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Old 10-02-05, 08:23 PM   #1
JackSpratts
 
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Join Date: May 2001
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Default Peer-To-Peer News - The Week In Review - February 12th, '05

Quotes Of The Week


"Copyright law was never meant to interfere with the public's right to know. We expected that the experiences would be in the public domain.... The people who are barring this will have to pay a price." - Don Jelinek


"Consider how many people that work for Sharman Networks and its partners that hate installing Kazaa on their machine." - Phil Morle


"You’d be amazed how many students stopped illegally sharing files just because they know ICARUS is always watching and they’ll get caught. We just wanted to say, ‘Hey, we’ve got law enforcement here and we’ll detect you...’" - Robert Bird, coordinator of network services, University of Florida


"There is a tremendous debate, a confrontation, on how to cope with the Internet presence. It's a very, very hot-button topic." - Jeffrey H. Fischer


"We're satisfied with the sales of the book given the fact that there has been a decline in the market for these big best-selling authors." - Jonathan Galassi


"Speaking as a layman, I don't think they own rock and roll and I don't think they own the phrase 'Hall of Fame' and I know for sure they don't own the Jews." - Jeffrey Goldberg


"Hollywood will continue to thrive by providing consumers a great product at a fair price. Not by crippling technology." – Wendy Seltzer


"People have to have fair-use rights in a free market." - Art Brodsky


"Hollywood is dreaming if they still think CSS is a piracy deterrent." - Bruce Schneier














Of Fat and File Sharing

The State Capitol this week is grappling with a modern philosophical conundrum: what makes people so fat? On the one hand are the strict self-determinists; they believe and reverently so that obesity is a result of poor character, that there is one reason and one reason only why fat people are fat: they are weak willed. On the other hand are those who feel, and not without some justification from science, that the body’s regulation of weight is a vastly complex affair, one that is affected by many things, from willpower to overpowering hormones to the types of food people are exposed to from a young age to other factors yet discovered. In Connecticut at the moment this is not a purely intellectual exercise. There is a bill in committee as I write this, number 6156, that if passed will indemnify food processors from civil actions brought by those suffering from the debilitating health effects of obesity, indemnify because, according to the bills sponsor, food processors bear no responsibility at all for this health catastrophe. This is of course philosophy masquerading as science making bad law. I was asked to comment on the bill and I did so this afternoon.

Without exploring the science on the one hand or the lack of it on the other I needed to make one thing clear to the committee, something that is highly relevant to the issue but that also goes beyond the immediate cares of the conference: If the legislature wants to take away a fundamental right of mine, they must substitute that right with another, so as a citizen I am left with another avenue of redress. This is not the case with the present bill. It would prevent the people from exercising their constitutional right to petition the court for relief without giving them something back in return, and that is wrong. If as has been suggested this bill could help insure consumers a steady supply of high fat food, that is hardly a benefit when its very abundance is killing them.

It is a situation we as file sharers find ourselves in today as again, our elected officials continue to take away our rights without substituting others of equal value. As fair use becomes diminished by law nothing is being proposed to take its place. As the right we hold to copy, a right I might add not established by statute but created by God and by nature as a walk in any vernal wood illuminates, as that natural right is diminished by law we must substitute another right that guarantees us the freedom to freely reproduce and exchange information without fear of prosecution or prejudice.

As the People we ourselves grant the monopoly that media companies use so self-righteously. The privilege to prevent copying is found nowhere in nature, for it is a wholly artificial construct, one that goes against the very fabric of life itself, and one designed for another age when distances were vast and knowledge like weapons was dragged at great cost across oceans of surf and plain and into the legendary battles against ignorance. The monopoly we grant producers as an incentive under these so-called "copyright" laws are the sole province of the People; they belong to no-one else, are loaned with strict quid pro quos and are supposed to be protected and managed for the People by their elected representatives in Congress. These lawmakers were not sent to Washington to destroy these rights but to cultivate them so that the refinements more closely match the original laws intent. In the case of copyrights it is not to make foreign media conglomerates gargantuan and rich beyond the dreams of avarice but to allow ever more efficient transfers between writer and reader, father and son, mother and daughter, brother and sister, husband and wife, reader and friend.

Today as Congress increasingly sees in copyright law a vehicle to reduce and even eliminate any semblance of balance between cartel and consumer, we must insist they step back and reevaluate the whole sorry thrust of modern intellectual policy or relinquish stewardship and return the right to the place from whence it sprang: We The People.












Enjoy,

Jack.












Movie Blackout For P2P Networks?
John Borland

Researchers at Royal Philips Electronics are developing new "fingerprinting" technology that could automatically identify and block transmission of digital-video files, potentially handing movie studios a new weapon in its war on peer-to-peer networks.

The technique would be similar to technology already being used to track and prevent copying of music files on some university networks. Philips' audio fingerprinting technology is central to Napster founder Shawn Fanning's new company Snocap, which aims to turn file-swapping networks into digital-song stores.

Once completed, Philips' technology--along with related tools from other companies--could be a powerful weapon in Hollywood's increasingly aggressive attempts to choke off the flood of films being traded online. For now, the tools are in an early stage of development, but Philips has begun to show them to potential partners and customers.

"For identifying content over peer-to-peer networks, this is the ideal technology to use," said Ronald Maandonks, business development manager for content identification at Philips. "We are now working with a group of engineers to improve it."

A tool for identifying video mid-swap could reignite the debates over peer-to-peer legislation. Entertainment companies have pressed peer-to-peer software companies to install filters that block copyright material, but the software companies have said the idea is impractical.

Fingerprinting first appeared in the peer-to-peer world when a federal judge ordered the original Napster to block trades of copyright songs through its network in 2001. The company used early versions of audio fingerprinting technology to identify songs, which ultimately helped make the network all but unusable.

Independent company Audible Magic appeared several years later, saying it had developed its own way of fingerprinting songs online. The company's claims were quickly taken up by the Recording Industry Association of America, which said file-swapping companies should build this kind of song-stopping filters into their software.

Audible Magic's technology is now being used by a handful of universities, including Central Washington University in Ellensburg, Wash., and Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio, to identify and block song swaps on their networks.

Computers watching movies

Video fingerprinting would work much like its musical cousin. In the case of songs, a unique string of data (the "fingerprint") is associated with each recording. Software that can be installed inside an ISP network monitors files being swapped, checking for matches toa database of these fingerprints. If a match is found, the file can be blocked.

The trick is to make that identification process work even if the file is compressed, turned into a different computer file format or otherwise changed slightly. For a song, this means basing the fingerprint on the music's acoustical properties, rather than on the ones and zeros that make up a given digital file.

The video process is similar, but would use visual characteristics of individual video frames instead of audio qualities.

That makes the process a challenge, however. A two-hour movie contains far more material than a four-minute pop song. A good fingerprinting technique must be able to identify the movie even if parts of it are being downloaded out of order, or if some bits have been cut out, Maandonks said.

Facing these hurdles, Audible Magic is already going down a different road with its software. It has already added the capability to strip out the audio from a video file and use its audio fingerprinting techniques to identify a film. That requires less processing power and can be done with more certainty today, the company said.

"Using the audio track makes a lot of sense with a lot of titles," said Vance Ikezoye, CEO of Audible Magic. "That capability is done and tested and works."

Movie studios still tentative

Even if proven successful, it could be years before video fingerprinting starts putting up real roadblocks to film-swappers.

That's largely because the identification technology isn't enough by itself. A massive database of fingerprints also needs to be created, which means that studios or third parties have to run millions of hours of movies, TV shows and other video through fingerprinting tools.

Ikezoye said his company has worked with some studios to develop a small test database. Philips said it has had discussions with studios, but isn't yet to the point of developing the needed fingerprint library.

A Motion Picture Association of America executive said the group is looking closely at ways of identifying films online, but is focused more specifically on watermarking, a means of embedding extra code that helps track the origin of pirated copies. That technique has been particularly useful in the MPAA's effort to keep Oscar-nominated films offline.

"Video and audio watermarking for forensic data embedding is becoming an important tool in content owners' battle with piracy," said Brad Hunt, the MPAA's chief technology officer. "These technologies are proving to be quite useful and reliable in pinpointing the initial source of piracy."

As with previous file-swapping issues, the studios are likely to watch what's happening in the music business for clues to their own future. There, Fanning's Snocap is close to launching a service that can turn file-swapping networks into song stores such as Apple Computer's iTunes by identifying music and asking downloaders to pay for it.

Snocap executives say their tools could also be used to sell movies once the video fingerprinting technology is completed. They say they are completely focused on the music business today, however.

For now, Philips is realistic about the challenges ahead.

"We're careful with predicting what and when," Maandonks said. "We hope to have a better version available at the end of the year or the beginning of next year."
http://news.com.com/Movie+blackout+f...3-5571057.html


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Piracy Case: Log Files 'Don't Show Downloads'
Rob O'Neill

An expert witness in the MP3s4free.net music piracy case has conceded to the Federal Court in Sydney that log files seized in a 2003 raid did not show music actually being downloaded.

The case, which has been overshadowed locally by the more high-profile Kazaa case heard in January, was recessed part-heard in October and only resumed yesterday.

Universal Music Australia and 30 others are taking action against site operator and retired policeman Stephen Cooper, his ISP and others.

During cross-examination and after long arguments about the admissibility of evidence, Gilbert & Tobin IT consultant Shane Pearson conceded that the seized log files could be skewed by certain factors including proxy caching and dial-up failure.

Later, when asked about the detailed entries in the files, he conceded that none of these showed music actually being downloaded.

The log showed people accessing the site and searching for music, but as any download would happen from other sites via links, the log would not show this happening.

Pearson said the logs showed "actions that referred to downloads, not actually downloads."

The case raises somewhat different issues to Kazaa with some speculating that if mp3s4free.com cannot link to music hosted on other sites, neither could a search engine such as Google. The case also probes the liability of ISPs and others hosting such web sites.

Yesterday's evidence included a demonstration of the web site by computer forensics expert John Thackray. After lunch arguments were heard about the admissibility of traffic log evidence seized when the premises of Cooper and associated service providers were raided in October 2003.

As the original evidence was in a compressed file and not directly accessible to the court, extended arguments and submissions were heard about the admissibility of summary evidence and analysis of those files and processes to give Cooper's defence team a chance to respond to any issues that arise.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/Breaking/...oneclick=true#


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Reboot Ordered For EU Patent Law

A European Parliament committee has ordered a rewrite of the proposals for controversial new European Union rules which govern computer- based inventions.

The Legal Affairs Committee (JURI) said the Commission should re-submit the Computer Implemented Inventions Directive after MEPs failed to back it.

It has had vocal critics who say it could favour large over small firms and impact open-source software innovation.

Supporters say it would let firms protect their inventions.

The directive is intended to offer patent protection to inventions that use software to achieve their effect, in other words, "computer implemented invention".

The draft law suffered setbacks when Poland, one of the largest EU member states, rejected its adoption twice in two months.

Intense lobbying on the issue has started to gain momentum in some national parliaments putting them under immense pressure.

Only two MEPs backed the draft law at the JURI meeting, with one voting to abstain.

Strong concerns

Opponents of the draft directive welcomed the decision and said a new first reading of the proposals would give the EU a chance to have fuller debates about its implications in all member states.

In the US, the patenting of computer programs and internet business methods is permitted.

This means that the US-based Amazon.com holds a patent for its "one-click shopping" service, for example.

Critics are concerned that the directive could lead to a similar model happening in Europe.

This, they fear, could hurt small software developers because they do not have the legal and financial might of larger companies if they had to fight patent legal action in court.

Supporters say current laws are inefficient and it would serve to even up a playing field without bringing EU laws in line with the US.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4232971.stm


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Patent Overhaul Will Bring NZ Law Into Line

Patent attorneys are hailing the Government's draft patent bill as a long overdue update that brings New Zealand into line with Australia, Britain and the United States.

The bill, drafted just before Christmas, tightens the definition of an "invention" to narrow down the broad criteria set out in the 1953 Patents Act.

Under those criteria, the Intellectual Property Office (Iponz) can grant a patent to any new "method of manufacture". The Iponz commissioner must grant a patent unless he is practically certain a judge would dismiss it if challenged in court.

The draft bill stipulates that a new invention must also be "useful" and involve an "inventive step" – a thought that wouldn't be obvious to someone else skilled in the field.

While a patent can already be challenged on the grounds it doesn't meet these criteria, this can only be done once a patent is granted and it must be challenged in court, often at great expense.

Under the draft bill, Iponz can also refuse a patent if the commissioner thinks a judge is more likely to dismiss it than uphold it – near certainty isn't needed.

Patents will continue to be granted to "business processes" and software, as long as they meet the revised criteria. These patents are often a source of controversy.

"The current legislation hasn't really kept pace with technology and changes in the international scene as far as intellectual property is concerned," says Julie Ballance, president of the Institute of Patent Attorneys. "International standards are changing and we haven't really kept up."

The changes would mean New Zealand laws will match those in other countries more closely, so patents granted in New Zealand will be more likely to be valid elsewhere.

This will simplify the process for international companies wanting to export to both Australia and New Zealand, for example.

Both countries are working toward some kind of trans-Tasman patent co-operation.

With similar laws, a patent granted in Australia wouldn't have to be scrutinised so closely by New Zealand officers, because it would have already been judged by the same criteria across the Tasman.

Iponz deals with 5000 applications each year, 90 per cent from foreign companies.

New Zealand's broad patent laws have landed Iponz in controversy before, as firms needed to spend thousands of dollars to challenge the patents in court.

In 2002, Iponz granted a sweeping patent to Canada's DE Technologies that covered cross-border e- commerce processes, ranging from electronic invoicing to currency conversion. DE demanded licensing fees from Kiwi companies using these processes, warning it would otherwise seek an injunction to shut them down.

It didn't follow through on the threat, but the patent remains technically in effect since it can only be challenged in court.

In 2004, 15 IT firms and state-owned enterprises teamed up to challenge a data visualisation patent provisionally awarded to Wellington software firm Compudigm International.

Similar controversies are common overseas. In the US, Microsoft gained a patent covering the use of a mouse to "double-click" on an icon to launch a software application, while British Technology Group claimed a sweeping patent on downloading software patches over the Internet.

Patent attorney and past NZIPA president Keith Thomson says while patents are currently easy to get, they can be revoked unless they have an "inventive step".

"It's easy to get a patent, but that doesn't mean it's easy to get a good patent or a strong patent."

The tightening of New Zealand's patent laws would mean judges ruling on intellectual property disputes could use more case law from other countries, since New Zealand's definitions would be brought into line.

There's no danger of New Zealand farming out its patent body to Australia, because the draft bill has unique Kiwi characteristics.

It would see the creation of a Maori committee to advise the commissioner on whether an invention "is derived from Maori traditional knowledge or from indigenous plants and animals and whether the commercial exploitation of that invention is likely to be contrary to Maori values".

The committee would be appointed by the commissioner, who would have to consider but wouldn't be bound by its advice. A similar Maori body was set up for the Trademarks Act 2002. The advisory body will look only at patents referred by the commissioner.

Mr Thomson says the committee could spark controversy because many indigenous plants are grown overseas, which means inventions from the plants could be patented in other countries but not in New Zealand.

He says Maori traditional knowledge by definition isn't "novel", so it's difficult to include in patent law. "It should be covered by separate legislation. They're really two different things."

He also supports "innovation patents" for inventions which improve on others and aren't held to the same criteria as original inventions. Australia grants these patents for eight years instead of the usual 20.

Importantly, the draft bill also lays out a new dispute process that lets people challenge a patent after it's granted without going through the courts. Instead, the commissioner will hold a hearing and issue a judgment, which can then be challenged in court.

The commissioner can also be petitioned to re-examine a patent before it's granted.

Consultation closes on March 11, and the bill will likely be introduced to Parliament this year.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3179158a28,00.html


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Justsystem Ordered To Halt Ichitaro Sales Due To Patent

The Tokyo District Court on Tuesday ordered Justsystem Corp. to discontinue producing and selling its Ichitaro word-processing and Hanako graphics software because they have a function that infringes on a Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. patent.

Presiding Judge Makiko Takabe also ordered Justsystem to scrap the products. But she did not declare the provisional execution of the rulings as Matsushita requested in its lawsuit.

Justsystem plans to appeal the ruling, company officials said. The company can continue selling the products until a higher court decision is made.

The patent involves Matsushita's Help Mode function, which gives on-screen instructions. About 8 million units of Ichitaro software that have the function have already been shipped.

Matsushita applied for a patent on the function in 1989. It received one in 1998.

Noting that both Ichitaro and Hanako have components that constitute Matsushita's patent, Takabe ruled against Justsystem's claim that it has not violated the patent.
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/...20050202a3.htm


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Kazaa's A Drag At Its Own Company
Kristyn Maslog-Levis

Employees at peer-to-peer provider Sharman Networks "hate" installing the company's own Kazaa software because it has ill effects on their computers, according to an internal document written by Sharman's chief technology officer.

The document, entitled "Kazaa Technology 2004" and written by Phil Morle, says that Sharman needs to be careful about installing too much adware on a computer upon the installation of Kazaa. The document is part of a bundle for which a request for confidentiality was rejected this week by Justice Murray Wilcox, the judge overseeing a copyright trial against Sharman in Australia.

The adware "slows down users' machines and can affect other activity such as browsing the Internet," Morle wrote. "We are also adding increasing p2p networks to the users' machines. These are good value to users but they use more resources and create confusion for users as to what resources they are sharing and where this can be controlled."

These two issues could be reasons why Kazaa manages to "lose users by over-stepping the mark," the document said, adding that the company should take into account how many employees at Sharman refuse to install the peer-to-peer software.

"Consider how many people that work for Sharman Networks and its partners that hate installing Kazaa on their machine," Morle wrote.

Record labels Universal Music Australia, EMI, Sony/BMG, Warner, Festival Mushroom and 25 additional applicants are suing Sharman and associated parties--including Brilliant Digital Entertainment, Altnet and Sharman CEO Nikki Hemming--over alleged music copyright infringement made through the Kazaa software.

The Australian record companies assert that Sharman misrepresented the situation when it claimed that "the performance of a personal computer will not be, or is unlikely to be, noticeably affected by its functioning as a supernode for the purposes of the Kazaa software."

Morle's document also stated the company's awareness of the legal risks involved with the technology.

"Our competitors are taking risks legally, but delivering compelling consumer solutions. We need confidence in what we do and must take similar leaps of faith. eDonkey is not yet being sued and is in a strong position to out-innovate us," Morle wrote.
http://news.com.com/Kazaas+a+drag+at...3-5563407.html


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Computing's Silent Revolution
David Becker

It wasn't until Mike Chin added a third PC to his home office a few years ago that he realized all those whirling fans, clicking hard drives and humming power supplies were adding up to one big racket.

"It drove me crazy," says Chin, a freelance technical writer in Vancouver. "It was a state-of-the-art machine, and it was so noisy I couldn't keep it on. Everything made such a racket, I just couldn't work in that environment."

Chin's frustration drove him on a months-long quest to isolate noise-making components and replace them with quieter alternatives, a mission numerous PC users and a growing number of manufacturers have followed in the years since.

Once a minor annoyance, noise from PCs has become a growing concern as ever-more powerful computers require stronger and often noisier cooling systems--especially with PCs moving out of the office into living rooms and bedrooms. The quest for quiet computing has inspired a cottage industry of specialist manufacturers, growing attention from major PC companies and a small underground of acoustic cultists who'll go to any extreme to eliminate another decibel of PC din.

"People are writing in all the time saying, 'It sounds like a jet engine taking off when I run my PC--what can I do about it?'" said Chin, who started Silent PC Review to share what he learned building a quiet PC. The site has become one of the leading resources for PC owners looking to muffle their rackety rigs.

"In most cases, it's just bad, inconsiderate design," Chin said. "You see some companies really paying attention and trying to do better, but acoustics still doesn't get much attention."

Most PC noise issues come down to heat. As processors and other components have become more powerful and electricity-hungry, they've required bigger and faster fans to keep them from burning to a crisp. Graphics chip giant Nvidia may have pushed the trend to its extreme about two years ago with the GeForce FX 5800, a chip that ran so hot it required an elaborate fan and duct system so noisy early models are still commonly referred to as "Nvidia leaf blowers" by PC buffs.

Complaints about the Nvidia fans and other extreme noisemakers have prompted manufacturers to make some concessions to acoustics. But truly quiet computing is still largely a niche market, served by specialty manufacturers such as South Korea's Zalman Tech, which makes huge copper heatsinks, water-cooling pumps and other components that dramatically reduce the airflow needed to cool PC chips.

Early adopters have included tech-savvy musicians and sound engineers, who can't afford to have a humming PC drown out the subtle aspects of the music they're making, said Michael Farnsworth, president of Quiet PC North America, the U.S. branch of a British company and one of the first specialty retailers devoted to quiet computing equipment.

Lawyers have also turned out to be a good market, Farnsworth said. "Noise reduces your attention and ability to think," he said. "When your time is worth $300 an hour, that's a big deal."

Interest in quiet computing has varied by region as well as occupation. Robert Jung, general manager of technology and business development for Zalman USA, said it's no accident the company that started the quiet-computing movement was launched in South Korea.

"In Asia, most people live in apartments that are small, concrete rooms," Jung said. "The sound doesn't dissipate very well, so you really notice anything noisy."

Zalman Tech founder Sang-Cheol Lee started the company to sell variations on the super-efficient heatsinks he developed to make his PC tolerably quiet. Zalman has gone on to provide quiet cooling systems for numerous other PC heat-spewers and is now looking at items such as plasma TVs and projectors. "Anything you can think of that creates heat, we're trying to provide a quiet, fanless solution for it," Jung said.

While most quiet-computing buffs start out with such practical goals, a small subset goes extreme, launching search-and-destroy missions for anything that clicks or wheezes in their PC. Forums on sites such as Chin's are full of impassioned debates about whether ceiling tiles or acoustic foam dampen more sound when glued into a PC case or the relative benefits of distilled water vs. diluted antifreeze for liquid cooling.

"For most people, the goal is just to get the PC down to the level of ambient noise in the room where they're using it," Chin said. "But some people have turned it into a hobby, where they obsess over every fine detail. It just becomes a game for them--you take care of one thing, and then you can hear the next most annoying thing."

The extremest of the extreme experiment with "underclocking" and "undervolting," the polar opposite of techniques PC hot-rodders use to push chips past their normal speed limits.

Chin says "undervolting"--adjusting a PC's setting so the processor receives less power than it's supposed to--actually makes sense in a lot of cases where a PC isn't being pushed to its limits. "If you're playing games on the PC, then maybe you want every last little drop of performance," he said. "But for your average user, an incremental drop in performance just doesn't matter. And the payback is that the processor runs a lot cooler."

Hearing the quiet message
While total silence is still a goal largely reserved for enthusiasts, mainstream consumers are starting to hear the quiet message as PCs perform new tasks such as home media servers, a role that often puts them into environments where noise is more obvious than an office. Just try enjoying the pianissimo of a Chopin nocturne with three case fans whirring in the background.

"We found a lot of our early customers were building custom computers for their home entertainment systems," Farnsworth said. "It can ruin the movie experience when the main thing you hear during a quiet scene is a fan running."

Media applications are the main market for specialty PC makers such as Hush Technologies in Germany, which makes high-powered, silent PCs that use clever ventilation instead of noisy fans to run cool.

"The concept of a silent, good-looking PC to go into the living room drives the majority of what we do," said John Booth, managing director of Hush.

The cost of silence
Booth said people instinctively like the idea of having a PC that doesn't make a racket, but selling silence as a premium product feature is still a marketing challenge.

"I think generally...people like the idea of a silent PC," he said. "That's not a problem. The problem is when they have to pay for it." Quiet PCs can cost up to $500 more than their noisier counterparts.

Hush's approach is to give equal attention to other aesthetic concerns, particular visual appearance. "We conspicuously make our boxes look very attractive...as part of positioning this as a premium product," Booth said.

That may work in specialty markets, but not with mainstream consumers, said Nathan Brookwood, an analyst for researcher Insight64. That's why major PC companies have made only incremental concessions to acoustics, he said.

"Any of those (fanless computing) approaches tend to add cost compared with the more straightforward cooling methods," he said. "PC buyers historically have shown a real aversion to paying for things that don't contribute directly to performance."

Instead, major PC companies are adopting techniques that shave off a few decibels of fan noise without requiring expensive redesign.

Examples include Cool'N'Quiet technology Advanced Micro Devices adapted from its notebook chips. Cool'N'Quiet instructions baked into AMD's desktop processors throttle down chip power when the processor is idle or executing simple tasks. As a result, the processor runs cooler and requires less fan speed, said Jonathan Seckler, senior product manager for AMD.

"The goal is we would be able to reduce the noise as much as 10 or 15 percent and reduce the actual power usage as much as 60 percent," he said. "In a lot of cases, that means you're reducing the decibel rating to below 25 db," the same level as rustling leaves or someone whispering and close to the level of ambient noise in a quiet home.

The shift toward quiet is something of a turnaround for AMD, which helped spark the move to noisy, high-speed cooling fans in 1999 with the original heat-spewing Athlon chips. Seckler said the market has changed since then to put a value on aesthetic concerns such as sound.

"You no longer have this race where it's power and performance at all costs," he said. "We've seen there is a price you pay for performance. At the end of the day, noise and heat do matter."

That's a message underdog chipmaker Via Technologies has been been pushing for years. Most of the Taiwan company's PC processors and motherboards are low-power models designed to run without a cooling fan, an advantage that has helped Via chips find their way into an increasing number of media-centric PCs. Werner du Plessis, project manager for processor platforms at Via, said it's about time the PC industry looked at issues beyond processor speed.

"Our message has always been cool and quiet processing," he said. "We've never participated in the megahertz race, and finally people are waking up (to the fact) that we had it right from the beginning."

Via is well-positioned to grab a major chunk of the market for media PCs, du Plessis said, because it's easier to build a quiet system around a chip designed for fanless cooling than to retrofit mainstream chips.

"Having a processor designed to run cool and quiet...is something you have to aim for," he said. "It doesn't happen naturally."

Which is why Via and other quiet-computing proponents don't expect the mainstream PC industry to adopt a "silence is golden" ethos anytime soon.

Hush Technologies' Booth said consumers who want a truly quiet PC will have to continue to seek out specialists.

"Everything we've seen so far and into the forseeable future," he said, "is that the mainstream PC companies are going in the opposite direction from us."
http://news.com.com/Computings+silen...3-5555285.html


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MP3.com Founder To Launch New Music Service

The founder of pioneering music download Web site MP3.com is preparing to re-enter the digital music business with a new online music service set to
debut next week.

As when he launched MP3.com in 1997, Michael Robertson's new service, dubbed MP3tunes, will sell tracks in the MP3 format, which doesn't have any copy-protection restrictions and can be played on most, if not all, digital music players.

The service, to go online next Thursday, will sell individual tracks for 88 cents and albums for $8.88, said Robertson.

Because major record companies don't generally license their artists' music as MP3s, preferring to use formats that can set limits on copying and CD burning, none of the roughly 300,000 tracks initially for sale on MP3tunes will be from major label artists.

Most other major online music services are licensed to sell a million or more major label and independent acts.

Robertson, 37, said he's optimistic major record labels, despite their concerns over piracy, will eventually license music in the MP3 format.

``The industry has changed remarkably over the last seven to eight years and I think the next step ... is to say we'll sell a song without DRM,'' Robertson said. ``I don't think it's such a stretch.''

DRM is short for digital rights management, the industry term for copy-protection encoding.

He is also planning to eventually launch a device for the home designed to function like a computer server where users can store their digital music and access it from other computers over the Internet.

The device, dubbed MP3beamer, stems from Robertson's original ``music locker'' concept -- a system to enable people to access their personal music collections wherever they go.

Robertson's first stab at it involved buying thousands of CDs and making them accessible in a central server run by MP3.com. That led to a slew of litigation.

``Obviously, having one big centralized system didn't work out because of the licensing issues,'' he said. ``So this is a different approach to that same problem.''

Robertson's iconoclastic entrepreneurial adventures include creating Lindows Inc. to sell distributions of the open-source Linux operating system.

He later changed the company's name to Linspire after getting $20 million from Microsoft Corp. in the July settlement of a trademark infringement suit.
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/sil...l/10809948.htm


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

Hide Your IPod, Here Comes Bill
Leander Kahney

Microsoft's leafy corporate campus in Redmond, Washington, is beginning to look like the streets of New York, London and just about everywhere else: Wherever you go, white headphones dangle from peoples' ears.

To the growing frustration and annoyance of Microsoft's management, Apple Computer's iPod is wildly popular among Microsoft's workers.

"About 80 percent of Microsoft employees who have a portable music player have an iPod," said one source, a high-level manager who asked to remain anonymous. "It's pretty staggering."

The source estimated 80 percent of Microsoft employees have a music player -- that translates to 16,000 iPod users among the 25,000 who work at or near Microsoft's corporate campus. "This irks the management team no end," said the source.

So popular is the iPod, executives are increasingly sending out memos frowning on its use.

Of course, Microsoft's software is used by dozens of competing music players from manufacturers like Creative Technology, Rio and Sony. Its Windows Media Audio, or WMA, format is supported by several online music stores, including Napster, Musicmatch and Wal-Mart. Microsoft's PlaysForSure program markets this choice as a boon for consumers.

Nonetheless, Apple's iPod commands 65 percent of the portable player market, and its online iTunes Music Store 70 percent of online music sales, according to Apple.

"These guys are really quite scared," said the source of Microsoft's management. "It shows how their backs are against the wall.... Even though it's Microsoft, no one is interested in what we have to offer, even our own employees."

So concerned is management, owning an iPod at Microsoft is beginning to become impolitic, the manager said. Employees are hiding their iPods by swapping the telltale white headphones for a less conspicuous pair.

"Some people are a bit concerned about being traitors, not supporting the company," he said. "They're a bit stealth about it."

How "stealth" varies from division to division. At the company's Macintosh Business Unit, which publishes a wide range of software for the Mac, owning an iPod is almost de rigueur.

But at the Windows Digital Media Group, which is charged with software for portable players and the WMA format, using an iPod is not a good career move.

"In the media group they all smoke the company dope on that one," the manager said.

Mary Jo Foley, editor of Microsoft Watch, said she had no knowledge of the iPod's popularity on Microsoft's campus, but has noticed a lot of iPod chatter among Microsoft's legions of bloggers.

"I have seen lots of Softies blog about it," she wrote in an e-mail.

Microsoftie Chris Anderson, for example, just blogged about buying himself an iPod, three days after buying his wife one.

"I couldn't resist anymore," he wrote. "The industrial design on the iPod is absolutely amazing. The usability of the device is light-years beyond anything else I've seen."

Robert Scoble, who calls himself the "Microsoft Geek Blogger" and is one of the company's most widely read and vocal mouthpieces, sometimes appears obsessed with the iPod.

He recently penned an open letter to Bill Gates about how to build an iPod-killer (first thing: start a blog). "Even I want an iPod," he confessed.

The Microsoft manager said he's heard from several executives who dutifully bought Microsoft-powered players, tried them, failed to get them working, and returned them in favor of an iPod. He went through the same experience, he said.

He had no idea if Bill Gates or Steve Ballmer, Microsoft's CEO, own iPods -- he's never seen what gadgets they use. "I've never seen either of them with any device, but I only see them in meetings," he said.

"There are frequent communications within the company about why it's a bad choice," the manager said. "So many people have chosen the iPod, executives feel they should send out memos about it."

For example, an internal e-mail circular sent to several senior managers in mid-December talked about iPod shipments to Apple's nearby store in Bellevue.

The e-mail said: "FWIW, the gal at the Bellevue Square Apple Store said that they are getting in two shipments of 200 iPods every day to keep up with this week's demand, and are nearly constantly selling out."

The note prompted a curt reply from Dave Fester, general manager of the Windows Digital Media division, who wrote the group: "I sure hope Microsoft employees are not buying iPods. We have great alternatives. Check out http://experiencemore."

Fifteen minutes later, the manager responded: "I don't know what I was thinking. I'm sure that Microsoft employees are not buying iPods, or Macs or PlayStations."

In 2003, Fester stirred up considerable controversy claiming Apple is locking in consumers with proprietary file formats, despite Microsoft's long history of using the same tactic.

As for hiding his own iPod use, the manager said he flaunts his iPod, despite the constant comments -- and occasional arguments -- it prompts.

"I don't really care if it pisses them off," he said. "I'll argue why they're doing it wrong. If you want me to stop using it, give me a product that works and is as easy to use."

Neither Apple nor Microsoft responded to requests for comment.
http://www.wired.com/news/mac/0,2125,66460,00.html


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

Worst suit of the week

RIAA Sues Deceased Grandmother
Nate Mook

The recording industry's latest assault on file sharing has netted an unusual suspect: a deceased great-grandmother from West Virginia. In a lawsuit filed in January, the RIAA accused 83-year old Gertrude Walton of sharing over 700 pop, rock and rap songs under the alias "smittenedkitten."

What the RIAA didn't know is that Walton had passed away in December following a long illness. Her daughter, Robin Chianumba, has lived with Walton for the past 17 years and told the Charleston Gazette that her mother refused to even have a computer in the house.

The Recording Industry Association of America admitted that Walton was likely not the smittenedkitten it was after, blaming the mixup on the time it takes gather information on illicit file swappers.

"Our evidence gathering and our subsequent legal actions all were initiated weeks and even months ago," said RIAA spokesman Jonathan Lamy. "We will now, of course, obviously dismiss this case."

But to many, Walton's case underscores fundamental problems with the RIAA's effort to crack down on peer-to-peer piracy. Because online identities are mostly anonymous, industry police utilize IP addresses to track the specific Internet account sharing music. Unfortunately, the process is riddled with inaccuracies and sometimes innocent -- or deceased -- people are fingered as pirates.

"I believe that if music companies are going to set examples they need to do it to appropriate people and not dead people," Chianumba told the Gazette. "I am pretty sure she is not going to leave Greenwood Memorial Park to attend the hearing."

The process doesn't need to be perfect, however. While the RIAA may not have enough hard information to win in court, most named defendants opt to settle for a few thousand dollars and a promise they will cease file sharing activities rather than face recording industry lawyers.

"I don't know if this is a scheme to get money, I just don't know what's going on. I am concerned," said Chianumba.
http://www.betanews.com/article/RIAA...her/1107532260


The Boards:


RIAA Sues Deceased Grandmother
posted by redonthehead
Feb 5, 2005 - 5:52 PM

This is exactly the reason I will not buy any new recordings. I buy from pawn shops and garage sales,etc.

I'm just waiting for the day they sue ME! That will be the worst freaking mistake they ever made. I have so much evidence, proof and just straight up information to shut them up for good. The RIAA can lick my biskuit, and if any of you from the RIAA (you hear that google? RIAA, RIAA) are reading this. I WILL NEVER BUY ANYTHING AGAIN that gives you money in any way....... BECAUSE OF THIS


The RIAA has proven that they are total morons.
posted by Pipewrench
Feb 4, 2005 - 12:31 PM

The RIAA should be laughed out of court. They are doing a great job of proving that they are absolute and total morons.


Re: The RIAA has proven that they are total morons.
posted by Diamhair
Feb 5, 2005 - 8:05 AM

This is a golden opportunity for people being sued to point to the credibility of the RIAA's evidence. They are blindly suing people!


Re: The RIAA has proven that they are total morons.
posted by excelon2005
Feb 4, 2005 - 1:54 PM

I totally agree. In Lawrence Lessig's book "Free Culture," he said that the fine for ONE song downloaded ($1.5M) is more than the amount of which malpractice lawsuits are capped at ($.25M). This in itself is fundamentally flawed.

The RIAA is simply too trigger-happy. Instead of suing people for amounts they cannot even afford, why not ask nicely to either keep the songs for 99 cents each or delete them? If the user is simply defiant, then fine... go ahead and stick 'em out.

The music industry's greed has led me to not even bother looking at the charts or download any song (most of the songs are trash to begin with). They are the most ungrateful brats I have ever seen. They have their mansions and expensive junk while others are sleeping on the streets... what more do they want?


Re: The RIAA has proven that they are total morons.
posted by mancub
Feb 5, 2005 - 4:34 AM

its very simple realy dont buy any music, software, tapes, films, dvds, videoes, of any kind then they will go bankrupt, is it not the best way to deal with these people then they wont have amasion and all the the trimmings ,come on people the powers in the purchaser not the seller hit the entainment industry were it hurts its bank balance


OK, I'm with you guys on this one...
posted by bourgeoisdude
Feb 4, 2005 - 12:18 PM

It's one thing to sue companies or individuals who illegally make music files available to download, but sueing a deceased Grandmother? That's ridiculous!


Re: OK, I'm with you guys on this one...
posted by wfacer
Feb 4, 2005 - 2:03 PM

Same here. RIAA - Really Idiotic Anal A****

Re: OK, I'm with you guys on this one...
posted by RaveN-FH-
Feb 4, 2005 - 1:07 PM

the courts need to step in and stop the riaa from filing john doe lawsuits. lord knows i don't get away with filing a lawsuit without properly serving an individual ... neither should they.

Re: OK, I'm with you guys on this one...
posted by cowticket
Feb 4, 2005 - 12:56 PM

They are suing there own customers. Thats why I will never spend a cent for a cd.

Re: OK, I'm with you guys on this one...
posted by spiffyjeff
Feb 4, 2005 - 1:29 PM

I have stopped buying cds too, because of their unethical practices of giving artists small cuts of the profit, and cause of them suing consumers. I hope they consider that factor in when they do these counts of how many sales they lost "due to filesharing"

Re: OK, I'm with you guys on this one...
posted by Mountain_Man
Feb 4, 2005 - 5:38 PM

i also dont buy cds anymore. the money doesnt go to the artists, it goes to the executives so they can force more pop crap down our throats and pay radio stations not to play independent bands. no thanks. i'd be more than happy to pay artists directly for their music, but im not paying some record company to keep good music down and promote crap.


Re: OK, I'm with you guys on this one...
posted by aszure
Feb 5, 2005 - 4:31 PM

Me three. Thats why I got involved with http://www.indieradiolive.com its 24-7 independent radio.

posted by Sunstar
Feb 6, 2005 - 8:19 AM

I welcome a lawsuit, I would immediately file a countersuit
these guys are as bad as THE MAFIA in a sense.

the tacics they are using fall under the RICOlaw, it was introduced in the early 70s to do something about mob bosses
look into the law, they maintain thier business using threats and fear tactics which is exactly what the rico law is all about.


Re: p2p and RIAA
posted by Budgie29
Feb 6, 2005 - 1:18 PM

Napster was the biggest threat to the recording industry ... all all they did is to close it down and the artists should go it alone
with out them Sony,emi are nothing
but 99p per track it redilcous

drop your prices .stop ripping us off
fair price for every one insted of the fat cats just creaming everything off and just leaving sour milk for the artists

I will susport where susport is due I have not Bought any music since tapes went from £5 to 7.49
in 1986

most of the compulations that are brought out
its allways a toss up weather or not i happen to like the tracks on it


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

“It Pays To Share”

The Website

PEER IMPACT PRELIMINARY "FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS" (FAQ)

What is Peer Impact?
Peer Impact is a content distribution service that will provide legal, peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing services for its members. Its technology offers Peer Impact members a secure online space to purchase and share music and other digital content. At the same time, Peer Impact strives to ensure that content owners and proprietary rights holders alike, such as record labels, musical artists and publishers are paid appropriately for all music shared on the site.

What is the Peer Impact Community?
The Peer Impact Community offers music lovers of all ages a secure place to discuss music, their favorite artists and the latest news about digital music. The site offers a moderated bulletin board, so that members can join with others to discuss the latest in music - both online and off.

When will Peer Impact become operational and available to the public?
Peer Impact is currently concluding internal beta testing and is scheduled to launch publicly in the first quarter of 2005.

How will the music-sharing function of Peer Impact differ from peer-to-peer (P2P) sites and paid music download sites?
Peer Impact is a proprietary, patent-pending business model that will not be released to the public until the 1st quarter of 2005. While we wish we didn't have to keep our Peer Impact Community members in the dark, it's imperative that we keep a few things secret right now, as we develop the fully functional service that will allow secure and legal music file sharing for our members.

Can I get digital music downloads from Peer Impact?
Not yet, but it’s coming soon. Please be sure you register to become one of the first to experience the revolution of secure and legal peer-to-peer digital music file sharing.

What is a beta-tester for Peer Impact?
Simply put, a beta tester for Peer Impact is somebody who agrees to use the service in its early stages, in order to test the system prior to its launch to rank-and-file consumers.

Why should I sign up to become a beta-tester for Peer Impact?
As a beta-tester, you'll have the power to help us determine the direction and success of the service. Without our members, there can be no Peer Impact, so we're working hard to bring the most ardent music fans together with technology innovators to help us make the service as robust, useful and user-friendly as possible. Plus, those who join Peer Impact early will have access to the first Peer Impact user names!

How do I become a beta-tester for Peer Impact?
To be considered to be a beta-tester for Peer Impact, please register your email address in the space provided. Once you are declared eligible, a Peer Impact representative will be in touch with you via email to discuss your next steps as we get closer to our launch date.

Is Peer Impact available outside the U.S.?
No. Due to licensing restrictions, Peer Impact is currently available to U.S. residents only.

Who is behind Peer Impact?
Peer Impact is the brainchild of Wurld Media, Inc. Best known for its BuyersPort e- commerce platform, Wurld Media is a privately held company based in Saratoga Springs, New York.

How can I find answers to other questions?
Do you have any other questions? Just click contact@peerimpact.com to ask a question via email.

http://www.peerimpact.com/


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

File-Sharing Networks Examined
Reid Forgrave

Ferraris, guns and alcohol are all legal, even though manufacturers know their wares could be used to break the law.

So should a similar standard apply to Internet users who share - or some would say, "steal" - digital music? Legal scholars interested in copyright law discussed that question Saturday at a symposium put on by the Northern Kentucky Law Review.

"We're all copyright infringers, just like we all sometimes speed," said Jason Schultz, attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which represents a file-sharing network that's being sued by movie studios and record companies in a case that will soon come before the U.S. Supreme Court.

"To what extent should the law be like a microscope (on file-sharing networks)?" Schultz asked. "How many people have never put something on their computer that's not supposed to be there? This is just the reality we live in."

About 60 legal scholars, law students and local attorneys - most of whom came down on the side of fair use and freedom of speech instead of copyright protection and intellectual property rights - discussed regulating file-sharing networks.

The symposium, featuring prominent legal experts in the gray areas surrounding intellectual property, is especially timely as the film and music industries continue fighting popular file-sharing systems such as Kazaa, Morpheus, Gnutella and Grokster.

The U.S. Supreme Court has set March 29 as the date for oral arguments in MGM v. Grokster, which involves another peer-to-peer network similar to Napster. Proposed legislation called "Inducing Infringement of Copyrights Acts of 2004" will be brought before Congress again this year after dying last year.

Students at Northern Kentucky University were warned in November by the school administration students exchanging and downloading copyrighted music could be punished by the university. The warning was issued after the Recording Industry Association of America told the university that campus computers had been involved in illegal music sharing.

Attorneys at the symposium said the argument isn't always as simple as music thievery versus fair use.

The proposed federal law, the "Induce Act" and introduced by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), would crack down on technology that makes illegal file-sharing possible, comparable to charging a person for aiding and abetting a crime. This legislation, the attorneys said, could put a chilling effect on technological development and could threaten new technology such as the iPod, Tivo, CD and DVD burners and wireless networking.

Studies show 60 million Americans share files on the Internet.

"Do we want to criminalize all these people?" Schultz asked. "Maybe there's a better way."

Davida H. Isaacs, assistant professor of law at NKU's Salmon P. Chase College of Law, said the proposed legislation would be "a very powerful tool in the arsenal of industry groups like the RIAA. People will only take notice when (more of these file-sharing technologies) start to be taken away."
http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.d...502060417/1056


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

CDs Likely To Rule As Sound Of Music
Molly R. Okeon

Back in the tie-dyed and bell-bottomed days of the mid-1970s, Tony Negrete got around town in his "muscle car' a 1968 Oldsmobile 442 and listened to the Rolling Stones and the Eagles on an eight-track player set in the dashboard.

Man, are those days over.

Now, Negrete is thinking about moving into the digital age.

Gracefully, mind you.

"You've got to move with the times,' said Negrete, 46, sitting at a Starbucks in Rancho Cucamonga with his 24-year-old daughter, Antoinette Lindsey. "I don't want to be left behind.'

Over the 2004 holiday season, Apple sold more than 4.5 million iPods, signaling that the age of digital music has arrived in a big, big way.

The even smaller iPod Shuffle, unveiled last month, is lighter than a pack of gum, and though limited to about 120 songs that can't be individually selected, also costs less than $100.

Is it possible that the compact disc, like its predecessors, vinyl, eight-tracks and cassette tapes, could go the way of vacuum-tube TVs and transistor radios?

Even though Negrete, like many his age, still chooses CDs as his preferred method of music listening, he is not opposed to digital, downloadable music. But "purists' cling to their records, eight-tracks and cassettes for dear life, fearing a hostile takeover by iPods and their ilk.

Not surprisingly, some music store owners and musicians dislike downloads for financial reasons. In the late 1990s and into the 21st century, artists including Dr. Dre and Metallica had a running battle with peer-to-peer music file-sharing Internet sites like Napster.

Paul Vasquez, who works at Rhino Records in Claremont, said his store took a hit six years ago when college students in the area first caught the downloading bug.

"It's something we were worried about for a while, but it leveled off,' said Vasquez, a buyer for the store, which carries between 20,000 and 25,000 CDs. "We cater to a different market. I mean, we have Britney Spears. But people come here looking for things you probably couldn't download.'

As is often the case, Vasquez said his customers still buy CDs so they can download the music onto their iPods. It's much easier, he said, than "lugging around cases of CDs.'

Vasquez is not giving up on old-school music listening. He owns about 4,000 records, 2,000 CDs, 50 eight-tracks and a small number of cassettes.

In Redlands, Dave Martinez, owner and buyer at Headstone Records, has the same line of thought. He said iPods are a novelty that can never replace a tactile music medium.

"Somebody would rather say, 'Hey, let me borrow your CD' than, 'Hey, let me borrow your download,'' said Martinez, who owns an iPod "strictly for holding music.'

"They want to look at the text (on a CD cover) and see who are the artists and who are the producers who arranged the music.'

Martinez said that vinyl is irreplaceable.

"Records are good forever they're always going to play,' he said. "If (the music) goes out of print, if Napster shuts down, you still have the hard copy of the original music.

"IPods and (digital music) technology cannot replace the longevity and the picture and the vintageness of a CD case cover and its artwork. It's not possible.'

Although Rhino Records customer Brenton Martindale, 17, was browsing in the vinyl aisle one day recently, he said records are not his bag. It just so happens that his friend Colin Busch, also 17, is a budding DJ.

And, while he has seen an eight-track cassette in the past, he has never heard one played.

"I download music because it's easier,' said Martindale, a former Diamond Bar resident who was in town from San Diego to visit Busch. "I'm getting less and less CDs because I download. You can pick your favorite songs.'

Martindale keeps CDs to listen to the songs he doesn't regularly play on his iPod.

"I don't get tired of CDs as fast,' he explained.

Some feel shorter attention spans are partly to blame for the growing popularity of digital music.

According to a July 2003 New York Times article, Edward M. Hallowell, a psychiatry instructor at Harvard University, and John Ratey, an associate professor at Harvard and a psychiatrist, are among a growing number of physicians and sociologists studying how technology affects attention span, creativity and focus.

They have coined a condition known as pseudo-attention deficit disorder: Sufferers do not actually have attention deficit disorder but have developed shorter attention spans due to technology and the fast pace of modern life.

Vasquez said iPod lovers don't care as much about "the experience' of music buying and listening.

"I'm not interested in getting music that way,' he said. "It's no fun. There's no experience of going to a store and finding it. There's no connection with the artist.'

Martinez agreed, saying he can't stand the impersonal nature of downloadable music.

"You feel like there's nothing between you and the artist,' he said.

Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp., said changes in the entertainment sector generally happen as a result of technological advances.

"The interesting thing about the iPod is that Apple has moved it beyond something to listen to music with,' Kyser said. "Over the Christmas holiday, they turned it into a fashion item, with bright colors and sleeves to put your iPod in. It's a combination of technology and fashion merchandising.'

However, Kyser said, "purists' probably will keep CDs on the market for a while.

"If you go around Southern California, you find 45s and long-playing records in boxes and garages,' he said. "You'll probably have somebody who really likes (CDs) and feels that it's the best sound quality.'

Valencia Salter, who works at DJ's Records, Tapes CDs in Fontana, agrees that CDs won't be disappearing any time soon.

"I'm not going to sit up here and waste my money on something like that,' she said of the iPod. "(CDs) have been around for so long. A variety of people are still buying CDs.'
http://www.sbsun.com/Stories/0,1413,...95145,00.html#


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

Content encryption

Smaller Than a Pushpin, More Powerful Than a PC
John Markoff

In a new volley in the battle for digital home entertainment, I.B.M., Sony and Toshiba will announce details Monday of their newest microprocessor design, known as Cell, which is expected to offer faster computing performance than microprocessors from Intel and Advanced Micro Devices.

Anticipation of the announcement, to be made at an industry conference here, has touched off widespread industry speculation over the impact of the new chip technology, which promises to enhance video gaming and digital home entertainment.

Sony plans to use the new Cell in its PlayStation 3, likely to be introduced in 2006, and Toshiba plans to use the chip in advanced high-definition televisions, also to be introduced next year.

However, many industry executives and analysts say that Cell's impact may ultimately be much broader, staving off the PC industry's efforts to dominate the digital living room and at the same time creating a new digital computing ecosystem that includes Hollywood, the living room and high-performance scientific and engineering markets.

"There is a new game in town, and it will revive an industry that has been kind of sleepy for the last few years," said Richard Doherty, a computer industry analyst and president of Envisioneering, a market research company in Seaford, N.Y.

The Cell's introduction also comes at a time when the computer industry has largely given up investing in fundamentally new processor designs and has instead chosen to use the additional space available on the newest generation of chips to place multiple processors and thus add performance.

The Cell chip, computer experts said, could have a theoretical peak performance of 256 billion mathematical operations per second. With that much processing power, the chip would have placed among the top 500 supercomputers on a list maintained by scientists at the University of Mannheim and the University of Tennessee as recently as June 2002.

"This is extremely impressive," said Kevin Krewell, editor in chief of Microprocessor Report, an industry technical publication, "and it proves that architectural innovation isn't dead."

Several computer industry executives warned, however, that despite the Cell's impressive specifications, success is not guaranteed for any new design in the computer industry. For example, Intel and Hewlett-Packard have spent more than a decade and hundreds of millions of dollars on the Itanium and the chip has yet to find a receptive market.

The Cell has a modular design based on a slightly less powerful I.B.M. processor that is currently in G5 64-bit desktop computers from Apple Computer. Additionally, the Cell architecture is distinguished by the fact that it controls an array of eight additional processors that the design team refers to as synergistic processing elements, or S.P.E.'s. Each of the S.P.E.'s is a 128-bit processor in its own right.

The Cell has some components that in the lab switch at 5.6 GHz, and several people familiar with the design said that it was both more flexible than is generally understood and that it has been designed with high bandwidth communications, such as high-speed data links to homes, in mind.

"Cell has been optimized for broadband-rich applications," said Jim Kahle, I.B.M.'s director of technology at the Design Center for Cell Technology, the headquarters in Austin, Tex., for the I.B.M., Sony and Toshiba partnership.

He said that I.B.M. had refined a technology also being developed by Intel called "virtualization," which is designed to isolate applications from one another. Originally used in mainframe computing applications, the technology is now being exploited by consumer electronics designers to run demanding applications like video decompression and decryption simultaneously.

One significant risk for Sony and I.B.M. is that the Sony PlayStation 3 game machine is likely to be introduced later than the next generation of Xbox from Microsoft. The PlayStation 2 beat the Xbox to market and Microsoft was never able to catch up, meaning that it lost hundreds of millions of dollars on its bet on the video game market.

In its next version of the Xbox, Microsoft plans to shift from using Pentium chips from Intel to a PowerPC microprocessor from I.B.M. The chip will have two PowerPC processor cores, but it will not be as radically new as the I.B.M. Cell design that Sony plans to use, said one executive who is familiar with the Microsoft project.

That will make for a fascinating rivalry: Sony is betting that its computer horsepower advantage will be large enough to give it a quality advance over Microsoft, even if it arrives late.

"Our goal with the Cell is to be an order of magnitude faster," said Lisa Su, an I.B.M. executive in charge of technology development and licenses.

Many industry executives believe that because of its low cost, the Cell is a harbinger of a fundamentally new computing era that will push increasingly into consumer applications.

"I think it will aid in some of the convergence between consumer and corporate I.T. and this will accelerate amazingly from the consumer side," said Andrew Heller, a former I.B.M. processor designer who is now chairman of Heller & Associates, a consulting firm in Austin, Tex.

One area of wide speculation is whether Apple might become a partner in the Cell alliance in the future. Apple is already the largest customer for the PowerPC chip, and it would be simple for the company to take advantage of the Cell design. Several people familiar with Apple's strategy, however, said that the computer maker had yet to be convinced that the Cell technology could provide a significant performance advantage.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/07/te...hip.html?8hpib


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

As Piracy Battle Nears Supreme Court, the Messages Grow Manic





Tom Zeller Jr.

Garret the Ferret is one hip copyright crusader. The cartoon character urges young cybercitizens toward ethical downloading and - in baggy jeans and a gold "G" medallion - reminds them that copying and sharing software is uncool.

He is also a byproduct of the long-roiling public relations battle between copyright owners, who say they are threatened by digital piracy, and technology advocates opposed to strict controls on the copying of digital media, and on the kinds of software that make piracy so easy.

With the Supreme Court scheduled next month to hear a pivotal case pitting copyright holders (represented by MGM Studios) against the makers of file-sharing software (Grokster and StreamCast Networks), some participants are putting their message machines into high gear.

But winning hearts and minds - of teenagers, consumers and lawmakers - has never been a simple matter.

"It's hard for two reasons," said Rick Weingarten, the director of the Office for Information Technology Policy at the American Library Association, which has been exploring ways to strike a balance in the copyright and antipiracy messages being aimed at young people.

"Copyright law is not the easiest thing to explain, and it's hard to put a bumper sticker on it," Mr. Weingarten said. "But, you're also talking about the future, and it's hard to explain to a consumer that there could one day be a lot of restrictions on what you can do with new technology."

One side must make people care about obscure technological innovations that they say will be stifled by legislative action or an adverse Supreme Court ruling. The other side battles the image of greedy corporate profiteers and the perception that freely downloading copyrighted works is something other than theft.

"It was easier before the computer," said Dan Glickman, the president and chief executive of the Motion Picture Association of America, which has ramped up its antipiracy efforts in recent weeks with a new round of lawsuits and a media campaign warning would-be thieves to "think again." Two weeks ago, the association also began offering a free, downloadable program that allows parents to scan computers for file-sharing software and potentially pirated media files.

"People knew they couldn't steal a video tape out of Blockbuster," Mr. Glickman said, "but the principles are still the same."

Not to be outdone, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the digital rights advocacy group that is representing StreamCast Networks in the Grokster case, unveiled its Endangered Gizmos campaign to coincide with the filing of dozens of MGM-friendly amicus briefs with the Supreme Court late last month.

The campaign displays cheeky taxonomies of "extinct" or "endangered" techno-species like the original file-sharing service Napster, which was sued into submission, and the Streambox VCR, which allowed users to record streaming media off the Internet and suffered a similar fate. The foundation hopes to convince consumers and lawmakers that there are cultural costs to giving copyright holders too much power.

"So many of the issues that we deal with are really abstruse," said Wendy Seltzer, an intellectual property attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the principal creator of the Endangered Gizmos campaign. "And yet they touch a whole segment of the public that we want to reach out to."

Whether any of these messages is getting through is an open question. Survey data from the Pew Internet and American Life Project, a nonprofit research group in Washington, show that among those who actively download music, 58 percent still say they do not care if the material is copyright protected.

Among the general public, 57 percent say they are unfamiliar with concepts like "fair use" - the kernel of copyright law that allows people to copy protected materials under certain conditions, and which digital rights groups contend has been inappropriately constricted by the recording and film industries.

The fight has given rise to grass-roots organizations like Downhill Battle, a nonprofit group based in Worcester, Mass., that conducts a robust trade in T-shirts, bumper stickers, posters and other paraphernalia that chide the music and film industries for what it considers wanton profiteering at the expense of artists and consumers.

In a challenge to fair-use restrictions, the group made digitized, downloadable copies of "Eyes on the Prize, Part I: Awakenings" - the first installment of a 1987 documentary on the civil rights movement - and is encouraging mass, noncommercial screenings of it tomorrow. The film has largely been absent from television and video rental shelves while the production company, Blackside Inc., of Boston, works to renew (and pay for) permissions on the hundreds of copyrighted elements used in the film - from archival news footage to songs like "Happy Birthday."

Blackside was not pleased with the copying and distribution of its film, and persuaded the group to remove it from its Web site last week. But fear and confusion over the legal issues has led at least one county in Virginia to stop a teacher from showing the school's legally acquired copy of the film to students and community members.

"The school district didn't understand that they have fair-use rights," said Tiffiniy Cheng, a director of Downhill Battle, which lists more than two dozen venues that, it says, have committed to screening the film.

But the nagging fear of legal action, even among right-minded users of digital materials, has made it difficult for copyright holders to foster a positive public image - even though they see lawsuits as critical to stamping out theft.

"It would be ideal if our educational efforts got more attention," said Mitch Bainwol, the chief executive of the Recording Industry Association of America, which has waged a well-publicized legal campaign against file sharers. "But the lawsuits get more coverage because of the nature of the controversy."

Those on the digital rights side of the debate recognize the content industry's image problem - and they are not above exploiting it. But they know that their own image is troubled, too.

Indeed, all but the most strident digital anarchists agree that illegal file sharing is wrong. Yet those who argue for strong fair-use protections are often portrayed by opponents as supporters of theft.

"They can so easily be painted as favoring piracy," said Susan Crawford, a professor of Internet law at the Benjamin N. Cardozo Law School in New York and a member of the advisory board for Public Knowledge, a Washington group that has fought legislation that it argues would stifle new technological advances. "They have to deal with a concept that's even harder to visualize - innovation - and they have not found a sound bite or a picture that puts across a message to people."

For groups like Public Knowledge, antipiracy tactics like the entertainment industry's case against Grokster and StreamCast or legislation like the Induce Act, which stalled in Congress last year and which opponents argued would have stifled technological innovation by making developers of file-sharing software subject to lawsuits, present a morass of legal and technical nuance that is hard to reduce to sound bites.

That is why the Electronic Frontier Foundation has taken to turning the gizmos they see threatened by the Grokster lawsuit into pandas and spotted owls. "That's an image," Ms. Crawford said. "They can play on people's love for gadgets," although she added that it's not quite the humanizing stroke one might hope for.

"It's an uphill battle to visualize innovation," she said.

The Business Software Alliance, the powerful consortium of software manufacturers, might well agree with that sentiment.

The group clearly wants to stamp out the use of pirated software - a recent study by International Data Corporation estimated that 36 percent of software installed on computers worldwide was pirated. But it is also interested in fostering the development of new technologies that, in addition to having perfectly legal uses, could also be abused by pirates.

"It's easy for one side to say well, let's just limit the functionality of technology, because we only care about the pain it's causing our business," said Emery Simon, the director for general policy at the alliance. "On the flip side, you can say, well, technology is the superceding and overarching good. Both are right, and both are wrong."

In addressing those rights and wrongs, the alliance has mounted some of the more ambitious public campaigns of any group - including the introduction of Garret the Ferret into schools. The group has also relicensed its use of the cartoon character Dilbert, which it has used to reach out to professional engineers, via Web sites like BSAengineers.com and through bulk mailings, to warn them against using pirated software.

"We hope that the engineers that got the Dilbert flier will take the message home," said Debbi Mayster, the alliance's communications manager.

It did not work for everyone.

Bryan Fields, a partner and chief engineer with Illiana.net, an Internet service provider to customers in Illinois and Indiana, is one recipient who did not appreciate the gesture. He said in an e-mail message that he did not like seeing Dilbert, "who stands for everything that's wrong with soul-sucking corporations, acting as a mouthpiece for the most evil of them all - the B.S.A."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/07/te...07sharing.html


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Media

Wherefore Art Thou, Clint?
Maureen Dowd

A friend of mine e-mailed me Friday to see if I wanted to go to the Folger Theater production of "Romeo and Juliet."

I e-mailed him back, fretting: Doesn't that play promote suicide?

What's the 411 on those Elizabethan teenagers? Were they friends with benefits who recklessly scarfed down unsafe substances and romanticized death?

Surely, the Apothecary is guilty of assisted suicide, selling the distraught Romeo a dram of poison and instructing him: "Put this in any liquid thing you will/And drink if off, and if you had the strength/Of twenty men, it would dispatch you straight."

My friend suggested we skip the play and go out to dinner, where we could promote assisted gluttony. In this hypermoralistic atmosphere, you can't be too careful, even when a Friar is on hand to warn "violent delights have violent ends." I don't want to get on the wrong side of the Savonarolas.

I saw "Million Dollar Baby" and was dazzled. But then Rush Limbaugh, Michael Medved and other conservatives howled that Dirty Harry playing Dr. Kevorkian sends a positive message about euthanasia.

The culture cops are unmoved that Clint Eastwood's crepuscular boxing manager, Frankie, is a Catholic who goes to Mass every day and agonizes about the morality of his actions.

Mr. Medved wrote that the Oscar nominations for "Million Dollar Baby" and "The Sea Inside," which feature plots about assisted suicide, combined with snubs for "The Passion of the Christ," "illustrate Hollywood's profound, almost pathological discomfort with the traditional religiosity embraced by most of its mass audience."

I guess Shakespeare is pretty much out from now on. Ophelia drowns herself; Cleopatra kills herself with an assist from two asps; Lear's wretched daughter Goneril does herself in, as does Lady Macbeth. Brutus kills himself by running onto a sword held by his servant Strato (another assisted suicide), and his wife, Portia, dies by swallowing a burning coal; Othello stabs himself. And don't even start with the lurid family values in Greek drama and myth, rife with patricide, matricide, fratricide and incest.

It's funny that the moviemaker stirring up the fuss is an icon of the right, a man the president's father aped when he said, "Read my lips: No new taxes." When I interviewed Mr. Eastwood in 1995, he said he thought his party was onto something with its nostalgia for the old values. But he also said he was more libertarian than conservative: "The less you mess around with people, the better off people are." That attitude is passé in the Republican Party. The Christian right thinks that the more you mess around with people, the better off people are. It is eager to dictate social, cultural and marital behavior, with an assist from the man whom it boasts it put back in the White House.

The Virginia House of Delegates last week endorsed license plates reading "Traditional Marriage," featuring a red heart with interlocking gold wedding bands. (A married pal of mine joked that for verisimilitude, the plates should also feature a man and a woman looking miserable.)

But the Bard was more interested in untraditional marriage - like that lurid family dinner in "Titus Andronicus," when Titus serves Tamora meat pies made from the bodies of her two sons, who have raped and mutiliated Titus's daughter in revenge for Titus slaying Tamora's oldest son before her eyes. (Capped by him murdering Tamora and mercy-killing his daughter.)

Just because it's not "Ozzie and Harriet," does it have to be bowdlerized, or Medvedized - "Unmixed with anything that could raise a blush on the cheek of modesty," as Dr. Bowdler bragged about his eviscerated Shakespeare?

Michael Moore and Mel Gibson aside, the purpose of art is not always to send messages. More often, it's just to tell a story, move people and provoke ideas. Mr. Eastwood's critics don't even understand what art is. Politics - not art - is about finding consensus with the majority of the audience. Art is not about avoiding controversy or ensuring that everyone leaves feeling morally uplifted.

What I love about movies and plays is seeing fictional characters behaving in ends-justify-the-means ways I never would. What I hate about politics is seeing real officials behaving in ends-justify-the-means ways on the W.M.D. "crisis" in Iraq, the Social Security "crisis," and the spread of federal disinformation from paid "journalists." Now that's worth howling about.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/06/op...icle_popular_2


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Hollywood grabbing the game business

Blockbuster With a Joystick
Laura M. Holson

Ten years after being burned in their first attempts to combine movies and television with the video game business, media companies now seem willing to press the play button again.

Wall Street is rife with speculation that various media companies are on the hunt to acquire a video game maker like Activision or Electronic Arts. Studios are more aggressively licensing their television and movie properties to game makers. And the pitches for video game-inspired movies have made lunch at Spago sound more like the computer club at a junior high school.

At last week's Walt Disney Company conference in Orlando, Fla., investors were told that the company was in discussions to buy multiple game development studios and would spend nearly $50 million to develop the business. Disney executives are scouring their vast library of action films like "Armageddon," "Gone In Sixty Seconds" and the two-part "Kill Bill" for ideas for the next blockbuster game.

Such activity is a far cry from a year ago, when the video game business "was not one we or any other media company would touch," said Andy Mooney, the head of Disney's consumer products division.

What is driving the flurry is Hollywood's newfound respect for the profits earned by video game makers. Until recently, movie studios were happy to license their films to game developers, Mr. Mooney said. But as the profit margin on video games has remained around a healthy 25 percent - three times that of the average motion picture - the interest of companies like Disney has increased.

"There is a pressure on all of us to grow our business," said Michael Lynton, chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment. "It looks really attractive - like many things - on the surface."

Under the surface, however, video games remain a risky and unproven test for media companies.

The most successful games are franchises unto themselves. With the exception of the recent games based on Spider-Man, The Lord of the Rings and Star Wars movies, the sales of movie-based games pale beside those of the alien-fighting "Halo" games and the violent "Grand Theft Auto" series, where players score points for shooting pedestrians and beating up prostitutes.

"It's not a one-size-fits-all business and there is no silver bullet," Mr. Mooney said. "Once you get past the 'Let's spend billions and go buy a game company stage,' you have to ask yourself, 'What is the right strategy?' "

Media companies have dreamed of crossover successes before. In the 1970's and 1980's, many studios acquired book publishers in the hopes of mining their titles for movie ideas. Later, Hollywood film producers tried to combine book publishing with movie making. Neither attempt panned out.

In the 1990's, DreamWorks SKG, Time Warner, Disney and others sought to build their own video game divisions, only to falter under the weight of high development costs or too little expertise. Some companies, like DreamWorks, sold their game divisions, while others scaled back and incorporated their games business into their technology units.

Those failures are part of the reason that smaller game developers have flourished. The culture that has persisted among developers is one in which they retain their entrepreneurial flair, while movies and television are mature businesses. And video game makers have yet to adopt the diva qualities and corrupting influence of star power that is more common in Hollywood

"There will naturally be culture clashes if they try to move these cultures together," said Neil Young, the executive in charge of production at Electronic Arts. "There is not a culture of fear in our industry. We are not afraid to fail."

The big media companies - where fear of failure is almost a job requirement - have taken vastly different approaches to exploiting the video game phenomenon this time around.

Disney is publishing its own game based on the coming "Chronicles of Narnia" movie, while Mr. Lynton said Sony Pictures will continue to license its film properties to developers. At News Corp., which also licenses their film and television shows for video games, chief operating officer Peter Chernin said recently that video game companies were currently too expensive to acquire. Time Warner is the most aggressive of the large companies, with a three-pronged approach including licensing, co-partnering with game makers and designing its own games.

Many companies are even looking beyond the marquee console games to multiplayer online games and cellphone games, which are growing in popularity and are cheaper to produce. A video game for Sony's PlayStation or Microsoft's Xbox can cost as much as $15 million to make, while a game played exclusively on a cellular phone can be developed for as little as $100,000. Twentieth Century Fox last month signed a two-year deal with game publisher Sorrent to make cell games for some of its upcoming movies.

But Mr. Lynton, whose bosses at the Sony Corporation in Japan make the popular PlayStation consoles and video games, cautioned that the industry should not overhype the synergies between games and other entertainment.

"The problem is, leaving aside the expense of buying a game company or starting one from scratch, when you get into the dynamics of the video game business, it is very different than film or television production," he said. "I have a hard time telling a good game from a bad one."

Instead, some media companies are hiring game developers to tell them what to think. In January 2004, Warner Brothers Entertainment hired Jason Hall, the co- founder of the game maker Monolith Productions, to run its newly formed Warner Brothers Interactive Entertainment unit, which is overseen by Kevin Tsujihara, executive vice president of business development and strategy, and Dan Romanelli, consumer products president.

That division is developing "The Matrix Online," a multiplayer game that participants will be able to play online and is expected to be introduced this spring after being delayed twice. Mr. Tsujihara said Warner planned to release up to three to five games per year. The main reason Warner started the division was quality control, he said.

"We don't want to have our movies and television shows hurt by bad games," Mr. Tsujihara said.

Quality aside, there are other more compelling reasons - if Warner games are a hit, the studio gets to keep all of the profits instead of sharing with the likes of Electronic Arts or Activision. Those numbers can be staggering: first-day sales of Xbox's "Halo 2" were $125 million, far surpassing the theatrical debut of most movies. And some industry analysts suggest that Warner, like others, is waiting for the introduction of the newest generation of DVD players to re-release vintage films, comic book serials and television shows it owns, which will be promoted and packaged alongside newly minted video games. If successful, video game companies might soon find that their friendly studio partners are fierce rivals.

"Studios are going to become game publishers and will treat them like movies, television or any other intellectual property," said Keith Boesky, a game industry consultant.

But when studios have tried to exploit video games as movies in the past, they have had limited success. (Remember "Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within?" No one else does. Video games that are too violent or lack a good plot are hard to translate to the screen.) When Paramount Pictures made two movies based on the "Lara Croft: Tomb Raider" game, Robert Friedman, vice chairman at Paramount Pictures, said the studio "desperately wanted to make movies that were PG-13." The first movie was a hit, the second a bomb that killed the franchise.

Paramount, which is owned by the media giant Viacom, has several movies in the works based on video games. These include "Fear and Respect" and "Area 51," both made by Midway Games, which is owned partly by Viacom chairman Sumner Redstone. Despite Mr. Redstone's investment in Midway, Mr. Friedman said Paramount was not required to make Midway games. "No one is going to mandate, in my opinion, the free flow of ideas," he said.

Peter Guber, the former chief executive of Sony Pictures and host of the television show "Sunday Morning Shoot Out," has experience juggling content among several media. In 1995, he set up the multimedia company Mandalay Entertainment Group, which has since shed its book division, focusing instead on original film and television production.

"If anyone thinks they are going to get a stream of ideas from video games or they are going to successfully make video games from a movie's conceit is mistaken," said Mr. Guber. "Ultimately you have to independently manage the properties of each division."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/07/business/07game.html


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New England news

Celebrating in Boston Like a Yankees Fan
Katie Zezima

Nadine Cucchi has lived in the Boston area her whole life, and, while basking in the Patriots' third Super Bowl victory in four years Sunday night, she felt confident enough to say the unbelievable.

"I think this is what it must be like to be from New York," she said.

After more than two decades, the word dynasty is creeping back into the New England lexicon, as is an expectation that the Patriots should win.

Along with the Red Sox' World Series victory, that has New England on top in the sports world, a concept many fans here are having trouble grasping.

"We're used to losing, and now we have to get used to winning," said Jimmy Hill, 40, an auto mechanic from Framingham, Mass.

Craig DeCosta, 26, a waiter from Watertown, Mass., refused to stress after the Eagles scored a touchdown near the end of the game to creep within 3 points of the Patriots, who held on to win, 24-21. The key, he said, is that the Patriots play as a team.

"It's a dynasty," DeCosta, 26, said while watching the game and working at John Brewer's pub in suburban Waltham. "It's absolutely amazing. They're one of the elite teams. People don't expect them to lose."

Torah Katz, 21, a student at Columbia University, came home to Brookline, Mass., for the weekend to watch the game. She arrived at the Coolidge Corner Clubhouse, a bar in Brookline, more than two hours before kickoff so she could secure a seat. The Patriots are to her are what the Celtics were to her parents, she said. "When I was growing up I'd hear about the Bruins in the 70's and the Celtics in the 80's, and my generation never had any kind of dynasty," she said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/07/sp.../07boston.html


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Yipee!

Analysts Say Movie Downloading Is Still In Its Infancy

Illegal downloading heading for the mainstream, says analyst

Movie studios must offer a broader range of films over the internet to prevent illegal downloading spreading into the mainstream, analysts have warned.

Forrester acknowledged in a newly published report that movie downloading is "still in its infancy". But of the five per cent of the online population who have downloaded a movie, more than one in three has downloaded three or more movies in the past three months.

"The profile of movie downloaders is similar to that of the early music downloaders, so it's time to ring the alarm bells," the analyst firm stated.


Studios urged to offer more
DRM-protected films over the
internet


"Studios must accelerate a broader offering of digital rights management- protected movies for download to keep illegal movie downloading from spreading to the mainstream."

Forrester warned that developments in technology such as XviD and DivX formats, as well as the evolution of file-sharing tools such as BitTorrent, will further fuel movie downloading.

The film industry should respond to this new enthusiasm by targeting the P2P networks and providing consumers with legal alternatives, according to the analyst.

Hellen Omwando, consumer markets analyst at Forrester, said: "Currently, five per cent of online consumers in the UK have downloaded at least one full-length movie in the past three months.

"Their profile is similar to that of the early adopters who started sharing pirated music, which significantly reduced music sales. The spread of broadband is changing online behaviour."
http://www.vnunet.com/news/1161041


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It's The Season For Romance In The File-Swapping World, Too

P2P Rivals Flock To BitTorrent
John Borland

Once-separate peer-to-peer technologies are increasingly finding homes under the same digital roof, as companies seek to improve their own software by drawing on their rivals' strengths.

On Thursday, StreamCast Networks added support for the popular BitTorrent technology to its Morpheus software, the company said. BitTorrent has become a favorite of swappers looking to download big files such as TV shows, movies and software, but it does not have a built-in search mechanism like Morpheus, Kazaa and other networks.

"Until now, the only readily available way for users to find and obtain files and content using BitTorrent was both inefficient and, oftentimes, inaccurate," said Michael Weiss, chief executive officer of StreamCast Networks. "Morpheus is able to provide a far better user experience."

Morpheus' move, along with a spate of releases from rival companies in the past few days, is a clear sign that the impending Supreme Court ruling hanging over the peer-to-peer business has done little to slow developers' scramble for competitive position.


Also on Thursday, Lime Wire released a new version of its software that contains improved ability to function through firewalls.

Newcomer Exeem, which like Mopheus is trying to merge traditional peer-to-peer search capabilities with the fast download powers of BitTorrent, released a new version of its program that no longer requires the unpopular Cydoor advertising software to be installed. Many in the file-swapping community had been deeply critical of the software's release after learning Cydoor was included.

BitTorrent has been the darling of the file-swapping world for much of the last year, however. eDonkey, now the most widely used file- swapping application, also provides support for BitTorrent.
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-5571354.html


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Dude!

Why I'm Giving Up Broadband

With an estimated five million people now connected to broadband at home, one early internet enthusiast is giving it up for good. David McCandless explains why he's given it the boot.

Today, 20% of UK households - around five million people - have broadband in their homes. By the end of next year that figure will be nearer eight million. Tony Blair says every home that wants broadband should have it by 2008.

I can barely believe I've done it myself. As a committed early adopter and geek, I never thought I would ever move to a backwater in the face of technological advancement.

I had broadband before it was famous, way back in the 20th Century. In those days, most people drummed fingers on desks and made tea while they awaited their webpages and postage stamp-sized videos to trickle through their paltry 56K modems.

I, however, had a 'phat pipe' installed at home. Every evening: me, 17 browser windows open, working the keyboard like a concert pianist, dazzling my friends with all the film trailers, terrible flash animations and MP3s I could download simultaneously.

'Bandwidth guilt'

Gradually, though, the novelty of a fast connection has worn off. Disillusion has set in. I've slowly come to a terrible realisation: there isn't really that much I can do with broadband.

I have no far-off relatives to wave at down a video conferencing connection. Threats of divorce stopped me playing online games a few years ago. Sure, I enjoy streaming clips of the news but I can also just turn my head slightly and watch it on my TV. There used to be some joy for me feeling secure downloading hefty Microsoft security patches, but now I've given up on Windows and got a Mac instead.

Having nothing much to do with your broadband gives rise to a curious sensation that could be termed: "bandwidth guilt". When I'm not using it, I feel like I should be. I keep trying to find ways to utilise its sheer power - and justify the £30 a month fee. I feel bad if I don't.

And the only thing I've discovered that really gives my ADSL a workout is, sadly, illegal. I'd rather not go into it here. Let's just say it's the not-
so-well-kept secret of what everyone is using broadband for. Depending on who you talk to, between 50% and 65% of all internet traffic is currently peer-to-peer (p2p) piracy. Everyone's doing it. Do you know what technology makes it possible? Yep. Broadband.

Spending an inordinate amount of time at my computer, using my broadband, I'm developing what I can only term an information habit.

Sit down to work. Ten minutes in, the new mail icon tempts me from the bottom of the screen. I'll just check. Nothing like a few juicy new e- mails. Click a few links. Scan a few websites. Oh 20 minutes has just passed. Better get back to work. Now where was I? Start work again. Feel like a reward. I'll just check news.bbc.co.uk. See if anything's happened in the three minutes since I last looked. Follow a few 'related links'...

Half an hour has passed. I feel like I've done something, but actually I haven't. All that's happened is that I've been distracted by constantly rising info urges. I spend most of my day like this, divided between what I need to do and what the internet wants me to do - which is look at it. Constantly.

The 56K Life

So, just like a drug addict, I can't control it. If web access is there, I'll have it. Especially now, since I had wireless internet installed I can browse on the toilet, in the garden, even in the shower. There's no escape. So the only recourse for me is an extreme one: to have it chopped off.

Reaction from my friends and colleagues has been extreme. Ranging from shock and surprise (Whaaaat? Why? How? Guh?) to outright suspicion ("Have you been downloading something you shouldn't?"). One friend even raged at me: "How could you? Don't you know broadband means progress?"

I don't regret my decision. I have to say I feel lighter, freer. I'm certainly getting more things done, especially now I schedule a time every couple of hours to log on and check my e-mail and websites.

The internet on 56K isn't as bad as I thought. Pretty much every website is designed for 56K users anyway. But I still make the mistake of impatiently opening two, three, four other browser windows while waiting for the first one to download.

Will it last?

I can't say I'm missing flash or streaming video. And there's no doubt it's killed any p2p temptations I may have nurtured. And that's a good thing, right, vast corporate entertainment industry?

I do confess, however, that I now carry a network cable around with me. Like some kind of petrol thief, at friends' houses I can be found hooking up my laptop for a quick broadband fix.

I used to spend all day slaving away at my computer, watching the day ride past my window - only to come home and do the same in the evenings. But now I've distilled the useful and vital from the compulsive (and illegal), I am left with just two online activities: e-mail and web browsing.

Isn't that what the internet is really for?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/4242751.stm


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Nothing's Gonna Stop The Flow
Kiyoshi Martinez

Editor's note: This is part two in a three-part series. The third part will appear next Monday. Names of students have been changed to protect privacy.

From server to server, a premiered, pirated movie flashes across the topsite networks. Couriers transfer the files from site to site so everybody can get a taste. For those anxiously awaiting the latest release, this is the miracle of five barley loaves and two fish that feeds the masses. For the entertainment industry, this is a nightmarish hydra that refuses to die.

"If a movie gets pre'd at a topsite, then a racer starts racing it to other sites and starts transferring it at incredibly fast speeds," said Robert. He has seen 700-megabyte files go from site to site in five minutes; 4.7-gigabyte DVDs move from server to server in under half an hour. At this level in the distribution chain, the servers are all legitimate and privately owned. Some are located in people's homes or rented from companies that don't care about what they are used for.

"A lot of people who own a business, they hide them under things. They're sort of like bandwidth launderers," Robert joked. "That tends to lead to problems."

As shocking as it might seem, this is where the topsites and their users prefer that distribution is stopped - and with good reason.

"They want to protect themselves because they know what they are doing is illegal. So, they are very anti-FXP scene, the Web sites that are posting movies on hacked servers," Robert said.

In the FXP scene, the game is different. Scanners and hackers search IP ranges for vulnerabilities. Once an insecure site is found, they install FTP servers called "stros" that can later serve as a drop point for future releases. The topsites generally frown upon FXP groups and their high-risk practices.

"That's what gets you caught in their eyes. In their rules, they only allow transfers to legitimate servers," said Robert. "Obviously, somewhere in there the chain breaks because it's all over in the FXP scene in minutes."

After a movie hits the FXP scene, it eventually dwindles down to the p2p level for widespread release. It doesn't take very long.

"If it's a good movie, it can be there in six hours," said Derek, a graduate student.

Derek first entered the scene looking for The Simpsons episodes. Currently, he is no longer an active participant, but his access to topsites leads to an unimaginable amount of files.

"We have a large database, which is like a million different files. If it's not in there, we can do it. There might not be any demand for it, but we can do it," said Derek, calmly.

Derek has been in and out of the scene since 1996, but things have changed. Back in the days of the dial-up modem "it was just small applications. Every now and then someone would get Photoshop 1 or something."

Over the years, his level of involvement has varied from capturing broadcasted television to ripping and releasing classic films. The topsites he was involved with and the work he does aren't the quick and easy way either.

"We do quality over anything else," said Derek. "If it's not looking good, I can spend a week on it."

It's this mentality that determined topsite groups can and will produce quality releases of anything under the digital rainbow that has the entertainment alarmed and itching to take the fight to the courts. On Jan. 26, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) launched another wave of lawsuits aimed at file-sharers and file-trading Web sites. Derek feels that these latest round of lawsuits won't affect him at all.

"They've been targeting people on peer to peer networks," said Derek. "But that's not stopping the supply. When they took down Napster, that affected nothing. It made a lot of people whine, but those are just the people who didn't know what they were doing. The people on the top don't care, and they are still getting that music and putting it out there."

Robert doesn't worry much either. He feels relatively secure in his position in the FXP scene.

"I tend to only try to get stuff from people I trust. I tend to limit myself to channels I've been in before," said Robert. "I feel like I'm a little bit secure."

"I don't think it's really doing anything," said Brian, who also has his doubts about the "sue 'em all" tactics of the Recording Industry Association of America and MPAA. "They just pick a handful of people and sue them. It's not really stopping anyone."
http://www.dailyillini.com/news/2005...w-854470.shtml


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Microsoft's Updates: Out of Control
John C. Dvorak

Last Tuesday's massacre, when Microsoft released a whole slew of patches, begs more than a few questions.

First of all, why can't the company consolidate multiple patches that seemingly do the same thing? And second, isn't it about time that we all got a new free operating system that incorporated all the dozens of patches that have been released? The main reason I ask for this is because when I visit my add/remove programs subsystem, the Microsoft patches clog up the list—to an extreme. ADVERTISEMENT

Now before I go into exactly how Microsoft can get us all one free clean OS, I have to also mention last Tuesday's weird new patch called the "Malicious Software Removal Tool." This is the first "tool" that I recall showing up in the Windows Update list. I could be wrong, since there have been so many updates, but most of them seem to be security patches rather than full-blown software tools. The question is whether you should even install this new tool.

The Malicious Software Removal Tool is primarily an antispyware product. People who have used the tool and reported on its functionality say that it never tells you what spyware it is actually removing. The problem I have with it is the concept that it only removes "malicious" spyware. Does this mean that it leaves all those ad-tracking spyware systems installed? Surely they are not meant to be malicious. And since Microsoft sells advertising a la Google on its search engine, it seems unlikely that they'd want to kill that advertising "feature." This seems to explain, to me at least, why the tool doesn't do any detailed reporting. I'll pass, thank you, and stick with the various commercial products that do give me the details.

Apparently the tool is kind of spyware itself, since it reports back to HQ with data on what it has done on your machine. It's not that I care that Microsoft has a huge database of spyware infections and their relative popularity. It's just that I have yet to see what good any of this has done me. They never release the data. So what's the point? The company's argument that it collects this data so it can do a better job doesn't wash with me, given how secretive Microsoft always tends to be. For all I know they are going to push some spyware out there themselves and market it as foolproof.

Meanwhile, let me get back to the topic of a free OS. And by this I do not mean SP2, which sits on top of all the other old patches and still clogs up my add/remove programs list. I mean Microsoft should distribute an ISO image of a completely recompiled Windows XP with all the patches (and even the new tool included as a clickable option or subprogram). Users could also be given a special tool or set of instructions so they can burn the ISO images if they do not know how.

Furthermore I think that this ISO image should be traded openly and freely amongst Windows users. Since Microsoft has implemented an authentication process can someone tell me why a BitTorrent or other peer-to- peer network cannot be used to distribute all of the Microsoft code?

Pirates, for example, cannot crack the ISO image without it being obvious, although they could create a new ISO image that is cracked and authentication-proof. Let's face it, most of the people who would want the new clean Windows XP are already users of Win XP. There must be a dozen ways to manage this sort of transition. And what's the point of all this authentication malarkey if the long-term goal is not to allow for open peer-to-peer distribution?

With broadband penetration in the US market about to top 75 percent sometime within the next 24 months, there is no reason that all software shouldn't use P2P distribution with authentication as the delivery mechanism, if it can be made to work. And if this cannot be made to work, then why is anyone using authentication anyway? Is it done just to annoy us?

Regular patches will not go away, even if everyone was suddenly running a clean version of Win XP, newly installed. At least we'd all be on the same page with the new version, and that darn list on add/remove programs would not be completely dominated by Microsoft patches. It borders on the ridiculous.

If Microsoft used a peer-to-peer distribution scheme, with people sending around the clean version of Win XP to each other, the cost to the company would be minimal. It's not as though Microsoft would have to serve all those terabytes of data.

It would be nice to see Microsoft thinking outside the box—literally—once in a while.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1761429,00.asp


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

RIAA Ups & Downs
Wes Phillips

As 2004 wound down, the Los Angeles sheriff's department successfully conducted five simultaneous raids on illegal CD replication plants in southern California on December 15. Dubbed "Operation Final Release," the joint operation between the Southern California High Tech Task Force and the LA sheriff's department put 65 officers into action, closing down five optical disc replication facilities in LA and Orange counties suspected of churning out millions of pirated CDs, which were sold throughout the United States.

"Virtually unprecedented in size and scope, today's anti-piracy operation by the Los Angeles County Sheriff and others delivered a significant blow to piracy during a critical sales period for the recording industry," said Brad Buckles, the RIAA's executive vice president for anti-piracy.

Buckles added, "CD plant piracy is particularly damaging because the counterfeit goods produced tend to appear more authentic and often end up in legitimate music distribution chains. Music fans who purchase seemingly genuine product lose out, as do musicians, songwriters, and record labels who are deprived of a return on their work."

Given its success when confronting real criminals, it is surprising that the RIAA managed to find time in late January to deliver another 717 "John Doe" suits against individuals and computer networks suspected of participating in peer-to- peer file sharing through services such as KaZaa, eDonkey, and Limewire. Among the indicted were 68 computer network users at 23 universities and colleges including University of Massachusetts (Lowell), Georgetown University, Harvard University Medical School, Old Dominion University, Virginia Commonwealth University, Illinois State University, SUNY at Morrisville, Texas A&M University, University of South Florida, Indiana University, Michigan State University, Wayne State University, and others.

Steven Marks, the RIAA's general counsel, pointed out that there are now legal alternatives to illegal file sharing and explained the RIAA's action, "Today's university and college students are tomorrow's leaders. ... Students need to understand that just because someone else's property or creations can be obtained easily and freely without anyone seemingly knowing, there are consequences, because it is stealing."

Gertrude Walton certainly doesn't understand the consequences of her actions, but that's primarily because the 83-year-old woman had been dead for nearly a month when the RIAA sued her for downloading over 700 songs under the nom de web of "smittenedkitten."

Robin Chianumba, Walton's daughter, said, "My mother wouldn't know how to turn on a computer." She added, "I am pretty sure she is not going to leave [her burial site at] Greenwood Memorial Park to attend the hearing."

Ms. Chianumba faxed record company officials a copy of her mother's death certificate before the lawsuit was filed, responding to a letter warning of impending legal action. Jonathan Lamy, an RIAA spokesman allowed that Walton was probably not the smittenedkitten it was seeking. "Our evidence gathering and our subsequent legal actions all were initiated weeks and even months ago. We will now, of course, obviously dismiss this case."
http://www.stereophile.com/news/020705riaa/


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

Woman Silenced by Music Mafia
Andrew Tran

Evelyn won't return my phone calls.

So that means she's ignoring me. Or she wants to talk to me, but can't, because the Recording Industry Association of America won't let her.

In December, Evelyn found out she had been targeted by the RIAA in its ever increasing crusade against children, mothers and senior citizens who don't uncheck the "share" option in their peer-to-peer downloading software.

The Daily Texan office received Evelyn's call on the last press day before winter break. She had received a notice from Time Warner stating that they were subpoenaed into releasing her personal information in a New York federal court.

Included in the document was a number to a settlement center where they told her they had counted 956 shared files. If she had 457 less files, then she might have been overlooked by the RIAA, she was told. The company was sending her a packet of settlement documents, and she had 90 days to respond, lest her "Jane Doe" case be upgraded to her real name in court.

Just as freely as she gave information, she was pumping me for information so she could get a better grasp on the situation before her. Other than former student Jason Gonzales, there were no other UT students who had revealed they were being sued by the RIAA, I told her. He opted to settle out-of-court, as countless others have, rather than face down the seemingly invincible army of Armani at the RIAA's disposal.

The only person to return my call that day was the person I assumed would be the hardest to contact. "We are always open to settlement discussions with anyone," said RIAA spokesman Jonathan Lamy. "If someone prefers not to settle, they of course have the opportunity to raise their objections in court. We stand by our claims."

I promised Evelyn I would follow up on her story after the break. Once the semester began, I started digging.

Caught in the Web

The RIAA most likely sought her name under a provision in the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act that allows copyright holders to issue subpoenas to Internet Service Providers for the names of alleged offenders before filing a lawsuit. The DMCA subpoenas do not need the approval of a judge; instead, the law directs court clerks to issue the subpoenas.

It was an ingenious plan: Lawyers would pay around $200 in court fees to subpoena an ISP into revealing the owners of a list of IP addresses the RIAA had accumulated. Before November, the RIAA was able to gather around 50 identities per subpoena. Assuming each person received a letter with a phone number to a similar settlement center, and each person decided to pay a little now instead of a lot later by settling, and each person settled for the then-average $3,000, then for $200 the RIAA could make an easy $150,000.

In some federal courts, that is still the case. However, the federal courts in Austin decided that the RIAA may no longer file blanket-style subpoenas and must file separate paperwork for each IP address. This changed little except the RIAA's strategy and jacked up the average price of settlements from $3,000 to $4,000. After all, the RIAA had to now invest $10,000 instead of $200 to get their $150,000.

In January, the Big Music Mafia boasted it had launched another 717 lawsuits against people who share music online, bringing the total number of those victimized to a shocking 8,423. If each one of these victims settled at the pre-inflated average of $3,000, then the RIAA is set to make an easy $25,269,000.

Strange bedfellows

A few ISPs in Washington, D.C., such as Verizon and Pacific Bell, have stood up to the RIAA cartel and have so far, successfully argued that these subpoenas were too easy to obtain and could destroy Internet privacy.

Unfortunately, in Austin there exist only cable companies with conflicts of interest.

Time Warner Cable is part of a media conglomerate that also owns a music label. Grande Communications makes $150 for every identity they release.

"I don't know why their policy is that way," said Mark Harrad, a spokesman for Time Warner Cable, referring to the ISPs opposing the RIAA, "But I suspect that a large publicly traded company would not want to have a public policy position contrary to the law."

Besides, while they're obligated legally to obey the subpoena, they aren't obligated to send out notices to the customers about to be reamed by the RIAA, Harrad said in less vulgar terms. Apparently, people should be grateful that, while Time Warner sends its customers up a creek, they're told two weeks ahead of time to start packing.

Andy Sarwal, vice president of corporate affairs at Grande, said his company was merely seeking compensation for Grande employees doing paralegal work for the RIAA.

"We've come to an agreement with the industries to set up standards in order to protect the privacy of customers who aren't at fault," he said.

In many instances, they have mistaken identities, particularly with college students in Austin, he said. When students receive Internet services there will be three-to-four people using it, and only one person will be tied to the IP address, Sarwal said.

I tried to call Evelyn. I left her multiple messages to no avail. It was too late. She must have settled. But not all was lost; I still had the phone number to the Settlement Center.

Selling settlements

I found myself talking to a representative for The Settlement Service Center in Seattle, a business that conducts settlement negotiations with individuals who have been sued. I pretended to be a distressed student who just received a letter from Time Warner. I asked the man what the documents meant.

"There has been a John Doe lawsuit filed against your IP address. The letter you have received from Time Warner is an indication to you that the law firm of Mitchell, Silberberg, and Knupp in Los Angeles, attorneys for the record company, is seeking the personal information associated with that IP address."

I asked him what that meant.

"Time Warner will turn that info over to the law firm in a matter of days, and the letter is your opportunity to appear in court, if you wish to argue why or why not that information should be leaked. Nobody has won that argument, yet," he added.

Recalling what Sarwal said, I told him that it couldn't possibly have been me, that it was probably my roommates.

"If this is a roommate situation, you are still the one singled out, because you are the account holder for the Internet connection. You are responsible for activity on that account."

I told him that wasn't very fair.

"You should settle with us and dispose of the situation, sir. If your roommates were the ones who actually did the downloading, and you never partook in downloading or listening to music or what not, you might be able to approach them and say, 'we have a problem, help me out here.' But at this point in time you will be the one who will remain on the subpoena."

He didn't mention that this was a fact I could bring up in court. He was trying to sell me on settling.

"And the roommates. We don't have any information pertaining to them, and they will not be pursued at this time," he said ominously.

I asked him if my credit would be affected. Would I be reported to any agencies?

"Not at this time; you are a John Doe. If the situation moves forward where I am not able to negotiate a settlement with you, it will go into a named situation, where you will be named in a federal lawsuit."

My shoulders felt heavier, and I felt my heart beat, panicked, even though I was just pretending to be sued.

This would really, really suck in real life.

"You will be served with a complaint and a summons to appear in court, and by that time your name will be public knowledge to all those people interested in who's being sued by whom."

Was he implicating the media, or was I just feeling guilty?

"It won't affect your credit at this point," he continued. "But if you are named in a federal lawsuit, it could also affect your job opportunities, because on employment applications, many times they will ask, 'have you ever been party to a lawsuit?'

"And you would have to check 'yes' at that time, because that would be public knowledge," he said.

I thanked him for his time and said farewell, but not before he again assured me that I should settle.

If you're reading this, Evelyn, I can see why you didn't call me back. Having to put up with the RIAA's scare tactics to extort money from you, dealing with filed lawsuits intended to extract financial settlements, I can see why you'd want to put this whole ordeal behind you.

Or maybe it was my breath.

Tran is a philosophy senior. "Evelyn's" name has been changed to protect her identity.
http://www.dailytexanonline.com/news...a-852298.shtml


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

Installations
Jack



In the middle of a U.S. dessert, Michael Heizer is building the largest sculpture ever created by a living artist. His life’s work, the installation will cover more area when complete than the Mall in Washington D.C.. Just as the project in the middle of nowhere nears completion however the United States has decided to build a rail line for the shipment of nuclear waste right along side it. Michael Kimmelman of The New York Times reports in this audio slide presentation.
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