Via Furdlog and Slashdot, a transcript of a South Park episode: "This month [Lars Ulrich] was hoping to have a gold-plated shark tank bar installed right next to the pool, but thanks to people downloading his music for free, he must now wait a few months before he can afford it. [...] Still think downloading music for free is no big deal?"

"The new European Union Copyright Directive (EUCD), which comes into force today, could adversely hit research into areas such as stronger cryptography, threatening progress in more advanced security methods."

"The Diebold controversy has raised a number of troubling questions that can only be answered by an unbiased, transparent examination of the facts. Trying to avoid that examination through questionable intellectual property will only leave a lingering cloud of suspicion hanging over the electoral process. And it proves yet again that the DMCA is in practice totally antithetical to everything Americans believe about how a democracy is supposed to work."

"Media statements that the Rulemaking puts "a stunning end" to the case between Lexmark and Static Control, or constitutes a favorable ruling at all for Static Control—which lost its bid for an exemption—thus fail to reflect a thorough or accurate analysis of the Rulemaking and the pending Sixth Circuit appeal."

"A new copyright law designed to curb the unauthorized exchange of music, film and software on the Internet went into effect in Britain on Friday, reigniting the debate on the proper way to tackle rampant digital piracy."

"The action marks a second round of suits against computer users who, record label investigators say, have made hundreds or even thousands of copyrighted songs available for download through peer-to-peer services such as Kazaa."

Congressman Rick Boucher: "The job of the Justice Department is to prosecute crimes--not give lectures and educate the public. [...] Given its crime-fighting orientation, I have little confidence that it would ever adequately explain public doctrines such as 'fair use' or other proper uses of copyrighted material."

RealNetworks: "That was the great thing about Kazaa and pirate Napster from the consumer standpoint--that you got access to all this stuff, and you didn't have to choose before you listened to a song whether you wanted to buy it or not. We offer the same thing: You can listen to 100 songs a month or 1,000 a month."

"So why now the push for filtering, which the RIAA of 20 years ago most likely would have strongly opposed? The answer is obvious - as a way to attack P2P."

"In an effort to update its 'Parental Advisory' labeling program, the Recording Industry Association of America is asking online music companies to implement 'effective parental-control filters to provide parents more information and control over what their children can download.'"

"As part of the 1925 [copyright] decision, all copies of Nosferatu were to be destroyed. Most were. Over the next few years, any copies that became public were also destroyed. This may have meant the end of the film, except that a few isolated copies managed to survive Florence Stoker's death in 1937. Thank goodness for 'pirates.'"

"The recording industry filed 80 more federal lawsuits around the country Thursday against computer users it said were illegally sharing music files across the Internet."

"The article proceeds to rebut its own argument, by undercutting any mechanism by which the DRM could have reduced copying."

"Early sales of a BMG Entertainment music CD that allows buyers a limited number of copies and downloads have been promising enough that the company plans to continue the experiment with bigger musical stars in the coming months."

"Released Wednesday, the new version, 2.6, allows people to run multiple searches at the same time and is designed to let content providers sell their wares over the P2P network, enabling them to save on bandwidth costs."

"As part of a 198-page opinion released late Tuesday, the office said Lexmark's invocation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) in its lawsuit against Static Control was invalid."

"There are organizations that have not embraced open standards and continue to pursue proprietary video streaming technologies. Their argument is that with proprietary models, one company can make a more reliable, robust product that is easier to maintain--for them."

"Coming on the heels of strong growth figures from Apple Computer's iTunes music store and RealNetworks' Rhapsody subscription service, Napster's release sets the stage for a long, hard fight for online listeners' ears and minds."

"Each downloaded song is copy-protected, but so intelligently that you might not even notice. You can burn songs onto blank CD's, play them on up to two other computers or download them to a music player. You just can't share them through free file-swapping services like Kazaa."

"Terry asks if there are countries that block Google results. Their first answer: the United States. 'The United States has the Digital Millenium Copyright Act [...] there are probably a handful of [sites] -- maybe a hundred web pages are blocked for that reason.'"

"The Federal Trade Commission is calling for Congress to enact legislation that would make it easier to prove a patent is invalid. Under the FTC proposal, the burden of proof required to invalidate a patent would be reduced from a "clear and convincing" evidence standard to a preponderance of the evidence."

"A month after Universal Music announced it was cutting CD prices by as much as 30 percent, shoppers looking for the results in the aisles of music stores may be coming away disappointed. Retailers, many of them angry over details of the plan that may hurt their profit margins, are instituting the price changes slowly and unevenly."

"With the success of the iTunes Music Store, other services are rushing to copy it. By and large, they are not succeeding, because what works about the iTunes Music Store is not necessarily its pricing system but its ease of use, its lack of restrictions on downloaded music, its design and its integration of Apple's iTunes media player and iPod portable digital music player."

"Two years later, it is clear that despite the industry's valiant efforts, Internet users continue to 'share' unlicensed digital music across the Web, via a variety of services. But this illicit marketplace is still growing and evolving, and a recent study by Canadian network equipment manufacturer Sandvine, Inc. reveals it as a 'regionally differentiated, multi-application reality.'"

"As part of its quarterly earning call, the company said that it had more than 250,000 paying subscribers. That figure includes the $10 per month Rhapsody music service, which provides unlimited access to the company's music catalog, and a RealNetworks Web radio service that's $6 cheaper."

Jack Valenti: "The industry wants to use the Internet to dispatch films to consumers. But as we do, we must also challenge piracy and defeat it with every weapon we can summon--and we will succeed, I am convinced--or one day we will sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of the decline and fall of America's greatest artistic triumph and an awesome engine of job and economic growth."

"It is abundantly clear by now that the DMCA has had a chilling effect on legitimate research related to access control technologies. When researchers ask Washington for a solution to this problem, they have so far gotten a Catch-22 answer. When we ask Congress do to something, we are told to seek an exemption in the Copyright Office rulemaking. But when we petitioned the Copyright Office for an exemption in the 2000 rulemaking, we were told that the Copyright Office did not have the power to grant the kind of exemption we had requested."

EFF press release: "The Librarian of Congress today continued to disregard consumers' rights and denied exemptions to copyright law related to consumers' use of CDs and DVDs that they legally purchase."

"The Library of Congress created on Tuesday four narrow exemptions to a controversial digital-piracy statute but faces criticism from free-speech activists, who had hoped for more exceptions."

"321 Studios said it would appeal a ruling by the U.S. Librarian of Congress that denies some exceptions to digital copyright law."

"In a move deemed by some as a blow to consumers, the U.S. Librarian of Congress denied requests for exceptions to digital copyright law Tuesday that would allow users greater flexibility with their media, such as fast-forwarding through currently unskippable DVD commercials."

"But the EFF and IP Justice claim the rulings mean most consumers will still be unable to skip adverts on DVDs, play CDs in their own PCs and reading books on PDAs without violating the contentious DMCA legislation."

"On Tuesday, the U.S. Copyright Office released the four "classes of works" exempted from the anti-circumvention rule. People may bypass a digital lock to access lists of websites blocked by commercial filtering companies, circumvent obsolete dongles to access computer programs, access computer programs and video games in obsolete formats, and access e-books where the text-to-speech function has been disabled."

IP Justice press release: "Today the US Librarian of Congress issued its Ruling in the triennial proceedings pursuant to the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to determine possible exemptions to the DMCA’s general ban on circumvention of technological restrictions controlling copyrighted works. Unfortunately, the ruling leaves the vast majority of consumers unable to access their own property, such as skipping commercials on DVDs, playing CDs in their PCs, and reading eBooks on PDA’s without violating the DMCA."

"The purpose of this proceeding is to determine whether there are particular classes of works as to which users are, or are likely to be, adversely affected in their ability to make noninfringing uses due to the prohibition on circumvention of access controls."

"The following are notes taken by Tony Campbell at the Tuesday, 10/28/2003 hearing of the Tennessee State Legislature's Joint Committee on Communications Security."

"A leading Internet standards-setting organization took the unusual step yesterday of urging the director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office to invalidate a software patent that the group says threatens the development of the World Wide Web."

"The United States Copyright Office has ruled in favour of Static Control Components, of Sanford, N.C., saying that its microchips do not contravene the Digital Millennium Copyright Act."

"With a virtual jukebox of music at your fingertips why would anyone tune in to their local radio station, where a limited play list, abundance of commercials and cookie-cutter deejays flood the airwaves."

"A federal appeals court on Tuesday upheld a government rule requiring all but the smallest new televisions to have tuners that can receive digital TV signals by July 2007."

"Disposable DVDs have been on store shelves for a little over a month and, for the most part, they seem to be staying there."

"The restriction features in IRM, introduced in Office 2003 last week, could also undermine productivity. Business partners may be unable to open messages due to incompatible email systems or if needed content has expired."

"Such a system neatly gets over the content industry's aversion to delivery technologies that don't involve physical product for punters to purchase, or at least business models that aren't based on the old 'x dollars for y items' mode. It also includes enough DRM to block piracy (at least theoretically) but not enough of it to make usage difficult for the customer."

Keep on faxing! "Consumer groups such as Public Knowledge, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and DigitalConsumer.org have been prompting members to send faxes to the FCC opposing the plan, frequently offering one-click Internet gateways to automate the process. Washington sources said the resulting barrage of consumer lobbying has been heard at the FCC, and has helped influence commissioners' deliberations."

Press release: "Now that their raids have failed to find any evidence that the website was directly distributing infringing MP3 files, the music industry has fallen back on allegations that merely linking to files on other websites, is in and of itself illegal."

"They say they've discovered a way to give their fellow students at MIT and elsewhere dorm-room access to a huge music library without having to worry about getting slapped with a lawsuit from the recording industry."

Barry M. Meyer, CEO of Warner Brothers: "Right now we're in a life-and-death struggle against piracy. Jack has been tireless. He always does his homework. He knows what he's talking about. He has made this organization remarkably effective."

"The struggle between the recording industry and the thieves swapping illegal music files may have distracted you from the equally remarkable developments in the streaming Internet media market. It's far bigger than many people realize. In August, 50 million Americans viewed a video or listened to an audio stream on the Internet, according to the consumer research firm Arbitron Inc."

Furdlog notes this difference between US and Latvian copyright law: "A person suspected of violating copyright law in Latvia is assumed innocent until proven guilty, placing the burden of proof on the prosecutors. [...] In other nearby countries, such as Sweden, the problem has been judged as serious enough to make an exception and shift this responsibility in cases of copyright and trademark infringement."

DirecTV's enforcement chief: "There's a legal presumption that the purchase of the device implies use, and the burden switches to the defendant to show that it was used in a legitimate manner. We're talking about products that came into existence because of the satellite piracy industry."

"More than five years after people got their first easy way to download music off the Internet, they're finally getting a reasonable opportunity to pay for it."

"A big reason for the lack of lawsuits against file swappers is Canada's different legal system, which provides additional protections for peer-to-peer downloaders."

"Fearful of piracy, the studios want the federal government to legislate how computers are made. Critics say such interference signals the end of the line for digital innovation."

"I leave it to readers to decide whether this shows that the copyright system imposes too many transaction costs on worthy endeavors, that publishers and other businesses violate authors' rights, both, or neither."

"The last, best hope to turn the tide in the conflict is for more people to realize that Larry Lessig is a centrist on copyright. With Billy Tauzin running the MPAA, perhaps the real policy spectrum will be easier to perceive."

"LAMP is a direct result of the seriously confused copyright law regarding music. Exemptions and exceptions have been forced into the law to meet particular business needs and the desires of particular interest groups. The result is a mess that few outside of the legal profession can understand and something only copyright lawyers can love."

"But the proposed regulations, which the Federal Communications Commission may adopt this week, have been criticized by consumer advocacy groups, and others, who say they would not effectively prevent piracy but could curtail the legitimate copying of television programs and might render current consumer electronics equipment obsolete."

"This strategy should scare the entertainment industries, not to mention the consumer electronics firms that have committed to digital delivery. This project shows that there is enough resistance to the current construction of copyright in the digital realm that people are prepared to design around the strictures, at the expense of the supposedly better technology. I believe that, if the FCC approves the broadcast flag, a similar response will arise in the television industry."

"Winstein and Mandel never thought it would take so long to build LAMP. They soon discovered that building a system that would pass muster under federal copyright law is a lot more complicated than soldering circuit boards."

"Critics of proposed Federal Communications Commission rules designed to prevent consumers from redistributing copies of digital television shows on the Internet say the move won't stop piracy but will curtail technological innovation and the "fair use" of content."

"If that back-to-the-future solution seems overly complicated, blame copyright law and not M.I.T., said Jonathan Zittrain, who teaches Internet law at Harvard and is a director of the university's Berkman Center for Internet and Society. The most significant thing about the M.I.T. plan, he said, is just how complicated it has to be to fit within the odd boundaries of copyright law."

"Louisiana congressman Billy Tauzin has been plucked to replace Jack Valenti, the long-running head of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), according to sources familiar with the matter."

EMI Music, whose artists range from the Rolling Stones to Coldplay, is granting a file-sharing network the rights to its entire digital music catalog, according to a published report. The deal between London-based EMI and Wippit, a British company that distributes authorized copies of songs on its file-sharing network, allows Wippit subscribers to download as many songs as they want for a flat monthly fee.

"The proposal offered by the Motion Picture Association of America makes clear that the Flag scheme will tether user-recorded content in new ways."

"There are now 1633 subpoenas in EFF's RIAA subpoena database, all from the D.C. District Court through October 1."

"One of the reasons I oppose DRM so strongly is because data storage is really quite fragile. Without the ability to freely copy, it is easy for information to be lost."

Relevant because of the copyright issues: "There is no provision under either the DMCA or Swarthmore’s own rules to allow for shutting down a student’s network access when no challenge has been made against that specific student."

"The key aspect is that the take-down provision of the DMCA is an automatic escape from liability, whether or not the posting at issue is really copyright infringement."

"If you have a wireless home network of the sort that allows PC's to share an Internet connection or a printer, a number of new devices - from dedicated boxes called media receivers to certain DVD players and even video game consoles - can connect to that network."

"The Motion Picture Association and APRA have commissioned a report from Allen Consulting into the effects of extending Australian copyright from life+50 years to life+70 years."

"A small woodworking tool manufacturer, Stots Corporation, includes a license agreement on its TemplateMaster jig tool. The tool is licensed, not sold, and customers cannot sell it or lend it to others. Nor can they sell or lend the jigs they make with it."

"As part of its campaign to thwart online music and movie piracy, Hollywood is now reaching into school classrooms with a program that denounces file-sharing and offers prizes for students and teachers who spread the word about Internet theft."

"By the end of this month, at long last, there will be three major, legal music downloading services for users of Windows PCs. Honest music lovers have waited for such services for years, while the record companies dithered with failed online schemes to rent, rather than sell, music."

"Stanford University Law Professor Larry Lessig argued that current copyright laws must be redefined to protect the free exchange of culture via the Internet. Hilary Rosen, the former CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America, countered his claims, citing the issue as a matter of ethics."

"Jack Valenti, chairman and CEO of the MPAA, to a group of Penn State college kids: 'I think we're in a great state of crisis because we believe in this country that the Internet is so all-powerful--and it is--that there's no limit to what you can do.'"

Attorney Daniel Ballard of McDonough Holland & Allen: "We are told that copyright owners are entitled to this unprecedented subpoena power so they can effectively exploit their copyright monopolies. We are not told why that right -- or that monopoly -- is more valuable than the privacy and due process rights those subpoenas invade."

"We find that, for the most part, the services examined do not accord with expectations of personal use."

"DRM is not designed with the ultimate intention of keeping audio and video and text files out of the hands of pirates and bootleggers. It’s designed with the sole intention of serializing content to owners and eliminating the legitimate business model of asset re-marketing."

"But the software also comes with the ability to let users control the way other people use the documents they create. This can be used to prevent other people forwarding, copying or even printing a protected email message or document."

"Microsoft also unveiled its Information Rights Management software for controlling who may view, forward or print sensitive documents. Gates said customers clamored for ways to protect their intellectual property and confidential data, but critics fear the controls may also block collaboration across companies who operate on non-Microsoft platforms."

"The good news: the MPAA and Hollywood's major studios are about to revoke the Oscar screener ban. [...] The decision follows an intensive weekend huddle between Jack Valenti, prez of the Motion Picture Association of America, and the studio head honchos to arrive at an agreement."

"There is existing legislation that would change the subpoena process. I am in support of that in concept, but we need to hear from some of the technology companies before we finalize any legislative approach."

"This isn't the first time that I've seen the same study interpreted completely differently by two different reporters. However, I think it is the first time that I've seen the same study interpreted in completely opposite ways by the same news organization."

"But internet piracy can have a detrimental effect on more than just corporate profits: an unfinished version of the action movie The Hulk was available on the internet two weeks before its cinema release. As more internet users watched the pirated copy, online chat rooms filled up with bad reviews of what was an unfinished version of the film."

"Hollywood has little to fear from internet piracy despite the chaos that illegal download sites have wrought on the music business and movie studios should embrace downloading as a new sales tool, according to a new report."

"Proposed broadcast flag regulations, currently before the FCC, create many legitimate concerns for television viewers, Internet users, and industry groups. As drafted they may restrict reasonable uses of content by viewers, hinder innovation, and impose costs that are not worth the limited copy protection provided."

"In what is believed to be the first case of its kind in the world, the Australian music industry has listed an Internet service provider (ISP) as a respondent in a court case involving alleged music piracy."

"The Federal Communications Commission will likely adopt rules that will allow programmers to attach a code to digital broadcasts that will in most cases bar consumers from sending copies of popular shows around the world, said the officials, who declined further identification."

"Four major Japanese electronics makers on Tuesday unveiled a prototype of an audiovisual system that can download song files from an online store without a PC and is expected to go on sale early next year."

"While the music industry has struggled with how to work with the Internet, initially denying it was even a threat and keeping it at arm's length for years, Audible has been using digital downloading to reach new audiences and to deliver the wares of the audio book industry more efficiently and less expensively."

"Apple Computer's iTunes Music Store for Windows appears to be off to a grand start, but no matter how successful it may be, the online store will never, ever have the slightest impact on the file-sharing networks, experts say."

"Nearly a year after Microsoft Corp. agreed to end its anticompetitive conduct, the government is raising concerns the world's largest software maker is trying to use its dominant Windows operating system to influence where customers buy their music online."

"If 50 percent of those downloads is considered a lost sale worth an average $3.50, it means that this year alone Hollywood misses out on some $92 million in revenues."

"As Michael Geist writes, it is increasingly the practice of the US government to export its copyright policy though bi-lateral trade agreements. One example is the trade agreements being concluded with Australia right now that will require Australia to increase its copyright term to life plus 70."

"A group of federal lawmakers aims to put more steam behind intellectual property piracy issues online and offline, forming a new caucus to focus on the issue."

"Federal and state regulators have voiced concern that a feature in Windows XP that involves online music purchasing may violate terms of Microsoft's antitrust settlement."

"Congress said sound-recording owners should get paid for Internet transmissions when it updated copyright laws in 1995 and 1998, but broadcasters argued in their appeal that those laws were meant to apply to services that enable users to select and download songs, not online radio-style broadcasts."

"Apple Computer's Windows music store leads its rivals in ease of use and distribution. Together with Musicmatch and Napster, it will catapult legitimate music downloads into the mainstream."

"The Stop RIAA Lawsuits Coalition is a group of 122 websites (and growing) that have come together to denounce the record industry's filesharing lawsuits and to call for a one week boycott of major label music beginning October 20, 2003."

"Since Gnomoradio only automatically shares songs under free licenses, legal issues surrounding peer-to-peer file transfers are no longer an issue. All transfers can be done in the open, and only those artists that wish to participate and allow people to distribute their music freely will participate."

"Why should struggling US college students (or drug-requiring patients) be the ones to subsidize the production of such goods for students (or patients) in other countries?"

"Just like prescription drugs, textbooks cost far less overseas than they do in the United States. The publishing industry defends its pricing policies, saying that foreign sales would be impossible if book prices were not pegged to local market conditions."

"While several countries, most prominently the U.S., have ratified the WIPO treaties, many others, including Canada, have moved slowly to alter their copyright laws to incorporate the provisions that may be needed to become "WIPO compliant". The reticence to adopt the WIPO standard is understandable. Many believe the U.S. experience illustrates the dangers of adopting copyright protections that may ultimately stifle innovation."

"The draft intellectual property rights chapter in the FTAA Agreement vastly expands criminal procedures and penalties against intellectual property infringements throughout the Americas. One clause would require countries to send non-commercial infringers such as Peer-to-Peer (P2P) file-sharers to prison."

"Upgrades to Microsoft's Outlook e-mail program come with a feature which gives you complete control over what people do with messages or documents. The software giant says its Information Rights Management system is intended to protect sensitive information."

"How is it that IT and ISP industries easily 10 times the size of their publishing counterparts are being harnessed to the needs of their little siblings? One answer is rooted in a form of status quoism that sees the current allocation of rights and duties under copyright as 'fair' and the happenstance of technical innovation that might displace it as 'unfair.'"

"The sad truth is, if I had downloaded my music, more often than not, I would have ended up paying the same or even more for the virtual version of the CD. That seems silly, especially considering that with a CD, I'd actually own a tangible product with better sound (plus liner notes and art), which I could transfer to other devices or use to burn as many CD copies as my heart desired, for my personal use, of course."

"The Third Circuit, in an opinion by Judge Richard D. Cudahy, sitting by designation from the Seventh Circuit, has just ruled that radio broadcasters must pay royalties for simultaneous webcasts of their radio shows, even though they are exempted from such royalties in their normal AM/FM broadcasting."

"However, the DMCA will have a non-trivial impact on the conditions under which such research takes place, and this impact can be expected to have several undesirable effects. More broadly, this impact highlights the problematic way in which the DMCA regulates scientific research in furtherance of intellectual property rights."

"Given these apparent doubts about the effectiveness of a broadcast flag, has the Commission considered whether the anticipated benefit to be derived from such a mandate justifies its potential cost to consumers?"

"Now, apparently at the behest of the MPAA, Congress may criminalize the unrestricted distribution of broad categories of basic and popular software, regardless of whether the programs actually create security or privacy vulnerabilities."

"But public-interest advocates say the rules, if approved by the Federal Communications Commission, would unduly restrict what consumers can do with TV shows. They also might force consumers to buy new equipment if they want to ensure compatibility among devices."

"Studios frequently have to replace the music heard during the original broadcast for the DVD release, largely because of the prohibitive costs associated with licensing the music, studio executives say. [...] Universal has said that Miami Vice won't be coming to DVD anytime soon because of the difficulty of obtaining the rights to the pop music that crowded the show's soundtrack."

"What the NY Times is reporting is that the cable and satellite companies are bundling personal media recorder capabilities with their services and this will eliminate the market for independent devices. The problem with this is that it also gives the cable and satellite companies control over the function of such devices. Skipping commercials, recording anything you want, and networking the device with other devices will almost certainly be restricted."

"The recording industry announced yesterday that it had begun its second round of lawsuits against people who swap music files on a large scale. But this time, there is a difference: the industry is notifying the 204 suspected pirates before suing them."

"With the FCC apparently about to announce Broadcast Flag rules, there has been a flurry of letters to the FCC and legislators about the harm such rules would do. The Flag is clearly a bad idea. [...] It's worth noting, though, that we don't know exactly what the FCC's rules will say, and that the details can make a big difference. When the FCC does issue its rules, we'll need to read them carefully to see exactly how much harm they will do."

"TiVo pioneered the DVR and the TiVo brand - like Frisbee, Kleenex and Xerox - has become synonymous with an entire product category. Nonetheless, TiVo's original business of selling stand-alone DVR boxes, along with a monthly support service, appears in danger of being eclipsed by products that are much less expensive for consumers and are integrated with devices that many consumers are already comfortable with, like television set-top boxes."

"The Los Angeles Film Critics Association has canceled its 2003 awards to protest an industry ban on sending special DVDs and videos to award voters. [...] The studios hoped to prevent piracy, but the decision angered supporters of smaller movies who say voters may miss independent pictures if they have to see them at screenings in theaters."

"The record industry's trade group has warned 204 people suspected of illegally swapping music over the Internet that it plans to file lawsuits against them."

"But don't get too excited yet. Although the current crop is vastly superior to the defunct MusicNet and Pressplay, iTunes et al have five crucial improvements to make before they can hit the mainstream."

"Recording industry investigators said on Friday they have begun asking suspected Internet song swappers to settle copyright-infringement charges before taking them to court."

"Lime Wire's MagnetMix content portal uses a URL-style location system to pin-point content on the Gnutella network. Content owners who want their material - be it audio tracks, video, photography, written content, a game or other software - can submit the source of their material to the portal."

"An effort to protect school guides, news archives and other databases from wholesale copying won the approval of a congressional subcommittee on Thursday, despite objections of lawmakers who said it is not necessary. [...] Business, consumer and library groups have blocked passage in previous sessions of Congress, saying database publishers can protect themselves through existing laws and terms-of-service agreements."

"Wearing trademark jeans and black turtleneck, Jobs said the "second generation" of iTunes is identical on both Mac and Windows platforms. Now, however, Apple's lauded software and online service is open to the 97 percent of computer users who don't have a Mac."

"While P2P networks have come under criticism from Congress and the recording industry for music copyright violations, Hatch said the distribution of child pornography through file sharing deserves immediate attention."

"This fall could finally mark the arrival of online music as a legitimate, profitable business, after two years of false starts, dead ends, and legal salvos in the recording industry's quest to stop the trade of pirated music over the Internet."

"The Universal Music Group, the largest music company in the world and home to acts like U2, Eminem and Mariah Carey, is expected to announce a restructuring Thursday that will eliminate 11 percent of its work force."

"A fight over an obscure content-protection patent could wind up alleviating one of Microsoft's biggest legal headaches, according to digital rights management company Macrovision, a newcomer to the tussle."

"At first, the partners will concentrate on tailoring Sony's digital music and video content so that it plays back at PC quality on portable devices such as cell phones and handhelds, according to Intel. Later, they plan to develop PC-based multimedia content."

"The federal government is preparing for the first time to require that personal computers and other consumer electronics devices contain technology to help block Internet piracy of digital entertainment."

"Anyone who thinks music should cost nothing will be disappointed with the reincarnated Napster online music service, which has emerged from the ashes of the old free-for-all as a legal, recording industry-sanctioned, pay-to-play store."

"The home video release of "The Matrix Reloaded" boasts all the extras expected on a blockbuster DVD, with one notable exception: an extra layer of protection against piracy."

"A Los Angeles-area Web designer has emerged as the second person to challenge a recording industry file-swapping lawsuit, saying that the record labels appear to have made a mistake in identifying him."

"The head of file-swapping company Grokster, Wayne Rosso, has resigned from his post and will take the helm of younger Spanish peer-to-peer technology rival Blubster."

"Instead of charging subscription fees that cost thousands of dollars annually, as do many traditional scientific journals, PLoS charges authors $1,500 per published article. The fee covers peer review, editing and production, while allowing the public to freely access the research."

"The Recording Industry Association of America is pressing a federal court to ignore cable Internet provider Charter Communications' attempt to keep private the names of 93 subscribers who allegedly traded songs online illegally."

"European peer-to-peer network users are abandoning traditionally popular applications like Kazaa in favor of new P2P software, according to new research."

"Microsoft started selling an updated version of its Plus Digital Media Edition entertainment software on Tuesday that now lets people create digital-photo slideshows on the PC and watch them on a DVD player."

"Just days after the return of a repackaged Napster, the first Canadian digital music download service launched Tuesday."

"The motion picture lobbyist Jack Valenti, who incited a firestorm in Hollywood with an edict banning DVD's or videotapes from being sent to Academy Award voters in an effort to combat piracy, plans to talk with the heads of several big studios this week to discuss whether the ban should be revised, according to three executives apprised of the meeting."

"The latest twist in the story of the music industry and the Internet generation involves a Phoenix company, a Princeton University graduate student and the shift key on a computer keyboard."

"One might think that a crowded theater and higher ticket sales are all the evidence a multiplex owner would need to be persuaded that digital projectors are worth adopting. But economics and industry politics, as well as continued disagreements over technical formats, have delayed the long-predicted digital revolution in movie theaters."

"The new technology works on the concept of a restricted peer-to-peer network in which owners of mobile phones equipped with multimedia messaging, or MMS, can send and receive pictures and sound clips to and from other mobile phone users."

"Coming soon to a Windows PC near you: Apple Computer Inc.'s. popular iTunes online music store, which analysts say will join an already crowded market that could mute its chances of repeating the success of the Macintosh-only version."

"Two companies that sell Linux for computing devices such as network equipment or DVD players have settled a lawsuit involving alleged mishandling of open-source software."

"Apple Computer is expected next week to expand its online music service to Windows-based computers."

"Kahle's organization is seeking exemptions from DMCA provisions that prohibit the archiving of software titles. If the Copyright Office says no, Kahle fears millions of programs eventually will be lost forever."

"In passing the DMCA, Congress made it very clear that its provisions could not be used to dictate the design of consumer electronics, computer or telecommunications products. Needless to say, Hollywood isn't very happy about that."

"An online civil rights group has adopted the cause of a Playa del Rey man who believes he has been mistakenly accused of improper file trading by the record industry, setting up a possible showdown over the music business' methods for identifying suspected pirates. [...] Both Plank and his fiancee use the machine in their business, and Plank has a wireless network that allows his roommate and even neighbors in his condominium complex to get online."

"A small New York company has sued Microsoft, charging that the software giant's new music download service in Europe infringes on a patent it owns nearly 20 years old."

Forbes writes that it's a "pity" that Cisco and Broadcom will probably decide that "it's cheaper to settle than to fight" the Free Software Foundation's copyright. Does Forbes apply the same logic to music or movie copyrights?

"Since legal ways to experience online music are only now becoming widely available, there is no established record of what the market will bear or how these innovations will be received. Will each song purchased online represent the loss of a whole CD sale in the store? Or will customers respond to the ease and selection of e-commerce by buying more, overall?"

"With a new for-pay version set for release later this month, the biggest record companies are rooting for Napster to help save the industry from the online file-sharing revolution that became stronger after the original Napster died."

"Unless consumers are forced to buy computers that will not copy CDs -- fat chance -- it's impossible to completely eliminate music piracy. So instead, the industry might be designing systems that seek to gently nudge people toward honesty, rather than dragging them in chains toward the path of righteousness."

"The RIAA has slowly altered the environment so that relatively efficient systems like Napster were killed, opening up a niche for more decentralized systems like Gnutella and Kazaa. With their current campaign against Kazaa in full swing, we are about to see another shift in network design, one that will have file sharers adopting tools originally designed for secure collaboration in a corporate setting."

Rep. Rick Boucher: "First of all, the mere fact that the company would threaten to sue underscores more than ever the urgent need for the passage of my bill. It would not be a violation of federal law to circumvent a technological protection measure if the purpose of the circumvention is itself lawful."

"Warner Music Group and Bertelsmann's BMG Entertainment introduced on Monday a new antipiracy technology that enables music fans to download songs onto a mobile phone and share the music with other phone users."

"EMusic subscribers began receiving notices this week telling them that the company's formerly permissive downloading policies would change dramatically. Previously, subscribers were able to download unlimited numbers of MP3s."

Australia: "Telstra has pressed play on legal music downloads, announcing a deal with Warner Music that will see BigPond customers downloading tunes before Christmas."

"The world's most popular song-swapping network, Kazaa, has thrown its weight behind a plan to start billing song swappers for their music downloads. The proposal, which could finally end the days of the free lunch for millions of music fans, has been put to big US record labels at the same time as a new legitimate version of the former file-swapping giant Napster is launched in the US."

"Many of Hollywood's biggest names, from directors Martin Scorsese and Joel Coen to actors Robert Redford and Jodie Foster, teamed up on Friday to publicly denounce a ban by the major studios on Oscar-screening DVDs and videotapes."

"In the technological battle to find the perfect way to read electronic books on your palm-top or personal computer, competing formats have put the consumer off."

"Nearly 150 directors, including Robert Altman, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola and Robert Redford, are urging the Motion Picture Association to repeal its decision to stop sending out special DVDs and videos to Oscar voters. The directors sent a letter to Jack Valenti, urging the MPAA to immediately repeal the anti-piracy plan it implemented last week."

"In an abrupt reversal, SunnComm Technologies said Friday that it would not sue a Princeton University graduate student who had published a paper that describes how to bypass CD copy protection technology simply by pressing the Shift key."

"The newly legal Napster service and the iPod use incompatible file formats. The incompatibility problem may confuse customers and could detract from the success of the new service."

"SunnComm Technologies, Inc. announced yesterday morning it would sue first-year graduate student John Halderman over his recent critique of the company's new CD copy-protection method, but by the end of the day SunnComm president and CEO Peter Jacobs said he changed his mind."

"Three days after a Princeton graduate student posted a paper on his Web site detailing how to defeat the copy-protection software on a new music CD by pressing a single computer key, the maker of the software said Thursday it would sue him."

"Plainly, the company's aim is to silence any serious debate about its technology, and to hide behind a law that has been already been misused to stifle speech. This shouldn't be allowed to stand. I hope the the EFF and other organizations will raise a defense fund; I'll contribute."

"Apple Computer is expected next week to expand its online music service to Windows-based computers."

"Capitalizing on the re-launch of Napster on Thursday, Samsung has announced a new digital audio player that can store up to 5,000 songs on its 20GB hard drive. The company said the co-branded YP-910GS is the only player that's designed to operate with the Napster 2.0 service."

"SunnComm Technologies, a developer of CD antipiracy technology, said Thursday that it will likely sue a Princeton student who early this week showed how to evade the company's copy protection by pushing a computer's Shift key." Halderman says: "If pressing the Shift key is a violation of the DMCA, then the law needs to be changed."

"A New York man the FBI arrested for using the Internet to sell hundreds of CDs loaded with unauthorized copies of songs was found guilty in a federal district court and sentenced to six months in jail."

Press release from SunComm: "SunnComm intends to refer this possible felony to authorities having jurisdiction over these matters because: 1. The author admits that he disabled the driver in order to make an unprotected copy of the disc's contents, and 2. SunnComm believes that the author's report was 'disseminated in a manner which facilitates infringement' in violation of the DMCA or other applicable law."

"The new protection system, called Fade, is being introduced by Macrovision, a company in Santa Clara, California, that specialises in digital rights management, and the British games developer Codemasters, based in Leamington Spa. It makes unauthorised copies of games slowly degrade, so that cars no long steer, guns cannot be aimed and footballs fly away into space. But by that time the player has become addicted to the game."

"While you may be pulling for one side or the other, don't underestimate the value of legal certainty by itself, regardless of how the various cases work themselves out. Believe me, it's much easier to find investors and develop new businesses in a certain legal environment than it is when the legal issues are wide open."

"On the eve of the widely watched relaunch of Napster, the music industry's first casualty in its war against online piracy, another battle is raging in music cybersales and it's between two legal formats: paid subscriptions and a la carte stores, industry sources said on Wednesday."

"Federal agencies have begun to use peer-to-peer technology as well. The www.fedstats.gov page, for example, uses peer-to- peer techniques to pull statistics and information from computers in more than 100 different government agencies."

"A group representing the Internet's most popular free music-sharing service has come up with a business plan that it says would stop piracy by allowing consumers to legally buy copyright-protected music, though the music industry remains skeptical."

Disney Chief Operating Officer Bob Iger: "I realize that there are a lot of concerns regarding privacy in this regard, invading people's homes and their home PCs, but at some point we've got to somehow ... scare the heck out of these people that they could get caught."

"A brand-new Napster unveiled its digital face Thursday morning, a year after the once-proud file-swapping service was sold off for parts in bankruptcy court."

"At a 40-minute press conference in the afternoon, Adobe CEO Bruce Chizen said he and his colleagues were pressuring Congress to keep the Digital Millennium Copyright Act intact. With the DMCA having been used in some cases to stifle security research and unmask thousands of suspected peer-to-peer pirates, some members of Congress have proposed amending it."

"Indeed, although the term was coined just a few years ago, peer-to-peer is really how the Internet was originally designed to work. [...] Peer-to-peer is a fundamentally different way of thinking about the network—based not on the notions of clients and servers but on cooperation and collaboration."

"eMusic, having been acquired by Dimensional Associates LLC, has eliminated its all-you-can-download plan (the only thing that made the service worth the $10 a month), in favor of a 40-download-a-month plan, with a "premium" $15 plan that gets you 60 tracks a month."

Fascinating history of the auto industry suing its customers: "But when the big 'money men' started suing ordinary people who were just trying to buy a cheap car, public sympathy shifted against the incumbents. People rallied to Ford’s side against the bullies."

"Hoping to win back alienated customers, personal software maker Intuit Inc. is formally apologizing to users of its popular TurboTax program who rebelled against an anti-piracy feature the company introduced last year."

"A controversial anti-piracy technology that was installed in last year's version of the Turbo Tax tax-preparation software has been removed for the 2003 version, company officials plan to announce today."

"As the major record companies scramble to put a lid on peer-to-peer file-sharing networks like Morpheus and Kazaa, an upstart California record label is trying to revolutionize the industry by taking the opposite approach: making file sharing the heart of its business."

"The crisis in the music industry has been brought about only in part by the digital revolution. The layering of copyright ownership interests and the complexity of copyright law, particularly as it applies to music, has also played a major role in the inability of the industry to respond to the rapidly evolving ways in which digital works can be distributed and otherwise exploited."

"Downloading and file sharing have made music available for free to consumers all around the world. Using the technology may be illegal, but that doesn't seem to deter many people. The music business has plenty of company. Changing technology and changing mores have made a long list of industries vulnerable to low-cost or no-cost competition."

"AOL Time Warner said Wednesday that it plans to launch an online radio station next week and a download service by next spring, trumpeting its entry into Europe's suddenly boisterous Internet music market."

"At an open meeting Wednesday of a peer-to-peer forum backed by the parent company of Kazaa, the discussion will turn to a seemingly improbable concept: how to eliminate piracy from file-swapping networks."

"Under normal circumstances, the antipiracy software is automatically loaded onto a Windows machine whenever the Hamilton album is run in a computer's CD drive, making traditional copying or MP3 ripping impossible. However, simply holding down the Shift key prevents Windows' AutoRun feature from loading the copy-protection software, leaving the music free to copy, Halderman said."

"A Princeton graduate student said Monday that he has figured out a way to defeat new software intended to keep music CDs from being copied on a computer -- simply by pressing the Shift-key."

"For about $60 for the software and another $80 for a tuner card, SnapStream's Personal Video Station 3 lets you record your favorite shows to your heart's content -- without the monthly subscription charges."

"And now you're invited to participate in a grand experiment. The price is a sliding scale, with a $5 minimum. For the month of October, all amounts over $5 will be donated to the P2P Legal Defense Fund at downhillbattle.org, to help out families and individuals hit with RIAA lawsuits."

"We have anecdotal evidence from trials in Hull, the UK's most advanced digital TV network, that audiences watch more, not less, TV once they have a PVR, but they watch less of any one particular programme, basically skipping through the boring bits. [...] As broadcasters and programme makers, we should help bring forward this world where the viewer is in control. [...] We should create more programmes that come with the meta-data, the tags in the programme that allow it to be chopped up and consumed piece meal by the viewer."

"The company wants to remove the artist's work as part of a redesign of Eastport Park. Phillips has responded with a lawsuit that, if he wins, will help define a pair of relatively new laws designed to protect artists. US District Court Judge Patti B. Saris has issued a restraining order barring Fidelity from making changes to Eastport Park."

"As the music industry reels from plunging sales due in part to Internet piracy, they also are facing heightened competition from mass merchants like Best Buy and Target Corp. that control about 55 percent of U.S. music sales."

"We gather this is the sort of 'innovation' that software patents are supposed to encourage. Certainly it seems certain that this idea will cause M'Learned fiends to start some 'innovative' new lawsuits - we can't imagine that the patent-wielding boffins at Eolas will be happy to see their multi-billion dollar 'invention' bypassed by a few lines of Javascript."

Kevin Werbach: "Microsoft has responded to the successful Eolas patent lawsuit by changing Internet Explorer to make it harder to embed applets in Web pages. Glad to see that strong intellectual property rights are producing so much innovation."

This paper "attempts to reconfigure the misguided public debate on copyright piracy by underscoring the need to focus on the copyright divide - the gap between those who have stakes in the copyright regime and those who do not."

"Earthstation 5 has released a new edition of its file-swapping software, responding to reports that running older versions could allow hackers to delete critical files on a user's computer."

"Charter Communications has filed a lawsuit in an effort to bar the Recording Industry Association of America from obtaining the identities of its cable customers that have allegedly traded songs illegally online."

"John Alexander Halderman, a Princeton graduate student in computer science who obtained a copy of the Hamilton CD, said it's easy to bypass all the limitations imposed by the MediaMax system."

Scroll to the second question: "Well, something new and horrible has been introduced on some studios' prints. Sort of a giant picture-marring version of Cap Code dots: Very large reddish brown spots that flash in the middle of the picture, usually placed in a light area. They flash in various patterns throughout a given reel while other reels of the same film may have none at all. A Kodak spokesman who helped devise the original Cap Code says this is not the work of his company but theorizes that it may be intended to be more visible on the murky compressed copies that get posted to the Internet where the original, very subtle Cap Code may be difficult to discern."

"Comcast Corp. -- in the latest maneuver in cable TV's battle against TiVo and other digital video recorders, satellite television and video stores for control over the family TV remote -- plans to launch an enhanced version of its video-on-demand service in southeast Michigan on Monday. [...] Digital cable customers will be able to catch up with 1,000 shows from networks such as BBC America, CNN, Cartoon Network, Court TV, Outdoor Life Network and PBS Kids as well as others. The service doesn't include shows on the major networks."

"Bundling a album with a raft of value-added extras - while charging just a dollar more than the standard price for a CD - may sound like a costly move for P.O.D.'s label, Atlantic Records, part of AOL Time Warner. But it is a testament to just how desperate music companies are to stoke consumer interest and reverse a three-year sales slump by pulling fans away from making free downloads of music from Internet file-trading sites."

"Napster 2.0, due before the holidays, combines elements of the two most popular business models emerging in digital music -- streaming over the Internet and downloads. And this time around, the former renegade service is entering a landscape that has been changed by the music industry's cooperation."

"What's remarkable about the controversy over music sharing is not how many people are involved - although the number is certainly large - but rather their fervent rationalizing. Internet music sharers, and their defenders, have variously argued that the music industry is evil, that CD's are too expensive and that record companies have brought this upon themselves by failing to offer their wares online."

"Sen. Orrin Hatch warned the technology industry on Friday that it could face consumer lawsuits if it does not help stop the distribution of music, pornography and other material over 'peer-to-peer' networks. [...] 'I'm not saying that they should be (sued),' said Hatch, an amateur songwriter. 'As a veteran of tobacco and asbestos litigation wars, however, I'm just saying that nothing surprises me anymore.'"

"The European Parliament's decision to limit patents, as they apply to software and business methods, risks creating a "patent war" with a fallout that could make it illegal to access some European e-commerce sites from the United States, analyst firm Gartner has warned."

"SunnComm claims its product facilitates 'a verifiable and commendable level of security,' but in tests on a newly-released album, I find that the protections have no effect on a large fraction of deployed PCs, and that most affected users can bypass the system entirely by holding the shift key while inserting the CD."

"Three years after the Recording Industry Association of America's lawyers succeeded in shutting down the Napster file-trading service, the music industry's jihad against unauthorized digital music distribution is reaping an unintended consequence: better, easier-to-use software for exchanging data securely -- and even anonymously -- on the Internet.

"The laser-cartridge return program from printer manufacturer Lexmark International Inc. received a green light this week when a federal judge in California upheld the program as fair and legal."

"Charter Communications Inc. filed a suit on Friday seeking to block the recording industry from obtaining the identities of Charter customers who allegedly shared copyrighted music over the Internet."

"Sen. Norm Coleman said Thursday he will push legislation this year to reduce legal penalties for people who download copyrighted music off the Internet."

"The move is likely to put consumer rights advocates on their guard, however, since both Microsoft and Phoenix are involved in plans to integrate digital rights management (DRM) technology at the operating system and hardware level. DRM is designed to give copyright owners more control over how users make use of software and content, but has been criticised as eroding consumer rights."

"If a student is on the network and tries to share files, Icarus automatically sends an e-mail and an immediate pop-up warning and disconnects the student from the network. The first violation disables network access for 30 minutes; the second cuts off access for five days. Third-time offenders are subject to the school's judicial process, and their network access is cut off indefinitely."

"Microsoft is determined to make Windows Media Video 9 the standard for HD-DVD, and it actually has a shot at accomplishing that."

"Independent filmmakers strongly criticized on Wednesday a decision by the Motion Picture Association of America to stop sending out copies of new movies in advance of the awards season in an effort to halt piracy."

"The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 says that copyright holders may issue subpoenas signed only by a court clerk - not a judge - that require Internet providers to turn over personal information about their subscribers. The law does not require the subscribers to be notified. [...] Between the stringent provisions of the cable law and the relatively wide-open provisions of the digital copyright act, a crazy quilt of laws - a product of decades of ad hoc legislation - govern what your phone company, cable company, Internet service provider or video store may be compelled to tell about you."

"It will almost certainly be based on Windows Media 9 technology, not the MP3 format that made its name - particularly since it has a tie-in with Microsoft's Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004, which launched earlier this week."

"Perhaps the music industry is afraid of compulsories because it will level out the competition and force monies to be divided by consumer decisions on artist quality, rather than on the quantity of marketing effort behind the promotion of an artist. A compulsory licensing system would certainly necessitate big changes to established practice, and perhaps this is the real reason for the resistance experienced."

"What Scott's program means, is that any digital content can easily be transformed into a sound file, or in technical copyright lingo, a "sound recording," which when fixed becomes a "phonorecord." Many compulsory license schemes only apply to "music" but since they don't define the term, or discuss changes in how audio works are categorized, one must assume that they are using the current definitions of "sound recording" and "phonorecord." Consequently, any creator of digital content can benefit from a music-only compulsory license scheme."

"Two Worcester men have set up an online system called Downhill Battle that allows donors to contribute directly to those targeted in the suits."

"Sen. Norm Coleman said Thursday he will push legislation this year to reduce legal penalties for people who download copyrighted music off the Internet. [...] Coleman said he will also press for changes in federal law to reign in the recording industry's subpoena power."

"Challenging popular wisdom, Mercora Chief Executive Srivats Sampath, former CEO of McAfee.com, is betting that users will jump at the opportunity to trade news, song clips and information about each other's buying and listening habits -- while paying for copyright material."

"Printer giant Lexmark International Inc. said Thursday a federal judge in California upheld the fairness and legality of its laser toner cartridge return program. [...] Lexmark remains in litigation over the cartridge program against Static Control Components Inc. of Sanford, N.C."

"For example, imagine that Hollywood movie studios decide to release their movies in formats that can only be played by certain trusted media player software. [...] Your continued ability to make copies, take excerpts, fast-forward and mute would all be entirely within Hollywood's control, and part of your computer would now answer to Hollywood, rather than to you."

"A high-profile digital civil liberties group is criticizing a component of the "trusted computing" technology promoted by Microsoft, IBM and other technology companies, calling the feature a threat to computer users."

"Changing hardware design isn't inherently suspicious, but the leading trusted computing proposals have a high cost: they provide security to users while giving third parties the power to enforce policies on users' computers against the users' wishes -- they let others pressure you to hand some control over your PC to someone else."

"By this time next year, DivX-compatible DVD players will likely be standard fare at consumer-electronics outlets in the United States, increasing the pressure on industry giants such as Microsoft and RealNetworks to get their own formats off the PC and onto one of the hottest-selling consumer-electronics devices around."

"Frustrated by the lack of a copy protection standard that might help the digital content business reach the mainstream, a high-profile digital media group is taking matters into its own hands."

"Movielink said Monday that it will offer a co-branded video-on-demand service to broadband customers of Time Warner Cable's Road Runner, in a multiyear partnership between the two companies."

"The people behind ES5 have intentionally added malicious code to ES5. If you have followed the ES5 discussions on message boards and read what the ES5 people have said and done (eg. DoS attacking BitTorrent sites), this comes as no surprise."

"Four men have pleaded guilty for their roles in an online piracy ring that illegally distributed tens of thousands of copyrighted materials through the Internet, authorities said."

"After a barrage of criticism resulting from its initial round of lawsuits, the RIAA is attempting to stem the tide of negative publicity by slightly altering their tactics. Now, before a lawsuit is filed, potential defendents will be contacted and given the opportunity to pony up some cash to make the problem go away, or argue that they haven't engaged in activities frowned upon by the RIAA."

"The music industry, criticized for its recent wave of lawsuits aimed at stopping song swapping on the Internet, agreed yesterday to contact future defendants before they are sued and give them a chance to pay a cash settlement or argue that they have been mistakenly accused of copyright infringement."

"What doesn't pass the smell test is the RIAA's own position with respect to copyright enforcement. Ultimately, its approach is outdated, impractical and Orwellian - and benefits neither the artists whose interests the RIAA supposedly represents, nor the fans whose dollars fuel the entire music industry."

"A day after Hollywood's major studios announced a ban on DVD giveaways to Academy Award voters and other industry players, a phalanx of notables, including director Robert Altman and actress Hilary Swank, on Wednesday warned the move would damage independent filmmaking. The ban, announced Tuesday by the Motion Picture Assn. of America (MPAA), which represents the major studios, was designed to combat piracy."

"The reconstituted Napster music service will be unveiled on Oct. 9, according to CD and DVD software company Roxio, its new corporate parent."

"With a pitch that evokes the heady days of 1999, digital music start-up Mercora is planning to launch a distribution service next month, inspired in equal parts by iTunes, Friendster and eBay."

"Napster, the pioneering song-swap service that was shut down for copyright infringement, is coming back next week to face the music as a paid site in a vastly changed online music arena."

A "Digital Media Manifesto" from the former head of the SDMI: "The Digital Media Manifesto proposes to make an improved Digital Media Experience economically rewarding on a global scale, legitimate for the multiplicity of players on the value chain and satisfactory for end-users, with the ultimate goal of realising a fuller Digital Media Experience."

"In an effort to gain campus-wide exposure and to inform students of threats to computing freedom, the new student-run group Swarthmore Coalition for the Digital Commons held a rally and information session on Tuesday night in the science center."

"Academy Awards voters will have to catch most of their movies on the big screen after Hollywood implemented a plan Tuesday to ban special DVDs and videotapes of Oscar contenders."

"But many indie distributors and specialty divisions within the major studios see the screener ban as a deadly blow to their films' chances of winning major awards. Their movies usually play in limited release and don't have theatrical outreach of the big-budget flicks and they had used screeners to help level the playing field."

"A research paper highlighting security weaknesses in a popular internet file-sharing network has raised concerns that innocent users could in theory be wrongly accused of sharing copyrighted music."

"Massachusetts has adopted a new policy that favors open-source software and adherence to open standards in government computing systems, a state official said."

"Representing a Boston college student, the ACLU claims the music labels should not have the authority to strip Internet users of anonymity without allowing them to challenge the order in court."

"Rapper LL Cool J joined entertainment executives Tuesday in defending the music industry's lawsuits against hundreds of Internet users who illegally distribute music online. [...] Another rapper, Chuck D, founder of Public Enemy, testified at the Senate Governmental Affairs subcommittee hearing that people ought to be able to distribute the songs they want to hear on peer-to-peer Internet services, known as P2P."

"Nielsen//NetRatings, which tracks Internet usage, said on Tuesday it found a 41 percent drop over the last three months in the audience for Kazaa, the leading music file-sharing service."

"SoundExchange, the organization created by the Recording Industry Association of America to distribute Webcasting royalties, said Tuesday that it completed its spinoff from its parent."

"If file-sharing is the wave of the future, as many believe it is, then adversarial approaches should not be the first, and certainly not the only response. Though aggressive prosecution may result in a short-term deterrent, in the long run it cannot stem the cultural tide."

"Many of the people who argue that they should not have to pay for one kind of file (say, the latest song from J. Lo) can become outraged at the thought of sharing another kind of file -- say, the one that contains their personal financial data or a map of their Web wanderings."

"A bevy of digital-media experts, led by the founder of the group that created the widespread MPEG set of media standards, launched an international forum Tuesday that's aimed at standardizing digital media and copy protection technologies."

"If the DMCA required the copyright owner to prove copyright infringement - the fact of it, not just a belief about it - then that might significantly diminish the First Amendment harms. But it doesn't. And if a good faith belief about infringement, in a particular case, ends up being wrong, then the First Amendment harm to the person exchanging files will be very serious indeed."

"Lawsuits launched against individuals for illegal file-sharing appear to have tempered activity on the more popular peer-to-peer networks, new U.S. research released this week shows."

Chuck D: ""As an artist representing an 80-year period of black musicianship, I never felt that my copyrights were protected anyway. I've been spending most of my career ducking lawyers, accountants and business executives who have basically been more blasphemous than file sharers and P2P."

"The Recording Industry Association of America said on Monday it has reached out-of-court settlements with 52 people who were sued for sharing online music illegally and 12 others who were targeted for possible legal action."

"The VH1 poll found that 89% of music buyers think that CDs are not priced fairly."

"In an era in which the piracy of recorded music has leeched away revenues, the band's ability to turn live shows into its primary distribution channel may turn out to be the wisest of business decisions."

"Maybe both drops [in P2P usage and global music sales] are at least somewhat attributable to the lack of interesting new artists and music being released by the record labels."

"The point is that the RIAA increasingly comes across as an anachronistic throwback to 19th Century copyright laws. They are the classic bluff and bluster comic book cops that are all about threats and are totally cut off from 21st Century reality."

Via Furdlog: "Executives at some independent companies said privately that the studios were less interested in the piracy issue than in undercutting independent film companies who have consistently won Oscars recently."