collection of measurements, including some taken with infrared laser scans from an airplane 5,000 feet above Lower Manhattan, just days after 9/11.

With a few clicks, Ron Frankel, who has the title pre-visualization supervisor for Oliver Stone's new 9/11 film, begins to illustrate the circuitous path that five Port Authority police officers took into the trade center's subterranean concourse, until the towers above them fell, killing all but two.

As Mr. Frankel speaks, behind his back a burly man has wandered through the door. He is Will Jimeno, one of the two officers who survived. He has been a constant presence on the movie set, scooting from here to there in a golf cart, bantering with the actor playing him and with Mr. Stone, answering questions and offering suggestions — a consultant and court jester. But he has never seen this demonstration before, he says, pulling up a chair.

Mr. Frankel, continuing with his impromptu show-and-tell, says the floor beneath Mr. Jimeno, Sgt. John McLoughlin and their three fellow officers dropped some 60 feet, creating a 90-foot ravine in the underground inferno. The difference between instant death and a chance at life, for each of the men, was a matter of inches.

Mr. Jimeno sits quietly, absorbing what he's just seen and heard. His eyes moisten. "I didn't know this," he says. "I didn't know this. I didn't know there was a drop-off here. This is an explanation I never knew about." He pauses. "We try not to ponder on it, because we're alive. But it answers some questions. That, really, played a big part in us being here." The countless measurements taken and calculations made by scientists and government agencies helped ground zero rescue workers pinpoint dangerous areas in the weeks after the attacks. The data also provided a fuller historical record of how the buildings collapsed and lessons for future architects and engineers.

Only a movie budgeted as mass entertainment, though, could harness all that costly information to reconstruct the point of view of two severely injured and bewildered men, who didn't even know the twin towers had been flattened until rescuers lifted them to the surface many hours later.

Their story, and those of their families, their rescuers and the three men killed alongside them, is the subject of Mr. Stone's "World Trade Center," which Paramount plans to release on Aug. 9.

The quandary that Paramount executives face is a familiar one now, a few months after Universal's "United 93" became the first 9/11 movie to enter wide theatrical release: How do you market a movie like this without offending audiences or violating the film's intentions? Carefully of course, but "there's no playbook," said Gerry Rich, Paramount's worldwide marketing chief. In New York and New Jersey, for example, there will be no billboards or subway signs, which could otherwise hit, quite literally, too close to home. And the studio is running all of its materials by a group of survivors to avoid offending sensibilities.

But Paramount, naturally, wants as wide an audience as possible for this film.

Nicolas Cage, who plays the taciturn Sergeant McLoughlin, says the movie is not meant to entertain. "I see it as storytelling which depicts history," he says. "This is what happened. Look at it. 'Yeah, I remember that.' Generation after generation goes by, they'll have 'United 93,' 'World Trade Center,' to recall that history."

Whether Mr. Stone set out to make a historical drama or a dramatic history isn't entirely clear. Mr. Jimeno and Mr. McLoughlin, who have both since retired from the Port Authority, say the script and the production took very few liberties except for the sake of time compression.

"We're still nervous," Mr. Jimeno said last fall, after shooting had shifted from New York and New Jersey to an old airplane hangar near Marina del Rey. "It's still Hollywood. But Oliver — it's to the point where he drives me crazy, trying to get things right."

There are many people of course who have been driven a little crazy for other reasons by some of Mr. Stone's more controversial films, "JFK," "Natural Born Killers" and "Nixon" chief among them. But in several interviews, sounding variously weary, wounded and either self-deprecating or defensive, Mr. Stone spoke as if his days of deliberate provocation were behind him.

"I stopped," he says simply. "I stopped."

His new film, he says, just might go over as well in Kansas as in Boston, or, for that matter, in Paris or Madrid. "This is not a political film," he insists. "The mantra is 'This is not a political film.' Why can't I stay on message for once in a while? Why do I have to take detours all the time?"

He said he just wants to depict the plain facts of what happened on Sept. 11. "It seems to me that the event was mythologized by both political sides, into something that they used for political gain," he says. "And I think one of the benefits of this movie is that it reminds us of what actually happened that day, in a very realistic sense."

"We show people being killed, and we show people who are not killed, and the fine line that divides them," he continues. "How many men saved those two lives? Hundreds. These guys went into that twisted mass, and it very clearly could've fallen down on them, and struggled all night for hours to get them out."

By contrast Paul Haggis is directing the adaptation of Richard Clarke's book on the causes of 9/11, "Against All Enemies," for the producer John Calley and Columbia Pictures.

Asked if that weren't the kind of film he might once have tried to tackle, Mr. Stone first scoffs: "I couldn't do it. I'd be burned alive." Then he adds: "This is not a political film. That's the mantra they handed me."

Mr. Stone says he particularly owes his producers, Michael Shamberg and Stacy Sher, for taking a chance on him at a time when he had gone cold in Hollywood after a string of commercial and critical disappointments culminating in the epic "Alexander" in 2004. "They believed in me at a time when other people did not, frankly," he says. " 'Alexander' was cold-turkeyed in this town, I think unfairly, but it was, and I took a hit. Nobody's your friend, nobody wants to talk to you."

Mr. Stone came forward asking to direct "World Trade Center" just about a year ago. He decided it would require a different approach from, say, "JFK." "The Kennedy assassination was 40 years ago, and look at the heat there, a tremendous amount of heat," he says. "I was trying to do my best to give an alternative version of what I thought might have happened, but it wasn't understood. It was taken very literally. 'Platoon,' I went back to a Vietnam that I saw quite literally, but it was a twisted time in our history.

"This — this is a fresh wound, and it had to be cauterized in a certain way. This is a very specific story. The details are the details are the details."

The details that led to the movie's making began in April 2004, when Andrea Berloff, a screenwriter, pitched a story about Mr. Jimeno's and Mr. McLoughlin's "transformation in the hole" to Ms. Sher and Mr. Shamberg. Ms. Berloff, who had no produced credits, was candid about two things:

"I didn't want to see the planes hit the buildings. We've seen enough of that footage forever. It's not adding anything new at this point. I also said I don't know how to end the movie, because there are 10 endings to the story. What happened to John and Will in that hospital could be a movie unto itself. Will flatlined twice, and was still there on Halloween. And John was read his last rites twice."

The producer Debra Hill, who had optioned the rights to the two men's stories, was listening in on the line. When Ms. Berloff was done, she recalls, Ms. Hill said, "I don't want to speak out of turn, but I think we should hire you."

Ms. Berloff and Mr. Shamberg headed to New York to meet with the two officers and their families, and to visit both the Port Authority Bus Terminal, where the men had once patrolled, and ground zero. In long sessions with the Jimenos in Clifton, N.J., and with the McLoughlins in Goshen, N.Y., Ms. Berloff says, she quickly learned that both families, despite the nearly three years that had elapsed, remained emotionally raw. "Within 20 minutes of starting to talk they were losing it," she says. "We all just sat and cried together for a week."

Before leaving, Ms. Berloff says, she felt she had imposed on, exhausted and bonded with the two families so much that she warned them that in all likelihood she would not be around for the making of the movie. "I had to say, 'The writer usually gets fired, so I can't guarantee I'll be there at the end,' " she recalls. "But I'd recorded the whole thing, and I said they shouldn't have to go through this with a bunch of writers. They'd have the transcripts to work from."

Ms. Berloff returned to Los Angeles, stared at her walls for a month, she says, and then wrote a script in five weeks, turning it in two days before her October wedding.

Ms. Hill died of cancer the following March. Mr. Shamberg and Ms. Sher moved ahead, circulating the script to Kevin Huvane at Creative Artists Agency, and to his partners Bryan Lourd and Richard Lovett. Mr. Lourd gave it to Mr. Stone, Mr. Lovett to his client Mr. Cage.

The agency also represents Maria Bello, who plays Mr. McLoughlin's wife, Donna, and Maggie Gyllenhaal, who plays Alison Jimeno. Ms. Gyllenhaal, who'd just seen "Crash," suggested Michael Peña, who made a lasting impression in a few scenes as a locksmith with a young daughter. (Mr. Peña did a double-take, he confesses, upon hearing that Mr. Stone was directing a 9/11 movie: "I'm like, let me read it first — just because you're aware of the kind of movies that he does.")

Given the need to shoot exteriors in New York in September, the cast and crew raced to get ready for shooting. The actors aimed for accuracy in different ways. Mr. Cage says he focused on getting Mr. McLoughlin's New York accent right, and spent time in a sense-deprivation tank in Venice, Calif., to get a hint of the fear and claustrophobia one might experience after hours immobile and in pain in the dark. Mr. Peña all but moved in with Mr. Jimeno.

Ms. Gyllenhaal had her own problems to solve. That April she had stepped on a third rail, saying on a red carpet at the Tribeca Film Festival that "America has done reprehensible things and is responsible in some way" for 9/11. She apologized publicly, then met privately with the Jimenos, offering to withdraw if they objected to her involvement. "We started to get into politics a little bit, and Will said, 'I don't care what your politics are,' " she recalls.

With Mr. Jimeno and Mr. McLoughlin vouching for the filmmakers, more rescuers asked to be included, meaning not only that dozens of New York uniformed officers would fly to Los Angeles to re-enact the rescue of the two men, but that there were more sources of information to replace Ms. Berloff's best guesses with vivid memories.

Ms. Bello, who had gone to St. Vincent's Hospital on 9/11 with her mother, a nurse, and waited in vain for the expected deluge of injured to arrive, contributed a scene after learning from Donna McLoughlin of a poignant encounter she had had while waiting for her husband to arrive at Bellevue.

Some of the film's most fictitious-seeming moments are authentic. Mr. Jimeno's account of his ordeal included a Castaneda-like vision in which Jesus appeared with a water bottle in hand. But Mr. McLoughlin recalled no hallucinations, or nightmares, or dreams: only thoughts of his family. "He kept saying I'm sorry — 20 years in the job, never gotten hurt, and here we go and I'm not going to be there for you," Ms. Berloff says. "So we tried to dramatize that."

Nearly everything else in the movie is straight out of Mr. Jimeno's and Mr. McLoughlin's now oft-told story: the Promethean hole in the ground, with fireballs and overheated pistol rounds going off at random; the hundreds of rescuers, with a few standouts, like the dissolute paramedic with a lapsed license who redeems himself as he digs to reach Mr. Jimeno.

And the former marine who leaves his job as a suburban accountant, rushes to church, then dons his pressed battle fatigues, stops at a barbershop for a high-and-tight, heads downtown past barricades saying he's needed and winds up tiptoeing through the perilous heap calling out "United States Marines" until Mr. Jimeno hears him and responds. Mr. Stone says he is adding a note at the end of the film, revealing that the marine, David Karnes, re-enlisted and served two tours of duty in Iraq, because test audiences believed he was a Hollywood invention.

Reality can be just as gushingly sentimental as the sappiest movie, Mr. Stone acknowledges, especially when the storytellers are uniformed officers in New York who lived through 9/11. And particularly when it comes to Mr. Jimeno and Mr. McLoughlin, who have struggled with the awkwardness of being singled out as heroes when so many others died similarly doing their duty, and when so many more rescued them.

"You could argue the guys don't do much, they get pinned, so what," Mr. Stone says. "There will be those type of people. I say there is heroism. Here you see this image of these poor men approaching the tower, with no equipment, just their bodies, and they don't know what the hell they're doing, and they're going up into this inferno, they're like babies. You feel saddened, you feel sorry for them. They don't have a chance."

Mr. Cage says he once mentioned to Mr. Stone that their audience had lived through 9/11: "That it's not like 'Platoon,' where most of us don't know what it's like to be in the jungle."

"He said, 'Well what's your point?' " Mr. Cage says. "And my point is that we all walk into buildings every day, and we were there, and we saw it on TV, so this is going to be very cathartic and a little bit hard for people."

Despite its fireballs, shudders and booms, Mr. Stone's film is also unusually delicate, from the shadowy intimacy of the officers' early-morning awakenings to the solemnity of their ride downtown in a commandeered city bus, to the struggle of their wives to cope with hours of uncertainty and then with false reports of their husbands' safety.

"It's not about the World Trade Center, really. It's about any man or woman faced with the end of their lives, and how they survive," Mr. Stone says. "I did it for a reason. I did it because emotionally it hit me. I loved the simplicity and modesty of this movie.

"I hope the movie does well," he adds, "even if they say 'in spite of Oliver Stone.' "
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/02/movies/02halb.html





Signs of Life at the Box Office (if Not a Full Recovery)
Sharon Waxman

Three teenagers loitered last week outside the ticket booth of an AMC Theater at the upscale pedestrian mall here, skateboards underfoot, the marquee beckoning overhead.

They were weighing whether to see "Superman Returns," the latest big-budget, Hollywood extravaganza to come hurtling out of the gate.

Siegfried Bodolai, 16, called Siggy, had already seen the film once and found it old-fashioned, though he is enough of a movie buff to consider seeing it again. "We're more the 'Spider-Man' 'X-Men' generation," he said. His friend Daniel Andres, 17, was in no great hurry to see "Superman." "The movies are repetitive," he said. "It seems like there's about eight stories. It's like I'm seeing the same movie, almost."

After abandoning theaters in worrying numbers last summer, American moviegoers are returning to the multiplex, steadily if slowly. Through the first 25 weeks of the year, domestic box-office revenue — helped by a boost in ticket prices — was up nearly 5 percent, to $4.6 billion, though it still trailed 2004, according to the tracking company Exhibitor Relations. Movie attendance was up about 1.65 percent to 699 million for the first 25 weeks, after a sharp decline the year before.

The totals grew over the weekend as Warner Brothers' "Superman Returns" took in $84 million over a six-day period that began with its release on Tuesday night, while 20th Century Fox's "Devil Wears Prada" has had $27 million in ticket sales since Friday. For the seventh consecutive weekend total ticket sales in the United States outpaced last year's disappointing performance.

The film industry continues to fret over competition from video games, home entertainment systems and the Internet, but the recovery provides evidence that going out to see movies on a giant, communal screen remains a central part of the American leisure experience.

But that's because Hollywood is trying harder.

The week's performance by "Superman Returns," a $210 million-budget revival of the old superhero franchise, has been typical of the summer so far: big movies yielding reasonably strong box-office returns, though far from the high-water marks of the recent past. During a similar period in 2004, for instance, "Spider-Man 2" took in nearly twice as much as "Superman," $152 million, for Sony Pictures Entertainment.

"The good news is the bleeding has stopped from last year," said Bruce Friend, managing director of OTX Entertainment, an online research firm. "But it hasn't rebounded to the levels of two years ago."

Hollywood's next shot at a runaway hit comes on Friday, when Walt Disney Pictures releases "Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Man's Chest." With the stars Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightley, the film has strong female appeal, and that points toward one of Hollywood's major survival strategies.

As the once reliable young male audience continues to drift, studios have been trying to widen their demographic appeal. A study last year by OTX found that young men saw 24 percent fewer movies in summer 2005 than they did in summer 2003, a finding reinforced in a new poll by Nielsen Entertainment.

The shift was apparent this summer in an adult-oriented blockbuster like "The Da Vinci Code"; or in a romantic comedy like "The Break-Up," which appeals to couples; or in a horror film like "The Omen," which draws adolescent girls; or in a chick-flick comedy like "The Devil Wears Prada." Those movies, though hardly atypical, represent a more eclectic mix than 2003, which brought "Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines," "The Matrix Reloaded," "Bad Boys II" and "S.W.A.T.

The audience for "Superman" was weighted heavily toward moviegoers over 25, said Dan Fellman, Warner's president for theatrical distribution. "Superman is skewing older as a character," he said.

With young men becoming less reliable, finding a broader audience is necessary, some say in Hollywood. Jeff Blake, vice chairman for Sony Pictures Entertainment, said: "I think for a long while everyone was dining on the fact that young males were pretty much available every single weekend. It's a matter of which film they choose.

"It was almost as if we lived in a world where this group would go to the multiplex every week and choose what they see. Now they don't necessarily go to the multiplex every week, and we have to convince them we have something exciting for them to see."

Mr. Blake pointed out that excitement among moviegoers was "infectious," as people drawn to theaters by one film are often snared by an attractive trailer for another.

"When you make movies people want to see, they flock to them," said Bruce Snyder, president for distribution for Fox. "And you have to speak about one movie at a time. That's so key."

In fighting its battles one movie at a time, Hollywood has been helped by the international audience, which flocked to some films that were struggling to hit their marks in the United States. Paramount's "Mission: Impossible 3," for instance, took in $205 million at the foreign box office, but only $131 million domestically; Sony's "The Da Vinci Code" had an astonishing $495 million in ticket sales abroad, compared with about $210 million at home.

But none of this resolves the problem of how to keep American moviegoers coming back to theaters. One new study raises the specter of a new core audience of movie devotees, which it calls "über-media consumers." The study, conducted by Nielsen Entertainment and released in June, suggested that those who go to the movies most often, 10 times per year or more, are also those who most frequently buy DVD's, which are usually considered a chief rival for box-office dollars.

In a poll of 2,800 moviegoers who bought tickets online, the study found that 83 percent of them also "frequently" or "sometimes" buy the DVD of the movie they saw in the theater.

In other words, the study noted, seeing movies at the theater and at home "are not mutually exclusive occurrences."

Adrienne Becker, the general manager of Nielsen Entertainment's strategic development group, who conducted the study, said the data argued strongly for a need to protect the theatrical releases of movies by not competing with a simultaneously released DVD. Thirty-six percent of those polled said they would skip the multiplex if movies were released simultaneously on DVD, which Ms. Becker said would be "devastating" to theatrical exhibitors.

For the moment Hollywood seems to have backed away from the notion of releasing movies simultaneously on different platforms, with some studios preparing to unveil pricier video-on-demand services that offer movies within several weeks of the theatrical release.

But Ms. Becker warned that success over the long haul would require more creativity in giving viewers more control over how they choose their entertainment.

"It would be very irresponsible to say, 'Look at the summer box office, all things are wonderful,' " she said. "There are fundamental, transformative things going on in the way people consume."
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/03/movies/03boff.html





Copy Protection Hole In Blu-ray and HD DVD Movies

The Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD are new data carriers for high-resolution motion pictures. For fear of piracy, Hollywood had the developers install a cornucopia of copy prevention mechanisms on them. For instance, the film data on the disks are protected by means of the Advanced Access Content System (AACS). Digital output only reaches the monitor via connections encrypted by means of High Bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP). This copy protection chain is designed to ensure that no unencrypted data can be grabbed.

But this security chain has a giant hole. Computer magazine c't has discovered that the first software players running on Windows XP allow screenshots of the movies to be created in full resolution. To do so, you only need to press the Print key on your keyboard while the movie is running. Such a screenshot function could then be automated to produce copies of HD movies both from Blu-ray Discs and from HD DVDs picture by picture. As c't calculated, the performance of current PC systems is sufficient for a clean recording using this procedure. Once a pirate has all of the individual pictures, they can be put together to create a complete movie and mixed with the audio track that is grabbed separately.

This copy protection hole affects both Sony's first Blu-ray PC Vaio VGC-RC 204 and Toshiba's first HD DVD notebook Qosmio G30. Both of them use special OEM versions of Intervideo's WinDVD player software.

When asked to comment, Toshiba confirmed the security hole found by c't, which affects the computers already sold, and announced updates for the player software and graphics card driver. These new software versions should disable the screenshot function.
According to Toshiba, however, the original WinDVD version does not violate the security stipulations in the AACS LA. Toshiba therefore does not expect the first WinDVD version to be blocked by an update of the AACS key. By switching the keys, which would be necessary for new HD DVD movies, the AACS LA could force users to update their software, thus closing the copy protection hole.
http://www.heise-security.co.uk/news/75103





Share your own special way

Device Records Smells To Play Back Later
Paul Marks

IMAGINE being able to record a smell and play it back later, just as you can with sounds or images.

Engineers at the Tokyo Institute of Technology in Japan are building an odour recorder capable of doing just that. Simply point the gadget at a freshly baked cookie, for example, and it will analyse its odour and reproduce it for you using a host of non-toxic chemicals.

The device could be used to improve online shopping by allowing you to sniff foods or fragrances before you buy, to add an extra dimension to virtual reality environments and even to assist military doctors treating soldiers remotely by recreating bile, blood or urine odours that might help a diagnosis.

While a number of companies have produced aroma generators designed to enhance computer games or TV shows, they have failed commercially because they have been very limited in the range of smells they can produce, says Pambuk Somboon of the Tokyo team.

So he has done away with pre-prepared smells and developed a system that records and later reproduces the odours. It's no easy task: "In video, you just need to record shades of red, green and blue," he says. "But humans have 347 olfactory sensors, so we need a lot of source chemicals."

Somboon's system will use 15 chemical-sensing microchips, or electronic noses, to pick up a broad range of aromas. These are then used to create a digital recipe from a set of 96 chemicals that can be chosen according to the purpose of each individual gadget. When you want to replay a smell, drops from the relevant vials are mixed, heated and vaporised. In tests so far, the system has successfully recorded and reproduced the smell of orange, lemon, apple, banana and melon. "We can even tell a green apple from a red apple," Somboon says.

Smell researchers are interested in the institute's work. "It would be interesting to know just what range of smells this new system can detect and recreate," says Stephen Brewster, a computer scientist at the University of Glasgow, UK, who is studying whether smell can be used to help people quickly identify digital photos without opening them. "This could be an interesting delivery system for our work."
http://www.newscientisttech.com/chan...25586.300.html





Opera Press Releases

Ubuntu Makes Opera 9 available for easy download and installation

After the launch of Ubuntu 6.06 LTS, Canonical is pleased to announce the availability of Opera 9 for Ubuntu. With just a few clicks of the mouse, all Ubuntu users can download and install the latest version of the Opera browser, which was released to critical acclaim on June 20.

With its innovative technology and ease of use, Opera is a perfect match for Ubuntu. The two organizations have similar beliefs and values that are woven into their products.

"Opera 9 provides the most advanced browsing experience on Linux today," said Håkon Wium Lie, CTO, Opera Software and long-time Ubuntu user. "We've had a Linux browser for a long time, but Opera 9 includes new optimizations specifically for the platform. I think Ubuntu users will like how easy it is to install Opera. It gives me yet another reason to love Ubuntu."

"As a part of our programme to deliver a choice of the very best applications available, we have worked closely with the Opera team, and are able to make the very latest version immediately," said Malcolm Yates, Partner and ISV Manager at Canonical Ltd. "With a few easy clicks from the Ubuntu desktop, all Ubuntu 6.06 LTS users can install Opera 9."

By using the Ubuntu Add / Remove Programs feature, users can choose to install a wide variety of applications. This announcement continues the drive to ensure Ubuntu gives real choice and real flexibility as well as an easy to use interface that everyone can use.

Ubuntu users can learn more about what the Opera browser can do at http://www.opera.com/features.
http://opera.com/pressreleases/en/2006/07/06/02/





China Restricts Internet Cafe Access
AP

China has launched a campaign to enforce curfews at Internet cafes before schools let students out on summer vacation, a news report said Monday.

The focus of the weeklong crackdown, launched Saturday, "is to prevent the entry of kids under the age of 18," said a Culture Ministry official quoted by the China Daily newspaper.

It said violators could face penalties ranging from being shut down for 15 days to losing their license to operate.

Internet cafes are required to limit the hours that underage customers can spend online and only allow in a few minors at a time.

China has the world's second-biggest population of Internet users after the United States, with 110 million people online, but tries to regulate what Web surfers can see online.

Rules on children in Internet cafes were imposed after Chinese officials warned that students were spending too much time playing online games and were getting access to violent and obscene material.

Summer vacation for most Chinese schools begins in mid-July.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...LATE=DE FAULT





China Cracks Down On Blogs, Search Engines
AP

China's Internet regulators are stepping up controls on blogs and search engines to block material it considers unlawful or immoral, the government said Friday.

"As more and more illegal and unhealthy information spreads through the blog and search engine, we will take effective measures to put the BBS, blog and search engine under control," said Cai Wu, director of the Information Office of China's Cabinet, quoted by the official Xinhua News Agency.

The government will step up research on monitoring technology and issue "admittance standards" for blogs, the report said, without providing any details.

China encourages Internet use for business and education but tries to block access to obscene or subversive material. It has the world's second-biggest population of Internet users after the United States, with 111 million people online.

China launched a campaign in February to "purify the environment" of the Internet and mobile communications, Xinhua said.

China has 37 million Web logs, or blogs, Xinhua said, citing a study by Beijing's Tsinghua University. It said that number was expected to nearly double this year to 60 million.

The government has launched repeated crackdowns on online material considered pornographic.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...06-30-03-54-47





Copycat

Can China Create Its Own Hollywood?
By Tim Wu

China has one of the world's most straightforward industrial policies: Identify successful foreign industries, determine what makes them successful, and clone them. This strategy has worked well in telecommunications, where China's Huawei makes products so similar to Cisco's that Cisco has sued for patent and copyright infringement. Similarly, China Unicom just launched the RedBerry, which, as you might guess, is a cheaper version of the BlackBerry. Next on the list: copying Hollywood.

Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, China won over the film world by developing quality art-house movies that brought home international festival prizes. But the American commercial film industry offers more than a Palme d'Or: It's lucrative both domestically and overseas, and it serves to spread American ideals and culture. That's why both the Chinese film industry and Chinese politicians want their own version of Hollywood, to create blockbusters of Titanicproportions. It's a strategy that's half-succeeding; the Chinese industry is managing to make a few films that sell in the United States. But the other side of Hollywood—domestic box-office success—is proving elusive. As a result, the Chinese industry is increasingly making films designed to fit American tastes, like the Wal-Mart factories in China that make baseball mitts for American Little-Leaguers.

So far, China's main strategy has been to repurpose its existing assets with filmmaker Zhang Yimou at the forefront of the movement. Zhang is known to film snobs as a director of movies like the critically acclaimed Raise the Red Lantern—productions about the bitterness of life consisting mainly of actress Gong Li looking forlorn and tormented. But that's the old Zhang. Over the last few years he's metamorphosed into a big-time martial-arts director, responsible for two successes (or sellouts, depending on your point of view): the epics Hero and House of Flying Daggers, which have made the bulk of their money in the United States.

The retooling strategy, however, doesn't always work. Take the 2005 film The Promise, which put Chen Kai Ge, director of Cannes-winning Farewell My Concubine, at the helm of a martial-arts romance. In addition to an A-list Chinese director, the movie boasted the largest budget in Chinese film history and starred Hong Kong actors Cecilia Cheng and Nicolas Tse. What could go wrong? Everything. The Promise features a hero who struggles to act through his giant golden helmet, costumes more Flash Gordon than Tang dynasty, and some of the worst CGI since Jar-Jar Binks. The Weinstein brothers planned to distribute the film in the United States but pulled out after getting a whiff of it.

China's not alone in producing such duds; Hollywood has its share of Jersey Girls, too. But the Chinese movie industry is further hampered by the fact that it's very difficult for a big film to make money without international distribution. While successful American films make money in the domestic market, and supplement that with ticket sales overseas, the big Chinese films need foreign distribution to break even. Ironically, government policies designed to protect the film industry brought about this state of affairs.

Last week I was in the Beijing cafe Zha Zha, and I asked the barista how often she goes to the movies. "I've never been to a movie theater," she replied—encapsulating the problem. In China, there is less than one movie theater for every 1 million people: That's something like 2,000 people for every seat.

Why so few theaters? There would be more movie theaters if they made more money, but theaters can only make money if they have something good to show. For trade and ideological reasons, China maintains a quota of about 20 foreign films a year; it even blocks films made with Chinese actors, like Memoirs of a Geisha.

Censorship policy adds another level of unpredictability. The Da Vinci Code made its world debut in China (four hours before Cannes). The movie seemed poised to become a giant domestic hit, but on June 9, theaters were abruptly ordered to stop screening the film. No one knows exactly why.

Finally, the bootleg DVD industry doesn't help. As most people know, bootleg DVDs are everywhere in China; my local grocery store in Beijing carries everything from Birth of a Nation to The Bicycle Thief, all for about $1 apiece. Film enthusiasts benefit, but the DVDs compete with films that are still in theaters and gut legitimate DVD sales—a key source of revenue in the United States. While Hollywood complains about losing money to bootleg DVDs, the Chinese bootlegs hurt the local industry, too. The greatest consequence may be cultural: The omnipresence of bootleg DVDs has created a generation of Chinese consumers accustomed to watching cheap DVDs on inexpensive large-screen TVs instead of buying popcorn and movie tickets.

What does this all mean for Chinese film? It means America is the best place for a Chinese film to make money, after all. We'll likely see less funding for films that Chinese people enjoy—like those of director Feng Xiao-Gang, filled with quirky Chinese humor—and more movies designed for American tastes (kung-fu aplenty). For better or for worse, it's less beating Hollywood than serving it. Consider it the Kung Pao Chickenization of Chinese film.
http://www.slate.com/id/2144789/





Piracy Hurting China's Own Industries
Joe McDonald

Kingsoft Corp.'s English-Chinese dictionary program is used on most of China's 60 million PCs. That's the good news. The bad news: Kingsoft doesn't make any money from it, because 90 percent of those copies are pirated.

One by one, the Beijing-based software maker has seen its sales of such popular products destroyed after black market producers flooded the market with cheap copies.

Today, Kingsoft's 600 programmers focus on making what it hopes can't be copied — online games and business and anti-virus programs that have to be linked to its own computers in order to function.

"Piracy has had a big impact on us, making it so we can't get powerful and compete with Microsoft," said Ren Jian, a former Microsoft manager who is Kingsoft's chief operating officer.

Kingsoft is far from alone. Rampant Chinese piracy of music, movies and software that raises howls of protest from the United States, Europe and elsewhere is hitting China's fledgling creative industries hardest of all. Robbed of sales in their key home market, companies are short of money to develop new products to compete with foreign rivals.

Losses to piracy are especially damaging at a time when communist leaders want China to transform itself from the world's low-cost factory into an "innovation society" that makes its own profitable technology and brand names.

China has long been the world's leading source of illegally copied music, movies, designer clothes and other goods. U.S. officials say its exports cost legitimate producers worldwide up to $50 billion a year in lost potential sales.

At home, sidewalk vendors sell unlicensed DVDs of Chinese movies for as little as 50 cents. Software makers say more than 80 percent of programs used on China's PCs are pirated.

Few brands are immune. A government list released this month of recent major piracy cases included a gang that sold $300,000 worth of fake Wuliangye, a popular Chinese liquor. Another trafficked in counterfeit upmarket Chunghua cigarettes.

Sporting goods maker Li Ning Co., which has ambitions to expand abroad, says it sees copies of its shoes and athletic clothes in markets alongside Nike and Adidas counterfeits.

Kingsoft, the software maker, aspired to be the "Microsoft of China," but was forced by piracy to stop selling games, a media player and other mass-market programs. Ren, the COO, says the consumer logic is simple: A pirated copy of Kingsoft's Chinese-English dictionary costs one-tenth the $12 price of the real thing.

The onslaught has forced Kingsoft to narrow its product range, with two-thirds of its programmers now working on online role-playing games that players access on Kingsoft's computers for a monthly fee — part of a thriving Chinese market for online games.

President Hu Jintao called attention to piracy's cost to China in a May 27 speech to Communist Party officials. Enforcement "is an urgent need for ... enhancing the country's core competitiveness," Hu said.

"We should strengthen our law enforcement and lawfully and severely crack down on and effectively curb law-breaking and criminal acts of violating intellectual property rights," he said.

The government has tried to undercut the black market for software by ordering computer makers this year to sell PCs only with legitimate operating systems already installed. Officials have been told to remove pirated software from government computers. Commerce Minister Bo Xilai said in March that process was under way, but he set no deadline for compliance.

And Chinese companies are fighting back in court. The government says they are responsible for 90 percent of lawsuits filed against Chinese copyright and trademark violators.

Yet trade groups and foreign governments say that despite repeated crackdowns, China's output of pirated goods is rising steadily, along with its rapid economic growth.

A report in May by the American Chamber of Commerce in China said that 43 percent of 76 U.S. companies surveyed said they have seen an increase in the amount of counterfeiting of their products, while 55 percent said the amount has stayed the same. Only 7 percent saw a decrease.

Losses to piracy have made film studios and music companies reluctant to finance new releases at a time when they might be cashing in on rising foreign interest in Chinese pop culture.

Chinese musicians say piracy makes producing new CDs so unprofitable that they are treated as just promotional material for concerts, which provide performers' real income.

Web sites that carry unlicensed copies of CDs often give away the music for free and make money from advertising. That takes advantage of a provision in Chinese law — one that trade groups are lobbying Beijing to change — that requires pirated goods to be sold before violators can be prosecuted.

Chengdu Xiangsha Music Co., in the southwestern city of Chengdu, got out of its main business of distributing CDs and promoting new performers in 2003 when it saw that losses to piracy "would be huge," said general manager Liu Jiming.

Now Xiangsha focuses on supplying music to Web sites and mobile phone companies, Liu said.

"Things are much better now," he said. "But we are still bothered by illegal downloads and online linking."

Losses to software piracy are especially damaging to China's plans.

Beijing wants to see the industry flourish, both to create jobs and to reduce reliance on foreign software, which communist leaders consider a strategic weakness. China has scores of small software companies and its universities produce thousands of programmers every year.

But battered by piracy, software developers are switching from selling products under their own brand names to working as subcontractors for U.S., Indian and other foreign companies — just the anonymous status that Chinese leaders don't want. Most Chinese software companies — such as DHC, Sinocom Software Group Ltd., Broaden Gate Systems Inc. and UFSoft Corp. — focus on subcontracting for foreign clients instead of selling to the general public.

A report this month by the Business Software Alliance, a U.S.-based industry group, said 86 percent of software used in China last year was pirated — one of the world's highest rates — though it said that was an improvement over 2004's figure of 90 percent.

Even though China is the world's No. 2 PC market, "the legal market for software is relatively small, because of the large piracy rate," said Jeff Hardee, the BSA's vice president for Asia.

"When the piracy rate is as high as it is, it's hard for (Chinese) producers to develop a market, while the foreign developers have the whole world market," he said.

In a separate report in December, BSA argued that China could see its information technology industries triple in size and create 1.8 million new jobs if its piracy rate were cut by just 10 percentage points over the next four years.

"China could potentially gain more than any other country," the report said.

Ren says the problem is not lack of official enforcement but Chinese consumers, whom he complains don't see that they are supporting innovation when they pay for legitimate goods.

"Ordinary Chinese people don't see anything wrong with buying pirated goods," he said. "We need to change people's attitudes. That is going to take time."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060702/...ZuBHNlYwMxNjk0





Russia Pirate Industry Is Booming
Alex Nicholson

When "The Da Vinci Code" premiered in Moscow, Konstantin Zemchenko started his count.

As the Motion Picture Association of America's top pirate-fighter in Russia, Zemchenko's operatives were monitoring the capital's markets and street stalls for when the first bootleg copies would appear.

His goal? A modest 10-day delay. In the worst pirate market in the world after China, that translates into a home run for Hollywood, which says it loses well over $300 million a year in Russia.

On this occasion, the pirates won: Three days after the premiere, a grainy, camcorder copy of the $100 million-plus budget movie was available on DVD for under $6. Two days later a pristine version with interactive menu was on sale for the same price.

The ease with which pirate films, music and software enter the Russian marketplace and the increasingly ingenious means counterfeiters use to get them there are cited by United States Commerce Department officials as a $1.8 billion per year barrier to Russia's entry to the World Trade Organization.

It sometimes feels like running to stand still for Zemchenko, whose Russian Anti-Piracy Organization, or RAPO, sifts through the millions of discs that police confiscate.

"We're choking on the volume," he said in a recent interview in RAPO's headquarters, located in a converted kindergarten on a leafy lane in northern Moscow. Stacks of boxes overflowing with confiscated DVD's clutter its narrow corridors.

In quieter times, Zemchenko organized film festivals abroad as foreign relations director of the USSR's Union of Cinematographers.

Now his job involves more than just long hours in the office.

"There are threats — all sorts of things. You get complicated moments, you get phone calls," he said, reluctant to discuss an uncomfortable topic. Anti-piracy organizations have repeatedly stressed the link between organized crime and counterfeiting.

RAPO's warehouse currently holds about $7 million worth of pirated DVD's — enough to make him very unpopular indeed with the people who had hoped to profit from their sale.

While the pressure from Washington has been reflected in a sharp rise in police raids over the past year on optical disc plants and warehouses — the backbone of the counterfeiting industry — the number of pirate optical disc lines in Russia has doubled over the past two years. In Russia there are 50 licensed factories housing a total of 60 DVD and 68 CD production lines, with a maximum capacity of 800 million discs per year. Zemchenko estimates 90 percent produce both licensed and pirate discs loaded with music, films and software.

This bottomless capacity, combined with gaps in Russia's copyright law and corruption among beat cops and movie hall staff alike, make Zemchenko's 10-day limit a tough challenge.

In the case of "The Da Vinci Code," the first version to appear was a "tryapka" or "rag" — Russian slang for the low-fi copies shot on camcorder directly in the cinema. Despite warnings shown before screenings, Russia's copyright law doesn't bar the practice: if a pirate is kicked out of the movie hall for filming, he can claim the copy was for personal use and successfully sue for the cost of his ticket.

The later, high quality copy was made from the original 35mm film using a telecine machine — the expensive equipment used by television studios to convert film onto video, DVD or computer files. A comparative rarity elsewhere in the world, copies made with telecine are a dime a dozen in Russia: assuming the film can be covertly removed from the cinema to one of the 20 telecine machines in Moscow, there are no clauses in the copyright law that make the process of copying a motion picture to disc any harder than photocopying a newspaper.

And the pirate markets and stalls that dot Russian cities and the capital are as abundant as ever: Corruption among Russia's poorly paid police force means that the stalls' owners can bribe their way out of most situations.

Now Zemchenko is gearing up to meet the challenge of pirate movie downloads from the Internet: http://www.kinozal.ws lets visitors download The Omen and other recent releases, while infamous Russian pirate music site allofmp3, which is already challenging Apple Computer Inc.'s iTunes with its knockdown prices, also offers films.

Russian prosecutors are already pursuing a criminal case against allofmp3, but Igor Pozhitkov, head of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry in Russia, calls the current situation with the site "ridiculous."

"It's as though a person is stealing your electricity. The prosecutors determine that what they are doing is illegal, but they just keep on stealing it while you have to wait for the courts," he said.

Already Zemchenko has assigned a staffer to monitor and weed out web providers that host such sites full time.

Total losses to Russian and foreign companies from all forms of intellectual property theft clock in at between $4 billion and $6 billion, according to German Gref, Russia's minister of economic development and trade.

And while Russian President Vladimir Putin has called on the government to take advantage of the country's soaring oil revenues to steer the economy away from its traditional reliance on its raw mineral riches, Chris Israel, the U.S. coordinator for international intellectual property enforcement, argues that goal is already in jeopardy.

"You certainly cannot have a globally competitive, knowledge-based economy without strong intellectual property rights protection," Israel said.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060701/...ZuBHNlYwMxNjk0





Digg Me or Bury Me

Using (or is that exploiting?) a people-powered news aggregator to attract hits.
Jack Shafer

Slate's redesign, which launched Monday, includes a feature that some Web sites have had for years: A front-page pane that displays the most-read stories, the most blogged, and the most e-mailed. For obvious reasons, staffers are as interested in the "most" lists as readers, and so on Wednesday (June 28) our copy chief Rachael Larimore sent around e-mail asking if anybody had an idea why a two-year-old piece by tech writer Paul Boutin ("So Tired," July 13, 2004) had cracked the daily top five.

Not to take anything away from Boutin, but the piece isn't anywhere near his best. It's a light story about tired.com, a site that invites readers to send e-mail describing why they're tired.

Josh Levin, Boutin's editor, quickly determined the origin of the story's new popularity: Digg.com, the husky and growing people-powered news aggregator. Digg has 300,000 registered users, reports Google Watch, draws 8.5 million unique visitors a month, and serves 9.5 million pages a day. Think of Digg as a Billboard Top Million, only for Web pages rather than CDs.

Here's how Digg works: Registered users submit Digg-worthy Web content—news stories, blog entries, videos, pictures, what have you—to the site by writing a synopsis and linking back to the piece. Then, other registered users "community rank" the submission with votes, aka "diggs," and the highest-ranked stories earn promotion to Digg's front page. Registered users can also "bury" stuff they don't like. Think of the registered users as thousands of unpaid editors—or filters, to use Webspeak—and regard their picks as the wisdom of the crowd, to use James Surowiecki's felicitous phrase. Nonregistered users are free to explore the site, of course, and click through to stories. Think of them as readers (or drinkers).

Digg's FAQ says submitted stories reside in the upcoming stories section for between 12 and 24 hours. The story drops from the queue if it doesn't earn enough diggs to rise to the Digg home page and is automatically jettisoned if it receives enough "bury story" demerits. It's very Darwinian.

Ordinarily, an archived piece such as Boutin's might garner a couple of hits a month for Slate, but the Digg referral produced 26,506 page views of it in one day. The user who nominated Boutin's story, "Pitfan," submitted it to Digg on Monday, June 26. It's the only submission he's ever made to Digg under that name, although he's dugg 129 pieces since registering on the site in November 2005. As I write this Friday morning, Boutin's story has earned 1,586 diggs, which makes it the 65th-most-dugg story on Digg's Technology section this week. That's not a huge number of diggs by the site's standards. The most-dugg story of the week in the Tech section is a Digg blog piece about the rollout version 3.0 of Digg, with 10,317.

The dramatic resurrection of Boutin's story inspired me to compose a piece about Digg—the column you're reading now—and to digg it under the username "ShaferAtSlate" within minutes after Slate posts it to test the referral power of Digg. If Digg can steer enough readers to an old story about a marginal Web site to make it one of Slate's top stories, what might it do for a fresh story about a powerful Web site?

Ordinarily, my columns pull anywhere between 8,000 and 40,000 page views a day, the traffic being determined by the sexiness of my subject and other variables. I credit blog discussions of my columns about blogs, New Orleans, race, and TV blondes with generating tens of thousands of additional page views. I always benefit from links from Romenesko, the top aggregator of press news and opinion, and when a "Press Box" appears on the Slate home page with a big illustration or graces the MSN home page, my average page counts can double, triple, or grow by 10X.

In my pursuit of extra hits, I've taken what I consider to be an ethical and transparent path. There's nothing inherently wrong about promoting something you wrote, especially if you promote it using your own name. If you don't digg yourself, who will? Digg's terms of service prohibit individuals from creating multiple accounts to artificially inflate a digg count, a policy I consider sensible. Inflating digg counts with multiple accounts is as sleazy as fraudulently boosting the Amazon ranking of a book you've written by purchasing them in bulk from the site. (Some authors have done just this.)

If I were a craven seeker of hits, I'd link directly to my Digg submission here. Instead, I'll offer only a modest pointer: If you want to digg or bury this piece, search for "slate.com" in Digg's search window and scroll the results until you find it. (At present that search query returns 21 Slate stories.) The summary of my story will explain who I am and why I wrote the column and submitted it. Upon submission of my piece I'll also send e-mail to the Digg team to inform them of this experiment. If they decide this experiment violates their terms of service—which I don't think they will—they'll be free to delete my digg from the site.

In my mad quest for hits, I've given myself a leg up by writing about Digg instead of, say, puppy-dog tails. Digg users love stories about the site. At least six of Digg's top 30 stories this year are about it, and most are about technology, owing to its origin as a tech-centric site. The more techie an article, the better its chance of rising, I've observed. But Digg's tech focus is changing, with beta sections named Science, Videos, Entertainment, Gaming, and World & Business now rounding out the site.

The surge of hits Digg sent to Slate proves that Web sites with lots of stories in the bank—we've published about 33,000 stories in 10 years—could better exploit those archives. We routinely "recycle" old stories when events give them new relevance, we published a list of the most-read stories from 2005 in late December, and in our 10th anniversary celebration last week we exhumed some of our greatest hits to commercial success. If the digging of Boutin is any guide, readers are eager to trust other like-minded readers to guide them to good content. Maybe Web sites like Slate should set up Digg-like voting booths to do that. Slate's discussion forum, "The Fray," which already requires registration, could be adapted to this end.

Will my quest offend Digg users as an evil manipulation of their beloved site and prompt them to bury my submission? They tend to despise users who engage in self-promotion on the site. Or will they judge my story on its own merits?

I'll be back in a couple of days with a follow-up reporting whether I got dugg or buried.

******

Bloggers, don't try this Digg experiment at home before you read Monetize's "Can Your Site Survive a Digg?" The piece predicts that the tidal wave of hits could swamp and sink your site if you're not prepared!
http://www.slate.com/id/2144785/?nav=ais





Tail Is Wagging the Internet Dog
Dan Mitchell

THE media columnist Jack Shafer was confused, and maybe a little jealous. He wondered last week why a two-year-old article by Paul Boutin, his fellow Slate writer, was suddenly drawing huge traffic numbers. Mr. Boutin's article was a light, news-free feature about a Web site (tired.com) that asks users if they are tired, and if they are, to explain why. Mr. Shafer, meanwhile, was pounding away on columns about the hottest media topics — and drawing considerably less traffic.

"Not to take anything away from Boutin," Mr. Shafer wrote, "but the piece isn't anywhere near his best" (slate.com).

Mr. Shafer found a reason for the sudden surge of traffic: somebody had come across the old article and posted it to Digg. com, where registered users vote on which articles are the most (or the least) interesting or worthwhile.

Chris Anderson, editor of Wired magazine, would no doubt see this as a perfect example of "the long tail" in full wag. The lengthening of the long tail means that old or minimally popular stuff — like an old Slate article or a new album by an obscure Bolivian folk musician — is becoming more valuable thanks to the falling costs of production, storage and distribution. Or as Mr. Anderson puts it on his blog, markets are "increasingly shifting away from a focus on a relatively small number of 'hits' at the head of the demand curve and toward a huge number of niches in the tail" (longtail.com).

He first wrote about this phenomenon in Wired two years ago, igniting a lively online conversation that continues. His book on the subject "The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More" will hit shelves on Tuesday.

Thanks to technologies like the Internet, "there is now less need to lump products and consumers into one-size-fits-all containers," he writes. So, for example, most record stores don't stock Frank Zappa's 1968 album "Cruising With Ruben and the Jets." Ten years ago, it would have been difficult to find. Now, it can be bought with the click of a mouse, or instantly downloaded from an online music service.

This might all seem obvious, but Mr. Anderson argues that the implications are vast, complex and not understood nearly well enough.

Moving the economy, and the culture, "from mass markets to million of niches," he writes, amounts to nothing less than a reordering of society, affecting everything from world markets to your plans for this weekend.

Fishing for Information The Monterey Bay Aquarium offers Seafood Watch, an online database that helps consumers choose their fish based on health and environmental factors. For instance, enter "salmon" into the search form and you learn that the coho, sockeye and king varieties are rated "best" and that you should "avoid" farmed chinook and Atlantic salmon because fish farmers often use pesticides and antibiotics (mbayaq.org).

Swordfish populations are rebounding, but imported swordfish remains a problem partly because fishermen often "accidentally catch threatened or endangered sea turtles, sharks and sea birds in large numbers." The site offers alternatives and provides links to scientific reports.

Internet In-Box The Internet is "not a big truck," Senator Ted Stevens, Republican of Alaska, informed his Senate colleagues on June 28. "It is a series of tubes."

Mr. Stevens was assailing a proposed amendment to a bill in the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee; he is the committee chairman. The amendment, which failed in a tie vote, would have barred Internet service providers from charging fees to give some companies speedier access to the Internet. (The audio of Mr. Stevens's comments is at publicknowledge.org.)

The Net is neutral, with all content providers having the same level of service, in terms of speed. Mr. Stevens says this is a problem.

"Just the other day," he said, "an Internet was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday and I got it yesterday. Why? Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the Internet commercially."
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/08/bu.../08online.html





How To Swing
Timothy Noah

Looking back from the 22nd century, future historians will marvel at the current era's obsession with extending intellectual property rights well past any reasonable limit. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the United States Patent and Trademark Office's determination to grant a patent to even the most absurd claims that cross its desk. Four years ago a patent attorney in Minnesota named Peter Olson demonstrated this by submitting the following patent in the name of his five year-old son, Steven. The patent was granted. Read it and weep.
http://www.slate.com/id/2144722/





Fight Over IPTV to Reach Head July 11
Wesley Brown

An AT&T Inc. spokesman said Friday that the phone giant has worked out what is expected to be a final agreement to offer digital TV services in central Arkansas.

But a rival cable industry representative said the plan to offer digital TV in Little Rock and surrounding areas could end up in court if officials of the capital city allow AT&T to offer the service without a cable franchise agreement.

"Litigation has been discussed," said Len Pitcock, executive director of the Arkansas Cable Telecommunications Association.

The battle over digital TV service in Little Rock could have broad implications statewide and nationally, experts say. If the city's current deal with AT&T is approved, then it would open the door for other cities and municipalities across the state to enter similar agreements with the phone giant, Pitcock said.

The complex issues surrounding AT&T's proposal to soon roll out so-called Internet Protocol Television, or IPTV, could eventually be fleshed out at a Little Rock Board of Directors meeting July 11.

There, AT&T and Comcast representatives will make the case for and against AT&T's new broadband TV service, which the company argues is not cable.

The new digital service was last discussed at a city board meeting June 13, but no vote was taken and neither side was allowed to make presentations.

However, a vote on AT&T's 200-channel premium video service could take place this time, officials of the city, AT&T and Comcast agree.

"By the nature of adding it to the agenda, there could be a vote," said Bryan Day, assistant city manager for the city of Little Rock. "But it is not an easy decision to make, given the last meeting. This is a new thing and there is a lot of information to absorb."

Day said he has not been closely involved in recent talks concerning the new service, but knows that City Manager Bruce Moore is determined that any new TV product not thwart competition.

AT&T spokesman Ted Wagnon said the "agreement on the table" will be a positive benefit to local citizens.

"This will be a great deal for competition and consumer choice," Wagnon said.

But a letter from a local attorney for Comcast sent recently to Little Rock Mayor Jim Dailey, Moore and city directors said the cable provider vehemently opposes the proposal.

Little Rock attorney Scott Trotter argues that AT&T should have to apply for cable franchises in the cities it might serve. Comcast has a franchise agreement with Little Rock, which requires the Philadelphia-based cable provider to wire the entire city, North Little Rock and surrounding communities.

"The only way to achieve an agreement that is not a barrier to competition is to require AT&T Arkansas to accept a well-developed franchise contract similar to that between the city and Comcast," Trotter wrote June 26. "Otherwise, the city will be granting AT&T Arkansas preferentially advantageous terms that tilt the scales of competition in favor of one competitor."

Trotter also raised concerns about a draft of the proposed agreement between AT&T and Little Rock that was obtained from the city under the state Freedom of Information Act.

"Our concern is that they are going to ram it through," Pitcock said. "I am not sure that is in the best interest of the public."

Comcast's legal counsel in Philadelphia has also sent the city a letter concerning the "most favored nation" clause in the cable company's franchise agreement with the city, said Mike Wilson, the cable giant's area vice president of governmental affairs.

That agreement in Comcast's original franchise guarantees the company the lowest rate that AT&T or any other rival offers.

"We have not made a decision, legal or otherwise," Wilson said. "We have stated since the very beginning that the video product by AT&T is cable and should be subject to the same rules."

San Antonio-based AT&T first revealed in March that it was in talks with Little Rock and other central Arkansas municipalities concerning the launch of Internet-based TV. Maumelle signed the first IPTV licensing agreement in the state with AT&T in early May.

Under current law, cable providers negotiate a franchise agreement with each community they serve. In exchange, the company pays a fee to the local unit of government, typically from 3 percent to 5 percent of annual revenues.

Wagnon said the nation's largest phone company is currently building a fiber optic network in Maumelle to support the IPTV launch there, which he said could take place by early 2007.

AT&T has agreed to pay the city a 4.25 percent fee collected from new customers that sign up for the service.

"That deal was political," Pitcock said of Maumelle's pact with AT&T.

The cable industry spokesman argued that the draft of the AT&T plan shows that the phone company is hedging on providing public educational programming and public emergency alerts, along with pre-selecting the best markets to offer the new service.

Armed with a citywide map with cherry-like dots where AT&T plans to offer IPTV service, Pitcock said the phone company only plans to offer digital service in high-income areas.

"They are talking out of both sides of their mouth," he said.

Wagnon countered that the agreement with Little Rock shows very clear that AT&T will offer the same level of educational programming and emergency broadcasting that Comcast now offers.

He also said that any information that Comcast has been able to gather concerning AT&T's fiber optic buildup is likely misleading.

"How would they get that information?" Wagnon asked. "We have not said for competitive reasons where we are going to provide initial service."

Wagnon did said that AT&T will use the same approach to launch its IPTV as it did when it first offered high-speed DSL Internet service in 1999. He said service will be offered initially in the most densely populated areas of the city, which includes west Little Rock and other suburban areas.

"Our buildup is nowhere near complete. It's a three-year plan," he said.

Just last week, AT&T rolled out its first IPTV offering at AT&T's home base in San Antonio, part of the company's planned $4 billion digital TV offering to compete with Comcast, Time Warner and other cable giants nationwide.
http://www.arkansasnews.com/archive/...ws/336799.html





AT&T Is Calling to Ask About TV Service. Will Anyone Answer?
Ken Belson

Jesse Vallado looks like your average cable guy: tool belt around hips, golf shirt with company insignia and a van stuffed with gear.

But Mr. Vallado, who has been installing television services for two decades, now works for the phone company — AT&T — not the local cable provider. Hunched over a cable box outside a customer's suburban two-story home in a gated community here, he plugs in adapters and a bunch of wires that will turn on AT&T's new television service, U-verse.

While traditional cable and phone services run on separate lines, U-verse crams video, data and, in time, phone calls down one high-speed broadband line. Introduced here on Monday, the service allows users to view multiple channels at once, get information about programs instantly and eventually access some Internet content via their television.

"We're on the ground floor of something that's going to revolutionize the industry," Mr. Vallado said. "We have the whole world looking at us."

Investors, too, are watching to see whether the service will work well enough to attract the millions of new subscribers that AT&T needs to stave off rivals stealing millions of its phone customers. With U-verse, AT&T can assemble a package of television, broadband and phone services to match the bundle sold by cable companies.

But cable providers like Time Warner Cable, which serves about half the homes in San Antonio, are fighting back. To keep customers from leaving, they are discounting their television and phone plans, throwing in premium movie channels and faster Internet connections.

The face-off has turned San Antonio — the home of the Alamo — into a proving ground for the intensifying showdown between the phone and cable industries. What transpires here is expected to be repeated in the 15 or so other cities and towns (including Houston) where AT&T plans to introduce U-verse this year, and the 55 where Verizon now sells television.

"The cable guys are not going to sit around and wait," Jeffrey Halpern, a telecommunications analyst at Sanford Bernstein, said. "They offer television, broadband and phone now, so if the Bells don't have television, they can't fight back."

But building a television service and getting people to drop their cable or satellite plan are two different things. Like Verizon, which now sells programming in New York, Florida and five other states, AT&T is discounting heavily to attract new customers.

For example, AT&T's middle-tier plan comes with 170 television channels, 31 premium movie channels and 17 music channels, a 3-megabit broadband connection, three set-top boxes, a digital video recorder and a Wi-Fi router for $94 a month, roughly equivalent to the already cut-rate cost of comparable service from Time Warner.

Mr. Halpern and other analysts say that AT&T will have a relatively easy time capturing 10 percent of the pay-television market because some customers are eager to cut their bills. Enticing the next 10 percent will be much harder, though, because most cable and satellite subscribers are either happy with their service or unwilling to go to the trouble of switching providers.

Yet AT&T and Verizon need to grab a substantial piece of the television markets they enter if they expect to recoup the substantial costs of overhauling their networks. This is particularly true for Verizon, which is spending $18 billion to string fiber optic lines all the way to consumers' homes.

With that kind of network, Verizon will be able to sell far faster Internet connections and have a more durable network that will require far less money to maintain.

AT&T has taken a different route. It is spending just $4.6 billion to install fiber optic lines only to consumers' neighborhoods and then to use existing copper cable the rest of the way. This will allow it to enter new markets more quickly, but its network may have to be upgraded later. The company also expects to spend $1 billion to hook customers up to the service, though analysts said that cost could rise if the service proves as popular as AT&T expects.

Unlike cable companies and Verizon, which send every channel to every set-top box, AT&T only sends selected channels to the home. This uses far less bandwidth, so AT&T can use more of its older cables. And since phone calls, Internet connections and television signals will travel down the same pipe, they can be blended so that, say, incoming calls are announced on a television and digital photos from computers can be copied to digital video recorders for display on a TV.

While other phone companies are using this so-called IPTV technology, AT&T is by far the biggest. By the end of 2008, the company expects to make the service available to about half, or 19 million, of the homes it serves in the 13 states where it sells local phone service. If all goes well, AT&T said 30 percent of those homes, or 5.7 million customers, will sign up for U-verse.

AT&T also plans to introduce U-verse in the nine states where BellSouth operates, assuming regulators sign off on their planned merger.

Not surprisingly, the gargantuan project has faced obstacles. AT&T and Verizon have had to go town by town to win cable franchises from municipalities. To shorten that long and expensive process, the companies have been prodding lawmakers in Washington to pass a bill that would streamline the process. Five states in AT&T's territory, most notably Texas, have already passed similar legislation.

Technologically, AT&T needed to get the kinks out of crucial software from Microsoft, as well as develop new billing, sales and administrative teams, and open an office in Los Angeles to buy programming from Hollywood studios. Now, about six months later than originally anticipated, all the pieces are in place.

"The technical risk we bought into two years ago, we feel like we jumped that hurdle," said Jeff Weber, the vice president in charge of U-verse products. "There is a lot of pressure to get the product out there. But I don't want to go faster than we should. We want to make sure the service is what we said it would be."

Despite the importance of the project, AT&T is not trying to oversell U-verse. Just 5,000 customers will initially be able to get it in San Antonio. Instead of trumpeting the service on television, AT&T is going door-to-door with fliers, driving a specially outfitted ice cream truck on neighborhood streets and hosting parties where customers open their homes to their neighbors to show off U-verse.

Todd Trcka (pronounced tri-KHA) and his wife, Lisanne, would be two good candidates. They were selected to test U-verse a few months ago and are now hooked on the service. Mr. Trcka gleefully channel surfs at high speed, noting that there are not the delays found on some digital cable and satellite services. With a click of the remote, he calls up screens with details of the show he is watching. With another few clicks, he can record it on his DVR.

"They should prescribe Ambien because this guy doesn't sleep since he got this TV," Mrs. Trcka joked. She added that the parental locks were an easy way to keep her three kids from watching some programs.

The Trckas have encountered some problems. U-verse does not have any high-definition channels, something AT&T hopes to introduce by the end of the year. Mr. Trcka said he also wished he could watch the Bevo-D channel, which is devoted to University of Texas sports that he had with his old Time Warner service.

Still, the Trckas plan to sign up for the U-verse service when their trial ends because of the extra features. They also like the idea that they are among the first customers to get the new product.

"The good news is we don't have friends with the service," Mr. Trcka said.

AT&T, of course, is out to fix that.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/03/te...gy/03iptv.html





Myanmar Bans Google

The Myanmar government has blocked the Google search engine and its mail service Gmail, say Internet users.

Users in the country have not been able to access the Google site for more than a week, reported the Mizzima News.

Those attempting to view either Google or Gmail are confronted with a message saying "Access Denied".

An official from Bagan Cybertech, the country's only Internet service provider, confirmed that both Google and gmail were inaccessible but declined to comment further.

In an effort to control the flow of information in and out of the country, the military government has banned several websites, including Yahoo and Hotmail.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/a...ow/1692971.cms





Microsoft Censoring MSN Messenger Conversations

Computer Sweden is reporting that Microsoft is doing automatic real-time censoring of certain messages on MSN Messenger.

According to communications director of MSN Sweden, Jessica Börjel, this is being done to protect users against exploits and worms spreading through the MSN Messenger service.

Among the things Microsoft appears to want to block are URLs and file name references. And this is where the trouble starts:
You cannot use the string download.php anywhere in a message, not even when it’s not part of a URL.
The link filter does not take canonical URLs into account: http://evil.example.com/download.php and http://evil.example.com/down%6Coad.php is the same URL, expressed in two different ways. The first one is blocked, while the second one is not.
Even if Microsoft fixed the canonization issue, and were able to block both, there are a loads and loads of redirector services, like as TinyURL that can be used to mask known bad URLs

And, for the truly paranoid: Since Microsoft are automatically monitoring your conversations, and block certain messages — what prevents them from eavesdropping on your messages, and sending any “suspicious” content off to third parties, such as governments and their agencies?
http://virtuelvis.com/archives/2006/...-msn-messenger





Microsoft Denies WGA Kill Switch in Windows XP
Eric Lai

Microsoft Corp. today denied speculation that it plans to cripple copies of Windows XP for users who refuse to install its controversial antipiracy tool, Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA).

But the software company confirmed that for its upcoming Windows Vista operating system, companies will be required to activate their software differently than they do today in order to prevent the leakage of volume licenses that are the source of most Windows piracy.

A ZDNet.com blogger reported earlier in the week on a conversation between a Windows user and a Microsoft support staffer, who allegedly admitted that users who refused to install the WGA update would be given 30 days before their copies of Windows would stop working.

ZDNet.com said that Microsoft refused to deny the report at the time. But later, Microsoft appeared to sing a different tune.

“No, Microsoft antipiracy technologies cannot and will not turn off your computer,” said a spokeswoman with Waggener Edstrom, Microsoft’s public relations firm. “The game is changing for counterfeiters. In Windows Vista, we are making it notably harder and less appealing to use counterfeit software, and we will work to make that a consistent experience with older versions of Windows as well.”

Microsoft last fall began testing WGA as a way of trying to find pirated copies of Windows. In mid-June, it announced that users would need to download and pass WGA to be eligible to download the latest versions of add-on software such as Internet Explorer 7 and Windows Media Player 11. Users would still be able get the latest security updates, though. Companies that buy Windows XP through large package deals are exempt from having to install WGA.

Since then, Microsoft has taken considerable heat from consumers and the media, who have likened WGA to spyware that has sometimes inaccurately labeled legal copies of Windows as pirated.

Through its spokeswoman, Microsoft said that “80% of all WGA validation failures are due to unauthorized use of leaked or stolen volume license keys.”

Still, WGA has been so controversial that it led a French programmer to develop a tool to delete WGA and a Windows customer in Los Angeles to file a class-action lawsuit.

Microsoft has tried to appease customers by releasing a new version of WGA that checks users’ computers only once a month, rather than every day.

The lawsuit, filed this week in U.S. District Court in Seattle, alleges that WGA violates antispyware laws by not fully disclosing itself when it was delivered to Windows users through Auto-Update. The suit is headed by the same lawyer who also led the class-action lawsuit earlier this year against Sony Corp. for not disclosing that it had placed copy-protection rootkit software on customers’ PCs via music CDs it sold. The rootkits disabled users' protections against viruses and spyware. Sony later settled the lawsuit.

Microsoft called the lawsuit “baseless.” It said WGA is a necessary part of its campaign to catch those illegally using Windows XP, especially those using volume license keys issued to corporations.

Volume licenses have long been Microsoft’s Achilles heel. Corporations are generally issued a single volume license key -- a text string of alphanumeric characters -- which is used to activate hundreds or thousands of copies of Windows at a time. Those strings can be copied or stolen and have been passed around on the Internet.

To thwart the practice, corporations that upgrade to Windows Vista along with Longhorn Server will be required to run a small application called a Key Management Service. According to Microsoft and analysts, the service will track how many copies of the software the companies have paid for and how many they have installed.

When asked if companies that have installed more copies of Vista than they have purchased will find those copies de-activated, Microsoft said through its spokeswoman that companies “should think of it more like an application that tracks and protects their use of their Volume License keys and installations.”

Paul DeGroot, an analyst at Kirkland, Wash.-based Directions On Microsoft, said that while most consumers may find this sort of tracking by Microsoft intrusive, many corporations may actually welcome it.

“Most corporations have no interest with getting away with anything at Microsoft’s expense,” he said. Indeed, corporations, especially those that have merged with another company or undergone a restructuring, often have a hard time keeping track of all the software they own. Most will “overbuy licenses because it’s cheaper to do that then to designate staff people to actively manage them.”

Microsoft said the Key Management Service will include administrative tools to help companies manage licenses.

“Microsoft isn’t tracking the numbers of copies installed; the key management services are internal to the organization,” the spokeswoman said. “We will be rolling out Vista deployment guidebooks and information for customers and channel partners later this summer.

As for consumer users of Vista, DeGroot said there is a good chance they will encounter WGA, or something like it.

The Microsoft spokeswoman added, “We don’t have specific details to share on individual features of WGA in Windows Vista at this time, but WGA will continue to be a part of Microsoft’s Genuine Software Initiative.”
http://www.computerworld.com/action/...&taxonomyId=18