Peer-To-Peer News - The Week In Review – October 9th, '04

[JackSpratts]

Quotes Of The Week


"I don't have any real hard numbers, but it seems like people who download the songs are the ones that eventually buy the albums." – Mark Borders, record exec


"Unlike currently existing P2P technologies, NEOnet allows users to search the entire spectrum of the network, what we call horizonless search." – Ben Wilken, program architect


"Mr. Munster and his research team also found that illegal file sharing is still very popular among teenagers. 65% indicated they downloaded music on a regular basis. Of that number, 73% have used an illegal file sharing site such as Kazaa or Limeware." – Macobserver staff


"Orrin Hatch wouldn't know a computer if it hit him." – Mark Cuban
















Inducing Labor

Any efforts spent convincing Washington the Induce act would be Bad Law is time well spent. The man behind this bill has been actively and neurotically demonizing file sharers for ages. He’s the guy a couple of years ago who wanted to destroy computers by using armed web bots to search out "unauthorized" content and then kill the PC's it was on - all automatically and without any sort of trial or due process. He talks about this stuff constantly, loudly and often, any chance he can get – he’s a small-minded, angry man on a mission, a failed recording star – but hmmm, it turns out he himself is a copyright violator. Isn’t that always the way? It's no surprise I’ve never heard him so much as whisper that fact - no honest mea culpas there. So mostly I think he’s just unstable. Mind you I don't know the guy personally, I’m just going by the furious brittle behaviors I see him engaged in month after month. Last week for instance he threatened to "lock up" people he felt were hindering his bills progress until they came around to his pro big-media point of view, despite the fact that other, bigger tech industry people were telling him his bill would hurt them, their shareholders, employees and America more than doing nothing would hurt the media companies. Those media outfits are doing pretty well it turns out, and are mostly non-American it also turns out, which is a little weird when you consider this guy’s an American politician who is supposed to represent his states’ citizens first, all Americans second and foreigners, well, I’m not sure they even make the list. I don’t recall his oath of office mentioning the UN at any rate.

Most of this korporate kleptocracy would die an unmourned death if a surprisingly small number of Washington insiders suddenly found themselves out of office and forced to earn an actual living in the real world (and hey, they might even be a little bit more receptive to P2P if that were to happen). Be great wouldn’t it, but until such a wondrous time comes to pass we’re going to have to increase our labors convincing the moderates and the prescient in Washington that there is no political future in pissing us off. There’re 3 or 4 international record syndicates now, but there’s like a hundred million of us swapping files right here in North America. Those are some seriously bad odds to be on the wrong side of. Nobody needs to go back to school to understand that. Oh wait. Maybe they do.

We’ve got the power baby. We’ve got the mass. Let’s use it and STOP THE INDUCE ACT NOW!
















Enjoy,

Jack














D.C. Showdown Looms Over File Swapping

High noon for swapping?
John Borland

Technology companies and the record industry are nearing a last-minute showdown on Capitol Hill over a controversial bill aimed at quelling file swapping.

The bill, sponsored by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and dubbed the "Induce Act," was introduced earlier this year, in large part as a response to court rulings that have said that file-sharing software companies were not liable for copyright infringement by their customers.

A round of negotiations between the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and technology organizations closed this week without reaching compromise, according to people familiar with the talks. As of late Wednesday, Hatch's Judiciary committee was scheduled to vote on a version of the bill Thursday morning. That prospect prompted a flurry of last-minute protest letters from technology and consumer organizations.

"The recording industry (proposals) would effectively put at risk all consumer electronics, information technology products, and Internet products and services that aren't designed to the industry's liking," read one letter sent Wednesday and signed by lobby groups representing technology companies, including News.com publisher CNET Networks. "We urge you not to move forward now."

The issue has become a key rallying point for many in Silicon Valley who fear that the legislation might have impact well beyond the file-swapping world. The result has been a relationship between technology and content companies at its most tense since bitter battles over Hollywood-sponsored antipiracy proposals in 2002.

The RIAA is taking a conciliatory approach toward the technology industry, saying it is solely interested in stopping file-swapping companies that profit from copyright infringement. The group has said it is open to changing the legislation in whatever way necessary to achieve that goal.

"In a short period of time, there has been remarkable progress," RIAA spokesman Jonathan Lamy said. "A coalition of groups and members of Congress have coalesced around the core proposition that the 'bad actors' deserve to be held accountable. No one is defending the parasitical business model of the illegitimate peer-to-peer networks. The remaining issues are definitional and we continue to work through those."

Rolling back Betamax?
At the core of the RIAA's push--and of much of the technology industry's fear--is an effort to change the way that a 20-year-old court decision affects copyright law.

In 1984, the Supreme Court said that the Sony Betamax videocassette recorder was legal to sell, despite being widely used to copy movies and television shows. The court reasoned that the device could not be banned outright because it had a number of uses that did not involve copyright infringement. That rule, later known as the Betamax doctrine, now protects virtually all products that can make copies as long as they too have "substantial noninfringing uses."

This has proven a key part of the legal defense for peer-to-peer software companies such as Grokster and Streamcast Networks against charges of copyright infringement by the record industry and Hollywood studios. They've said, and federal courts have agreed, that the file-swapping networks can be used for legal purposes despite the widespread song and movie piracy they allow.

However, judges in those cases said that if content companies didn't like those decisions, they should take it up with Congress--and that's just what the RIAA has done.

Hatch and the record industry group have said they want to focus heavily on behavior, rather than on specific technology. They say that the file- swapping companies are "inducing" illegal behavior on the part of their customers and should be held liable for that action.

Technology companies and consumer advocates say this threatens to roll back the Betamax doctrine and expose to liability a wide variety of companies--from Web browser makers to iPod maker Apple Computer.

The senator outlined his goals for the bill in a letter to Register of Copyrights Marybeth Peters, who has supported the bill. In the letter, Hatch wrote that he wants a "technology-neutral bill directed at a small set of bad actors, while protecting our legitimate technology industries from frivolous litigation."

Reports from the participants in negotiations this week were mixed. Recording industry sources said that substantial progress had been made, although the parties remained split on how to define peer to peer. Consumer groups said the gap remained wide.

The technology groups pressed Hatch on Wednesday to put a hold on the bill's progress, citing the need for more public scrutiny of the bill's language, which remains in flux.

"Every one of the half-dozen drafts proposed would make fundamental changes to copyright law, with potentially enormous impact on innovation, creativity, and competition," the Center on Democracy and Technology wrote in a letter to Hatch on Wednesday. "Given the short period over which (the bill) has been discussed, the absence of hearings on the new language, and the overall lack of opportunity for the public to comment, we believe it would be in the best interests of all parties to allow a more orderly process to go forward."

If the bill faces a vote as scheduled on Thursday in the Judiciary Committee, it still could be changed before it faces a full vote in the Senate. Participants said that the vote could be delayed at the last minute, however, given the fluidity of the situation.

Congress will return in November to vote on budget bills after the election, and most observers expect the bill to be taken up again then.

In the meantime, technology executives are rallying people to contact Congress to express their displeasure over the bill, which was a hot topic of conversation at the Web 2.0 conference in San Francisco this week.

HDNet founder and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban summed up the fears of many of the event's attendees. "If you're at this conference, your livelihood is at risk if the Induce Act passes," he said.
http://news.com.com/D.C.+showdown+lo...3-5400128.html


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Hollywood Asks Top U.S. Court to Weigh File Trading
Andy Sullivan

Movie studios and record labels on Friday asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a ruling that Internet "peer to peer" networks cannot be held liable when their users copy music and movies without permission.

Dozens of entertainment-industry companies asked the court to reverse an appeals court decision that has prevented them from shutting down networks like Grokster and Morpheus that they say encourage millions of consumers to copy music and movies for free rather than buying them.

The entertainment industry managed to shut down the first file-trading network, Napster. But Grokster and other networks that have sprung up in its wake claim their decentralized design prevents them from controlling user behavior.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in August that peer-to-peer networks can't be sued for copyright infringement because, like VCR manufacturers, their products can be used for legitimate purposes.

"These companies have expressly designed their businesses to avoid all legal liability, with the full knowledge that over 90 percent of the material traversing their applications belongs to someone else," said Dan Glickman, president of the Motion Picture Association of America.

A spokesman for a trade group that represents Morpheus and other peer-to-peer networks said he didn't think the Supreme Court would overturn the decision.

"Historically, the Supreme Court has well understood that the overexpansion of the monopoly rights provided under copyright to content owners can and would interfere with other enormously important social values and commerce," said Adam Eisgrau, executive director of the trade group P2P United.

The digital-media landscape has shifted significantly in the past several years. Napster has been resurrected by Roxio Inc. (ROXI.O: Quote, Profile, Research) as an industry-sanctioned pay service, competing with Apple Computer Inc.'s (AAPL.O: Quote, Profile, Research) iTunes and others that have sold millions of songs.

But traffic on file-trading networks has continued to climb even as record labels have sued more than 5,000 users for copyright infringement.

Hollywood has also lobbied Congress to broaden copyright laws.

In end-of-session maneuvering, one measure that would hold peer-to-peer networks liable for user behavior appeared to be dead, but others that would specify a greater role for U.S. law enforcers appeared headed toward passage.
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.j...toryID=6455899


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U.S. Album Sales Up 5.8 Per Cent In First Nine Months Of 2004
AP

Album sales in the United States rose 5.8 per cent in the first nine months of this year, reflecting an overall turnaround in music sales that began a year ago on the strength of hit releases and a growing market for digital tracks.

About 463 million albums were sold in the United States between January and Oct. 3, compared with roughly 437.4 million in 2003, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

Overall, the number of albums, singles and digital tracks sold in the first nine months of the year totaled 562.7 million. Comparable numbers for 2003 were not immediately available. A comparison of overall music sales figures through Sept. 26 showed a 5.4 per cent increase in units sold this year over the same period in 2003.

The sales data continued to reflect encouraging news for the industry, which suffered a sales slump from 2000 to 2003, prompting a wave of restructuring by record companies and thousands of layoffs.

"After three years of decline, whether we're competing with softer numbers or not, it's certainly encouraging to see even modest growth," said Geoff Mayfield, director of charts and senior analyst for Billboard Magazine.

The rebound began in earnest in September 2003. Over the following 52 weeks, sales were down only 10 weeks compared to 2003, Mayfield said.

The online music market accounted for the sale of more than 93.6 million tracks between January and Oct. 3. Some 19.2 million tracks were purchased in the last six months of 2003, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

The popularity of downloads has been helped by a flurry of companies breaking into the market following the success of Apple Computer Inc.'s ITunes Music Store and IPod digital player.

It's still too early to tell how the fourth quarter sales will compare to last year.

Traditionally, record companies release their strongest offerings in the fourth quarter in hopes of capturing a big slice of holiday shopping sales.

U2, Eminem, Destiny's Child and R.E.M. are among the acts due to release new albums over the next three months.

Despite the overall increase in sales, the last three weeks have been down compared with the same period last year, when John Mayer's Bigger Than My Body and OutKast's hit double album, Speakerboxxx/The Love Below, were out.

And while 2004 began strong with releases by Norah Jones and Usher each selling more than one million copies in their debuts, no other release has since matched that.

The upswing in sales appears to be happening at the same time as online file-sharing, which the recording industry blames for its sales declines in recent years and has tried to stamp out through an ongoing legal campaign against computer users, continues to thrive.

More than 6.8 million people were signed on to file-sharing networks in August, compared with 3.8 million in August 2003, according to BigChampagne LLC, an online media tracking firm.

While still a fraction of overall music sales and online file-sharing, sales of digital tracks are encouraging, and if anything, may hint at additional non-digital sales down the road.

U2's latest single, Vertigo, which debuted on ITunes last week, is one example. More than 30,000 copies of the track were sold in one week, the most since Nielsen SoundScan began tracking such sales.
http://www3.cjad.com/content/cp_arti...s/e100649A.htm


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Feds Plan Crackdown On Intellectual Property Theft
AP

The Justice Department will launch its most aggressive crackdown on intellectual property theft next week, Attorney General John Ashcroft said Wednesday.

Ashcroft told a conference of prosecutors who specialize in computer crime that the Justice Department response to intellectual property theft ``must be as forceful and aggressive and successful as our response to terrorism and violent crime and drugs and corruption has been.''

He said the department will release a report next week that follows the creation earlier this year of an intellectual property task force. Officials will also announce a tougher response to intellectual property theft, which he said costs the United States $250 billion annually, affecting industries from auto parts manufacturing to pharmaceuticals.

Ashcroft did not reveal the details, saying only that the program includes ``new investigative resources'' and ``new prosecutorial tools.''

``Our 1.0 version of intellectual property rights and enforcement and protection has been good -- with these recommendations and your dedication, our 2.0 version is going to be better, tougher, more successful,'' he said.
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/sil...al/9853099.htm


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Record Chiefs Start Piracy Suits
Nic Hopkins

RECORD companies will unleash hundreds of lawsuits against alleged music pirates across Europe today, including the first to be filed in Britain, as they step up their campaign to protect copyrighted material.

The record companies, including France’s Universal Music Group and Britain’s EMI, are understood to have stopped short of pursuing criminal convictions against traders of counterfeit material and are instead seeking compensation for lost revenues.

The lawsuits, foreshadowed by The Times last week, will be announced jointly by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) and IFPI, the record industry’s global trade organisation. IFPI announced 247 lawsuits across Denmark, Germany, Italy and Canada in March.

The BPI has resorted to legal action after warning thousands of users of internet peer-to-peer services, such as Grokster and Kazaa, that they were breaking the law.

One source familiar with the situation said: “If you think of lawsuits as a stick being used against music pirates, then the carrot is that there are now more than one million tracks that can be downloaded over the internet legally from more than 30 different services.”
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/ar...297872,00.html


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Hackers Attack Dutch Government Web Sites
AP

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - Several Dutch government Web sites remained offline Tuesday after an attack by hackers protesting unpopular policies of the right-wing Cabinet, the government said.

In what is known as a denial-of-service attack, the hackers continually made fake requests for information from the Web sites, effectively shutting out legitimate users, a government statement said.

No security sites had been breached, and only public information sites were disabled, said Henk Brons, a spokesman for the government information agency known by its Dutch acronym RVD. Two Dutch-language sites carrying information about government institutions and their activities were affected.

A group calling itself the "Hacking Crew 10pht" claimed responsibility for the attacks on a Dutch Web forum.

Brons said he had no further details on the hackers, adding that police were investigating.

The sites crashed when they became overloaded Monday afternoon. Technicians were still working on the problem more than 24 hours later, and Brons could not say when the sites would be back online.

The Dutch government has come under public criticism over planned spending cuts in 2005 on health care and early retirement benefits. On Saturday, 200,000 staged a protest in Amsterdam, the largest in the Netherlands in 20 years.
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/sil...al/9842193.htm


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U.S. Launches New Anti-Piracy Campaign
Roy Mark

The White House, the U.S. Departments of Commerce, Homeland Security and Justice and U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) Robert Zoellick will carry out a multi-prong initiative to fight the global trade in pirated and counterfeited goods.

According to the Business Software Alliance (BSA), a major special interest group representing the software and Internet industry, an estimated 36 percent of the software installed on computers worldwide last year was pirated, representing a loss of nearly $29 billion.

Speaking at a media briefing, which included Attorney General John Ashcroft and Zoellick, Commerce Secretary Don Evans said the plan "gives American businesses clear steps to protect themselves from international counterfeiters and encourages businesses to adopt programs that ensure that their supply chains are free from fakes."

Known as the Strategy Targeting Organized Piracy (STOP), the new initiative includes beefed up programs to block bogus goods at borders, establishing a hotline to provide U.S. businesses with resources to protect themselves from piracy and developing a Web-based guide for American businesses to safeguard their intellectual property.

Evans said the plan also calls for challenging industry leaders to develop voluntary guidelines or corporate compliance programs to ensure that supply chains are free of fakes.

"With the spread of the Internet and sophisticated duplication technology, it's gotten very easy for would-be pirates and counterfeiters from other countries to download a corporate identity, or a catalogue, then produce high-quality forgeries," Zoellick said. "With the expansion of global supply and distribution channels, the way is now open for those tapes here and around the world. This is now real-time theft."

Late last year, the USTR identified the growth of piracy and trade goods counterfeiting as a top priority and began working with a number of U.S. agencies and trading partners to develop a new approach to the problem.

"This problem crosses many different jurisdictions, laws and countries, and the STOP initiative provides a coordinated and effective answer," Zoellick said. "The message to pirates and counterfeiters is simple: we will do everything we can to make their life miserable. We'll stop their products at our border; we will name and shame their company; we'll ratchet up the penalties; and we'll coordinate with our trading partners to prevent third-country trafficking."

According to Zoellick, global intellectual property rights theft and trade in fakes have grown to "unprecedented levels." From pirated music and movies to counterfeit brake pads, Zoellick said the illicit trade is not only growing in the United States but also among other countries in an effort to escape the reach of U.S. law enforcement officials.

Of particular concern to Zoellick is China, which has emerged as a leading source of pirated and counterfeit goods. The U.S. has been pressing China to meet its intellectual property obligations as a member of the World Trade Organization. Earlier this year, China committed to subject the full array of piracy and counterfeiting operations to criminal prosecution and to target production facilities and sales of fakes.

Ashcroft said another important goal of STOP is to close loopholes in the current law.

"For example, under current law, it is not a violation of intellectual property law simply to import or export counterfeit goods. Nor is it a violation of the law for an importer to have a warehouse full of counterfeit software if there is no evidence of an illegal sale," Ashcroft said. "We intend to work closely with Congress to close such loopholes."

Robert Holleyman, president and CEO of the BSA, rushed to praise the STOP plan. "The economic and societal benefits of software and other U.S. products contribute profoundly to the world economy," he said in a statement. "Yet, the software-driven productivity that has the potential to greatly strengthen national economies, including our own, is only viable if the intellectual property that serves as its foundation is fully protected and enforced by international law."
http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news...le.php/3417061


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More Than 50 In Kentucky Sued For Copyright Infringement
Beth Musgrave

David Vatter received a letter three months ago from a Los Angeles law firm that said something about downloading and the recording industry.

"I thought it was junk mail or some sort of marketing ploy," Vatter said. "I thought it was nothing."

The Louisville father learned a month later that it was no joke.

Vatter received a thick packet from lawyers informing him he was being sued.

His crime?

Vatter was being charged with copyright infringement, the documents said. His 16-year-old daughter had downloaded more than 400 songs using a program called Kazaa, which allows computer users to swap music files. Vatter was given the option of settling the case for $6,000 or taking his chances in court.

"I talked to a couple lawyer friends of mine who told me that it was going to cost me thousands of dollars in legal bills," Vatter said. "So I decided to settle."

More than 50 people in Kentucky have received similar letters over the past year. They are being sued for downloading such hits as Martina McBride's Valentine or Trick Daddy's Take it to da House without compensating McBride, Trick Daddy or their respective music labels for the pleasure of owning their songs.

The Recording Industry Association of America, a trade group that represents the nation's largest music labels, has filed at least 10 lawsuits against downloaders in Kentucky federal courts since April. Most recently, the organization filed three lawsuits in the Eastern District of Kentucky, based in Lexington.

Kentucky is the latest battleground in the recording industry's efforts to stop people from pointing and clicking rather than paying for their favorite music. Since launching its campaign to catch copyright infringers in September 2003, the RIAA has filed more than 4,600 lawsuits. Of those cases, more than 800 people have opted to settle and pay an average fine of $3,000, according to RIAA.

Conflicting research

A year after the launch of its campaign, many question whether the recording industry's massive, not to mention costly, legal push to stop copyright infringement has curbed downloading.

The recording industry thinks it has.

The RIAA points to a recent study that shows most people believe downloading music is wrong and that artists should be compensated for their work. The Peter D. Hart Associates study found 64 percent of those polled think it's illegal to download music. The Hart poll also found that 56 percent were "supportive and understanding" of the record industry's legal campaign. And a Pew Internet study released earlier this year showed that six million people have stopped downloading music since last fall.

But market research by other companies says just the opposite.

"This is a growing phenomenon that gets more popular year after year," said Eric Garland, CEO of BigChampagne, a Los Angeles company that tracks peer-to-peer file sharing.

Estimates put the number of people who download music in the United States at about 60 million. Data from BigChampagne, which tracks how many people are on peer-to-peer systems, such as Kazaa, eDonkey or Limewire, show that downloading has increased. For example, in August 2003, BigChampagne clocked an average of 2.75 million simultaneous users on peer- to-peer systems. The following August, the number jumped to more than 4.5 million users.

Another study by Nielson Net Ratings in 2003 showed one out of five people online download.

Tactics backfired?

Garland said the music industry may have unknowingly spurred more downloading when it targeted Napster, the first peer-to-peer music sharing service, in 2000.

Until then, copyright infringers were mostly anonymous and difficult to prosecute. People started dubbing tapes for friends and family when the cassette tape was introduced in the late 1970s and early 1980s. But most of this type of copyright infringement was difficult to track.

Enter Napster, the first large-scale file-sharing service.

The recording industry finally had a boogeyman, a face of copyright infringement.

But its well-publicized dispute took the service, largely contained to universities, out of dorm rooms and onto the cover of Time.

People who may have not realized there was a way to tap into free music now knew, Garland said.

And a technical revolution was born. And although Napster is now a legal Web site -- charging for music downloads -- other free Web sites have taken its place.

Some musicians encourage it

Although some rock luminaries such as Don Henley and Metallica have spoken out against downloading, some musicians encourage it.

Mark Borders started Eugene Records about eight years ago with some friends from a punk band. Eugene Records, based in the Lexington area, has released about 17 albums. It specializes in punk and rock. Without the Internet, it would be impossible for Borders and other musicians to get the word out about their music.

"It's nearly impossible to get local radio play," Borders said. "Everything is run by Clear Channel now."

Eugene Records' Web site offers free samples of many of its songs.

"I don't have any real hard numbers, but it seems like people who download the songs are the ones that eventually buy the albums," Borders said.

Steve Baron, the owner of CD Central, a popular Lexington music store near the University of Kentucky, agrees. Baron said avid music fans may download music, but if they like what they hear, they'll buy the CD, too.

Baron said the lawsuits may have another unintended consequence, especially on young audiences, the music industry's core buyers.

"Personally, I think a lot of these lawsuits are somewhat heavy-handed," Baron said. "I think it's going to alienate a lot of listeners."

After dickering with record industry lawyers, Vatter settled his case for under $4,000. Vatter and his daughter have since cleaned all music files from their home computer.

"I heard from the media that other people had been sued. I just figured that they were looking for the big boys," Vatter said. "I felt bad for them but I thought, 'That's not going to happen to me.' Guess I was wrong."
http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky...al/9830171.htm


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You got the message right?

Sony Abandons Copy-Control Music CDs
AP

Sony Corp.'s music unit is abandoning its CDs that use built-in technology that limits copying them, after pushing the program for two years.

Such CDs let users copy their music once for free onto a personal computer, but use the Internet to charge a fee for subsequent copying of the same disk.

However, Sony Music Entertainment has announced it will stop publishing them, mainly because its message against illegally copying CDs for uses such as in file-sharing over the Internet has widely sunk in, the company said.

Sony Music has learned that only a small part of the population illegally copy CDs, company spokeswoman Kimiko Ohashi said Monday.

The music giant recently started adapting its strategy due to the proliferation of MP3 computer files, used to store music in audio players such as Apple's iPod, which are rapidly becoming a global music industry phenomenon.

Sony said last month that its portable audio players, which will soon go on sale in Europe, will be able to use any MP3 files.

Previously, Sony's players only handled MP3 files that were converted into the company's own format.

CD sales have plunged in recent years in Japan and elsewhere, as people increasingly use the Internet to download music.

As a company with major electronics and entertainment divisions, Sony has constantly faced the dilemma of wanting to protect the copyright of movies, music and other entertainment assets it owns, while trying to make its electronics gadgets popular with users.
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/sil...ws/9832592.htm


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Battle of Form (and Function) in MP3 Players
Saul Hansell


The Rocbox is being marketed as an alternative to Apple's iPod.

As the trading of MP3 files ate into music sales, Damon Dash, the 33-year-old entrepreneur behind Roc-A-Fella Records, turned his hip-hop music company into a platform to sell other, more profitable products.

He built Rocawear, a hip-hop-inspired clothing line, into a $300-million-a-year business. He launched Armadale Vodka, Tiret New York luxury watches and America, an urban luxury fashion magazine. He even bought the venerable Pro-Keds name to use on a new line of athletic shoes.

Now Mr. Dash is taking his celebrity and music-infused marketing approach to a product line closer to the source of his troubles: MP3 files. In November, he will introduce a line of MP3 players under the name Rocbox, including one aimed squarely to compete with Apple Computer's iPod.

"We saw Apple making a killing, and we thought it would be good market to go after," Mr. Dash said in an interview last week. The players, which are being sold by a company he formed with some partners, called Roc Digital, are a natural area, he added, because of the possible tie-ins with his music label, which is part of the Island Def Jam Music Group of Universal Music Group, whose parent is Vivendi Universal.

"It has been rough going in the music business," Mr. Dash said, adding, "We have been using music to promote my other brands and validate them in a cool way."

With a chrome-colored front, glowing blue buttons and a black rubberized back, the hard-drive Rocbox is shinier and a bit bigger than an iPod, while matching its $299 price tag for a player with enough memory for 600 hours of music. A smaller white and aluminum flash-drive player is $159, and has enough memory for about eight hours of music. Both players will be sold at Macy's and CompUSA stores.

Mr. Dash is capitalizing on a significant shift in the electronics business, which until now has largely designed products to appeal to a worldwide audience.

Now that electronics items are getting smaller and are meant to be carried or even worn rather than being put on a shelf, consumers are choosing them for their looks as much as function.

"Things become more important as fashion items the more personal and portable they become," said Greg Woock, the chief executive of Virgin Electronics, a division of the Virgin Group, whose owner, Sir Richard Branson, is moving his music, airline and cellphone brand into the gadget world.

Other brands that have nothing to do with music or electronics are getting into the act. Oakley, the high-end sunglasses maker, is about to introduce the Oakley Thump, a line of sunglasses with tiny MP3 players built in, and priced at $395 and $495. The glasses look like they are out of a science-fiction movie, with flip-up lenses and flip- down speakers. The fashion trend in electronics is especially evident in MP3 players and wireless phones. In part, that's because those devices are most popular with young people. They are held more closely to the body than many other machines. And since they have very small circuitry and do not need to conform to the shape of a tape or disk, they can be designed in a wide range of shapes and sizes.

"A CD player has to be round or D-shaped," said Bradshaw Gray, the portable audio buyer for Circuit City, adding that MP3 players are flexible enough to invite creative designs.

Darryl Cobbin, the vice president of marketing for Boost Mobile, a subsidiary of Nextel Communications that is focused on the youth market, said that most makers of wireless phones market them as an electronic device and focus on their features.

"We see it as an intimate part of your life," he said. "How many products do you know that touch your mouth and your ear and that you hold in your hand and put in your pocket for extended periods?"

Boost began trying to sell prepaid telephones to young people on the West Coast two years ago by using affiliations with sports like surfing and skate boarding. Now the brand is being altered for a broader urban audience. It has gained some notoriety from commercials featuring hip-hop artists like Kanye West and Ludacris and the musical theme, "Where You At?"

Boost has introduced one phone with a built-in makeup mirror. And it plans to introduce a limited edition phone next year (with a wood grain finish), a strategy often used by Nike and other brands to enhance the exclusivity of an item.

Even televisions, which have long been an assortment of ever larger rectangular boxes, are moving into the world of high design.

"It used to be that all televisions were square black boxes that differentiated themselves on picture quality and features," said Thomas Crowell, the television buyer at Circuit City. "In a digital world, everything looks so good, you need to make design the differentiation." The sleek look of the expensive flat-panel models attracts customers even though their picture quality is often inferior to that of many tube televisions.

Manufacturers see television buyers as divided mainly by budget, but for smaller devices they are increasingly targeting specific demographic and psychological groups of customers.

At Circuit City, Mr. Gray sees the Apple iPod as appealing to a broad audience. MP3 players from iRiver, a South Korean electronics maker, are marketed primarily to an urban audience with ties to hip-hop artists. And those from Rio, now a unit of D&M Holdings, a Japanese company, are marketed to people he calls "individualists," because the Rio players have rounded shapes and marketing that eschews celebrity tie-ins.

Mr. Dash hopes to distinguish the Rocbox players from other players on the market by weaving images of them into videos for artists of his label, and put tags promoting them on his clothing. While details haven't been worked out yet, buyers of the player will have access to exclusive bits of Roc-A-Fella music.

"In the urban market, selling something cheap is not what they want," said Shae Hong, the president of Roc Digital. "They want the best," he said, pointing to the affiliation of many hip-hop artists to Courvoisier and the Cadillac Escalade sport utility vehicle.

Paradoxically, even as fashion elements creep into device design, many devices look very similar because consumers have a narrow band of preferences.

"More people want to look like a Gap ad than a Prada ad," said Mr. Woock of Virgin.

This season, he said, the cool electronic devices are extremely small, and many open to reveal hidden functions. Virgin, for example, now sells an MP3 player so small that it can be worn as a necklace, and it is about to introduce a set of portable speakers, for use with any portable music device, that unscrew from a tube that looks like a tennis ball can.

But despite the interest in style, Mr. Woock said, consumers aren't willing to let manufacturers substitute style for substance.

You may have a super product, Mr. Woock said, "but if it doesn't work, no one will buy it."

Currently, the broadest range of looks are on wireless phones. While manufacturers limit their palettes to silver, white, steel blue and black, accessory makers are selling covers for the phones with images ranging from motorcycles to matinee idols.

Wildseed, a Seattle company started by some former Microsoft executives, is creating a phone technology aimed at teenagers that makes phone covers do more than look cool.

Their phone, called Identity, has a line of covers that are both decorated and contain memory chips. When the cover is attached to the phone, the chip gives users a choice of ring tones to hear, images to see, games to play on the phone screen and more.

One, for example, is hot pink and features the character French Kitty. Others are have the rap star Nelly and the video game character Mortal Kombat. Each has sounds and images related to its theme.

The phone, which is just being introduced in some markets, will sell for about $250 for people who sign up for a service plan. The covers will cost another $25 to $50. Cindy Smith, Wildseed's marketing director, says she believes that consumers will pay for the new phone features.

"Kids can tell their parents that they update the phone to do new things when they want to," she said. "It's like a game console. You don't toss it out when you want new entertainment."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/04/te...y/04urban.html


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Invasion of the Movie Snatchers

More and more movie fans are sharing films online, and hollywood doesn't like it. Should the studios fight or find a way to adapt?
Chris Taylor

Jack Valenti, the firebrand longtime head of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), was never one to mince words. As the movie industry's chief lobbyist, he knew how to portray his business's challenges in dramatic terms. Back in the 1980s, faced with new technology that supposedly threatened the studios' bottom line, Valenti once famously compared the VCR to the Boston Strangler.

Rhetoric like that took the battle against Betamax all the way to the Supreme Court, which ruled against the movie industry and helped establish the right of fair-use copying. We all know what happened to the VCR: not long after that defeat, the studios discovered that tape rentals were even more of a cash cow than movie tickets.

Fast-forward a generation. This time the supposedly disruptive technology facing the film industry is peer-to-peer networking. Whereas the original Napster offered free music only and was easy to shut down, its successors — Kazaa, Grokster, Morpheus et al.--trade movies too and have proved more resilient. The music labels fought all instances of unfettered file sharing until Apple CEO Steve Jobs helped broker a cease-fire in the form of the iTunes Music Store, which won praise from consumers and a route to profits for the labels. The film industry, however, is still in the trenches, trying to stall what it sees as an onslaught of movie theft. Already as many as half a million movies are swapped online every day, according to the MPAA. But a diverse chorus of critics says that Hollywood is on the wrong track and that file sharing may well hold as much potential profit as the VCR did.

The industry's efforts to block the new technology in the courts aren't going well. Last month a Federal Court of Appeals declared Grokster and Morpheus as legal as a VCR or a Xerox copy machine, whose legitimate copying uses outweigh illegitimate ones. The movie industry is furious. "These are folks who hide behind a curtain of plausible deniability, like they don't know what's being traded on their networks," says Dan Glickman, a Clinton Cabinet member and former Democratic Congressman who took over the helm of the MPAA after Valenti retired.

Now Hollywood is pinning its hopes on a new tactic: federal legislation that would essentially target file-sharing technology. If passed, the so-called Induce Act, backed by such powerful legislators as Senate majority leader Bill Frist and Senator Hillary Clinton, would close the legitimate-copying loophole and empower the MPAA to sue peer-to-peer file-sharing services like Grokster after all. Opponents of the bill include usual suspects like the Electronic Freedom Foundation — the A.C.L.U. of the digital world — but also a surprising number of big businesses.

Internet service providers like Verizon and gadget stores like Radio Shack say the act's wording is too draconian and makes them liable if customers use their wares to break copyright law. "It will be hard for us to introduce any digital product or service that delivers entertainment content," argues Sarah Deutsch, general counsel for Verizon.

At the same time, the studios can't exactly argue that file sharing is about to put them out of business. DVD sales, which grew 33% last year, and box-office receipts have never been stronger. So if technological breakthroughs were a boon for the movie industry in the past, why is the industry acting as if the sharing of movies online, as Valenti said a year ago, heralds the "undoing of society"?

The answer has to do with the film industry's business model, which is founded on a tightly controlled schedule of when and where the public sees movies. That schedule is broken up into windows. The box-office window is followed by the pay-per-view window, and then the DVD window opens, followed by the premium-cable window. The studios maximize their profit by selling licenses for each phase. If peer-to-peer networks can offer movies while the films are still in theaters, the whole revenue stream could be undermined. "We have less issues with technology overall than the lack of the ability to enact business rules around that technology," says Darcy Antonellis, a senior vice president at Warner Bros. Entertainment (a sister company of TIME) responsible for its worldwide antipiracy operations.

Not everyone in Silicon Valley is unsympathetic — even those promoting downloading technology. "Studios will not support downloading of new releases for the same reason book publishers don't go direct to paperback," says Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix, the hugely successful online movie-rental company. Hastings has his own version of an iTunes-like solution to the movie-download problem. Right now his 2 million customers rent DVDs online and receive them through the mail, but he says he has always intended to make the transition to movie downloads. Nothing is likely to be launched in the next year, but Hastings has been brainstorming the idea with Michael Ramsay, a Netflix board member and the CEO of TiVo, whose time-shifting digital video recorder has spooked Hollywood. Recently Ramsay, who has been struggling to expand the TiVo business, won FCC approval for TiVoToGo, a service that would allow people to share TV shows, movies and other TiVo recordings with as many as nine other TiVo boxes and computers via the Internet. (Not surprisingly, the MPAA bitterly opposed TiVoToGo.) "Downloading any movie ever made — that's possible on a TiVo box today," says Ramsay. "The problem is in the copyright management, not the technology." Hastings, meanwhile, takes pains to stress that any future downloading business would work out a profit-sharing framework with movie studios.

So far, copyright management has hamstrung the movie industry's attempts to make a business out of file-sharing technology. Two years ago, major studios launched a service called Movielink, which offers movies for downloading to your computer at about the same time they hit the pay-per-view window. Not only do the movies take hours to download, but they also disappear from Movielink's catalog altogether 90 days later, when they enter the premium-cable window. Because channels like HBO and Starz! offer lucrative licensing deals, Movielink has not been able to compete in the latter window. "We'll see this business become a true mass market," says Jim Ramo, CEO of Movielink. "It's just a matter of time."

How much time is open to debate. Ramsay says the industry has five years to figure out how to work file sharing into its business; Hastings thinks it's more like 10. (Both caution that contrary to some reports, we're not likely to see a full- fledged Netflix-TiVo deal in the immediate future.) The delay in incorporating file sharing has a lot to do with the slow speed of most Americans' Internet access. Even with cable and DSL connections that average 2 megabits per second, it can take 16 hours to download a movie with just a third of the quality of a DVD. Not to mention that most of us prefer watching a movie on our TV to watching it on a computer screen. "This isn't going to be a tidal wave of change," says Hastings. "More like global warming."

Download speed is just one reason file sharing may not be as immediate a threat to the movie business as it may seem. "There were very beautiful copies of Shrek 2 available on the Internet when it was released," says Ted Sarandos, chief content officer for Netflix. "That didn't seem to hurt [Shrek's] ticket sales any." When DVDs are packed with special features and available to rent for $2 or to buy for $15, who wants to waste a day downloading a movie? "I've frequently suggested they give up on all this copy protection because it doesn't make a bit of difference," says Fred von Lohmann, a lawyer for the Electronic Freedom Foundation who defended Grokster against the movie industry's lawsuit. "It's not all the fancy locks that protect the industry. It's a great product at a great price."

In today's fast-paced websphere, any attempt to restrict content is probably doomed to failure anyway. Exhibit A: The MPAA sued the company 321 Studios into bankruptcy last year for producing a piece of DVD-copying software called DVD X Copy. So what happened? DVD Shrink, a free product that does the same job, started popping up on the Internet. Exhibit B: Even before the launch of TiVoToGo, the online cognoscenti have latched on to BitTorrent software for swapping TV shows. Privately, some movie bosses admit the industry is on the wrong track. "Studios can only bitch so much before they provide a viable, competitive alternative," says one Walt Disney executive.

Intellectual-property experts are trying to come up with new models that will allow the film industry to survive downloading. UCLA law professor Neil Netanel has proposed more product placement in movies (since advertisers care only about how many people see their products) and allowing unrestricted file sharing in return for a "noncommercial-use levy" of 4%, regulated by the Copyright Office and imposed on the price of new computers and other copying devices. Netanel's estimate of the resulting profit for the studios: $2 billion a year.

For the moment, though, the movie industry's main thrust is the Induce Act (which is unlikely to get a full hearing before Congress this session, although Senate Judiciary chairman Orrin Hatch will probably bring it back next year). A public relations campaign to try to sway people from downloading movies illegally is also under way. Theatrical trailers show stuntmen, set builders and special-effects experts claiming they are the ones hurt by illegal downloads. And the industry has raised concerns over security dangers and privacy issues endemic to file sharing.

But time and technology are not on the studios' side. Just as the Napster phenomenon appeared to come out of nowhere, the next generation of file- sharing software is already in utero. Last month computer scientists at Caltech set a new data-transmission record: they achieved the equivalent of downloading a full-length feature film in 4 sec. It's a bumpy road to acceptance for any disruptive entertainment technology, from piano rolls to the VCR. "One thing you can count on in Hollywood is fear of change," says Warren Lieberfarb, the man who launched the DVD. But as Lieberfarb's profit-rich baby continues to prove, consumers are still hungry for faster, easier entertainment — and there's always another fortune waiting to be discovered.
http://www.time.com/time/insidebiz/a...709042,00.html


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MorpheusLaunches 4.5 With NEOnet(TM) Next Generation Peer-to-Peer Technology Developed by Harvard Computer Scientists

Software delivers unprecedented search reliability while solving P2P internet congestion problems
Press Release

After three years in development by a group of Harvard-educated computer scientists, and coming on the heels of its recent 9th Circuit Appellate Court victory, StreamCast Networks(TM) Inc. unveiled the latest version of its popular peer-to-peer file-sharing and search application, Morpheus(TM) 4.5 with NEOnet(TM), at today's Web 2.0 conference. NEOnet, a revolutionary new technology, delivers the most reliable search results and file accuracy available in today's peer-to-peer universe. In addition to the newly created Neo Network(TM), Morpheus 4.5 enables users to seamlessly search and share files with users of all other major peer-to-peer applications and networks.

"This is not just another updated application from a technology developer. Morpheus 4.5 is a genuine leap forward in advancing peer-to-peer file-sharing and searching, thanks to the horizonless search capabilities of the NEOnet technology," StreamCast Networks CEO Michael Weiss observed. "For the first time ever, decentralized P2P technology delivers central server reliability in a completely decentralized architecture to provide a quality of service unparalleled by existing applications."

The core search capability of Morpheus 4.5, NEOnet, was created by a consortium of Harvard computer science alumni. Users of Morpheus 4.5 will create their own ad-hoc file-sharing network, the Neo Network, in addition to being able to search other existing file sharing networks including Gnutella, eDonkey and FastTrack**. Users will appreciate that once connected to the Neo Network, they will enjoy significantly better search and download results, in part because files are more easily found and greater resources are able to contribute to the downloading of each individual file.

The Neo Network is completely decentralized, meaning that all of the computer "nodes" on the network function individually, without the need for any central server or hub. Computers within the Neo Network communicate directly with each other.

"Unlike currently existing P2P technologies, NEOnet allows users to search the entire spectrum of the network, what we call horizonless search, and to find the specific file that a user wants," Ben Wilken, Architect of the underlying technology to NEOnet, stated. "Existing technologies only search small clusters of computers until a file is found and it is not uncommon for searches using other technologies to require anywhere from six to sixteen hops to find a specific file. Now, however, because of its ability to see the entire network at once, Morpheus with NEOnet allows users to find that file within three hops or less, significantly reducing the network congestion caused by peer-to-peer usage by up to 600 percent."

NEOnet technology and the resulting Neo Network are fully scalable and will continue to grow as new Morpheus with NEOnet users add themselves to the network. Morpheus also offers users the ability to search for and download files across all the major peer-to-peer file-sharing networks and connects to Kazaa, iMesh, Grokster; eDonkey; Overnet; Gnutella, LimeWire, Bearshare and XoloX** users -- seven million simultaneous users at any given time.

Other features incorporated with the new Morpheus 4.5 version include:
-- XP Firewall Detection
-- Metadata tool tips in search results
-- Improved download performance
-- Integrated anti-virus protection with user's virus scanning software to
prevent malicious files
-- Free Bitzi anti-spoofing look-ups to ensure file integrity
-- Advanced parental controls
-- Built-in media player
-- File-Shredder to completely delete unwanted files
-- Optional access to public and private proxy networks -- provides
greater user privacy
-- Magnet Link support

Morpheus, available for FREE download at http://www.morpheus.com , is the only American P2P File Sharing software ruled legal by the US Federal Courts.

NEOnet is a next-generation horizonless peer-to-peer technology platform. The technology presents unlimited potential uses for content delivery and distribution in a completely decentralized environment. NEOnet's core competency lies in its fast, reliable and efficient search capabilities for all types of digital content including audio, video, text, images and software files. NEO Network is the ad-hoc file-sharing network created by users of the NEOnet technology.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/041006/sfw056_1.html


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Artist Sananda Maitreya Has His Own P2P Program
Posted by xtv

Sananda Maitreya developed an innovative launch for his "Angels & Vampires" project that features his own version of TrustyFiles P2P (Peer to Peer) file sharing software. The campaign includes distribution of Weed format files over the major P2P networks. Sananda Maitreya also is exclusively making two new songs and a video available only through P2P.

"It's not enough to just create protected files and say ‘here’s my music, please download’”, said Sananda Maitreya. “We have a fantastic group of fans. I owe them my success. RazorPop’s P2P Street Team captures the spirit of fan support and extends it into file sharing. Their custom TrustyFiles software is perfect for me to ask my fans to share my music and at the same time continue to stay close to them.”

Marc Freedman, founder and CEO of RazorPop said “We’ve worked with Heart and Steve Winwood on previous P2P promotions. The power of P2P for legitimate music is clear. The Heart campaign outsold iTunes. When Sananda Maitreya came to us, we decided to take P2P marketing to the next level.”

“We’ve made TrustyFiles software highly customizable. A popular feature is the P2P promotions channel. It’s a fixed window on the software display that gives the artist, distributor, or marketer a permanent presence to encourage free or protected file sharing, show the latest promotions, and display breaking news. 50% of Internet users share music and other files. If you're a major artist, shouldn't your fans and web visitors be sharing files on software with your name and logo, where you can directly sell your digital downloads, CDs, DVDs, and other merchandise?”

Sananda Maitreya’s file sharing software can be downloaded direct at http://p2pfiles.com/sw/Sananda/ SanandaTF.exe (or go to http://www.sanandamaitreya.com/trustyfiles/p2p.html). As part of the campaign his video “Bella Faccina” and songs “Glad She's Gone” and “She knows I'm Leaving” are only available to the file sharing community.

Sananda Maitreya’s music and video are directly promoted on the Sananda Maitreya and regular TrustyFiles P2P software. Other P2P users can find the music and video hosted on business class servers through searches on all major networks. Web surfers can download the music at http://www.TopP2P.com. The files are in Windows Media Player format and can be played on most major media player software and portable music player devices. The songs are packaged as Weed files, which allow 3 plays before the song must be purchased. New Weed users get $5 to buy their first few songs free.

RazorPop’s P2P distribution partner is Intent Mediaworks, an online artist marketer. Intent Mediaworks provides comprehensive P2P file hosting and distribution, including media digitization, file protection, and distribution to all major P2P networks.

Sananda Maitreya won a Grammy Award in 1989 for best Male R&B Vocal. His multi-platinum album “Introducing The Hardline According To” sold over 12 million albums and was the #1 Billboard Chart R&B Album in 1988. His smash single "Wishing Well" hit the top of the charts in the US and across the world. Other top songs have included “Sign Your Name”, "If You Let Me Stay", "Delicate" with Des'ree, and "Holding On To You".

RazorPop’s TrustyFiles is the industry’s leading multiple P2P network software. TrustyFiles searches and download hundreds of millions of files from TrustyFiles, Kazaa, Grokster, Morpheus, Limewire, Bearshare, Shareaza, and other Fast Track, Gnutella, Gnutella2 and Bit Torrent network users.

TrustyFiles software is designed for the user. It’s easy to use, free, and has no spyware and no bundled software. TrustyFiles developed the top performing P2P network engine for the fastest and most search results. Security features include a blocklist to protect from invasive users and virus scanning support to block infected files.
http://press.xtvworld.com/modules.ph...ticle&sid=2394


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Skype's Zennstrom to Deliver Keynote Address
Mathaba

The Skype co-founder, CEO and inventor of the Peer-to-Peer 'P2P' Phenomenon will provide the keynote address to an audience of thousands at a leading IP Telephony Conference in Los Angeles tomorrow.

The conference is currently underway October 4-7, 2004, at the Millennium Biltmore Hotel. Mr. Zennstrom's address, which will be delivered live from London via Internet Telephony Videoconference, will take place tomorrow, October 6th at 7:30 am PST.

"I'm honored to address the distinguished collection of telecommunications pioneers and leaders who will be attending the tenth Internet Telephony Conference & Expo, and I look forward to explaining about Skype and our vision for the future," said Niklas Zennstrom, founder and president of Skype. "Internet Telephony has been a key driver in defining new directions for communication and it is an excellent venue for Skype to engage with the industry."
http://mathaba.net/x.htm?http://math....shtml?x=75363


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Lost in Antipiracy Translation
Jon Newton

There is a coterie of individuals -- many of them extremely clever and very technically minded -- who believe they've been ripped off by the labels and studios and aren't going to put up with it any more. While all this goes on, the multinationals are floundering, trying to use technologies such as DRM to regain control and dominance.

A number of high-powered tech companies have banded together to create a "common antipiracy language."

Ignoring the reality that if you can hear it, you can copy it, members of the Coral Consortium want to come up with a set of technology specifications "that will let different kinds of copy protection be translated into other varieties," CNET News has reported.

Supported by HP, Matsushita Electric, Philips, Samsung , Sony, Twentieth Century Fox and DRM firm InterTrust Technologies, the consortium will try to do what no one has even come close to doing before.

And it all boils down to control.

Control Issues

Consumers who have shelled out for corporate product want to be able to play it anywhere, on anything, without hindrance. But the various heavies want punters to buy their stuff over everyone else's.

"Content owners, including record labels and movie studios, have been pushing hard behind the scenes for interoperability," says CNET. "They like the idea of industry-wide standards such as the DVD or CD, which allow one product to be played on hardware produced by any manufacturer."

That might be better phrased as, "hardware produced by any approved manufacturer."

As the Internet gains users, the world shrinks and so does the ability of the international corporate community to maintain control over markets and product.

A common DRM standard should fix that, the corporate interests hope and pray.

From Hackers to P2P

It might work among the (for the moment) majority of people in the world who've never heard of the Net and who still go to stores for their music and movies. But the balance is changing as more and more people get ISP accounts -- and discover that the online world is a very different place from the offline one.

A few years back, P2P wasn't the problem. Hackers were. They were into everything, changing index pages on government Web sites, doing weird stuff with telephone systems. And they still are, although no one talks much about it any more.

Were these people a bunch of evil-minded fiends bent on wreaking havoc and sowing destruction?

Nope. They were youngsters, for the most part, consumed with curiosity. Hacking was and is largely about peering into the abyss -- and hoping it won't peer back at you.

Bragging Rights

DRM, too, represents a kind of challenge, albeit nowhere near as interesting or complex or exciting as phreaking, say.

"The point ... is to spread the word of their exploits and earn praise from the rest of the groups, which is the main reward for 99 percent of the people involved," wrote Jon Healey of the Los Angeles Times in his story "Secret Movie Moguls," in which he discusses a 17-year-old high- school student who's "trying to make a name for himself as a film distributor."

The student and his colleagues were members of MysticVCD -- "one of dozens of 'ripping' or 'release' groups that obtain, prepare, package and feed movies, songs and games into a secretive and complex distribution scheme that functions a bit like the illegal drug trade -- minus the bloodletting.... Instead of cash, the online underground is powered by bartering -- admission to these elite circles is granted only to those with something valuable to offer, such as computer parts or a pre-release copy of a DVD," said Healey.

Their discoveries don't stay secret for very long.

Floundering Corporations

Then you have a coterie of individuals -- many of them extremely clever and very technically minded -- who believe they've been ripped off by the labels and studios and aren't going to put up with it any more.

While all this goes on, the multinationals are floundering, trying to use technologies such as DRM to regain control and dominance.

Enter Coral. But while it gets ready to do its thing, the Moving Pictures Experts Group has been working since last summer to find an interoperability standard, and "neither group includes Apple or Microsoft, the two most prominent makers of copy- protection technology for consumers," CNET points out.

None of this bodes well for "interoperability."
http://www.technewsworld.com/story/L...ion-37113.html


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Super-Powered Peer To Peer
John Borland

StreamCast Networks on Wednesday plans to release an updated version of its Morpheus file-swapping software, showcasing new search technology that could dramatically strengthen peer-to-peer networks.

Morpheus developers are looking to recapture their onetime leading role in the file-trading world with a network technology called Neonet, written by a pair of former Harvard students.

Dubbed "distributed hash tables," Neonet's technology transforms the way that searches happen on peer-to-peer networks, potentially making it more efficient to search a much larger number of computers and more easily surface rare files. Similar technology is also used by eDonkey, a competitor that is on the verge of overtaking Kazaa as the most widely used peer-to-peer service in the world.

"Peer-to-peer technology to date is not good enough yet," said Michael Weiss, StreamCast's chief executive officer. "People ask, does the world really need another peer-to- peer network? I think the answer is, yes we do, because nobody's gotten it right yet."

The advances in peer-to-peer networking come as programmers are increasingly looking at using the technology most often associated with file trading for new applications such as Internet calling or instant messaging.

Even Internet service provider EarthLink recently released its own version of file-swapping software, saying that it was a prelude to more advanced applications such as Net phone calls.

Yet for most Net users, the draw of file swapping remains paramount. The threat of lawsuits from the Recording Industry Association of America--or even criminal investigations from the federal government--has dampened some swapping enthusiasm, but millions of people still download and use file-trading software every week.

Swapping's evolution

The release of Morpheus' software, along with eDonkey's rise, marks the ascent of a third generation of peer-to-peer networking technology. Each successive generation has decentralized more functions, making the networks harder to shut down and helping to expand the power of searches.

The first generation of file-swapping services, led by Napster, were built around big centralized indexes that would keep track of what was available everywhere on the network. These would serve as matchmakers, linking a person searching for a file with the computer where it was stored.

That was efficient, allowing access to a huge range of material--but it also proved to be illegal. Courts said that Napster was responsible for a network where a vast amount of copyright infringement was happening and ultimately shut the company down.

The second generation of decentralized services, led by Gnutella and the FastTrack technology underlying Kazaa, soon emerged to take its place. Neither of these had central servers. They relied instead on passing search requests from computer to computer until a file was found, and then passed that information back to the original searcher.

That technology proved initially unwieldy, as millions of search requests passed through every computer on the network, creating traffic jams at low-bandwidth bottleneck points. That improved over time as programmers figured out ways to hand off these search requests more efficiently, but usually resulted in searches that included only part of a network--say 100,000 people instead of 2 million.

A U.S Appeals Court recently ruled that this kind of decentralized network was legal, unlike Napster, in part because the software distributors did not have direct control over what was happening on the networks.

"The (record labels and movie studios) urge a re-examination of the law in the light of what they believe to be proper public policy," the court wrote in that decision. "Doubtless, taking that step would satisfy the copyright owners' immediate economic aims. However, it would also alter general copyright law in profound ways with unknown ultimate consequences outside the present context."

No more ripple effect

The third generation of networks, represented by eDonkey and now Morpheus, as well as a host of smaller independent developers, makes the tools even more decentralized than before.

Distributed hash tables are essentially a way of taking a snapshot of where every file on the network is at a given moment and scattering bits of that information around the entire network.

To find a given file, a search request goes first to any computer on the network. That computer will point to a different computer that has a little more information on how to find the file. The third computer might have information on the file itself--or it might take a few more hops to find the computer with the right information.

The process is analogous to asking a succession of increasingly informed tour guides for directions, rather than accosting random people on the street. The information about the network in each place is constantly being updated as new files or computers are added.

"The main benefit is that it allows you to search the entire network instead of just a local area," said Jed McCaleb, the chief programmer for the eDonkey project. "It's probably faster than the way Gnutella works, and it's definitely technically superior."

StreamCast acquired its technology last year from Harvard students Ben Wilkin and Francis Crick, the grandson of the DNA pioneer and Nobel prize-winner of the same name. Wilkin said he'd started the project after seeing early inefficiencies in Gnutella several years ago, while Crick joined the project later.

The pair says their technology will take just three or four hops to find any file, no matter how rare, on a network of up to millions of computers.

This kind of technology also holds promise for the newer applications such as Net calling. Neonet and eDonkey each are focused on file swapping, but the same efficient network routing could be used to connect calls quickly, even among computers that are constantly popping on and off the Net, they say.

"It can be used for all sorts of distributed computing tools, and that's where we're going to go with it," Wilken said. "It really eliminates the need to have any centralized infrastructure."
http://news.com.com/Super-powered+pe...3-5397784.html


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New Software Allows File Sharing, Legally

As RIAA pushes to sue over 5,500 users for copyright infringement, a new software program attempts to get around the central argument: "Personal use" means you can share your music with a small, select group of friends, not everyone on Kaaza.

Grouper was introduced yesterday by Grouper Networks. Instead of allowing at-will downloading, this program lets up to 30 of your friends and family share what's on your computer. It does not allow anyone to download files, just view/listen to them off your computer.

Grouper Networks hopes this free program will get around the music industry's claim that trading music is a criminal offense when done with a standard file-sharing program.

Not being a lawyer, I'll not pass judgement. But, if "personal use" means I can loan CDs to someone I know, it appears Grouper has solved the biggest problem facing users. It also will give new headaches to the music industry.
http://www.audiographics.com/agd/s6100604.htm


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Restoring File-Sharing's Good Name
Paul Andrews

Not too many companies that were around during the dawn of the personal computer revolution are still in business. Intel, Apple Computer, Microsoft, IBM — after them, names come to mind a little more slowly.

But one little guy from the old days, Laplink, is still with us. Formerly known as Traveling Software, the Kirkland company is rolling out an inventive suite of tools under the banner of "reinventing ourselves."

Those words come not from the irrepressible Mark Eppley, Laplink's founder. Instead, they are new Chief Executive Thomas Koll's way of communicating Laplink's updated vision.

There's a lot going on here, including a better way of moving your old PC to your new PC (settings, programs and files), of ensuring security over the Internet, controlling your PC remotely and fighting viruses.

But most intriguing may be Laplink's approach to exchanging information over the Internet. Basically, the company wants to restore file-sharing's good name.

It's a tall order, and questions remain about whether Laplink can succeed. But the company deserves kudos for at least attempting a different strategy in a highly problematic venue.

Anyone who used Napster in the early days understands the Internet's prowess for sharing digital content. Before the music industry got involved, before users knew what they were doing could be considered illegal, file- sharing was a brave new world of fans connecting with counterparts all over the world.

Then Napster got greedy, the music industry turned combative and lawyers found a new field of practice. Today, file-sharing ranks somewhere between shoplifting and wife-swapping.

Sure you can go to Kazaa or other free services and download all the stuff you want. In doing so, you not only invite that slimy feeling of digital thievery, you enter a lasting relationship with spyware, adware, pop-ups, viruses and similar interactive vermin.

File-sharing doesn't have to be this way, Koll says. If you want to swap files with family, friends and co-workers, you ought to be able to do it in a way that doesn't make you feel like you're trolling the Web's Tenderloin district.

Laplink has come up with ShareDirect, which enables Windows users to share folders and files with one another over the Internet — without the threat of viruses or the technical hoops of FTP (file transfer protocol) or VPN (virtual private networks). And without resorting to the most common, but least safe and efficient, means of file-sharing: e-mail.

Sharing a file with another PC becomes as easy as dragging a file from one folder to another on your computer. Just select the file or folder from the other computer and pull it to yours. Laplink and the Internet take care of the rest.

Right now, you're limited to Windows PCs, but Koll said Macintosh and Linux versions are being considered. Corporate firewalls will block the system, but ShareDirect can detect them and establish a 256-bit encrypted connection.

Music seems an obvious application here, which is where things get dicey. Koll acknowledged Laplink hasn't discussed ShareDirect with the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). When it does, its defense will be that sharing over Laplink is akin to swapping a CD. It's a distinction that may get some pushback from the RIAA.

But ShareDirect isn't just, or even primarily, about music. Koll thinks data, photos and home videos are well-suited. For editors, publishers and content providers, text and multimedia file-sharing becomes far easier and safer. Small businesses and home offices have countless file-sharing applications.

For ShareDirect to work, it needs to reach a user level that kicks in the "network effect" — users begetting more users. For now, it's a worthy attempt at addressing an Internet dilemma.

ShareDirect's release is scheduled for mid-October. Till then, a free kick-the- tires version can be downloaded from laplink.com.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/htm...37_paul04.html


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MP3, Video File Sharing to Become Standardized

MP3 music or digital movie files paid for and downloaded on the Internet can now be enjoyed on most players, including those manufactured by Samsung Electronics, Sony and Philips. This is made possible by the ciphering technology of digital rights management (DRM), which allows only the player that downloads the file to be able to play that file, making universal downloading easier, but illegal copying harder.

Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. announced Tuesday at Sunnyvale, California that seven companies -- Hewlett-Packard Co., Sony Corp., Koninklijke Philips Electronics NV, Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., InterTrust Technologies Corp. and News Corp.'s Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp. -- have joined the Coral Consortium to establish a framework to promote inter-operability. The companies have agreed to establish a standard for DRM that will allow a consumer to purchase a license that will decipher a password applied to software and play it.

Organizing the Coral Consortium is expected to expand the range of legal uses for fee- charging contents by solving the incompatibility of DRM -- a problem thus far, according to Ko Chung-gon, an executive officer at Samsung Electronics.
http://english.chosun.com/w21data/ht...410050039.html


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Sampling & File Sharing: Insane Poetry Sounds Off
Frank Meyer

The Sept. 7th ruling by a panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals stated that sampling recordings without permission of the person who owns the copyright to the recording is in violation of the law, no matter how short or unrecognizable the sample. Though the ruling was intended to clear up the copyright status of digital "sampling," it has many people fearing it could spell the end of hip hop music as we know it. No longer will artists like Public Enemy, Beastie Boys or De La Soul be able to create the sonic collages using multiple layers of samples that marked the glory days of rap music (the early ‘90s).

While earlier decisions have tackled the copyright implications of sampling, they dealt solely with copyrights to the song itself (often held by a songwriter or music publisher), not the incarnation of a song in a particular recording (often held by a performer or recording company). So whereas before, you could sample a one-note horn stab from a song, but not the entire melody, now you cannot sample even the tiniest element of a song without facing prosecution.

Additionally, the Recording Industry Association of America has been blaming sampling, file trading and music piracy on the recent slump in CD sales. Despite a recent announcement from the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) that U.S. music sales, which are about 40% of world music volume, grew 3.9% in the first half of 2004, vs. a 12% drop during the period last year, the RIAA still claims that the music business is being killed by piracy and that artists are losing money from unlicensed sampling. In fact, they just sued another 762 music file traders in their ongoing efforts to squash the cyber rush for free music.

We spoke with rap vet Cyco of Southern California group Insane Poetry, one of the originators of the hard, horror-core sound popularized by the likes of Eminem and Insane Clown Posse, about the issue of sampling in hip hop. Check out what he has to say.

Do you think the court decision making ALL samples illegal without permission will hurt hip hop?
Cyco: Yes, it hurts hip-hop cuz that is the very essence of the art form. It’s different when you blatantly jack a song, but a music loop or three-second loop is not jacking, especially when its chopped up.

Will this ruling make it impossible or too expensive to make musical collage albums like Public Enemy and De La Soul used to back in the day?
Cyco: Depending on if the artist can get the permission to use the samples to make a collage CD like PE, De La or Insane Poetry.

Do you try to clear every sample you wanna use or just wait till someone comes after you?
Cyco: Most rappers I know just wait till someone comes after them.

If you don't sample, then where do you get your beats? Do you play an instrument?
Cyco: I get beats either from a drum machine or off of the Reason 2.5 program.

Have you been sampled without permission? If so, did it bother you?
Cyco: I have sampled and, no, it never bothered me, but back then it wasn't an issue.

Do you think this an attack against rap, or will they go after rock guys too?
Cyco: There always is gonna be an attack against rap. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know why.

Will this mark the end of hip hop or is it just another hurdle rappers have to get over?
Cyco: For that old New York hip hop sound, it does ring a death knell, but rappers will get around it.

Do you think that music piracy and online file sharing is hurting the music business?
Cyco: The problem is that so many artists now make albums with only one or two good songs on them, so of course they are scared of downloading and file sharing. Once you hear that once decent single, there’s no reason to buy the whole record, ‘cause it sucks. Hopefully, if you are making quality records, people might share or download one song, like it, and go buy the album to support the artist. So in some ways, it’s another form of promotion. Is it hurting the music industry? Well, it ain’t hurting me!

So should people be able to get free music on the net?
Cyco: I'm not sure. I'm a bit torn on the subject.
http://www.g4techtv.com/players/feat...ounds_Off.html