Peer-To-Peer News - The Week In Review - January 22nd, '05

[JackSpratts]

Quotes Of The Week


"The administration has made it clear that they do intend to continue their move to dramatically reduce privacy and constitutional protection for our citizens." – Bob Barr


"It's a mistake to think that privacy is an individualist or atavist right. I really view privacy as a collective right. When someone else is forced to give up their privacy, yours could be the next to go." – Marc Rotenberg


"The part that worries me most is the tremendous amount of money that can be made by tricking people into installing junk on their computers. It's a great business." – Ben Edelman


"Look, we would hope that one or more of the other remaining plaintiffs would also reassess the viability of this litigation." – Bertelsmann attorney Bruce Rich


"At the moment the official chart isn't the most reliable indicator of what people are buying. It will be as soon as they fold in the downloads." – Paul Gambaccini


"Comcast expected to raise broadband speeds." – Jim Hu










The Ranting Classes

I’m always fascinated by the (barely contained) nonsensical rage directed at file-sharers by certain segments of the blogshere, those high-grounders equating swapping with stealing, and swappers with immorality. Snide, none too subtle comments like "I’m sorry if I think people should actually get paid for their labors!" imply without evidence there are legions of starving software, record and movie company execs and creators clogging gutters and welfare offices on unheard of global scales, all because we're sharing media with each other. That is demonstrably false. Artificial anger and dogma aside, with even old-fashioned album sales up two percent last year in the U.S., theater ticket sales up and new products like DVD’ s and for-sale music downloads skyrocketing, and some of the wealthiest companies in the world selling software, the facts are glaringly different: revenues have rarely been better, and not only that, they're continuing to improve, trending in all the right directions. Not that they’ll let that interfere with their poor-house propagandizing, but we shouldn’t take it any more seriously than other mythological musings. Still, if you have to hear real sob stories check out physical goods manufacturers, like car companies, or outfits like once proud Rubbermaid, recently one of the most respected manufacturers in the world, now bankrupt, it's employees watching listlessly as auctioneers sell off it's physical carcass. No victims of “IP theft” among them; globalization perhaps - but with the copyright extremists some of the biggest boosters of free trade don’t expect them to amplify that connection.

I would have thought that after five years of “out-of-control” file-sharing (maybe they should watch somebody who’s good at it like me. I’m very in-control lol) people might realize the so-called “intellectual property” world hasn’t come to end, but we can forgive ourselves that fantasy. Like vampires and zombies, IP scare-mongering is nearly immortal, logic and common sense having little effect against the monster. You can sell books, music, DVDs and software, people still watch commercials (even wonderfully homemade ones) and believe it or not artists still collect royalties on compositions they created years ago, but it makes little difference to the howlings of copyright lunatics. That last one’s a great example of the transparency of the arguments; once deemed the “biggest threat” to IP from peer-to-peer, the threatened “death of royalties” was a complete fabrication. How many times did we hear comments like this? “Sure, musicians might get paid for performing even if they can’t sell records, but how are songwriters going to survive?” Very well thank you. BMI, the songwriters’ big collection society saw revenues increase 9 percent, but you won’t hear that from congress or the media.

It wouldn’t hurt the dialog if the anti-swapping contingent buttressed their hysterics with some actual facts. It could move their rants out of the realm of total fantasy and into something approaching an empirical intellectual discourse. I know, I know. Who am I kidding?













Enjoy,

Jack












Supreme Court Sets Date For File- Sharing Case
Declan McCullagh

The U.S. Supreme Court has set a date for oral arguments in a closely watched case that could decide whether file-sharing networks are legal to operate or not. The case will be heard on March 29, the justices said Thursday.

In 2001, companies represented by the Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry Association of America sued Grokster and Morpheus parent StreamCast Networks alleging copyright violations but have lost in the lower courts. A decision from the Supreme Court is expected by early July 2005.
http://news.zdnet.com/2110-9588_22-5545186.html


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

Heil Ahnud

California Bill Could Cripple P2P
John Borland

A bill introduced in California's Legislature last week has raised the possibility of jail time for developers of file-swapping software who don't stop trades of copyrighted movies and songs online.

The proposal, introduced by Los Angeles Sen. Kevin Murray, takes direct aim at companies that distribute software such as Kazaa, eDonkey or Morpheus. If passed and signed into law, it could expose file-swapping software developers to fines of up to $2,500 per charge, or a year in jail, if they don't take "reasonable care" in preventing the use of their software to swap copyrighted music or movies--or child pornography.

Peer-to-peer software companies and their allies immediately criticized the bill as a danger to technological innovation, and as potentially unconstitutional.

"State Sen. Murray did not choose to seek out the facts before introducing misguided legislation that effectively would make criminals out of many companies that bring jobs and economic growth to California," Mike Weiss, CEO of Morpheus parent StreamCast Networks, said in a statement. "This bill is an attack on innovation itself and tax-paying California-based businesses like StreamCast depend on that freedom to innovate."

The bill comes as much of the technology world is waiting for the Supreme Court to rule on the legal status of file-swapping technology.

Federal courts have twice ruled that peer-to-peer software companies are not legally responsible for the illegal actions of people using their products. Hollywood studios and record companies appealed those decisions to the nation's top court, which is expected to rule on the issue this summer.

In the meantime, entertainment companies' push for federal legislation on file-swapping issue has been put temporarily on the back burner. A controversial bill that would have put more legal responsibility on the peer-to-peer developers failed to pass at the end of last year's congressional session.

California has taken a lead among states in putting pressure on the file-swapping world. Attorney General Bill Lockyer was a key figure last year in pushing for more state-level legal scrutiny of the companies' actions, and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has sought to ban illegal downloading on any state computers, including those owned by the state university systems.

Murray himself sponsored a bill last year--later signed by the governor--that requires file sharers who send a copyrighted work to at least 10 people to provide a valid e-mail address or risk jail time. He has also authored bills on spyware and spam.

The senator said his bill was intended only to encourage companies to take advantage of existing technology for filtering networks, not to impose requirements impossible to meet.

"To the extent that they agree that they can filter, we think it's reasonable to require filters for peer to peer activity," Murray said. "We're only asking for reasonable controls. We're not asking for people to create new technology or recreate the wheel."

Several companies, including Audible Magic and Shawn Fanning's Snocap , have demonstrated technology that could be used to block trades of copyrighted music, although no such tool has yet been publicly shown for Hollywood movies. Some file-swapping companies say these tools would be impractical to use on a widespread basis.

Murray has worked closely with the entertainment companies on this type of issue, but has also been a staunch critic of record labels' accounting practices and the way they treat their artists. He said he did not work with the MPAA or other groups in drafting the new bill.
http://news.com.com/State+bill+could...3-5540937.html


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

No More Internet for Them

Fed up over problems stemming from viruses and spyware, some computer users are giving up or curbing their use of the Web.
Joseph Menn

Stephen Seemayer had the first Pong video game system on his block. A decade later, the Echo Park artist was the first in his neighborhood to get a personal computer. And in 1996, he was so inspired by the World Wide Web that he created a series of small paintings for viewing over the Internet.

Now the 50-year-old Seemayer is once again on the cutting edge: Sick of spam clogging his in-box and spyware and viruses crashing his system, Seemayer yanked out his high-speed connection.

"I'm not going to pay for something that I can't use," he said.

A small but growing number of frustrated computer owners are coming to the same conclusion. They're giving up or cutting back their use of the Internet, especially at home, where no corporate tech support team will ride to their rescue.

Instead of making life easier — the essential promise of technologies since the steam engine — the home PC of late has made some users feel stupid, endangered or just hassled beyond reason.

Seemayer's machine, for instance, got so jammed with spam that he stopped checking e-mail. When he surfed the Web, pop-up ads from a piece of spyware he couldn't wipe out spewed sexually explicit images and used so much computing power that the PC would just stop.

"I could be sitting here in the living room reading a book," Seemayer said, "and I'd hear my son scream: 'It froze up on me again!' "

So when his son left for college in September, Seemayer finally unplugged.

Now when he uses his computer, it's to compose letters or organize photos — anything that doesn't require interaction with any other system.

Seemayer is still in the minority. Overall Internet use continues to grow.

But 2004 "was a real turning point in a bad direction," said technology analyst Ted Schadler of Forrester Research. "People are getting really angry. They're angry at Dell and Microsoft and their cable providers, and that's appropriate. They should be."

In a recent survey, 31% of online shoppers said they were buying less than before because of security issues. And though more people are signing up for high-speed, commerce-friendly connections, the proportion of U.S. Internet users paying for things online barely budged in 2004 from a year earlier. It rose to 27% from 26% in 2003 after jumping from 20% the previous year, according to Harris Interactive.

For many, spyware was the last straw. During the last 18 months, the sneaky programs have soared to the top of the list of tech woes, triggering the most tech support calls to Dell Inc., the nation's top PC maker. Spyware lurks on as many as 80% of computers nationwide, according to the National Cyber Security Alliance, a trade group.

Spyware generally transmits information to third parties and sometimes takes control of a PC, usually to display ads. The most pernicious varieties have instructed millions of computers to make expensive toll calls or logged every keystroke on affected machines and sent account numbers and passwords to identity thieves.

No one is immune. Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates discovered spyware on his personal machine not long ago.

The aggravation level has reached the point that some in the computer industry believe it threatens to undermine advances of the last decade, during which the Internet has grown from a virtually empty domain to a global community of 800 million souls. They say they need to act before the same early adopters who led mainstream Americans online lead them off.

"If, as an industry, we're not able to provide a safe, reliable computing environment, we do think consumers will get increasingly frustrated," said Michael George, general manager of Dell's U.S. consumer business. "We're concerned, and we want to get to a position where we play an instrumental role in fixing the problem."

It may well be up to private enterprise. Congress and the Federal Trade Commission are exploring a crackdown on spyware, but government efforts to stop another online scourge, spam, have had limited results, as many with an e-mail account will attest.

The root cause of the problems is the open architecture of the Internet, initially inhabited and managed by a collaborative community from government and universities.

"The Internet … grew out of a shielded, nice-guy environment in academia," Web usability expert Jakob Nielsen said. Back then, "the worst abuse might have been sending a prank message. Nowadays, the Net reaches everyone in the industrialized world, including large amounts of people with no shame and large numbers of criminals."

Microsoft's dominant Windows operating system also makes it possible for malicious code to spread, in part because it was designed to allow so many functions. Once a weakness in Windows is discovered by hackers, a virus can wreak havoc on millions of computers before Microsoft can offer a patch — which typical users may not take the initiative to download.

And consumer advocates claim that state and federal laws against spam don't help. Courts have protected software vendors from most consumer lawsuits, and some have held that the companies are all but immunized by warnings buried in lengthy user agreements, those boxes with massive amounts of text with the "I agree" button at the bottom.

Whatever the reasons, the threats have evolved from minor annoyances to serious computer risks.

Gerald Stark, 52, trained on computers in school and in the Navy before starting a small cleaning business in Lisbon Falls, Maine. He figured he could use the Internet to find equipment at a good price, track his sales and organize his volunteer activities with the Boy Scouts.

"I thought that the computer was the way to go because it was so much faster," he said. "It turned out to be a nightmare."

A virus killed one machine. Then spyware infested the next one, wiping out a year's worth of receipt records.

Stark read five years' worth of computer magazines just to keep up with how to defend himself.

Even with two firewalls and antivirus and anti-spyware programs running, Stark stopped looking for new business deals online. He said he would buy only from places he had dealt with before, preferably in the physical world rather than the virtual one.

"I'm not letting my guard down again," Stark said. "Never."

Henry Stiegel didn't think he needed his guard up in the first place. Pressed by his stockbroker and friends, Stiegel got his first home computer in 2003.

"I thought it was going to be like a television set — I'm going to sit right in front of it all day and have some control and learn things, scan for airfare and travel," the former Grumman Aerospace Corp. engineer said from Homosassa, Fla.

Even after studying in computing classes, the 77-year-old Stiegel was swamped by hundreds of viruses, other malicious programs and pop-ups.

"I still have windows I can't delete when I want to get rid of them. When I send an e-mail, I get interrupted and have to start all over," Stiegel said. "I have actually pulled the plug out of the wall so I could reboot."

Stiegel now turns the computer on only two or three times a week, mostly to read his e-mail.

In Grand Rapids, Mich., homemaker Peggy Kasul sits halfway between the anxious newcomers like Stiegel and the jaded old pros like Seemayer.

A computer owner for seven years, Kasul did a little shopping online. Her husband used the machine to help manage some rental property, and her 16-year-old daughter wrote term papers for school.

Then her daughter went on the Internet to research a paper on the issue of breast-feeding in public. As if she had typed in a magic word, spyware ads for porn sites popped up and wouldn't go away.

Soon the computer was unusable. It took more than three weeks and $300 to get the thing working again, by which time all the family's data had been wiped out.

Now Kasul sends her daughter to use the computers at school or the library.

"I don't do much shopping online anymore because that scares me," Kasul said. "I go to the store."

The biggest factor behind the rapid increase in spyware is the amount of money at stake. Ads for such blue-chip companies as Motorola Inc., Verizon Communications Inc. and JP Morgan Chase & Co. appear in spyware programs.

The businesses most often accused of distributing spyware, including privately held Claria Corp., WhenU Inc. and 180Solutions Inc., say they are providing legitimate "adware" services to customers who approved the installation. But their disclosures are often misleading or buried: A recent Claria license ran for more than 60 electronic pages, first mentioning the phrase "pop-up" on page 18.

Much spyware arrives bundled with programs such as screensavers and file-sharing software.

"The part that worries me most is the tremendous amount of money that can be made by tricking people into installing junk on their computers," said Ben Edelman, a Harvard graduate student who has testified against spyware companies. "It's a great business."

The defenses remain scattered. Windows PCs often don't come with antivirus software installed. Firewalls and spam blockers are usually separate too, and there are dozens of small companies offering what they describe as anti-spyware products — some of which are actually fronts that install spyware.

"Staying safe online has gotten too complicated for the average user to do by buying individual products and making them work together," America Online spokesman Andrew Weinstein said.

Realizing that such fragmentation is making matters worse, some companies are rounding up the pieces of a more complete resistance.

Microsoft recently bought both an antivirus company and an anti-spyware software maker. Time Warner's latest version of AOL checks for spyware and offers to delete it. And where Dell's online guide for configuring a PC used to suggest a combined antivirus and firewall program without saying why, it now explicitly warns buyers to protect themselves or face potentially costly problems in the future.

Legislation that would have required more direct warnings by spyware companies to consumers and ensured that users could delete the programs made headway in the last session of Congress, despite objections from top computer-security company Symantec Corp. and other software providers. Ari Schwartz, an anti-spyware lobbyist with the Washington-based Center for Democracy and Technology, put the odds of some legislation passing in 2005 at better than 80%.

The FTC last fall filed its first case against spyware companies accused of using a security flaw in Internet Explorer to cram system-glutting programs into the machines of website visitors. The companies named were Seismic Entertainment Productions Inc. and SmartBot.net Inc. But current fraud laws allow regulators only to recover ill-gotten gains — no matter how much damage the bad guys have inflicted.

Enacting new federal bills "would be helpful," said Lydia Parnes, acting director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection. Spyware "needs to be understandable to consumers, and it needs to be presented in a way that's kind of visible to them."

Even if a strong law passes, Parnes said she didn't know whether the average computer user would be any better off in three years.

If it's worse, Seemayer probably won't be the only one on his block with a PC cut off from the Internet.

"It's great for anything you can do on your own," he said. "It seems to me an incredible typewriter — and that's it."
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/business...ness-headlines


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

Coralled

Electronics Firms Form Digital Media Rights Accord
Lucas van Grinsven

The world's four biggest consumer electronics companies have agreed to start using a common method to protect digital music and video against piracy and illegal copying, they said on Thursday.

Japan's Sony Corp and Panasonic-brand owner Matsushita Electric Industrial, South Korea's Samsung Electronics and Dutch Philips Electronics formed the alliance because they want buyers of their products to watch or listen to "appropriately licensed video and music on any device, independent of how they originally obtained that content," they said in a joint statement.

Such interoperability does not exist at the moment. Songs bought in Sony's Connect store on the Internet, for example, can only be played on portable music players from Sony or companies that license its digital rights management (DRM) system.

Digital encoding and decoding formats also differ per store, with Apple using AAC in its iTunes Music Store and Microsoft using Windows Media. The lack of interoperability slows down the success of digital entertainment and the subsequent sales of devices, they feel.

If they do not offer their own protection system, as Sony does, the consumer electronics makers have to chose sides and license someone's DRM system for inclusion into products.

Together, the companies sell consumer electronics worth tens of billions of euros (dollars) every year.

The alliance, called the Marlin Joint Development Association (Marlin JDA), gives the companies standard specifications to build DRM functions into their devices that support commonly used modes of content distribution.

"(This) promotes interoperability while maximizing efficiency (when creating new products)," they said.

Intertrust Technologies, a small United States-based company which owns many of the crucial patents for digital anti-piracy protection, is also part of the alliance.

The technology can be used in all products that get their content via the Internet, broadcast or mobile phone networks.

The Marlin-based DRM systems will be offered alongside existing systems. The statement did not say if members such as Sony would give up their proprietary systems, but senior Sony executives have said in the past they favor interoperability in order to accelerate sales of digital electronics.

A first version will come out by the summer of 2005, and it will support another, longer-term initiative, called Coral, which is aimed at developing a set of DRM-neutral agreements to ensure interoperability between all DRM systems and standards.
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.j...toryID=7380643


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

Recording Industry Sees Growth in Legal Downloads
Ray Bennett

More than 200 million music tracks were downloaded legally in the United States and Europe in 2004, up from 20 million the year before, a music industry trade group said Wednesday.

Releasing its second annual Digital Music Report in London, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) said legal music sites had quadrupled to more than 230 in 2004, bringing record companies their first significant revenues from the digital format.

The IFPI said that consulting firm Jupiter Research estimated 2004 digital revenues at $330 million and predicted they would exceed double that in 2005.

IFPI chairman and CEO John Kennedy said at a news briefing that the legal sale of music on the Internet was now established as a viable long-term business.

"The biggest challenge for the digital music business has always been to make music easier to buy than to steal," Kennedy said. "At the start of 2005, as the legitimate digital music business moves into the mainstream of consumer life, that ambition is turning into reality."

Kennedy said the number of tracks fans may now download doubled to 1 million in the year up to January 2005 and the recording industry's goal was to make music as widely available as possible. "The record industry's priority now is to license music to as many services, for as many consumers, on as many formats and devices for use in as many places and countries as it can," Kennedy said.

The IFPI report said legal action had been taken against more than 7,000 illegal uploaders in eight countries in 2004. Kennedy said 61,000 illegal Web Sites had been taken down during the year, up from 41,000 the year before, with 1.6 billion files removed.

Barney Wragg, vp of Universal Music International's new media division, Elabs, told the news briefing that while the U.S. and the United Kingdom were leaders in legal online music sales, other countries were following fast. "They are the slightly more mature markets but more markets are growing with increased rollouts, Germany, Japan, Canada, Australia and others. It's not a two-horse race," Wragg said.

Ted Cohen, senior vp, EMI Digital Development and Distribution, said music's move into the world of telephony had helped alter the public's attitude to paying for digital tracks. "We are making the transition to the mobile culture where people are used to paying for services," he said.

Kennedy declined to claim that the industry had broken the back of piracy. "That's a dangerous thing to say but we have made some progress," he said.
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.j...toryID=7375587


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

Music Download Sales Increase Tenfold in 2004
Adam Pasick

Online music stores broke into the mainstream in 2004, with more than 200 million tracks sold in the United States and Europe, a tenfold increase from the previous year, according to data released on Wednesday.

Among well-known brands like iTunes and Napster, the number of online music stores quadrupled to more than 230 in 2004, according to the report from the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) trade group. The number of songs available online has doubled to about 1 million songs.

The IFPI said research firm Jupiter expects the $330 million online music market to double in 2005.

The increasing popularity of online music stores is welcome news to a music industry that blames digital piracy for more than two years of precipitous sales declines.

"The biggest challenge for the digital music business has always been to make music easier to buy than to steal. At the start of 2005, as the legitimate digital music business moves into the mainstream of consumer life, that ambition is turning into reality," IFPI Chairman and Chief Executive John Kennedy said.

More than 7,000 legal actions have been launched against alleged uploaders in Austria, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Britain and the United States.

"Although piracy has not been eradicated, it may be reaching saturation," investment bank CSFB's media team wrote in a research note this week. "Usage of peer-to-peer networks peaked in the U.S. in 2003 after displaying near-exponential growth beforehand."
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.j...toryID=7371795


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

Napster Paid Subscribers Up 50 Percent

Napster Inc. said Thursday its paid subscribers jumped 50 percent in the quarter that ended December.

The company said it ended the 2004 calendar year with 270,000 paid subscribers, including 44,000 participating in its university programs.

Napster, which is based in California, offers a subscription service that allow users to listen to an online collection of music of various categories.

The digital-music company said it expects to speed up subscriber growth in 2005 with the upcoming launch of a service for portable music players.

Napster shares rose 1 cent to $7.20 in early trading Thursday on the Nasdaq Stock Market.
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/sil...l/10636528.htm


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

Bertelsmann Settles With Small Music Company in Suit Over Napster
Jeff Leeds

More than four years after Bertelsmann, the German media conglomerate, shook up the music industry by providing financial help to the Napster file-sharing service, the company has settled one record label's attempt to hold it liable for aiding online piracy.

Bertelsmann has agreed to pay about $50,000 to settle accusations from Bridgeport Music, a small company in Southfield, Mich., that it had contributed to copyright infringement by lending millions of dollars to Napster in 2000 and 2001.

The settlement, which covers the small label's legal fees, is the first sign of a break in a battle that has taken shape amid the fallout from the collapse of Napster, a file- swapping service based in Silicon Valley, which enabled millions of computer users to trade songs online free.

Because Napster was forced to file for bankruptcy protection, the case is regarded as perhaps the last chance for record companies and music publishers to extract payment for the problems - particularly declining CD sales - that they attribute to file sharing.

A lawyer for Bridgeport, Richard Busch, said the expense of continuing "was just not cost-effective; that's the sole reason." He added that "the decision to settle the case was not based in any way, shape or form on the merits of the case."

Bridgeport is the smallest of the music companies pursuing copyright-infringement claims, and Bertelsmann may still face a protracted battle with the industry's bigger and wealthier players, including the EMI Group and the Universal Music Group, a division of Vivendi Universal. Bertelsmann owns 50 percent of the music giant Sony BMG Music Entertainment.

The companies contend that Bertelsmann, which lent Napster about $85 million to develop a new service that would compensate labels and songwriters, in essence controlled the online company and should be held responsible for the theft of songs. Bertelsmann's lawyers say the company did not hold an equity stake or seats on Napster's board, and lacked the sort of control needed to be found liable.

The federal judge overseeing the case recently denied Bertelsmann's motion to dismiss the case, but Bertelsmann lawyers said they thought the judge's decision established standards that would be difficult for the labels to meet.

Bertelsmann also said that the case could involve taking up to 100 depositions, and that the settlement reflected the cost and time associated with such an undertaking.

"Look, we would hope that one or more of the other remaining plaintiffs would also reassess the viability of this litigation," a lawyer for Bertelsmann, Bruce Rich, said. He said he would entertain discussions of resolving the case with other plaintiffs in a fashion similar to the Bridgeport case, in which his client paid only the plaintiff's legal costs.

Representatives for other plaintiffs, however, said they believed that there was ample evidence of Bertelsmann's control, and that they did not foresee dropping their lawsuits.

"While Bridgeport may not be a deep-pocketed plaintiff who can afford to go through the cost of enforcing its rights, the publishers and the major record companies don't fit in that category," the president of Universal Music, Zach Horowitz, said. "They truly believe there are billions of dollars of damages they will ultimately be entitled to at the end of the process."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/20/bu...20napster.html


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

Two Plead Guilty to Online File-Sharing
Alex Veiga

Two men pleaded guilty to federal charges in what authorities said were the first convictions for online file-sharing of music, movies and software over peer-to-peer networks.

William R. Trowbridge of Johnson City, N.Y., and Michael Chicoine of San Antonio, Tex., each pleaded guilty Tuesday to one count of conspiracy to commit felony copyright infringement, according to the U.S. Justice Department.

Trowbridge, 50, and Chicoine, 47, also pleaded guilty to acting for commercial advantage or private financial gain.

Each faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. They could also be ordered to pay restitution to victims when they are sentenced on April 29.

Repeated calls to a number listed for Trowbridge rang busy. A phone message left at a number for Chicoine was not immediately returned Wednesday.

The two men were targeted as part of an investigation dubbed "Operation Digital Gridlock," which focused on online piracy over peer-to-peer, or P2P, networks. Such networks enable computer users to access files directly from the computers of other users on the network.

FBI and other federal agents seized computers, software and equipment from residences and an Internet service provider in Texas, New York and Wisconsin.

The probe involved operators of five hubs of the "Underground Network," an organization of about 7,000 users suspected of swapping feature films, music, software and computer games.

Unlike many popular file-sharing networks, the "Underground Network" was managed by centralized computers that limited participation.

From August 2002 through August 2004, Trowbridge and Chicoine each "owned, maintained, operated and moderated" hubs offering various digitized films, songs and software, the Justice Department said.

Investigators downloaded 35 copyrighted works from Chicoine's hub and more than 70 copyrighted works from Trowbridge's hub, the government said.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...CTION=BUSINESS


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

Hard case

P2P File Share Reality Check
Raymond Blijd

"Can’t we just host overseas and avoid all these legal squabbles?" is an often heard question on file-sharing forums.

I've often been asked to help search for file-sharing legal safe haven. I’ve joined the discussions on whether to swarm, unite and fight the ‘Industry’ or just divide, run and hide until this whole thing blows over. And, I've kept looking: Where are we safe?

Well, Torrentz.com seems to have found the answer: China; “a DMCA free zone”

“The timing isn’t that great because of the MPAA attacks on torrent sites, but since we're being hosted in China I’m not all that worried about that” according to Flippy; the site owner [source: www.slyck.com ]

I think is time for a reality check, “Flippy”!

Check one

Question: Where do you live?

If the “Industry” ever finds out where you live, they’ll let the dog’s loose and shit will hit the fan. Your local law enforcement authorities will be all over you and take you down, just as in “Raids on Ed2k and Bittorrent defined”.

And don’t think it won't happen in your neck of the woods. Just ask Jon Johanson or Simon Moon.

Don’t be fooled; the current trend of ID dishing being curtailed in the US and Europe. The 'trend' mostly applies to downloader’s not site operators.

Check two

Just Google News these two key words: “China Piracy” and read the headlines from last week. Pressure on China is mounting to crackdown on Piracy. And we know how China is at cracking down.

China is a member of the WTO (World Trade Organization) and party to the TRIPS treaty. At last check, China should have already implemented the treaty into its own law. This means that according to international laws, China is not safe.

Moreover, it showed that it can crack down on “Pirates” if it wants to.

Final check

Ok “Flippy”; International Commercial Law basically works like this:

You can try hosting your site on Tempel 1 and escape earth's laws.

If your site is on a public network and thus accessible on earth, you live on earth and you will be hunted on earth.

Bottomline: it doesn’t matter where the “infringing” activity is technically-geographically located: what’s relevant is where “infringement” is most likely felt, and who’s behind it.

Fact sheet:

A couple of historical facts:

1) Kazaa first hid in Holland, which most still think is a safe haven. But was still charged, here. Although it won the case, it fled to Australia but then…

2) Film88.com hid in Iran and had servers all over the place. Iran is a country that doesn’t respect any foreign copyright by its own laws. Film88 was charged and convicted California and end up paying a record $ 23.8 million in damages to the Industry.

The list of fallen ed2k and Bittorrent sites and their operators is long and …it will get longer in 2005.

Maybe “P2P: sued around the world” didn’t made this clear enough; there are tremendous forces fueling the Intellectual Property reinforcements around the world.

Don’t easily assume that you’re safe anywhere, and tell it too “Wiak”.
http://p2pnet.net/story/3550


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

Cybersleuths Swap Secrets

Department of Defense Considers The Threats Posed By Hackers, Pornographers, And iPods
Paul Roberts

The U.S. Department of Defense is making changes to streamline its response to online threats across the various branches of the military, and deal with a steady stream of new online woes, from hacking attempts to child pornography and threats posed by powerful portable storage devices such as IPods, according to senior DOD officials.

The DOD blocked and traced 60,000 intrusion attempts on its unclassified networks in 2004, and wrestles with spam, illicit pornography, and other common Internet threats. If left to fester, the threats could hamper the massive defense agency, which relies on global, unclassified networks for critical business operations, says Lieutenant General Harry Raduege, director of the Defense Information Systems Agency.

Raduege was speaking at the Department of Defense Cyber Crime Conference in Palm Harbor, Florida, an annual gathering of some of the government's top IT, computer forensic, and research and development talent.

Abroad and At Home

The DOD is taking the threat to its networks seriously, as global information networks now play a crucial role supporting troops abroad, as well as critical logistics, financial, and medical information systems that the DOD relies on to support its employees and to communicate with suppliers in the U.S. and abroad, he says.

"The importance of reliable, accessible networks is growing as we move to a Net-centric world," he says.

Larger, more open networks provide more opportunities for malicious hackers or terrorist groups to infiltrate those networks, stealing sensitive information or wreaking havoc on DOD operations, he says.

The DOD is drafting organization-wide policies to respond to a number of threats that are well known to many private sector network administrators, including peer-to-peer file sharing applications, and vulnerable computer communications ports and protocols, he says.

The DOD is also working to develop a list of IP (Internet protocol) addresses for a "do not block list" so that critical DOD communications are not accidentally blocked by ISPs (Internet service providers) and other organizations, he says.

Networks that contain classified information are not connected to the public Internet and are not affected by the same threats that affect unclassified department networks, he says.

Newly Organized

A reorganization approved by the Joint Chiefs of Staff in November 2004, should make it easier for the government to coordinate its response to cyberthreats and create more discipline on DOD networks by creating clear lines of command from the U.S. Secretary of Defense, to the DOD's Strategic Command, to the various branches of the military, Raduege says.

Asked whether the U.S. public should feel confident that the government is on top of cyber crime, Raduege says that the government's preparedness to deal with online threats had improved dramatically since the first "Solar Sunrise" exercise in the late 1990s.

"We're good. We're very good," he says.

With the theme of "Cybercrime: overcoming the challenges of new technology," the 4th annual DOD Cybercrime Conference brought together 500 experts in technology, law, and computer forensics to discuss ways to improve computer investigations, protect government networks from attack and coordinate the response to computer threats across the huge military and defense sectors.

The conference offered a diverse set of mostly closed-door sessions, with topics such as "Cyber Jihad and the Globalization of Warfare" and "Current Trends in Digital Forensics."

Child pornography has become a huge problem for DOD investigators, accounting for as much as 50 percent of the criminal digital evidence processing work done by the DOD's Defense Cybercrime Center (DC3), says Steven Shirley, executive director of DC3.

The proliferation of inexpensive digital cameras and scanners has caused instances of child pornography to mushroom in the military, as elsewhere in society, says Jim Christy, director of the Defense Cyber Crime Institute at DC3.

Other hot topics at the show were techniques for capturing and analyzing data from a flood of new digital storage media, including Apple IPods, GPS (Global Positioning System) devices, and portable USB (Universal Serial Bus) memory sticks, Christy says.

Government investigators working on cases, ranging from homicides to espionage, need to be aware of the wide range of new places that valuable information could be stored, he says.

"Twenty years ago, investigators used to walk right past the desktop computer when they were gathering evidence. Now they know enough to seize that, but we've got to get them to be aware of these other devices," he says.
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,119308,00.asp


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

Major Free Storage
Jack

This week Streamload began offering an unprecedented amount of no-cost online storage. People signing up for the service will receive a 10 GIGABYTE online locker for MP3s, TV shows, short films or whatever, all accessible from any terminal in the world (depending on configurations, and more about that later) and all for free. Although to slow "piracy" downloads and individual uploads will be limited to 100 megs per month, thus making it awkward to store feature films, it still leaves plenty of room for other things.

I opened a free account last Sunday and it was simple and fast, but their locker page is having issues with my browsers which are normally set to high security. Opera 6 won’t load the page at all, it keeps recycling without displaying and IE won’t load it fully but at least I can store content. Streamload takes the files as fast as my upload bandwidth allows (about 350kbs or 40K) which is great. Unfortunately I can’t get to my inbox - I click and nothing happens. This means I may have to create a new browser profile just for this service until they work out the bugs. A small inconvenience I think for the service offered, we’re looking at 10 sharable free gigs after all and for most users the browser conflicts won’t even be issues.

Google started this land rush. Streamload just raised the stakes. Makes me wonder what’s next.

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

Measuring Literacy in a World Gone Digital
Tom Zeller Jr.

There was a time when researching a high school or college term paper was a far simpler thing. A student writing about, say, Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, might have checked out a book on the history of aviation from the local library or tucked into the family's dog-eared Britannica. An ambitious college freshman might have augmented the research by looking up some old newspaper clips on microfilm or picking up a monograph in the stacks.

Today, in a matter of minutes, students can identify these and thousands of other potential resources on the Internet - and, as any teacher will attest, they are not always adept at sorting the wheat from the chaff.

Now the Educational Testing Service, the nonprofit group behind the SAT, Graduate Record Examination and other college tests, has developed a new test that it says can assess students' ability to make good critical evaluations of the vast amount of material available to them.

The Information and Communications Technology literacy assessment, which will be introduced at about two dozen colleges and universities later this month, is intended to measure students' ability to manage exercises like sorting e-mail messages or manipulating tables and charts, and to assess how well they organize and interpret information from many sources and in myriad forms. About 10,000 undergraduates at schools from the University of California, Los Angeles to Bronx Community College are expected to take the test during the first offering period, which ends March 31.

Still, just what is meant by "information" or even "technological" literacy remains a hotly debated topic in academic circles, and there is no widespread agreement on whether such skills can be taught, much less measured in a test. What seems certain, however, is that a lucrative market is emerging for testing companies that are willing to fill the perceived need.

The initial technology test is aimed at midlevel college students, but the Educational Testing Service says it has also received inquiries from high schools and businesses. And while the new assessment is not a high-stakes requirement for academic advancement like the SAT, it seems inevitable that most students will one day need to prove themselves along these lines.

Part of the problem, many educators say, is that the traditional vetting process for information is now so easily bypassed.

"In an earlier time, information came, really, from only one place: the university library," said Lorie Roth, the assistant vice chancellor of academic programs for the California State University system, one of seven school systems that worked with the testing company over the last two years to develop the test. "Now it is all part of one giant continuum, and often the student is the sole arbiter of what is good information, what is bad information and what all the shades are in between."

But not everyone agrees that measuring information literacy can be done, even with a standardized test.

"There is a basic problem with identifying a single set of skills that could possibly relate to all people," said Stanley Wilder, the associate dean of the River Campus Libraries at the University of Rochester in New York, who wrote a withering assessment of the information literacy movement in The Chronicle of Higher Education two weeks ago. "There isn't a serious critique of any of the assumptions that info-literacy makes," Mr. Wilder said in an interview. "They'll tell you that it teaches critical thinking, but there's never been a study that measures whether students are really lacking this, or whether libraries can impact this."

Be that as it may, it is true that the information literacy movement could prove a windfall for companies like the Educational Testing Service.

Developing metrics for measuring how much students know - or how much they have yet to learn - has become a lucrative market. Eduventures, a research firm in Boston, estimated the assessment market for prekindergarten to Grade 12 - excluding the college years and beyond - at $1.8 billion for 2003. Given President Bush's announcement last Wednesday that he plans to expand the standardized testing mandated under the No Child Left Behind Act - which includes a commitment to "ensuring that every student is technologically literate by the time the student finishes the eighth grade" - the market for assessments is certain to grow.

Beyond the SAT, the Educational Testing Service controls a separate boutique market of higher-level tests like the Graduate Record Examination and the Graduate Management Admission Test. Despite its nonprofit status, it is the world's largest private educational testing and measurement organization. The company administers and scores nearly 25 million tests annually in more than 180 countries, and posted $825 million in revenues for fiscal year 2004.

In an extensive report, "Tech Tonic: Towards a New Literacy of Technology," published in September, the Alliance for Childhood, a nonprofit group that is often skeptical of technology in schools, was critical of the new test. "For E.T.S., this is part of a broader global plan to develop and promote international technology literacy standards, and then offer countries around the world a chance to buy a full array of assessment products and services that can be used to implement their standards," the report said.

But if critics see this as an unjustified entry into an already littered field of standardized tests, the company argues that the information age - and a new culture of accountability - demand it.

"I think there's always that tension," said Teresa Egan, the project manager who is steering the test's release at the end of this month. "People feel there's too much testing across the board now. Or they ask whether we are focusing so much time on testing that students don't have time for other educational experiences.

"But the public wants accountability. People want to ensure that colleges are actually preparing students for the future - the future being an information society." The technology test will cost colleges around $25 a student - discounted to $20 for institutions that sign up during the first testing period. Students will take the Web-based exam in classrooms or instruction labs, logging on with access codes purchased by their schools. Scores in the first round will be aggregated for each institution; the company aims to make scoring for individual students available in 2006.

In 2001, the testing company brought together an international consortium of educators, technology specialists and government representatives to begin defining the core characteristics of information consumption at the college level.

Knowing where and how to find information, they agreed, was just the beginning. Interpreting, sorting, evaluating, manipulating and repackaging information in dozens of forms from thousands of sources - as well as having a fundamental understanding of the legal and ethical uses of digital materials - are also important components.

"Critical thinking is a central aspect of the new economy," said Robert B. Reich, the secretary of labor in the Clinton administration, who is now a professor of social and economic policy at Brandeis University. Professor Reich is also the author of the 1991 book "Work of Nations: Preparing Ourselves for 21st Century Capitalism," which provided a something of a touchstone for the information literacy movement. "Our high school curricula are locked into an industrial age that may have only a tangential relationship to the information age," he said in an interview.

To the extent that efforts like the new technology test help reshape curriculums along these lines, Mr. Reich said, they probably will help.

According to Ms. Egan of the Educational Testing Service, the test is also fun.

"Can you help me find a good source of products and gifts designed for left-handers?" reads a sample question from a fictitious office manager. "I'd like someplace that offers a wide range of merchandise with product guarantees - also that has an online catalog and online ordering. Discounts would also be a plus."

Fictitious colleagues might then make suggestions via e-mail, and the test taker might also get input by instant message from people using screen names like SkyDiver, JJJunior and TVJunkie. The test taker would be asked to consider the various sources and suggestions, and to rank them by relevance to the original request.

Other parts of the test ask students to do everything from the seemingly mundane (like sorting e-mail messages into appropriate folders) to head-scratching tasks like "reordering a table to maximize efficiency in two tasks with incompatible requirements," according to a brochure.

Asked if she had taken the test herself, Ms. Egan responded, "What a cruel question.

"I took it earlier on, when there was no way to produce a score from it. But I knew myself that there was a lot I needed to learn."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/17/te...gy/17test.html


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

TiVo Struggles to Find Its Niche After Quitting a Deal with Cable
Saul Hansell

After months of hard bargaining, TiVo reached an agreement last summer to offer its pioneering video recording system to customers of the Comcast cable system, according to several people involved in the discussions.

It was potentially a critical deal for TiVo, because Comcast is by far the biggest cable system and also because control of DirecTV, the satellite system that has been the biggest distributor of TiVo, had been bought by the News Corporation, which also owns a TiVo rival.

Yet, at the last minute, Michael Ramsay, TiVo's chief executive, decided to pull out of the deal. Comcast was not going to pay TiVo enough money or give it enough control over its service, Mr. Ramsay told the company's board, according to people involved in those discussions.

TiVo's board backed Mr. Ramsay, a brilliant and headstrong Scottish engineer, who wanted to focus on new technologies to attract customers directly - without distribution of the service by cable or satellite TV companies. But a debate about whether the company made the right choice raged in its executive suite and boardroom.

Last week, TiVo announced that Mr. Ramsay was stepping down as chief executive but would remain as chairman. He said the change was his idea and had been under discussion for months. Several board members and others close to the board confirm that. But they also said that the board hoped to hire someone with less of Mr. Ramsay's fierce belief in the power of TiVo's technology. They said they preferred someone with an ability to repair TiVo's relations with the big cable companies.

"They are looking for a guy who can stand up and go belly to belly with the big service providers," said Stewart Alsop, a former member of TiVo's board and a venture capitalist with New Enterprise Associates, which has a financial interest in TiVo. "They need a 'larger than life' personality, a younger version of Barry Diller."

But TiVo's next chief executive will also need considerable skill to navigate an internal political minefield, particularly because Mr. Ramsay intends to stay working full time as chairman.

TiVo's plight resembles that of many technology innovators that never find a way to profit from their elegant and sophisticated inventions. TiVo was one of the first companies to develop a device that used a computer hard drive to store television programs, a method that offered users much more flexibility than videotape. Its software is regarded as the best at helping people find programs to record of particular interest to them, earning it a cult-like following among its 2.3 million subscribers.

"As Kleenex is to tissue and Xerox is to copiers, TiVo is to video recorders," said Jack Myers, the publisher of the Jack Myers Report, a media newsletter. "They have an elegant user interface but it is not sufficiently differentiated that they can build a business on it."

Mr. Ramsay will not talk about TiVo's dealings with Comcast or any other particular company. But he defended the company's choice to go it alone.

"Our motivation is to see if there is any way we can work with cable and satellite companies," he said. But he added, "The cable companies are not willing to pay a lot to companies like TiVo to deliver the services they want."

On the other side of the debate is Tom Rogers, the former chief executive of Primedia and longtime cable executive at NBC, who is a member of TiVo's board. Mr. Rogers, who was named vice chairman of the board last October, has been pressing for more accommodation of the cable industry, several people with knowledge of the board said.

There appears to be no easy answer for TiVo's strategic dilemma. Mr. Ramsay decided to spend $50 million this year to persuade people to buy TiVo's set-top boxes directly, through advertising and rebates that brought the price of the product to as low as $99. (Until then, TiVo had relied mainly on word of mouth, rather than advertising, for its marketing.) The final results for the fourth quarter have not been released, but one person involved in the company said sales had been disappointing.

Doing business with cable and satellite companies offers far less money, but from far more customers. TiVo receives about $1 a month from DirecTV customers (Comcast offered even less, people knowledgeable about the deal said), rather than the $12.95 a month it receives from its direct customers. Then again, customers prefer a single box on top of their TV set rather than two - a cable box and TiVo's box for finding and recording programs. More important, the cable and satellite companies could reach tens of millions of households, allowing TiVo to profit from secondary businesses, like offering premium services and advertising on its service, or by doing audience measurement research.

But now, the opportunity for TiVo to strike a deal with cable or satellite companies is far less than it was a year ago. After TiVo left the negotiations with Comcast, the cable company started distributing a video recorder made by Motorola, its principal supplier of set-top boxes. The service has been so popular that Comcast has little incentive to pay more for TiVo's technology. Similarly Time Warner, the No. 2 cable provider, has been very successful with its own video recorder, made by Scientific Atlanta.

"The risk for TiVo is the market window has closed," said Morgan P. Guenther, the former president of TiVo. He said he was a great admirer of Mr. Ramsay but added that the company should have placed more emphasis on selling its software to cable or satellite companies. "I would have liked to see more focus on the arms supplier model than I was able to achieve when I was there. At the end of the day, you have to achieve distribution for the platform," Mr. Guenther said.

Meanwhile, other companies are racing to develop software with the sort of advanced features desired by Mr. Ramsay, including ReplayTV and Digeo, a company owned by Paul Allen, who also controls the Charter Communication cable system. Both Microsoft and Digeo are testing their software on Comcast systems.

"We view ourselves as an enabling technology and we are not demanding my way or the highway," said Victor J. Pacor, the president of D&M Holdings, a Japanese electronics company that owns Replay.

Mr. Ramsay said that history showed that there was little return from selling software to cable companies, noting the collapse of Liberate Technologies and OpenTV, two companies that were unsuccessful.

"They put all their eggs in the cable basket," Mr. Ramsay said. "They said to their investors the per-subscriber economics aren't great but we will have tens of millions of subscribers worldwide. It is very difficult to make that work."

Moreover, he said the benefits of such distribution may not be as great as the costs, because it was expensive to integrate TiVo's technology into the particulars of each cable company's system. "I could spend $10 million on integration to get 10 bucks a subscriber from a cable system," he said. "But I'd rather spend that $10 million innovating and moving the state of the art."

So now Mr. Ramsay has decided to pull back from the discounting strategy to focus on selling advanced features to more sophisticated users - at higher prices.

"The mainstream of our market going forward is not at $99 but at a higher level," he said. He does not have much choice; TiVo's cash fell from $143 million a year ago to $89 million on Oct. 31, 2004.

His plan - called Tahiti - involves several technological innovations intended to let TiVo thrive without the cooperation of cable companies. Devices will be able to send recorded programs to personal computers and to download programs from the Internet as well, taking advantage of a standard mandated by the government that, in theory, would allow TiVo to directly connect to cable systems. Also, he said TiVo would move beyond video recorders to a broader product line involved in the convergence between computers and television, including software that would allow a home computer to record television programs. This would put TiVo into direct competition with other companies, like Sony, Hewlett Packard and Microsoft.

How much of this plan gets realized depends on how much support it gets from TiVo's next chief executive. Mr. Ramsay said he believed the chief would come to the conclusion that TiVo has no other choice.

"It doesn't take much to pencil out what happens to a strategy that puts everything on mass distribution deals," he said. "That's very high risk."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/17/te...gy/17tivo.html


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

TiVo Faces Threat As Options Multiply
May Wong

TiVo has been synonymous with digital video recording since it pioneered the industry five years ago, controlling an estimated one-third of the market in 2004. That lofty perch is now beginning to crumble.

Competition in the growing and lucrative industry is intensifying as cable providers, satellite operators and consumer electronics companies push ahead with models of their own, giving consumers more choices while threatening to significantly blunt TiVo Inc.'s edge.

"They're facing a very, very difficult year this year. It'll be increasingly difficult for them to sign up new subscribers," said Josh Bernoff, an analyst at Forrester Research. "Why do you need a TiVo when there's a cable DVR (digital video recorder) for free?"

Many agree that TiVo's service remains the best of breed, with its easy navigational controls and advanced search and record functions.

Its subscribers, who tend to be an evangelistic bunch, account for one in three of the estimated 6.5 million U.S. households with digital video recorders.

But the small company based in the south San Francisco Bay community of Alviso is now playing in a land of giants, faced with a mass market of consumers looking for convenience and low prices.

Even with its latest innovations, TiVo will find it difficult to compete against the clones of deep-pocketed cable or satellite operators. Those companies can afford to subsidize hardware costs and already have tens of millions of customers on their rosters.

The rivals also charge consumers less per month for digital recording - about $5 to $10, compared to TiVo's $13.

Consider Alex Wilkas, who appreciates the latest gadgetry but won't hesitate to trade it in if another has a better price or better features.

Wilkas lives in the San Francisco Bay area, where the digital recorder battle escalated in December after the local cable company, Comcast Corp., started rolling out its newest DVR-equipped set-top box to customers.

Comcast heavily advertised the advanced digital service. But while some customers were waiting for the boxes to arrive, TiVo gave away 2,000 of its DVRs to anyone who could show a Comcast bill.

That's right, gave them away.

Then EchoStar Communications Corp. took out a full-page advertisement in a local newspaper panning Comcast and reminding potential customers that the satellite company also offered a DVR service.

So which new set-top box arrived in Wilkas' Foster City home two weeks ago? Comcast's DVR, which allows users to record two channels at once.

The main reason, says the 60-year-old real estate agent, was that unlike the others, there was no upfront cost for the equipment - only the monthly service fee of $9.95. Plus, the Comcast box supports high-definition TV signals.

Score one for Comcast, the nation's largest cable provider.

But there are millions more potential customers to go in the nascent market of digital recording, which lets viewers record shows to a hard drive, fast forward through commercials and pause live TV.

A snapshot of how TiVo is being attacked from many fronts emerged earlier this month at the International Consumer Electronics Show, when a slew of rivals introduced their latest products.

News Corp.'s DirecTV, a longtime partner whose satellite customers accounted for about two-thirds of TiVo's subscribers by the end of October, said that it will introduce later this year a new media receiver that employs the DVR software of its sister company, NDS Group PLC. DirecTV is also expected to continue offering TiVo-based recorders at least through early 2007, when its contract with TiVo ends.

Scientific-Atlanta Inc., a provider of cable boxes whose DVR models made up almost 40 percent of its third-quarter shipments, announced the first deployment of its multi- room DVR to some Time Warner Cable customers.

The company said it would debut a DVR later this year with a DVD recorder so users can take their recorded programs on the road (TiVo itself now offers a similar feature but programs must first be transferred to a computer over a home network).

EchoStar's Dish Network unveiled a DVR receiver that also will have 100 hours of space for video-on-demand content, a fast-growing revenue generator for cable companies. The satellite provider also will introduce a line of portable media players that can connect to the DVRs and download recorded content for playback on the go.

Motorola Inc., another cable box provider whose DVR models are now shipping at a frenzied rate to Comcast and others, has plans to deploy more souped-up versions later this year, including one using Digeo Inc.'s widely praised Moxi platform.

And set-top boxes that will compete with TiVo are moving well beyond basic DVR functions: Telecommunications titan SBC Communications Inc. announced a deal with electronics company 2Wire to build a box to handle music, photographs and Internet video downloads.

Hewlett-Packard Co. introduced a media hub using the Linux operating system, a machine that includes a DVR and two high-definition TV tuners, enabling recording of two channels simultaneously.

Consumer electronics companies also are increasingly adding digital recording features into DVD players and TVs themselves.

All those devices, meanwhile, will spar with PC-based Media Centers, which run Microsoft Corp. software and include digital recording features and the ability to shift content from a PC to TV sets in other rooms.

Other new startups are competing tangentially, essentially doing an end-run around traditional programming distribution.

Among them are Akimbo Systems Inc., a video-on-demand provider specializing in Internet-based content, and Orb Networks Inc., which offers a streaming service that lets subscribers remotely access their digital media files from their home PCs. They also can watch live television on gadgets with Internet connections.

TiVo has so far failed to ally with major cable companies but has announced a number of initiatives, including a service to debut later this year that will let users access video content from the Internet.

Next year, it plans to launch a high-definition digital recorder featuring an emerging CableCARD technology that allows devices to access cable TV programming without the need for cable companies' equipment.

Analysts say it's unclear whether the strategies will pay off.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...CTION=BUSINESS


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

Is Apple Thinking About Mac TV?
John Markoff

Does Apple Computer have designs on the living room?

Onstage at the Macworld Exposition in San Francisco last week, Apple's chief executive, Steven P. Jobs, proclaimed 2005 as "the year of high-definition video," a strange declaration from someone who was not trying to sell television sets. He kept his laser-like focus on the iPod and the Mac mini, a new low-priced, book-size computer.

But he noted that the giant screen projecting his demonstrations was in high definition, gave a cursory display of several computer video-editing tools and offered an enthusiastic plug for a new Sony high-definition video camera. He also invited Sony's president, Kunitake Ando, onstage for a brief and cryptic appearance and mentioned that the two companies might find other things to cooperate on in the future.

But if Mr. Jobs is thinking about a future role for the quirky computer maker in entertainment beyond digital music, he is holding his cards very close to his chest.

The Mac mini, which sells for $499, is intended to woo Windows iPod users who have been leaning toward a Macintosh but have been put off by the Mac's higher prices. That did not stop speculation that, with a minimum of modification, the Mac Mini would make a compelling interactive television set-top box, placing Apple squarely in competition with TiVo and Windows Media Center from Microsoft.

In an interview after his presentation, Mr. Jobs demurred. The problem, he suggested, was not that Mac TV was not a good idea, but that the cable companies are monopolies. But he did not close the door entirely.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/17/te...y/17apple.html


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

Cool Apple Stuff

iPod Shuffle Disassembly

George Masters’ Amazing Homemade iPod Commercial

Put Yourself In An iPod Ad

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

Radio Broadcasters Mull Digital Music Stores
Kenneth Li

Radio broadcasters are considering technology and business models that may soon allow listeners to click, listen and buy the tunes they hear on their favorite radio stations.

Top radio conglomerate Clear Channel Communications, technology companies and burgeoning satellite radio companies are aiming to launch such services within 18 to 24 months, executives and analysts say.

"We're looking at a lot of different things. Downloads are definitely on the list," Jeff Littlejohn, executive vice president of distribution development at Clear Channel told Reuters.

XM Satellite Radio filed several patents made publicly available at the end of December, which outlined early plans to develop music downloading services and devices, providing a window into how the radio industry plans to capture a larger piece of the $32 billion music business.

A company spokesman declined to comment on product plans.

Traditional radio companies face lagging advertising sales growth as they continue to grapple with a loss of listeners to Apple Computer Inc.'s iPods and satellite radio services that provide higher fidelity broadcasts uninterrupted by commercials.

Satellite broadcasters, on the other hand, aim to differentiate themselves from free radio. At the same time, analysts say companies like XM and Sirius Satellite Radio could be on a collision course with Apple.

Apple and satellite radio companies have one thing in common: They are attempting to control the way consumers buy and listen to music. Both industries control methods of distribution and the hardware, unlike traditional radio companies, said Phil Leigh, founder of Inside Digital Media, a market research company.

SLEEPING GIANT AWAKENS

Clear Channel is in the process of converting most of its 1,200 radio stations across the nation to new digital high-definition radio broadcast equipment, a move that positions it to debut new services and products in the years to come.

By the end of 2007, about 90 percent of the U.S. population will be served by digital HD broadcasts, according to radio industry estimates.

Littlejohn said the new technology will not only allow traditional radio broadcasters to deliver CD-quality radio sound as well as song title and artist data over the air on a new type of receiver, but also will allow it to deliver up to eight more digital channels over the same amount of radio spectrum.

The new capacity can be used for new products such as subscription services that target audiences not being served by current programing formats, Littlejohn said.

However, Clear Channel said it remains committed to expanding its lineup of free radio channels for now.

Broadcasters like Clear Channel are debuting new digital technology with the help of iBiquity Digital, a Columbia, Maryland, technology company that designed the transmission and receiver equipment employed in upgraded stations.

It is co-owned by 15 top radio broadcasters including Walt Disney Co., Clear Channel and Viacom Inc. .

Bob Struble, CEO of iBiquity, said upgrading radio stations to digital has created an opportunity to find new revenue in services and digital products to complement the radio industry's reliance only advertising sales.

"All the relevant parties are looking at those types of opportunities," Struble said, adding that the ability to actually buy a song off a radio receiver is about 18 months to two years away.

UNPROVEN BUSINESS MODEL

Finding new riches that downloading offers is appealing, however, the economics remain difficult.

"We don't think the business model associated with downloads is nearly as attractive as adding additional audio channels," Littlejohn said.

There is little profit left after paying music labels back more than half of the revenue on a 99-cent song, and subtracting fees for credit-card transactions and investments in new technology.

While digital music proponents have held Apple's iTunes -- having sold some 230 million songs to date -- as a paradigm of success, Apple executives said the business eked out a minor profit.

What drove Apple to record-breaking quarterly profits last year was iTunes' effect on sales of its hardware -- a business category over which broadcasters have little control.
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.j...toryID=7337802


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

Google Wants 'Dark Fiber'
Evan Hansen

Is Google planning to build a global fiber optic network from scratch? And, if so, why?

The question has cropped up in light of a recent job posting on the search engine giant's Web site seeking experts in the field.

"Google is looking for Strategic Negotiator candidates with experience in...(i)dentification, selection, and negotiation of dark fiber contracts both in metropolitan areas and over long distances as part of development of a global backbone network," the posting reads, in part.

Dark fiber refers to fiber optic cable that's already been laid, but is not yet in use. Thousands of miles of dark fiber is available in the United States, but there have been few takers due to the high costs of making it operational.

A Google spokesman declined to elaborate on the job posting. Still, it raises some tantalizing thoughts, including the long-shot chance that the company is laying the groundwork to jump into the telecommunications business. The posting was reported by Light Reading, a Web site that tracks the optical networking industry.

If Google were to build its own global or national fiber network, the project would likely cost billions of dollars and take years to implement, an investment that would be hard to justify based on the networking needs of most companies. Renting "lit" fiber from carriers is generally a cheaper, and therefore preferred, way to go.

Google is thought to be a shrewd judge of computing value, having built its widely-admired infrastructure on the back of low-budget server clusters. At the same time, curious geeks have long pondered the apparent mismatch between its service demands and the reputed scale of its computing resources.

Dark motivations
A handful of dark-fiber projects have been gaining momentum recently, mostly involving large consortia of private companies, universities and medical facilities, sometimes with heavy government backing. Best-known is Internet2's national LambaRail project, which has bought up some 28,000 route miles of dark fiber through its FiberCo subsidiary, according to Steve Corbato, Internet2's director of network initiatives.

"We view this, in a sense, as exploiting a moment in time," Corbato said. The telecom boom of the late 1990s led to a glut in fiber assets, and the subsequent bust put undeveloped fiber on the market at bargain basement prices. "The sense of urgency in acquiring these assets has been tied to the unique opportunity that's been presented...The spot market for fiber is already going up, and most people expect these assets will get gobbled up."

Corbato says he has noticed signs of increasing interest in dark fiber from private enterprise of late, most notably among large financial institutions. Meanwhile, in December, cable giant Comcast signed a $100 million-plus deal to buy long-haul dark fiber to build out its network.

A Level3 spokesman declined to comment when told of Google's job posting.

Corbato also declined to speculate about Google's plans. But he said fiber optic expertise is a natural fit for a company like Google.

"If I were the CIO of an international information technology company, I would think that having these types of skills would be a natural to have within the organization."
http://news.com.com/Google+wants+dar...3-5537392.html


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

Closing the door on open source

Microsoft's Gates Wants Meeting with Brazil's Lula
Terry Wade

Microsoft Corp. is lobbying Brazil's government to agree to a meeting between the company's chairman, Bill Gates, and President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva at the World Economic Forum next week, a Brazilian official said.

The country has taken prominent role in the so-called free software movement, an effort that champions free computer operating systems like Linux as an alternative to Microsoft's Windows program.

"Brazil wouldn't gain anything from this, but Microsoft would gain a lot," Sergio Amadeu, head of the president's national technology institute, told Reuters. "They want to try to lobby Lula in the other direction."

Tired of paying costly licensing fees to companies like Microsoft, Brazil, the world's eighth-most wired nation, has told agencies in its sprawling federal bureaucracy to move to Linux and free software programs that run on it.

This year, the government will try to get private citizens to make the switch. It will partially subsidize the purchase for lower middle-class people of 1 million computers running Linux along with 25 other open source programs.

An effort by Microsoft to arrange a meeting between Gates and Lula could mark a shift in strategy for dealing with Latin America's largest country.

Last year, it sued Amadeu for saying the company was like a drug pusher who gives free samples to get consumers hooked and then starts charging for the product. Microsoft dropped the suit after Amadeu said he was just repeating what he learned in economics textbooks.

Microsoft's new tactic of conciliation instead of confrontation reflects the country's growing status among the digital elite. It is also a recognition that pushing for open source software is part of a larger set of policies first implemented by Lula's predecessor, Fernando Henrique Cardoso.

Worried about growing HIV infection rates in the late 1990s and the cost of treating them, Cardoso's administration threatened to break patents on anti-AIDS drugs unless multinational drug companies cut prices. The strategy worked.

Wired magazine, the bible for technology fans, published a lengthy article in November championing Brazil's growing role in the free software movement.

Although quantifying how much the government could save under the open source guidelines is hard to estimate, Amadeu said it would save the country millions of dollars in coming years.

Lula's press office said a meeting between Lula and Microsoft officials has not been put on the president's appointment book for his visit to the meetings with business and economic leaders in Davos, Switzerland, January 26-30.

Microsoft officials in Brazil declined to comment.
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.j...toryID=7346992


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

What’s On My Refrigerator
Jack

My friend TankGirl who works and plays with me here at p2p-zone does mysterious things that would probably land her in hot water if she lived under the repressive regimes of most modern democracies. Like mine. Not that she’d necessarily mind, plus the long arm of the law would have to be long indeed to make that collar. She lives so far away by the time news arrives of her exploits it’s already more rumor than fact, so there’s some safety in distance. Mostly though I think her exploits concern lots of heat, some liquid and strange wooden huts. And it’s all probably legal. Maybe. Certainly steamy. Anyway, lately for therapeutic fun she’s been exorcising her IP-policy demons through her unique artwork.

Here are a few examples.





She’s stickin’ it to the man. He deserves it.