Peer-To-Peer News - The Week In Review - October 1st, ’05

[JackSpratts]

"In South Mississippi, where there's no electricity, very limited phone service and most definitely no Internet access, FEMA representatives are handing out brochures encouraging people to make FEMA's job a little easier and call or register online to get help. In the list of mistakes FEMA has made over the past three weeks, this ranks right near the top." – Gene Taylor


"We have a bright young public who sees nothing wrong with downloading…it's going to destroy the copyright industry, it seems to me. [A peer-to-peer network] is either going to be legal, or it isn't going to exist." – California Senator Dianne Feinstein


"Where are the Skypes of tomorrow being founded? Your best bet is to look offshore." – Sam Yagan


"It turns out that asynchronous audio is the secret sauce for what keeps relationships alive and fresh." – B.J. Fogg


"Here we have a true conflict between the notion of intellectual property and the notion of sovereignty, and I'd say that 100 percent of the time in a democracy, sovereignty trumps intellectual property." – Eric Kriss






































October 1st, 2005





Politicos Assail Feds' Net-Based Relief Efforts
Anne Broache

Why is the Federal Emergency Management Agency nudging hurricane victims to apply online for disaster relief when some are living in tents and don't have electricity--much less a computer?

That's the question Mississippi congressmen are asking on behalf of their constituents.

"In South Mississippi, where there's no electricity, very limited phone service and most definitely no Internet access, FEMA representatives are handing out brochures encouraging people to make FEMA's job a little easier and call or register online to get help," Rep. Gene Taylor, a Democrat who represents a Mississippi district heavily damaged by the storm, said in a recent press release. "In the list of mistakes FEMA has made over the past three weeks, this ranks right near the top."

Courtney Littig, a spokesperson in Rep. Taylor's Capitol Hill offices, estimated on Friday that she has received dozens of calls each day this week from frustrated constituents.

Some complained that they couldn't get through to FEMA via its phone-based filing system, which has been inundated with calls in the storm's aftermath. Others voiced irritation that FEMA personnel were suggesting that they use an online form to avoid long lines at on-the-ground disaster recovery centers, of which there are currently 10 in the state--and just one for the city of Gulfport's 71,000 residents. Paper applications are no longer in use, according to a FEMA spokesperson, as all data is entered directly into computers.

"It's ridiculous to think that people have Internet access when they don't have phone access and they don't have running water," Littig said.

On several occasions each day, Littig has attempted to fill out online forms for those constituents based on information they fed to her over the phone, she said. In doing so, she and staffers from the U.S. House of Representatives' Committee on Homeland Security said they came to a conclusion: Not only was it often unrealistic for storm survivors to secure Internet access, but when they did, they tended to encounter numerous glitches during the filing process.

"Not once has the registration gone through," Littig said of her own experience with the tool. "The server has timed out, or when I get to the end, after answering what must be 20 questions, it says, 'The server cannot process your request' and directs you to start over again."

Congressional staffers also griped in a Thursday press release about the need to enter a "hard to read" security code--a set of scrambled, distorted letters commonly used to curtail spambots--before proceeding with the forms. Senior citizens and visually impaired persons would probably have trouble inserting the code correctly, they said.

FEMA's Web site acknowledges limitations of the online service. Filing a new application requires Internet Explorer 6.0 or above, the site said, though checking on an application filed by phone and updating its information might work in other browsers. The agency said it is working on making the process compatible with other browsers.

"The idea for the online (system) is just to provide an alternative way," a FEMA spokesperson said Friday. "We're not suggesting that everyone is in a position to do that."

The phone assistance lines are open around the clock and staffed by about 10,000 employees, the spokesperson said. Between the Web and the phone systems, 30,000 applications have been pouring in each day.

The feds shouldn't be so reliant on a system that often requires electricity and computer access, Rep. Bennie Thompson, another Mississippi Democrat, said in a statement. "We should have the resources needed to put more manpower on the ground and to hire more employees to field calls."
http://news.com.com/Politicos+assail...3-5879183.html





Senators Push For New Anti-P2P Legislation

Feinstein: P2P "Is Either Going To Be Legal, Or It Isn't Going To Exist."
Mark Hachman

Senate leaders expressed frustration that peer-to-peer piracy appears to be growing in the wake of the recent Grokster ruling, even as some industry members counseled that the tide may have shifted too far in favor of rights holders.

Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Penn.), who chaired the Senate Judiciary committee hearing, invited a California district attorney and industry representatives to testify in two panels, titled "Protecting Copyright and Innovation in a Post-Grokster World".

The problem, according to Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), is that following the MGM v. Grokster decision, peer-to-peer piracy is on the rise. Both Feinstein and Specter repeatedly asked panelists for a solution to the problem

"The peer to peer networks are increasing," Feinstein said, who includes Hollywood and its movie studios in her constituency. "To me, that's a signal that we should enact a strong law to protect our copyright industry."

When asked for a solution, however, panelists balked. Debra Wong Yang, U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California and chair of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' Advisory Committee on Cyber/ Intellectual Property Subcommittee was pressed hard by both Specter and Feinstein to come up with an effective solution to solve the problem of peer-to-peer piracy. In one exchange, Feinstein asked how the U.S. government can effectively work with and track down piracy rings overseas when it can't police the problem within its own borders.

"We're charging cases in the peer-to-peer area, but quite frankly there's only a limited amount of things we can do in a limited amount of time," Yang replied.

For prosecutors, the problem is assigning resources to fight piracy while dealing with the higher-priority issue of preventing domestic terrorism, in addition to fighting illegal narcotics and other crimes. In speeches delivered at colleges and high schools in California, Yang said that she often gives a "10-second immunity," then asked how many of the audience downloaded movies, music or software from the Internet. Almost all of the audience typically raises their hand, she said.

Meanwhile, the bulk of the enforcement operations are confined to so-called "level 1" offenders, or individuals responsible for copying the material and distributing it, either physically or over the Internet. Operations like Operation Marauder and Operation SiteDown have attempted to go after so-called "warez" groups and sites that distribute material. Closer to home, eight individuals were recently prosecuted in Los Angeles with another bust made in San Jose, she said.

That wasn't nearly enough for Feinstein. "We have a bright young public who sees nothing wrong with downloading…it's going to destroy the copyright industry, it seems to me," she said, adding that a peer-to-peer network "is either going to be legal, or it isn't going to exist."

"The message isn't strong enough and this Congress needs to take some action," Feinstein said.

Two industry leaders, however, planted themselves on opposite sides of the copyright fence.
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/...1864714,00.asp


Congress To Legislate File Swapping?
Anne Broache

A California senator has suggested that because file-sharing networks continue to house illegal files, they should be shut down.

Intellectual property protection "can't function in a country where the high-tech services become such that you can't protect copyright," Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said Wednesday at a U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. The session centered on the landmark Supreme Court decision on MGM v. Grokster, which ruled that file-sharing services can be liable for their users' infringing behavior.

Pointing to what she called a "rise in peer to peers" since the Grokster decision, Feinstein said current law is not effective enough to deter illegal file swapping and the government must enact stronger enforcement measures. "If we don't stop it," she said, "it's going to destroy these intellectual property industries."

It remained unclear what remedies the senator would seek, though she said she didn't think any lawmakers supported an approach that would involve "going out and arresting high schoolers" who subvert copyright rules. Even so, her statements marked somewhat of a departure: When the Grokster decision initially came out, members of Congress said they were inclined to take a hands-off, wait-and-see approach.

Committee chair Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, indicated that Congress was better suited than the courts to address the matter. But at the close of the hearing, he announced, "At least in the short term, I think we'll carry out the wishes of those who want us to do nothing."

That, indeed, was the sentiment senators generally heard from members of a panel representing the peer-to-peer, recording industry, consumer electronics and legal realms--echoing statements similar entities made at an earlier Senate hearing.

But Mary Beth Peters, registrar for the U.S. Copyright Office, said Congress needs to take immediate action on reforming what she deemed an "antiquated" section of copyright law that provides an "inefficient process to license musical works."

The law's "one-at-a-time" approach for licensing individual musical works creates a tremendous roadblock to legitimate online services looking to add large amounts of media to their catalogs, she said. She--and later, Recording Industry Association of American President Cary Sherman--said a "blanket" licensing approach may be an option.

Lawmakers and panelists alike also indicated interest in promoting one-stop, third-party copyright registries--such as Snocap, created by Napster founder Shawn Fanning--that would amass terms of distribution from copyright holders and make them available to interested online retailers. Such a process is designed to save retailers time by erasing their need to broker large numbers of individual deals.
http://news.com.com/Congress+to+legi...3-5884824.html





EU Tries to Unblock Internet Impasse
Tom Wright

The United States and Europe clashed here Thursday in one of their sharpest public disagreements in months, after European Union negotiators proposed stripping the Americans of their effective control of the Internet.

The European decision to back the rest of the world in demanding the creation of a new international body to govern the Internet clearly caught the Americans off balance and left them largely isolated at talks designed to come up with a new way of regulating the digital traffic of the 21st century.

"It's a very shocking and profound change of the EU's position," said David Gross, the State Department official in charge of America's international communications policy. "The EU's proposal seems to represent an historic shift in the regulatory approach to the Internet from one that is based on private sector leadership to a government, top-down control of the Internet."

Delegates meeting in Geneva for the past two weeks had been hoping to reach consensus for a draft document by Friday after two years of debate. The talks on international digital issues, called the World Summit on the Information Society and organized by the United Nations, were scheduled to conclude in November at a meeting in Tunisia. Instead, the talks have deadlocked, with the United States fighting a solitary battle against countries that want to see a global body take over supervision of the Internet.

The United States lost its only ally late Wednesday when the EU made a surprise proposal to create an intergovernmental body that would set principles for running the Internet. Currently, the U.S. Commerce Department approves changes to the Internet's "root zone files," which are administered by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or Icann, a nonprofit organization based in Marina del Rey, California.

Political unease with the U.S. approach, symbolized by opposition to the war in Iraq, has spilled over into these technical discussions, delegates said. The EU and developing nations, they added, wanted to send a signal to America that it could not run things alone. Opposition to Washington's continued dominance of the Internet was illustrated by a statement released last week by the Brazilian delegation to the talks. "On Internet governance, three words tend to come to mind: lack of legitimacy. In our digital world, only one nation decides for all of us."

In its new proposal, the EU said the new body could set guidelines on who gets control of what Internet address - the main mechanism for finding information across the global network - and could play a role in helping to set up a system for resolving disputes.

"The role of governments in the new cooperation model should be mainly focused on principle issues of public policy, excluding any involvement in the day-to-day operations," the proposal said. The new model "should not replace existing mechanisms or institutions," it added. The proposal was vague but left open the possibility, fiercely opposed by Washington, that the United Nations itself could have some future governing role.

The United States has sharply criticized demands, like one made last week by Iran, for a UN body to govern the Internet, Gross said. "No intergovernmental body should control the Internet," he said, "whether it's the UN or any other." U.S. officials argue that a system like the one proposed by the EU would lead to unwanted bureaucratization of the Internet.

"I think the U.S. is overreacting," said David Hendon, a spokesman for the EU delegation.

"But I think it's a tactical overreaction for the negotiations," he added.

"We expected this proposal to move the summit along from the stalemate," Hendon said. "It is unreasonable to leave in the hands of the U.S. the power to decide what happens with the Internet in other countries."

Various groups, including the International Telecommunication Union, a UN agency based in Geneva, have suggested that the U.S. government has too much control over the Internet.

Under the terms of a 1998 memorandum of understanding, Icann was to gain its independence from the Commerce Department by September 2006.

But the Bush administration said in July that the United States would "maintain its historic role in authorizing changes or modifications to the authoritative root zone file." In so doing, the government "intends to preserve the security and stability" of the technical underpinnings of the Internet.

Without consensus, some experts say that countries might move ahead with setting up their own domain name system, or DNS, as a way of bypassing Icann.

The United States argues that a single addressing system is what makes the Internet so powerful, and moves to set up multiple Internets would be in no one's interest.

"It's not just working," said Michael Gallagher, an assistant secretary at the Commerce Department who heads communication policy. "It's working spectacularly." Paul Twomey, chief executive of Icann, said fears of U.S. government influence on the Internet were overstated.

Delegates say the conference has made much better progress on issues like dealing with spam e-mail messages and identity theft since it began in 2003. But they said they did not expect to be able to complete a document on Friday, as had been planned, and that further talks would be needed before the Tunisia meeting Nov. 16 to 18.
http://www.nytimes.com/iht/2005/09/3...IHT-30net.html





Political Bloggers Demand Speech Freedoms
Donna Cassata

Political bloggers who offer diverse views on Republicans and Democrats, war and peace argued on Thursday that they should be free of government regulation.

The notion was echoed by some members of the government agency trying to write rules covering the Internet's reach in political campaigns.

Amid the explosion of political activity on the Internet, a federal court has instructed the six-member Federal Election Commission to draw up regulations that would extend the nation's campaign finance and spending limits to the Web.

The FEC, in its initial rules, had exempted the Internet.

Bloggers told the Committee on House Administration that regulations encompassing the Internet, even ones just on advertising, would have a chilling effect on free speech. The FEC vice chairman also questioned the necessity of any rules.

"I strongly believe that the online political speech of all Americans should remain free of government review and regulations," said Michael E. Toner.

Toner argued that political activity on the Internet fails to meet the campaign finance law's threshold to stop corruption or the appearance of corruption. Toner urged Congress to pass a law that pre-empts the court's action and ensures that the Internet remains exempt from campaign finance rules.

Michael J. Krempasky, director of the Web site RedState.org, said that if bloggers have to meet a government test every time they discuss politics, "the reaction will be completely predictable: rather than deal with the red tape of regulation and the risk of legal problems, they will fall silent on all issues of politics."

But Scott E. Thomas, the FEC commissioner, said his agency's original exemption for the Internet was a mistake and the FEC should come up with rules for Internet campaign ads in light of the $14 million spent on Internet ads in the 2004 campaign.

Thomas said Congress should hold off on any legislation until the FEC acts.

Another commissioner, Ellen Weintraub, said the agency preferred a "less is more" approach.

"This is appropriate because the focus of the FEC is campaign finance," she said. "We are not the speech police."

Thomas said the FEC hopes to write its rules by the end of the year. The full U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia is reviewing the ruling and if it decides that the challenge to the initial rules had no standing, some commissioners may push to abandon the work on writing new rules, Thomas said.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...CTION=BUSINESS





China Tightens Its Restrictions for News Media on the Internet
Joseph Kahn

China on Sunday imposed more restrictions intended to limit the news and other information available to Internet users, and it sharply restricted the scope of content permitted on Web sites.

The rules are part of a broader effort to roll back what the Communist Party views as a threatening trend toward liberalization in the news media. Taken together, the measures amount to a stepped-up effort to police the Internet, which has become a dominant source of news and information for millions of urban Chinese.

Major search engines and portals like Sina.com and Sohu.com, used by millions of Chinese each day, must stop posting their own commentary articles and instead make available only opinion pieces generated by government-controlled newspapers and news agencies, the regulations stipulate.

The rules also state that private individuals or groups must register as "news organizations" before they can operate e-mail distribution lists that spread news or commentary. Few individuals or private organizations are likely to be allowed to register as news organizations, meaning they can no longer legally distribute information by e-mail.

Existing online news sites, like those run by newspapers or magazines, must "give priority" to news and commentary pieces distributed by the leading national and provincial news organs.

This restriction on the ability of Web sites to republish articles produced by the huge array of news organizations that do not fall under direct government control seems intended to ensure that the Propaganda Department has time to filter content generated by local publications before it can be widely disseminated on the Internet.

The new rules are the first major update to policies on Internet news and opinion since 2000.

"The foremost responsibility of news sites on the Internet is to serve the people, serve socialism, guide public opinion in the right direction, and uphold the interests of the country and the public good," the regulations state.

Although Chinese authorities have already effectively unlimited powers to control the gathering and publication of news, the Propaganda Department has sometimes struggled to censor information about delicate developments before it circulates on the Internet.

About 100 million Chinese now have access to the Internet. Though the government closely monitors domestic content and blocks what officials consider to be subversive Web sites from overseas, savvy users can obtain domestic and overseas information that never appears in China's traditional news media.

By the time officials have decided that a topic might prove harmful to the governing party's agenda, an item about it has often already been posted or discussed on hundreds of sites and viewed by many people, defeating some traditional censorship tools.

Experts who follow the Internet say one of the most significant changes is the ban on self-generated opinion and commentary articles that accompany the standard state- issued news bulletins on major portal sites.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/26/in...a/26china.html





Shanghai Bans Chinese Internet Slang Terms
AP

So long, "MM," "PK," and "konglong."

The language police in Shanghai, China's largest city, plan to ban those and other Chinese Internet slang terms from classrooms, official documents, and publications produced in the city, newspapers reported Friday.

"On the Web, Internet slang is convenient and satisfying, but the mainstream media have a responsibility to guide proper and legal language usage," the Shanghai Morning Post quoted city official Xia Xiurong as saying.

Internet chat and instant messaging are hugely popular with China's increasingly computer-literate youth, who employ an ad-hoc vocabulary of invented, abbreviated and borrowed terms such as "MM," meaning girl, "PK," or player killer, for one's competitor, "konglong" or dinosaur for an unattractive woman.

Despite the move, Xia said there was no reason why the terms shouldn't be used in other settings.

"Our nation's language needs to develop, but it also needs to be regulated," said Xia, chair of the education, science, culture, and health committee under the Shanghai People's Congress, the city council.

Xia didn't say how the ban, spelled out in new language regulations being drafted by the congress, would be enforced.

A random survey of Shanghai newspapers on Friday appeared to show the congress had its work cut out.

"Zhang Yaqin goes to Beijing to 'PK' Lee Kai-fu," the China Business News said in a headline referring to competition between the new heads of Microsoft Corp.'s and Google Inc.'s China operations.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...=ENTERTAINMENT





District Court Delivers Guilty Verdict In Peer-To-Peer File-Swapping Case
Rita Fang

The Taipei District Court found Taiwan's largest peer-to-peer (P2P) operator guilty of intellectual property rights (IPR) infringement Sept. 9. Three executives of the Kuro Web site were given jail terms in what is widely believed to be the first incidence of a criminal conviction for operating an Internet file-sharing service.

Kuro President Chen Shou-teng was given two years in jail. His sons, Fashionow Co. Ltd. CEO Chen Kuo-hua and General Manager Chen Kuo-hsiung, were each sentenced to three years in prison. Fashionow is the company that operates the Kuro Web site, located at www. kuro.com.tw. Each of the family members was fined US$91,000 in addition to their jail terms.

Having asked the court for a sentence of up to seven years in prison for the Kuro CEO, and to fine him US$15 million, prosecutors were reportedly unhappy with the short sentence and said they would appeal on the grounds that the US$91,000 fines were too low. Kuro likewise said it would appeal the verdict to a higher court.

"We wanted to cooperate with the record industry, but we were denied," CEO Chen was reported as saying. The organization that initiated the prosecution was the Taiwan office of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), whose executives were pleased with the ruling.

"This is good news for artists and the music industry, particularly in Taiwan, which has had a history of piracy problems," Lauri Rechardt, IFPI director of licensing and litigation, was reported as saying. "Kuro has received a criminal conviction, which sends a strong message that profiteering from infringement will not be tolerated," she added.

In addition to the company executives, one of Kuro's 500,000-800,000 members was also convicted of illegally downloading music in MP3 format. Chen Chia-hui, a 24-year-old woman who downloaded a reported 970 songs using the service, was sentenced to four months in jail and three years' probation.

The ruling was greeted with mixed feelings in Taiwan. Stakeholders in the Taiwanese music industry widely regarded it as a victory that had been long in coming. It was likewise welcome news to business and political interests who want to improve trade ties with the United States by having Taiwan removed from the U.S. Trade Representative's Special 301 Watch List of IPR violators. U.S. negotiators have reportedly ruled out any sort of free-trade arrangement with Taiwan so long as the island remains on the list, prompting vigorous government efforts to demonstrate concern over piracy in Taiwan.

Meanwhile, proponents of freedom-of-information rights, users of P2P file-swapping networks and activists who believe the powerful recording industry already wields too much control over what music is available in Taiwan were disappointed by the verdict.

After the court's decision was handed down, Kuro launched an online petition to amend Taiwan's Copyright Law. The Web site claimed that several hundred signatories, including academics, businessmen and politicians, had lent their endorsement to the online petition. Specifically, the plea calls on the Legislative Yuan to revise the relevant piece of legislation so that the freedom of individuals to use the Internet is protected, it was reported.

The verdict has been compared to an Australian court's ruling against file-sharing giant Kazaa just days earlier, although it stands in sharp contrast to one handed down by the Taipei Shihlin District Court June 30, in which another P2P file sharing operator, Weber Wu of ezPeer, was found not guilty of copyright infringement in a similar case.

It was reported in a local English-language newspaper that the head of the Government Information Office (GIO)--the agency that publishes this newspaper--said Premier Frank Hsieh had asked members of the recording industry to reconcile with file- sharing operators.

"Premier Hsieh said that the music industry should work out a way of cooperating with the file-swapping operators so consumers can legally enjoy the results of the latest technologies," said Pasuya Yao.

"The government cannot turn a blind eye to the record industry slump, but we should not leave Internet users in constant fear of violating the law," the GIO head quoted the premier as saying, adding that Hsieh had asked the Intellectual Property Office to set up a meeting so the two sides could find a compromise.

"We appreciate the premier's attention," said Robin Lee, Secretary General of the IFPI Taiwan office. Lee explained, however, that his organization was only acting as an agent for Taiwan's recording companies in the matter of the lawsuits and was not authorized to engage in any commercial negotiations.

Meanwhile, at the time of writing, Kuro stated on its Web site that it would continue allowing its members to share music files from each other's computers despite the court's verdict. It has been reported that the site has had an average of 40,000 hits per day.
http://www.gio.gov.tw/taiwan-website...005092701.html





First Lawsuits Against Israeli File Sharing Sites

Lawyers of Israel's Entertainment Industry in a special interview for Nana Net-Life Magazine: “When we finish with the file-trading websites, we'll move on to the users”
מאת: By Uri Berkovitz

“Whoever will infringe copyright and run infringing websites will be sued to the full extent of the law, much quicker than what we've had up until now.” Said today lawyers Sarah and Eran Presenti, who represent the record and film industry in a suit against Israel's file-trading websites.

Four of the most popular file-trading websites were shut down yesterday after the court agreed to the request of the record companies and released a restraining order which ordered them to halt all activity. In a special interview for Nana Net-Life Magazine, the conductor of the suit, Lawyer Eran Presenti, explains his world view and the arguments which convinced the court today to turn him into the official eliminator of some of the most popular file-trading websites in Israel.

Lawyers Sarah and Eran Presenti
To what extent was the lawsuit's timing influenced by the US Supreme Court's verdict in the Grokster case?
"We've been working on the current suit since February, four months prior to the verdict delivered by the US Supreme Court, so it's not possible to say that the suit was filed in it's wake. However, we did mention the decision of the US court in this case.

While the Israeli court is not committed to decisions made in the United States, a verdict such as the one which was concluded in the Grokster case, especially when it involves the US Supreme Court, can be an affecting element in the interpretation of the Israeli courts, as in it's analysis. Among others, it was decided in this case that sharing companies would be those held responsible for the illegal actions of their users, in a case in which the main usage of these services would be the illegal sharing of films and music. The judges clarified that companies who build themselves with the active intent of encouraging copyright infringement would be those who would be held responsible for the illegal actions of those who utilize their services.”

What have you now asked the courts?
“As a first step, be have requested a permanent restraining order in order to forbid their activity. The next step is the request of a warrant which will reveal the business conduct of these services, from which we will be able to learn of their profits. In addition, we have requested compensation to the sum of half a million New Israeli Shekels (about 110k$) from each of those being sued.”

What are your expectations of the trial itself, which is due to take place in November?
“We hope that the court will accept our point of view that the websites in question are committing copyright infringement by the use of redirection links. In addition, we hope that they will state that every redirection is, in fact, the creation of a copy or duplicate (The “Performer's rights law” states that the performer holds the rights for his creation not to be duplicated unless he or she specifically grants his or her approval)."

You claim that the recommendation itself of a movie would be breaking the law.

“ It's like having someone tell the entire world where one could purchase drugs, and would run a website which would increase its quality. It is, most definitely, “assistance infringement”. Despite all the talk about “community”, this is about a surprisingly well organized business where each and every file goes through the hands of the “community” members, who make sure that the file name and it's content are identical.

In addition, they work in order to encourage the distribution of these files by the use of what they call “creating sources”. These websites call to the surfers to record television series and to upload them to the internet. The operators of these websites are not philanthropists, but people who conduct an entire orchestra and are very much involved in everything being done.

They bring in coders and translators, and they have an interest in these files being distributed under their name. They have an interest in the files being of specific quality and not “fakes” (files of a mistaking name and mismatching content). The interest behind these Robin Hoods is financial. If this business ticks well in regards to the number of hits generated to the website and it sells advertising space, although they may still be small companies, it is still a type of product, or a business. In addition to all these, these website also have “completing infringements”, because it's not just about films and music, but also album covers and movie stills – which unlike the the pirated files, these are actually stored on the websites' servers.”

And what do you have against adding subtitles to movies?
“Technically, there is no right such as this. The right to translate a work belongs to it's owner. In this suit we're not really paying much attention to the issue of adding subtitles because we represent the creators of Israeli film, which usually do not have to be translated.”

Let's face the truth: The world of file-sharing is going to go on living far after you take down the last of the file-trading websites.
“We've got serious actions in the barrel which will harshly affect the world of illegal file-sharing. Of course, at first there will have to be a court verdict which states that the sharing of files without the granted permission of the rights owner, is illegal, and it's probable that we'll we able to convince the courts of this. It won't be a precedent in comparison to the rest of the world, but it will a precedent in Israel. The legal comparison between Israel and the rest of the world is necessary in order for us to be able to continue swiftly with this matter.”

When you say “swiftly”, are you referring to additional file-sharing websites or the file-traders themselves?
“There is a great deal of information we've gained regarding individual users which is currently not being taken advantage of. The process of filing a suit in the case of a single file-trader is far more simple. In the eyes of the law, these are infringing users. No one has the right to duplicate copyright protected files. When I download a file, I am actually making a copy of it, and I open myself to the entire world so users can download the same file from me. In effect, every user is a distribution and duplication machine, just like a CD burner.”

So what, Are you planning on suing every single file-trader in Israel? Or are you planning on focusing just on the “heavier” traders?
“eMule is the plan's “Phase 2”. Technically we're looking only for those who leave the application open all the time and upload/download files non-stop. As far as we're concerned, they are distributors. I'm only referring to the “heavy” surfers, since in their case it's far more practical and simple for me to display the overall damage to the court”.

And how are you planning on tracking these users? Do you already have the names?
“We know exactly who they are. The entire network is monitored and we have their IP addresses.”

But in order to find out who stands behind an IP address, you need warrants.
“Warrants are not a problem to get.”

From what you've managed to find out up until now, what is the revenue of these file-sharing websites? How much are they really making from their activities?
“We're talking about an revenue of $3000 - $6000 per month. "

Where have you managed to acquire this information? You have only just received access to the documents and servers belonging to these sites.
“We've been investigating these websites under cover for a few months. From the investigation of Amir Tesler (operator of the lala.co.il website) we have found that his income reaches $6,600 per month.”

How did you reach that number?
“Very simply: We called him in order to request price quotes for different types of ad banner aplacements, and later on we counted the number of ad banners on the website. Of course we are aware of the fact that there are arrangements which we have no way of knowing about, such as discounts which were specifically given to this or that dvertiser.”

So what's the solution? Continue charging 80nis (about 17.5$) for the price of one album? File-traders claim that they no longer believe the record companies and are not willing to continue adding to the wealth of the organizations who strip from the artists.

“That's not the situation at all. Except for Helicon which is an “odd bird” in the world of record companies, the financial state of the rest of the companies is very bad. Sales percentages such as those which we saw during the time of Michael Jackson's “Thriller” are long gone. The result of this is that most of the companies are no longer in a situation in which they sign young artists, invest in them and promote them, but are busy creating compilation albums and recycling materials which they already have the rights for, and the target crowd for these is already the crowd which purchases CDs.

Of the role they use to play in the past, as promoters of creation, all that's left is their operation as distribution companies. In light of the fact that it's much cheaper and simpler today to produce albums, there's no need for them to fulfill this function, but on the other hand the artists cannot manage without this ability of distribution. Even a small artist who releases his music for free via eMule wants to make a living off music, and without the record companies it's going to be very hard for him to reach that. The bigger artists have performances, their own recording studios, their own musical productions, but what does a new artist have? What would he do without the association which stands for his right to receive commission? What will he do, go to every broadcasting entity individually and ask to receive commission? Look what happened to the PIL association, of Middle Eastern music. They started asking for commission, and since there were entities who did not want to pay them, these entities refrained from playing the association's artists entirely.”
http://net.nana.co.il/Article/?ArticleID=204164&sid=10





Album Sales: Busy top 10 Cannot Reverse Downward Trend
Geoff Mayfield

Even as a robust September 13 slate renders seven chart starts in the Billboard 200's top 10, album volume again drops from the same sales week of 2005, a trend that's marked most of this year.

This time, new chart-topper Paul Wall and company faced an especially tough climb: During last year's 37th sales week, two Nelly albums each started with more than 300,000 copies, while three other titles each surpassed 100,000. That compares with four in the 100,000-plus club on the current list, where Wall leads the pack at 176,000 units.

Nielsen SoundScan has not clocked a same-week album volume hike since the week ending June 19, and that spike was artificial, comparing Father's Day business of 2005 to a non-holiday frame in 2004.

Album sales lag behind last year's pace by 8.5 percent if you look at the raw data and by 8 percent if you use the adjusted SoundScan comparison that better aligns the 2004 sales weeks. The gap might worsen by the time Santa Claus finishes his rounds.

During the 2001-03 span when album sales slid from one year to the next, 2003 was the only time that the march of superstars that invariably reach stores during any year's last four months made a difference. The gap actually got a little wider in the closing months of each of the prior two years.

In-the-know executives at two of the four major distributors tell me their companies will be hard-pressed to equal the album numbers they hit during the fourth quarter of last year, predictions that suggest stores could be in for a blue Christmas.

Misnomer

When Warner Music Group revived the label name Asylum, the operation was posited as an "incubator." The recent success realized by Paul Wall and Mike Jones suggests the WMG brass might have to rethink that nomenclature, as both rappers arrived full grown.

This week, a sales tally of 176,000 copies puts Wall in first place on the Billboard 200 and Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums, leading the former list by a 7 percent margin. Although Jones fell shy of the big chart's summit, he rolled an even larger number, 181,000 copies, when his album entered the Billboard 200 at No. 3 in April.

To date, "Who Is Mike Jones?" has sold 1.1 million, according to Nielsen SoundScan, with a "Screwed & Chopped" version laying on another 45,000 units.

Fellow Asylum-sold rapper Webbie has scanned 212,000 copies in the 11 weeks he has spent on the album charts. He ranks No. 154 on the Billboard 200, where Jones stands at No. 48.

Variety Pack

Tick through the 10 new entries in the Billboard 200's top 20 and you might recall those variety packs of cereal that maybe your mom packed for road trips, with a little something for everyone.

The second-highest bow marks a career best for Christian rock band Switchfoot, entering the big chart at No. 3 while grabbing No. 1 on Top Christian Albums with 131,500 sold. Its last studio album, "The Beautiful Letdown" -- which has scanned 2 million copies since its release in February 2003 -- peaked at No. 16 on the Billboard 200 and never sold as many as 93,000 in any week.

Occupying the next two rungs are a study in feminine contrasts. Serious-minded country vet Trisha Yearwood (No. 4, 117,500 units) is followed by the Pussycat Dolls, a burlesque act that traded the cabaret for the studio (No. 5, 99,000 units).

Mature rock fans can revel in the arrivals of Paul McCartney (No. 6) and Bonnie Raitt (No. 19), with the former's start of 91,500 exceeding what chains' first-day reports had suggested. Younger rockers can choose from harder-edged Trapt (No. 14) or introspective singer-songwriter David Gray (No. 16).

Reggae's flag flies high in the hands of Damian "Jr. Gong" Marley (No. 7), son of the legendary Bob Marley. The progeny's 85,500 copies stand as the largest opening week by a reggae artist in Nielsen SoundScan history, while Charlie Wilson's start at No. 10 represents old-school R&B (71,000 copies).
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsAr...archived=False





Hollywood Producer Accused Of $5 Million TV Scam
Dan Whitcomb

A Hollywood producer who claimed to be making a TV show about the U.S. Department of Homeland Security with the approval of President George W.

Bush was arrested on Friday and charged with bilking investors out of more than $5.5 million.

Joseph Medawar, 43, was taken into custody at the Los Angeles offices of his production company, Steeple Entertainment, and charged in U.S. District Court with mail fraud and obstruction of justice, FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller said.

According to an FBI affidavit, Medawar -- who has produced a series of B-movies including "Sleepwalkers" and "Hardbodies 2" -- convinced some 70 investors he was making a TV series called "DHS" with the approval of Bush and former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge.

In fact, prosecutors say, Medawar spent most of the $5.5 million he raised on himself and on an associate, Alison Heruth-Waterbury, who is identified in promotional materials as the star of "DHS."

Medawar was expected to enter an initial plea in the case on Friday afternoon.

Heruth-Waterbury was not charged in the case. Prosecutors said an investigation was still ongoing.

"The government has no information to indicate (Medawar) actually took steps to produce a television series," Assistant U.S. Attorney David Willingham said, adding the producer made a "number of misrepresentations" about the status of his company and endorsements of public officials.

Among those misrepresentations were that Bush and Ridge had endorsed the show, that Medawar had already filmed a number of episodes, that he had secured rights to distribute the series in 137 overseas markets and that he was about to take his company public, the affidavit said.

"The U.S. government will not stand for individuals who use the name of the government to commit crimes and steal money from victims," Willingham said.
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsAr...archived=False





The Campus

More Colleges Offering Video Game Courses
Michael Hill

More and more, video game-related courses are being offered in colleges around the country in response to the digital media industry's appetite for skilled workers and the tastes of a new generation of students raised on Game Boy and Xbox.

Animation I, Cognition & Gaming and Computer Music are being offered as part of the year-old minor in game studies at RPI, one of dozens of schools that have added courses or degree programs related to video gaming in recent years.

RPI, which plans to offer a major in the field next year, graduated 27 gaming minors in its first year and expects a jump this year.

"The concept of designing good video games, or designing good human-computer interactions - that's what I'm interested in," said Chelsea Hash, a senior with a video game minor and a major in electronic arts.

From Brooklyn's Pratt Institute to the University of Colorado, at least 50 schools around the country now offer courses in video game study, development or design, according to industry groups.

Some of the schools offer full-blown academic programs. The University of Washington offers a certificate in game design; the Art Institute of Phoenix gives a bachelor of arts in game art and design; and the University of Pennsylvania has a master's in computer graphics and game technology.

Jason Della Rocca, executive director of the International Game Developers Association, said the high number of schools adding programs in the past few years shows how the game industry is maturing.

Della Rocca said that in the early "Space Invader" days of game development, one developer could mentor a handful of workers. Now, games can cost $10 million to develop and require 200 workers, making the industry hungrier for specialized skills.

RPI humanities dean John Harrington said the idea of teaching about video games in college "brings out the Puritan in some people," but he said the technology-oriented school can't afford to ignore the booming field of digital media.

Administrators at RPI say they developed a serious academic program that marries technology and creativity.

Marc Destefano, who teaches the psychology of play, system dynamics and game theory in his introductory course, wants students to appreciate the interplay of mechanics, dynamics and aesthetics that he says makes a video game work - be it Pac-Man or Resident Evil.

It's not all about design, however: Katherine Isbister teaches students about the social and emotional aspects of gaming. Her research lab looks more like a teen's dream living room with sectional sofa, plasma-screen TV and a shelf full of video games. Less obvious are the cameras that can focus on players' faces.

Many of the academic programs at RPI and elsewhere are still new and are just starting to become a feeder system for the $10 billion-a-year video game industry.

Della Rocca compares it to the emergence of film studies programs decades ago. Dismissed at first, they now produce big-name directors in a field now considered by many to be a serious art form.

"Just like when rock and roll came of age everybody wanted to be a rock star, as video games have come of age, everyone wants to be a developer," said Carolyn Rauch, senior vice president of the Entertainment Software Association.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...CTION=BUSINESS





Atari Brings Back Bygone Era
Ron Harris

Some sobering news for anyone who has recently crested 40: Everything you grew up with is now officially retro. Clothes, music, hair styles - even video games.

Long before "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas," there was "Pong," a simple video game from Nolan Bushnell and the folks at the original Atari Inc. Two paddles, one ball and no Hot Coffee mod to unlock hidden sex scenes. THAT was gaming.

The Atari brand has traded hands in the years since "Pong" hit the scene, but the new owners are still milking some mileage out of this game and 39 others with Atari Flashback 2. This $30 device offers a fun and affordable glimpse into the gaming's past - one that, for better and worse, looks nothing like the present.

The console itself looks like a scaled-down version of an old Atari 2600, with faux wood paneling and other dated details. There are no cartridges to plug in, as technology advances have made it easy to stuff all of the games onto a small chip inside. And the controllers are exactly like the Atari 2600 joysticks of yore.

The unit connects to your home television through common audio and video RCA inputs. Many sets have these connections on the front, which is a bonus with this console because I found the cables that come with it a bit short.

Among the 40 titles are classics like "Centipede," "Asteroids," "Missile Command," "Yar's Revenge" and "Pitfall." Some are licensed from Activision Inc., which made games for the 2600, but most are original Atari gems.

How do these titles hold up in the face of today's video games with highly detailed graphics, Dolby Digital sound and online connectivity? As well as could be expected of large primary-colored blocks jumping around the screen.

But there is magic in the way those blocks moved. Hours of magic.

Games like "Missile Command" have the type of player interaction that remains viable in plot and movement. My mind was thrust back decades as I began to protect the cities closest to my ammunition bunker, keeping an eye peeled for smart bombs, those little blinking diamonds that fell from the sky and tried to evade my explosions.

And "Millipede," a sequel to the popular "Centipede" title, was a blast. I was racking up extra lives on only my second attempt as I weaved past that infernal spider that crept from the corners seeking to squash me.

The action games held up well, but adventure games like "Haunted House" and "Wizard" were mostly duds and offered little real suspense.

Seriously. How scary can a blinking green square be anyway?

The sounds produced by these games are rudimentary at best. Even my cell phone makes more intricate tones.

Nonetheless, lots of people simply refuse to let go of retro-gaming.

Consider that many who long for old quarter-gobbling arcade games like "Joust," "Defender" and "Crystal Castle" have gravitated to free software called MAME, short for Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator. MAME can run the original ROMs from hundreds of arcade game machines. And those ROMs are also readily available online.

The legality of using MAME to play ROMs you don't actually own is up for debate. But an enthusiastic online community is keeping the old titles alive, and there's no debating the lure of a pixelated pastime that helped define a generation.

Atari has done a nice job of legally giving us another look at these early games, long after the consoles themselves have been relegated to the dust bin.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...CTION=BUSINESS





Privacy

Credit Card Court Battle Tests Laws
Michael Liedtke

Testing the bounds of consumer protection laws, Visa USA Inc. and MasterCard International Inc. are headed for court to determine whether they are obliged to notify 264,000 customers that a computer hacker stole their account information.

The dispute to be argued Friday in San Francisco County Superior Court revolves around a highly publicized security breakdown at CardSystems Solutions Inc., one of the nation's largest payment processors.

Although a ruling in the class-action consumer lawsuit wouldn't have legal standing outside the state, it would increase the pressure on Visa and MasterCard to notify all affected accountholders in this and any future breaches.

That would compound the headaches that the CardSystems imbroglio already has caused.

The breach, initially disclosed by MasterCard three months ago, exposed up to 40 million credit and debit card accounts to potential abuse between August 2004 and May 2005.

It's the largest of more than 70 consumer information security breaches reported in the past seven months, according to the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse.

Although the scope of the CardSystems break-in has been generally outlined, the credit card associations haven't sent warnings to the most vulnerable customers.

San Francisco-based Visa and Purchase, N.Y.-based MasterCard maintain that responsibility should fall to the myriad banks that administer the accounts because neither credit card association has direct relationships with the affected customers.

Both Visa and MasterCard provide processing and marketing services to thousands of banks nationwide. It's a profitable endeavor. MasterCard's parent company earned $213.5 million on revenue of $1.4 billion during the first half of this year, according to documents filed in preparation for an initial public offering of stock. Visa doesn't disclose its profit.

Internal investigations have determined that the still-unknown thief grabbed enough sensitive details from CardSystems to defraud about 264,000 Visa and MasterCard accountholders nationwide, according to evidence gathered in the lawsuit, which was filed by San Rafael, Calif., attorney Ira Rothken.

No home addresses or Social Security numbers were stolen in the CardSystems breach, minimizing the risk for identity theft. But the hacking obtained customer names, account numbers and security codes that could be used to create bogus credit and debit cards.

The lawsuit seeks a court order requiring Visa and MasterCard to warn each Californian whose information was compromised. The order is being sought under a pioneering state law that requires consumers to be alerted whenever personal information stored on computers is lost, stolen or breached.

Since California imposed the mandate in July 2003, 35 other states have approved or proposed similar laws, according to the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. That means other states could end up addressing similar legal issues raised by this California case.

"We are trying to establish an efficient method that would hold Visa and MasterCard responsible for giving all consumers their due notices, so each customer can decide whether they want to change their card number," Rothken said.

Replacing a credit card costs an issuer about $35.

That would total $9.24 million for 264,000 cards that might have to be replaced if customers learn of the fraud risk, with the cost rising even higher to the industry if it's discovered even more of the 40 million accounts are vulnerable.

Both Visa and MasterCard have blamed CardSystems' lax security for the breach. Infuriated by the breakdown, Visa has since cut its ties with Atlanta-based CardSystems, which says it has tightened controls to comply with industry standards.

In their legal briefs, Visa and MasterCard have argued there's little chance any affected customer will lose a cent because of the association's long-standing policies to reverse all charges for fraudulent transactions. The "zero liability" policy lessens the need to alert individual customers about the fraud risks, said MasterCard spokeswoman Sharon Gamsin.

In a statement, Visa also said it is comfortable with its anti-fraud measures. But both companies worry that the opposite message might be sent if they are ordered to warn individual customers.

"Such an order would harm the banks' goodwill because some customers would certainly be confused by the notice and believe the issuing banks were somehow to blame for the security breach," Visa's attorneys argued in a court brief.

The companies' fraud-fighting assurances don't soothe Eric Parke, a Marin County resident representing consumer interests in the suit. In a sworn declaration, Parke said he has been fretting about his potential fraud exposure since news of the CardSystems theft broke.

"I do not think it's fair for ... me to have to look through cryptic credit card statements with (an) eye toward forensically determining if fraud was committed ... when Visa and MasterCard can just tell me if my data was compromised," said Parke, who has seven MasterCard and Visa accounts.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...CTION=BUSINESS





Peer-To-Peer File Sharing Case Thrown Out
Antony Savvas

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has failed in its latest attempt to punish a user of peer-to-peer networks for allegedly illegally sharing copyrighted music.

Candy Chan, a mother from Michigan, had faced a heavy fine after Priority Records, acting on behalf of Sony Music and Warner Brothers, said she was responsible for her 13-year-old daughter sharing copyrighted tunes.

But a court dismissed the case.

Chan's IP address had been found on a P2P network along with an e-mail address. After the suit was filed, Chan pointed out that the e-mail address belonged to her 13-year-old daughter.

The prosecution then tried to prosecute the child.

The judge said the plaintiffs had used a “shotgun” approach to pursue the action by threatening to sue all of Chan's children and indulging in “abusive behaviour” in an attempt to use the court as a “collection agency”.

The case hinged on whether Chan was liable for her daughter's actions. The plaintiff argued that she was as she had given the child a computer, and that she shared liability.

The British Phonographic Industry is currently taking action against UK P2P file sharers.
http://www.computerweekly.com/Articl...ethrownout.htm





File-Sharing System Growing Bit By Bit
Vincent Gesuele

In today’s high-tech society, it should come as no surprise that downloading content over the Internet is as popular as ever. Whether it’s music, movies, video games or software, it’s all available with the click of a mouse.

Napster was one of the first sites to offer files, which started a downloading trend years ago, and programs such as Kazaa and Limewire have continued the movement. Lawsuits against users of these programs have caused their popularity to flounder, while a new technology has surfaced.

Bittorrent, a computer program that makes downloading more efficient, is quickly becoming the most used peer-to-peer file sharing system available. According to Bittorrent’s Web site, torrent sites accounted for over one-third of all Internet traffic last year.

Bittorrent differs from other peer-to-peer technology in that the program filters out corrupted or damaged files to ensure quality downloads. Once a user begins to download a file they are also uploading the file at the same time. This format allows for fast downloads with high-speed connections. In spite of Bittorrent’s popularity, downloading copyrighted material such as music or movies is illegal. The Recording Industry Association of America and the Motion Picture Association of America have both targeted torrent Web sites.

On Aug. 31, the RIAA filed its latest round of copyright-infringement lawsuits against 754 Internet music thieves.

The MPAA unleashed its own set of lawsuits against peer-to-peer users. On Aug. 25, the MPAA filed 286 lawsuits against individuals whose names were given during the shutdown of a torrent site earlier this year.

Elite Torrents was shut down in May after “Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith” was made available six hours before it hit theaters. According to the MPAA Web site, the movie was downloaded more than 10,000 times.

College campuses have been hit hard as 496 students from 33 different universities have been issued lawsuits by the MPAA and RIAA in the past year. Jonathan Goldsmith, a junior computer science major, downloads music and movies online, but does not use torrents. “Most of those students being sued probably used campus computers for the high speed connection and got caught,” he said.

Regardless of the legal action taken, millions of people share files each day on Bittorrent and other peer-to-peer sites, data show.

Torrent sites are mainstream, which make them more susceptible to lawsuits than smaller peer-to-peer sites.

Blake Hamilton, a self-employed software designer, feels the original reason for the creation of torrent technology was to share files legally. Hamilton shares his free Spyware program on several torrent sites in hopes of reaching a broader audience.

“I don’t think the program was originally started with illegal downloading in mind,” Hamilton said.

The popularity of Bittorrent has spilled over into the business world as companies realize how beneficial the software is. Microsoft has created its own peer-to-peer software that is similar to Bittorrent, called Avalanche. “Eventually the technology will be primarily used for legal downloads,” Hamilton said.

When that happens, torrent users will have to find a new way to download content for free.
http://www.statehornet.com/vnews/dis.../4339eaef5fbe5





Wireless Carriers Banking on Mobile Music
Alex Veiga

When someone dials Leah Balecha's mobile phone, it doesn't ring. It jams with the sounds of 50 Cent, OutKast, Gwen Stefani and Kelly Clarkson.

Like a growing number of mobile phone users, the 30-year-old videographer and student has taken to customizing her handset, sometimes paying more than $3 for just a snippet of a single song to turn it into an audible fashion accessory.

"I love the reaction I get when people hear my phone ringing," Balecha said. "All of my girlfriends have a different ring."

With U.S. mobile phone users like Balecha already spending hundreds of millions a year on ringtones, wireless carriers and the music industry are banking on taking music lovers to the next step: using the phone as a portable music player.

They're taking advantage of the fact that mobile handsets and the data networks that feed them are becoming more sophisticated.

Consumers in Japan, South Korea and Great Britain are already transferring songs directly from their computers to their phones, a practice known as sideloading, or downloading full-length tracks over their mobile networks.

Ringtones may be big in the United States now, but full-track downloads and sideloading are the future, said Thomas Hesse, president of global digital business at Sony-BMG Entertainment.

Still, there's some doubt about whether U.S. music fans - who have grown accustomed to using their home computers to buy, listen and organize their digital music - will fully embrace the phone as their music device of choice, said Charles Golvin, principle analyst for Forrester Research in Los Angeles.

Balecha has purchased about 15 ringtones in the past three months but isn't sold yet on full-length songs.

"It would depend a lot on how much it costs and how easy it was to use," she said. "The sound quality on my cell phone when it plays the song is not like listening to my stereo."

Sprint Nextel Corp. will likely be the first carrier to offer downloads of full songs over its wireless network. It plans to launch the service in the United States this year. Separately, Sprint recently struck a deal with RealNetworks Inc. to offer music videos, news and music streamed over its network.

Verizon Wireless, which is affiliated with a British carrier that already offers full-song downloads in Britain, is also planning a similar U.S. service.

Online music retailers including Napster Inc. and Apple Computer Inc. are also vying to capture download sales by promoting handsets that users can hook up to their personal computer. The idea is to get users accustomed to sideloading before plunging into pay-per-song downloads.

Earlier this month, Apple unveiled its ROKR, a mobile phone by Motorola Inc. that holds up to 100 songs and comes with Apple's iTunes software. It's being offered through Cingular Wireless, which is planning a separate download service next year.

Napster has partnered with handset maker Ericsson to launch a mobile music service under the Napster brand. Slated to launch in Europe within a year and in the United States eventually, the service would allow users to purchase individual tracks and download them wirelessly.

The growth of the U.S. mobile music market has been encouraging.

Ringtone sales are now estimated at about $400 million and projected to double by the end of the decade, said David Card, an analyst with Jupiter Research in New York.

Sales of mastertones - clips from an actual recording label release - have in some cases eclipsed sales of full versions of the same song in other formats like CD.

Nearly one-quarter of U.S. cell phone owners, or about 30 million people, had downloaded musical ringtones as of January, up from 5 percent a year earlier, according to a study by market research firm Ipsos Insight.

The study also showed 6 percent of mobile phone users reported having downloaded complete songs to their handsets.

Card sees great potential in sideloading, though he's a bit skeptical about users paying to download full tracks.

Apple's iTunes Music Store became popular because people fell in love with Apple's iPod music player, not the other way around, Card said, so companies shouldn't believe they can stir interest in mobile music simply by setting up a store.

"People who think you're going to spend boatloads of money to fill up anything with downloads, by far, there's not enough evidence to support that yet," he said.

Many handsets have come on the market with the ability to store scores of songs, but they don't have enough capacity to keep complete libraries nor the screens to make browsing through music files anything but laborious.

Pricing is another obstacle, Golvin said.

With desktops, consumers already pay an Internet service provider for data transmission. Wireless carriers must account for such costs, Golvin said.

Published reports suggest that Sprint plans to charge around $2 for its full-length song downloads, which would be double the desktop price. Although Nancy Beaton, Sprint's director of entertainment and personalization, declined to discuss details, she said "customers will put a premium on the convenience."

Adam Klein, an executive vice president at EMI Music, said full-track downloads mean instant gratification.

"In other markets we see it as appealing to the sense of instantaneous, 'I hear it, I push buy, I get it,'" Klein said.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...CTION=BUSINESS





Voice Over Internet Both Simple, Complex
Frank Bajak

We have more ways than ever of communicating, but trying to keep up with family and friends can be exasperating. Our overlapping free time seems to shrink. We constantly play phone and voice mail tag. And e-mail, in its tone-deaf impersonality, barely helps.

One of the most unorthodox and intriguing among 32 new products launched onstage at this week's DEMOfall conference, a showcase of tech innovation, was a Web-based tool with a mission: to encourage emotional connection via audio messages.

Not two-way conversations, mind you. Just me telling you my news. Click, talk and send.

The product is called YackPack because the user creates groups, or packs, of people who can be audio-messaged individually or collectively. Each member of your pack gets an icon with his or her picture on it. An e-mail notification tells you when a Yack has arrived.

"It turns out that asynchronous audio is the secret sauce for what keeps relationships alive and fresh," said B.J. Fogg, the company founder and chief executive. Much of YackPack's recipe came from the year Fogg spent with a focus group of women over age 50.

Unlike Fogg, the typical tech startup CEO will bend your ear with metrics on market potential while spouting technobabble that would befuddle all but us geeks.

Such people abounded at DEMOfall, where other promising products pitched to an elite crowd of investors and press also sought to better manage relationships: by turning a cell phone into a conference-call manager, helping eBay users place bids wirelessly, protecting the privacy of online consumers.

Fogg, on the other hand, was more apt to be accused of psycho-babble. He is, after all, a Stanford psychologist in addition to being a computer scientist.

"We're helping people connect emotionally, and that leads to happiness," he said.

Santa Rosa, Calif.-based YackPack goes live in mid-October and will be free while in beta, then cost well under $10 per month, with a free ad-based version, Fogg says.

There's no software to download, and Fogg says YackPack even works with dial-up connections. All you need is to get a microphone working with your computer.

"Three-year-olds can do it. Grandmas can do it. People who can't read and write can do it," said Fogg.

He sees the product as benefiting circles well beyond families - cancer support groups, for example.

DEMO's semiannual shows have been springboards for such industry standouts as TiVo, the Palm Pilot and the Danger HipTop. After six years under the DEMOmobile moniker, this year's fall show got a name change in recognition of our ability to finally go online wirelessly with increasing ease.

DEMO show producer Chris Shipley says the legions of ultra-productive but also constantly reachable and thus often harried "always-on people" are driving today's tech market. Shipley calls it the dawning era of "ultrapersonal computing."

Software and services thus dominated DEMOfall, with a number of products appearing poised to humble industry giants, especially in telecommunications.

One was Mobile Call Manager from Menlo Park, Calif.-based TalkPlus Inc., which uses Internet phone technology over the traditional cellular network. It makes cheap calls available on cell phones while adding such features as the ability to have multiple phone numbers ring on a single handset and on- the-fly conference calling with up to 10 participants.

That's something no wireless carrier now offers.

CEO Jeff Black claims he'll be able to offer low, low rates - 2 cents a minute for calls within the United States and Canada - and he's lining up multiple carriers internationally for a Jan. 1 launch. He wouldn't name the partners.

Jingle Networks Inc. of San Francisco sees directory assistance as another huge market - worth an estimated $8 billion a year in the United States - that's ripe for the plucking.

To bypass the traditional carriers, Jingle connects callers for free to the business, government office or residence of their choice. The trade-off for using 1-800-FREE-411: Callers must first listen to a 12- second recorded pitch.

Jingle's success will depend on its ability to sign up local merchants. When I called the service to get my home phone number, the pitch I heard, after following the voice prompts, was for Jingle itself.

The cell phone is also the key for Camden, N.J.-based Smarter Agent Inc. Its first service, expected next year, will deliver real estate listings to mobile handsets based on a user's location.

If you like a neighborhood but are nowhere near a computer, you'll be able to use a map on your cell phone screen to see what nearby houses are on the market, the asking price and other details. You'll even be able to search to see recent selling prices for comparable homes in the neighborhood. Smarter Agent, a registered Realtor, draws on the Multiple Listing Service used by agents across the nation on their Web sites.

Safeguarding privacy online has become an ever more serious concern with identity theft a mounting problem. That was reason enough for a company called UniPrivacy Inc. to build a business on protecting consumers proactively.

The company's newly launched DeleteNow product will, for $2.99 per month, remove information about you from more than 100 online sources - search engines and databases including Google Inc. - and check those sites daily to make sure the information stays off.

However, plenty of sites that might contain personal information about you, such as Claria Corp., aren't cooperating, says chief executive Chaz Berman. The more customers UniPrivacy acquires, the more clout it will have, and Berman says it plans to eventually "out" those sites that refuse to cooperate.

After all, "When you join we become your legal agent."

Touche!

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...CTION=BUSINESS





Katrina Spurs Federal Action On VoIP
Anne Broache

Hurricane Katrina's thrashing of communications networks has amplified the need for Congress to take action on Net phone policy, senators said Thursday.

At a hearing convened by the Senate Commerce Committee, senators pledged to take steps to ensure that all communications networks, including voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP, can connect their customers to the 911 system. One such bill was introduced in May.

"I want to underscore how complete and total the implosion of communications seemed to be," said Sen. David Vitter, a Louisiana Republican who was in the ravaged state during the storm. "It puts the sort of normal process of rumors floating around...through the stratosphere, because all of a sudden there's no way to get real, accurate information on the ground."

The "robust, unique features" of Net phones helped ease the communications logjam when people could find power sources, said Sen. John Sununu, a New Hampshire Republican. According to the Voice on the Net Coalition, which represents VoIP interests, Net phones lines have been used by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Red Cross, the Army, hospitals and evacuees at the Houston Astrodome in the storm's aftermath.

But committee members criticized the Federal Communications Commission for requiring VoIP providers to cut off all customers who don't acknowledge possible limitations to 911 access. That deadline was most recently extended to Sept. 28 but could still leave thousands without service.

"Their safety may be in much greater jeopardy, having lost their service," Sununu said.

Without VoIP, officials in New Orleans could have been stripped of all means of communication, Sununu added. A Vonage representative told senators at the hearing that the city's mayor and police chief had relied on his company's VoIP service to talk with people, including President Bush, outside the region.

FCC Chairman Kevin Martin didn't give a clear indication as to whether the deadline would be moved. "We have tried to provide some additional flexibility on that," he said at the hearing. "We continue to extend that deadline as we see carriers make progress."

The storm knocked out more than 3 million telephone lines, 1,000 cellular sites and 38 emergency call centers in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, Martin told the senators. Some of the emergency call centers were physically wiped out, and others hadn't been programmed to route their calls to centers that remained up and running. It is critical, he said, for all communications providers, including Net phone companies, to devise back-up plans to prevent disruptions during extended power outages.

Martin made three major suggestions, though he didn't specify who would implement them: Set up a more comprehensive alert system, which would use the Internet and other technological advances to reach as many people simultaneously as possible; provide first responders with interoperable equipment--so-called smart radios--that allows communication across various jurisdictions and frequencies; and take advantage of IP-based technologies, which can act as a backup, rerouting telecommunications traffic.

Senators at Thursday's hearing also pledged to get to work on a pending bill that would free up radio spectrum for use by emergency workers.

Strongly advocated by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the provision would also result in shifting all television broadcasts from the analog spectrum, which first responders use, to the digital spectrum by 2009. Sen. Ted Stevens, the Alaska Republican who chairs the Commerce Committee, said the bill would be marked up in late October.
http://news.com.com/Katrina+spurs+fe...3-5876992.html





CyberAgent and PeerMe Join Hands

Leading Blog Site Adds “Ameba PeerMe”Free Telephony Software
Press Release

CyberAgent, Ltd., Shibuya-ku, Tokyo and PeerMe, Inc. , Mountain View, California, U.S.A. have completed capital and business partnerships with CyberAgent launching “Ameba PeerMe” as its communications service on its Internet properties. The software is available for download from www.PeerMe.com/Ameba.

CyberAgent will immediately begin distributing the PeerMe’s P2P (peer to peer) telephony software at its blog site (http://www.ameba.jp) under the name Ameba PeerMe. CyberAgent will expand its distribution of the Peer to Peer voice and instant messaging services to other CyberAgent Group properties in the near future.

Ameba has rapidly expanded to become the second most popular blog site in the Japanese market. With CyberAgent’s market presence and continued growth, CyberAgent is now targeting the rapidly expanding peer to peer voice market, targeting 10 million “Ameba PeerMe” users within the next 12 months.

Main Features of “Ameba PeerMe”(Beta Version)

Voice Chat
• By downloading the free Ameba PeerMe IP telephony software from www.Peerme.com/Ameba you can make free world-wide PC-to- PC calls with crystal clear voice clarity.

Mobility
• If you have an internet connection and a headset, you can log in to your PeerMe account from any PC in the world.

Text Chat
• Text messaging, the ability to save your communications and emoticons are available for text chat.

About CyberAgent
CyberAgent, a listed company in Japan , is the leading provider of the sales and management of internet media, EC (Electronic Commerce), and advertising in Japan. CyberAgent's core strength is providing effective solutions for internet advertisers to communicate to their target audiences.


About PeerMe

Founded in 2004, PeerMe, Inc., www.PeerMe.com, is a privately held international peer-to-peer communications technology company with offices in Mountain View, Calif., Tokyo, Japan, South Korea, China, India, Bulgaria and Austin, Tex. PeerMe has developed a peer- to-peer voice and instant messaging platform, which supports Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) PC-to-PC and PC-to handheld voice communications, instant messaging, and peer-to-peer file transfer over public Internet connections. PeerMe’s vision is to bring a human connection to the Internet through voice-enabling the Web.
http://www.theopenpress.com/index.php?a=press&id=4253





PlusNet Criticises VoIP Rivals
Staff

ISP PlusNet has criticised rivals in the Internet telephony market, claiming users of services such as Skype are prone to call quality issues and spam over IP telephony (SPIT) attacks.

The announcement came as PlusNet launched its own VoIP service which it claims can maintain high quality sound and minimises the impact of SPIT attacks and voice phishing, which tricks users into handing over sensitive information.

PlusNet said that VoIP providers using peer-to-peer (P2P) systems that lack their own dedicated networks to support voice calls are utilising internet service providers' bandwidth.

With no control over the networks they talk over, they cannot assure priority of voice traffic over data, which is required for effective VoIP communications.

As a result, the quality of voice and service may degrade, causing call drop-offs, echo, bad reception and delays during the calls, the ISP said.

Lee Strafford, CEO at PlusNet, said: "Only by assigning dedicated bandwidth to VoIP calls can quality be assured. This is something that companies using P2P VoIP cannot control."

"We firmly believe that VoIP services are best offered by internet service providers, who can offer the necessary control of quality and security to counter today's spam and security threats. Otherwise poor quality of service will be synonymous with VoIP, and users will begin turning their backs on a great technology, " added Strafford.

PlusNet has called for the adoption of open standards across the industry if VoIP is to challenge tradition phone technology.

"Some providers such as Skype offer a proprietary system, a closed circle where you can only talk freely to other VoIP users who have subscribed to the same service. Only by using open standards can users talk freely to whoever they want to, regardless of who the provider happens to be.

“VoIP providers who don't adopt open standards will keep their customers effectively locked in closed communities," Strafford concluded.
http://www.netimperative.com/2005/09...IP_rivals/view





The Music Phones: Rokr vs. Walkman

Putting music on your phone gets easier--but is it worth it?
Grace Aquino

A music phone can mean one less thing to carry in your pocket. You don't have to lug a cell phoneandan MP3 player. But like many multipurpose devices, you usually have to give up a few features and top performance for the convenience of using just one gadget. Expect the same deal with Motorola's Rokr (aka the Apple ITunes phone) and Sony Ericsson's W800i Walkman .

Neither phone wowed me, but they do make music transfers a little easier than with other handsets--not counting phones that let you download music over the air, which is convenient but you have to pay for each tune. With the Rokr and the Walkman phones, you can use included software to rip and download music from your own CDs. The Rokr, which was made in collaboration with Apple, also lets you transfer songs that you've purchased from the ITunes music store. In fact, compatibility with ITunes, both the store and the media player, is the Rokr's biggest selling point.

The Rokr is available exclusively from Cingular Wireless for $249 with a two-year service contract. The W800i Walkman costs $499 without a carrier agreement; for now, there are no carrier subsidies available.

Transferring music to each of these GSM/GPRS phones is straightforward--but very slow. You install the included software on your computer; launch the application; connect the phone to your PC via the supplied USB; and drag and drop your selected tunes from your system to the handset. Download times and the number of songs that each phone holds depend on each track's compression rate and its file size.

In my experience, both the Rokr and the W800i Walkman took 45 seconds to 1.5 minutes per track, plus or minus. These transfer times don't seem so bad when you're copying just a few songs. But when you want to fill each phone's 512MB of storage to the maximum, the download can take more than an hour. I managed to squeeze 83 tracks on the Rokr in about 1 hour and 15 minutes. It was such a drag to wait.

Motorola says the Rokr can carry up to 100 songs, and Sony Ericsson claims that the W800i Walkman can hold up to 150. The Walkman phone can hold more because its PC software lets you shrink file sizes. Yes, MP3s are already highly compressed. So why would anyone down-sample even further and degrade the sound quality? If you're listening to music on the phone, you probably won't notice--or won't mind--the mediocre sound quality.

The music playback interface on both phones is simple, but each interface has multiple layers. Both were very slow. There was a noticeable lag on the screen each time I made a selection: It took about a second to go from one menu item (for example, Artist) to a list of choices. And even though the phones support Bluetooth, you can't transfer music wirelessly.

If you get an incoming call while listening to music, both phones automatically pause the song. To resume playback, you select Play. The handsets are bundled with earbuds, but ones provided by Sony are way more comfortable than the earbuds that Motorola supplies. Sony's are small and have a soft, rubberized covers. The Rokr earbuds are hard, even with their foamy cover; and they were too big for my ears.

White is the new black: The W800i Walkman is white with orange around the edges, while the Rokr sports a pearly white finish with light gray edges. The Walkman phone is smaller and looks cooler than the Rokr, and at 3.6 ounces it's slightly lighter than the 3.8-ounce Rokr.

The W800i Walkman works better as a camera phone: The back side is designed like a standard digital camera with a small flash and lens. When you take a picture, ideally you hold the phone horizontally; when you do, the shutter button is at the top right, just as if you're using a standard camera.

The W800i is equipped with a 2-megapixel camera, which worked fine on my informal shots. Viewing the files on my PC monitor, the pictures looked a little better than most images I've taken on lower-resolution camera phones. But some colors were off and the exposure on some images was dark. The Rokr's photo quality was worse, in part because it has a low-power VGA camera that captures less than a million pixels. Some of my shots with the Rokr were grainy and dark.

On a musical level, both phones performed well. The Rokr's ITunes compatibility is a nice bonus, especially for current ITunes users. However, the W800i Walkman phone accommodates my needs a little better: It has comfy earbuds, takes slightly better pictures, and looks good. Alas, it's too darn expensive. If Sony Ericsson could sign up a carrier that could mark down the price, I'd be a happier camper.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...092800264.html





Milestones

50 Years on, 'Lolita' Still Has Power to Unnerve
Charles McGrath

Vladimir Nabokov's "Lolita," that disquieting story about a suave and silver-tongued European émigré who seduces a 12-year-old American girl, was published 50 years ago this month, and Vintage is celebrating with a special anniversary edition. "Lolita" is unlike most controversial books in that its edge has not dulled over time. Where "Ulysses" and "Lady Chatterley's Lover," say, now seem familiar and inoffensive, almost quaint, Nabokov's masterpiece is, if anything, more disturbing than it used to be.

Scrupulousness might have argued for waiting a few years to memorialize it, since the book did not come out in this country until 1958. Nabokov finished it in December 1953, and according to his biography by Brian Boyd, sent it to five American publishers: Viking; Simon & Schuster; New Directions; Farrar, Straus; and Doubleday. None would touch it, and neither would The New Yorker, with whom Nabokov had a first-reading agreement. Katharine White, Nabokov's editor at the magazine and a friend, told him that "Lolita" made her "thoroughly miserable." Pascal Covici, his editor at Viking, said that anyone who published it risked being fined or jailed.

So the anniversary we are really celebrating is that of the Paris edition, a green-jacketed book that came out under the grimy imprint of the Olympia Press, which had cornered a lucrative niche by publishing books that ran into censorship trouble elsewhere, including titles by Henry Miller and Jean Genet. They gave the press a certain literary cachet, though most of the titles were along the lines of "Until She Screams" and "There's a Whip in My Valise."

Nabokov initially planned to publish "Lolita" pseudonymously, though he left a telltale fingerprint: mention of a character named Vivian Darkbloom, an anagram of Vladimir Nabokov. But James Laughlin, the publisher of New Directions, argued that the book's style was so distinctive that no one would stay fooled, and when Maurice Girodias, Olympia's publisher, urged the author to use his own name, Nabokov gave in.

Humbert Humbert, the narrator of "Lolita," claimed to have turned out the manuscript in just 56 days, and the book reads that way - the hot, urgent, at times lyrical outpourings of a man blurting out a simultaneous confession and self-justification. The task took Nabokov considerably longer, and in 1950, "beset with technical difficulties and doubts," he even started to burn the manuscript in a backyard incinerator, from which it was saved by his wife, Vera.

The "first little throb" of inspiration for "Lolita," Nabokov later wrote, came in Paris in late 1939 or early 1940, and he wrote a short story, never published, about a man who marries a dying woman to get access to her young daughter, whom he tries to seduce in a hotel room before throwing himself under a train.

The breakthrough idea of turning the story from third person to first occurred in the mid-40's, and it gave the novel its most distinctive feature, Humbert's impassioned voice: "Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta."

Nabokov wrote much of the book in circumstances not unlike those encountered by Humbert and Lolita during their year of driving more or less aimlessly around all 48 continental states: during summer vacations in the early 50's, that is, when he, Vera and their son, Dmitri, piled into the family's aging Oldsmobile and drove west so that Nabokov could pursue his other great passion: collecting butterflies.

The family stayed, like Hum and Lo, in motor courts and tourist cabins with walls so thin they could hear the flush of the next-door toilet or the exertions of honeymooning couples. For quiet in the evenings Nabokov would often repair to the back seat of the Olds, where he wrote "Lolita" on index cards. The novel is, among other things, an unashamed mash note to America, Nabokov's adoptive country, and as he wrote later, a record of his bittersweet love affair with the American language. While working on the book, he read movie magazines, scribbled jukebox song titles and rode buses to eavesdrop on snatches of teenage conversation.

Like many controversial books, "Lolita" proved that nothing helps sales more than a whiff of scandal. The novel received an unexpected boost when Graham Greene, writing in The Sunday Times of London, named it one of the three best books of 1955, and John Gordon, the editor of The Sunday Express, responded with a diatribe, saying, "Without doubt it is the filthiest book I have ever read."

After the book was finally published in the United States by Walter Minton, a young editor at G. P. Putnam's Sons, who had apparently heard about it from a girlfriend, a showgirl in the Latin Quarter, it shot to the top of the best-seller lists, where it stayed neck and neck with Pasternak's "Doctor Zhivago" for six months. Sales of "Lolita" were spurred, no doubt, by heavy-breathing readers who were disappointed to discover that the racy bits were mostly confined to the first 140 pages.

But "Lolita" is more than just a dirty book; it's an upsetting one. And it disturbs us more than ever because pedophilia has moved from the murky, seldom-visited basement of our collective consciousness to the forefront of our moral awareness. We know now that it happens more often than anyone imagined, and with far worse consequences.

And we're also clearer now about the dynamic that turns even consensual sex into criminality. It's true that Lolita makes the first overt move, but no one in his right mind would write any longer, as Robertson Davies did when defending "Lolita" in 1959, that the book's theme is "not the corruption of an innocent child by a cunning adult, but the exploitation of a weak adult by a corrupt child."

Nabokov never pretended that Humbert was anything but a monster. To a Paris Review interviewer who suggested that what went on between Humbert and Lolita wasn't much different from, say, the relationships between middle-aged movie moguls and young starlets, Nabokov responded sharply: "Humbert was fond of 'little girls' - not simply 'young girls.' Nymphets are girl-children, not starlets and 'sex kittens.' "

And yet Humbert is also a brilliant monster, a touching one, even lovable at times. As Lionel Trilling wrote, "Humbert is perfectly willing to say he is a monster; we find ourselves less and less eager to agree with him." This is part of Humbert's strategy: he wants to win us over.

And he is in the end a moral monster. In the novel's great last scene, he recalls looking down from a mountaintop and listening to the sound of children playing below. He realizes that "the hopelessly poignant thing was not Lolita's absence from my side, but the absence of her voice from that concord." His great crime, he now understands, is not so much debauching Lolita as depriving her of her childhood, her place in that laughing concord.

We need to remember, though, that it has taken him the entire novel to get to this point, and that elsewhere, in the high-spirited beginning especially, with its fond and precise evocation of lovely Lo, her smell, her chestnut hair, her downy back and honey-hued shoulders, her figure-eight-shaped vaccination scar, Humbert is getting off all over again.

Worse, he takes us with him. It may not be quite true, as Trilling said, that "we have come virtually to condone the violation," but we keep reading, as if under a spell. "Lolita" is a study in seduction of many sorts, not least the seduction of art, which turns out to have no morality at all.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/24/books/24loli.html





Why Time Warner Has Fallen in Love With AOL, Again
Randall Stross

TECH'S most notorious dead man walking may be AOL. Many years have passed, however, since commentators first voiced the opinion that AOL's days were numbered (1994), that commercial online services were doomed (1995), that the more it blended with the surrounding Web, the greater the likelihood that it would lose its reason for being (1996).

Today, though smaller, America Online is not merely alive but defiantly healthy - especially when it needs to be, having recently taken a terrifying but necessary strategic step: making virtually all of its content available free at AOL.com, no subscription required.

Why AOL was so reluctant to remove the ticket booth at the front gate is understandable. Subscribers to its dial-up service pay monthly, a recurring revenue stream that is a beautiful thing to behold on an income statement. Switching more of its business to an advertising-based model means gaining higher margins but having to look forward to less of the sweet regularity of subscriber fees. AOL will also have to scrabble with the other big portals for ad dollars. The company put it off for 10-plus years, even when its membership rolls began to shrink as customers switched to the broadband services of others. But when wishful thinking failed to reverse the trend, it was forced to take the plunge.

Given this history, it is natural to assume that AOL's late start and lack of familiarity with the terrain will doom its attempt to compete. But don't assume it. The most likely outcome is success.

Richard D. Parsons, the chairman of its parent, Time Warner, has noticed. Last week, he singled out AOL as the division that offered the primary growth opportunity for the entire company. As for possible strategic alliances with MSN or another partner, he was silent. But in an account of his remarks published at RedHerring.com, he pledged his commitment to the division. "What we are not likely to do, having carried this burden to this point in time," he said, "is to part with AOL."

When AOL is measured and weighed today, its vital stats are excellent, belying its age. Its member site and messaging services pull in traffic that, in aggregate, places it among the three major portals, with Yahoo and MSN. In August, according to comScore Networks, AOL had 88 million unique visitors and 26 billion page views, numbers of no small interest to advertisers, especially those pitching in categories geared toward families and women. In the latest quarter, ended on June 30, advertising jumped $99 million, or 45 percent, from the year-earlier period, softening the drop of $168 million, or 9 percent, in subscription revenue.

Despite the continuing defection of subscribers, its operating income for the quarter was $368 million, up from $276 million in the year-earlier period. Not shabby for a business that you last heard had been consigned to intensive care. Even though its paid membership rolls drifted downward, to 20.8 million in the United States and 6.2 million in Europe, compared with 34 million worldwide in 2001, AOL bolstered advertising revenue, trimmed expenses and consequently improved its operating income by 33 percent from the year before.

These results are from the quarter that ended before AOL's programming was opened to the public. It is too early to know how the experiment has fared, and it would probably not be fair to evaluate AOL.com's traffic and advertising revenue until a full year has passed.

In the meantime, the company need not be too concerned that its current dial-up customers will abandon ship in accelerating numbers. At its membership core are the subscribers who chose the service because it made going online easy and insulated them from the unknown. These members have become comfortable where they are.

"At a certain point, the ones that are left are going to stay," said Jonathan Gaw, an analyst at IDC, a market research firm based in Framingham, Mass. Current AOL members are sticking with their pokey dial-up service, paying AOL $23.95 a month, even in areas served by Verizon and SBC Communications where D.S.L. service - offering download speeds 7 to 25 times as fast - is now available for $14.95 a month.

Another group of subscribers does not feel tender affection for AOL but stays put for another reason: unwillingness to part with a familiar e-mail address. AOL milks this for all it can. It has about five million customers who have switched to a broadband service for Internet access but are willing to pay up - $14.95 a month, as much as they are spending separately for broadband service - to keep using AOL mail.

Long ago, the company's culture became accustomed to concentrating energy on trapping customers who wished to leave. Last month, Eliot Spitzer, the attorney general of New York, announced a settlement with AOL under which the company, which did not admit wrongdoing, will stop rewarding customer service personnel with generous bonuses based on the number of customers they dissuade from canceling service.

Evidence collected in the investigation suggested that AOL employees were inclined to meet their performance targets by either making the cancellation process so painful for the customers that they could not bear to continue, or by simply ignoring their requests. The $1.25 million fine that AOL agreed to pay did not materially dent its balance sheet, but the episode was an embarrassment, coming just as the company wanted to direct attention to the grand reopening of AOL.com.

The company appears to understand that its old habits will not fit in its future. It now permits customers who cancel their membership to forward without charge the e- mail messages that arrive at their defunct AOL e-mail address to a new AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) address, using the e-mail service it is promoting at AOL.com. In these arrangements, a vestige of the old clingy AOL remains: the company does not mention this option anywhere on its site - only when a member actually cancels is the forwarding option revealed.

AOL.com is no different than Yahoo, MSN and other portals: all seek to detain the visitor as long as possible - noncoercively, of course, by providing a range of offerings so complete that there could be no reason to leave. Google, however, has taken a path that diverges from the portals. Its core service, search, is engineered to do exactly what the portals try so hard to avoid: sending the visitor to another site as quickly as possible. Web users appear to appreciate this.

Charlene Li, an analyst at Forrester Research, based in Cambridge, Mass., said she believes that AOL has deep content, with strengths such as shopping, entertainment and programming for children, and she is optimistic about AOL.com's prospects. But she has noticed that the percentage of online users who two years ago said that they used AOL at least once a week was 22 percent; today, that is down to 15 percent. While the percentage of Yahoo and MSN users also fell during that period, Google's numbers rose: 48 percent now use Google at least once a week, up from 38 percent.

AOL's management should not be concerned, Ms. Li said. "They're not going to get the hard-core Google users, and they know that." Instead, AOL.com will pursue the sort of person who, well, was once an AOL dial-up subscriber, who had left and may be willing to try the AOL brand again. "That's a lot of people," she added.

AOL.com will receive visitors referred by other Time Warner sites, but people in the industry wonder about how it will persuade others to try it. The site's design, however, receives high marks. Most surprising, nary a word can be heard that AOL.com was rolled out too late to have a chance. David Card, an analyst at Jupiter Research who is based in New York, said: "Yes, AOL is late to the party for an open portal. But it's not too late because it's still early for broadband."

THE diffusion of broadband recently passed the point of critical mass - more than 15 percent of all households. Mr. Card views AOL.com as the portal best suited for broadband speeds, a design that it achieved precisely because AOL, the company, had been so slow to move to the Web. Lacking a previous version of a Web portal, AOL.com could start fresh.

With a history that stretches back 20 years, deep, deep into the primeval mists, AOL defied predictions of its demise a half-dozen times before it gained its now-familiar name. With luck, it went on to flourish. It is poised to do so again.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/25/business/25digi.html





Pride in a Vintage Cellphone
M.P. Dunleavey

I AM the proud owner of a five-year-old cellphone that I've nicknamed Sparky. He's a hulking vintage Samsung, and when I pull him out of my bag, people tend to gawk. "Oh, my God," they'll say. "How old is that?"

Occasionally, because Sparky seems too big to be just a cellphone, some folks mistake him for one of those new phone-palmtop-camcorder gizmos. Then I flip open the dial pad and they realize Sparky doesn't even have a color screen, let alone the capacity to download Minesweeper.

That's fine by me because my mobile buddy does everything I need. He makes calls and answers them. He provides voice mail. And I've never had to replace the battery, which stays charged for up to 24 hours (go Sparky!).

The trouble is that Sparky may be only five (going on six) by my reckoning, but in cellphone years he's getting up there. And I dread the day when I will have to replace him. While it's possible to buy a used phone on Web sites like eBay, I resent the fact that if I want a new one, it seems I will be forced to buy the equivalent of a small production studio, complete with Bluetooth, whatever that is.

I'm not a Luddite, although I can sound like one. I am just weary of the constant pressure to upgrade everything in my life - paying more and more, it seems, for gadgets and services. If you had peered into a crystal ball in 1995 and had seen that in 10 years millions of Americans would be shelling out thousands of dollars a year in subscription fees to live the high-tech life, you would have rolled your eyes and laughed. Yet these days no one blinks at paying for:

Mobile phones and their plethora of extras (including my favorite: a ring tone that sounds like - brrring! - an old telephone).

Internet and e-mail services.

A kazillion cable channels.

A service that records programs from those channels so you can watch them whenever you want.

Mail-order movie rentals.

Music downloads.

It's slow financial strangulation by subscription. Not only do the services cost you, but it's hard to avoid buying new gear that will download faster, sync better or just do more.

Take the brand-new Motorola Rokr phone, a k a the iPod phone. For $250, which is nowhere near the top price in this market, you get text, video and photo messaging, the ability to download games and other applications - and of course you can drag and drop 100 of your favorite iTunes into the phone.

I was tempted by the Rokr, but the feeling faded when I realized I'd be paying for whistles and bells I'd never use. So I called Seth Heine, who keeps an eye on cellphone trends and is the founder of CollectiveGood (collectivegood.com), which recycles old phones like mine to raise money for charity. Did he know of any antique cellphone buffs, similar to vintage car collectors, who were preserving earlier technologies? He sort of choked and laughed. "Not to my knowledge," he admitted.

Fortunately, there is a faint gleam of hope shining across the pond, as it were. The Vodafone Group has released a new cellphone in Europe, called the Vodafone Simply, that could be Sparky's long-lost cousin. It calls and answers; it has voice mail and sends text messages. It doesn't depend on a lot of fussy icons or menus. Instead, when, for example, your battery is charged, the screen reads: BATTERY FULL. Love that.

Although it's been described as a phone aimed at the middle-aged market, Ben Padovan, a Vodafone spokesman, got a little testy when I mentioned that. "It's just as much for the busy housewife who is more interested in keeping in touch with her kids than downloading games," he said. "There are many customers who are looking for a hassle-free, uncomplicated, no-nonsense phone."

Really? It can feel quite lonely out here, but apparently when it comes to not upgrading a phone, persistence pays off. You may not see a Sparky or a Simply (which is available only in Europe) when you walk into the typical razzle-dazzle mobile store, but Verizon Wireless, for one, does "keep a broad portfolio of phones for people with a variety of needs," said Brenda Raney, a spokeswoman. "But it's like looking for a plain white blouse in a department store. You're going to have to ask for it."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/24/bu...instincts.html






Art of the Internet: A Protest Song, Reloaded
Sarah Boxer

Some songs have all the luck. They lead double, even triple lives, meaning everything to everyone, and meaning it passionately.

Last month, Green Day's "Wake Me Up When September Ends" was serving both as a protest song against the war in Iraq and as a patriotic ballad. It was (and still is) one of the most requested music videos on MTV. Now, thanks to the Internet, it is a song about the devastation that followed Katrina.

The song's original music video, made by Samuel Bayer (who also filmed the video of Nirvana's classic "Smells Like Teen Spirit"), is full of pathos and sap. It shows a young couple in love, then quarreling and finally separated by war. As the young man fights in Iraq thinking about sunnier days, the young woman sits home waiting and fretting.

Although the band intended the music video as an antiwar protest, Kelefa Sanneh, a pop music critic for The New York Times, pointed out that it also "works pretty well as a support-our-troops statement." One blogger recently posted the Green Day video with the tag "Great Recruitment Video." Maybe he was being facetious, maybe not.

Today, it's the same old song with a different meaning. Two weeks ago, Karmagrrrl, a blogger also known as Zadi, paired the Green Day ballad with television news coverage of Katrina and posted it at her Web site, smashface.com/vlog. Her video fits the lyrics like a glove.

Karmagrrrl's video begins with a view of green trees out the window of a bus. "Summer has come and passed, the innocent can never last," the song goes. "Wake me up when September ends." On the floor of the bus, you see a pair of red sneakers toeing the headline "HELP US" on a folded copy of The New York Post from Sept. 1. The picture in the newspaper shows a pair of feet in cardboard sandals.

From that point on, "Wake Me Up" is set to images of Katrina seen on MSNBC, CNN and "The Oprah Winfrey Show." As the rain rages on MSNBC, the song swells: "Here comes the rain again, falling from the stars." A streetlight falls onto the wet street: "Drenched in my pain again, becoming who we are." Videotape of corpses carried on stretchers goes with this lyric: "As my memory rests, but never forgets what I lost." It's almost too perfect.

In the video the song's lyrics seem weirdly prescient, even though parts of the song make no sense at all. "Like my father's come to pass,/ 20 years has gone so fast." What could that mean? Perhaps that touch of incoherence is the song's key to universality.

And what about the instrumental interludes? They have been filled with excerpts from President Bush's remarks to hurricane victims hundreds of miles away. In what is either a remarkable stroke of luck, or the vlogger's artistry, the president's halting, I'm-in-this-with-you cadence exactly fits the folksy rhythm and earnest feel of the music.

"I want the folks there on the Gulf Coast to know that the federal government is prepared to help you." It's as if the president were onstage with the band. "Right now the days seem awfully dark to those affected, but I'm confident that with time, you'll get your lives back in order."

Is it possible that Karmagrrrl is empathizing with Mr. Bush? Is it possible that this is a romantic video about America in mourning? A few images undo that suggestion. At a certain point in the video, you don't just see families waving for help, infants crying in their mother's arms and children in makeshift carts. You see women shouting obscenities at the camera.

Unlike the original Green Day video, which could be either pro-war or antiwar, this one sends a clear message. Yet what makes the Katrina video work is that it isn't totally obvious from the beginning.

It glides to an end with a long panorama of homeless people sitting on curbs and waiting for help. The song goes, "Wake me up when September ends,/ Wake me up when September ends,/ Wake me up when September ends." Rather gratuitously, after the music has stopped, the president's mother, speaking from Houston, gets the last gaffe: "So many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, and this is working very well for them." And it's a wrap.

By the way, Karmagrrrl is not alone. Around the same time she was joining Green Day's song to images of Katrina, two Houston rappers who collectively call themselves the Legendary K.O., Damien Randle and Micah Nickerson (who lives near the Houston Astrodome), made their own mash-up. They joined Kanye West's hit song "Gold Digger" with some of the ad-lib remarks that Mr. West made during an NBC telethon for hurricane relief, tossed in some more words, called it "George Bush Doesn't Like Black People" and posted it on the Internet.

It's now a hit on the radio and the Internet, and can be downloaded from various Web sites, including the rappers' own, www.k-otix.com. Already someone on the Internet named Black Lantern has added video. And there's no guessing about the sentiment.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/24/arts/24boxe.html





Problems Surfacing With iPod Nano Screen
Michelle Meyers

Some owners of Apple Computer's new "impossibly small" iPod Nano are starting to wonder if the device is also impossibly delicate.

The most widespread complaint about the otherwise highly-praised device seems to be that the color display screen gets scratched extremely easily.

Nano owner Brian Cason posted one of 250-some threads in response to a recent post on Apple's discussion board about screen scratching.

"I don't really care if the case on my Nano gets scratched but my screen has scratched up so badly that all the images are starting to become distorted," Cason wrote, echoing the sentiment of many others in the discussion. "I have only carried it in my small pocket in my shorts and nothing is in there to scratch it. I still can't figure how the screen looks like it has been rubbed with sandpaper when the entire time it has been safe in my pocket (with absolutely no items)."

But this week several users also started complaining about screens cracking, or failing, inexplicable. A Nano owner set up the site, flawedmusicplayer.com (formerly ipodnanoflaw.com) to tell the story about how his Nano screen shattered after just four days, to see if others have had the same problem, and to suggest that Apple recall the Nano and use stronger screen product.

"It is way too fragile. Apple markets it in a pocket. Hell, Steve Jobs himself pulls it out of his when he announces it," wrote the site host, who himself was smitten with the Nano upon its release. "It was in my pocket as I was walking and I sat down. No, I didn’t sit on it."

An appropriate Apple official was not immediately available for comment on the alleged problems with Nano screens.

Some Nano owners have written to flawedmusicplayer.com, challenging its premise and arguing that they haven't had any problems with their screens. They chalk problems up to user abuse and reference an Ars Technica report that shows the Nano holds up to extreme circumstances.

Several, however, emailed with similar screen failures and debated whether the problem is caused by a design flaw or poor manufacturing, maybe just in an isolated batch.

iPodnn pointed out that at least one iPod repair company, iPodResQ, has temporarily raised the price of Nano LCD repair "due to LCD availability and overwhelming demand."

Last June, Apple agreed to settle several class action suits over the battery life of earlier iPod models, offering extended service warranties and $50 store credits to consumers who lodged complaints.
http://news.com.com/Problems+surfaci...3-5880307.html





iPod Maps Draw Legal Threats
Matt Reed

Transit officials in New York and San Francisco have launched a copyright crackdown on a website offering free downloadable subway maps designed to be viewed on the iPod.

IPodSubwayMaps.com is the home of iPod-sized maps of nearly two dozen different transit systems around the world, from the Paris Metro to the London Underground.

The site is run by New Yorker William Bright, who said he fell into transit bureaucracy crosshairs after posting a digitized copy of the New York City subway system map on Aug. 9. "I got it on Gawker the day after it started, and the site exploded," he said.

More than 9,000 people downloaded the map, which was viewable on either an iPod or an iPod nano, before Bright received a Sept. 14 letter from Lester Freundlich, a senior associate counsel at New York's Metropolitan Transit Authority, saying that Bright had infringed the MTA's copyright and that he needed a license to post the map and to authorize others to download it.

"I removed it promptly," said Bright, a design director at Nerve.com. "I'm very aware that they are copyright violations, but I'm not trying to make money or do anything malicious. I'm not in this to piss people off."

Last week Bright received a similar cease-and-desist letter from officials with Bay Area Rapid Transit, or BART, demanding that Bright remove a map of the San Francisco rail system.

Bright said he'd grabbed the New York and San Francisco BART maps from the official websites, cut them into smaller sections in Adobe Photoshop, and then put them back together at resolutions that are readable on iPods.

The iPod photo resolution, for example, is 220 by 176 pixels, while the nano is at 176 by 136, he said. Straphangers can scroll through the maps using the iPod's click wheel.

Bright took down the BART map last week, but the relative simplicity of the system allowed him to create a map of his own that he believes avoids copyright restrictions. He released it under a Creative Commons license on Thursday.

He also spent about 20 hours in the past week making his own map of the numerous, tentacled subway lines that run through Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx. The layout and fonts are different than the MTA's map, but the subway line colors are the same, which is why Bright wants to talk to a copyright lawyer before posting it, he said.

"The A, C, E is still blue. The 1, 2, 3 is still red," Bright said.

The New York Times reported in June that the MTA has begun registering its colorful route symbols as trademarks and has sent more than 30 cease-and-desist letters to businesses that had been using the route symbols to sell such items as bagels, perfume, T-shirts and tote bags.

The financially strapped MTA has a licensing department that has approved about 25 product lines, including neckties and coffee mugs, the Times reported.

Bright said he plans to contact the licensing department.

"My guess is that it comes into a gray area when I start distributing the map and maybe when I put up ads, even though I make just about a buck a day with Google ads," he said.

BART's letter to Bright read in part, "There is a widespread belief that materials published by public agencies such as BART are in the public domain. This belief is incorrect."

Bright also used a map that became outdated when the BART system extended one of its lines and shortened another, said Jim Allison, a spokesman for BART. "We don't have a problem with people disseminating information about BART," Allison said. "We do have a problem with people pirating information that is incorrect," he said.

The spokesman added that BART is preparing to unveil its own free, downloadable iPod map on its website.
http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,68967,00.html





Radio Paradise Hacked
From the site

What happened? Those of you who haven't been around for the past few days are probably wondering what the heck all of the fuss & bother is about. Here's the short version: on Sunday (9/25) a group of Brazilian hackers found a vulnerability in some blocks of code that we were running (specifically phpNuke & the Nuke phpBB port) and hijacked our web server in order to launch an attack on a rival group of hackers. Just some harmless fun & games for them, but a very serious situation for us and our service provider.

In order to prevent this from happening again, I'm re-writing all of the site code to eliminate our dependence on the scraps of phpNuke & phpBB that we were running. It does not appear that any data on our server was compromised, and we don't store the most sensitive data (such as credit card numbers) on our own server, anyway. We have complete backups of all of the user info, forum posts, and everything else - so the only long-term consequence should be that we'll have a more secure and better-performing website. I've been handed the week from hell, but hey, I can take it.

Thanks a lot to all of the RP geeks-at-large who have offered help, guidance, bug reports, and moral support. We really appreciate it.

Thanks
-bg

http://www2.radioparadise.com/nowplay_b.php