Peer-To-Peer News - The Week In Review – June 5th, '04

[JackSpratts]

'Pirate Act' Raises Civil Rights Concerns
Declan McCullagh

File swappers concerned about getting in trouble with record labels over illegal downloads may soon have a major new worry: the U.S. Department of Justice.

A proposal that the Senate may vote on as early as next week would let federal prosecutors file civil lawsuits against suspected copyright infringers, with fines reaching tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The so-called Pirate Act is raising alarms among copyright lawyers and lobbyists for peer-to-peer firms, who have been eyeing the recording industry's lawsuits against thousands of peer-to-peer users with trepidation. The Justice Department, they say, could be far more ambitious.

One influential proponent of the Pirate Act is urging precisely that. "Tens of thousands of continuing civil enforcement actions might be needed to generate the necessary deterrence," Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said when announcing his support for the bill. "I doubt that any nongovernmental organization has the resources or moral authority to pursue such a campaign."

The Pirate Act represents the latest legislative priority for the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and its allies, who collectively argue that dramatic action is necessary to prevent file-swapping networks from continuing to blossom in popularity.

"We view this as a key component of an enforcement package," RIAA lobbyist Mitch Glazier said Tuesday. "If you're going to try to make sure that you have effective deterrence, then one of the tools you'll need is to make sure that prosecutors have flexibility."

Foes of the Pirate Act have been alarmed by the unusual alacrity of the proposal's legislative progress. It was introduced just two months ago, on March 25, and not one hearing was held before the Judiciary committee forwarded it to the full Senate for a vote a month later.

"This was an attempt to move it in a stealthy manner," said Philip Corwin, a lobbyist for Sharman Networks, which operates the Kazaa network. "I can't imagine that (Hollywood lobbyist) Jack Valenti or (RIAA chairman) Mitch Bainwol really wants to come before Congress and give testimony saying, 'We can't afford to bring these lawsuits. That's why we want the taxpayer to pay for them.' I can't believe they want to do that in public."

Potential P2P prosecutions
Underlying the public jockeying over the Pirate Act is a classic political war of wills between the federal government's legislative and executive branches.

Under a 1997 law called the No Electronic Theft Act, federal prosecutors can file criminal charges against peer-to-peer users who make a large number of songs available for download. A July 2002 letter from prominent congressmen to U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft urged the prosecution of Americans who "allow mass copying from their computer over peer-to-peer networks."

But not one peer-to-peer criminal prosecution has taken place in the United States. The Justice Department has indicated that it won't target peer-to-peer networks for two reasons: Imprisoning file-swapping teens on felony charges isn't the department's top priority, and it's always difficult to make criminal charges stick.

The Pirate Act was crafted to respond to the Justice Department's concern. "Federal prosecutors have been hindered in their pursuit of pirates by the fact that they were limited to bringing criminal charges with high burdens of proof," Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said in March. "Prosecutors can rarely justify bringing criminal charges, and copyright owners have been left alone to fend for themselves, defending their rights only where they can afford to do so. In a world in which a computer and an Internet connection are all the tools you need to engage in massive piracy, this is an intolerable predicament."

The RIAA's Glazier said: "The idea was to give prosecutors the flexibility to decide whether to bring a civil case against somebody. Giving them a criminal fine with a criminal record was viewed as a fairly harsh penalty for the activity...You're still committing a crime. But (prosecutors) are given a flexible remedy so there's some proportionality."

For copyright holders, there's an additional bonus. Unlike when the RIAA files its own lawsuits against peer-to-peer users, such as the 493 defendants it announced this week, the Justice Department likely would be able to seek wiretaps to collect evidence about P2P infringement. Current wiretap law says electronic communications may be intercepted when a potential federal felony is being investigated.

"Corporate copyright welfare"
In addition, the Pirate Act gives Ashcroft six months to "develop a program to ensure effective implementation and use of the authority for civil enforcement of the copyright laws" and report back to Congress on how many civil lawsuits have been filed. The Justice Department would receive an extra $2 million for the fiscal year beginning in October.

"It represents yet another point in another very long line of major corporate copyright interests pushing for and receiving what amounts to significant corporate welfare," said Adam Eisgrau, a lobbyist for the P2P United trade association. "This legislation literally offloads the cost of enforcing copyrights traditionally borne by the copyright holder onto the federal government and therefore the taxpayers."

Last week, the Pirate Act had been considered for a floor vote under a process normally restricted for noncontroversial measures. But the vote didn't happen, which one foe of the bill attributed to opposition from Sen. Norm Coleman, a Republican from Minnesota.

Coleman has slammed the RIAA in the past for going too far in its fierce legal campaign against individual file swappers. A representative was unable to confirm Tuesday whether Coleman had placed a "hold" on the bill.

Critics also charge that the Pirate Act may invent a form of double jeopardy: It would let the RIAA sue the same people already sued by the Justice Department.

"The kinds of things we have a double-jeopardy doctrine to prevent seem to be implicated by the bill," said Jessica Litman, author of "Digital Copyright" and a law professor at Wayne State University. "I find it disturbing that the committee reported this out without at least having a hearing to consider some of the alternatives."

The RIAA points out that the bill does limit damages it can collect in a subsequent lawsuit, but opponents of the proposal said they weren't convinced.

"Why should someone be sued by the government and then be subject to a second lawsuit brought by a private party?" said Corwin, the Sharman Networks lobbyist. "The RIAA is settling most of these lawsuits. What's the Justice Department's policy going to be?"
http://news.com.com/2100-1027-5220480.html


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Study: DVRs 'Recapture' 96% Of TV Ad Zapping
Joe Mandese

Digital video recorders (DVR) typically are seen as the ultimate threat to TV advertising, giving consumers unsurpassed control over what they choose to watch or not watch on their TV sets, including TV commercials. And while it is true that most DVR subscribers do fast-forward through TV commercials when watching programming in replay mode, new research indicates that the net effect of DVRs actually increases the likelihood that viewers will see a TV commercial not decrease it.

The report, "Demystifying Digital Video Recorders," jointly published by InsightExpress and MediaPost, was based on multiple online surveys of DVR and non-DVR adopters, and finds that DVRs create incrementally higher opportunities for viewers to watch TV advertising than those viewers who do not use DVRs. The main contributors to this incremental boost are the fact that DVR subscribers have a higher satisfaction level with TV and typically spend 24 percent more time watching TV during an average week.

Most importantly, the research concludes that DVRs "recapture" TV commercial exposures that otherwise would have been "zapped" by non-DVR viewers. The study estimated that 51 percent of non-DVR viewers zap TV commercials, usually by using their remote control to change the channel when they come on. However, 96 percent of those viewers actually watch TV commercials when they become DVR subscribers, albeit in fast-forward mode.

While such fast-forwarding clearly diminishes the communications effectiveness of TV commercials, the study found that most fast-fowarders "notice" TV commercials either "always" (15 percent) or "sometimes" (52 percent) while zipping through the spots. Moreover, some big ad agencies and digital TV developers are exploring methods that would digitally compress commercials in such a way that would enable an abbreviated real-time version of the spots to be viewed during fast-forwarding.

As a result, the report concludes that DVRs actually recapture ad exposures or opportunities to see ads that would otherwise be lost from channel surfing in a non-DVR environment.

The report also suggests some interactive upside for advertisers, noting that "DVRs provide the unique opportunity to expand today's broadcast advertising model. Interestingly, 37 percent of DVR users stated they would like to be able to request information form advertisers when viewing a commercial for a product or a product category of interest to them. Such an approach would be received twice as favorably as the current 15- or 30-second broadcast advertising model."

DVRs May Be A Net Positive From An Ad Exposure Standpoint


Before After Impact
DVR DVR (Change)
Weekly Viewing Hours 19.2 23.9 +24%
TV Viewing Satisfaction 27% 37% +37%
Ad Erosion Due To Fast-Forwarding -- -- -7%
Recapture* Of 49% Viewers Who Zap Ads -- -- +96%

http://www.mediapost.com/dtls_dsp_ne...?newsID=252619


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ringtones Left Out Of Digital Music Price Wars

A recent price war has made Internet song downloads cheaper while the price tag on a mobile phone ringtone has barely budged, and in some cases, is creeping up, a new report on Tuesday said.

The price discrepancy between downloads and ringtones -- those ubiquitous tuneful greetings programmed into millions of handsets -- can be laid squarely at the feet of record companies, according to London- based consultancy Informa Plc.

The main culprit is the advent of so-called "sample" ringtones, the latest stereophonic tones pulled from actual studio recordings.

They carry a price tag of as much as four times higher than the typical Internet download price in Western Europe -- a price gap that could prematurely stifle a promising ringtone business, Informa said.

Record labels are demanding mobile operators and other ringtone resellers pay a royalty rate equivalent to between 25 percent and 55 percent of the total retail price for a "sample" ringtone, Informa said.

"The reseller is really between a rock and a hard place," said Simon Dyson, a co- author of the report. "They are torn between raising the price or keeping it steady in the hopes of establishing a market."

"Demanding such high percentage rates by the record companies could certainly lead to the market being depressed."

Strong side business

Ringtone sales have become a surprisingly strong side business for the music industry, one that is expected to grow to over $5.0 billion in 2007 from $3.0 billion in 2003, Informa predicted.

But the problem for the piracy-battered music labels is that licensing restrictions have kept music labels out of the sector's early growth. With "sample" ringtones, the labels hope to cash in on the business.

The "sample" tone's predecessors -- the monophonic and polyphonic tones -- are crude renditions of a sound recording. Royalty payments could be collected by artists and music publishers, usually at a rate of roughly 10 percent, but the labels were sidelined from the collection process.

But "sample" ringtones, because they are often taken from studio renditions, can now be licensed by the labels too.

As a result, prices for "sample" ringtones across Western Europe are on the rise, ranging from the equivalent of $1.38 from Web-based reseller F1-Live in Belgium to $7.35 from T-Mobile in Britain, Informa said.

In contrast, song downloads tend to follow Apple Computer Inc. iTunes straightforward pricing model of 99 cents per track. In Europe, downloads are priced in the range of 0.99 euros ($1.20) or 99 pence ($1.79).

Meanwhile, the increased competition in the download market has seen download services such as Britain's OD2 and Wippit discount the price of downloads. The more established ringtone market shows no sign of following suit, Informa said.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/ptech/0...eut/index.html


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lossy Audio: What's New And What's Good?
m0rbidini

This small article is about the new breed of lossy audio formats that emerged after MP3 hit the world in late 90s. Almost everyone has heard about MP3 and the way it changed how people listen to music. Even if the RIAA partially blames it for the drop in record sales, people just got used to having a more or less big number of songs on their computers, whether they come from legit online services, "evil" p2p networks or from the original CDs. But, in recent years, more formats have been developed and most of them correct some deficiencies that exist on MP3 (lack of a good standard tagging system, native gapless capability, need for higher bitrates to obtain transparency, built-in ReplayGain support, etc.). The most notorious are Ogg Vorbis, Musepack, AAC, WMA and ATRAC3. In the Second 128 kbps listening test by Roberto Amorim, the joint winners were aoTuV b2, (a third party tuning of Ogg Vorbis, which is 100% bitstream compatible with the reference encoder) and Musepack. The third place was taken by iTunes AAC closely followed by LAME MP3 (with a new VBR adjustment). WMA Standard came in fourth and in last was Sony's ATRAC3. These last two results were no big surprise for most of the Hydrogenaudio community.

Very few were expecting Vorbis to do this well on this test. That's because Xiph has been a bit slow updating its reference encoder and because it didn't win the first 128 kbps test by Roberto Amorim, which used the last official Vorbis encoder at the time. Since then, some Vorbis users took the matters in their own hands and started working on improving Vorbis. You can check the Recommended Vorbis encoders versions and settings thread in Hydrogenaudio. iTunes was chosen as the AAC encoder for this test because it won a previous 128 kbps test featuring only AAC encoders. AAC is an ISO standard and has the support of big companies like Apple, Ahead, AOL, Dolby, Fraunhofer and even Sony, among others. The good part of this is that it makes it easy to have hardware support for it (like Apple's iPod). The bad part is that AAC is mainly driven by corporate interests. The companies that support it put most of the development efforts in the low/mid bitrate area, where transparency (defined as the inability to distinct from the original source for almost everyone and under good conditions, preferably under blind testing) is impossible, with its current implementations. Vorbis already has a reasonable amount of hardware support and though it's more difficult to decode, a lot of the latest generation portable players (from Rio, iRiver, Neuros, etc) already support it.

The first thing you can notice is that both winners are Open Source and patent free formats. They have been tuned and optimized with the help of the community supporting them. While Ogg Vorbis is well known and supported for a long time by the Open Source community, Musepack is mainly known by people with a more deep interest in lossy audio compression. It's known for targeting transparency with its standard preset, that results in lower bitrates than what is possible with other codecs, if you want them to achieve transparency as it was defined earlier. While low bitrates are not Musepack's main driving force, it managed to stay on top on all 128 kbps tests made recently. Even Vorbis doesn't scale so well in higher bitrates (there's a third party encoder that tries to solve this but doesn't succeed completely), but work in that direction may start soon. Musepack has all of the advantages mentioned in the first paragraph and it decodes faster than all of them (with one possible exception being ATRAC3). But hardware support is still lacking. But that may change soon as Peter Pawlowsky, the author of foobar2000, recently completed his work on a LGPL-licensed portable mpcdec library, which comes with floating and fixed-point math modes and performs at around 10x realtime on a Intel XScale 400Mhz and is even fast enough to bring MPC decoding to slower ARM chips like the iPod's ARMv4.

AAC and MP3 are open standards but both are heavily patented and free binaries can't be legally distributed in most countries (check Via Licensing and mp3licensing.com for more details; there are subtle differences in the licensing schemes). This is another plus for Vorbis and Musepack. MP3 has already been tuned extensively and transparent results can be achieved using LAME's -standard and -extreme presets. AAC has a bigger potential to be transparent at lower bitrates, but its tuning is more complex and there are some problematic samples in which it fails, while Musepack has less problems, being the format with less known problematic samples and also the one that scales best in high bitrates (check this thread on Hydrogenaudio: High Bitrate Tests).

WMA9 Standard is Microsoft's biggest bet on lossy audio encoding. All online music services that offer WMA files use this version and there's no portable support for the Pro version. When Microsoft introduced WMA8 one of their marketing phrases was "WMA8 achieves CD-quality sound at 64 kbps", which is obviously false. Not even WMA9 at 128 kpbs can achieve this, as many tests have shown. It is worse than AAC and even MP3 can beat it as this test showed. I find this kind of funny, since Microsoft always claimed WMA to be superior than MP3 (it is superior than MP3 in very low bitrates such as 48- 64 kbps, but these cannot match a decent 128 kbps MP3). It also shows how desperate MS is in trying to dominate the online services market.

This test also showed that none of the formats can achieve transparency at 128 kbps yet. This is the bitrate that most online stores use. And while it may be sufficient for most people, I find the prices at which the songs are sold completely ridiculous (about $1 per song). They expect users to pay more or less the same price as Audio CDs (for full albums), for a product which is inferior and has DRM restrictions.

So, this raises the following questions:

Will online music services offer better quality files in the near future?
Can Open Source and patent free technology, better than proprietary solutions, gain an acceptance outside the geek world?
Why aren't there more companies adopting these Open Source solutions?

The answer is yours.
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/5/30/05011/4293


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Protecting Music By Destroying Records? Online Protesters vs. The Music Industry
amino

It was supposed to be a musical experiment when last december Brian Burton, aka 'DJ Danger Mouse' from White Plains, NY began remixing a contemporary rap album, Jay-Z's 'Black Album' with the 1968 'White Album' by the Beatles.

On one hand, this turned into an interesting musical piece of work and a big media affair on the other: 'EMI Group', who are controlling rights to all Beatles Music owned by Capitol Records Incorporated, started sending 'cease and desist' letters to Danger Mouse himself, record stores and online shops like FatBeats, hiphopsite.com and ebay asking them to destroy all remaining copies of the remix album and to stop all distribution and sale.

The 'Rolling Stone' wrote it was 'an ingenious hip-hop record that sounds oddly ahead of its time' and the 'Boston Globe' called it the 'most creatively captivating' album of the year. It is questionable wether the 'Rolling Stone' or the 'Boston Globe' really know anything about Hiphop at all, but the remix album, which is taking its name 'Grey Album' from the two originals it used samples from, created a huge hype largely because of the fact that the music industry is trying to ban it.

In total, approximatly 3000 copies of the album were pressed by Burton himself and sent to a number of record shops, which is common for underground dj's and usually not connected to the prospect of big revenues. But the tracks were popular and beginning to be played in clubs. The media hype regarding its illegal status further spured a demand and the album was being shared all over the net.

Musically, the remixes are certainly interesting and some of them sound pretty good. However, a masterpiece it is not. How original could sampling the Beatles be? Especially in combination with a mediocre MC such as Jay-Z. Were it not an underground endeavor, certainly many would be hating it. But nonetheless, this scandal is exposing the questionable moral ground of the record industry and its profit-oriented copyright-fanatism. And it helps initiate an evaluation of the decade-long supression of musical creativity by the corporate world, which until now everyone took for granted.

1. What rational basis do corporations have in protecting copyrights on sonic airwaves?

Because this is what music ends up being, even though it might temporarily be abstracted on an analog or digital data carrier. Musical notes, too, could be reduced to a very basic pattern which, once copyrighted, could stifle any further musical work with the help of legal enforcement. This doesn't happen as long as corporations do have an economic neccessity for expanding the definition of copyright, however, they will try to restrict anything that goes any further than their very own understanding of creative freedom and which is therefore likely to weaken their guarantee on profit.

If the concept of copyright were put into an extreme, one could have protected the bit strings '10', '11', '01' and '00' and thereby claim rights on any successive digital data in the world. No state would allow this and noone in their right mind would think this justifiable. However, commonly practiced copyright is no less than a moderate form of this questionable claim on 'intellectual property'. It will only be enforced as long as current beneficiaries are able to interpret and enforce it for their own good. Or as long as social consensus allows for a restrictive form of exploitation of music and art (or intellectual product in general) to exist and dominate our culture.

The non-existance or the non-enforcability of copyright would essentially put the very legitimacy of the socalled 'copyright controllers' in question. These are the main beneficiaries of the current state of an artificially created scarcity in goods, upheld per law (namely: the prevention of free copying of artistic or intellectual content), who would otherwise no longer be neccessary for actual distribution of content due to technological progress. The record companies' role as a distributor of music has long been replaced by their role as an uncompromising 'royalty collector', often against the will of the artists themselves.

2. What moral basis do musicians have to expect a guarantee on financial revenues through the duplication of their music?

Nowadays, copies -especially in digital form- are created and distributed by the fan's extra effort at almost no additional cost at all. This helps ensure a bigger public exposure for the artist's work and a higher level of popularity, which in turn increases his/her prospect for paid for performances. And this, without the musician having to waste a lot of time thinking about distribution him/herself.

What we have here is a distribution system that could hardly be any better in regard to artistic content: because it is the fans themselves who are becoming the distributors, those contents which are considered valuable by them will also be shared more; bad art (such as bad music) will be shared less. This would be a natural distribution system regulating the quantity of content by the people's judgement, not by the profit-driven motivation of big corporations and their concept of a centralized distribution scheme.

'Publishing' music means to make it publicly available. For example on a website or a filesharing network. The rest will be subject to demand.

3. Why should the music industry have a permanent right to continuous revenues?

Over the past decades, the record industry has been cartellizing and exploiting their legally protected de-facto-monopoly in distribution of musical content, excercizing usury in media sales. I suggest, they have had revenues, which in a free media market they would otherwise never have been able to make.

4. Who ever asks the artists -especially once they're dead- if they'd really appreciate a rigid prosecution of copyright 'violators' as is common. Do they really have a big problem with their content being used for successive art?

It is extremely doubtful wether Frank Zappa, Bob Marley or John Lennon would really be outraged by young artists reinterpreting their work by using parts of their music, especially for non-commercial, or less-commercial purposes.

And even if so: these artists' piano melodies and guitar riffs are no more than bizarre sound fragments that had their inspirational origin who-knows-where, only to be captured on a volatile carrier at some point in time. Just like the noise of a river, they are to be put into public domain, because in the end, everything has a common physical and creative origin. Copyright protection is a temporary capital exploitation of artistic creativity by the profiteers of the present.

5. Shouldn't musicians and artists in general be happy about other people enjoying their art?

Is it a personal quality to sue radio dj's and online fans for playing or sharing your music? As a musician, shouldn't you be making music so other people can listen to it?

Commonly, after a live show, artists bow before the audience to thank them for accepting their art. It would be appropriate for musicians to thank people for listening to their music instead of suing them or prohibiting them from listening to it. The audience's gratitude, often in the form of money, is a reward the artist has to put effort into. But he or she, just like a street musician, has no preemptive right on payment.

Many freelance musicians on the net are now offering paypal accounts to upload money to. I'm not sure if this works, however, it is still self-explanatory for people to pay entrance fees at live performances because there, musicians are almost playing for you personally and there is a visible live effort.

Another good way for musicians to make money is to press their own records and offer them in exchange for money, believe it or not. Or to organize in labels or art collectives to make production and sale of their records possible. This makes a lot of sense especially for artists whose music is so underground you cannot even find it on filesharing systems; and of course for dj's working with vinyl. This way, there is still money to be made without the need to be restrictive; neither to sign with a major label.

Simple copying and sharing of music, digitally or analogically, usually is no extra effort on the artist's part, quite to the contrary: it is usually an extra effort on part of the fan who even spends money on bandwidth and computer resources to enable others to be exposed to the artist's music, while at the same time helping different industries grow and prosper - that of the internet service provider and related ones.

If big record companies think they have to sue even the last teenager for sharing their music online, it will have a predictable effect on the global music scene in that people will stick to sharing only alternative and independent music instead of corporate music. The majority of all music worldwide has no corporate affiliation, and usually, it is of better quality than whatever the majors can offer, too.

6. Finally, do we really need rules for art?

Is it really neccessary to subject every sample, cover version, public performance, copy, dissemination, listening and playing to fees and conditions? Is it desirable for society having to deal with license enforcement, 'cease and desist' letters and a parasitic secondary industry feeding on legal disputes when it comes to art?

All this, so corporate executives and bigheaded pop stars can have a financial guarantee for their disproportionate lifestyles. Is it too much to ask wether so called 'professional' musicians could earn their money like everybody else and pursue music as a hobby and be happy when making a little bit off of it on the side, like so many people do?

How much longer will it take for the public to realize that enforcing copyright does not protect the poor, independent artist, but the ones who are not in the need of being on the receiving end of legally backed subsidies.

Once more, the much hated music industry, this time represented by EMI, will not make themselves popular in pretending to be protecting art and creativity by vigurously enforcing their concept of copyright, while at the same time demanding the ban and destruction of something as harmless as a cut-up 60's rock record remixed with contemporary rap acapellas.

For Tuesday 24th of February 2004, the online initiative greytuesday.org organized a worldwide protest against banning the record and encouraged websites and radio stations to host and/or play it throughout the day. But why would you stick to playing it only for a day?..
http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/2/24/124918/798


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hollywood, Politics and File-Sharing Technology
Jon Newton

Sooner or later, the entertainment industry will realize that the only effective way to deal with peer-to-peer file- sharing technology is to embrace it. It's not going to go away.

But until that happens, the file-sharers of the world will continue to provide all kinds of lucrative opportunities for lawyers to get into Hollywood's bottomless pockets, not to speak of all those surefire digital rights management technologies, copyright- protection scams, P2P filtering systems, pseudo-cops and spoofing operations. You name it. And when you do, don't forget the politicians. Senator Orrin Hatch, chairman of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee and a well-known supporter of all things Hollywood, last year expressed a serious interest in remotely destroying file swappers' computers.

"No one is interested in destroying anyone's computer," Randy Saaf of MediaDefender, one of the scalp-hunting services used by Hollywood to chase down file-sharers, was quoted as saying in a Wired News article. "I'm interested," Hatch interrupted in the story, saying that destroying somebody's PC might be "the only way you can teach somebody about copyrights." This earned him the sobriquet "terminator," after the murderous android portrayed by California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in the "Terminator" movie series.

Pirate and Protect Acts

Now Hatch's Hollywood-inspired kill-P2P bill, called the Pirate Act, amends federal copyright law so that the U.S. attorney general can "commence a civil action against any person who engages in conduct constituting copyright infringement."

Short for Protecting Intellectual Rights Against Theft and Expropriation, the Pirate Act also "Directs the AG to develop a program to ensure effective implementation and use of the authority for civil enforcement of the copyright laws, including training programs for qualified personnel from the Department of Justice and United States attorneys offices." The Piract Act more properly would be called the Use Taxpayer Money to Protect Hollywood Profits Act. The Senate might even vote on it this week.

Moreover, the Pirate Act will allow the Department of Justice to do what even the RIAA hasn't been able to do: use wiretaps to collect evidence against alleged copyright infringers -- thanks to another Hatch-supported measure, the Protect Act, named after Prosecutorial Remedies and Other Tools to End the Exploitation of Children Today. Among other things, the Protect Act authorizes "the interception of wire, oral or electronic communications in the investigation of kidnaping [sic], sex trafficking, and sex offenses against children."

Works for Hire The Protect Act so far has led to only one arrest. Under it, FBI agents attached a monitoring device to the suspect's phone line and tracked his Internet activity in real-time. With the wiretap in place, "it doesn't matter who you're dealing with, we're standing over the top of you watching everything that's going on," Ronald Wilczynski, the Sacramento FBI agent overseeing the probe, was quoted as saying.

Hollywood is nothing if not inventive in finding ways to interpret legislation to suit its purposes, whatever they might be at any given moment. It's also adept at suborning police forces around the world into acting as unpaid enforcement agents. Operation FastLink, for example, had FBI agents raiding schools in Arizona looking for pirated digital movie and music files. And let's not forget the National Security Letters (NSLs) freely used by FBI agents to demand detailed information about people's private Net communications from ISPs, Web-based e-mail providers and other communications service providers.

Flexible Prosecution? In the meantime, RIAA lobbyist Mitch Glazier was recently quoted as saying, "If you're going to try to make sure that you have effective deterrence, then one of the tools you'll need is to make sure that prosecutors have flexibility."

Flexibility is Glazier's middle name. He was once chief counsel of the subcommittee on courts and intellectual property, and former chief of staff to Howard Coble, onetime chairman of the subcommittee. Glazier became infamous in 1999 after slipping the "sound recording" amendment into the completely unrelated Satellite Home Viewer Improvement Act, slated for safe passage through Congress.

This made music recordings "works for hire" that in turn meant artists weren't able to get possession of their own masters. Naturally, the artists believed they'd been hung out to dry. Oversight Hearings

The scandal led to an oversight hearing in May 2000, chaired by (you guessed it) Coble, who led off with the following statement: "As many of you know, this amendment has caused some to criticize my colleagues, my staff and me as having indulged in unfair, deceptive and sneaky behavior." Under the 1997 No Electronic Theft Act, federal prosecutors can file criminal charges against peer-to-peer users who make a large number of songs available for download. A July 2002 letter from prominent congressmen to Attorney General John Ashcroft urged the prosecution of Americans who allow mass copying from their computer over peer-to-peer networks.

But not one peer-to-peer criminal prosecution has taken place in the United States. The Justice Department has indicated it won't target peer-to-peer networks for two reasons: Imprisoning file-swapping teens on felony charges isn't the department's top priority; and it's always difficult to make criminal charges stick. Pirate Act Responds to Justice

"The Pirate Act was crafted to respond to the Justice Department's concern. Federal prosecutors have been hindered in their pursuit of pirates by the fact that they were limited to bringing criminal charges with high burdens of proof," Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) said in March. "Prosecutors can rarely justify bringing criminal charges, and copyright owners have been left alone to fend for themselves, defending their rights only where they can afford to do so," said Leahy. "In a world in which a computer and an Internet connection are all the tools you need to engage in massive piracy, this is an intolerable predicament."

Critics also charge the act might invent a form of double jeopardy because it would let the RIAA sue the same people already sued by the Justice Department. But back to Hatch and Leahy: In the 2002 cycle, Hollywood supported Hatch to the tune of $175,332 and, so far in 2004, has pumped $157,860 into his coffers. Meanwhile, Leahy's top supporters for 2004 include Disney at $44,500, Viacom at $36,000, Time Warner at $28,250 and General Electric at $22,500. At $160,250, Leahy's top contributor in 2002 was, once again, Hollywood. And for 2004, he's so far chalked up $181,000.
http://www.infoshop.org/inews/storie.../06/02/3245344


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Vaunted RIAA p2p 'Filter' Software
p2pnet.net News

For some time, now, the RIAA has been aggressively boosting a p2p software 'filter' which, as RIAA boss Mitch Bainwol tells anyone who'll listen, is the answer to unauthorised music sharing.

In fact, so insistent is Bainwol that you could be forgiven for thinking maybe he and/or the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) have invested in Audible Magic, the company that makes the 'filter,' called the CopySense Network Appliance.

Audible Magic has been, "making the rounds of Washington, D.C., legislative and regulatory offices for the last month, showing off technology it says can sit inside peer-to-peer software and automatically stop swaps of copyrighted music from artists such as Britney Spears or Outkast," says a March CNET story here.

And helping it make the rounds was, and presumably still is, Bainwol.

"Audible Magic says it can identify copyrighted songs and block illegal downloads," says CNET. "Its technology is still being tested and could yet prove unworkable, but limited demos are turning heads in legislative offices."

And there's the rub.

"Limited demos" and "Still being tested."

For months the members of the p2p industry trade group P2P United have been trying to get hold of a copy to test in the wild.

Morpheus spokesman Brian O'Neal told p2pnet today that so far, none of the p2p operators have evenseen CopySense, let alone try it out.

Six months ago P2P United hand-delivered a letter to RIAA boss Bainwol demanding access to the Audible Magic 'song-recognition software' being touted under the aegis of the RIAA.

More than a week after the letter was delivered, the trade group members - BearShare, Blubster, e-Donkey, Grokster and Morpeus - still hadn't been able to conduct a hands-on trial although Bainwol disingenuously told CNET News he "would be delighted for them to do so".

Audible Magic quotes RIAA svp of anti-piracy Frank Creighton as saying, "We have joined forces with trade associations and rights holders to combat the theft of intellectual property" and "Audible Magic's RepliCheck helps protect artists and our business from copyright infringement, and it takes a huge burden off our employees."

The 'rights holders' Creighton is talking about are, of course, the Big Five record labels, which own the RIAA in the first place. And the 'trade associations' are other RIAA-like enforcement organs - also owned by Big Music.

CopySense, "has evolved from Audible Magic's RepliCheck service, which has become an anti-piracy industry standard in the CD/DVD replication business," says Audible Magic.

One weakness of the filter ...In the meanwhile, a p2pnet reader sent us a .pdf with summaries of four articles which have recently appeared in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

One of them, dated April 16, is slugged Universities Test Controversial Filter to Fight Online Piracy and reads:

"This article examines the use of another technique to stop students from engaging in illegal file sharing: a filter called CopySense Network Appliance, which is sold by the company Audible Magic. Central Washington University is one institution that is testing the filter on its residence-hall network. Unlike Icarus, the filter does not identify individual offenders; instead, it identifies illegal file transfers and cancels them before they can be completed. One weakness of the filter is that it can only identify and cancel the transfer of songs that exist in its database of copyrighted works (currently about four million songs."

That the 'filter' is still being tested suggests its abilities aren't proven, even though it must be at least a year
since it was written.

That being so:

How are the RIAA and Audible Magic justified in claiming the CopySense Network Appliance is ready for use in real-world, commercial situation?
When the number of copyrighted works the software can recognise- four million - equals the number of people who are logged onto p2p networks at any given moment (four million) and at least one billion files are downloaded every month, how can the software have any kind of effect on a practice the multi-billion dollar music industry claims is "devastating" it?

We'll leave out the question of how the Central Washington University (or any other teaching institution) justifies the fact it's testing a commercial device.

Stay tuned.

http://p2pnet.net/story/1585


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Aurors Blanket Cinemas But Dark Forces Prevail
David Haber

In widely covered news stories the past few days, in an attempt to thwart piracy of the latest Harry Potter movie, Warner Bros. has let it be known that cinemas all across the UK (and presumedly in the US when the film opens this Friday) will be using theatre employees with futuristic military-type night-vision goggles to try and catch patrons attempting to the tape the movie with hand-held cameras.

This is a first for the UK cinema industry, although the tactic has already been used in the US recently for at least two movies for which the industry felt there was a piracy threat.

Jamie Graham, who runs the Vue Complex in Ellesmere Port, northern England, told CNN, "Our ushers are using the goggles in every screening to check nobody is making any illegal recordings. If anybody is caught they will be reported to the police."

However, an observer outside of the movie industry might wonder why all the fuss, especially in the light of information made public by IT Innovations and Concepts in Canada, a company which analyzes and reports on worldwide digital piracy.

According to ITIC, various qualities and versions (English, German, French, Spanish, Italian...) of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban were already propagating around the internet via P2P (peer-to-peer) networks at a rate of 318,592 downloads per hour a full six days before the worldwide theatrical premiere, with the number of downloaders continually growing all around the world.

And as of Sunday May 30, the day the movie premiered in London, ITIC says Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban pirate downloads reached rates close to a million per hour.

It is unknown where the copies on the net of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban originated, but it would appear it was not a cinema-goer taping the movie from the audience, since pirate copies of the movie on the internet predate any public screenings.
http://www.wizardnews.com/story.200406015.html


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In the Virtual Stacks, Pirated Books Find Eager Thumbs
Sandeep Junnarkar

EARLY in his undergraduate years at Indiana University, Joseph Ruesewald said, he had trouble finding the required titles for a couple of his classes at the local bookstores. When he tried ordering the books online, he learned it would take too long for delivery. Having come of age in the era of Napster, Kazaa and other file-sharing networks infamous as bazaars for pirated music, he knew exactly how to obtain the books - if not in his hands, at least for his computer's hard drive.

Over the semesters, downloading books free and reading them on his monitor became routine, he said. He learned to adjust the screen color to off-white to help reduce eyestrain and depleted his university printing allotment by running off hundreds of pages at a time.

"It became an alternative to going out and looking for the books in stores," said Mr. Ruesewald, 21, who graduated from the university's school of informatics last month.

He emphasized that he had sought alternatives to downloading books without permission by turning to publishers that allow readers to view a book's pages one at a time. And he confesses to a sense of guilt over playing the role of a "leech.'' But "as a student, I was pretty broke and couldn't really afford $100 textbooks,'' Mr. Ruesewald said. "I had to turn to the Web for help."

He is clearly not alone. While the music industry's effort to quash the trading of pirated songs over the Internet has attracted far more headlines, the unauthorized sharing of digitized books is proliferating in news groups, over peer-to-peer networks and in chat rooms.

The activity is all the more striking because making a book available online is as cumbersome as ripping a CD is effortless. Each page must be scanned, run through optical character-recognition software and proofread before the complete work is uploaded to a network or transferred directly to a recipient.

Yet a quick survey conducted with peer-to-peer file-sharing software revealed the digital availability of dozens of titles currently on the New York Times best-seller list, including "The Da Vinci Code," "The South Beach Diet" and, of course, hundreds of copies of any Harry Potter title. Even the official audio-book versions read by the authors or celebrities are easy to come by. Computer and technical books that can cost as much as $100 in print are also a mainstay.

Other recesses of the Internet are also rich in illegally traded literature. A visit to a group called "#Bookz" on the Internet Relay Chat network revealed a multitude of titles being offered or sought every second.

News groups like alt.books also draw a steady flow of visitors, like Steven Audette of Verona, a town in central New York known for its casino rather than its literary establishments. Mr. Audette said he had downloaded about 2,000 titles, including some duplicates in varying formats.

"I download philosophy, religious, technical, engineering, science, sci-fi, horror, musical theory and almost anything but tawdry romance novels," said Mr. Audette, a 39-year-old father of two with a background in management and logistics.

Mr. Audette said he had never felt pangs of conscience when downloading books although he sometimes buys a copy if he finds a book to be of great interest. "Perhaps the cost factor has numbed the sense of guilt," he said. "I bought my first books when they were priced for 95 cents a paperback and less than $10 for a hardcover."

For classics he visits Project Gutenberg, a vast legal repository of mostly older works for which no copyright is in effect; he uses news groups to download current publications still protected by copyright. "These groups offer opportunity to read books not always available," he said. "I have yet to find a library or bookstore so well stocked."

Mr. Audette estimates that about 70 percent of the works he downloads are still under copyright. He said he has uploaded only a few books.

Envisional, a company based in Britain that tracks Internet piracy, estimates that 25,000 to 30,000 pirated titles are available on the Web. The vast majority are English-language titles, although pirated German, Spanish and French books are also plentiful.

An estimate of how many people are actually downloading the books is harder to come by, however, said David Price, a researcher at Envisional.

Mr. Price said that although researchers are able to track the number of people using file-sharing applications, it is difficult to tell exactly what they are downloading. And the problem with news groups and Internet Relay Chat channels, he said, is that once users have established initial public contact, they tend to carry out their transactions privately.

"Most studies show that music piracy is by far the most popular, followed by film and movie piracy," Mr. Price said. "Book piracy is certainly not at those levels, but it is popular enough for publishers to be concerned about it."

Indeed, publishing houses are taking notice. "We monitor the World Wide Web very closely and take this issue very seriously because we take any violation of our authors' copyrights very seriously," said Stuart Applebaum, a spokesman for Random House. "We have sent a number of take-down notices to such sites and have received immediate compliance."

The Association of American Publishers, the book industry's main trade association, has also pressed I.R.C. administrators to block channels focused on book trading. The association succeeded in shuttering a popular channel known as #bookwarez last year but concedes that the group may well have reconstituted itself on a different I.R.C. server or under a new name.

"We have detected more of the piracy activity in the peer-to-peer networks, which to us is the most threatening because I.R.C. rooms are a little difficult to use," said Edward McCoyd, the director of digital policy for the publishers' association. "You have to be a little technically savvy in most cases to trade in those rooms, whereas peer-to-peer is so intuitive and people have already been introduced to the technology through music sharing."

Some members of the association have felt the sting of the illegal activity. "A few publishers have seen the sales of some books falling off from sales in previous years, based on how much trading was going on," Mr. McCoyd said. Nonetheless, electronic book piracy appears to have little impact on the industry's bottom line, according to publishers.

Federal law enforcement officials have far higher priorities today but had begun to take notice of the piracy phenomenon before terrorism became a top concern in September 2001. The arrest of an encryption expert earlier that year for promoting a program that could crack the security protection for Adobe's eBooks format led to the prosecution of his employer, the Russian software company ElcomSoft, on charges of violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. But a United States District Court jury in San Jose acquitted the company of the charges in 2002, raising concern that future prosecutions might also be unsuccessful.

Mr. McCoyd said the publishers' association was unaware of any new federal investigations involving book piracy on the Internet.

Yet the limits of the technology available for reading digitized books may be working in the industry's favor. Sitting in front of a big computer screen is not like curling up with a book on the sofa, and hand-held devices tend to strain the eyes after 10 minutes or so of steady reading.

"The same reasons that legal E-books have been slow to catch on are the same reasons that illegal downloading of book files is nothing more than a concern rather than a critical stage for us," Mr. Applebaum said.

Still, technologists believe that gadgets will eventually emerge to make the reading experience similar to that of cracking open a book.

"And as technology gets better and devices on which you can read books get more and more popular, people will look for ways to obtain books freely," Mr. Price of Envisional said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/03/te...rtne r=GOOGLE


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Uncanny Connections and DVD's to Trade
Pamela LiCalzi O'Connell

Did you ever think about someone you'd lost touch with, and then unexpectedly get a call from that person? Or have a feeling that someone was about to e-mail you, and soon find a message in your in-box?

Call it coincidence, but Rupert Sheldrake suspects telepathy. Dr. Sheldrake, an author and natural scientist with a Ph.D. in biochemistry, is a proponent of the theory that unexplained abilities like premonition are biologically based, which is gaining particular prominence in Britain, where he lives.

His site details experiments (www.sheldrake.org/experiments) that people can use to investigate phenomena like telepathic phone calls (which he has described as "one of the commonest kinds of psychic experience in the modern world").

His newest experiment is focused on e-mail telepathy. It can be conducted entirely online by registering yourself and several e-mail correspondents with the site, as I did. At a specific date and time, your group logs on to the site. The correspondents then are randomly asked to e- mail you, and you must guess who sent messages spaced a minute apart. I have never considered myself particularly telepathic, but I managed to guess correctly 4 times out of 10. Chance would dictate a correct response 2.5 percent of the time. I forgot to tell my correspondents to think of me before sending their messages, so I may be lucky rather than psychic.

Dr. Sheldrake hopes to use the online experiment to help identify people who should undergo more detailed tests, preferably offline. "In a controversial area like telepathy, you have to be very rigorous in your data," he explained. "Offline we can do things like videotape subjects to insure against cheating."

DVD's to Trade

I probably have more equity in VHS tapes than in my house, but my DVD collection is catching up quickly. Soon I will have to ask the children to move out to make room for more discs.

Dan Robinson, however, thinks trading movies with other DVD owners on the Web is better than hoarding them. Mr. Robinson is the founder and chief executive of peerflix.com, a new site that seeks to blend two trends: online DVD rental sites like Netflix and music-file-sharing services like Kazaa.

Peerflix users maintain a list of DVD's they want and post a list of movies they own that they are willing to trade. Once a member makes a commitment to send a disc to a fellow user in a Peerflix prepaid shipping envelope, that member will receive a disc or discs from other members. (Some DVD's are worth more than others, based on factors like popularity and retail price.) As in a file-sharing network, Peerflix manages the flow of content; traders do not select their partners.

"Your movies are doing nothing for you on the shelf," Mr. Robinson noted. Peerflix charges members $10 a month or $2 a trade (there is a 15-day free trial). It plans to add video game trading in the fall.

The service has been in test mode for several months and has made a few adjustments. Some members, it seems, find it hard to part with their own DVD's yet still want to take part. So as part of its monthly membership plan, Peerflix will provide them with company-owned discs with which they can start trading.

Simple Charity

Rory Blyth, a 26-year-old software developer in Portland, Ore., is something of a middleman. His blog, www.neopoleon.com, offers several free services that deliver information from other Web sites directly to users through a technology called R.S.S., or really simple syndication.

R.S.S. is becoming a popular way to "subscribe" to Web logs and other frequently updated sites. It requires a reader that attaches to your browser or e-mail program; most readers are free.

Mr. Blyth's R.S.S. feed from the Louvre, for instance, highlights a different artwork each day. But his real innovation may be using R.S.S. for charity.

His R.S.S. for Charity feed delivers customized information on new products available at Amazon.com. If a subscriber buys a product by way of his link, he receives a small commission from Amazon that he donates to a charitable organization. The service reports about 12,000 page views a month and has nearly 500 subscribers. So far the proceeds have been low (Mr. Blyth would not specify how much) but have enabled him to sponsor a Filipino child through Children International. "I consider this a nerd's version 1.0 attempt at doing something for charity," he said.

Ian White of Sunnyvale, Calif., has purchased at least seven items through the feed and has asked Mr. Blyth to allow subscriptions to Amazon wish lists. "That way, not only do I get things I really want, but we're still giving that kickback to charity," he explained by e-mail.

On the Radar

Paint onscreen by using images from live Webcams courtesy of Daniel Rozin, a digital artist (fargo.itp.tsoa.nyu.edu/~danny/Paint-Cam.html). Meta-Efficient (www.reactual.com) bills itself as a guide to the most efficient products and techniques. Turn the pages of some of the world's oldest and most beautiful books at a British Library site (www.bl.uk/collections/ treasures/digitisation1.html).
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/03/te...ts/03diar.html


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

For High-Definition Sets, Channels to Match
David Pogue

LET'S face it: those $5,000 plasma screens are popular not just because they're high-definition TV sets but also because they're status symbols. Look at Gateway's 42-inch $3,000 plasma screen, a runaway hit even though it can't actually display images in high definition. At this rate, someone will surely come up with a $200 plasma screen that doesn't even turn on. It would just hang on the wall and look cool.

But however cool the screens, as the nine million people who have bought HDTV's have quickly discovered, the high-definition age is not yet fully upon us. If you buy an HDTV receiver connected to an antenna on your roof, you can enjoy a few hours of prime-time HDTV broadcasts each night on ABC, CBS and so on - if you're within about 50 miles of a big city. If you have cable or satellite, you can upgrade your plan to include a handful of high-def channels, like HBO HDTV and ESPN HD.

Otherwise, what you'll mostly watch is low-definition shows, either stretched to fit your wide-screen set or with black bars on the sides. It will be years before the networks, cable and satellite outfits broadcast all HD, all the time.

The executives at Voom, a new satellite service controlled by Cablevision and offered throughout the continental United States, don't think you can wait that long. Started in January, Voom already offers 39 HDTV channels, many more than you can get from any other source.

Now, HDTV aficionados may already be furrowing their brows. "Thirty-nine high-def channels?" they're saying. "There aren't 39 high-def channels in the world!"

Actually, there are now. For starters, Voom gives you those prime-time over-the-air network broadcasts, because Voom's installers put not one but two antennas on your roof: one satellite dish and one that picks up NBC, CBS, ABC and so on. (If you live in an apartment, check on your building's restrictions.)

The basic $40-a-month package also includes Voom's 21 homegrown proprietary channels. All programs on those channels are filmed and broadcast in a high- definition format known as 1080i; they look and sound spectacular, and - apart from Voom promos - are commercial-free.

For example, Rush is an extreme-sports channel that specializes in colorful hot-air balloons, gleaming kayaks and hang gliders in bright sunshine. The Gallery channel is like an art history class that never ends: all close-ups of paintings, presented continuously. The Auction channel is nonstop descriptions of collectibles.

Then there's the MOOV channel, a 24-hour screen saver; it features weird kaleidoscopic "motion art" segments set to music and created by broadcast designers. (Video art is, as Voom puts it, "ambient television, not appointment television." You're meant to leave it playing on the wall as you do other things around the house, not gather the family in the living room for half an hour of "iMovie Effects Gone Nuts.")

All of these channel topics were obviously selected because they show off the stunning visual qualities of HDTV. Their looks are their sole reason for existence; most would die a quick death in any other forum.

Not all, however. HD's wider screen and sharper video make a big difference to Voom's news and WorldSport channels. And on Voom's Rave channel, featuring rock concerts filmed live in HD, something about that wide screen and the intimacy of the cameras makes the experience thrilling and immersive.

Rounding out the 21 Voom Originals, as the company calls its proprietary channels, are a dozen 24-hour movie channels. Most show the same movie all day, over and over. Unfortunately, their motto may as well be, "Not just bad movies - high-definition bad movies." Among this week's selections are the 1962 classic "Rider on a Dead Horse," 1986's unforgettable "Troll" and 1962's immortal "Slaughter of the Vampires."

Voom admits that the movies are so far on the lame side, but points out that you'd be hard pressed to find 12 commercial-free movie channels - let alone high- definition ones - in the basic $40 package from any other cable or satellite provider. Voom also says that by the end of the year, those channels will repeat less and gain thematic personalities: one channel each for action movies, chick flicks, westerns, documentaries, gay and lesbian movies, and so on.

Finally, for $15 each, you can add "plus packs": one each for HBO, Showtime, Cinemax and Starz. Each includes one high-def channel and eight spinoffs (HBO East, HBO West, and so on). (If you're a movie-holic, you may as well save money by subscribing to the Va Va Voom plan: $80 a month for all of the above.)

Each Voom basic package also includes 84 standard-definition cable channels like CNN, TNT and Disney. (You can inspect the complete list at www.voom.com, along with a "what's on right now" grid.)

Voom's best feature is its smooth integration of network broadcasts, cable channels and Voom's own homemade channels into a single set-top box, controlled with an expertly designed illuminated remote, and displayed on a unified onscreen TV guide.

As a result, Voom simulates channel-surfing in, say, 2015, when every channel from every source will be in high definition. The colors are breathtaking, the clarity puts standard TV to shame, and the rectangular, much wider picture fills your field of view the way a screen in a movie theater does. It all sounds good, too, because Voom transmits in five-channel Dolby surround sound.

The company has come a long way since its rocky start in January, when the installers didn't know what they were doing, the Motorola set-top box required frequent rebooting, and ESPN wasn't on board. (An HDTV service without sports? Heresy!)

Even so, Voom is still a startup. The listings grid routinely chops off the second line of each show's description, the box takes several seconds to change channels and the channel grid always appears at channel 100, rather than the channel you're already watching. And Voom's customer service department is still, ahem, evolving. (It took eight days to get a reply to an e-mailed question to Voom tech support, which promises a response in 24 hours.)

At the moment, Voom fills an important niche. But as the world goes all-HDTV in the coming years, you might reasonably wonder how long Voom will be around.

Voom acknowledges that its window of opportunity is finite but maintains that it will remain open for much longer than people imagine. Voom has room for expansion; by the end of next year, it will have satellite capacity for 94 high-def channels and 368 standard ones, the company says. (A single HDTV channel, according to Voom, requires as much bandwidth as eight standard-definition channels.) The company maintains that finding the bandwidth for a total switch to high- def will be far more difficult for its cable and satellite rivals.

In the meantime, through July 5, Voom is making an irresistible offer. The company will install the box and the two antennas at no charge. In addition to the service fee, you pay $9.50 a month to rent the equipment, and you can cancel at any time with no penalty. (Exploiting this offer - rather than buying the box outright for $500 - is even a good idea if you intend to stick with Voom, because this fall the company plans to offer a new set-top box adding the TiVo-like ability to pause, rewind, record and play back high-def shows.)

If you're a TV nut, you could consider supplementing your current service with Voom to add HD channels worthy of your screen. If you're anyone else, you could even replace your current service with Voom; $40 a month, or $55 with nine HBO channels, is somewhat more expensive than a basic cable or satellite plan, but, of course, includes those 12 movie channels and much more in high-def.

Either way, Voom is clearly an infant service still finding its way. But upgrade by upgrade, channel by channel, Voom intends to become a major player, capitalizing on its satellite capacity and advanced equipment to surge past its more established rivals in the age of high definition.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/03/te...ts/03stat.html


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Just Like High-Definition TV, but With Higher Definition
Douglas Heingartner

HIGH-DEFINITION television may be only just beginning to catch on, but researchers at the Japanese national broadcaster NHK are already working on a successor. The format, called Ultra High Definition Video, or UHDV, has a resolution 16 times greater than plain-old HDTV, and its stated goal is to achieve a level of sensory immersion that approximates actually being there.

At a picture size of 7,680 by 4,320 pixels - that works out to 32 million pixels - UHDV's resolution trounces even high-end digital still cameras. HDTV, by comparison, has about two million pixels, and normal TV about 200,000 (and only 480 lines of horizontal resolution versus 4,000 with UHDV).

Add to that UHDV's beefed-up refresh rate of 60 frames per second (twice that of conventional video), projected onto a 450-inch diagonal screen with more than 20 channels of audio, and you've got an impressive home theater on your hands.

Of course, UHDV's current dimensions make it impractical for most homes. The NHK researchers are investigating how to squeeze all those pixels onto smaller screens.

But the project aims to do more than just make home entertainment more realistic. The UHDV standard may someday find applications in museums, hospitals, shopping malls or other places where a keener representation of detail might be desirable.

All of that is a long way off, however, because the standard is still in the early stages of development. UHDV "will take many years," said Fumio Okano, a researcher with the network. But NHK is familiar with long-term projects: it began developing the HDTV standard in 1964, and the first high-definition content arrived only in 1982.

The pixel count of UHDV may be impressive, but as anyone who has tried to watch TV on a sunny beach knows, pixels are not the whole picture. "Resolution is only one of the key measurements," said John Lowry of Lowry Digital Images, a company in Burbank, Calif., that digitizes films at the highest possible quality for archival purposes. Perhaps even more important than pixels, he said, is the dynamic range of an image, which is measured in terms of contrast ratio. The eye can perceive contrasts between the brightest white and the darkest black of roughly 100,000 to one, whereas today's best projectors can only muster levels of about 4,000 to one.

To achieve truly realistic images, Mr. Lowry said, "the blacks have to be really black, while still seeing the glint off a diamond."

So while current projection technology cannot meet the demands of UHDV, the standard excels in other crucial areas, for example breadth of view. While both UHDV and HDTV use the widescreen 16:9 aspect ratio (standard TV uses 4:3), HDTV offers only a 30-degree field of view horizontally, whereas UHDV's massive screen size expands this to about 100 degrees, said Mr. Okano, who said his research indicates that this angle is where "immersive sensation" peaks.

In developing UHDV, NHK has also focused on sound. The standard calls for 22.2 sound: 10 speakers at ear level, 9 above and 3 below, with another 2 for low frequency effects. It is a setup that is well beyond the level of the multichannel systems currently in vogue, like the 5.1 surround system.

All those sound channels and all those image pixels add up to a lot of data. In test, an 18-minute UHDV video gobbled up 3.5 terabytes of storage (equivalent to about 750 DVD's). The data was transmitted over 16 channels at a total rate of 24 gigabits per second, thousands of times faster than a typical D.S.L. connection.

The realism creates other complications. The NHK is studying the physical and psychological effects of UHDV on audiences. One concern is a kind of motion sickness, which researchers attribute to a combination of the wide viewing angle, the massive image and the on-screen motion.

There are other reasons to shy away from maximum reality, some of them aesthetic. "There is a very common practice," Mr. Lowry said, "of putting a filter on a camera just to soften the image, to reduce the resolution." Movie stars are now learning the hard way that high-definition is hard on human imperfections: blemishes and bad makeup invisible to conventional TV suddenly jump to the fore when filmed in high-definition format; how will aging celebrities fare with UHDV?

But UHDV's developers do not intend the standard exclusively as a vehicle for Hollywood, or even for sports or news, where HDTV has flourished. They point to potentially useful applications in medicine, education, or art appreciation. The new format has also been designed to be compatible with other standards - unlike, for example, IMAX, a 70-millimeter film format that has unsurpassed quality but a unique infrastructure that limits its mass-market potential.

Are audiences even warming up to high-definition television? While sales of HDTV sets are gradually increasing, the growth remains less than spectacular. With only 15 million to 18 million HDTV sets currently in the United States, "we haven't even scraped the tip of the iceberg yet," said Vamsi Sistla, an analyst with the research firm Allied Business Intelligence.

Navigating the jungle of standards and terminology remains confusing, and a complete high-definition set (including tuner) costs several thousand dollars. Consumers, Mr. Sistla said, "are not too keen on the nitty-gritty. They're looking at the price point, at sexy flat screens.''

The NHK is still years from having to worry about how to sell UHDV to consumers. Perhaps the format will always be out of reach for most consumers. However, while it took 40 years, HDTV eventually gained a foothold.

"I applaud them," Mr. Lowry said of the NHK. "They are reaching off into what a lot of people might call never-never land at the moment. But why not?"
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/03/te...ts/03next.html


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Will Copyright Reform Chill Use Of Web?

Copyright proposal upsets the balance
Michael Geist

In hindsight, the fall of 1998 may be remembered as the shining hour of Canadian Internet policy development. Led by then-Industry Minister John Manley, Canada played host to an OECD ministerial meeting on e-commerce, tabled new privacy legislation, unveiled several e-commerce policy initiatives, and committed to providing every Canadian school with Internet access.

Unfortunately, our low point may have occurred earlier this month when a Canadian Heritage parliamentary committee chaired by Toronto-area MP Sarmite Bulte presented a vision of copyright that would transform the Internet from the incredible open source of information that it is into a predominantly commercial medium available primarily to those willing to open up their cheque books.

It foresees, among other things, schools being required to pay for using, as course materials, Web-based information that is made publicly available — often with the poster's intention of reaching as wide an audience as possible and with no expectation of payment.

Few technology law issues have proven as divisive in recent years as copyright reform. Proponents of stronger protections fear that the Internet and digital technologies will eviscerate traditional copyright protections.

They have therefore actively lobbied for new powers to block unauthorized access to copyrighted material as well as for new compensation schemes to pay for new technological uses of old work.

Opponents of stronger protection, pointing to the recent Supreme Court of Canada decision involving legal publications, argue that Canadian copyright law must adopt a balanced approach in which the interests of creators are considered in parallel with the needs of users and the larger public interest.

The unexpected consequences of copyright reform in other jurisdictions — such things as jailed software developers and copyright litigation over technologies such as garage door openers — have led opponents to argue that Canada must navigate a balanced approach that avoids the mistakes made elsewhere.

While the notion of balance in copyright law has proven contentious in some quarters, it is in fact a well-established principle under Canadian intellectual property law.

For example, under Canadian patent law, inventors receive a limited monopoly over their invention that grants them exclusive authority over how that invention is used.

In return, the patent expires after a prescribed period at which time anyone may use the invention without prior authorization.

Moreover, obtaining patent protection also requires inventors to fully disclose and describe their invention so that the public obtains the immediate benefit of that knowledge.

The Canadian Supreme Court has affirmed a similar balance in copyright. Creators enjoy a basket of exclusive rights such as the sole right to reproduce or perform the work. In return, the term of copyright protection is limited so that expired work becomes part of the public domain and may be used by anyone without permission or payment.

Furthermore, the Copyright Act establishes a series of "user rights," known as exceptions, that allow users to freely use portions of copyrighted work for such things as research, private study, news reporting, and criticism.

While Bulte recently expressed concern that these exceptions lead to "freebies," in fact it is these exceptions that ensure that the Copyright Act retains the balance needed to give creators their exclusive rights.

Bulte's committee held hearings for several weeks in March and April, quickly generating nine key copyright reform recommendations, made in a pre-election interim report. The plan, whose status may be affected by the election, largely neglects the user side of the balance equation by focusing chiefly on the compensation and protection afforded to creators.

The committee's recommendation for swift ratification of the controversial World Intellectual Property Organization's Internet treaties and increased liability for Internet service providers will rightly garner much attention. It is its approach to educational uses of the Internet, however, that are a particular cause for concern given the current financial strain on our schools.

Canada's Copyright Act already provides educators and students with a user right in copyrighted work for research and study purposes.

The Supreme Court has ruled that this right is to be interpreted in a liberal fashion such that copying full articles may be lawful in certain circumstances. The use of those works in the classroom is not covered, however, forcing teachers to sort through the rights attached to materials before using them in courses.

The Canadian educational community has proposed what would appear to be a balanced solution in the form of establishing a limited educational user right to publicly available work on the Internet.

In keeping with longstanding and widely accepted practices on the Internet, publicly available work would include materials that are not technologically or password protected — that is, information the author would appear to want to make widely available.

Bulte's committee surprisingly rejected the education community's proposal, opting instead for a new license to cover Internet based works. This new license would require schools to pay yet another fee (the education community already hands over millions in license fees each year for content) for works found on the Internet.

How the payments are calculated, collected and forwarded to those entitled to receive them presents another set of problems that would have to be resolved in a manner that assures all stakeholders that payments are not made for work that the Supreme Court has already declared subject to a user right and therefore available without compensation.

Although it acknowledges that some work on the Internet is intended to be freely available, the committee recommends the adoption of the narrowest possible definition of publicly available. Its vision of publicly-available includes only those works that are not technologically or password protected and contain an explicit notice that the material can be used without prior payment or permission.

Rather than adopting an approach that facilitates the use of the Internet, Bulte's committee has called for the creation of a restrictive regime in which nothing is allowed unless expressly permitted. The result will be an Internet in which schools will be required to pay to use Internet materials contrary to the expectations of many creators.

A far more balanced approach, and one that would be more in line with Canadian values, would be to permit all uses unless specifically prohibited. This could be easily achieved in a manner that respects copyright by establishing a publicly available definition that includes works not technologically or password protected and for which the copyright holder has not expressly asserted limitations on the use of the work.

Canada displayed foresight in the late 1990s in identifying the potential for the Internet and new digital technologies to benefit all Canadians. In order to fulfill that vision, we need to reconsider the Bulte committee's recent recommendation so that the balance that is so critical to creators, users, and the broader public interest is preserved.
http://www.torontostar.com/NASApp/cs...l=969048863851


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Whose Data Is It, Anyway?
Jeffrey Selingo

WHEN Tomm Purnell's uncle, Keith Cochran, died last year, Mr. Purnell's mother received two of Mr. Cochran's computers. One of them, a laptop, is password-protected, and even though Mr. Purnell considers himself somewhat of a computer geek, "the really obvious passwords," he said, like the names of Mr. Cochran's cats and combinations of his Social Security number, have failed.

"I guess he assumed that whoever came in would figure it out," said Mr. Purnell, a physics student at Colorado State University. "I have no clue what's on there, but I'd like to find out."

While terminally ill, Mr. Cochran, a programmer, left a full list of passwords for his work files with his employer, Mr. Purnell said. But he failed to do the same thing with the personal files, so they are now inaccessible.

With home computers largely replacing filing cabinets as the secure storage place for financial records, tax returns and even sentimental pictures, the problem confronting Mr. Purnell may become more common. Since most people do not leave a list of passwords before they die, their relatives and lawyers must often figure out how to break into the computer themselves or hire someone to do it.

Mr. Purnell said he intended to keep trying to unlock his uncle's laptop. But for some survivors, the effort of gaining access to a loved one's data is not worth the time. In many cases, they simply erase the hard drive and get rid of the computer without ever knowing what was on it.

"We're probably wiping away a lot of memories," said George Ehrlich, manager of Machaven, a computer-repair service near Washington, who is asked every few months to erase a hard drive of someone who has died. "Most people want to give the computer away without worrying about someone else getting access to personal information. When they bring it in, they don't know what's on it and they don't seem to care."

Sometimes, too, relatives realize that there may be things left on the hard drive - embarrassing e-mail messages in particular - that they would rather not see.

Gaining access to a person's data if the person is no longer living raises legal issues as well. Small mom-and-pop computer services may break into a machine without asking for any proof of death. But large companies like America Online require at least a death certificate before sharing e-mail messages or data stored on their servers with survivors.

Once survivors gain access to the data, questions may also arise about who actually owns it. If a person saved a book manuscript on a hard drive and left the machine to a friend, for instance, the friend might try to claim ownership of the manuscript as well.

While no case law exists in this area, several lawyers who are experts on estate planning and probate matters generally agreed that anything stored on a computer is considered "intangible" property, meaning that like a stock certificate or a rare baseball card, it is probably worth more than the piece of tangible property it occupies, in this case, disk space on a computer. As a result, they say, the manuscript would not automatically become the property of the friend who received the computer. The manuscript itself would have had to have been bequeathed to the friend.

To avoid such a predicament, executors should go though the computer files of the deceased, print out important documents and then delete everything else, said Dennis I. Belcher, a lawyer with McGuireWoods, a firm in Richmond, Va. "In the end, the executor needs to make sure the computer is completely clean before giving it up."

One worry for Mr. Belcher is the growing trend of keeping work-related documents on home computers. If those files remained on a machine that was given away after the owner died and ended up in the wrong hands, the executor of the estate could be held responsible. "Even if the executor disseminated that proprietary information unknowingly, they could still be held liable," Mr. Belcher said.

For Mr. Belcher and other lawyers, the issue of what happens to data on a computer when its owner dies remains largely uncharted territory. After all, they say, many people who die now are not routine computer users. But as the baby-boom generation ages, "lawyers will probably deal with these questions all the time," said Edward F. Koren, a lawyer at Holland & Knight in Tampa, Fla., and an expert on estate planning and probate matters.

"The entire lives of some people are on their computers," he said, "and they forget all about that when planning for death."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/03/te...ts/03data.html

















Until next week,

- js.














~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Current Week In Review.




Recent WiRs -

May 29th, May 22nd, May 15th, May 8th, May 1st, April 24th, April 17th

Jack Spratt's Week In Review is published every Friday. Please submit letters, articles, and press releases in plain text English to jackspratts (at) lycos (dot) com. Include contact info. Submission deadlines are Wednesdays @ 1700 UTC.