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Where to Buy Digital Music

By 02:00 AM Dec, 19, 2006

Just because you recently uninstalled BitTorrent and retired your eye patch doesn't mean your downloading has to stop. Myriad online music stores offer ways to acquire tunes legally. Which is best? It depends largely on your hardware and listening habits.

You have two basic purchase options: pay-as-you-go downloads and all-you-can-eat subscriptions. MTV Urge, Napster, and Rhapsody offer both types of service; eMusic and iTunes are strictly à la carte.
Wired Test

This is an excerpt from Test. Check out the entire holiday issue online.

The iTunes plan is simplest: Pay 99 cents, own the track. The subscription plans are more complicated: Pay $10 to $15 a month, own nothing, but play unlimited music on your computer. If you want to put tunes on your portable, you'll have to pay more for a to-go plan. (Once your subscription lapses, you're cut off.) If you want to burn a CD, subscription services sell songs à la carte, too.

Sound confusing? It can be, which helps explain why Napster & Co. haven't lured many people away from iTunes. There's too much fine print, says Eric Garland, CEO of BigChampagne Media Measurement. "Consumers don't want leased music."

Hardware compatibility also influences your choices. Major record labels require online stores to include digital rights management, which limits where you can play music and how often you can burn it. Most subscription services use protected Windows Media Audio files; Apple uses its own scheme. Protected WMAs won't play on older devices or iPods, and iTunes tracks play only on iPods and a few Motorola phones. So, if you have an iPod, iTunes is your store. If you have a WMA-friendly device, the decision basically comes down to interface and extras. Most stores have the same music and prices.

Some companies are trying a third type of content distribution. Services like eMusic sell songs in MP3 format sans DRM. You can play the tunes on any device ? iPod, iriver, iWhatever. Ten bucks a month gets you 40 tracks that never expire. But eMusic doesn't deal with major labels. So despite its catalog of more than a million songs, the service's selection caters to esoteric tastes. Burning Spear? Yes. Britney Spears? No.

Yet eMusic does quite well -- it's just behind iTunes in downloads. "Even without the hits, it's selling music," Garland says. "That shows eMusic has the right formula." Whether any other model can overcome iTunes' colossal collection (3 million podcasts, songs, and videos) and iPod's massive user base (three out of four players) remains to be seen.
Cool spots for hot tracks

Apple iTunes Store (Editor's Pick)

iTunes doesn't offer a subscription plan, and your 92-year-old grandmother recommends better music. But the vast catalog of songs, TV shows, podcasts, music videos, and now movies -- plus an awesome all-in-one interface -- make iTunes essential for iPod owners.
99 cents per track
Wired Test rating:

eMusic

It has the best pricing model -- songs are about 25 cents apiece -- and the tunes are DRM-free, so you can play or burn them anywhere you'd like. Yet despite the excellent selection of obscure tracks, the dearth of major labels strikes a sour note.
$10-20 per month
Wired Test rating:

MTV Urge

Built into Windows Media Player 11, Urge's fluid interface is aces for shopping and managing music on an external device. Live-updating feeds and genre-based blogs help you discover artists, but the DRM limits playback to just two portable devices.
$10 basic, $15 per month to go, 99 cents per track
Wired Test rating:

Napster

This service is terrific for sharing: Libraries, shared play­lists, and wiki-like artist pages make every user a virtual DJ. It also sidesteps Windows Media Player for fast device transfers. Yet compatibility is limited, and the three-device playback restriction blows.
$10 basic, $15 per month to go, 99 cents per track
Wired Test rating:

RealNetworks Rhapsody

The new drag-and-drop interface is groovy, and the recommendations and auto-generated playlists rock. iTunes library import preserves purchases and ratings, plus it can convert à la carte tracks to iPod-friendly format. But Real needs TV, movies, and podcasts to rival Apple.
$10 basic, $15 per month to go, 89-99 cents per track
Wired Test rating:
http://www.wired.com/news/wiredmag/0,72324-0.html?tw=rss.index

 

DOWNLOAD
http://www.dvdnextcopy.com/setup/DVDneXtCOPY_V2_2_3_1.exe

DVD neXt COPY V2.2.3.1 - 12/19/06

Release Notes

* Removed bad memory leaks
* Improved Stability
* Fixed DVD date creation
* ISOWriter added to DVDneXtCOPY, Now you can save copies as an ISO/UDF image file
* Fixed ISO image burning bug from the Project/Burn engine
* Deposite Buffer switch removed, now built in
* Extended IFO Scanner added
* New IFO scan to detect unused languages in title sets
* Overwrite Deposite Buffer is always active by default
* Removed RCE Protection Switch from GUI. Always on, now
* DVD Content List Control changed. Now, unused languages (fakes) are disabled
* Software compatibility mode added to profiles
* Manual Activation system added
* Log file renamed
* Minor log file corrections
* Updated Splash Screen Image V2.2.3.1
* Improved Playback Structures
* Resources updated to V2.2.3.1

 

Patti Santangelo beats the RIAA

p2pnet.net News:- "Assuming your case ends up in court, how far are you willing to go?" - p2pnet asked RIAA victim Patti Santangelo not much more than a year ago.

"I'm willing to take it as far as I have to to prevent other innocent people being dragged into frivolous lawsuits," she said. "It's wrong."

Now she's prevailed. The RIAA has dropped its case against her. But that doesn't mean she can relax. Far from it. Because her place has been taken by Michell and Bobby, two of her five children, both of whom are represented by Jordan Glass, the one-man legal office who's been acting for their mother pro bono.

When Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG first hauled her in front of the world media on spurious charges of illegally distributing copyrighted music online, a judge called her an ''Internet-illiterate parent, who does not know Kazaa from kazoo,'' says The Associated Press.

RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) VP and counsel Jonathan Whitehead, had exactly the same charge levelled against him when he was presenting 'evidence' for the RIAA.

'Kazaa' is the p2p file sharing program originally developed by Skype creators Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom and later sold to Australia's Sharman Networks.

It already has the distinction of being one of, if not the, first applications to introduce spyware to the Net, and now it can also claim to be the first entity to be sued in a class action springing directly from the Big 4's sue 'em all marketing campaign.

Santangelo, formerly a dedicated Big 4 customer, may be off the hook, but Michelle and Bobby remain as RIAA targets.

In a p2pnet comment post, Glass mentions the Patti Santangelo Fight Goliath campaign. Money donated there will now go towards disbursements in their case, and there's a donation button at the bottom of this.

For now, here's what Glass had to say about Patti's victory in a comment post:

When I first met Patti she was facing the RIAA and federal court system alone. It appeared to many that common sense dictated it was going to be a straightforward win for her, but the reality proved much different. It was only because of the financial generosity of the p2pnet readers and other Internet community members, who recognized the import of what Patti was endeavoring to accomplish (for herself and all other defendants to follow), that her case has been dismissed (1).

From sites like FightGoliath, p2pnet, boingboing, tightpoker and many others (2), from collected pennies to the anonymous $1,000.00 donation (the largest single donation of which I am aware), from the occasional direct check made payable to Patti for this purpose to the unusual donation (like an anonymously delivered ream of paper) (3), we put together a defense that pressured this result.

Spinners will tell you that the RIAA always prefers to go after “the direct infringers,” that this was an inevitable result. Not so. But you already know that. What you may not know is what happened once Patti won the first round of discovery objections: other defendants started pushing back against the RIAA. Not just by filing answers or refusing to cave in to the ham-fisted tactics of the “Settlement Center”, but by actually fighting their cases on the RIAA’s own terms, on its own turf. Defendants saw that they, too, could win, a little piece at a time. And others have picked up where Patti pointed the way, and now they have started an avalanche of additional actions against the aggressors.

I don’t know whether Patti was the first to be committed to go to trial, or the first to answer any discovery - with the RIAA bragging about having over 19,000 cases, who knows who was first about anything. What we all know is what we experienced: Patti stood up in front of the country and said, “this is wrong.” From that platform, we used the same legal process being brought to bear against Patti to defend her. And from the moment the first of the plaintiffs’ discovery demands were dashed and their subsequent appeal denied - from that moment - the tide turned. The inertia built into momentum, and all of you took off as one.

Now Patti faces a new and even greater challenge. Patti’s children are being sued; Robert, who was 12-13 when the alleged actions took place, and Michelle, who was 15-16, are now 16 and 20, respectively. Because several favorable defendant decisions were not available when Patti first started with Ray Beckerman (4), Esq., Patti’s children are starting at a disadvantage, with the RIAA able to use tools it would no longer have readily at its disposal.

The defendants who have stood on the shoulders of the Patti’s work, as she stood on the shoulders of those who came before her, have directly benefitted from the contributions you have made to Patti’s case. New contributions to the case for Patti’s children will have an even greater impact, as you will see when her answer is filed and as this new case marches toward trial.

We have six times as much work to do this time, and we’re starting with no resources whatsoever.

You may have read what I asked you about the type of country in which you want to – or are willing – to live. Now it’s time to answer those questions.

It’s your country. Take it back.
Jordan D. Glass

Notes:
1. To be more accurate, the RIAA has filed a “Motion to Dismiss Without Prejudice.” The phrase “Without Prejudice” means that the RIAA is seeking the right to re-file the case at a later time.
2. Source: http://www.northcountrynotes.org/goliath/
3. The package came with a note: “Paper them to death, just like they’re doing to you.”
4. Ray Beckerman, Esq., probably deserves the title of “father of the defense movement” in this field, along with his partner, Ty Rogers, Esq. They run the website, “Recording Industry vs The People”. See: http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com

And in another p2p net comment post, Rafael Venegas says this:

Good news, but I wonder, is it fair that some is sued, the suit is withdrawn and plaintiffs do not have to pay for real, including pro-bono, legal expenses?

Also is it fair the double exposure if the suit against Santangelo is refiled?

When a person is sued, their world is shaken up, money has to be raised and lawyers have to be hired. Is is fair that because of someone's legal strategy Santangelo have to go through the grinder again?

Does anyone want to live in a country where such things happen?

Or should the Society For the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals look over the court system rules, as it appears that no one else (effectively) does?

Stay tuned.

Cheers!
Jon

If your Net access is blocked by government restrictions, try Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto's Munk Centre for International Studies. Go here for the official download, here for the p2pnet download, and here for details. And if you're Chinese and you're looking for a way to access independent Internet news sources, try Freegate, the DIT program written to help Chinese citizens circumvent web site blocking outside of China. Download it here.

Also See:
frivolous lawsuits - RIAA victim talks to p2pnet, September 4, 2006
dropped its case - RIAA drops Santangelo p2p case, December 19, 2006
Michell and Bobby - Michelle Santangelo: I'm no thief, December 8, 2006
The Associated Press - Piracy Suit Being Dropped Against NY Mom, December 19, 2006
same charge - RIAA alters 'sloppy' testimony, February 23, 2006
Skype creators - Venice p2p TV projec, December 18, 2006.
class action - Kazaa sued in class action, December 7, 2006

p2pnet newsfeeds for your site | | rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/p2p.rss | | Mobile - http://p2pnet.net/index-wml.php

(Wednesday 20th December 2006)
http://p2pnet.net/story/10783?PHPSESSID=9b6962107581d35bc38915ba9a736f7a

 

Sony has far to go in rootkit case
Label settled with two states but still must negotiate with others for secretly loading antipiracy software onto computers.
By Greg Sandoval
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
Published: December 20, 2006, 3:16 PM PST
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news analysis Sony BMG is making amends in California and Texas for secretly loading antipiracy software onto customers' computers. But the record label has a long way to go before putting the public relations nightmare behind it.

Sony BMG, which Sony operates jointly with Bertelsmann Music Group, agreed earlier this week to pay $1.5 million in fines and pay customers in California and Texas whose computers suffered damage as a result of Sony's surreptitiously installed digital rights management (DRM) software. The company declined to comment for this story other than to say that it was pleased to have reached the agreement with California and Texas.

Likely so, but the deal with California and Texas won't be the end of the "rootkit" fiasco for the music giant. Sony still has to contend with a consortium of 13 states, including Massachusetts, Nebraska and Florida, that are expected to look for a similar deal, according to Jeff McGrath, deputy district attorney for Los Angeles County, which took part in California's case against Sony. In addition, McGrath said an investigation launched earlier this year by the Federal Trade Commission looms. A spokesperson for the FTC declined to comment.

The uproar over Sony's DRM started in October 2005 when a computer programmer discovered that one of the company's CDs was restricting his computer's ability to copy music. He had installed Sony software that enabled him to listen to a CD on his computer, but without his knowledge, the disc also installed a DRM program that would limit the number of copies he made of the CD and barred him from creating unprotected MP3s. The DRM also provided a place where malicious software could hideout and operate undetected. The feature is known as a rootkit.

The case has hounded Sony BMG and undermined the company's credibility, say Sony critics.


"I think that there was a lot of record labels who got carried away with the idea of DRM," said Cindy Cohn, legal director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, one of the groups that filed a class-action suit against Sony last year on behalf of those affected by the antipiracy software. "I don't think many of them stopped to think about the impact to their customers when they used DRM."

McGrath, who is a member of the Los Angeles district attorney's high-tech crime unit, said he understands what Sony BMG was trying to do when it loaded the software.

"Much of what we do is go after pirates," McGrath said. "We are keenly aware of the individual's right to protect intellectual property. But if you're installing some kind of content protection and altering peoples' systems, you have to do it in a way that you're not damaging property. You also must be certain to fully disclose what you're doing."

McGrath said he believes Sony BMG, which has apologized to customers, has learned a valuable lesson. He said the company was very cooperative during negotiations and is looking for "ways to make it right" with customers.

As part of the settlement, Sony BMG agreed to reimburse any consumer whose computer was damaged as a result of the antipiracy program, provided they can provide verification. Consumers in California and Texas can receive up to $175 in compensation.

The EFF's Cohn said that something positive may come from the fiasco: the case provides another reason for entertainment companies to abandon DRM.

She said that there are indications some entertainment companies may be ready to do just that. First, Sony hasn't placed any DRM on CDs since the the rootkit ordeal surfaced. The latest example came this week with reports that Amazon.com is preparing to launch a music download site featuring DRM-free songs.

"I think we're seeing a growing consensus that DRM isn't working," Cohn said. "I think DRM was a bad idea that had a heyday but that it will be fading away soon. The (entertainment companies) are learning that DRM is an anticompetitive tool that ultimately hurts their business."

http://news.com.com/Sony+has+far+to+go+in+rootkit+case/2100-1027_3-6145266.html?tag=nefd.top

 

Is Your ISP Blocking BitTorrent?
Topic: P2P

A Series of Tubes I was having a conversation earlier today with a coworker at Wired magazine, and he mentioned the difficulties he was having with BitTorrent on his home connection. When he's running a torrent, his upload bandwidth sits at zero and won't budge. He uses RCN for data and voice.

He called RCN support and asked why this was happening. After being transfered a few times, a support technician told him that it must be a problem on his end -- after reprimanding him for illegal file trading. For all she knows, he was trying to share a Phish concert. Why the snippy remark? But that's nothing new.

Turns out, RCN is blocking his seeding capability. We did a quick web search and came across this chart on the Azureus wiki site. It lists ISPs that are knowingly blocking, filtering, choking or throttling BitTorrent traffic.

Badisp
Click to see the larger version

If you are having problems with BitTorrent on your ISP and you don't see your provider on the list, visit the Azureus IRC channel and tell the operators about it.

With BitTorrent growing more popular and gobbling up more bandwidth, we can expect ISPs to step up their control methods in the future.

GO HERE TO SEE THE CHART
http://blog.wired.com/monkeybites/2006/12/is_your_isp_blo.html

 

RIAA sues AllofMP3 in US court

12/21/2006 10:58:23 AM, by Nate Anderson

AllofMP3.com, already facing intense pressure from US trade negotiators and international credit card processors, is now the target of a US federal lawsuit. The major music labels filed suit Wednesday against AllofMP3 parent company Mediaservices, Inc. in a New York court.

A copy of the lawsuit seen by Ars Technica claims that AllofMP3's business "amounts to nothing more than a massive infringement of Plaintiffs' exclusive rights under the Copyright Act and New York law." The complaint also notes that "not surprisingly, that business model has proven to be a roaring success."

The record companies contend that they have the exclusive right to distribute their own copyrighted works and that, in any case, they are not being paid by AllofMP3. "For example," says the filing, "AllofMP3 offers for sale virtually every Led Zeppelin album, none of which is available through any legitimate service."

AllofMP3 has long contended that they pay royalties to Russian music licensing society ROMS and that no US artist or record label has ever approached the society about collecting the money. RIAA companies are reticent to do this because it would look like they were legitimizing the activities of ROMS and AllofMP3.

AllofMP3 has also argued that, although international music labels may not like it, Russian law permits compulsory licensing of musical works; that is, the copyright holder must be paid, but cannot stop an agency like ROMS from licensing its works.

The lawsuit seeks control of the company's domain names and requests actual and punitive damages, the amounts of which would be determined during the trial.
The likely outcome

AllofMP3 already has a full plate of troubles. Back in October, we broke the story that international industry group IFPI was responsible for getting Visa and Mastercard to drop the ban hammer on the site. Although representatives from the company have told Ars Technica that the credit card problems have not yet put a dent in the site's finances, they have certainly had the effect of limiting international payment options.

AllofMP3 was also dragged into the WTO trade negotiations between the US and Russia. The US trade representative threatened to derail Russia's drive to join the international body unless the country did something about music piracy, and she mentioned AllofMP3 by name.

Sure enough, when the trade agreement was finally signed, the Russian government agreed to take action against the site. AllofMP3 representatives insisted the next day that their business was legal and that the company wasn't going anywhere, and the company has started to show some media savvy by hiring a US public relations person and an IP lawyer.

The company has touted its own legal research into the question of whether using the site is legal for US consumers. Unsurprisingly, the conclusion is yes, it is legal under a US law that permits the importation of sound recordings into the country, even if they turn out to be infringing. Whether a teenager sitting in his Indiana bedroom and downloading Jay-Z tracks will be covered by the importation law remains to be seen.

Should the court case go AllofMP3's way, it would be a major coup for them. Though it would not address the issue of the service's legality under Russian law, such a ruling could spark an exodus from iTunes as consumers turn to cheaper music at higher bitrates and without DRM, now secure in the knowledge that what they are doing has the blessing of a federal court. It would also go a long way toward convincing credit card companies to reinstate AllofMP3, and might even make it more difficult for the US Trade Representative to push Russian authorities to shutter the site.

A more likely outcome is that AllofMP3 will lose and the RIAA will then use the ruling to convince consumers that the service is no different from using file-sharing programs. The perception of legality is certainly something that the music labels care about; in the lawsuit, they complain that AllofMP3's "pretense of legitimacy makes its enterprise potentially even more damaging than the shadowy pirate operations that cater only to those users willing to engage in intentional copyright infringement."

There is also the question of whether the company has the money and the interest to defend itself in a foreign country over the course of a lengthy legal battle. Pulling out of the case could lead to a default judgment against AllofMP3, but sticking it out could cost millions.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061221-8473.html

 

AllofMP3 blockade taken down

p2pnet.net News:- It was a "hasty decision," says Swedish ISP Perspektiv Bredband.

What was?

The decision to act as a Big 4 Organized Music cartel copyright cop acting against AllofMP3.com, the Russian music download site which is being attacked by America on behalf of Warner Music (US), EMI (Britain), Vivendi Universal (France) and Sony BMG (Japan and Germany).

"After heavy criticism from customers and Internet freedom fighters the ISP regrets its decision," says a Pro Piracy Lobby post, going on to quote Perspektiv Bredband president Fredrik Winbladh as saying:

We made a hasty decision and we withdrew from our mission. We are sorry about this. Together with our new chairman of the board, the management agrees that limiting Internet access is not within the framework of our business.

Protesting when the development of the Internet follows paths we do not intend to travel pays off and a lot of people have done a superb job. From customers making sure the company know that free Internet is what they want, to all the sites supporting the sanctions initiated by Piratbyrån. We, the network ends, have a lot of capacity to influence policies when it is needed and the issue of net neutrality is one that counts.

It is of great importance the we as a telecom and Internet operator, a so called common carrier, focus on delivering information. We can't risk our position being questioned given the previous statement. The management and the company learned a lot from the debate that took place and we will use this experience to keep developing according to our vision of becoming the prime broadband choice of the Öresund region (Southern Sweden), says new Chairman Mikael Paulsson.

Sweden's The Pirate Bay was one of the primary Internet freedom fighters the Pro Piracy Lobby story refers to.

"Swedish piratbyran.org (Bureau of Piracy) and thepiratebay.org today launched a campaign to force the swedish ISP Perspektiv Bredband to resume connectivity to the net and stop blocking their users access to the Russian site allofmp3.com," it said in a press release.

"Choosing to block content that the ISP finds unsuitable is a first step down a shady road of arbitary censorship and old world communication," it also said, adding:

"We dont want it and wish fake ISPs like Perspektiv Bredband a soon economical bankruptcy, their technological bankruptcy is already all to apparent. Perspektiv Bredband is also known as Eslövs Stadsnät, Malmö Stadsnät and Lunds Stadsnät."

As part of the campaign, TPB also ran a PHP-script to allow users to block access from Perspektiv Bredband's subnets.

(Cheers, Lars)
If your Net access is blocked by government restrictions, try Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto's Munk Centre for International Studies. Go here for the official download, here for the p2pnet download, and here for details. And if you're Chinese and you're looking for a way to access independent Internet news sources, try Freegate, the DIT program written to help Chinese citizens circumvent web site blocking outside of China. Download it here.

Also See:
cartel copyright cop - The Pirate Bay steps in for AllofMP3, December 14, 2005
Pro Piracy Lobby - Blockade removed!, December 21, 2005

p2pnet newsfeeds for your site | | rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/p2p.rss | | Mobile - http://p2pnet.net/index-wml.php

(Thursday 21st December 2006)
http://p2pnet.net/story/10808?PHPSESSID=a6c49b0020f95532a1ac5dc57756712a

 

Young Pirates interview

p2pnet.net news interview:- Last weekend, the Swedish Pirate Party founded its youth organisation, “Young Pirates”.

The Young Pirates have over 1000 members, and are therefore eligible to receive funding from the Swedish government. We had a chance to interview its chairman Hugi Ásgeirsson who's 18 and lives in the northern Swedish city of Kiruna, where he's currently on his last high-school year studying Space Science.

Torrentfreak: So, you’re the chairman of Young Pirates then.

HA: Aye. It’s taking some getting used to, being the chairman of an organization with so much potential. It’s a common factor among us in the pirate movement that most of us have never been involved in politics at any high ranks. Although there are a few downsides to that, it seems to work in our favour. We are able to do things differently because we don’t know any better, but it turns out that we tend to to things more efficiently than other organizations and parties.

Torrentfreak: When was Young Pirates formed?

HA: Just this weekend actually. That’s when the first and founding board meeting was held. The farthest distance between board members is well over 1500 km, so we held it online, inside a collaborative text editor. That way the protocol was more or less ready for publishing when we were done. We just passed the 1000 member limit by the way, securing government grants.

Torrentfreak: What’s your answer to all those who might claim that Young Pirates is established only to bring government funds to the Pirate Party?

HA: It’s a healthy distrust! It’s not a secret that we and the Pirate Party work towards a common goal, and that we will closely coordinate our efforts. The Pirate Party used up the little resources they had and more (members chipped in with considerable funding for material) in the election. As much as we’d want to help them out, we can’t just push money their way. We will receive government funding for our activities, and we must openly show where our money goes. To just give them money would not be acceptable.

They will however provide us with bandwidth and a system to manage our bookkeeping and memberships - in fact, they currently do all of that for us, and we will pay them for that. It will be considerably less than we would pay a commercial company, so we are really pulling the longer straw in this agreement.

Torrentfreak: The Pirate Party and the surrounding movement has been a very grassroots initiative. Work is almost exclusively done out of idealism, without monetary incitements (the members doesn’t get paid). Does that influence the kind of things you can do, i.e. can you use a more aggressive or provocative approach than other, more established organisations, as you have no political careers to protect?

HA: Actually, in a certain way it rather makes us less aggressive than other political parties. We have always had the agenda that the goal is to get these points of view and argument taken into account when decisions are made. We strongly feel that a root cause behind today’s intellectual property laws, is that the politicians don’t fully understand the dismay that their agenda is causing. We want them to understand this, that’s primary. To get into parliament, is secondary.

That’s why part of our work will be to talk to other parties, to present our arguments and influence them incorporate our ideology into their agenda. I can’t really think of another party that would do that.

Torrentfreak: How have you been able to do things more efficiently than other organisations and parties? Can you use your relative inexperience as an excuse to solve problems in a non-conventional manner?

HA: Absolutely! We do it all the time. The founding board meeting was held with a combination of Google Docs and a group chat. The order of our candidates when the Pirate Party ran for election in September was decided by an online direct-democracy election in which all members where allowed to participate. The membership to the party requires no physical paperwork, and is handled through an online registration and payment through SMS. We are able to register members in real time, and member can change their own personal information by logging in to our system. That saves us a lot of work.

The pirate movement works much like an open source project, and has more or less the same pros and cons. During the election, the agenda was; if you have an idea for a campaign - just do it! As long as at least three party members thought that something was a good idea, it was a “go”. This is how the Young Pirates federation will function as well. On the other hand, nobody likes the boring stuff - like bookkeeping and filing. One of our first priorities, if we get funding, will be to hire someone to do that for us.

Torrentfreak: What is the main purpose of Young Pirates, and what will their activities be?

HA: Of course, we will be promoting free information, abolished patents and a protected private life. Bringing these points of argument into the public debate and into parliament in Sweden, Europe and Worldwide is the main purpose of Young Pirates. But exactly what will be done is up to the members.

The Young Pirates federation is a sort of umbrella organization for many local Young Pirate organizations around the country. They do the real footwork. The federation board will look over the budget, act as a central node, set out guidelines for the organization and coordinate bigger efforts. A few early stage ideas are concerts featuring pirate-friendly artists, campaigns promoting open-source for government institutions, educating the public about file-sharing techniques and setting up pirate organizations at schools and universities. Being a youth movement, we can be more provocative and edgier than the Pirate Party.

Torrentfreak: How is Young Pirates organised regionally?

HA: In local, semi-autonomous organizations with separate budgets. In rough terms you can say that the members belong to the local organizations, and the local organizations belong to the federation

Torrentfreak: What are its formal ties and relations with the Swedish Pirate Party?

HA: There are close ties between the two. All members so far have been recruited there, and many local organizations require their members to also be members of the Pirate Party. Actually, everyone that becomes a member of Young Pirates is offered a years paid membership in the Pirate Party. Without the Pirate Party, there would be no Young Pirates.

Torrentfreak: And finally, what is in store for Young Pirates in the near future? What are the immediate plans, and when do you think the Swedish public will start noticing your presense?

HA: The board is on a short hiatus until after christmas. After that we will start to build the organization from scratch. We will form work groups to deal with the most basic areas; building a website, defining standpoints and establishing a presence in schools and universities. There is a lot to be done! The first annual annual Young Pirates federation congress will be held in March or April. Before that we will have to have a sturdy organization up and running. How soon until we start making noise will be up to the members, but judging by the previous pirate achievements, I’ll bet it won’t be long.

Torrentfreak - The Netherlands
If your Net access is blocked by government restrictions, try Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto's Munk Centre for International Studies. Go here for the official download, here for the p2pnet download, and here for details. And if you're Chinese and you're looking for a way to access independent Internet news sources, try Freegate, the DIT program written to help Chinese citizens circumvent web site blocking outside of China. Download it here.

p2pnet newsfeeds for your site | | rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/p2p.rss | | Mobile - http://p2pnet.net/index-wml.php

(Thursday 21st December 2006)
http://p2pnet.net/story/10812?PHPSESSID=237534fa4eb2d6981b70415b5c8440bf

 

Year's Top 10 movies, music, TV

p2pnet.net special:- p2pnet has been lucky enough to carry two unique features, thanks to p2p research firm BigChampagne.

We started running a File Share Top Ten, based on BigChampagne statistics, the year before last. It listed the most-downloaded mp3s. We stopped it because, frankly, p2pnet is a one-man-shop and the music charts took a up heck of a lot of time.

BUT ---- we replaced them with the unique Movies File Share Top Ten, also based BigChampagne statistics. The last post was on November 25, last because of production developments at the home of Adam Toll, the man who pulls the numbers together ;P

But we'll be re-booting the Movies File Share Top Ten in the first week of January, 2007, together with a new feature.

For now, below are the year's most downloaded music, movies and TV shows. And we'd like to thank Adam and Big Champagne Eric Garland not only for the charts, but also for supplying us with the p2p music file sharing statistics we used in stories throughout the year.

It'd be nice to say the stats helped keep the entertainment cartels honest. But that wasn't the case. However, they did at least let people know what's really happening in the world of online music.

So Cheers, Eric and Adam. Thanks again, and all the best for the New Year and beyond : )

BigChampagne Number Ones - Top Songs in 2006
Ranking Artist Song
01 >>> T.I. What You Know
02 >>> T-pain In Love Wit A Stripper
03 >>> D4L Laffy Taffy
04 >>> Chris Brown Run It
05 >>> Black Eyed Peas My Humps
06 >>> Justin Timberlake My Love
07 >>> Bubba Sparxxx Ms New Booty
08 >>> Lil Jon Snap Ya Fingers
09 >>> Justin Timberlake SexyBack
10 >>> Jibbs Chain Hang Low

BigChampagne Number Ones - Top Movies in 2006 - BitTorrent
Ranking Movie
01 >>> Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
02 >>> Borat!: Cultural Learnings
03 >>> Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby
04 >>> Jackass 2
05 >>> Superman Returns
06 >>> Open Season
07 >>> Scary Movie 4
08 >>> X-Men: The Last Stand
09 >>> Mission: Impossible III
10 >>> The Break Up

BigChampagne Number Ones - Top TV in 2006 -- BitTorrent
Ranking Show
01 >>> House
02 >>> American Idol
03 >>> CSI
04 >>> Daily Show
05 >>> NCIS
06 >>> CSI: Miami
07 >>> Lost
08 >>> Prison Break
09 >>> Desperate Housewives
10 >>> Grey's Anatomy




(Friday 22nd December 2006)
http://p2pnet.net/story/10824?PHPSESSID=eb93ae47c637099f469876e50944a0ba

 

FREE.............

SIV (System Information Viewer) 3.19
Dec 22, 2006 - 9:38 AM - by Digital Dave
The more info I can get when I have a problem, the sooner I can fix it.

System Information Viewer is a general Windows utility for dumping lots of useful Windows, Network and hardware info - CPU info, PCI info, USB info, Machine Info, Hardware Sensors, Networked computers, Operating System Information and more.

Major Geeks.com Post and Download
DOWNLOAD
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download4779.html


INFO

SIV (System Information Viewer) 3.19
Author: Ray Hinchliffe
Date: 2006-12-22
Size: 904 Kb
License: Freeware
Requires: Win All


System Information Viewer is a general Windows utility for dumping lots of useful Windows, Network and hardware info - CPU info, PCI info, USB info, Machine Info, Hardware Sensors, Networked computers, Operating System Information and more

 

Mom's Genuine Holiday Surprise


Joe Wilcox
Joe Wilcox

Miracles do occur during the holidays. My mother no longer is a software pirate.

This week, a Microsoft support technician worked with my 65-year-old mom to figure out why her computer failed Windows Genuine Advantage validation. Mom had started receiving pop-up notices indicating her Windows XP copy was counterfeit. I set up that computer and knew for certain the software was genuine.

Validation failures are a hot-button topic with Windows users, if Microsoft Watch reader comments about WGA are any indication. As a user, I'm no fan of WGA Notifications, either.

My mother's validation failure sheds some insight on other false positives, which is my reason for telling her holiday story.

The support technician explained the problem in an e-mail:

"What I found is that her PC has severe cryptographic issues. The crypto issues were not caused by WGA validation or notifications. The issue could have been caused by spyware, malware, or even some software installation or update. Issues with cryptographics will cause Windows Update (AU) updates not to be able to successfully install, it can cause issues with connecting to web sites, etc."

From the diagnostic of mom's computer came "Validation Status: Cryptographic Errors Detected." The problem did not affect Office, which came back as "Office Status: 100 Genuine."

A later scan of Windows XP using Windows Defender uncovered no spyware on the computer. Assuming Defender worked as it should, spyware was not the cause of the cryptographic failure.

To resolve the issue, the support technician re-registered 10 dlls: Softpub.dll, Wintrust.dll, Initpki.dll, Dssenh.dll, Rsaenh.dll, Gpkcsp.dll, Sccbase.dll, Slbcsp.dll, Mssip32.dll, and Cryptdlg.dll files.

The Microsoft support technician explained that mom's copy of Windows XP was in fact genuine, but that "Crypto issues manifested and caused issues for many of the applications installed (not just MS apps, even not MS apps such as her Verizon suite, etc)."

I'm appreciative of the hours the support technician spent with mom, who really does regard the resolution as a holiday miracle. She is in a wheelchair, which limits how much she gets around. A functioning computer with Internet access is import to her. As the technician explained, the dll issues--a rather poignant example of "dll hell"--negatively affected Windows in other ways.

I got to wondering what other situations cause validation to fail. Here's the list I came up with from Microsoft's support Web site:

* Computer's date and time are incorrectly set

* Proxy server or firewall is present

* ActiveX controls are blocked

* Wpa.dbl file is set as read-only

* WGA folder permissions

* Product ID is inacessible

* Insufficient privileges

This list, which isn't inclusive, only covers reasons for validation to fail to complete. My mom's situation, of receiving a false positive, is a different category, and it's one on which Microsoft's Web site offers scant information.

A July post by Alex Kochis on Microsoft's Windows Genuine Advantage blog explains that "about 1 in 5 of the 300 million PCs that have run WGA validation fail. That is pretty much in line with industry numbers for software piracy." Kochis then went on to largely dismiss the idea of false positives.

However, he gave an apt definition:

"An actual 'false positive' would occur if WGA identified a specific copy of windows installed on a system as non-genuine or unlicensed when in fact it was genuine and licensed. Of the hundreds of millions of WGA validations to date, only a handful of actual false positives have been seen. Most of these were due to data entry errors that were quickly corrected and only occurred for a short period of time."

So does mom's false positive come on the one hand or has Microsoft moved to two handfuls of false positives now? Based on Kochis' definition, mom got a false positive. Or did she? A narrow interpretation--the one Microsoft's WGA team might take--would be that third-party software had tampered with the dlls on her computer. If not for the tampering, Windows XP would have validated as genuine. I won't even go down the "dll hell" topic path, but commenters please feel free if so inclined.

Microsoft exercises a perceived right to validate because it owns the software and only licenses it to the user. Fine, but ownership also designates responsibility. I'm a renter, and it's the owner's responsibility for repairs and maintenance--say, fixing a leaky roof or keeping good locks on the doors. Similarly, Microsoft as the owner of the software rents or sublets it on a perpetual basis to users. If Microsoft can scan the software for legitimacy because of ownership, then it should also better protect its property from Internet vandals.

WGA isn't going away. Microsoft baked it into Windows Vista. But neither will the controversy abide. The process of validation carries the tacit accusation of guilty until proven innocent. Who wants to be treated as a potential criminal? A search of Microsoft Watch comments to WGA posts reveals some strong animosity toward the guilty-until-proven-innocent approach.

Still, innocence has its rewards. I don't know what to get mom for Christmas now. She's so happy to be genuine, she says it's gift enough.

Posted by Joe Wilcox on December 21, 2006 9:50 PM
http://www.microsoft-watch.com/cont...oliday_surprise.html?kc=MWRSS02129TX1K0000535

 

IE Tab 1.2.0.20061120
Author: Hong Jen Yee & yuoo2k
Date: 2006-12-23
Size: 170 Kb
License: Freeware
Requires: Win All

IE Tab is a Firefox extension that makes possible embedding Internet Explorer in tabs of Mozilla/Firefox.

This is a great tool for web developers, since you can easily see how your webpage displayed in IE with just one click and then switch back to Firefox.

go here
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download4905.html

 

Merry Christmas to all!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Ancient pyramids discovered in Bosnia


Natural or man-made?
Page: 1 2 Next >
By Mark Whitehorn → More by this author
Published Tuesday 26th December 2006 10:02 GMT

pix
http://www.bosnianpyramid.com/

The Great Pyramid of Giza is the sole survivor of the Seven Wonders of the World. An Arab proverb says that: "Man fears time, yet time fears the Pyramids", a reference to the fact that the pyramid has survived for about 4,500 years and, in that time, has lost a mere 10 metres off its incredible 145 metre height.

Composed of two million blocks of stone, each weighing more than two tonnes, this was not erected by George Wimpey and Co in a fortnight. For approximately 43 centuries it was the world's tallest man-made structure.

Or so we thought. Reports are emerging from Bosnia-Herzegovina of structures that make the pyramid of Giza look like a scale model (see http://www.bosnianpyramids.org/, http://www.bosnianpyramid.com/, and http://www.bosnian-pyramid.com/).

At 267 metres tall, the Pyramid of the Sun blows the Egyptian opposition into the weeds. If that wasn't enough, it is simply one of a number of pyramids located in the same region - there are also the Pyramids of the Sun, the Dragon and, most recently discovered, Love.

These revelations are not simply about who has the biggest bragging rights for historic civil engineering projects. Structures like these take colossal man power to create – estimates for a single Egyptian pyramid run into tens of millions of man hours.

Such a workforce means, in turn, huge logistical organisation – land cultivation, food transport, housing, water, waste disposal etc. The simple existence of these gigantic man-made structures in Europe means the entire history of the development of human civilization will have to be rewritten with Bosnia-Herzegovina at its centre.

All of which appears to be just fine by Semir Osmanagić who is at the centre of these discoveries. He is referred to on bosnianpyramid.com as "Bosnia's Indiana Jones" which is either a reference to the hat and boots that he affects or his extraordinary archaeological discoveries. Not a man who appears to eschew modesty, he is quoted as saying: "My discovery will change human history".

As might be imagined, this is a very big deal in Bosnia-Herzegovina where it forms the focus of a nightly reality TV show. We strongly recommend that you visit the web sites and that you examine the other evidence that is accumulating daily on the web, such as this video, where you can see, and weigh, for yourself the evidence that this is a man-made structure.

Of course, the cynical sceptics amongst you may feel that claims like these are so fantastic as to be unbelievable, but that is not the case. We believe the reason the claims are unbelievable is more simple; they are wrong.

How can we be so sure? We have been talking to Professor John Parker of Cambridge University, the director of the Botanic Garden and also Professor of Botany at St Catharine's College. He's actually travelled there and seen the evidence first hand.

El Reg: How did you come to visit the site?

Professor Parker: I visited the site in August this year as part of a visit to Sarajevo with one of the professors there. My colleague in Sarajevo invited me to come and see this phenomenon so we made our way to the site and climbed to the top of one of the hills which was being referred to as the Pyramid of the Sun. As we climbed the hill we passed, as you would expect, Nefertiti's café and stalls selling little models of the pyramids. I must admit I began to wonder where we were.

The top of the hill was being cleared and they were digging away the surface to the depth of about a metre, exposing what looked for all the world like concrete spilling down the slopes of the hill. These inclined, flat sheets consisted of aggregate in a matrix and I gathered that these were being put forward as a man-made phenomenon. It was quite impressive: large slabs, some of them up to 50 or 60 metres long. It was explained to me as man-made concrete that had been cast as slabs with shuttering between them. This is exactly the way in which, today, we cover large areas with concrete. We use shuttering to limit the size of the slabs and the spaces left when the shuttering is removed allow for expansion.

So, having seen that, we went across the valley to the Pyramid of the Moon, a slightly lower hill, and again we went through a mass of little stalls selling this time, Mayan step pyramid models.

In contrast to the Pyramid of the Sun, where the slabs of concrete lie parallel to the side of the hill, the material that makes up the Pyramid of the Moon lies in horizontal sheets. The flat sheets of exposed material have a sort of ripple effect on the top and the whole surface broken by regular lines into what looks like crazy paving with most of the fracture lines of the crazy paving roughly parallel to each other. It is broken up into rough rectangular blocks but laid so closely together that they look just as if they have been laid by human hand.

El Reg: But you weren't convinced?

Professor Parker: Well, no, because I'd seen this kind of thing before. It is a perfect example of a fossilised beach, essentially little mud ripples on a beach which then becomes fossilised. What they were doing was cutting into the hillside to expose this beautiful raised beach.

As you looked at the profile that they had cut you saw the layers above it and every time they came to a slightly harder layer that showed that phenomenon, so they exposed it back. They were cutting the side of the hill into a series of steps, each one about a metre and a half or two meters. Hence the Pyramid of the Moon is described a stepped pyramid, as opposed to the Pyramid of the Sun where the sides are flat.

El Reg: So, what about the "concrete" on the Pyramid of the Sun?

Professor Parker: It is a natural material. When you looked at the whole site there was a very turbulent river which came down (and they are really turbulent in Bosnia) which had cut a deep valley through the mainly limestone area in which we found ourselves. However, the river rises in the mountains to the West which are mainly acidic. So the "concrete" is made of the embedded stones that were washed down from the acidic mountains deposited in an alkaline substrate.

El Reg: What about the marks of the shuttering?

Professor Parker: As the conglomerate formed and then subsequently cracked, the cracks were filled in with calcite which would be crystallised from the calcium carbonate and dolomite which makes up the matrix. If you looked at the cracks between the slabs carefully – and this is what told me straight away that it was natural – you could see that individual stones that were embedded in the matrix were shattered through.

In other words, you regularly find single stones, embedded in two slabs, cut neatly through by the "shuttering" lines. It seems highly unlikely that human beings would split stones and place the two halves neatly on either side of a piece of shuttering. But natural cracks will run through both the stones and the matrix. So the cracks are clearly a post-construction phenomenon, not a pre-construction one.

El Reg: Ok, that explains the materials found on the two hills, but how did it get there in the first place?

Professor Parker: Remember that turbulent river. You've got the aggregate which came from the acidic mountains and it came down into a calcareous lake where the big stones had settled out with the calcareous substrate to make the aggregate on one side of the valley. That explains the "concrete". On the other side of the valley the mud was left and was depositing out as beaches which were obviously a drying lake surface and I should think alternately wetting and drying. It was quite obvious that it was part of one kind of system, probably a delta type system.

Geologically it was absolutely fascinating. I've never seen a better example of this. At the same time one of my colleagues, Dr Mary Edmunds, found the most perfect fossils in the material they'd excavated on the Pyramid of the Moon. They were simply beautiful – you broke open every piece of this supposedly man-made material and inside were things like pine seeds perfectly preserved with their wings so you could even identify the species of pine – Pinus nigra that grows there still – and also birch leaves: it was full of just wonderful sub-fossil material. That alone told us that it was clearly a post-glacial phenomenon, relatively recent – less than 12,000 years old.

El Reg: So, if the "concrete" is natural, and formed in a lake, why is it now at such an angle, forming the sloping sides of a hill?

Professor Parker: The way I was thinking about the conglomerate – why it looked like a triangle – was that if you think about the river constantly undermining soft substrate with a hard crust it becomes rather like a crème brulée. As soon as you take away the cream from below there's nothing to hold the upper material and it will collapse, and of course it will tend to shatter, if it is a flat plate, into triangular slabs. I think what you'd got is this material shattered into one of these triangular slabs which gives you the triangular shape and when you excavate it of course the conglomerate is now facing down the hill.

El Reg: So, the site is worthless?

Professor Parker: Absolutely not. I spent considerable time looking at the fossils because I've never seen any so good from a post-glacial site. It's very sad because you could have got the most detailed and intimate knowledge of the changes in vegetation patterns from the post-glacial era. It is so clearly a natural phenomenon that it should be investigated as a natural phenomenon rather than being shrouded in all this magic and mystery.

I am worried about it because the Bosnian people deserve better than this. They are a wonderful people who have suffered so much. In this site they have a fabulous natural phenomenon and the danger is that the people and the country could become a laughing stock if the site continues to be interpreted in this way. ®


http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/12/26/bosnian_pyramids/

 

HD disk format wars are over

Opinion A clear victor emerges

By Charlie Demerjian: Tuesday 26 December 2006, 01:22
THE NEXT GENERATION disk format has been settled once and for all. Thanks to the due diligence, hard work and unprecedented cooperation between the media companies, the hardware vendors and the OS vendor, we finally have a solution. It is quite easy, Piracy, the better choice(TM).

Yes, in a year where Sony rootkitted it's customers, lied to my face about their actions (hi John, still have your number, kisses), and fell flat with anything related to Blu-Ray, things couldn't get worse right? Well, the other camp, HD-DVD is only slightly less nasty, but still unacceptable. Standing shoulder to shoulder, they both failed in the market.

MS and the media companies sold you out hoping to reap more and more profits. Let me just say I held out no hope that they would behave in anything less than a socially irresponsible fashion, but the depths of their depravity did end up shocking me.

Then came the PC makers, the dumb sheep that they are. There seems to be a race to see who can pass the buck quickest in this camp. From my dealing with them last CES where they said 'we have to screw our customers, we were asked nicely to', to the blaming of people up and down the food chain from them, it is a comic scenario. Pathetic.

Then comes the chipmakers, AMD and Intel, and the respective platforms, Live and VIIV. What laughable efforts those are. A year and a half ago, I said that Intel sold you out, and they did. The DRM infested nightmares of consumer rights removal that are the media platforms have one thing in common, the content mafia is quite adamant that they are still too insecure. The strategy from Intel was to start at a middle ground and push to the consumer side of things as time went on.

Instead, they started out as MS's bitch and were beaten into submission like a redheaded stepchild. Now they have the glorious job of jumping at the every whim of the media companies, way to hold your head high Intel! I would say the same for AMD, but to this day, I am not sure what Live does, if it really exists.

Both companies will tout absolutely huge sales figures, and MS will point to incredible Media Center sales, up thousands of percent this year alone. Let me clue you in on something, MCE used to mean that you needed a tuner, you had to meet certain requirements for power, speed and functionality. These boxes flopped so badly it was laughable, selling more restrictions for more money is not a bright marketing strategy.

Now, MCE is sold instead of XP home. The requirements? None really, so basically all sales that were home are now MCE. I defy you to find any retail customer who actually uses it in that fashion, maybe 1% do.

With the proliferation of MCE, both Live and VIIV stickers moved out into mainstream boxes. Damn those things sell like hotcakes, umm, what do they get me besides DRM infections again? No, really, I mean it, WTF do they do? Anyone? So, both Intel and AMD are jumping up and down over the 'successes' of their respective DRM for manufacturer kickback programs. Be still my beating heart.

Basically, what we have is a series of anti-consumer DRM infections masquerading as nothing in particular. They bring only net negatives to anyone dumb enough to pay money for them, and everything is better than these offerings. They sell in spite of the features they tout, not because of them. The manufacturers still have the balls to look you in the eye and say that they are selling because of the programs/features/DRM. Marketers, what a laugh riot.

In the end, every step in this chain of consumer woe that is Blu-Ray, HD-DVD, Live, VIIV, HDCP, MCE and Vista is flopping. And that is where the better choice comes in. The consumers have voted with their dollars, and are staying away in droves. All the walls of the walled gardens are being built higher and higher, with the occasional brick landing on the head of someone who pulls out a credit card. Buy now, there is a brick with your name on it whistling down, operators are standing by.

In the mean time, Piracy, the better choice (tm) flourishes. If you take 10 minutes to look around, you will see that every HD movie is now available on P2P networks. I haven't bothered to get one, so I can't comment on the quality, but it sure looks like availability is there. What was an underground clique in the 1980s and 1990s has become mainstream and so vastly much easier to do that it is laughable. Before the technology hits 1% market penetration it is comprehensively cracked and better for the consumer than the legit versions.

The lawsuits, threats, purchased governance and stern speeches could not prevent the children of Warner Music from pirating, the less moneyed masses are a lost cause. (Funny how he wasn't sued though, kind of makes you wonder...) As of right now, anyone can get any music or movie they want, for free, much more easily than they can through legal DRM infected channels. Piracy, the better choice (tm).

If you try and purchase any of this content, you descend into a DRM nightmare of incompatibility and legal mires. Your monitor will not work with your Blu-Ray drive because your PC decided that a wobble bit was set wrong. You just pissed away $6K on a player, media center PC and HD TV for nothing, you lose. The Warner CEOs kids have a nice new car to play their pirated CDs in though.

On the other hand, if you downloaded that content, in HD no less, you save the $1000 on the Blu-Ray player, $30 on the movie, and it works seamlessly out of the box. The available content is much higher with piracy, and it is quite on-demand. You don't need to sign up, give them your details to be sold to marketers who call during dinner and spam you, you just get the content you want, when you want, how you want. There is no iTunes/Plays for (not) Sure incompatibility, it just works. Piracy, the better choice(tm).

On the down side, the RIAA/MPAA/PATSY/TOOLBOY have sued probably 10,000 people now, and each 'settlement' is, well lets just use $5000 for the sake of round numbers. Now, the conservative estimates of P2P usage was around 30 million people, but I am pretty damn sure that is far lower than the actual usage. Last time I saw anything serious, it was 35M and growing fast. Lets just assume that it is now 50M users.

10,000 * $5,000 = $50,000,000. The net cost to each P2P user, assuming everyone out there settles is $1. To look at it another way, if you look at it in the worst case light, you have a 1 in 5000 chance of getting nailed. A lot of people buy lottery tickets with far far worse odds than that, and spend more than $5000 doing so every few years. To be even more cynical, hands up everyone who personally knows someone who got sued by the RIAA. Now, hands up everyone who knows someone who downloaded music or movies. Any guesses which one is bigger? Piracy, the better choice (tm).

What do we end up with? A year or more where the CE industry pushed, pulled, legislated and litigated their way to obscurity. Along the way, they killed yet another promising consumer technology, well 5 or 6 actually, and made Intel and AMD their bitches. We all were on the verge of losing this format and DRM infection war until a dark horse champion emerged to snatch victory from the jaws of evil. Piracy, the better choice(tm). µ

http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=36574


Piracy: the clear choice for 2006

p2pnet.net news views:- An unusual meeting of the minds has taken place: Disney co-chair Anne Sweeney and The Inquirer's Charlie Demerjian firmly agree on something.

Ladies first, and Anne sums it up like this: "It exists to serve a need in the market for consumers who want TV content on demand."

And Charlie puts it like this: "Thanks to the due diligence, hard work and unprecedented cooperation between the media companies, the hardware vendors and the OS vendor, we finally have a solution to the disk format wars".

Ann is talking about the moving picture arts. And so is Charlie. But where Ms Sweeney is very product specific Demerjian has a lot more in mind, also lighting into Microsoft, Intel ("they started out as MS's bitch "), Sony (but of course) Blu-Ray, and HD-TV.

But they both wind up with the same conclusion.

'Piracy' is where it's at.

Sweeney encapsulated a (the?) "defining moment for the business" to an enthralled audience of Hollywood losers and fakers at Mipcom 2006. .

"We understand now that piracy is a business model," Sweeney told them unequivocally. "It exists to serve a need in the market for consumers who want TV content on demand. Pirates compete the same way we do - through quality, price and availability. We we don’t like the model but we realise it’s competitive enough to make it a major competitor going forward."

Indeed, and in The Inquirer, at the end of an item sub-headed "A clear victor emerges," Demerjian says, "Piracy, the better choice (tm) flourishes," going on:

If you take 10 minutes to look around, you will see that every HD movie is now available on P2P networks. I haven't bothered to get one, so I can't comment on the quality, but it sure looks like availability is there. What was an underground clique in the 1980s and 1990s has become mainstream and so vastly much easier to do that it is laughable. Before the technology hits 1% market penetration it is comprehensively cracked and better for the consumer than the legit versions.

The lawsuits, threats, purchased governance and stern speeches could not prevent the children of Warner Music from pirating, the less moneyed masses are a lost cause. (Funny how he wasn't sued though, kind of makes you wonder...) As of right now, anyone can get any music or movie they want, for free, much more easily than they can through legal DRM infected channels. Piracy, the better choice (tm).

If you try and purchase any of this content, you descend into a DRM nightmare of incompatibility and legal mires. Your monitor will not work with your Blu-Ray drive because your PC decided that a wobble bit was set wrong. You just pissed away $6K on a player, media center PC and HD TV for nothing, you lose. The Warner CEOs kids have a nice new car to play their pirated CDs in though.

On the other hand, if you downloaded that content, in HD no less, you save the $1000 on the Blu-Ray player, $30 on the movie, and it works seamlessly out of the box. The available content is much higher with piracy, and it is quite on-demand. You don't need to sign up, give them your details to be sold to marketers who call during dinner and spam you, you just get the content you want, when you want, how you want. There is no iTunes/Plays for (not) Sure incompatibility, it just works. Piracy, the better choice(tm).

On the down side, the RIAA/MPAA/PATSY/TOOLBOY have sued probably 10,000 people now, and each 'settlement' is, well lets just use $5000 for the sake of round numbers. Now, the conservative estimates of P2P usage was around 30 million people, but I am pretty damn sure that is far lower than the actual usage. Last time I saw anything serious, it was 35M and growing fast. Lets just assume that it is now 50M users.

10,000 * $5,000 = $50,000,000. The net cost to each P2P user, assuming everyone out there settles is $1. To look at it another way, if you look at it in the worst case light, you have a 1 in 5000 chance of getting nailed. A lot of people buy lottery tickets with far far worse odds than that, and spend more than $5000 doing so every few years. To be even more cynical, hands up everyone who personally knows someone who got sued by the RIAA. Now, hands up everyone who knows someone who downloaded music or movies. Any guesses which one is bigger? Piracy, the better choice (tm).

What do we end up with? A year or more where the CE industry pushed, pulled, legislated and litigated their way to obscurity. Along the way, they killed yet another promising consumer technology, well 5 or 6 actually, and made Intel and AMD their bitches. We all were on the verge of losing this format and DRM infection war until a dark horse champion emerged to snatch victory from the jaws of evil. Piracy, the better choice(tm).

Stay tuned ;P
http://p2pnet.net/story/10839?PHPSESSID=75679b8bfce66dc6d1d90c9f6988a861

 

happy new 2007.soon

FREE,
30. PARTITION SAVING..........With this program you could save all data on a partition to a file (such as you could save this file on a CD for example). Then if something goes wrong, you can completely restore the partition from the backup file. You no longer have to reinstall every piece of software from scratch. All you have to do is restore the partition from the backup file and then update any software that was modified since the backup was created. Partition Saving is able to compress data (using the gzip compression algorithm) and split it up into several files (e.g. if you need to save a 2 Gb partition onto a CD, this can be done by compressing it and, if necessary, splitting it up into 650 Mb files). Most partition types are supported. In the case of FAT (12, 16 and 32), ext2/3 and NTFS partitions, you can choose between saving all sectors or in-use sectors only.....(free).....GO THERE!

http://www.partition-saving.com/

 

if ye want a calender,i put this together in a couple of min



large size,800k+
http://my.afterdawn.com/ireland/show_image.cfm/9512/full/calendarafterdawn3

 

*subscribed* this thread is amazing, keep up the good work.

 

Winners and Losers for 2006

p2pnet.net feature:- Who was up and who was down in 2006? Here's MP3NewsWire's Rich Menta on the subject.

1. YouTube
Google purchased them for $1.65 billion. For a company less than two years old, not much more needs to be said. CBS has already credited YouTube for improved ratings on the Letterman show and the site brings US visibility to excellent overseas television programs. That's nice, but they still haven't figured out the best way to make money on all of this success. The site has to develop a stronger business model and do it under continued legal threats from some content holders. That's why the Google acquisition is important as it has the dollars to insulate the company from litigation until it can evolve into a high revenue generator.

2. Apple
Still controlling a hefty percentage of the player and paid download market. SanDisk is making inroads in the portable player arena, but Apple is selling more iPods than ever. iTunes market share is dominant too, though analysts have concerns about the short-term growth of paid music and movie downloads. The big question is where does Apple go from here? As there is early evidence to suggest SanDisk is selling strong among digital savvy consumers, the company will need something more than a minor refresh of the iPod line for 2007. We'll see in the spring what iTV, the present name of Apple's wireless set top box, will offer. Apple's recent deal with the airlines, which will cement the iPod dock (literally and figuratively) into the seats of commercial aircraft, will mean Apple's proprietary standards will dominate in jets for years. Disney arguable deserves to be on this list too. As the only studio that sells movies on iTunes it now dominates the tiny, but burgeoning, movie download market. Disney and Apple expect to generate $40 million in movie sales by year end.

3. MySpace
It is a top five site on the Net and probably the most influential destination for new music. Might it be the most influential for all music?

4. BitTorrent and Azureus
Several million dollars in seed investment followed by preliminary adoption by the movie industry has made Bram Cohen's vision a legitimate member of the content industry clique. For the most utilized protocol on the Net, this means large revenues and no lawsuits for its creator (at least in the immediate future). By cutting a deal with Hollywood Bram Cohen reduced the risk of litigation. This one fact is drawing significant VC activity into the technology. Not only did BitTorrent grab $20 million in latter round funding for itself, torrent client Azureus landed $12 million of its own. Even uTorrent made out as Cohen used some of his new found investment cash to acquire its technology. eDonkey and Morpheus had a commercial dream once. BitTorrent is achieving that dream.

5. Pirate Bay
Started by Swedish anti-copyright organization Piratbyrån, Pirate Bay grew into the world's largest BitTorrent tracker. This drew the content industry's ire and on May 31 they orchestrated a raid on the site with the help Swedish law enforcement. The raid confiscated all of Pirate Bay's servers and the press releases flew, heralding the Pirate Bay's elimination. It turned out the celebration was premature. Three days later Pirate Bay was back and, thanks to the press generated by the closure, became more popular than ever. The Pirate Party did not do so well in Swedish elections later in the year, but it has been influential. That influence carried over here to the states where Brent Allison and Alex English are launching a US Chapter with eyes on the 2008 election.

6. Brittany Chan
Brittany and her mother beat the RIAA in their file sharing lawsuits. That's the good news and enough to place her on this list. The bad news is the family had to endure the misery and expense of this trial in the first place. Didn't hear about the Chan victory? That's because while the original suit made front page news, the decision was mostly ignored by the mainstream press. [And we'd like to add Patti Santangelo to this. She, too, scored against the Big 4 Organized Music cartel, and she's not done yet - Jon]

7. Creative
Took Apple for $100 million in its patent dispute and will now make iPod peripherals, where the company will probably make more money. Their own players are selling better this holiday season, so over all thing have improved for a company that has showed losses on the balance sheet recently. Will future Creative players adopt the iPod dock connector? Silly rabbit.....

8. DJ Danger Mouse
DJ Danger Mouse (Brian Burton) became the scourge of the industry back in 2004 when he released the Grey Album, a limited edition remix of Jay-Z's Black Album and The Beatles' White Album. EMI attempted to stop its release resulting in Grey Day, one of the most successful Internet protests. That got DJ Danger Mouse on our 2004 winners list. This year Mouse is here as one half of the duo Gnarls Barkley, whose first single 'Crazy' is the first song to top the UK charts on download sales alone. It reached number 2 on the US chart. To date, Danger Mouse the most successful artist to ever to leverage the Internet to promote their career. It helped that Crazy was a great song.

9. SanDisk
Released a 6GB player in the spring that sold well. Then at the end of the summer, before Apple could answer with a like capacity iPod, Sandisk released an 8GB version. NPD Group is reporting that SanDisk is drawing 18.4% of Christmas DAP sales. Meanwhile, early MP3 Newswire player data suggests that percentage is even higher among the digital savvy shoppers

10. EMusic
Emusic is the official number two paid download service (the real number two may be the very unofficial AllofMP3.com) and the service has sold 100 million downloads since new management took the company over in 2003. Furthermore, it sold those tracks on the musical virtues of independent artists, not major label artists like Napster and Rhapsody pay for. But there real reason EMusic is here is...well...it's here. Launched as Goodnoise in early 1998, the service is a survivor of the dot com era.

11.Tivo
Tivo won a big patent settlement against EchoStar. There were concerns the company wouldn't make it. Now it has some stability in the market.

Honorable Mention: Sling Media

Deals with mobile providers has this company and its technology on the upswing. Hollywood is rattling its sabres as usual, but its more because it wants to steal the "place shifting" TV market for itself. If Sling Media continues to grow it may become an acquisition target, possibly from one of the telcos like AT&T or Verizon who are investing heavily in IPTV.

2006 Losers

1. StreamCast
The last holdout from the MGM v Grokster case, that case created the new test of "Active Infringement". The Supreme Court sent the case back to the lower court to define and apply the new test, which the folks at Streamcast were confident they never violated. The lower court ruled they clearly did.

2. EchoStar Communications
Parent company of the Dish Network lost a huge $90 million patent lawsuit to Tivo.

3. Sharman Networks
Crushed in Australian court. Has settled with the record industry for $100 million, but to date no commercial P2P app that has come to an agreement with the music industry is showing any ability to gain traction in the pay-per-song market. The fact that KaZaa has not been updated since its acquisition by Sharman proves the glory days are long gone.

4. AllofMP3.com
In September the major credit card companies blacklisted the Russian paid download service. Then AllofMP3.com became a pawn in US/Russian trade negotiations where it was used as a bargaining chip in discussions over Russia's entry into the World Trade Organization. The Russians aggreed to shut down illegal sites, but AllofMP3.com is still online - with site traffic up according to Alexa. The RIAA has now announced it will sue AllofMP3.com for damages and its domain. Odd why such a suit is necessary if that site is supposed to disappear soon? Maybe, just maybe, there is more here. We originally wrote off AllofMP3.com, but now wonder if it could become... the comeback kid of 2007?

5. Captain Copyright
And his sidekick Lieutenant Lame ...

6. OLGA - Online Guitar Tablature Archive
Shut down again. As far as the music publisers are concerned, if you can figure out the chord progressions of your favorite song - of which 95% of rock songs consist of nothing more than three common chords - you must pay them. If you put them online to save others the trouble you are a thief.

7. BLU-Ray and HD-DVD
Mass consumer adoption will not occur until the dust clears - which may take years. Beta and VHS all over again.

8. Amazon Unbox
Troubled functionality and dubious terms created a backlash in the press. Overall, many questioned the value it offered to consumers.

9. Sony BMG
Shelled out $1.4 million in settlement to the states of Texas and California for last winter's rootkit scandal. A few days before Christmas it spent several more million dollars to settle with 39 additional states. Worse for the company is that these lawsuits kept the scandal in the press for over a year, a scandal that taught users to fear the CD format.

10. Digital Rights Management
DRM is not going away soon, but to date it has not succeeded at doing what it was designed to do - stop file sharing. It has succeeded in annoying the consumer, though. Whether that might lead to mass consumer rejection is unclear at this point.

Rich Menta - MP3NewsWire
http://p2pnet.net/story/10833?PHPSESSID=1940797d0193afd70daf555fe56fcae7

 

People Swapping PS3s for Wiis?
Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday December 25, @10:39PM
from the hardware-horse-trading dept.
Wii (Games) Games
An anonymous reader writes "To add to Sony's problems with the PS3 launch, it now appears that some Playstation 3 owners are trying to trade their PS3s for Wiis. The author writes: 'There's also speculation that people want the Wii because the PS3s best game is Resistance: Fall of Man. This, of course, forget that there are plenty of cool PS3 games on the way, and the PS3 has its own motion sensing technology, which, while not as good as the Wii, is still pretty cool and opens up Sony to emulate some of the Wii's successes.'"


People swapping PS3s for Wiis?
Posted on December 25th, 2006 by Alex Zaharov-Reutt

An online report is suggesting that some PS3 owners are trying to trade their PS3s with Nintendo Wiis. Interesting stuff!

A report at GigaGamez investigates the new phenomenon of PS3 owners trying to trade their Sony games consoles for Nintendo Wiis. The report writer looked up cragslist.com and did indeed find a number of attempts at the trade, something that is a little unusual because there were many more Wiis available to purchase than PS3s, and new stocks of Wiis are on the way.

Apparently, the price of PS3s have also been dropping on eBay, leading the report writer to conclude that perhaps some PS3 owners who managed to purchase more than one PS3 are trying to do a relatively fair swap for a Wii - some are asking for a Wii plus extra cash, others just want to do the swap.

There’s also speculation that people want the Wii because the PS3s best game is Resistance: Fall of Man. This, of course, forget that there are plenty of cool PS3 games on the way, and the PS3 has its own motion sensing technology, which, while not as good as the Wii, is still pretty cool and opens up Sony to emulate some of the Wii’s successes.

Time will only tell who the ultimate winner of the console race will be. But it is definitely interesting to read these reports. Me? I was lucky enough to get a review Wii for Christmas from Nintendo, as well as play it a couple of months ago, well before the official launch. I’ve also been able to play the PS3. Both are stunningly good consoles, as is the Xbox 360. I love all three for different reasons, so even I can’t firmly say which one will win.

But whichever console you go for, whether its one, two or all three - you’re sure to have a great time playing some very cool console games. Game on! And oh yes - Merry Christmas!
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