VERY,VERY HOT READS, I Would Read The News In This Thread This Thead Is To post Any Thing Ye Want About The News,,NEWS WAS MOVED,READ MY FIRST POST..CHEERS
p2p news / p2pnet: "Some of the top executives in the music industry have answered your questions about digital music," says the BBC.
"The BBC News website asked for your queries and gripes about the way new technology is being used - and the eight sharpest, most frequent and most important questions were put to the virtual panel," it says today.
The piece is seriously unbalanced and wholly one-sided. Even the claim that file sharers "steal" when in fact, no one has taken anything from anyone else, let alone the labels, and no one has been deprived of anything they used to own, is allowed by.
Predictably, the 'panel' didn't feature anyone from the real world of online music - only heavily and obviously vested corporate interests, including Napster, the want-to-be-born-again p2p application which seems once more close to death.
Were the folks running Apple's iTunes asked to participate, one wonders? And if not why not since it's the only corporate service supplied by the Big Four record label cartel EMI, Vivendi Universal, Warner Music and Sony BMG, which can be said to be even breaking even?
Meanwhile, the questions asked were:
Q1. Will download prices come down?
Q2. Should iPod users be punished?
Q3. Why buy on the net?
Q4. Downloads aren't flexible
Q5. What's the point of DRM?
Q6. Will downloads last?
Q7. How can teenagers be persuaded?
Q8. Have you ever "stolen" music?
'Answering' were:
John Kennedy, chairman and chief executive of the Big Four's IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry)
Peter Jamieson, executive chairman of the Big Four's BPI (British Phonographic Industry)
Steve Knott, managing director of HMV UK & Ireland
Brad Duea, president of Napster
If you're drinking something and you're one of those people who snort liquids through their nose when you're laughing hard, go no further.
Will the price of tracks or albums be reduced with the more cost-effective digital distribution method? You don't have to manufacture the CD, package it, send it to the distributor/wholesaler, and finally the shops. Rowan Smith, Exmouth
Kennedy: I think digital is already fantastic value - a track for less than a pound is a great deal for the music fan.
Digital is a great way to enjoy music, but most of the costs of the physical world remain.
It's a common misconception that the costs involved in making a record equates to the cost of the packaging. The majority of costs incurred by our record companies are for making and marketing the music itself - and these remain the same regardless of how it's delivered. Artists, composers and all those involved in recording and marketing a track all still need to get paid. Same as when you pay £8 for a cinema ticket, you're not paying the price of the paper the cinema ticket is printed on.
Jamieson: The costs you lose in manufacturing, packaging and distribution are insignificant in comparison to the major costs in bringing an album to market - namely A&R, business affairs, recording, touring support, radio & TV plugging, marketing, promotion, taxes and all the other business overheads.
There are also new digital costs such as aggregators, the creation, storage and delivery of metadata, payments to credit card companies and additional online marketing and website costs. That said, at around 85p, downloads are still considerably cheaper than CD singles and fantastic value for money.
Knott: Pricing - whether for physical or digital product - to a large extent depends on the wholesale price charged by record companies and distributors to retailers.
While the cost of manufacturing the CD is not that great, this represents only a smaller portion of the overall costs of releasing an album - the main cost of a CD is the investment of the record labels in their artists, recording, marketing and distribution. Hence, even when a song or album is being sold as a download, and thus incurring fewer production overheads, the label still needs to make a reasonable return.
Duea: First, you are correct that with digital distribution the labels have eliminated some of their previous costs associated with physical distribution. However, the labels have incurred some new costs. For example, the costs of encoding the tracks in the various bit rates in which they distribute the songs. Less obvious, however, are the costs the labels have incurred with regard to clearing the online rights for various artists and albums.
Second, in addition to the actual costs associated with the content, Napster also incurs bandwidth costs, storage and other hardware costs, customer service costs, marketing costs and other related costs.
Given that every single digital rights management (DRM)-protected song on the music download networks is still very easily found on any file-sharing network, what has DRM achieved other than alienating legitimate, legal, paying customers? Andrew Livingston, London
Kennedy: Without DRM, the explosion in the availability of music via digital channels would not have been possible. The purpose of DRM is not to alienate music fans, it is actually to improve your access to music.
There are now at least 10 ways in which you can legally enjoy music - the list includes: ringtone, master ringtone, phone download, phone stream, a-la-carte download, disc, subscription, online stream, UMD music for PlayStation, kiosk and video.
Without DRM, these options simply wouldn't be possible.
Jamieson: DRM is the technology which makes all kinds of exciting new ways of listening to music possible. Certainly portable music subscription services like HMV Digital and Napster To Go wouldn't exist without it.
Knott: I'm not sure that's entirely the case, Andrew, and please remember that a lot of illegal content found on file-sharing networks may feature inferior audio or contain viruses. Either way, I still think that it's right for content owners to protect copyright and manage the distribution of any revenues owed via DRM.
I agree that it may not always be perfect, and can understand frustrations among 'legitimate, legal, paying customers', but there is a need to have a system in place to manage this whole process.
Duea: At Napster, while our goal is to make any DRM invisible to the user. The DRM allows us to keep track of what songs are listened to so we can compensate the artists for their work and make sure they keep putting out great music.
While we are trying to make sure Napster music works with as many devices as possible, others - like Apple - do not licence their DRM and are instead electing to create a hardware trap for consumers. Also, the restrictions associated with DRM technologies are sometimes the result of restrictions required by the labels.
Most people in my age group (15) still download all of their music illegally. What action would you take to try to persuade this particular group to buy music? Cole Beler, Bruton, England
Kennedy: To me, if you steal music you can't be a real music fan.
Think of it this way - apart from potentially landing you a hefty fine, illegal downloading hurts all those whose job it is to create, develop and record music, and who depend on it for their livelihood. How would you feel if you were in a band struggling to break through and no-one paid for your first album? How would you feel when no-one was able to invest in your second album? And as a music fan, how do you think that'll impact on the variety of new, fresh music that you get to listen to?
The music industry has been working with different organisations to produce guides and online materials to explain to young people why illegal downloading is wrong - see www.pro-music.org/guide, www.childnet-int.org/music and www.pro-music.org.
Jamieson: Music doesn't come for free, and there's no reason why the artist who's spent hours toiling in the studio, or the record label that's invested millions in the music, shouldn't be paid for their efforts. File-sharing might not feel like walking out of a shop with a CD under your coat, but it's the digital equivalent of shoplifting. The fact is that unauthorised file-sharing is illegal. If you do it, you run the risk of legal action.
Knott: Everyone knows about Apple iTunes and, to a lesser extent, Napster, Wippit etc. But last year, both HMV and Virgin launched their own digital services, including the added-option benefit of 'subscription' elements - so the choice is much greater and expanding all the time. The market for digital music is becoming increasingly more competitive as demand grows, so it's likely downloaders can expect greater range, including exclusive content, keen pricing and other incentives. In such a context, there are very few reasons why people should not purchase downloads from legal sites.
The music industry is throwing itself wholeheartedly into the prosecution of people it perceives as "stealing" music. Can of the panel place their hands on their hearts and insist, honestly, that they never taped a song off the radio, or from a mate, in their youths? Simon Hayes Budgen, Milton Keynes, UK
Kennedy: You simply aren't comparing an apple with an apple.
When you use an unauthorised file-sharing service you are effectively acting as a 'mass distributor' as whenever you're online, every other user around the world has the ability to access your hard drive and take what's on it. Not quite the same as making a compilation for your girlfriend on Valentine's Day...
As it happens, I never did copy music off the radio - I was lucky enough to have a great record collection thanks to my brothers and sisters.
Jamieson: There is a misconception that p2p file-sharing is somehow similar to home taping, but there is a world of difference between recording the Top 40 onto a C90 and distributing perfect digital copies of songs over the internet to millions of people - and that's exactly what file-sharing is.
I've certainly never risked a legal bill for thousands of pounds by distributing my music collection to millions over the internet - to do so is to rip off artists and everyone involved in making music.
Knott: I'm sure many, if not all, of us have taped a song from the radio or burnt a CD. But that's fine - and it's not an issue when people make small numbers of copies for their own use. It's those people who abuse the process by engaging in serial downloading and particularly 'uploading', where they are giving away thousands of tracks that are not theirs to give, that are effectively cheating on everybody else, including other music fans, who possibly have to pay more for their legally acquired music as a result.
Duea: Simon, for years I have made compilations - initially vinyl to cassette and now purely digital. Compilations allow me to create my own personalised playlists for all sorts of events. Also, I used to listen to radio and jump to my stereo to record a hot new song.
Today, technology has made this issue a bit more complex and has turned the recording industry on its head. To address the file-sharing issue, we have been working hard to provide a "carrot" - attempting to attract people from file-sharing networks by providing a better experience.
(Thanks, Michael ; )
Also See:
once more - Is Napster on its death bed?, January 20, 2006
BBC News - Digital music: Industry answers, January 24, 2006
Digital music: Industry answers
Some of the top executives in the music industry have answered your questions about digital music.
The BBC News website asked for your queries and gripes about the way new technology is being used - and the eight sharpest, most frequent and most important questions were put to the virtual panel.
Click on each question to read the answers.
Q1. Will download prices come down?
Q3. Why buy on the net?
Q5. What's the point of DRM?
Q7. How can teenagers be persuaded?
Q2. Should iPod users be punished?
Q4. Downloads aren't flexible
Q6. Will downloads last?
Q8. Have you ever "stolen" music?
The music panel comprises:
* John Kennedy, chairman and chief executive of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), the trade body representing record labels worldwide, which has been instrumental in the global fight against piracy.
* Peter Jamieson, executive chairman of the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), which represents the UK music industry and has been leading the anti-piracy campaign in Britain.
* Steve Knott, managing director of HMV UK & Ireland, a leading high street chain that has recently opened its own online download store.
* Brad Duea, president of Napster, once the scourge of the music industry and now one of the largest legal music download retailers.
p2p news / p2pnet: p2pnet editor Jon Newton contributes regularly to TechNewsWorld.
Here's his latest column >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Oxford University on Pirate-Whacking Campaign
By Jon Newton - TechNewsWorld
In the United States, the Big Four music labels now routinely blackmail colleges and universities into peddling product via the likes of Napster and iTunes, with school staff working as unpaid public relations and marketing teams.
EMI, Vivendi Universal, Warner Music and Sony BMG wield the threat of lawsuits against students attending schools that fail to comply and no one sees anything remarkable in this -- least of all, state officials, administrators or parents.
Now, Oxford, one of Britain's most prestigious universities, has apparently joined the club by promoting iTunes on campus. Christ Church, one of its most famous colleges, admits it will act as a Big Four anti-P2P cop, with the cartel's British Phonographic Industry darkly "monitoring" the situation in the background.
Shining a Searchlight
More than 75 [Oxford] students were "detected illegally downloading copyright material in the past two years," according to an article in the campus newspaper, The Oxford Student.
"Alan Gay, deputy director of Oxford University Computing Services (OUCS), told The Oxford Student media corporations have already notified the university on 16 occasions this academic year that students have been illegally sharing files such as MP3s and videos. Sixty were detected in the previous year," reads the piece.
"These 'cease and desist' requests are legal notices designed to force the university to stop its members using file-sharing software to exchange copyright material. Gay said: 'You get the impression that there's a big searchlight going round, and sometimes it focuses on us, and sometimes we go for a while without anything happening.'"
More Monitoring
The level of "monitoring and action by film and music companies" has increased, and Oxford apparently has imposed an official ban on the use of peer-to-peer software, charging colleges around 60 British pounds, or US$106, each time a complaint is received.
Oxford colleges pass this fine onto the student in question and reportedly often impose an additional charge. Christ Church was the first college to officially to warn students of the "consequences of file sharing," The Oxford Student says.
Students could face an additional penalty of 50 pounds, or around $89, if caught "illicitly downloading copyrighted material," warns an e-mail sent last week by the Oxford college St. Edmund Hall, otherwise known as "Teddy Hall."
"The illegal downloading of music, films, etc., via file-sharing software is strictly prohibited by the University and College," reads the e-mail, which claims that the dean, Dr. Alistair Borthwick, believes it is only a matter of time before the copyright infringements result in a court case. The e-mail also lets students know that Christ Church will begin a program to "actively scan all Internet Get Linux or Windows Managed Hosting Services with Industry Leading Fanatical Support. traffic within the college."
Students have been warned that if the college detects any use of file-sharing software, other than Apple's iTunes, offenders will have Internet access revoked.
Differing Approaches
ITunes is not, of course, P2P file-sharing software. It's a purpose-designed, hard-core sales-cum-iPod promotional application loaded with digital rights management technology to specifically prevent sharing.
Oxford's Magdalen College, while also following basic OUCS rules, takes a more relaxed approach to file sharing, according to the Oxford Student piece. The college does not issue additional fines, but it does expect undergraduates to pay the OUCS charge -- 50 pounds ($89) plus Value Added Tax, or VAT -- if a copyright infringement is detected. Keble College's IT department said students would face fines of 100 pounds ($178) to cover administration costs.
The number of notices Oxford receives is surprising, says Matt Phillips, Communications Manager for the British Phonographic Industry. "We know the majority of file sharing within institutions like universities occurs across networks rather than through peer-to-peer ... so we tend to limit our monitoring to communicating with heads of IT and alerting them to the dangers of illegal downloads," he notes.
The labels' previous campaigns at Oxford have not been successful.
In 2002, during an Oxford Union Debate, then Recording Industry Association of America Latest News about Recording Industry Association of America spin-doctor-in-chief Hilary Rosen tried to carry the proposition, "This House believes that the free music mentality is a threat to the future of music."
She failed miserably, the final vote being 72 for and 256 against. So far, at least, free music continues to survive at Oxford.
More than 75 Oxford students were detected illegally downloading copyright material in the past two years. Alan Gay, deputy director of Oxford University Computing Services (OUCS), told The Oxford Student media corporations have already notified the university on 16 occasions this academic year that students have been illegally sharing files such as MP3s and videos. Sixty were detected in the previous year.
These ?cease and desist? requests are legal notices designed to force the university to stop its members using file sharing software to exchange copyright material. Mr Gay said: ?You get the impression that there?s a big searchlight going round, and sometimes it focuses on us, and sometimes we go for a while without anything happening.
?The number of orders served does seem to have increased in recent years? but the level of monitoring and action by film and music companies has increased.? The university has an official ban on the use of peer-to-peer software, and charges colleges around £60 each time a complaint is received. Colleges pass this fine onto the student in question, often imposing an additional charge.
The Oxford Student reported last term how Christ Church became the first college officially to warn students of the consequences of file sharing. Last week Teddy Hall circulated an email to students warning them they would face ?a further penalty of £50,? if caught illicitly downloading copyright material. ?The illegal downloading of music, films, etc. via file-sharing software is strictly prohibited by the University and College,? read the email, which claimed the dean, Dr Alistair Borthwick, ?believes that it is only a matter of time before the copyright infringements result in a court case?. Christ Church has announced that it will actively scan all internet traffic within the college.
Students have been told that if the college detects any use of file-sharing software, other than Apple?s iTunes, offenders will have internet access revoked. Magdalen, while also following basic OUCS rules, apparently takes a more relaxed approach to file sharing. The Junior Censor said that ?we do not issue fines, but we expect undergraduates to carry the costs which OUCS charge (£50 plus VAT) if a copyright infringement is incurred.
Keble?s IT department said students would face fines of £100 to cover administration costs. Matt Phillips, Communications Manager of the British Phonographic Industry, said he was surprised at the number of notices Oxford received. ?We know the majority of file sharing within institutions like universities occurs across networks rather than through peer-to-peer... so we tend to limit our monitoring to communicating with heads of IT, and alerting them to the dangers of illegal downloads,? he said.
p2p news / p2pnet: The Bulte story is generating considerable media attention today (Canadian Press, Globeandmail.com, IT Business) as the "bloggers influence the election" angle is an attractive one. This obviously continues the theme from last week when Macleans, Toronto Star, National Post, and Globe and Mail all discussed the same issue (as did Rob Hyndman in an excellent post). While the blogger issue should be highlighted, we should not lose sight of the substance behind the Bulte story.
Examining the role of blogs is unquestionably interesting and important. It is difficult to quantify, but I'm fairly confident that the online community had a real impact in Parkdale High-Park (although I again hasten to add that without a strong candidate running against Bulte this definitely would not have happened). The voting shift was fairly significant given that this was a rematch of the 2004 election and no other Toronto riding in similar circumstances experienced quite as dramatic a move toward the NDP. This suggests that some new - potentially the copyright issue - played a role.
Moreover, from a distance it appeared that the copyright questions had an impact on Bulte's effectiveness on the campaign trail. When she first faced the issue, she focused on transparency and characterized my claims as "egregious." I have the sense that it went downhill from there as she soon jumped to the infamous "pro-user zealot" remark, the claim that it wasn't a fundraiser, the threat to sue, and then finally last night strangely responding to her defeat by stating that she "had no thoughts", she didn't care about a minority government, and that "according to everybody, I did nothing."
I should also note that the way the story spread through the blogosphere - with high traffic blogs and sites such as BoingBoing, Larry Lessig, and Bourque; local blogs such as the Accordion Guy and Ross Radar; law blogs such as Rob Hyndman and Copyright Watch; political blogs such as Progressive Bloggers; industry blogs such as Quill and Quire; mainstream media blogs such as Dan Cook (Globe and Mail), Antonia Zerbisias (Toronto Star), Colby Cosh (Macleans), and the CBC's Election Blog; online news sites such as p2pnet.net and ZDNet; along with dozens of other blogs and chat boards tells us a lot about how stories propagate online. Further, the distribution of video, audio, parodies, bumper stickers, and a petition are all a fascinating part of the Internet story.
But they are not the most important part of the story. More important than the story about blogs, is the substantive lessons to be learned from the past three weeks. Building on a copyrightwatch post that mines the same theme, I offer three:
First, the recent events send a clear message that Canadians want copyright policy (and indeed all policy making) to be both fair and to be seen to be fair. That means accounting for all stakeholders and removing the lobbyist influence from the equation. My article on the role of the lobby groups in the copyright process attracted considerable interest as many people expressed surprise at just how badly the system is broken. It was this message that resonated with many people in the riding who may know little about copyright policy, but can identify a perceived conflict of interest when they see one. Going forward, all parties must work to clean up copyright.
Second, among the most important voices in the debate came from artists such as Matthew Good, Steven Page, and Neil Leyton. As groups such as CRIA were rightly identified as lobbyists who represent predominantly foreign interests, Canadian artists and Canadian interests began to speak up. If (or more likely when) a new copyright bill comes to committee, it will be incumbent on Canada's politicians to hear not only from the lobby groups, but also from the creators and users, many of whom are singing a much different tune from the lobbyists.
Third, this could have been about any issue, but it wasn't. It was about copyright. Copyright is often described as a fringe issue, yet to millions of Canadians it has an enormous impact on their daily lives, affecting education, culture, creativity, the use of personal property, privacy, and security. Labeling those concerned with these issues as pro-user zealots or claiming that this is merely about music downloading is to miss a much bigger story and to fail to connect with a segment of the population.
Six thousand votes, the shift in Parkdale-High Park, may not sound like much, but last night it would have been enough to alter the outcome of 123 ridings across Canada.
Politicians should keep that in mind when the copyright issue once again takes centre stage.
Michael Geist
[Geist is the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa. He can be reached by email at mgeist[at]uottawa.ca and is on-line at www.michaelgeist.ca.]
You Don't Know Jack About FireFox!
The folks over at Shell City pointed me in the direction of this terrific FAQ/semi-book.
Get a cup of coffee folks, this ones going to take a while.
The title contains over 290 pages of FireFox tips, tricks and hacks, providing invaluable pointers to help you customize the browser to your specfic preferences.
It starts with some of the better-known tweaks, such as search customizations and favourites, password, and history management. But later chapters challenge even the most hardened FireFox devotee, revealing the inner workings of Web developer extensions, RSS feed subscripton, and the little-known about:config interface.
If Martha Stewart Were a Geek ...
How-To Make Magazine
By Steven Levy
Newsweek
Jan. 30, 2006 issue - OK, you've all got DVD players now. But before pondering the next step?Blu-ray? HD DVD? Downloaded movies??give a thought to that old VHS player in the garage. The flashing "12:00" still pops up when you plug it in, doesn't it? Isn't the machine good for something?
Well, if you were among the 70,000-or-so readers of Make magazine, you would have an answer. A new life awaits your wheezing videocassette recorder ... as a time-release cat-food dispenser. After only a weekend of work?two fun-filled days involving an old meat grinder, parts from a broken lawn mower and serious surgery on something called the video head drum assembly?you will have a Rube Goldberg-esque contraption that dispenses Tabby's kibble while you're away at the Burning Man festival.
Dale Dougherty, Make's editor and publisher, has no idea how many people actually followed his magazine's instructions to build this contraption. But he does know that a substantial audience is hungry for literature that provides a how-to approach to projects that merge a high-tech constructionist sensibility with a penchant for junkyard (or eBay) scavenging. At one year old, the magazine has four times the subscribers he'd estimated for that milestone. It joins a bookshelf's worth of recent tomes directed at people who interpret "don't try this at home" as the exact opposite. Furthermore, the Internet has spawned countless interest groups engaged in like enterprises. One, called Dorkbot, generates monthly gatherings in more than 30 cities worldwide for "people doing strange things with electricity."
All this is evidence of a growing movement of people eager to tinker with high-tech gadgets and Dumpster detritus?and, I suspect, an even bigger population harboring fantasies about modding their espresso machines, building their own printed circuit boards and engaging in the brave new world of kite aerial photography. We've already seen the popularity of house porn (shelter magazines and "Extreme Home Makeover"), car porn (auto mags and "Pimp My Ride") and food porn ("Iron Chef"). Now we've got geek DIY (do it yourself) porn. Just as would-be Emerils pore over lushly illustrated cookbooks with recipes involving hard-to-find morels and complicated instructions for roux, Tom Swift wanna-bes are devouring Make and reading books like William Gurstelle's "Backyard Ballistics," which has sold more than 160,000 copies.
Gurstelle, an engineer from Minnesota who makes his own medieval-style catapults, readily admits that not everyone who reads his books winds up building tennis-ball mortars, fire kites and horse trebuchets. But both he and Dougherty make a case that whether you're a builder or a dreamer, the Maker Ethic is empowering. Its lesson is that in a world where we are overwhelmed by stuff, we should aggressively assert control over the gadgets around us, even if it means voiding the warranty and occasionally frying a finger. Also, we should view extreme Makers as role models. Gurstelle's latest book, "Adventures From the Technology Underground," profiles amateurs who build flamethrowers, rockets and humongous Tesla coils. (My favorite quote: "Pumpkin-hurling devices do not fit well in the municipal zoning code.")
What's more, as we spend more time with our computers, the primal side of us yearns for the visceral kick of hands-on experience. Killing a thousand aliens in some pixilated corner of cyberspace can never duplicate the satisfying phoomph that comes from shooting a potato out of a homemade PVC-pipe cannon.
That's why I see a big future in geek DIY lit. And that's why I'm not throwing out that vintage videocassette player in my basement. One day, if I ever get a cat, a soldering iron and a spare weekend, I might just build the "Programmabowl VCR." Meanwhile, I'll read all about it.
NEW YORK (Jan. 25) - Life without a "Blackberry?" Hard-core users of the wireless portable e-mail devices are shuddering to think about a possible future without the gadgets they love, hate and aren't sure they can live without.
The chance of a Blackberry-less future loomed more vividly this week when the U.S. Supreme Court refused to review a major patent infringement ruling against maker Research In Motion Ltd.
Now, a federal judge could issue an injunction to block RIM's U.S. business. Many observers, however, suspect RIM may develop alternative technology or perhaps pay what some say could be as much as a billion dollars to settle with patent-holding company NTP Inc.
"I'm addicted. They should pay the billion dollars and get it over with," Blackberry user and insurance company executive Jim Long said outside his Manhattan office on Monday.
So pervasive is the Blackberry culture, with some 3.65 million customers, that the device is nicknamed the "Crackberry" for its addictive allure. And it's blamed for woes ranging from rudeness to injury to obsession.
"It consumes me. I shouldn't be looking at it on weekends, but I do," said Wall Street trader Ryan McDonald. "My wife tells me to put it down all the time."
Of course, like many addicts, plenty of Blackberry fanatics are in denial. "I'm not addicted," growled one man who refused to look up from typing on his Blackberry as he crossed a Manhattan intersection. "I don't want to be that guy."
Complaints about Blackberry users have seeped into etiquette columns, where the high-minded gripe that terse messages on Blackberry's miniature keyboards mean grammar, capitalization and full sentences are a thing of the past.
Celebrities complain about each others' Blackberry use. In Tuesday's New York Post, Vogue editor Andre Leon Talley complained his friends supermodel Naomi Campbell and singer Mariah Carey are compulsive Blackberry users.
Some people complain of "Blackberry thumb," prompting the American Society of Hand Therapists to warn that users of small electronic gadgets can develop repetitive stress injuries. A few high-end spas offer special Blackberry massages, complete with scented balms, warm towels and hot tea.
"Your thumb cramps up," said an executive for a beverage company, standing in an office lobby, who did not want her name publicly associated with the affliction.
The legal battle over Blackberry goes back to 2002 when NTP successfully sued RIM for using its patents.
While wireless e-mail users could use other gadgets like Palm Inc.'s Treo, some users say they favor Blackberry's technology. RIM itself has argued that an "exceptional public interest" is at stake in keeping its business functioning.
In a recent study of 1,700 e-mail users in Europe and the Middle East, 75 percent said they think it is addictive. One in five qualified as 'dependent' -- people who check their e-mail compulsively and panic when they can't, according to research by Symantec Corp., a Cupertino, Calif.-based software company.
"I see my friends who are addicted," said Phillip Saperia, who runs a trade association of non-profit mental health groups. "They don't read anymore, they don't reflect."
Standing outside a Wall Street building, Kevin Delahanty said he uses his Blackberry about 100 times a day.
"Is that addiction? I would deny it," he said.
Of course, he added, life without Blackberry may not be so bad. "I'd go back to my old life, talk to people in an intelligent way," Delahanty said.
How to undervolt your laptop for longer, cooler performance
Posted Jan 24th 2006 8:00AM by Evan Blass
Filed under: Laptops
Most of the PC hacks that you come across are usually in the realm of overclocking or case modding, so it's nice to find an easily-implemented, software-based performance tweak once in awhile that delivers some real results. Well NordicHardware has an article that describes just such a procedure, where Fredrik Andersson steps you through the process of undervolting your laptop. Although as Andresson points out, the terminology is not an accurate reflection of the adjustment being performed, undervolting refers to stepping down the voltage that your CPU requires by several fractions of a volt. The end result of the tweaks that NH guides you through is up to ten minutes more running time and several degrees less heat dispersion, all without affecting the notebook's performance. As with all of the helpful hints that we pass along, this modification is done at your own risk (i.e. don't come crying to us if you break your lappie).
p2p news / p2pnet: The German Federation Against Copyright Theft (GVU), the German version of the Hollywood-owned MPAA, seems to have been following the example of its Swedish counterpart by planting evidence to facilitate police raids on alleged copyright infringers.
At the GVU's instigation, police raided alleged release groups in Germany, Austria, Holland, Poland and the Czech Republic.
However, "The German anti-piracy association GVU, amongst others, the anti-piracy arm of the International Motion Picture Association (MPA), was itself subject to a large-scale raid on FTP-Servers used for distributing Movies in the Warez-Scene," says Julian Finn on zeiTspuk, quoting Heise.
"Two independent sources gave heise.de information, that the GVU had been giving the admin of a 'warez'-site money and hardware to get the IP-adresses and other logged information," states the post, going on:
"According to the article, even illegal copies themselves were provided."
The GVU confirmed police "had been in the Hamburg-Office" to "to verify the information that was provided in order to stage the raids," says zeiTspuk.
In 2005, Hollywood anti-p2p organization Svenska Antipiratbyrån (APB) was found to have bribed an informer, supplied servers and uploaded copyrighted materials in a bid to shaft the country's largest ISP, Bahnhof. Police acting for APB ultimately raided Bahnhof's Stockholm offices.
The APB site was hacked uncovering various items, including many self-congratulatory emails involving MPAA stalwarts John Malcolm, Dean Garfield and the APB's Henrik Pontén.
Among other fulsome expressions of gratitude for the Stockholm raid, " Henrik, this is truly phenomenal," said Garfield. " We are all very proud of you. I am sure you are a bit unpopular with the pirate community in Sweden right now. Great work."
"It's not terribly difficult to be the first one at the scene of an emergency to perform the heroics if you caused the emergency in the first place," observes a Reader's Write to an earlier post.
(Thanks, Julian)
Also See:
alleged release groups - Europe release groups raided, January 24, 2006
zeispuk.de - Raid on GVU, January 24, 2006
bribed an informer - Big Music's Bahnhof Bust, March 22, 2005
self-congratulatory - Swedish anti-p2p site hacked: more, March 15, 2005
Many of us have bought into the rebate concept at one time or another. A device that is tempting at US$139.99 might look nigh irresistible at US$99.99 after rebate. Manufacturers and retail stores make good use of this phenomenon, with the result that rebates have been offered on just about every product imaginable. The key to many retail store rebates, however, is not that the manufacturer wants to give away money, but that the manufacturer doesn't want to give away money. Often, rebates are offered in place of outright discounts because it is assumed that the consumer will fail to take advantage of the rebate that convinced them to buy the product in the first place.
It is for that reason that rebates enjoy a mixed level of popularity among consumers. Clearly, rebates increase the odds of a product being purchased, but failing to properly assemble the collection of paperwork and proofs-of-purchase required to redeem them can leave consumers with a vague feeling of having been scammed. Added to that is the fact that sometimes, even when a consumer dots all of the Is and crosses all of the Ts, the rebate never shows up.
Best Buy, which is in the business of selling extended warranties at least as much as consumer electronics, has decided that it makes good economic sense (for them, anyway) to do away with rebates, or at least make them easier to get. In April 2005, they announced that they would be phasing out rebates over the next two years, and they've started to make good on that plan.
As of Jan. 1, customers started receiving instant savings on notebook computers, eliminating the need to mail-in rebate forms and wait for their rebate check. Additionally, Best Buy customers will begin receiving instant savings on a majority of computer accessories by the first week of February. These new means of savings are a result of strong vendor partnerships and the commitment of Best Buy to keep customers first.
Note the phrase, "strong vendor partnerships." Since so much of the rebate model is based on the customer never receiving the check, a 100% response means something has to give. That thing is the vendors, who apparently need Best Buy more than Best Buy needs any particular one of them. Vendors will look to make their profit back somewhere, so its likely that we'll start to see lesser discounts offered in place of too-good-to-be-true rebates. That's good news for those of us who have an embarrassing number of unredeemed rebate forms floating around their desks, but less so for avid rebate fans.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060125-6055.html
cdBefore analyzing the security of any system, we need to ask what the system is trying to accomplish: what its threat model is. In the case of CD DRM, the system?s goals are purely economic, and the technical goals of the system exist only to protect or enable the business models of the record label and the DRM vendor. Accordingly, any discussion of threat models must begin and end by talking about business models.
It is important to note that the record label and the DRM vendor are separate entities whose goals and incentives are not always aligned. Indeed, we will see that incentive differences between the label and the DRM vendor can be an important factor in understanding the design and deployment of CD DRM systems. Freedom to Tinker » Blog Archive » CD DRM: Threat Models and Business Models
CD DRM: Threat Models and Business Models
Tuesday January 24, 2006 by Ed Felten
Alex and I are working on an academic paper, ?Lessons from the Sony CD DRM Episode?, which will analyze several not-yet-discussed aspects of the XCP and MediaMax CD copy protection technologies, and will try to put the Sony CD episode in context and draw lessons for the future. We?ll post the complete paper here next Friday. Until then, we?ll post drafts of a few sections here. We have two reasons for this: we hope the postings will be interesting in themselves, and we hope your comments will help us improve the paper.
Today?s excerpt is from a section early in the paper, where we are still setting the scene before the main technical discussion begins:
Threat Models and Business Models
Before analyzing the security of any system, we need to ask what the system is trying to accomplish: what its threat model is. In the case of CD DRM, the system?s goals are purely economic, and the technical goals of the system exist only to protect or enable the business models of the record label and the DRM vendor. Accordingly, any discussion of threat models must begin and end by talking about business models.
It is important to note that the record label and the DRM vendor are separate entities whose goals and incentives are not always aligned. Indeed, we will see that incentive differences between the label and the DRM vendor can be an important factor in understanding the design and deployment of CD DRM systems.
Record Label Goals
The record label would like to prevent music from the CD from becoming generally available on peer-to-peer file sharing networks, but this goal is clearly infeasible. If even one user succeeds in ripping an unprotected copy of the music and putting that copy onto P2P networks, then the music will be generally available. Clearly no CD DRM system can be nearly strong enough to stop this from happening; and as we will see below, real systems do not even try to achieve the kind of comprehensive coverage of all major computing platforms that we would needed as a prerequisite for stopping P2P sharing of protected music. We conclude that the goal of CD DRM systems cannot be to prevent P2P file sharing.
The record label?s goal must therefore be to stop many users from making disc-to-disc copies or from engaging in other forms of local copying or use of the music. By preventing local copying, the record company might be able to sell more copies of the music. For example, if Alice cannot make a copy of a CD to give to Bob, Bob might buy another copy from the record label.
By controlling other local uses, the record company might be able to charge extra fee for those uses. For example, if the record label can stop Alice from downloading music from a CD into her iPod, the label might be able to charge Alice an extra fee for iPod downloads. Charging extra for iPod downloads creates a new revenue stream for the label, but it also reduces the value to users of the original CD and therefore reduces the revenue that the label can extract from CD sales. Whether the new revenue stream outweighs the loss of CD revenue depends on detailed assumptions about customer preferences, which may not be easy for the label to determine in practice. For our purposes, it suffices to say that the label wants to establish control over the uses made by at least some users, because that control will tend generally to increase the label?s profit.
We note also that the record company?s profit-maximizing strategy in this regard is largely independent of the contours of copyright law. Whether the label would find it more profitable to control a use, as opposed to bundling it with the CD purchase, is a separate question from whether the law gives the label the right to file lawsuits relating to that use. Attempting to enforce copyright law exactly as written is almost certainly not the record label?s profit-maximizing strategy.
Monetizing the Platform
Even beyond its effect on controlling copying and use of content, CD DRM can generate revenue for the record label because it installs and runs software on users? computers. The label can monetize this installed platform in various ways. For example, the DRM software comes with a special music-player application which is used to listen to the protected disc. This application can display advertisements or other promotional material that creates value for the label. Alternatively, the platform can gather information about the user?s music listening habits, and that information can be exploited for some business purpose. If these tactics are taken too far, the DRM software can become spyware. Even if these tactics are pursued more moderately, users may still object; but the record company may use these tactics anyway if it believes the benefits to it outweigh the costs.
DRM Vendor Goals
The DRM vendor?s primary goal, obviously, is to provide value to the record label, in order to maximize the price that the vendor can charge the label for using the DRM technology. If this were the only factor, then the incentives of the vendor and the label would be perfectly aligned and there would be no need to consider the vendor?s incentives separately.
However, there are at least two ways in which the DRM vendor?s incentives diverge from the record label?s. First, the vendor has a much larger tolerance for risk than the label does. The label is a large, established business with a valuable brand name. The vendor (at least in the cases at issue here) is a start-up company struggling to establish itself. The label has much more to lose than the vendor does if something goes horribly wrong. Accordingly, we can expect the vendor to be much more willing to accept security risks than the label is.
The second incentive difference is that the vendor can monetize the installed platform in ways that are not available to the record label. For example, once the vendor?s software is installed on a user?s system, the software can control copying and use of other labels? CDs. Having a larger installed base makes the vendor?s product more
attractive to other labels. Because the vendor gets this extra benefit from installing the software, the vendor has an incentive to be more aggressive about pushing the software onto users? computers than the label would be.
In short, the vendor?s incentives diverge from the label?s incentives in ways that make the vendor more likely to (a) cut corners and accept security and reliability risks, and (b) push its software onto more user?s computers, even in some cases where the label would prefer to do otherwise. If the label knew everything about how the vendor?s technology worked, then this would not be an issue ? the label would simply insist that the vendor protect its interests. But if some aspects of the vendor?s design are withheld from the label as proprietary, or if the label is not extremely diligent in monitoring the vendor?s design choices ? both of which are likely in practice ? then the vendor will sometimes act against the label?s interests.
http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/?p=959
Senate Committee Considers Broadcast Flags to Combat Piracy
Bill seeks restrictions on individuals' recording of digital television and radio programs.
Melissa Bell, Medill News Service
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
WASHINGTON -- Taking up one of the first items on its 2006 agenda, the Senate Commerce Committee today began considering legislation that would enable broadcasters to block the recording of certain audio and video programs in an effort to combat piracy.
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The Federal Communications Commission instituted broadcast flag rules last year, but in May a federal appeals court said that the FCC had overstepped its authority and struck down the rules. Those rules would have allowed broadcasters to encrypt programs with status bits indicating that the encrypted program could not be recorded or could be recorded only with certain restrictions, such as a lower-quality recording or a one-time recording. Digital recording devices would then have recognized the bits and alerted ("flagged") the viewer or the listener about the restrictions.
Broadcasters say that such flags help prevent piracy, but researchers and consumer groups counter that the flags intrude too far into fair noncommercial use of broadcast material.
Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), who chairs the Commerce Committee, said that the committee had asked the FCC to create the regulations and that he intends to push for passage of a bill sponsored by Senator Gordon Smith (R-Oregon) to authorize the implementation of flags. "We have to take some action," Stevens said.
Broadcasters Favor Rules
Broadcasters today asked the committee to support the legislation because of the threat of piracy. Andrew Setos, president of engineering at Fox Entertainment Group and co-creator of the flag technology, said that retransmission of content threatened the quality of "uniquely American" free local TV broadcasts.
If multiple retransmissions were not stopped, Setos said, providers of high-quality content would take their material to cable channels, which have the right to protect it, gradually lowering the quality of free television. "Local television will wither and die," he said.
Jonathon Band of the American Library Association, however, said "the flag is detrimental to the public." His main complaint relates to flag technology's infringement on the retransmission of copyrighted work over the Internet for educational purposes.
Leslie Harris of the Center for Democracy and Technology contested the legislation, too, saying that it would endanger civic discourse. For example, she said, it would no longer be possible to air a portion of a news show on a political blog.
"The flag rule requires ongoing government involvement," she added. "[This bill] would make the FCC the gatekeeper for new innovations."
Art Brodsky of Public Knowledge, a consumer advocacy group that took the initial FCC ruling to court, agreed with Harris. "When companies [take new technology] to the FCC, they take out features that may cause too big a fuss. It's self-technological censorship."
Danny O'Brien of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, another litigant against the FCC in the May case, said, "There is a real danger of killing something before it's been born."
Audio Flags
Music industry officials who testified concentrated on the audio flag rule in the legislation. Audio flags weren't included in the original FCC regulations but are included in the Smith bill.
Mitch Bainwol, CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America, said that the music industry would suffer much more than the television industry because new digital radio services would "effectively turn radio into a music library."
While the video flag has support from manufacturers, content providers, and broadcasters, the music industry has not reached a consensus on implementing audio flags. According to Dan Halyburton, testifying on behalf of the National Association of Broadcasters, the association supported the video flag but had concerns that the audio flag could stall the roll-out of digital radio.
Stevens acknowledged that the audio flag provisions in the bill added their own complications, but he said that there must be a timetable in the bill to induce the radio industry to work toward a compromise.
Technological Impact
Though some manufacturers have already made digital recorders that are compatible with the flags, manufacturers like Philips Electronics want at least 18 months to prepare for the change if the bill becomes law. "It's a normal cycle to integrate the solutions," said Philips vice president Tom Patton.
If the legislation does not pass, products equipped with the flag technology and already on the market will not be affected.
Bill's Future
Stevens said that the committee would work on the bill before turning it over to the full Senate for a vote, but O'Brien of the Electronic Frontier Foundation remained hopeful that there would be no bill. "The more people look at the idea, they see how complicated it can be," he said.
"There should be a tweaking of copyright law or perhaps allowing the market to sort itself out," O'Brien said. "All along, that has been the best idea."
Stevens said a lot of the opposition to the bill came from within the committee. Senator John Sununu, R-New Hampshire, a member of the committee, questioned the need for the bill, saying that whenever a new technology, like the radio or the VCR, is introduced, it is seen as a threat to the broadcast industry. "Maybe the sky really is falling this time," Sununu said, "but I think it's worth offering a little bit of skepticism on this."
http://pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,124499,00.asp
p2p news / p2pnet: While 'Do no evil' Google wallows in all the terrific press it's getting for refusing to hand data over to the Cheney / Bush administration, it has no qualms whatsoever about actively helping Communist China keep its citizens under a black-out, and worse.
In 2004 p2pnet was the first to reveal Google was censoring news from within mainland China by excluding certain sites.
"We ... considered the amount of information that would be omitted," it said by way of excuse. "In this case it is less than two percent of Chinese news sources. On balance we believe that having a service with links that work and omits a fractional number is better than having a service that is not available at all."
As we suggested at the time, logic suggested the most sensitive sites would be the ones 'omitted'. Otherwise, why bother?
Now, "Internet search giant Google Inc. will block politically sensitive terms on its new China site, bowing to conditions set by Beijing in return for access to the world's number-two Internet market," says Reuters.
"The voluntary concessions laid out on Tuesday by Google, which is launching a China-based search site as it officially enters the market, would parallel similar self-censorship already practised there by most multinationals and domestic players."
In a statement, "In order to operate from China, we have removed some content from the search results available on Google.cn in response to local law, regulation or policy," said Andrew McLaughlin, Google's senior policy counsel.
"While removing search results is inconsistent with Google's mission, providing no information (or a heavily degraded user experience that amounts to no information) is more inconsistent with our mission."
Google will run the service from China under.cn after getting a business licence to operate in the market last year, hiring two key executives to head its China operation and signing up an initial round of partners to market some of its ad services, says Reuters, adding:
"Google officials said they planned to notify users of its Google.cn service when the company has restricted access to certain search terms or the Web sites behind them."
Item 6 in the company's Corporate Information page says, "You can make money without doing evil". But it's not talking in general terms, only about advertising.
However, Item 8 states unequivocally, "The need for information crosses all borders. Though Google is headquartered in California, our mission is to facilitate access to information for the entire world ..."
http://p2pnet.net/story/7721
p2p news / p2pnet: The Consumer Council of Norway (CCN) wants the country's Consumer Ombudsman to investigate alleged Apple iTunes violations of Norway's Marketing Control Act.
"When you purchase music from iTunes they give themselves the right to single-handedly change your rights at any given later date," says the council's Torgeir Waterhouse, quoted on Forbrukkerådet.
CCN says considers iTunes terms to be part of an "ongoing development" which undermines user rights.
"The Apple owned iTunes Music Store dominates the market of music downloads, the only portable mp3 players capable of playing music from iTunes are Apples own iPod series," says Waterhouse.
But Apple is alone in attracting the CCN's attention.
Many other download services such as CDON.com, prefueled.com and MSN.no also have similar terms of use tand he council wants them reviewed as well for potential breaches of the Marketing Control Act.>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The Consumer Council of Norway files a complaint regarding iTunes? terms of service
Posted by Jo Singstad - Forbrukkerådet
In order to purchase music from iTunes the consumer has to agree to a set of terms. After a review of these terms the Consumer Council of Norway found several of to be highly questionable.
- The terms of use are unreasonable so we are asking the Consumer Ombudsman to use § 9a of The Marketing Control Act to force a change of the terms, says senior advisor Torgeir Waterhouse.
- iTunes can change the your rights to the music after you downloaded it. This is a violation of basic Principles of consumer contract law. Consumers who want to play they're music on a non-iPod player must first remove the copy protection, this removal for legitimate private use is however stopped by iTunes DRM technology and Terms of Use. iTunes stopping this removal for legitimate private use like playing the music on a non-iPod mp3 player is obviously in violation of the Copyright Act, says Waterhouse.
The Consumer Council of Norway finds the terms to be unbalanced and highly in favour of iTunes as one party in the entered agreement.
- The consumer is granted few or no rights while iTunes provides itself with several unfair rights according to Waterhouse.
English law
iTunes Europe operates from Luxemborg and terms of use stipulate that they are governed by English law. The Consumer Council of Norway does not agree to this choice of legislation.
- iTunes.no is only available to Norwegian consumers. They're using a Norwegian domain, the site is only available in Norwegian and the prices are listed in Norwegian currency.
- All these point lead us to conclude that Norwegian consumer legislation is the correct choice and that iTunes.no [should] fall under the regulation of Norways Marketing Control Act, says Waterhouse.
The Consumer Council of Norway has thus asked the Consumer Ombudsman to review and censor iTunes standard contract terms.
Limits liability
The iTunes terms of use limit the consumers rights to damages the terms of use state :
Apple does not represent or guarantee that the service will be free from loss, corruption, attack, viruses, interference, hacking, or other security intrusion, and Apple disclaims any liability relating thereto. You shall be responsible for backing up your own system.
- Consumers are cut off from claiming damages if iTunes should create a breach of security that that could be exploited by hacker or malware. Waterhouse points out that this is a highly relevant issue, like we've just seen in the Sony BMG case.
Limiting the consumer's rights to claiming damages is is a violation of basic principles of consumer contract law. The Consumer Council of Norway regards this term as unreasonable.
iTunes is not the only one
Since many other download services like CDON.com, prefueled.com and MSN.no operate with similar terms of use the Consumer Council of Norway has requested that these services are also put under review for potential breach of the Marketing Control Act.
Digital rights are under pressure
The Consumer Council of Norway is following the development in the download business closely.
It's important that the terms of service cater to the needs of the consumers as well as the content providers, says Waterhouse.
It's equally important for us to work for increasing use of open standards in consumer electronics and content services.
- Consumers should be free to choose the equipment and software he or she prefers. The access to content should not be blocked my a random choice of technology. If your next mp3-player is not an iPod you'll not be able to listen to the music you've bought from iTunes, says Waterhouse.
p2p news / p2pnet: Hollywood is fostering an upgrade to its Asia-Pacific scalp hunter scheme, originally launched in 1998.
The new bounty plan, "provides significant cash rewards for people who provide information that leads to the arrest of copyright infringers involved in the production, distribution and/or sale of pirated optical discs," says the MPA, an MPAA clone.
And in accordance with long-established movie industry practice, it's being run by a publicly funded entity, in this case, the Hong Kong Customs & Excise Department.
"The MPA supports and operates a number of anti-piracy reward schemes around the Asia-Pacific region, including the just-launched MPA DVD Rewards Scheme in Malaysia," it says.
The, "cancer of piracy" is "damaging the health of creative industries in Hong Kong and around the Asia-Pacific region," intones MPA spokesperson Mike Ellis.
The scheme was organized by the MPA, Business Software Alliance, Entertainment Software Alliance, Hong Kong Optical Disc Manufacturers Association, International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (Hong Kong Group), Motion Picture Industry Association and Sony Computer Entertainment.
Technology
Portals: Beta-VHS clash offers insights into coming DVD war
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
By Lee Gomes, The Wall Street Journal
I don't know who will win the coming high-definition DVD format war, but I can tell you how to know when the battle is over: when the side that is behind takes out ads proclaiming it is still in the game.
That is what happened in 1984, during the first great video-format war between the Beta and VHS standards for home-video tape recording. The Beta camp, aka Sony, declared via full-page trade-magazine ads that, "The Beta business is stronger than ever." In fact, by that point, Beta was in an irreversible decline, as it had been since the day VHS showed up.
Alas, the world is on the brink of a new standards war between the Blu-ray and HD-DVD formats, which are vying to succeed the current DVD. That makes it worthwhile to briefly retell the story of the earlier fight -- especially because much of what people remember about it is wrong.
In the early 1970s, Sony, just then emerging as one of the world's great consumer brands, became intent on designing a compact home TV-recording system. Sony's legendary chairman, Akio Morita, wanted a videocassette small enough to fit in a coat pocket.
Many of the patents used with the Beta had been shared by Sony with its rival. JVC, a division of Matsushita, as part of an earlier business deal. Nonetheless, Sony assumed it would have the home video recording market to itself. The company was shocked when JVC announced that it, too, was building a home recorder.
There were numerous technical differences between the systems, but one of the most obvious was that JVC's cartridge was 7 1/2 inches in length, or 1 1/2 inches longer than Beta's.
Sony viewed that bigger cartridge as an example of the technical inelegance of its competitor's offering. In fact, the bigger cartridge would lead to VHS's eventual triumph.
Sony's product came out first, late in 1975, costing nearly $2,000 and recording an hour of TV.
But the VHS system, with its bigger cartridge, could hold more tape. Combined with other innovations, that meant a VHS cassette could record for twice as long as a Beta could.
For consumers, that was a deal clincher. Despite being second to market, VHS overtook Beta in sales immediately upon its 1976 introduction, a position it never gave up. VHS systems had a 70 percent share of the market in 1978, according to a study by economist Sangin Park. That figure dropped to 57 percent the following year, but it returned to 70 percent in 1980, and kept growing every year afterward.
Had it been operating with today's conventional wisdom on economics, which stresses "network externalities" -- a fancy name for the idea of a tipping point that permanently changes a situation -- Sony would have seen the handwriting on the wall and withdrawn from the fray, lest it continue to throw good money after bad.
But Sony persevered, driven by a mix of ego and tenacity. The result is the deservedly infamous Beta-VHS standards war of the early 1980s, which pitted neighbor against neighbor.
Still, the competition also had benign consequences, including unrelenting innovation. In 1982, for instance, Sony introduced Beta Hi-Fi, claiming sound quality that it said VHS would never be able to match. A year later, though, the VHS camp proved Sony wrong with VHS Hi-Fi.
SONY'S BASIC problem was that no matter what it did, it could never match VHS on recording time. By the time Beta was able to claim its users could record entire movies, VHS was bragging about the football games its machines were taping.
In 1984, with VHS at 80 percent of the market, the Sony camp was forced to take out its "We're still here" ads. It took four more years, by which point VHS had 98 percent of the market, for Sony to effectively throw in the towel.
By then, of course, the DVD had begun its ascent. It is now mostly forgotten, but a similar standards war over DVD was averted 10 years ago when International Business Machines forged a last-minute compromise between Sony and Toshiba, each of which was pursing a different approach. Those are also the two players in the looming standards war over high definition; peacemaking attempts failed last year.
It's common to hear today that in the Beta-VHS battle, the "wrong" technology somehow won. Beta, by this telling, was supposed to have had a vastly superior picture quality.
But economists Stan Liebowitz and Steve Margolis have argued that any alleged technical advantages of Beta weren't obvious to ordinary consumers, who quite rationally preferred the longer recording time of VHS and who voted accordingly with their dollars.
What, if anything, does the Beta-VHS battle presage about the coming high-definition war? Marc Wielage and Rod Woodcock, trade journalists who wrote extensively about the earlier tussle, say the advantage of longer playing time augers well this time for Sony, whose Blu-ray disks hold more than those of rival HD-DVD.
HD-DVD boosters respond that its disks are cheaper to make. We're not going to get in the middle of that fight. Our only prediction is that this battle will be over much more quickly than the last one. Just keep watching for the ad that protests too much.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06025/644076.stm
* 26 January 2006
* From New Scientist Print Edition
GOT some public speaking to do? Here is a tip to keep stress at bay: have sex beforehand. But make sure it's penetrative sex - the magic vanishes if you pursue other forms of sexual gratification.
Stuart Brody, a psychologist at the University of Paisley, UK, compared the impact of different sexual activities on blood pressure when a person later experiences acute stress. For a fortnight, 24 women and 22 men kept diaries of how often they engaged in penile-vaginal intercourse (PVI), masturbation or partnered sexual activity excluding intercourse. After, the volunteers underwent a stress test involving public speaking and mental arithmetic out loud.
Volunteers who'd had PVI but none of the other kinds of sex were least stressed, and their blood pressure returned to normal faster than those who'd only masturbated or had non-coital sex. Those who abstained had the highest blood-pressure response to stress (Biological Psychology, vol 71, p 214).
NS Forum
What other methods do you use to reduce stress and stay calm?
Discuss this story >>
Brody also made psychological measurements of neuroticism and anxiety in the volunteers, as well as work stress and partnership satisfaction. Even taking these factors into account, differences in sexual behaviour provided the best explanation for the range of stress responses. "The effects are not attributable simply to the short-term relief afforded by orgasm, but rather, endure for at least a week," says Brody. He speculates that release of the "pair-bonding" hormone oxytocin between partners might account for the calming effect.
From issue 2536 of New Scientist magazine, 26 January 2006, page 17
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg18925365.500
p2p news / p2pnet: The members of the Big Four Organized Music cartel are spending endless streams of cash and instructing legions of lawyers in their efforts to gain total control of how, and by whom, digital files are distributed online.
At the tip of their carefully orchestrated US game-plan is their sue 'em all campaign under which they're using their RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) to try to sue former customers into buying product.
In their latest effort, they're attempting to re-hoist an argument - that merely having a shared files folder that can be accessed is copyright infringement - already explicitly dismissed by judge Marilyn Hall Patel in her Napster decision.
In 2004, the Big Four, Warner Music, Sony BMG, EMI and Vivendi Universal, tried to get a Canadian court to force five Canadian ISPs to reveal the identity of 29 clients so the Big Four could sue them.
However, justice Konrad von Finckenstein ruled, "No evidence was presented that the alleged infringers either distributed or authorised the reproduction of sound recordings. They merely placed personal copies into their shared directories which were accessible by other computer user(s) via a P2P service."
Now New York social worker Tenise Barker is under attack with the RIAA arguing that simply making a file available for distribution in and of itself constitutes a copyright infringement.
"Were the courts to accept this misguided view of copyright law, it could mean that anyone who has had a shared files folder, even for a moment, that contained copyrighted files in it, would be guilty of copyright infringement, even though the copies in the folder were legally obtained, and even though no illegal copies had ever been made of them," Ray Beckerman (pic), one of the attorneys representing Barker, told p2pnet.
Interestingly, Sony BMG of rootkit DRM spyware fame voluntarily dropped its case against Barker, although the other plaintiffs are still going ahead.
Recording Industry vs The People has a scan of the court document here.
How Turned Around Is Sony?
The electronics giant's third-quarter earnings should hint at a brighter future. But Chairman Howard Stringer still has to push through lots of tough changes
The news at Sony (SNE ) has been so dreary for so long that even the smallest glimmer of hope is enough to cheer up shareholders. On Jan. 26, investors may see just such a ray of light when the Japanese electronics and entertainment giant releases third-quarter earnings. Not only are those results likely to beat expectations but the company might also upwardly revise its earnings estimate for the fiscal year through March, analysts say.
Depending on whom you ask, Sony's full-year profit forecast could be anywhere from $150 million to $475 million. That's a big change. As recently as September, newly appointed Chairman Howard Stringer was glumly predicting Sony would show a net loss of $86 million.
The market, however, seems to have been feeling fairly good about Sony for some time. Since October, its share price has shot up 35% in Tokyo trading, outstripping the 21% rise of the Topix Electric Appliances Index, a benchmark for Japanese electronics makers. "We think [Sony's] electronics segment overall did better than management's expectations," J.P. Morgan analyst Hiroshi Takada wrote in a Jan. 23 report.
CUTTING LOSSES. But don't put all your chips on Sony just yet. Stringer is in the midst of a top-to-bottom, $1.7 billion restructuring largely focused on turning around the ailing consumer-electronics and TV unit (see BW Online, 1/9/06, "Hitting the Right Notes at Sony"). Analysts say it could be another year before Stringer, a 63-year-old Welshman, whips all the loss-making units into shape. That's crucial because while the electronics division accounts for 70% of Sony's overall sales, it has been a drag on profits the past two years.
And many analysts say they haven't factored in the fallout from a public-relations fiasco caused by a virus-like copy-protection program installed on CDs sold by its Sony BMG Music Entertainment unit (see BW Online, 12/30/05, "Sony BMG Ends a Legal Nightmare "). "Sony still has a long way to go," says Credit Suisse First Boston analyst Koya Tabata.
Even Stringer seems to be proceeding with caution. "The worst thing that can happen to you is for things to go too well too soon," Stringer said in a recent interview with BusinessWeek. "I'm slightly nervous because I don't want Sony to fall back into any form of complacency."
CATCHING UP ON TV. So why the rosier outlook? The two main reasons have little to do with Stringer's reforms: a weak yen and a rising Tokyo stock market. The yen's fall against the dollar helps Sony because the value of its overseas income rises, and strengthening stocks are adding to robust profits at Sony's financial unit because of its Japanese stock holdings.
But one nugget of good news suggests Sony may finally be getting a handle on its real problems: better-than-expected TV sales. Sony's share of the TV market in the U.S. rose to 28% in December, 2005, up from 10% from October of last year, according to Japanese market-research firm BCN. And holiday shoppers in Europe and Japan also bought more Sony TVs, CSFB says.
The TV unit's problems have symbolized Sony's recent sluggishness in anticipating consumer trends. A one-time dominant force in TVs -- its Trinitron cathode-ray-tube displays were the gold standard for decades -- Sony waited longer than rivals before shifting to flat-panel sets. To catch up, Sony formed a joint venture in liquid-crystal displays (LCD) with Korea's Samsung Electronics. Now, Sony's Bravia sets -- a 40-inch TV sells for around $3,500 in the U.S. -- rank No. 3 globally among LCDs, behind Sharp and Philips.
MASTER PLAN. In Stringer's September reform blueprint, he vowed to cut jobs, close divisions, and retire products, while shifting part of Sony's manufacturing base in Japan to less-costly locales. Only now are the details of the plan finally taking shape. On Jan. 25, Sony said it will shut TV glass and tube plants in New Stanton, Pa., and Rancho Bernardo, Calif., shifting all the work to China and Malaysia. Sony also plans to stop making its Walkman music players in Saitama, just north of Tokyo, the first Japanese facility to be closed under the restructuring.
Stringer's ultimate goal is to merge Sony's gizmos and content, which would let consumers download the company's video games, movies, TV shows, and music to play on everything from big-screen TVs to laptop PCs and portable game consoles. Once he's finished, Stringer hopes to fatten profit margins for Sony's electronics division to 4% by March, 2008, from their current dip in the negative territory, and for all divisions combined to 5%, from 1.6% now.
Few analysts see how he'll succeed so quickly. In a recent report, Merrill Lynch called the target "optimistic." And CSFB's Tabata says, "We think the electronics division's margin will still only be 3% by March, 2008."
RISK TAKING. The logistics of carrying out the reforms are more complex than they might seem. Stringer has to mercilessly cut costs while unifying the rank-and-file and curbing the internal rivalry among engineers that has led to a confusing lineup of products and a diminution of the once-vaunted brand. And he will have to do that without crushing the culture that has long spawned a winning lineup of cool gadgets. In recent months, Sony officials say Stringer has been hosting social gatherings and working the crowd to sell engineers on his plan and get them to work more closely with each other.
This year, he'll be mobilizing resources as Sony prepares to launch two technologies that could make or break it. The PlayStation3, containing the highly promoted Cell microprocessor, and a Blu-ray high-definition DVD player, set for launch this spring. And more Blu-ray products will be up against the rival HD-DVD format as early as April.
Sony is counting on the royalties from both to produce a steady stream of future income. Overall, it's a strategy that holds huge risks. But if Stringer gets things right, it might just brighten the day for Sony's shareholders.
http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/jan2006/nf20060125_25...
The Bug in Microsoft's Ear
The software giant is mulling its own digital device that adds gaming to music and video, in an effort to compete with Apple's iPod empire
After getting trounced for four years in the digital music business by Apple Computer (AAPL), Microsoft (MSFT) finally seems poised to do something about it. BusinessWeek has learned that the software giant is working on plans to develop its own portable digital media device to rival the iPod, rather than just providing technology to partners. Microsoft hasn't decided if it will go ahead. But sources inside the company and at its partners say Microsoft has put together a team that's considering the business end of such an initiative.
Going forward with it would be an acknowledgement that the current strategy isn't working. Chairman William H. Gates III has argued that consumers would prefer a vast choice of devices to the limited selection from Apple. That's why Microsoft has relied on dozens of partners to come up with sleek devices and clever online-music services that use its software.
LIMITED APPEAL? But each year, Apple extends its lead in digital music. In 2005, Apple's share of portable media devices sold in the U.S. grew to 67% from 52% in 2004, according to NPD Group. Making its own device, despite an uneven track record in consumer electronics, may be Microsoft's only viable alternative.
What would it look like? Xbox boss Peter Moore says any Microsoft media device would have to leverage the company's most significant consumer strength, video gaming. "It can't just be our version of the iPod," says Moore, who nonetheless would not confirm that Microsoft is considering making such a device. So in addition to playing music and videos, a Microsoft device would include games. Microsoft would probably use the Xbox brand to market the gadget. "I think the brand is an opportunity," Moore says.
True, perhaps, but also risky. If the new device comes with the Xbox brand, most consumers will view it as a game player, like Sony's (SNE) PlayStation Portable. That might limit its appeal, since the portable gaming market is much smaller than the one for digital media.
TARGETING THE LIVING ROOM. There's also the risk of alienating partners. If Microsoft fashions its own gadget, those device makers could abandon Microsoft's digital media technology and devise their own software. "Everybody will try to do their own thing to differentiate," says Sim Wong Hoo, chief executive of Creative Technology (CREAF), the No.2 digital media device maker. "What Microsoft was trying to build will collapse."
With $39.8 billion in annual sales, Microsoft isn't particularly interested in increments from the digital media device business or online music. It's after a spot in consumers' living rooms. The more consumers purchase iPods, the more they'll buy songs and videos from iTunes, and the various iPod accessories to play music and video around their house. That in turn convinces more entertainment companies to partner with Apple. "The stakes are incredibly high," says Michael Gartenberg, vice-president and research director at JupiterResearch (JUPM).
The question still remains: Will Microsoft really do it? It has abandoned efforts over the years to make everything from computer speakers to PC-connected telephones. The company gave some clues in December, when it put its digital media software unit and its MSN Music service under Robert J. Bach, president of the Entertainment & Devices division. "It's a lot easier to talk about the end-to-end scenarios, because it's all under Robbie," says Microsoft's Moore. Indeed, the soup-to-nuts approach has been the key to Apple's success. For Microsoft, it may be worth the risk.
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jan2006/tc20060126...
JAN. 25 9:37 P.M. ET Wal-Mart Stores Inc. launched an online music video and audio service with exclusive studio performances Wednesday, part of a broader strategy to make itself trendier and draw consumers already in the store for cheap staples into other departments.
Dubbed "Wal-Mart Soundcheck", the service features studio performances and interviews with new and established bands and musicians, the Bentonville, Ark.-based company said in a statement. First up were punk pop fivesome Yellowcard and rock band Switchfoot.
The segments, each with four to six songs, will play for free on http://www.walmart.com and on television screens in Wal-Mart electronics departments. There will be a viewing event in stores of the complete 30- to 40-minute performance every few weeks on Friday nights and fans can also download audio tracks from the performances for a fee from the Web site.
The artist selection will cover genres including rock, pop, punk, country, hip-hop and R&B. New acts will follow monthly.
wwwOnce again the problem of mobile device security is raising its head. Yet that is the world we live in. Like it or not, the miniaturisation of disk storage technology means that the amount of data that can be stored on mobile devices continues to climb.
The solution often seems simple, ban them. That would mean, however, banning all USB flash devices and requiring employees to leave their personal phones, PDA?s and MP3 players at the office door. This is clearly not only unworkable but liable to stress employee/employer relations to snapping point. HNS - MP3s ? The Big Security Risk In 2006
_____________________________________________________________________
MP3s ? The Big Security Risk In 2006
by Martin Allen - MD of Pointsec - Wednesday, 25 January 2006.
Once again the problem of mobile device security is raising its head. Yet that is the world we live in. Like it or not, the miniaturisation of disk storage technology means that the amount of data that can be stored on mobile devices continues to climb.
The solution often seems simple, ban them. That would mean, however, banning all USB flash devices and requiring employees to leave their personal phones, PDA?s and MP3 players at the office door. This is clearly not only unworkable but liable to stress employee/employer relations to snapping point.
This Christmas MP3 players were the hottest and most popular present. The danger is that this New Year all the happy recipients are desperate to use them and will very quickly find out how excellent they are not just for storing music for also for storing lots and lots of data. Even the £20 MP3 players can store 256MB of data. At the top end of the market, digital jukeboxes with storage of 20GB start at under £150 while a 60GB Apple iPod Video player can be had for just £300. That is the same storage capacity as a lot of corporate notebooks.
What makes this market even more dangerous is the number of devices that IDC estimates will have been sold by the end of 2005. European sales of devices with a capacity of less than 4MB will top 20m while the larger MP3 jukeboxes and video players will exceed 5m devices.
These numbers are more than twice the sales for 2004 and while the sales growth will slow during 2006, higher capacities and the introduction of large scale storage in devices such as Smartphones will continue to push the market forward.
While these devices are aimed at a consumer market, there has already been an increase in their use within the corporate environment and this is set to increase as more people recognise that they are ideal for listening to corporate presentations on the move. Others might use them to listen to audio books or even watch training courses. In meetings, the MP3 player has already replaced the mini tape recorder due to battery life, capacity, ease of file storage/sharing and cost.
Consumers want to use these devices on their corporate networks today to download content. While there are figures showing that some of this content is illegal, there has been a big move towards legal content. One of the drivers of this has been the strengthening of the audio book market. Whereas, just a few years ago it was novels or self-help books that dominated the audio space, now there is a huge array of general business books on the market. This market is also being targeted by educational publishers who are moving their existing content into a new market. For these publishers, getting users to play ?skills enhancement? books on MP3 players is as much a B2B as a B2C play.
Then there is the big emerging market of the year ? Podcasting. In the same way that the DVD recorder and Sky+ box have revolutionised the way we handle the time-shifted world of television, Podcasting is doing the same for audio and it seems everyone is doing it. In the UK, the most popular Podcast is the BBC Radio 1 breakfast show. Unsurprisingly, it is most often downloaded during the day, probably by people who missed it while travelling into work.
It is not just audio that is driving the Podcasting market. The BBC and several other channels have committed to putting their TV programs out via broadband. They are also allowing them to be downloaded from websites. As this requires a reasonable bandwidth to get several programs, it is not unreasonable to expect that this will often be done at work.
The mobile video market has no doubt been helped substantially by the entrance of Apple with a video iPod. However, there are numerous other vendors, such as Archos, that have had high capacity video jukebox players for a number of years now. The storage in these devices is set to soar with the introduction of new perpendicular disk drives. We are already seeing the first 160GB disk drives and they will only get bigger.
While this is ideal for very high quality video it also poses a massive and significant risk to corporate data. The capacities at this high end equate to a laptop drive. This means that vast amounts of corporate data can be removed on a small consumer device that sits in the pocket.
Introducing measures to prevent such devices from connecting to corporate resources are failing. As fast as vendors bring out software to identify and block the devices, device manufacturers and software companies are releasing utilities to hide the devices from network administrators. A common approach now is to just report them as removable CD players. This allows them to avoid many of the restrictive practices introduced by the network administrators.
The goal, then, is not to exhaust resources trying to ban the devices, but find a way to encompass their existence within the corporate data security policy.
One of the first problems is that devices are likely to have content put on them at different locations. There are no anti-virus, anti-spyware programs for the majority of these devices although software to protect Smartphone?s is beginning to appear. With multiple connection points for the mobile device, corporate desktops and laptops MUST be updated with the relevant software.
As the capacities increase, another measure, if these devices are to be tolerated, is to introduce transfer quotas. These allow you to restrict the amount of data that can be moved to an individual device. While this will not prevent data being taken out of the building it will restrict the quantity that can be taken at any one time.
A major problem with consumer devices is that they are not looked after carefully and attract thieves. This is where companies can take a very positive step to protect data. There are products that insist on encrypting data as it is being moved onto portable devices.
One advantage of this approach is that should the device be stolen, the data is protected. Another is that the larger capacity devices can be utilised as pseudo backup devices for mobile workers while keeping the data secure.
So, if you want to make sure that this New Year you keep your staff happy and the company safe and secure be sure to look at investing in strong encryption on all devices that enter and leave your office. Make encryption mandatory and educate your users so that they are aware of the risks to themselves and to your company if they lose one. That way you?ll ensure you?ve done a great job which will guarantee a great big fat bonus to enjoy for yourself next Christmas.
http://www.net-security.org/article.php?id=894
p2pnet.net Feature:- p2pnet's Movies File Share Top Ten is compiled from statistics supplied by p2p research company Big Champagne.
Only on p2pnet.
If you want to see how BC develops them, head over to the music FSTT, or go to our Q&A with ceo Eric Garland here.
(Note: If a movie returns after being out of the charts for two weeks or longer, it's designated 'new'.) 'Return' means back after a week's absence.
Movies Top Ten File Share Downloads, Global
Week ending January 26, 2006
Ranking Movie Number of Downloads
01 >>> The Chronicles of Narnia (unchanged) 1,048,864
02 >>> The Wedding Crashers (new) 1,029,238
03 >>> King Kong - #2 1,016,178
04 >>> Harry Potter& The Goblet Of Fire - #3 983,515
05 >>> Mr. & Mrs. Smith - #4 967,278
06 >>> Four Brothers + #8 962,229
07 >>> The 40 Year Old Virgin - #6 961,186
08 >>> The Exorcism of Emily Rose (new) 918,616
09 >>> Fun with Dick and Jane + #10 914,373
10 >>> Redeye (new) 909,395
Movies Top Ten File Share Downloads, USA
Week ending January 26, 2006
Ranking Movie Number of Downloads
01 >>> The Wedding Crashers + #10 568,239
02 >>> The Chronicles of Narnia: LWW - #1 556,575
03 >>> Fun with Dick and Jane + #8 547,878
04 >>> King Kong - #2 545,610
05 >>> The 40 Year Old Virgin + #7 526,835
06 >>> Mr. & Mrs. Smith - #3 523,186
07 >>> Harry Potter & The Goblet Of Fire - #5 520,901
08 >>> Four Brothers - #6 510,584
09 >>> The Exorcism of Emily Rose (new) 496,687
10 >>> Yours, Mine and Ours (new) 468,976
p2p news / p2pnet: When Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith arrived on the p2p networks, "There is no better example of how theft dims the magic of the movies for everyone than this report today regarding BitTorrent providing users with illegal copies of Revenge of the Sith," raved MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) boss Dan 'Jedi' Glickman (right).
Oh, those evil, wicked kids with Sony camcorders.
But, "The illegal distribution of 'Sith' started during the week before its May 19 release, when Albert Valente, 28, of Lakewood took a DVD copy of the film from a post-production facility where he worked," says the Los Angeles Daily News.
"The firm was hired by the studio for the post-production work," the story has US assistant attorney Brian Hoffstadt saying.
After Valente (no relation to ex-MPAA boss Jack Valenti) gave copies to, "Jessie Lumada, 28, of Long Beach, who gave it to another friend, Ramon Valdez, 30, also of Long Beach," says continues the LA Daily News. "Valdez took 'Sith' to the cable company where he worked and allowed co-worker Michael Fousse, 42, of Monrovia to upload it onto the company's internal network.
"Dwight Wayne Sityar, 27, of La Crescenta, who also worked at the cable company, then burned the movie onto three CDs and gave them to co-worker Stephani Gima, 25, of Los Angeles. Gima gave the movie to her brother-in-law, Joel De Sagun Dimaano, 33, of Los Angeles, who brought it to his work at MGM Studios and lent it to Hoaglin, his co-worker.
"Hoaglin uploaded the movie onto the Internet."
Does that mean Valente and friends could land in jail for up to 17 years or perhaps be fined $250,000, as advocated by Hollywood friend, and chairman of House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual Property, Lamar Smith?
That was what Curtis Salisbury was looking at after allegedly camcording The Perfect Man and Bewitched, "and then distributed them through illicit computer networks that specialize in piracy".
But No. That fate doesn't, apparently, await the Hollywood insiders and their friends.
Despite, "going over to the dark side by getting their hands on copies of 'Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith' before its theatrical release" and pleading guilty to federal piracy charges, the seven are getting off with misdemeanor charges.
"If they'd done it for financial gain or profit, then that could have become a felony, but ... that wasn't the case for these folks," said Hoffstadt.
But what about Hoaglin who uploaded the movie, causing such grief for Glickman and his employers at the MPAA? Jail and a heavy fine?
Nope. Since he pleaded guilty, "prosecutors are recommending home confinement instead," says the LA Daily News.
OK, then. But that's because Hoaglin's theft was an isolated incident, surely? Nope.
An AT&T Labs report said a total of 285 movies its researchers sampled on the p2p networks, 77% were leaked by industry 'insiders'; actor and studio owner Mel Gibson sued a Hollywood post-production house for the online appearance of his Passion movie; and, Russell Sprague got 130 movies from Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences member Carmine Caridi, who was ordered to pay Warner Bros a paltry $300,000 for providing Sprague, who died in an LA jail cell, with the copies."
Meanwhile, "Any competition 'Sith' faced from the online version did not keep it from earning $50 million at the box office its opening day," adds the LA Daily Times.
"The box-office take set the record for the biggest opening day of any movie, and it was also the biggest single-day gross ever."
Also See:
Dan 'Jedi' Glickman - 'Sith' leak man pleads guilty, December 14, 2005
Los Angeles Daily News - Revenge of the law falls on 'Star Wars' film pirates, January 26, 2006
fined $250,000 - Lamar Smith crows over victory, October 3, 2005
