Peer-To-Peer News - The Week In Review - February 21st, '04

[JackSpratts]

Angry With RIAA Tactics, Programmer Creates Mask For File-Sharers
AP

Wyatt Wasicek was so outraged by the recording industry's legal assault on users of free music-downloading sites that he decided to ride to the rescue. He created a program called AnonX that masks the Internet address of people who use file-sharing programs such as Kazaa.

Available for $5.95 per month, AnonX sets up a virtual private network, or VPN, between a user's computer and the company's computers. The AnonX computers act as proxies, and actually do the Web surfing for the subscriber.

In theory, no one outside of AnonX can see the subscriber's Internet address -- including the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), which has forced Internet service providers to turn over subscriber information as part of its campaign to sue hundreds of individual song downloaders, including children.

Wasicek, 29, promises not to divulge his 7,000 users' Internet addresses, and believes he can't be forced to do so.

Although Wasicek lives in Austin, Texas, he says AnonX's official owner lives in Vanuatu, the loosely regulated Pacific island that also hosts Kazaa's parent company, Sharman Networks Ltd. AnonX's servers are strategically placed overseas as well.

RIAA spokesman Jonathan Lamy declined to comment on Anonx.

Wasicek says he put a filter on AnonX to block its use for child pornography. He also says he'll cut off service for egregious downloaders of copyrighted material.

So why bother creating AnonX?

Wasicek's day job is at an Internet service provider that frequently gets letters from the entertainment industry demanding subscriber information, and he claims most of them are erroneous, wasting everyone's time. Wasicek said he decided to shield file-sharers who generally use the technology legitimately but might occasionally break copyright law without realizing it.

``I'm doing this to protect the family with the 13-year-old, not the 25-year-old with 25 movies he's sharing with his buddies,'' he said. ``I wanted to go back to the good old days when people could surf anonymously.''

AnonX subscriber John Bayreaux, 42, said he understands why record companies want to protect their copyrights, but he disapproves of their attempt to foil peer- to-peer technology. He said he downloads some songs, mainly ``international music that is hard to come by,'' and doesn't want to fear the prying eyes of the RIAA.

Proxy technologies like Anonx can dramatically slow Web surfing because they force data to take extra steps to get relayed to the end user's computer. Bayreaux said AnonX ``works like a charm,'' with no noticeable delays.

Still, AnonX's technical claims were met with suspicion by Sascha Wildgrube, director of development at Steganos GmbH, a German provider of Internet privacy services.

``There are a number of products available that state they can hide the (Internet) address in file-sharing networks like Kazaa. We closely observe that market, and all products we reviewed turned out to be snake oil,'' Wildgrube said. ``We will take a look at AnonX.com, but I do not expect it to be what it claims.''
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/sil...al/7927993.htm


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Skype Launches Free Conference Calling
Press Release

LUXEMBOURG - Up to 5 People Can Talk Together From Anywhere in the World -

Skype Technologies S.A., the Global P2P Telephony Company that offers consumers the ability to make free voice calls using their broadband connections, today announced the world's first peer-to-peer (P2P) Internet telephony conference calling feature, allowing up to five friends to talk with each other simultaneously, regardless of geography. The new version also includes a multiple call hold feature that allows for 16 callers to be simultaneously put on hold by a single user.

"Skype aims to delight users by offering free global telephony with a superior quality that's never been heard before," said Niklas Zennstrom, CEO and Co- founder of Skype. "The free conference calling ability means that people can Skype with groups of their family, friends and colleagues, enhancing real-time communications and the value reaped from their investments in technology and connectivity."
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/SC0402/S00041.htm


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Morpheus Maker To Launch Net Phone Service
Ben Charny

StreamCast Networks, the creator of the Morpheus file-swapping application, has become the latest peer-to-peer software maker to pick up on Internet phone service.

Next month, the company will begin selling Internet phone services that cost between $10 and $35 a month to Morpheus users, StreamCast said on Tuesday. The $10 program covers 300 minutes of calls to the traditional phone network, while the $35 plan gives unlimited calling to anyone within the United States.

The VoIP equipment and call time for the service will be supplied by i2 Telecom International, according to a representative for the communications company.

StreamCast's jump into VoIP is part of broader trend among peer-to-peer software makers, which are trying to use their presence on broadband-enabled desktops to launch Internet phone service.

Several months ago, file-swapping software maker Kazaa unveiled Skype, a peer-to-peer VoIP service that's been downloaded six million times already, according to the company.

StreamCast's voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) phone service is open to the 120 million people that have downloaded Morpheus, provided they also buy a Morpheus-branded adapter. The adapter is needed to allow traditional home phones to make calls over a broadband connection.

VoIP is a technology for making phones calls using the Internet Protocol, the world's most popular method for sending data from one computer to another. After years of overpromising and underdelivering, VoIP is generating significant interest among telecom carriers, corporations and consumers, thanks to significant improvements in quality of service.
http://news.com.com/2100-7352-5160624.html
http://home.businesswire.com/portal/...&newsLang =en - Press Release

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DataPod Redefines the Boundaries of Your Data
Press Release

New Secure, Private Peer-to-Peer Technology Provides Business Users and Mobile Workers With Seamless, Anywhere Access To All Their Data By Synchronizing User's Data Between Multiple PCs

Attendees of DEMO 2004 will get a sneak preview of the next-generation in anywhere data access technology, as DataPod unveils new software to end the headaches of accessing data from home or on the road. DataPod seamlessly ensures the most current versions of users' information, such as their desktop, e-mail, address book and critical documents, are available at all times, and that data stored on multiple PCs is fully synchronized and available - even when offline.

According to recent studies, the number of professionals in the United States telecommuting, remotely accessing corporate networks and working from multiple locations has surpassed 45 million. DataPod's technology establishes a secure, private peer-to-peer (P2P) network that automatically synchronizes information between a user's PCs. This allows users to work on their data most efficiently from multiple PCs, since their data follows them anywhere. For individuals traveling without a laptop, DataPod provides access to their data via any Web browser. Additionally, secure, private P2P file sharing allows for the easy exchange of large files, such as presentations or multimedia-rich documents, with business partners, colleagues, customers or friends.
http://home.businesswire.com/portal/...&newsLang =en


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Harassment Alleged In File Sharing Case

Complaint filed in reference to student who reported Direct Connect last week
Adam Lewis

A harassment complaint was filed Wednesday to protect the student who reported popular file-sharing hub, Direct Connect to authorities (WiR 2/14/’04) and set off a wave of student anger University Police officials confirmed yesterday.

"A report has been filed about harassment, but it was not filed by [university senior Pavel] Beresnev," said Maj. Cathy Atwell, a University Police spokeswoman. "The complaint was filed on Wednesday regarding activities involved with shutting down this hub. The police are investigating that."

Beresnev reported the Direct Connect hub to the Office of Information Technology's Project NEThics and the Recording Industry Association of America last week, resulting in the administrators of the hub shutting down the server, according to OIT officials.

University Police could not release the filer's identity or further details about the complaint because the investigation is ongoing, Atwell said.

University officials said an investigation into potential harassment issues could take several different forms.

"The complaining student could determine that he or she believes there's a violation of the Student Code of Conduct," said Linda Clement, the university's vice president for student affairs. "That charge would be explored if it was brought to the Department of Judicial Affairs."

Meanwhile, criminal action depends on an investigation's findings.

"It depends on what the complaint is," said University Police Maj. Paul Dillon. "If we determine a crime has been committed, a lot of different ways an investigation can go. We consult with the victims or whoever files the charges and see what actions they want taken."

The controversy surrounding the Direct Connect hub coincides with the work of the Residence Halls Association's task force on file sharing, task force members said.

"I feel bad that this has become a personal attack on [Beresnev]," said Seth Zonies, a member of the University Senate's executive committee and a task force member. "I don't think it was a great decision on his part, because the consequences weren't very nice. Direct Connect itself is not illegal because hosting the file-sharing software has been upheld as legal by the courts."

As a result of this, however, task force members said they feel legal downloading alternatives for the university should be explored.

"It really highlights the need to look for a legal alternative because students are now stuck," Zonies said. "Now is really an excellent time for this committee to do some good work and seek out other legal options for students."

The administrators for the Direct Connect hub could not be reached for comment.
http://www.inform.umd.edu/News/Diamo.../13/news3.html


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The P2P Beast: Kill It Or Tame It?

Love it or hate it, file-sharing technology is here to stay, say experts
Eugene Wee

IN THE past few weeks, the recording industry has stepped up its attacks against those who download music illegally and those who facilitate those downloads.

Last month, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) announced it was suing another 532 computer users for downloading music illegally.

Then during the recent Superbowl in the United States earlier this month, Pepsi and computer maker Apple, with the help of the RIAA, ran an ad humiliating four young computer users for their part in downloading music illegally from the Internet.

The four were shown looking at the camera as the captions 'Incriminated', 'Accused', 'Busted' and 'Charged' flashed on screen.

And last week, agents representing the Australian recording industry raided and executed search-and- seize orders at the Sydney offices and homes of executives of Sharman Networks, the company that runs the popular Kazaa file-sharing network.

Faced with increased heat from the authorities, a whole new breed of P2P (peer-to-peer) software has come online to help their users stay under the radar on the Internet.

Last year, Spanish company Optisoft launched Blubster ( www.blubster.com ), a P2P program that promises its users anonymity when trading files.

Optisoft chief executive Wayne Rosso recently announced that the next version of Blubster will feature encryption technology to disguise illegally downloaded music on the users' computer so that it is harder for the authorities to find them.

Two months ago, 26-year-old New York computer programmer Jason Rohrer created his own stealth P2P network with Mute ( mute-net.sourceforge.net ), a program that allows computer users to remain anonymous and untraceable when they share files.

Mr Rohrer, who wrote the program after seeing how ants communicated with each other as they were invading his home, said in media interviews that he created Mute because he was not happy with the way computer users' privacy had been invaded by organisations such as the RIAA.

To add to the recording industry's headache, StreamCast Networks released the latest version of its Morpheus P2P software ( www.morpheus.com ), which allows users to connect to all the major P2P networks such as Kazaa, Grokster, iMesh and LimeWire, multiplying the sources of music and movie downloads available to the user.

While industry authorities are trying to kill the P2P beast, some industry experts believe they would be better off taming it instead.

Mr Michael Robertson, chief executive of Lindows.com and founder of pioneer digital music site MP3.com, believes that the recording industry is looking at the technology all wrong.

'When cars were first invented, one argument against them was that bad guys would use them to escape the police who at that time were on horses,' he said. 'That argument is laughable today.'

As a software company that is naturally finicky about copyright protection, Mr Robertson's Lindows, which distributes its own version of the Linux operating system, is putting its money where its mouth is by actually encouraging users to trade LindowsLive, a free online version of its product, on P2P networks.

'By distributing LindowsLive to the millions of P2P users, we are increasing the number of people who are familiar with Lindows.com products, which provides valuable marketing.

'In addition, since we do not have to pay bandwidth fees associated with P2P systems, we will be saving millions of dollars in networking costs over the course of a year,' he said.

A new organisation called the Distributed Computing Industry Association (DCIA) is going as far as calling on record companies to actually pay computer users to share music rather than sue them.

Mr Marty Lafferty, who heads the DCIA, has been promoting a plan that sees computer users helping record companies to increase sales of digital music by sharing them on P2P systems and getting paid a small commission for it.

He estimated that record companies could see sales increases of about 10 per cent over the next four years if they embrace the technology, similar to how the movie studios increased their sales when they eventually embraced their nemesis, the VCR.

Mr Eric Garland, chief executive of market research firm BigChampagne, told The Sunday Times that getting the music and movie companies to embrace P2P technology is simply a case of 'show me the money'.

'Major media companies will embrace P2P when they profit from P2P, when these content owners appreciate the sheer volume of this potential online business and the extent to which it can grow their business,' he said.

'The only way to minimise the illegal distribution of copyrighted material on P2P is to establish a collective licence, granting rights like those allowed to radio and web broadcasters, and allow a legitimate business to flourish online.'

Judging by the recent legal victories in the US and Netherlands favouring P2P software companies, Mr Robertson believes that whether music companies like it or not, the technology is here to stay.

This is one reason why Singapore is taking proactive steps to get the recording industry on the online music distribution bandwagon.

Mr Edward Neubronner, chief executive of the Recording Industry Association (Singapore), said that aside from enforcement measures, the organisation is trying to encourage music companies here to provide legal alternatives for computer users who want to download music.

However, he said the best solution to the piracy problem is neither a legal nor a technological one.

'There will always be new types of technology that will appear to try to get around the system. So if we focus just on deterrents, it will drive illegal downloaders further underground,' said Mr Neubronner, who estimates there are about half a million Singaporeans who download music illegally.

'Our main focus will continue to be education and creating public awareness.

'To reach out to the youth to highlight the damaging consequences this infringing activity has on the music they love.'

Musical hydra monster

DESPITE a slew of arrests of computer users who illegally download music, the recording industry faces a tough battle. Every time the authorities put on the heat, a whole new breed of P2P software would come online to help users stay under the radar on the Internet. Here are a few of the recent ones:

BLUBSTER

THIS program promises users anonymity when trading files. The next version will feature encryption technology to disguise illegally downloaded music.

MORPHEUS

STREAMCAST Networks' latest version of this software allows users to connect to all major P2P networks, greatly multiplying the sources of music and movie downloads.

MUTE

THIS program allows computer users to remain anonymous and untraceable when they share files on the Internet. New York computer programmer Jason Rohrer wrote the program after seeing how ants communicated with each other as they were invading his home.
http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/cli...235303,00.html


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Kazaa In Legal Battle

Australian Broadcasting Corporation
TV PROGRAM TRANSCRIPT

Reporter:

KERRY O'BRIEN: Now to the Australian company at the epicentre of a global legal battle with enormous implications for the future of the world record industry.

For almost two years, millions of Internet users around the world have exchanged songs through the Sydney-based Internet service Kazaa, which allows users to share their computer files online.

This week five major record labels have joined forces to take Kazaa to court, claiming copyright infringement.

Last year the Dutch Supreme Court dismissed a similar case, while an American court is still considering the record companies case.

While the record companies argue that Kazaa is profiting by piracy, Kazaa counters that it provides nothing more than a connection between Internet users.

Andrew Geoghegan reports.

SEAN ROBINSON: It doesn't cost anything.

I don't have to go down to the shop now the shop is pretty much in my house.

It's that virtual shopfront.

ANDREW GEOGHEGAN: This is how 18-year-old Sean Robinson shops for his music.

Logging on to a file-sharing website such as Kazaa allows him to download music millions of Internet users around the world are willing to share for free.

SEAN ROBINSON: Kazaa and P2P networks are good because they allow me to access music that I may not be able to get because I cannot afford it or find it.

For a multitude of reasons it is good.

TIM DEAN, EDITOR PC AUTHORITY: As you can see, we are connected now.

There are 2.8 millions users online.

They are sharing 450 million files and that comes to 3.7 million gigabytes in information.

So that is a staggering number of people on there just right now.

ANDREW GEOGHEGAN: IT writer Tim Dean explains why file sharing has exploded in popularity.

TIM DEAN: All it takes for me to use a P2P file sharing system is to turn on my PC, sit down and type in my name.

I can download it and listen to it within five to 10 minutes of me hearing it on the radio.

ANDREW GEOGHEGAN: Peer to peer software means there is no central site for distributing information.

Instead, Internet users log on to a program such as Kazaa to connect directly with each other.

This allows them to search for and swap digital information.

DAVID CASSELMAN, SHAMAN NETWORKS: Everything from independent music and movies and dating services and video games and many, many more applications that are are being developed daily and that's why it's been downloaded 300 million times more than any other software application in history.

ANDREW GEOGHEGAN: The popularity of free music websites such as Kazaa has the music industry worried and for good reason.

In the past year, CD music sales have fallen more than 17 per cent while the industry claims it's losing $200 million a month in royalties.

MICHAEL SPECK, MUSIC INDUSTRY PIRACY INVESTIGATIONS: It's very clear that an industry cannot compete against another corporation that takes their property without permission for their own benefit.

ANDREW GEOGHEGAN: The major recording labels call it piracy and it's prompted them to take legal action against the Australian company Sharman Networks, owner of Kazaa, the world's most popular music sharing site.

Michael Speck heads the music industry's piracy investigations unit.

MICHAEL SPECK: Quite simply, they have established in Australia a global operation that is a clear-cut infringement of copyright.

They trade in other people's music.

It's for their benefit.

They know it's wrong.

They acknowledge it's wrong and it's time for it to stop.

ANDREW GEOGHEGAN: Frustrated, the Australian recording industry has resorted to legal means.

A Federal Court order allowing the industry to raid the offices of Sharman Networks and seize documents to use in a civil action to stop the distribution of unlicensed music.

DAVID CASSELMAN: They contend that because we facilitated in the sense that it's possible that we're responsible for what end users do.

ANDREW GEOGHEGAN: It is well known you can log on to Kazaa and download songs for free.

Are you not fostering piracy?

DAVID CASSELMAN: no more than Google is fostering piracy because you can search on Google and find songs.

AOL Instant Messenger allows you to transfer.

HP's CD burner allows you to burn.

Are they fostering?

You can go to the Xerox machines.

There are a million technologies that are in the loop.

ANDREW GEOGHEGAN: But you are not actively discouraging, are you?

DAVID CASSELMAN: We do not promote it or release it.

Sharman, the Kazaa website, requires every user to sign an end user license agreement that they will not violate the copyright laws of any country in which they are using the software.

ANDREW GEOGHEGAN: Sharman Networks has offered to cut a deal with the recording industry to supply fully licensed music but the record companies aren't interested.

MICHAEL SPECK: It's important that when Kazaa's illegal activity is finally stopped people do go somewhere else.

We believe that with pirates out of the marketplace they'll go to the legitimate operators and allow artists and music businesses to flourish.

ANDREW GEOGHEGAN: Unlike the music industry distributor Napster, which was closed down by the recording industry, Kazaa does not have a library of music.

Sharman Networks is fighting back by working to remove record companies from the whole equation of producing and distributing artists.

DAVID CASSELMAN: All of their music will be created through producers and artists and straight to Kazaa, the idea being that this is the most efficient way to distribute it and they don't need the studios.

ANDREW GEOGHEGAN: But up-and-coming artists are sceptical.

NICK NEAL, MUSICIAN: I don't think things like file sharing with Kazaa really promote sort of lesser-known bands.

I think the sort of records that are on the shelves that HMV that people are buying a lot of copies of are the ones being download a lot.

ANDREW GEOGHEGAN: Nick Neal, bass band player with the band Starky, says aspiring chart toppers need music listeners to pay CD prices for their music to fund their work.

NICK NEAL: If I found out people were downloading thousands and thousands of copies of our album off the Net, that is affecting our income and us paying back our advances to our record label.

Obviously that is going to limit what sort of future I have as a musician, really.

ANDREW GEOGHEGAN: But artists may have little choice but to join the cyberspace bandwagon if they're to make it in the real world.

TIM DEAN: There are a lot of other file sharing applications out there.

Some of them are decentralised and cannot be brought down.

The record industry will have a constant battle against these kind of things.

They will never be able to wipe them out totally.

SEAN ROBINSON: There will be another person who will make another one that they will try and close.

You just can't close something like this.

It would be better if they work with it instead of against it.
http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2004/s1043987.htm


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Names Sought In Battle Over Internet Song Sharing
CBC News

Canadians who get their music free from the internet will be closely watching a court case that gets underway in Toronto Monday.

The Canadian Recording Industry Association will ask a judge to order the country's largest internet providers to disclose the identity of 29 people who share copyrighted music through music swapping networks such as Kazaa, Grokster and Morpheus.

BACKGROUND: Copyright in the digital age

The Canadians in question are customers with at least five internet
providers, including Telus, Rogers, Shaw Communications, Bell Sympatico and Videotron.

The association announced in December that it planned to sue the 29 internet subscribers. It will seek a court order to find out their names at the Federal Court of Canada.

"These are people who've been going on to what are called peer-to-peer services… that allow people to distribute illegal music on a widespread basis," said association lawyer Richard Pfohl.

He said uploading, or making the songs available to others, means there are as many as five million people "at any given time" who can copy that file. "So we have, basically, massive copyright infringement on a scale that we've never known before."

At least one of the providers, Calgary-based Shaw, will fight the order, arguing it violates federal privacy laws.

Technology author Rick Broadhead said the court action by the recording industry in Canada comes as no surprise.

The U.S. music industry has been going after internet users for some time for distributing copyrighted material. The Recording Industry Association of America has sued about 400 individuals in the U.S. for allowing others access to song files.
http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2004/02/15/online_music040215


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ISPs Won't Give Out Customer Information
Kevin O'Connor

Regina's online music fans can breathe a little easier.

Although the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) putting pressure on Canadian Internet service providers (ISPs) to release names of some customers who they say are sharing songs on the Internet, at least two Saskatchewan ISPs say they won't make it easy for them.

SaskTel and Access Communications, the two companies that have the lion's share of the Internet service market in Regina, both say they will turn down any request by CRIA for names.

Earlier this week, the Federal Court of Canada heard an application by CRIA to compel ISPs to identify customers they say have been distributing songs on the Net.

CRIA is focusing on 29 people whom it says have been sharing songs on peer-to-peer filesharing networks, such as Kazaa and Morpheus.

The industry group has named the country's five largest ISPs in their application -- Bell Canada's Sympatico, Rogers Communications Inc., Shaw Communications Inc., Telus Corp. and Vidéotron Ltée.

CRIA says it has tracked file-sharing activities to IP addresses, but needs the help of ISPs to connect those numbers to actual people.

In a news release, the association says it's after "large-scale pirates who have been openly and illegally distributing thousands of digital music files over public networks."

Regina-based SaskTel and Access Communications aren't involved in the legal dispute, which has been adjourned to March 12, but spokespersons for both companies indicated they aren't about to hand over customer information upon request.

Victoria Klassen, spokesperson for Access, said any requests by a third party for names and addresses would be denied.

Handing over the information would violate the company's customer privacy policy and federal privacy legislation as well, she said.

However, if a court ordered the company to turn over customer information, Access would have to consider its legal options, she said.

SaskTel will take a similar approach, according to company spokesperson Michelle Englot.

"We wouldn't provide that information unless we were required to do so by the courts," she said.

To date, the Canadian Recording Industry Association hasn't made any requests for customer information, she said.

Last year, the Canadian Copyright Board said people are permitted to download songs from the Internet for personal use, but uploading songs constitutes copyright infringement.
http://www.canada.com/regina/news/st...6-B70378CAF80B


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Net Song Swappers Identities' Likely Hard To Track
Keith Damsell

Identifying the alleged song swappers at the centre of the music industry's legal battle with the Internet community may be near impossible, sources warn.

“It may be hard to track these people down,” warns Peter Bissonnette, president of Calgary's Shaw Communications Inc. “The last thing we want to do is to be giving out names and phone numbers of our customers that in fact haven't done what is being suggested they have done.”

On Monday, the Canadian Recording Industry Association asked the Federal Court of Canada to order five communications companies to hand over the identities of 29 so-called “uploaders,” Internet users who posted hundreds of songs illegally on the Web. The motion has been adjourned until March 12 for the parties involved to review the scope of CRIA's request, including the technical ability for the Internet service providers to meet the order.

MediaSentry Inc., a New York–based Internet watchdog, is the source of CRIA's evidence. The on-line data mining firm declined to discuss its methods, operations or history. “The fact is we are involved in a lot of litigation and we can't answer questions,” said Gary Millin, company president.

In five affidavits, Mr. Millin detailed how MediaSentry tied the alleged uploaders to Canada. Last fall, individuals using alias user names on the popular Kazaa file-sharing service were tied to a specific Internet protocol number, an address that provides an on-ramp to the Internet. Those numbered IP addresses were then linked to five ISPs: Shaw, Bell Canada, Rogers Communications Inc., Telus Corp. and Vidéotron Ltée.

The catch is, tying an IP address to an alleged uploader for the purpose of a lawsuit may prove difficult. Each ISP has thousands of IP addresses that float from customer to customer as on-line sessions begin and end. Each firm manages its network differently and there is no standard for record keeping of Internet traffic or e-mails.

Over the past week, Telus has, with little success, tried to track down three alleged uploaders identified by MediaSentry. Only two of the three customers were successfully contacted and only one of these accounts was active at the time of the alleged uploading, the company's legal counsel said.

“I have never downloaded a single song. I honestly wouldn't know how to do it,” said one Alberta Telus customer who asked not to be identified. The 35-year-old woman received a letter from the ISP last week advising her to seek legal counsel because the music industry was seeking her identity.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco public interest law firm, claims mistakes have been made in the U.S. music industry's battle to prosecute about 1,000 alleged song thieves.

“Most ISPs claim to have generally accurate records of who was using an IP address at a particular time. Now we have found in the U.S. that some people have been misidentified. It's not quite clear yet who has been making the mistakes,” said Seth Schoen, staff technologist at the EFF.
http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/...ry/Technology/


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Ban Planned On Imports Of Japanese CDs
Yomiuri Shimbun

The Cultural Affairs Agency plans to submit a bill to the current Diet session

to revise the Copyright Law with the aim of banning the import of low- priced Japanese music compact discs pressed abroad for overseas markets for a set period from January, sources said.

The move is a response to growing calls from the music industry for the introduction of the ban, the sources said.

Many Japanese music companies say they are being hurt by the cheaply priced imports that mostly target the Asian region.

The agency is considering limiting the ban to about five years in anticipation of consumer resentment to the move.

Japanese record companies permit overseas companies to produce and sell CDs of Japanese music--which is popular in other parts of Asia--abroad on condition they do not merchandise the products in Japan.

Since the CDs are cheaper than Japanese-made ones to meet local price levels, an increasing number of discount stores and other retailers import and sell them in Japan.

The Japanese music industry had asked the government to introduce measures to counter the influx of imports on its international operations.
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/newse/20040218wo12.htm


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Music Piracy Case Tests Net Free Speech
John Saunders

Message to chat room orators and e-mail addicts: Legal experts say a record industry campaign to ferret out those who share songs on the Internet may yield the first definite signs of how Canada's courts will approach wider questions of on-line anonymity.

"We're talking about free speech on the Internet, people being accused of defamation when they're simply criticizing companies on the Internet," said Philippa Lawson, executive director of the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic at the University of Ottawa law school.

"We're talking about people who may be engaged in highly sensitive and dangerous human rights work where they're being persecuted and pursued and the only way they can communicate safely is by using pseudonyms and being anonymous on the Internet. The same thing with whistle blowers. I mean, there are many situations where anonymity on the Internet is critical in order to permit free speech."

An anticlimactic Federal Court of Canada hearing yesterday (little happened except that the matter was adjourned to March 12) involved an application by the Canadian Recording Industry Association for an order to compel Internet service providers (ISPs) to put names to certain customers alleged to have violated copyright rules by offering their music collections to the world.

As Ms. Lawson sees it, a decision to grant such an order would embolden companies that see grounds for legal action when their stocks, ethical practices or environmental records are bad-mouthed on the Web. "I'm really frightened about this. If ISPs are forced to turn over the identities of their subscribers every time someone makes an allegations about them, that's not due process and that is seriously undermining the potential of the Internet for democracy."

Lawrence Munn, who heads a privacy law group at the Vancouver firm of Clark Wilson, similarly sees implications beyond music swapping. Whatever the court decides, he said, it will be the first such ruling since the federal Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act took full effect across the country last month except in British Columbia, Alberta and Quebec, where similar provincial laws exist.

For Internet firms, it may be "the first clear indication" of their obligations in dealing with information about customers, he said.

The same obligations may apply when companies complain of slander or other harm at the hands of Internet users, he said. "If there is actually a breach of law occurring here, then there may be good reason the Internet service providers have to provide the information. I think a careful company will want a court order or subpoena."

The new federal act specifies that Internet firms may provide personal information without a customer's knowledge or consent under a valid subpoena, warrant or court order (a clause presumably applying to civil cases) and also when requested by government authorities for purposes relating to law enforcement, defence, foreign relations and national security.

Teresa Scassa, associate director of the Law and Technology Institute at the Dalhousie University law school, finds comfort in those provisions.

"The fact that a court order is required is certain element of protection," she said, "in that a company just can't go to an ISP and say, 'We think we're being defamed. Give us the name of the person.'

"You have to actually go to court and produce enough evidence in the court for the court to issue an order to compel the ISP to disclose the information, so there's a certain level of protection.

"On the other hand, if it's criminal activity on the internet -- pornography, child pornography, obscene materials, hate propaganda -- then of course if it's a police investigation and disclosure can be made to police at their request, essentially. So there's a higher standard if it's just a private company that wants the information because of a lawsuit they're planning to launch."

Glen Bloom, an intellectual property specialist in the Ottawa office of Osler Hoskin & Harcourt LLP said Ontario courts have ruled in favour of plaintiffs seeking the names of people behind website names, although that was before the current federal act "came into force, if we can call it that. You're aware there's some doubt about how it applies in the provinces, but since Ontario didn't legislate, the federal legislation seems to apply."
http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/...40217/RPIRA17/


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RIAA Unleashes Another Round of Lawsuits
Roy Mark

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) targeted 531 more alleged music file swappers in legal actions Tuesday, bringing the total sued for copyright infringement over peer-to-peer (P2) networks since January to more than a thousand.

Like the 532 RIAA lawsuits brought in January, the suits employ the "John Doe" process, which is used to sue defendants whose names aren't known. The lawsuits identify the defendants only by their Internet protocol computer address.

Once a John Doe suit has been filed and approved by a judge, the RIAA can subpoena the information needed to identify the defendant by name from an Internet service provider (ISP).

Tuesday's RIAA legal blitz involved five lawsuits naming 531 John Doe alleged infringers. The suits were filed in Philadelphia (the home of Comcast), Atlanta (EarthLink), Orlando, Fla., and Trenton, N.J.

RIAA President Cary Sherman said, "we are sending a clear message that downloading or 'sharing' music from a peer-to-peer network without authorization is illegal, it can have consequences and it undermines the creative future of music itself."

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

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

The lawsuits filed Tuesday bring the total number of legal actions to 1,145 since the RIAA launched its legal campaign against individual file-swappers in September. Sherman said 233 of the lawsuits have been resolved with an average settlement of approximately $3,000.
http://www.internetnews.com/xSP/article.php/3313881


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BBC Ponders P2P Distribution
Lucy Sherriff

The BBC is to make its programme archive available over a peer- to-peer network, it said at the International Broadcasting Convention last weekend.

BT, meanwhile, has confirmed that it is in talks with the BBC to find a way "of ensuring that their plans have a positive impact on broadband Britain".

The BBC plans to develop a "super electronic programme guide", which allows users to record content as they do with a personal video recorder, New Media Age reports.

The announcement comes after confirmation that Auntie* will be making its archive accessible via the Internet, and clarifies the mechanism by which this will happen.

The BBC's new media director, Ashley Highfield, said that a P2P network will allow the BBC to handle the volume of traffic it expects when the Internet Media Player (IMP) goes live. The IMP will enable users to download or stream content to their PC, laptop or palmtop computer.

The corporation is exploring ways of using legitimate P2P systems to "get users to share on our behalf", Highfield said.

This is a neat way of tackling the bandwidth issues it would otherwise face, but in effect passes the buck to the broadband providers. With BT in talks with the Beeb*, it seems reasonable to expect some kind of partnership deal.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/35617.html


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Microsoft Code Leak Invokes Issues Beyond Security
Jay Lyman

While the leak was limited to incomplete portions of the Windows 2000 and NT source code, Gartner research vice president Richard Stiennon told TechNewsWorld that the code is more than enough to enable attackers to punch holes in other Windows systems. "It's sad that [the source code] was released, and it's sad it was written so [badly] from a security standpoint," he said.
http://www.linuxinsider.com/perl/story/32882.html


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Legal, Security Headache For Microsoft
John Markoff

Not only does the leak expose it to hackers, but outsiders could also find damaging material in the code

The illicit distribution last week of portions of the secret programmer's instructions for two versions of the Windows operating system poses vexing legal and security challenges for Microsoft.

Computer security experts said having even relatively small parts of the blueprints for Microsoft's Windows 2000 and Windows NT operating systems as easily available reference material for potential vandals and troublemakers could complicate the company's already difficult task in securing its software.

Indeed, Internet users have ferociously downloaded pirate versions of the source code, stoking concerns that hackers and virus writers could use it for a new wave of cyber attacks.

Microsoft has been criticised on security issues in recent years, and the company has devoted increasing resources in an effort to restore its credibility with its customers.

The posting of the information on the Internet does not present any direct threat to the hundreds of millions of users of Microsoft's software, but it may fuel the fire among those who say the company has done a poor job of protecting computer users from hackers and invasions of viruses and worms.

The company may also face a debate over its contention that the secrecy of its proprietary software offers a computer security advantage over the publicly available text of open source programs such as Linux.

Several computer security experts speculated that the Microsoft operating system source code had been stolen from a computer in California-based Mainsoft Corporation, a Microsoft partner, via the Internet and then posted on peer-to-peer file sharing networks.

Even though Windows 2000 and Windows NT are older versions of the company's operating systems, they are still widely used by corporations around the world.

'This raises real national security concerns,' said Mr William Cook, a partner at Wildman Harrold in Chicago and a former federal computer crime prosecutor.

'The fact that Microsoft's software is so widely available will have an impact across the computer security industry,' he said.

Several computer security and legal experts said Microsoft's biggest challenge as a result of the incident may unfold as skilled programmers begin to examine the texts in search of material that may be embarrassing or damaging to Microsoft.

'There have been lots of stories about the existence of undocumented features' in Microsoft's operating system that were intended to harm competitors, said Mr Bruce Schneier, founder and chief technical officer of Counterpace Internet Security, a computer security firm.

In 1999, Microsoft suffered a black eye when a Canadian programmer, examining a portion of its software, discovered an element inside the company's Windows operating system labelled NSAKey.

At the time, Microsoft said the reference was not an indication that the company was engaged in a conspiracy with the National Security Agency, a United States intelligence operation.

However, the label undercut the company's credibility within the computer security community, where it was widely criticised.
http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/tec...235659,00.html


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A Windows Source Code Feast Online
Sean Michael Kerner

News about the leaked Microsoft Windows source code has raced through the Internet Relay Chat (IRC)--the Internet's real-time discussion forums--like wildfire.

On Friday, there were more than 1,000 active IRC discussion channels in operation with ongoing conversations about the Windows leak. At the same time, the leaked code remained widely available over peer-to-peer networks such as Kazaa and the open-source eMule network.

In discussions monitored by internetnews.com, IRC chatters boasted about being the first in their group to get the leaked Microsoft property. Many mentioned that the code is not complete and therefore will be unintelligible to many.

A number of chatters talked about why they downloaded the source code and what they hope to gain from it. "I wanted to see how Microsoft puts it together and their comments," wrote one participant on the Dalnet IRC channel. Another wrote, "I just wanted to look at it 'cause it's there; I'm not evil."

Other were not as sincere. One "undernet" IRC chatter wrote: "We've got to spread it as fast as humanly possible." He opined that the availability of the source code damages Microsoft by allowing people to understand how to attack a Windows system. Proliferating the code, he wrote, allows downloaders to make a name for themselves. It may also help open-source developers "work stuff out."

"I already found 5 exploits!," boasted another Dalnet IRC user.

Linux users were for the most part unimpressed with the source code leak. Comments seen included: "I'm a Linux guy, I get the source code for my OS for free," and "We care not for Windows source code. Why would I want to see how full of bugs it is?"

Another Linux user said he thought that the source code leak might be able to show that Microsoft code uses either GPL-licensed or copyrighted code.

Turning to the quakenet IRC channel, one user addressed the size of the leak. "It's 650 megs of source code. You cannot deploy it, and I doubt anyone in the world outside of Microsoft would have had the time to work out the code structure by now."

Another chatter retorted, "Anyone who's written for Windows NT and knows the application programming interface is going to be able to track down the object model for specific bits, no problem. The standard stuff--like locking, pipelining and scheduling--is all going to be easy enough to router-out, because the algorithms are all off-the-shelf stuff."

By afternoon, interest in the topic on some IRC channels was beginning to wane. A popular refrain became: "We don't have the leaked code here so don't ask us!"
http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news...le.php/3312951


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Microsoft's Do Not Open Letter
Susan Kuchinskas

Microsoft (Quote, Chart) has started sending letters to people who have already downloaded the company's Windows source code that was illicitly leaked last week, warning them that such actions are in violation of the law.

The Redmond, Wash.-based maker of the Windows operating system said it also has placed alerts on several peer-to-peer clients where such illegal sharing of the leaked source code has taken place. The alerts are designed to inform any user who conducts specific searches on these networks to locate and download the source code that such activity is illegal, the company said.

The letters come after portions of the company's Windows 2000 and Windows NT 4.0 source code appeared on the Internet last Thursday, Feb. 12th. Microsoft said the code leak was not the result of a breach in its corporate network or internal security. Neither did it lay the blame on participants in its Shared Source Initiative or Government Security programs. These initiatives provide access to the code for academic institutions and independent software vendors.

By press time, Microsoft executives did not return calls asking for clarification on how they identified rogue downloaders.

In a similar copyright-infringement battle waged by the Recording Industry of America, the RIAA subpoenaed customers' records from ISPs in order to sue infringing subscribers who download copyrighted songs. The RIAA also copied and used Kazaa's P2P software to find and warn people who downloaded protected material. (In January, Kazaa filed its own copyright infringement suit against the organization.) Kazaa officials did not answer requests for comment.

The RIAA and the Motion Picture Association America also seeded the Kazaa network with decoy copies of copyrighted files that gave downloaders a good nagging instead of the music they hoped for. For good measure, it sent warning instant messages to users who offered illegal recordings. Microsoft may employ similar guerilla tactics.

StreamCast hasn't been asked to work with Microsoft, according to Michael Weiss, CEO of the company, which makes the Morpheus file-sharing software application.

Wayne Grosso, CEO of Optisoft, creator of the Blubster, Piolet and MP2P Technology file-sharing applications, said Microsoft would have to sign onto each P2P network and offer dummy versions of the code, then hope users would download them instead of the real stuff, in order to put file-traders on notice. "Networks don't have a way to push something," Grosso asserted.

Microsoft said it working with the FBI to find the source of the leak. The company has promised to use its might to crack down on not only the original thief or thieves, but also on those who violate its copyright or trade secrets.
http://www.internetnews.com/ent-news...le.php/3314691


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First Exploit Based On Leaked Windows Code Surfaces
Online Staff

The first exploit based on Windows NT and 2000 source code which was reported last week as having leaked from Mainsoft, a longtime partner of Microsoft, has shown up on a vulnerability mailing list.

The exploit targeted a vulnerability in Internet Explorer and was released by a security researcher who goes by the moniker GTA. A remote user can create a specially crafted bitmap file that, when loaded by Internet Explorer, will trigger an integer overflow and execute arbitrary code.

Internet Explorer 5 is vulnerable to this exploit, but not IE 6.

The impact of the vulnerability is that a remote user can execute arbitrary code on a target user's computer when the target user's browser loads a specially crafted bitmap file. The code will run with the privileges of the target user.

There has been some debate about how much of the code has leaked - some say it is only a part while one researcher said it comprised 27,142 files from Windows NT 4.0 SP3, a total of 338MB, and 28,782 Windows 2000 SP1 files totalling 658MB.

He said it appeared that all of both versions were present, apart from IIS.

The researcher said 10,425 of the NT files were source totalling 193MB uncompressed, and 8367 of the Windows 2000 files were source totaling 217MB uncompressed.

Another researcher said the copies of the Windows 2000 code he had found unzipped to 30,915 files. The expanded size, however, tallied with the is correct though. The NT4 he had found expanded to 956Mb and contained 95,188 files.
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/...779956168.html


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Australian ISP Staffer Faces MP3 Case
Kate Mackenzie

AN employee and a director of an internet service provider which is facing legal action from the music industry over MP3 files can also be sued, the federal court has ruled.

The court ruled Chris Takhoushis, and a director and majority owner of the company which hosted the website, Liam Bal, would also be respondents in the case along with the website's operator Stephen Cooper.

The major music labels Universal Music, EMI, Sony Music, Warner, BMG and Festival Mushroom, launched legal action against small Sydney-based ISP trading as Comcen Internet Services in October last year.

The claim centred around a website with the domain name mp3s4free.net, which Mr Cooper registered and hosted with Comcen and which the music companies claim allowed users to download illegal MP3 files.

The music companies have pursued Mr Cooper, E-talk Communications Pty Ltd (which trades as Comcen) and Com-Cen Pty Ltd, and in November sought to broaden the action to include E-talk director and majority owner Liam Bal, and Comcen employee Chris Takoushis.

Justice Tamberlin ruled on Friday that both Mr Takhoushis and Mr Bal would be respondents in the case.

"Importantly, there is evidence that he was the "primary contact" between Com-Cen and Cooper," Justice Tamberlin said in his ruling.

"In my view, this material provides a sufficient degree of involvement to support the addition of Mr Takoushis as a respondent."

Comcen has argued that the website hosted on its company web servers did not contain the MP3 files, but only linked to the files, which were hosted on another server.

Michael France, who represents Comcen and Mr Bal, said he was disappointed with the decision but his client was unlikely to appeal the interlocutory decision due to the difficulty of mounting such an appeal.

The parties will agree on a timetable for a further hearing.
http://australianit.news.com.au/arti...E15306,00.html


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Australian Legal Pressure Forces DVD Software Off Shelves
Alison Turner

Copies of 321 Studios’ DVD X Copy software have been pulled from retail shelves after distributor Conexus was threatened with legal action by an industry lobby group.

In December 2003, Conexus received a letter from the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT), previously known as the Australian Film and Video Security Office (AFVSO), directing them to pull the product immediately or be sued.

The software in question allows users to create copies of DVDs.

“The letter advised Conexus that, according to AFACT’s interpretation, the product was infringing Australian copyright law,” a spokesperson for Conexus, Steven Noble, said. “They were told that legal action would follow if they continued to distribute it.”

Resellers that stocked the product were also contacted and advised that they should remove not just DVD X Copy, but 321 Studios’ entire product line. This included DVD X Maker, DVD X Show and CD X Rescue - products that do not involve the copying of DVDs.

“These other products were not even legally challenged,” CEO of 321 Studios, Rob Semaan, said. “In fact, Conexus spoke with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), and they were on our side.”

“So we replaced the original software with a ripper-free version, and resellers put our products back on their shelves. The AFACT then called and told us that this was acceptable.”

Consumers who bought the new version could nonetheless easily obtain a ripper from the Internet, or buy the original version from 321 Studios’ website, he said.

The actions of the AFACT were not totally unexpected. Currently, 321 Studios is involved in five separate legal cases – three in the US, two in the UK – surrounding the DVD X Copy software.

“To be honest, I didn’t really expect it to happen so quickly,” Semaan said. “I thought that, with the market being so small in Australia, both in the digital media and film industries, that it wouldn’t be seen as such an issue.

“But then, of course, I discovered that the AFACT is an affiliate of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), one of the organisations that we are currently battling in court," he said. "This obviously made the AFACT nervous.”

In this new digital age, copyright law can be quite a grey area. The Copyright Act of 1968 states that it does not infringe copyright to make a copy of a cinematograph film or sound recording “for preservation and other purposes” (Section 110B/C). This is the reason why many people want such software.

“It’s not for the big pirates out there,” Semaan said. “I understand the concerns about piracy, and I don’t advocate it.

“This product is for the mums and dads who’ve had to buy three copies of Shrek because the kids keep watching it to death. People want to protect their expensive DVDs and CDs by making back-up copies. Why should that be illegal?”

DVD X Copy is also sold in many other countries, where there has been no complaint made about copyright infringement, he said.

Semaan does not plan to pursue the issue here at present. “It’s still a new market over here,” he said. “I want to be sensitive to that fact. It’s too early to force it just yet.”

The managing director of Conexus, David Murray, and AFACT were both unavailable for comment.
http://www.arnnet.com.au/index.php?i...46&fp=2&fpid=1


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$16,000.00 a pair

A Speaker That Adjusts for Furniture That's in the Way
Henry Fountain



IN the universe of hi-fi loudspeakers, where bigger is often equated with better, the Bang & Olufsen Beolab 5 more than holds its own. It's just over three feet tall, weighs 134 pounds and, with amplifiers inside it capable of producing 2,500 watts of power, can make enough noise at a party to ensure a visit from the police.

Yet for all its brutish qualities, the Beolab 5 has a warm and fuzzy side as well. With the press of a button, it gets in touch with its inner self.

The speaker, Bang & Olufsen's top-of-the-line model (with a top-of-the-line price tag, $16,000 a pair), is equipped to overcome a common audio problem. Design engineers may be able to control most of the elements that make for great sound from a pair of speakers, but they have no control over perhaps the most important one: the person who buys them. That consumer may have a living room with poor acoustics or may otherwise harm the sound by hiding the speakers behind furniture or shoving them against the walls.

"Especially in the low-frequency region, placement of the speaker has a big influence on sound," said Poul Praestgaard, senior technology manager of Bang & Olufsen, which is based in Struer, Denmark.

Audiophiles who want to optimize their speaker setup often use a microphone placed in the listening area and a computer to analyze the sound and then adjust the response over ranges of frequencies, a process called equalization, to compensate for the room's deficiencies.

The Beolab 5 does a similar job on its own. As its downward-facing deep bass driver, or woofer, emits several test tones, an onboard microphone at the bottom of the speaker picks them up. Then a servomotor moves the microphone several inches so that it protrudes from the bottom and can pick up reflections from the room, and the tones are emitted again. A signal-processing chip within the speaker analyzes the difference between the two tests and digital equalization circuitry, also on board, adjusts the sound.

"They're really very tiny differences," Mr. Praestgaard said. "But they are big enough to calculate the impact of the room."

The calibration is done only with sounds below 300 hertz (middle C is about 262 hertz), because these long-wavelength tones are much more affected by room acoustics and speaker placement than high-frequency, shorter-wavelength ones. At any rate, the speaker uses other tricks, two acoustic lenses, to ensure faithful reproduction at the higher frequencies.

Acoustic lenses have been used with loudspeakers since the 1940's, said Edgar Villchur, a home-audio pioneer who with Henry Kloss was responsible for introducing the acoustic suspension driver, which is now the standard in loudspeaker design. Early lenses consisted of a series of multicellular horns that were intended to spread the high- frequency sound around so that it reflected off room surfaces.

"When you listen to a loudspeaker in a normally reverberant room, a major part of what you hear is the sound reflected from the walls, floor and ceiling," Mr. Villchur said. If a speaker sends most of its high frequencies directly in front of the speaker with little reflection, he added, "the sound you hear will be dull."

The Bang & Olufsen speaker uses a different kind of acoustic lens that sits atop an upward-facing high-frequency driver, or tweeter. The elliptical walls of the lens's casting help radiate the sound evenly in a horizontal semicircle.

The lens is the work of David Moulton and Manny LaCarrubba, partners in Sausalito Audio Works, a California company that licenses the technology to Bang & Olufsen. Designing it has been a long-term project: Mr. Moulton started developing the concept in 1981, and, he said, "had a big cognitive breakthrough about the validity of what we were doing in 1985."

Mr. LaCarrubba invented the lens in its current form in 1990. He and Mr. Moulton installed it on some speakers and demonstrated it at audio engineering shows. "We realized we had a winner here," Mr. Moulton said. Bang & Olufsen was interested in the concept and cooperated with Mr. Moulton, who works out of his own audio studio in Groton, Mass., and Mr. LaCarrubba to adjust the design.

Mr. Villchur said that an acoustic lens could improve a speaker's performance by dispersing sound. But even more important is ensuring that the reflected sounds have adequate tonal response, he said, and for that, a lot of power is needed. "If they start out with a speaker that has adequate high-frequency energy, then a dispersing lens might help it," he said.

Bang & Olufsen takes care of the power issue by including four amplifiers in each speaker - 1,000 watts each for each speaker's deep- and midbass woofers and 250 watts apiece for the midrange and high-frequency tweeters.

That's enough to provide window-rattling volume, but Mr. Praestgaard said that wasn't exactly the point. "You only need that much power for a fraction of a second," he said. "You don't need it all the time."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/19/te...ts/19howw.html


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Giving away fish may be fine when you’re Jesus…

Workers Charged For Copyright Conspiracy
ILN

US federal authorities have charged three former employees of Lightning Media with conspiracy to violate copyright law after movies they allegedly copied found their way onto the Internet. The FBI started an investigation after a three-minute excerpt from "The Passion of the Christ" appeared on the Web site filmstew.com in October, before director Mel Gibson had even found a distributor for the movie.
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB1...629033,00.html


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The Web: The Effect Of Illegal Downloading
Gene J. Koprowski

A 12-year-old boy illegally downloads pop music from the song-swapping site, Morpheus.com. His friend down the block in his leafy, upscale suburb also is online, sharing copies of the latest Christina Aguilliera tune he found on the peer-to- peer portal, Kazaa.com.

"Ask any 12-year-old and they probably would not think that what they just did was wrong," said Brian Caplan, an entertainment lawyer with the New York City law firm of Goodkind, Labaton, Rudoff & Fucharow, LLP. "You have a climate in the middle schools where illegal downloading becomes a way of life, and you have a psychology where you have the youth thinking that they are entitled to this music, for free, from the Internet."

This mindset last week helped lead to an event that is sending reverberations throughout the music industry -- one that finally might force record companies to revamp the way they market and embrace downloading as a viable technology for music sales.

Tower Records Inc. last week filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in federal court in Wilmington, Del., citing the dramatic impact that illegal downloading has had on its bottom line.

"Our issues are financial, not operational," E. Allen Rodriguez, chief executive officer of the 44-year-old record store chain, said in a statement.

Until the bankruptcy filing, the music industry had dealt with declining sales for the past few years -- because of illegal downloading technology proliferation -- by suing the leading alleged offenders.

The Recording Industry Association of America in Washington, D.C., last month filed 532 lawsuits in federal courts in New York City and Washington hoping to deter others from illegally sharing online copyrighted songs by artists.

"Controlling distribution on the Internet is now central to success in the music business," Eric Briggs, a principal with the music industry consultancy The Salter Group in Los Angeles, told United Press International. "There are strategic changes that the industry must make in order to survive."

Once known for innovative marketing and embracing new ideas, record companies through the past few years, as music downloading on peer-to-peer networks evolved, have acted as "dinosaurs," Caplan said.

They were stuck in a business model, which developed during the 1960s when the Beatles began selling smash hit albums of a number of songs, after the debut of "Sergeant Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band," said Caplan.

Record executives did not want to yield the profits that came from selling albums at $15 to $20 per CD -- and paying the recording artists 9 cents per sale.

"They thought it would bastardize their business by promoting the single over the album," said Caplan.

Record companies did not want to embrace the way they did business in the 1950s -- selling singles of artists like Elvis or Chuck Berry.

"Four years ago, at industry conferences, executives were debating whether 99 cents per song was a fair price," Caplan added. "But there was a lack of foresight. Life didn't stand still."

The failure to respond to the online downloading phenomenon has meant music sales have declined by close to 45 percent during the past few years, said Owen Sloane, an entertainment law attorney at the Los Angeles firm of Berger Kahn, who has represented Elton John and Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks of Fleetwood Mac.

A vicious cycle has emerged where record companies' revenues have declined, forcing them to cut back on the development of new artists.

"Now there's a problem with the quality of the product they are offering," Sloane said.

The debut in recent months of Apple Computer's iPod service -- where consumers pay for songs legally -- has given the industry the idea it can ride the wave of the Internet and make sales with new audiences, Briggs said.

"Buy.com is adopting it, this kind of downloading technology," he said. "Microsoft and Sony will come out with their plays in this space shortly. This is harkening back to the early Internet days. It's a fascinating business model. Within the next year or so, we will start to see some emerging winners here.

"We don't know if it will be Apple or the major music companies. But once the smoke clears, all the major music companies will be selling online," Briggs said.

He also predicted singles will sell for as little as 39 cents per download.

Record stores like Tower will survive -- but not by targeting youth, Briggs noted. They will target older consumers, ages 35 and up, with in-store CD sales and offerings of a rich variety of recordings of popular artists, like the Eagles and the Rolling Stones.

"In the future, there will be a market for physical CDs," Sloane said. "Retail will have to adapt and become more user friendly, like Barnes and Noble. They will have to let their customers listen to the music, but as part of a social experience."

Still, some technology developers are concerned the illegal downloading phenomenon may continue.

One company, PentaWare Inc., located in Hampton, N.H., told UPI it no longer is offering MP3 software with its digital file compression product out of concern over the widespread, illegal swapping of songs online with that kind of technology.

"We're just being realistic," CEO Claude Ostfeld said in a telephone interview from his office in Milan, Italy.

Experts, however, have concluded that if the music producers in New York, Hollywood and Nashville had moved more quickly they would not have allowed a culture that tolerates lawlessness online -- the taking of songs without paying for the product -- to have emerged.

"People tended to minimize it. Lots of excuses for doing it were voiced," Sloane said. "But the primary problem is once you tolerate petty unlawful conduct, you are condoning lawlessness. There's a tipping point. It becomes like people jumping over turnstiles to get on the subway."

One rationalization used by illegal downloaders is that all artists are wealthy so what would missing the revenue from a few songs be to them, he said.

"That's a Robin Hood attitude," said Sloane, who represents the estate of the late musician Frank Zappa. "But a lot of the people living off of these copyrighted works are not rich. They are widows and orphans. They are small businesses."
http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=...7-094656-5863r


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Singing A New Tune
Susan Crabtree

The Recording Artists' Coalition has quietly laid plans to beef up its inside-the-beltway presence and become a stronger voice for artists' concerns in Washington.

Four months after the Eagles and the Dixie Chicks (news - web sites) held a fundraising concert in D.C. that raked in more than $1 million, RAC is looking to hire an executive director, add more staff and open an office in D.C.

If RAC's plans are successful, the group will be forced to share the lobbying turf with the Recording Industry Assn. of America, which currently serves as the music industry's main muscle in Washington. Although music labels and artists are natural adversaries, right now they share a common enemy in peer-to-peer Internet Web sites and the proliferation of online music piracy.

Singer-songwriter Don Henley (news), one of the main founders of RAC, wants lawmakers to hear musicians' stories about the devastating impact of online file-swapping and consolidation in the media and radio industries, as well as pressure from big radio nets on artists.

"Artists are finally realizing their predicament is no different from that of any other group with common economic and political interests," Henley wrote in a Washington Post editorial that ran Tuesday. "They can no longer just hope for change; they must fight for it. Washington is where artists must go to plead their case and find the answers."

Henley's editorial appeared the same day the RIAA (news - web sites) issued a new wave of lawsuits against 531 individuals who swapped hundreds of music files on peer-to-peer networks such as Kazaa and Grokster.

The new wave of suits and the previous round the RIAA issued in January were filed against unnamed "John Does" in federal courts in Philadelphia, Atlanta, Orlando, Fla., and Trenton, N.J. A federal judge will decide whether there's enough evidence to force the ISPs to provide the identities of those accused in the suits.

The RIAA has been a powerful force in Washington for decades, best known for the trade group's high-profile fight against Napster (news - web sites). RAC was formed as a lobbying vehicle after the RIAA tried in 1998 to slip a provision into a copyright bill that would grant labels the rights to songs forever, instead of the rights falling back to artists.

The coalition has focused most of its energies on California issues, fighting work-for-hire laws and corporate responsibility issues.

"We thought we did great in California, but the big issues and the issues we see building in almost a snowball effect are issues relating to the Internet and media consolidation," Jay Rosenthal, RAC's lawyer told Daily Variety. "These are not California issues, they are national and international issues and that's why we are refocused on D.C., because the issues are here."

Rosenthal also believes RAC could do a better job convincing members of Congress to support music biz efforts to fight online piracy because lawmakers may find the plight of musicians more palatable than corporate record labels.

In December, the RIAA suffered a serious blow when a federal appeals court ruled that the record labels could no longer force Internet service providers to cough up the names of subscribers accused of illegally trading music on peer-to-peer Web sites.

RAC and the RIAA have crossed swords many times throughout the coalition's six year history, but right now record labels realize they can use all the help they can get on the piracy front.

"The music industry's survival is at stake and artists have as much to lose or more to lose as the labels," RIAA prexy Mitch Bainwol told Daily Variety. "We have a common interest on this struggle. I think over the course of the next few years, there will be more issues that we're working together on that on issues where we diverge."

Peer-to-peer sites have recently formed two separate trade associations designed to influence the debate and have a powerful ally in Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.).

The Distributed Computing Industry Assn., one of the peer-to-peer groups, held a symposium just last week where Coleman encouraged its members to get more involved in Washington.

Clear Channel, the largest radio net, has also expanded its Washington office in recent weeks. The radio conglom Tuesday announced the appointment of Andrew Levin to a new position of exec veep for law and government affairs, a move representing a key reorganization of the company's legal and governmental affairs departments.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...g_a_new_tune_1


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RIAA Sued Under Gang Laws
John Borland

It's probably not the first time that record company executives have been likened to Al Capone, but this time a judge might have to agree or disagree.

A New Jersey woman, one of the hundreds of people accused of copyright infringement by the Recording Industry Association of America, has countersued the big record labels, charging them with extortion and violations of the federal antiracketeering act.

Through her attorneys, Michele Scimeca contends that by suing file-swappers for copyright infringement, and then offering to settle instead of pursuing a case where liability could reach into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, the RIAA is violating the same laws that are more typically applied to gangsters and organized crime.

"This scare tactic has caused a vast amount of settlements from individuals who feared fighting such a large institution and feel victim to these actions and felt forced to provide funds to settle these actions instead of fighting," Scimeca's attorney, Bart Lombardo, wrote in documents filed with a New Jersey federal court. "These types of scare tactics are not permissible and amount to extortion."

Scimeca is one of a growing number of people fighting the record industry's copyright infringement campaign against file- swappers, although few have used such creative legal strategies.

According to the RIAA, which filed its latest round of lawsuits against 531 as-yet-anonymous individuals on Tuesday, it has settled with 381 people, including some who had not yet actually had suits filed against them yet. A total of nearly 1,500 people have been sued so far.

The industry group says that "a handful" of people have countersued, using a variety of claims.

"If someone prefers not to settle, they of course have the opportunity to raise their objections in court," an RIAA representative said. "We stand by our claims."

Few if any of the cases appear to have progressed far, however. The first RIAA lawsuits against individuals were filed more than five months ago, although the majority of people targeted have been part of the "John Doe" campaigns against anonymous individuals this year.

Several individuals and companies have started by fighting the RIAA attempts to identify music swappers though their Internet service providers (ISPs).

The most prominent, known by the alleged file-swapper's screen name "Nycfashiongirl," resulted in at least a temporary victory for the computer user. A Washington, D.C., court ruled in December that the RIAA's initial legal process for subpoenaing ISP subscriber identities before filing lawsuits was illegal. Because "Nycfashiongirl" had been targeted under this process, the RIAA dropped its request for her identity.

However, that may have provided only a temporary reprieve. According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group that is closely following the RIAA's campaign, the Internet address used by "Nycfashiongirl" was included in the batch of lawsuits filed on Tuesday against anonymous individuals, raising the likelihood that she will be drawn back into the courts.

Separate attempts to fight subpoenas are ongoing in North Carolina and St. Louis, where the American Civil Liberties Union and ISP Charter Communications are respectively challenging the RIAA's information requests.

In San Francisco, computer user Raymond Maalouf has taken the first steps toward fighting the RIAA's suits. His daughters were the ones that used Kazaa to download music, and one of them even wound up in last month's Super Bowl advertisement for Pepsi's iTunes promotion, which featured a handful of teens caught in the RIAA dragnet.

In documents filed with San Francisco courts, Maalouf's attorneys noted that downloading through Kazaa was openly discussed at Maalouf's daughter's school by teachers, and they downloaded songs used in classes. That should be a protected fair use of the music, the attorneys said.

At a status conference held in San Francisco early in February, Maalouf's case was just one of five RIAA lawsuits moving through the courts together, attorney Ted Parker said. However, several of those others involved defendants who appeared close to settlement, he added.

Even RIAA critics look at Scimeca's racketeering-based countersuit as a long shot. But it's worth trying, they say.

"It is the first I've heard of anyone attempting that," said EFF legal director Cindy Cohn. "I guess that is a silver lining of the fact that the RIAA is suing so many people, that there are a lot of lawyers trying to figure out ways to protect folks."
http://news.com.com/2100-1027-5161209.html


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"WHAT is RESPECTBOOTLEGGERS.org”?

As part of our ongoing effort to educate audiences about the value or bootlegging copyrighted works and how to promote piracy in the digital age, the anonymous members of Respectbootleggers.org have created this site.

Here, you’ll learn more about bootlegging, piracy, and the people who earn a living working in one of the creative industries that fuel the American economy. You will also find how easy it is to enjoy high-quality entertainment online in ways that both entertain your family, and promote the artistic creations of those who create that entertainment. We hope you find the site useful, that you’ll visit it often and we welcome your feedback.
http://www.respectbootleggers.org/



















Until next week,

- js.













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