Peer-To-Peer News - The Week In Review - October 22nd, ’05

[JackSpratts]

DVD Jon Lands Dream Job Stateside
Annalee Newitz

Jon Lech Johansen, the 21-year-old Norwegian media hacker nicknamed DVD Jon, is moving to San Diego to work for maverick tech entrepreneur Michael Robertson in what can only be described as the most portentous team-up since Butch met Sundance.

"I have no idea what I'll be doing, but I know it will be reverse engineering, and I'm sure it will be interesting," Johansen told Wired News during a Friday stopover in San Francisco.

A world-famous reverse engineer by the time he was 16, the soft- spoken tinkerer outraged the motion picture industry in 1999 for his work on DeCSS, a successful project to crack the encryption on DVDs that led to Hollywood's first lawsuits under the United States' controversial Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Since then, Johansen's hacks for Apple Computer's iTunes software and Microsoft's Media Player have made headlines, and his blog -- titled "So Sue Me" -- has become must-see surfing for digital media geeks and, one suspects, entertainment company lawyers.

In a posting to his website late Tuesday, Robertson said he'd snapped up Johansen to work on a "significant new project" called Oboe at his digital music company MP3tunes. Oboe will "bring digital music into the 21st century," Robertson wrote.

"We have been e-mail acquaintances for a while," said Robertson in an e-mail interview. "I hired him because we happen to have a major project underway at MP3tunes.com where I thought his skill set would fit perfectly."

But what is an avowed media liberator doing in a country where entertainment companies routinely sue college students for making copies of movies?

Quite simply, times are changing.

Until recently, Johansen's controversial work was protected by Norway's laws, which allowed people to reverse- engineer digital copy protection for lawful purposes. But in July, Norway adopted a European Union directive similar to the DMCA that outlaws circumventing copy protections for any reason.

"In Norway, you have the same laws (as in the United States) now," he says, "so it makes no difference if I'm doing my work here or there."

Johansen became the poster boy for free tinkering when he refused to stop distributing DeCSS with LiVid, a Linux DVD player. That's when the Norwegian police, egged on by U.S. entertainment companies, arrested him under that country's computer crime laws for breaking into his own media.

Undeterred, Johansen fought and won both cases brought against him in Norway, and continued his quest to release digital media from the shackles of overly restrictive copy protection. Since then he's built free software tools that crack Apple's AAC audio format -- the encryption systems used by iTunes -- and the Windows Media Player codec for streaming video.

PyMusique, another tool Johansen and two other engineers released earlier this year, allows people with Linux operating systems to buy music from the iTunes store and save it in an unrestricted format.

Johansen said he will be continuing this kind of work at Michael Robertson's latest venture, San Diego-based MP3tunes, an online digital music store that sells MP3s unfettered by digital rights management copy-protection systems.

Fresh off a plane from Norway and sampling his first California beer, Johansen said Friday he wasn't worried that his penchant for ripping apart DRM would get him into trouble in the United States.

"I still haven't heard anything from Apple about my hacks," he said with an infectious grin. "There is a tool based on my work reverse-engineering Apple's FairPlay called jhymn that's been hosted on a U.S. server for over a year and nothing has happened."

Johansen added: "I plan to continue my research, but I won't be writing any tools (while in the United States)."

As for what kind of research he might pursue, Johansen says he's intrigued by Helix, the DRM system used by RealNetworks, because "it's the same audio format as Apple's, but higher quality." Real's music store is only open to U.S. customers, which has been frustrating for Johansen. "Basically, if I have no intention of using a service then I won't bother reverse-engineering it," he said. "Now that I can get an American credit card and sign up for their store I might look into it."

Although he dismissed the idea of being arrested with a shrug, Johansen admitted his stop in San Francisco -- 800 miles north of San Diego -- was planned in part as an opportunity to consult with attorneys at the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Jennifer Granick, a cyberlaw attorney at Stanford Law School who often works with the EFF, said Johansen would be wise to be cautious. "Johansen has been out of the reach of the U.S. government and the DOJ," she said. "The fact is that when you've done something that the authorities think is illegal under U.S. law, you'll probably attract attention when you're capable of being arrested."

Nevertheless, Johansen is glad to be in the states, where he'll get a chance to contribute to software that ordinary people will use. "I took a job in the U.S. because I wanted to work on products that would get into end users' hands," he said. "In Norway, most of the jobs are in server software, niche stuff. The Opera browser is one of the few Norwegian products aimed at users."

In late summer, Johansen returned from a year in France and started his job search by pinging Robertson, whom he said "supports the work I do on open systems" and seemed like a good match for the quiet hacker.

Robertson is also no stranger to legal troubles -- his previous company, MP3.com, was sued by multiple companies in the record industry over its music locker business model. And in 2001, Microsoft filed a trademark infringement suit against Robertson's Linux startup, Lindows, which last year changed its name to Linspire in a settlement with Redmond's lawyers.

MP3tunes, whose name is a sly reference to iTunes, lets music lovers buy MP3s of their favorite music that can be played in any device, without a restrictive DRM system that impedes them from saving legal copies on multiple devices. "It's the record store model you'd like to see," said open-source entrepreneur John Gilmore, founder of Cygnus. "You can do whatever you like with your music within the bounds of copyright law."

This suits Johansen just fine. He's still strongly opposed to DRM, particularly because he believes it punishes consumers rather than prevents piracy. "People use my programs to put iTunes songs on non-iPod players," he said. "They're playing these files legally. Companies shouldn't use the law to prevent consumers from doing something legal."

The former DVD liberator is also dismayed by the future of movie disks, because new high-definition DVDs use several million keys in their encryption scheme, as compared to the 400 keys used in the Content-Scrambling System, or CSS, the method used to encrypt regular DVDs.

"Once again, this is a scheme that won't stop piracy, but it will stop open-source players," he said. "Pirates will steal one key, and not tell anyone about it. Then they'll decrypt HD-DVDs and put them on the net. But if you want an open-source player, you'll have to show your key, so (companies) will be able to find you and stop you."

Perhaps it makes sense that Johansen is excited to be in America. Now he's in the country that produces most of the world's media -- and most of the world's DRM, too. It's a media liberator's candy box.

And a media fan's. "Is the movie Serenity good?" he asked a reporter earnestly after finishing his beer. Assured that it is, Johansen broke out in another wide grin. "I'm so glad I get to see it now! It wasn't going to reach Norway until December."

Then, more seriously, he added, "I'm not scared about being arrested now that I'm here. Michael has good lawyers."
http://www.wired.com/news/technology...,69257,00.html





Cool, a Video iPod. Want to Watch 'Lost'?
Richard Siklos

THE introduction of Apple Computer's video iPod last Wednesday was greeted as an epochal event. The portable, personal, digital world - as you've no doubt heard by now - is here, and there is no turning back. And just as it took the vision and brio of Steven P. Jobs, Apple's founder, to drag the music industry into the 21st century with the iPod and the iTunes online music store, it was only a matter of time before he would do the same with what quaintly used to be known as the moving image.

And so, the video iPod. And with it, Mr. Jobs's particularly clever coup: sealing a deal with his quasi-estranged partner, the Walt Disney Company, to distribute downloaded versions of such hit Disney-produced shows as "Desperate Housewives" and "Lost" on the new gizmo, at $1.99 each. It's not exactly 500 channels of entertainment, but it's a good anchor tenant, supplemented by pay-per-download music videos and other clever features, such as films from Mr. Jobs' other outpost, the animation studio Pixar.

Only a fool would bet against Mr. Jobs, whose iPod now thoroughly dominates the digital music market against rivals like Sony. But here goes: at first blush, the video iPod is not about to revolutionize Hollywood in the way the iPod revolutionized music.

Why? Two reasons. One is that studios are not rushing to make their most popular movies and shows available for the video iPod (note that only Disney shared the stage with Mr. Jobs last week, and the primary motive may have been its desire to repair relations with Pixar). Perhaps even more important, mobile gadgets with access to everything that is already on television are on the way.

Just last week, EchoStar, the satellite broadcaster, released one such device, a portable personal video recorder called PocketDISH; it got much less notice than the video iPod got. Think of PocketDISH essentially as a pocket-sized TiVo - a small computer that lets you record television shows onto a hard drive with the click of a button - with a screen for watching what you've recorded. And like TiVo and its clones, it can record any program you can watch on a full-sized TV at home, and then allow you to fast- forward through the ads when you view it.

The obvious shortcoming of the video iPod (at least in its first iteration) is that by being Internet-based it can offer a scant library of material. Apart from Disney's hits and whatever else iTunes offers in coming months, other media giants like NBC Universal have not yet fully digitized their vast libraries of shows and movies and made them available via the Internet. They're worried about piracy, for one thing, but they're also not quite convinced that there is a good business case for online distribution.

Also, while there is an amazing amount of effort going into mobile entertainment, there is still considerable debate about what kind of video people might actually want to watch on the go. "You have to create new content for these new platforms," says Gregg Spiridellis, who along with his brother runs JibJab Media, a company that creates short-form spoofs like a John Kerry/George Bush cartoon that was widely e-mailed during the last election. "People behave differently when they're walking around with their iPod or a cellphone from when they're sitting on their couch with a clicker."

With portable video recorders like PocketDISH, there is no debate - at least not if the name of the game is taking shows on the road. These portable video recorders enable you to record cable or satellite programs and watch them either on the device itself or on a full-size television, which, let's face it, is what most shows were produced for, and how people feel comfortable watching movies. (The new iPod also plugs into a regular TV.)

Not surprisingly, the biggest proponents of portable personal video recorders are the companies that are already in the business of selling packages of shows and channels: cable and satellite providers. And these companies, unlike Apple, already have all the shows most people like to watch.

The first PocketDISH has a 30 gigabyte hard drive to store programs, matching the capacity of the new iPod. But the iPod gets its programs from iTunes, where Apple plays the toll-master; PocketDISH, which EchoStar created with a French company, Archos, in which it has a minority investment, takes its material off of any television at no additional charge.

Everyone from Microsoft to Comcast - in other words, the usual suspects - is working on or looking at similar pocket-size recorders. At least two companies, Pace Micro Technology of Britain and Samsung of South Korea, have said they plan to introduce models early next year. There is also TivoToGo, a service that can forward recorded shows to various mobile devices, even Sony PSP handheld gaming units.

Other variations on this portable theme are bubbling up in the consumer electronics and software worlds.

One California company, Sling Media, has created a device called Slingbox which forwards your cable service to any computer via a high-speed connection. Another, Orb Networks, offers software that works with a TV tuner card to forward any kind of digital media, including television programs, from your home to a computer or mobile device.

Of course, probably the biggest factor working against the instant success of a video iPod is that the video world has yet to experience the copyright-infringement meltdown that the music industry did a year or two ago, when millions of people were swapping songs free rather than buying CD's in stores.

There are no bogeymen like the original, illegal Napster or Kazaa to bring everyone to Mr. Jobs's table - at least, not yet. Rather, as more people get high-speed connections to their homes, Mr. Jobs is positioning his new device as a pre-emptive strike against pirates and file-sharers.

There is no disputing the wisdom in that, or of Apple's supremacy over just about any rival these days in introducing a device using its marketing and design prowess and brand appeal.

And there are chewy, unresolved legal questions raised by gadgets like the PocketDISH or Slingbox.

Still, the video iPod only has it half right: if it took material from the television as readily as it did from the Internet, it could be a blockbuster. But then who would pay $1.99 to download an episode of "Lost" from iTunes if the iPod could also hook up to your television and record that same episode free?

Unlike its musical forebear, the video iPod may not be ready for prime time.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/16/bu.../16frenzy.html





Hollywood Calls for Cut of Video IPod Pie
Gary Gentile

In a show of unity, five unions representing actors, writers and directors issued a joint call for talks to make sure their members get a cut of revenue generated by the sale of TV shows on Apple's iTunes software.

The unions sent a clear message to TV producers.

"We have not yet heard from the responsible employers of our members," their joint statement said. "But we look forward to a dialogue that ensures that our members are properly compensated for this exploitation of their work."

The presidents of unions representing Hollywood writers and actors were lunching at a popular Beverly Hills restaurant on Wednesday when they saw a TV report about a deal to allow episodes of ABC shows such as "Lost" to be downloaded for portable viewing on the new video iPod from Apple Computer Inc.

In doing the deal with Apple, ABC became the first network to allow viewers to download episodes of their shows the day after they air on TV. Other networks are expected to follow shortly.

The development was news to Patric Verrone, president of the Writers Guild of America, west, and John Connolly, president of the American Federation of Television & Radio Artists.

The two called their counterparts at the Screen Actors Guild, Directors Guild of America and the Writers Guild of America, East, which covers writers east of the Mississippi.

The show of unity was unusual, coming from unions that are sometimes at odds over issues such as royalties from DVD sales.

"We developed a new piece of stationary that never existed before," Verrone said of the joint statement.

The unions have not yet called ABC or its parent, The Walt Disney Co., to discuss how much of the $1.99 that Apple is charging for a single episode should go to writers, actors and directors.

"The guilds are our business partners, and we always welcome a dialogue with them on any business- related issue that affects their members," ABC said in a statement.

The groups already have agreements that cover the re-use of their work on the Internet or in "pay per view" models, such as video on demand. The unions also have newer agreements covering work produced for the Internet.

Under the WGA contract, writers are entitled to 1.6 percent of the license fee paid by networks to the producers of a show. The ABC hits "Lost" and "Desperate Housewives," are produced by Touchstone Studios, Disney's TV production arm.

Actors are entitled to 3.6 percent of the license fee.

A conflict could arise if studios decide to treat the Internet downloads the same as a DVD sale, which might result in lower payments.

"We have to learn more about the actual technology," Verrone said. "I'm thrilled by the notion I can watch my shows in the palm of my hand, but I also want to make sure we are paid appropriately."
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...=ENTERTAINMENT





2009 Likely to Be Digital TV Deadline
Jennifer C. Kerr

Congress is zeroing in on early 2009 as the time for the country to make the switch to digital television broadcasts, a move that will give viewers sharper pictures and better sound.

A Senate bill would set a firm deadline of April 2009, according to a draft proposal obtained Friday by The Associated Press. The draft of a House bill would end analog transmissions on Dec. 31, 2008.

In addition to working out a compromise on the date, lawmakers must decide whether to keep a Senate provision calling for the federal government to pay for converter boxes that would allow people who don't have or can't afford a digital TV, or cable or satellite, to continue to receive over-the-air local stations.

The Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation is expected to take up the bill Wednesday.

Current law calls for television broadcasters to switch to all-digital transmissions by late 2006, or when 85 percent of households have the ability to receive digital signals. But there's confusion about how to count the 85 percent, so Congress is stepping in to set a so-called "hard date" - requiring broadcasters to end the transmission of their traditional analog signal.

The broadcasters' move to all-digital will free up valuable radio spectrum.

Some of the frequencies were promised to public safety groups in 1997, and they've been waiting for years for the broadcasters to vacate the analog spectrum. Those channels will help improve congestion and other communications problems on the emergency radios used by fire, police and others.

Besides setting a hard date, the Senate bill would designate an undermined amount of money, possibly $1 billion, to help public safety officials buy new equipment or invest in networks that would help improve communications across their own communities and across entire regions.

The spectrum that isn't allocated for public safety will be auctioned by the government. Congressional officials estimate its value at about $10 billion.

In a letter to lawmakers on Friday, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates and other industry leaders urged Congress to speed the transition to DTV so the auctioned spectrum could be used for wireless broadband and other services, especially in rural and poor areas. They called for the earliest possible deadline but said it should be no later than Jan. 1, 2009.

A member of the coalition that sent the letter said he wasn't disappointed that the proposed deadline in the Senate bill is April 7, 2009.

"We are not going to argue over a few months," said Ralph Helmann, senior vice president of government relations at the Information Technology Industry Council. "Having a hard date was very significant."
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/sto...10-14-21-08-01





Exploding Demand for Secure Internet TV and Video Distribution Fuels Kontiki's Momentum and Launch of Kontiki 5.0

Company Announces Fifth Generation of Its Delivery System Has Been Chosen by BBC, America Online, Inc., Avanade and Others to Enable Highly Interactive and Secure Delivery of Entertainment and Corporate Information

Press Release

Kontiki today announced the fifth generation of its flagship software, giving consumer media companies and enterprises the industry's most advanced, fully-functioned and secure solution for delivering DVD-quality video across the Internet or enterprise. Demand for Kontiki's field- proven delivery system is increasing rapidly, as consumer media companies seek new ways to monetize their content and enterprises embrace new media-rich methods of effectively communicating with employees and customers.

Called Kontiki 5.0, the new, enhanced platform enables content providers and enterprises to securely publish, protect, deliver and track rich media content at a fraction of the cost of traditional distribution systems, while giving users on-demand access to rich media content. Kontiki is already deploying its platform at some of the world's largest media companies including America Online, Inc. and the BBC, in addition to a number of large enterprises including Avanade.

Just as enterprises have always been concerned with protecting and securing online video content distribution, consumer media companies are beginning to focus on the same issues as technology advancements and broadband access become more widespread and pervasive. With broadband adoption expected to reach 46 million households by 2008 and increasing consumer demand for rich media content to be delivered via the Internet, the need for secure solutions to deliver content to a wide range of users is real.

"With consumer spending for online content reaching into the billions of dollars last year and the demand for high-quality, online video soaring, consumer media companies are looking to leverage the Internet for new revenue streams and marketing vehicles. At the same time, enterprises are looking for cost-effective ways to distribute vital content to their clients and employees," said Todd Johnson, CEO of Kontiki. "Kontiki 5.0 allows consumer media companies to take advantage of opportunities now. With Kontiki 5.0, our customers can quickly and cost-effectively deliver the most compelling video-on-demand experiences available today."

The new Kontiki 5.0 platform features enhanced central management and controls to support legal and legitimate publishing activities, copyright protection through digital rights management (DRM), full-screen DVD-HDV quality and a highly-scalable and cost-effective delivery model. The platform is also fully customizable to support the extension of consumer branding.

"Kontiki has worked with the BBC on phase one of the trial for our integrated Media Player (iMP) and we are currently in the middle of phase two. Kontiki's product allows the BBC to trial the properties of a legal peer-to-peer distribution capability to cost-effectively make our programmes available to audiences whenever and however they want them," said Ashley Highfield, Director of New Media & Technology for the BBC.

Alex Blum, Vice President of Audience Products at America Online, Inc. commented, "AOL's continued efforts to lead in the general migration from text based experiences on the web to video based experiences continues through our successful trials of Kontiki's delivery platform for high-resolution video."

Kontiki 5.0 Delivery Management System

A new plateau for rich media delivery, the Kontiki 5.0 delivery management system is a comprehensive software solution that expands on the company's pioneering video delivery software. The enhanced platform combines:

-- Content security -- Allows only authorized users to receive and view content and employs MS DRM (Digital Rights Management) to prevent unauthorized or illegal copying or sharing of content with another individual or device. This assures the enterprise that sensitive video communications cannot be sent externally and guarantees consumer media companies that their copyrighted content cannot be compromised through illegal file sharing.

-- Content audit and tracking features -- Lets companies know that content has been delivered to a user's device, and provides the ability to view timely reports, such as most popular content items, when end-users viewed content and how long they viewed it. Consumer media companies can measure the effectiveness and popularity of specific content. Enterprises can measure content consumption by employee or by region. For example, an enterprise rolling out a sales training program can measure who has viewed the training content and how frequently they accessed the content, allowing measurement against sales performance.

-- Controlled publishing -- Only authorized users or groups can publish content for distribution. For example, unauthorized communications from a disgruntled employee or the publishing of content into the system from outside of the company is prevented.

-- Efficient P2P Delivery -- Maximizes the delivery and download speed of media content and manages bandwidth usage to reduce service provider costs. The peer-to-peer download process is transparent to the end user and does not impact the performance of the device.

-- Customization and Integration -- Kontiki 5.0 features a robust set of APIs enabling the enterprise and consumer media company to create fully customized and branded user interface.

-- DVD-HDV Quality -- Video quality is preserved, with full-screen, DVD or HDV quality.

Major Enhancements in Kontiki 5.0:

-- Consumer Services -- Kontiki 5.0's set of robust APIs enables consumer media companies to build powerful IPTV platforms for the consumer, offering services such as a TV-style program guide with search, season tickets and tags to popular content. It also allows content providers to build additional services into their offering such as ad-serving and payment systems.

-- Complete UI Customization and Branding -- Both the enterprise and content provider have the option to fully customize and brand the UI to create a rich interactive experience for the end user.

-- Fast Distribution From Behind the Firewall -- Kontiki 5.0's new UDP-based protocol allows content to be delivered from one device behind a firewall to another device behind a different firewall. This is a particularly powerful feature for content providers wanting to deliver authorized content to consumers in a more efficient way without worrying about firewall settings blocking authorized content or impacting the performance of the network.

-- Scalability -- Kontiki 5.0 exceeds its predecessor in the size of files it can distribute, now accommodating file sizes in the tens of terabytes. This supports even the largest of consumer facing deployments using the largest media files such as DVD images.

-- Application Integration -- Kontiki 5.0 is flexible enough to be deployed as a standalone application, as Windows based service, or as an ActiveX control, so it can be easily integrated as part of an enterprise or consumer portal or embedded within a custom media client application.

-- Support for Multiple Devices -- Content can be played on multiple devices in addition to PCs and laptops, such the Apple iPod and Windows Media Center devices.

Global firms like Avanade, a technology integrator specializing in Microsoft enterprise solutions, and professional services leader Ernst & Young, are benefiting from the Kontiki platform through secure content sharing and publishing, uninterrupted business operations, improved employee-to-client distribution of content, and optimized network bandwidth.

"Avanade required a secure solution that could co-exist with our existing network infrastructure," said Jeff Laird, manager of Avanade Learning & Knowledge Services operations for Avanade. "By deploying a complete content delivery solution from Kontiki, we can enjoy worry-free file distribution that is easy to maintain, while our employees concentrate on business matters versus technology issues."
http://home.businesswire.com/portal/...&newsLang =en





P2P Television and Radio - Help Beta Test My Program
Jhooks

I have made a program for streaming audio and video with peer-to-peer technology.

Stream-2-Stream (abbreviated "s2s" or "S2S") allows anyone with a broadband connection to set up their own internet television or radio station. Stream-2-Stream is a peer-to-peer network for streaming audio and video. Stream-2-Stream saves bandwidth by passing streams from one peer to another, rather than everyone getting a stream from one central server.

Stream-2-Stream is free open source software available for anyone to use or modify.

Stream-2-Stream is coded in java and runs on any platform that supports the Java Runtime Environment (Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, and more). The graphics library used is Swing.

Stream-2-Stream is a derivative work of P2P-Radio, Stream-2-Stream supports shoutcast and icecast streams. Supported codecs are MP3, NSV, and Ogg Vorbis.



The website is http://s2s.sourceforge.net
I really need people to beta test my software.

It would really help if people could make some stations. To make one you can simply enter the address of an existing shoutcast or icecast station.

Hope to see some of you there
http://www.p2p-zone.com/underground/...ad.php?t=22079





Note: All illustrations as well as the original article can be found here – Jack.

Using PCs and TVs As Clients in Your Digital Home Entertainment Network
Terry Ulick

Whether you configure your home entertainment network as a peer-to-peer or client/server network, you mix PCs and media extenders connected to TVs, powered speakers, or home stereos. Media extender devices allow a low-cost solution where existing TVs can be used as displays connected to a media extender client playing media from a main server PC. This chapter will help you integrate various media devices into your home network.

For more information on home entertainment networks, visit our Digital Lifestyles Reference Guide or sign up for our Digital Lifestyles Newsletter

If you have ever worked in an office or used computers that were a part of a large network, you’ve seen how one large computer acts as a "server" to provide data and even programs for a number of "clients" connected to it through a network.

You can create many different types of networks when you combine computers and share data. Although this book is using a straightforward approach without trying to complicate things with a lot of tech terms, you should know some basic networking terms. As an example, your home entertainment network can be configured as one of the following:

Peer-to-peer—Often referred to as P2P or ad hoc, peer-to-peer is a simple approach to networking where you connect any number of PCs together on a network, and each is an independent device with its own files and programs. Each computer can share files and devices with other computers on the network, and you can establish which files and devices are shared by each computer. You can think of a peer-to-peer network as a "file sharing" configuration.
Client/server—In a client/server configuration, one main computer is dedicated as a server. The server contains most all data, and the other devices on the network, clients, access and use data from the server. The server can also be the primary device connected to the Internet with client devices sharing that Internet connection. Used most often in business and workplaces, this type of network allows easy management of files and access to data.

Each of these network strategies works well in a home network. At home, if you have two computers and you network them together, a peer-to-peer network is a simple solution when sharing files and a printer or accessing the Internet is the goal.

A client/server network is a good choice when a home network is configured for entertainment. As you will learn throughout this book, you can have essentially non–computer devices such as TVs and stereos playing media files from a computer on a network. Because such devices do not have their own storage and have simple computers that power them, they become clients that require a server.

Because media files can be very large and you want to be able to access them from any device in your home, it makes sense to put all your media files on one main storage device—the server.

In a client/server network, you can put most of your investment in the main server and use relatively inexpensive devices as clients. If all you want to do is listen to music from your main PC in your bedroom, rather than buy another computer and place it in your bedroom, you can simply buy a wireless media player and put it in the bedroom connected to a TV or a home stereo or set of powered speakers. It is a "client" device and it doesn’t need its own hard drive or computer display.

Let’s take a look at how each type of network works in a home entertainment network.

Using a File Sharing Configuration

A P2P configuration (referred to here as simply file sharing) works perfectly in a home entertainment network. If you have a number of PCs, this might be a good solution. Each PC has its own hard drive that can store media, and you can configure the network in a way that each computer can share the media files from other computers in the network.

P2P or file sharing networks, as shown in Figure 3.1, work essentially as a file sharing solution. A number of PCs in one local area network (LAN) operate as self-standing PCs. When needed, the PCs in the P2P network can share files and even devices that are connected to them, such as printers.



Figure 3.1 In a file sharing network, fully equipped PCs each share data and devices such as printers or connections to the Internet with each other.

When creating a file sharing network, you can still use the strategy of making one PC on the network the primary location for storing media files. Although there are multiple PCs on the network, each with its own hard drive, it is still a good practice to use one main drive for storing shared media files.

File sharing networks work best when all the devices in the network have a true "peer" status: They are fully independent computing devices that can function without a network present. In a home entertainment network, new types of devices on the network are essentially media players without data storage or even an operating system that require a host computer to act as a server to them.

A client/server network is appropriate when you use media player devices.

Understanding Client/Server Networks

When you have media players and media extenders on a network, they require a server where they get media content files to play. This setup creates a more traditional client/server network, as shown in Figure 3.2.



Figure 3.2 A client/server network has a main PC acting as a data server to both PCs and media player devices such as TVs and stereos connected to media extenders.

As shown in Figure 3.2, the primary PC that is used as the media server is connected directly to a router. It acts as the network hub and controls access to files from the other PCs and devices on the network. It also controls access to an Internet connection and other PCs and devices in the network access the Internet through its connection. With media extender devices or even other PCs, they can all use the security and firewall of the hub computer.

To understand this configuration better, a look at media extender devices is required.

Using Media Extenders in a Client/Server Network

Media extenders are relatively new devices, and they are essential additions to any home entertainment network. Here’s why.

It really doesn’t make sense to buy a full-powered PC that is capable of connecting to a TV, stereo, or powered speakers when all you use it for is viewing media files. And in many ways, a computer is a little too complex for the task: It requires keyboards and a mouse, and it’s big, clunky, and expensive.

A better solution is a small device that can connect directly to a TV or stereo and allow you to view video or photos or play music anywhere on the network.

Such devices, called media extenders, are now available at most major electronics stores, and they are changing the makeup of a home entertainment network. Selling for about $100 to $250, it’s a small computing device designed to work on a Windows XP home network. Each media extender contains its own simple user interface and TV and audio connectors; you connect it to a TV and a stereo. Using a supplied remote control, you can easily find and play a media file from your server PC.

Tip

Chapter 9, "Adding TV and Media Extenders to the Network," shows how media extenders work and how you add media extenders to your home entertainment network.

Figure 3.3 shows a typical media extender and its connections for networking and attaching to a TV or stereo.



Figure 3.3 Media extenders connect to your network and play media files on TVs or stereos.

The media extender uses media player software that installs on a PC to play media located on that PC via the extender. It is essentially a client to a PC acting as a server. The media extender has the ability to interact with the media player software on the server and pull media files through the network and play them.

Media extenders are client/server networked devices. When you have several media extenders in your home, you find that the strategy of a client/server network works well for the media extenders and also for other PCs (although they do not require any special media serving software). The other PCs can simply use Windows Media Player or other media playing software accessing files shared from the main server PC.

Using PCs on a Client/Server Network

One of the advantages of a client/server network is that you can use PCs as clients. When acting as a client, you can use a PC that has a minimal configuration. You do not need client PCs to have large hard drives, DVD burners, or much of the power that the server PC has.

It’s okay if the client PCs are fully powered and as well equipped as the main server PC, but it’s okay if they’re not. As long as they meet the minimum requirements for running Windows XP (detailed in Chapter 2, "Configuring Your PC As an Entertainment Server") and are equipped with a network connection, either wired or wireless, you can access media files from your main server.

For a PC in a home entertainment network, even though you don’t need some of the large storage and processing power that the server PC has, you need the following to use the client PC as a media playing device:

TV-out display card—Your display card should have a TV-out connector so that you can view video, recorded TV, and pictures on a TV connected to the PC. You can use a TV rather than a computer monitor to view media. If you have a large enough computer monitor and it is used in a smaller room, you might find a computer monitor connected to a client PC adequate for most media viewing.
Powered speakers or connection to a stereo—Whether you are listening to music files or viewing video on your client PC, you want a good sound system connected to it. Your client PC is essentially becoming your home stereo device, and even TV viewing is enhanced with a good sound system.
Wireless keyboard and mouse—As with any PC used as a media player, you want the freedom and flexibility of a wireless keyboard and mouse when using your client PC.

With the preceding equipment, just about any PC functions well as a client PC. In addition to the benefits of playing media content from the main server PC, the client PC continues to function as a traditional PC in your home, making it a great multitasker.

Putting the Right Device in the Right Place

If you are mixing both PCs and media extenders in a client/server home entertainment network, it is important to put the right device in the right place.

By understanding what type of activity you do in each room, you can easily determine what type of device is best for each location.

Tip

Just because you are building a home network doesn’t mean you need multiple PCs. You can have just one PC that acts as the entertainment server to TVs and stereos connected to media extenders throughout your home.

Because you are creating a home entertainment network, it’s a given that you should be able to access all your entertainment content from any device located in your network. A bigger question is how you experience that content. The type of display you use, the size of the display, the basic ergonomics of your room, the sound system—these are all key factors in having a great media experience.

With a mix of PCs and media extenders, the same is true for a great computing experience. When you are surfing the Web, reading and writing emails, word processing, and using creative programs for photo editing and music management, you need a good computing work space.

A PC using a TV as its display is perfect for watching TV and videos, but you do not want to do much traditional computing with such a display. TVs are extremely low-resolution and can be fuzzy for computing work. Also, if you’ve set up your room for media watching, you’ll probably be sitting pretty far back from the display and on a comfortable chair rather than an office chair.

The reverse is true for media playing. If you’ve set your client PC in an office setting, it’s great for computing but won’t be comfortable for watching a long movie or listening to music for any length of time.

This whole "TV versus computing dilemma" is termed the 10-inch/10-foot experience. Using it as a rule helps you plan which type of device configuration is best for a room based on whether you will be primarily doing computing or playing media. Figure 3.4 shows the computer viewing experience, and Figure 3.5 shows the TV viewing experience:

Ten-inch—General and office computing tasks are best done at least 10 inches from a display, as shown in Figure 3.4. You also should use a high-quality, high-resolution computer monitor for computing.
Ten-foot—Watching TV, watching picture slideshows, and listening to music is best done about 10 feet from a display, and that display should be a good TV.



Figure 3.4 General computing is best done with a computer monitor as a "10-inch" experience.



Figure 3.5 Watching media is best done with a TV as a "10-foot" experience.

Of course, the preceding rules could be 6-inch/6-feet or even 12-inch/12-feet, depending on your displays and what is comfortable for you.

There will be locations where you plan to do both media viewing/playing and computing. One solution is to use a PC and take advantage of the display card’s ability to connect both a computer monitor and a TV to the PC at the same time.

When you are using the PC for general computing, sit at a table or desk in the room and locate the computer monitor there for a 10- inch experience. When you want to kick back and play some media, take the wireless keyboard and mouse over to the couch and have a 10-foot experience watching media files on the TV.

Using PCs When Computing Power Is Needed

Even when watching media, sometimes a PC is the best device if you want to mix your media experience with content and information from the Internet.

Media extenders are essentially media playing devices that are limited to playing media files but have little or no computing power. They are not designed to surf the Web or do any traditional computing functions.

If you want to find more information about shows you are watching, play along with interactive TV shows from their websites, order a CD when you are listening to a song playing from a streaming music channel, or take a quick break to check your email, you might want to use a PC rather than a media extender—at least in that location.

Currently, PCs still have an edge over media extenders because they do allow you to mix content from the Internet with the media you are playing. When needed, you can always use them as PCs for email and getting news, sports, and weather.

Table 3.1 is a simple guide to which type of client is best suited for any location.

Table 3.1 Selecting a PC or Media Extender Client

Activity
PC
Media Extender

Watching TV
X
X

Viewing photos
X
X

Listening to music
X
X

Ripping CDs
X


Viewing enhanced TV
X


Surfing the Web
X


Editing video
X


Email
X


As you can see, PCs are capable of all activities, but they cost more than a media extender. Many of the activities in Table 3.1 can be done on one single PC, and you might find that a full PC is not needed in many locations if they are primarily used for media viewing and playing.

Using TVs for Media Playing

Just as PCs are best suited for detail work such as general computing, TVs are best for media playing for a number of reasons and some surprising new ones.

On the most basic level, you probably have at least one good TV, perhaps several, that you can put to work as displays connected directly to your PCs’ display cards or to media extenders. This keeps the cost of your home entertainment network down because you are using equipment you already have—in a brand new way.

Lowest Cost Media Viewing Solution

PC monitors, especially flat panel LCDs, are still pretty expensive when compared to TVs. A 20-inch computer LCD monitor is at least $1000 compared to at 20-inch TV, which can be purchased for as little as $100.

Traditional TVs, which are cathode ray tube (CRT) displays, have a very low resolution of 320x240 pixels and are not good when used as a display for general computing. Figure 3.6 shows the difference between the same website viewed on a TV (left) and a standard computer monitor (right).



Figure 3.6 The same website displays differently on a TV (left) and a computer monitor (right).

The TV image is small (320x240 pixels), and also the image is blurry and hard to read. The computer image has a much higher resolution (for example, 1024x768 pixels, and often much higher depending on your video card and monitor) and is extremely sharp. TV displays were never intended for computing applications, and because standard TV images are so low in resolution, regardless of which display they are viewed on, TV images are low quality by their very nature.

That applies to TV as we have known it for the last 50 years. Recent changes to TV broadcasting and display technology are changing all of that. Digital TV broadcasts in high definition are changing the quality of TV images and TV monitors. If you are using an HDTV tuner card, and if you plan to use a computer monitor for viewing HDTV, you need a video card and a computer monitor that can display the full HDTV resolution of 1920x1080 or better.

If you’ve been to just about any electronics store lately, you’ve no doubt been dazzled by a whole new generation of high-resolution flat panel TVs that come in plasma and LCD varieties. Flat panel screens are the future of TV, and the great news is that not only are they incredible TVs, but they also make great computer monitors. Figure 3.7 shows one of the new flat panel plasma TVs in action.



Figure 3.7 A Gateway flat panel plasma TV works great for viewing TV or computer applications.

Plasma and LCD TVs are essentially the same technology as LCD computer monitors. Many on the market today can function either as a TV or as a computer monitor. Even when one is functioning as a TV hooked to the TV-out connector of your computer’s display card, it has such a high quality image that it can be used to view computer applications.

In a home with plasma or LCD flat panel TVs, you can freely mix both media viewing and computer applications on the same display. Remember to use a screen saver (most media extenders and DVD players feature them) because plasma and LCD TVs are subject to "burn in" if you keep the same image on the screen for long periods of time.

Listening to Music with TVs

A TV can also be a good device for listening to music. Because TVs have their own speakers, it might be good enough for music, but chances are it’s not.

If you are using a TV connected to a media extender, you might want to consider connecting the audio-out connectors on the media extender to a set of powered speakers (or a home stereo if you prefer). Connect the video-out connector to the TV. This setup provides you with a perfect combination of picture and sound.

Tip

Media extenders that you attach to your TV have a set of audio jacks that can be connected to a stereo or set of powered speakers. If the sound from your TV isn’t that great, you can add a set of powered speakers to the media extender and have great sound using your TV as your onscreen guide to your music.

Some TVs have audio-out connections of their own, which allow you to connect the TV’s audio directly to a set of powered speakers or a home stereo. If this is the case, you can use those connectors. Connect the audio-out from the media extender to the audio-in of the TV. Then, connect the audio-out connectors on the TV to the speakers or stereo.

In a home entertainment network configuration, you select music and control it using either a TV or computer monitor, so it’s good to begin thinking of music as something you control with a visual interface.

Summary

Whether you configure your home entertainment network as a peer-to-peer or client/server network, you mix PCs and media extenders connected to TVs, powered speakers, or home stereos. Media extender devices allow a low-cost solution where existing TVs can be used as displays connected to a media extender client playing media from a main server PC. TVs are good for playing video and displaying simple media menus but are not high enough quality for computing applications. A new generation of flat panel plasma and LCD TVs are capable of functioning both as TVs and computer displays.
http://www.informit.com/articles/pri...y.asp?p=412918





DirecTV's Stock Has Taken a Beating. Is a Buyback the Fix?
Geraldine Fabrikant

It has been a tough year for shareholders of the DirecTV Group, the satellite television company controlled by Rupert Murdoch.

Fears about competition from telephone and cable companies have buffeted its stock price, which has fallen 12.9 percent this year. The shares rose 19 cents, or 1.3 percent, on Friday to close at $14.57 on the New York Stock Exchange.

Anxious analysts who have endorsed the stock are hoping shareholders will get a Christmas present as a reward for their loyalty. On Dec. 23, a tax ruling that prohibited DirecTV from buying its own shares will lapse, clearing the way for the company to go on a buying spree if it chooses to do so.

The analysts point out that the company's healthy balance sheet would permit it to buy back the entire stake of 215 million shares, or 15 percent of the company, that is held by the General Motors Pension Trust, although few of them expect the company to authorize such an aggressive purchase.

But even a far smaller buyback might give a lift to the stock at a time of increasing concerns about cable competition.

The cable industry, itself under siege from both the telephone companies and satellite operators, is getting more aggressive at pricing its packages of video, data and voice services. Last week, Comcast, the nation's largest cable company, said it might join in a bid to acquire a stake in AOL from Time Warner, potentially allowing it to offer instant messaging and other AOL services to Comcast customers.

In June 2004 the Cablevision Systems Corporation introduced a "triple play" - phone calls, Internet access and television channels - for $89.95 a month. The offer jolted the industry. In just 12 months, Cablevision signed up 174,000 triple-play customers and added about 55,000 new subscribers, the first annual increase for the company in two years, bringing its total to 3 million subscribers. "Satellite had been eating our lunch," Cablevision's chief operating officer, Thomas M. Rutledge, acknowledged in a recent interview.

Although Cablevision raised the price of the triple play to $115 for subscribers signing up for a second year, Mr. Rutledge said that the churn, or turnover rate, among these subscribers was 18 percent lower than that of other customers.

The cable packages and Comcast's interest in AOL "appear to make the competition for home video subscribers more competitive," said Craig Moffett, an analyst who follows cable and satellite TV for Sanford C. Bernstein & Company.

Not that Cablevision has cornered the market. Last year DirecTV added 1.7 million new subscribers, and it added another 730,000 through the second quarter of this year, for a total of 14.7 million subscribers. That makes it the second-largest provider of multichannel home video after Comcast, which has 21 million subscribers.

In the second quarter that ended June 30, DirecTV reported a profit of $161.5 million, compared with a loss of $13.3 million a year earlier.

DirecTV's subscriber growth rate has slowed this year, but that may not be all bad. Chase Carey, DirectTV's chief executive, said the company had opted for slower growth as it tried to reduce last year's higher churn levels, which were partly a result of taking on too many customers with weak credit.

"We have recognized that our churn rate was too high, and we have been monitoring the credit," Mr. Carey said.

Aryeh Bourkoff, a media analyst at UBS Securities, said the market was "very competitive for video services, and cable is beginning to offer the triple-play bundles, which has improved their competitive positioning, therefore making growth prospects more costly for DirecTV."

That specter of increased competition puts pressure on DirecTV to buy its own shares, he said.

Today, Mr. Murdoch owns 34 percent of DirecTV's shares through his News Corporation. The General Motors Pension Trust said early last year that it would sell 110 million shares of its stake, though ultimately it sold only half that amount.

Now there is some speculation that the trust may try to cut a deal with DirecTV to sell its shares to the company at a slight premium, on the theory that DirecTV does not want those shares dumped on the open market. A spokesman for the trust declined to comment, as did Mr. Carey.

Whether DirecTV will buy shares from the pension trust or the public is not clear, but certainly concern about the sale of the pension fund holdings is weighing on the stock, analysts agree. "We continue to believe that DirecTV's potential purchase of the G.M. stake would be a big catalyst," Douglas Shapiro, of Banc of America Securities, wrote in a recent report. That would eliminate the concern about a major sale that has depressed the stock price.

Thomas Egan, of Oppenheimer, added: "They could buy up all its shares with existing cash, which would be a big boost to holders." DirecTV has $4 billion in cash and a revolving credit line of $500 million. "It is the only company in the entertainment space that has more cash than debt," Mr. Egan said.

Owning a satellite TV business had long been a dream of Mr. Murdoch, who is chairman of DirecTV; he bought the shares in 2003 when the company was still a tracking stock of General Motors.

The link to News Corporation inevitably raises questions of the satellite company's strategy. For example, did DirecTV rush to expand last year, spending heavily for new subscribers but then suffering from high churn, because the additional subscribers gave the News Corporation's cable networks, including Fox News and FX, wider distribution? Mr. Carey says this was not the case.

Some analysts say they believe that even though growth has slowed, there are opportunities for DirecTV to add families with new homes or those who once had only broadcast TV.

"As the number of people who take only broadcast declines, the big growth in satellite does not come from cable, it comes from new homes or former broadcast-TV-only homes," Mr. Egan said. "Last year, cable lost between 400,000 and 500,000 customers, but satellite gained about 3.2 million."

Not everyone is so sure. Mr. Moffett, of Sanford C. Bernstein, has put a sell rating on the stock, because of competition and because he says he believes the company is entering a tough phase when it will be spending heavily to offer more new equipment: high-definition television and digital video recorders.

Mr. Carey said he was more optimistic because he believed that the cost of equipment was gradually coming down. DirecTV has been able to add subscribers, he said, because "at the end of the day, the core question is who provides the best television experience."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/17/te...ectv.html?8dpc





Lifetime's Place Is in the House (and Senate)
Kate Aurthur

"Ladies and gentlemen, the United States is one of the largest markets for sex slavery in the entire world. We need to realize that modern-day slavery is only occurring because we choose to ignore it."

If these words sound more like lines from a political address than dialogue from a made-for-television movie, that may be because they were inspired by a speech that Tony Blair gave in 2003. It got Trevor Walton - a senior vice president at Lifetime, who was in London at the time - thinking, and the result is "Human Trafficking," the channel's first mini-series. Starring Mira Sorvino as the sexy-but-determined government agent who delivers those words, it is scheduled to be broadcast on Oct. 24 and Oct. 25 at 9 p.m. "The biggest percentage of people that are trafficked in the world are women, and women are our business at Lifetime," Mr. Walton said in an interview.

Lifetime has been unquestionably successful in that business: it is the No. 1 cable channel among female viewers. Since its debut in 1984, it has offered women the television equivalent of comfort food. Its programs - the soft-focus "Intimate Portrait" biographies of everyone from Kelly Ripa to Bella Abzug, reruns of "Designing Women" and "Golden Girls," and movies in which, more often than not, someone is stalking Shannen Doherty or Jaclyn Smith - provide a warm, consistent hum.

In recent years, however, Lifetime has promoted its issue-oriented programming by tying it to direct appeals to viewers to improve their lives. In April, for instance, after the broadcast of "Terror at Home," a documentary about domestic abuse, the National Domestic Violence Hotline had a 7,000 percent increase in calls.

But Lifetime's most surprising experiment has taken place off screen. Through its public affairs office, it has become a political lobbying force - and quite an effective one at that - rallying its audience to back laws about a broad slate of women's issues.

The Justice for All Act of 2004, for example, which sought to speed the DNA testing of rape kits, wasn't getting a lot of attention on its own. ("I had many a press conference," said Congresswoman Carolyn B. Maloney, a Democrat from New York who sponsored the act, "and the only press in the audience was Lifetime TV.") So Lifetime collected 110,000 signatures. President Bush signed the bill into law last year.

And after broadcasting "Video Voyeur: The Susan Wilson Story," a movie in which Angie Harmon was spied on by a creepy, high-tech neighbor, Lifetime brought Ms. Harmon to Washington to introduce legislation that would criminalize such behavior. A variation of the bill (the Video Voyeurism Protection Act of 2004) passed last year. Congresswoman Maloney said of Lifetime, "They literally have mobilized themselves into an advocacy organization that, I would say, has growing clout in Washington."

This unlikely effort has been led by Lifetime's executive vice president of public affairs and corporate communications, Meredith Wagner. In its early days, she said over drinks at the Four Seasons Hotel in Manhattan, Lifetime had a vague image as a network for women, but "we didn't really know what we were." So she and Bonnie Hammer, who has since become the president of the USA Network and Sci-Fi Channel, started searching for inexpensive, topical documentaries. "We'd go down to my house in the Village and watch the tapes and drink wine all night," Ms. Wagner said. "It was great because there was no downside - the ratings were zero." Lifetime began to produce public service announcements to go with some of its movies, and to hold screenings in Washington. "We were making it up as we went along," she said. "But we started to get really an interesting response from our viewers."

The ratings stopped being zero. Along the way, Lifetime started voting drives, beginning with the 1992 election, and joined with the Ms. Foundation for Women for the first Take Our Daughters to Work Day, in 1993. Its first big legislative push was in 1996, in support of a bill against "drive-through mastectomies," the practice of sending women home the same day they have surgery. That bill didn't pass, but it has been reintroduced many times, including this year by Senator Olympia J. Snowe, Republican of Maine, and Senator Mary L. Landrieu, Democrat of Louisiana, backed by the more than 11 million signatures Lifetime has collected in the intervening years.

Becoming involved in direct political advocacy violates a basic rule of mainstream media. Since companies never know which part of the audience they may be alienating, it is regarded as bad for business (except in those cases where it is an extension of business, as when media conglomerates lobby the Federal Communications Commission about increased fines).

So why does Lifetime do it? The answer has as much to do with synergy as with democracy. And it places Lifetime in an unusual position, between politics and entertainment.

Take the mastectomy issue. In winter 2000, Lifetime's public affairs department took the writers and producers of the series "Strong Medicine" to Washington to meet with representatives from the Department of Health and Human Services and with health advocates. "We said, 'Tell us what's going on,' " Ms. Wagner said. " 'Tell us what trends you're seeing, the issues that we need to cover.' " What they heard turned into story lines in the series. This season, drive-through mastectomies are featured in an episode to bolster the case against them.

In the case of "Human Trafficking," antiviolence organizations and human rights groups brought the issue to Lifetime's attention, Ms. Wagner said, and "Trevor was charged to look at programming that would support these kind of efforts." Mr. Walton hired a director (Christian Duguay) and an executive producer (Robert Halmi Sr.). Then the public affairs department organized conversations with groups like Equality Now and the International Justice Mission, which rescues trafficked girls from brothels. Taina Bien-Aimé, the executive director of Equality Now, called the discussions "substantive and serious."

As Betty Cohen, the president and chief executive officer of Lifetime Entertainment Services, said, "I believe our advocacy work does a lot of things for us." That includes, evidently, the ability to lure Ms. Sorvino, an Academy Award-winning actress, to the network. "Mira did this movie because she cares about this cause," Ms. Cohen said. "I would love to have more actresses and actors bring their projects to Lifetime if it's something that's important to themselves personally, and important to women as an audience."

In the mini-series, Ms. Sorvino plays an ambitious agent in Immigration and Customs Enforcement, who is unwavering in her efforts to break up a ring led by Robert Carlyle ("The Full Monty"). The women and girls have been trapped into slavery by false promises of romance or jobs.

Ms. Bien-Aimé, who read the script and gave comments to Lifetime, said, "They wanted to do a lot of intelligence work on the issues in order to craft a credible story, to give a portrayal of the trafficking issue in a way that's palatable to American audiences."

And, perhaps surprisingly, the Department of Homeland Security also signed on to advise.

Jamie Zuieback, a spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement who read the script and visited the set, said, "There is a certain amount of dramatic license - we like to call it feasible fiction." But, she continued, "in terms of looking at this type of case, it's a fairly accurate portrayal of the complexity of the types of cases we see."

Lifetime has planned two screenings of the mini-series this week, one in New York City at the United Nations, and the other in Washington, with panel discussions about trafficking featuring the immigration agency and State Department officials. It is also supporting two anti-trafficking bills before Congress, and will direct its viewers to sign petitions on its Web site after the broadcast of the mini-series. Congresswoman Maloney, a co-sponsor of one of the trafficking bills, said, "The more Lifetime can help with the public advocacy, the better chance this legislation has."

But are legislative tie-ins good entertainment? For Lifetime, the answer continues to be yes.

Part of the Justice for All Act was named for Debbie Smith, a woman from Virginia who was raped in 1989, and whose rape kit sat on a shelf for six years. During that time, Ms. Smith lived in fear of the man who had sexually assaulted her and had threatened to find her again. When the kit was finally tested accurately, she learned that he had been sentenced to life in prison for another crime, information that could have spared her years of anguish. In addition to Lifetime's petition efforts on the bill's behalf, the network produced several public service announcements featuring Ms. Smith. When the law passed, she appeared in a spot thanking viewers.

With such a triumphant ending, her story has inspired, naturally, a movie, now in development at Lifetime.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/16/ar...on/16aurt.html





Flix Tix

Business Down

Overall, U.S. and Canadian business for the top 12 films Friday through Sunday was down more than 18 percent from the same weekend in 2004, marking the third straight weekend of year-to-year declines, according to box office tracking service Exhibitor Relations Inc.

Ticket sales for last week's box office champ, ``Wallace & Gromit,'' released by DreamWorks Animation SKG, dropped 27 percent from its opening weekend to post a two-week tally of $33.3 million.

The Jodie Foster thriller ``Flightplan,'' knocked off its No. 1 perch last weekend by ``Wallace & Gromit,'' fell two more notches to fourth place in its fourth weekend on ticket sales of $6.5 million. That brought cumulative business for the film, released by Walt Disney Co.'s Buena Vista Pictures, to nearly $70.8 million.

The No. 5 slot this week went to ``In Her Shoes,'' a story of sisterly rivalry directed by Curtis Hanson starring Cameron Diaz and Toni Collette. ``Shoes,'' released by News Corp.-owned 20th Century Fox, grossed $6.1 million in its second weekend to boost its running tally to $20 million.

Rounding out the top 10 movies at the box office were ``Two for the Money,'' starring Al Pacino and Matthew McConaughey as sports gambling agents, ``A History of Violence,'' ``Tim Burton's Corpse Bride'' and ``The Gospel,'' Exhibitor Relations reported.
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/arts/...boxoffice.html





The Future of Opera on Disc (if It's to Have One)
Anthony Tommasini

FOR several months before releasing its new recording of Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde," EMI Classics, in tones both momentous and ominous, stoked stories in the news media that it could well be the last studio recording of a major opera ever made. At least EMI refrained from affixing a label to that effect on the packaging of this deluxe release.

It's not news that the cost of making a studio recording of an opera, let alone a monumental Wagner work, has become prohibitive. The golden days when a Renata Tebaldi was routinely ushered into the studio to record all her major roles in complete versions, sometimes multiple versions, may be over. Today, assembling the necessary orchestral and choral forces, and a cast desirable enough to entice picky opera buffs can easily push the price tag for a project like a new "Tristan" over $1 million. So why did EMI undertake this venture, when there is such a rich legacy of great "Tristan" recordings? The rationale can be summed up in two words: Plácido Domingo.

Mr. Domingo's decisive move into the Wagnerian heldentenor repertory came in 1991, when the Metropolitan Opera mounted Otto Schenk's production of "Parsifal" specifically for him. He was 50 at the time. Since then his portrayals not only of Parsifal but also of Siegmund in "Die Walküre" have been justly acclaimed.

Mr. Domingo's ambition is boundless. Though aching to take a shot at Tristan, he sensibly concluded some years ago that it was too late in his career and he would never have the stamina for a staged performance. A studio recording was the only way he could put his stamp on the role.

To make the project enticing, EMI has surrounded Mr. Domingo with top-notch colleagues. The dynamic conductor Antonio Pappano leads the orchestra and chorus of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, eliciting a lush, surging account of the score. The Swedish soprano Nina Stemme brings an earthy voice and vulnerability to Isolde. The remarkable German bass René Pape makes a vocally commanding and heartbreaking King Marke. To seal the deal, EMI offers two starry tenors in cameo roles: Ian Bostridge as the Shepherd and Rolando Villazón as the Young Seaman.

Clearly EMI intends this new "Tristan" to be seen as a throwback to the era when, at their best, major studios took the time and spent the money to assemble dream casts that could not have been brought together for staged performances.

Maybe that era, sadly, is gone. Yet hold on. Late last year, Deutsche Grammophon released a new version of "Tristan und Isolde," which pointed to another way of doing things, a practice that has steadily grown in the last 10 years: live recording. Taped at the Vienna State Opera in 2003, this is a gripping and affecting account, blazingly conducted by Christian Thielemann, with the soprano Deborah Voigt in her first stage performance of Isolde, the tenor Thomas Moser as Tristan and a solid supporting cast.

Overall, the history of live recordings is rather shady. Think of all those bootlegged accounts of Maria Callas that once surreptitiously circulated among fanatics. More recently, EMI has been legitimizing those recordings and releasing them, sonically cleaned up as much as possible, in its comprehensive Callas Edition. But through the years there have been many distinguished, well-engineered and perfectly legal live recordings of operas, like the 1977 account of Strauss's "Frau Ohne Schatten" from the Vienna State Opera, with the eminent Straussian Karl Böhm conducting a cast led by Leonie Rysanek as the Empress and Birgit Nilsson as the Dyer's Wife. For many this remains the definitive recording.

Today's digital recording techniques are awesomely sophisticated. As long as engineers have a few complete takes of the opera to work from, they can bring about wonders, replacing a single wrong note with the right one, achieving near-ideal balances, even blotting out audience noise. In orchestral repertory the London Symphony Orchestra and the San Francisco Symphony have been leading the way with highly successful ventures into producing and distributing their own live recordings. Colin Davis and the London Symphony have even taken on opera, including an award-winning account of Berlioz's epic "Les Troyens," recorded live in concert in London in 2000.

In comparing the two "Tristan" recordings, you cannot ignore the circumstances under which they were made. The recording conditions naturally affected the results.

Since Mr. Domingo's Tristan is the selling point of the EMI release, his work will receive the most scrutiny, as it should. When he announced his intention to record this touchstone role, the most strenuous heldentenor part in the repertory, the idea smacked of hubris. Yet Mr. Domingo, now 64, has been singing so well of late that it's starting to seem a little frightening. What Faustian pact has he made?

But even he concedes that he had to pace himself carefully. He recorded "Tristan" in the London studios of EMI over six weeks, no doubt taking frequent vocally replenishing breaks.

In many ways his performance is a remarkable achievement. Only a tenor of his comprehensive musicianship could have learned this daunting role so thoroughly so late in his career. His singing is, for the most part, burnished, energetic and deeply felt.

Yet it must be remembered that he matured significantly in the roles of Parsifal and Siegmund as he performed them on stage over the years. His Tristan lacks a comparable lived-in quality. Sometimes he sounds almost unnaturally energetic, as if he had just returned from a long break or some days off and was determined to prove something. In places you feel that he substitutes generic vigor for depth.

During the early scene in Act II when Tristan and Isolde, high on the love potion, illicitly meet outside King Marke's castle, Mr. Domingo sings with such vehemence that his sound turns leathery. Yet he brings tenderness and lyricism to the opening stretches of the love duet, which is not surprising: he knows this music, having recorded the complete scene with Ms. Voigt in the studio for a 2000 EMI release, "Wagner Love Duets," conducted by Mr. Pappano.

During the prolonged Act III scene as the dying Tristan deliriously awaits Isolde's arrival, Mr. Domingo puts everything on the line, shifting between halting intensity and frenzied ardor. His countless admirers will want this recording, a capstone to his staggering discography. More hardened Wagnerians may deem it an honorable effort.

The selling points of the Deutsche Grammophon live "Tristan" are Mr. Thielemann's conducting and Ms. Voigt's Isolde. In the right work, when Mr. Thielemann is on, he is hard to top. This is the right work, and is he ever on. The performance is an uncanny balancing act: volatile yet inexorable, intense yet ruminative, by turns highly charged and spacious. Without ever seeming didactic, he reveals the rhetoric of the music: the beginnings, endings and overlappings of phrases and the structural layout of the score.

Ms. Voigt makes an ideal fit in Mr. Thielemann's conception. Some may find her singing lacking in vocal allure. But her radiant power, subtle shadings and Apollonian approach are deeply moving in a different way. And as always with this artist, it's a pleasure to hear a daunting role sung with such accuracy, rhythmic integrity and crisp German diction.

Mr. Moser's Tristan is almost the opposite of Mr. Domingo's. Mr. Moser, American born and nearly 58 at the time of this recording, began in lighter repertory, then moved successfully in midcareer to weightier German roles. In recent appearances at the Met, his voice has varied; it is sometimes firm, sometimes shaky. But he is in good form here, singing with stamina and depth. What he lacks is what Mr. Domingo has in abundance: vocal charisma. Hearing Mr. Moser's portrayal, some Wagner buffs will say, "You see, that's why we need Domingo's Tristan."

The engineering of this live recording seems nearly flawless. The orchestra sounds great; the voices come through vividly. And making live recordings is vastly more affordable than studio equivalents. Clearly this is where the business is heading.

James Levine seems to think so. He has said that given the financial and scheduling pressures that afflict recordings today, he is in no rush to take the Boston Symphony Orchestra into the studio, even if he could entice a major label into a contract. But live recording? That's another story, he said, his eyes lighting up during a news conference when his appointment as music director was announced. And when it comes to opera, the live recording route makes even more sense.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/16/ar...ic/16tomm.html





Folkies Go Upscale
Thomas Staudter

With the closing of the Bottom Line, the guitar-strumming stalwarts of the singer-songwriter genre may have thought they had lost their last reliable Manhattan showcase. But as if calibrated to make the most of all the Bob Dylan news, this season offers two new stages for folk, one of which is very far in spirit from that dusty old nightclub.

Carnegie Hall will initiate "City Folk Live at Zankel," and the Chelsea nightclub Satalla will feature "Under the Radar." Both series are developed with one of the genre's strongholds: WFUV (90.7 FM), Fordham University's public radio station.

Ara Guzelimian, Carnegie Hall's artistic adviser, said that after Zankel Hall opened in 2003, he decided to broadened the scope of musical offerings. That included folk, which WFUV has supported since the late 1980's.

Rita Houston, the station's music director, will be "picking all the artists from a fan's point of view," she said. The season of four concerts starts on Oct. 27 with Suzanne Vega, followed by Richard Shindell and Lucy Kaplansky on Nov. 18, Jane Siberry in March and Dan Bern in April.

Ticket sales for "City Folk Live at Zankel" have been strong, Ms. Houston said, and she has already been asked to plan for a 2006-7 season.

All of which comes as good news, Ms. Vega said: "It's hard for people without big record deals or large followings to find venues to play at, and Carnegie Hall has that reputation - the association gives a nice luster to the singer-songwriting name."

The monthly "Under the Radar" series at Satalla, at 37 West 26th Street, began in September and continues on Nov. 8 with a triple bill featuring two finalists from this year's Mountain Stage NewSong Contest - Ina May Wool and the contest winner, KJ Denhert - and Terence Martin. The series is programmed by John Platt, host of "City Folk Sunday Breakfast." "Often a lot of these artists play at places outside of the city," Mr. Platt said, "but getting a date at a venue like Satalla can be akin to a seal of approval on their careers."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/16/ar...ic/16stau.html





FTC Clamps down on File-sharing Service Site
Press Release

Washington, D.C. – A U.S. District Court judge has halted the deceptive ads of a Web operation that claimed that membership in MP3DownloadCity.com would allow users of peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing programs to transfer copyrighted materials without violating the law. The FTC will seek a permanent bar on the deceptive claims, redress for consumers, and a requirement that the defendant notify consumers who signed up for membership that the programs he promotes to share copyrighted files may subject them to civil or criminal liability.

According to the FTC, the defendant markets and sells a tutorial and referral service that promotes the use of P2P file-sharing software programs to download digital music, movies, and computer games. Unlike a licensed subscription service, the defendant’s service does not provide its paying customers with a license to download and share copyrighted music, movies, or games. Instead, for $24.95, the defendant instructs consumers on the use of free P2P file-sharing software provided by others, such as Kazaa.

According to the FTC’s complaint, consumers are lured to become members by deceptive claims that subscribing to the defendant’s service makes P2P file sharing legal. Internet ads for the service make claims such as:

AND BEST OF ALL PEOPLE ARE NOT GETTING SUED FOR USING OUR SOFTWARE. YES! IT IS 100% LEGAL;
Why Are We The #1 Free MP3 Music Download Site? . . .
Download and Watch DVDs and Movies Still in Theaters; and
Rest assured that File-Sharing is 100% legal.

But, according to the FTC complaint, the defendant’s customers who use P2P file-sharing programs to download copyrighted material, or who make it available to others, without the copyright owner’s permission, are engaged in copyright infringement and could face civil and criminal liability.

The FTC charged that the defendant violated the FTC Act by falsely claiming that membership in its service made P2P file sharing legal. The FTC has asked the court to order a permanent halt to the deceptive claims, order the defendant to pay consumer redress or to give up his ill-gotten gains, and notify customers that they could face civil and criminal liability. A hearing to extend the court’s temporary ban on defendants’ deceptive claims is scheduled for October 21, 2005.

The defendant in the case is Cashier Myricks Jr., doing business as MP3downloadcity.com, based in Los Angeles, California.

The Commission vote to authorize staff to file the complaint was 3-0, with Commissioner Jon Leibowitz not participating. The complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.

The FTC has published a consumer alert, “P2P File Sharing: Evaluating the Risks”.

The Commission wishes to acknowledge the assistance of The Center for Democracy and Technology in this matter.
http://www.linuxelectrons.com/articl...51019191945975





Uni-verse

Mystery Donor Gives Stanford Free Yahoo Music
John Borland

Students at Stanford University will get a year of free digital music, thanks to a gift from an anonymous donor to the college.

Beginning next week, Stanford will join a growing number of other colleges around the country in promoting or providing free access to online music subscription services, aiming to draw students away from legally risky file-swapping networks.

Unlike some other universities, Stanford has declined to pay for students' subscriptions itself, or use student fees to subsidize the costs. But during the program's first year, which the college regards as a pilot project, the costs will be covered by the outside donor's money.

"We did not want to earmark university funds, because this is not part of our research or teaching mission," said Susan Weinstein, Stanford director of business development.

The Stanford service will be the first school music program for Yahoo, which launched its digital music subscription service in May and has sought to attract subscribers quickly by undercutting rivals' prices.

As with other subscription services, Yahoo allows unlimited streaming or downloads of songs to a computer. Unlike its rivals, it also allows subscribers to transfer songs to portable devices for the same price, $6.99 a month. Other services charge a higher price for subscriptions compatible with portable devices, because record labels charge a higher wholesale rate for those rights.

In Stanford's case, at the end of the trial year, students' monthly subscription rates will go up to $1.75 a month for the basic Yahoo subscription, and $4.75 a month for the version compatible with portable devices, Weinstein said.

The university chose Yahoo after evaluating it along with several other services, and seeing it get the best review from students, Weinstein said.

Although news of the anonymous donor's support quickly sent speculation winging toward Stanford alums and Yahoo co-founders Jerry Yang and David Filo, Weinstein said the money would have applied to any music service, and was not tied to use of the Yahoo program.
http://news.com.com/Mystery+donor+gi...3-5894967.html





Former RealNetworks President Sings New Tune As Chief Of Cdigix
Dan Richman

Larry Jacobson, a president at RealNetworks until 18 months ago, has become the first chief executive of Cdigix, a young provider of on-campus digital entertainment and instruction that's moving to Seattle from near Denver.

"I enjoy working in businesses when they're scaling, building out," said Jacobson, 46, in an interview Wednesday. "In the case of Cdigix, we're at that point in our development. Real is at a different point."

In conjunction with Jacobson's appointment, privately held Cdigix has raised nearly $10 million in an initial round of venture funding to accelerate development and marketing.

One executive from each of two institutional investors has joined the company's board.

Cdigix offers four products, all aimed exclusively at college or university students on campus: digital video on demand, digital music, online access to digitized audiovisual course material and a campus-wide network for socializing.

Jacobson will lead the company's staff of 55, a count that includes part-time, on-campus interns. Cdigix's founder and president, Brett Goldberg, 28, will become executive vice president.

"I'm ecstatic about having Larry on board," Goldberg said. "It would be difficult for us to find someone else who has the relationships and the knowledge to make us successful."

Jacobson, a native of Boston, served as president of the Fox television network and as president and chief operating officer of Ticketmaster Corp. before arriving at Seattle's RealNetworks in February 2001.

After ending his stint there in April 2004, Jacobson worked briefly for Getty Images Inc. of Seattle before seeking a leadership position in the venture world.

One such opportunity, he said, was Cdigix, which sought a new CEO. Cdigix is the "doing business" name of Sea Blue Media LLC, which Goldberg founded in 2002.

The startup didn't land its first music contract with a school until September 2004. Since then, it has signed on 34 schools -- more than any competitor.

Among them are Duke, Yale, Tufts, Purdue, the University of Rochester, the University of Michigan and the University of California schools at Irvine, Riverside and San Diego. Some of the contracts are long-term and exclusive.

Schools are good customers for digitized entertainment because they will happily pay for music and video to avoid legal problems with students seeking it from unlawful sources, Jacobson said. Using a service such as Cdigix can also ease wear and tear on campus help-desk personnel by minimizing viruses and worms students pick up using peer-to-peer software, he said.

"We have both Cdigix and Napster on campus, but I've just found Cdigix to be a real different breed of cat," said Charles Phelps, provost at the University of Rochester. "Cdigix offers a whole range of services. These other people are selling music, basically."

A number of forces are coinciding to improve the market for services such as Cdigix, Jacobson said.

Campuses usually have robust, high-powered computer networks, easing the technological challenge of supplying high-quality material to students. Record companies are cutting the cost of their content.

And students are realizing the value of lawful music services and the downsides of file-sharing software.

One competitor in the market has a famous name: Napster. That Los Angeles- based company, which has stopped facilitating the unlawful free exchange of music online, has contracts with 15 schools. One of them is the University of Washington, which began service this fall.

Other competitors include Ruckus Network Inc., of Herndon, Va., and even RealNetworks' own Rhapsody subscription service.

Though students still use peer-to-peer file-sharing services such as Kazaa, "there's a dent being made" in illegal listening, partly by the fear of lawsuits filed by the recording industry, Goldberg said.

He said Cdigix can trump its competition by offering a broader range of services, especially its provision of highly profitable online educational materials.

And though the number of colleges and universities in the United States is limited, Cdigix could grow by pursuing alumni, high schools, boarding schools, the military, colleges abroad, and other organizations with campuses and their own networks, he said.

Typically, schools pay Cdigix a fee for its services, which are provided free to the students. Additional revenue could come from starting to sell advertising on its services, Goldberg said.

Cdigix's three major technology suppliers -- RealNetworks, Microsoft and MusicNet -- are all located in Seattle, "so it's an ideal place for companies like Cdigix to relocate and to grow," Jacobson said.

The company plans to move here by mid-2006 and could employ as many as 100 people by this time next year, Goldberg said.

Cdigix's venture funding was provided by Meritage Private Equity Funds, of Denver, and Novak Biddle Venture Partners, of Bethesda, Md. Jim Dovey, investment director at Meritage, will become a director, as will Roger Novak, a general partner at Novak Biddle.

Novak Biddle also backed Blackboard Inc., a Washington, D.C., maker of software facilitating online education, on whose board Roger Novak sits.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/busine..._cdigix20.html





Promotion, Price Cuts Could Save The Music
Markeysha Davis

Like many college students, I love my media.

In my down time, I indulge in music, movies, books, magazines and TV. I find it disappointing, however, when I walk to the Barnes & Noble bookstore on Wayne State University’s campus and see how inflated the CD prices are. The prices of newly released CDs at the bookstore stagger between $16 and $18.

We pay enough money at Wayne State for our education, as far as textbooks, tuition, transportation and living expenses are concerned.

After busting the bank for these expenses, why do we have to deal with pricey entertainment?

High prices discourage students from buying items from stores like Barnes & Noble and turn some to Internet piracy to fulfill their entertainment needs.

The Internet offers hundreds of peer-to-peer file-sharing programs, where people can download and share anything from computer software to music to the latest film release. These programs are illegal and risky, but to some serve as a cheaper alternative to overpaying for CDs and DVDs.

The Recording Industry Association of America has blamed P2P file-sharing programs for the declining trend in record sales.

As reported by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industries in 2003, illegal downloads either matched or exceeded commercial sales in Germany, Japan and the United States total, with overall record sales falling almost 11 percent.

The RIAA has been adamant about stopping Internet file sharing, thinking it would reverse the trend.

Though in some cases, the sales of music have not been dependent on the amount of file sharing being done, but the affordability of the product.

In recent years, however, the price of music has decreased considerably. According to NPD MusicWatch, in 2003, Universal Music Group began lowering wholesale prices in order to offer cheaper music prices to consumers, making deals with retailers to sell some CDs for under $10 during promotional periods.

Some music download programs like Napster and iTunes sell music by the track for as low as 99 cents.

Now, what is the entertainment industry doing wrong?

The music industry is failing in promotion and recognizing trends with consumers. Many popular artists or artists with potential to sale albums are shelved while flavor-of-the-week artists are pushed out almost too early. They’re hoped to be the saving grace of the recording industry.

Proper promotion techniques would include putting teaser CDs in stores or teaser tracks online for consumers to sample music on a wider scale.

The increase in enhanced CDs has also helped CD sales, though minutely.

Trend recognition is also important. Because there is one “whisper song,” doesn’t mean there needs to be five versions of it.

The recording industry needs to stray from redundancy and respect originality. If the artists and music presented to the public are more diverse, then the music industry may see a positive change in consumer response.

I have yet to see a price drop on CDs at our Barnes & Noble.

If they put more into their music, though, I might be willing to splurge.
http://www.southend.wayne.edu/module...p?storyid=1791





University Warns About Illegal File Sharing
Molly Leaverton

University administrators are making an increased effort to inform students of the consequences of file sharing.

Punishments include being blocked from the Santa Clara network as well as a legal suit for as much as 150,000 dollars per illegal file.

Last year 24 Santa Clara students were identified as participating in illegal file sharing, and this year the first notice was given during welcome weekend, before school even began.

The Santa Clara network has also been affected by the increased amount of file sharing, according to Ross Dykes, Student Technology Services Manager.

"Organizations like the Recording Industry Association of America and the Motion Picture Association of America are targeting universities because they are worried that our students are learning the wrong life long habits and they are trying to make an example of them," said Chief Information Officer Ron Danielson.

Administrators also worry about liability for the university.

"If the infringing files are placed on a Santa Clara university-owned machine, or the works have been downloaded by a student employee, the University may also be exposed to potential liability," said University President Paul Locatelli, S.J., in a mass email.

Some students believe that file sharing is a legitimate way to support artists and spread music that people may not otherwise be exposed to.

"As long as you support artists in some way, music should be something that should be shared and made available to all," said sophomore Alex Cost.

"I think it is morally wrong in that it takes money away from artists whose CDs people would buy ... but at the same time it gives more notoriety to some artists who no one would hear of if they had to buy their music," said freshman Dan Buglione.

"Students have said 'yes it is illegal but the record companies are ripping us off, this is an act of civil disobedience'. While that's an ethical stand that a person takes, it's important to realize that taking an ethical stand like that can come with consequences," said Danielson.

Danielson serves as the agent registered with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. He is the informant that is contacted when private companies such as Sony Music, or MGM detect that someone on the Santa Clara network has illegally downloaded copyrighted material.

These companies detect that someone has downloaded copyrighted material by either setting up a fake file sharing site and observing who attempts to download or by programming robots to download from people who are making copyrighted files available for others to download via peer to peer programs.

When a company identifies file sharing, Danielson is notified.

"On average about three notifications are given a month that students that have been identified as illegally file sharing," Danielson said.

Although the school has never had a repeat offender, if someone were identified possible consequences could lead to "permanent loss of network access or to other sanctions," said Locatelli.
http://www.thesantaclara.com/vnews/d.../434e190a9a9a3





University Aims to Decrease Illegal P2P File Sharing
Lisa Basile

A major component of today's culture involves internet technology and one of the most popular trends is file sharing. File sharing is the process of obtaining music or movies for free over the internet using peer-to-peer software, such as Kazaa, Gnutella or iMesh. Most of these file sharing programs are illegal, and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), a trade group that represents the U.S recording industry, has made many attempts throughout the past few years to ban the action.

On Jan. 27, 2005, the Collegiate Presswire published a press release on www.cpwire.com stating that 717 file sharers were sued by the music industry for copyright infringement. Of those 717, 68 were downloading music while using their respective school's computer networks. The University was among 23 educational institutions listed as having students being sued.

According to cpwire.com, many universities nationwide are either negotiating or have agreed to offer legal music services to students residing on campus. Accordingly, this fall the University chose Ruckus as the digital entertainment network, providing students with unlimited access to movies and music.

For $14.95 per semester, members will gain access to 1.2 million songs, social networking applications, and the ability to share downloaded music. For $29.95, students will have access to both music and movies and hit T.V. shows.

"The Ruckus digital entertainment network is an alternative to illegal file sharing," Chief Information Officer Frank Monaco said. "We decided to look for options among the many downloading services out there after learning of the possibility of a small number of our students being sued for illegal downloading."

CEO and chairman of Ruckus William J. Raduchel said, "We have worked hard to provide a service that allows students to safely find friends and socialize, upload their own creative and original content, and download a variety of legal movies, music and television programming." By merging college students' interests (music and social activity) Ruckus is a great choice for universities.

Freshman Renee Scheidt said, "I think it's a good idea to have the network, even if [it's like] Napster and LimeWire all over again. It prevents lawsuits or, at least, the potential for them."

However, Scheidt admitted she does have LimeWire on her computer but because the University has set up firewalls, she has to go outside of Maria's Tower to actually download the music.

According to the Appropriate Use Policy for Information Technology (Version 1.3, Aug. 14, 2003) "the official Pace University position on P2P file sharing utilities is that the software itself is not illegal, nor banned by Pace University. It is illegal, however, to download or share copyrighted material for which you do not hold the copyright."

The policy further states that rulings by the courts under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act have held that Internet Service Providers, the University being our provider, is obliged to present the identity of users of specific Internet Protocol Addresses or "userIDs" of those file sharing. It also states that, "individual students, faculty and staff may be held personally liable for violations of copyright laws."

Sophomore Lindsey Gunsch thinks the university whose network is being used by a student for downloading "should not have to be held responsible for an individual's actions." Gunsch believes it is unfair for the school to be involved with any student who is committing a crime on his/her own computer.

Freshman David Maxwell said, "The penalty for downloading a couple of songs is far from what the act is worth, which is 10 to 20 thousands of dollars for maybe 99 cents worth of material. It degrades the reputation of the record industry, the vision of the artist, and puts the defendants in a very tight financial situation just to pay a fairly small amount of money considering the music industry takes in billions a year. If anything, charge the people the cost of the C.D.: $15."
http://www.pacepress.org/media/paper...-1026082.shtml





Download Dealings: Students Skirt Music Piracy Regulations
Zach Ahmad

Like many college students, Jason Sterlacci has a lot of music stored on his computer. Also like many of his peers, he hasn't paid for much of it.

Sitting in his dorm room in Ivory Tower, the senior uses a program called myTunes Redux to browse through nearly 50,000 songs from more than 100 people in his building. Finding a copy of Coldplay's X&Y on "Sean Caffrey's Music," he drags and drops the song list to his own library, downloading the full album in about 30 seconds.

Essentially a hack of a legitimate iTunes service that allows users to see what others are listening to, myTunes Redux allows people using the same broadband circuit, such as the one found in a dorm, to copy songs directly from one another onto their own hard drives. Since it operates in a closed network, it's twice as fast as traditional file-sharing programs - and harder to monitor. It's just one of the new ways students are skirting a growing Recording Industry of America counterinsurgency on illegal music downloading.

"I stopped paying for music as soon as I got this," said Sterlacci, who estimates he's downloaded more than 300 songs in the past month. "I haven't bought a CD all year, which is really unusual for me."

"It's really convenient to be able to download five albums in the course of a minute," Sterlacci said. "I do consider it a form of stealing, but I'm too addicted to music to quit."

Buoyed by a landmark Supreme Court decision in June that said peer-to-peer file-sharing services could be held responsible for their customers' illegal actions, the recording industry has stepped up efforts to stop the widespread swapping of copyrighted music over the Internet.

College Culprits

At the heart of the battle is the college dorm scene, where every student has an Internet connection and iPods are as ubiquitous as backpacks. In a report delivered to Congress last month, a joint committee made up of representatives from higher education and the recording industry chided universities for having "yielded to complacency in their methods of addressing piracy on campus."

Prepared in advance of a hearing on students' file-sharing habits, the report cited myTunes and similar programs as some of the key obstacles in the fight against music piracy on college campuses. Members of Congress have since called on the General Accountability Office to study universities' efforts to curtail illegal file-sharing over their networks.

"College students are some of the most avid music fans," said RIAA spokesman Amanda Hunter in an e-mail. "Because music habits and customs they develop now are likely to stay with them for life, it's especially important for us to educate them about the law."

As some have already found out, the campaign amounts to more than just strong words. On Sept. 29, the RIAA announced its most recent wave of lawsuits targeting individual file-sharers on more than 17 college campuses, bringing the total number of students targeted to 940. That includes three GW students sued in 2004.

By logging onto programs such as Kazaa and BearShare, the RIAA finds users uploading copyrighted files and traces it to their dorm room, then sends the school a subpoena demanding they reveal the student's identity.

"The law is quite clear here," Hunter said. "U.S. copyright law prohibits the unauthorized duplication, performance or distribution of a creative work, and we expect students and universities to act in accordance with the law."

Universities crack down

Schools are responding to the pressure. After the 2004 lawsuits, GW became one of the first to offer the legal file-sharing service Napster to students at no direct cost. Similar programs have since been established at nearly 70 colleges and universities across the country, tripling in just the past year.

Some schools are taking things a step further. The University of Florida has drawn attention for its homegrown tracking program Icarus, which monitors transmissions over the school's Internet network and blocks downloads of copyrighted material. The school has seen a 50 percent decrease in offenses each of the two years the program has been in place, Hunter said.

Yet as recording officials, lawmakers and universities try to buckle down on illegal downloading, some question the effectiveness of their tactics. Despite an increase in user lawsuits, the music industry sold $2.4 billion less in recordings than in 1999, when peer-to- peer file-sharing first began to blossom. Students say they don't see the risk, and activists call the suits a waste.

"If the goal is to stop downloading, it's a failure on that front. If the goal is to get artists compensated, it's a failure on that front as well," said Fred von Lohmann, senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a law firm that specializes in intellectual property issues. "The only people getting paid at this point are the recording industry's lawyers."

Moreover, students have been slow to embrace free legal technologies. At GW, less than half of the student body uses the complimentary Napster service, causing the University to question renewing its contract with the company until it received a gift from an anonymous donor.

With schools urging students to go legal, the recording industry filing lawsuits and students seemingly indifferent to both, it's unclear how or if a compromise will be reached.

Some are urging the RIAA to capitalize on the current open market. Lohmann suggests a system by which universities would pay a per-student fee directly to the recording industry, which would in turn allow users to download freely using any program without legal repercussions.

"You need to focus on getting artists compensated for file-sharing that's going to happen anyway," Lohmann said. "I think universities could be a very good baiter for some kind of blanket licensing experiment."

Recording industry officials say they plan to stay their course. Hunter said she's encouraged by an increase in schools offering legal programs and believes the programs' use will grow. Though as long as illegal sharing continues, she said, so will user lawsuits.

"Just as we must hold accountable the businesses that encourage theft online, individuals who engage in illegal downloading must also know there are consequences to their actions," Hunter said. "These lawsuits have helped arrest the tremendous growth of illegal peer-to-peer use, and we will continue to aggressively pursue them."

While lawyers and industry executives squabble about compensation and property rights, in the dorm rooms themselves, the music plays on.

"I can see the problem, but I don't think you're going to able to stop it," sophomore Thomas Brennan said. "The recording industry is already making so much money. It's not going to hurt if you download one song."
http://www.gwhatchet.com/media/paper....gwhatchet.com





DC++ Popular For File-Sharing
Christine Wang

An alternative to traditional file-sharing applications that consume large amounts of Internet bandwidth has surfaced in dorm rooms across campus. Direct Connect Client, known as DC++, allows files to be transferred at the speed of the University's internal network without taking up any bandwidth.

The program uses a hub that allows only users on the UT network to connect to it, said William Earle, an electrical engineering junior, who knows about the program. Earle, who used to live in a UT dorm, said that many residents used the program. The hub filters out non-University IP addresses.

"The UT network is like a big LAN," Earle said. So "It doesn't take any bandwidth to transfer files." For dorm residents who have weekly bandwidth allocations, DC++ has become a popular file-sharing application. When using the program, a search returns a list of files, and then a direct connection is made from one user to the other, Earle said.

In addition to being connected on campus, each user is required to have 5 GB of information to share, said Kyle Chai, a biomedical engineering senior who has also seen dorm residents using the program.

"You download directly from other people at an average rate of about three seconds per song," Chai said.

With other file-transfer programs such as BitTorrent, a user is "simultaneously downloading and uploading [the same file] to multiple users," he said.

DC++ allows all types of files to be transferred, but users have control over which files they choose to share, said Chai. While he has not heard of any security breaches yet, the program does make a direct connection, and if they really wanted to, "people who know how to manipulate the system could get into your computer," Chai said.

Peer-to-peer and file-sharing applications that are not configured properly have been the cause of extreme but unintentional bandwidth use, said Dan Updegrove, UT vice president for Information Technology.

InformationTechnology Services does not have a problem with students using the UT network to transfer files and does not "police the network" on the downloaded content, Updegrove said.

"File-sharing is legal," he said. But, warned, "copyright infringement is not."

The University gets about 23 notifications per month regarding possible violations of copyrighted material. Most of these come from the Recording Industry Association of America or the Motion Picture Association of America, and most are the result of the use of file-sharing applications, said Randy Ebeling, associate vice president of Information Technology.

"All such Digital Millennium Copyright Act notifications are addressed and passed on to the proper potential offender," Ebeling said.

On the second offense, an interview is scheduled with Student Judicial Services who will decide the course of action and consequences, Updegrove said. "In the last 14 months, there have been only eight second offenses and no third offenses," he said.
http://www.dailytexanonline.com/medi...-1023903.shtml





LimeWire Becomes P2P Icon
Thomas Mennecke

During Napster’s reign, this early P2P network became a household name. Although not the first P2P or file-sharing network, it brought this once obscure Internet medium into the limelight. Over time however, the RIAA would pursue this network and force it into submission in the spring of 2001.

Yet the cultural impact of Napster was unmistakable. This network brought together communities of individuals that would otherwise use the Internet for little more than web surfing and email. It introduced a new world to the Internet masses that broadened the horizons of millions.

There was little doubt the impact Napster had on the general public. With 26 million registered users and 1.5 million simultaneous users at its peak, Napster was a highly publicized network. College students, adults, teenagers and seniors – just about everyone got in on the action. The name “Napster” became synonymous with the ability to download music off the Internet. Ask anyone during this time how to obtain music on the Internet, and the answer was nearly always “Napster.”

However in 2001, millions suddenly found themselves without a means to trade files. The only knowledgeable method to find music suddenly vanished. This event would have a profound impact.

Most notably, many participants of Napster would no longer participate in file- sharing. Although statistically the combined total of the P2P population had well exceeded Napster by late 2001, many individuals still gave a bewildered look to the question “how do you obtain music?”

Even several years later, when the total P2P population made Napster appear diminutive, many ex-Napster users simply did not recognize the existence of any other file-sharing method. This population had largely been replaced by younger and more computer savvy individuals who found solace with several various P2P networks.

While P2P was expanding, it had lost its mascot – its face if you will. There was no single network or method the general public could associate with P2P. Kazaa came close, but even with its 4.5 million simultaneous users – triple the size of Napster – it never quite reached the same cultural prominence. This could be attributed to the fact that Kazaa was largely associated with spyware, viruses, false files and corruption, rather than a P2P icon.

This lack of a cultural icon has slowly begun to change. A recent survey conducted by CacheLogic and Big Champagne found that nearly 74% of all files traded on P2P networks were music files. CacheLogic’s study found that Kazaa was no longer a prominent music source, and that a majority of its population was only interested in video files. The study did find however, that a majority of file-traders were heading over to the Gnutella network for their musical needs.

Gnutella was first introduced to the P2P world in April of 2000. Many in the P2P community largely ignored this network, yet it did find itself with a sizable following. Slowly, this poorly performing network would become a top-notch community, thanks to the development efforts of LimeWire and BearShare. Out of the two development teams, LimeWire would become the unequivocal leader of Gnutella, thanks to its open source client, lack of spyware/adware and favorable reputation.

During the 2005, Gnutella and LimeWire would see its population soar. According to LimeWire’s host counter, this network frequently boasts more than 2 million simultaneous users. Some estimates place the total size of this community much higher – perhaps as many as 6 million.

Observations dictate this is not an unreasonable estimate. Gnutella has grown from a virtually useless network to a high performance P2P community capable of obtaining a wide array of information. The ease and resourcefulness of Gnutella, especially for music, has once again given P2P an icon. LimeWire’s cultural popularity has become parallel, if not greater, than Napster, as it too has gained household recognition.

We still ask the question, “How do you obtain music?”
And the answer? “Limewire, of course.”
http://www.slyck.com/news.php?story=956





Extreme File Sharing
Brian Krebs

Spent a few hours over the weekend poking around Limewire, an online peer-to-peer file-sharing network where an estimated 2 million users share and swap MP3 files, movies, software titles and just about anything and everything else made up of ones and zeroes (including quite a few virus- infected files).

I was sifting the lists not for music or movie files, but for the stuff Limewire users may not know they're sharing with the rest of the network. I quickly found what I was looking for, and then some: dozens of entries for tax and payroll records, medical records, bank statements, and what appeared to be company books.

A search for "cookies" or "paypal," for example, turned up cookie files for a number of financial institutions. Having cookie files exposed might be a little less dangerous if you couldn't also click your way through every shared file on a user's machine. For the most part I found that users who shared sensitive information were also sharing the contents of their entire hard drives.

Some users were sharing many megabytes' worth of e-mails and addresses from their Microsoft Outlook inboxes and archives. But perhaps most revealing was a search for "keylog.txt," which turned up several huge text files no doubt generated by a keystroke logger -- a nasty bit of malware that records everything a victim types and relays the data back to the attacker.

At first, I felt a little weird looking at records of one apparent victim's private (and frequently explicit) online chat conversations from just a few months back. But I wanted to find some contact information in there so I could at least notify this person that their system had been compromised. I found an AIM instant message ID -- but alas, that screen name wasn't signed on. I even found what appeared to be the victim's cell phone number, but got a fast-busy signal upon dialing it.

As I read on, however, it became clear that the victim at some point realized his machine was infected with some sort of virus, as evidenced by his IM complaints to a friend that his antivirus software had alerted him to something evil on his machine.

Over the course of several days (the first 10 or so pages of the keylog record) it appears that the victim tried to repel whatever had invaded his computer. Apparently he failed, because not long after he seems to have stopped searching (or at least stopped complaining about it) -- even though the keylogger was clearly still doing its job.

My guess is that this guy ran an antivirus or anti-spyware scan which found and deleted something, so he figured everything was back to normal.

This reminds me of a concept that security professionals understand all too well: When a computer system is compromised by a virus or worm, the only way to truly clean it is to back up the data and resinstall the operating system, including any software patches issued since the computer was purchased. This can be a bitter pill to swallow for home users, many of whom have trouble understanding why someone would go through the trouble of trying to hack their system in the first place.

None of this to say that antivirus tools and other security applications can't remove these intrusive programs on their own; often they do the job quite nicely. But many of today's more aggressive threats are designed to open the door for other intruders, which might not be so easily detected by security software.

Obviously, the lessons here are: If you're going to use file-sharing networks, be extremely careful about what you download; and, pay close attention to the files and folders you are letting the rest of the world see.
http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/secu...e_file_sh.html





Learn To Work With P2P

Peer-to-peer technology is shedding its bootlegging image and going legit, but it still has a dark side
Bryan Betts

The dominant traffic on the internet today isn't email or web browsing, it is peer-to- peer (P2P). This is a nightmare for internet service providers (ISPs) and user organisations alike, and it's about to get worse. Legitimate business uses for P2P are starting to appear, and this will make it tricky for network managers to simply block this type of traffic.

P2P is most commonly used in software distribution, where users who have already downloaded a file then make it available for others. Such schemes also break each file into chunks, so you could download different sections from different sources simultaneously. This aggregation increases the bandwidth available, plus if one host goes offline, the file can still be downloaded from others. Popular P2P systems include BitTorrrent, eDonkey and Gnutella.

Originally used to share bootleg audio files, P2P's biggest usage is now sharing video files, especially ripped DVDs or episodes of US TV series that haven't yet been shown in the UK. But the huge size of those video files means that P2P now consumes most of the internet backbone. Stats from CacheLogic, which runs a global monitoring network called Streamsight, show that P2P overtook web browsing as the largest consumer of internet bandwidth during 2002. By the end of 2004, P2P accounted for 60 percent of all internet traffic.

Some ISPs and user organisations have applied blocks or bandwidth throttles to P2P. Hollywood and the music industry, meanwhile, have tried to close down P2P networks such as Kazaa, but the traffic simply shifted towards different networks and different P2P technologies.

But the bigger problem is that P2P is no longer just a bootlegger's tool - now it has legitimate uses, too. Already, some 10 to 20 percent of P2P traffic is compressed data and various Unix file types. The Skype IP telephone system is P2P, for example, and many software companies including Microsoft, which has a P2P system called Avalanch under development, are also looking at the technology as a potential distribution route.

It's now possible to download some Linux distributions via BitTorrent, though thus far these are mainly freeware rather than enterprise versions. The advantage is that would-be downloaders are not limited to whatever upstream bandwidth the software vendor can afford.

Network administrators have grown to hate P2P because it aggressively consumes whatever bandwidth is available. Plus, by making things easier to access it increases demand. And it floods the upstream bandwidth because P2P is symmetrical whereas most broadband subscriber connections like DSL are asymmetric, with downstream rates that are much larger than upstream.
That said, businesses can use P2P as a more resilient method of transferring large amounts of data between multiple sites because it saves their bandwidth by spreading the load and provides a degree of fault tolerance.

Increasingly, P2P will be too useful to block but administrators need to quickly figure out how to separate the good traffic from the bad, or they could soon find themselves swamped by unwanted data transmissions.
http://www.itweek.co.uk/itweek/comme...learn-work-p2p





Intel Settlement Revives a Fading Chip Designer
John Markoff

Intel's agreement to pay $300 million to settle a patent dispute with a tiny chip design company is a vindication for a Silicon Valley technologist who was once considered one of the region's visionaries, then vanished from the scene.

The technologist is John Moussouris, a 55-year-old physicist and computer designer, who in 1988 formed a company called MicroUnity as an early effort to bring about a convergence of computing and conventional audio and video media.

During the early 1990's, MicroUnity was briefly one of Silicon Valley's highest fliers with backing from Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Motorola and the cable industry.

With more than $100 million in financing, it embarked on the unheard-of strategy of building a chip factory in Silicon Valley, long after most of the region's companies had given up on the idea, instead building new plants in Asia or in other low-cost manufacturing areas. But by the mid-90's those efforts had foundered.

As part of its quarterly earnings report, Intel announced that it had settled a patent suit brought last year by MicroUnity. Of the $300 million to be paid, $140 million was charged against earnings in Intel's most recent quarter.

The deal assures Intel of access to MicroUnity technology, which is used in Intel's current family of Pentium chips, and to patents that MicroUnity has developed more recently. MicroUnity holds 56 patents and has published 14 additional patent applications.

The agreement covers features like hyperthreading, which allows software to perform multiple tasks more efficiently, and processing designs for handling video and audio data. An Intel spokesman, Chuck Mulloy, said Wednesday that the settlement was "in the best interest of the company and the shareholders." MicroUnity's founder, Mr. Moussouris, said he was unwilling to comment because the settlement, filed in federal court in Texas, was still being completed.

A similar dispute between Intel and Intergraph, which ended last year in settlements totaling more than $600 million, was followed in great detail in Silicon Valley. In contrast, the MicroUnity suit drew little attention. The difference in visibility of the two cases may reflect Mr. Moussouris's personal style, which is unusually low profile. Many analysts in Silicon Valley, in fact, thought his company had left the technology development business.

Mr. Moussouris was a protégé of a noted I.B.M. computer designer, John Cocke, and in 1984 was a co-founder of Mips Computer Systems, a pioneering microprocessor developer. In 1988 he assembled a small team of skilled computer designers and set about creating a new style of computing, which would later become known as media processing.

Then in 1996, with MicroUnity's products late to market and the rise of Netscape and the Web, the cable industry's plans for interactive television networks were sidetracked, and overnight there was no demand to fill Mr. Moussouris's factory.

He fought a bitter battle with his investors, who at the time wanted to force the privately held company into bankruptcy. Mr. Moussouris prevailed in the dispute, kept control of his company and then sold his factory to a Malaysian chip maker to avoid bankruptcy.

In 1999 he spun off a small company, MaskTools, and sold it for $21 million to ASML, a maker of chip making equipment based in the Netherlands. The technology offered a way for chip makers to use software and optics to gain more precision than their existing equipment was designed to provide. By increasing manufacturing yields, the advance was extremely valuable to chip makers.

The sale provided a war chest to keep a small group of designers at MicroUnity together, both to pursue its patent claims for its computing design ideas and to press forward on new ideas.

Mr. Moussouris attended Harvard, where he became friends with William Randolph Hearst III, the newspaper heir, and with Jerry Harrison, who became a member of Talking Heads and of the MicroUnity board.

Currently Mr. Moussouris's technical team includes Craig Hansen, a computer hardware architect, who designed hardware for Steven P. Jobs at NeXt, and Alexia Massalin, a software expert, who was a computer wizard as a graduate student at Columbia University in the 1980's. Wired Magazine once suggested that she was the "ultimate nerd genius."

Several years ago Mr. Moussouris said his goal was to create a generation of technology more broadly accessible than current computers.

"I dreamed of building a computer my grandmother would enjoy," he said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/20/te...y/20micro.html





Publishers Become Retailers By Selling Online
Jeffrey Goldfarb

Major book publishers have quietly begun selling directly to customers over the Internet, in a move that could transform the trade by putting them in competition with online retailers like Amazon.com.

The publishers, including Simon & Schuster, Random House and Penguin, claim to have limited retail ambitions and are simply trying to use their Web sites to help readers.

"We can offer features, services and guidance that might be difficult for another retailer to provide," Penguin Group Chairman John Makinson said. "What we're not going to be is competitors to Amazon or any other retailer in this area."

Nevertheless, publishers have been none too thrilled about retailers like Barnes & Noble encroaching on their territory by self-publishing a range of books, including classics by Fyodor Dostoevsky and Mark Twain.

"The retailers have become publishers, so why can't publishers become retailers?" said Pat Schroeder, president of the Association of American Publishers trade group. "It's an experimental thing. Everyone's trying to figure out what the right thing to do is."

Indeed, publishers are struggling along with many of their media and entertainment peers to adapt to evolving technology that is forcing them to rethink their business models. The issue has been a hot topic of conversation at the Frankfurt Book Fair being held this week.

"The boundaries on publishing, retailing and distribution are getting blurred," said Makinson. "We can't rely any longer on the traditional assumption that we're a publisher, he's a retailer, we won't retail, he won't publish. We'll have to accommodate one another."

Discreet Move

Random House, the world's largest publisher of consumer books and a unit of German media conglomerate Bertelsmann AG, launched its online selling venture without fanfare this year, offering its entire catalog of titles in print.

It is giving no discounts, will not waive shipping and handling charges and only will send books to U.S. addresses.

Simon & Schuster, the book publishing arm of media conglomerate Viacom Inc., followed suit in September.

"We're happy with how it's been going," spokesman Adam Rothberg said. "We never expected it would create an avalanche of sales, but it would have been foolish to pass up the opportunity to let visitors to our site buy a book they came to find out about.

"We feel like we're offering a service and the immediate gratification to order the book right there and then."

Amazon.com declined to comment and Barnes & Noble officials could not immediately be reached.

Romance novel publisher Harlequin was an early adapter, first selling directly in the nascent days of the Internet in 1995, the same year Jeff Bezos started Amazon.com.

Since rebranding the site on Valentine's Day 2000, eHarlequin.com has sold millions of books with such racy titles as "Incriminating Passion" and "Silent Desires."

Unlike its rivals, Ontario-based Harlequin does offer a 20 percent discount on all titles and in some cases free shipping.

But like other publishers, Harlequin prefers to shift the Internet conversation to other elements of its Web site, downplaying the notion that it might be poaching customers from the online retailers with whom it partners, and boosting its own profit margins in the process.

"I don't think retailers are threatened by us at all," Harlequin spokeswoman Katherine Orr said. "And they shouldn't be."
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsAr...archived=False





Bloggers Will Interpret News - for a Fee
Frank Bajak

Bloggers live or die by their wits - and that especially includes those who try to make a business of it.

No one is as acutely aware of that as Mike Masnick, chief executive of Techdirt Inc., a 12-person corporate intelligence service best known for its no-holds-barred public Web journal, or blog, that comments continuously on tech industry developments.

Masnick's 5-year-old enterprise, which grew out of an idea he developed while a student at Cornell in the 1990s, distills and interprets tech news for such corporate customers as Volkswagen AG and VeriSign Inc.

Now, the Belmont, Calif., company has a new customized service that Masnick dubbed InfoAdvisor because it delivers tailored Web feeds from news outlets and blogs pertinent to a customer's interest.

The key: Masnick's corral of geeks - journalists, analysts and engineers - edit those feeds and provide their expert commentary, telling you who and what to trust. Traditional media mostly had a lock on that market before the Internet let loose an information flood.

"There's so much information out there that a lot of you are spending too much time keeping up with things and not doing important things - like your job," Masnick told participants in the Blog On social networking conference this week.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...CTION=BUSINESS





A Global Information System Needs A Culture Of Sharing
Arthur Carty

Few would question the important role that science, technology and innovation have played in building today’s knowledge society. However, “science” in the 21st century is very different from what it was 50 or even 10 years ago. Science is increasingly international and interdisciplinary; it often crosses traditional barriers of institutions, geography, language and culture. State-of-the-art research involves creating and using data sets of unprecedented size and complexity. With the world looking to science to find solutions to global problems, the need to safeguard, evaluate and exchange information and knowledge has never been more pressing.

Scientists have a long tradition of collaborating and sharing their research results through peer-reviewed journals. Over the last decade, the Internet has speeded up and greatly expanded the research communication system. This evolving system will ensure that the knowledge generated through science – our investment in the future – can be used effectively to tackle the most fundamental problems facing our society.

So, what is Canada’s vision for a 21st-century global system for disseminating and communicating research data? Above all, our goal must be to maximize the impact of research for societies everywhere, not just the developed world. People in developing nations must be able to access and contribute to the vitality of the global research information and communications system. An open-access philosophy is critical to the system’s success: if research findings and knowledge are to be built upon and used by other scientists, then this knowledge must be widely available on the web, not just stored in published journals that are often expensive and not universally available.

From a Canadian perspective, a 21st century research communications system would share certain attributes. It would:

· take full advantage of the enormous potential of new information and communication technologies;
· be capable of handling an unprecedented flow of information in a wide variety of formats;
· bring Canadian research knowledge to the world and bring the world’s research knowledge to Canada;
· be accessible by all Canadians, in all sectors, ensuring that public investment in scientific research leads to wealth creation and improvements in social and cultural well-being.

With this type of system a researcher could access, from any corner of the globe, the full texts of relevant journal articles; a comprehensive set of monographs and theses; research data sets that underlie published outcomes; research reports and non-peer-reviewed research materials from both academia and government; and the electronic tools necessary to manage this volume of material.

Creating a system with these attributes is no longer just a question of developing appropriate technologies; for the most part these already exist. Rather, it’s a matter of building, integrating and improving the technical infrastructure, operational standards, research support systems, regulations and institutional roles and responsibilities. It’s also a matter of nurturing a culture of open access and sharing, beyond what researchers have ever embraced.

Canada is fortunate to have a number of key building blocks in place to facilitate the development of such a system. These include a network of institutional repositories at 26 university research libraries linked by regional initiatives, such as the Ontario Scholars Portal, and a national repository through the National Research Council’s Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information (CISTI). We have a high-capacity optical data pipeline connecting our universities in CANARIE’s Ca*net4, and a leading online publisher in the Quebec-based non-profit service Érudit.

We still face challenges in building our infrastructure. We need to break down institutional silos, update our regulatory frameworks, help stakeholders become more familiar with new communication channels, and provide adequate training and funding for all this to happen.

Building an effective global information system consists both of this infrastructure and perhaps more importantly a culture of open access and sharing. This is harder to build than the nuts and bolts of the system because it requires a new mindset among researchers, administrators, governments and in some cases companies – everyone involved in the creation and dissemination of knowledge.

This past year has seen a major change in the way two important funders of health research do business. The National Institutes of Health in the United States and the Wellcome Trust in the United Kingdom both announced that all research that they fund must be archived in a free repository that’s accessible by other scientists and the public.

However, filling archives, though necessary, will not be able to change the mindset of people in the research enterprise. We have to find ways to motivate researchers in all countries to preserve and exchange their research data, to publish their findings in open access journals and to deposit their published articles in institutional repositories. Granting agencies, governments and institutions must find ways to reward researchers for the real value of their collaborative work and state-of-the-art data management. Institutions, too, need to know that their investments in expanding and improving the quality of their data archives and open-access repositories are recognized as measurable scientific outputs.

Some of these issues will be broached at the World Information Summit taking place this month in Turin, Italy. Canada has to articulate a vision to meet the challenges outlined above. Unless we act, the unprecedented volume of research information will become too difficult to manage, and highly valuable research data will be lost, along with the public investment in our future.

Dr. Carty is national science adviser to the Prime Minister.
http://www.universityaffairs.ca/issu...pinion_01.html





Net Pirates Will Face Stiffer Punishment
Declan McCullagh

Internet pirates with prerelease movies in their shared folders will face stiffer federal penalties starting Monday.

The U.S. Sentencing Commission on Wednesday approved an emergency set of rules that would boost prison sentences by roughly 40 percent for people convicted of peer- to-peer infringement of copyright works "being prepared for commercial distribution."

The changes also say judges may "estimate" the number of files shared for purposes of determining the appropriate fine and sentence. Larger numbers typically yield longer sentences.

This week's sentencing adjustments arose from a law that President Bush signed in April called the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act. It gave the commission 180 days to revisit its rules to make them "sufficiently stringent to deter, and adequately reflect the nature of, intellectual property rights crimes."

The law was supported by major media organizations, including the Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry Association of America. It imposes fines of up to $250,000 and prison terms of up to three years, regardless of whether any downloading of a prerelease work took place.

Another change in the sentencing guidelines alters the definition of "uploading" to make it clear that merely having a copyright file available in a shared folder--such as those used by popular file-swapping programs like Kazaa and BearShare--can count as illegal distribution.

Fred von Lohmann, an attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco, warned that permitting courts to estimate the magnitude of a copyright infringement could prove problematic. "In civil copyright cases I would insist that the plaintiff prove the precise number of the works infringed," von Lohmann said. "It would be grossly unfair to let a court simply guess."

Under U.S. sentencing guidelines (PDF), the base offense level for uploading infringing files is 12 but can be reduced to 10 if it is noncommercial copyright infringement. The commission's emergency amendment adds two points to the offense level, boosting a typical sentence from six to 12 months to between 10 and 16 months if the person had no prior criminal history.

Last month, Curtis Salisbury, 19, pleaded guilty to violating the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act. Sentencing is scheduled to take place in a San Jose, Calif., federal court Feb. 27.
http://www.nytimes.com/cnet/CNET_210...3-5905183.html


















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