Judge who did for Napster now rounds on the recording companies
Wired story.

‘Judge Marilyn Hall Patel, who called both sides “dirty,” said that Napster’s misguided attempts to build a business using illegally obtained music paled in comparison to what could be massive misuse and heavy-handed tactics by the recording industry.

If the labels can’t prove ownership of the copyrights, they can’t ask the courts for damages for copyright infringement. That may not mean Napster is in the clear. It depends on how the court rules on ownership of songs. For instance, if the artists retain ownership it would be up to those artists to make a deal with, or sue, companies like Napster. ‘

According to this CNET account, Judge Patel observed that:
‘The evidence now shows that the plaintiffs have licensed their catalogues of works for digital distribution in what could be an overreaching manner. The evidence also suggests the plaintiffs’ entry into the digital distribution marketplace may run afoul of antitrust laws.’

The big news of the week is that the US Supreme Court has decided to reconsider whether the Congress’s persistent extension of copyright terms is unconstitutional. Lots of intelligent comment and reporting on this — from Dan Gillmor, The New Yorker and The New York Times. There’s also a useful American Lawyer article on the case.

The Berkman Center at Harvard has played an important role in challenging the hegemony of copyright owners. Here is the text of the newspetter they put out following the Court’s announcement:

“The US Supreme Court announced today that it has granted certiorari in Eldred v. Ashcroft, a case challenging the constitutionality of the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA). At issue in the case is whether there are constitutional limits to Congress’s power to extend the term of copyright.

Since 1960, Congress has extended the term of copyright no fewer than 11 times. The CTEA extended the term of copyright by another 20 years, to 95 years; it also extended the lengths of protection for the works of individuals from life plus 50 years to life plus 70 years, and extended the protection for works made by corporations to a total of 95 years.

The Supreme Court’s acceptance of the case means that at least four members believe the CTEA raises important constitutional questions. A date for oral arguments has not yet been set.

Among those fighting the CTEA on behalf of Eric Eldred are Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig, Berkman Center Director Charles Nesson, and Berkman Center Faculty Co-Director Jonathan Zittrain.”

Here’s a complete archive of arguments made and briefs filed,

Pot calls kettle black department.
Official music download sites don’t pay artists either.

When the recording companies were attacking Napster, they attempted to seize the high moral ground by claiming that Napster was unfair not just to the bonuses of corporate suits, but also to the poor musicians whose work was being pirated by file-sharers. But guess what? According to the The New York Times, the download sites set up by the recording industry don’t pay the musicians either. Well, well, well…

UK Internet Growth slows?
Financial Times report.

“The growth of internet traffic across UK telephone networks slowed sharply in the first nine months of last year, according to figures to be released by Oftel, the telecommunications regulator.

Internet calls accounted for 32bn minutes in the three months to the end of September, against 29.5bn in the quarter to March. This rise of 8.5 per cent compares with the 50 per cent increase during the same period in 2000, when the internet surge was at its peak.

Nick Collins, market information manager, said: “The rate of growth has slowed, but that is because the market has gone from nothing a few years ago to account for more than 40 per cent of all telecoms traffic last year. ”

How to put the Radio menu in the Dock.

More on the BT hyperlink patent folly

Now even Newsweek has the story.

From a new email address to first spam in 8 hours

Fascinating empirical study of spam.

“A while ago, as an experiment, we buried a link in these web pages that would generate a unique email address on a blank page when visited. The reason the link was hidden was to reduce the hit count of the page to manageable proportions, so we could be sure that future email to this unique address could be uniquely matched to the IP address doing the scooping.

On 6.26am the morning of May 13th, 2001, the link is hit from IP 24.1.197.144 – a residential cable modem in Arizona, then on the @home network, now Cox. The browser is identified to the web server as a generic windows 95 version of Netscape. Of course it isn’t, its an email harvesting robot that goes from web page to web page.

Within just 8 hours, the first bit of spam arrives: given the short delay the spam was clearly generated by the same person who ran the program to scoop the email address in the first place. With a pro-active ISP abuse department this evidence would be enough to prosecute.. Our email to @home abuse goes un-answered. ”

There’s a really thought-provoking article by Michael Shrage in the current issue of Technology review. Shrage argues that the prime driver of IT innovation in the US has not been Microsoft or Oracle or Sun but… Wal-Mart. And this isn’t just his top-of-the-head opinion, but the conclusion of a team of economists led by Nobel laureate Robert Solow. Here’s an excerpt from Shrage’s piece:

A recent McKinsey Global Institute report analyzing the spurt in U.S. productivity growth from 1995 to 2000 proffers provocative statistics that should give champions of ‘supply-side’ innovation pause. ‘By far the most important factor in that is Wal-Mart,’ reports Robert Solow, the MIT Nobel Prize-winning economics professor emeritus who chaired the report’s advisory committee. ‘That was not expected. The technology that went into what Wal-Mart did was not brand new and not especially at the technological frontiers, but when it was combined with the firm’s managerial and organizational innovations, the impact was huge.’

Shrage goes on to ponder what would happen if Wal-Mart decided to plump for Open Source software in its next round of IT upgrades.

Hollywood Exclusive: baddies use Windows, goodies use Macs!

At last the truth is out. ” In Fox’s hit TV show, 24, starring Kiefer Sutherland, the villains use PCs running Microsoft Windows. The good guys, of course, use Macs.

24 traces 24 hours in the hectic life of counter-terrorism agent Jack Bauer (Sutherland), who is trying to rescue his kidnapped wife and daughter while simultaneously foiling a plot to kill a presidential candidate. Each hour-long episode unfolds in real-time. The complex, fast-paced show is a surprise hit for Fox, which debuted the show in November. “

This Weblog is, of course, produced on a Mac.

Can this be true — Mazda has named one of its cars after the MP3 format? This New York Times piece reports that lots of car stereos can now handle MP3 files. It also includes a useful lay explanation of MP3 encoding — suitable for RAB purposes?