Peer-To-Peer News - The Week In Review - February 28th, '04

[JackSpratts]

Quotes Of The Week

Post invasion second thoughts -

"I'm not saying I was misled, but I do have the feeling that there was a lot more to the story than I was told." – Australian judge Murray Wilcox after authorizing secret RIAA raids into the homes of ISP and file sharing executives.

"Litigation is their Prozac, they're just not happy unless they're suing somebody." - Wayne Russo

"If the RIAA supports this move, then I wonder why they would prosecute file-sharers who are giving music away. Let's face it, in these promotional giveaways, the corporations running these things usually are the greatest beneficiaries of the results." - Composer-Singer Paul Korda on Pepsi’s planned giveaway of 3 million songs.








20 Questions

So I read about this website in the New York Times and I go there and take a look. Maybe you've heard about it. It’s the one with the artificial intelligence things and it can guess what you’re thinking in 20 questions. So it says.

OK, I’m thinking about plywood. Well, I have to think about something don't I? Plywood happens to be a good thing to think about because as you’ll see if you play, the answers to the questions can be open to interpretation. Like, “Does it have writing?” Well, yes actually, plywood often does. “Is it used in an office?” Depends. If the office is built after 1980 or in a skyscraper it probably isn’t etc. and so on until it gets to 20, and no surprise, it guesses wrong.

But, it doesn’t give up. It asks me five more questions, is wrong again, then asks five more. Bingo.

“Is It Plywood?”

Wow!

Nails it.

Some grumbling follows, with the program arguing plywood doesn’t have writing on it, is used in offices etc (it’s not a builder apparently), but blunts the harangue with some boilerplate about how “we’re all learning here,” as if that makes getting your mind read by a piece of software with an attitude any better. I have to say it feels more than a little strange when a program on the Internet knows what I'm thinking, even after 30 questions. I mean sex, money, downloads ok – but I'm thinking about plywood!

Next up: I think “Candle.” 20q gets it in 19. Then it gets “Watermelon” in 10. It’s on to me now.

Do the cops know about this thing? Do women?

(They do now.)

You can find it here.

And oh yeah – that piece in the Times? It’s about the handheld version. It goes for ten bucks.

It’s a toy.













Enjoy,

Jack.













The Answer to Piracy: Five Bucks?
Katie Dean

Can $5 a month solve the file-sharing problem?

Perhaps, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The digital-rights group recently proposed the idea of having file sharers pay a monthly surcharge in exchange for the right to share away. The charge would be voluntary and could be levied through the sharers' Internet service provider, software client or university dorm fee. And the money would go to the artists.

The idea sparked a spirited debate Wednesday at a music law conference at the University of California's Hastings College of the Law, an event that brought together lawyers, musicians and students, among others.

File sharing is still a rampant problem. The millions who use services like Kazaa and Grokster to share music run the risk of getting sued for copyright violations by the Recording Industry Association of America, and the record labels still complain of lost sales.

EFF attorney Fred von Lohmann, speaking as part of a panel on peer-to-peer music sharing, proposed that music fans pay a small monthly fee -- perhaps $5 -- to share files with impunity, using whatever software they like. The money could be collected by a central organization and then distributed among those who own the rights to the songs, based on popularity.

The idea has worked before. Broadcast radio stations paid a similar flat fee to ASCAP and BMI -- organizations representing songwriters, composers and music publishers -- to play their music as much as they wanted, he said.

David Sutphen, vice president of government relations for the RIAA, immediately pooh-poohed the idea. File sharers still would search out a way to download music for free, he said, and under the proposed system, all music would have the same value, which doesn't make sense. One-hit wonder Vanilla's Ice's "Ice Ice Baby," for example, would have the same value as The Beatles catalog.

He said these types of compulsory licenses are "not a wise or logical thing to do."

Sutphen's opinion was in the minority on the panel.

"I think file sharing is one of the most positive things to happen to music in a long time," said Madigan Shive, a musician and composer. "I say share away. That really is our best hope," she said.

Hastings law professor Margreth Barrett said the proposal is a good one. She dismissed the RIAA's objection that all music would be valued equally because those musicians whose songs are downloaded most would receive a larger chunk of money. To make up for money lost by those who still share music illegally, a small surcharge could be tacked onto music products like CD burners, which would be put into a fund divided among copyright owners.

Canada already has imposed such a fee.

Sutphen called the idea of a levy "pie in the sky" and said technology companies would never go for it.

Peer-to-peer sharing continues to be the best way to distribute music to the greatest number of fans, von Lohmann said, and using voluntary collective licensing would spark investment in P2P services. It also would eliminate the RIAA's need to discourage file sharing using methods of interdiction, like spoofing tracks on P2P networks.

What won't solve the problem is the continued suing of music fans. The RIAA is harboring false hope if it thinks legal threats will "drive them into the arms of Steve Jobs," von Lohmann said, referring to Apple Computer's legal music service, iTunes.

"There's nothing novel about suing people for breaking the law," the RIAA's Sutphen said. "Enforcement will always be part of the equation."

However, Sutphen said the RIAA realizes that suing people will not solve the piracy problem completely. He admitted that "record labels will have to change the role that they play," but said there will always be the need for someone to invest in artists, promote them, make the videos and distribute the music.

Sutphen called the EFF proposal a "step in the right direction."
http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0...w=wn_tophead_1


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File-sharing Organizations Play Different Comms Tunes
Matthew Creamer

While the media remains fixated on legal and ethical ramifications, Matthew Creamer finds that file-sharing services remain focused on customers' wants and concerns.

In the course of becoming a record company's biggest nightmare, Wayne Rosso has become a reporter's dream.

Accessible, profane, and apparently uninhibited, Rosso is an unofficial spokesman for the radical fringe of the file-sharing world, an insurgent place where people talk about the free flow of information with a fervency that used to be reserved for politics. Rosso's former company, Grokster, whose software is one of many available applications that allow people to share music files without paying for them, remains a b?te noire to the industry whose profit margins it has eaten away. A no-publicity-is-bad-publicity kind of guy, Rosso revels in the criticism he takes - "I'm the Paris Hilton of file-sharing," he says - even boasting how a famous newswoman told him a well-known media executive dubbed him a "mobster." At his new company, Optisoft S.L. and its peer-to-peer software applications Blubster and Piolet, Rosso vows in no uncertain terms even more headaches for content moguls.

Whether Rosso, a music-industry vet who takes credit for advancing the careers of Crosby, Stills & Nash and Fleetwood Mac, is to become the face of the music industry's future or will go down as a painful symbol of its chaotic present remains to be seen. Through its trade association, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the industry itself has sought to cut off the market for Grokster and its kin by filing a series of lawsuits against people who download unlicensed music files. As of earlier this month, the RIAA had filed almost 400 lawsuits, settling many of them. Though the legal effort was at first widely dismissed as a PR faux pas, a recent Pew telephone poll concluded that the lawsuits have led to a dramatic decline in music downloads. But that poll, though widely reported, has come under heavy criticism, and not only from the file-sharing services. Big Champagne, a kind of Nielsen for peer-to-peer networks, states that downloading is as popular as it ever was.

To be sure, Congress will eventually take up the issue, but that's unlikely in an election year. In the meantime, a wide variety of players are staking out positions on an issue that poses a number of tough legal, political, economic, and moral questions. A relaunched Napster, which is now a paid service, joins Apple's iTunes as the most popular places to pay for music downloads. In the peer-to-peer world, Kazaa is attempting to recast itself as a legitimate company where people can swap and sample licensed music files. It currently distributes music from independent outlets and is seeking alliances with the major record companies. To that end, it gave seed money to establish a trade organization, the Distributed Computing Industry Association (DCIA), whose goal is to find a middle ground that makes the record industry, the file-sharing services and software distributors happy.

Kazaa's rebranding challenge

In essence, Kazaa, a popular software brand purchased two years ago by Sharman Networks, has had to mount a rebranding campaign, hiring Magnet Communications to execute a $1 million advertising initiative and a publicity push for its CEO. Its image was once closer to Grokster than iTunes, and now it's trying to achieve an air of legitimacy by appealing to both the recording industry and consumers. "The big challenge for the Kazaa brand name and for Magnet is to communicate to a very wide user base a new brand promise and value proposition," says Magnet president Paul Jensen.

In many ways, Kazaa's challenge is that of all but the radical end of the spectrum: figure out a business model that will work, get the major parties to sign on, and then attract consumers.

The importance of consumer behavior is often understated in coverage of the issue, though organizations like the RIAA and the Motion Picture Association of America have made several coherent attempts to appeal to customers' sense of right and wrong when it comes to copyright issues. In the very near future, if it's not already so, it will become nearly impossible to go to a movie, read a newspaper, or even watch television without being reminded about the economic effects and moral problems caused by violating copyright law. But for all the efforts to demonstrate how skirting copyright law can affect not only artists and entertainment executives, but also peripheral players like engineers and stuntmen, there are still thinkers, such as New York magazine media critic Michael Wolff, who conclude that the rise of the internet has made it un-American to pay for content. If people like Wolff are correct, then an entirely new way of thinking has become ingrained in a matter of years and provides a clear challenge for marketers and PR people.

Carol McGarry, EVP and creative director at Schwartz Communications, has found this attitude in her work for Peppercoin, a micropayment system that allows merchants to charge miniscule amounts of money for individual songs. Her job is, of course, to publicize the service to business and consumers.

"What we're doing," she says, "is showing that there's an inexpensive way to buy songs legally." McGarry says the RIAA's lawsuits have made this somewhat easier "by building in a disincentive to swap music."

But they've also made Wayne Rosso's job easier by giving him a nemesis: a rich, institutional enemy who resolves its business-model problems by suing teenaged girls.

Magnet's Jensen does not think the lawsuits should have any effect on the way file-sharing organizations do business, but he does think they need to follow Kazaa's lead and find a way to do business without infringing on copyrights. Kazaa, after all, is banking on consumers flocking to its brand, not in small part because of the legitimacy to which it aspires. Kazaa is up to 45 million licensed music, video, and software downloads per month, which, Jensen says, is a significant increase.

"The customer we're going for wants to do what's right and is not interested in downloading with the potential for lawsuits," he says. "Wayne Rosso's organization is targeting a different customer. There will always be people out there who think information should be free."

Impact on consumers

To a degree, this cuts to the issue of how much time and energy consumers spend in choosing how to consume content. Kelly Larabee, senior strategist and SVP at The Rose Group, which does PR for the DCIA, disagrees with the suggestion that consumers won't discern between a service that offers a free product in a way that's at best unethical and at worst illegal and one that charges, but is undoubtedly law-abiding.

"Americans and most people who have the resources love to support the art that speaks to them," she says. "I do think that we've gotten used to sampling. And our who-we-trust meters have changed quite remarkably. Our questions regarding what is true have changed a lot in the cross-pollination of media. For example, you can question the 20th Century Fox movie plug you see on a Fox channel if you hear somewhere else that it's not a great movie. We've had to be more skeptical as consumers."

It remains to be seen whether skepticism toward even established media and entertainment brands will translate into big business for the online content sites that work with content providers. It's less ambiguous that PR people have their work cut out for them in affecting attitudes, especially those of that desirable young demographic.

McGarry, for one, has already noticed how pervasive the notion has become among younger people that music should be free. She says, "The hardest thing to change is something that's become part of culture."
http://www.brandrepublic.com/digital...gin=DB19022004


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Canada Needs File-Sharing Test Case
Mathew Ingram

Following through on a promise it made late last year, the Canadian Recording Industry Association has launched a court battle against digital music swappers. Unfortunately for the CRIA, however, its fight against file sharing may not be quite as easy as the one waged last year by its U.S. counterpart, a controversial campaign that snared teenaged honour students and retired war veterans, among others.

First, the Canadian industry has to get Internet service providers to cough up the names of the CRIA's targets, and one ISP -- Calgary-based Shaw Communications -- has said it will resist that request in court. Canadian law is also not as amenable to such requests as U.S. law, which was reworked in the late 1990s to specifically deal with digital copyright issues. And even after it identifies its targets, CRIA will still have a fight on its hands.

In December, the industry group said that it planned to follow the example set by the Recording Industry Association of America and sue selected Canadian file swappers beginning some time in 2004. "The industry continues to be devastated by file sharing," the CRIA's president Brian Robertson said at the time. "It is regrettable that we'll have to take this action, but we've been forced to."

The RIAA launched a widely publicized legal campaign against users of popular file-sharing networks such as Kazaa and iMesh last year, hitting more than 350 individual downloaders with lawsuits accusing them of copyright violations.

The U.S. industry group's continuing battle -- 532 more lawsuits were launched just last month -- got a boost initially from the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998. Under the act, record companies were able to force Internet service providers to give them the names and addresses of specific file swappers without having to go before a judge and apply for a formal court order.

In December, however, a Federal Court of Appeals judge ruled that this "streamlined" DMCA procedure was not applicable to the downloading and sharing of digital music files, but was designed for cases in which copyright-infringing material was being stored by an ISP on its own servers. As a result, the RIAA has had to go through the time-consuming process of filing "John Doe" lawsuits in order to force ISPs to identify specific users. But still the digital battle continues.

It remains to be seen what kind of response Canada's Federal Court will have to the CRIA's request. Mr. Justice Konrad von Finckenstein -- the former head of the federal Competition Bureau -- postponed his decision until March 12, saying he needed more time to study the details of the case.

Shaw Communications has said it plans to fight a court order to identify its customers if one is issued. The company argues that because it regularly changes the IP (Internet protocol) addresses it gives to customers, identifying a specific user based on his or her IP address would be problematic, and potentially an invasion of an innocent person's privacy. Other ISPs such as Rogers, Telus and Bell Sympatico have not said what their response will be if a court order is issued.

That's just part of the battle the CRIA is heading into. Even if Judge von Finckenstein orders the ISPs to reveal the names of individual customers -- which some observers believe is not at all a sure thing, given the traditional strength of privacy rights in Canadian courts -- and even if the majority of those sued decide to settle out of court (as most have in the United States), at some point the industry will have to fight an actual court battle.

The main complicating factor for the CRIA is that under Canadian law, downloading of music from the Internet -- even music a user has not actually paid for -- may turn out to be legal, because of the copyright levy that Canadians pay on blank CDs (21 cents per disc). A ruling by the Copyright Board in December, which extended that levy to hard-drive-based music players, specifically said that the downloading of music files is permitted under Canadian copyright laws.

The CRIA was quick to point out at the time that this is not a legally binding decision, merely the opinion of the Copyright Board. However, the industry also said it planned to focus its lawsuits on users who are sharing a lot of files -- in other words, providing them for others to download -- rather than those who have downloaded a lot (networks such as Kazaa allow users to share or not share their files). The CRIA said that it would target those with more than 1,000 files.

Left out of all this, as usual, is the question of whether suing some of your biggest potential customers is the best way to promote your industry. While the RIAA claims that its campaign has slowed the popularity of downloading, other surveys show little or no impact -- and some argue that the industry has actually increased the chances that music lovers will stop buying CDs and download music instead.

All the CRIA has at this point are unanswered questions. Will the court order ISPs to provide names of file sharers? Will they resist such an order? And if a case proceeds, will the court decide that downloading is legal but sharing is not? Although volunteers may be hard to come by, it might be worth having a test case just so Canadians know what is legal and what isn't.
http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/...ess/TopStories


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Proposed Racketeering Suit Against RIAA Called 'Absurd'
Gene J. Koprowski

A proposed federal lawsuit by a woman in New Jersey alleging racketeering by major music labels is "preposterous" and has little chance of prevailing, entertainment industry lawyers tell TechNewsWorld.

The forthcoming lawsuit by Michele Scimeca, said to be a countersuit against members of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), comes as the woman tries to fight off a claim that she allegedly uploaded 1,400 copyrighted songs over the Kazaa peer-to-peer network.

The woman claims her 13-year-old daughter downloaded the songs for a school project.

"The suit, at least on its face, is absurd," Thomas G. Field, Jr., a professor of law at the Franklin Pierce Law Center, a leading law school, told TechNewsWorld in an interview.

Another lawyer, leading entertainment law attorney Jay Cooper of the Los Angeles office of Greenberg Traurig, told TechNewsWorld that the lawsuit is "preposterous."

Word of the forthcoming lawsuit emerged earlier this week when a media industry trade magazine reported Scimeca had filed a lawsuit under the antimobster statute, the Racketeer Influenced & Corrupt Organizations Act, commonly known by the acronym RICO.

A call by TechNewsWorld to the clerk of the U.S. District Court in Newark, New Jersey, on Friday, February 20, 2004, however, indicated that Scimeca still has not formally filed the claim. In the conversation, the court clerk said that Sony (NYSE: SNE) Music Entertainment, UMG Recordings and Motown filed a lawsuit against Scimeca on December 3, 2003, under the U.S. Copyright Act.

The court clerk said the last filing in the case was on February 9, 2004, by Scimeca, "making an application to extend time" to file a response to the Sony suit.

U.S. District Judge William J. Martini has been assigned to hear the original complaint, whose case number is 03CV5757.

The burden of proof in a racketeering case is quite high. According to lawyers, before civil liability can emerge under the racketeering laws, the complainant must demonstrate that the culpable person has committed two or more acts of racketeering.

The racketeering must include two unlawful acts, usually involving intimidation, violence or fraud.

Mobsters and thugs who interfere with interstate commerce are the targets of the federal statute under which Scimeca may bring suit. The law was passed in 1970 to prevent racketeering.

To be sure, to a regular person, receiving a letter about a lawsuit from a lawyer might feel like an act of intimidation, but, if the case is based on facts and supported by law and evidence, no judge would ever likely agree that it constituted an act of racketeering, lawyers say.

Scimeca may have a defense to the lawsuit by the music companies, however. If her child was the individual who downloaded copyrighted songs illegally, and was not acting as the agent of the mother, the mother might not be liable. "I doubt that parents are liable if kids shoplift, for example, although they might lose custody if the situation is egregious," said Field, the law professor.

But lawyers from the music companies could defeat an argument like that by demonstrating that the mother was the party who paid for the online access and was responsible for the activity on the account. Lawsuits by the record industry are being used to stop the dramatic decline in sales of recorded music, said to be 45 percent of volume during the last four years, and said to be a factor pushing music makers and distributors, such as Tower Records, into bankruptcy or insolvency.

The right of artists to copyright work is guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. But the suits by the music industry are not popular among many devotees of file sharing.

"Litigation is their Prozac," said Wayne Russo, CEO of Optisoft, a developer of P2P technology, located in Madrid and London. "They're just not happy unless they're suing somebody."
http://www.technewsworld.com/perl/story/32918.html


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Music Industry's Search Orders On Trial
James Pearce

Lawyers representing record labels and those acting for peer-to-peer companies on Friday argued in the Federal Court of Australia in Sydney whether a controversial order used by the music industry to obtain information about file-sharing companies should be overturned.

Two weeks ago, Music Industry Piracy Investigations (MIPI) obtained Anton Pillar orders encompassing 12 premises across Australia, which allowed it to search for and seize material on the premises it believed may contain evidence of copyright infringement. The following week, lawyers for Sharman Networks told Justice Murray Wilcox that they would challenge the orders on the grounds that not all appropriate evidence was presented during the discovery phase of the orders.

Sharman Networks, the parent company of the popular Kazaa software, is arguing that the case the Australian record labels bought is substantially the same case currently being fought in the United States and should therefore be set aside or deferred until the U.S. case is finished. Lawyers for the record labels argued that the two cases were distinct and independent. Early in the proceedings Friday, Justice Wilcox questioned whether this case was a duplicate of the one in the United States and indicated that it would be deferred, if it is.

"If it's not a duplication, the fact that Sharman has to fight two unrelated battles on two fronts is unfortunate," said Justice Wilcox, who indicated that the case would continue.

Lawyers for the music industry argued that some of the evidence they collected under the Anton Pillar orders took place while "the system was in action." This meant that they wanted to ascertain the technical detail of the processes involved in file-sharing via the Kazaa network. This level of detail, the lawyers said, was not being collected in the U.S. case. They added that the evidence was "of its nature, likely to be ephemeral."

"The U.S. copyright law is more concerned with structural aspects of the technology...rather than the operation of the software (as the Australian law is)," the lawyer representing the record labels told the judge as a possible reason why the evidence MIPI sought wasn't sought by the U.S. legal team under subpoena.

He said that in the United States, a person had to either personally transmit a copyright- infringing MP3 file or substantially assist that transmission, while in Australia, ancillary acts constitute infringement.

The lawyer representing Kevin Burmeister, the owner of Brilliant Digital Entertainment, which was also raided, brought up some issues for the court concerning the Anton Pillar order. He pointed out that much of the evidence seized during the raid was from Altnet, a subsidiary of Brilliant Digital that wasn't itself mentioned in the Anton Pillar order as a target.

The lawyer also raised the issue that the Anton Pillar order had the effect of seizing the source code of the Altnet software. In the United States, the record labels and Altnet are wrangling over the conditions under which the code will be produced, and Altnet is now concerned that it may have lost control of that process.
http://news.com.com/2100-1027-5162498.html


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P2P Could End Flat-Rate Broadband
Dinah Greek

ISPs consider unpopular pricing packages to reduce costs incurred by file-share sites

Consumer flat-rate broadband packages in the UK could be replaced by tiered broadband services as soon as next year.

Speaking at the Internet Service Providers (ISPs) forum in London this week, peer-to-peer (P2P) management equipment vendor Sandvine claimed that UK ISPs are reviewing how they sell and package their services.

Broadband services in the UK are currently priced at how much bandwidth a customer wants to buy, typically anywhere from 150Kbps to 2Mbps, usually with no cap on how much data they can download.

The growing popularity of P2P sites is driving ISP costs to unacceptable levels. Since much P2P traffic does not originate from ISPs' networks it costs them more to deliver it, leading to their consideration of unpopular measures such as port throttling P2P sites, data download limits or pay- as-you-go pricing.

But ISPs are still deeply reluctant to change to alternative pricing models because of the unpopularity of such schemes with consumers.

"None is going public with this yet because there is a real risk they could lose customers, but 10 are thinking about introducing application intelligent services rather than using the speed-equals-price business model," said Chris Colman, Sandvine's EMEA managing director.

Currently, only around five per cent of broadband subscribers are deemed heavy users, but they account for 55 per cent of broadband traffic.

But ISPs expect the number of heavy users to grow as more people choose broadband for P2P applications.

A spokesman for AOL told vnunet.com: "P2P is clearly an issue for ISPs. Judging what goes beyond what is reasonable usage and what impacts on other users is difficult, but as more people go online with broadband it is entirely possible that different packages will be introduced.

"It is not on the agenda for AOL at the moment because people are happy with the flat-rate model and are still getting to grips with broadband. But you could see ISPs bringing in different products next year."
http://www.vnunet.com/News/1152929


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Ofcom Warns On Tighter Internet Regulation
Matt Loney

If the Internet industry does not better regulate itself, then public and political opinion may force tighter regulation upon it, warns Ofcom, which still has an eye on local loop unbundling

The Internet could face tougher regulation unless the industry does a better job of sorting out pressing issues, the deputy chairman of Ofcom said on Thursday night.

Speaking in Central London at the annual ISP Awards, or ISPAs, Richard Hooper warned of action on everything from improper content, spam and piracy to local- loop unbundling. If you do not regulate yourselves," said Hooper, "then the danger is that the political and public opinion machines will come down the turnpike at you. Don't underestimate the power of these bodies."

As the new super-regulator, Ofcom oversees the UK's broadcasting and telecommunications sectors, and rolls up several agencies, including the Oftel, the Radiocommunications Authority, the Independent Television Commission, the Broadcasting Standards Commission and the Radio Authority.

"Newspapers are intensely interested in [content, spam, and piracy] issues," warned Hooper. "You are working in an area where public opinion and political opinions can come together very forcefully."

Hooper also issued a thinly veiled warning to BT over the state of local-loop unbundling. "We will do our very best to ensure there is fair and effective competition in broadband retail and wholesale," he said, to a cheer from the audience, which comprised most of the UK's Internet industry: "We have not forgotten local-loop unbundling."

LLU forces incumbent telecoms operators -- BT, in the UK -- to open up their local exchanges and allow competitors to install their own kit and offer wholesale broadband services. It was intended to break the stranglehold that Europe's incumbent telcos enjoyed over their national markets in the 1990s, but in practice few exchanges have been opened up.

In a hint that Ofcom may take action on the issue this year, Hooper said "I hope that next year you'll do us right" -- in a reference to the Internet Hero Award, which was presented later that evening. Ofcom was not nominated, though Hooper appeared more concerned that Ofcom was not nominated for the Internet Villain Award.

The only companies making notable progress in local-loop unbundling in the UK are Easynet and Bulldog.

Easynet plans to have installed its broadband equipment in 229 local exchanges by the end of 2004. Bulldog -- which claims to be the only telco using local-loop unbundling to provide alternative products for consumers as well as businesses -- offers its services in London, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Cambridge and parts of South-East England
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/040220/152/emi50.html


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Australian Govt To Make Email Interception Easier
AAP

THE federal Government today moved to give greater powers to spy agencies to intercept people's emails.

The Telecommunications (Interception) Amendment Bill 2004 also allows warrants to be sought in connection with the investigation of a wider range of serious offences, including terrorism.

The bill, if passed by parliament, will allow recording of calls to ASIO public lines.

It will also amend the definition of interception to ensure that the protections conferred by the Interception Act keep up with technological developments.

Attorney-General Philip Ruddock said as a result of recent advances in technology many communications passing over the telecommunications system now take the form of written words or images, not covered by current legislation.

"The bill will allow the definition of interception to include reading and viewing, as well as listening to and recording, a communication in its passage over the telecommunications system," he told parliament.

"The amendment will ensure that the protections afforded by the Act extend to all forms of communication passing over the Australian telecommunications system."

Other amendments allow for agencies to obtain warrants to assist in investigating terrorism offences involving firearms and state and territory cybercrime.

Debate on the bill was adjourned to a later time.
http://australianit.news.com.au/arti...E15306,00.html


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Korea`Web Real-Name Law' Faces Tough Challenges
Kim Tae-gyu

Civic groups and Internet companies are hooking up to oppose a pending Internet act, which urges Internet users to use real names on the online bulletin board whenever they post writings related to elections.

Sixty-three civic groups and Internet companies issued a joint statement Feb. 19 that they would resist the Internet law even if the National Assembly approves it.

``The Internet law should be scrapped because it would threaten people's freedom of expression and their access to information,'' the statement said.

The Korea Internet Corporation Association (KICA), also pledged a day earlier that it would tackle the law, because ``it will choke the Internet's two-way communication, thus impeding participatory democracy.''

The protesters also cast doubts on the constitutionality of the act's draft, which is a product of Won Hee-ryong, a majority Grand National Party lawmaker, and promised to bring the case to the Constitutional Court of Korea.

Should the law go into effect, Internet users would be required to forward their names and residence numbers, Korea's equivalent to social security numbers, to register election-associated letters on Web site bulletin boards. Web site managers would have to take measures to prevent the use of online pseudonyms or anonymous logos, and violators would face fines up to 10 million won.

In the United States, Georgia legislated a similar Internet law that criminalizes the use of anonymous messages in online communications, but the Federal Court ruled it unconstitutional, they added.
http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/biz/...8032211860.htm


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FTC Fines Music And Software COPPA Violators
Roy Mark

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) collected it largest fine to date for a privacy violation of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) Wednesday when UMG Recordings agreed to pay $400,000 to settle civil charges brought by the watchdog agency.

In a separate civil settlement, Bonzi Software, distributor of the BonziBuddy software, agreed to pay $75,000 in the first COPPA case to challenge the information collection practices of an online service in connection with a software product. Previous COPPA cases have addressed only Web site operators' information collection practices.

The FTC alleged the two firms knowingly collecting personal information from children online without first obtaining parental consent. In addition to the fines, the settlements prohibit future COPPA violations, require that the companies delete any information collected in violation of COPPA, and contain certain record-keeping requirements to allow the FTC to monitor the companies' future compliance.

The COPPA rule applies to operators of commercial Web sites and online services directed to children, general audience Web sites and online services that have actual knowledge that they are collecting personal information from children under the age of 13.

Among other things, the rule requires that these Web site operators post privacy policies, provide parental notice, and obtain verifiable consent from a parent or guardian before collecting personal information from children.

UMG Recordings operates hundreds of general audience Web sites that advertise and promote its numerous music labels and recording artists, many of whom are popular with children. UMG sites offer activities such as e-mail newsletters and updates, fan clubs and bulletin boards.

The FTC complaint charges that UMG's Web site registration forms collected extensive personal information including full name, birth date, e-mail address, home address, phone number, gender and other information such as visitors' preferences in music, sports and apparel.

According to the FTC, UMG gained actual knowledge that a child was registering on the site whenever a child entered a birth date indicating he was under the age of 13. Yet, the FTC alleges, UMG collected this personal information from children without first notifying parents and obtaining verifiable parental consent.

In some instances, UMG sent notices to parents after collecting their children's personal information. The complaint alleges that these notices violated the COPPA's parental consent requirement because they were sent after the collection of personal information and were "deficient in other regards."

The complaint also claims that, in some instances, UMG used the children's personal information to e- mail them marketing materials on other musicians and Web sites.

Bonzi markets free, downloadable software that display an interactive, animated purple gorilla on users' computers. The BonziBuddy online registration form requires users to provide a birth date and several other types of personal information. Like UMG, the FTC claims Bonzi had actual knowledge, as a result of collecting birth date information, that thousands of children were registering for BonziBuddy.

The FTC complaint alleges that Bonzi failed to provide direct notice to parents of what information it sought to collect from children or obtain verifiable parental consent before collecting such information.

It also says that Bonzi software failed to post a clear and complete privacy notice for its online service or to provide a reasonable means for parents to review the personal information collected from their children.
http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news...le.php/3315291


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

For Musicians, Solid Walls Make Good Neighbors
Sabrina Tavernise

Jay Braun, a guitarist for a New York City rock band called the Negatones, is well versed in the science of soundproofing.

"Sheetrock, sound board and plywood, over and over," said Mr. Braun, a fast-talking 32-year-old who has put up soundproofing in two New York City living spaces. "We really did want to be good neighbors."

Although musicians began recording in their homes as early as the 1970's, the migration away from professional studios to homes expanded in the 1980's, as drum machines and multitrack tape recorders came into widespread use. Now that computers and recording software are household items — new Apple computers come with a program called GarageBand — recording at home, for musicians, has become routine.

"It's becoming harder and harder to find people who do not have their own home studio," said Alan Fierstein, a SoHo-based acoustic consultant, whose own professional studio, Sorcerer Sound, recently closed.

"Twenty years ago, a studio was the only place you could make music," said Russell Simins, drummer for the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, a New York City band.

"Ten years ago that was less true," he said. "Now studios are being avoided. People have computers. They sit at home."

But with home studios came the noise. And the efforts to contain it.

"It's the neighbors that create the soundproofing equation," said Gary Silver, a sound designer who has been soundproofing homes and professional studios since 1984. "New York being what it is, that really makes it a problem."

For Michael Mehler, who lives directly below a home studio in a building on the Lower East Side, the most frustrating thing about the musician upstairs is his choice of instrument.

"Jumping up and down with the electric guitar is different than playing Bach," Mr. Mehler said on a recent Saturday. "It's not like he's a violinist."

Mr. Mehler added that the musician "could do it with headphones."

That is precisely the advice offered by Richard Murdock, a property manager in Manhattan, who has had to handle complaints about a tenant with a studio in a Lower East Side building.

"That boom boom boom, and the rattling of the dishes," he said. "Most of these old tenement buildings are not steel and concrete. Playing live music in an apartment, it's impossible not to encroach upon your neighbors."

Muffling music is often harder than it seems. The first mistake, Mr. Silver said, is the assumption that sound can be trapped in a room by putting up some carpets.

"I constantly have people talking about foam, fabric and egg cartons," he said. "You need mass. Sheetrock, concrete, wood. Expensive, heavy things have to be built."

Mr. Braun, like most people, began on the low end of the learning curve.

His first attempt at soundproofing came in 1996, when the band rented part of an artist's loft in Williamsburg. The band members marched to a Home Depot and bought plywood, and slabs of Sheetrock and layers of soundboard.

"We thought we were so sophisticated," recalled Mr. Braun, dressed in a rumpled suit jacket and sneakers on a recent Thursday afternoon. "We were all high-fiving each other up to the time we brought in the bass and the drum set."

But the new walls had a puzzling effect. Instead of sounding softer, Mr. Braun said, the music "seemed to have gotten louder."

It was a defining moment. Mr. Braun realized that "there is, in fact, a reason for science."

The band left the building. For a while, they rented part of a woodworking studio, where they played among table saws. Meanwhile his peers were playing in rented Manhattan Mini Storage spaces.

Mr. Braun began wrestling with physics in a basement space on Stanton Street. He hired a carpenter to design an elaborate semi-suspended ceiling in the space, which was not supposed to be lived in, but often was — several of the band members called it home from time to time. The ceiling was made of five layers of material: particleboard; two layers of sound board, which functions as a thick cushion; plywood; and Sheetrock.

"Sound is like water," said Mr. Braun, flanked by a laptop computer and a console in the band's newly rented recording space in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. "If you drill one hole in the wall, the sound will leak right through."

Month after month the band added new layers. They removed a water pipe that carried sound into a neighbor's apartment. They spent $20,000, by Mr. Braun's calculation. "We became handymen," he said.

They recorded albums in the space in the meantime, not bothering to wait for perfection. But the noise and activity was eventually noticed by city inspectors, and they were given two months to leave.

Mr. Fierstein said that many penny-pinching musicians skipped soundproofing altogether. Instead, bathrooms and closets become recording spaces.

"People can't afford soundproofing, but they have to have the ability to record a singer," Mr. Fierstein said. "The bathroom is the closest thing to a concert hall."

As more musicians stay at home to make music, professional recording studios have suffered. Bill Tesar, the owner of the Toy Specialists, a large sound equipment rental company, said improved technology for home recording and reduced budgets from record companies have caused business with studios to decline over the past three years. His company, in business since 1983, closed last week. "I'd say more than 60 percent of the midsize recording studios that were in business five years ago are now out of business," Mr. Tesar said. "That's not an inflated guess. There were literally hundreds of them in the New York metro area. Now, if there are 40 or 50, that's a lot."

Even freelancers are worried. Adam Kendall, who plays in an electronic music group and also records bands out of his apartment in Park Slope, Brooklyn, says he is concerned that the amount of work he's had the past several years will decline.

"I'm the person big studios hate," he said. But he added that Apple's release of GarageBand "is my karmic return."

He added, "I gave up hope for making money recording music."

Some musicians said home studios and computer equipment were making recording quieter. Richard Bernstein, lead guitarist for Rammstein, a German heavy metal group, said the recording process was less collaborative now, more a solitary plinking on a computer keyboard than a group playing effort.

"You don't have to listen loud anymore," said Mr. Bernstein, whose concerts feature feats of pyrotechnics.

Music today is "everyone is cooking in his own kitchen by himself," he said, in his home studio on the first floor of a former firehouse on Lafayette Street in Manhattan. "It used to be five guys playing together, but that doesn't happen as much anymore."

"You can do everything without other people's presence," Mr. Bernstein said.

Besides, says Mr. Kendall, "am I really making more noise than a guy on Sunday who is watching an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie in surround-sound?"

There are those musicians for whom such questions are not rhetorical. Howie Statland, the musician who lives upstairs from Mr. Mehler, said he could not afford soundproofing and, even if he could, his neighbors' blaring music and yelling children would give him the right to make noise freely. He has a guitar amplifier in his bedroom and plays often. Drums were his one concession.

"The guy downstairs gets upset when I put the guitar too loud," Mr. Statland said.

A basic philosophy, however, prevails. "I've had people yell, `Shut up,' but they're out there, and I'm in here. What are they going to do?"

Not everyone records at home all the time. Many musicians still use large studios for much of their final products.

"People who are making big money music are still going to the two or three big studios in Manhattan," said Mr. Simins, whose own small recording studio is not in his home. "Britney Spears doesn't sit at home in front of her computer."

As for Mr. Braun, he sums up his hard-earned wisdom in soundproofing succinctly. "You can follow the rules note for note, but if you have an old lady sleeping downstairs, that's it," he said.

Recognizing that there are advantages to a separate studio, his band rented one in Williamsburg last year. The main criteria: no soundproofing required. The studio is in an industrial zone on a corner, just beneath the Williamsburg Bridge.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/21/nyregion/21NOIS.html


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

Huge Web Protest Has Websites Uploading “The Grey Album”
Jack Spratts

In a riff on Mardi Gras’ Fat Tuesday this week saw “Grey Tuesday,” and websites throughout North America and the world protesting RIAA-member EMI’s decision to stop distribution of the Grey Album, a critically acclaimed hip hop mash-up with tracks sampled from both the 35 year old Beatles' White Album and Jay-Z’s Black Album of 2003.

The original Grey Album had a small pressing of a few thousand copies and then was withdrawn under protest by the artist DJ Danger Mouse after EMI threatened legal action.

The web sites participating in Tuesday’s action hosted the Grey Album in it’s entirety. Many of the sites received EMI cease and desist orders but continued with the act in spite of them. In addition to the hosting sites many other sites “went grey” in sympathetic protest.
http://www.p2p-zone.com/underground/...threadid=18867




Sites That Hosted The Grey On Tuesday, Feb. 24th

(M) Productions - m-productions.org
113b.tk - 113b.tk
83tilinfinity.com/ - 83tilinfinity.com/
860design.com - 860design.com
Ai-em.net - ai-em.net
bootyhouse.org - bootyhouse.org
B.R.I.D.G.E.Z. - bridgezmag.com
Bracha Goleshet - goleshet.com
BurningAnnie.com - BurningAnnie.com
Consortium For Undermining Conservative Thought - cfuct.org
DJ Variable - windmond.dyndns.org/djvariable
Digispace Records - digispacerecords.com/
Downhill Battle - downhillbattle.org
eyesun.dhs.org - eyesun.dhs.org
Fatal Mistake - fatal-mistake.net
Free The Media - www.freethemedia.com
Horklog - horkulated.com/index.php
In My Room - inmyroom.omnihosts.net/blog
Ingenuitous - ingentious.com
Judolight - thejudomadonna.kicks-ass.org/phpBB2
Kingcanyon.org - www.kingcanyon.org
Kunfuzed Mynds - kunfuzedmynds.com
Light From An Empty Fridge - www.fridgemagnet.org.uk
Lyrical War - lyricalwar.com
Mancuso Media - mancusomedia.org
Mathcaddy.com - mathcaddy.com
Michael Herring Design - michaelherringdesign.com
michaelhanscom.com - www.michaelhanscom.com
Musical Bear - musicalbear.com
Musick For Our Children - mfoc.de
mostlymuppet.com - mostlymuppet.com My Analog Life - nofi.org
News Trolls - newstrolls.com
Normlife.com - normlife.com
trainque.com - trainque.com
Nubytes - nubytes.com
Numia - numia.org
OHM - saviorsofpop.net
Our Nation Of Thoutlessness - ournationofthoughtlessness.com
Philosophistry - philosophistry.com
Riot Grrrl Fredericksburg - rgfb.8m.com
sequent.org - sequent.org
Sir Bump - sirbump.com
Sound Slam - soundslam.com
Stephen Laniel's Unspecified Bunker - (long link)
synthesize.us - synthesize.us
aypwip.org - aypwip.org
Stephen's Web - downes.ca
Strange Interlude - strangeinterlude.net
Team Shocker - teamshocker.com
TDBRecords - TDBRecords.com
That's How It Happened - howithappened.com
The Little Room - kylehebert.blogspot.com
The MP3 Truth - themp3truth.com
The World Around Me - mancusomedia.org/blog
Thee Butterscotch Threshold - www.thebutterscotchthreshold.com
This Cathartic Nail - freethinkersmovement.com/cathartic
Vauss - www.vauss.com
Writing My Name In Water - danwinckler.com
akenanet.com - akenanet.com/grey
arellanes.com - arellanes.com
benquilter.com - benquilter.com
blueskin.bloguje.cz - blueskin.bloguje.cz
bluetack.co.uk - bluetack.co.uk
bwilms.com - bwilms.com
chezlubacov.org - chezlubacov.org
cpmwww.com - cpmwww.com
cscott.net - cscott.net
dabeatz.com - dabeatz.com
damodred.net - damodred.net
darkcalgary.com - darkcalgary.com
death-watch.com - death-watch.com/thegreyalbum
deepsea.force9.co.uk - deepsea.force9.co.uk
deliciousentertainmentmusic.com - deliciousentertainmentmusic.com
denyerec.co.uk - denyerec.co.uk
diggastyle.com - diggastyle.com
druhkram.com - druhkram.com
edgeEye - edgeeye.com
edverb.com - edverb.com
elramsay.com - elramsay.com/caught/ fatherstorm.com - fatherstorm.com
fobiopatel.com - www.fobiopatel.com foundationdeckstands.com - foundationdeckstands.com
fourstones.net - fourstones.net
francisco.terawap.co.uk - francisco.terawap.co.uk/grey_album/
ftp://ftp.whatthedale.com/dm_grey_album - ftp:// ftp.whatthedale.com/dm_grey_album
ftp://grey:album@amplify.myftp.org - ftp:// grey:album@amplify.myftp.org
www.girlsareweird.com - www.girlsareweird.com
gisleson.com - gisleson.com/blog
ginaric.com - ginaric.com
gomercentral.com - gomercentral.com
grey.green-blue.org
grey.servemp3.com - grey.servemp3.com/~grey
greytuesday.raxian.com - http://greytuesday.raxian.com/
grinder.freeshell.org - grinder.freeshell.org
hektik.org - hektik.org
hiphophobbyklub.nl - hiphophobbyklub.nl
hiphopinjesmoel.com - hiphopinjesmoel.com
hipinion.com - hipinion.com/grey.php
horseforce.net - horseforce.net
insanefame.com - insanefame.com
jaydeflix.com - jaydeflix.com
jeweledplatypus.org - jeweledplatypus.org
joegrossberg.com - joegrossberg.com
joopy.nu - joopy.nu
keepitonthedownload.com - www.keepitonthedownload.com
kembrew.com - kembrew.com
kiosk-of-love.com - www.kiosk-of-love.com
laslo.co.uk - laslo.co.uk
ld50.com - ld50.com
m4hireentertainment.ipbhost.com - m4hireentertainment.ipbhost.com
members.lycos.nl/freedownload1500/music - members.lycos.nl/ freedownload1500/music
mijnkopthee.nl - mijnkopthee.nl
mine.nu/ - greyalbum.mine.nu/
miserychick.net - miserychick.net
music2g.com - music2g.com
musiccollection.nu - musiccollection.nu
naraznik.vozovna.cz - naraznik.vozovna.cz
nebulose.net - nebulose.net
null-a.org - null-a.org
offmessage.com - offmessage.com
oniochalasia.tk - oniochalasia.tk
oracle.zenic.net - oracle.zenic.net
partiallyblind.com - partiallyblind.com
peteashton.com - peteashton.com
phark.typepad.com - phark.typepad.com
pieceoplastic.com - pieceoplastic.com
piratetv.net - piratetv.net
radioaid.com - radioaid.com
rawr.net - www.rawr.net
reddoktoba.com - reddoktoba.com
rednoise.org - rednoise.org
republicum.se - republicum.se
retchandcrynge.com/ - retchandcrynge.com/
savedelete.com - savedelete.com
seren.net - seren.net
sixfoot6 - sixfoot6.com
slumdance.com - slumdance.com/blogs/brian_flemming/archives/ 000647.html
splinterdata.com - splinterdata.com
spygeek.com - spygeek.com
stoneorchids.net - stoneorchids.net
stungeye.com - stungeye.com
sugarbooty.com - sugarbooty.com
tastypopsicle.com - tastypopsicle.com
teamgoodguys.com - teamgoodguys.com
textz.com - textz.com/greyalbum
thegreyalbum.blipsqueak.com - thegreyalbum.blipsqueaks.com
tomservo.net - tomservo.net
trash.dork.cx - trash.dork.cx/grey_album
undergroundmusicshoppingchannel.com - undergroundmusicshoppingchannel.com
wheresthebeef.co.uk - wheresthebeef.co.uk
somethingentertainment.co.uk - somethingentertainment.co.uk
vauss.com - vauss.com
www.damodred.net - www.damodred.net www.gregsmithies.sytes.net - www.gregsmithies.sytes.net
www.neilchilson.com - www.neilchilson.com
www.seldik.com - www.seldik.com
www.sleep-dream-die.com - www.sleep-dream-die.com
www.xanga.com/plus_c - www.xanga.com/plus_c



Sites That Have Turned Grey

2guysnogirlnawebsite.com - 2guysnogirlnawebsite.com
90% Crud - george.hotelling.net/
Academix Records - www.academixrecords.com
Action Slacker - actionslacker.com
albumgeek.com - albumgeek.com
Allure Promotions - allurepromotions.tk
thehiatus.net - thehiatus.net
andreastein.org - andreastein.org
A Whole Nother Studio - awholenotherstudio.com
AmpMinot.com - AmpMinot.com
Aural Delight - auraldelight.net
angryguy.org - angryguy.org
BarfBarfMarina - cigarettesandwater.com/bbm
beatsareus.com - beatsareus.com
Belita Adair Music Medium - belitamusicmedium.com
Belita Adair Music Medium - www.belitamusicmedium.com
Belmont University Copyright Society - belmontcopyright.com
Bigmalik - bigmalik.com
Blogcritics.org - Blogcritics.org
BobbyBurbank.com - BobbyBurbank.com
Boing Boing (!) - boingboing.net
Brian Hamilton - bdhamilton.com
burntchicken.com - burntchicken.com
Comic Toast - comic-toast.com
crashingjets.nu - crashingjets.nu
Culture Kitchen - culturekitchen.com
Discarnate - discarnate.org
Disturbed Confusion - disturbedconfusion.com
cyphersex.com - cyphersex.com
Solhosting - http://www.solhosting.com
Dorx.cx - www.dorx.cx
Download Music Mart - downloadmusicmart.com
DrEaMs In DiGiTaL - www.DrEaMs-In-DiGiTaL.tk
desktopsareus.com - desktopsareus.com
Damn Your Ayes - dya.manxblogs.co.uk/
Dustyhouse.org - Dustyhouse.org
Everichon - everichon.com
Ewawoowa - ewawoowa.com/ewawoowa/
Filters Magazine - filtersmag.com
Focus Media - www.focusmedia.org
grey.green-blue.org - Gentle Jones - gentlejones.com
gether.org.uk - gether.org.uk
GobletWillRockYourCocksOff.com - GobletWillRockYourCocksOff.com
Grabbing Sand - grabbingsand.com
Gravatt - integrationresearch.org/gravatt
entroporium.com - entroporium.com
somethingentertainment.co.uk - somethingentertainment.co.uk
HipHopMag.com - HipHopMag.com
jimmature.blogspot.com - jimmature.blogspot.com
greytuesday.holotone.net - greytuesday.holotone.net
Industrial Something - industrialsomething.org
International Music Industry Reform Association - imira.org
G.A.ME - kickgame.com
KRBS-lp 107.1 FM - radiobirdstreet.org
nerdysouth.com - nerdysouth.com
hornbuckle.org - hornbuckle.org
Kottke - www.kottke.org
Lyrical Headbustas - littleeyeontheworld.com - littleeyeontheworld.com
m4hireentertainment.ipbhost.com
Man, Myth, Morland - morland.theoretic.org
Miniscule Wombat - minisculewombat.com
Music For America - musicforamerica.org
maximumletdown.com - maximumletdown.com
Nu-teztament.com - nu-teztament.com
injusticebusters.com - injusticebusters.com
OSBRadio.comand - OSBRadio.comand
One Man And His Blog - 20six.co.uk/bulentyusuf
Pixod - pixod.com
Redlucite - www.redlucite.org
Sampo: The Journal Of Abundant Media - www.charm.net/~pete/ pete.cgi
radicaldreamer.org - radicaldreamer.org
www.ill-natured.com - www.ill-natured.com
rantings And Ravings 2.0 - rantings.shaghaghi.net
skylab.ws - skylab.ws
Shift - www.shiftfilm.com
Simpatico Buttons - http://www.simpaticobuttons.com
Skratchlab Radio - www.skratchlab.com
Slabathon - slabathon.cjb.net
Stephen's Stuff - stephen.speedwebdesign.com/
strangerecords.com - strangerecords.com
Oz Productions - www.ozproductionsmusic.com
Submit Response - submitresponse.co.uk/mt
Subterranean Notes - hine-digital-art.com/weblog/weblog.html
Swarthmore Coalition for the Digital Commons - Swarthmore Coalition for the Digital Commons The Comatorium - thecomatorium.com The Counter Flip - jonferrer.com/counterflip
The Weinerboard - wienerboard.com The Wireless Weblog - thewireless.blogspot.com
Thoughtrepository - www.thoughtrepository.com
Ultimateinsult - www.ultimateinsult.net
WSMF - wsmf.org
vlokfeest.net - vlokfeest.net
Yahtzee Ninja - livejournal.com/users/yahtzeeninja
agentshiphop.com - agentshiphop.com
alesandra.net - alesandra.net
andread.typepad.com - andread.typepad.com
angelfire.com/ks3/acidsuicide - angelfire.com/ks3/acidsuicide
angelsonico.com - angelsonico.com
atmaspheric | endeavors - www.atmasphere.net/mt
badadmin.net - badadmin.net
balderstone.ca - balderstone.ca
bangsplatpresents.com - bangsplatpresents.com
bassnote.tk - bassnote.tk
blog.condimentking.com - blog.condimentking.com
blog.jonhenshaw.com - blog.jonhenshaw.com
blogged.co.uk - blogged.co.uk
blogger bloggen blogs - onlinetagebuecher.de
blogundanga.com - blogundanga.com
carolynhack.com - carolynhack.com
citizenkeith.com - citizenkeith.comcitizenkeith.com
cloudsinthehead.org - cloudsinthehead.org
colorwhirl.livejournal.com - colorwhirl.livejournal.com
condsc.com - condsc.com
consumerwhore.biz - consumerwhore.biz
d8uv.com - d8uv.com
damien.nu - damien.nu
darius.hipjones.com - darius.hipjones.com
deepshell.net - deepshell.net
donewaiting.com - donewaiting.com dork.cx - dork.cx
dqshrine.com/~draquestar - dqshrine.com/~draquestar
draves.org - draves.org
ecaon.homelinux.org - ecaon.homelinux.org
electricsheep.org - electricsheep.org
fairsharers.com - fairsharers.com
flam3.com - flam3.com
fotap.org - fotap.org
free-conversant.com/thom - free-conversant.com/thom
losratones.com - losratones.com
freon84.blogspot.com - freon84.blogspot.com
fujichia.com - fujichia.com
garrettguillotte.com - garrettguillotte.com
geekpunk - www.geekpunk.net
geocities.com/stevejvancamp/VanCamp.html - geocities.com/ stevejvancamp/VanCamp.html
giagia.blogspot.com - giagia.blogspot.com
grillo.tk - grillo.tk
groonk.net - groonk.net
groups.msn.com/Cryingbutstrong/messages.msnw - groups.msn.com/Cryingbutstrong/messages.msnw
hiphopmusic.com - hiphopmusic.com
hobbsnfam.com - hobbsnfam.com
home.earthlink.net/~starwrek - home.earthlink.net/~starwrek
homepage.ntlworld.com/s.huda - homepage.ntlworld.com/s.huda
idledays.net - idledays.net
indexconcept.com - indexconcept.com
j-san.net - j-san.net
jashter.com - jashter.com
john-book.com - john-book.com
jointz.com - jointz.com
karlmuzziklab.blogspot.com - karlmuzziklab.blogspot.com
ctown.blogspot.com - ctown.blogspot.com
leisurely.com - leisurely.com
livejournal.com/users/avalanche641 - livejournal.com/users/ avalanche641
livejournal.com/users/fullofstarz - livejournal.com/users/fullofstarz
livejournal.com/users/helloapollo - livejournal.com/users/helloapollo
livejournal.com/users/sedesdraconis - livejournal.com/users/ sedesdraconis/
livejournal.com/users/soyfeo408 - livejournal.com/users/soyfeo408
livejournal.com/users/umopepisdn - www.livejournal.com/users/ umopepisdn
livejournal.com/~thirty2seconds - www.livejournal.com/ ~thirty2seconds
lwray.mit.edu - lwray.mit.edu
make-believe.org - make-believe.org mediaandshopping.co.uk - mediaandshopping.co.uk
members.tripod.com/RomanaImperia - members.tripod.com/ RomanaImperia
mindnumbles.org - mindnumbles.org
miqrogroove.com - miqrogroove.com
modal.hipjones.com - modal.hipjones.com
muteme.cz - muteme.cz
netzoo.net - netzoo.net
www.nomig.net - www.nomig.net
nuttnet.net - nuttnet.net
odawg003.blogspot.com - odawg003.blogspot.com
p2pnet - p2pnet.net
phallacy.net - phallacy.net
pentdego.com - pentdego.com
perceptionalism.com - perceptionalism.com
peterparkeronair.com - peterparkeronair.com
porcelainrocks.com -porcelainrocks.com
potatoland.com - potatoland.com
radiobots.tk - radiobots.tk
raef.dyndns.org - raef.dyndns.org
randypavelich.com - randypavelich.com
redvolume.com - redvolume.com
remoconscious.com - remoconscious.com
rhapsodic.org - rhapsodic.org
rickbradley.com/chron/20040224/ - rickbradley.com/chron/ 20040224/
rybanaruby.net - rybanaruby.net
scheme23a.com - scheme23a.com
savehiphop.org - savehiphop.org
scottandrew.com - scottandrew.com
sjarvis.com - sjarvis.com
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zenarchery - zenarchery.com


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FBI Warning Labels To Appear On CDs
AP

The FBI said Thursday it is giving Hollywood film studios, music companies and software makers permission to use its name and logo on their DVDs, CDs and other digital media in hopes the labels will deter consumers from making illegal copies.

FBI officials said the idea was conceived jointly by the agency's cyber crime division and representatives of the entertainment and software industries, who claim they've lost billions of dollars due to digital piracy.

"This anti-piracy seal should serve as a warning to those who contemplate the theft of intellectual property, that the FBI will actively investigate cyber crimes and will bring the perpetrators of these criminal acts to justice," said Jana Monroe, assistant director of the FBI's cyber division.

Like the warning messages that have appeared on VHS tapes and DVDs for years, the new labels spell out that unauthorized copying and distribution of digital content is punishable by up to five years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

It will be up to the individual entertainment companies and software manufacturers to decide whether to display the new FBI warnings. Representatives of the various trade groups for the film, software and music industries said Thursday their members were studying whether to affix the warnings on packaging or directly on the CDs and DVDs, so it's unknown how soon they may begin to appear in the marketplace.

U.S. software companies lose up to $12 billion a year to piracy, according to the Software and Information Industry Association. Music companies lost more than $4.6 billion worldwide last year, according to the RIAA, and movie industry officials pegged their annual losses from bootlegged films at more than $3.5 billion.

The entertainment and computer industry has tried to stem piracy by making CDs and DVDs harder to duplicate. But the rise of free file-sharing networks on the Internet the past five years has made it easy for millions of individuals to distribute songs, movies and software worldwide.

The companies have tried civil litigation against firms who enable online file-sharing and last year, the recording industry launched an ongoing wave of lawsuits against individual file-sharers.

"We hope that this is an attention-grabbing reminder to music fans," said Brad Buckles, executive vice president of the Recording Industry Association of America. "Piracy is no victimless crime."

Monroe, whose FBI cyber division was created 18 months ago, said cyber crime is now the agency's third priority behind terrorism and counterintelligence.

Fred von Lohmann, a senior intellectual property attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said he doubts the new warning program will work.

"I'm under no illusions that this kind of label is going to change public perceptions," he said, adding the labels will likely get the same reaction that many people have had to the warnings that appear at the start of movie rentals.

"They found that much more annoying than edifying, and I think that's probably how this will be viewed."

Von Lohmann added the warnings are misleading because they don't explain to consumers that there are exceptions under copyright law, such as one that allows people to make backup copies of their software and other media.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/ptech/0....ap/index.html

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Labels Quietly Seeking P2P Deals
Brian Garrity

The record business is showing increased interest in selling music through peer-to-peer services.

Billboard has learned that the major labels are engaged in private conversations with companies connected to popular P2P services with an eye toward making authorized label content available through the likes of Kazaa and Grokster.

However, significant stumbling blocks remain. The labels do not want to align themselves too closely with services that traffic in unlicensed content, especially in light of the music industry's litigation agenda.

The P2P operators, meanwhile, are reluctant to filter out unlicensed content, as the labels are demanding.

"It's a fundamental problem," one major-label technology chief says. "We'd like to legitimize the P2P systems as much as possible. But we are not going to be setting up our shop in the middle of a street where everyone is distributing pirated goods. It just doesn't make sense."

Most of the talks are with Altnet, a commercial service distributed through Grokster and Kazaa. Exploratory discussions with P2P operators also are taking place on a limited basis, sources say.

Altnet sells digital downloads in much the same way as a mainstream service like Apple's iTunes Music Store. But consumers search for the Altnet files on P2P platforms.

"The major labels are all willing to explore this," says Derek Broes, executive VP of worldwide operations at Woodland Hills, Calif.-based Altnet. "We discuss potential scenarios with them quite often. But striking the right chord is difficult."

Major-label sources say they are not interested in allowing their content to be sold through P2P networks unless network operators filter out unlicensed content and flood their networks with commercial files.

P2P operators -- many of which are embroiled in copyright infringement lawsuits with the recording industry -- have long held that they cannot control the flow of content through their networks. The argument is a key component in their legal defense.

Reaching a resolution on the filtering issue in the midst of litigation is a difficult balancing act, executives from both camps say.

Broes acknowledges that the label decisions in this realm are not entirely being made by "the business leaders" at the labels.

"Those decisions are still being made by the attorneys," he says. "That complicates it."

Altnet is having greater success in the indie-label community, where it claims content deals with more than 30 labels.

In the latest example, Altnet announced a deal Feb. 13 with Artemis Records. Artemis executives say that they are viewing distribution through Altnet as an anti-piracy tool, as well as a commercial opportunity.

"The re-education of the consumer has to start somewhere," says Jordan Flaste, Artemis director of new media. "The new Napster and iTunes are good services, but if I'm a kid already using Kazaa, why am I going to stop?"
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.j...toryID=4407352


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Music Industry's Search Orders On Trial
James Pearce

Lawyers representing record labels and those acting for peer-to-peer companies last Friday argued in the Federal Court of Australia in Sydney whether a controversial order used by the music industry to obtain information about file-sharing companies should be overturned.

Two weeks ago, Music Industry Piracy Investigations (MIPI) obtained Anton Pillar orders encompassing 12 premises across Australia, which allowed it to search for and seize material on the premises it believed may contain evidence of copyright infringement. The following week, lawyers for Sharman Networks told Justice Murray Wilcox that they would challenge the orders on the grounds that not all appropriate evidence was presented during the discovery phase of the orders.

Sharman Networks, the parent company of the popular Kazaa software, is arguing that the case the Australian record labels bought is substantially the same case currently being fought in the United States and should therefore be set aside or deferred until the U.S. case is finished. Lawyers for the record labels argued that the two cases were distinct and independent. Early in the proceedings last Friday, Justice Wilcox questioned whether this case was a duplicate of the one in the United States and indicated that it would be deferred, if it is.

"If it's not a duplication, the fact that Sharman has to fight two unrelated battles on two fronts is unfortunate," said Justice Wilcox, who indicated that the case would continue.

Lawyers for the music industry argued that some of the evidence they collected under the Anton Pillar orders took place while "the system was in action." This meant that they wanted to ascertain the technical detail of the processes involved in file-sharing via the Kazaa network. This level of detail, the lawyers said, was not being collected in the U.S. case. They added that the evidence was "of its nature, likely to be ephemeral."

"The U.S. copyright law is more concerned with structural aspects of the technology...rather than the operation of the software (as the Australian law is)," the lawyer representing the record labels told the judge as a possible reason why the evidence MIPI sought wasn't sought by the U.S. legal team under subpoena.

He said that in the United States, a person had to either personally transmit a copyright-infringing MP3 file or substantially assist that transmission, while in Australia, ancillary acts constitute infringement.

The lawyer representing Kevin Burmeister, the owner of Brilliant Digital Entertainment, which was also raided, brought up some issues for the court concerning the Anton Pillar order. He pointed out that much of the evidence seized during the raid was from Altnet, a subsidiary of Brilliant Digital that wasn't itself mentioned in the Anton Pillar order as a target.

The lawyer also raised the issue that the Anton Pillar order had the effect of seizing the source code of the Altnet software. In the United States, the record labels and Altnet are wrangling over the conditions under which the code will be produced, and Altnet is now concerned that it may have lost control of that process.
http://asia.cnet.com/newstech/person...9169314,00.htm


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FBI Ratchets Up Fight Against Music Piracy
Erika Morphy

"If you're on a P2P network, you could be bumping up against all the worms and viruses carried by other users of that network. And you could become a carrier of worms and viruses that are written by misanthropic hackers specifically to spread via popular P2P networks," the FBI warns.

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The Federal Bureau of Investigation has launched the latest salvo in the war against digital piracy, joining forces with such organizations as the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA), and the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) to combat this multibillion dollar problem.

But for all the hoopla -- representatives from all groups spoke at a Los Angeles press conference -- the new campaign largely amounts to relaunching some low- tech weapons that already have been tried. However, the FBI will be wielding them this time.

The government agency announced the start of a letter campaign to users and potential users of peer-to-peer networks. It also unveiled a new anti-piracy seal and warning text to be displayed on future copyrighted materials.

Do's And Don'ts

"It is our hope that when consumers see the new FBI warning on the music they purchase, both physically and digitally, they will take the time to learn the do's and don'ts of copying and uploading to the Internet," said Brad Buckles, RIAA executive vice president and director of anti-piracy. The seal is meant to reinforce the fact that making unauthorized copies or uploading music without permission are "serious crimes with serious consequences, including federal prosecution," he said, "and consumers should be aware of them."

The seal, which is similar to the FBI logo in many respects, has five stars but no laurel leaves; also, the shield is displayed at the top of the blue field. At some date in the relatively near future -- nothing specific has been decided -- the anti-piracy shield will start popping up on the warning screens of videos and DVDs, as well as the millions and millions of CDs, games, software packages and other digital media that are produced each year.

The primary targets of the campaign are the users of the peer-to-peer networks that have flourished in the wake of Napster's demise. "If P2P software isn't configured correctly, it can open up your entire hard drive for others to see and download," the FBI warns. "If you're on a P2P network, you could be bumping up against all the worms and viruses carried by other users of that network. And you could become a carrier of worms and viruses that are written by misanthropic hackers specifically to spread via popular P2P networks."

At Your Own Risk

Certainly, it is true that users log onto P2P networks at their own peril. Besides the legal issues, P2P applications -- along with spyware and Trojans -- are a huge security risk, not only for personal users but also for corporate networks, according to threat-analysis research from I.T. security firm TruSecure.

For example, the firm found that up to 60 percent of the files collected via Kazaa are viruses, Trojan horse programs and backdoors. Indeed, mega-disaster MyDoom was seeded, in part, via the popular music Web site.

"Hackers are putting Trojans in Kazaa using words like 'XP,' 'crack,' or 'porn' in hopes that they will be picked up by users," Bruce Hughes, director of malicious code research at TruSecure's ICSA Labs, told NewsFactor.

Seal the Deal

But somehow one gets the impression that it is the US$3 billion in lost revenues that most concerns the participants -- at least the private-sector cadre. It is debatable how effective the new push will be. Much, of course, depends how hard the FBI will start policing these networks and whether it makes examples of individuals caught in its sweeps.

The feds, in general, have been stepping up investigation and prosecution of online crimes, Paul Robertson, director of risk at TruSecure, told NewsFactor. "They are going after more people and getting better and better at it," he said. And they are garnering better and more coordinated cooperation from their international and foreign counterparts. "That is a huge accomplishment as well," he added.

It is unlikely that a new seal and a letter campaign will stem the tide of illegal online music sharing. Despite the high-profile stories of preteens and grandparents caught up in the RIAA's lawsuits, the impact of the hardball tactics has been slight, says Eric Garland, CEO of BigChampagne, a company that tracks P2P activity.

"Even if they keep suing 500 people a month for the rest of our natural lives, the odds are against them getting to any one specific individual -- after all, there are 100 million people online swapping files," he told NewsFactor.

Basically, he said, the music industry missed the boat. It should have been there to offer a viable alternative to the P2P sites when people began flocking to them.

Now, he said, the best solution is to make the point of the transaction the payment vehicle. "I think having ISPs licensed to distribute music is the ultimate solution." For now, the FBI is going to give its way a shot.
http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtm...story_id=23216


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Cashing In On Ring Tones
Bob Tedeschi

TURNS out, teenagers are happy to pay for digital music - as long as they are forced to listen to cheap facsimiles of songs on speakers the size of a dime.

O.K., maybe that is a bit unfair. But there is no denying that ring tones, those synthesized melodies like 50 Cent's "In Da Club" that are programmed to play when a cellphone rings, are fast becoming a big business for record labels and mobile phone services. Last year, cellphone users worldwide, most of them young people, spent $2.5 billion to $3.5 billion on custom ring tones. Total music industry sales worldwide for 2002, the last year for which figures are available, were $32 billion, according to the IFPI, a trade group.

The American ring tone market is a couple of years behind Europe and Japan's, and is just beginning to take off, with an estimated $80 million to $100 million sold over the wireless Web last year. Cellphone users in the United States are expected to spend $140 million to $200 million this year.

For record labels, this bonanza is good news from what has been the music industry's bugaboo, the Internet, where peer-to-peer services like Kazaa and Grokster have sprung up to allow the industry's most avid customers to download, free, to a personal computer just about any song they want.

But the hopes of record companies for extra riches from selling ring tones could be tempered by the emergence of other Web-based businesses like Xingtone, which has started selling a $15 software kit that allows consumers to turn digital music files, whether acquired legitimately or illegitimately, into better-sounding "ring tunes" - cutting the labels and wireless carriers out of the deal.

Until now, there has been no effective way to cut a clip from a song available digitally as an MP3 file and put it on a cellphone.

Xingtone's software gets around that obstacle. The president of Xingtone, Brad Zutaut, says that more than 40,000 people have downloaded the software, most of them in the last two months when the company was giving it away to build awareness.

Mr. Zutaut said that music labels and cellphone companies could reasonably view Xingtone as a threat, but he contended that they should look at him as a potential business partner.

"This is quite an attractive market to us," said John Rose, executive vice president of the EMI Group, the London-based record label. "We think it'll be a significant multibillion-dollar market over the next couple of years as the new handsets roll out."

For music labels, ring tunes may prove significantly more profitable than ring tones, which generally generate publishing royalties of roughly 15 percent. With ring tunes, licensees also pay master recording royalties of 30 to 50 percent, industry executives said.

That is where Xingtone could make a big difference. On one hand, by making it easy to create one's own ring tunes, it could force cellphone companies and record labels to sell their own tunes at lower prices. On the other, it could also serve as a vehicle to encourage wider sales of music in various forms.

Mr. Zutaut pointed to the approach of Sugarcult, a pop band that will include a limited version of Xingtone's software on its new CD's, allowing users to make their own ring tunes. To make ring tunes with other music, users would buy Xingtone's full software program, and Sugarcult would split the revenue.

"It's an incredible promotion vehicle," Mr. Zutaut said.

Mr. Zutaut also contends that the practice is legal because it represents a fair use of music that consumers already own. Industry executives, and representatives of the Recording Industry Association of America, declined to comment on Xingtone's legality.

Many in the industry are watching Xingtone, as well as emerging hardware technologies that could allow people to share ring tones between phones, because they could damage the market.

"The threats to this business,'' a Yankee Group analyst, Adam Zawel, said, "will only increase over time."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/23/te...rtne r=GOOGLE


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Colleges Regulate File Sharing, Downloading
Erin Anthony

So, have you seen the Paris Hilton videos, the ones that aren’t in grainy night-vision? What about the Super Bowl? Did you look away for one second and miss the infamous “wardrobe malfunction?” Have you heard the newest Kanye West song?

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you should probably come out from underneath that rock and begin file sharing.

Most students have seen the videos or heard the music and probably have copies of them stored on their computers. Cherish them. Someday such indulgences may no longer be available at Lehigh.

Many students have committed the heinous act of file sharing. They enhance their own digital libraries with copyrighted songs and movies stolen from the rich. But the rich will not take it anymore.

The Recording Industry of America and Motion Picture Association of America have launched an attack on file sharers. In the United States alone, record labels have filed copyright infringement lawsuits against more than 900 people who use file sharing networks, according to the Los Angeles Times.

During the spring of 2003, Library and Technology Services received 148 cease and desist orders from copyright holders, The Brown and White reported. The students cited were required to remove copyrighted materials from their computers, according to Vice Provost Bruce Taggart.

The university has not had to divulge the identities of any offenders, and no students have been referred to the office of judicial affairs, said Chris Mulvihill, assistant dean of students.

The record and movie industry are targeting people involved in person-to-person file sharing. This most often involves downloading software like Kazaa to access copyrighted files. The service allows for users to freely download music and movies from one another without the consent of the artists.

The Canadian Recording Industry Association targets high-volume song traders who have slightly less than 1,000 to 3,500 songs stored on their computers and available for others to download, according to the Toronto Star.

Even though the Internet seems anonymous, it is not. Each computer can be identified through an IP address. When high-volume users are pinpointed, officials match the IP address to subscriber information.

In Lehigh’s case, computers would be identified as belonging to Lehigh’s ISP. The university could then be required to divulge the identities of the individuals involved. Lehigh has only been required to tell users to delete the files and has not been forced to disclose names to copyright holders. However, colleges faced with subpoenas under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act must cooperate and provide copyright holders with the identities of the offenders.

Rather than dealing with legal action, many colleges and universities opted to police their own networks. The most severe cases of policing involve the University of Florida and the United States Naval Academy.

The University of Florida (UF) developed a program called ICARUS (Integrated Computer Application for Recognizing User Services), according to the St. Petersburg Times. ICARUS monitors network activity on UF’s dorm intranet, which is used by 9,000 students.

The program shuts down file sharing at sites containing copyrighted music, movies and games. If students continue to download files after warnings, ICARUS will restrict their Internet use to on-campus sites for five to 30 days.

Some institutions have gone a step further. In November 2002, the United States Naval Academy cracked down on illegally downloaded movies and music. One hundred midshipmen were stripped of their computers, according to The New York Times.

Most universities are taking less severe approaches to contain illegal file sharing. The Washington Post reported that students at Pennsylvania State are required to pay for downloads. Using Napster, now a paid service, students will have access to more than 500,000 songs and 40 radio stations. The service fee is included in the university’s technology fee of $160 per semester.

The possibility of Lehigh implementing a similar fee based program was mentioned a September 2003 Brown and White article. Taggart said Lehigh would consider this option after seeing how it fared at other universities first.

Student reactions to a fee based program are mixed.

“I guess it depends on the fee,” Apurva Upadhyay, ’06, said. “I personally do not think that downloading is wrong, but I do feel guilty that I can get it for free when others cannot. But I think Lehigh would have to charge for music in a manner that would still make it cheaper than other internet services and the cost to rent a movie or buy a CD.”

Other students refuse to pay for downloads.

“I would never pay to download music,” Matt Kershener,’04, said. “With how much money these artists make from selling records and going on tour, not to mention their endorsements. How can you feel sorry for them? They still make more money than most people will ever see in a lifetime. Besides, if their album is really good enough to buy, people are going to buy it anyway.”

Instead of charging for downloads, Lehigh, like Northeastern University, Stanford University and the University of California, Los Angeles, chose to limit the bandwidth available for downloads through a technique called “traffic shaping.”

Bandwidth can be thought of as a pipe. The bandwidth speed indicates the rate of information flow to the Internet, like water through different pipe widths.

Lehigh students are allowed to download two gigabytes per 72-hour period. If a student should exceed two gigabytes of uploads or downloads, they will be placed in the “Penalty Box” for 72 hours. The Penalty Box automatically reduces the connection speed to all off-campus Internet sites. Students sentenced to the Penalty Box experience slower loading of Web pages, dropped instant messenger conversations and general problems connecting to the Internet.

File sharing programs such as Kazaa are the primary cause of students exceeding their off-campus internet traffic limit, according to the LTS.

For now, file sharers at Lehigh are safe. They can download music hampered only the occasional annoyance of a slow connection.
http://www.bw.lehigh.edu/story.asp?ID=17243


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CD Sales Rise, but Industry Is Still Wary
Chris Nelson

For the last three years, bad news about the music industry has been as steady as a synthesized drumbeat. But a turnaround that began quietly last fall has become unmistakable with the success of Norah Jones's new album, "Feels Like Home." The CD, which recently sold more than a million copies in its first week in stores, helped extend a nearly consistent five-month string of industry growth, as measured by weekly sales compared with year-earlier periods.

So why are so few people in the music world ready to celebrate an industry comeback?

"The past four or five months has turned the predictive ability of all of us on its head," said Michael Nathanson, an investment analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein & Company who specializes in the music business. "I think people are holding their breath."

Although executives at some music labels and retail outlets are proclaiming a turnaround, much of the industry remains clouded by uncertainty. The planned merger of the music divisions owned by Sony and Bertelsmann is awaiting regulatory approval, for example, while Time Warner's music group is still ironing out details of its sale to an consortium of private investors.

And certainly the uptick in music retail sales since last September has not been enough to keep the parent company of the 93-store Tower Records chain, MTS, from filing for bankruptcy protection. Meanwhile, while song sales on iTune and other licensed downloading services are growing, unauthorized song swapping on the Internet still outnumbers paid downloads more than a hundredfold. Last week the recording industry's trade group sued 531 additional computer users, accusing them of illegally trading music files.

"We're still suffering as an industry," said Monte Lipman, the president of Universal Records, whose artists include the rapper Nelly and rock group 3 Doors Down.

And yet, it has been hard to ignore signs of a rebound. First-week sales of Ms. Jones's new album were only part of the industry's good news for seven-day period that ended Feb. 15. Through that period, the most recent for which data are available, album sales for the beginning of 2004 were up 13 percent from the comparable period of 2003, according to Nielsen SoundScan, which tracks music sales.

It was the biggest Valentine's Day sales week since SoundScan began operating in 1991. And it was also the first week ever in which downloaded song sales topped two million.

Several factors are at work in the rising sales figures, Mr. Nathanson said. For starters, by the end of 2002 and the beginning of 2003, CD sales had dropped so significantly that they were easy to top. This year's growth of 13 percent for the first six weeks compares with a decline of 3.6 percent in the corresponding period last year.

Last fall also benefited from a strong release schedule, with albums that became hits from the rappers OutKast and Ludacris; the pop singers Ruben Studdard, Rod Stewart and Josh Groban; and the rocker Sheryl Crow. Price cuts have also helped; some major-label albums now sell for closer to $10 than the nearly $20 that was formerly the industry standard.

Artists who appeal to music-buying baby boomers - like Ms. Jones; Mr. Stewart; the former Doobie Brother, Michael McDonald; and the retro-crooner Harry Connick Jr. - continue to contribute a significant portion of overall sales. And Universal, for one, is hoping boomers flock to CD's due this year from Stevie Wonder and Elton John.

The success of "Feels Like Home" by Ms. Jones, the follow-up to "Come Away with Me," her 2002 debut album, which sold eight million copies, bodes well for the industry, said Bruce Lundvall, the president and chief executive for jazz and classics at EMI Music, which owns the Blue Note label on which Ms. Jones records. Until recently, "there's been an awful lot of trash out there,'' Mr. Lundvall said, "and I think a lot of people are disenfranchised."

While the music labels have tended to blame Internet music sharing and CD copying for the slump of the last three years, the industry's critics have cited high CD prices and substandard music as the real reasons that annual album sales fell to 687 million units by last year, down by almost 100 million units, or 12.5 percent, from 2000.

Whatever caused the slump, it has forced the industry to try new marketing tactics, said Will Botwin, the president of Sony's Columbia Records Group. Columbia, for instance, sought to stoke demand for Mr. Connick's recently released "Only You" by first issuing a Christmas album, "Harry for the Holidays," in October. That was a reversal of the time-honored strategy of issuing Christmas collections to ride the success of recent hit albums. In the first two weeks after its Feb. 3 release, Mr. Connick's "Only You" sold 360,000 copies in stores.

The industry's big challenge, though, is still unauthorized online trading of music files. Even as download sales through Web stores like as iTunes are increasing, so is the number of people who illegally share music files, according to BigChampagne, which tracks file swapping. At the end of 2003, the most popular services for unauthorized file sharing had 5.6 million users, compared with 3.93 million a year earlier, a spokesman for BigChampagne, Eric Garland, said. Those users are now illegally trading about 250 million songs each week.

Although there is no hard data to support their view, music labels and retailers say that legal action taken against computer users accused of illegal song swapping has helped drive people back into stores for music. When the Recording Industry Association of America filed its first round of suits in September, it received a raft of bad publicity. But two rounds of litigation so far this year against more than 1,000 computer users have prompted little public outcry.

"People are over this, 'I should get my music free,' " said David Munns, the chairman and chief executive of EMI Recorded Music North America. "I think there's a tide turn in the American psyche on that."

With the industry insisting that piracy remains a serious enough problem to warrant lawsuits, it might not make good public relations sense for executives to crow about a turnaround in sales.

And music specialty retailers, for their part, know that general merchandisers like Wal-Mart and Target are cutting into their earnings. Michael G. Spinozzi, the senior vice president and chief marketing officer at the Borders Group, the big record and book retailer, acknowledged the effect the big discount retailers were having. But he added that record companies could drive sales up across the board if they devoted more resources to developing new talent instead of relying on back catalog sales.

Recording executives realize that it will take more than a Norah Jones album to bring stability back to the industry. That is why, in the months ahead, executives will be closely watching the public's reaction to albums from Janet Jackson, Avril Lavigne and the Beastie Boys, among others.

"The sense from both labels and retail is a desire to be cautiously optimistic," said Rob Sisco, the president of Nielsen Music, which operates SoundScan. "And I can understand that because we're coming off of very severe times."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/23/bu...rtn er=GOOGLE


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Do Lawsuits Deter File-Sharers?
Jason Straziuso

GREG Kullberg first started downloading free music off the internet as a college freshman in 1996.

He stopped — mostly — after the recording industry started filing lawsuits against file- sharers last year.

"Right away when I heard about it I actually went home and uninstalled my software," the 25-year-old Boston software consultant said. But like many users, he still downloads: "I'd say one song a week instead of before, it was maybe 20 a day."

The music industry, which filed suit against another 531 internet users last week, says its tactics are slowing the tide of free downloads, citing cases like Kullberg's.

A study released in January that surveyed 1,358 internet users in late fall found the number of Americans downloading music dropped by half from six months earlier, with 17 million fewer people doing it nationwide.

But some experts and users say that file sharers are only being more secretive, and that file swapping is actually increasing. At least two research firms say more than 150 million songs are being downloaded free every month.

The Recording Industry Association of America has sued 1,445 people since September, with the latest batch of 531 coming this month against people in Philadelphia, Atlanta, Orlando, Fla., and Trenton, N.J. Most of the earlier cases have been settled, for an average of $3,000 each.

"I think the RIAA's campaign is clearly and demonstrably having a tremendous effect, I'm just not sure to what end," said Eric Garland, chief executive of BigChampagne, an online media tracking firm.

Graham Mudd, a researcher at comScore Networks, said the number of consumers paying for music via services like Apple's iTunes and Napster pales in comparison to the file-sharing sights like Kazaa. But he says the lawsuits are decreasing free downloads.

"The faucet is still absolutely on," he said. "I just think the flow may have been slightly limited."

Mitch Bainwol, the chairman and chief executive of the RIAA, said the record two million songs legally sold last week, mostly on iTunes and Napster, prove the lawsuits are educating users.

"There will always be piracy — there is on the physical side, there will be on the online side — but most people won't do it when they understand the legal consequences," Bainwol said.

The January study from comScore and the Pew Internet & American Life project found that 52 per cent of 18- to 29-year-olds downloaded music last spring, but only 28 per cent did after the lawsuits were filed.

Like Kullberg, others say their habits have changed.

Marissa Sinclair, a 22-year-old Philadelphia school teacher, said she and a half dozen friends stopped downloading because of the lawsuits.

Jeremy Spurr, 26, a financial planner in Boston, said the suits, which were filed only against people who share music, have stopped his friends from sharing songs with each other, but not downloading it for themselves.

Kullberg and Spurr both say the suits have driven file sharers to private servers or anonymizing services that mask internet users' identities.

"I think people realise that, hey, if we're going to do this, we have to be quiet," Kullberg said.

BigChampagne's Garland said he thinks the January study — which did not measure computer use but surveyed users only about their habits — shows the lawsuits' biggest effect was educational: People now know file sharing is illegal so they lie about doing it.

"They have effectively put music downloading in the same stigmatized category as teen smoking," Garland said. "People know when they should be shy about an issue."

Garland said that while Apple hopes to sell 100 million US99c songs in one 12-month period, "10 billion, or more than 100 times that, will be downloaded in MP3 form for free."

Industry numbers can be confusing. The NPD Group found the number of songs downloaded increased from September 2003 to November 2003, when it was 166 million. Nielsen/NetRatings, though, found the number of unique users on Kazaa dropped by half to 7.3 million users in December 2003 from a year earlier.

Still, many point out, that's 7.3 million users compared with 1,445 lawsuits.

"No matter what they do, it's not going to work," Spurr said. "To me the lawsuits are useless because the internet is about sharing."
http://www.boston.com/business/techn...despite_suits/


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Spinning Off The Web

Independent music stores face a rocky reality in the age of file sharing and easy downloads. But some local store owners roll with the punches.
Louis Hau

Fifteen-year-old Samantha Schultz, a student at Dixie Hollins High School, plunks down $29 to buy a four-compact-disc live album by Phish, a band she first heard when a friend burned her a CD of their music.

Brian Mellgren, the assistant manager at Daddy Cool Records on Central Avenue in St. Petersburg, expresses relief after Samantha leaves with her purchase.

"That one worked in our favor," Mellgren says. "I overhear quite a bit "Don't buy it, I can burn it for you,' or "I got it for free off the Web last night.' "

That has the 24-year-old Mellgren wondering what the future holds for such stores as Daddy Cool.

"I just love CDs, I love getting new CDs," he says. "I'm worried that people don't share that thrill, and that frightens me."

Mellgren has good reason to be scared. According to Billboard magazine, four retail music chains and four wholesale distributors filed for bankruptcy protection or were liquidated in 2003. The trade magazine also estimates that upwards of 1,000 music stores closed during the year, about twice the number expected a year earlier.

The recent shakeout in the industry has been so severe that just one company - Trans World Entertainment Corp. of Albany, N.Y. - now controls what remains of the once-prominent national and regional chains Camelot Music, the Wall, the Wherehouse, Strawberries Music, Spec's, Disc Jockey and SecondSpin.com. Trans World also owns FYE, Record Town and Coconuts Music & Movies.

Even pioneering music chain Tower Records of Sacramento, Calif., has been hit hard. After closing stores and liquidating inventory during the past few years, heavily indebted Tower finally filed for bankruptcy protection this month.

It's a trend that's also playing out in the Tampa Bay area. A little more than a year after taking over Planet Grooves on Gulf-to-Bay Boulevard in Clearwater, Park Avenue CDs of Winter Park closed the Clearwater store in January because of poor sales. The Music Network, the Norcross, Ga., parent of Turtle's Music, went belly up last year. Daddy Cool Records closed its Sarasota store in late 2002 and another one in October just a few doors down from its current location in St. Petersburg.

The shakeout has been toughest for music retailing's endangered species: the independent record store.

Competition is hardly new for independents. "Mom and pop" record stores have always been under pressure from larger rivals - department stores in the pre- and early-rock era and large retail chains such as Musicland, Sam Goody and Tower in the '60s, '70s and '80s.

But the competitive pressures have multiplied many times over. Big-box discounters such as Wal-Mart, Best Buy and Circuit City price many of their new CD releases at or below cost. The music is used as a "loss leader" to pull in customers who might buy more profitable merchandise such as TVs and DVD players, according to Scott Krugman, a spokesman for the National Retail Federation in Washington.

Then there's the Internet boom. File-sharing software such as the original version of Napster and the more recent Kazaa have grabbed the most headlines and have spurred legal action by record labels. But the wave of the future may be music subscription services and 99-cent-a-song downloads, led by the successful rollout of Apple Computer's iTunes Music Store. For those who don't want to burn their own CDs, sales of CDs by Amazon.com, Half.com and other online merchants present another shopping option that didn't exist in the pre-Web days.

Phil Leigh, an industry analyst who heads Inside Digital Media Inc. in Tampa, thinks the recording industry should make its peace with music downloading. Leigh points to study data suggesting that the explosive popularity of Napster in its initial incarnation as a file-sharing site was based more on its vast catalog and instant access to music than the fact that its downloads were free.

The subsequent success of iTunes and the popularity of digital music players, such as Apple's iPod, provide further evidence that consumers are ready to pay for Internet distribution of music, even if the recording industry is still wary, Leigh says.

While that may be good news for record companies in the long run, Leigh predicts it will also sound the death knell for music retailers, particularly independent ones.

"Unless they're trust babies or they've got a wealthy spouse, these businesses are not going to last," Leigh says. "All businesses need some kind of growth, but . . . growth in prerecorded CDs is as dead as Gen. Custer."

Sales forecasts from Forrester Research Inc. of Cambridge, Mass., appear to bear out Leigh's long-term outlook.

In a recent report, Forrester analyst Josh Bernoff projects U.S. CD sales will rebound from $10.7-billion in 2003 to about $11.3-billion in 2006, then begin a decline the following year, sliding to $9.3-billion in 2008. He expects rapid revenue growth in fee-based downloads and online music subscriptions as more American households connect to the Internet via high-speed connections.

"Music labels should get out of the plastic business," Bernoff says in his report. "Spend less energy on manufacturing and distributing a shrinking number of CDs and focus more on the new source of growth - downloads and subscriptions."
http://www.sptimes.com/2004/02/22/Bu..._the_Web.shtml


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Your Money

Citrix Systems Inc. advanced $1.15, or 6 percent, to $20.41, for the biggest gain in the S&P 500. The maker of file-sharing software for clients such as Mary Kay Inc. will have ``strong'' growth in 2004 revenue and earnings, Tom Ernst, an analyst at Thomas Weisel Partners, wrote in a report. He raised his rating to ``outperform'' from ``peer perform.''
http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news...gME&refer=home

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Tuning Out Radio
Ben Rayner

For all their "playing what we want" marketing ploys, the JACKs and the BOBs in this country still pull from playlists of only about 600 songs apiece which, sadly, is way more variety than most stations bother to offer that emphasize the same, tired batch of artists you'll hear on CHUM or Q-107, anyway. What has all this hard-fought freedom brought us? Phil Collins, Meat Loaf, Aerosmith and Hall and Oates. Great to finally hear those guys getting their due on radio, isn't it? Been a long time coming.

Meanwhile, the most successful mainstream milieu for "breaking" an artist these days remains the TV commercial. Moby knew it, the Dandy Warhols knew it and, most recently, the Flaming Lips appear to have caught on, offering up their Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots single, "Do You Realize??," for round-the-clock airing on a Mitsubishi commercial. Although I can honestly say I never, ever need to hear that song again, the ubiquitous "Do You Realize??" ad has likely been responsible for nearly as many record sales in the past month as the likeable Lips have managed over the past 20 years and 10 albums. It has also helped the band reach an entirely new, demographically broad-ranging audience that never would have come into contact with its music via radio.

Until now, anyway: I heard "Do You Realize??" on that bastion of mom 'n' pop soft rock, CHUM-FM, while riding in a cab last week. Good on the Lips, I guess, but when TV advertising is responsible for breaking new songs at radio, the airwaves are far worse off than we thought.
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/Con...l=969483191630


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Hand Delivered Radio
Jack Spratts

What’s the opposite of “Broadcast”? Narrowcast? Well in this case, try microcast. The show is called Acts of Volition Radio. It’s all about obscure gems and it comes from Canada. Each program is prerecorded, then hosted from a server, not streamed, and available to you in however long it takes to download a 30 to 60 megabyte file. It’s yours to keep of course, although the CRIA may chime in with something to say about that, even if the new artists themselves are happy to be featured.

The host is Steven Garrity, a gentle musical elitist with a sweet sense of humor (he’s knows he's an elitist, but he’s from Canada so how superior can he be?)

This is a great way to do a show. I’d like to give it try myself. It’s both low and high tech and at the same time points up the folly of the RIAA’s policy of hyper control. It sounds like fun. If you do get one of his programs why not share it…

I am.

http://www.p2p-zone.com/underground/...threadid=18869


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He actually said “Preserving the quality of life for individual consumers.”

Federal Attorney Warns U.S. Copyrights, Patents under Electronic Siege
Bob Mims

America's aging safeguards for copyrights and patents are proving increasingly ineffective as schemes for copying and illegally sharing digital information grow more sophisticated, an intellectual property expert says.

Yet the economic danger posed by such erosion of product and technology rights is practically unknown, lamented Thomas D. Snydor II, an attorney for the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee.

"People need to understand how critical these rights are -- not just to the success of businesses, but to preserving the quality of life for individual consumers," he told a Wednesday breakfast meeting of the Utah Information Technology Association.

Copyrights, patents and trademarks not only protect revenue for inventions and methodology, but provide seed money for further entrepreneurism. They also act as a quality guarantee for products consumers buy, Snydor said.

Predicting technological advances will continue at a dizzying pace, Snydor said it will be inevitable that "all the systems of [defining and protecting] intellectual property rights are going to be challenged.

"How do we make those rights function as intended, and remain relevant moving into the new millennium?" he asked, noting that in the past decade alone, patenting activity in the United States has increased threefold.

Today, the nation's music and movie industries struggle against millions of computer users sharing files illegally. Further, new copying technology emerges almost in tandem with the recording giants' latest protection schemes -- and encrypted file-sharing programs are making it more difficult to ferret out offenders.

While the recording industry has been aggressive in prosecuting pirates, Snydor said only swift attention by the nation's lawmakers can ultimately rebuild crumbling copyright barriers.

"There is a basic threat to the continued relevance of those rights as more forms of intellectual property become digitized," he said.

Earlier, Utah House Speaker Marty Stephens, R-Farr West, agreed that technology-related issues "have a transformation going on" in the business of the Legislature. More than 40 bills introduced this session are somehow tech-related, he said.

Among those are bills to create a Child Protection Registry to shield minors from harmful e-mails; require public libraries to filter personal computers used by children; and restrictions on "radio frequency tags" -- tiny transmitters that track customers shopping habits -- and "spyware," programs that are secretly placed on consumers' PCs to report similar data to third parties.

Senate Majority Whip John Valentine, R-Orem, identified Utopia, a $540 million proposal to install fiber-optic broadband service to 18 Utah cities, as among the hottest of the tech debates.

"It's a huge issue that is polarizing people," he said. "It is so close right now in the Senate that I don't know where this is going to go."
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald...al/8001391.htm


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Even cheaper to use SoulSeek

How To Never Lose Pepsi's iTunes Giveaway
jonknee

After the Super Bowl, Mac fans everywhere went to their local convenience stores to look for the iTunes labeled Pepsi bottles. If your store was like mine, you probably went home empty handed. It takes a few weeks for new bottles to make it down the supply chain, but they are now finally at most stores. Read on to find out how to never get a bottle that doesn't win.

Pepsi has stated they believe they will have to pay for about 1/3 of the 100 million songs it's giving away. That means 2/3 of the people that win don't care about iTunes. So I say, let's let them have the unlucky caps. They weren't going to cash them in anyway.

Your first task is to find a store that has the coveted sugar water. Just look for the yellow caps. Diet Pepsi, Pepsi and Sierra Mist all have them.

Once you've captured a bottle, use the below image as a guide to try and uncover its destiny.
http://www.macmerc.com/article.php?sid=1270


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Low-Tech 'Hack' Takes Fizz Out Of Pepsi-iTunes Promo
Jim Hu

It doesn't take a code breaker or a math whiz to lift songs from Apple Computer's iTunes online music store--it just takes a good pair of eyes and a trip to the corner store.

iTunes fans have "hacked" a high-profile Pepsi promotion aimed at giving away 100 million songs through special codes marked on the underside of bottle caps. The codes can be entered on the iTunes site to download a single for free. One in three bottles is a winner, but it turns out that the markings can be read without removing the cap.

CNET News.com confirmed that it is not only possible to pick out winning bottles in advance; careful scrutiny can reveal the full 10-digit redemption code, meaning no purchase is required to get a free iTunes single courtesy of Pepsi.

"I've always been looking under caps whenever they had a giveaway," said Jon Gales, Webmaster for MacMerc.com, an online community for Macintosh users and developers, which published a detailed description of the code-grabbing technique on Wednesday. "I thought it was human nature. People have been doing it for years."

The bottle cap loophole could disrupt Pepsi's ambitious marketing campaign, which kicked off with splashy TV spots that aired during the Super Bowl and also took a shot at file-swappers. The giveaway comes amid growing interest in music as a promotional tool for soft drinks and other products. Pepsi's archrival, Coke, has also jumped into digital music, launching a digital download store in Europe.

Pepsi said that as a precaution against prying eyes and other shenanigans, the company restricted the number of codes a given customer could redeem in a day.

"We always put redemption limits in place on promotions like this," said Dave DeCecco, a Pepsi spokesman, "but we found that most consumers played by the rules."

Apple declined to comment.

Macmerc Webmaster Gales said he discovered the exploit shortly after seeing the bottles in stores. But he said he paid for the bottles after selecting winners.

"The store's happy because they're still making a sale, and Pepsi is happy too," Gales said. "The difference between this game and other games is you don't have to save caps, send them away and wait 8 weeks to get a T-shirt. The instant gratification made it more fun to get a winner."
http://news.com.com/2100-1027-5162098.html


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Thomson And Philips Move Away From Consumer, Cut Jobs
Junko Yoshida

The return to profitability by European electronics giants Thomson and Philips signals that their drastic restructuring strategies are working, the companies said after reporting strong fourth quarter 2003 financial results.

Still, the two companies differed sharply on where to go from here, and how each plans to execute plans for building a new core business that will be better shielded from the brutally competitive and low-margin battleground of consumer electronics.

Neither Thomson nor Philips, despite the fame of their brands and their similar roots as leading TV manufacturers, wants to be known primarily as a consumer electronics company.

Thomson is angling to become a one-stop shop for megamedia companies such as News Corp., after completing a series of landmark acquisitions that included Grass Valley and Technicolor. The French company, which owns the leading consumer brands RCA and Thomson, is moving quickly into the more profitable professional video market by offering broadcast equipment, post-production and replication services and broadband access products such as set tops. Thomson's new mantra is to serve those in “the content creation, distribution and access” businesses.

Thomson's focus on content creators, distribution and access businesses makes sense, as long as media companies continue to merge. Thomson's Dehelly said, “It will give [media conglomerates] comfort if they know that one company — like us — can make sure their content can securely stay encrypted throughout the video chain,” he explained.

Doherty agreed. Thomson offers “a bridge that works.” He said. That includes "embedded Meta data and rights management, from camera to consumer.”

Beyond the satellite market, Thomson is also emphasizing IP video boxes. Michelle Abraham, senior analyst at In-Stat said, “IP video boxes have enormous growth potential, but this requires investment by telcos."

IMS Research has forecast annual shipments of satellite set tops reaching 31.8 million units by 2008, while TV-over-DSL boxes could reach 1.4 million units.
http://www.eetimes.com/story/OEG20040219S0001


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Microsoft Creates a Stir in Its Work With the U.N.
John Markoff And Jennifer L. Schenker

The chairman of the Microsoft Corporation, Bill Gates, won widespread applause in January when he trumpeted an agreement to give $1 billion in software and cash to the United Nations as part of a job-training program for the developing world.

But Microsoft did not seek any attention for a much smaller amount that it contributed earlier to pay some travel expenses for a United Nations business standards group.

That payment, critics say, had a much more opportunistic motive than the big donation.

Several software industry executives and technologists contend that Microsoft has been moving behind the scenes to undercut support for a set of business-to-business electronic transaction standards jointly developed by the United Nations and an industry-sponsored international standards group.

Microsoft and senior United Nations officials said that the accusation was false and that the company's contributions were relatively modest, complied with United Nations guidelines, and did not unduly influence decision making.

Microsoft and I.B.M. have been trying to gain backing for a competing approach to writing Internet software, which the two companies argue would be a better, more general solution for business-to-business computer communications than the original United Nations-developed standard, known as "electronic business using extensible markup language,'' or ebXML in the trade.

The previously hidden dispute may seem arcane, but it revolves around computing standards that are likely to help determine control over an emerging generation of Web services software that is designed to automate buying and selling through networks of computer connections. Many industry executives predict that the new software will ultimately supplant computer operating systems as the linchpin of the industry.

This new fight is occurring as Microsoft, the world's largest software company, moves to the final stages of its legal dispute with antitrust regulators in Europe over its right to integrate features of its competitors' products into its Windows operating system. On another front, Microsoft is being challenged by an array of open-source programs - starting with Linux but expanding to other arenas - that are being developed by a loosely organized group of software programmers and distributed at little or no cost.

"Microsoft would love to live in a proprietary world," said Robert J. Glushko, director of the Center for Document Engineering at the University of California at Berkeley and an initiator of the ebXML standards effort. "They are finding it difficult to live in a standards-based world."

Several technologists who have participated in the United Nations-supported standards-setting effort said the dispute was a new, critical stage in the long fight between Microsoft and its competitors over what they see as Microsoft's overly aggressive business practices. One United Nations official said the bitter industry infighting was inescapable.

"It doesn't matter which side you are on with this company," said the official, Klaus-Dieter Naujok, a software designer who is the chairman of the United Nations standards committee involved in the dispute. "You're doomed if you bring them in, and you're doomed if you exclude them." Microsoft paid Mr. Naujok to write a position paper on Web services last year.

Microsoft executives said that their critics were complaining because they are in danger of being left behind by the Microsoft-I.B.M. push in Web services, which the executives said would be based on standards that give the two companies no commercial advantage over others.

"There has been an incredible amount of momentum around Web services,'' said Steven Van Roekel, Microsoft's director for platform strategy. "This was about industry momentum more than anything else.''

Microsoft's critics see it differently. They point out that Microsoft did not initially participate in the development of the open ebXML standard, which does not require users to rely on its proprietary Biztalk Server product line. The standard was originally developed as a low-cost alternative to a traditional business-to-business computer standard called electronic data interchange.

But as the new standard started gathering considerable support in Asia and Europe, they say, Microsoft, which is based in Redmond, Wash., began to mount its own efforts to blunt its momentum. Despite that, the Pentagon recently adopted ebXML.

Last month, the dispute moved beyond the insular world of experts who set technical standards when Jean-Pierre Henninot, a French official who wrote a letter charging that the United Nations business standards group - the Center for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business, or Cefact - was privately turning its back on the ebXML standard.

The letter, which will be discussed at a United Nations meeting this spring, was prompted in part by a decision last August by the United Nations group to end its cooperation with the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards, the industry standards body with which it developed ebXML.

Critics contend that Microsoft drove a wedge between the two groups by quietly providing financial support to several members of the United Nations standards body.

According to several people involved in developing the ebXML standard, Microsoft first hired two members of a small subcommittee of the United Nations group in late 2002 and early last year. In March 2003, a Microsoft employee introduced a software framework for electronic business to the United Nations subcommittee as an alternative to ebXML.

The issue recently came to a head after Microsoft's opponents learned that the company had paid the travel expenses to Europe and Asia for three United Nations committee members. In September the officials, including two Microsoft employees also serving on the committee, traveled to six countries on a trip that critics said was a thinly disguised effort to promote Microsoft and I.B.M.'s software alternative for developing Web services, known as the business collaboration framework or B.C.F.

I.B.M. was not involved in the travel payments.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/23/te...gy/23soft.html

[JackSpratts]

Who's Winning Download Wars?

RIAA Lawsuits May Be Slowing Swapping ... Maybe Not
AP

What effect have music industry lawsuits had on the number of people who are downloading music online? Like so many issues in the controversy, it depends on who you ask. A study that came out last month found the number of Americans downloading music has dropped by half from just six months earlier. That indicates that 17 million fewer people were grabbing free copies of their favorite songs online.But some experts and users say file swapping is actually increasing. They say those who are downloading are being more secretive. At least two research firms say more than 150 million songs are being downloaded free every month. Some have said that part of the decrease in free downloading is because there are now several industry- backed services selling music online, often for 99 cents per song. The Recording Industry Association of America has sued more than 1,400 people since September. The latest batch was more than 500 filed this month against people in four cities.

Meanwhile, record labels down under are trying to come out on top in their legal battle against the file- sharing service Kazaa. The labels are asking a judge to allow their copyright infringement case to proceed even though there's a similar suit being carried forward in the United States. The Australian music industry wants the federal court to shut down Kazaa. But owners of Kazaa have asked that the case be held up until there's a judgment rendered in the U.S. courts.

Previous Stories:

January 21, 2004: RIAA Files 500 More File-Trading Lawsuits
January 16, 2004: File-Swappers May Be Losing Fear Of RIAA
January 5, 2004: Dramatic Drop Seen In Music Swapping
December 19, 2003: RIAA Can't Get Info From ISPs, Appeals Court Says

http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/...00/detail.html


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Oregon City Builds P2P Network
Dibya Sarkar

The city of Medford, Ore., is deploying an IP-based broadband communications network with interoperability for first responders and other government agencies.

The city plans to go live April 2 with the first phase, in which individual users can form a communications network with or without the infrastructure. Initially it will have 100 users, mostly police, fire and public works employees, but government officials plan to deploy it throughout Jackson County.

"As we identify funding we're going to continue to expand the program until we have truly countywide interoperability," said Ron Norris, the Medford police deputy chief. "The beauty of this system is that it becomes more robust with the more users you have."

MeshNetworks Inc., based in Maitland, Fla., commercialized the mesh technology originally developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Rick Rotondo, the company's vice president of technical marketing, said the secure network is self- forming, self-healing and able to automatically balance loads if traffic at any one node becomes congested.

The architecture has four components:

* A client modem, either a PC card or vehicle-mounted modem, connects to a mobile data terminal or laptop.

* Wireless routers, the size of a small shoebox, act as the network's permanent hopping points and can be attached to light poles, traffic lights or other structures. They also serve as geolocation reference points to triangulate the position of vehicles or users.

* Intelligence access points bridge the wired and the wireless systems.

* Network management software runs the system.

The peer-to-peer technology lets each user's machine act as a router, allowing the network to cover great distances. "So if you have a power outage or the nodes get destroyed or turned off or one of them breaks, the units themselves act as a relay network," said Rotondo. "You are the network."

This technology will help Medford, located in southern Oregon near the California border in a region that lacks interoperability with surrounding jurisdictions and the outlying rural areas. The city is phasing out its Cellular Digital Packet Data network and has coverage limitations with its General Packet Radio Service system. Although a state interoperability proposal calls for patching technology, Norris said, that will take some time to implement.

Officials said the initial deployment will cost about $700,000, much of it covered by a $500,000 grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Doug Townsend, the city's technology services director, said Medford officials have researched the technology and planned the system for more than a year. The system addresses the need for higher bandwidth to transfer mug shots and other rich data to public safety users. Public workers, building inspectors and other civilian agencies will also benefit from productivity gains, he said.

Townsend estimated a payback in eight months from the city's investment. Norris said law enforcement would save thousands of dollars a month by eliminating cellular phone charges and other fees.

"If it's as successful as I perceive it to be, it could be a true model for a lot of other agencies, and we will be available at the time to assist them if they want to move into it," Norris said.

Viasys Corp. is implementing MeshNetwork's system in the city. City officials said they're actively seeking additional homeland security funding to expand the system throughout the county, which covers more than 2,800 square miles and has a population of 187,000.
http://www.fcw.com/geb/articles/2004...d-02-23-04.asp


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If It's Nano, It's Big
Justin Gillis & Jonathan Krim

For several years, government leaders have referred to nanotechnology as the "next industrial revolution," and predicted that products based on it could be worth $1 trillion in a decade. Former House speaker Newt Gingrich has become a big booster. The Bush administration is pouring billions into nanotech research.

Indeed, a few products have already trickled out of the laboratory into the marketplace -- stain- resistant trousers, deeper-penetrating lotions and longer-lasting tennis balls -- and companies say more are on the way. Exceedingly spacious computer hard disks based on nanotechnology have already made a huge splash -- in fact, they are roiling entire industries.

Yet even many people who believe in the potential of the technology are sounding warning bells about hyped predictions and the rush of investor enthusiasm.

"You're buying the equivalent of an Internet stock a couple of years ago," said Thomas Theis, head of physical science research at International Business Machines Corp., one of the biggest sponsors of nanotech work. "If you think you're smart enough to get out before that bubble bursts, good luck."

Is the nanotech trend something the average investor needs to jump on? Or is there a danger, instead, that average investors will be drawn in by rapid market gains -- and then burned in the inevitable crash?

Big Blue Blockbuster

Despite the slow pace of commercialization, one blockbuster nanotech product has already come to market. And the brief history of that product illustrates how nanotechnology could eventually upend the world's marketplace.

In late 1988, Stuart S.P. Parkin, a scientist at IBM picked up on a strange new finding related to magnetism in an obscure physics journal. The work had been done at exceedingly cold temperatures, but Parkin soon achieved the same effect at room temperature.

IBM launched a huge commercial push. In the late 1990s, the company brought out computer disk drives that could store many gigabytes of information in a small space. This was true nanotechnology, for it depended on a new magnetic detector made of incredibly thin layers of metals, including a layer of ruthenium less than one-third of a nanometer thick. "We really are building these structures atomic layer by atomic layer," Parkin said.

The extreme sensitivity of the detector meant that IBM could squeeze many, many more units of information onto a computer disk. IBM's success threw the world of computer disk makers into turmoil. "The technology was so superior that everyone else had to start buying parts from IBM, because they couldn't manufacture competitive drives," said Theis, the IBM research executive.

Ripple Effect

Disk makers weren't the only industry roiled by this discovery, though.

The capacious disk drives, now able to store hundreds of gigabytes of data, are the critical piece of technology that has made it possible to download huge amounts of music from the Internet onto a computer, or to turn a massive collection of compact discs into a digital library that fits on a device like an iPod. The key component of an iPod is a tiny computer disk based on IBM's breakthrough.

Record companies, their business plummeting as illegal file sharing has risen, are scrambling to find a new business model that works in a world of spacious disk drives. Many people have stopped buying compact discs, and record stores are going down the tubes. Movie companies are fighting frenzied court battles to keep from falling victim to the same fate as the music companies.

Film and camera companies have been thrown into turmoil, too, for the big disk drives make it possible to store tens of thousands of pictures electronically, rendering digital photography cheap and convenient. The film business is sinking, and Eastman Kodak Corp., one of the icons of American business, is reeling.

Parkin said the drives can even be credited with making the Internet in its present form possible. The World Wide Web pages that companies and universities create are all stored on computer disks, and if IBM or somebody else had not made the breakthrough, Parkin said, there would be no place to keep such a huge amount of digital information.

IBM recently sold its computer disk business, but its scientists, including Parkin, are back in the lab, using nanotechnology to look for new data storage techniques that will render their last one obsolete.

"There isn't any human artifact that we manufacture that won't eventually be dependent on the kinds of discoveries being made in laboratories now," Theis said. "The long-term consequences of this technology are going to be truly transforming. The trouble is, you can't predict the details of what that world will be like."
http://www.technewsworld.com/perl/story/32932.html#

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Picasa Wins Prestigious DIMA Innovative Digital Product Award at PMA For Second Consecutive Year

Hello Chosen by Industry Experts as an Influence on the Future of Digital Imaging
Press Release

Picasa, Inc., the leading developer of software which enables photographers to effortlessly organize, manage and share digital photos, has been awarded the prestigious 2004 "DIMA Innovative Digital Product Award" for the second consecutive year. This year the award went to Picasa's Hello, an instant photo sharing application that enables users to share images securely over a peer-to-peer network and chat about them in real time. Last year the honor went to the company's flagship photo organizing software, Picasa.

Hello was among only ten products chosen out of the hundreds on display at the PMA 2004 Show, the photo industry's premier trade show held in Las Vegas February 12-15. Winners were determined by digital imaging industry editors and writers based on the utilization of new technologies and/or applications in such a way as to make it either unique or the first of its kind. The high quality products must show themselves to be an influence on the future of digital imaging.

"We are thrilled to once again be recognized by the digital imaging experts at DIMA for developing technology that is transforming digital imaging," said Lars Perkins, CEO of Picasa. "Since launching Hello in October, we have been overwhelmed by the response to the program and are excited to already have more than 150,000 registered users of Hello. These people are now enjoying how simple it is to send lots of pictures to their family and friends without the need to attach files or upload to web sites. We are more convinced than ever that Hello is the future of picture sharing."

Hello is offered as a free download at www.hello.com and can be used with or without Picasa, the company's award-winning digital photo organizing software. For consumers who have Picasa, Hello is automatically integrated, allowing one-click photo sharing. Users can see which pictures their friend is viewing and can chat about them in real-time. Hello makes it simple to share single photos or hundreds at a time without the need for attachments or uploading to Web sites. Consumers who do not have Picasa can use Windows Explorer to select pictures to share. Any pictures received via Hello are automatically organized and stored in a Picasa album, organized by the sender's name. To print high-quality prints at home, Hello automatically retrieves the high- resolution version of a picture from the sender, eliminating the need to send email requests back and forth.
http://www.dpreview.com/news/0402/04...innovation.asp


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Coming Soon, Again
Bob Parks

Last weekend we went on a family outing to the movies. Little did I know the trip would, in part, inspire a column. Then again, what doesn’t…?

At the risk of sounding like an old fart, I remember the days when at most we had maybe seven or eight television channels. Obviously the variety of programming was limited, so whatever was on most people watched. There were some good shows: “The Fugitive”, “Mission: Impossible”, “Star Trek”, as well as the classic “Little Rascals” shorts. However there was a lot of accepted mediocrity to behold like “The Mod Squad”, “Lost in Space”, “Zorro”, “The Beverly Hillbillies”, “S.W.A.T.”, “Charlie’s Angels”, and “The Wild, Wild West”; all of which were later remade into big screen faire.

So while getting psyched to see the “best comedy of the year” Barbershop 2, we were treated to the customary trailers.

First was the re-invent Ben Stiller vehicle “Starsky And Hutch”; a 70’s era cop drama now the latest to join the ranks of the Hollywood soggy remake parade, and probably coming in a close second in the class of the hideous behind “I, Spy”. Additional shame on the original “Starsky” Paul Michael Glaser and “Hutchinson” David Soul for appearing as a “car seller” and “car seller's friend”.

Why the new S&H, turned comedy, was necessary is beyond me, but I have to reiterate my revulsion for the entertainment industry and their sheer laziness.

After sitting through that silliness complete with Snoop Dog as “Huggy Bear”, the next trailer started up featuring The Rock.

After about a minute of absorbing the implied plot line, it seemed a lot like ‘Walking Tall’.” Sure enough, it was. Just another remake out of the bowels of Tinseltown.

As for the feature presentation “Barbershop 2”, it wasn’t as fresh or funny as the original, then again it just might be the funniest movie of the year if they put subtitles on the screen so you can understand Cedric’s over-mumbled deliveries….

In fact, if you check out the roster of “new” old movies on the horizon, you’ll see I’m not exaggerating. Coming soon to a theater near you, we have “The Punisher”, “The Stepford Wives“, “Van Helsing” (Dracula spin-off), “The Alamo“, and “Dawn Of The Dead”. The series of incoming sequels are even more ominous: “Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights”, “Alien vs. Predator” (two for the price of one), “Shrek 2”, “Agent Cody Banks 2”, “Beauty Shop” (Barbershop spin-off), “Jeepers Creepers 2”, “Kill Bill: Vol. II”, “The Son of The Mask”, “Resident Evil: Apocalypse”, “Spider-Man 2”, “The Chronicles Of Riddick” (Pitch Black spin-off), “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban”, and “Scooby Doo 2”.

While I may chance watching a couple of these, where’s all the so-called “creative genius” in Los Angeles? Cocaine make you stupid?

As if to mimic the disaster that is a certain genre in the music industry, it seems that when one can’t sample, one remakes. I know that some of today’s young people feel if a movie was made before 1980 it isn’t worth their time, but I’ve heard a lot of youngsters, after watching the full-of-itself remake “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre”, went out and rented the original which they ultimately found better. Seems to me Hollywood’s strategy backfired.

Whether it’s those insolent Spy Kids or Cody Banks, some of what Hollywood deems children’s entertainment is hardly valuable. Immediately coming to mind is that new “Catch That Kid” flick where kids are taught if you need the money bad enough, rob a bank.

Sometimes I wish I were still in Hollywood. It doesn’t seem one need to work that hard on the creative end to be paid handsomely.

In fact, when the congressional campaign is over, I may even take a few weeks, go to L.A., and finish my album with some studio musician friends of mine. Given my political leanings, I’ll probably not be nominated for any kind of award, but I’ll be proud in the knowledge that every note on that album will be one I wrote and not lifted from a Rhino Records 70’s compilation CD set.

Now while the Recording Industry Association of America’s 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", their lawsuits may have pissed off the wrong person.

New Jersey’s own Michele Scimeca, who was one of hundreds sued for downloading songs by the RIAA, has countersued the music industry, charging them with extortion and violations of the federal anti-racketeering act.

You go, girl!

Her attorneys contend that by suing downloaders 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 gangsters and organized crime did when they perfected the “shakedown”.

"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. These types of scare tactics are not permissible and amount to extortion."

- Scimeca's attorney Bart Lombardo in documents filed in a New Jersey federal court.

Now that some smell possible RIAA blood, the bevy of countersuits that may come is really going to be fun to watch.
http://www.americandaily.com/item/4849


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Overheard

Whoa

Holy cow. I never thought I'd see the day when some friends would show up on Yahoo! News' Photos without the words "indicted", "charged with fraud" or "conspiracy" attached to their descriptions.
http://a.wholelottanothing.org/archives.blah/007705


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Australian Judge Questions Kazaa Raids

The Australian judge who authorized raids on Kazaa's peer-to-peer offices two weeks ago is taking a closer look at the copyright infringement case.

“I'm not saying I was misled, but I do have the feeling that there was a lot more to the story than I was told,” said Judge Murray Wilcox in court last Friday.

A key issue before the court is whether the Australian action is substantially the same as a case being contested in U.S. courts between the recording industry and Kazaa's owner, Sharman Networks.

The recording industry's lawyers have argued that the Australian case is different than the U.S. action, while Sharman's attorneys stated that the cases are essentially the same, making the Australian case superfluous.

In making the plea for the recording industry that the case should go forward, recording industry attorney Tony Bannon said in court: “There is no comparison between the evidence here and that which has been produced in the United States.”

The recording industry has taken an aggressive stance against peer-to-peer music swapping, which it maintains is illegal.

Earlier this month, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) sued 531 computer users for what it claims is online copyright infringement.

Because the RIAA lost a case earlier this year with Verizon--which withheld the names of users on privacy protection grounds--the RIAA identified the music swappers by numerical Internet addresses. The RIAA is issuing subpoenas in hopes of identifying the people behind the Web addresses.

In the Australian proceeding, Sharman claimed that the case there should be set aside because the recording industry and its agents did not make a complete disclosure of all the pertinent information in the case.

In a statement, Sharman Networks said: “The record labels seem intent on throwing their full weight behind litigation, all the while refusing to license their content to us which would allow secure distribution through peer-to-peer technology.”

Judge Wilcox has indicated he will make a decision in the case next week.

While music swapping has been cited as the root cause of declining album sales, a recent report on album sales by Nielsen SoundScan reveals that sales in 2004 are up more than 10 percent from a similar period last year.
http://www.cmpnetasia.com/ViewArt.cf...d=3&subcat=235


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MyDoom Variant Targets RIAA
Press Release

Today, Global Hauri assigned a medium risk to a new, fast spreading variant of MyDoom, a.k.a. MyDoomf. The new variant of the MyDoom worm is spreading through e-mail attachments and P2P file-sharing networks it randomly changes senders' ("spoofs") names and modifies the registry of infected computers. The new worm is designed to perform a DoS attack, this time targeting the Recording Industry Association of America www.RIAA.com.

MyDoom.f, a direct code copy of a previous MyDoom variant, shows up as a short message with an attached file that pretends to be a Zip archive. It is a destructive worm with its own SMTP engine and spreads via email by mailing itself to addresses found on the victim's machine.

"Despite the recent wave of viruses, email users still like to trust emails they apparently receive from a friend or colleague. We recommend users taking the habit of writing very precise subject lines. That makes it easier to distinguish between virus mails and real mails and also avoids deleting good email," said Global Hauri's CEO, Mr. Eric Kwon. "Just make sure your antivirus solution is updated with the latest definitions and set to repair automatically, then this 'My.Doom' should not be a problem."

Emails users should be prepared to receive virus mails, spoofing the email address of a friend or colleague. Emails with the following subject line should be immediately deleted:

- Re: Approved
- Attention
- Your request is being processed
- (Blank)
- Please read
- Re: Thank You
- Recent news
- IMPORTANT
- Please reply
- Read this
- Your credit card
- Unknown
- EXPIRED ACCOUNT
- Your request was registered
- automatic responder
- Recent news
- Readme
- Bug
- You have 1 day left
- ApprovedNews
- Read it immediately
- Announcement
- =P Announcement
- hi, it's me
- You use illegal File Sharing... Your IP was logged
- Your account is about to be expired
- Love is Love is...
- Undeliverable message
- Re:
- Your order was registered
- Your order is being processed
- Current Status
- read now!
- Something for you
- For your information
- Information Warning
- hello
- hi


And attachment: (Varies [.cmd, .bat, .pif, .com, .scr, .exe] -- often arrives in a zip archive) (34,686 bytes)

- paypal.zip
- creditcard.bat
- creditcard.zip
- website.zip
- textfile.zip
- photo.zip
- part1.zip
- notes.zip
- mail.zip
- vpf.zip
- details.zip

http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release...lease_id=63585

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SCO's Year Of Living Litigiously
The company is following the RIAA's lead and taking aim at users. Will it work?

Eric Hellweg

It's never a good sign for the tech sector when some of its biggest news involves lawyers, but that's been the situation so far this year.

The Recording Industry Association of America is leading the way again with a fresh round of lawsuits against 531 individuals accused of uploading music files to file-sharing services.

This time around, though, the RIAA isn't going it alone. Other companies -- most notably Microsoft (MSFT: Research, Estimates) and SCO Group -- are pulling pages from the RIAA's legal playbook and sending threatening letters to individuals they allege have infringed on their intellectual property rights.

The RIAA and Microsoft are getting the headlines right now (especially with the RIAA itself being countersued under federal racketeering laws), but from what I've heard, the biggest lawsuit of the year thus far is about to be filed.

This lawsuit could happen as early as this week, and it could be the tech sector's biggest suit since the first rounds of the RIAA lawsuits. That's because this time SCO is targeting Linux users -- not a Linux distributor or reseller.

Here's what we know: SCO will stand behind the plaintiff's podium, ably represented by David Boies, himself no stranger to the RIAA's playbook, having been on the losing side of the RIAA/Napster lawsuits. But the big question is, Who will be behind the defendant's stand?

SCO, with its lawsuits against IBM (IBM: Research, Estimates), Novell (NOVL: Research, Estimates), Red Hat (RHAT: Research, Estimates), and others, clearly likes to make a name for itself through its legal actions. Detractors say the company's legal strategy is little more than a gambit to boost its previously sagging stock price. And SCO's stock sure looks as if it hinges in large part on the outcome of its legal strategy. Need evidence? How's this: The low analyst price target on this stock for the year is $5, while the high target is $45.

One potential defendant is said to be Google -- a company with at least 10,000 servers running Linux, according to SCO spokesman Blake Stowell. Stowell says he can't comment on which companies SCO will sue, but that "you can expect something from us soon."

But does SCO really want to replicate the RIAA model? I'm not so sure that the RIAA's campaign has been all that effective, and furthermore, the RIAA has an advantage over SCO in this arena.

Whereas the RIAA could point to services such as Apple's (AAPL: Research, Estimates) iTunes Music Store and RealNetworks's Rhapsody as legitimate means for downloading songs, SCO's "legal" alternative -- persuading users to pay for licensing -- is untested in a court of law. It's not clear that Linux users are in fact breaking any intellectual property laws.

Stowell says only, "We hope people will take us seriously as well and will compensate us."

SCO's threats of a user lawsuit are "part of an extremely carefully planned process of intimidation," says George Weiss, a VP at Gartner Research. "No one wants to be called into court, so users need to make a judgment. It's a major gamble for SCO."

SCO has already incurred the wrath of the open-source community; its servers bore the brunt of a recent virus attack, and its CEO now travels with bodyguards when he makes public speeches.

SCO also faces another critical disadvantage vis-à-vis the RIAA: Despite the music industry's lawsuits, people are still buying music and Apple's iTunes is going gangbusters. But if SCO's legal strategy is shot down in the courts, do you really think companies will rush to buy its products? I think not.

It's the year of living dangerously for SCO, and its decision to borrow the RIAA's tactics and sue users -- before its case is proven in court -- could be the company's undoing.
http://money.cnn.com/2004/02/24/tech...estor/hellweg/


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Downloading Event Defies The Music Industry On ‘Grey Tuesday’
tferan

When you mix black and white, you get gray. There's nothing complicated about it, unless you try it the way Brian Burton did.

His blend of black and white turned today, Fat Tuesday, into "Grey Tuesday" in the world of hip-hop. To the music industry and its lawyers, however, he created something that still looks black and white.

Burton is a 26-year-old New Yorker who now lives in Los Angeles and is known professionally as DJ Danger Mouse. In December, he got the idea of remixing the Beatles' 1968 "White Album" with a vocals-only version of "The Black Album," which was released last fall as the retirement work of rapper Jay-Z.

Why not? The a cappella version of "Black" invited remixing with new musical backing. The 30 tracks on the double "White" offered plenty of music to sample. The albums' names inspired putting them together.

Burton spent hundreds of hours listening and lifting, doing things like matching Jay-Z's "What More Can I Say" to George Harrison's "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," and backing the hit "Change Clothes" with the harpsichord of the Beatles' "Piggies."

Naturally, he called the result "The Grey Album" and sent CD copies to friends. They played it and passed it around, and it became an instant underground hit, a sensation spread by Internet file-sharing and even sold in a few stores.

Why not? It's a highly inventive, high-concept novelty that also makes interesting and enjoyable listening. Copies obtained through file-sharing networks won critical notice and acclaim.

But here's why not, or at least why "The Grey Album" was limited to underground status: Burton didn't get legal clearance to use the Beatles' tracks. He didn't expect his project to be released commercially. He mainly hoped Jay-Z, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr would like it.

While there is no word about that, EMI Group - the label that owns the copyright to "White Album" recordings - didn't like it. Sampling classic hooks is standard practice in hip-hop, but EMI is known for keeping the Beatles off-limits.

Even though "Grey" has fueled new interest in "White," the company sent cease-and-desist orders two weeks ago to Burton and anyone stocking his album, demanding it be destroyed and removed from circulation.

Sensing too much danger even for Danger Mouse, Burton is not fighting. But his album became a rallying point for activists who see major record labels using copyrights inflexibly in a way that exploits artists and stifles creativity.

Downhill Battle, a 7-month-old music activism project that tweaks the industry at www.downhillbattle.org, declared today "Grey Tuesday." At www.greytuesday.org, it organized what it calls "an act of civil disobedience" - an online protest, the first of its kind, involving hundreds of sites that are offering free downloads of the album for 24 hours.

A major point, Downhill Battle co-founder Nicholas Reville told me Monday, is that EMI is not seeking compensation, but to ban a work of art.

"Just as the Beatles built on and reinterpreted music that came before them, sample-based artists and DJs need the freedom to create," he said. "This work devalues neither of the originals. There is no legitimate artistic or economic reason to ban this record - this is just arbitrary exertion of control. There is no indication at all that EMI wants to license The Grey Album,' There is literally no way for Danger Mouse to make this recording legally."

Response has been "incredible," Reville said, crediting "a huge amount of pent-up anger about the way the music industry has been manipulating radio, musicians and the public for decades." But he has heard nothing yet from EMI about "Black," "White" and "Grey."

If he does, the question is whether copyright restrictions will permit a colorful answer from the song McCartney wrote with Stevie Wonder, "Ebony and Ivory," where the colors "live together in perfect harmony."

Of course, that's "on my piano keyboard." Anyplace else, and they'll see you in court.
http://www.cleveland.com/living/plai...8966232531.xml


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iTunes-Pepsi Ad Slammed
Macworld staf

The Apple/iTunes/Pepsi ad screened at the SuperBowl has been widely criticized for its use of successfully sued teenage downloaders.

Apple's seeming alliance with the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the ads' condemnation of file sharing has irked independent filmmaker Brian Flemming.

Flemming believes that by promoting the RIAA's position, Apple has moved away from its core philosophy as expressed in its last SuperBowl ad, '1984'.

Flemming sat down with his Mac and made a remix of the commercial, adding the text: "Fear is a primary means used by The Party to maintain control over expression in '1984'. Fear also is a potent weapon used by the RIAA to exert control over the behaviour of music fans." He saw 10,000 visits to the site displaying the parody within two days, the report claims.

The Chicago Tribune reports the appearance of a series of parodies of the ad – James Saldana's take was: "The recording industry cheats artists, screws consumers. Who is the real criminal?"
http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/main_...fm?NewsID=8002


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ESV throws up more chaff.

Techno-Rebels in West Bank?

File Swapping Firm Claims Odd Hide-Out
John Ward Anderson

Somewhere in this beleaguered town, Palestinian computer whizzes from a company called Earth Station V have launched a high-tech assault on the U.S. entertainment industry, with a defiant message for those trying to stop the downloading of music and movies: "Resistance is futile."

That, at least, is what the company wants people to believe, and it has cooked up an elaborate ruse that has made Earth Station V and its claim to hide downloaders' identities the buzz of the moment in the online universe.

But seemingly no one in this town of 34,000 -- the scene of some of the heaviest fighting in the three-year-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict -- has heard of Earth Station V. Computer salesmen and technicians, Internet providers, Internet cafe workers and customers and community and Palestinian militant leaders said they knew of no one who works for the company. Questions about its founder and president, who calls himself Ras Kabir -- Arabic for "Big Head" -- drew laughter.

Yet someone has gone to enormous trouble and expense to create complicated software programs and a sophisticated Web site that offers X- rated movies, long-distance calling, a dating service, the downloading of music, first-run movies and computer software -- all free and all supposedly augmented with stealth technology that hides a user's identity. And all with no advertisements or other visible means of generating revenue, despite monthly operating costs that the company says amount to $1.5 million.

In recent years, downloading music has become one of the biggest and most controversial activities on the Internet -- one that many computer experts say could transform the U.S. entertainment industry. Even if laws could be written fast enough to keep up with changing technology, experts say, online file swapping and downloading are virtually unstoppable.

With entertainment industry agencies -- particularly the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) -- using tough U.S. laws to shut down other Internet platforms used for copying music, most Web sites that specialize in music downloads have gone low-profile. But Earth Station V is openly rallying people to engage in digital music and movie swapping. Its operators have crafted a finely honed bad-boy image that seems to taunt officials to discover who they are and to catch 'em if they can.

The company claims to have its headquarters in the West Bank and Gaza Strip to take advantage of loose Palestinian copyright and intellectual property laws that it says can keep U.S. legal hounds at bay.

No Paper Trail

The real boon for Earth Station V, however, seems to be the publicity bonanza that comes from claiming that such a cutting-edge Internet company is being run by a multiethnic band of techno-rebels in besieged and impoverished Palestinian refugee camps.

But the company's business and Internet paper trails don't support that claim. The West Bank and Gaza addresses the company lists for its offices don't exist, the telephone numbers don't answer, company officials refuse to meet with reporters and they communicate only by e-mails and call-backs. Reporters are not allowed to visit Earth Station V offices or talk to workers.

In several telephone interviews, a spokesman for Earth Station V, Steve Taylor, said the company has about 100 employees in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. But he declined a reporter's request to visit their work sites, saying that Palestinian militant groups did not approve of Earth Station V's activities -- particularly its broadcast of pornographic movies -- and were threatening the company's operations and employees. Militants also were angry, he claimed, that the company had Jewish partners.

Computer sleuths have traced some of Earth Station V's Internet providers to Israel; computer experts agree that from there, the service could be routed into the Palestinian territories. But even if that is the case, experts agree, the electronic veil offered by the Internet is so impermeable that the company's employees could be sitting at desks almost anywhere in the world, while using the West Bank as their electronic address.

"They are making it very difficult for anyone to find who they are, where they are and how they operate," said Ghassan Anabtawi, marketing director for Paltel, the monopoly telephone company in the Palestinian territories. Paltel has no record of providing voice or Internet service to Earth Station V. "It's something fishy and weird -- they are very professional in conning people," Anabtawi said.

The company might be receiving Internet service from a Palestinian provider, he said, but none had claimed it as a client.

In addition to Jenin and Gaza, said Taylor, the Earth Station V spokesman, the company has offices in the West Bank towns of Ramallah, Nablus and Bethlehem. Computer specialists in each town said they were not familiar with Earth Station V.

"I've never heard of the company, and I should have heard of it," said Yahya Salqan, general secretary of the Palestinian Information Technology Association. He said he sent e-mails to the 75 members of his association asking if any knew of Earth Station V, and "nobody had."

Business registration papers filed with the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah and other company documents reviewed by The Washington Post list an Internet pornography king, Stephen Michael Cohen, as the "sole director" of Earth Station V. Taylor said Cohen was a "consultant" who "brings a lot to the table because of his expertise."

Cohen has been listed as a fugitive from the United States since 2001 for failing to appear in a court case in which he was ordered to pay $65 million in damages for stealing the Internet domain sex.com. According to the judgment, in 1995 Cohen forged a letter by the real owner of sex.com instructing the agency that registered domains to transfer ownership to him. Cohen controlled the domain name for five years, building sex.com into what reportedly was one of world's most visited and profitable Web sites.

Taylor said Earth Station V had about $1.5 million per month in operating costs but no revenues. He said the company's investors, whom he declined to name, were willing to lose money in the short term to attract users but planned to add potentially huge money-making ventures to the Web site in the near future, including online auctioning and gambling.

A Widespread Practice

But its biggest draw is offering a platform for Internet users to download music, a practice that has become so widespread that many experts expect it to revolutionize the

relationship between Americans and the performing arts. Internet experts estimate that 60 million Americans swap files online. A report in August by the Internet technology firm Forrester Research found that 49 percent of 12- to 22-year-olds had downloaded music in the previous month.

In September, the RIAA filed lawsuits against 261 people for copying music over the Internet, saying the practice violated U.S. copyright laws. According to the RIAA, about 2.6 billion copyrighted files, mostly songs, are downloaded over the Internet per month, which the organization says is the leading cause of the worldwide decline in music industry sales from $40 billion in 2000 to $26 billion in 2002.

Marc Andreessen, who helped create the Netscape Web browser and is considered one of the fathers of the Internet, said at a conference in Palm Beach in November that Earth Station V and file-sharing companies like it were on the verge of making the downloading of music and other intellectual property virtually unstoppable, no matter the law.

Such predictions hinge on whether Earth Station V really has found a way for users to conduct online music swapping with impunity. Computer experts and music industry officials scoff at the company's claim that it can hide the identities of the site's users.

"It's a sophisticated protocol, but it's not set up for all the claims they make," said Mark Ishikawa, the head of BayTSP, an Internet security company that investigates piracy for record companies and other high-tech industries. "We looked at them, and the people who were downloading files were not anonymous."

"We can easily target infringers on their network," said Matt Oppenheim, senior vice president of the RIAA. He said Earth Station V "was throwing stones at us because that's how they get more press and grow their pirate network."

'At War' With Associations

Taylor, the company spokesman, said Earth Station V has roughly 710 employees in several countries, including Russia. Their software is available in 28 languages, he said, although the Web site listed only about 15, and none was Arabic, the language spoken by Palestinians.

Business registration documents filed in June with the Palestinian Economy Ministry said Earth Station V had $2.75 million in start-up capital and was established to conduct "transactions in financial documents." The papers listed Rony Hanouna, the owner of several cellular telephone stores in the West Bank, as the company's representative in the West Bank town of Bethlehem.

Hanouna said in an interview that he had no knowledge of Earth Station V's activities and expressed surprise that the company was conducting business, saying that as far as he knew, it existed only on paper.

Hanouna said he was approached by several people about 10 months ago and asked to open an office for Earth Station V. But after filling out the paperwork, Hanouna said, he never heard back from the people.

Initially, much of the publicity about the Earth Station V Web site came from company statements distributed by PR Newswire, a public relations firm. In one such statement, Earth Station V declared it was "at war" with the RIAA and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), asserting that "resistance is futile and we are in control now."

The Earth Station V Web site asserts that the RIAA and MPAA "have absolutely no jurisdiction" over the company because "Palestine is not a signee of the Intellectual Property Agreements."

"In other words, the RIAA uses local laws of Western countries to hurt people," the Web site says. "In contrast, ES5 uses local laws of Palestine to help people."

"That is an outrageous statement," said Hiba Husseini, a Palestinian attorney who is helping draft new intellectual property laws for the Palestinian Authority. While current laws are about 50 years old and do not specifically address issues of using computers and the Internet to violate copyrights, she said, the Palestinian ministers of culture and economy can and have issued administrative rules and regulations to combat copyright violations and piracy.

"The ministries can by directives or orders shut an operation of this nature down, if they get an official complaint," she said.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp...nguage=printer


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

Smiles Fade At Napster

Music service is losing money and executives
Dawn C. Chmielewski

It was a breakthrough deal that would have put the Napster kitty on millions of Hewlett-Packard computers.

But in the days leading up to Napster's re-launch in late October, HP suddenly -- and without explanation -- returned Napster's $250,000 check and canceled the agreement to install a link to Napster's online music service on its computers. Worse, in January HP announced a surprise partnership with Napster rival Apple Computer to feature the iTunes Music store on HP computers and sell Hewlett-Packard branded iPod music players.

Neither HP nor Napster's parent company, Roxio, would comment on the soured deal, whose details were confirmed by sources familiar with the agreement. But its collapse was one of several setbacks since the reintroduction of Napster, the pioneering song-swapping renegade, as a paid music service.

Napster is losing money, and top executives have left the company, including its president, chief financial officer, vice president of programming and head of corporate communications as well a key board member. On Wednesday, Roxio began laying off people at its Napster division. A Roxio spokeswoman said the company was ``eliminating redundancies in the organization'' but declined to say how many people lost their jobs.

And while Napster can legitimately claim it's the second most popular online music service, information provided by insiders at two of the major music labels shows it sells only about a quarter the number of downloads from their artists as Apple's market-leading iTunes store. Napster refused to release download figures.
http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunhera...gy/7988684.htm


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Napster: 5 Million Songs Sold
John Borland

Napster, the digital song store and subscription service launched by Roxio in late October, said Monday that it passed the 5 million mark in online song sales. Although that keeps it ahead of other only-on-PC services' announced sales figures, it remains far behind Apple Computer's iTunes, which serves both PCs and Macintosh computers.

Napster has experienced some rough waters in recent weeks with company head Mike Bebel leaving last month.
http://news.com.com/2110-1027-5163722.html


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E-Commerce Sales Hit Record Level
Reuters

U.S. retail sales over the Internet and other electronic networks surged in the fourth quarter, making up a record share--almost 2 percent--of total retail sales, the Commerce Department said Monday.

E-commerce sales--purchases over the Internet, e-mail or other electronic networks--rose to $17.23 billion in the last quarter, a 29.7 percent increase over the third quarter. Overall retail sales rose 5.2 percent in the fourth quarter.

The increase in e-commerce purchases was the third straight quarterly rise but was less than the 31.6 percent gain seen in the final quarter of 2002.

Online shopping for the holidays was already known to have surged.

Analysts closely watch retail sales as they make up nearly 40 percent of overall personal spending, which itself comprises about two-thirds of U.S. economic activity.

In Monday's report, the share of total retail sales accounted for by e-commerce reached its highest level since the Commerce Department began tracking it in 1999--1.9 percent, up from 1.5 percent in third quarter of 2003.

Compared to the fourth quarter of 2002, e-commerce purchases rose by 25.1 percent in the fourth quarter of 2003, while overall retail sales gained a smaller 6.2 percent.

The report, unlike most data compiled by the Commerce Department, is not adjusted for seasonal or holiday-related variations, sharply limiting its usefulness to analysts.
http://news.com.com/2100-1030-5163316.html


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Governors Press for Limits on Internet Tax Ban
Andy Sullivan

Several U.S. governors said Monday they would seek to scale back a congressional effort to ban taxes on Internet access, saying it would cost them billions of dollars in annual revenue.

At a conference in Washington, three U.S. governors said their budgets could be devastated by a bill that would prevent them from taxing the monthly fees that Internet providers like EarthLink Inc. charge customers.

Though few states currently tax Internet access, the bill could end up eating into revenues from telephone service, music sales and other activities that are already migrating to the Internet and could be bundled with access fees in the future, they said.

The bill amounts to "putting a federal stop sign onto a state road," said Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a Republican.

Huckabee was joined by Wisconsin Gov. Jim Doyle and Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, both Democrats, who said the ban could force them to raise other taxes and fees.

A better approach would be to simply extend the more limited, temporary ban that expired last year so policymakers can figure out how to handle new services like Internet telephony, they said.

Congress sought to make a temporary ban on access taxes permanent last year and widen it to include high-speed cable and DSL service.

That version, backed by a long list of business groups, would also eliminate access taxes that were in place in some states before the temporary ban first took effect in 1998.

The bill passed the House of Representatives last year but stalled in the Senate, and the temporary ban expired in October.

Aides said any action in the Senate was unlikely for several weeks.

Two former governors now serving in the Senate, Tennessee Republican Lamar Alexander and Delaware Democrat Tom Carper, said they were picking up support for a renewal of the temporary ban.

Virginia Sen. George Allen, a sponsor of the permanent tax ban, would be willing to consider ways to focus the ban exclusively on access fees, an aide said.

But opponents are seeking to make the issue more complicated than it needs to be, said Allen aide Heidi Frederickson.

"This is an issue that deals with consumers, and that's where Sen. Allen's focus is," Frederickson said. "Sen. Alexander is clearly focused on the governors, as this press conference today reveals."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2004Feb23.html


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

Interview with Pablo Soto of the Manolito P2P Network
Thomas Mennecke

The Manolito P2P network, spearheaded by the popular Piolet client, has long been one of the more efficient ways to trade information. Piolet, with its sister clients Blubster and RockItNet, connect to the mp3-only Manolito network. Although it averages about 200,000-250,000 users at any given time, it has proven to be a viable, and safer, alternative to the FastTrack network.

However, the Manolito network has stagnated recently, with no noticeable increase or decrease in its population (considering the current P2P landscape, this may not be such a bad sign.) In addition, the file-sharing community has not seen a new release in over half a year, which has many concerned.

To discover the latest with the Manolito Network, we spoke with Pablo Soto, lead programmer behind this community.
http://www.slyck.com/news.php?story=396


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

Covering Tracks: New Privacy Hope For P2P
John Borland

Jason Rohrer was battling an insect invasion last year when he hit on an idea that he hoped would help file swappers hide from the copyright police.

As ants marched with impunity through the Santa Cruz, Calif., home of the programmer, frustration turned to inspiration and Mute was born. The program, which seeks to hide the source of downloads by passing files between computers along twisting pathways, is gaining attention as an interesting solution to file swapping's hottest problem: privacy.

"If you're going to be anonymous, you can not use direct connections," Rohrer said.

Rohrer isn't alone in developing peer-to-peer privacy tools. In the past six months, the quest for anonymity on file-swapping networks has become the equivalent of a technological holy grail, thanks to a wave of lawsuits filed against individual file swappers by the Recording Industry Association of America.

So far, the RIAA, tracing digital fingerprints back to individual names, has sued almost 1,500 people it claims stole music over file-swapping networks.

Peer-to-peer network developers have been working on improving privacy ever since Napster was first targeted by a skittish record industry, but the results have been decidedly imperfect.

That's because most peer-to-peer systems require some degree of openness to work at all. In order to download a song from another computer online, a file swapper's computer must make some kind of connection to it. That leaves a digital record that can be traced back to a person's Internet service provider, and from there to the account holder.

At the very least, adding anonymity to peer-to-peer systems involves a trade-off in efficiency, creating performance headaches that bring a network to its knees. Some security experts go further, arguing that privacy is impossible to achieve in a peer-to-peer network, given that the technology requires creating direct connections between computers.

"The bottom line is that you just can't be anonymous on the Internet if you're going to have some kind of peer transaction," said Mark Ishikawa, chief executive officer of BayTSP, a company that tracks and identifies file swappers for music labels and Hollywood studios. "There is this myth that you can be anonymous. You can hide, but we can get you."

Proxies, keys and privacy
Most of the newest generation of file-swapping hopefuls use some kind of encryption, scrambling files so that they become impenetrable strings of data as they are transferred online. This helps keep out some prying eyes, but most monitoring services, such as BayTSP, simply pretend to be an ordinary file-swapper, searching and downloading files instead of trying to break into the network from outside. No matter how powerful the encryption in the network, that digital handshake is required, Net experts say.

Many of the services are also moving toward Internet "proxies" as a way to mask identities. Under this model, the direct handshake between uploaders and downloaders is interrupted by a digital middleman. Instead of being downloaded directly, a file is handed off to another Web server, or passed through another set of computers, before finding its way to the downloader.

The latest version of Streamcast Networks' Morpheus, as well as the smaller Earthstation V software , allow their users to connect to these online proxy servers, send search requests and upload and download through them.

Rohrer's Mute is a more extreme version of this proxy idea, in which every computer on the file-swapping network becomes a middleman, passing on search queries and actual files that are on their way elsewhere in the network. This makes it nearly impossible to determine who is uploading or downloading what information–-but the model has a cost.

Ordinary file-swapping networks work quickly, because only small bits of information–-search queries and background data--are relayed between most of the computers. In Mute's model, each computer potentially serves as a courier for vastly larger multimedia files. That can quickly clog people's Net connections, slowing or stalling the network altogether.

Rohrer says this is the natural trade-off between speed and perfect anonymity. What has been surprising is how many people have been willing to use the network even though it takes as much as an hour to download a song, he said. At last count, his software had been downloaded nearly 80,000 times, according to his host site.

"People seem to be willing to deal with it given the privacy issues involved," Rohrer said.

Spanish developer Pablo Soto, whose Blubster and Piolet software have attracted several hundred thousand users, is taking a decidedly different tack. While including strong encryption and some privacy-enhancing features in a new version of the software expected to be released in the next few weeks, he's also changing the way files are downloaded.

Information such as an MP3 song will still be downloaded from its original source, he said. But a song will be scrambled, and downloaded simply as raw, unintelligible data. This means that no actual copy of a song is being exchanged, he contends.

If downloaders want to turn that data into useable music, their software must seek elsewhere on the file-swapping network for the encryption "keys" that will unlock the data, transforming it back into an MP3. Separating the download of the data and the keys may help protect file sharers from lawsuits, making it more difficult for courts to say exactly which party is responsible for copyright infringement, Soto said.

"Our developments have always been a result of feature requests," Soto said in an instant message interview. "We are lately getting from our users hundreds of requests and ideas to enhance privacy, so it looked like the natural step to take, development-wise. If users want decentralized networks, there we go. If users want anonymity, there we go."

The RIAA remains as unimpressed by the latest generation of privacy seekers as with the rest. File swapping is file swapping, no matter how programmers change the way their networks function, the group's attorneys have argued in court. Moreover, the RIAA has already sued people who had used Blubster and other privacy-focused networks before, investigators note.

"File sharers need to take these types of claims with a grain of salt," an RIAA representative said. "Copyright owners can enforce their rights on these types of networks. Our investigators are well-versed in what these technologies do and how they work."
http://news.com.com/2100-1027_3-5164413.html


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California Lawmaker Introduces RFID Bill
Alorie Gilbert

A California state lawmaker introduced a bill on Tuesday meant to address consumer privacy concerns related to the commercial use of radio frequency identification technology.

Senate Bill 1834 would apply to any business or state government agency using radio frequency identification (RFID) systems to track merchandize or people--an activity that's on the rise. According to people familiar with the technology, state Sen. Debra Bowen is the first legislator in the nation to introduce a bill that seeks to govern the use of RFID, a technology that has sparked controversy since retailers began experiments last year.

The bill proposes that businesses and agencies be required to notify people that they're using an RFID system that can track and collect information about them. It would also require consumers to give express consent before businesses or agencies could track and collect information about them via RFID. Lastly, the legislation requires retailers to detach or destroy RFID "tags" on merchandize before consumers leave the store with it.

"The privacy impact of letting manufacturers and stores put RFID chips in the clothes, groceries and everything else you buy is enormous," Bowen said in a statement. "There's no reason to let RFID sneak up on us when we have the ability to put some privacy protections in place before the genie's out of the bottle."

Privacy concerns over RFID began to surface last year when retailers, including Wal-Mart Stores and British grocery chain Tesco, began testing the technology in stores, often in trials that involved unwitting consumers. The so-called smart-shelf trials were designed to help retailers monitor inventory and detect theft, but consumer advocates fear such systems could lead to surveillance on an unprecedented scale. Facing criticism, Wal-Mart discontinued the in-store testing and said it planned to use RFID to improve its distribution process instead.
http://news.com.com/2100-1014-5164457.html


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

RSA Polishes RFID Shield
Matt Hines

Computer security software maker RSA Security on Tuesday introduced a new technology for protecting information emitted by radio frequency identification tags.

The RFID cloaking system is intended to guard proprietary data located on chips used to carry product information. The RSA Blocker Tag technology uses a jamming system designed to confuse RFID readers and prevent those devices from tracking data on individuals or goods outside certain boundaries.

RFID tags, whose descriptive information is read via radio frequency technology, are expected to allow manufacturers and retailers to greatly improve inventory tracking. Considered a more advanced replacement for existing bar code technology, the systems have created a significant buzz among businesses looking to cut overhead through more intelligent management of products and supply chains. But a major obstacle threatening widespread adoption of RFID is concern that the chips might allow unsolicited collection of product data, creating a privacy risk for consumers.

At its security conference taking place this week in San Francisco, RSA is offering demonstrations of the RFID-blocking tool in a mock pharmacy setting. In that scenario, the pharmacy would provide customers with special bags armed with the RSA Blocker Tags in order to keep RFID readers from gathering data.

The blocker tags work by emitting radio frequencies designed to trick RFID readers into believing that they are being presented with unwanted data, or spam, causing the information collection devices to shun the incoming transmission. RSA claims that by placing an RFID-loaded product into a parcel bearing one of the blocker tags, the system would cause RFID readers to miss any information carried by the product in the bag, thereby protecting consumers.

When a product is taken out of a bag armed with the blocking system, readers would again be able to scan the RFID tag accurately, the company said. Using the pharmacy example, RSA said a prescription bottle could not be scanned when protected but when unshielded could provide useful prescription information.

The company also promised that its cloaking system would not interfere with the normal operation of RFID systems or allow hackers to use security technology to bypass theft control systems or launch denial-of-service attacks.

"The promise of RFID will require infrastructure and process changes, and it will also present huge security and privacy challenges," Burt Kaliski, chief scientist of RSA Laboratories, said in a statement.
http://news.com.com/2100-1029-5164014.html


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AT&T To Launch VoIP Nationwide
Ben Charny

AT&T will begin selling unlimited local and long-distance Internet phone calling next month, as it guns to become the nation's "premier provider" of these less expensive dialing plans, the company said Wednesday.

The company expects to have 1 million businesses and homes signed up by the end of 2005, said Cathy Martine, AT&T senior vice president of voice Internet services and consumer product management.

The leading incumbent Internet phone service provider that AT&T will challenge is Vonage, which has about 150,000 subscribers paying about $35 a month for unlimited local and long-distance calling throughout North America. A Vonage representative could not be immediately reached for comment.

The forthcoming AT&T service, called AT&T CallVantage, will cost between $30 and $40 a month, Martine said. Features will include the ability to forward voicemail to anyone on the Internet and a "locate me" service to let users forward calls to any or all of their phones, the company said Wednesday. AT&T had previously announced that its Internet phone service would include unlimited local and long-distance calling and international calling for a per-minute fee.

Following several start-up's leads, AT&T and other traditional telephone companies have begun letting businesses and consumers place calls that travel over the Internet rather than traditional phone networks, at a greatly reduced cost.

Called voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP, this technology is already being embraced by carriers as a way to cut traffic costs on international and long-distance calls, and it is expected eventually to replace the public switched telephone network as big phone companies convert to IP-based fiber-optic networks. Currently, about 10 percent of all voice traffic is classified as VoIP, although fewer than 1 percent of those calls are initiated on a VoIP phone.

CallVantage plays a central role in AT&T's effort to shrug off its stodgy Ma Bell image by embracing hot new technologies.
http://news.com.com/2100-1037-5164973.html


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Hitachi Puts New Twist On Small Drives
Ed Frauenheim

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies is putting a new spin on its tiny hard drives.

Hitachi said this week that it is developing a version of its 1- inch "Microdrive" designed to be built directly into the guts of devices such as digital music players. So far, the hard drive maker has sold a Microdrive that can be removed from devices similar to the way flash memory cards can slip into and out of digital cameras.

"We're working on a version of the Microdrive that will be fully embedded; nonremovable," said Bill Healy, Hitachi's senior vice president for consumer and commercial hard drives.

The Microdrive, which would be similar to a drive start-up firm Cornice offers, could let manufacturers create smaller consumer electronics products, Healy said. There is also the potential for lower costs, he added.

Hard drives have been taking on a greater role in consumer electronics devices such as digital video recorders, which record live programming and allow viewers to pause broadcasts temporarily. Small-size drives have been a particular hit as the storage component of digital music players.

Hitachi's 4GB Microdrive, for example, is being used in Apple Computer's new iPod Mini, according to sources close to Hitachi. Although the Microdrive is designed to be removable, the new iPod does not take advantage of that feature.

An embedded drive would offer manufacturers more flexibility, Healy said. In particular, the connection between drive and device could be smaller, which would translate into more compact designs. Also, not having to put a prominent label on the drive would trim costs, Healy suggested.

Cornice makes 1.5GB and 2GB embedded drives. Cornice drives are built into consumer electronics products from companies such as Digital Networks North America and Thomson, according to the company.

GS Magicstor and Toshiba also are making small drives.
http://news.com.com/2100-1041_3-5164...l?tag=nefd_top


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Eminem Sues Over iTunes Ad
Reuters

Rap superstar Eminem, who claims that he could fetch more than $10 million for endorsing a product, is suing Apple Computer on grounds that it used one of his hit songs in a TV advertisement without permission.

Eight Mile Style, music publisher of the artist, whose real name is Marshall Mathers III, filed the copyright infringement lawsuit last Friday in U.S. District Court in Detroit. It also names Viacom, its MTV subsidiary and TBWA/Chiat/Day advertising agency as plaintiffs.

Spokesmen for Apple and Viacom were not immediately available for comment.

The lawsuit claims that Apple, in a television ad for its iTunes pay-per-download music store aired on MTV last year, featured a young boy with an iPod portable music player singing the lyrics to "Lose Yourself," the theme song for his hit movie "8 Mile," released in 2003.

The ad was also posted on Apple's Web site, the suit says.

"At no time did Apple, Chiat/Day or MTV receive authorization or permission to record, reproduce, perform, transmit, copy, use or otherwise exploit the composition ("Lose Yourself") for any purpose," it says.

"Defendants have acted intentionally, recklessly, willfully and in bad faith," it adds.

The suit does not spell out any specific damage claims. But it says Eminem, a Detroit native, is entitled to "exemplary damages" for the alleged use of a song it touts has achieved "iconic stature" among hip-hop fans worldwide. Eminem and his co-writers won an Academy Award for the song.

Eminem has never nationally endorsed any commercial products, the 15-page suit said, adding that "even if he were interested in endorsing a product, any endorsement deal would require a significant amount of money, possibly in excess of $10 million."
http://news.com.com/2100-1027-5164307.html


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Is Broadband Set To Make Power Lines Sing?
Jim Hu

Technical limitations have long frustrated attempts to deliver broadband Internet access over power lines, but the idea is once again sparking interest as its backers tout improvements.

Earlier this month, the Federal Communications Commission proposed rules for utility companies that seek to offer Internet access through their electricity grids. The FCC hopes its rules for broadband over power line (BPL) will help jump-start the use of the grid network to deliver high-speed Net access to U.S. households, especially in hard-to-reach rural areas.

"One major objective of Chairman (Michael) Powell is to find ways to encourage broadband for the entire United States," said Ed Thomas, chief of the Office of Engineering and Technology at the FCC. "The more options that are available, and the more capabilities provided, and the more diverse the entry vehicles, the better off we are."

The proposed BPL rules are limited and notably do not address major policy issues affecting the electricity industry that are under the remit of local public utilities commissions. Still, broadband providers and power companies reacted positively to the FCC move, seeing it as a critical first step toward making BPL a reality.

Less than a week after the FCC released its proposal, Internet service provider EarthLink announced it would begin testing a broadband service using power lines leased from Progress Energy, an electricity company that serves the Carolinas and central Florida.

EarthLink's test, announced last Wednesday, involves 500 homes in Wake County, N.C., and could set a major precedent for the nascent BPL industry. In the trial, Progress Energy will deliver a packet-based broadband signal through its power lines and then broadcast the signal using Wi-Fi equipment from Amperion. Test customers access the network using wireless broadband routers installed in their homes.

"This might give us the ability to have coverage where DSL (digital subscriber line) and cable might not be," said Kevin Brand, a vice president of product management at EarthLink. "We're in the very early stages now, but we see the ability for the technology to evolve to be quite competitive with DSL and cable."
http://news.com.com/2100-1034-5163739.html


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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2004
CONTACT: ADAM EISGRAU

P2P UNITED COMMENDS BIPARTISAN FILE-SHARING FACT-FINDING FORUM

Releases Written Request to Recording Industry to Tell the “Technological Truth” and to Make Suspect Software “Solution” Available for Real-World Scrutiny

Washington (Feb. 24) -- P2P United, the trade association representing the developers of Morpheus, Grokster and other leading peer-to-peer file-sharing software programs, today commended Senators Ensign and Wyden -- co-chairs of the Council on Competitiveness’ bipartisan Forum on Innovation & Technology -- for devoting the Forum’s next boxed lunch session on February 26 to “a discussion on peer-to-peer networks, the technology behind them, and the potential they hold for legitimate business and consumer applications.”

“Senators Ensign and Wyden are right, right and right again,” said P2P United Executive Director, Adam Eisgrau. ‘How can we build a fair and viable marketplace in which P2P technology plays a central and legitimate role,’ is exactly the right question to ask. It’s being posed in a productively neutral and open-ended manner, and it’s being asked at the right time to have a profound impact. This is a don’t-miss event for anyone interested in moving beyond sound bites to sound policy.”

P2P United today also released a February 24 letter, delivered to both RIAA Chairman Mitch Bainwol and Audible Magic CEO Vance Ikezoye, requesting that they refrain from “promotional propagandizing” about the “warrantless wiretap” software recently touted as a means of thwarting allegedly illegal activity by some peer-to-peer software users.

In its letter, P2P United specifically calls upon the industry to stop characterizing software designed to divert and privately inspect every file of any kind requested by P2P users as an “innocuous ‘filter’” because it would be neither innocuous nor a mere filter.

The letter, attached in full, also pointedly notes that neither the RIAA nor Audible Magic has provided either P2P or any of its five members with a demonstration copy of software that the industry and its vendor have widely demonstrated for policy makers. Accordingly, P2P United requests immediate access to “the program and all appropriate databases so that it may independently be evaluated by governmental and private experts.”

Persons interested in attending Thursday’s program may contact the Council on Competitiveness by fax at 202.682.5150 or by email at forum@compete.org. P2P United, which is unaffiliated with the Council, is a Washington-based 501(c)(6) trade association representing the peer-to-peer software and allied industries. For more information, please consult www.p2punited.org
http://www.slyck.com/misc/P2P_Press_Release.html


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My baby, she wrote me a letter.


By Hand
Mr. Mitch Bainwol, Chairman
Recording Industry Association of America
1330 Connecticut Avenue, NW
Suite 300
Washington, DC 20036


Dear Mr. Bainwol:

Thank you for your recent offer, extended through the pages of last Friday’s Hollywood Reporter, to provide P2P United and its members with contact information for Audible Magic’s CEO Vance Ikezoye. We needn’t impose on you, however, to make that effort having furnished Mr. Ikezoye with a copy of this correspondence directly.

We would, however, appreciate the opportunity to evaluate the product that you have widely mischaracterized as “filtering” software, particularly given that an integral part of its intended application appears to require the redesign of the software developed by the members of P2P United. Please consider this a formal request for immediate access to the program and to all appropriate demonstration databases so that we may arrange for it to be independently evaluated by both governmental and private experts.

In the interim, P2P United also respectfully requests that you, other industry representatives, and representatives of Audible Magic abandon the promotional propagandizing in which the industry has been engaged in favor of beginning to tell the technological truth about the system you have endorsed. Specifically, based upon published reports, the members of P2P United are deeply concerned that the technology your industry has endorsed is not only not an innocuous “filter,” but actually is more fairly understood as a warrantless wiretap designed to divert and privately inspect potentially every file requested by a P2P user.

Moreover, given that peer-to-peer software has been found as a matter of uncontested fact in federal court to be used substantially for purposes that do not implicate recorded music (or, indeed, copyrighted material at all), we believe that lawmakers and the public are due a clear explanation as to why the public should be required to subject their electronic communications to ungoverned surveillance by an understandably parochial industry collective.

We also ask that you be clear regarding whether you also propose to subject the other principal means of distributing copyrighted material without authorization to similarly mandated surveillance? These means, as identified by the US Department of Justice before Congress, of course include popular e-mail and instant messaging programs like those developed by AOL/Time Warner and the internet, itself.

P2P United also wishes to take this opportunity to renew its offer to meet at any mutually convenient place and time with your member companies (and other rightsholder representatives) to discuss how a new marketplace -- one that particularly permits new artists to prosper -- may be built may upon the enormous and apparently permanent popularity and power of peer-to-peer communications.

Thank you for your consideration of these issues. I look forward to discussing them personally, as you may find appropriate.

Sincerely,
/S/

Adam M. Eisgrau
Executive Director

cc: Mr. Vance Ikezoye,
CEO Audible Magic

http://www.slyck.com/misc/riaa_letter.html


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Most popular music searches across the Espotting network for the week 17 Feb 2004 - 22 Feb 2004.


1. Music

2. Hi Fi

3. Mp3

4. Audio

5. Mp3 Player

6. Music download

7. CD Player

8. Guitar

9. Amplifier

10.Radio

http://www.e-consultancy.com/newsfea...-searches.html

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Warners Sues Shanghai Website Over Downloaded Music

BEIJING, Feb. 13 (Xinhuanet) -- Having shut down Napster and other illegal file swapping Websites based in the United States, the global music industry is now looking to do the same in China where downloading of MP3 music files is rampant.

Warner music became the first recording company in Shanghai to take operators of a Website to court over illegal downloading of songs. The Shanghai No. 2 Intermediate People's Court began hearing the case yesterday.

Warner music, the Taiwan branch of Time Warner, is accusing Shanghai Rongshuxia Computer Co Ltd of infringing on its copyrights by allowing surfers to download 10 songs by Chinese pop star Na Ying.

Warner music is asking the court to ban Rongshuxia from allowing people to download music from its Website (www.rongshu.com) and make a public apology. It is also asking for 250,000 yuan (US$30,120) in compensation and legal fees.

The global music giant said it discovered last March that Rongshuxia was illegally allowing users to download Na Ying's songs, all of which were originally on her CD "I am not an angel."

In court yesterday, the company offered an original edition of the Chinese pop star's CD as well as a testimonial issued by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, to prove it made the disc and owned the distribution rights to the songs.

Rongshuxia said it put the songs on its site last year as part of a cooperative promotion with a local radio station and stopped offering the downloads in April.

"We are running a literature Website, not a music one. We didn't expect to earn anything from the download service," said Ji Nuo, Rongshuxia's attorney.

Compensation for the songs could play a key role in the case. Warner has suggested compensation should be set at 99 US cents per download, a number based on the price of buying songs from Apple Computer's iTunes Music Store, the most successful legal song downloading site on the Internet.

"If music lovers download the songs from the Website, they surely won't buy CDs," said Liu Ping, the attorney representing Warner Music.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/20...nt_1328964.htm


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Tax To Open Up Software Policy
James Riley

THE Australian Tax Office will adopt an open-source software policy for the first time, opening its Microsoft-dominated standard operating environment (SOE) to products such as Linux.

ATO second commissioner Greg Farr said an internal review of open-source software - done in conjunction with the Gartner Group - concluded that the agency should evaluate and use open-source software where appropriate.

Mr Farr told a Senate Estimates hearing last week that the review of the ATO's standard operating environment, carried out as part of the agency's substantial Change Program, would include specific consideration of open-source platforms that were not previously considered.

The cost of the Change Program is estimated to be up to $800 million.

Among the Gartner Group's key findings were that the ATO should develop an open- source policy and review procurement processes to better enable the evaluation, selection and sharing of open-source software.

"What we have done is the first draft of a policy that recognises there is an increasing maturity of open-source software and we should be starting to fully analyse and make use of open-source software where it is appropriate to do so," Mr Farr said.

"Gartner reported to us that there is some increasing maturity in some of these products and pointed to some places where we could perhaps start looking at it," he said.
http://australianit.news.com.au/arti...-15319,00.html


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Controversial Government Data-Mining Research Lives On
AP

The government is still financing research to create powerful tools that could mine millions of public and private records for information about terrorists despite an uproar last year over fears it might ensnare innocent Americans.

Congress eliminated a Pentagon office developing the terrorist tracking technology because of the outcry over privacy implications. But some of those projects from retired Adm. John Poindexter's Total Information Awareness effort were transferred to U.S. intelligence offices, congressional, federal and research officials told The Associated Press.

In addition, Congress left undisturbed a separate but similar $64 million research program run by a little-known office called the Advanced Research and Development Activity (ARDA) that has used some of the same researchers as Poindexter's program.

``The whole congressional action looks like a shell game,'' said Steve Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists, which tracks work by U.S. intelligence agencies. ``There may be enough of a difference for them to claim TIA was terminated while for all practical purposes the identical work is continuing.''
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/sil...al/8022436.htm


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Homeland bureaucracy.

Decline Seen in Science Applications From Overseas
Diana Jean Schemo

Bucking a trend that dates to the end of World War II, the number of foreign students applying to graduate and doctoral programs in science at American universities is declining broadly, according to a survey of 130 such programs released here today.

The findings came as the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, reported that foreign students and scholars hoping to study science or certain technologies at universities in the United States must wait an average of 67 days to receive a visa. For some of them, the delays extend up to a year, the report said.

"It's really what we've been fearing all along," said Vic Johnson, associate director for public policy at the Association of International Educators. "It's the accumulation of a lot of things that is just causing a change in the attractiveness of the United States as a destination for students and scholars."

The General Accounting Office study said the nation's system for issuing visas for research in sensitive areas was unnecessarily slow and cumbersome.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/26/education/26VISA.html


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New Film May Harm Gibson's Career
Sharon Waxman

Mel Gibson's provocative new film, "The Passion of the Christ," is making some of Hollywood's most prominent executives uncomfortable in ways that may damage Mr. Gibson's career.

Hollywood is a close-knit world, and friendships and social contact are critical in the making of deals and the casting of movies. Many of Hollywood's most prominent figures are also Jewish. So with a furor arising around the film, along with Mr. Gibson's reluctance to distance himself from his father, who calls the Holocaust mostly fiction, it is no surprise that Hollywood — Jewish and non-Jewish — has been talking about little else, at least when it's not talking about the Oscars.

Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen, the principals of DreamWorks, have privately expressed anger over the film, said an executive close to the two men.

The chairmen of two other major studios said they would avoid working with Mr. Gibson because of "The Passion of the Christ" and the star's remarks surrounding its release.

Neither of the chairmen would speak for attribution, but as one explained: "It doesn't matter what I say. It'll matter what I do. I will do something. I won't hire him. I won't support anything he's part of. Personally that's all I can do."

The chairman said he was angry not just because of what he had read about the film and its portrayal of Jews in relation to the death of Jesus, but because of Mr. Gibson's remarks defending his father, Hutton Gibson. Last week in a radio interview the elder Mr. Gibson repeated his contention that the Holocaust was "all — maybe not all fiction — but most of it is." Asked about his father's Holocaust denial in an interview with Diane Sawyer on ABC, the movie star told her to "leave it alone."

The other studio chairman, whose family fled European anti-Semitism before the Holocaust, was less emphatic but said, "I think I can live without him." But others said there would be no lasting backlash against Mel Gibson. "If the movie works, I don't think it will hurt him," said John Lesher, an agent with Endeavor. "People here will work with the anti-Christ if he'll put butts in seats." Mr. Lesher added, "He put his own money where his mouth is. He invested in himself."

As Mr. Lesher implied, Hollywood is also a place of businesspeople, and Mr. Gibson is a proven movie star, popular with audiences. There are few actors with that kind of bankability, no matter their personal views. Mr. Gibson is also a capable director. So some of the initial reactions to his film may fade over time.

Mr. Gibson not only directed and helped write the $30 million film, but he also paid for it, including production and marketing costs, out of his own pocket, which Hollywood has filled.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/26/movies/26GIBS.html


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Women Tailor Sex Industry to Their Eyes
Mireya Navarro

Carlin Ross and Christina Head, a lawyer and a documentary filmmaker in New York, recently teamed up to plot new careers.

Among their first moves: Ms. Ross, 30, a general counsel to dot-coms, this month restarted an adult Web site that features "sex and love from a woman's perspective."

Ms. Head, 26, who has primarily covered subjects like inner-city youth, hopes to produce and direct pornographic films and television programming.

"It's all about empowering and educating women and, of course, I enjoy sex," Ms. Head said. "We're women. We enjoy sex."

Ms. Head and Ms. Ross are part of a growing cadre of women who are selling sex to other women, in this case what Ms. Ross calls "female empowered" adult entertainment — the kind with plots, foreplay and cuddling in the afterglow, the kind that is mindful of women's tastes and suggests new possibilities for women's pleasure.

Experts say demand by women — both heterosexual and lesbian — is driving the growth of all sorts of sex-related ventures, from stores, catalogs and sex toy companies to adult Web sites, pornographic films and cable television shows. At the same time, many women, they say, see the sex industry as a legitimate place to make a living.

"Women have a voice now — `This is what I want and this is how I want it,' " said Ms. Ross.

Samantha Lewis, president of Digital Playground, a DVD company in California that produces pornographic films for women and couples, estimated that women account for 40 percent of retail sales of Digital's movies, double what it was just two years ago. At trade shows, she said, half the fans are women, compared to maybe 10 percent five years ago. "Women are fueling the growth," Ms. Lewis, 42, said.

While women have long been involved in the sex industry as providers and consumers, their participation now has become more of an economic phenomenon, largely because of the Internet. In fact, experts say, the Internet has been a major factor in unleashing women's interest in all things sexual. Surveys by Nielsen/NetRatings, which measures Internet audiences, have found that women account for more than a quarter of all visitors to sites with adult content, with more than 10 million women logging on to such sites in December alone.

ComScore Media Metrix, an Internet research firm, has found even higher female demand for adult sites — 42 percent of all visitors in January — with the highest rates among women ages 18 to 34.

The Internet also helps sales for other sex-related businesses.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/20/national/20FEM.html


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DVD's? I Don't Rent. I Own.
Wilson Rothman

VERY night at his home in Des Moines, Todd Robertson watches a couple of DVD movies. Every few months he queues up a themed marathon he says might last 24 hours. His favorite genre is Italian horror, but he's got a whole world of cinema to choose from: at last count he owned 1,462 titles, although by now the number is probably higher.

And he is not alone. According to Adams Media Research, consumers spent $14.4 billion last year on movies for the home, almost $5 billion more than they spent on theater tickets or video rentals. With more than 27,000 DVD movies to choose from, mega-collectors are building libraries of 1,000 titles or more, and some are starting Web sites and Internet databases to help fellow fans manage inventory.

On the heels of the software is new hardware, including 300- and 400-disc DVD changers. If they ever catch on, they may prove to be the key to organizing so many shiny silver discs.

"Nobody saw this coming," said Jan Saxton, Adams vice president and media analyst, who attributes the boom to several factors, from the low prices of DVD players to the higher quality of video and sound on the discs. "No one anticipated how much consumers would feel the pull of the $9.99-to-$14.99 impulse buy at Wal-Mart. They didn't anticipate how ready the American consumer was to collect films."

Alex Rosten of Los Angeles, with a collection of 542 DVD's, said that for him, it is economics. "When I rent a DVD, it costs around $4," he said. "Add to that the inevitable late fees and the hassle of having to return it, and I'm looking at a lot more than I bargained for. Most DVD's cost $10 to $20, so it makes more sense for me to purchase. And I have the option of watching it whenever I want."

The average price of a new release on DVD is $21.85, although if you know where to shop, it will be cheaper. The sale-rack titles, those older movies referred to in the business as "catalog releases," generally cost about $12. "As an option, it often compares favorably to renting," Ms. Saxton said. "Of course, there are movies you really don't want to own - that's why we don't see the rental market fading away."

Mr. Robertson has never rented a DVD. In fact, with his collection, he would be more likely to start his own rental business. He currently owns a moving company.

"For me, the whole point is to build the perfect library of films," he said. "If films came on something else, that's what I'd collect. DVD is just the format that's doing film the most justice."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/26/te...ts/26vide.html


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The sound is bad, the idea good.

After TiVo, Radio Rewound
David Pogue

YOU'VE heard of occupational hazards like tennis elbow, runner's knee, footballer's ankle. But those ailments pale next to the agony of the TiVo twitch.

This recently diagnosed condition is exhibited by owners of digital video recorders like TiVo and ReplayTV. Having become addicted to the seven-second replay button - an essential movie-watching tool in this era of special effects and mumbled dialogue - TiVo twitch sufferers are often seen reflexively pressing a nonexistent seven-second replay button, even when they're not in front of the television. Their brains helplessly fire the deeply ingrained "Let me catch that again" command when they're listening to the car radio, enduring a flaky cellphone connection or savoring a hard-won apology from a spouse.

Truth is, you can't blame the brain for misfiring. It's bizarre that five years into the digital video-recorder era, you still can't buy a digital VCR for radio. Why has the electronics industry developed so many machines that let us time-shift Dr. Phil and "Saturday Night Live," but so few that do so for Dr. Joy Browne and "Science Friday"?

Actually, there is one such device. Radio YourWay (pogoproducts.com) looks at first glance like a pocket-size (2.2 by 3.9 by 0.7 inches) AM-FM transistor radio, which, in part, it is. But it also contains a built-in timer, so that you can set up a schedule for recording radio broadcasts. Programming it is exactly as easy - or as difficult - as programming a VCR, except that it uses a military-style 24-hour clock instead of AM and PM designations.

At the specified time, the radio turns itself on. It tunes in the station, records for the requested interval and then turns off.

Once you've captured a show, you can play it back at a more convenient time (or in an area with no reception), pause it while you take a shower or a meeting, fast- forward through the ads, or even archive it to a Windows PC using a U.S.B. cable.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/26/te...ts/26stat.html


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For Peace of Mind, the One-Button Backup
Thomas J. Fitzgerald

PERSONAL computers have simplified life in many ways, but there is a price to pay in the form of a little drudgery. One of the most obvious examples is the need to back up files: everyone knows they should do it, but the task is often put off. After all, the chances of suddenly losing important data seem so remote. And with a million other distractions, who has time to delve into the complexities of backup software and hardware?

On that last point, at least, there are signs of change. Several recently introduced all-in-one devices can back up the contents of a computer at the push of a button or perpetually, and they can do it in the background, as you work. What's more, these devices are generally easy to set up and demand little in the way of attention or maintenance once they are up and running.

The time may be right. As expanding hard disks allow users to accumulate ever more digital photos, music files, e-mail messages and personal documents, the value of that data increases, and the need for an effective backup strategy grows.

One of the easiest options is a dedicated "one touch" backup unit. Such devices, roughly the size of a hardcover book, are large-capacity external drives that connect to a computer's U.S.B. or FireWire port. They come with backup software that goes into action at the touch of a button, and once configured, they can back up the contents of a computer quickly and easily.

One such device, the Western Digital Media Center With Dual-Option Backup, works with both PC's and Macintosh computers and comes with a backup program from Dantz called Retrospect Express. A backup can be initiated either manually, by pressing a button, or automatically, according to a schedule.

After the software is installed, pressing the backup button for the first time summons a wizard to the screen that prompts the user through a series of choices about what to back up (all files - the elephant-gun-to-swat-a-fly approach - or just documents, from images to e-mail to music files). After you have completed the wizard setup, the first backup begins automatically and the settings are stored as the default. A second button, for scheduling daily or weekly backups, calls up a setup wizard with a different series of questions for that option.

The speed of a backup depends on a computer's processing power, the size of the files to be backed up (one large file can be backed up faster than a batch of smaller files that occupy the same amount of hard-disk space), and whether the connection is the faster U.S.B. 2.0, the older U.S.B. 1.1, or FireWire. With a U.S.B. 2.0 connection, it took me 14 minutes and 42 seconds to back up 12,954 files totaling 1.6 gigabytes.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/26/te...ts/26basi.html


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DJ Danger Mouse Did A Logical Thing...
Hank Mohaski

DJ Danger Mouse did a logical thing...no doubt a quick idea, cuz Jay-Z's Black Album is only a few months old...

And I'm sure he wasn't the only one who considered the idea - mashing Jay-Z's latest and supposedly last longplayer with The Beatle's White Album...Hindsight is 20-20, but it's still a good and logical idea, and he pulled it off rather well in a short period of time...here we are in mid-February and EMI is already issuing Cease and Desist letters left and right...

It's interesting (or not) that Jay-Z hasn't really said anything about The Grey Album...or Paul or Ringo for that matter...I'm sure it's only a matter of time, and my guess is that all three are cool with Danger Mouse's project...

I think many musicians understand the fluid nature of music and art...They recognize how self-referential it is, and how the progress and growth of any art happens mostly through small deviations from the norm, and that a complete paradigm shift - a wholly new form or style - is awfully rare...We're all products of our influences...It's our nature...

I think most lawyers and label executives don't understand any of that...

They also don't understand the simpler thrills of doing what Danger Mouse did here - having fun with music, testing the limits of the gear and one's own creativity...He challenged himself with a specific idea, and he sat down and worked it out, and it turned out pretty damn cool, and he's rightfully proud of it...but I bet he's done tons of stuff since this...

Keep moving on, ya know? That's the nature of an artist too...

The Grey Album is out here in the world now...It will be written about in popular music books twenty years from now, and for those who care, we'll remember it as a fun and interesting "event", and a fine album to have on our harddrives and iPods...EMI can't really stop those who care from hearing it, and sharing it, and sometimes ya gotta believe that those same lawyers and label executives really don't understand business either...Sales of Beatle records will not suffer in the least from this...If anything, this is going to help them sell more White Albums...And even if they don't, who cares? They've sold plenty already...

The ideal solution would be for labels like EMI to pay artists like DJ Danger Mouse to do exactly what he did...Blue Note opened their catalog to Madlib last year, and it was an artistic and commercial success for everyone involved...Labels ought to be proud of the many great albums they've financed and distributed over the years, and rather than profit solely from pointless re- issues and greatest hits packages, they could do something positive for music by allowing for deviations like this...

Kudos to DJ Danger Mouse, Illegal-Arts.com, downhillbattle.org and greytuesday.org for making Grey Tuesday possible...A little something for us true believers of sampling to rally around...
http://www.thebutterscotchthreshold.com/GREY-ALBUM.htm


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Technology Meets Music: An Interview with Composer-Singer Paul Korda
Kirk L. Kroeker

As the writer for several top-20 MP3.com hits last year, Paul Korda's perspective on the convergence of technology and music comes from many years of working as a musician and songwriter -- not to mention being a producer at EMI in the late 1960s. He has seen the old technology meet the new -- and witnessed the transformation of monolithic Big Music into a distributed network of thousands of peer-to-peer enthusiasts.

In general, the technology press -- while reporting regularly on the convergence of technology and entertainment -- has paid attention to the file-sharing issue largely from a technological standpoint. For example, TechNewsWorld has given voice to the leaders of the peer-to-peer file- sharing movement, from CTO Phil Morle of Sharman Networks (the maker of Kazaa) to CEO Michael Weiss of StreamCast Networks (the maker of Morpheus). But in focusing on the clear-cut technological benefits of distributed computing and the future of worldwide peer-to-peer networks, the IT press has largely ignored artists' perspectives.

In what could be one of the first interviews of its kind in the IT industry, Paul Korda talked with TechNewsWorld about the RIAA, the music industry, the onset of distributed networks and the convergence of technology and music.

His opinions -- while wryly informed by many years working as an artist -- resonate strongly with beliefs held by proponents of the file-sharing movement. "As organized religion must change with the times, so must the traditional record industry and its representative, the RIAA," Korda told TechNewsWorld. The RIAA, he argued, must learn to adapt to social changes and be generous to its future public. Taking legal action against customers, he said, only drives them to greater independence.

But at that point, Korda deviates from sharing any affinity with leaders of the peer-to-peer movement. After all, Korda is a writer who holds copyright on much music -- digital and otherwise. That's what he does for a living. His perspective, as revealed in the interview, walks a careful line between both sides of the debate. The opinions expressed here, informed by what could be called a sort of postmodern neo-1960s viewpoint, are a manifestation of his attitudes toward music, technology and humanity.

TechNewsWorld: Given that you are walking such a fine line between warring factions in the file-sharing versus Big Music debate, what do you think of the original emergence of file sharing? And what of its effect on music?

Paul Korda: File-sharing's effect on music for me, as an artist, is currency. If I record a song today about a current subject, people can hear it tomorrow, given the wide-reaching effects of the Internet. But to a songwriter, currency isn't money. It's the richness of the here and now, bringing new ideas to life, producing them and releasing them to the people. Currency is what technology is all about, and you either move into the future with the here and now, or you live in the past.

TNW: In terms of the music industry -- culturally and politically -- what does this mean?

Korda: File-sharing has helped bring more people around the globe a taste for a wider variety of music -- which, in the long term, will increase overall sales, just as the transistor radio brought the Beatles to the nomads of the Saharan desert. Did any label say to ban the transistor radio or sue the nomads because they could hear a record without paying for it?

It means the new heads of the big music companies may have to think more deeply than their materialism. The music industry, in other words, needs to understand that the future of music is being formed right now. Don't get me wrong. Both artists and business should be paid, but it takes time to lay the groundwork when a new format emerges.

TNW: Do you think, then, that there's any way for the music industry -- Big Music -- to accommodate the increasingly wide-ranging tastes of current fans?

Korda: The big question for media monopolies is how to answer the public's desire to access diverse media. Media monopolies narrow the amount of access. That's their nature -- to protect their business. But they have to remember that we're the customers. It's what the public wants that counts. If this new form of digital media is being widely embraced by the public, the record industry must learn to adapt.

What they should be doing is creating many independent Internet outlets for streaming and paid- for downloads, as well as automated -- and perhaps even customized -- HiFi CD production. It can all be handled online. Give the jobs in signing new artists back to the musicians and songwriters -- as it always used to be until the early 1970s. And let the accountants and lawyers go back to accounting and lawyering.

In this kind of world, the music labels should sign the successful Internet artists who already have a following. It makes their job easier. Instead of spending enormous amounts on promotion -- amounts that the artist generally shoulders -- they can sign artists that already have an Internet following. That's embracing the new form from the perspective of the recording industry. So much has been made of the technology issues in light of the RIAA's lawsuits, but to transform the system, you have to be asking systemic questions and offering systemic solutions.

TNW: What of the users? Are they at fault for distributing "illegal" copies of music in digital form?

Korda: Yes, they are at fault, but they are the unwitting victims of their love of music. The RIAA should reconsider its strategy and focus on helping people realize that to create and produce the music takes the sweat and talent of both creative and industry people alike. What the RIAA should think about is a pro-music -- or even pro-digital -- campaign instead of an anti-fan inquisition. The RIAA does endorse iTunes and other legit services, but its latest strategy to sue the fans is counterproductive.

TNW: What about the file-sharing networks themselves? Not counting online music sources like iTunes, Rhapsody, MusicMatch and Napster, all of which do pay artists, do you think good can come of the file-sharing technology realized in applications like Kazaa, Morpheus and others?

Korda: Although I believe that original artistry involves chance, and that no robot can or should try to supersede nature, binary technology relates to musical theory. Measurement is equivalent in both elements. Heavy and light and all the shades between. Our character and physical nature were made for measurement.

So, in terms of the digital format, there is a relationship between the notes and the system that delivers them. If people share pirate files online, if they feel they have a unique point of view -- which I'm sure they do have -- they should form bands, write songs, and share those songs with the public.

TNW: From one perspective, the open-source software community has advanced the claim that information wants to be free, that thousands of programmers working collectively and producing great software -- much like a band producing great music -- are actually sharing their work around the world for "free." How do you think the open- source community is different from the community of artists?

Korda: I'm a Mac fan, but I've been following some of the debates going on in the Linux community. The open-source concept is great, and there are actually companies making money in this industry. They're doing it through services. And here's where the concept of the album enters into the picture.

The album -- a legitimately purchased musical work -- is a kind of service to the fan because it is the whole concept that the artist has intended to create. A single is akin to watching only one scene of the movie, and file-sharing single downloads will always generate an incomplete part of the story.

TNW: So you think the concept of the album could be at the heart of this debate?

Korda: When you pirate files on Kazaa, the fact is you're also getting hit-or-miss quality, not to mention exposing yourself to viruses. Even if you download a "complete" album from a peer-to- peer network, you might later discover the album to be completely varying in bitrate quality. Anyone who loves music will want to hear it at its best -- maximum bitrate, CD-quality, or vinyl on HiFi. What the RIAA is behind on is the movement of people's attitude to the future.

TNW: How do you think the RIAA -- or the music industry -- could embrace the concept of the album more completely? After all, Apple has just partnered with Pepsi to give away something like 3 million digital songs. Doesn't this kind of single-song strategy fragment the notion of the album altogether? On a logistical level, how can the artist fight against the fragmentation of the album?

Korda: Give away 3 million songs? Without knowing the terms and the payment of royalties to the artists that are part of this deal, it would be hard to pass judgment on it. If the RIAA supports this move, then I wonder why they would prosecute file-sharers who are giving music away. Let's face it, in these promotional giveaways, the corporations running these things usually are the greatest beneficiaries of the results.

The artists are in such a vulnerable position that they are happy to get their music continuing to be heard. If these single tracks will help lead the fans to the artists' albums, then it would be acceptable to allow a song to be promotional. I would suggest that a commercial for the album be edited as a cross-fade at the end of every track that mentions the CD album so that the free track cannot be listened to without the cross fade.

Television is currently using that technique. If a fan has to listen to the commercial enough times, they'll want to pay for the music without the voiceover.

TNW: What do you think of the current social or cultural climate -- which is now so influenced by technology -- in contrast to, say, the 1960s, when music was perhaps the main transformational cultural power?

Korda: The '60s would have never seen such an outburst of creativity if music was just a commodity. Individuality in the '60s did not come about by fashion-setting or manipulative media gimmicks. I remember when the VP of A&R at EMI played me the first pressing of Sgt. Pepper and tapped his foot, completely out of time, trying to find out what my 18-year-old head thought about the record. The RIAA are somewhat like that VP. They know change is coming, but they are a little out of time.

TNW: Then it seems, in the current climate, that all parties will remain dissatisfied until something changes. Is there hope for this situation? What do you think the industry will look like 10 years from now?

Korda: Doctors will be selling CDs that have been tested by the FDA for curative value once we've found the mechanisms for measuring the energies that are given off by notes. Let's just hope they're good singers, and that dentists stay out of the game. Seriously, though, I hope we all live in musical utopia, download bliss or just a world at peace with itself. The Earth is now a very turbulent place, and meaningful music plays a vital role in grounding people.
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/perl/story/32952.html


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P2P, RIAA Go Face-to-Face
Roy Mark

Peer-to-peer networks (P2P) move into the Washington policy spotlight today as representatives of the music industry and a new trade group for file-swapping companies sit down at a lunch forum.

U.S. Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR) and John Ensign (R-NV) called the meeting in hopes that the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and P2P United can reach some agreement in a contentious copyright battle.

The music industry has been relentless in opposing P2P networks facilitating the unauthorized downloading of copyrighted music. The RIAA legally forced the original Napster out of business, and it continues to ask courts to declare Napster's successors, such as Grokster, Morpheus and Bearshare, illegal.

The RIAA has also filed more a thousand lawsuits against alleged music pirates operating through P2P networks and lobbied Congress for legislative relief.

Although bills aimed at curbing P2P music piracy have been introduced, lawmakers have so far resisted taking action in hopes that the music industry and file-sharing businesses can privately settle their differences.

"Congress can play a role by using its big, booming voice to tell all the parties to get to the table and work it out," P2P United Executive Director Adam Eisgrau told internetnews.com.

To that end, Wyden and Ensign, co-chairs of the Forum on Technology & Innovation, invited the RIAA and P2P United to discuss the legitimate business and consumer applications of P2P.

How to build a "fair and viable marketplace" in which P2P technology plays a central role is "exactly the right question" to ask, according to Eisgrau. "It's being posed in a productively neutral and open- ended manner and it's being asked at the right time to have a profound impact," he said.

The most pressing P2P issue is a compensation scheme for artists and copyright holders and the technology to implement it.

The RIAA is particularly keen on filtering software developed by Audible Magic. The Los Gatos, Calif.-based developer of content management and identification services calls its filtering system a "breakthrough in P2P management."

The Audible Magic solution hooks into a network to identify copyrighted files matched against a company developed database. It can block all P2P transfers or only copyrighted material. The RIAA calls the Magic Audible scheme an "innocuous filter."

Eisgrau calls it a "warrantless wiretap," and notes that neither the RIAA nor Audible Magic has provided either P2P United or any of its five members with a demonstration copy of the software that Audible Magic was demonstrating at a high profile congressional gathering earlier this month.

"It is privately administered surveillance software," Eisgrau said.

In an e-mail response to internetnews.com, an RIAA spokesperson wrote, "We are delighted to work with anyone to show them that filtering is a viable option."
http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news...le.php/3318341


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Actions Of Joyce Estate Highlight Problems With Copyright Law
Andrew Baoill

According to an article in the Irish Times (registration required) the Joyce estate has informed the Irish government that it intends to sue for copyright infringement if there are any public readings of Joyce's works during the festival commemorating the 100th anniversary of Bloomsday this June.

James Joyce died in 1941 and the copyright in his work expired in 1991. Then the EU extended terms to life+70 years, and the work went back into copyright in July 1995. The estate has been very active in enforcing their copyright, suing regularly. While some of their actions have been aimed at issues such as protecting the memory of Joyce's daughter Lucia from scrutiny, other suits have been against non-commercial uses of the works by fans. As such, they seem solely concerned with the financial health of the estate [admittedly one of their roles] having no concern for nurturing the greater cultural legacy of Joyce.

The Irish Times notes that "In 1998, the Joyce estate objected to readings of Ulysses live over the Internet, which was facilitated by Ireland.com. The case was settled out of court." Now the estate has issued a letter to the Irish government warning that all use must be cleared with the estate - which means that there can be no public reading during the festival, and a planned production of Joyce's Exiles by the Abbey theatre must be cancelled.

Public readings do not displace commercialised use of Joyce's work, so the estate does not lose income from their occurrence. Of course, the estate is technically within its 'rights' (though this does indicate reasons for reforming European copyright law) but such vigorous enforcement is unnecessary and distasteful.
http://funferal.org/mt-archive/000514.html


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Aftermath

Defiant Downloads Rise From Underground
Bill Werde

More than 300 Web sites and blogs staged a 24-hour online protest yesterday over a record company's efforts to stop them from offering downloadable copies of "The Grey Album." A popular underground collection of music, "The Grey Album" mixes tracks from the Beatles' classic White Album with raps from Jay-Z's latest release, "The Black Album."

The protesters billed the event as "Grey Tuesday," calling it "a day of coordinated civil disobedience," during which more than 150 sites offered the album for download. Recording industry lawyers saw it as 24 hours of mass copyright infringement and sent letters to the Web sites demanding that they not follow through on the protest.

"The Grey Album" is a critically praised collection of tracks created by Brian Burton, a Los Angeles D.J. who records as Danger Mouse. Mr. Burton created the album by layering Jay-Z's a cappella raps from "The Black Album," released on Jay-Z's Roc-A-Fella label, over music he arranged using melodies and rhythms from "The Beatles," commonly known as the White Album.

Mr. Burton did not seek permission from EMI, which owns the publishing rights to the White Album. When EMI learned that Mr. Burton was distributing "The Grey Album" early this month, its lawyers sent him a cease-and-desist letter, and Mr. Burton complied.

EMI views any distribution, reproduction or public performance of "The Grey Album" to be a copyright violation. "They may say EMI is trying to stop an artwork," said Jeanne Meyer, an EMI spokeswoman, referring to the Web sites, "but they neglect to understand that there is a well-established market for licensing samples, and Mr. Burton didn't participate in it."

Some protesters say "The Grey Album" illustrates a need for revisions in copyright law. They say that sampling should be allowed under fair use of copyrighted material, or that a system of fair compensation should be created to allow for sampling.

"To a lot of artists and bedroom D.J.'s, who are now able to easily edit and remix digital files of their favorite songs using inexpensive computers and software, pop music has become source material for sonic collages," said Nicholas Reville, a co-founder of Downhill Battle, an organization of music industry activists who promoted Grey Tuesday.

Jonathan Zittrain, a director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School, said the issue is indeed a gray one. "As a matter of pure legal doctrine, the Grey Tuesday protest is breaking the law, end of story," Mr. Zittrain said. "But copyright law was written with a particular form of industry in mind. The flourishing of information technology gives amateurs and home-recording artists powerful tools to build and share interesting, transformative, and socially valuable art drawn from pieces of popular culture. There's no place to plug such an important cultural sea change into the current legal regime."

He said that under copyright law a judge can impose damages as high as $150,000 for each infringement.

To create a collection like "The Grey Album" legally, an artist would first have to get permission to use copyrighted material. Then he would have to negotiate compensation with the copyright holder. Many artists, however, like the Beatles, will not allow their music to be sampled. But even if permission is granted, it is common for a copyright holder to request more than 50 percent of publishing rights for a new song created from the copyrighted work. So if Mr. Burton had been able to get permission to make "The Grey Album" from both the Beatles and Jay-Z, he would probably have had to give away more than 100 percent of his publishing rights.

Around the same time Mr. Burton received his cease-and-desist letter, his album was receiving critical acclaim in Rolling Stone magazine. The album took on a distribution life of its own online, circulated via file-trading sites and on e-Bay, where bootleg CD's were selling for as much as $80 yesterday. Two weeks ago EMI issued cease-and- desist letters to an undisclosed number of record stores and e-Bbay sellers.

Downhill Battle went live last Wednesday with a site devoted to the protest, Greytuesday.org. In 12 hours it had more than 40 sites signed on to participate. Within two days, Greytuesday.org reached the top ranking on Blogdex and Popdex, Web sites that track which sites are being linked to from blogs.

Monday night lawyers for EMI issued cease-and-desist letters to more than 150 Web sites participating in the protest. The letter said distribution of "The Grey Album" "will subject you to serious legal remedies for willful violation of the laws."

By yesterday afternoon some of the Web masters of the protesting sites said they had served 85 to 100 copies of the album, while other reported as many as 1,000 downloads.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/25/ar...ic/25REMI.html
















Until next week,

- js.













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[multi]

Today we were able to negotiate an out-of-court agreement with Firstway Medien GmbH, which avoids an long and expensive lawsuit. Firstway agrees to transfer the trademark ´eMule´ to the eMule Developers (emule-project.net) immediately. They also stated that they had no knowledge of the DDoS Attack against our server and will help to reduce the damage as much as possible.

With that we have reached our aim and no eMule developer or webmaster in germany has to fear legal attacks based on the trademark law anymore. We want to thank everyone who has helped us to reach this aim and in particular our attorney Dr. Martin Bahr for the night shifts.
http://freemule.net/?news