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23-06-10, 06:49 AM
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Join Date: May 2001
Location: New England
Posts: 10,017
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Peer-To-Peer News - The Week In Review - June 26th, '10
Since 2002
  "In our reading of the evidence there is little to suggest that the new technology has discouraged artistic production. Weaker copyright protection, it seems, has benefited society." – Oberholzer-Gee and Strumpf "When a revolution is underway, there is only one way to go: join it or perish." – Carlos Sánchez Almeida Heat Stroke More FUD I’m afraid from corporate media on so-called "new" video sharing sites as the attempt to astroturf congress into granting a three strikes provision gathers steam (similar sites have been around for years while ticket sales climb ever higher). VP Biden did his part, stroking his Hollywood pals with a tough guy line Tuesday equating sharing with burglary: "It's smash and grab, no different than a guy walking down fifth avenue and smashing the window at Tiffany's and reaching in and grabbing what's in the window." Hardly. All due respect Mr. VP, but it's no more "smash and grab" (please) than growing tomatoes with seeds someone gave you from store bought produce is... If the administration’s mind is already on vacation at least some in the judiciary are still showing up for work. A judge tossed out Viacom’s copyright lawsuit against Google Wednesday. Expect the rhetorical heat to reach oppressive levels this summer. Enjoy, Jack June 26th, 2010  Judge Sides With Google in Viacom Lawsuit Miguel Helft In a major victory for Google in its battle with media companies, a federal judge on Wednesday dismissed Viacom’s $1 billion copyright infringement against YouTube, the video-sharing site owned by Google. The judge granted Google’s motion for summary judgment, saying that the company was shielded from Viacom’s copyright claims by “safe harbor” provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. That law generally protects user-generated sites from liability for copyrighted material uploaded by users as long as the operator of the site takes down the material when notified by its rightful owner that it was uploaded without permission. The dispute is over videos owned by Viacom that others had posted to YouTube. Viacom, which sued Google in 2007 for copyright infringement, had argued that Google was not entitled to the copyright act’s protections because Google deliberately turned a blind eye and profited from to the rampant piracy on YouTube. Viacom, the owner of Comedy Central, MTV and Nickelodeon, said it planned to appeal the decision. “We believe that this ruling by the lower court is fundamentally flawed and contrary to the language of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the intent of Congress and the views of the Supreme Court as expressed in its most recent decisions,” Viacom said in a statement. “We intend to seek to have these issues before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit as soon as possible. After years of delay, this decision gives us the opportunity to have the Appellate Court address these critical issues on an accelerated basis. We look forward to the next stage of the process.” Google hailed the decision, saying it would protect not only Google, but also other user sites that host user-generated content. “This is an important victory not just for us, but also for the billions of people around the world who use the Web to communicate and share experiences with each other,” Kent Walker, Google’s general counsel, wrote on a corporate blog. “We’re excited about this decision and look forward to renewing our focus on supporting the incredible variety of ideas and expression that billions of people post and watch on YouTube every day around the world.” http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/24/te.../24google.html  Britain’s BPI Goes after Google p2pnet There is a God, or a reasonable facsimile thereof. 8-) The BPI, the RIAA’s UK counterpart, has gone up against the Holiest of Holies, American online advertising conglomerate Google, says Chilling Effects. Short for British Phonographic Industry, the BPI contributed to the British government’s Digital Ecomy bill, complete with its ACTA Three Strikes and you’re Off The Net element, with hardly a murmur from the UK lamescream media. Now Chilling Effects quotes a missive directed at Gargle by the BPI. It states, in part >>> [The] BPI … is the UK national group for the International Federation of Phonographic Industries (”IFPI”). Our members comprise over 300 record companies in the United Kingdom. Between them our members are responsible for the production or distribution of the vast majority of sound recordings sold and/or distributed legally within the United Kingdom. The BPI is also mandated to act on behalf of the members of Phonographic Performance Limited (”PPL”) and in this respect, to protect the rights that are owned or controlled by members of PPL, as well those that are owned or controlled by BPI. [NOTE: You'll recall PPL boss Fran Nevrkla 'joked' capital punishment was called for in file sharing cases.] Part of our work involves monitoring the internet and taking action against persons that use, facilitate, enable and/or authorise the use of material in a manner that infringes the rights of the members of BPI and PPL. We have identified the following links that are available via Google’s search engine, and request the following links be removed as soon as possible as they directly link to sound recordings owned by our members … Interesting, to say the least. “Canadian indexing site isoHunt is on a hit list dreamed up as lamescream media headline bait by Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony Music’s RIAA“, I said on p2pnet recently, going on >>> It’s being “overwhelmingly used for the global exchange of illegal movies, music and other copyrighted works”, says the Big 4 extortion unit huff piece. So are the Ukraine’s mp3fiesta, Germany’s RapidShare, Luxembourg’s RMX4U.com and Sweden’s The Pirate Bay, it says. And so is giant Chinese site Baidu. But there’s another far more important indexing site the RIAA somehow missed. Google. Why isn’t it on there as well? Now it is. Kind of. The BPI isn’t the RIAA. Or is it? Both organisations are hard-core corporate alphabet outfits such as the IFPI, CRIA, ARIA, JRIA, etc and so on, to all intents operated by Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony Music and their hundreds (or is it thousands?) of directly or indirectly owned labels. To what extent do they work together? For example, the CRIA (Canadian Recording Industry Association of America) has just launched a blatant shill operation aimed at interfering with legitimate copyright ‘reform’ processes in Canada. Will something similar soon appear in other countries? But I digress. What’s equally interesting is this >>> Recipient Information: Google, Inc. Mountain View, CA, USA Sent via: email Re: DMCA Notice Britain’s BPI threatens Gargle under America’s DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act)? Can they do that? Can an allegedly British ‘trade’ outfit wave a US act at someone? Be that as it may, the BPI names as infringing sites >>> * http://hotfile.com/ * http://usershare.net/ * http://2shared.com/ * http://4shared.com/ * http://mediafire.com/ * http://megaupload.com/ * http://sendspace.com/ * http://teradepot.com/ * http://zippyshare.com/ Under Copyrighted work(s) it lists >>> * Sound recording “Dirtee Disco” by Dizzee Rascal. The owner of this copyright work is Dirtee Stank, a PPL member. * Sound recording “Solo” by Iyaz. The owner of this copyright work is Warner Music, a BPI member. * Sound recording “Ridin’ Solo” by Jason Derulo. The owner of this copyright work is Warner Music, a BPI member. * Sound recording “Not Afraid” by Eminem. The owner of this copyright work is Universal, a BPI member. * Sound recording “Eenie Meenie” by Sean Kingston & Justin Bieber. The owner of this copyright work is Sony Music, a BPI member. * Sound recording “OMG (feat. will.i.am)” by Usher. The owner of this copyright work is Sony Music, a BPI member. * Sound recording “Wavin’ Flag” by K’naan. The owner of this copyright work is Universal, a BPI member. * Sound recording “Your Love Is My Drug” by Ke$ha. The owner of this copyright work is Sony Music, a BPI member. * Sound recording “Make Me Wanna Die” by The Pretty Reckless. The owner of this copyright work is Universal, a BPI member. * Sound recording “Dirty Picture (feat. Ke$ha)” by Taio Cruz. The owner of this copyright work is Universal, a BPI member. * Sound recording “Pass Out” by Tinie Tempah. The owner of this copyright work is EMI, a BPI member. * Sound recording “Guns And Horses” by Ellie Goulding. The owner of this copyright work is Universal, a BPI member. * Sound recording “This Ain’t A Love Song” by Scouting for Girls. The owner of this copyright work is Sony Music , a BPI member. * Sound recording “I Like” by Keri Hilson. The owner of this copyright work is Universal, a BPI member. * Sound recording “I Dreamed A Dream” by Glee Cast. The owner of thiscopyright work is Sony Music, a BPI member. * Sound recording “Haven’t Met You Yet” by Michael Buble. The owner of this copyright work is Warner Music, a BPI member. * Sound recording “Not Myself Tonight” by Christina Aguilera. The owner of this copyright work is Sony Music, a BPI member. * Sound recording “Alejandro” by Lady Gaga. The owner of this copyright work is Universal, a BPI member. “I have a good faith belief that use of the copyrighted materials described above as allegedly infringing is not authorised by the copyright owner, his/her agent or the law”, it states, adding: “I swear, under penalty of perjury, that the information in the notification is accurate and that I am the copyright owner or am authorised to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.” Definitely stay tuned. http://www.p2pnet.net/story/40831 First RIAA File Sharing Trial Morphs Into Groundhog Day David Kravets The nation’s first file sharing copyright infringement trial has morphed into a legal Groundhog Day. In a bid to avoid a third trial — after two mistrials — the Minnesota federal judge presiding over the 4-year-old Jammie Thomas-Rasset case wants the Recording Industry Association of American and the defendant to negotiate a settlement. But, as Thomas-Rasset’s attorney, Joe Sibley, said in a telephone interview Monday, a settlement is not likely to happen. The reason is both sides are a universe apart on what it would take to avoid a third trial. That’s why there were two trials: neither party would budge during court-ordered negotiations: Under the latest failed negotiations, Thomas refused in January to pay anything. The RIAA wanted $25,000 for the 24 tracks two federal juries concluded she pilfered on Kazaa. That offer came after a second Minnesota jury had awarded $1.92 million, and the judge reduced it to $54,000 a year ago. “There is nothing we have to offer they would be willing to accept,” Sibley said Monday. He added that Thomas-Rasset might agree to settle for the statutory minimum $750 a track. “We’ve always hoped Ms. Thomas would accept responsibility and join us at the settlement table — especially after a judge and two different juries affirmed her clear liability. But her approach so far … does not make for productive settlement discussions,” RIAA spokeswoman Cara Duckworth said via an e-mail. The Copyright Act allows a jury to award damages of up to $150,000 per purloined download. The Obama administration supported the nearly $2 million judgment. U.S. District Judge Michael declared the $1.92 million verdict “shocking” and said damage awards “must bear some relation to actual damages.” Davis’ decision was the first time a judge has reduced the amount of damages in a Copyright Act case. A third trial, scheduled for Oct. 4, would involve a jury assuming the woman’s liability and affixing a new damages figure. Because of the posture of the case, the parties could not directly appeal the judge’s decision last year lowering the jury’s verdict. Assuming the judge reduces the damages again after the October trial, the appeals courts would be more inclined to take the case to avoid another day of legal ground hog, legal experts said. Among the big bones of contention that would be addressed on appeal, Sibley claims damages under the Copyright Act are unconstitutionally excessive. The RIAA claims the judge did not have the power to lower a Copyright Act jury award. Thomas-Rasset, of Brainerd, Minnesota, famously lost her first trial in 2007, resulting in a $222,000 judgment. But months after the four-day trial was over, Judge Davis declared a mistrial, saying he’d incorrectly instructed the jury that merely making copyrighted work available on a file sharing program constituted infringement, regardless of whether anybody downloaded the content. He ordered both sides to the settlement table, where no deal was reached. The only other file sharing case to have gone to trial resulted in a Boston jury in July awarding the RIAA $675,000 for 30 songs. A decision is pending on whether that award should be reduced. Most of the thousands of RIAA file sharing cases against individuals settled out of court for a few thousand dollars. http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/201...groundhog-day/ Special Master Hired to Foster Settlement in File-Sharing Case Mark Hefflinger The federal judge overseeing settlement talks between Capitol Records and convicted file-swapper Jammie Thomas-Rassett has appointed a special master to "promote meaningful settlement discussions," according to the Recording Industry vs. The People blog. The plaintiffs in the case -- labels backed by the Recording Industry Association of America -- will pick up the tab for the special master's fee of $400 per hour. Judge Michael Davis in January reduced the amount of damages Thomas-Rassett must pay from $1.92 million to $54,000. Soon after, the RIAA offered to accept payment of $25,000, provided Thomas-Rassett ask Judge Davis to vacate his reduced damages decision. Thomas-Rassetts attorneys rejected the settlement offer, and said in January they would continue to challenge the constitutionality of even Judge Davis' reduced damages award. http://www.dmwmedia.com/news/2010/06...lesharing-case Another File-Sharing Case Fails – Join The Revolution Or Perish enigmax The on-going fight against file-sharing link sites in Spain is turning into a farce. Despite many rulings which state that the sites break no laws, still anti-piracy groups waste their money pursuing them. As yet another site is cleared of wrong doing, a lawyer who speaks out for civil rights on the Internet is clear on the piracy issue – either join the revolution, or perish. Another month and yet another defeat in a Spanish court for anti-piracy groups chasing a lost cause against file-sharing sites. Following hot on the heels of a decision in May by the Madrid Provincial Criminal Court in favor of sports streaming links site Rojadirecta, a court has thrown out an appeal against another file-sharing site. Lauren Films first issued a complaint against links site Cinegratis.net in 2007 but the case has taken 3 years to reach a utterly disappointing but completely predictable outcome for the company. Following the provisional dismissal of the case by a court in early February, Lauren Films made a petition for amendment. In April, Magistrate’s Court No 1 of Santander dismissed the petition. The dismissal was based on facts gathered in previous similar cases, i.e “that the simple provision of external links to access content protected by copyright does not constitute a breach of the provisions of Article 270 of the Penal Code.” Undeterred, the movie company appealed against the decision, claiming that this case was different to other cases where file-sharing sites had been deemed within the law. Although the Cantabria Provincial Court agreed that the name of the site (translated ‘Movies for free’) was an accurate indication of potential infringement by users, the outcome wasn’t favorable for the studio. “[..] there is [no] doubt that the very name of the website is a major attraction for network users and explicitly suggests that its contents will provide access to viewing films for free, [but it] must be taken into account the effects of the present action and the purely circumstantial evidence that such free access is done in contravention of the provisions of intellectual property laws,” wrote the Court. What is important, the court continued, is whether the provision of links to copyright works constitutes a breach of Article 270 of the Penal Code. As in at least eight previous cases of this type, the Court ruled that it does not. The appeal filed against the earlier decision was rejected and the Court confirmed that Cinegratis can carry on, business as usual. Carlos Sánchez Almeida, lawyer and former member of Fronteras Electrónicas España (FrEE), a group previously affiliated with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, is not surprised. “The lords and masters in the Spanish videographic industry have heard me say, ad nauseam, that the path of repression is not going anywhere. Already in 2003, shortly after the first legal action against a links page, I said that this way you only create heroes and martyrs of technological progress,” he writes. “When a revolution is underway, there is only one way to go: join it or perish.” http://torrentfreak.com/another-file...perish-100623/ P2P Lawyers Tell Judge: Suing 5,000 "Does" at Once is Fine Nate Anderson The US Copyright Group, a business name for the group of Virginia lawyers filing suits against tens of thousands of alleged US peer-to-peer movie downloaders, has been sharply criticized by the EFF and ACLU for suing up to 5,000 anonymous defendants at once. The suits were "improperly joined," said the groups. At least one of the federal judges overseeing these cases wanted to hear more, telling lawyers from Dunlap, Grubb, & Weaver to convince her that all of the anonymous defendants had participated in the same transaction. Yesterday, lawyer Tom Dunlap tried his hand at the task, filing a 29-page document in the Washington, DC District Court. According to Dunlap, suing 5,000 anonymous users at once is proper because of how BitTorrent works. Also, his firm is actually doing all these "John Does" a favor by "giving all Doe Defendants the ability to defend the case in one jurisdiction, e.g. the ability to combine or join other Doe Defendants’ filings and the ability to receive uniform decisions by the Court." One of these is not like the others Dunlap's basic argument distinguishes BitTorrent from all other P2P networks. While some courts previously frowned on joining P2P defendants in cases involving LimeWire or KaZaA, BitTorrent is different and should be held to a different standard. "Unlike the older P2P protocols, each new file downloader is receiving a different piece of the data from each user who has already downloaded that piece of data, all of which pieces together comprise the whole. This means that every 'node' or peer user who has a copy of the infringing copyrighted material on such a network—or even a portion of a copy—can also be a source of download for that infringing file, potentially both copying and distributing the infringing work simultaneously. "Essentially, because of the nature of the swarm downloads as described above, every infringer is simultaneously stealing copyrighted material through collaboration from many other infringers, through a number of ISPs, in numerous jurisdictions around the country." Some older networks relied on direct downloads; a user wanting a copy of song might download the entire song from some other users who had a copy already. "Each particular act of infringement involved a specific one-on-one connection between two users for that specific file," says the brief. "Once the sharing of that file was over, so presumably was the relationship between the infringers." But the lawyers argue that BitTorrent swarms create ongoing, complex network relationships, and that anyone who ever participated in a swarm for a particular file can be joined with anyone else. Much of this material comes nearly verbatim from the attached sworn declaration of Patrick Achache, the director of Data Services for Guardaley. Guardaley is a UK company that operates out of an office park in Berkshire, and they handle all the IP address harvesting for the US Copyright Group. Using hashes, mathematical calculations that can show if files are identical, and file name and file size numbers, Guardaley claims that most movies it investigates have relatively few seeds; these few initial copies end up shared widely. (His example file was the 701.4MB "Far Cry 2008 DvdRip ExtraScene RG.avi." Numerous defendants have already claimed to Ars that they had never heard of this film before being targeted.) Many downloads of the films in question must therefore involve a single file. If a set of IP addresses are seen to share this file—and not just any copy of a particular movie—they can reasonably be said to participate in the same transaction. The EFF and ACLU will no doubt object to this characterization of BitTorrent; indeed, in their amicus brief, they claim that the court's analysis shouldn't change just because the protocol differs from earlier P2P lawsuits. "Nor does the analysis change because the BitTorrent protocol works by taking small fragments of a work from multiple people in order to assemble a copy," they wrote earlier this month. "The individual Defendants still have no knowledge of each other, nor do they control how the protocol works, and Plaintiff has made no allegation that any copy of the movie they downloaded came jointly from any of the Doe defendants. "Joining thousands of unrelated defendants in one lawsuit may make litigation less expensive for Plaintiff by enabling it to avoid the separate filing fees required for individual cases and by enabling its counsel to avoid travel, but that does not mean these well-established joinder principles need not be followed here." EFF lawyer Corynne McSherry, who signed the brief on behalf of all parties, was yesterday admitted to appear in the case (as an out of state lawyer, she needs the judge's permission to appear). The judge today ordered a June 30 hearing, apparently to discuss the issue of joinder. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/n...ce-is-fine.ars Scope of French ’3 Strikes’ P2P Piracy Monitoring Confirmed enigmax As one of the pioneers of a ’3 strikes’ mechanism for dealing with P2P piracy, France is moving closer to its full implementation. In order to warn and punish alleged file-sharers, it will first be necessary to monitor them whilst engaged in infringement. The scope of that monitoring has just been confirmed. As reported earlier this year, anti-piracy outfit Trident Media Guard has been chosen by the entertainment industry to track and report illegal file-sharers in France. The company, previously better known for its pollution of file-sharing networks with fake data, will be providing evidence for use under the country’s 3 strikes ‘Hadopi’ legislation. From the sidelines of a conference, Thierry Desurmont from rights collecting group SACEM has just confirmed the scope of TMG’s upcoming monitoring regime. TMG’s tracking systems are able to monitor several different file-sharing networks, but the priority will undoubtedly fall on BitTorrent, eD2K (eDonkey/eMule) and Gnutella (e.g LimeWire). Fears that TMG would be monitoring so-called cyberlocker sites (e.g Rapidshare) were not true. Even if they could, the company does not have permission to do so. TMG will concentrate purely on P2P. “We reached an agreement with TMG and [the company] will monitor the IP addresses used for illicit file-sharing from a basic reference work,” explained Thierry Desurmont from rights collecting group SACEM. “There is the music industry and the audiovisual sector. For the music industry (SCPP, SPPF, SACEM, SDRM), there will be a base consisting of 5,000 works [from a back catalogue, described as 'golds'] and 5000 which will be for renewal. For broadcasting, the base formed by [anti-piracy group] ALPA will be 200 works.” The monitoring process will see TMG working up to capacity, tracking an eye-watering 18,250,000 infringements per year – that’s 50,000 per day, every day. “Our agreements provide that TMG should be able to provide 25,000 incidents per day for music, 25,000 for audiovisual. This goal will be preceded by a phase of increasing power to calibrate the process,” explained Desurmont. Quite how the paperwork side of the operation will hold up to such lofty goals remains to be seen. The French will be hoping that the initial ‘first and second strike’ warnings work or the judges dealing with the fines and disconnections could be in for a hell of a lot of overtime. http://torrentfreak.com/scope-of-fre...firmed-100624/ Three Arrested In Connection With ‘Darkside’ File-Sharing Servers enigmax This week Swedish police arrested three individuals on suspicion of copyright infringements. The trio are suspected of having connections to ‘Scene’ warez servers known as ‘Darkside’. According to anti-piracy group Antipiratbyrån, the servers carried huge amounts of data making the case the biggest so far in Sweden, and possibly in Europe. During the last decade many countries have been revealed as the locations for so-called ‘Scene’ warez servers, but none so often as the Scandinavian countries, particularly Sweden and Norway. This week it is Sweden’s turn yet again to become the locations for police action against these usually secretive operations. Following an investigation conducted by anti-piracy group Antipiratbyrån, on Wednesday and Thursday police swooped on four individuals. Searches were carried out in Stockholm and at two locations in Västerås where servers were found. Although one individual was later released, the suspects – all men in their forties – are suspected of having connections to the Scene servers known as “Darkside”. According to Henrik Pontén of Antipiratbyrån, the three were responsible for servers which are claimed to house 130tb of both Swedish and foreign movies. “Dark Side has a huge capacity,” Pontén told DN. “This is the biggest case we know of to date, certainly the biggest in Sweden, but possibly also in Europe.” Antipiratbyrån, who had been monitoring Darkside and gathering IP addresses and other information for some time, handed the investigation over to police in February. “[Wednesday's] police operation was yet another important step to stop organized piracy. This type of action has a direct and dramatic effect on the number of infringements,” said Pontén in a statement. “By extension, it means that the cultural workers get an opportunity to get paid for their work and we consumers have access to a continuing culture production.” According to prosecutor Frederick Ingblad, who was recently involved in the numerous raids against Direct Connect users and is part of a new piracy task-force, there have already been some confessions from those arrested. http://torrentfreak.com/three-arrest...server-100619/ Media Companies Have Lost $1.5 Billion Trying to Buy Friends Zeke Turner AOL sold its social networking investment Bebo last week for $10 million, after buying the company for $850 million two years ago. That transaction brings the total amount that media companies have lost on social networking sites over $1.5 billion, according to The Guardian. News. Corp's MySpace acquisiton is another horribly misguided social networking investment. Last year, Mr. Murdoch's company faced loses in the nine figures after getting locked into a 12-year lease worth $350 million for office space that MySpace does not need. Meanwhile Facebook doubled its revenue last year to $800 million, and its not for sale. Mark Zuckerberg is saving media companies for themselves because, as The Guardian points out, the barriers to entry around social networking are virtually none existent. Who knows what's being cooked up in a Harvard dormroom to make Facebook obsolete? http://www.observer.com/2010/media/m...ial-networking Hollywood Faces New Piracy Threat Illegal sub services on the rise, exec tells Cinema Expo Carl DiOrio Consumers downloading free pirated movies are no longer Hollywood's worst nightmare, but that's only because of a new, more dreaded menace: cheap, and equally illegal, subscription services. Foreign, often mob-run, businesses aggregate illegally obtained movies into "cyberlockers" similar to Internet storage sites used by individual consumers to squirrel away pirated video. But the for-profit version of this phenom has spawned an array of sophisticated and seemingly reputable sites selling unlimited digital movie files for as little as $5 a month. "Cyberlockers now represent the preferred method by which consumers are enjoying pirated content," Paramount COO Fred Huntsberry said Monday. Huntsberry detailed the evolution of professional piracy methods for hundreds of European movie theater operators attending an opening-day seminar here at the four-day Cinema Expo. Commonly, Hollywood movies are made available via illegal for-profit sites within days of theatrical release, while the advent of global releasing now allows the proliferation of individual titles into an array of language dubs within the first month of a theatrical debut, he noted. When movies are released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc, the sites upgrade the quality of video offered from camcorded images to pristine digital copies. Cyberlocker-based businesses operate from Russia, Ukraine, Colombia, Germany, Switzerland and elsewhere, with several selling digital ads to mainstream, often-unwitting advertisers such as Kentucky Fried Chicken and even Netflix. "Sometimes these sites look better than the legitimate sites," Huntsberry said. "That's the irony." Advertising agencies often place digital ads on behalf of companies, which order the banners pulled when notified by studio reps, he added. Consumers increasingly are streaming pirated digital video directly onto living room TVs, the Par exec noted. But the public needs to know that with such pirated convenience comes the risk of having credit card information ripped off, and problems with spyware contamination are even more common. On a grander scale, the motion picture industry is combating the situation with country-by-country campaigns for tougher laws against video piracy. But the effort has a long way to go. "In the U.K., we are hamstrung by the fact that we have very weak legislation," Cinema Exhibitors Assn. chief Phil Clapp said. However, the U.K. in April adopted the Digital Economy Act that mandates a so-called graduate response to cybertheft, similar to a plan used in France and elsewhere. Consumers caught downloading pirated material receive an e-mail alert followed by formal letters, and repeat offenders can lose Internet access for a period of time. But France remains one of the only European countries with an anti-camcording law. Elsewhere among first-day activities at the exhibition confab, Paramount offered a showreel of its movie slate featuring video remarks by directors M. Night Shyamalan, J.J. Abrams, Jay Roach and Michael Bay. Par international president Andrew Cripps and executive vp distribution Roger Pollock introduced lengthy clips including a 15-minute segment on Shyamalan's "The Last Airbender," the 3D family adventure fantasy adapted from Nickelodeon's "Avatar: The Last Airbender." The filmmaker noted the series has spawned a "cult following" among young boys, who don fake tattoos and dress just like their Airbender hero. "That's how I found out about it," Shyamalan said. "My kid wanted to dress up like one of the characters for Halloween." Set to unspool July 1 in the U.S., "Airbender" is scheduled for late July in most foreign territories to avoid overlapping with the World Cup. Roach's "Dinner for Schmucks," starring Paul Rudd and Steve Carell, was featured in another extended segment. And a clip from comedy doc "Jackass 3-D" came with a warning from Cripps for the squeamish of heart. "If you're offended by male nudity in 3D, close your eyes," he said. http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/...c47780cb674ecd Creative Commons Responds to ASCAP Drew Wilson Yesterday, we reported that ASCAP said that organizations like Creative Commons were undermining their copyrights. Today, we’ve received an official response from Creative Commons with regards to the letter writing campaign. In the same article, we discussed how Creative Commons was, contrary to what ASCAP said, not about undermining anyone elses copyrighted material, but rather, giving artists an option that was not the Public Domain (no rights reserved) nor Copyright (all rights reserved). Eric Steuer, a Creative Commons spokesperson, thanked ZeroPaid for the earlier posting as being well-thought out and was happy to respond to ASCAPs letter. “It’s very sad that ASCAP is falsely claiming that Creative Commons works to undermine copyright” Steuer told ZeroPaid. He explained, “Creative Commons licenses are copyright licenses – plain and simple, without copyright, these tools don’t even work. CC licenses are legal tools that creators can use to offer certain usage rights to the public, while reserving other rights. Artists and record labels that want to make their music available to the public for certain uses, like noncommercial sharing or remixing, should consider using CC licenses. Artists and labels that want to reserve all of their copyright rights should absolutely not use CC licenses.” It does make sense because Creative Commons is voluntary. The creator can choose whether or not to use Creative Commons or not. “Many tens of thousands of musicians, including acts like Nine Inch Nails, the Beastie Boys, David Byrne, Radiohead, and Snoop Dogg, have used Creative Commons licenses to share with the public. These musicians aren’t looking to stop making money from their music. In fact,” Steuer added, “many of the artists who use CC licenses are also members of collecting societies, including ASCAP. Incidentally, that’s how we first heard about this email campaign – many musicians that support Creative Commons received the email and forwarded it to us. Some of them even included a donation to Creative Commons.” A number of ASCAP members have already expressed disapproval for the language found in ASCAPs letter. Comments from ASCAP members can be found on BoingBoing and Mind the Gap to name two sources. Overall, though, ASCAPs attack on Creative Commons in their letter was a very bad error in judgment. One can hope ASCAP issues an apology over this. http://www.zeropaid.com/news/89521/c...onds-to-ascap/ File-Sharing has Weakened Copyright—and Helped Society Nate Anderson Has file-sharing helped society? Looked at from the narrow perspective of existing record labels, the question must seem absurd; profits have dropped sharply in the years since tools like Napster first appeared. But a pair of well-known academics argue peer-to-peer file sharing has weakened copyright in the US... and managed to benefit all of us at the same time. "Consumer welfare increased substantially due to new technology," write Felix Oberholzer-Gee of Harvard and Koleman Strumpf of the University of Kansas. "Weaker copyright protection, it seems, has benefited society." Weaker is stronger? Peer-to-peer file-sharing on the Internet has certainly weakened copyright, but that's not necessarily a bad thing unless one equates "stronger copyright" with "better copyright." According to the US Constitution, copyright is about promoting "the Progress of Science and useful Arts"; it's not about enriching authors, except as a means of promoting said "Progress." When we think about copyright, the most pertinent question to ask is not whether some change would produce less money for rightsholders, but whether some change would remove incentives to create. Has file-sharing reduced creators' incentives? Oberholzer-Gee and Strumpf presented a recent paper at a music business conference in Vienna that tried to answer this question empirically. By charting the production of new books, new music albums, and new feature films over the last decade, the authors tried to see whether creative output went up or down in correlation with file-sharing. “Data on the supply of new works are consistent with our argument that file sharing did not discourage authors and publishers,” they write in their paper, “File-sharing and Copyright" (PDF). "The publication of new books rose by 66 percent over the 2002-2007 period. Since 2000, the annual release of new music albums has more than doubled, and worldwide feature film production is up by more than 30 percent since 2003... In our reading of the evidence there is little to suggest that the new technology has discouraged artistic production. Weaker copyright protection, it seems, has benefited society.” The authors don't claim (anymore) that file-sharing has no effect on industries like recorded music. Though both authors also collaborated on a now-famous paper from 2007 which argued that file-sharing had no appreciable impact on music sales, they are willing to concede now that it might be a small part of the industry's problems. Indeed, they round up a host of studies from the past few years suggesting that, on average, one-fifth of declining music sales might be chalked up to piracy. (The rise of new entertainment options like video game has also hurt the business, and consumers finally stopped "re-buying" old albums on CD by the mid-2000s.) But looking at such declines provides only a narrow view. Looked at more broadly, the music industry "has grown considerably" in the last few years. When concert revenue is added to recorded music revenue, the authors note that the overall industry grew more than 5 percent between 1997 and 2007. That's in large part because consumers' willingness to pay for "complements" like concerts and merchandise goes up as the price of music and movies falls, and because consumers are exposed to many more artists when prices are low or nonexistent. Even if the music industry was shrinking, though, the authors point out that creativity has not declined—which suggests that weaker copyright can still promote the "Progress" sought by the Founders. “We do not yet have a full understanding of the mechanisms by which file-sharing may have altered the incentives to produce entertainment,” conclude the authors. “However, in the industry with the largest purported impact—music—consumer access to recordings has vastly improved since the advent of file-sharing. Since 2000, the number of recordings produced has more than doubled. In our view, this makes it difficult to argue that weaker copyright protection has had a negative impact on artists' incentives to be creative.” Unconvinced The music industry doesn't buy the argument. According to international trade group IFPI, "Live performance earnings are generally more to the benefit of veteran, established acts, while it is the younger developing acts, without lucrative live careers, who do not have the chance to develop their reputation through recorded music sales." Thus, recorded music sales remain important. And IFPI's 2010 "Digital Music Report" (PDF) makes the case that artists are producing less in states with high piracy rates. "In France, there has been a striking fall in the number of local repertoire albums released in recent years," says the report. "In the first half of 2009, 107 French-repertoire albums were released, 60 per cent down on the 271 in the same period of 2003." (This number appears to involve only major labels, however, and cheap digital tools mean that much of the music production today is done without a major label.) Even Oberholzer-Gee and Strumpf admit that their findings aren't clear. It could be that, thanks to all these cheap digital tools, even more recordings would have been produced in the US were it not for file-sharing. But when the same trend holds true among book publishers, filmmakers, and musicians—the 2000s were about ever-increasing content—perhaps P2P isn't "disincentivizing" anyone at all. And if it's not, the entire paper asks by implication, why don't politicians even consider weakening US copyright law? http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/n...ed-society.ars Terrible News: Court Says It's Okay To Remove Content From The Public Domain And Put It Back Under Copyright from the awful-ruling dept Warning: this one is depressing if you believe in the public domain. You may recall that last year, a district court made a very important ruling on what appeared to be a minor part of copyright law. The "Golan" case asked a simple question: once something is officially in the public domain, can Congress pull it out and put it back under copyright? The situation came about because of (yet another) trade agreement that pulled certain foreign works out of the public domain. A district court had initially said that this move did not violate the law, but the appeals court sent it back, saying that the lower court had not analyzed the First Amendment issue, and whether this was a case where the inherent conflict between the First Amendment and copyright law went too far to the side of copyright by violating the "traditional contours of copyright law." Getting a second crack at this, the district court got it right -- and was the first court to point out that massively expanded copyright law can, in fact, violate the First Amendment. But, of course, it couldn't last. On Monday, the appeals court reversed the lower court's ruling and said there's no problem with the First Amendment because copyright law "addresses a substantial or important governmental interest." This is, plainly speaking, ridiculous. The argument effectively says that the government can violate the basic principles of the First Amendment any time it wants, so long as it shows a "substantial or important government interest." But that makes no sense. The whole point of the First Amendment was to protect citizens' interests against situations where the government's interests went against citizens' interests. It should never make sense to judge a First Amendment claim on whether the government has "substantial or important" interests. On top of that, the court basically said "Congress knows best" on this issue. Again, this seems to go against the entire point of the First Amendment and the important judicial protections of the First Amendment. The whole point of court oversight of Congress is because Congress doesn't always know best. But here, the court has no problem deferring entirely to Congress: Quote:
Most worrying of all? The court says that it should keep out of this discussion because it involves international relations and international treaties. See why you should be scared to death of ACTA? The courts are effectively admitting that once you get these "international obligations" in place, the courts should mostly stay out of the discussion, even if it violates the basic tenets of US law. That's downright scary. The court gives a lip service defense to this, saying that it can still review international agreements to make sure they abide by the First Amendment... but... for the most part, it'll just defer to Congress. Next up? The court actually relies on testimony about "losses" from an RIAA official as well as someone from the IIPA (a lobbying group made up of the RIAA, MPAA and other similar organizations): Quote:
And, of course, the court continues to rely on clearly biased individuals who had a clear agenda, rather than a factual basis for their positions. It even quotes Jack Valenti's ridiculous claim that if the US removed foreign works from the public domain, that suddenly China and Russia would start respecting US copyright. Also incredibly frustrating, misleading and inaccurate is a small footnote, which asserts the commonly claimed excuses by the courts for why copyright law does not violate the First Amendment: that the "idea/expression dichotomy" and "fair use" make it so there is no conflict. But what's frustrating in this footnote is that this particular court seems to suggest that so long as copyright doesn't mess with those two things then there's no First Amendment issue with copyright. Quote:
In this particular case, a very serious issue was raised: works that clearly were in the public domain, and which some publishers were relying on as public domain documents suddenly are no longer in the public domain. If you have any respect at all for the core notion of copyright -- which was originally supposed to be about getting more works into the public domain -- the idea that you can then take works back out of the public domain is downright ludicrous. It goes beyond being a violation of the basic contours of copyright law. It goes against the very Constitutional principles behind copyright law -- and does so in a way that is a clear violation of the First Amendment. Which part of "Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech" does this court not understand? All in all this is an incredibly frustrating ruling. It feels like the court didn't actually want to address the admittedly difficult question of how the First Amendment and copyright law come into conflict, so it just punted and said "well Congress knows best, so it's okay." The case will almost certainly be appealed, potentially for an en banc (full appeals court review) or directly to the Supreme Court. So this most certainly is not over yet. But after a reasonable ruling last year to this year's reversal, it's definitely a step backwards for anyone who believes in the importance and sanctity of the public domain. http://www.techdirt.com/articles/201...20049908.shtml The Fate of the Internet -- Decided in a Back Room Timothy Karr The Wall Street Journal just reported that the Federal Communications Commission is holding "closed-door meetings" with industry to broker a deal on Net Neutrality -- the rule that lets users determine their own Internet experience. Given that the corporations at the table all profit from gaining control over information, the outcome won't be pretty. The meetings include a small group of industry lobbyists representing the likes of AT&T, Verizon, the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, and Google. They reportedly met for two-and-a-half hours on Monday morning and will convene another meeting today. The goal according to insiders is to "reach consensus" on rules of the road for the Internet. This is what a failed democracy looks like: After years of avid public support for Net Neutrality - involving millions of people from across the political spectrum - the federal regulator quietly huddles with industry lobbyists to eliminate basic protections and serve Wall Street's bottom line. Obama pledges to appoint Net Neutrality supporters to the FCC We've seen government cater to big business in the same ways, prior to the BP oil disaster and the subprime mortgage meltdown. The Industry's regulatory capture of the Internet is now almost complete. The one agency tasked with oversight of communications now thinks it can wriggle free of its obligation to protect the open Internet, if only it can get industry to agree on a solution. Congress is holding its own series of "closed-door" meetings and, while they've been ambiguous on the details, many remain skeptical on whether the process will lead to an outcome that serves the public interest. After all, this is the same Congress that is bankrolled by the phone and cable lobby in excess of $100 million. Why is this so startling even for the more cynical among us? The Obama administration promised to embrace a new era of government transparency. It's the tool we were supposed to use to pry open policymaking and expose it to the light of public scrutiny. In that spirit, President Obama pledged to "take a backseat to no one" in his support for Net Neutrality. He appointed Julius Genachowski to head the FCC -- the man who crafted his pro-Net Neutrality platform in 2008. But the mere existence of these private meetings reveals to us a chairman who has fallen far short of expectations. Instead Genachowski is shying from the need to fortify the Internet's open architecture in favor of deals made between DC power brokers. These deals will determine who ultimately controls Internet content and innovation. Will phone and cable companies succeed in their decade-long push to take ownership of both the infrastructure of the Internet and the information that flows across its pipes? Will they cut in a few giant companies like Google and the recording industry to get their way? Whatever the outcome, the public - including the tens of millions of Americans who use the Internet every day and in every way - are not being given a seat at the table. Genachowski's closed-door sessions come after six months of public comments on whether the agency should proceed with a rule to protect Net Neutrality. During that period, more than 85 percent of comments received by the agency called for a strong Net Neutrality rule. Look at it this way: If a candidate received more than 85 percent of the vote, wouldn't she have a mandate to decide on the public's behalf? In Chairman Genachowski's alternative view of reality, though, the public is immaterial, and industry consensus supreme. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/timoth..._b_620690.html Urgent ACTA Communique International Experts Find that Pending Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement Threatens Public Interests June 23, 2010 American University Washington College of Law Washington, D.C. Portuguese or here French Korean Spanish Contact list for press interviews This statement reflects the conclusions reached at a meeting of over 90 academics, practitioners and public interest organizations from six continents gathered at American University Washington College of Law, June 16-18, 2010. The meeting, convened by American University's Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property, was called to analyze the official text of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), released for the first time in April, 2010. Negotiating parties released the text only after public criticism of the unusually closed process and widespread disquiet over the negotiations' presumed substance. (See Wellington Declaration, EU Resolution on Transparency and State of Play of the ACTA Negotiations). We find that the terms of the publicly released draft of ACTA threaten numerous public interests, including every concern specifically disclaimed by negotiators. * Negotiators claim ACTA will not interfere with citizens' fundamental rights and liberties; it will. * They claim ACTA is consistent with the WTO Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS); it is not. * They claim ACTA will not increase border searches or interfere with cross-border transit of legitimate generic medicines; it will. * And they claim that ACTA does not require "graduated response" disconnections of people from the internet; however, the agreement strongly encourages such policies. ACTA is the predictably deficient product of a deeply flawed process. What started as a relatively simple proposal to coordinate customs enforcement has transformed into a sweeping and complex new international intellectual property and internet regulation with grave consequences for the global economy and governments' ability to promote and protect the public interest. Any agreement of this scope and consequence must be based on a broad and meaningful consultative process, in public, on the record and with open on-going access to proposed negotiating text and must reflect a full range of public interest concerns. As detailed below, this text fails to meet these standards. Recognizing that the terms of the agreement are under further closed-door negotiation over a text we do not have access to, a fair reading of the April 2010 draft leads to our conclusion that ACTA is hostile to the public interest in at least seven critical areas of global public policy:fundamental rights and freedoms; internet governance; access to medicines; scope and nature of intellectual property law; international trade; international law and institutions; and democratic process. The following specific comments are based on a review of the publicly released text which is highly bracketed and the conclusions are therefore tentative. FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS ACTA would authorize or encourage private and government enforcement measures that would: * curtail enjoyment of fundamental rights and liberties, including domestic and internationally protected human rights to health, privacy and the protection of personal data, free expression, education, cultural participation, and right to a fair legal process, including fair trial and presumptions of innocence. THE INTERNET ACTA would * Encourage internet service providers to police the activities of internet users by holding internet providers responsible for the actions of subscribers, conditioning safe harbors on adopting policing policies, and by requiring parties to encourage cooperation between service providers and rights holders; * Encourage this surveillance, and the potential for punitive disconnections by private actors, without adequate court oversight or due process; * Globalize 'anti-circumvention' provisions which threaten innovation, competition, free (freedom-respecting) software, open access business models, interoperability, the enjoyment of user rights, and user choice; ACCESS TO MEDICINES ACTA would threaten global access to affordable medicines, including by: * Authorizing customs authorities to seize goods in transit countries, even when they do not infringe any laws of the producing or importing countries; *Implicating non-infringing active pharmaceutical ingredient suppliers whose materials may be used downstream in infringing products without their knowledge; *Limiting key flexibilities on injunctions, including in patent cases, that are necessary for government use, for court-ordered royalties, and for innovation prizes and other policies that de-link cost of research and development from the price of products. * Expanding its scope to patents in many areas of the agreement, which is an inappropriate subject of a counterfeiting policy; SCOPE AND NATURE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LAW ACTA would distort fundamental balances between the rights and interests of proprietors and users, including by * introducing highly specific rights and remedies for rights holders without detailing correlative exceptions, limitations, and procedural safeguards for users; * shifting enforcement burdens to public authorities and private intermediaries in ways that are likely to be more sensitive to proprietary concerns; * requiring formula-driven assessment of damages, potentially unrelated to any proven harm or gain; * omitting strong disincentives to abuse of enforcement processes by right holders; * including rigid injunction, damages and heightened civil and criminal enforcement requirements that will restrict government flexibility, impede innovation and slow the development and diffusion of green technology; * threaten the continuation or development of innovative public intererst exceptions, such as common law approaches to permitting copies of works by "authorization." INTERNATIONAL TRADE ACTA would raise barriers to the trade in knowledge imbedded goods, disproportionately harming developing countries dependent on imports and exports of essential goods. Specifically, ACTA will * Extend ‘ex officio' and in transit border search and seizures to a broad range of "suspected" intellectual property infringements, even including alleged patent infringements involving complex questions of law and fact that are impossible to judge by custom authorities. INTERNATIONAL LAW AND INSTITUTIONS ACTA would conflict with a large number of existing international laws and processes. Specifically, ACTA contains provisions that: * Conflict with the World Trade Organization Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) by allowing seizures based on the law "of the party providing the procedures" instead of "the country of importation" (TRIPS Art. 52) and by failing to fully protect and incorporate key protections against abuse (e.g. Articles 41.1, 48.1, 48.2, 50.3, 53.1, 56), flexibilities to promote public interests (e.g. TRIPS Art. 44.2), requirements for the proportionality of enforcement measures (e.g. Arts. 46, 47), and provisions providing for balance between the interests of proprietors, consumers and the greater society (e.g. TRIPS Arts. 1, 7, 8, 40, 41.2, 41.5, 54, 55, 58). * Conflict with the WTO Doha Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health and World Health Assembly Resolution 61.21 by limiting the ability of countries to use the TRIPS flexibilities "to the full" to promote access to medicines; * Undermine the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Development Agenda, particularly recommendation 45's commitment to "approach intellectual property enforcement in the context of broader societal interests and especially development-oriented concerns"; * Undermine the roles of WIPO and WTO by creating a new and redundant international administration. DEMOCRATIC PROCESS ACTA alters traditional and constitutionally mandated law making processes by: * Exporting and locking in controversial and problematic enforcement practices, foreclosing future legislative improvements in response to changes in technology or policy; * Requiring substantive changes to laws of many countries without legislative process; The process of ACTA's negotiation is fundamentally flawed. Specifically, the negotiations: * Have not been conducted in public as are many multilateral negotiations; * Have not been accompanied by evidence demonstrating the public policy problems sought to be addressed; * Have proceeded under conditions that restrict public input to select stakeholders, held off-the-record and without access to the latest version of the rapidly changing text; * Lack a balanced representation of stakeholders, especially from civil society. http://www.wcl.american.edu/pijip/go/acta-communique U.S. to Target Foreign Websites in Anti-Piracy Push Doug Palmer The United States will go after foreign websites that pirate American music and movies as part of a new strategy to stop sales of counterfeit and pirated goods at home and abroad, Vice President Joe Biden said on Tuesday. "This is theft, clear and simple," Biden said at a meeting with Attorney General Eric Holder, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and other Cabinet officials. "It's smash and grab, no different than a guy walking down Fifth Avenue and smashing the window at Tiffany's and reaching in and grabbing what's in the window," Biden said, referring to the jewelry store in New York City. U.S. businesses estimate they lose billions of dollars each year to piracy and counterfeiting of items including films, music and consumer goods. They also blame the illegal trade for hundreds of thousands of lost U.S. jobs. "It is especially critical that the United States has an effective framework for protecting creative content online and enforcing intellectual property rights in the digital environment," said Bob Pisano, interim chief executive officer at the Motion Picture Association of America. U.S. computer and video game makers also cheered the promise of tougher enforcement. The National Association of Manufacturers urged the administration to focus especially on China, which it has called "ground zero" for piracy and counterfeiting. The U.S. Trade Representative's office has battled for years to close websites in Russia, China and other countries that sell pirated American music and films. "Rogue Actors Doing Illicit Business" Biden said the United States would exert more pressure on foreign governments to shut down the sites by "being as public as we possibly can" about illegal activity. "As we shine the spotlight on foreign governments that have rogue actors doing illicit business within their borders, it's the government's responsibility to respond," he said. Biden did not mention any foreign websites by name. A recent USTR report said China's top Internet search firm, Baidu Inc, was associated with between 50 percent and 75 percent of illegal music downloads in China. Several Russian websites still provide illegal downloads, even though the most notorious and formerly largest site, Allofmp3, was shut down in 2007, the USTR report said. The plan, mandated by Congress in 2008, also includes steps to ensure the federal government does not buy counterfeit goods. Biden framed that issue as a matter of both safety and national security, noting the risk of sending soldiers into combat with counterfeit Kevlar vests. The strategy also includes new steps aimed at stopping the importation of counterfeit goods ranging from toothpaste and clothing to auto parts to medicine. "The theft of virtually everything Americans make, create and innovate has been facilitated by the lack of a comprehensive strategy to put these thieves out of business," David Hirschmann, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Global Intellectual Property Center, said in a statement welcoming Biden's announcement. (Editing by John O'Callaghan) http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE65L3YN20100622 Biden to File Sharers: 'Piracy is Theft' Greg Sandoval Do people commit theft when they share unauthorized copies of film and music over the Internet? U.S. Vice President Joe Biden thinks so. "We used to have a problem in this town saying this," Biden told reporters Thursday at a press conference in Washington, D.C. "But piracy is theft. Clean and simple. It's smash and grab. It ain't no different than smashing a window at Tiffany's and grabbing [merchandise]." Biden spoke to the media alongside Victoria Espinel, the U.S. intellectual property enforcement coordinator, to introduce the government's strategy on protecting the country's intellectual property. Espinel issued a report that included more than 33 recommendations, such as cooperating with foreign governments to go after foreign-based pirate sites. Biden and Espinel were scheduled to discuss how to implement the recommendations following the press conference. Through reporters, Espinel issued a warning to those who infringe on U.S. intellectual-property rights. "We have committed to putting you out of business," she said, adding that copyright owners who are losing money to piracy can rest assure "help is on the way." Biden and Espinel's comments were welcomed by the large Hollywood studios and recording companies. The entertainment industry has said for years that digital piracy, thanks mostly to the rise of the Internet, is costing them billions of dollars and thousands of jobs every year. Plenty of skeptics have debated the costs of piracy on the entertainment sector but the Obama administration has appeared very sympathetic to IP protection. "The big picture is that the sands are shifting," said Rick Cotton, NBC Universal's general counsel. "An important political consensus is emerging." Said Philippe Dauman, CEO of Viacom, parent company of Paramount Pictures and MTV: "For the first time our government is bringing to bear its full powers to the critical mission of protecting intellectual property." In Espinel's report, called the Joint Strategic Plan on Intellectual Property Enforcement, she recommends ways to protect industries that go far beyond the entertainment industries and content creators. Espinel and Biden said that billions of dollars worth of phony goods are entering the U.S. every year and hurt much more than the nation's economy. Biden said manufacturers of tires, airplane parts, pharmaceutical products, and even Kevlar vests are plagued by counterfeiters. Biden said that when counterfeit drugs or wheel assemblies for jet aircraft are bought by unwitting Americans, these phony products can prove fatal. "This is not just about the new 'Robin Hood' movie," Biden said. "It's not just about creative talent...It's about whether a Kevlar [bulletproof] vest we are putting on some guy and whether it works or not." But Biden and Espinel spent time discussing online piracy and illegal file sharing. Biden suggested that Internet service providers should hop aboard the antipiracy efforts of the film and music sectors. For nearly two years, Hollywood and the major labels have tried to get companies such as AT&T, Comcast, and Time Warner Cable to create policies that penalize chronic copyright offenders. The vice president also said that the U.S. government is going to step up pressure on foreign governments where pirate Web sites operate. "We want to make sure that these countries know we want these sites shut down," Biden said. "We are going to shine a light. If these sites are operating openly in a country that is not taking action...we can make it very public and shine a light on rogue actors. It's the government's responsibility to respond." http://news.cnet.com/8301-31001_3-20008432-261.html Who are James Moore's "Radical Extremists"? Michael Geist Canadian Heritage Minister James Moore delivered a keynote address at a conference sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce's IP Council today and according to media reports warned against "radical extremists" seeking to oppose Bill C-32. It should be obvious to virtually everyone that labeling those that seek reforms to a copyright bill as "radical extremists" is an embarrassing slander that should be promptly retracted. While there are undoubtedly some that oppose the bill altogether (just as there are some that want tougher reforms including three strikes), characterizing those concerned with a copyright bill in this manner is wholly inappropriate for a cabinet minister. So when Moore warns about radical extremists opposing C-32, who is he speaking of? Who has criticized parts of the bill or called for reforms? A short list of those critical of the digital lock provisions in C-32 would include: * Liberal MPs * NDP MPs * Bloc MPs * Green Party * Canadian Consumer Initiative * Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada * Canadian Association of University Teachers * Canadian Federation of Students * Canadian Library Association * Business Coalition for Balanced Copyright * Retail Council of Canada * Canadian Bookseller Association * Documentary Organization of Canada Of course, criticism of C-32 is not limited to the digital lock provisions with groups such as ACTRA, Writers' Union, Access Copyright, and the Canadian Conference of the Arts among those criticizing fair dealing or other elements of the bill. Moreover, at the event Moore was speaking at, an entertainment industry representative from Vivendi criticized the notice-and-notice approach in C-32. In other words, all opposition parties, consumers, universities, teachers, students, business, and many creator groups are all seeking changes to C-32. Does Moore really believe that they are all radical extremists? Who is he referring to? http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/5137/125/ High Tech, Low Crime David Porter This city of 65,000 has fought one of the nation's highest crime rates in recent years with an arsenal of high-tech gadgets, from gunshot detection systems to software that can sift and analyze crime data almost instantaneously. The results have been startling: Violent crime in East Orange has fallen by more than two-thirds since 2003, according to state police statistics. Yet even with its crime rate plummeting, the city is going a step further by becoming the first in the country to combine those systems with sensors, sometimes called "smart cameras," that can be programmed to identify crimes as they unfold. East Orange police say the overall system can trim response time to mere seconds. Doubters, meanwhile, question whether the effect on crime justifies the price tag. Jose Cordero was hired as East Orange's police director in 2004 after overseeing the New York Police Department's anti-gang efforts. Crime in East Orange had dropped off after the crack epidemic of the 1980s and 90s but then rose dramatically in the early 2000s as gangs began to put down roots. A firm believer in the power of technology, Cordero said he developed a database in his spare time so the department could track and analyze crime data instead of waiting for paper reports to be collated. Other upgrades followed, among them a wireless computer system for all patrol cars; video surveillance cameras in high-crime areas; a virtual community patrol system for residents to report crimes via text message; a grid showing patrol cars' locations, and a gunshot detection system that tracks the source of shootings. The entire network has cost $1.4 million, of which $1.1 million came from grants and forfeiture funds, according to Cordero. Some companies donated time and equipment in the early phases, East Orange Mayor Robert Bowser said. "We knew what the city had been doing for 20 years and we knew what had worked and what hadn't worked," Cordero said. "There was a community resolve that things could change, and should change." The sensors, which work in concert with surveillance cameras, are designed to spot potential crimes by recognizing specific behavior: Someone raising fist at another person, for example, or a car slowing down as it nears a man walking on a deserted street late at night. Each new crime recorded is programmed into the database. "They know what is normal behavior," said Tarik Hammadou, whose Australian company, Digisensory Technologies, makes the sensors. "And when there is abnormal behavior like an assault, we annotate it and say to the sensor, 'This is an assault,' so the sensor will always remember the pattern." When the sensor raises an alert, an officer sitting in the department's nerve center can zoom in on images to see if a crime is in progress. A computer program sends the information to a laptop in the patrol car nearest to the scene. The whole process takes seconds. "We can almost be in two places at the same time," said detective Reginald Hudson, a 17-year veteran. "I can sit here and watch the cameras in another location and maintain a presence right here." Hammadou said the sensors aren't in regular use by law enforcement agencies beyond East Orange. Consequently, there is little research available on their efficiency. That hasn't deterred skeptics from weighing in. Dennis Kenney, a professor of criminal justice at New York's John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said the sensors can pick up so many innocuous actions — someone lining up behind an ATM user, for instance — that the system could be overloaded. "You'd be constantly watching every ATM because you'll have so many false positives," he said. "Then to make up for it you would have to screen out so many things, and that defeats the purpose. It's a novel idea, but the technology just doesn't support it." While sensors like the ones used in East Orange will speed response time, "there's little evidence that increasing the rate of information going to the cars will make a big difference unless the cars are driving faster," said Peter Scharf, a public health professor at Tulane University in New Orleans, who co-authored a study of gunshot detection systems used in the Virginia cities of Hampton and Newport News. Nevertheless, Scharf cites the case of D.C. snipers John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo as an example of how sensors could have taken existing pieces of information — the description of a car, a pattern of behavior, a type of weapon — and alerted law enforcement to a shooting about to happen. "You would have had them dead to rights," he said. The camera system helped East Orange police catch a suspected car thief recently, spokesman Darryl Jeffries said. A pursuing officer's report of a stolen Jeep automatically activated a "virtual perimeter" of cameras trained on the area, providing other patrol cars information they used to apprehend the suspect soon after. Privacy rights advocates have criticized the increasing use of surveillance cameras in urban areas. In New Jersey, the American Civil Liberties Union consulted with Newark when the city began installing traditional surveillance cameras two years ago, and is keeping an eye on developments in East Orange, ACLU New Jersey director Deborah Jacobs said. Cordero said publicity about his department's technological advances has had the dual effect of making residents feel safer while letting criminals know they're being watched. "The value of technology is not the might it brings to law enforcement, though that's important," he said. "If we continue to influence the criminal mindset, I think it will balance out." http://skunkpost.com/news.sp?newsId=2643 Napolitano: US Must Balance Liberties, Security Lolita C. Baldor Fighting homegrown terrorism by monitoring Internet communications is a civil liberties trade-off the U.S. government must make to beef up national security, the nation's homeland security chief said Friday. As terrorists increasingly recruit U.S. citizens, the government needs to constantly balance Americans' civil rights and privacy with the need to keep people safe, said Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. But finding that balance has become more complex as homegrown terrorists have used the Internet to reach out to extremists abroad for inspiration and training. Those contacts have spurred a recent rash of U.S.-based terror plots and incidents. "The First Amendment protects radical opinions, but we need the legal tools to do things like monitor the recruitment of terrorists via the Internet," Napolitano told a gathering of the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy. Napolitano's comments suggest an effort by the Obama administration to reach out to its more liberal, Democratic constituencies to assuage fears that terrorist worries will lead to the erosion of civil rights. The administration has faced a number of civil liberties and privacy challenges in recent months as it has tried to increase airport security by adding full-body scanners, or track suspected terrorists traveling into the United States from other countries. "Her speech is sign of the maturing of the administration on this issue," said Stewart Baker, former undersecretary for policy with the Department of Homeland Security. "They now appreciate the risks and the trade-offs much more clearly than when they first arrived, and to their credit, they've adjusted their preconceptions." Underscoring her comments are a number of recent terror attacks over the past year where legal U.S. residents such as Times Square bombing suspect Faisal Shahzad and accused Fort Hood, Texas, shooter Maj. Nidal Hasan, are believed to have been inspired by the Internet postings of violent Islamic extremists. And the fact that these are U.S. citizens or legal residents raises many legal and constitutional questions. Napolitano said it is wrong to believe that if security is embraced, liberty is sacrificed. She added, "We can significantly advance security without having a deleterious impact on individual rights in most instances. At the same time, there are situations where trade-offs are inevitable." As an example, she noted the struggle to use full-body scanners at airports caused worries that they would invade people's privacy. The scanners are useful in identifying explosives or other nonmetal weapons that ordinary metal-detectors might miss — such as the explosives that authorities said were successfully brought on board the Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day by Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. He is accused of trying to detonate a bomb hidden in his underwear, but the explosives failed, and only burned Abdulmutallab. U.S. officials, said Napolitano, have worked to institute a number of restrictions on the scanners' use in order to minimize that. The scans cannot be saved or stored on the machines by the operator, and Transportation Security Agency workers can't have phones or cameras that could capture the scan when near the machine. http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/...CJheAD9GDV11O0 US in Panic Over Russia’s ICQ Purchase The imminent sale of instant messaging service ICQ to a Russian company has set alarm bells ringing in the US. Senior officials are worried they will lose one of their main ways of keeping an eye on the underworld. One of the largest instant messaging services in the world, ICQ, is among the most popular Internet applications of its kind in Russia and Eastern Europe. In spring 2010, Russia’s largest Internet investment company, Digital Sky Technologies, made a deal with AOL, current owner of ICQ, concerning the purchase of the service for $187 million. It all went smoothly – until the recent announcement by US law enforcement bodies who claimed that homeland security could be jeopardized if the service is located in Russia. The US said it is sure that most criminals use ICQ and, therefore, constant access to the ICQ servers is needed to track them down. Currently, the system is based in Israel, US’s historic ally, which has been very convenient for the American security service. In response, Russian specialists argued that there is no difference where the server is located as long as the world does its best to fight cyber crime together. “The problem is that not only criminals are using ICQ. Most users are innocent. Nevertheless, there is no guarantee that your mail is not read,” Boris Kagarlitsky from the Institute of Globalization and Social Movements told RT. “This is a traditional human rights concern which has to be taken very seriously.” Lawyers say that to block the deal the US Committee on Foreign Investment needed to cancel it no later than within 30 days after the deal has been announced – so unless the rules are broken, nothing can be changed. http://rt.com/prime-time/2010-06-17/...-us.html/print Not Even FBI was Able to Decrypt Files of Daniel Dantas Information is protected by sophisticated encryption system. The FBI failed to break the encryption code of hard drives seized by federal police at the apartment of banker Daniel Dantas, in Rio de Janeiro, during Operation Satyagraha. The operation began in July 2008. According to a report published on Friday (25) by the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo, after a year of unsuccessful attempts, the U.S. federal police returned the equipment to Brazil in April. According to the report, the fed only requested help from USA in early 2009, after experts from the National Institute of Criminology (INC) failed to decode the passwords on the hard drives. The government has no legal instrument to compel the manufacturer of the American encryption system or Dantas to give the access codes. The equipment will remain under the protection of the feds. INC expect that new research data or technology could help them break the security codes. Opportunity Group reported that the two programs used in the equipment are available online. One is called Truecrypt and is free. The programs were used due to suspected espionage. According to the report, the FBI and the INC used the same technology to try to break the password. It is a mechanism called a "dictionary" - a computer system that tests password combinations from known data and police information. Experts from the INC used this technique for five months, until December 2008, when the discs were sent to the United States. http://g1.globo.com/English/noticia/...el-dantas.html WikiLeaks Founder Breaks Cover in Brussels Julian Assange says he does not fear the Pentagon being after him over classified military cables Jack Bremer The founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, who is at the centre of a US security scare, has emerged from hiding to say that he is not afraid of the Pentagon but that he has been advised by his lawyers to avoid travelling to the United States. Assange broke cover when he spoke at a seminar at the European parliament in Brussels about freedom of information. He told the Guardian: "Politically it would be a great error for them [the Pentagon] to act. I feel perfectly safe... but I have been advised by my lawyers not to travel to the US during this period." The Australian-born hacker, who started WikiLeaks as "an anonymous global avenue for disseminating documents the public should see", has been sought by the US military authorities ever since a young US Army intelligence analyst, Bradley Manning, was arrested in Baghdad last month and taken into military custody. It is assumed Bradley leaked the footage of a US Apache helicopter crew gunning down innocent civilians in Baghdad in July 2007 - a piece of film that became known as 'Collateral Murder'. Manning is also thought to the source of another film, as yet unshown on WikiLeaks, but expected to be posted soon - namely, footage of the American bomb attack on the village of Grania in Afghanistan in which 140 civilians died in May 2009. But what is really exercising the Pentagon is not the embarrassment of these two pieces of film, but the allegation that Manning also sent WikiLeaks 260,000 sensitive US State Department cables concerning the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. As the Guardian reports, "The prospect of the cache of classified intelligence on the US conduct of the two wars being put online is a nightmare for Washington." As a result, a US official has been quoted as saying of Assange: "We'd like to know where he is # we'd like his co-operation in this." Hence the media reports that Assange is the subject of a Pentagon-run manhunt, with Daniel Ellsberg, the veteran whistle-blower who leaked incendiary material relating to the Vietnam war in the 1973, saying: "I would think that [Assange] is in some danger". However, Ellsberg did say that Assange's notoriety might now provide him with "some degree of protection" - and that, indeed, is what Assange appears to be banking on. In the meantime, Bradley Manning remains in US Army detention in Kuwait where he has been held for more than three weeks without charge. Assange said WikiLeaks had hired three US criminal lawyers to defend Manning but that they had been refused access to him. Manning has instead been assigned US military counsel. http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/64828,...ssels-pentagon Senate Homeland Security Committee Approves Cybersecurity Legislation Gautham Nagesh The Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs approved a comprehensive cybersecurity bill on Thursday after amending it to limit the president's authority in the event of a cyber emergency. The bill, co-sponsored by Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Tom Carper (D-Del.) would make the Department of Homeland Security responsible for protecting civilian networks in the government and private sector. The bill will now head to the full Senate for a vote, where it will likely be merged with other competing pieces of cybersecurity legislation. "These cyber attacks are increasingly more sophisticated, more persistent and more successful," Carper said. "In short — the status quo is simply not enough." The original bill gave the president indefinite emergency authority to shut down private sector or government networks in the event of a cyber attack capable of causing massive damage or loss of life. An amendment passed Thursday limits that authority further, requiring the president to get Congressional approval after controlling a network for 120 days. Collins said she was disappointed to read reports that the bill gives the White House a "kill switch" for the Internet, an authority she says the president already has under a little-known clause in the Communications Act passed one month after the December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese. "It's been frustrating to read some of the misrepresentations of our bill in the cybersphere," Collins said, arguing the new bill actually circumscribes the president's existing authority and puts controls on its use. "I believe the substitute amendment we’re offering strengthens those protections even more." During the markup Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) repeated his concerns about the Department of Homeland Security being in charge of civilian cybersecurity, claiming the department's response to recent attempted terrorist attacks have shaken his confidence in its ability to effectively carry out the mission. McCain also expressed trepidation about passing legislation that would result in the expansion of the federal workforce and budget. http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-va...security-bill- Say No to a Government 'Kill Switch' for the Internet Bill Snyder A proposed law would give the president sweeping new powers to shut down the Internet if he declares a 'cyber emergency' I spend exactly zero time worrying that black helicopters will swoop down and impose a new world order. I don't believe that the CIA killed JFK, and I don't think the Air Force is hiding a UFO in the desert -- which is to say, I generally don't take conspiracy theories seriously. But a proposed law that would give the government a so-killed kill switch to essentially turn off the public Internet is very, very worrisome, and it raises the specter of some future administration using that power to crack down on its opponents. Imagine if the Iranian government could have shut down the Internet a year ago -- it tried but failed -- when millions were protesting the rigged election and brutal suppression of dissidents. Sponsored by Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.), the 196-page Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act (PCNAA) would require that private companies -- such as "broadband providers, search engines, and software firms -- immediately comply with any emergency measure or action" put in place by the Department of Homeland Security, or else face fines. Am I missing something here? Is this less toxic that it sounds? Apparently not. It appears that Lieberman, not necessarily the smartest man in the Senate, does have an idea of how much power the bill would give to Washington. "Right now China, its government, can disconnect parts of its Internet in case of war, and we need to have that here, too," said Lieberman during an appearance on CNN last Sunday. Now there's something to aspire to: the Chinese model of Internet security and free speech. A bad idea that keeps coming back This sort of bad idea has been floating around Congress for a while. A year ago, a couple of senators proposed the Cybersecurity Act of 2009, which would have given the government the power to shut the Web in an emergency and give it access to "all relevant data concerning [critical infrastructure] networks without regard to any provision of law, regulation, rule, or policy restricting such access." http://www.infoworld.com/d/the-indus...e-internet-931 Is Verizon Wireless Making It Harder to Avoid Charges? David Pogue As longtime readers know, I think the cellphone industry is one step away from a big-city mugger. Some of their practices are outrageous ripoffs-like how they charge so much for text messages (both the sender and the receiver), even though text messages cost them nothing. Or how the purpose of two-year contract is to sell you an expensive phone cheaply, on the premise that you'll pay it off over the next 24 months-but once you've paid off the phone, your monthly bill doesn't go down. (Except at T-Mobile.) A few months ago, I wrote about Verizon Wireless's outrageous practice of selling phones whose arrow keys are preprogrammed to connect to the Web-and if you hit one accidentally, you get zapped with a $2 Internet charge, instantly. After much outcry and even an FCC investigation, Verizon Wireless installed a "landing page"-a page on the phone that lets you cancel before you incur the charge. But plenty of people still find those mysterious $2 charges. If you truly never use Internet features, you can call Verizon to request a "data block"-to say, "I just don't use the Internet on my phone, and I don't want to run the risk of getting hit with those $2 charges." Last month, I heard from a customer-service rep who, despite working for Verizon Wireless, is on my side on this issue. He wrote with two alarming internal developments at Verizon that could affect you: "Effective this past month, all CSRs [customer-service reps} were versed on the usage of blocks. A new policy has gone into effect regarding how to handle Escalated Calls regarding data charges. Now, a representative can be reprimanded and even terminated for proactively offering to block any of the following: * Web Access Blocks * Data Blocks * Premium SMS blocking * Application download blocking * Vcast Music or Vcast Video download blocks "Essentially, we are to upsell customers on the $9.99 25mb/month or $29.99 unlimited packages for customers. Customers are not to be credited for charges unless they ask for the credit. And in cases such as data or premium SMS, where the occurrences may have gone months without the consumer noticing, only an initial credit can be issued." I asked Brenda Raney, a Verizon Wireless spokeswoman, about this. She replied two different ways. First, she flatly denied that a customer service rep can be fired for suggesting a data block. "We train our representatives to solve our customers' problems. If a customer calls and indicates to a representative that a data block would solve his or her problem, the representatives can and should suggest a data block, and we train them to do that." Well, that's good. But she went on to say: "Many customers request data blocks to prevent children from downloading applications, music, etc., that could significantly affect their bills. We have been training and encouraging the representatives to step customers through the services that will be affected by data blocks to make sure customers really want a total block, or if they would be better served by going to My Verizon (the online free account portal) and customizing their usage themselves by removing features they don't need. We haven't helped the customer if we put a data block on their phone only to have them call back because they didn't realize it would stop them from downloading a ringtone, for example." So who's right? Maybe both my rep and the spokeswoman are correct: that you're really going to have to insist if you want data blocks put on your line. Verizon Wireless will try even harder than before to upsell you, to talk you out of the data blocks. As for giving you credit for accidental charges, Verizon Wireless reports: "While we want the representatives to work with customers, and in appropriate cases, credit their accounts, we also ask that representatives encourage customers to move to plans that matches their usage needs. We don't want customers to go over their usage every month, and then call us looking for credits every month." It seems true, then, that it will be tougher than before to get credited for accidental charges; the burden is on you to monitor the My Verizon Web site to track your own usage. But would Verizon Wireless actually fire an employee for failing to upsell you? Ms. Raney is pretty emphatic on this point: "A representative would not be terminated or reprimanded for putting a data block on an account if that's what the customer requested. If a customer calls and indicates to a representatives that a data block would solve his or her problem, the representatives can and should suggest a data block, and we train them to do that." My whistleblower rep also mentioned another development at Verizon Wireless. It pertains to the ETF-the early termination fee, which is the penalty you have to pay if you discontinue your service before the two-year contract is up. The rep writes: "Effective April the 26th, 2010 Early Termination Fees are no longer waived if a consumer moves out of our digital calling area coverage map. This means for customers whom have lost jobs and must relocate, people with immigration status and are liable to leave, or anyone who may otherwise relocate, is now subject to the ETF of $175 or $350, depending on device. "In this economy, people are moving, they cannot keep certain bills, and when things don't work as planned, they also expect to terminate services. For a company that reports profit margins in the $49 billion range, you'd expect a little bit of kindness and compassion." The rep attached a scan of the internal Verizon Wireless document that detailed this change. Verizon's reply: "This was an old policy that needed updating, a leftover from before our network covered over 300 million out of the 305 million or so people in the U.S. "There are two issues here. First, very few customers actually move out of a service area today. Second, if a customer buys a device from us at a deep discount in return for a two-year contract, and then decides to cancel service because he or she moves outside of that coverage area (likely out of the country, given the breadth of our coverage area), then the ETF helps us recoup our losses associated with the customer's early cancellation. This policy change was made in April and applies to very few people. We also have other ways of handling exceptions such as military -- Verizon Wireless waives the ETF for deployed military personnel." I have to say, I'm more understanding of Verizon on this point. Yes, times are tough. Yes, corporate compassion is a wonderful thing. But you don't see many companies letting their customers off the hook for bills they owe, and contracts they've signed, out of compassion; that's not the way the world works. Thanks to my whistle blower for letting us know about the changing winds behind the scenes at the nation's biggest cellphone carrier. And thanks also to Verizon Wireless, who can't stand my muckraking about its practices, but nonetheless sent me these responses. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/17/te...gue-email.html Verizon Offers FiOS Try-Out Verizon Communications will let customers try its FiOS Internet and television service for a month without charging them fees for early contract termination if they switch off the service after that. It aims to lure away more customers from cable and satellite rivals with the offer, which includes the option of paying month-by-month but with the assurance that the price would not go up for a full year. The risk is that if new customers all start to leave after a month, Verizon would lose a lot of money as it spends roughly $1,350 to install FiOS at a new customer's home. But if most customers decide to stay, the new offer may put pressure on cable rivals such as Comcast Corp and Cablevision Systems Corp and satellite rivals DirecTV and DISH Network Corp to adjust their terms. While try-out periods are widespread among US wireless service providers, the elimination of termination fees is less common in the pay-TV market where customers typically have to sign contracts to lock in a specific monthly rate. Matt Davis, research firm IDC said the move was part of "a growing trend" for television and telecom providers to add more flexibility to their service terms. "Verizon's reacting to that trend, trying to stay slightly ahead of it," he said. Both AT&T Inc and Verizon, the biggest US telephone companies, have been adding TV services to their offerings in recent years, to help them compete better with cable operators, which have long sold telephone services. Current Analysis analyst Larry Hettick said he sees Verizon keeping a "substantially large" number of customers who sign up under the new rules, making it likely rivals will react. "There's so much tit-for-tat in the cable TV business, anything that changes for one provider may bring pressure on the others," Hettick said. Verizon, which has tested the offer in Florida, is kicking it off on Monday across its FiOS coverage region, which currently has a potential 12 million customers for television services and 12.6 million for Internet services. Hettick said there is some risk Verizon is left in the lurch by customers, which could potentially leave for cable operators a month after signing up for Verizon. But he said the offer showed that it is confident it will keep customers. Verizon started offering its FiOS Internet service in August 2004 and started selling FiOS TV about a year later. Since then its TV service has won a roughly 25 percent market share in the areas where it operates and FiOS Internet has a roughly 29 percent share, Verizon spokesman William Kula said. Kula said he believes that once customers have a chance to try out FiOS "they'll stick with (it) for the long haul." He sees current uncertainty around the economy making the offer particularly attractive for anxious customers who are worried about surprise price rises or early termination fees. (Reporting by Sinead Carew; Editing by Tim Dobbyn) http://www.reuters.com/article/idUST...technologyNews You Don’t Want ISPs to Innovate Ryan Singel There’s a complicated fight in D.C. right now over how the FCC classifies broadband services, so it can regain the power to impose some basic rules on the industry. Free-market groups and the industry are banging the table, arguing against the consequences — saying that the FCC is trying to regulate the internet and will kill innovation. Here’s the simple truth: You don’t want your ISP to innovate. At least not in the way, they want to “innovate.” The net has seen an explosion of cool services in the last decade — Google created a search engine that works, Facebook created a social network that helps people stay more connected, webmail became a viable replacement for desktop software, you can collaborate online through wikis and online word processors, and everyone in the world can now have their own online printing press, thanks to blogging software. YouTube became the world’s online video repository, while Netflix and Hulu are demonstrating the future of online video rentals, and sites like Wikipedia, Yelp and IMDB put encyclopedias of knowledge at the disposal of anyone with a net connection and a bit of curiousity. Where are the major players in the U.S. broadband industry in all of this innovation? Basically, nowhere. The U.S. is 26th in the world in terms of online access. The industry’s investment in deployment of fiber optics — the transport medium of the future — is laughable (with the noted exception of Verizon, which has devoted significant money to its FiOS buildout — despite being punished by Wall Street for doing so.) Instead, they are jealous of online services that make money from ads. AT&T’s former CEO Ed Whitacre famously declared that Yahoo and Google couldn’t use his pipes for free, failing to mention that it was the company’s paying customers who were requesting pages from those sites. Now the industry’s paid pundit Scott Cleland, who runs a faux grassroots group called NETCompetition.org, is arguing that the government is trying to “shift the burden of Google-YouTube’s gigantic video distribution costs completely onto the backs of broadband consumers” by forcing ISPs to follow some fair play rules. Cleland’s laughable argument depends on the idea that Google has some secret backdoor to the internet where they don’t pay to send YouTube videos or search results to its customers. In fact, Google has paid for or built huge swaths of internet fiber, builds massive data centers around the world to reduce the distance content has to travel to users and pays for bandwidth like any other company on the net. Still, ISPs would love to find a way to be paid for both sides of their networks — from their users and from online services. And they want to get paid from the packets flowing inside their networks, too. When ISPs Innovate In the last couple of years, ISPs “innovated” by changing how they handle users who type in a URL that doesn’t exist. Under net protocols, the ISP’s DNS servers are supposed to report an error code to your browser in those circumstances. Instead, ISPs are now serving up pages with ads, sometimes in ways that introduce huge security risks. As a reaction, Google set up a fast, ad-free DNS service. And if you want to see what real innovation in DNS looks like, take a look at OpenDNS, which has built fraud protection, security measures and optional web content filtering into its robust DNS service. ISPs have also long insisted on customers using “installation” software that did nothing but drive customers onto ISPs’ web properties to get ad dollars; tried to sell — for a monthly fee — wireless home network capability you could set up easily with a $50 router (and then blame service problems on any home wireless networks you didn’t buy from them); and even hijack address-bar searches that might otherwise, per the browser settings, use an actually useful search engine like Google. ISPs also recently dipped their toes into another innovation: Selling access to everything their customers do online in order to build profiles on them and secretly insert targeted ads into other company’s web pages. That idea came from a company called NebuAd, which drew attention after Charter Communications — the nation’s fourth largest cable operator — announced in 2008 it would start letting the company spy on its users. A firestorm ensued — smaller ISPs admitted they had secretly let NebuAd spy on their customers — and ISPs soon dropped their interest after Congressman Ed Markey made it clear that any ISP participating would come under very close scrutiny from his telecom committee. At about the same time, Comcast was found to be using the tactics of Chinese government net censors to clamp down on peer-to-peer services. The company was sending fake signals to users’ computers, ostensibly to reduce congestion on its networks. While peer-to-peer services are often used for illicit sharing of copyrighted material, the company had no way to differentiate that from legitimate uses — getting updates from online games, downloading open-source software and sharing music and movies that aren’t copyrighted. That practice didn’t stop until the FCC stepped in with a series of hearings and an order to cut it out and disclose to its customers how it manages its network. This is the kind of innovation that free-market groups like the Progress and Freedom Foundation and paid shills like Scott Cleland want to protect. But that’s not the kind innovation that Americans want or need. Why Your Broadbrand Crawls, Not Sings What we want and need is fast, reliable and affordable internet access. The dirty secret of ISPs is that even as broadband usage on their networks continues to increase 30 to 40 percent a year, their annual costs for shipping data onto and off the net’s main pipes continues to fall. The problem isn’t the cost of shipping data. The problem is that the large ISPs answer to Wall Street and instead of planning and investing for abundance, they prefer to spend their time thinking of ways to extract more money from customers without having to invest significantly in future-proof infrastructure. Thankfully, Americans instinctively know better. When Time Warner Cable tried to introduce laughably low broadband usage caps, Americans howled with outrage and the company was forced to beat a hasty retreat. The biggest public excitement over broadband in the last few years came not from any of the ISPs, but oddly from Google, which announced it would choose a lucky few communities to get ultra-fast, fiber optic broadband, free from ISP interference. Communities — 1,100 of them — created detailed plans, including ones that went so far as to “rename” their towns and create embarrassingly corny YouTube videos. The message was clear: Americans hunger for better broadband. Meanwhile, in reality, if you want fast broadband in the United States, hope you are somewhere in Verizon’s core territory or surprisingly, move to the sticks. There are 18.2 million homes in North America that have fiber connections ending at their doorstep and more than 5.8 million subscribe, according to a recent report from the North American Fiber to the Home council. While most of those are Verizon, the surprising story is that many small, rural telecoms — some of them co-ops or family businesses deeply invested in their community — have decided to invest in all-fiber networks. And their communities love it — in these non-Verizon networks, more than half of the people who could subscribe, actually do, and in some projects more than 70 percent do. But the large telecoms would rather spend their money and time fighting the FCC over some basic regulations — the right for Americans to use the software, services and hardware of their choosing, without unfair discrimination by ISPs — than build world-class networks. They’d rather plot to get themselves some of that sweet money flowing to online services, instead of concentrating on what the country really wants and needs, which is fast, cheap and open internet access. The ISPs would rather be in a world where certain online services are locked only to certain ISPs — like ESPN’s streaming video is now — so that they can have a lock on customers that isn’t dependent on them actually building out the best infrastructure they can. Building out infrastructure means redirecting stock-dividend dollars and putting them back into the company, which Wall Street punishes companies for — and which hurts the massive stock packages of telecom executives. It’s literally not in telecom executives’ best interest to invest in broadband and solid networks. That’s why you get companies like Time Warner trying to squeeze customers into limits on the amount of data they can use — not because bandwidth is expensive — but because building a real network is. It’s far better, in their minds and for the stock price, to focus on bleeding as much from their current customers using self-serving policies instead of gaining loyalty by making networks that are generous, quick and reliable. When towns get tired of begging for fast internet — only to be told it doesn’t make financial sense for telecoms, they sometimes decide to build their own fiber networks. And then telecoms sue the cities — as they did in the case of Monticello, Minneapolis, and run to state legislators to write laws outlawing citizens from organizing their own networks as Time Warner Cable did in the case of Wilson, North Caroline, which set up its own fiber network known as Greenlight. That’s why AT&T is more interested in trying to figure out how to divide their network into fast and slow lanes so it can levy a speed tax on video services like Google’s YouTube, than it is in creating a network that’s fast and reliable. Even now in San Francisco, one of the springs of innovation on the net, a standalone DSL line from AT&T costs $35 a month for a top speed of 1.5 Mbps down and 384 up, with reliability that’s simply embarrassing. There’s no real argument being made that the FCC’s attempt to re-reclassify broadband legally wrong. By the letter of the law, broadband providers are clearly “telecom services” and the FCC is now simply undoing an intellectually dishonest move by the Bush FCC. Moreover, the FCC is being reasonable in its attempt to impose several small obligations (including making broadband accessible for the disabled and possibly adding some privacy requirements), while exempting internet providers from the bevy of regulations that applied to the phone network to deal with its monopolistic nature. In fact, the FCC is permanently passing up the opportunity to do one thing that might actually spur some ISP competition Instead, the telecoms, their fake grassroots organization and their libertarian supporters are making false claims that the FCC wants to regulate the internet. It’s a sideshow. The FCC’s proposal is simple and makes sense. The proposed rules don’t apply to online services and never will. The rules are focused on the transport layer and will help curb the worst excesses of an industry that actually hates itself. The broadband barons don’t want to provide you fast internet. It’s too close to being a utility for their tastes (that’s boring and lacks huge profit margins) and requires too much investment. They want their own flashy video competitors to YouTube and advertising systems that target ads to you based on what zipcode you live in. That’s not innovation. It’s time to put the FCC sideshow aside and put the focus where it ought to be — on why the nation’s telecoms are putting Wall Street ahead of American citizens and a truly modern infrastructure. http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/...s-to-innovate/ Wireless Group to Boycott San Francisco Over Radiation-Emission Law Ryan Singel Just last week, San Francisco passed an ordinance requiring cell phones to come with labels showing how much radiation they emit, bending to pressure from activists who argue phone radiation is affecting residents’ brains. CTIA–The Wireless Association, the industry’s lobbying group, thinks something is wrong with San Francisco supervisors’ brains and says it will not hold another of its gadget fests in the city in the foreseeable future — at least not after the one already planned for October. Five of the last seven CTIA conventions have been held in San Francisco, which the group says brought more than $80 million into the local economy. “We are disappointed to announce that the 2010 CTIA Enterprise and Applications show in October will be the last one we have in San Francisco for the foreseeable future,” spokesman John Walls said in a press release Tuesday. “We have already been contacted by several other cities that are eager to work with us and understand the tremendous benefits that wireless technology and our show can provide their area.” As the group points out, phones sold legally in the U.S. must meet FCC standards for RF emissions. “According to the FCC, all such compliant phones are safe phones as measured by these standards,” Walls said. “The scientific evidence does not support point-of-sale requirements that would suggest some compliant phones are ’safer’ than other compliant phones based on RF emissions.” Advocacy groups say the science is far from definite and that there may be a correlation between cellphone radiation and cancer in salivary glands. That’s enough to let consumers know at the point of purchase how much radiation a phone emits. Oddly, iPhone users in San Francisco may be safe, given how difficult it is to actually use the device as a phone in the city proper. http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/...ncisco-boycott Internet Plagiarism Rising in Schools Half of university students also prepared to submit essays bought off internet, according to research Rachel Williams The number of schools using plagiarism-detecting computer software to catch A-level students cheating in their coursework has rocketed, amid warnings that children as young as 11 need to be taught not to copy and paste from the internet. Nearly 90 schools and more than 130 colleges now use the Turnitin database to cross-check pupils' work with material found online – double the numbers two years ago. Barry Calvert, of nLearning, which provides the software, said sixth-form heads believed young people needed to be tutored as early as year 7 in how to formally credit and reference sources, rather than just taking chunks of text off the internet and passing it off as their own. The figures come at the beginning of a three-day international conference into plagiarism at Northumbria University, where experts from around the world will share ideas for catching cheats. The conference, organised by the nLearning-funded Plagiarism Advice Service, will hear how new research suggests that half of university students would be prepared to submit essays bought off the internet. Dan Rigby, an economics lecturer at Manchester University, questioned 90 second- and third-year students at three universities and found they would be prepared to pay more than £300 for a first-class essay, £217 for a piece of work worth a 2:1 and £164 for a 2:2. Rigby said: "Although the sample of students is small, the results are indicative, statistically robust and rather disturbing." He also found that 45% of students were certain a peer had cheated during an essay, report, test or exam in the past year. Earlier this year the exams regulator, Ofqual, revealed that an increase in the number of pupils trying to cheat in their GCSEs and A-levels using mobile phones and MP3 players led to penalties for malpractice rising by 6% in a year. Students received more than 4,400 penalties in 2009, and the number handed out by staff was up 29%. Most universities in the UK already use Turnitin, but are telling school heads it is their responsibility to teach students referencing skills, Calvert said. "There's been a lot of push back from higher education saying it's up to schools to have children prepared when they come to us so they understand how to do this," he said. "We need to get students to understand that the internet is not just some kind of information smorgasbord you can turn to – it's actually somebody's work that needs to be credited and sourced in the same way as you would other sources," he said. But the internet also has a positive effect on learning, Calvert added. "When I was a child our local library used to be sick of the sight of us saying 'has that book come back yet?' because there was only one book on the Vikings or the Romans. So on the one hand the internet has opened up a greater opportunity for everybody to learn, but on the other it's created that opportunity for people to just cut and paste." The conference will also hear that the problem of plagiarism at university could be reduced if students used "digitial storytelling" – creating packages of images and voiceovers – rather than essays to explain their learning from an imagined personal perspective. Phil Davies, senior lecturer at Glamorgan university's computing school, said he had been using the technique for two years and had not seen any evidence of cheating. "Students find it really hard but it's very rewarding, because they're not copying and writing an essay, they have to think about it and bring their research into a personal presentation." http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/...ing-in-schools Technology "Sweeping Away" Books says Stoppard Books are at risk of being "swept away" by a world of new technology and moving images which are increasingly winning the competition for children's attention, says British playwright Tom Stoppard. Stoppard, who has written for television, radio and film, also warned the study of humanities was being neglected in favor of science. "The printed word is no longer as in demand as when I was of the age of pupils or even at the age of the teachers teaching them," newspapers quoted Stoppard as saying. Children live in a world of technology where the moving image takes precedence over the printed page, he said. "I think that's to the detriment ... I just don't want the printed page to get swept away by that." Speaking ahead of an address to an education charity established by the Prince of Wales to encourage teachers to look at what they should teach and how, Stoppard said teaching of humanities had been affected by a drive to prioritize science-based subjects. "There was a period when I was 30 or 40 when science teaching was felt to have lagged and felt to be the area which would improve everybody's life, and I'm sure that that was the case and that was the right moment for that," he said. "Since then we have been more and more worried about the humanities being neglected and at the level of higher education that is a cause of enormous concern." The author plays like "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead" and "The Real Thing" said children had access to a better curriculum than ever before, covering young authors and playwrights, but he insisted that more awareness was needed to ensure the subject was appealing. "I want to support the whole idea of the humanities and teaching the humanities as being something that even if it can't be quantitatively measured as other subjects, it's as fundamental to all education," he said. (Writing by Kylie MacLellan; Editing by Steve Addison) http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE65L1DY20100622 Amazon Drops Kindle Price to $189 Brad Stone That was quick. Reacting to Barnes & Noble’s price cut on the Nook on Monday morning, Amazon.com has just dropped the price of its Kindle e-reader to $189, from $259. That gives it a slight edge on the comparable $199 Nook (which also has a Wi-Fi connection), though Barnes & Noble also announced a $149 Wi-Fi-only Nook this morning as well. Buyers can thank Steve Jobs and the briskly selling and more versatile iPad ($499 and up) for the furious price competition among e-readers. http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/0...-price-to-189/ Newspass: Google's Micropayment System to Save Mainstream Media? Mike Melanson One of the biggest dilemmas for print and mainstream media today is how to transition from a free-for-all model to one where its users actually pay for the content they consume. Should each site enact its own paywall, forcing users to purchase a subscription to just that site? How about a pay-per-article solution, which would still require a separate login for each publication? A report in Italian publication La Repubblica last week tells us that Google might launch its own solution to this problem later this year and we have to admit, there might be few companies better positioned to take on this role than the one thought to be the reason for the industry's decline in the first place. According to the article, the one-click payment solution will be called "Newspass" and would be available for Web, mobile and tablet platforms. Google would not confirm any specific details, but instead offered the following statement: “We've consistently said we're talking with news publishers about ways we can work together, including whether we can help them with technology to power any subscription services they may be thinking of building. Our aim, as with all Google products, is to reach as broad a global audience as possible. We have nothing specific to announce at this time.” A Google-provided micropayment solution is anything but far-fetched, of course, as the company proposed one such platform to the Newspaper Association of America last September. The system would come as an extension of Google Checkout and could help to reposition Google in the news business. As we've written before, sources like Google's search and Google News have given up their top position to social networks like Facebook as the top drivers of traffic to media sites. As more and more media outlets go pay, a unified payment service across the Web could become increasingly important and Google, a service we already trust with so much of our information and Web activity, could be in a perfect position to provide this service. http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives...save_mains.php Technology Firms 'More Trusted than Traditional Media' Technology giants such as Google, Apple and Microsoft are now more trusted than traditional news media, a study has found. Andrew Hough American researchers also found that people now trusted the technology heavyweights more than social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. According to the new study, the majority of people rated online privacy as one of their major concerns when using the internet after both Google and Facebook were hit by rows over people's private details being disclosed on the web. The study, of more than 2100 people, found nearly half they trusted the big three technology firms Apple, Google and Microsoft" completely" or "a lot”. This was compared to eight per cent trusting Twitter and 13 per cent saying they had more faith in Facebook. But all of the companies rated higher than traditional media, the research concluded. One in five young adults, aged between 18 and 29, said they had higher trust levels in Facebook. Meanwhile, 15 per cent of young people said they trusted Twitter. The traditional media received little sympathy from the public with only eight percent of all adults and six percent of young adults saying they trusted them. John Zogby, CEO of Zogby International, a market research company which conducted the research, said big companies have had the time to build brand equity, while Facebook and Twitter do not have the corporate identity. Asked how important online privacy was to consumers, Mr Zogby said it was huge. "I think to a great degree, its all about privacy," he said. Google is currently at the centre of a global privacy storm after it admitted that its Street View cars had mistakenly collected information sent over unencrypted Wi-Fi networks. The company, based in Mountain View, California, is currently facing a series of international investigations over the crisis after it admitted recording information broadcast via unsecured wireless networks in family homes. Eric Schmidt, the Google chief executive recently admitted the company had “screwed up” after its Street Cars wrongly mapped every wireless network in Britain to use the information for commercial purposes. Facebook also was at the centre of a privacy row after it recently changed its policies to give users more control over how much information users could make public. They were forced to make changes to its settings after protests from some users and privacy watchdogs. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technolog...nal-media.html Zuckerberg: Facebook is the Most Engaging Site Ever Built Talks Facebook popularity Marc Chacksfield Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg made a rare visit to London this week, introducing the UK Facebook Developers Garage and discussing his thoughts about what makes Facebook so popular. In his brief and thankfully sweat-free speech, Zuckerberg told a packed audience, with TechRadar in attendance, that Europe was a significant part of a site which he believes is one of the most engaging out there. "It is a really exciting time to get information," notes Zuckerberg. "What we have seen is the Facebook web application is the most engaging website ever built because it has been made for people. "We are at a pretty interesting point in the world. The world is becoming more and more open. Google came out when I was at middle school. Before that there was AOL, then Napster with all the music you wanted. "Then you could look at everything on Wikipedia and finally Facebook brought social to the web." When it comes to Europe, Zuckerberg noted that it is European developers who are using Facebook's social plug-ins, explaining that its take-up has been massive outside of America. "Already 300,000 sites use our Like plug-in and social APIs, with 50 per cent coming from Europe. "The social graph means that all developers can easily add social tools to their sites. The graph API meant that we completely re-did the core programme, it is a lot easier to use, it is a lot faster." Social web Zuckerberg noted in his speech that he wants all websites to be social and he believes Facebook has the tools to do this and that is why Zuckerberg is giving these tools to developers for free. "We realised early on that we couldn't develop all the social things we wanted, so we started the API platform so developers can build the next generation of applications. "Social gaming has interrupted the games industry, making us the biggest gaming platform in the world. "The new version of Spotify is fundamentally social and is pretty amazing, it adds a new level to the experience that is completely different from what was before. "Every industry is going to go through a wave of social development. It is not just music and games. Most of what people do on the web isn't on Facebook, it isn't on any one website. All the websites you use are based on structured data but there hasn't been any way for websites to utilise this. Facebook is trying to do this." http://www.techradar.com/news/intern...r-built-697961 Google Remotely Nukes Apps from Android Phones Peter Smith The other day Google might have reached into your phone and deleted one of your apps. Did you know they could do that? I didn’t. I’m sure it’s in some fine print somewhere, but it came as a surprise to me. Remember when Amazon deleted certain copies of 1984 from Kindles? Remember the outrage? Should we be outraged now? On the Android Developer blog, we learn why they deleted these apps. In Google’s own words: Recently, we became aware of two free applications built by a security researcher for research purposes. These applications intentionally misrepresented their purpose in order to encourage user downloads, but they were not designed to be used maliciously, and did not have permission to access private data — or system resources beyond permission.INTERNET. As the applications were practically useless, most users uninstalled [sic] the applications shortly after downloading them. After the researcher voluntarily removed these applications from Android Market, we decided, per the Android Market Terms of Service, to exercise our remote application removal feature on the remaining installed copies to complete the cleanup. So OK, these apps weren’t useful to anyone, and sure enough, the Terms of Service says Google retains the right to remotely wipe apps (see section 2, paragraph 4). And as far as I’m aware, this is the first time they’ve exercised this right. They’ve removed apps from the Market plenty of times, generally for copyright violation. But this is the first time they’ve done a remote delete. So are we willing to give them the benefit of the doubt that this isn’t a Terms of Service clause that will be invoked frequently? Is Google still our benevolent overseer? Or should we be grabbing the pitchforks and torches and heading for Google HQ? http://www.itworld.com/mobile-amp-wi...android-phones Press Release about Shoutcast Removal in VLC Introduction SHOUTcast Radio is a web site which provides a directory of radio stations avalaible on the Internet. It provides categorizations of such stations, so it is easier to find one that matches your interest. According to users feedback, the integration of such directory inside VLC is one of the best features of the software. Starting from VLC 1.1.0, the SHOUTcast module is not available on the distributed VLC any longer, because AOL Corporation is hindering Open Source Software. What happened? During the last year, the VLC developers have received several injunctions by e-mail from employees at AOL, asking us to either comply to a license not compatible with free software or remove the SHOUTcast capability in VLC. Open source integral restriction The license states at Chapter 4.4: "When sold or distributed to End Users, the Integrated Product shall not [...] (c) incorporate any Publically Available Software, in whole or in part, in a manner that may subject SHOUTcast Radio or the SHOUTcast Radio Materials, in whole or in part, to all or part of the license obligations of any Publically Available Software. As used herein, the term "Publicly Available Software" means any software that contains, or is derived in any manner (in whole or in part) from, any software that is distributed as free software, open source software or similar licensing or distribution models; and that requires as a condition of use, modification or distribution that such software or other software incorporated into, derived from or distributed with such software: (1) be disclosed or distributed in source code form; (2) be licensed for the purpose of making derivative works; or (3) be redistributable at no charge." Forcing spyware and adware Moreover, the license forces us to integrate the spyware and adware based Shoutcast Radio Toolbar inside your browser as stated at chapter 6.6: "Integrated Product. You agree to promote the SHOUTcast Radio toolbar on your web site and within the documentation of the Integrated Product subject to placement agreed to by You and Nullsoft in writing. If the Integrated Product is a software download, You agree to bundle the SHOUTcast Radio toolbar with the Integrated Product." License incompatibility Since it is obviously impossible for VLC to comply with such licensing terms, we had to remove the support from the default VLC. Other free software multimedia players, like Amarok, are not able to comply with the license terms either and have therefore removed their SHOUTcast support. However, we are providing a way to integrate the "icecast directory" that provides an open source equivalent to SHOUTcast. If you know and like a radio station currently listed on the SHOUTcast directory, please make sure this radio is also available on the icecast directory and let the radio owner know about how AOL treats their content. We want to emphasise the fact that features like SHOUTcast or icecast browsing are now doable using our new extension framework and you will find user-contributed extensions on http://addons.videolan.org/ Complain to AOL Please direct your complaints about the removal of Shoutcast to the following responsible people from AOL Corporation: * Faisal Sultan faisal.sultan@corp.aol.com * Saran Anurag anurag.saran@corp.aol.com * Lisa Namerow Lisa.Namerow@corp.aol.com * Robert Wilson robert.wilson@corp.aol.com Contact VideoLAN To contact VideoLAN, see the contact page. License text The entire license can be found here: License in pdf References: VLC media player http://www.videolan.org/vlc/ http://www.videolan.org/press/2010-1.html Coalition Urges FCC to Block Proposed Merger of Comcast-NBC Gautham Nagesh A coalition of media companies, unions and nonprofits is urging the Federal Communications Commission to block the merger of Comcast and NBC Universal. The coalition, made up of organizations including media giant Bloomberg, the Writers Guild of America, West and advocacy groups like Free Press and Media Access Project, wrote to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski on Monday voicing their opposition to the proposed merger of Comcast and NBC-Universal. Monday is the last day for organizations to submit public comment to the FCC on the proposed merger, which would create a new $30 billion joint venture merging the Philadelphia cable giant's content division with NBC Universal's (NBCU) stable of television networks, film studios and theme parks. Govs. Arnold Schwarzenegger, (R-Calif.), David Paterson, (D-N.Y.) and Ed Rendell (D-Pa.) have expressed support for the merger. The groups argue the new entity would have unprecedented control over the country's media landscape, raising antitrust concerns. "The proposed merger of Comcast and NBC-Universal is poised to fundamentally alter the landscape of the U.S. media market," the letter states. "We are a group of varied organizations with many specific concerns with this merger, but we have joined together because the threat of this merger to consumers is so great." "As filed," it goes on, "we oppose this merger." According to the letter, the new entity created by the merger would include the largest cable company, the largest residential broadband Internet service provider, the owner of one of the four national broadcast networks, several prominent local stations, cable networks and some of the most popular websites. This would give the company "a degree of market power unrivaled in our nation's media history," the letter claims. Comcast executive vice president for public policy David Cohen responded to criticism of the deal Monday afternoon in a lengthy blog post citing the numerous elected officials, advocacy groups and labor organizations that have endorsed the merger. He also indicated that many critics are motivated by business interests, not concern for consumers. "It is important to keep in mind as you read the comments from opponents of this transaction that the businesses in which Comcast operates in today – distribution, programming, online, high-speed Internet, and voice — are all fiercely competitive," Cohen writes. "Comcast and NBCU don’t compete against each other in most segments of the market, so there is no new concentration. There are no cable systems involved in this deal, so Comcast’s distribution platform will not grow." “If the Comcast-NBC deal goes through, it would be one of the largest media mergers in a generation, leaving Americans with even higher cable bills and fewer diverse, independent choices on the dial," said Free Press President Josh Silver. "Approval of the deal would be business as usual in Washington, letting the largest companies have their way at the public’s expense." Silver said the deal is particularly bad for consumers in the 12 markets where Comcast is the leading cable and broadband Internet provider and NBC has a local TV station, including Washington, D.C. He also warned the deal could threaten the viability of online video sites like Hulu.com, claiming Comcast could prioritize its own online content in violation of the principle of net neutrality. Sen. Herb Kohl, (D-Wis.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on antitrust, competition policy and consumer rights, wrote to the FCC last month asking the commission to impose a host of conditions on the deal, including a promise from Comcast not to discriminate against content from other networks. The full list of organizations that co-signed the letter follows: Bloomberg LP Common Cause Communications Workers of America Free Press Media Access Project The National Association of Independent Networks The National Coalition of African-American Owned Media National Consumers League The Organization for the Promotion and Advancement of Small Telecommunications Companies National Telecommunications Cooperative Association Public Knowledge WealthTV Writers Guild of America, West http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-va...ast-nbc-merger Privacy Change: Apple Knows Where Your Phone Is And Is Telling People Meg Marco Apple updated its privacy policy today, with an important, and dare we say creepy new paragraph about location information. If you agree to the changes, (which you must do in order to download anything via the iTunes store) you agree to let Apple collect store and share "precise location data, including the real-time geographic location of your Apple computer or device." Apple says that the data is "collected anonymously in a form that does not personally identify you," but for some reason we don't find this very comforting at all. There appears to be no way to opt-out of this data collection without giving up the ability to download apps. Here's the full text: Quote:
Coming Soon: Web Ads Tailored to Your ZIP+4 Eliot Van Buskirk Routers from Juniper Networks such as this SRX5800 will soon include Feeva's zipcode tracking software, assuming ISPs want it. Your internet service provider knows where you live, and soon, it will have a way to sell your zip code to advertisers so they can target ads by neighborhood. If your local pizza joint wants to find you, they will have a new way to do that. National advertisers will be able to market directly to neighborhoods with like characteristics across the whole country using demographic data they’ve been gathering for decades. As websites continue to push for higher advertising rates, similar to what print publications command, this technology could allow them to boost their rates slightly. Every bit counts. Juniper Networks, which sells routers to ISPs, plans to start selling them add-on technology from digital marketer Feeva that affixes a tag inside the HTTP header, consisting of each user’s “zip+4″ — a nine-digit zipcode that offers more accuracy than five-digit codes. Juniper hopes to sell the software to ISPs starting this summer, having announced a partnership with Feeva earlier this year. “Our technology fundamentally changes the industry,” Feeva director of advertising Mike Blacker told Wired.com. “Nobody can deliver accuracy at the neighborhood level online or accurate demographics.” Why is that so important? Advertisers have been gathering demographic information about zip codes for decades, yet lacked a reliable way to harness that data in the online world. IP-address detection is only accurate within 25 miles or so, and cookies that track users’ surfing habits don’t tell marketers about users’ location. Neither system meshes directly with all the demographic data marketers gathered about neighborhoods in the offline world. Of course, privacy is a potential issue, but Feeva claims its software doesn’t tell marketers anything about web surfers except for their nine-digit zip codes. All their other personal information remains safe with their ISP. “[This technology is] unleashing the underlying foundational data that [marketers] happen to have, but translating it into a language that [they] can use in such a way that the consumer is not in any way stripped of their privacy,” said Rashid Tobaccowala, advisor to Feeva and head of marketing giant Publicis’s future unit early last year, well before Feeva will begin marketing this product to ISPs. Even federal regulators who scrutinize other ad firms over their targeting practices are apparently okay with this. That might reassure privacy advocates that personally identifying information is not at risk here (unless you’re the only person in your nine-digit zipcode, which would only happen in an incredibly remote region). “The privacy folks in Washington love what we are doing,” claims Blacker, “because we never see any personally identifying information, we don’t track online usage like behavioral [advertising does], and we only aggregate at the neighborhood level.” Feeva was founded in 2005 at the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business Incubator, and has a patent that "enables demographic information and user preferences to be distributed to any website or online advertising or media server." The system cuts ISPs in on the advertising game in a new way, without them having to expend much effort. They can add Feeva tags to the HTTP headers that already tell online advertisers a person’s IP address, referring URL, language and browser, and they can do it using the same aggregation routers that already authenticate whether a given subscriber is paid up and should be allowed to connect. ISPs have something not even Google has (something of a rarity these days) — the user’s zip+4 – and they can use it to take a chunk of the market currently dominated by that advertising behemoth, by charging ad networks for that valuable zipcode information. “ISPs love Feeva, because we help them participate in the ecosystem instead of being just dumb pipes” said Blacker, “and letting Google make all the money from their expensive infrastructure.” Of course, one big reason the internet matters at all is that it was not instantly co-opted by the same corporations in charge of other forms of media. We largely owe that to routers that are “dumb,” in the sense that they treat each bit passing through them the same regardless of where it’s coming from or where it’s going. Feeva and other technology that sits on routers threatens to undermine that system, by allowing routers to shoot bits through faster to certain users, or serving only specific subscribers a piece of content. Assuming Juniper succeeds in selling Feeva’s software to ISPs, another potential use of its technology will be to go beyond the zip code and authenticate individual users with a higher level of certainty than a username and password could ever provide. For instance, HBO could partner with an ISP to verify, at the network level, that a certain user subscribes to HBO, and so should be allowed to watch its programming for free on Hulu. Users might be annoyed that they can’t use a username and password to watch the channel from a computer outside their homes, but content providers will appreciate the way this system can prevent users from sharing accounts. Juniper Networks, which says its current href=”http://www.juniper.net/us/en/partners/”>customers include the top 100 service providers globally, plans to start offering the Feeva add-on to ISPs in July or August. http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/...ur-zip-4/all/1 Targeted Ads Will Let You Spy on Them for a Change Eliot Van Buskirk If an advertiser knows you like the artist Jasper Johns, it could use targeted advertising to tempt you with prints of his 'Target' painting; a new standardized mechanism will let you opt-out of such targeted ads later this summer. Advertisers have grown much more sophisticated since the early days of the web and can now target us with increasing precision using a wider range of behavioral data than ever before. In spite of that – or perhaps because of it – the advertising industry plans to start including a transparent mechanism this summer that can give you a hint as to why particular advertisements found you and provide unprecedented controls to control or even stop them. The solution dictates that ad networks include a standard icon within web-based ads that lets users access their behavioral profile on the ad network in question. Users will also be able to opt out from being targeted by ads that rely on their profiles. The industry did not decide to do this on its own, but because the Federal Trade Commission called on advertisers to regulate their own targeted advertising early last year. Advertisers formed a cross-industry coalition to figure out how to serve ads that are customized to consumers’ recent and past behavior, without scaring users or drawing more government scrutiny. (Members include the American Association of Advertisers Agency, the Association of National Advertisers, the Interactive Advertising Bureau, the Direct Marketing Association and the Council of Better Business Bureaus.) “Behavioral advertising is important to advertising and to the future of the internet,’” said Lee Peeler, vice president of the Council of Better Business Bureaus. “The industry wanted to respond positively to the challenges that the Federal Trade Commission put in front of it, when it said ‘We want to see you do this on a self-regulatory basis.’” If advertisers fail to do so, they could face harsher rules, such as limitations on what sorts of data they can collect in the first place (including health and financial), regardless of how they use it. This effort contains lots of moving parts, so it’s impressive that we’re only a couple months from seeing mandatory targeted-ad standards put into place. Why mandatory? The Council of Better Business Bureau is seeking software to detect targeted ads that lack these mechanisms, and Peeler says it will report non-complying ad networks to the FTC. Its compliance tool will check for all the elements of these principles: an icon, likely to be found in the same corner of all targeted ads, a link to a user’s profile on that ad network, and a way for people to opt out of receiving targeted ads from it. These rules stop short of limiting what kind of data marketers can collect or detailing to consumers exactly what past behaviors created their profiles. Plus, they’re focused primarily on the web. Mobile apps, with their ability to see where you are, and more about what you’re doing, are still somewhat of an afterthought in this effort. Regardless, allowing people to see their advertising profile – and letting them opt out of ad targeting, if they’re discomfited by what they see there — is a step forward for consumers. Mike Zaneis, vice president of public policy for the Interactive Advertising Bureau, said Google’s profile manager — which allows consumers to view the profile advertisers have created about them and opt out – can be considered the model for these principles. “Instead of saying ‘you went to these five car sites,’ [Google profile manager] says, ‘we believe you are interested in cars.’ Consumers can say ‘yes, I am,’ or ‘no’ — or they can say ‘I’m just going to opt out of targeting because I don’t like this.’” Surprisingly, advertisers could actually gather more information through consumers voluntarily editing their ad profiles than they lose from consumers opting out. In that way, this initiative could actually offer advertisers more grist for their ad-targeting mill, rather than less. “[Google] said publicly that three to four times as many people customize their profiles than the number who opt out,” added Zaneis. “They’re actually getting increased consumer engagement and better profiles, and thus you can make the assumption that they’re going to have a higher click-through rate.” Advertisers are free to use whatever system they wish to comply with these principles (the icon, the profile link and the opt-out mechanism), but the group submitted a request for proposals to help advertisers meet their guidelines and plans to announce its decision soon. Ad-Age reports that the group is close to selecting Better Advertising’s “Power Eye” solution, which lets consumers mouse over an icon to see what they did to deserve a certain ad and opt out of receiving targeted ads. According to Peeler, these new ads, whoever provides them, will roll out by late summer. Was it those airplane tickets to Costa Rica, your twice-daily coffee habit, your hyper-caffeinated web surfing style, or nothing in particular that caused a coffee ad to target you? This initiative won’t tell you — but it will tell you that advertisers know you love coffee, and let you force them to stop using that information to target you with ads, assuming that’s what you want. Of course, once you’ve also told an ad network that you’re suspicious of targeted advertising, you’ve also identified yourself as the perfect recipient of identity theft prevention advertisements. (They wouldn’t… would they?) http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2010/...-for-a-change/ Google, Twitter Go to Bat for Theflyonthewall Google Inc and Twitter Inc have asked an appeals court to overturn a lower court's decision to bar Theflyonthewall.com from issuing immediate news on analyst research from several Wall Street banks, court documents showed. Theflyonthewall.com posted headlines from research reports and press releases on its website, often before banks could share their recommendations with their clients. In March, U.S. District Judge Denise Cote said Theflyonthewall.com engaged in "systematic misappropriation," essentially getting a "free ride" from its quick publication of upgrades and downgrades that can move stocks higher and lower. The ruling was made in favor of Bank of America Corp's Merrill Lynch unit, Barclays Plc and Morgan Stanley, which had earlier sought court intervention to ban Theflyonthewall from using their research reports. However, in a filing with an appeals court late on Monday, Google and Twitter argued that in the age of Internet and instantaneous communication, banning of Theflyonthewall.com's immediate news dissemination was "obsolete." "News reporting always has been a complex ecosystem, where what is 'news' is often driven by certain influential news organizations, with others republishing or broadcasting those facts -- all to the benefit of the public," the companies said in the filing. Google and Twitter argued that upholding the district court's decision would give those who obtained the news first strong incentives to block others from obtaining the same information. The companies also said it was tough to implement "any period of exclusivity" for news. It would be impossible to craft and enforce a rule restricting the dissemination of readily accessible factual information, the companies said. They requested the court to recognize that "hot news" misappropriation could no longer be practically or fairly applied. "How, for example, would a court pick a time period during which facts about the recent Times Square bombing attempt would be non-reportable by others?" the companies said in the filing. The case is IN re: Barclays Capital et al v Theflyonthewall.com, Case No. 10-1372, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. (Reporting by Sakthi Prasad in Bangalore; Editing by Valerie Lee) http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE65L0OI20100622 Potatoes May Power The Batteries Of The Future Ray Willington Oh, batteries. Can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em. It sounds like a power ballad, but it's the story of our lives around here. We've been dealing with lofty promises and batteries that kick the bucket far too early, for years now. And the fact that we're still dealing with lead-acid batteries is sort of a baffling thing to wrap one's mind around. But all of that just might be changing. We won't get our hopes too high until fuel cells become the viable alternative that we have been told that they are, but we strangely have more faith in a vegetable than a science lab to revolutionize the battery. A vegetable? Yes, indeed. Yissum Research Development Company Ltd., the technology transfer arm of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, has just introduced what they're calling "solid organic electric battery based upon treated potatoes." In short, it's a potato powered battery, and it's as real as you're hoping it is. The simple, sustainable, robust device can potentially provide an immediate inexpensive solution to electricity needs in parts of the world lacking electrical infrastructure, but we're hoping that it can work a similar amount of magic for developed nations as well. Researchers at the Hebrew University discovered that the enhanced salt bridge capability of treated potato tubers can generate electricity through means readily available in the developing world. This cheap, easy to use green power source could substantially improve the quality of life of 1.6 billion people, comprising 32% of the developing non-OECD populations, currently lacking access to electrical infrastructure. Such a source can provide important needs, such as lighting, telecommunication, and information transfer. The technical details are below, but here's all you really need to know: potatoes may be a battery of the future and it's a significant advancement that we all can be proud of. Prof. Haim D. Rabinowitch from the Robert H. Smith Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environment and the research student Alex Golberg from the School of Computer Science and Engineering at the Hebrew University, jointly with Prof. Boris Rubinsky at the University of California at Berkeley, study the electrolytic process in living matter for use in various applications, including the generation of electric energy for self-powered implanted medical electronic devices. In their research, they discovered a new way to construct an efficient battery using zinc and copper electrodes and a slice of your everyday potato. The scientists discovered that the simple action of boiling the potato prior to use in electrolysis, increases electric power up to 10 fold over the untreated potato and enables the battery to work for days and even weeks. The scientific basis of the finding is related to the reduction in the internal salt bridge resistance of the potato battery, which is exactly how engineers are trying to optimize the performance of conventional batteries. The ability to produce and utilize low power electricity was demonstrated by LEDs powered by treated potato batteries. Cost analyses showed that the treated potato battery generates energy, which is five to 50 folds cheaper than commercially available 1.5 Volt D cells and Energizer E91 cells, respectively. The clean light powered by this green battery is also at least 6 times more economical than kerosene lamps often used in the developing world. Thus, the boiled potato or other similarly treated vegetables could provide an immediate, environmental friendly and inexpensive solution to many of the low power energy needs in areas of the world lacking access to electrical infrastructure. The long-keeping humble potatoes in particular are a good energy source since they are produced in 130 countries over a wide range of climates, from temperate zones to the subtropics- more than any other crop worldwide, but corn, and thus available year round almost anywhere. The potato is the world’s number one non-grain starch food commodity, with production reaching a record 325 million tons in 2007. Potato consumption is expanding strongly in developing countries, which now account for more than half of the global harvest and where the potato’s ease of cultivation and high energy content have made it a valuable cash crop for millions of farmers. http://hothardware.com/News/Potatoes...Of-The-Future/ EMI Repositions As Rights Management Company FMQB Following the recent fundraising for EMI Group, the music company has announced the results of a strategic review into how EMI Recorded Music and EMI Music Publishing could better work together to maximize the value of the copyrights they represent. As a result of the review, the management structure of EMI is being changed to enable the company to reposition itself as a comprehensive rights management firm and utilize the skills which exist within both EMI Recorded Music and EMI Music Publishing under one global head. Hence, Roger Faxon, who has been Chairman and Chief Executive of EMI Music Publishing since 2007, has now been appointed as Group Chief Executive. In this new position, Faxon will lead EMI Recorded Music as well as continuing to be responsible for the publishing business. Charles Allen, formerly non-Executive Chairman of EMI Recorded Music, will become an adviser to EMI and its shareholder, Terra Firma. Additionally, Stephen Alexander will become Chairman of Maltby Capital, the holding company of EMI. He has been a director of Maltby Capital for the past 18 months and was formerly an operational Managing Director of Terra Firma. Lord Birt, formerly Chairman of Maltby Capital, will move on to other Terra Firma assignments, focusing on acquisitions and strategy. Alexander stated, "Having worked closely with Roger for a considerable time, I know that his leadership of the entire business will be of huge benefit to EMI’s artists, employees and investors. In particular, his appointment as Group Chief Executive will allow all EMI’s undoubted skills and resources to be implemented to maximum effect as the company continues to develop its new music, catalogue and publishing businesses." Faxon added, "I am delighted and honored to become Group Chief Executive of EMI, and to be given the responsibility for leading one of the greatest music brands in the world. There is incredible talent and expertise within both EMI Music Publishing and EMI Music, as has been demonstrated by their recent performance. I believe that the two divisions working in concert with one another as a global rights management business, can and will deliver for the artists and songwriters that we are privileged to work with now and in the future." "I have really enjoyed my time at EMI, leading a team that has transformed the business over the last few years creating top line growth, share growth and profit growth as well as delivering new hits and a strong performance from our catalogue business," commented Allen. "I’m delighted to have played a part in securing the investment in the Group by our shareholders. It gives us a firm platform for future growth. This repositioning and restructuring will benefit our artists and I’m delighted that EMI will be led by an experienced, music industry veteran. The whole EMI Group and its artists will benefit from having one Chief Executive and I look forward to supporting Roger and his colleagues." Birt stated, "It has been a pleasure to work with EMI, and in particular with Recorded Music, since its purchase by Terra Firma three years ago. The turnaround - and the improvement in the profitability of the business - has been remarkable. I am delighted to see Roger become Group Chief Executive. He is a tireless and consummate music industry professional, whom I have learnt greatly to respect. He and Stephen form the ideal leadership to take EMI through the next phase of its necessary transformation." http://www.fmqb.com/article.asp?id=1846031 Music Business Badly Needs Eminem's "Recovery" Mike Collett-White "Recovery," the new album from rapper Eminem, could not be more aptly named for a music business facing an alarming fall in sales so far this year. The Detroit star's seventh studio album hits shelves on Monday, a day earlier than planned after tracks leaked on to the Internet. It comes about a week after the release of Canadian artist Drake's debut "Thank Me Later," which is also expected to perform strongly. But the duo are unlikely to lift the gloom hanging over the music business for long, with year-to-date U.S. physical and digital album sales by early June down 11 percent year-on-year to 130.6 million, extending a decade-long decline. To make matters worse, the recent boom in touring, which labels and bands sought to exploit as recorded music faded, is showing signs of weakness caused by high ticket prices and economic uncertainty, and digital download growth is slowing. Official figures for the key U.S. market as it approaches mid-year show how tough conditions are for music companies and acts who blame illegal file sharing for their woes. According to Nielsen Soundscan, which tracks sales, 4.98 million albums were sold in the week ending May 30, possibly the lowest figure since the early 1970s. By comparison, the record one-week tally set in December 2000 was 45.4 million. Analysts put the low figure down to a weak lineup during that particular week, and Drake's record is forecast to be one of the largest launches of the year so far while Eminem, another "tentpole" album, follows hot on its heels. CDs Still Crucial Yet while major and independent labels are pinning their future on digital music, whether it is access models or actual ownership, they can ill afford to abandon physical sales which account for somewhere in the region of 70 percent of revenues. "The physical format is in decline, but I don't think it will go away completely," said Ed Christman, who tracks music sales for industry publication Billboard. "What you want to do, since the digital 'magical bullet' hasn't appeared, is to sustain your revenue from CD sales for as long as you can." Although relatively small in terms of a label's revenues, digital streaming, downloading, online subscriptions and advertising are seen as key to the industry's future. "The revenue is still small, but at least it's revenue," said one major label executive. "Don't forget, some 95 percent of the digital market is illegal. If we can grow that five percent significantly, we've got a future." That task is proving slow going, and while a recent report from PricewaterhouseCoopers predicts that the music industry will return to growth in 2013, some analysts are less sure. "Given the incredible number of ways a person can now listen to music for free or near free, that gap between interest and willingness to pay is the biggest hurdle in record labels' quest to grow digital revenues," Billboard said of the report. In the short term, all eyes will be on Eminem, one of the world's best-selling artists of the last decade who has said in interviews to promote Recovery that he is over his prescription drug addiction, is sober and more tolerant than he used to be. Whether the "nice guy" image appeals to fans is unclear. Early reaction to the album, out on Universal Music Group's Interscope label, has been mixed. London's Evening Standard was among the most positive with a four-star review that concluded: "After seven albums, Eminem is so far ahead of the pack he only has himself to compete with. Even by that measurement, he's winning." The Independent was less glowing, stating: "If we're being brutally frank, I think we already know far more about Eminem's private life and his alleged mental torment than is probably healthy for us, let alone the rapper himself." (Reporting by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato) http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE65K32E20100621 Google Planning Two-Part Digital Music Service FMQB Building on recent reports of a Google digital music service, The Wall Street Journal has more details about the planned offering from the search engine giant. Sources tell the WSJ that Google plans to launch a music download service tied into its search engine later in 2010, with a music subscription service on the way in 2011. The WSJ's sources describe Google's current proposals for the service are vague and it is unknown if the company has inked any deals with the major labels yet. However, Google has been discussing tying the new music services into its Android phones. Any official launching of a digital music store would still be months away. The download service would reportedly be tied directly to the Google search engine, giving a link to purchase a song though Google's own store when searching for information about a tune. The store would be an "interim" step towards what the WSJ describes as "a more ambitious cloud-based subscription service compatible with mobile phones built with Google's Android software. A cloud-based service would enable subscribers to stream music directly from the Internet to their mobile phones, so that users wouldn't need to store music files on their devices." In related news, CNet reports that the British Phonographic Industry is requesting that Google stop directing users to illegal, file-sharing options for music. "We have identified the following links that are available via Google's search engine," the BPI wrote to Google in a recent letter. "[BPI leaders] request the following links be removed as soon as possible, as they directly link to sound recordings owned by our members." CNet suggests that if the major labels are negotiating with Google to start a new music service, they may not be eager to join in BPI's fight against the search engine. A source tells CNet that the labels may fear that BPI taking on Google could be a roadblock to the creation of the new Google music service. The labels are in favor of Google starting a new service to take on Apple's highly-successful iTunes, which has butted heads with the major labels in the past. http://www.fmqb.com/article.asp?id=1850002 Post-Gaming the Google Ruling Nathan Koppel We begin today where we left off yesterday — the dismissal of Viacom’s copyright infringement suit against Google’s YouTube site. The big question is what does the ruling mean for the spirited battle between Internet companies and content providers? Do online service providers like Facebook, Amazon, eBay, or music and video file-sharing sites, now have broad license to use pirated material? Not exactly. In his ruling, New York federal judge Louis Stanton said that while YouTube may have had a “general” awareness that users had uploaded Viacom’s copyright-protected content onto its site that was not the same as “knowledge of specific and identifiable infringements of individual items.” When YouTube was given notice about copyright infringement, it quickly removed the pirated material, the judge concluded. In other words, yesterday’s ruling should give comfort to Internet companies so long as they act responsibly and quickly in addressing copyright complaints. Here’s a copy of the ruling, which is perhaps the highest-profile interpretation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a 1998 law designed to bring traditional intellectual-property rights in line with the Internet age. Here’s a WSJ article on the ruling and click here for a nice summary of the holding’s import from Forbes’s Andy Greenberg. The DMCA provides a “safe harbor” from liability for service providers that respond promptly to warnings that they are hosting pirated material. Stanton’s ruling underscores the fact that the 1998 law puts the onus on media companies to police illegal uses of their content. Given the massive amounts of video material on YouTube — Stanton noted that 24 hours of video are uploaded every minute — Google must rely on copyright owners to identify infringing material, according to the ruling. At the same, Forbes’s Greenberg notes, Stanton indicated that online service providers, such as peer-to-peer file sharing sites, that actively promote the use of copyrighted material may not be able to use the DMCA’s safe harbor rule. At the end of the day, though, WSJ reports, yesterday’s ruling is a setback for media companies, who for years have been trying to curb Internet companies’ ability to distribute their content without compensating them. Viacom said it plan to appeal. “We believe that this ruling by the lower court is fundamentally flawed,” the company said in an emailed statement. In an interview, Google general counsel Kent Walker called the decision “a full vindication across the board.” http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2010/06/24/...google-ruling/ Until next week, - js. Current Week In Review  Recent WiRs - June 19th, June 12th, June 5th, May 29th Jack Spratts' Week In Review is published every Friday. Submit letters, articles, press releases, comments, questions etc. in plain text English to jackspratts (at) lycos (dot) com. Submission deadlines are Thursdays @ 1400 UTC. Please include contact info. The right to publish all remarks is reserved. "The First Amendment rests on the assumption that the widest possible dissemination of information from diverse and antagonistic sources is essential to the welfare of the public." - Hugo Black |
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28-06-10, 05:39 AM
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#2 |
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How may I help you?
Join Date: Jun 2002
Location: Los Angeles, CA, USA
Posts: 210
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Greetings js. Great to see you still doing your WiRs.
 If you are on Twitter, please tweet links to these posts. I'm sure lots of people will find these useful. Regards, Kris |
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28-06-10, 03:34 PM
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Join Date: May 2001
Location: New England
Posts: 10,017
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hi kris, i was an early tweeter and used it to announce new issues but stopped a while ago. maybe i'll take it back up.
same with facebook. i keep getting friended by english kids who think jackspratts is their local new food emporium. they are very polite and like the week in review but they really want to know when i'm going to start carrying meat. thanks for reading, jack. |
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