Peer-To-Peer News - The Week In Review – November 6th, '04

[JackSpratts]

Quotes Of The Week


"After Apple threatened my Web-hosting company, and my site was shut down for more than one hour, I had to withdraw the plug-in." - Sylvain Demongeot


"All the labels are very focused on the mobile space. We may have been a bit slow to things happening on the Internet, but we won't do that again." - Scott Hochgesang, the executive vice-president of the Universal Music Group


"Even if the election were viewed as 'successful,' it would not alleviate the vast majority of my concerns with the machines. Voting machines that are vulnerable to wholesale rigging can still perform perfectly normally. It is possible that nobody exploited the vulnerabilities this time around, and it is also possible that there was fraud or serious error--but that they went undetected. Electronic voting will be judged on the noticeable failures, and the unnoticeable ones are the most serious." - Aviel Rubin, professor of computer sciences at Johns Hopkins University


















Movie Industry To Sue File Sharers
AP

Taking a cue from recording companies, Hollywood movie studios are preparing to file copyright infringement lawsuits against computer users it says are illegally distributing movies online, a source familiar with the studios' plans said Wednesday.

The lawsuits will target movie fans who share digitized versions of films over peer-to-peer networks, with the first wave of litigation planned for as early as Thursday, according to the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Like the recording industry, which began suing individual music file-sharers last year, the movie studios plan an ongoing litigation campaign, the source said.

The Motion Picture Association of America, which represents the major film studios, declined to comment Wednesday. But the organization issued a release saying its chief executive would be making ``a major announcement regarding illegal file sharing of motion pictures on peer-to-peer networks'' early Thursday.

The movie studios were still finalizing how many lawsuits would make up their initial filing, but it would probably be around 200 or so, the source said.

Videotaped copies of films in theaters often are digitized or burned off DVDs and then distributed on file-sharing networks.

The MPAA claims the U.S. movie industry loses more than $3 billion annually in potential global revenue because of physical piracy, or bogus copies of videos and DVDs of its films.

The MPAA doesn't give an estimate for how much online piracy costs the industry annually, but claims the health of the industry is at stake as the copying and distribution of movies online continues to grow unabated.

Along with the recording industry, movie studios have tried to shut down companies behind file-sharing software through litigation with little success.

The movie industry has also tried to battle piracy by running ads in movie theaters and elsewhere designed to dissuade people from file-sharing films by stressing the risks of identity theft and liability.

Up to this point, the studios have stopped short of taking legal action against individuals.
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/sil...y/10091526.htm


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

File-Sharing Network Thrives Beneath Radar
Adam Pasick

A file-sharing program called BitTorrent has become a behemoth, devouring more than a third of the Internet's bandwidth, and Hollywood's copyright cops are taking notice.

For those who know where to look, there's a wealth of content, both legal -- such as hip-hop from the Beastie Boys and video game promos -- and illicit, including a wide range of TV shows, computer games and movies.

Average users are taking advantage of the software's ability to cheaply spread files around the Internet. For example, when comedian Jon Stewart made an incendiary appearance on CNN's political talk show "Crossfire," thousands used BitTorrent to share the much-discussed video segment.

Even as lawsuits from music companies have driven people away from peer-to-peer programs like KaZaa, BitTorrent has thus far avoided the ire of groups such as the Motion Picture Association of America. But as BitTorrent's popularity grows, the service could become a target for copyright lawsuits.

According to British Web analysis firm CacheLogic, BitTorrent accounts for an astounding 35 percent of all the traffic on the Internet -- more than all other peer-to-peer programs combined -- and dwarfs mainstream traffic like Web pages.

"I don't think Hollywood is willing to let it slide, but whether they're able to (stop it) is another matter," Bram Cohen, the programmer who created BitTorrent, told Reuters.

John Malcolm, director of worldwide anti-piracy operations for the MPAA, said that his group is well aware of the vast amounts of copyrighted material being traded via BitTorrent.

"It's a very efficient delivery system for large files, and it's being used and abused by a hell of a lot of people," he told Reuters. "We're studying our options, as we do with all new technologies which are abused by people to engage in theft."

For Good Or Evil

BitTorrent, which is available for free on http://bittorrent.com, can be used to distribute legitimate content and to enable copyright infringement on a massive scale. The key is to understand how the software works.

Let's say you want to download a copy of this week's episode of "Desperate Housewives." Rather than downloading the actual digital file that contains the show, instead you would download a small file called a "torrent" onto your computer.

When you open that file on your computer, BitTorrent searches for other users that have downloaded the same "torrent."

BitTorrent's "file-swarming" software breaks the original digital file into fragments, then those fragments are shared between all of the users that have downloaded the "torrent." Then the software stitches together those fragments into a single file that a users can view on their PC.

Sites like Slovenia-based Suprnova (http://www.suprnova.org) offer up thousands of different torrents without storing the shows themselves.

Suprnova is a treasure trove of movies, television shows, and pirated games and software. Funded by advertising, it is run by a teen-age programmer who goes only by the name Sloncek, who did not respond to an e-mailed interview request.

Enabling users to share copyrighted material illicitly may put Suprnova and its users on shaky legal ground.

"They're doing something flagrantly illegal, but getting away with it because they're offshore," said Cohen. He is not eager to get into a battle about how his creation is used. "To me, it's all bits," he said.

But Cohen has warned that BitTorrent is ill-suited to illegal activities, a view echoed by John Malcolm of MPAA.

"People who use these systems and think they're anonymous are mistaken," Malcolm said. Asked if he thought sites like Suprnova were illegal, he said: "That's still an issue we're studying, that reasonable minds can disagree on," he said.

Going Legit

Meanwhile, BitTorrent is rapidly emerging as the preferred means of distributing large amounts of legitimate content such as versions of the free computer operating system Linux, and these benign uses may give it some legal protection.

"Almost any software that makes it easy to swap copyrighted files is ripe for a crackdown BitTorrent's turn at bat will definitely happen," said Harvard University associate law professor Jonathan Zittrain. "At least under U.S. law, it's a bit more difficult to find the makers liable as long as the software is capable of being used for innocent uses, which I think (BitTorrent) surely is."

Among the best legitimate sites for movies and music:

-- Legal Torrents (http://www.legaltorrents.com/), which includes a wide selection of electronic music. It also has the Wired Magazine Creative Commons CD, which has songs from artists like the Beastie Boys who agreed to release some of their songs under a more permissive copyright that allows free distribution and remixing.

-- Torrentocracy (http://torrentocracy.com/torrents/) has videos of the U.S. presidential debates and other political materials.

-- File Soup (http://www.filesoup.com) offers open-source software and freeware, music from artists whose labels don't belong to the Recording Industry Association of America trade group, and programs from public television stations like PBS or the BBC.

-- Etree (http://bt.etree.org) is for devotees of "trade-friendly" bands like Phish and the Dead, who encourage fans to share live recordings, usually in the form of large files that have been minimally compressed to maintain sound quality.
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/041103/80/f5x2i.html


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

Musicians to Place Songs on File-Sharing Network
Jon Healey

The major record labels and movie studios are leery of putting their wares on file-sharing networks, where piracy is rampant. But another group of artists soon may find that one of the most controversial networks offers a particularly effective means of reaching a wide audience.

The musicians who license their works with the help of the Creative Commons advocacy group will soon have their songs spotlighted on a new version of the Morpheus file-sharing network, which has been vilified by the mainstream entertainment industry.

Streamcast Networks Inc., the Woodland Hills company behind Morpheus, has modified its file-sharing software so that users can search specifically for MP3 files bearing a Creative Commons license. The San Francisco-based group backs a more flexible approach to copyrights, and many of the files that bear its licenses are free to download, copy and manipulate. The licenses have been used by up-and-coming independents and tech-savvy established artists.

Streamcast Chief Executive Michael Weiss said his goal was to help artists release and promote their music, videos and other copyrighted works on their own. But the new effort with Creative Commons also buttresses Streamcast's argument that file-sharing networks deserve legal protection.

The major record and movie companies have sued Streamcast for copyright infringement because of the illegal downloading that is rampant on Morpheus. The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals held that Streamcast was not liable for its users' piracy, in part because the network had legitimate uses. The new approach increases the potential for legitimate downloading as the Supreme Court considers whether to hear the entertainment industry's appeal.

Leaders of Creative Commons have been talking to several file-sharing companies about integrating support for its licenses. So far, only Streamcast is ready to sign on.

Creative Commons was founded three years ago by Stanford University law professor Lawrence Lessig to promote a more permissive approach to copyrights. Federal law grants copyright holders an exclusive right to copy, distribute, manipulate and publicly perform their works; Creative Commons' free licenses let them give some of those rights to the public.

For example, a Creative Commons license might permit people to download and share a song for free but not to sell or claim credit for it.

Lessig said the group had tried for a long time to get file-sharing companies "to integrate our technology so it becomes easier to see what's available and what's not." That would help people download music without committing piracy, he said.

Several file-sharing networks work with Altnet, a subsidiary of Woodland Hills-based Brilliant Digital Entertainment, to identify some of the files that can be downloaded legally. On most other networks, however, it's hard to distinguish the files that can be downloaded legally from pirated ones.

The new version of Morpheus, due Nov. 9, will help solve that problem. When users search for downloadable songs with the new software, any track that carries a Creative Commons license will have its permissions prominently displayed. For instance, a search for "Now Get Busy" would highlight a song by the Beastie Boys that permits downloading and sharing.
http://www.latimes.com/technology/la...nes-technology

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

An Industry in India Cheers Bush's Victory
Saritha Rai

India's outsourcing companies were jubilant Wednesday that the elections in the United States will return President Bush to office.

"This is great news for the offshoring industry," said Nandan M. Nilekani, chief executive of Infosys Technologies, a software services company. The trend toward outsourcing will now become even more inexorable, Mr. Nilekani said.

Offshore outsourcing, or the moving of work from the United States to low-cost centers like India, was an issue in the presidential election. The Democratic candidate, Senator John Kerry, blamed Mr. Bush and outsourcing for the loss of thousands of American jobs.

Mr. Bush, in contrast, was largely silent on the issue. But members of his team, among them N. Gregory Mankiw, the chief economic adviser, and Treasury Secretary John W. Snow, have both defended outsourcing as another form of free trade.

Mr. Kerry referred to ''Benedict Arnold companies and C.E.O.'s'' that sent jobs overseas. He promised that as president he would end tax deferrals for companies that send work abroad.

The tone of some campaign comments criticizing outsourcing was noted with some concern in India. The Times of India, the country's leading newspaper, called outsourcing the "swear word" of the 2004 elections. Thousands of workers in India's technology centers like Bangalore and Hyderabad closely followed the campaign. India's outsourcing industry employs over 800,000.

For more than a decade now, leading Indian outsourcing companies like Infosys Technologies and Wipro have written software applications and done back-office work for top American corporations including General Electric and Citigroup. The work can be done more cheaply here, where skilled labor is inexpensive and plentiful. The leading outsourcing companies earn as much as two-thirds of their revenue from customers from the United States.

India's software and back-office services industry posted $12.5 billion in export revenues in the year ended in March, a 30 percent rise over the previous year as global demand for its services grew.

News that Mr. Kerry had conceded the election to Mr. Bush was greeted with joy in the industry. "We are very happy that Bush is back," said Kiran S. Karnik, president of the industry group Nasscom, or National Association of Software and Service Companies.

"The president's track record has been of recognizing the advantages of free trade," Mr. Karnik said.

Mr. Bush's re-election will bring out the latent demand for outsourcing and lead to more offshoring announcements by companies, he said.

"Some corporations have been cautious about signing or announcing deals in the last few months," he said, adding, "Now they will no longer hold back."

Some executives said that offshoring would grow at even steeper rates with Mr. Bush's victory.

"The elections are over and so is the rhetoric; it will be easier for American corporations to step out with their outsourcing plans," said Vivek Paul, the vice chairman of Wipro, who works in Mountain View, Calif. The company itself is based in Bangalore.

In spite of some strong American sentiment against offshoring, Indian outsourcing companies have been growing robustly recently. In the quarter that ended in September, Infosys Technologies announced a 49 percent rise in profit, and added more than 5,000 employees. Its rival Wipro had a 65 percent increase in quarterly profit, and hired 5,500 more workers.

Early on Wednesday, news of Mr. Bush's likely re-election also buoyed India's stock market. The bellwether Sensex index in Mumbai ended up 1.53 percent, at 5,842.54 points.

Some experts said that Mr. Bush's return to the White House augured well not just for India's technology industry but also for trade relations between India and the United States.

"The results mean that it is less likely that either the Congress or the administration will interfere in the growing and mutually beneficial trade relations between the two countries," said Daniel T. Griswold, director of the Center for Trade Policy Studies at the Cato Institute in Washington.

Mr. Bush's victory also proved that Mr. Kerry's anti-outsourcing position did not resonate with voters, Mr. Griswold said. "The talk about Benedict Arnold C.E.O.'s and traitors of the country, that rhetoric is finally dead," he said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/04/bu...outsource.html


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

Anapod Xtreamer: Browser Power
Commercial Website

iPod via browser? Yes! Anapod's embedded web server lets you browse, search, and download from your iPod using any browser like IE or Netscape. Stream music around your house or across the world over the Internet. Even design custom skins or download others from our gallery! Schwing.

· Full-fledged built-in web server.
· Access iPod using any web browser.
· User-skinnable interface, with default XP-style skin.
· Play songs through your favorite MP3 player software via HTTP streaming.
· Download files from iPod across a network.
· Access iPod away from your computer over a network.
· Search iPod using the built-in SQL engine.
· Selectable port, compatible with firewalls.
· Full access logging.
· Remote access security including user/password database and HTTP authentication.

http://www.redchairsoftware.com/anapod/featpw.php


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

Free The Music On Your iPod
Commercial Website

The iPod Music Liberator allows you to copy music from your iPod to any computer, filling in a missing feature of iTunes. You see, iTunes only allows for a one way transfer of music from your computer to your iPod. But what if you want to move music to another authorized computer? What if you want to make a backup of your music? What if your computer crashes and you lose all of the music on your computer? What if you buy a new computer and need to move your music? What if ... ? Use the iPod Music Liberator for all of your iPod music copying needs.
http://www.zeleksoftware.com/products.htm


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

Heavy handed?

Apple Disables iTunes Plug-In
Ina Fried

With the latest version of iTunes, Apple Computer has disabled an add-on program that let people transfer songs off of their iPod.

Apple introduced iTunes 4.7 last week, announcing new features such as support for the iPod Photo and the ability to find and delete duplicate tracks in a music library. But this week, Apple confirmed that version 4.7 does break compatibility with iPodDownload. The iTunes plug-in is designed to enable iPod owners to copy songs from the music player to an iTunes library, a feature that Apple has not supported.

There are other programs, none sanctioned by Apple, that allow iPod owners to copy or recover music from an iPod, but most require another step for the music to be imported back into iTunes.

Apple has in the past used new versions of iTunes to disable support for third-party software that adds unintended file-sharing abilities to the popular jukebox software. The company has also been pushing users to continue moving to more current versions of iTunes.

An Apple representative did not say why the company had disabled support for iPodDownload. The program's creator had already stopped distributing the software after Apple's lawyers contacted the company that housed its Web hosting.

"After Apple threatened my Web-hosting company, and my site was shut down for more than one hour, I had to withdraw the plug-in," Sylvain Demongeot said on the iPodDownload Web site. Demongeot did not return an e-mail.

Apple declined to comment beyond confirming that iPodDownload was disabled via the iTunes 4.7 update.
http://news.com.com/Apple+disables+i...3-5436447.html


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

Open Letter to Apple: Ogg For Us, Please

Dear Apple, the other day I mentioned that lots of us would like an official position about Ogg Vorbis support for the iPod. Let me restate the request in more clear terms, without my usual fatmouthing. Mr. Steve Jobs recently said Apple had not heard any requests for Ogg support on the iPod or in your music library tool, iTunes. This is a formal request for one of two things, if you would.

Please add Ogg Vorbis support to the iPod and iTunes, as a vocal (but apparently not vocal enough) minority has been requesting. Failing that, if you could please give us an official position on why Apple will not add the totally free and excellent codec to compliment your fantastic iTunes music library software and iPod music player. While I understand you are orienting your marketing and DRM approach around AAC (another excellent codec), adding Ogg would in no way diminish the ease of use that are hallmarks of your player and software (just as supporting MP3 has not interfered with your choice of AAC). It would, however, make it easier for me to continue to recommend the iPod to my readers as the best player for audiophiles and allow me to get even more use out of a player and platform in which I have already invested.

If the current third generation iPod is not computationally able to decode Ogg, that would be a reasonable explanation, of course. I would not expect Apple to officially support a codec in iTunes, but not iPod. I look forward to your response. Thanks! Joel

Reader Kevin Van Winkle writes:

What legitimate content is distributed in Ogg Vorbis format? I've never run into it, but I don't use Kazaa or the other bootleg services either.

The MP3 support is a requirement since it is the original format that gives MP3 players their names, but maybe Apple doesn't want to support Ogg Vorbis since the music labels might have an objection.

Of course, I'm speculating since I have never seen a file encoded in Ogg Vorbis. Or, is this just the preferred format on Linux so you want to have your content in a multi-platform format?

Just curious... You might get further with Apple in your open letter if you outlined why Ogg Vorbis is important to you.

That's a good point. The reason Ogg is important is that it is a totally free codec that provides the best-sounding audio compression with the smallest file sizes. AAC sounds great, too, but Ogg is the clear winner by almost every metric (just google 'Audio codec shootout' or something like that). As for who uses it, it's mostly audiophiles who want the best option for their disk space. For me, AAC is good enough, but for many who are ripping their own music to get the best quality, Ogg is the format of choice. It's especially important with the iPod (or any player), because that means you can squeeze a few more songs into a fixed space without sacrificing quality. For me (and most, honestly) AAC gets the job done, but with Ogg it's really less of a question of 'Why?' and more of a question of 'Why not?' I can think of no reason (besides techincal ones) that Apple would not add Ogg support to their device, as the addition makes it no more confusing for less-savvy users, but offers more playback choices for power users.

Whatever they do, I just would like an official position besides "No one is asking for it."
http://www.gizmodo.com/archives/open...ase-015547.php


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

Sounds good to me

CBC Radio Streaming In Ogg

We're currently testing the streaming of Ogg Vorbis, an open, free audio codec. Please contact CBC Audience Relations if you have suggestions or comments.

Ogg Vorbis stream of CBC Radio One (Eastern Time)

Ogg Vorbis stream of CBC Radio Two (Eastern Time) - the stream is currently unavailable, we apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

What is Ogg Vorbis?
Ogg Vorbis is a new audio compression format. It is roughly comparable to other formats used to store and play digital music, such as MP3, VQF, AAC, and other digital audio formats. It is different from these other formats because it is completely free, open, and unpatented.

What do I need to listen to Ogg?
If you're a Windows user, download Winamp 5, which copes with Ogg.
If you're not using Windows, visit Ogg's download page.

What are you using to encode it?
We use Oddcast to encode our stations, and Icecast2 to serve it.

I've got more questions.
See Ogg's FAQ; or see the excellent Wikipedia entry on Vorbis, which also contains more software to play and listen to Ogg Vorbis files.

CBC does not endorse and is not responsible for the content of external sites - links will open in a new window.
http://www.cbc.ca/listen/ogg.html


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

CRTC Must Consider Musicians' Rights In Radio Hearings: Recording Industry
Sandra Cordon

OTTAWA -- Musicians' rights must be protected by the country's telecommunications regulator as it considers three bids for satellite radio licences, says the music recording industry.

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission is holding hearings this week into bids by three consortiums that all want to offer the striking new radio technology on a subscription basis.

Satellite radio, growing in popularity in the United States and Europe, promises crystal-clear sound and a wide range of choices with little or no advertising.

But it raises many fundamental questions about Canadian content and how best to support homegrown artists in a medium that doesn't recognize borders.

The technology can also open the door for outsiders to pirate music - essentially stealing from artists, complains Graham Henderson, president of the Canadian Recording Industry Association.

"Latent in this technology are very significant threats to creators of music," Henderson said in an interview Tuesday.

Before it licenses any or all of the bidders, the CRTC should first demand they put in place technology to prevent broad theft of music by listeners building massive digital libraries of music, said Henderson.

His group is among a list of more than 30 interveners who want their opinions heard on the new technology and the wide sweep of issues that it raises.

Individuals, performers - including Susan Aglukark - and groups such as the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting have lined up to be heard.

First to apply for a licence was Toronto-based businessman John Bitove, whose Canadian Satellite Radio Inc. is a joint venture with American radio firm XM Satellite Radio Holdings, Inc.

It's promising more than 100 channels, including four Canadian, for a monthly fee of $12.99 - subscription charges are just one of the many differences between conventional, free radio and a satellite service.

The CBC, Standard Radio Inc., and U.S.-based Sirius Satellite Radio Inc., are making a similar pitch but propose to add CBC stations to the 100-channel mix for a similar fee.

Sirius can also offer popular shock-jock Howard Stern, recently signed to a five-year contract worth $500 million US.

The third and significantly different proposal before the CRTC comes from Toronto-based radio and television broadcaster CHUM Ltd., and its partner Astral Media Inc.

They would target larger cities only, offering signals from land-based transmitters rather than satellites.

In response to the CRIA's concerns about music theft, some satellite providers have argued the problem exists worldwide and would be hard to address in Canada alone.

Besides, the recording industry is pushing its demands for copyright protections too far, said Michael Geist, a law professor specializing in technology-related issues.

Copyright is designed to offer some protection while allowing personal use of music or texts but the recording industry is over-tipping the balance, said Geist, who teaches at the University of Ottawa.
http://www.canada.com/ottawa/ottawac...1-cc54b2360050


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

Deep Study: The World's Safest Computing Environment

London, UK - The most comprehensive study ever undertaken by the mi2g Intelligence Unit over 12 months reveals that the world's safest and most secure 24/7 online computing environment - operating system plus applications - is proving to be the Open Source platform of BSD (Berkley Software Distribution) and the Mac OS X based on Darwin. This is good news for Apple Computers(AAPL) whose shares have outperformed the benchmark NASDAQ, S&P and Dow indices as well as Microsoft (MSFT) by over 100% in the last six months on the back of revived sales and profits. The last twelve months have witnessed the deadliest annual period in terms of malware - virus, worm and trojan - proliferation targeting Windows based machines in which over 200 countries and tens of millions of computers worldwide have been infected month-in month-out.

Sample size and breakdown

The latest mi2g Intelligence Unit study analyses 235,907 successful digital breaches against permanently connected - 24/7 online - computers across the globe. The nearly quarter million digital breaches carried out by hackers span twelve months from November 2003 to October 2004. Global proliferation data from over 459 malware species since the start of 2004 has also been analysed.

The sample of breached computing environments is holistic and possesses some anti-virus protection and basic security at the very least. It consists of micro entities - homes and small offices without a separate firewall unit; small entities - organisations with a turnover of below $7 million with a separate firewall unit; medium entities - organisations with a turnover between $7 million and $40 million with a separate firewall unit and basic intrusion detection; and large entities - organisations with a turnover in excess of $40 million with firewall layers, intrusion detection systems and dedicated computer security staff.

In 2004, 32.7% of all digital breaches were carried out against micro entities including home-based individuals with 24/7 online computers; 58.8% of all digital breaches were against small entities; 6.1% of all digital breaches were against medium size entities; and only 2.5% of all digital breaches were against large entities - businesses, government agencies and non-government organisations inclusive.

Most breached computing environment - Overall

The study also reveals that Linux has become the most breached 24/7 online computing environment in terms of manual hacker attacks overall and accounts for 65.64% of all breaches recorded, with 154,846 successfully compromised Linux 24/7 online computers of all flavours. The number of successful manual hacker attacks against Microsoft Windows based online computers has remained steady and accounts for 25.19% of all breaches recorded, with 59,419 successfully compromised Windows targets of all versions. In sharp contrast, the number of successful hacker attacks against Mac OS X or BSD based online computers has demonstrated a declining trend and accounts for just 4.82% of all breaches recorded, with 11,370 successfully compromised BSD targets of all flavours including Apple.

Most breached computing environment - Governments

In a remarkable switch in top rank within the Government computing environment over the last twelve months, the most breached Operating System for online systems has now become Windows (57.74%) followed by Linux (31.76%) and then BSD and Mac OS X together (1.74%). This is in stark contrast to the situation six months ago, when Microsoft Windows was significantly lower in terms of recorded government server breaches in comparison to Linux. The number of recorded breaches against government online computers running BSD or Mac OS X worldwide remains very low.

Malware proliferation

The recent global malware epidemics have primarily targeted the Windows computing environment and have not caused any significant economic damage to environments running Open Source including Linux, BSD and Mac OS X. When taking the economic damage from malware into account over the last twelve months, including the impact of MyDoom, NetSky, SoBig, Klez and Sasser, Windows has become the most breached computing environment in the world accounting for most of the productivity losses associated with malware - virus, worm and trojan - proliferation. This is directly the result of very insignificant quantities of highly damaging mass-spreading malware being written for other computing environments like Linux, BSD and Mac OS X.

Global economic damage estimate

In 2004, the overall economic damage from hacker perpetrated overt, covert and DDoS digital attacks worldwide is estimated to have been between $103bn and $126bn by the mi2g Intelligence Unit. These figures exclude malware attacks through viruses, worms and trojans which account for an additional estimated damage of between $166bn and $202bn worldwide.

Economic damage is calculated by the mi2g Intelligence Unit on the basis of helpdesk support costs, overtime payments, contingency outsourcing, loss of business, bandwidth clogging, productivity erosion, management time reallocation, cost of recovery and software upgrades. When available, Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) violations as well as customer and supplier liability costs have also been included in the estimates.

Conclusion

"More and more smart individuals, government agencies and corporations are shifting towards Apple and BSD environments in 2004," according to DK Matai, Executive Chairman, mi2g. "For how long can the truth remain hidden that the great emperors of the software industry are wearing no clothes fit for the fluid environment in which computing takes place, where new threats manifest every hour of every day. There is an accelerating paradigm shift visible in 2004 and busy professionals have spotted the benefits of Apple and BSD because they don't have the time to cope with umpteen flavours of Linux or to wait for Microsoft's Longhorn when Windows XP has proved to be a stumbling block in some well chronicled instances."

Important note

For the record, neither mi2g Ltd nor the mi2g Intelligence Unit have a business relationship with Apple Computers and we do not own any shares in that corporation. Previously, the mi2g data for one month was considered to be too small a sample and not representative of the global environment within which different types of entities - micro, small, medium and large - exist. We have addressed those concerns in the new study. The critics were against the previous study which also came out in favour of Apple and BSD, because the entrenched supporters of Linux and Windows felt that mi2g was guilty of 'computing blasphemy'. In subsequent months, mi2g's reputation was damaged on search engines and bulletin boards. We would urge caution when reading negative commentary against mi2g, which may have been clandestinely funded, aided or abetted by a vendor or a special interest group.
http://www.mi2g.com/cgi/mi2g/framese...ess/021104.php


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

Super-Tough Coating For CD’s, DVD’s and Cellphones
Barry Fox

The colour LCD screens on cellphones and PDAs can get badly scratched in pockets stuffed with loose change and keys. And CDs and DVDs become unplayable in no time when children use them as indoor frisbees. Now a tough, transparent polymer coating developed by chemists in Japan is set to make scratched phone screens and scuffed discs a thing of the past.

In one of the most convincing technology demonstrations this reporter has witnessed, I was handed a CD, a wire-wool pan scourer and some permanent marker pens, and invited to scratch or mark the discs. Hard as I tried, I could not make a single mark on the disc with the scourer. And the ink simply wiped off.

The only person to have succeeded in damaging the disc had undertaken a determined attack with a Swiss army knife, according to TDK, the company that has developed the coating.

Two years ago TDK, a maker of tape and disc-based recording media, began developing what was initially a single-layer coating to make DVDs more resistant to scuffing. But the new coating is far tougher, and it is transparent to the full spectrum of visible light rather than just a DVD’s red laser, so it can also be used to protect the plastic surface of colour liquid crystal displays (LCDs).

Layered approach

Two separate layers of fine silica particles prevent scratches, and fluorine-containing resins in each layer repel ink marks. To deposit the first layer of the new coating, a mix of silica microparticles 50 micrometres across and a solution of a fluorine-containing resin are spread on by spin-coating the surface at 8000 rpm.

After they have dried a second layer, made from a mix of another fluorine-containing resin and a curing agent called acetophenone, is spread on top and cured by shining ultraviolet light onto it. Quite how the two layers work together has not been revealed, as TDK is reluctant to reveal any more detail than its newly filed patents contain.

The tough silica particles resist abrasion. Meanwhile, the fluorine-rich resins do not absorb water, so the ink forms droplets that can be wiped off. On a CD or DVD, any residual droplets are much smaller than the laser spot used to read the disc, and so cause no data loss during playback.

The new coating has also provided a boost to the upcoming high-capacity Blu-ray recording discs that Sony, Philips and Panasonic plan to launch next year as a successor to DVDs. The coating will do away with the need for any awkward cassette-style “caddy” mechanism to protect the discs.

The consortium is pleased because no consumer optical disc that uses a caddy has ever been a commercial success. For instance, the computer industry quickly stopped using caddies for CD-ROMs in the 1990s, and Commodore’s CDTV games system – launched in 1991 – was a complete flop.

TDK is not alone in developing a tough coating for hand-held gadgets. The Japanese-European joint cellphone venture Sony Ericsson this month launches its P910 internet-capable smartphone. The gadget sports an ultra-hard scratch-resistant screen that uses a hardening technology it developed in-house. However, unlike TDK, Sony Ericsson is not planning to reveal any details on the recipe for its coating. http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99996583


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

Would You Like an Extra Shot of Music With That Macchiato?
Robert Levine

Starbucks is growing increasingly aggressive about marketing music alongside its macchiatos and madeleines. "Genius Loves Company," an album of Ray Charles duets that Starbucks' Hear Music division released in late summer as a joint venture with the independent label Concord Records, remained in the Billboard Top 10 for more than a month and recently went platinum. More than a quarter of the CD's sales were made in Starbucks coffee shops.

Hear, a retailer and label that Starbucks bought five years ago, introduced a satellite radio channel in October that focuses on the kind of adult-oriented pop that Starbucks features. And last month Starbucks announced a plan to install a computer system in some of its United States locations that would let customers make a customized CD that could be assembled, packaged and purchased while they wait for drinks.

Like all that chain's music ventures, the "Genius Loves Company" album and the decision to sell customized CD's grew out of the belief that Starbucks regulars - mostly 25-to-49-year-olds with the kind of disposable income that allows them to spend up to several dollars for coffee or tea a few times a week - are poorly served by radio stations and record stores attuned to teenage tastes. At a time when Starbucks contends that its customers don't have convenient ways to find out about undiscovered artists, "we feel we have the opportunity to present the individual with a new option," Ken Lombard, president of Starbucks Entertainment, said.

In presenting those options, Starbucks is catering to its core customers. "We do not want to be in the Britney Spears business,'' Starbucks' chairman, Howard Schultz, said. Unlike most record stores, Starbucks has a merchandising strategy to sell an experience along with a product. And as in its coffee business, it is so far enjoying the margins that go with that: most albums at Starbucks sell for more than $15 each, while many traditional music outlets are under pressure to cut CD prices.

Mr. Schultz said he believed that the chain's music ventures would become profitable, but it might be more difficult for Starbucks to establish itself in the digital music business than to spotlight a few individual CD's. So far, its efforts to sell items other than coffee have had mixed results. In 2000 Starbucks took a $20.6 million charge from its investment in living.com, a lifestyle portal, and it no longer offers as many lifestyle items in stores as it did around that time.

Major labels are sufficiently intrigued with Starbucks' custom CD venture to allow it to sell some of the music from their catalogs on a song-by-song basis, much as iTunes does. "I would think it's going to give us an opportunity with adult buyers," said Phil Quartararo, president of EMI Music Marketing. At least partly because many adults have not embraced downloading en masse, they represent a group that record companies have become more interested in, as well as one that some industry executives believe is not enamored with many CD stores. Rather than lure customers from standard record shops, Mr. Quartararo said he hoped Starbucks - and perhaps in the future, other such lifestyle retailers - would generate more sales among casual music fans disinclined to enter record stores, which they perceive as overwhelming. By giving space near the register to a few CD's, Starbucks essentially makes recommendations to a specific audience. "It puts the music in front of the right customer and makes it convenient to get," said Glen Barros, president of Concord.

"I think it's potentially a big deal, but I don't see it as hugely competitive so much as something that could expand the pie" of music sold, said Mike Dreese, co-owner of Newbury Comics, a chain of 24 record stores in New England. "Starbucks has the potential to reach millions of disaffected music consumers. They have a decent brand and a history of promoting moderately interesting music collections."

That has been a cornerstone of Starbucks' music strategy from the beginning. In 1999 Starbucks spent $8 million to acquire Hear Music, then a San Francisco-based label and music retailer founded by Don MacKinnon, now a vice president of Starbucks Entertainment.

By the late 90's, many clothing and lifestyle retailers, from Pottery Barn to Banana Republic, were selling compilation CD's. But Mr. MacKinnon helped move Starbucks beyond basic early efforts like "Blue Note Blend," a collection of tracks from that jazz label.

In 2002 Hear Music introduced its "Artist's Choice" series of compilations of favorite tracks selected by performers such as Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash and the Rolling Stones. "It's a way for people to say, 'I like this artist, let's see what they picked,' " said Emmylou Harris, who said she participated in the project as a way to introduce a mass audience to lesser-known artists she enjoyed, like Gillian Welch and Guy Clark.

The CD's offered by Starbucks have benefited from countertop placement as well as in-store play. As of Oct. 18, when Starbucks began the customized CD system in three Seattle stores, the chain began competing with iTunes and other big names in digital music. By the end of this year there is expected to be 15 such systems in Starbucks' Seattle stores and 30 more in Austin, Tex. Initially, Starbucks will face the task of trying to sell customized CD's to an age group that has not embraced downloading. But the company is well positioned to move beyond customized CD's, because more than 3,000 of its stores offer wireless Internet access, which could be used to download music files.

As record labels are trying to prevent the availability of online free music from undermining the value of their CD's, they might take a cue from a retailer with a track record of providing a pricey alternative to a widely available product. "Starbucks is a branding machine," Mr. Quartararo said. "Nobody buys a 40-cent cup of coffee for $4 unless they're buying a brand."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/03/ar...txDhdtk4tDI2qg


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

P2P Moves To The Mobile Space
Ben Charny

Mobile phones are learning to share files, but the earliest efforts don't resemble the peer-to-peer networks such as Napster and Kazaa.

FoneShare, an application introduced two weeks ago by NewBay Software, does let people share their collections of ring tones, graphics, games, songs, movie trailers and other wireless extras with strangers. FoneShare will debut next year as a subscription service, running over privately owned and operated cellular networks, and the sharing will be done via Web sites controlled by a wireless operator, said NewBay chief executive Paddy Holahan. That's a far cry from Napster, which was free, let people choose from digital music libraries stored on untold millions of personal computers, and relied heavily upon the anonymity of the public Internet.

When it became possible five years ago to freely swap copyrighted material over the Internet, the entertainment industry began a battle that still rages today. But, as file- sharing now finds its way from PCs to cell phones, there is very little resistance; in fact, those same fierce opponents of file-swapping are among the technology's biggest cheerleaders.

"All the labels are very focused on the mobile space," said Scott Hochgesang, the executive vice-president of the Universal Music Group. "We may have been a bit slow to things happening on the Internet, but we won't do that again."

The reasons go beyond FoneShare's draconian control over the intellectual property that's being shared. Because their networks are private, wireless operators can easily identify which files are being shared and even shut down handsets that are doing a suspicious amount of file trading. Also, wireless operators have microbilling systems to track millions of subscribers at a time and ensure everyone gets their fair share of the revenue.

By comparison, Internet service providers' networks are just barely smart enough to sell movies on demand. Five years ago, when Napster, Morpheus and Kazaa debuted, networks didn't stand a chance, catching record companies off-guard as hundreds of millions of songs were shared for free.

"If there's any piracy going on, anywhere, the wireless operator can track you down," Holahan said. "It's like the Internet, without all the crazy stuff."
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/communicatio...9172597,00.htm


(Valenti’s gone but his legacy’s thriving like a tumor.)



Execs celebrate fans who finger file-sharers

Hot New Video Games Pirated
Matt Slagle

A month before the video game's scheduled release this coming Tuesday, illegal copies of the hot sci-fi action title Halo 2 were already circulating on the Internet.

It's had a lot of company lately.

Several highly anticipated games, such as Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and Half-Life 2, have fallen victim to copyright theft. Illegal, often incomplete versions have appeared on file-sharing networks, news groups and websites.

"You spend three years of your life pouring everything you have into this project, and then somebody gets their hands on the game and gives it away to the world for free," said Brian Jarrard of Microsoft Corp.'s Bungie Studios, maker of Halo 2. "We made this, and these guys had no right to give it out to the public."

High-profile titles are commonly pirated before they are released, certainly within days after they arrive in stores, said Douglas Lowenstein, president of the Entertainment Software Association.

In the case of Halo 2, the French-language version appeared on file-sharing networks and news groups in October.

Microsoft said it was still investigating, working with authorities to track down those responsible. It remains unclear how the leak occurred, but it did not affect the game's release date.

That wasn't the case for Half-Life 2.

Fans were waiting last fall for the imminent arrival of the sequel to the popular Half-Life when unplayable source code from the personal computer game was stolen from developer Valve Corp. and circulated over the Internet. The investigation has led to one arrest so far. FBI agent Ray Lauer in Seattle identified the suspect as a male from Germany but had no other details.

Half-Life 2 developer Valve Corp. said the game will arrive in store shelves on Nov. 16.

By the time New York-based Rockstar Games, a division of Take-Two Interactive Software Inc., released its PlayStation 2 crime saga Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas on Oct. 26, an illegally obtained version as well pictures of the game and the instruction manual had been on the Internet for a week.

A spokesman said Rockstar is investigating. No one has been charged or arrested thus far.

While Lowenstein of the ESA said it can be difficult to pin the leaks on a single cause, he blamed multinational crime syndicates for much of the theft. Security experts, meanwhile, say the problem often stems from employees involved in game creation.

Gabe Zichermann, vice-president of strategy and communications of security company Trymedia Systems, said video games are particularly vulnerable because so many people handle the games -- from artists and programmers to workers who package the final product.

He said 70 per cent of corporate security breakdowns are caused by insiders.

Many consumers, meanwhile, said they'd never consider pirated versions. Not only would it spoil the surprise, gamers tend to be devoted followers of game creators.

Soon after the Halo 2 leak, the forums at halo.bungie.org were closed so the experience wouldn't be ruined come November.

"I was expecting to get all sorts of hate mail, but instead I've had hundreds of letters from people saying thank you, you've helped keep us pure," said Claude Errera, a 38-year-old from Bethany, Conn., who runs the popular fan site.

Fans helped track and curb the spread of the pirated versions of Half-Life 2 and Halo 2.

Jarrard credited incensed fans and community policing efforts for informing Bungie about websites hosting the illegal Halo 2. The leak certainly hasn't affected sales -- Microsoft said more than 1.5 million copies of the Xbox exclusive have been pre-ordered.

And Valve, based in the Seattle suburb of Kirkland, Wash., said its legions of devoted gamers provided thousands of tips that helped lead to the arrest.

There are many obstacles to snaring the thieves, much less prosecuting them. Many are based overseas, protected by a patchwork of law enforcement and copyright laws.

Efforts to stop the piracy include the ESA's Online Enforcement Program, which claims to have shut down more than 35,000 sites dealing with pirated games since 1998.

Lowenstein conceded that piracy will be tough to stamp out.

"The problem and challenge with piracy is that there are people out there on a worldwide basis who've identified piracy as a very profitable enterprise," he said. "You don't end this problem overnight."
http://www.canada.com/entertainment/...3-846f0d87af4e


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

Sci-Fi Fans Are Called Into an Alternate Reality
Noah Shachtman

NOTHING, not even Hurricane Frances, was going to keep Zach Dill from answering that phone. Everyone else had fled indoors. But with the storm just minutes away, the 24-year-old technical-support specialist stood in a Burger King parking lot in Tampa, Fla., waiting for a pay phone to ring.

The skies turned black. Swirling winds began to lift sand and debris off the parking lot and hurl it in a hundred directions. Then came the rain - wave after unrelenting wave of "stinging, cold needles," as Mr. Dill later described it. It fell so hard, he had to put his head next to the receiver to hear the phone ring. When he did finally answer, he gave a series of answers to a series of prerecorded riddles. Then he hung up and headed for his car, soaked and triumphant.

Across the country, thousands of people have gone to great lengths to answer such calls as part of an enigmatic science-fiction adventure that its fans call I Love Bees. Mr. Dill's example may be extreme. But driving halfway across a state, corralling hundreds of strangers into group photos and dressing up in futuristic uniforms - all in response to orders received by phone - have become almost commonplace in the game's world.

"A few of my friends now think I'm pretty much nuts," Mr. Dill said. "My co-workers, they're confused, wondering why I talk about bees all of the time."

I Love Bees is the latest in a series of so-called alternate reality games - immersive, endlessly intricate hybrids of scavenger hunts and role-playing adventures. The genre began with The Beast, an online mystery loosely connected to the 2001 Steven Spielberg film "A.I."

Similarly, I Love Bees is set on the margins of the world surrounding Halo, the biggest-selling game for Microsoft's Xbox. Microsoft hired the brains behind The Beast, 4orty2wo Entertainment, to create the Bees game to stir interest in Halo's sequel, Halo 2, to be released on Tuesday.

But I Love Bees, which comes to an end today, has become far more popular than any of its predecessors, with Internet traffic 10 times that of The Beast. More than a quarter-million visitors went to ilovebees .com on the day it opened in August. As many as 500,000 gamers returned to the site every time the game was updated, according to Jim Stewartson, 4orty2wo Entertainment's chief technology officer.

First-time visitors to the site may have found the whole thing terribly confusing, a mishmash of coded recipes and cryptic messages. But fans have assembled a guide to the mystery, at ilb.extrasonic.com/index.php/Quick-Start. The complete audio drama can be found at ilovebees.com/humptydumpty.html.

The game's following has been intense. In Tempe, Ariz., outside the hall where the third presidential debate was held last month, fans held up bee-adorned banners for the television cameras, temporarily crowding out some of the Bush-Cheney and Kerry-Edwards placards.

Part of the appeal may be that, unlike many of its antecedents, I Love Bees could not be played just by sitting in front of a screen. Over the Internet, players were able to work together on puzzles, usually hidden in corrupted image files on ilovebees.com. Those answers were just starting points, however. Players then had to use them to respond to the mysterious calls that rang at hundreds of pay phones across the country every Tuesday.

When enough players gave the correct answers, the producers posted the latest installment of a 10-hour audio drama that formed the heart of the I Love Bees narrative about Melissa, a creation of artificial intelligence from the 26th century, who "crash-landed" on the Web site of an unsuspecting Napa Valley beekeeper.

"People like to get caught up in something that feels like it's charged with meaning," said Sean Stewart, the game's lead writer and designer. "When we ask people to do a human pyramid, it's not just a stunt. It's because a character's life is depending on it."

Preston Thorne, a 27-year-old computer engineer, has been organizing players around Boise, Idaho. When he and his fellow gamers were unable to reach a pay phone inside a Pizza Hut, Mr. Thorne talked a manager there into speaking with "Melissa." Later, Mr. Thorne and his cohorts persuaded employees at an Applebee's restaurant and at a Doubletree Inn to do the same.

"I told him, 'You don't know me, and I don't know you,' " Mr. Thorne recalled. "But that pay phone right next to you is going to ring in about 30 seconds. And then it did."

Mr. Thorne learned about the adventure in July, when a trailer for the Xbox game Halo 2 began appearing in movie theaters. For a split second at the end of the ad, the xbox.com Web address was replaced with ilovebees.com. At the site were a list of G.P.S. locations, and word from Melissa that she was going to awaken on Aug. 24.

"People thought they were going to be handing out demo discs" for Halo 2 at those locations, said Steve Peters, who runs the Alternate Reality Gaming Network (www.argn.com), a site devoted to tracking adventures like I Love Bees. "Then the phones started ringing."

At first, ilovebees.com gave a list of 220 G.P.S. coordinates corresponding, it turned out, to the pay phones. Since then, players have been tracking the evolving list of phones on their own, at sites like www.theblackforge.net/axons.

Players became increasingly willing to do whatever it took to get to those phones and convince Melissa that they were there to help her. That was why, on Oct. 12, Mr. Thorne was at a Kopper Kitchen restaurant near the Boise airport, taking a picture of a friend who was decked out in a futuristic combat uniform. Later that day, he persuaded hundreds of his fellow Idahoans to salute the camera, answering another challenge received by phone.

As the tasks have grown more elaborate, so have the rewards. The most coveted has been a call from "Melissa" - not a pre- recorded message, but a live conversation with the actress playing the role. After weeks of listening to her struggles, many players have said, they feel an emotional bond with the character.

Some of the talks were surprisingly poignant. When "Melissa" asked Lenore Henry, a 40-year-old freelance editor in San Francisco, to sing her favorite song, Ms. Henry responded with a wavering rendition of "Amazing Grace."

"Why is that your favorite song?" "Melissa" asked.

"Because it's sad, but it's about redemption, as well," Ms. Henry answered.

"It is sad," the character said. "It's about being lost. Do you feel lost?"

"I do," Ms. Henry responded. "Both of my parents died. And I feel like an orphan."

Mr. Dill, the hurricane survivor, is one of several players feeling more than a touch of sadness that I Love Bees is coming to an end. "It'll be nice to get back to normal life, I guess," he said. "But it's not going to be nice to know this chapter is closed. I've gotten intensely involved with these characters. They feel like real people to me."

"I'll miss the thrill, the adventure," he added. "But at least my boss won't yell at me for driving halfway across town just to answer a pay phone."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/04/te...ts/04bees.html


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

DVD Price Wars: How Low Can They Go?
John Borland and Evan Hansen

Wal-Mart has struck the latest blow in a burgeoning DVD price war, putting new pressure on online movie rent-by-mail pioneer Netflix.

The retail giant this week cut the price of its DVD Standard Plan by 7.5 percent, from $18.76 a month to $17.36. The reduction trumps recent price cuts from Netflix and Blockbuster, which now offer similar plans for $17.99 and $17.49, respectively.

Last month, Netflix slashed $4 off its flagship monthly plan, which entitles subscribers to unlimited rentals, with three movies out at any time. The company had raised its prices to $21.99 just six months earlier, and had counted on the extra revenue to help compensate for rising costs.

Netflix has acknowledged that the aggressive actions of its rivals this year took the company by surprise. The next year, and perhaps longer, will be a "land grab" period in which profits will be hard to come by despite extraordinary growth, the company's executives said.

"We underestimated the likelihood and significance of competition, primarily from Blockbuster and Amazon," Netflix CEO Reed Hastings said Wednesday at a Morgan Stanley investor conference. "We came to the view that if (they) were going to enter, they would have done it in 2002, when the market was smaller, or in 2003."

The last several weeks have seen a flurry of price cutting as Netflix jockeys with rivals Blockbuster and Wal-Mart for consumers' dollars, and as all three look to the possible entry of Amazon.com into the DVD rent-by-mail business.

The price wars are helping fuel demand for what may be the lowest-tech high-tech business around. While Internet companies start to lay groundwork for true video-on- demand service, the DVD-by-mail business has already gone a long way toward replacing the old video store rental business.

Indeed, in recent filings with federal securities regulators, Blockbuster cited competition from online DVD rental companies as a chief reason for declining rentals in its core local store business.

The result has been sudden and bitter competition in a market that Netflix, which now has more than 2.2 million subscribers, has had largely to itself for years.

Retail giant Wal-Mart was the first to enter the fray a year ago. The company followed its usual strategy of undercutting the market, offering a low-cost $15.54 plan limited to two DVDs at any one time, a middle $18.76 tier allowing three DVDs, and a top $21.99 tier offering four DVDs a month. (This week's price cuts affected only the middle tier.)

That wasn't enough to keep Netflix from raising its long-standing price from $19.99 a month to $21.99 a month last June. But Blockbuster's entry proved more serious. The company opened its online DVD movie rental service for $19.99 a month in August, and then followed news of Netflix's price cuts last month with its own $17.49 plan.

"We were growing our business at a very nice clip, but would not have elected to lower our prices," Blockbuster Chief Executive Officer John Antioco told Reuters last month. "Having said that, we are determined that we are not going to be beaten from a price-value perspective."

Netflix executives have said they expect Amazon to enter the market, but the online retailer has not confirmed those plans.

Impulse rental rivals
Even the giants could soon be facing sharper competition from local retail outlets, in the form of kiosks offering 99-cent-a-day DVD rentals.

Tiny DVD Station, with just 20 employees, has kiosks in about 14 retail outlets so far, including Sony's Metreon retail location in San Francisco. Another kiosk maker, Los Gatos, Calif.-based DVDPlay, is testing 99-cent DVD rentals in partnership with McDonald's.

DVD Station offers retailers everything they need to set up DVD rental service within their stores, with up to 25,000 titles. The DVDPlay kiosks stack from 100 to 350 movie titles in a vending machine, offering mostly new releases.

"The selection is obviously not comparable to Blockbuster, but they do have new releases, and it's cheaper than Blockbuster," wrote a Colorado resident who has seen the DVDPlay machines in McDonald's.

DVDPlay CEO Jens Horstmann said he believes free video rentals may soon be coming in the form of incentive programs with retail stores. For example, he said, some stores using DVDPlay's kiosks currently offer free rental coupons for customers who spend a certain amount of money on groceries or other products.

Down the road, he said, these deals may become automated through partnerships with customer loyalty programs by major chains such as Safeway. He said no such deals have yet been worked out, however.

Biting the bottom line
The price cuts will undeniably make Netflix's business trickier to manage.

The company has found in recent months that one of the prices of a successful service has been rising costs. In recent reports to federal regulators, the company said its customers are now on average renting about 6.6 movies per month, up from 5.6 last year.

Losing close to 18 percent of its subscription revenue as a result of the price cuts could help push the profitable company underwater. In the quarter ending in June 2004, the company had a net profit of just $2.9 million, with subscription revenue of $119.7 million.

Nevertheless, Netflix's Hastings said the price cuts had galvanized subscriber growth and reduced churn rate, so that the company has already reached the low end of its predicted year-end goal, about 2.3 million total subscribers. He said the company will maintain a break-even financial performance despite the cuts.

Nor is the company standing still. Its spending on marketing has more than doubled in the last year, and it has partnered with TiVo to start testing a video-on-demand service that would take advantage of the digital video recorder company's network and hardware.

Industry insiders say Netflix also has pioneered measures that help control its costs. One key factor has been the development of a user interface that steers subscribers toward renting back-catalog movies instead of new releases. This allows the company to have fewer expensive copies of the latest movies on hand, industry insiders said.

"All subscription DVD rental businesses have a hard time meeting demand for new releases," said DVDPlay's Horstmann. "Sometimes customers have to wait a month or two" to see the latest movies.

According to Bill Fischer, vice president of corporate development at DVD Station, rental businesses that make appropriate use of technology can double or triple interest in catalog titles. For example, Fischer said 40 percent of DVD Station's rentals make up titles more than six months old, compared with just 11 percent for Blockbuster.

Hastings said the "land grab" of the next year or longer will be driven by huge marketing expenditure on all sides. Netflix itself will spend about 20 percent of its revenue on marketing next year, he told the investor conference on Wednesday.

More broadly, the company is betting on its experience to keep it afloat through all the competition, he has said.

"We think we will compete successfully with (rivals) because we have great scale, we ship 3 million DVDs a week, and we have five years of experience in this market," Hastings told CNET News.com in an interview last month.
http://news.com.com/DVD+price+wars+H...?tag=nefd.lede


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

Vigilante on the TV Frontier
Seth Schiesel

IT was the ninth day of the TV-B-Gone Era, and Mitch Altman was on top of the world.

At least it seemed that way at the 150-square-foot aerie-like apartment high in the Castro district that is both executive suite and research headquarters of his company, Cornfield Electronics, as well as the home of its chief executive.

Just about the only thing that seemed closer to the sky than the three huge plants hanging from the wood-paneled ceiling was the television tower atop Twin Peaks, just to the west.

In one sense, it seemed apt. After all, Mr. Altman, a 47-year-old electrical engineer, had just spent two years working to stem seven decades of television's relentless insinuation into every cranny of modern life.

He came up with TV-B-Gone, a plastic $14.99 keychain fob that, as the pitch goes, "turns off virtually any television!" Essentially a one-trick remote control, TV-B- Gone quickly spits out roughly 200 infrared codes and, within customary remote-control range, turns off most televisions in a few seconds. "Restaurants and the Laundromat, those are the big ones for me," Mr. Altman said, leaning over from his workbench, which was surrounded by at least five computers and covered with arcane chip-programming gear, a soldering iron and an ancient (though functional) oscilloscope.

"Whether TV is on or off is a choice, and I would love for it to be a conscious choice," he said. "All over the place, TV's very often are just on, and no one put a lot of thought into whether to put it on or not. And then people don't really have a choice of turning it off. TV-B-Gone is about giving people that choice."

It turns out that a lot of other people are really sick of television as well. And since the device went on sale on Oct. 19, Mr. Altman, a self-described "San Francisco eccentric-type," has been coping with the wages of success.

Perhaps two feet from Mr. Altman's elbow, on one end of the folding couch that doubles as Mr. Altman's bed, Joseph Jabour, a wiry 38-year-old friend, was answering the two phone lines that rang all afternoon with calls from prospective customers and aspiring business partners worldwide.

Mr. Altman himself was on the phone that day with one of his suppliers, trying to figure out if he could augment the 50,000 TV-B-Gones he had already ordered from his Hong Kong-based manufacturer with another 100,000 in time for Christmas, because major retailers had been inquiring about stocking the product. (There are two models, one for Europe and the other for the United States and Asia.)

The initial torrent of thousands of orders initially overwhelmed Mr. Altman's ability to process them, forcing him to shut down his Web store temporarily. [He is taking orders again, although he says shipments may take two or three weeks.]

"It's been a week and a day and it still has to sink in," he said. "I've been trying to go with the flow, but it hasn't been a flow. It's been a tidal wave, or really, a tsunami."

Mr. Altman knows exactly when his life changed.

At 2 a.m. Pacific time on Tuesday, Oct. 19, www.wired.com posted an article announcing TV-B-Gone. At that moment, he was still putting the finishing touches on his company's site, www.tvbgone.com. Mr. Altman got the site online at 5:05 a.m., and by 6 a.m. had already recorded his first 30 orders. By the time the site crashed in the early afternoon, more than 1,000 units had been ordered.

The next day the site crashed in two hours after taking in orders for another 1,000. "That was when I was, like, 'This might be kind of big,' " Mr. Altman recalled.

Press coverage began in short order: The Associated Press, National Public Radio, the BBC, People magazine, "CBS Evening News." (Mr. Altman - who, needless to say, does not own a television - watched the program later on the Internet.)

"You know, we had a press release to send out, but we never even got around to it," Mr. Altman said. "Something in this product just touched a nerve, obviously. People call and they are just plain fans. It's like this is something they've been looking for."

One of those calling was Robert L. Wolke, an emeritus professor of chemistry at the University of Pittsburgh, eager to place an order. Introduced to a reporter on the line, he went into a passionate declamation that seemed one-half anti-television manifesto and one-half ode to TV-B-Gone.

"For years, I have been bombarded by TV in public and semipublic places," Professor Wolke said. "The worst offenders are airports and gate waiting places where they have CNN on. And I've become an expert on walking all over the airport to find a minimum sound level where I can sit down and read something or work or just have a bit of silence. So that's a major one."

Hospital waiting rooms are worse, he said. "I'm going in soon for an outpatient procedure which is going to take all day, and I haven't even been there yet and I'm already dreading the waiting room,'' he said. "If I had one of these TV-B-Gones," he said, he would use it. "My conscience wouldn't bother me, even if someone else is watching."

But isn't that just a bit antisocial?

"I call it protecting my rights," Mr. Wolke replied. "Mitch is providing a public service here."

So will TV-B-Gone unleash a wave of civil disobedience in the nation's bars and waiting rooms? The viziers of the electronic world don't seem too concerned. "It's a free country," said Jeff Joseph, a spokesman for the Consumer Electronics Association. A spokesman for the Federal Communications Commission declined to comment. An informal sampling of opinion at airports, restaurants and bars in San Francisco and New York in recent days found that about one-third of those asked were amused by TV-B-Gone and two-thirds were alarmed.

"This just seems like a high-tech prank," said Chris Greene, a 30-year-old advertising executive in New York. "It's pretty selfish for this one guy to take it on himself to make this decision for groups of people in public. I just don't see the point of it."

Mr. Altman didn't have any of this attention in mind when the idea for TV-B-Gone first emerged one evening in 1992. And for the record, the TV-B-Gone packaging stipulates: "This product is sold for the exclusive private use of the buyer on their own equipment." It adds, "Side effects may include decreased anxiety, increased social skills, increased cognitive ability, increased sense of well-being."

It isn't as if Mr. Altman is unfamiliar with his quarry. Growing up in the Chicago area, "I watched TV every waking moment of my childhood," he said. "It was the perfect babysitter."

It was 1980 at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he received his undergraduate and master's degrees in electrical engineering (and whose downstate setting inspired the name Cornfield Electronics), that Mr. Altman had his epiphany.

"One day I remember thinking, 'I don't really like this program; why am I watching it?' " he said. "There might be one line that's funny or one situation that was intense, and that would keep bringing me back for more. It's like a drug: the promise of satisfaction is always right around the corner, and it delivers just enough to keep you coming back."

Mr. Altman resettled in the Bay Area in 1986, where he worked on hard-drive controllers for obscure Silicon Valley companies and maintained a busy schedule of volunteer work. He didn't really get to TV-B-Gone until 2002, a decade after he came up with the idea. (Amid the TV-B-Gone zoo, Mr. Altman still found time on Oct. 26 to move and rewire a couple of computers at Theatre Rhinoceros, a gay and lesbian community theater in the Mission neighborhood. After he got one of the iMacs running, the first thing he checked was Google.com, where a search for "TV-B-Gone" turned up 22,600 results.)

After he started working on TV-B-Gone in earnest, it took about a year to develop the first working prototype. Mr. Altman fitted it into a round yellow smiley-face button, where the nose activates the unit and the eyes are the infrared emitters. "We scrapped that when we realized that if this got popular, as soon as someone walked into a bar with a smiley-face on, people would know what was going on," he explained.

The project might have ended there. "My main objective all along has just been to make one, for me," Mr. Altman said. "And now I have one, but every time I would mention it to someone, they would get so excited that I realized I should make more."

After negotiating with his Hong Kong-based manufacturer (the actual factories are in the nearby province of Shenzhen), Mr. Altman brought back the first 100 production models a month ago.

"These are my warehouse," he joked, slapping one of the magenta-and-black suitcases on the floor.

Without a traditional corporate structure, TV-B-Gone and Cornfield Electronics has become a friends-and-family affair; as Mr. Altman put it, "an organic globule" of about 50 people handling everything from graphics to customer service, from marketing to legal counsel. The mailing address at his Web site is a drop box at a local community center.

It has become clear that Mr. Altman now stands to make a significant profit on his initial $150,000 investment ("all I had," he said). With a laugh, he said that his landlord was already worried that he might move out soon. For now, Mr. Altman said that he planned to stay put. "I don't really care about money," he said. "Just having enough to pay the rent is nice."

But one of his oldest friends, Jim McDonald, sitting on the couch, wasn't having it.

"I would be extremely shocked and somewhat disappointed if anything changed with Mitch," he said. "But maybe he can get out of this place. Admittedly this place has four times as much space as a microbus, but you can't even have a decent party in here. Come on, Mitch, this can be the worldwide headquarters. After all, you can practically see the cornfield from here."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/04/te...ts/04gone.html


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

Japanese price supports

Gov't to Ban Imports Of CDs Produced Abroad For 4 Years

TOKYO — The government adopted a revised enforcement order of the copyright law Friday to ban imports of lower-priced compact disks of Japanese music produced in other Asian nations for four years, government officials said.

The revised copyright law, enacted in June, will go into effect Jan 1, 2005. The legislation stipulates that selling in Japan of Japanese music CDs licensed for production and sale abroad constitutes copyright infringement. It is intended to prevent such CDs from being reimported and sold in Japan at low prices.


Post Your Opinion!

Either this is evidence of outright dumping, or it's evidence of outright price-gouging.
beerdude (Oct 29 2004 - 19:00)


Gov't to ban imports of Japanese CDs produced abroad for 4 years

Don't the Japanese ever get sick of being ripped off and laughed at by their Asian neighbours who can get J-Pop CDs (the real mccoy, not fakes) at a fraction of the Japanese prices? I remember buying an Utada CD (it was fairly new then) at about 25-30% of the Japanese price. Everything inside was the same, except for the inclusion of a booklet in Chinese. the real mccoy, not fakes
Pukey2 (Oct 29 2004 - 19:49)


If it's got anything on it in Chinese then it's a bootleg. China is the bootleg capital of the world for CDs and DVDs.
rpmurray (Oct 29 2004 - 21:50)


get facts before you speak, japanese CDs are sold in taiwan for way less, REAL cds, after being made in the same factories, there IS a chinese translation of the lyrics included, which technically means you get more for your buck.

but i regularly order 'over-seas' versions of japanese cds because they are exactly the same products, insert booklets, stickers, everything is the same as the japanese release, not bootlegs at all. check out yesasia.com to see examples.

japan rips off it's people with the CD, DVD & Book price laws
----
in 4 years we wont be using cds much though. downloads and DVD audio will likely become the standard music formats.
Tingle (Oct 29 2004 - 22:04)

http://www.japantoday.com/e/?content=news&id=317175


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

Software-Patent Battle Set To Flare Up
Graeme Wearden

With the European Parliament poised to begin deliberating on software patents again, organizations on both sides of the argument are continuing to push their cases.

EICTA, the European Information and Communication Technology Association, wrote to the parliament's legal committee this week, calling for the introduction of software patents. EICTA argued that patents would protect the investments made by European companies in research and development, protect jobs and encourage the sharing of information among companies.

"Europe is a prominent player in software-enabled inventions in many areas, such as health care, telecommunications, mobile phones, cars, aviation and consumer electronics. Europe needs patents to maintain and strengthen its leadership," wrote EICTA.

However, EICTA's position is being challenged by some who oppose the introduction of software patents, such as the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII).

"The EICTA is repeating the same dubious and inaccurate claims that have been heard for so long," said Rufus Pollock, U.K. spokesman for the foundation.

Pollock added, "These latest comments smack of desperation, coming as they do at a time when there have been extremely positive signs that both the EU parliament and national legislatures are aware of the dangers that unrestricted software patents pose to innovation."

Europe's various legislative bodies have very different views on whether software patenting should be permitted. The European Council of Ministers wants to bring it in, as part of its measures to harmonize patent law across Europe, but the European Parliament has fought this move.

In September 2003, the European Parliament tried to water down the council's Directive on the Patentability of Computer-Implemented Inventions by adding amendments to it that would restrict widespread software patenting.

This move was rejected by the council in May, and the parliament is expected to begin its work again in November. Because the parliament has appointed former French Prime Minister Michel Rocard--who has described himself as a "supporter of free software"--to lead its response to the council, there is speculation that it could take a hard line.

EICTA, which represents 50 multinational companies and 32 industry associations, warned the parliament in its letter that if it wasn't possible to license patents for software- enabled inventions, Europe would lose thousands of jobs.

"Europe would become a haven for plagiarism," EICTA said. "European industry, stripped of patent protection in its home market, would lose considerable market share to those who do not invest in R&D (research and development) and simply copy."

Unsurprisingly, the FFII has a different take, arguing that software patents actually threaten innovation.

"Without patents, Europe would be a haven not for plagiarism but for innovation at its most dynamic," Pollock said.

"Moreover," Pollock added, "as all informed observers know, promoting innovation is a matter of striking a correct balance between protection and monopoly. Innovation and ideas must be 'adequately rewarded,' and this is precisely what software patents do not do."

The foundation is currently gathering testimony on software patents from British businesses and developers, which it plans to pass on to the U.K. government.

Campaigning is also taking place around Europe, with the four main German political parties all backing a move to demand changes to the European Council's position.
http://news.com.com/Software-patent+...3-5432364.html


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

China closes 1,600 Internet Cafes

China shut 1,600 Internet cafes between February and August and imposed 100 million yuan (6.6 million pounds) worth of fines for allowing children to play violent or adult-only games and other violations, state media say.

Of 1.8 million Internet bars inspected, 18,000 were ordered "to stop operation for rectification", Xinhua news agency quoted Zhang Xinjian, deputy director of the Culture Ministry's market department, as saying.

"Porn, gambling, violence and similar problems have adversely affected the healthy development of the Internet in China," Zhang was quoted as saying.

The crackdown comes amid a nationwide push to limit violence and pornography on the Internet that has seen the government shut down hundreds of websites it deemed unsavoury.

China has some 87 million Internet users, over 50 percent of whom are under 24 and approximately 18 percent are minors.
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/041031/80/f5new.html


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

We don’t have to show you no stinking public domain

Authors Gain Controversial Royalties Rights Under New Bill

The Mexican Congress has passed a bill amending the Copyright Act 1996 in order to grant additional rights to authors and holders of neighbouring rights (eg, artists and record producers). Among other things, the bill

q entitles authors and artists to claim royalties for the secondary use of their copyrighted works. They will be able to claim for any public use or performance of their works, regardless of whether they hold the corresponding rights. This measure has been strongly criticized for extending property rights to situations where ownership no longer exists, contrary to the Constitution and the rule of law;

q provides for a resale royalty, aimed at protecting the creators of works of fine art and similar creations. Brokers and galleries will be required to inform artists or their representatives about any sales of their works so that they can obtain the correct compensation; and

q increases the copyright term to the life of the author plus 100 years - an increase of 25 years. Once this term has expired, the government has the power to collect fees in relation to the use of works that are no longer protected.

The original draft of the bill also included a right of remuneration for authors when private copying occurs. Members of the electronics industry strongly opposed this measure because they, as manufacturers and vendors of reproduction equipment, would have been obliged to pay. The proposal was dropped from the bill as there is already an exception that allows people to make a copy of a work for private purposes without having to compensate the rights holder. It would have been unfair to require people to pay compensation for the equipment that they use to make such copies.

In addition, the Copyright Law has already been amended to protect technological protection and digital rights management measures, whether they are used on or offline. Thus, there seems to be no need to implement a private-copying levy system if the trend is towards technological protection models.

The bill received strong support from authors and collecting societies, although the electronics industry opposed it. Even though the provision giving compensation to authors for private copying was removed, the industry has been lobbying the president to use his power of veto to completely stop the promulgation and publication of the bill. It will be interesting to see how successful these protests are.
http://www.worldcopyrightlawreport.c...508&c=20004233


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

We’d naturally prefer not to have to show you our odiferous public domain

Cliff challenges EU rock'n'roll 'swindle'
Adam Sherwin

IT IS the greatest pension fund raid of all time. The stars who created rock’n’roll are about to lose the rights over the classic hits that made them famous.

From January 1, 2005, anyone will be able to release landmark rock’n’roll recordings such as Elvis Presley’s That’s All Right without paying a penny in royalties to the performer or their estates.

But the rockers are fighting back. Sir Cliff Richard is launching a campaign to close a loophole in European Union law, which means that artists and record companies lose exclusive rights to their sound recordings after 50 years. If he and others are unsuccessful, the ruling will mean that the rock’n’roll years will become a free-for-all, wiping billions of pounds off the value of record companies.

Releases will fall into the public domain, year-by-year, with the Beatles’ catalogue becoming available from 2013. Recordings can be digitally manipulated or used in films and advertisements with the artist having no say over their repertoire. Sir Cliff, whose 1958 Move It single is cited as the first authentic British “rock” hit, told The Times: “As I get older I am told that I have achieved many chart ‘firsts’. Now I am the first person to be deprived of income simply because I have outlived the copyright on my sound recordings.”

The most successful singles artist in British chart history, Sir Cliff, 63, said that he was leading a fight for music’s unsung heroes. “I am very fortunate because I continue to earn money,” said the singer, who last night secured his 59th top ten album with Something’s Goin’ On. “But what about the Shadows or the families of Tommy Steele, Adam Faith or Lonnie Donegan? Many artists rely on one hit record as their sole source of income, but now they will earn nothing. I feel a responsibility to speak out for them.”

Sir Cliff, who is well known for his Christian beliefs, added: “I am told that my recordings could even be used in pornographic films and there’s not a thing I could do about it. I will have no control over how my music is used. I believe performers must be entitled to their dignity.”

The British Phonographic Industry and the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry is lobbying the European Commission for an extension of the copyright term. The bodies want the EU Term of Protection directive to be brought in line with the United States which has copyright on sound recordings to 95 years. Composers and writers in Britain continue to enjoy protection for 70 years after their death. Singers, such as Sir Cliff, who interpret other people’s songs are at a particular disadvantage.

He has delivered his own submission to a review of EU copyright legislation initiated by Frits Bolkestein, the outgoing Internal Markets Commissioner. Introducing himself as “an active and successful recording artist and performer” who has recorded 1,000 songs, he argues: “Surely the creativity of the artists whose performances breathe life into the authors’ works is worthy of recognition for at least the same period?”

The Elvis Presley industry, which was worth £21.8 million from Graceland admissions alone last year, will be the first to suffer. That’s All Right and Blue Moon, his revolutionary 1954 recordings, are the first to enter the public domain, with Love Me Tender and Heartbreak Hotel to follow soon. Bill Haley’s Rock Around The Clock and Shake, Rattle and Roll, are also available from January.

Those who believe that music should be “free” argue that the 50-year rule allows public access to songs that record companies and artists have enjoyed ample opportunity to exploit. But the BPI said that new bands will miss out as record companies lose control over their back catalogue. A spokesman said: “Labels rely on income from past hits to invest in new talent”.

PROTECTING A LIFETIME'S WORK

1492 William Caxton introduces the printing press into England

1557 Queen Mary I hands all printing and bookselling to one guild, the Stationer’s Company

1709 Statute of Queen Anne is first copyright law in the world

1833 Dramatic Copyright Act gives limited performing rights protection in dramatic works

1842 Literary Copyright Act grants authors lifetime property rights in their work and protects stage plays if performed

1887 The Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works gives first international protection for works including: novels, short stories, poems, plays, songs, operas, symphonies, musicals, drawings, paintings, sculptures and architectural works

1911 Parliament gives record companies protection on sound recordings for 50 years to reproduce work “by means of mechanical contrivances, such as gramophone records and perforated piano rolls”

1961 Rome Convention for the Protection of Performers, Producers of Phonograms and Broadcasting Organisations gives Europe-wide protection against recorded music piracy

1988 Copyright, Designs and Patents Act harmonises UK with EU countries, but maintains 50-year sound recordings limit

1998 The Digital Millennium Copyright Act is enacted in the US to combat threat of Napster and internet pirates. Criticised for being immediately obsolete

Music Business Journal

COUNTDOWN

January 1, 2005
Elvis Presley — That’s All Right, Blue Moon, Blue Moon of Kentucky
Bill Haley and his Comets — Shake, Rattle and Roll, Rock Around The Clock
Ray Charles — I Got a Woman

2006
Chuck Berry — Maybellene
Bo Diddley — Bo Diddley
Fats Domino — Ain’t That a Shame

2007
Little Richard — Tutti Frutti
Elvis — Heartbreak Hotel
Chuck Berry — Roll Over Beethoven
James Brown — Please, Please, Please
Carl Perkins — Blue Suede Shoes
Johnny Cash — I Walk The Line
Lonnie Donegan — Rock Island Line

2008
Cliff Richard — Move It
Buddy Holly — That’ll Be The Day
Everly Brothers — Bye Bye Love
Jerry Lee Lewis — Whole Lotta Shakin’
Sam Cooke — You Send Me

2009
Eddie Cochran — Summertime Blues
Dion & The Belmonts — I Wonder Why
Bobby Freeman — Do You Wanna Dance?

2010
Ben E. King — Stand By Me

2013
The Beatles — Love Me Do
Bob Dylan — Blowin’ In The Wind

2014 The Rolling Stones — Come On/I Wanna Be Your Man
The Beach Boys — Surfin’ USA

2016 The Who — My Generation
The Beatles — Yesterday

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/ar...338692,00.html


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

Vee haf wayz of obzcuring our ztinking public domain

The German Recording Industry Calls For Stricter Rules For Personal Copies

The German recording industry has once again taken a position in the ongoing discussion on the revision of the Copyright Act and called for stricter rules for personal copies. "We need a restriction on mass music copies," emphasized the chairman of the German Association of the Recording Industry, Gerd Gebhardt. At the beginning of September, the German government presented the basic items in the amended Copyright Act. However, the draft that has been made available remains very controversial both among lobbies for the music industry, on the one hand, and research organizations and proponents of personal copies, on the other.

Already, four times as many music copies are burned as originals sold, Gebhardt stressed, repeating the arguments behind the industry's call for greater restrictions of personal copies in copyright law. Gebhardt called on the German government to "stem the flood of legal personal copies."

Gebhardt says the industry would like to make copies for third parties and those not made from originals illegal; only copies made from one's own originals and for one's own use would then be legal. In addition, the right to save recordings of radio shows and Internet radio is to be amended. The German Association of the Recording Industry called for a ban on "intelligent recording software" that allows individual works to be saved automatically. Gerbhardt insisted that the government's draft amendment to the Copyright Act would have to include these demands for personal copies and broadcast rights if it did not want to lag behind technological developments all of the time.
http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/52830


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

More News and Less Mail
Bob Tedeschi

E-mail remains the king of all Internet activities, but Web surfing is gaining fast.

According to a recent survey conducted by the Online Publishers Association, an industry group, and the online research firm Nielsen NetRatings, Internet users now spend significantly less time each month reading e-mail and sending instant messages, compared with a year ago, and more time reading articles and watching videos.

The average Internet user in September spent 4 hours 52 minutes communicating online, a half-hour drop from the previous year. Meanwhile, users spent 4 hours 41 minutes perusing media sites, 48 minutes more than a year ago.

High-speed Internet connections are behind the trend, said Michael Zimbalist, president of the Online Publishers Association. “A lot of the stuff you do that’s utilitarian, like e-mail, you can do more quickly now,” Mr. Zimbalist said. “And with a fast connection, you’re more inclined to watch that video online than you might’ve been before.”

The survey results, which did not include time spent on college, government or pornography sites, also showed that total monthly time online has jumped from last year by more than 20 minutes, to 12 hours, 14 minutes.
http://www.nytimes.com/ref/business/...OSTWANTED.html


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

Back-up, back-up, back-up,

E-voting Makes Its Mark
Robert Lemos

Electronic voting machines made a respectable showing in the U.S. elections on Tuesday, despite some critics' predictions of widespread and major problems.

While issues cropped up in almost every state that used electronic voting machines, all were relatively minor, and most could be attributed to poorly trained poll workers, problems caused by voters or other circumstances.

"We didn't have the same kind of major e-voting problems that we had in other elections," said Doug Chapin, director of the Election Reform Information Project, a nonpartisan research project funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts. "My sense is that e-voting was no better and no worse than many of the other problems that we were worried about."

Most of the polling places observed by members of the project encountered only small glitches, according to the group's Web site, Electionline.org. Far more problems were caused by voter registration issues and friction between partisan observers and poll officials, according to Electiononline reports from poll observers.

In fact, glitches with electronic voting machines made up less than 6 percent of the 27,500 incidents recorded midday Tuesday by advocacy group the Verified Voting Foundation. Incidents including "register" in the description made up one-third of the entries in the group's database.

An Electionline observer wrote that there were some problems with machines in precincts in Ohio, which uses systems manufactured by Diebold Election Systems, but said the issues were resolved in a timely manner. The worst problem occurred in New Orleans, where not enough voting machines were able to boot up, the Associated Press reported. That meant that election workers had to tell voters to come back later, the report said.

Given the predictions by some critics of machine failures and unreliably cast votes, the situation was largely seen as a success. Electronic voting machine makers said they felt vindicated by the results.

"Things went very well, and we are very pleased--but not surprised--by that," said Michelle Shafer, a spokeswoman for Hart InterCivic, whose voting systems were used in California, Colorado, Hawaii, Kentucky, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia and Washington. "It is nice to see that elections were successful, not just for our company, but also for our competitors."

But the postelection healing called for by politicians has yet to emerge for critics of voting machines.

Aviel Rubin, a computer science professor at Johns Hopkins University and a noted critic, said the election shows only that things appear to have gone well. He worked as an election judge in Maryland on Tuesday and summarized his thoughts about the process online.

"Even if the election were viewed as 'successful,' it would not alleviate the vast majority of my concerns with the machines," he wrote. "Voting machines that are vulnerable to wholesale rigging can still perform perfectly normally. It is possible that nobody exploited the vulnerabilities this time around, and it is also possible that there was fraud or serious error--but that they went undetected. Electronic voting will be judged on the noticeable failures, and the unnoticeable ones are the most serious."

Ted Selker, an associate professor of computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a member of the CalTech-MIT Voting Technology Project, agreed that there were few problems. However, he said security issues and questions of trust remain.

"It is quite clear to me that the new technologies that were put in place seemed to do their jobs better than what we had before," Selker said. He said, however, that he had seen election workers on Tuesday erase a count of voters to make it match with a computerized tally. That reinforced in his mind that elections in the United States have a way to go, he said.

"I think we have to put in place simple procedures that would require us to recognize every place where a ballot could be lost and put countermeasures in place," Selker said.
http://news.com.com/E-voting+makes+i...3-5438198.html


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

MPAA Issues Licenses to Kill
Biff Yeager

Film pirates must already ask themselves if illegally taping a movie is worth the jail time, court fines, and public humiliation they face if caught in the act. Soon, sneaky cinema-goers have to ask themselves a new question – do they feel lucky?

The Motion Picture Association of America announced plans today to issue “licenses to kill” to more than 3,000 theater ushers across the country. MPAA president Jack Valenti hailed the move as “victory for film fans across the country.”

“We’re done wasting money on public service announcements,“ Valenti told a crowd of reporters at a press conference Monday. “It’s time to waste the pirates.”

The MPAA estimates that the movie industry is losing billions of dollars a year to movie piracy; it says that camcorder copies of more than 50 popular films hit streets and the Internet days before debuting in theaters in 2003.

The new licenses, currently recognized only in California and Texas, allow theater ushers to arrest and immediately execute anyone caught with a camcorder or other recording device inside a movie theater.

The measure will work side-by-side with an existing MPAA plan to give $500 to private citizens who identify or detain people with camcorders in movie theaters. California law already makes it a crime to bring a camcorder into theaters and Warner Bros. recently shipped night vision goggles to British theaters in a failed attempt to prevent pirates from copying the latest installment in the Harry Potter series.

“We’ve tried reasoning with [pirates] and we’ve tried jailing them. Nothing has worked,” Valenti said. “Now we’re issuing film pirates a one-way ticket to hell for which there are no refunds.”

Valenti said that the measure will officially take effect June 29, one day before the opening of Spiderman 2. Reels of the film will ship with the special licenses and a Smith & Wesson 4040PD single-action pistol capable of holding seven rounds.

“Law-abiding consumers have nothing to worry about,” Valenti said. “We’re not authorizing ushers to shoot people who talk during the movie or who forget to turn their cell phones off.”

“Unless those cell phones have cameras,” he added.

Critics argue that the new measures will do nothing to curb piracy in America’s inner-cities, where movie-goers already face a 50 percent chance of being shot in the theater.
http://www.mentaldischarge.com/?section=news&id=15
















Until next week,

- js.














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

Current Week In Review





Recent WiRs -

October 30th, October 23rd, October 16th , October 9th

Jack Spratt's Week In Review is published every Friday. Please submit letters, articles, and press releases in plain text English to jackspratts (at) lycos (dot) com. Include contact info. Submission deadlines are Wednesdays @ 1700 UTC.


"The First Amendment rests on the assumption that the widest possible dissemination of information from diverse and antagonistic sources is essential to the welfare of the public." - Hugo Black