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Old 25-03-04, 08:05 PM   #1
JackSpratts
 
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Join Date: May 2001
Location: New England
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Default Peer-To-Peer News - The Week In Review - March 27th, '04

Quotes Of The Week

"They can continue burying their head in the ground and denying the popularity of peer to peer to their customers, but they do so at their own peril." Gigi B. Sohn.

"It's going to really backfire. They have not figured out how to integrate this revolutionary new medium into their business models. And the clock is ticking - tick, tick, tick." - Donna L. Hoffman.

"It's being strategic about the records that you release, and how you release them, that will have the most impact on the business." - Capitol Records President Andrew Slater.

"I have the strong impression it wasn't done with the care and consideration you have described. I think it's a bit of a mess." – Australian Judge Murray Wilcox, referring to the raids he himself ordered against the homes of Sharman File Sharing and ISP executives.

"Today's outcome vindicates our position - that the seizure of materials using the Anton Piller order was heavy handed, unnecessary and indicative of the recording industry's increasing desperation to crush peer-to-peer technology." – Sharman’s Nikki Hemming.






The Zer0Share Project

Here at Napsterites the members are no strangers to file sharing. With a name like Napsterites I may be running the risk of stating the obvious but the familiarity with peer-to-peer networking goes beyond that of the committed enthusiast. Indeed were it not for our members there might not be any peer-to-peer at all. Their lists of accomplishments in the industry is substantial, from work on the original Napster and KaZaa right up through new systems still in the lab. That the boards here reflect mostly social activities is much like a lake on a bright summer day. The water sparkles with invitation but is hard to see through, so it's not until one plunges in that one gets the full measure of the environment. Things in other words are happening beneath the surface. Don't get me wrong. I'm not implying that Napsterites is some hot bed of file sharing intrigue, quite the opposite. Once one gets to know the members they can be very forthcoming about their work, it's just that like many things in life, there are levels of existence that at first glance may be somewhat obscured by more prosaic activities.

I've been thinking about this lately in relationship to file sharing and specifically in relationship to a program called Waste. While not to my knowledge developed by anyone at Napsterites it has been invited and accepted by NU members with enthusiasm, running virtually non stop since the first week it was released in June of 2003. I can't count the number of networks we have connecting members here, not so much because of the sheer volume of them, and there are plenty, but because Waste is a program designed from the start to be stealthy, and unless you're invited into a specific network called a "mesh," you're not going to know of its existence, even if you're already operating on another one. This is a big departure from file sharing programs and as you can imagine, it's one of the most important features Waste offers the user, particularly in these days of uncontrolled legal weaponry aimed at file sharers by an increasingly pathological media industry. Imagine pockets of resistance populated by content rich, free-sharing users hidden from view and scattered across the globe and you'll have some idea what Waste is about. Though small, with each mesh maxing out at some 50 members, the aggregate is surprisingly vast. But there's the rub, it is by design a disconnected aggregate and to a large extent socially balkanized. Nobody knows what anybody else is doing on these meshes, which from a security standpoint is reasonable, even laudable, but from a societal standpoint it is in my view a step backwards, and a shortcoming I'd like to address.

As of this writing I am a member of an even dozen meshes, most of them small and only occasionally active, but there are four that I connect to each day, and of those four one is of a fairly substantial size. I'm about to add another. Or more specifically, with your assistance, we're about to create another. One with a very different mission.

As someone who has become familiar with this program over many months of usage a couple of things become apparent. The first is that most meshes are simply too small to catch fire. Initial excitement at being able to connect at all leads to determined content mining which leads inevitably to content exhaustion, and one reaches that point in time fairly quickly, when one has transferred all the material worth acquiring from the various mesh members. I am on some fairly substantial ones, content wise, yet I can close my eyes and see all the folders each member has and the names of the files contained therein. It's not to say that new material isn't added, it is, but in the course of human events it's slow process, this adding of stuff, and one can easily become distracted from the quest. Which brings me to the second point. After a while you stop looking. It's true. Unlike gigantic file sharing systems with hundreds of thousands of users and multi terabytes of material, a humble Waste mesh may have a few hundred gigs at most, or perhaps a terabyte or two. After plumbing the depths on a daily basis for a few weeks one can become attuned to the natural rhythms of the acquisitional cycle of the membership and realize from an efficiency angle anyway, you can't really check in each day with a folder by folder census and expect any kind of major payoff. In other words without the excitement of the always new, one can get well, bored. This of course is not news to experienced Waste users and they all seem to do the same thing about it no matter what mesh you happen to find yourself in. As a matter of fact it can happen the very first time someone uses the program. Waste happens to have excellent, encrypted decentralized chat. It's all but uncrackable and it's under no one's control. This isn't lost on Waste users and they immediately put it to fantastic use notifying fellow file sharers of any new content they may have recently added. Conversely users also post requests for content as well. There's a lot of back and forth when the itch gets bad. This brings up another observation. Like an iceberg, most content in the hands of Waste users is not actually on Waste, but parked elsewhere in other files, discs, folders harddrives or machines otherwise inaccessible by the network search function, but not entirely by members. A simply query will bring about the transfer when one member responds by putting online something that had been parked off, in essence filling an order. This is how it should be in any network where storage and bandwidth are rationed, and indeed name me a network that isn't. The difference with Waste is that the chat functions are so efficient and so good they become dependably a part of the file sharing scheme acting like an uberdrive for the entire network. The interface is human of course, one has to query the owner directly, but it is no exaggeration to say you can get it faster using this system than with fasttrack or, and I hate to say this, Soulseek, my favorite regular file sharing program. I'm not kidding. In my experience if it's available anywhere in any mesh member's possession, online or off, you can get it faster with Waste than with any other program.

What this means is that for all practical purposes after a certain amount of time has passed, one doesn't need to share anything anymore in the normal sense, with folders bursting with tons of content instantly at the ready and hogging untold gigs on pricey harddrives. You don't have to because nobody needs it. If it's up they've either 1, already gotten it or 2, they don't want it. Either way, it's taking up space unnecessarily. It becomes like the famous dog in the Sherlock Holmes story, important for it's absence. We know the goods are offline, we don't need to see what's on. We do need to know when something new arrives and as long as we can get access we don't need to know if the folder it comes in is offline or on. All things being equal of course you might say well so what, you have to put the stuff somewhere so why not just leave it online, members can at least get it faster that way and besides, what difference does it make if it's online or not? Hardrives keep getting bigger and cheaper too, it's not like Waste charges a storage fee by the month. Well, if keeping it online didn't make any difference you'd be right, but as we're finding out, it makes a huge difference, in the eyes of the law. Due to some albeit temporary legal pathology that hasn't worked itself out of the collective cultural consciousness it turns out some poor bastards have been finding themselves in quite a financial spot just leaving digital stuff lying around for any and everyone to stumble over. I know it sounds funny, blaming the victim and all but the copyright laws have been interpreted to suggest that in matters of information, if somebody comes into your house and copies your copyrighted stuff without the permission of the copyright claimant, you’re violating a statute, not the copiers. This is a somewhat simple explanation for a maddeningly complicated issue that even experts have trouble following but basically if you had a store and every time somebody shoplifted your stuff the cops sent you to jail it would be a pretty good analogy how the law - so far - treats downloading. Unfair? You bet. But that's the way it is at the moment. Suffice it to say, for our purposes, there is a huge difference between keeping files instantly available online and keeping them generally available off. It's not that the law appreciates the difference mind you; it's just that if one is going to participate in file sharing the tactical advantage enjoyed in keeping an offline archive is profound. Which brings us back to Waste.

My proposal is a simple one. I would like to start a file sharing network with no files. A sort of nullwork if you will for Waste users. More specifically, I would like to start a Waste mesh that does not contain any remotely accessible copyrighted content that is not under the ownership of the membership. No songs, no movies, no warez. It can actually contain gigs and gigs of downloadable material. As long as it's member created or is distributable with permission fine but if not, it won't belong. Leave that material on the other networks, and there are plenty of them out there believe me. I might be responsible for helping kick off a few of them. But this one will be different. Depending on member’s ambitions it will have rooms, chat, 24 hour socializing, quiet corners and rowdy saloons, but it won't have any copyrighted content. None. It'll have so little content that if the RIAA happens to stop by they'll leave at the first opportunity because their presence will be a complete waste of time.

If there's no content, why bother? Well first of all it just so happens you can do a lot with a mesh even if you're not sharing songs. Users new to Waste can become familiar with the program in an open environment free from any controversy, which in itself is a kind of liberation. They can introduce others to the program in a neutral way, and walk themselves through the steps that enable them to create their own meshes for friends and family. They can use the chat functions like any other system, free in the knowledge that no one's looking over their shoulder reading every word. More experienced users can use it for more complex things. Developers may find it useful for new projects and to test newer versions of Waste, which is now open source. It can become a clearinghouse for all sorts of information, from politics to local events. Since some Europeans have erroneously concluded links are the same as content, link sites are falling by the wayside, so it can and probably will become a place to exchange them. It should although I'm not sure that it will, become a place for artists to announce and distribute their own works. It's been five years since Napster proved conclusively that artists can control their destiny and do their own mass distributing, yet to this day artists still cling tenaciously to outdated media company models and in doing so help perpetuate a system that at once enslaves them and corrupts any and all it touches. This mesh will not end the practice, but it may show some artists there is another way, and they in turn may become emissaries to the larger creative community, and that may prove to be an important step in their own emancipation. In technical terms Waste is not a "resource hog", people can and do leave it on all day long, even several mashes simultaneously without experiencing a drain on their computers. It may be that this new mesh becomes a sort of permanent community ticker, like the news zipper at Times Square in New York City, idling quietly in a corner of the screen and occasionally announcing events of interest, unmanipulated by corporate profit machines. A true people's network. I can't even begin to think of all the things this mesh might be capable of in the weeks and months ahead, and it's not from lack of trying. I just realize the futility of competing with a million minds.

I know that the time has come to start something new. Something a lot bigger than file sharing, and maybe something a little bigger than ourselves.

To that end I’ve gotten the ball rolling as it were. I’ve started the mesh, given it a name and put up a thread at P2P-Zone. I’ve also placed in my share folder some 600 works from the public domain. You will find that thread here.

Waste may be a funny name for a program that is anything but, that brings together people from all over the world in a corporate free, protected cybersphere. Justin Frankel its creator, is said to have chosen the name after the underground mail system in Thomas Pynchon's book The Crying of Lot 57. In a society of extreme repression, this was how members were forced to communicate if they wanted their words to remain unmolested. That was fiction of course. Still, without rearticulating the planet's immediate geopolitical history and the headlines thus created, it probably wouldn't be the worst idea in the world if more of us became familiar with such a system, and one that's actually real. Well, here's our chance.

Pass it on,










Enjoy,

Jack -

The Zer0Share Project.










More Lawsuits Filed in Effort to Thwart File Sharing
John Schwartz

The music industry announced a new round of lawsuits yesterday against 532 people accused of illegal file sharing, including people at 21 universities.

"We just put a little more focus on the users of university networks so it's clear that everybody is potentially responsible for infringing acts online," said Cary Sherman, the president of the Recording Industry Association of America, which filed the suits on behalf of record companies.

Swapping music online continues to grow worldwide, though awareness in the United States that there could be legal consequences has grown as well. At the same time, legitimate online music stores from Apple Computer and RealNetworks have emerged, and others are on the way. Apple has sold more than 50 million songs, and Wal-Mart announced its own online music store yesterday.

Of the 532 people accused of illegal file sharing by the industry, 89 were using networks at universities including New York University, Stanford, Georgetown and Vanderbilt. The others used commercial Internet service providers to reach the Internet. Yesterday's new cases bring the number of people sued by the industry to nearly 2,000.

By taking their lawsuits to the universities, the industry is going to the earliest hot spots for file sharing. College students took advantage of high-speed Internet access to bring about the initial Napster revolution, identified by the name of the company whose file-sharing software was first widely used to share music files online. After an initial round of lawsuits by the industry to shut down those file-sharing networks, many universities started education programs and issued restrictions on Internet use.

The industry's method of tracking file-trading activity does not disclose the identity of traders, but it can identify an Internet Protocol number that can often be traced back to an individual user by an Internet service provider. The industry is using a process known as "John Doe" litigation to sue people whose names are not known, using subpoenas to force the providers of Internet service to disclose the defendants' identities.

Representatives of New York University and Vanderbilt said yesterday that they had not seen the subpoenas and could not comment. At Stanford, Debra L. Zumwalt, the university's general counsel, said that if the subpoenas met legal requirements, the university would cooperate. "We believe in intellectual property rights and obeying the law," she said.

Ms. Zumwalt also noted that Stanford sent a memorandum to all students, faculty and staff members last year warning against illicit file trading that said, in part, "Sharing music, videos, software and other copyrighted material in violation of copyright laws may expose you and others to significant legal and university sanctions."

Those involved in the online music wars said that the industry move was disappointing but not surprising. Cindy Cohn, the legal director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, criticized the industry's continued pursuit of lawsuits.

"The R.I.A.A.'s crusade against file sharing is turning out to be a great boon to trial lawyers nationwide - unfortunately, it's continuing to wreak havoc on ordinary people nationwide as well," she said.

Gigi B. Sohn, the president of Public Knowledge, a policy organization in Washington that focuses on intellectual property issues, said that it was time for the industry's litigation strategy to give way to a more positive effort to encourage legitimate file sharing and even to develop businesses based on the technology.

"They can continue burying their head in the ground and denying the popularity of peer to peer to their customers, but they do so at their own peril," Ms. Sohn said.

"While I'm sympathetic to the problem they have protecting copyrights, they haven't done enough to get people off of illegal systems."

An expert in online business at Vanderbilt University agreed. "It's going to really backfire," said Donna L. Hoffman, a co-founder of the university's eLab research center. "They have not figured out how to integrate this revolutionary new medium into their business models. And the clock is ticking - tick, tick, tick."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/24/te...y/24music.html


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Record Industry Sues 532 Downloaders In Colo., Other States
Alex Veiga

The recording industry sued 532 people today in Colorado and several other states, including scores of individuals using computer networks at 21 universities, claiming they were illegally sharing digital music files over the Internet.

The latest wave of copyright lawsuits brought by the Recording Industry Association of America on behalf of recording companies marks the first time the trade group has targeted computer users swapping music files over university networks.

The RIAA filed the "John Doe" complaints against 89 individuals using networks at universities in Colorado as well as Arizona, California, New York, Indiana, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Wisconsin and Washington.

Lawsuits were also filed against 443 people using commercial Internet access providers in Colorado, California, Missouri, Texas and Virginia.

The recording group did not name which Internet access providers the defendants were using.
http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,...036562,00.html


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“Mmm, cereal uploading!”

BPI Launch Legal Action Against P2P Users

The British Phonographic Industry is set to following the RIAA as they launch a new campaign threatening legal action against people who illegally use P2P or uploading music to the internet.

Its the first move by an industry trade association outside the US.

The BPI plan to send instant messages to peer-to-peer filesharing networks warning users that if they do not stop they may face legal action.

The message will warn that offering music to others is illegal without permission of the copyright owner “Such actions damage everyone involved in creating and investing in music,” the message staes.

The BPI do stresses it will be focusing its campaign on heavy uploaders and not individual downloaders.

“The target of this campaign is the serial uploader,” says BPI executive chairman Peter Jamieson. “These are people making available literally hundreds and sometimes thousands of files available to allcomers.”
http://www.dancefrontdoor.co.uk/article2767.html


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Search 'Mess' Leads To Kazaa Delay
Simon Hayes

THE music industry will have to wait until at least May before being granted access to material siezed in raids on the headquarters of peer-to-peer network Kazaa, with a Federal Court judge describing the execution of civil search orders as "a bit of a mess".

Justice Wilcox ordered the material - including documents and computer files siezed in raids on the office of Kazaa owner Sharman Networks and the homes of several key executives - be held until a hearing in May.

He rejected an application by counsel for Sharman Networks to have proceedings stayed pending an application for leave to appeal against the orders. That application is not likely to be heard until August.

Justice Wilcox ordered the documents be sorted after claims some irrelevant material was taken during the raids, with an independent solicitor and a forensics expert to oversee that process. The sorting process would ensure only documents covered by his orders was included in the siezed material, he said.

"I have the strong impression it wasn't done with the care and consideration you have described," he said of the search process. "I think it's a bit of a mess."

While the music industry has agreed the documents be sorted, the orders are a blow given it had sought immediate access to the sorted documents, arguing the material was essential in determining how Kazaa worked.

But Justice Wilcox declined to make that order.

"Once we have access to more detailed (information) we may talk about a plan (for access)," he said.

"There's a lot to be said for the view that it should be part of the discovery process."

It is likely lawyers representing Sharman will attempt to postpone that access until after the company's appeal is heard.

"We would seek a stay of access (to the documents) until our appeal rights are exhausted," counsel for Sharman Francis Douglas QC said outside the court.

Justice Wilcox ordered five other respondents - US companies Altnet Inc and Brilliant Digital Entertainment Inc, Brilliant Digital Entertainment Pty Ltd, Brilliant Digital chief executive Kevin Glen Bermeister and employee Anthony Rose - be added to the action.

Proceedings were stood over until May 14.
http://www.news.com.au/common/story_...E15306,00.html


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Music Industry Fails to Obtain Access to Material
Sharman Press Release

Justice Wilcox of the Federal Court of Australia today gave directions to "sort out" the material seized at the premises of Sharman Networks, owner and distributor of the Kazaa file sharing application.

In doing so, Justice Wilcox acknowledged that Anton Piller orders are about preserving evidence and stated the recording industry would not be obtaining access to any of the material seized at this time. The directions give Sharman and other parties raided an opportunity to review the material and identify irrelevant and privileged material, which falls outside the Anton Piller order. This process will take place in consultation with independent solicitors, a forensic expert and solicitors representing both sides.

In handing down his decision, Justice Wilcox told the applicants they were "flogging a dead horse" in their attempts to get immediate access to material currently being held by an independent law firm.

"Today's outcome vindicates our position - that the seizure of materials using the Anton Piller order was heavy handed, unnecessary and indicative of the recording industry's increasing desperation to crush peer-to-peer technology," stated Nikki Hemming, CEO of Sharman Networks. ''We have complied fully in US proceedings and will continue to do so this case under appropriate legal procedures.

"We are pleased with the outcome of today's decision and are continuing to prepare our applications for leave to appeal," stated lawyers for Sharman Networks.
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/st...2004,+03:57+AM


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Forget The Spin! It's A Record Record
Peter Martin

The Australian recording industry should be congratulating itself. Both for pushing CD sales to an all-time record high and for keeping this fact out of the initial news reports.

The announcement from ARIA is (perhaps deliberately) hard to read.

For one thing, there are no comparisons with past sales going back more than a year.

But late last year ARIA blessed me with a spreadsheet showing sales by category going back to 1982.

Reading that, together with its latest press release, it is clear that:

Total sales (in all formats) climbed to a record high in 2003: 65.6 million, easily topping the previous record of 63.9 million set in 2001.

And the sales of actual CD albums climbed above 50 million for the first time (well above 50 million actually).

It's a real cause for celebration. Back before the advent of Napster and home CD burning the industry was selling fewer than 40 million CD albums per year.

In its announcement ARIA makes much of a decline in the sales of its (reportedly unprofitable) CD singles - down from 11.3 million to 9.4 million.

But if the industry reflected for a moment - it might see this as a good thing. CD singles were never an end in themselves. They were a promotional device - designed to feed listeners into buying the entire album.

Music downloads may be (slowly) replacing the CD single in this role.

They appear to do it much better (creating record sales of CD albums) - at virtually no cost to the record companies themselves!

The industry has fought, it has screamed, it has arrested, it has litigated. But it may just be stuck with the best device for promoting its product it never wanted invented.
http://petermartin.blogspot.com/


Listen to Peter Martin discuss the rising sales on Triple J’s Hack, ABC radio’s current affairs half hour news and information program from Australia, you’ll also hear a convoluted denial from Steven Peach, CEO of the ARIA.


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File Traders Face Jail Time, Fines with California Law
Jay Lyman

"This is a natural extension of what's on the books for hard goods - - DVDs and videocassettes -- in virtually every state," MPAA senior vice president of state legislative affairs Vans Stevenson told TechNewsWorld.

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Internet civil libertarians are raising red flags over parallel bills in the California state legislature that would punish file traders of copyrighted materials with up to a year in jail, US$2,500 in fines or both if the users do not provide their real names and addresses with the title of the work.

A California State Senate bill introduced by Sen. Kevin Murray (D-Los Angeles) -- the same lawmaker who authored and promoted California's spam law that punishes illegal spammers with up to $1 million in fines per incident -- and a corresponding California Assembly bill from Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) both would impose the penalties on Internet users who share commercial recordings or audiovisual work electronically.

Electronic Frontier Foundation legal director Cindy Cohn said the bills -- which she described as "incredibly corrosive to basic privacy and security" -- would require even children to offer their names and addresses to share something that might arguably be fair use of a copyrighted work.

"The bills are essentially trying to create criminal liability for sharing even a single commercial audio or visual work on the state level -- something that was denied on the federal level," Cohn told TechNewsWorld.

Painful P2P Penalties

Cohn indicated the biggest concerns about the legislation center on its harsh penalties and its potential effect on anonymity, which historically has been preserved on the Internet.

"As a society, do we really want to give people a year in prison for sharing a single song?" she asked.

Cohn added that the bills are "counterproductive to privacy" in their requirement for users, including children, to share real names and addresses. She said the bills contradict policy goals designed to prevent the growing problems associated with identity theft, spam and protection of children's identities.

"All of the other customs and precedents on the Internet go the other direction," she said. "Here, California is mandating that minors provide [names and addresses]."

Natural Extension of Law

Both bills are sponsored by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), which contends that storing of a copyrighted work on a shared hard drive is the same thing as theft of a DVD from a brick-and-mortar store.

The movie industry group also claims the legislation is a normal state-level legal supplement to federal copyright law, which prohibits electronic sharing of protected works.

"This is a natural extension of what's on the books for hard goods -- DVDs and videocassettes -- in virtually every state," MPAA senior vice president of state legislative affairs Vans Stevenson told TechNewsWorld.

Failing Business Model

However, critics of such legislation and of the music, movie and entertainment industries' legal efforts to crack down on peer-to-peer (P2P) Internet file-trading sites and services repeatedly have pointed to U.S. and other court rulings that have found them to be legal.

Cohn said "fair use" allowances for sharing copyrighted materials -- such as a parody -- are in jeopardy because of the proposed California legislation.

The MPAA's Stevenson took issue with the idea of fair use as a right, telling TechNewsWorld that it is only a defense against charges of copyright infringement. "I can bring a case against anybody," he said.

Cohn -- who questioned the need for such legislation when copyright holders such as the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) claim their lawsuits against individual file traders are working -- said the real copyright issue lies in the entertainment industry's effort to hold on to its old way of doing business.

"The problem is that the entertainment companies are trying to force a rejected business model down the throats of their fans," she said. "The realistic thing is people aren't going to abide by this law, and then, suddenly, everyone will be a criminal."
http://www.technewsworld.com/perl/story/33174.html


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Fox Fires 2 After Finding Film Downloads on Server
Patrick Day

Two employees of Fox Entertainment Group have been terminated after the company's discovery of illegally downloaded movies and software on a Fox computer network server.

The titles found on the server included "Bringing Down the House," "Daddy Day Care," "Old School," "Daredevil," "Deliver Us From Eva," "The Matrix Reloaded" and "X2: X-Men United."

Lisa Yamamoto, an employee of the company's information technology department, was linked to use of the server after the in-house investigation of an unrelated computer security issue in November 2003, according to an affidavit posted to the Smoking Gun website.

Fox alerted federal authorities, who traced access of the server to Yamamoto's Los Angeles apartment, according to the affidavit, which was verified by investigators. Agents searched her apartment last month and seized computer equipment.

Kevin Sarna, identified in the affidavit as a Fox contract employee, was also terminated in connection with the investigation, according to a person familiar with the case. Neither has been formally charged, although Fox said in a statement that it intended to prosecute any individuals implicated in the case.

"We are outraged that individuals within our own company not only engaged in this behavior but also used our technology to do so," Fox said in a statement released Wednesday afternoon.

Yamamoto and Sarna could not be reached for comment.

James Todak, the Secret Service deputy special agent in charge, said the investigation was ongoing.

Yamamoto and Sarna allegedly were members of an online "warez" file-sharing group. Such groups compete "to gain a reputation as the fastest, highest quality, free provider of pirated computer software … and DVD movies," according to the search warrant affidavit.

Fox's antipiracy team was able to identify 14 movies — not all Fox films — available for other members of the "warez" group to download for free from the Fox server.
http://www.latimes.com/technology/la...,4351880.story


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Korean Controversy Erupts Over Online Political Parodies
Kim Rahn

The arrest of a university student Tuesday for circulating images on the Internet parodying opposition parties and their leaders has sparked a backlash from netizens who believe the police are limiting their freedom of expression.

Police arrested a 21-year-old college student, identified as Kwon, on charges of posting on his homepage and other 14 Web sites manipulated images indicating that the opposition parties would lose April 15 general elections.

Some 70 circulated images include a parody of an online game Starcraft that portrays opposition parties’ defeat by the Uri Party. Another image changes the words from a cartoon published in a sports daily to show the chairmen of the opposition parties as homeless after losing the elections.

Online debate has been running hot since the opposition parties’ impeachment of President Roh Moo-hyun ahead of the April 15 general elections.

Police said Kwon is charged with publicizing false information. ``Kwon’s parodies conclude that the opposition leaders become homeless after losing the elections and Roh returns to office with the Constitutional Court’s dismissal of the impeachment. It is false information aiming to prevent opposition parties in the upcoming election,’’ police said.

Kwon violated the election law by posting the pictures on several Internet sites other than his own and letting other users download the images, the police said.

With the revision of election laws on March 12, the National Election Commission (NEC) has gained more authority to regulate violations on the Internet, demanding Internet service providers to provide the names, addresses and registration numbers of suspects.

The election watchdog earlier announced that it will regulate all words and images which attack specific candidates. It plans to shut down Web sites carrying such content.

However, these moves and Kwon’s arrest have drawn a huge backlash from Internet users. They argue police can’t apply the election law to Kwon as his images satirized the whole political arena, not specific politicians.

They also claim that a crackdown on parodying the present political situation and social issues infringes on freedom of expression.

Internet users are developing countermeasures to enable people to post manipulated images without violating the election law, such as naming politicians or the Assembly with aliases or argots and using other people’s IP addresses.

``People who post manipulated images on the Web merely express their opinions on political issues rather than aim at seating or unseating specific politicians in the April polls,’’ said Choi Nae-hyun, editor-in-chief of Web site Mediamob. ``In these times when even the NEC collects publicly parody posters to boost voting for the election, charging Internet users for expressing their opinions is nothing but oppressing free participation in politics.’’
http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/nati...6522011980.htm


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Massive German Sweep Targets Pirates
John Borland

German authorities conducted raids on more than 750 locations on Tuesday and Thursday this week, seeking evidence of Internet movie piracy operations.

The raids resulted in more than 15 detentions and confiscation of 19 servers, more than 40,000 CD-Rs and DVD-Rs, and more than 200 computers, according to the Motion Picture Association of America. Authorities' two- year investigation targeted online and offline distributors, Net-based "release groups," and a group that had hacked into university and corporate computers to store movie files.
http://news.com.com/2110-1025_3-5175777.html


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Neo-Nazi Music Sharers Raided
Reuters

German police have raided the homes of more than 300 people who they suspect of posting neo-Nazi music files on the Internet for others to download, the Federal Crime Office says.

Police said the nationwide raids on Wednesday followed investigations into 342 people who had posted songs by skinhead bands on the Internet. The songs contained lyrics inciting racial hatred, the crime agency said.

Police said they would carry out 333 raids by the end of Wednesday at the homes of people who posted songs on a music sharing Web site.

"Inciting racial hatred is more than just a petty crime," said Federal Crime Office President Joerg Ziercke. "Skinhead music groups create an enemy image and help propagate extreme right ideas."

Inciting racial hatred, displaying Nazi emblems like the swastika and performing the stiff-armed Hitler salute used under Adolf Hitler are crimes punishable by imprisonment in Germany, the country which carried out the Holocaust.

The Federal Crime Office started clamping down on Internet trading of music inciting neo-Nazis to hate and attack Jews and foreigners in 2001.

The songs convey Nazi ideology and contain lyrics such as these from the group Tonstoerung (Sound Interruption):

"Sharpen your long knives on the pavements;

delve them into Jewish bodies."

More than 100 people have been killed in racist violence in Germany since unification in 1990. Most of the attacks are random and involve skinheads picking on foreigners in the street.

Property has also been attacked. Swastikas have been daubed on Jewish gravestones, bricks thrown at Turkish kebab shops and firebombs hurled at asylum hostels. Most synagogues have 24-hour police guards.
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/040324/80/epdwr.html


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Music Giant Targets New Zealand Laws

The music industry is outraged that the government is considering making it legal for people to copy a CD they've bought.

The proposal is being considered by the government as part of a review of digital technology under the Copyright Act.

Associate Minister of Commerce Judith Tizard says the proposed amendment would allow one person to make one copy of their CDs.

But one of the world's biggest record companies, Universal Music, says only record companies can decide who can copy their music.

Its local managing director, Adam Holt, says it should remain illegal to make copies of any music CD.

Universal has recently moved to combat music trading over the internet by offering pay-per-download music tracks for $1.52 per song.
http://onenews.nzoom.com/onenews_det...57-1-7,00.html


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Skype vs. FBI?
Leigh Phillips

P2P telephony company Skype has announced it has added a conference-calling feature to its P2P telephony software in its latest beta version. Cool, cool.

The company says that this latest feature is free to download, as is the rest of the system, which offers free telephony over decentralised, Kazaa-style broadband peer-to-peer networks. However, with the company’s business model predicated on up-selling users to premium services like call-waiting and voice-mail, expect the new conference-calling feature to migrate over to the fee-for- service side of the ledger at some point in the future.

Skype is an interesting venture: just as P2P file-sharing is driving broadband uptake, P2P telephony, so long as it can begin to deliver comparable or superior sound quality to fixed-line, could be another string in broadband penetration’s bow. Further, if Skype takes off virally as P2P music downloading has, then traditional telcos should be as concerned about the Estonia-based company as record companies are of Skype’s file-sharing cousins (indeed, the Swede who devised Kazaa is the guy who’s behind Skype).

However, there could still be a couple of potholes in the road for Skype. First of all is the delivery of voice services over MSN and Yahoo’s instant messaging products - something that surely must be on their way sometime in the next year. The market dominance of the two internet giants means that a voice IM product from either one could eclipse the still relatively unknown Skype. The question is: Does Skype have the momentum to establish or maintain itself beyond the advent of such competition?

The second bit of bother for the company - although at the moment this is more of a concern to different VoIP and other non- traditional communications providers in the US - is the demand by US authorities that online communications providers comply with wiretapping laws.

The US department of justice, the FBI and the DEA last week requested a clarification of 1994’s wiretap law, the Communications Assistance to Law Enforcement Act (CALEA), and are seeking a ruling that internet service providers and, indeed, any non- traditional communications service providers (Xbox Live anyone?) must provide a back-door to communications for law enforcement purposes.

Now, Skype’s services, it seems, are just not wiretapable. Calls are end-to-end encrypted. Skype itself has no access to the data stream. In the old days, the flatfoots would just call up the local telephone company and get a tap, which was no problem because the telco owned the whole dog and pony show, the entire infrastructure. In a decentralised, P2P world, this is not the case any more.

Now, the move by US law enforcement officials will surely be replicated in other jurisdictions, forcing Skype into a less-regulated jurisdiction. No problem for the company, or for downloads. But then US (and other national) authorities still don’t get their wish: wiretapping of non-traditional communications. Would this provoke the banning of such software in their jurisdictions? Surely not - such a move would be far too draconian.

Oh, wait, I forgot that John Ashcroft is the US Attorney General.

I certainly don’t have a crystal ball, but one thing is clear: non-traditional communications mediums - like Skype - and anti-terror- jittery law enforcement authorities are on a collision course.
http://www.infoshop.org/inews/storie.../03/25/3369319


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Indie Record Stores Say They're Weathering New Challenges
Matt Joyce

A group of independent record store owners made a field trip earlier this week to a Central Texas Wal-Mart to see how the mega-store merchandised its compact disc
selection.

"I had more than one of the store owners turn around and ask 'Why would anybody buy a record here?" said Don VanCleave, president of the Coalition of Independent Music Stores. "But there are a lot of people that buy records there."

Record store owners from across the country gathered at the South by Southwest Music Conference on Friday to discuss ways to deal with challenges they face in the retail music industry.

Along with pressure from the basement prices of mass-market retail stores such as Wal-Mart and Best Buy, independents are challenged by shrinking compact disc sales, the popularity of downloadable music and the widespread use of CD burners.

Album sales have been decreasing since 2000, when a glut of compact disc sales partly related to people replacing their vinyl collections came to a crashing end. Album sales dropped 16 percent from 2000 to 2003, according to Nielsen SoundScan, an industry tracker of music sales.

The decline showed signs of leveling off in 2003, when sales dropped 4 percent from the previous year. By comparison, 2002 sales were down 11 percent from the year before.

VanCleave said the glut of the 1990s has resulted in an inaccurately dire portrayal of the health of music retail stores.

"We have very optimistic people that are thriving," he said.

Record store owners said that music retail now involves more than just selling compact discs.

Lisa Teger-Zhen, owner of Uncle Sam's music store in Miami Beach, Fla., said she supplements her music sales with gift items. Music sales make up only about 65 percent of her sales.

"We just try and keep up with the trends," she said. "In order to stay alive you've got to get into the lifestyle stuff to get the good margins, and that's the only way I can continue to buy all the music."

For Paul Epstein, owner of Twist & Shout in Denver, it's all about making his store part of the community. He said he makes television and radio appearances, and maintains an active Internet presence with regular e-mailings.

"You've got to become such a cultural Mecca or cultural validator for your community that you can't go away, that people would be sobbing or begging you not to," he said.

Steve Wiley runs Hoodlums Music on the Arizona State University campus in Tempe - presumably among a demographic noted for its active downloading of music. But he said his store has expanded by feeding off the buzz the Internet can create about music.

"We've never treated the kids like enemies, and we don't talk down to them about downloading or burning," he said. "What we see is if the prices are reasonable, then they will buy CDs. The Internet, file-sharing, the whole digital process that goes on, just makes them music junkies, and it makes them go out and get more music."
http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/8230087.htm


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Law Professors Examine Ethical Controversies Of Peer- To-Peer File Sharing
Ray Delgado

The practice of peer-to-peer file sharing has reached a crossroads and has the potential to take off as an increasingly popular and vital method of sharing information. Or it could collapse under the weight of its own controversy as lawyers and politicians try to negotiate the intricacies of copyright protections and the legality of certain file-sharing networks.

Innovation in file-sharing technology is threatened by the recording industry’s stepped-up crackdown, according to law Professor Larry Lessig, who spoke last week on a panel with law Professor Deborah Rhode. Lessig expressed support for loosening copyright rules for "private, non-commercial ventures." Photo: L.A. Cicero

That was the message put forward by law Professor Larry Lessig, founder of Stanford's Center for Internet and Society, during a panel last week on the ethics of peer-to-peer file sharing. Lessig was joined on the panel by law Professor Deborah Rhode, founder of the Stanford Center on Ethics.

File-sharing technology is expanding in creative and intriguing ways that could allow an almost limitless ability to obtain and manipulate just about any kind of electronic content and then redistribute it. But that technology is threatened by the recording industry's stepped-up efforts to crack down on illegal file-sharing networks and individuals who engage in such practices, Lessig said. He said the recording industry is engaged in a war of prohibition with escalating penalties and has put too much emphasis on stigmatizing those who engage in illegal downloads as criminals.

"Should the legal system take the lead in shutting down this kind of communication?" Lessig asked. "Historically, we have taken this [kind of public debate] much more slowly and not labeled the other side criminal."

An estimated 70 million people engage in online file sharing, much of it illegal. Illegal downloading, mostly of music, took off in the late 1990s with the popularity of file-sharing programs like Napster and Kazaa. But the backlash has been intense, with the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) successfully suing file- sharing networks and bringing much-publicized lawsuits against individuals accused of illegal downloading.

By engaging in downloads that they know are illegal, many people have made themselves magnets for the lawsuits, Lessig said. Rhode cited a survey of 16- to 28-year-olds who engage in illegal downloading that showed that although most were aware that they were engaging in illegal behavior, only 16 percent considered their actions morally wrong. She said her teenage nephew, when asked about the subject, told her, "Well, there's illegal and then there's illegal."

Within the past couple of years, the recording industry has dedicated considerable resources to cracking down on file-sharing networks and has filed suit against many large-scale and individual programmers, prompting many to settle their cases rather than engage in a costly legal battle against an opponent with deep pockets, Lessig said. Some of the lawsuits would almost surely fail a legal challenge, he said, but the intimidation factor has stifled development of file-sharing techniques that could actually benefit the recording industry.

"What is the RIAA doing aside from suing people?" Lessig asked. "It's an industry organization trying to use the law to protect themselves against competition."

Lessig said the industry should explore other kinds of file-sharing platforms and models that would be easier for consumers to use -- and pay for -- and that would also set up a better structure for artists to receive a cut of the profits. He cited a Harvard study that proposed a tracking system similar to the Nielsen television ratings system that would make as much music available at a cost to consumers and then pay artists based on their popularity.

Lessig said copyright laws that were created more than 25 years ago -- long before anyone had a sense of recent technological advances that allow mass manipulation and redistribution of online content -- are in dire need of an overhaul. He didn't advocate doing away with copyright laws altogether, but he expressed support for loosening up the rules to allow for "private, noncommercial ventures."

"All of the great technologies coming out now are technologies that will allow people to do stuff with your stuff," Lessig said. "That's an extraordinary opportunity that we should allow our culture to take. We wouldn't produce the same laws had we known about the technological advances."
http://news-service.stanford.edu/new...share-317.html


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Cop Copyright Cell Revived To Fight Piracy
Staff

With complaints pouring in from manufacturing units and information technology (IT) firms, the police have set up a wing to combat piracy.

According to Soumen Mitra, deputy commissioner of police (detective department), the special wing should start functioning within a couple of weeks.

“Frankly, such crimes had not been our priority. We concentrated on dacoities and murders and were not really aware of how to go about implementing the laws associated with intellectual property rights (IPR). Our officers need to be trained and educated on the basics of these laws, to ensure conviction of the culprits,” Mitra added.

However, raids in recent months have yielded a large number of music and film compact discs (CDs), which proved that the earlier methods had become obsolete. Now, any person equipped with a CD-writer can copy music and films with the aid of a personal computer, and sell the pirated versions at far-below-par rates. This creates quite a dent in the purses of the production companies and government tax departments.

At a workshop organised jointly by the detective department and Manufacturers’ Association of IT (MAIT) companies, the detective chief observed that the existing laws for trademarks, copyrights, counterfeiting and piracy should also figure as a priority on the agenda.

Mitra plans to revive a defunct cell — the press cell, which since the Raj dealt with copyright laws — to counter the threat of illegally duplicated intellectual property. “We will upgrade the facilities to match present-day demands,” he added.

Officers of the sub-inspector level will qualify for the training programmes. “With the help of organisations like MAIT, the officers will be given an orientation on the new developments and amendments of laws. Sub-inspectors of the detective department, as well as from the police stations, will be told how to implement them,” Mitra added.

A key part of the workshop dealt with defining the various IPR crimes. “Ideas, designs or inventions that are illegally copied and circulated for commercial gain by any individual is counterfeiting,” explained Vinnie Mehta, MAIT executive director.

Counterfeit rackets also serve as fund-raisers for terrorist outfits, and findings by international agencies point out that militants in Asia generate capital by circulating fake money and pirated products.

“We have been told by the central investigating agencies that the eastern region has become a major hub for counterfeit products churned out by extremist forces. This is why we have revived the cell. It also explains our involving police station-level officers in the drive,” said a detective department source.
http://www.telegraphindia.com/104031...ry_3003492.asp


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Low-Tech Case Has High-Tech Impact
Michael Geist

While the public's attention has been focused this month on the Canadian Recording Industry Association's lawsuit against 29 unnamed file sharers and the related issue of whether Internet service providers should be compelled to disclose the file sharers' identities, Canadian copyright law was hit recently with a decision of far greater import.

The Law Society of Upper Canada v. CCH Canadian, a Supreme Court of Canada decision released by a unanimous court several weeks ago, instantly ranks as one of the strongest pro-user rights decisions from any high court in the world, showing what it means to do more than pay mere lip service to balance in copyright.

The case involved a dispute between the law society — the body that governs the legal profession in Ontario — and several leading legal publishers.

Unlike many high-profile cases that involve the Internet, this case centred on the use of a distinctly old-style copying technology: photocopiers.

The law society, which maintains the Great Library, a leading law library in Toronto, provided the profession with two methods of copying cases and other legal materials.

It ran a service that allowed lawyers to request a copy of a particular case or article. It also maintained several photocopiers that could be used by library patrons.

The legal publishers objected to the law society's copying practices and sued for copyright infringement. They maintained the materials being copied were subject to copyright protection and the law society was authorizing others to infringe their copyright.

It is worth examining the outcome of the case as well as the court's analysis from four perspectives, each of which is progressively more significant.

First, the case can be examined from the perspective of the litigants. The law society emerged victorious on most counts in this regard as the court ruled it had neither infringed the publishers' copyright nor authorized others to do so.

The case, however, was not a complete loss from the publishers' perspective.

The court affirmed that although the legal decisions themselves were not subject to copyright, its test for originality ensured the value-added material supplied by the publishers, including summaries of the cases and the specific compilation of decisions, was sufficiently original to warrant copyright protection.

Second, the case can be examined from the perspective of the court's interpretation of several important aspects of copyright law. The court provided a detailed discussion of the fair dealing exception (the Canadian counterpart to the U.S. fair use doctrine), and concluded the exception should be granted a large and liberal interpretation. In fact, the court remarkably fashions exceptions to copyright infringement as new copyright rights — users' right — that must be balanced against the rights of copyright owners and creators.

The court also adopted an important new standard for authorization, which has long been used by copyright owners to hold parties accountable for allowing others to infringe copyright. On this issue, the court ruled authorization should be taken to mean "sanction, approve or countenance" and concluded "a person does not authorize copyright infringement by authorizing the mere use of equipment (such as photocopiers) that could be used to infringe copyright."

This finding will have an immediate impact on copyright issues involving the Internet.

By adopting an approach that allows the providers of equipment to presume their equipment will be used lawfully, the court has opened the door to Internet service providers and even peer-to-peer providers to argue they legitimately presume their subscribers act lawfully and thus cannot be said to authorize copyright infringement.

Third, the case can be examined from the court's broader perspective on copyright law. Just two years ago, the Supreme Court's view on copyright law was that it was there solely to benefit creators. Today, the court now speaks openly of users' rights and the need to balance rigorously the interests of creators and users.

For example, in arriving at its interpretation of authorization, the court concluded that the "mere provision of photocopiers for the use of its patrons did not constitute authorization to use the photocopiers to breach copyright law" since taking the opposite approach "shifts the balance in copyright too far in favour of the owner's rights and unnecessarily interferes with the proper use of copyrighted works for the good of society as a whole." Similarly, its liberal interpretation of fair dealing is based on the analysis that "it is a user's right (and) in order to maintain the proper balance between the rights of a copyright owner and users' interests, it must not be interpreted restrictively."

Balance as the central goal of copyright is likely to cause a significant reinterpretation of Canadian copyright law. As the court demonstrated in this case, taking users' rights seriously requires a careful examination of the effects of any copyright test on both users and creators. Moreover, the need for balance will affect not only the current version of Canada's Copyright Act but also any subsequent amendments.

As Canada considers copyright reform similar to that found in the United States, those reforms will be interpreted and applied by Canadian courts with the overarching goal of maintaining an appropriate copyright balance.

Fourth, and perhaps most important, this case signals a societal shift in views on copyright.

This case may have been seen by the judges as a very personal one since the work at issue was their own and the conduct called into question — the copying of cases — something they themselves likely had done throughout their careers.

These facts point to the growing personalization of copyright.

Copyright is no longer viewed as being primarily about large-scale commercial infringement claims that do not resonate with the average person. Rather, copyright is now very personal, focusing on the work, creativity, and activities of millions of individuals — including judges — who will increasingly question standards of what is right and wrong through the lens of their own actions.

As society has shifted in its view of copyright, so, too, have Canadian courts. The result is a genuine revolution in the state of Canadian copyright law that will manifest itself long after the current battle over peer-to-peer file sharing has been resolved.
http://www.torontostar.com/NASApp/cs...l=969048863851


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ILN News Letter

Court Asserts Jurisdiction Over Imesh In Copyright Suit

A federal court in New York has asserted jurisdiction over iMesh, an Israeli-based file sharing company, in a suit launched by several music recording companies for copyright infringement. iMesh argued that either Israel or California were more appropriate forums for the case but the court ruled that there was sufficent ties to the state to proceed with the case there.

Case name is Motown Record Company v. iMesh.com Inc.


Archives Challenge "Effectively Perpetual" Copyright Term

Two archives, including the Internet Archive, have launched a suit that asks a federal court to find that the Berne Convention Implementation Act (BCIA)is unconstitutional under the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment, and that the BCIA and Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA) together create an "effectively perpetual" term with respect to works first published after January 1, 1964 and before January 1, 1978, in violation of the Constitution's Progress Clause. The complaint, which is supported by the Stanford Center for Internet and Society, asks the court for a declaratory judgement ruling, stating that copyright restrictions on orphaned works -- works whose copyright has not expired but which are no longer available -- violates the constitution. Case name is Kahle v. Ashcroft. Complaint at http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/about/c...%203-22-04.pdf


German Court Rules Metatag Use Not An Infringement

BNA's Electronic Commerce & Law Report reports on a recent German appeals court decision in which the court ruled that the use of trademarks and firm name in Web page metatags did not constitute a violation of trademark law or competition law. The court reasoned that the use of the trademark and firm names in meta-tags was not an "exploitation" of the designation and that the practice of using the metatags to attract new customers was not an unfair or deceptive diversion. Article at http://pubs.bna.com/ip/BNA/eip.nsf/is/a0a8f7h5b1


Italian Gov't Issues Decree Banning Movie File Sharing

EDRI reports that the Italian government recently issued a decree that punishes Internet file sharing of feature movie. The decree includes a 1,500 euro fine, possible seizure of computer equipment, and the publication of the sentence in one national daily newspaper. The Parliament must convert the decree into law within 60 days for it to take effect. Decree in Italian at http://shorl.com/bostudystobopi


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Web Access at 75 Percent
Reuters

Nearly three of four people in the United States have Internet access at home, Nielsen/NetRatings said on Thursday.

In a February telephone survey, an estimated 204.3 million people, or 74.9 percent of the population above the age of 2 and living in households equipped with a fixed-line phone, had Internet access, up from 66 percent in February 2003.

"In just a handful of years, online access has managed to gain the type of traction that took other mediums decades to achieve," said Kenneth Cassar, director of strategic analysis at Nielsen/NetRatings.

Women were slightly more likely to be Web surfers than their male counterparts, the company said.

Internet penetration for women aged 35 to 54 was 81.7 percent, compared with 80.2 percent for men in the same age group. For the 25 to 34 age group, Internet usage was 77 percent for women and 75.6 percent for men.

"Women make the majority of purchases and household decisions, so it's no surprise that they are utilizing the Internet as a tool for daily living," Cassar said.
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,62712,00.html


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Tired Of Trolling For Phish?

There's a point-and-click solution to that nightmarish CD clutter.
Adam Tschorn

You know that ugly pressboard behemoth lurking in your living room? The one sagging under the weight of the hundreds, maybe even thousands, of music CDs you've collected since college? That you paw through like a bear in a campsite every time a party guest wants to hear the "Grease" soundtrack? Imagine replacing it with a device smaller than a cereal box that connects to your computer and lets you access any song from any album you own, display it on your TV screen and stream it through your stereo.

Or maybe you got an iPod for Christmas that's still sitting on the stereo on the off chance that 10,000 songs will migrate there by osmosis and save you the weeks you'll need to stock it. (At roughly a minute a song to convert your audio CDs into MP3 files, it would take roughly 20 eight-hour days to top off your tune tank.)

College students, computer geeks and hard-core audiophiles have been transferring — or "ripping" — CDs for years and enjoying the simplicity, portability and compact storage space of music stored in MP3 files. But for the rest of us, enjoying those benefits has been hampered by the need to reconcile our day jobs with the time-consuming task of ripping thousands of CDs, one at a time.

Where some see frustration, others see business opportunity. Within the last year, three companies — including one in Los Angeles — have started offering a service to help music lovers bridge that digital divide. Spurred in part by the popularity of the iPod and the lowering costs of computer storage, they've been moving thousands of CDs a week out of dusty jewel cases and onto portables, hard drives and DVDs. Each recordable DVD can hold about 100 CDs' worth of MP3s.

"We did our market research," says Dick Adams of New York's RipDigital, which launched in November 2003. "And we found that there are a lot of people out there who will spend money to save time, and some people who will spend time to save money. We're focusing on that first group."

Doug Strachota, founder of Indianapolis-based Get Digital, likens ripping CDs to changing your car's oil yourself: "Not too many people do it; they'd just prefer to take it somewhere." Aaron Grosky of L.A.-based Shift Music is even more emphatic: "What am I doing that you can't do? Nothing. It's just a service to make your life easier."

Though geographically disparate, the three companies offer very similar digital music conversion services and pricing (see accompanying article). There is one major difference for Angelenos, though: Get Digital and RipDigital are mail-order only, and Shift will pick up and deliver your discs.

A friend told me about Shift one night after she watched me burrow through the dark recesses of my entertainment center looking for the "Grease" soundtrack with a flashlight clutched between my teeth. At her suggestion, I called and explained my current setup to Grosky:

I have a 4-year-old Dell Dimension desktop with 2-gigabyte hard drive, with software that allows me to play music and display photos from the computer through the TV using my TiVo as a conduit. The sound for my TV and TiVo are already routed through the stereo. I told him I wanted to access my 375-disc catalog through the TV screen to play it through my stereo.

Grosky arrived with cardboard boxes, a printed estimate and a few suggestions. With such a small hard drive and no DVD player, he recommended putting my music on an external hard drive (I chose one for $140). For a format, he suggested MP3s.

As he boxed up CDs, Grosky evangelized about the possibilities of my all-MP3 music library. "Do you want to synchronize your house so every room is playing the same song at the same time? How about sending your entire collection wirelessly to your car just by pulling into the driveway?" He left me with visions of technological sugarplums dancing in my head and promised to return in five to seven business days.

He was back in six, carrying a gray 5-inch by 8-inch hard drive that he plugged into the back of my computer. Within 20 minutes the installation was done, and I was scrolling through my entire music collection on my TV screen in the living room.

My new system has been in operation for a week, and I've learned a few important things (apart from the fact that I actually own a reggae album titled "Zungguzungguguzungguzeng" by someone who calls himself Yellowman). TiVo will access a music collection only alphabetically and by the first word. This takes getting used to — Liz Phair is nestled in between Living Colour and Louis Prima instead of sleeping with the Phish.

The bigger concern, at least with the current TiVo software, is the alphabetizing of tracks within a given album. This may not sound like a problem to the casual listener, but for albums on which bands jam and song tracks often lead into one another — think Pink Floyd or the Grateful Dead — the flow is noticeably altered. If you want to preserve the original album order, the files should be labeled with the track numbers in front (i.e. "Hopelessly Devoted to You" is labeled as "03 Hopelessly Devoted to You.mp3").

When it was all over, the final cost of having Shift Music convert 375 discs to MP3s, archive them on four DVDs and a new hard drive was $566.55 (about $1.51 per disc). But getting John Travolta to croon "Greased Lightning" as fast as greased lightning without leaving my La-Z-Boy?

That's priceless.

http://www.latimes.com/technology/la...nes-technology

Previous coverage, at end.
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Anti-Piracy Vigilantes Track File Sharers
Kevin Poulsen

A pair of coders nurturing a deep antipathy for software pirates set off a controversy Thursday when they went public with a months-old experiment to trick file sharers into running a Trojan horse program that chastises users and reports back to a central server.

As of Thursday, the crime-busting duo's server had logged over 12,000 victims of "Walk the Plank," and a sequel they call "Dust Bunny," since the cyber sting secretly launched in January. The programs have circulated disguised as activation key generators and cracks for Unreal Tournament 2004, Pinnacle Studio 9, Norton Antivirus, TurboTax, and as a copy of the leaked Microsoft source code -- all titles chosen for their popularity on peer-to-peer networks. When executed, a large message appears scolding, "Bad Pirate!"

"So, you think you can steal from software companies do you?," the text continues. "That's called theft, don't worry your secret is safe with me. Go thou and sin no more."

The program does not permanently install itself, open a back door or harvest the user's name or other personal information. But it does "phone home" to a central server, sending the filename under which it was executed, and the amount of time the user spent staring in shock at the sermonizing text before closing the window-an average of about 12 seconds. The "Dust Bunny" revision launched last month also sends a unique I.D. number that' embedded in each copy of the program; the server logs the I.D., then sends back a new number that gets patched into the code, allowing the creators to track the program as it's re-distributed across the networks.

The whole thing is logged in real time to a public website, date and time stamped with each user's IP address and country of origin.

"We were going to see how many executions we'd get -- how much people would download it -- and we thought we could turn it into a tracking thing and track how it spread," says 19-year-old Clifton Griffin, the North Carolina college student who wrote the program with an online friend called "Justin X. B."

After initially distributing it on Gnutella from their own machines, the pair stopped sharing it directly when they found that the program was sustaining itself-- eventually even crossing to other networks. "Searching eDonkey and stuff like that, we've found that a lot of people must be using multiple file sharing services," says Griffin, "Certain versions have up to 150 sources on eDonkey alone. It's definitely making its way to different networks."

Legal Issues
On Thursday, the pair finally revealed their "war on illegal file sharing and pirates" on a blog they both run. The online community site Broadbandreports.com picked up the story, and its message boards quickly filled with outraged posters dubbing the project "malware" and a "virus," and suggesting the coders might be in violation of the law - "they infiltrate your computer under false pretenses," wrote one. Some craftier users obtained and reversed-engineered a copy of the program, and someone subverted the phone home mechanism to post unkind comments about Griffin to his own website.

"The response has either been, 'very cool,' 'hilarious,' etc., or, 'I'm offended,' 'you're going down,' 'I'm suing you.,'" says Griffin, who dismisses his critics as likely pirates, and insists that Walk the Plank is perfectly legal. "They chose to download it from us, and it doesn't do anything harmful to them," Griffin says.

But Jason Schultz, a staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, is wary of the vigilante effort. "It's sort of an invasion of your computer, not much different from other malicious programs or spyware," says Schultz. "When you use file sharing to download an application, you're not giving the person who's sending you the file permission to run rampant on your computer. The fact that they're in some ways tricking you into running it may pose some real problems for them in court."

"I think there's an awful lot of presumptions going on about who's downloading these files and for what reason," Schultz says -- an attorney or a journalists might download software in an investigation, for example. "Even if it's the case that the people who download this are trying to get illegal files, two wrongs don't make a right."

Notwithstanding the controversy, the website charting the program's movements around the world is strangely compelling. A field at the top of the page even keeps a running count of the total amount of minutes the program has sat running on people's machines, displaying its tough-on-crime message and wasting the downloader's time. "We tried to calculate how long we took to develop the program so we'd know when we 'broke even'," says Griffin. That happened weeks ago: the two versions of the program took a total of 32 hours to code, he says, and they've racked up eighty-five hours of running time.
http://www.securityfocus.com/news/8279


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Hewlett-Packard to Sell Linux PCs in Asian Markets
From Dow Jones / Associated Press

Hewlett-Packard Co. plans to be the first company to trumpet personal computers that run the freely distributed Linux operating system in Asia, HP's Japanese unit said Tuesday.

Other details, such as when the sales will begin, haven't been set.

The move by Palo Alto-based HP, which sells about 17% of the world's PCs, could be a threat to Microsoft Corp., maker of the dominant Windows operating system.

For its Linux PCs, HP "will target emerging markets, where Windows PCs are not used so widely," an HP spokesman said. The company has not decided whether it will sell Linux PCs in Japan, he said.

Linux is an open-source operating system, meaning its code is freely distributed and shared by programmers.

The HP computers will use an operating system made by Tokyo's Turbolinux, and will include the company's OpenOffice.org 1.1 suite of software. OpenOffice is designed to be compatible with Microsoft Office.

The Nihon Keizai Shimbun newspaper reported Tuesday that shipments could reach 1 million units in the first year.

HP's move may prompt other PC makers to follow suit, since prices of Linux PCs are expected to be lower than those of Windows-based PCs. That would further fuel already-intense price competition in the global PC market.

Hewlett-Packard shares increased 8 cents to $21.79 on the New York Stock Exchange.
http://www.latimes.com/technology/la...nes-technology


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

The Boston Consulting Group/OSDN Hacker Survey

Who are the hackers that create all this great free software? How much time do they spend? Why do they do it? Where are they from? Do they think its sustainable? In order to better understand the nature of this dynamic community and provide lessons to the business world about innovation, The Boston Consulting Group, in cooperation with OSDN, surveyed hackers participating on software projects on SourceForge.net, the world's largest collaborative software development Web site for the Open Source community and the Linux kernel mailing list.

The preliminary results of the BCG/OSDN survey reveal that:

· Participants note extremely high levels of creativity in their projects.
· Having fun, enhancing skills, access to source code and user needs drive contributions to the Open Source community. Defeating proprietary software companies is not a major motivator.
· The Open Source community is truly global in composition with respondents coming from 35 countries.
· Most participants dedicated at least 10 hours per week in their shared programming efforts
· Contrary to popular belief about hackers, the open source community is mostly comprised of highly skilled IT professionals who have on average over 10 years of programming experience.

Release 0.3 of the survey analysis is available here ( pdf, html ), and Release 0.73 is here ( pdf, html ).

Contact Karim Lakhani (lakhani@mit.edu) or Bob Wolf (bob@bcg.com) for more information.
http://www.osdn.com/bcg/


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Overheard

mburns

good lord yatta, THAT was why your bandwidth was clogged. There is no reason to have 39 connections, it defeats the purpose of WASTE.

http://www.mirwin.net/forum/index.ph...pic=108&st=110


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Antitrust Fine for Microsoft Said to Be $613 Million
Paul Meller

RUSSELS, March 22 - Antitrust regulators will fine Microsoft 497 million euros ($613 million) on Wednesday, when the European Commission formally rules that the company abused its monopoly in computer operating systems, people close to the company said on Monday.

The fine, which was set late last week after settlement talks with Microsoft broke down, was endorsed by regulators from the 15 member nations of the European Union on Monday.

Microsoft said the fine was too big. "In view of the absence of a clear legal standard under E.U. law, a fine of this size isn't warranted," said Tom Brookes, the company's spokesman in Brussels.

On Tuesday, the fine is to be discussed by senior aides to all 20 commissioners before being brought up at the European Commission's final meeting on the case on Wednesday morning.

Microsoft would then be officially informed of the fine and sent a summary of the ruling by fax, shortly before Mario Monti, the competition commissioner, holds a news conference to announce the decision.

Under the European Union antitrust laws, the commission can set a fine of as much as 10 percent of a company's global sales, which in Microsoft's case would be more than $35 billion. European antitrust regulators, however, have never fined a company the full 10 percent, and Brussels-based lawyers and officials had expected the fine against Microsoft to range from 100 million euros to 1 billion euros.

The biggest previous fine imposed by the commission was 462 million euros, or about $406 million at the exchange rate at that time, against Roche of Switzerland in 2001 for its role in several cartels that fixed prices and market shares of vitamin products in the 1990's. (Seven other vitamin makers were fined lesser amounts.)

Still, some people close to Microsoft had been speculating over the weekend that the commission would not impose a fine at all.

But Amelia Torres, a spokeswoman for Mr. Monti, said: "We have already told Microsoft many times that a negative ruling will incur a fine. A small company could claim it didn't know the rules, but not one the size of Microsoft."

The commission is expected to rule that Microsoft abused the monopoly position of its Windows operating system in two ways. By withholding vital information about Windows from rival makers of software for servers, the company gained an unfair advantage in the separate market for server software. It also competed unfairly by including its Media Player audio-video software as part of Windows. The commission is expected to announce remedies to restore competition in these markets, requiring Microsoft to sell two versions of Windows to PC makers in Europe, one of them with Media Player stripped out.

It would also have to share more Windows code to allow rival makers of server software to compete with Microsoft more fairly, according to people close to the case. Computer servers drive networks of PC's.

These remedies would have more of an impact on Microsoft than a fine, because the company has more than $50 billion in cash reserves and has already set some of that aside for covering legal costs.

After negotiations toward a settlement of the charges collapsed last week, Brad Smith, the chief lawyer for Microsoft, said the company would appeal any ruling at the European Court of First Instance in Luxembourg.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/23/te...gy/23soft.html


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

RIAA Keeps Pressure on P2P Users
Roy Mark

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) hit alleged music file swappers with another round of legal actions Tuesday, marking the music industry's third consecutive month of stepped- up litigation against peer-to-peer (P2P) network users. Since January, the RIAA has filed almost 1,600 such actions.

Included in this month's round of 532 'John Doe' subpoenas seeking the names of suspected music pirates are 82 actions against individuals the RIAA claims used college and university networks to illegally distribute copyrighted music.

The RIAA identified university networks being used for illegal file sharing at schools in Arizona, California, Colorado, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Washington, D.C., and Wisconsin. The schools are not part of the legal actions other than being requested to supply the names of the file-swappers.

The other 443 lawsuits were filed against file sharers using commercial Internet service providers (ISPs) in California, Colorado, Missouri, Texas and Virginia.

More than a year ago, the RIAA and a number of colleges and universities formed a joint committee to address music piracy on college campuses.

While the RIAA said Tuesday "real progress" has been made regarding music piracy at schools, lawsuits remain a key component of the music industry's strategy to curb P2P music file sharing.

"There is an exciting array of legal music services where fans can get high-quality online music," RIAA President Cary Sherman said in a statement. "Lawsuits are an important part of the larger strategy to educate file sharers about the law, protect the rights of copyright owners and encourage music fans to turn to these legitimate services."

Since music piracy remains "rampant on college campuses, it's important for everyone to understand that no one is immune from the consequences of illegally 'sharing' music files on P2P networks,'" Sherman said.

The RIAA said the first round of lawsuits filed in January is "proceeding along." All four courts in that round have granted the group's preliminary request to issue subpoenas to ISPs to learn the identity of illegal file sharers.

Once an individual is identified by the RIAA, the record companies plan to offer settlements. If the file sharer rejects the settlement offer, the RIAA will proceed with copyright infringement litigation.

For the second round of suits brought in February, courts in Georgia and New Jersey have approved the RIAA's motion to begin issuing subpoenas but a court in Florida has requested an additional briefing. In Philadelphia, the RIAA is asking the court to reconsider an initial decision that the RIAA needed to file individual complaints for each illegal file sharer.

Like the 1,063 RIAA lawsuits brought in January and February, the March suits employ the John Doe process, which is used to sue defendants whose names aren't known. The lawsuits identify the defendants only by their Internet protocol computer address.

A decision by a Washington, D.C., federal appeals court on Dec. 19 that the information subpoena process allowed by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) cannot be used in infringement cases involving P2P networks forced the RIAA to change to the John Doe process.

From September to mid-December, the RIAA issued more than 3,000 DMCA subpoenas to obtain names for copyright infringement suits. The DMCA subpoenas were filed prior to any charges of infringement and were not subject to a review by a judge, and required no notice to, or opportunity to be heard by, the alleged infringer.

The status of those lawsuits has not been determined.
http://www.internetnews.com/xSP/article.php/3330071


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Groove Reloads for Virtual Office
Steve Gillmor

The ideas behind Groove Networks are compelling. For Ray Ozzie, Groove was a reboot from the original precepts of Lotus Notes, which Ozzie architected before the Internet changed everything.

Groove initially promised a "just works" philosophy with zero IT requirements; a secure, user- deployable architecture that distributed resources; and communications from centralized servers to the edge of the network. But like Notes, the client was sloooooow, the development methodology cumbersome and the business case elusive for all but the collaboration-committed.

Ozzie, however, is a persistent visionary. His focus has shifted from Groove's original charter—
serving the changing nature of business—to serving the changing nature of work itself. The sweet spot of the new Groove is the virtual office.

"Last year was the year of Wi-Fi, the transition to laptops," Ozzie told me in a conversation about the Groove v3.0 public beta. Today's mobile workers require a secure, rapidly deployable layer of what he calls rich client-side middleware. Then they require tools that abstract the details of operating systems and tool sets that reside across the firewall.

Click here to read an interview with Ray Ozzie on Groove's role in the changing nature of work and information routing.

"My IT organization cannot dictate what directory or standards another organization deploys," Ozzie said. "All [Groove users] need to know is the person they need to work with. That's it." Whether it's Windows 98 or XP or eventually "Longhorn." "Software on PCs is not used unless it's really user-friendly, and software that's deployed by enterprises isn't used unless it's able to be managed," he said.

Groove Management Server provides one-click deployment, directory federation, PKI integration, and auditing and monitoring tools. Performance has been improved by a factor of 2, 4 or in some cases 10. But a new feature, GFS (Groove File Sharing), is perhaps the tail that will wag the dog.

"In [Version 2] we put certain mail integration features in because we noticed that people like to start sharing based on the things that they're talking about in e-mail," Ozzie said. Now, with the ability to synchronize files directly from the Windows file system across Groove's secure XML network, users can share documents in the context they're already comfortable working in: Windows Explorer.

Couple group file sharing with v3.0's enhanced notification and alert architecture, and you make pervasive what Ozzie calls "swarming." "It's shifted so much activity of what people do into Groove," Ozzie said, "it feels more like a place [where] other people live, and you get things done more quickly."

Craig Samuel, HP Services' chief knowledge officer, said he thinks GFS alone can save HP serious money by letting users share lower-demand data at the periphery of the enterprise. "GFS is at the least a bridging mechanism and potentially an alternative to Microsoft's Longhorn file sharing," Samuel told me.

Groove has found its killer app.
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1553100,00.asp


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Microsoft Replaces bCentral, Launches New Web Site
Reuters

Microsoft Corp. (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people) said on Tuesday that it would phase out its bCentral brand for offering online services and software for smaller businesses and replace it with a new global Web site that will offer information, customer support and advice on using business software.

Microsoft, which is betting that it will be able to sell $10 billion in software to small business by the end of the decade, has been streamlining its software portfolio acquired through transitions, its sales force and marketing around the initiative.

Steven Guggenheimer, vice president in charge of sales and marketing for small businesses, said that the new Small Business Center Web portal would first launch in 10 countries and soon expand to 30.

"We'll retire the bCentral brand and the site itself," Guggenheimer said.

Microsoft launched bCentral in 1999 to offer support and some online software services to customers that operated businesses of five to a few dozen employees.

But Microsoft never clearly defined its strategy to sell software to smaller businesses until it spent $2.4 billion acquiring small business software makers Great Plains and Navision to shore up its business solutions division.

While Microsoft integrates those divisions, it has rolled out customer relationship management software for smaller businesses and rolled out a version of its server software that allows smaller businesses to set up an office network with e-mail, file sharing and data management features.

Microsoft said that the Small Business Center portal will provide sales and marketing tools and advice, customized information, and information on how to buy relevant software from resellers.
http://www.forbes.com/technology/new...tr1309171.html


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

Microsoft Cues Up Net Music Store
Jim Hu

Microsoft said Friday that the second half of the year will see the launch of its online music store, a long-expected entry into an increasingly crowded business dominated by Apple Computer's iTunes.

The software giant this week began offering sneak peaks of the service to independent record labels at the South by Southwest trade show in Austin, Texas. Though Microsoft remains mum about specific details, this week's dog and pony show signals the company's heightened ambitions to enter the world of online music sales with a bang.

Microsoft will promote its music store primarily through its MSN.com Web portal, according to company spokeswoman Lisa Gurry. Visitors will be able to sign up via MSN and browse a catalog of songs and albums to purchase and download onto their computers. Gurry declined to comment on pricing or on the number of songs Microsoft plans to initially release on the service.

"We are absolutely going to be striving for a large catalog of music, but we have no specific numbers to confirm," Gurry said in an interview.

The store will also let buyers transfer their music onto portable playback devices. About 60 percent of portables currently support Microsoft's Windows Media audio format, Gurry said. She added that Microsoft has not decided whether to extend its song portability to non-Windows Media devices.

Currently Apple's popular iPod player is compatible with Microsoft's Windows operating system, as is its iTunes music store. Gurry also declined to say whether Microsoft's music store would be bundled into Windows or featured on its Windows Media playback software.

Online song sales have started to catch on, and many companies are trying to elbow their way into the market. Apple recently said it has sold 50 million songs through iTunes, while smaller players, such as Roxio's Napster, have sold as many as 5 million. Still, the business is difficult because margins are low. Still other companies, such as Yahoo, have publicly expressed doubt about the business but have nonetheless noted that the trend is becoming too powerful to ignore.
http://news.com.com/2100-1027-5176411.html


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

Musical Chairs With the Big Boys
Steve Lohr

IS RealNetworks the next Netscape?

Rob Glaser, the founder and chief executive of RealNetworks, a pioneering maker of music-playing software for the Internet, bridles at the notion. "Our situation is very different in some important ways," he said in a lengthy interview last week.

Netscape, of course, was a path breaker in Web-browsing software and Exhibit A in a sweeping government antitrust case that resulted in a stinging legal setback for Microsoft. Yet Netscape soon faded as a force in the industry.

The fate of RealNetworks is a question awaiting an answer. But the similarities between it and Netscape are uncanny, especially now that the European Commission is preparing to rule against Microsoft on Wednesday after a final round of settlement talks collapsed last week.

The commission will order the company to offer a version of its dominant Windows operating system for personal computers without a digital media player, a market in which RealNetworks was the front-runner until Microsoft moved in.

The ruling, if upheld on appeal, may make it easier for RealNetworks to get its software on more personal computers. But it will not undo the damage already done to the company's business.

In many ways, the European case can be seen as a sequel to the American antitrust suit against Microsoft. Netscape was at the center of that case, which Microsoft lost but then settled with the Bush administration in 2001. Some of the names have changed, but the pattern is the same.

In both cases, Microsoft was accused of being a nasty monopolist that bundled new software into Windows, gave it away and engaged in bullying tactics intended to stifle competition by crushing the early leader in an emerging market.

Competing on those terms proved to be near fatal for Netscape, which was eventually acquired and exists today in a forlorn corner of Time Warner. And it has not been any easier for RealNetworks, which has lost money for four straight years - $245 million in red ink.

As if battling Bill Gates were not enough, Mr. Glaser also finds himself pitted against perhaps the second-most-famous computer entrepreneur in the land: Steven P. Jobs of Apple Computer. Apple's iTunes music store has recently overshadowed RealNetworks' Rhapsody as the stellar brand in digital music.

The RealNetworks story has the added theme of former friends turned enemies. Mr. Glaser, 42, worked for a decade at Microsoft, where he became one of Mr. Gates's trusted lieutenants, and a very rich man. He left and founded RealNetworks in 1994, parting on good terms. Microsoft took a 10 percent stake in the start- up, originally called Progressive Networks.

But then Microsoft itself got into the digital media market, and the partners became adversaries. In 1998, Mr. Glaser testified before the Senate against Microsoft, describing what he said were the abusive tactics of his former employer. Later that year, Microsoft announced that it was selling its stake in RealNetworks.

The most recent salvo from RealNetworks came three months ago, when it filed a private antitrust suit against Microsoft, seeking $1 billion in damages. Despite the bitter rivalry, Mr. Glaser maintains that his company is neither defined nor obsessed by its huge competitor and Seattle area neighbor. "This is not some quixotic Ahab-and-the-whale thing," he said.

Mr. Glaser may be protesting too much, but there is a strong case to be made that his company's future will not be just a rerun of the Netscape script. RealNetworks seems to have the quick instincts of a survivor. Its losses are declining sharply, and it has overhauled its business.

For most of its young corporate life, the main business of RealNetworks was software - the software needed to play on a personal computer the music or video received in digital streams over the Internet and the software needed by developers and companies to create and send it.

Particularly in the last year, the company's digital media offerings to consumers - its Rhapsody music service, computer games and streaming video of Nascar races, N.B.A. games and news from CNN and ABC - have grown sharply. Most are sold as subscriptions, at $5 to $10 a month. In 2001, software accounted for roughly 60 percent of RealNetworks' revenue; by the fourth quarter of last year, the software share had fallen to 25 percent. Over the same period, the share of revenue from consumer services more than doubled, to 75 percent.

TODAY, RealNetworks can be thought of as the Internet equivalent of the early cable television networks of decades ago, like MTV or ESPN. And it is much less dependent on software than it was before, and thus less susceptible to being run over by Microsoft. RealNetworks says it will return to profitability in the second half of this year, excluding the legal costs of suing Microsoft, estimated at $3 million a quarter.

"RealNetworks has done a very good job of moving its business to a new center of gravity," said Michael Gartenberg, an analyst for Jupiter Research. "RealNetworks is not Netscape. It will not be the next company vanquished by Microsoft."

Yet even in its new bailiwick of consumer services, RealNetworks faces daunting competition as well as opportunity. Its music services, for example, are growing rapidly, with the number of subscribers increasing to 350,000 in the fourth quarter last year from 250,000 in the third quarter. The number of songs streamed to RealNetworks' subscribers has increased to 48 million in February from 16 million last August, when it completed its purchase of Listen.com.

REALNETWORKS' business has benefited considerably from the music industry's crackdown on online piracy and the willingness of more people to pay for digital music. Yet no one did more to legitimize digital music than an innovative outsider to the business, Apple Computer. Its easy-to-use service, iTunes Music Store, charging 99 cents a downloaded song, has been a huge hit since it began last April. Last week, Apple announced that 50 million songs had been bought from its Internet music store.

With its 350,000 subscribers, RealNetworks is the largest of the digital music subscription services, a nascent market that allows users to listen to music without storing it on their computers. It includes MusicNet, Musicmatch, Roxio's Napster and others. At the end of last year, the music services had more than 700,000 paying subscribers, triple the number of a year earlier, industry analysts estimate.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/21/bu...ey/21real.html


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

Real's Glaser Exhorts Apple To Open iPod
Michael Kanellos

RealNetworks CEO Rob Glaser has a message for Apple Computer chief Steve Jobs: Open iPod or shrivel.

Glaser, the feisty founder of the Internet entertainment network, said during a panel discussion Tuesday at PC Forum here that Apple is creating problems for itself by using a file format that forces consumers to buy music from Apple's own iTunes site. (CNET Networks, publisher of News.com, last week acquired EDventures, which sponsors PC Forum.)

Because Apple's iPod music player does not support other proprietary music formats and does not license its own format to rivals, Real's Rhapsody and other song sites are blocked from easily reaching iPod users.

"Apple's (market) share will go down if they continue to do this. The only way to presently put songs on an iPod is to (buy) them from iTunes," Glaser said, referring to downloads purchased from online music stores. In addition to iTunes songs, the iPod can play files encoded in the MP3 format, including tracks ripped from CDs.

Hewlett-Packard, which has partnered with Apple on digital music, is in a position to persuade the company to change its practice, he said.

"There is a good opportunity to say to Steve, 'You've done a good job of promoting this thing, but now one of two bad things will happen,'" Glaser said. "One, Apple's market share will go down to its historical single-digit levels, or two, it will slow down the development of this market."

Glaser predicted that customers will say, "I bought an iPod and can only shop at one store. What is this? The Soviet Union?"

Shane Robison, chief technology officer of HP, shared the panel with Glaser and said diplomatically that discussions on many issues are always ongoing.

Apple could not be reached for comment.

Glaser also applauded actions taken by European regulators to limit Microsoft's ability to bundle technology into Windows. Real has been directly affected by the practice, because it makes a competing media player.

"I think it is a step in the right direction. It is not transcendent," he said. "The specific solutions have not been announced yet, but the outcome suggests that the European regulators did the right thing for the right reasons."

Glaser further said that the European Commission's ruling is not likely to exert massive political pressures because most of the companies directly affected by the decision--Sun Microsystems, RealNetworks and Apple, among others--are based in the United States. The commission, however, has said it entered the investigation on behalf of European citizens.

Microsoft, meanwhile, struck a deal with Major League Baseball to offer live audio and video on its networks. MLB used to have a partnership with RealNetworks.
http://news.com.com/2100-1025-5177914.html


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Watch For Falling Music Download Prices
Dinesh C. Sharma

Wal-Mart Stores is bringing cut-rate prices to the ever-more-crowded world of online music.

On Tuesday, the mammoth chain retailer formally opened its online music store, from which customers can download music at 88 cents per song. That's 11 cents less than Apple Computer charges at its iTunes music store, which has been the pacesetter on this e-commerce track.

The Wal-Mart service allows customers to play downloaded music on Windows PCs, to burn songs to a CD or to transfer music to portable devices. Usage rights are uniform across the company's catalog of music. The retailer began testing the service in December and is working in partnership with Liquid Digital Media, formerly Liquid Audio.

The service includes a "download manager" designed to help customers retrieve full albums and groups of songs.

There's no shortage of companies that want to be the outlet for consumers looking to acquire songs online. Besides Apple, which last month said it was selling approximately 2.5 million downloads per week, the competition includes MusicMatch and the reborn Napster. Microsoft plans to enter the fray in the second half of the year.

Bentonville, Ark.-based Wal-Mart said it has an exclusive two-month deal with Curb Records, whose country music stars include Tim McGraw, LeAnn Rimes and Jodee Messina.
http://news.com.com/2100-1027-5177937.html


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Hands-On Leader Fuels Rare Revival in Record Industry
Chris Nelson


Photo: Steve Goldstein for The New
York Times


HOLLYWOOD — Andrew Slater is not your typical music industry executive.

A former manager and producer of artists like the Beastie Boys, Don Henley and Macy Gray, Mr. Slater now runs Capitol Records, one of the few labels in this unsteady era of file sharing that is not only stable but also has the rare distinction of substantial growth.

Since taking over nearly three years ago Mr. Slater and his very hands-on approach to music making — from rerecording parts of songs to dissecting new videos — have transformed Capitol from a languishing heritage label best known for the Beatles and Frank Sinatra into a company that can once again develop hit artists. He he has nearly doubled Capitol's market share through the middle of March compared with the same period last year, the second-best performance of any label, according to Nielsen SoundScan, which tracks music sales in the United States. (Capitol had 3.24 percent of the market; Columbia, the leader, 6.9 percent.)

"Rock 'n' roll is about style and rebellion and sex and love," Mr. Slater said. "And in order to deliver those messages, there's an aspect of the two-dimensional image that has to addressed. The elements in a record package or a video have to define, help define, who that artist or that sentiment is."

On a recent Saturday night Mr. Slater stopped by Studio A in the basement of Capitol building in Hollywood to talk with producers who, at his request, were creating a middle section for a song on the debut album of teenage singer-songwriter Skye Sweetnam.

The next afternoon he drove up to Santa Monica to look at a rough cut of the video for the Vines' "Ride." He pointed out frames in the video that might bring the band unwanted comparisons to the look and work of Nirvana. The segments were cut.

When he arrived at Capitol Mr. Slater was baffled by the artists then signed to carry on the legacy of giants like the Beach Boys, the Band and Pink Floyd. Aside from the arty rockers Radiohead and the Beastie Boys, the label had few acts to boast about, he said.

"I saw Capitol as a great brand that had been tarnished," said Mr. Slater, who, in jeans and sneakers, with wavy hair combed back, could pass for a session musician.

He soon looked at which band under contract he could develop into a hitmaker the fastest. Judging Coldplay the best bet, he pushed its 2001 debut, "Parachutes," which eventually sold two million copies.

Since then Capitol has issued a stream of steady-selling discs. In the months before Mr. Slater took over, there were six gold acts (500,000 units shipped) or nearly gold acts on Capitol. Today there are 16 on a similarly sized roster, including Radiohead, the hip-hop group Westside Connection and the pop singer Lisa Marie Presley.

Capitol's revenue in the United States has more than doubled since Mr. Slater took over, said Jeanne Meyer, the senior vice president for corporate communication at EMI North America, Capitol's parent company. (She would not provide specific figures, she said, because EMI does not break out its labels, which also include Virgin and Blue Note.)

Capitol's and EMI's recent strength has been caution, said Michael Nathanson, a media analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein who specializes in the music business. "Most of the industry has been in a boat going down a river without a paddle," he said. "But what they've done in this uncertain environment, they've been very cautious in committing resources to things that won't work," not overspending for artists and keeping the number of releases under control.

"It's being strategic about the records that you release, and how you release them, that will have the most impact on the business," Mr. Slater said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/23/ar...ic/23CAPI.html


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

Can The Music Business Compete With Free?
Tim Weber

The UK record industry is threatening to get tough on people illegally downloading music. Where will this leave consumers, artists and the industry?

Mother is happy. Fourteen-year-old George is safely at home and not with his dubious friends.

Pecking away at his computer, listening to Outkast's Hey Ya, he won't get into trouble with police, will he?

He might - soon.

George downloaded the Outkast album from the internet without paying, and in the eyes of music industry bosses that's just as bad as if he had shoplifted the CD in the Virgin Megastore down the road.

In the US, the record industry has filed lawsuits against nearly 1,600 people for online copyright infringement.

"This is not about going after our customers. Illegal downloading is stealing, they are not customers but thieves," says David Munns, boss of EMI Music in North America.

The UK's music industry association, the BPI, might soon follow suit.

Final warning

An "awareness campaign" will drive home the message that most filesharing is illegal, and warn darkly of lurking dangers: computer viruses roaming filesharing networks, and software like Kazaa allowing strangers to sniff out personal files like your tax return.

Hardcore offenders that offer large numbers of songs for illegal download will have warning messages pop up on their screens, a "final warning" that they "risk legal penalties".

Lawsuits are not imminent in the UK, industry officials insist. The threat is there, though.

The perfect storm

The original Napster frenzy may be long over, but new software like Kazaa, WinMX, Grokster and Gnutella has taken its place.

ILLEGAL MUSIC FILES

April 2002: 600m
April 2003: 1.1bn
Jan 2004: 900m

USERS OF FILESHARING

April 2002: 3 million
April 2003: 5 million
Jan 2004: 6.2 million
source: IFPI

The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, IFPI, estimates that in January this year about 900m illegal music files were available on the internet, offered by 6.2m users of so-called peer-to peer software.

Together with the spread of CD burners in home computers and a tsunami of CDs pirated commercially in Russia and the Far East, the music industry says it is in the centre of a "perfect storm" that's been raging for four years.

Global annual record sales have plummeted in value from $40bn to $30bn.

"If you get what you want when you want it for free, there's no incentive to buy," says IFPI boss Jason Berman.

Top executives, meanwhile, paint a doomsday scenario of a collapsed industry, where nobody nurtures new bands or markets stars.

Filesharing and artists

Many will find it hard to shed tears for record bosses.

Small bands depend on record sales for 60% of their income

But this is not just about them, says Peter Gabriel of Genesis fame and a rock legend in his own right.

He has a unique insight into the industry: a successful musician, owner of a studio and the Real World label, and one of the founders of OD2, currently Europe's biggest music download retailer, serving portals like Wanadoo and Tiscali.

"Yes, the big stars might be able to give away their music for free, because they have lots of revenue streams: concerts, television deals, merchandising," says Mr Gabriel.

"It's the smaller bands and artists that will suffer, because they depend on record sales for 60% of their income."

Of course, piracy has been around for ages. But today's pirated copies are of perfect quality, and many songs appear online even before they are officially released.

Every time that happens it leaves "a huge global damage crater," says Peter Jamieson, the BPI's executive chairman.

The online mess

But why did the industry fail?

Music firms made the "cardinal mistake of totally ignoring consumers," says Alain Levy, the boss of EMI Music.

Download sites came and went, failing over poor usability, faltering technology and expensive pricing.

And the movie industry is next in line for a beating.

"When the new Star Wars movie was released, it was online within 24 hours. Two days later it had been downloaded 45,000 times," says Richard Gelfond, co-chairman of Imax, the large-screen and 3D cinema firm.

Downloading that film took four hours. With broadband pipes rapidly getting fatter, DVDs could go the way of CDs.

Dangling carrots

To stop the rot, the media giants can't just rely on law suits.

"We have to have carrots along with the sticks," says a top executive at one of the big five record companies.

But talking to music bosses, it quickly becomes obvious that nobody is sure what would make the best carrot.

Pete Gabriel says that "to compete with free we have to provide something better".

Get a song for free, for example, but pay for cuts of the song in progress or extended live recordings. Or let the artist become your digital companion, scheduling your Media player with the music he or she listens to.

Some of this has already begun to happen.

Days after the Super Bowl, Beyonce's rendition of US national anthem Star Spangled Banner popped up on iTunes.

And don't just buy your favourite tune but get the very version you heard at last week's open-air festival. US cult band Phish already has more than 40 gigs on offer.

In the movie world Richard Gelfond hopes "the Imax experience" will do the trick, as it can't be brought into the living room.

The nasty DRM secret

For music executives, though, this does not solve the problem of rampant copying. How can consumers be stopped from becoming distributors through file-sharing?

The magic formula is DRM, short for Digital Rights Management, usually a software solution that controls what a buyer can do with the music.

The results, though, can be infuriating. Radiohead's most recent CD can't be transferred to MP3 players and played on a PC it effectively freezes the rest of the machine.

In an age where MP3 players are replacing the walkman, it leaves consumers cheated.

Record executives take heart from the arrival of technology firms on the scene. Online music stores like Apple's iTunes and Roxio's Napster 2.0 at last promise the ease of use, pricing and DRM technology that can persuade consumers to stay on the legal side of downloading.

There are still hitches. iTunes, for example, ties you to Apple's expensive iPod player if you want to be mobile.

Pricing could still become an issue. In the US a song usually costs 99 cents; UK consumers, charged nearly double at 99 pence, might bemoan another "rip-off".

And after a long drought European consumers will soon face online music overload, with dozens of web sites ranging from iTunes and MSN's music club to Wippit's legal peer-to-peer technology vying for attention.

But 2004 could be the year when online music is finally taking off - in its legal form, that is.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3563629.stm


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

Record Stores: We're Fine, Thanks
Katie Dean

AUSTIN, Texas -- Some independent music stores are thriving despite the competition from illegal downloads on the Internet.

The stores are finding that file sharing can help create a buzz online that can lead to more sales, according to a panel of independent music store owners who spoke at the South by Southwest Music Conference & Festival here Friday.

Take Hoodlums Music, located on the Arizona State University campus, which opened during the heyday of Napster. One might think Net-savvy students would ignore the shop in favor of free downloads.

"It's a myth," said Steve Wiley, co-owner of the store. "We see them wanting to buy music."

High prices, rather than file sharing, are what usually stop a kid from buying a CD, Wiley said.

Typically, the music industry wants stores to sell CDs for $18 when they should be going for $15, he said. That $3 can make the difference in terms of whether or not a CD is going to sell.

"The file sharing, the Internet -- just makes them music junkies," Wiley said.

Paul Epstein, owner of Twist & Shout, a store in Denver, agreed that piracy has helped his bottom line. He said it's like radio, another form of promotion that spurs sales.

"File sharing is a danger, but it really turns a lot of kids on to music," he said.

The independent music shops that are thriving have built a close connection to their communities and deliver personal service that so-called big box stores like Wal-Mart and Best Buy can't match, the panelists said.

Sometimes that means trying out new ideas to bring customers in the door.

Epstein, a former English teacher, wanted his store to resemble his high-school bedroom, which was decorated with music memorabilia.

The store, site of a former Safeway supermarket, has 19-foot ceilings. It's "half museum," he said.

Uncle Sam's Music in Miami Beach, Florida, plays pop music most of the day, but at 6 p.m. the store switches to dance music. It stays open until 2 a.m. and provides turntables so DJs can come in and spin.

Kids frequently stop by after leaving nightclubs to buy the tunes they just danced to, said owner Lisa Teger- Zhen, who runs another store in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.

To be sure, independent music retailers can do well in major music markets like Austin, Seattle and Denver, but small towns are a different story.

Communities that are just large enough to support one big box store may be left with mainstream music choices from Wal-Mart.

Don VanCleave, president of the Coalition of Independent Music Stores, said high-school students in his hometown of Birmingham, Alabama, complain to him about not being able to buy what they want locally.

Instead, they go online to download it.

"It's the end of the record store in those markets," said Carl Singmaster, owner of Manifest Disc & Tapes of South Carolina.

Singmaster, who once owned seven stores, decided to close his operation in December.

Although he believes Internet file sharing sank sales at one store, Singmaster doesn't blame piracy for his decision to get out of the business.

It "stopped being fun anymore, (becoming) 90 percent business, 10 percent fun," he said. "This wasn't a future I wanted to invest in."

As it happens, Manifest Disc & Tapes lives on under new ownership. The announced closings generated so much buzz in the community that four of them were purchased. One of the buyers was a long-time customer, Singmaster said.
http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,62742,00.html


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

Valenti To Retire As Head Of Top Hollywood Trade Group

Jack Valenti, who oversaw the creation of Hollywood's movie-ratings system in the 1960s, said Tuesday he will step down as head of the Motion Picture
Association of America, possibly within three months.

Valenti, 82, has hinted at retirement over the last two years. He made it official at ShoWest, an annual convention of theater owners. May will mark Valenti's 38th anniversary in the job.

``I look at this with mixed emotions, because when you've done something so long, it's difficult to tear yourself away from it,'' Valenti told reporters before announcing retirement plans to theater owners in an address to open the convention. ``But also, in any job, you want to leave before people ask you to leave.''

Valenti, who received a standing ovation from a crowd of about 1,200 theater owners, said he hopes to give up the job in two to three months if a successor can be found that quickly.

MPAA has hired media recruiter Spencer Stuart to hunt for a new leader for the trade group, which represents Hollywood's top seven studios -- Disney, Warner Bros., Universal, Sony, 20th Century Fox, Paramount and MGM.

The job had been offered to U.S. Rep. Billy Tauzin, a Louisiana Republican, but he declined last January.

A former advertising and political consultant, Valenti was a speechwriter and congressional liaison for President Johnson before becoming head of the MPAA in 1966. The group implemented the ratings system two years later to replace a hodgepodge of government boards that censored movie content.

Critics have harped on the ratings system for decades, with some saying the ratings board is too loose on violence and overly prudish on sexuality.

But the system has stood largely unchanged from the G, PG, R and X ratings it began with. In the 1980s, a PG-13 category was added for movies inappropriate for preteens to attend on their own, while the NC-17 designation replaced the X rating for adult movies in the early 1990s.

Last year, the MPAA's annual poll of about 2,600 movie-goers found that 76 percent of parents with children younger than 13 found the ratings system useful, Valenti said.

``Jack Valenti has been a consummate leader of this industry for 38 years,'' said John Fithian, who heads the National Association of Theatre Owners. ``And we're not sure what we're going to do without him.''

As home-video and digital technology has advanced, Valenti has become involved in studio efforts to fight film piracy, which he said costs the industry about $3.5 billion a year as bootleggers duplicate movies on video tape and DVD or make them available on the Internet.

One anti-piracy attempt backfired last year, as Valenti took the lead on a studio-backed plan to ban so-called ``awards screeners,'' video copies of new movies sent to Academy Awards voters and those who pick other Hollywood honors so they can watch the films in their homes.

Those screener copies had been a source of counterfeit videotapes, DVDs and Internet downloads, Valenti said.

Small film outfits and independent producers objected, saying awards screeners allowed their movies to compete for Oscars with big-studio films that have huge marketing budgets.

Opponents sued, and the ban on awards screeners was lifted by a federal judge. Valenti said Tuesday that in the future, it will be up to individual studios and film distributors to decide if they want to send screener copies of their awards contenders.

Valenti said he will maintain an ``umbilical relationship'' with the MPAA and Hollywood, though he was not certain what that role would be.

``I've been blessed with some genetic energy, so I'm not going to fade away,'' Valenti said.
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/sil...al/8257608.htm


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

RIAA Site Disabled For Five Days
Robert Lemos

As the Recording Industry Association of America continues its push to shut down digital pirates, the industry group suffered its own defeat online.

According to data from Internet watcher Netcraft, the trade group's site has not been reachable for nearly five days. The Internet performance measurement company believes that the root of the outage is a variant of the MyDoom computer worm.

"The current outage now exceeds the RIAA site's four-day outage in July 2002, which was attributed to a DDoS," or distributed denial-of-
service, attack, Netcraft said Monday on its Web site.

The MyDoom mass-mailing variant started spreading in February through e-mail, infecting Windows computers whenever people clicked on the attached file. The number of computers infected by the virus is unknown. The program has been causing compromised systems to attack Microsoft's and the RIAA's sites between March 17 to March 22.

The RIAA refused to comment on the outage, except to confirm that the site is currently inaccessible. The group would not specify how long the outage has lasted.

Microsoft's Web site remains up. The software giant could not immediately be reached for comment.

Previous versions of the MyDoom computer virus attempted to inundate Microsoft's Web site and successfully overwhelmed the SCO Group's site. Unix seller SCO has claimed rights to code contained in the Linux kernel.

The attacks are expected to subside by Tuesday, and access to the RIAA Web site likely would be restored at that time.
http://news.com.com/2100-7355-5177326.html
















Until next week,

- js.














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




Recent WiRs -

March 20th, March 13th, March 6th, February 28th, February 21st

Jack Spratt's Week In Review is published every Friday. Please submit letters, articles, and press releases in plain text English to jackspratts (at) lycos (dot) com. Include contact info. Submission deadlines are Wednesdays @ 1700 UTC.
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Old 30-03-04, 01:33 PM   #3
multi
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whew..just got thru all that...

big week coming up for the next edition jack....
there seems to be a lot of stuff happening..


if any other news addicts out there are interested ,i made a
new sidebar tab for mozilla/netscape
a condensed version of napfood
with these feeds:
Slyck
The Register
Internetnews.com
BBC:World News
Wired
Empty Handed
News.com:Tech News
Slashdot
News.com
P2Pnet
Zeropaid
MoBLoG

google p2p news beta..works good in the sidebar
tho still a bit experimental
sometimes you get the same story twice from different sources..
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