HOME > News Article ©2010 DMusic Network, L.L.C.   



Username:
Password:

 Navigation
 Connect





 
In The News - Edition #72
Posted by Mike (Shmoo) on November 15, 2005 at 4:51 PM   (printer friendly)




To post hypertext links to articles/items, use the following method:

1. Copy and paste (or type) the following string:

Headline[">http://link">Headline[ /url]

2. Remove the two blank spaces.

3. Trade "http://link" with the actual url address of the page you wish to appear when the link is clicked.

4. Trade "Headline" with the news article's headline or your own descriptive text.

EXAMPLE:

[url= http://dmusic.com]Dmusic[ /url]

...remove the 2 spaces and it becomes:

[url=http://dmusic.com]Dmusic

===============

Folks, sometimes it is a lot quicker/better to alert our readers to important/relevant news articles and other items by sticking a quick link to them right here in this "news" thread than it is to submit using the "news/submit" button at the top of the page.

If you point your cursor at the "news" button, then do a "mouse-over" (awaiting the drop-down menu to provide you the "submit" option and all... THEN bother to type in or C&P your submission correctly in the proper format...
...Sheesh, after all that, your submission STILL has to await the "approval process" (meaning that I, or one of the fine Dmusic admin have to be online and alert enough to check the article input box, THEN decide where it needs filed, proof-read, etc... )

If you have an article/story/item that needs our attention, why not simply stick it here "In The News" instead! (Besides, I'll go to the front page with anything found here that meets the same criteria used for that "article input box" anyways.)

Let's save some time and hassle. Use that "submit" button only for ORIGINAL articles that come from your own hand.


User Comments (These do not necessarily reflect the beliefs of this site)
independentm...  
 Date: November 9, 2005 @ 5:00 PM
Quick link to the previous edition of In The News
independentm...  
 Date: November 9, 2005 @ 5:07 PM
SunnComm Denies Published Reports of Joint Venture --SunnComm press release

Ha! This was in response to a spoof our friend Jon Newton wrote sometime back:
http://p2pnet.net/story/6867

(Thanks for the heads-up on this one DeadMan2003!)
independentm...  
 Date: November 9, 2005 @ 5:21 PM
Folks, thanks for helping us all out by really posting a bunch of great links and news items. There is so much going on I can barely keep up! (I took a day or 2 off and come back to learn of the Grokster shut-down and ten bazillion other things.)

I'm NEVER gonna get any rest it seems!

lol

(But seriously folks, thanks to each and every one of you for your participation!!!)
peatrap  
 Date: November 9, 2005 @ 5:29 PM
more, sony, italy and jail

http://p2pnet.net/story/6925
PenisBrain  
 Date: November 9, 2005 @ 5:33 PM
More Sony bashing.....enjoy!

Police Called In To Investigate Sony
David Richards

Computer Associates said that new anticopying software Sony is using to discourage pirating of its music also secretly collects information from any computer that plays the discs including hundreds of people in Australia who buy BMG Sony music. One of the world's largest software and information technology companies, Computer Associates is the latest to wade into the growing controversy over Sony's efforts to curb theft and illegal pirating of its music.In Europe Police have been called in to investigate Sony's actions.

An Italian digital rights organisation has taken the first steps to possible criminal charges over the XCP software which, it was recently discovered cloaks itself on users' computers and communicates with Sony servers over the Internet.







The group, calling itself the ALCEI-EFI (Association for Freedom in Electronic Interactive Communications - Electronic Frontiers Italy), filed a complaint about Sony's software with the head of Italy's cyber-crime investigation unit, Colonel Umberto Rapetto of the Guardia di Finanza.






The complaint alleges that XCP violates a number of Italy's computer security laws by causing damage to users' systems and by acting in the same way as malicious software, according to Andrea Monti, chair of the ALCEI-EFI. "What Sony did qualifies as a criminal offense under Italian law," he said.

Should police determine that a crime has been committed, prosecutors will be required to begin criminal proceedings against Sony, Monti said.

The software works only on computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system. It limits listeners' ability to copy the music onto their computers, and locks copied files so they cannot be freely distributed over the Internet.

But Computer Associates said the antipirating software also secretly communicates with Sony over the Internet when listeners play the discs on computers that have an Internet connection. The software uses this connection to transmit the name of the CD being played to an office of Sony's music division in Cary, N.C. The software also transmits the IP address of the listener's computer, Computer Associates said, but not the name of the listener. But Sony can still use the data to create a profile of a listener's music collection, according to Computer Associates.

''This is in effect 'phone home' technology, whether its intent is to capture such data or not," said Sam Curry, vice president of Computer Associates' eTrust Security Management unit. ''If you choose to let people know what you're listening to, that's your business. If they do it without your permission, it's an invasion of privacy."

Sony and the British firm that wrote the antipirating code for the music company flatly denied the software snoops on listeners. ''We don't receive any spyware information, any consumer information," said Mathew Gilliat-Smith, chief executive of First 4 Internet Ltd., which makes the software for Sony BMG Music Entertainment.

So far, Sony BMG has installed the software on about 20 titles in its music catalog, including works by jazzman Dexter Gordon, singer Vivian Green, and the new issue by country rockers Van Zant, ''Get Right with the Man." It was the Van Zant disc that led to the controversy over Sony's new software. In late October, a well-known Windows computer engineer, Mark Russinovich, stumbled across the Sony software on one of his personal computers while running a security scan. Russinovich had used the computer to play the Van Zant CD, not realizing that it had installed the anticopying program. When he tried to remove it, Russinovich found that the program lacked the ''uninstall" feature found in most Windows software. Indeed, key components of the software hid themselves deep in his computer by applying the same techniques used by data thieves to conceal their activities. Even a skilled user who identifies the correct files can't safely remove them, said Russinovich.

''Most users that stumble across the cloaked files . . . will cripple their computer if they attempt the obvious step of deleting the cloaked files," he wrote on his technology website, SysInternals. Computer Associates yesterday concurred with Russinovich's assessment. Curry said Sony has made it so difficult for listeners to uninstall its software that some could lose all their data in the process.

''It can damage the operating system and the operating system's integrity, so it can't reboot at all," Curry said. ''As an expert in security, I can say this is bad behavior." Indeed, Computer Associates has added the software to its list of spyware programs that collect personal information from computer users without their permission. Russinovich also said that a patch Sony and First 4 released Friday to stop the software from hiding inside computers malfunctions and can cause an irreparable loss of computer data. Gilliat-Smith of First 4 said he knows of no case in which this has happened. Sony offers a website where users can obtain a program that uninstalls its software. He said both efforts should prove that Computer Associates and Russinovich's complaints are unfounded.

Sneaky Bastards!!!
peatrap  
 Date: November 9, 2005 @ 6:03 PM
old story RIAA planned to attack computers also.

http://www.theregister.com/2003/05/04/riaa_attacking_our_culture/
peatrap  
 Date: November 9, 2005 @ 9:53 PM
DRM developers attack Ipod users

http://www.theregister.com/2005/11/09/sunncomm_drm_ear/
CynicalGeezer  
 Date: November 9, 2005 @ 10:41 PM

I keep seeing worthy news articles being posted by Gadfly. It has to be granted that Gad is an asset for the cause of the boycott.
gfmlcka  
 Date: November 9, 2005 @ 10:46 PM
Sony BMG's EULA :

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004145.php

Just who the hell do these people think they are?
PenisBrain  
 Date: November 9, 2005 @ 11:29 PM
Yeah geezer it's much more fun bashing the hateful RIAA then slugging it out with each other.

Glad to be welcome to the fold.
CynicalGeezer  
 Date: November 9, 2005 @ 11:51 PM

"Just who the hell do these people (Sony/BMG) think they are?"

God's answer to all that's grand and glorious in the world of digital music, so they don't want to consider that they could be doing something wrong.
(delusions of grandeur)
independentm...  
 Date: November 10, 2005 @ 12:06 AM
"I keep seeing worthy news articles being posted by Gadfly. It has to be granted that Gad is an asset for the cause of the boycott."

Gadfly claims so-called "right-wing" views opposed to many other of our member's supposed/admitted "left-wing" views.

I think (and hope) that GadflyDiscourse finally figured out that Boycott-Riaa is really not about EITHER side of THAT kind of debate. (Even though a disproportionate number of our "regular" members, SELF INCLUDED, are left-wing hippie pinko sympathists on other issues in Gad's book. lol.)
gfmlcka  
 Date: November 10, 2005 @ 5:25 AM
From Apple's director of product marketing :

http://writersblocklive.com/?p=62
peatrap  
 Date: November 10, 2005 @ 9:24 AM
first trojan using sony's DRN
http://www.theregister.com/2005/11/10/sony_drm_trojan/
peatrap  
 Date: November 10, 2005 @ 9:27 AM
DRN code's
peatrap  
 Date: November 10, 2005 @ 9:28 AM
DRN codes legitimacy questioned
http://www.theregister.com/2005/11/03/secfocus_drm/
TrueAudio  
 Date: November 10, 2005 @ 11:58 AM
HOLY CRAP
The plot thickens--AGAIN!!!

"However, Computer Associates, which has a security division, said on Monday it had found further security risks in the Sony software and was releasing a tool to uninstall it directly. According to Computer Associates, the Sony software makes itself a DEFAULT MEDIA PLAYER on a computer after it is installed. The software then reports back the user's Internet address and identifies which CDs are played on that computer. Intentionally or not, the software also seems to DAMAGE A COMPUTERS'S ABILITY TO "RIP" CLEAN COPIES OF MP3S FROM **NON-COPY PROTECTED** CDS, the security company said."IT WILL EFFECTIVELY INSERT PSEUDO-RANDOM NOISE INTO A FILE SO THAT IT BECOMES LESS LISTENABLE," said Sam Curry, a Computer Associates vice president. "What's disturbing about this is the LACK OF NOTICE, the LACK OF CONSENT, and the lack of an easy removal tool."

A Sony spokesman said the company's technical staff was looking into the issues identified by Computer Associates, but had no immediate comment. The furore over the Sony software comes nearly eight months after the copy protection technique, created by British company First 4 Internet, was first released on a commercial disc in the United States.

(caps are my emphasis)
http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/12663
pepe512000  
 Date: November 10, 2005 @ 12:12 PM
Interesting concept....will it fly?

Opening the door on a CD-less music label

Shorter conracts? Artist owned master recordings? No tours? Sounds like heaven....
pepe512000  
 Date: November 10, 2005 @ 12:13 PM
That should read contracts of course....
ShadowMom  
 Date: November 10, 2005 @ 12:15 PM
I don't think some of the musicians really like this idea...compression seems to have some deleterious effects on their music. On the other hand, I know a lot of bands who have a deleterious effect on their music, too. :)
ShadowMom  
 Date: November 10, 2005 @ 12:15 PM
I saw that....
tomsong  
 Date: November 10, 2005 @ 2:10 PM
http://www.salon.com/wire/ap/archive.html?wire=D8DPOOCOD.html

European Group Battles Copy-Protected CD

By HELENA SPONGENBERG Associated Press Writer

November 10,2005 | BRUSSELS, Belgium -- The music industry should stop criminalizing customers and limiting their freedom in the battle against piracy, a European consumers' group said Thursday.

The emergence of copy-protected CDs -- installed with anti-piracy software that limits how many times the CD can be copied -- "is the most visible example of this," said Jim Murray of BEUC, an association representing consumer lobbies across Europe.

"Private consumers ... are not criminals and to portray them as such is insulting and counter productive," Murray said.

The group launched a digital rights manifesto for music and film lovers, saying they had the right to privacy and the right to benefit from technological innovations without abusive restrictions.

People can usually do what they like with the products they buy -- unless they are purchasing digital products. Murray said consumers are "restricted" in the name of anti-piracy.

But the European media industry said the consumers' group was taking a simplistic view.

"The position taken by the BEUC is somewhat black and white and this whole debate is extremely gray," Lucy Cronin of the European Digital Media Association said.

"We do lose revenue on this," she said, though she did not say how much.

The Recording Industry Association of America claims the music industry loses around euro3.6 billion ($4.2 billion) worldwide each year.

Cronin said any moves to combat piracy should go hand in hand with more licenses for legitimate companies to sell their music online in order to give consumers more choice.

BEUC wants the European Commission to propose more EU laws on consumers' rights, saying that big corporations' licensing terms goes far beyond what is needed to protect their intellectual property rights.

"True piracy of intellectual property is a big problem generated by criminals," Murray said. "We strongly believe in protecting intellectual property but not by demonizing ordinary consumers."

He said it was time to guarantee consumers certain basic rights in the digital world and to tell them what they could do with their digital hardware and content.

According to a Forrester Research report from August 2004, some 89 percent of Europeans said they never paid to download music or video.

--__

On the Net:

http://www.consumersdigitalrights.org
gdZiemann  
 Date: November 10, 2005 @ 3:01 PM
peatrap beat me on this one, but here's Fox's version:

First Sony BMG 'Rootkit' Virus Reported
TotallyFrust...  
 Date: November 10, 2005 @ 3:03 PM
Hot off the press....And from Fox!!!

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,175188,00.html

AMSTERDAM — A computer security firm said on Thursday it had discovered the first virus that uses music publisher Sony BMG's controversial CD copy-protection software to hide on PCs and wreak havoc.


Please read the rest....It looks like Sony managed to get the recognition they feel they deserve. Almost everyone is now concerned about the efforts to protect copyright.

Shmoo - I submitted this under the News tab with the entire article if you wish to take it to the front.
PenisBrain  
 Date: November 10, 2005 @ 3:10 PM
And on the Big Media are dinosaurs front.....


iPod Pushes TV Network Execs Online
By Richard Menta

There were quite a few naysayers among the pundits a couple of weeks back when Apple introduced an iPod that can play video content. This included wary executives from NBC and CBS who resisted Apple's initial dialogue to lend their best shows on sale as iTunes downloads. ABC did not resist, mostly due to Disney's desire to mend bridges with Pixar. They made two of their highest rated shows available on the service.

The result was the sale of over a million video files on iTunes in a little over two weeks, bringing in $2 million in revenues at $1.99 a download. The end result is a wake up call that pushed the executives at NBC and CBS to action.

The announcement the other day that ABC's competitors would start their own service was a pure reaction to iTunes initial success. CBS will team with Comcast and NBC with DirectTV to provide these on demand services. Obviously, these were services that were in talks already by the swiftness of their announcements. The ABC deal is what pushed both NBC and CBS to sign.

These services differ from the iTunes service as the shows will be for rent at $0.99 an episode rather than sold for $2.00. It is a different financial model, but as Paul Resnikoff pointed out on Digital Music News all are really experiments to find the most sustainable models.

We have suggested that the major media put their content online for years. Resistance to change prevented that from happening for quite awhile. While the NBC and CBS deals are via cable/satellite delivery rather than online, it shows you how much influence Apple is having on the media conglomerates. Apple has the tendency to leave its competition in the dust and the fear of being left behind outweighs the fear that new business schemes will cannabalize the old. This is the first step to wider online delivery of both new and older content.


If you ask me, none of their filth is worth our hard earned money nomatter the price they fix.
PenisBrain  
 Date: November 10, 2005 @ 3:19 PM
Check it out! I'm a big fan of CD Baby a site where you can buy music and help local artists. http://www.cdbaby.com/

I'm a big fan of MathRock so if you're like me you may want to sample the artists I've listed here........Enjoy!

A PROBLEM OF ALARMING DIMENSIONS
BORN WITH A TAIL
BRONWYN
BRUTALLY HANDSOME GENTLEMEN
DRUMS AND TUBA
IN MEDIAS RES
NAP ATTACK
SOUND OF REVERSE
SOUP OF THE DAY

So whatever the flavor wonder on over and check some of this bands out. They're pretty jamming!
gdZiemann  
 Date: November 10, 2005 @ 3:26 PM
Chuck Berry sues karaoke distributors
CopyrightLaw...  
 Date: November 10, 2005 @ 5:14 PM
Most interesting line in the above article:
"Unlike many recording stars of his era, Berry owns all the publishing rights to his songs through his Isalee Music Co., his attorneys said."

At least he can have a say about what is done with HIS music.
TrueAudio  
 Date: November 10, 2005 @ 11:18 PM
Everyone please request that infowars.com covers the story of the Sony rootkit DRM spyware, I've already emailed them, you can do the same from this link (whether or not you regard or agree with infowars.com, or not --they report online news, and Alex Jones is a reporter, the more people we can get info out to damage the RIAA with the better, they sure as hell deserve it more than ever now.

http://www.infowars.com/contact.html

Thank you
TrueAudio  
 Date: November 10, 2005 @ 11:57 PM
Lots of good new info at this link

http://www.sysinternals.com/blog/2005/10/sony-rootkits-and-digital-rights.html
TrueAudio  
 Date: November 11, 2005 @ 2:33 AM
Partial list of XCP (and of course RIAA) infected trash to warn others about, i.e. those in charge of a local Walmart or something.

# Trey Anastasio, Shine (Columbia)
# Celine Dion, On ne Change Pas (Epic)
# Neil Diamond, 12 Songs (Columbia)
# Our Lady Peace, Healthy in Paranoid Times (Columbia)
# Chris Botti, To Love Again (Columbia)
# Van Zant, Get Right with the Man (Columbia)
# Switchfoot, Nothing is Sound (Columbia)
# The Coral, The Invisible Invasion (Columbia)
Acceptance, Phantoms (Columbia)
# Susie Suh, Susie Suh (Epic)
# Amerie, Touch (Columbia)
# Life of Agony, Broken Valley (Epic)
# Horace Silver Quintet, Silver's Blue (Epic Legacy)
# Gerry Mulligan, Jeru (Columbia Legacy)
# Dexter Gordon, Manhattan Symphonie (Columbia Legacy)
# The Bad Plus, Suspicious Activity (Columbia)
# The Dead 60s, The Dead 60s (Epic)
# Dion, The Essential Dion (Columbia Legacy)
# Natasha Bedingfield, Unwritten (Epic)
# Ricky Martin, Life (Columbia) (labeled as XCP, but, oddly, our disc had no protection)

http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/12667?t=1131693476?t=1131693557
byteme  
 Date: November 11, 2005 @ 9:33 AM
Here is a link to detailed information on Fair Use on the Stanford University Libraries site:

[url=http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/chapter9/index.html]Copyright & Fair Use[\url]
byteme  
 Date: November 11, 2005 @ 9:35 AM
Oops, I screwed that one up.

Fair Use
CynicalGeezer  
 Date: November 11, 2005 @ 11:58 AM

Cynical or not, I've gotta acknowledge our being blessed with some great posts from you folks!
I've been appreciating the information that's been coming our way from so many of you in this thread as well as others, and I can't help but think that 'our' website is making an informative difference for those who access it.
CopyrightLaw...  
 Date: November 11, 2005 @ 12:31 PM
Sony's DRM - Why YOU Should Care

Great summary George, everyone here needs to read it and know it.
peatrap  
 Date: November 11, 2005 @ 12:49 PM
sony gives mac the root
http://www.theregister.com/2005/11/11/sony_bmg_mac_drm/
DeadMan2003  
 Date: November 11, 2005 @ 12:52 PM
http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/05/11/11/1557256.shtml?tid=155&tid=95

theodp writes "Review your local dry cleaner, pay $10 million? Among the three new patents awarded to Amazon.com this week is one that covers collecting reviews by letting visitors to a Web site fill out a form. Amazon.com spokesman Craig Berman said he couldn't speculate on whether the company would attempt to license its new intellectual property." From the article: "In one embodiment of the patent, the system sends consumers a message inviting them to write a review in a predetermined amount of time after the purchase. It's a method widely used by online retailers, including Yahoo Shopping. The patent also covers the method of tracking who returns to rate products by asking them to click on a unique link in an e-mail. But the patent even covers collecting reviews by letting visitors to a Web site fill out a form. "
gfmlcka  
 Date: November 11, 2005 @ 1:20 PM
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/11/11/secfocus_sony_analysis/
gfmlcka  
 Date: November 11, 2005 @ 3:30 PM
Sony stops, for now.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10005667/
CopyrightLaw...  
 Date: November 11, 2005 @ 4:02 PM
Sony To Stop Controversial CD Software

Story from Yahoo. Is sony really that stupid to say . "We also intend to re-examine all aspects of our content protection initiative to be sure that it continues to meet our goals of security and ease of consumer use," ???

Well, Sony, likewise 'we intend to reexamin all aspects of our BOYCOTT to be sure any company that pulls this kind of CRAP again gets noticed worldwide, so that we know who NOT to buy CD's from!'
gdZiemann  
 Date: November 11, 2005 @ 4:11 PM
From the MSNBC link:

“We also intend to re-examine all aspects of our content protection initiative to be sure that it continues to meet our goals of security and ease of consumer use,” [Sony] said in a statement.

----

Sony acts like it hasn't done anything wrong. They obviously don't care what happens to the people who actually buy their product, which pretty much sums up their "goals of security." If they really cared about "ease of consumer use," they would abandon DRM entirely. The only thing it seems to prevent is their chance of regaining credibility.

Go look at the Van Zant CD reviews at Amazon. Everyone pretty much agrees that you absolutely should not buy it, but none of them cites the music on the disc as the reason.

Can it get worse? Oh yeah. The Justice Dept. has asked for a bill which would "widen intellectual-property protections to cover those who try but fail to make illicit copies of music, movies, software or other copyrighted material."

Did you catch that? "...to cover those who try but fail..."

The Justice Dept. wants to jail people for NOT making copies because they're too stupid to do it right. This also begs the question of how the hell they would know.
cobrastrike  
 Date: November 11, 2005 @ 4:32 PM
Can WE ALL say PHONE HOME?....
DeadMan2003  
 Date: November 11, 2005 @ 4:33 PM
Too offensive to show directly on this page but funny nonetheless :)

[url=Offensive RIAA ]http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/5599/11317422210582ef.jpg[/url
DeadMan2003  
 Date: November 11, 2005 @ 4:33 PM
Oops! [url=http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/5599/11317422210582ef.jpg[Offensive RIAA[/url]
DeadMan2003  
 Date: November 11, 2005 @ 4:34 PM
Ah poo! Try again.

Offensive RIAA
cobrastrike  
 Date: November 11, 2005 @ 4:36 PM
Oh Ya...Dose the "Computer Fraud & Abuse ACT" really cover home PC's?
Or dose this act just cover gov. boxes?
PenisBrain  
 Date: November 11, 2005 @ 5:44 PM
And now from those wacky folks that bring us the RIAA....

Tragically, it's not Hip
By GRANT ROBERTSON

They know what songs you like, even before you like them.
Record labels spend millions of dollars each year trying to predict what singles will top the charts and which ingredients make a hit single.

Now, two Massachusetts Institute of Technology PhD grads believe they have cracked the code.
After years of crunching data, Brian Whitman and Tristan Jehan have devised a computer program that listens to a song, then predicts how humans will react to it.

The response is so specific at times that it can forecast how a single will perform on the charts and spit out a review, guessing what words will be used to describe it, from "sexy to romantic to loud and upbeat," Mr. Whitman said.
It's a long way from the days of talent scouts combing smoky bars for the next big sound.
But computer analysis of songs is not necessarily new. A wide variety of companies spend hours in laboratories breaking down hit songs so the music industry can stay one step ahead of the market.

The goal is to pinpoint trends in pitch, rhythm and cadence that are driving consumer spending habits. However, the MIT researchers believe they've taken the science to another level.
"Some people really care about instrument sounds and complexity of the music," Mr. Whitman said. "But the 14-year-old teenage girl could care less, as long as her friends are listening to it."
The MIT method, developed at the school's renowned Media Laboratory, also takes into account social responses to hit music that are fed into the algorithms.

The researchers pull data from weblogs, chat rooms and music reviews -- anywhere a song is being discussed -- and feed it into the computer, which allows the software to gauge the popularity of a certain sound.

Once all the information is tabulated, the computer can listen to an entirely new album and predict how people will respond based on what it knows about the latest reactions to the music it has already heard.

If it sounds far-fetched, consider this: the system has been predicting Billboard hits with surprising accuracy over the past several months. While people may think their musical tastes are unpredictable and whimsical, they are actually quite traceable, Mr. Whitman says.

The researchers' goal is to revolutionize the tracking techniques used by companies such as Amazon.com and Apple Computer Inc.'s iTunes music store. Those companies compare similarities between songs, add in the buying history of consumers, then recommend albums that each person should buy.

Mr. Whitman and Mr. Jehan, who are both musicians, scoff at those methods.

"They say you bought this so you'll like this. But it's really bad for music because it can only recommend stuff that people have bought a lot of," he said.

Still, the music industry has been trying for decades to come up with a reliable system. The standard practice today is to crunch data from focus groups across a broad spectrum of tastes, which gives hints of a song's true potential in the market.

New York-based HitPredictor has built its business crunching weekly data from focus groups, and many of the play lists heard on North American radio are influenced by the company.

HitPredictor polls thousands of listeners each week on songs that have not yet been released, then makes prognostications on how the single will perform.

The company established its credibility in 2002 when RCA used its method to determine the order in which the singles from Christina Aguilera's album Stripped should be released to maximize record sales. Since then, other labels have turned into regular customers.

After crunching feedback data on the Aguilera album, HitPredictor realized RCA needed to rethink the release order because the focus groups were unexpectedly reacting favourably to some songs, but not others. Each prediction the company made in terms of how well each single would sell eventually proved true in the market.
"A lot of labels put music through our research to confirm their instincts," said Doug Ford, co-founder of HitPredictor. "They've got a few guys in management that like this song, but marketing likes that song, so they go through us."

HitPredictor struck gold again in late 2003, when its computers flagged a blip in the focus-group data. Listeners, who are fed random songs and asked to rate them, were repeatedly highlighting a little-known U.S. band called Crossfade, which the big labels had passed over.
Mr. Ford went to Sony Music and told the company to consider listening to HitPredictor's computers and focus groups rather than their own talent scouts. In 2004, the band sold more than a million albums.
Despite the performance of HitPredictor, the researchers at MIT aren't looking to build another software program that simply picks commercial hits. Mr. Whitman and Mr. Jehan's goal is to expose the world to a wider variety of music.

Forecasting what songs people will like before they hear them is easy, they say. In many ways, it's been done for decades without computers. Finding good songs is much harder.
"There's too much music out there and its really hard to figure out what you want to hear," Mr. Whitman said.
"So we have systems here that are automatically identifying what people like, without knowing much about them . . . we're trying to get in between the audio and the audience."

Anybody else buying this nonsense?
gdZiemann  
 Date: November 11, 2005 @ 6:06 PM
Wow. I agree with Gadfly and have a logical reason why.

If, by some miracle, this were available in the 1950s, it would have rejected Elvis and Buddy Holly. In the 60s, it would have rejected The Beatles and Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin and Motown.

Punk rock? Forget it. Reggae? Close, but the machine doesn't quite relate to those odd rhythms. Thrash metal? Grunge? Only if the machine survived Hendrix.

Analyze popular music and train software to assimilate it and you just get "pop" music. That's all well and good for the mainstream audience, but it will overlook the next radical change in the evolution of music, which is way overdue.
gdZiemann  
 Date: November 11, 2005 @ 6:09 PM
I have updated the story I posted earlier today.
TrueAudio  
 Date: November 11, 2005 @ 6:49 PM
http://www.internetnews.com/ec-news/article.php/3563396

November 11, 2005
Amazon Gets Patents on Consumer Reviews
By Susan Kuchinskas


Review your local dry cleaner, pay $10 million?

User reviews are a hot new content area, being used by Google (Quote, Chart), Yahoo (Quote, Chart) and MSN to sweeten their local search results. But as of Thursday, such consumer reviews could put search providers, as well as thousands of e-commerce sites, video rental or review sites and online booksellers, in the sights of Amazon.com's (Quote, Chart) lawyers.

The online retailer of books and just about everything else was awarded three new patents, covering its purchase circles, search and consumer reviews. While Amazon.com's patent police would go after Web publishers, not consumers, the review patent could put the kibosh on the social networking components of many search services.

Amazon.com's purchase circles can be based on everything from a hobby to an employer, or they can merely peep to see what's the hot book among Oracle employees. The patent covers methods of forming circles and marketing to them, for example, by showing one person looking at a book detail page and who else in the circle has bought that book.

The second patent covers a method of discovering and delivering as search results related products from multiple categories, such as books written by Steve Martin, as well as DVDs of movies in which he appeared.

The third patent is the real kicker. It covers methods for encouraging consumers to write reviews of items they've purchased by determining the optimal times to send them e-mails or reminders.

In one embodiment of the patent, the system sends consumers a message inviting them to write a review in a predetermined amount of time after the purchase. It's a method widely used by online retailers, including Yahoo (Quote, Chart) Shopping. The patent also covers the method of tracking who returns to rate products by asking them to click on a unique link in an e-mail.

But the patent even covers collecting reviews by letting visitors to a Web site fill out a form.

Yahoo has made a big push into user-generated media. In August, users of Yahoo 360 got the ability to rate local businesses and search for reviews written by others in their networks.

Amazon.com spokesman Craig Berman said he couldn't speculate on whether the company would attempt to license its new intellectual property.

As one of the first e-commerce companies, Amazon.com has been on both sides of patent infringement suits based on patents issued for practices that, in the time between patent application and award, have become standard operating procedure on the Web. These so-called submarine patents for business processes suddenly surface after other companies have based their operations on practices they cover.

For example, the Web seller has a hotly contested patent on one-click buying. It sued Barnes and Noble for infringing, but the rival bookseller won on appeal in 2001 and the companies settled in 2002. Another covers hosting electronic forums for discussing items for sale.

At the same time, Amazon.com is being sued by another e-commerce pioneer, Cendant Publishing. Cendant holds a patent on using a customer's purchasing history to recommend other items that might be of interest.

"How about patenting the whole concept of putting words together to form sentences?

Or how about patenting the idea of putting an archive of past news stories on a web site?

In related news, I now own the patent on mixing red and blue to make purple.... I'll be going door to door in my neighborhood to collect royalties on Monday.

Amazon, you greedy mother-fuckers, I will NEVER purchase anything from a company that is so skeevy as to abuse the patent system for anti-competitive purposes. Too bad the rest of the pleebs won't care."
DeadMan2003  
 Date: November 11, 2005 @ 10:09 PM
TrueAudio you nearly made it but you posted a better link than me anyhow :)
TrueAudio  
 Date: November 12, 2005 @ 1:43 AM
Hehe =) ty
independentm...  
 Date: November 12, 2005 @ 5:37 PM
Judge Allows Woman to Sue KISS Rocker --AP

A woman who claims to be a former girlfriend of KISS rocker Gene Simmons can proceed with a defamation lawsuit in which she says he made her sound like a "sex-addicted nymphomaniac" during a VH1 television show, a judge has ruled.
peatrap  
 Date: November 12, 2005 @ 5:48 PM
pet monkey sony bit the hand that feeds it.
http://geemodo.blogspot.com/2005/11/wahington-cast-eyes-on-sony-like-drm.html
peatrap  
 Date: November 12, 2005 @ 6:09 PM
light at end of the tunnel went out for sony(this sight loaded with information)
http://www.technologypundits.com/index.php?article_id=231
TrueAudio  
 Date: November 12, 2005 @ 6:20 PM
"So, I called Sony's tech support at 800-222-7669 and eventually the obviously Indian rep told me told me to call Sony BMG at 212-833-8000.

The operator at Sony BMG in turn directed me to call the Sony tech support number. Talk about a run around.

So, I did a whois on Sony BMG's website, and called the technical contact at 212-833-7305. This resulted in me being transferred to an individual who indentified himself only as Sony's internal techincal support. He was very rude, said that he wasn't even supposed to be talking to me, and ultimately directed me to Mark's post and told to download RKR to remove the DRM rootkit. I attempted to explain to him that this program only works on NT and was no help to me since I'm running Win 98. He said that he couldn't do anything else. When I said that I wanted to speak to his manager, he told me that management was unavailiable, and when I said that I didn't appreciate this unauthorized and apparently illegal modification of my system, he said, "So sue us." '

Class Action Suit. Have you heard of it, Sony?

http://db.audioasylum.com/cgi/m.mpl?forum=gen eral&n=407614&highlight=Rootkit&r=&session=

"What we decided to do is take extra precautionary steps to allay any fears," said Mathew Gilliat-Smith, First 4 Internet's CEO. "There should be no concern here."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9911371/

""[Sony] employs 151,400 people worldwide."

These are the people I feel sorry for. Their employer has a distracting obsession with harming their paying customers rather than an obsession with releasing quality products that beat the competition.

Sony employees should ask for these practices to halt."
http://www.audiocircle.com/circles/viewtopic. php?t=22697
TrueAudio  
 Date: November 12, 2005 @ 6:25 PM
Above links didn't work here you go

http://db.audioasylum.com/cgi/m.mpl?forum=general&n=407614&highlight=Rootkit&r=&session=

http://www.audiocircle.com/circles/viewtopic.php?t=22697
peatrap  
 Date: November 12, 2005 @ 7:20 PM
telecommunications and the enter net
http://www.technologypundits.com/index.php?article_id=230
autodidact  
 Date: November 13, 2005 @ 12:29 AM
I checked out the new Paul McCartney CD from the library. It has a few stunningly good tunes on it, and some medium good tunes -- it isn't "RIAA garbage" as some would say, but neither would I buy it, except very cheap as a used item. This notice caught my eye -- on the back of the booklet:

"This recording and artwork are protected by copyright law. Using internet services to distribute copyrighted music, giving away illegal copies of discs or lending discs to others for them to copy is illegal and does not support those involved in making this piece of music -- including the artist. By carrying out any of these actions it has the same effect as stealing music. Applicable laws provide severe civil and criminal penalties for the unauthorised reproduction, distribution and digital transmission of copyrighted sound recordings. Many examples of where to buy legal downloads can be found at www.musicfromemi.com."

I thought this was such a weasely statement, I had to share it. Now they aren't saying it is stealing, they say it has the same effect. Then it says you can't give away "illegal copies" of discs, but what is an illegal copy? If the disc itself is a legal manufactured copy (i.e. not a bootleg), you can make a copy from it under AHRA -- this is what I am led to understand from the law professor who helped craft the language of the law. Correct me if I am in error.

Even Sony with its dastardly rootkit DRM allows three copies to be made. Now, what do they think a guy is going to do with three copies? There is almost a tacit understanding there that at least one of those copies is going to go to a friend, or brother, or lover, or...

Oh the tangled web they weave. Maybe they need to get on the same page. Sony is saying -- let us take over your computer, and we'll let you make three copies. EMI (on the McCartney disc) is at the very least implying that any copy given to others is illegal. And it isn't stealing, but has the "same effect."

McCartney hasn't put out an album worth buying, copying, or stealing since Tug of War, and I already own two copies of that. 100% legal even by RIAA standards. Vinyl and CD. :-(

Although I admit this is more of a return to form for McCartney. If only he would go indie. No reason why Sir Paul couldn't. If he can't make it, nobody can. But I guess you can't teach an old dog new tricks. Will we still feed him when he's 64? Not me. :-)
gfmlcka  
 Date: November 13, 2005 @ 12:56 AM
Why is he on EMI? What ever happened to Apple Records?
autodidact  
 Date: November 13, 2005 @ 5:19 AM
Ha ha. Very funny. The Apple logo was on the Beatles Anthology laserdiscs I bought a few years ago. And I think there is an Apple logo on the Beatles CDs from Capital/EMI. I'd have to check. Some of those might have a Parlaphone logo. I think the Beatles finally ironed out their business battles with Apple.

But even if Paul was on Apple records, I bet Apple would still have EMI distributing them, or one of the other majors.
PenisBrain  
 Date: November 13, 2005 @ 1:39 PM
First it's Child Porn on P2P, now it's Terrorism. Great to know it's the "RIAA" looking out for "our" wellbeing. That's of course when they're not suing us.

Hollywood Demands New Piracy Laws
By Jon Newton 11/13/05

Microsoft, Apple and other owners of the BSA (Business Software Alliance), together with the entertainment cartels, are demanding that America's Cheney/Bush administration adds new commercial 'crimes' to US law.

What's their excuse?

"Terrorism."

New laws, mooted by purely commercial intersts, would, "bump up criminal penalties for pirates, expand criminal prosecutors' powers and punish anyone who attempts' to infringe a copyright," says CNET News.
Speaking at a Washington "antipiracy summit" hosted by the US Chamber of Commerce, USA attorney general Alberto Gonzales said the Department of Justice, "recently submitted to Congress a 'legislative package' aimed at toughening up intellectual-property enforcement amid evolving technology," says the story.

"According to the proposal being circulated by the department, the measure would create a new crime called 'attempting to infringe a copyright' and subject it to the same penalties as more serious infringement offenses."
It would also allow "authorities" to "seize and destroy pirated and counterfeit goods - with a special nod to music, movies and digitally obtained materials. Also on that list are any goods used to produce pirated or counterfeit material, as well as property obtained with proceeds from the sale of pirated or counterfeit material."

Anyone found guilty of the new 'crimes' wouldn't only face jail, says CNET. He or she would also, "have to pay the copyright holder" and any other "victim of the offense" out-of-pocket losses "resulting from the crime".
At the moment, "it's only possible to enforce against copyrights that are registered with the government" but, "The new proposal would make that true only in civil cases, allowing prosecutors to go after pirates regardless of whether the copyright is registered."

New technology is "encouraging large-scale criminal enterprises to get involved in intellectual-property theft," Gonzales said, adding that proceeds from the illicit businesses are used, "quite frankly, to fund terrorism activities".
The BSA, "whose president lamented at Thursday's event the $33 billion annual toll from piracy on the software industry," applauded the move, saying the group looked forward to reviewing the proposed legislation, states the story.

BSA statistics used to support claims that its owners are losing vast amounts of potential income to counterfeits and duplicates have been shown to be false.
The RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) also issued a statement of support but, "That sentiment was not shared by the digital rights group Public Knowledge, which said in a statement that it wished the department 'had devoted some analysis as well to protecting the fair use rights of consumers'," says CNET.
TrueAudio  
 Date: November 13, 2005 @ 2:29 PM
Maybe we should organize a 500+ person protest against DRM and raise hell with the hardware manufacturers at the 2006 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

If only Intel and Microsoft were against the RIAA/MPAA like we are, they alone could have saved this country from technological enslavement.

"giving away illegal copies of discs or lending discs to others for them to copy is illegal"

So if I go to a friends house and listen to his CD collection, were both criminals because I "experienced/benefitted" from the music but I didn't compensate the copywrong holder, and he's guilty of infringement because he let me listen ?

Maybe when your sitting there in traffic on a 3 lane road and someone pulls up with booming bass rap music, the FBI should swoop in fast and put up roadblocks and take everyone to jail that was in the vicinity of the rap music that they heard through the car that they didn't pay for (and won't buy because they heard firsthand how much it sucked, being guilty of "try before you buy").

On Airlines, they should make the word "Share" have the same severe legal implications as saying the word "Bomb", mandating an emergency landing, and immediate arrest, interrogation, and imprisonment.

Not to want to get into a political flame war, but this is what happens when 290 million Americans completely dismiss the notion that there are alternatives to voting EITHER Republican or Democrat. Because 99% of Americans (maybe slightly less) dismiss Libertarian, or the Constitutional parties as "jokes" or "non-contenders", and everyone collectively believes that they could never win.

Thus, since you believe they cannot win, they cannot. What anyone believes cannot happen in terms of something that they have direct, complete, individual control over, cannot, and will not happen.
autodidact  
 Date: November 13, 2005 @ 2:33 PM
New technology is "encouraging large-scale criminal enterprises to get involved in intellectual-property theft," Gonzales said, adding that proceeds from the illicit businesses are used, "quite frankly, to fund terrorism activities".

---
The first part of that is true, I think. Our legislators should demand some proof of the latter claim.

If terrorists want to raise funds, I think there is far more money in drugs than in bootleg CDs.
CynicalGeezer  
 Date: November 13, 2005 @ 3:13 PM

The phrase "motivated purely by commercial interests" just about says it all, doesn't it?

. . ."The digital rights group Public Knowledge said in a statement that it wished the department had devoted some analysis as well to protecting the fair use rights of consumers."

Entertainment cartels' likely attitude: "Huh? You can't really be suggesting (chuckle!) that we should consider what CONSUMERS need or want? Goodness' sakes, why bother with such frivolity as that when we can get almost everything we want from Capitol Hill without giving a hoot about what's fair or right or in the best interests of media customers!"
DeadMan2003  
 Date: November 13, 2005 @ 4:23 PM
http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200511/200511110027.html

Unrepentant Soribada to Launch Free P2P Site

Korea’s biggest provider of peer-to-peer file sharing services Soribada, only recently closed down under pressure from the recording industry, was unrepentant on Friday, saying it will roll out new P2P software soon. The move is expected to inflame the powerful music industry, which says file-swapping sites violate its copyright.

“We will launch a new P2P service called Open Soribada… to replace Soribada 3, which was shut down by a court,” the firm’s chief Yang Jung-hwan said.

The Open Soribada software simply supports file-sharing between Internet users, but additional services on the website including registration and reward points will be scrapped. The Soribada webmaster will no longer ask members for personal information or charge them for providing the service in an apparent bid by the firm to place itself beyond the reach of the law.

“The service recently suspended by court order was limited to Soribada 3, but not all P2P services were banned,” Yang said. “I’m wracking my brain to develop various models that don’t infringe on rights of Internet users and allow us to allocate revenues to copyright holders.”

Yet the music industry claims that given the court order to shut down Soribada’s services, albeit provisional, it is evidently illegal for the firm to launch a fresh P2P service.

Yun Seong-wu of the Korean Association of Phonogram Producers argued the court ruling “banned Soribada from profiting from its software because it was in violation of copyright laws, but [the company] is ignoring the verdict and evading the law.”
CynicalGeezer  
 Date: November 13, 2005 @ 11:22 PM

. . ."The digital rights group Public Knowledge said in a statement that it wished the department had devoted some analysis as well to protecting the fair use rights of consumers."

The cartels' reaction to the notion of "protecting fair use rights of consumers" might be: "Oh, if only they knew how absolutely AMUSING such a concept is to us!" while they soon have to hold their stomachs to contain outbursts of derisive laughter. (And then, oops, there they go, virtually beside themselves, falling to the floor, slapping their hands on the floor, HOWLING with laughter, gasping for breath while shedding tears of spasmodic mirth!)
CopyrightLaw...  
 Date: November 14, 2005 @ 9:21 AM
I see why they call you CynicalGeezer! But what's scary is that you are right on. Our Copyright Laws do NOTHING to protect what law abiding citizens consider to be their "fair use" rights. So why doesn't Congress do something to try to protect those? Why must Congress always be listening to the RIAA companies (with money$$) and not to its constituents (with votes)? Maybe if most of them LOST THEIR JOBS, maybe then they'd think about their voters fair use rights.

Current copyright law continues to suck.
autodidact  
 Date: November 14, 2005 @ 12:42 PM
Maybe this is a simple letter that a person could write to your Congresscritter: Simply tell them that before new restrictions are put on technology, be it audio, video, broadcast, or internet technology, insist that they must have public hearings on the matter, with an equal number of representatives of the average user, the consumer, to represent the rights of the American people as opposed to the rights of the copyright owners and content delivery industry.

This is a simple principle that needs to be followed for all new technology involving patent and copyright. We need to drum this into the heads of people allegedly representing us. Unfortunately, most of them are in safe seats and they don't care what we think, for the most part. They will make a pretense but that's about it.

Still, it doesn't hurt to make one's voice heard.
gdZiemann  
 Date: November 14, 2005 @ 1:49 PM
NYTimes headline:
Big Drug Makers See Sales Decline With Their Image

Unlike the RIAA, drug companies can spot cause and effect.
PenisBrain  
 Date: November 14, 2005 @ 4:44 PM
Firestorm rages over lockdown on digital music
By Jefferson Graham

New York University sophomores Inga Chernyak and Diana Rosenthal took part in a demonstration near campus the other day.
It had nothing to do with the Iraq war, a political election or any of the other hot-button issues students normally want to protest. Instead, the pair and about 20 other NYU students were out to rally consumers against what Chernyak calls a dark force that has invaded her tech life: digital rights management.
DRM, as it is known in the entertainment industry, uses computer software to make it tougher to freely copy entertainment purchases. It is what prevents users of RealNetworks' Rhapsody, Microsoft's MSN Music and Yahoo Music from transferring legally purchased digital music directly to the world's most-popular digital player, Apple's iPod. DRM software is in the background of all pre-recorded DVDs: It's the reason consumers can't copy Hollywood DVDs to their hard drives.
DRM is the root of the firestorm that has engulfed Sony BMG Music Entertainment over the past few weeks. Sunday, the company acknowledged that more than 20 Sony BMG music CD titles using a controversial form of copy protection are vulnerable to a computer virus.

Sony — which plans to have all major 2006 releases copy-protected — said it would temporarily stop the manufacture of the affected CDs but won't pull them off the market. Titles include releases by Neil Diamond, Celine Dion and rockers Van Zant. The company also provided a patch that guards against the virus. The problem doesn't affect discs played in non-computer CD or DVD players.
"This is a good first step, but Sony has a ways to go to make things right for the consumer," says Mark Russinovich, the Austin computer-security expert and blogger who first brought the issue to the world's attention.
Even before Sony's DRM flap caught fire, tech enthusiasts, consumer-advocacy groups, bloggers and some musicians had been howling that copy-protection restrictions have become too severe.
"We were horrified when we first heard about the new copy-protection policy," Switchfoot bassist Tim Foreman recently wrote on a fan site hosted by Sony Music.

"Keeping a lid on copies"

Entertainment companies say they need copy-protection tools to keep music and videos from being traded for free on the Internet. They also want to restrict the number of times songs can be copied to CDs and passed among friends.
But copy-protection software isn't uniform, or what techies call "interoperable." Dave Berlind, executive editor of computer-oriented website ZDNet, calls DRM "digital restriction management."
Perhaps the biggest consumer headache: copy-protected CDs are designed to prevent the easy transfer of songs to Apple's iPod.
"Consumers don't like copy-protected CDs at all," says Terry Currier, owner of the Music Millennium record store in Portland, Ore. "They return them to us, saying they don't work, and we're the ones who are stuck with them, since the labels won't take back opened product."
Artists aren't happy, either. The Foo Fighters, Dave Matthews Band and Switchfoot have posted notes on websites decrying restrictions and offering tips for how to skirt the system.
Jamie Kitman, manager for British group OK Go, says he was distressed this year when executives from the band's label, EMI, told him about its copy-protection plans.
"Copy protection has been proven ineffective, annoying and, ultimately, it puts the industry and artists associated with it in a bad light," he says. "The fans don't realize the artists have no say in this."
With DRM, ownership rules state how many copies can be made of a CD, often in long documents that consumers sign off on but rarely read. Copy-protected CDs even dictate how consumers can listen to their music. With the Sony BMG discs, for instance, anyone who uses competing media players, such as iTunes or Musicmatch, is out of luck.
To play one of the Sony CD titles on a PC, you must first accept Sony BMG's licensing agreement and a software download, which includes the Sony music player and the hidden files that have become prey to hackers. You can't take the stuff off your computer without Sony's permission.
"My feeling about DRM was that it was infringing upon my rights as a consumer," says Chernyak, whose group, Free Culture at NYU, is organizing another protest for later this month. "But now, with what Sony has done, I feel it's also infringing upon my personal property. They're putting something on my computer I'm not aware of."

"Why pay?"

The music industry hasn't been the same since then-college freshman Shawn Fanning developed a tool for finding online music in his dorm room in 1999. Fanning's original Napster — coupled with the growth of CD burners — showed the world how easy it was to get free music from the Internet, simply by clicking a mouse and saving song files to a hard drive.
The music industry is still fighting to regain its footing, despite lawsuits against song swappers, a Supreme Court victory against file-sharing companies and several shutdowns of once-leading firms. More people than ever are using file-sharing programs. Music sales, meanwhile, sank 10% from 2000 to 2004, according to the Recording Industry Association of America.
Apple's hugely successful iPod and iTunes Music Store have helped wean song swappers away from file-sharing services by selling authorized downloads for 99 cents apiece. Apple has sold more than 500 million songs since opening the iTunes store in 2003 — an impressive number but a fraction of the songs being traded on the Internet.
Apple uses its own DRM method for digital music, which it calls FairPlay. It's led to much consumer confusion, due to a basic stance of Apple's business policy. Apple won't license FairPlay to other companies, so rivals in digital music are forced to use other DRM tools — most notably Microsoft's Windows Media.
And just like VHS and Beta, Apple and Windows, and other incompatible formats, songs in Windows Media won't transfer easily to the iPod, and FairPlay tunes won't play on non-iPod devices.
Apple declined comment.
"Consumers should say, 'Apple, we won't buy your music until you make your DRM interoperable,' " says Apple competitor Rob Glaser, CEO of RealNetworks.
The security companies that make copy-protection software acknowledge that their systems won't be complete until the songs can be easily transferred to the iPod. "Everyone benefits," says Adam Gervin, senior director of marketing for Macrovision, which supplies DRM tools for many record labels, including EMI. "We want that to happen."
Richard Cottrell, head of EMI's content-protection division, says the label aims to have all of its new releases copy-protected next year worldwide — and he believes the songs will be playable on iPods.
He says he's been working with Macrovision, testing a tweak in the system that will get the songs onto the iPod. He says the system "is almost ready."
Sony and EMI say they turned to copy-protected CDs in response to declining sales. Rival labels Warner Music and Universal have yet to introduce copy-restricted CDs.
EMI has sold more than 175 copy-protected CD titles, mostly outside the USA, and Cottrell says the amount of complaints has been minuscule.

"Sony BMG in the crossfire"

No entity has taken bigger hits in the DRM debate than Sony BMG Music. When Russinovich first blogged about the issue, he showed that some of Sony's copy-protected discs had hidden files, called "rootkits," that potentially could be used for viruses. Sony initially responded by posting a downloadable patch on its website, which makes the file visible on a hard drive.
But the patch doesn't answer all of the problems, says Russinovich. "Sony's music player still contacts Sony's site with a CD identifier, tracking your listening habits without proper disclosure, and that's potentially an invasion of privacy," he says.
The files can be removed, but you must first submit personal information to Sony and await an e-mail reply with a link to delete them.
Sony uses DRM tools from two companies, SunnComm and First 4 Internet. The CD titles that use First 4's XCP software are the ones that have gotten Sony into hot water. To tell which kind of copy protection is on a CD, check the fine print on the back cover (a First 4 Internet CD will read ?cp.sonybmg.com/xcp).
EMI's Cottrell says there are no hidden files in EMI's copy-protected CDs. And he sticks up for DRM tools, saying the copy-protection software makes the experience better for consumers by offering additional features.
Photos, lyrics and video can be accessed in the embedded player that comes with the CDs, he notes. "Without software, we can't make that happen."
Future versions of the discs, he says, also will contain a song-sharing feature. Friends will be able to e-mail a link to where the song can be downloaded from a website and listened to a few times before it times out. "Such a tool isn't available legitimately today," he notes.
Still, analyst Phil Leigh at Inside Digital Media, warns that by putting consumers through so much "hassle," they could just stop buying CDs and return to file-sharing networks. Songs traded in unauthorized fashion online are not copy-protected.
ZDNet's Berlind isn't sold, either.
"DRM is a Catch-22 for consumers," he says. "We want to be law-abiding citizens, and we certainly respect companies' desires to protect their content, but the whole thing has become a rotten mess. You go out and buy music, and guess what, it doesn't play everywhere it should, and you have to jump through hoops to make it play. That's just wrong."

Sorry so Long....Call a Code!!!
DeadMan2003  
 Date: November 14, 2005 @ 6:40 PM
I a way I am glad Apple don;t licence out their DRM. It means that DRM across digital downloads is split. This is good as the more argument over DRM itself there is the better.

If they were to licence it out and everybody used it we'd all be stuck with it and it would creep into everything faster.

At least at the moment it creates conflict and a chance that it can be debated and hopefully one day scrapped entirely (Unlikely though).
otech  
 Date: November 14, 2005 @ 9:36 PM
"A file-swapping network that let college students download movies and music at blazing speeds on the Internet2 research network has closed its doors, the latest casualty of entertainment industry legal pressure."

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-5952060.html
TrueAudio  
 Date: November 14, 2005 @ 11:23 PM
"Uh, people. I think you need to realize that the philosophy of "Strict Father Morality" code gives RIAA, MPAA, and others in the entertainment industries unlimited rights to maximize their bottomline anyway they can. Notice, that the NRA, National Restaurant Association and National Rifle Association, were able to spend big bucks and lobby Congress for their tort reform all because they were able to frame the debate of maximizing their self-interests as being a moral. Contrast that to P2P having little money to defend themselves with much less lobby hard for tort reform. And let's not forget, that both NRAs made populist appeals whereas P2P never realized that RIAA, MPAA, etc ... framed them as the only villians even while hiding the facts that it was their unethical, immoral, and even illegal practices that turned more customers off far more than piracy could ever accomplish. If you don't understand what I am saying, I urge each and every one of you to read "What's the Matter With Kansas?" by Thomas Frank and "Don't Think of an Elephant!" by George Lakoff. But also realize that both parties are the same when it comes to caving in to the RIAA, MPAA, etc ..."

http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/12676
TrueAudio  
 Date: November 14, 2005 @ 11:24 PM
http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/?p=925
autodidact  
 Date: November 15, 2005 @ 8:04 AM
What's the matter with Kansas? Probably not so much wrong with Kansas. They vote for what they consider the lesser of two evils. As I assume the blue staters also did. What's the matter is that we should have a choice other than two evils, one greater and one lesser. Well, there was Nader, but if he was ever sane, he is no longer, so that wasn't a choice -- a real life manifestation of Monty Python's The Loony Party.

On another level, Kansans and everyone else are to blame for letting the government get so big. We don't want to take care of ourselves, so we want Uncle Sam to give us health care, education, medical research, and regulate how thick our ketchup should be. (Yes, there is actually a guy at the National Bureau of Standards who measures how fast ketchup pours.) When government gets too big, and controls too much money, it invites people who want to influence that power and control by bribing, directly or indirectly, the ones who control the purse-strings and write the laws.

Ronald Reagan said, government is not the solution, it is the problem. The solution is less government. Much, much, much less. Let states and cities take care of their own business, according to community standards. There will still be bribery, but it will be a lot less, and a lot less efficient, and a lot less threat to the majority of the citizenry.

True Audio, I agree with you on p2p, but it is the fault of the media for not exposing the sins of the record industry. What we need to do, obviously, is to get the NRA to start a peer-to-peer file sharing service. Then its free music for everybody!
autodidact  
 Date: November 15, 2005 @ 8:05 AM
Oh, I'm sorry about the above post. I got confused and thought this was the off-topic thread. Please forgive. I'd like to keep news in here exclusively, and sorry I offended. But TrueAudio started it!
independentm...  
 Date: November 15, 2005 @ 8:35 AM
More to portable music than ripping and running --USA Today

With the Apple iPod and all the other portable digital music players on the scene, you'd think it was a simple matter to get all the songs you want and play them on the go. Before you rip and run, there are a number of issues to consider.
independentm...  
 Date: November 15, 2005 @ 9:18 AM
Virgin flashes Red Pass for digital music --Reuters

Virgin Group Ltd. on Monday is set to launch Virgin Digital Red Pass, the latest choice in the increasingly competitive field of comprehensive subscription music services. In addition to its library and package of editorial and other features, Red Pass undercuts other services by offering unlimited access for $7.99 a month without a contract.
================

I'm sure the tunes are all DRM infected. AVOID!
PenisBrain  
 Date: November 15, 2005 @ 10:52 AM
Are You Infected by Sony-BMG's Rootkit?
November 09, 2005

Sony-BMG has been using copy-protection technology called XCP in its recent CDs. You insert your CD into your Windows PC, click "agree" in the pop up window, and the CD automatically installs software that uses rootkit techniques to cloak itself from you. Sony-BMG has released a "patch" that supposedly "uncloaks" the XCP software, but it creates new problems.
But how do you know whether you've been infected? It turns out Sony-BMG has deployed XCP on a number of titles, in variety of musical genres, on several of its wholly-owned labels.
EFF(Electronic Frontier Foundation) has confirmed the presence of XCP on the following titles (each has a data session, easily read on a Macintosh, that includes a file called "VERSION.DAT" that announces what version of XCP it is using). If you have one of these CDs, and you have a Windows PC (Macs are totally immune, as usual), you may have caught the XCP bug.

Trey Anastasio, Shine (Columbia)
Celine Dion, On ne Change Pas (Epic)
Neil Diamond, 12 Songs (Columbia)
Our Lady Peace, Healthy in Paranoid Times (Columbia)
Chris Botti, To Love Again (Columbia)
Van Zant, Get Right with the Man (Columbia)
Switchfoot, Nothing is Sound (Columbia)
The Coral, The Invisible Invasion (Columbia)
Acceptance, Phantoms (Columbia)
Susie Suh, Susie Suh (Epic)
Amerie, Touch (Columbia)
Life of Agony, Broken Valley (Epic)
Horace Silver Quintet, Silver's Blue (Epic Legacy)
Gerry Mulligan, Jeru (Columbia Legacy)
Dexter Gordon, Manhattan Symphonie (Columbia Legacy)
The Bad Plus, Suspicious Activity (Columbia)
The Dead 60s, The Dead 60s (Epic)
Dion, The Essential Dion (Columbia Legacy)
Natasha Bedingfield, Unwritten (Epic)
Ricky Martin, Life (Columbia) (labeled as XCP, but, oddly, our disc had no protection)

Several other Sony-BMG CDs are protected with a different copy-protection technology, sourced from SunnComm, including:
My Morning Jacket, Z
Santana, All That I Am
Sarah McLachlan, Bloom Remix Album

This is not a complete list. So how do you recognize other XCP-laden CDs in the wild?
Tip-off #1: on the front of the CD, at the left-most edge, in the transparent "spine", you'll see "CONTENT PROTECTED" along with the IFPI copy-protection logo.
Tip-off #2: on the back of the CD, on the bottom or right side, there will be a "Compatible with" disclosure box. Along with compatibility information, the box also includes a URL where you can get help. The URL has a telltale admission buried in it: cp.sonybmg.com/xcp. That lets you know that XCP is on this disc (discs protected with SunnComm have a different URL that includes "sunncomm").
If you haven't been infected yet, to protect yourself from XCP in the future, disable "autorun" on your Windows PC. Once you have done so, however, these CDs may not be accessible under Windows unless you have specialized ripping software installed; these CDs are encoded in a way that intentionally confuses standard Windows CD drivers. For a smarter audio grabber for Windows, you may want to consider using Exact Audio Copy, which reportedly can read these CDs if you have turned off autorun and avoided infection by XCP.
gdZiemann  
 Date: November 15, 2005 @ 11:00 AM
San Francisco residents file complaints about free music
ShadowMom  
 Date: November 15, 2005 @ 11:46 AM
Internet2 P2P Network Shuts Down
ShadowMom  
 Date: November 15, 2005 @ 11:49 AM
Music biz sues 2,100 'digital shoplifters'
ShadowMom  
 Date: November 15, 2005 @ 12:03 PM
Stars donate items, including ketchup, for AIDS Day auction
No word on whether the hot dog is included or not...:)
ShadowMom  
 Date: November 15, 2005 @ 12:21 PM
From Rolling Stone:

Kanye Couldn't Save Fall

"Late Registration" was the season's only major success

Ain't life a bitch...:rofl:
ShadowMom  
 Date: November 15, 2005 @ 12:38 PM
Wow, I really have to start paying more attention .... :)
gatorman295  
 Date: November 15, 2005 @ 12:52 PM
Auntie Beeb’s version of the above ShadowMom post:

Legal Fight Hits “music pirates”

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4438324.stm
pepe512000  
 Date: November 15, 2005 @ 5:11 PM
The Sight of Music

Not too much new here, but there are some interesting parts...such as....

~~Hearts have been sinking left, right and centre in the music industry ever since musical files began zipping up and down the Internet.~~

~~Downcast music executives are rumoured to be considering exile to outerspace: where no sound waves can get them.~~

And my favorite....

~~ Companies that think so little of privacy (part of your personal property rights), he argues, are hypocritical in making such a big deal of its own intellectual property rights.~~~
independentm...  
 Date: November 15, 2005 @ 5:40 PM
pepe512000, you have a GOOD EYE! This one gets the front page!

NEVER worry if an article/item is "old-news" to us regular long-timers. (We "members" can always just *yawn* and find something else to chew...)

NEW readers won't likely enough bother to search and sift our archives for stuff that is "old hat" to the rest of us.

FEEL FREE to post any new articles even if "old-hat."
gdZiemann  
 Date: November 15, 2005 @ 8:12 PM
Sony has been accused of "price-fixing in an attempt to curb internet bargains and send online prices soaring"

But not for music -- It's the electronics division.
pepe512000  
 Date: November 15, 2005 @ 10:21 PM
Me? A good eye? Sometimes, maybe..but the brain goes on vacation...a lot...You're a good administrator Shmoo, always considerate of the new folks. That's what's important.
TrueAudio  
 Date: November 16, 2005 @ 12:50 PM
"All the cartel members are playing dead possum hoping this will blow over and leave them unaffected. Naturally Sony isn't going to be able to do this since they got caught with their fingers in the cookie jar. Just because you don't hear anything from them don't think they weren't considering it also. F4I (the maker of the rootkit) has already stated that all the cartel members had purchased the software and were certainly using it in limited editon releases (most probably for critics to try and discover who is letting the cat out of the bag early).

Look for some other action to come up to attempt to divert attention from this mess and try to pull Sony's fingers out of the cookie jar. Just keep focused on the real thing. Don't let it slip from public attention. These sort of misdeeds are the best way to get the lawmakers to retract or at least amend the laws that have gone way to far out of balance towards copyright holders.

The sole reason for copyright to exist has been really distorted. Without material reaching public domain, there is no reason that any work should be copyrighted. That was the original intention and bargain with the holders to allow them the sole exclusivity. That part of the bargain has been so distorted that nothing reaches public domain. If its time runs out to be in public domain, where are the sources for these works? Mostly when those works economic viability is gone, so is the work. Those holders aren't holding the works for public domain. Once they have gotten their use out the works they chunk it. Odds are that by the time those works are eligiable, there won't be any equipment on the market that will play it back. Copyright lengths should be amended to read that once economic livelyhood is gone, those works are returned to the public as public domain. That would run out far sooner than the present scheme and would also encourage holders to continue to produce new stuff. The present idea that works 30 and 40 years old are as valuable as newer works is nothing short of price fixing. "

http://p2pnet.net/index.php?page=comment&story=6992&comment=24541
DeadMan2003  
 Date: November 16, 2005 @ 9:06 PM
iTunes price rise a cert - EMI boss
A dollar too short

EMI Music's chief executive Alain Levy has said that there's now a consensus that the price of hit songs will rise on digital download sites. Apple charges 99 cents per song on its iTunes Music Store regardless of the song's popularity - something that the industry is keen to change.

"There is a common understanding that we will have to come to a variable pricing structure. The issue is when. There is a case for superstars to have a higher price," Levy told the Wall Street Journal.
Lightpointe online prices

Variable pricing will mean the cost of some, less popular songs, will come down. Apple unilaterally imposed the 99 cents per song fee by refusing - according to popular legend - to sign the terms offered by the major labels. Then it went ahead and launched the iTunes Music Store anyway, riding a Shock and Awe publicity campaign, and effectively daring the labels to pull out.

(We've been able to confirm or deny this version of events, but it's an oft-told story).

The labels and the download sites have been at loggerheads ever since. Microsoft was reported to have pulled out of negotiations entirely with the Big Four labels.

Last month a top music business lawyer called for the labels to withdraw their support from iTunes altogether.

"What if Jobs says 39 cents or 29 cents per download - what then? The industry can say, OK, we'll cut him off - very few people people buy music from digital downloads... [Jobs] will figure out another model," said attorney Ken Hertz, who represents Alanis Morrissette and other artists.

Hertz is an advocate for flat fee collective licensing.

But there's also a seismic tension resulting from the unilateral imposition of 99 cents per song that has yet to be resolved.

Artists, represented by music publishers, take home only around 6 cents from every 99 cents sale, with recording rights holders earning around 65 cents. So the brave new world of digital distribution has perpetuated the inequities of the old model, dashing a decade of hopes. It's a complicated picture because the major labels also own the major music publishers.

But in the end, something's got to give.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/11/17/emi_itunes/
DeadMan2003  
 Date: November 16, 2005 @ 9:09 PM
I predict Apple will start offering it's own iTunes label to artists with higher royalties for artists.
DeadMan2003  
 Date: November 16, 2005 @ 11:07 PM
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/11/prweb310893.htm

Music Industry Cracks Down on Illegal File Sharing as MPFree.com Offers More Than 750,000 Free and Legal Songs

MPFree.com continues to be the top destination for free, legal music.

Boca Raton, FL (PRWEB) November 16, 2005 -- While the recording industry continues to crack down on illegal file sharing, MPFree.com members take advantage of downloading free and legal music. “While people are still gambling with illegal file sharing networks and being sued by the RIAA, MPFree.com members can earn as many legal music downloads as they like without spending a penny”, said Phil Nadel, President of MPFree.com.

MPFree.com is a website that provides its members with a legal way to get totally free music downloads. "We’re giving our members the best of both worlds—a huge selection of music downloads that are both 100% free and 100% legal," said Bill Diamond, Co-Founder of MPFree. MPFree.com has over 500,000 registered members, most earning free music on a daily basis.

The concept for MPFree came from its sister site, PhoneHog.com. PhoneHog.com is a successful rewards program founded 6 years ago that gives its members free long distance calls when they take advantage of special offers. www.PhoneHog.com has more than 4 million members and has given away more than 100 million free long distance minutes to date. MPFree utilizes the same basic model, but gives away free, legal music downloads instead of free long distance

About MPFree.com
MPFree.com gives its members the opportunity to earn free and legal music downloads for entering sweepstakes, taking surveys, trying new products and services, referring friends or taking advantage of other special offers from national advertisers. www.MPFree.com offers more than 750,000 free tracks from artists across all genres and from all of the major, and several independent, record labels. MPFree was founded by the same group of entrepreneurs who own and operate www.PhoneHog.com, the world’s largest telecommunications rewards program.
DeadMan2003  
 Date: November 16, 2005 @ 11:09 PM
Oops! I did not read the article before posting. Looks like an advert for some scammy site. Sorry. Please remove.
ShadowMom  
 Date: November 17, 2005 @ 10:54 AM
From Corante, more on bloggers' rights and EFF's fundraising efforts...

Bloggers: You Have a Right to Remain Vocal

Maybe a little off-topic since it doesn't pertain specifically to music, but still important....besides, the off-topic thread is buried.:(
DeadMan2003  
 Date: November 18, 2005 @ 7:30 AM
Oh this is good!

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/11/18/sony_copyright_infringement/

Sony's CD rootkit infringes DVD Jon's copyright

Sony's rootkit style DRM software XCP, designed to prevent copyright infringement, looks like it's breaching the terms of a copyright agreement itself.

In fact it contains code written by the Motion Picture Ass. of America's villain of the week for several years running, "DVD Jon" Johansen, who was dragged through the Norwegian courts by the MPAA using a very dubious extension of US law, for circumventing the DRM on DVDs. Johansen eventually prevailed in having the spurious charges against him thrown out.

The irony of a company using code from someone who circumvented DRM to develop an even nastier form of DRM - without even saying "Thanks!" - will surely feature in geek trivia quizzes for years to come.

The British company that developed the DRM software for Sony, First4Internet Ltd, has included free software code covered by the Free Software Foundation's LGPL, a cousin of the GPL, amateur sleuths have discovered.

The LGPL, or Lesser General Public License, was designed to protect author's rights for chunks of code rather than finished programs.

It's a complicated area, with subtle distinctions between rights over code that is compiled into, and distributed as part of the final binary program, or code that is only called at as the program is executed. But it is pretty clear cut that First4Internet Ltd has used code without observing the terms under which it's distributed - terms backed up by the power of copyright (one of our greatest inventions).

And we all know what happens to people who don't respect copyright.

Sebastian Porst discovered code from the LAME project, mpglib and VideoLAN in the XCP copy restriction which has caused Sony so much grief. Jon Johansen is a contributor to the VideoLAN project, and he's used it to

"I just want to mention that the function that can be found at virtual offset 0x10089E00 in ECDPlayerControl.ocx is the function DoShuffle from a GPL-ed file called drms.c written by Jon Lech Johansen and Sam Hocevar (Google for it)," notes Sebastian.

A parallel, and even more exhaustive forensic examination of the XCP code was undertaken by 'Muzzy' - who published his findings here.

So why is First4Internet Ltd in such trouble? If you use LGPL code the license requires that you acknowledge the provenance of the code you're using - with a clear notification, and an assurance that you can provide your own source code on request. It's designed to deter lazy programmers such as... well, the kind employed by First4Internet Ltd.

FSF attorney Eben Moglen told us this evening he couldn't offer a statement on what the organization planned to do next.
pepe512000  
 Date: November 18, 2005 @ 12:35 PM
"Frozen" got "Frozen. Even the artists get dinged every now and then...and the little guy wins :)

Songwriter Wins Case Against Madonna
CynicalGeezer  
 Date: November 21, 2005 @ 3:24 AM

Good article, DeadMan!


Home | News| Forum | Facts | Street Team Products | Mission | Artists |
Sitemap | FAQ | Search | Contact |
Advertise |