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Atari Online News, Etc. Volume 06 Issue 14
Volume 6, Issue 14 Atari Online News, Etc. April 2, 2004
Published and Copyright (c) 1999 - 2004
All Rights Reserved
Atari Online News, Etc.
A-ONE Online Magazine
Dana P. Jacobson, Publisher/Managing Editor
Joseph Mirando, Managing Editor
Rob Mahlert, Associate Editor
Atari Online News, Etc. Staff
Dana P. Jacobson -- Editor
Joe Mirando -- "People Are Talking"
Michael Burkley -- "Unabashed Atariophile"
Albert Dayes -- "CC: Classic Chips"
Rob Mahlert -- Web site
Thomas J. Andrews -- "Keeper of the Flame"
With Contributions by:
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=~=~=~=
A-ONE #0614 04/02/04
~ Making One Spammer Pay ~ People Are Talking! ~ Longhorn In 2006?
~ Google Brings On Gmail ~ Gateway To Close Shops ~ MS, Sun Buddies?!
~ Overseas Swappers War! ~ E-Mail Spam Contest! ~ Xbox Price Is Cut!
~ IBM After SCO Jugular! ~ Free Web Mail To Stay? ~ PS2 10-Year Life?
-* We're Winning the Spam War?? *-
-* EU Orders Legislation On Spam, More *-
-* File Sharing Is No Threat To Music Sales! *-
=~=~=~=
->From the Editor's Keyboard "Saying it like it is!"
""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Over the years, we've pulled off some pretty interesting April Fools jokes
with our readers - both here at A-ONE and during our days with STReport. I
had a few interesting ideas for a "hoax" this year, but thought better of
it. Not that I was concerned about writing them, but of the timing.
There's nothing worse than trying to fool people right after April Fool's
Day! It just won't get pulled off, no matter how convincing one might be!
So, we'll file these ideas away for another year!
What dreadful spring weather we're having! I swear that we're going to just
pass spring by and end up with summer. It's been raining for two days now.
The report earlier this evening was that we've already had seven inches of
rain, with another 24 hours of rain to go. I don't mind the rain too much
as long as I can put a jacket and hat on, and grab an umbrella if I need it.
But try having to take out two dogs for their hourly jaunt - and they're
just crazy enough to stay out a little longer than they need! Buffy, the
double-coated long-hair, is like a sponge! She soaks up that rain like
there's no tomorrow. Drying her is an adventure! Butkus is the short-
haired one; and he likes to rub up against you to get dry, rather than allow
you to effectively dry him off with a towel. We end up as wet as if we went
out without any rain protection at all! I guess that if there's any
positive side to all of this, if it had been snow, we'd be buried in about
three or more feet of it by now.
As you'll read on further in this week's issue, the war is still raging
globally against spam. I think that we'll win a number of major battles,
but I'm not sure if we'll ever really win the war. It's going to take some
really tough worldwide legislation to attack this menace; and even then, I'm
not sure it's going to be enough. We'll see. Meanwhile, I continue to
delete about 30-50 spam messages from my various e-mail accounts on a daily
basis. It's almost become an expected daily routine. I think that my
delete function is going to burn out from overuse soon!
Until next time...
=~=~=~=
PEOPLE ARE TALKING
compiled by Joe Mirando
joe@atarinews.org
Hidi ho friends and neighbors. It's been rainy for what seems like a
month (it hasn't really been a month, it just seems like it), and I'm
starting to understand those people who complain about their joints
aching when it rains out. I mentioned once or twice... or more... that
I've got a herniated disc and arthritis in my neck. Well, this wet
weather is proving to me that rain DOES antagonize arthritis. All I can
do is hope for some sun and warmth sometime soon.
On another note, my wife mentioned to me last week that she got a kick
out of seeing one of the contestants from 'American Idol' on TV. "He was
one of the first ones cut", she said. Instantly, I knew who she meant.
I did some searching around and found an MPEG of the guy, William Hung.
He's the one that sang Ricky Martin's "She Bangs" for his audition. As I
played the MPEG, I was amazed that I couldn't stop laughing. The kid (I
don't mean anything derogatory here, he's a youngster by my standards)
sang for all he was worth and even attempted some form of choreography.
Unfortunately, he showed very little talent in either area.
At first, I thought I was laughing just because he wasn't what one would
expect to see on a singing-and-dancing show. But it was more than that.
The guy was enjoying himself. He was singing for all he was worth, and
rockin' to beat the band, regardless of what anyone else was going to
think or say about it.
And now, despite the fact that he got 'cut' from the show, regardless of
the fact that he's not 'the idol type', he's got a record deal and a
string of concerts.
Now why would there be so much interest in someone who "can't sing and
can't dance" as that mean Simon put it? I've thought about it quite a
bit, and I keep coming back to one thing... he's the every-man. He
represents all of us who sing in the shower or 'bust a move' when no one
is looking. Those of us who lead average lives and would like to be
noticed for something exceptional just once.
Most of us will never get the chance that William Hung got. And even if
we did, there's only a very slight chance that we'd handle negative
feedback with the grace and upbeat mood that he did.
William, should you happen to see this, keep on enjoying yourself!
Now let's get to the news, hints, tips and info available from the
UseNet.
From the comp.sys.atari.st NewsGroup
====================================
Joakim H?gberg posts this news about NEWSie:
"The sources for NEWSie has been released under GPL.
>From www.atari-users.net:
=========================
Yes, that is right: NEWSie! This application has probably been the
first internet application for many Atari users through the years,
offering support for usenet and pop-mail as well as ftp. Even though
NEWSie has not been updated in ages, it has been put to good use by
many users that are active on usenet. As any application that has not
had an update for years and years, there are things that isn't working
as smoothly as one might wish. And also bugs that would need to be
squashed.
For anyone interested in either doing a major rehaul, fixing bugs or
perhaps just learn more about how to do FTP/USENET/POP-MAIL, the
sources are now available."
Mark Duckworth tells Joakim:
"Congrats joakim! Congrats atarians! As cool as Troll is, it's not free
and it doesn't work (for me)."
Martin Byttebier tells Joakim and Mark:
"Hm, Newsie is not my thing. For some reason I never loved it. In the
past I tried to used it but ... no love at all. My favourite newsreader
is Okami. Unfortunately the development of Okami seems to be stopped.
Anyway, I'm glad to hear Troll doesn't work for you too. On my system I
can't get Troll pass the authentication."
Lonny Pursell adds his thoughts:
"Awesome! Now if someone would just add usenet filtering it would be the
biggest update newsie has ever seen."
John Garone adds his thoughts:
"My 2 cents is fix the bugs first!"
Lonny replies:
"That goes without saying."
John continues:
"Especially the one that corrupts files within the folder or drive that
Newsie is located! For me, second would be being able to see ALL the posts
and correct the # of posts available for download. If I set it for 999/9999
I get only 650 (compatibility issue?)"
Neil Roughley adds his thoughts:
"It might be that your news server doesn't keep a large archive of
previous posts, deleting them in order of age, let's say, after two
months or so. The limit of each newsgroup, depending on how much traffic
it gets, will vary too.
As for all the current posts, again it might be your news server. Why
not try a commercial service? I use NewsGuy (http://newsguy.com/). Cost
is about 11 cents a day for a basic account. For comp.sys.atari.st they
have about 2500 previous posts, but the important thing is that their
feeds are reliable and comprehensive. Configuration is easy: just add
their NNTP host and your username and password.
As for the corruption problem (which I experienced), only a rewrite of
NEWSie will cure that."
Claude Bourgoin asks about upgrading the memory in his TT:
"I have the Atari TT-RAM board (CA401058 ) and I removed the 1 meg simms
and replaced them with 4 meg simms. It seems that the TT030 doesn't
recognize the 4 meg simms. When I boot the TT it does the test on the STram
and then does the test on the TTram but still only shows 4 meg of memory
instead of 16 megs for the TTram. When I change jumper settings according to
Funky=Ware TT030 web page the TT doesn't even run the TTram test. Has
anyone run into this problem."
'Jean-Luc' tells Claude:
"Yes : only 8 or 9 chips modules will run on to this board, though
I don't remember if it must be EDO or FPM.
A google search across the french NG will bring you to a thread I
started 1+ year ago, in which I think you might find useful infos.
You might do a search in this NG too, as I think the subject has
been discussed more than once."
David Wade adds:
"Just check the jumpers on the card. The settings are a bit odd if I
remember properly...:
Bark Bedingfield tells Claude:
"Found this for you.
You may need nibble mode ram
http://www.geocities.com/siliconvalley/peaks/6320/ard/help/ttram01.htm
not easy to find."
Jom DeClercq adds:
"I have not [run into this problem], but that has never stopped anyone
else.
You might check the number of chips on those 4 meg simms. It may be that
three-chip simm will not work, and four-chip will.
If all else fails, I have one of those TT-RAM boards, and have no need for
it, and am willing to send it, for the cost of packaging and postage, to
any place in the world. Yes, I paid for it, but it needs a better home."
Brandon Alexander asks about his Mega's hard drive:
"I am not able to access the hard drive on my Mega ST. However the
machine will boot up with regular TOS disks and behave much like an
ST-1040.
This started a while back. If I remember correctly there are certain
boot programs it needs to boot. What I did was erase or rename those
programs because I could not get GDOS programs to run. Once I did I
could not get the hard drive back. It's there and purring but again
will not boot, and does not show up on the desktop.
At any rate if somebody knows how I can access the hard disk please
advise."
My old buddy Sheldon Winick tells Brandon:
"Dig out the "Atari Hard Disk Utilities" floppy that came with your
computer. You'll find the AHDI and HDX programs necessary to boot your
hard disk and reinstall whatever you deleted."
Brandon replies:
"Thanks for the information.
Appreciate the suggestion but I don't have any of the disk utilities.
I bought this computer 2nd-hand. All that came with it was a Cubase
disk.
If you have those utilities I would like to have copies. "
'Tim' tells Brandon:
"Yes do a search for AHDX on the net and you will find sites that have this
for download. Then copy or unzip the files to a 720kb disk and run it on
the Mega ST."
Well folks, that's it for this week. Until next time, keep your ears open
so that you'll hear what they are saying when...
PEOPLE ARE TALKING
=~=~=~=
->In This Week's Gaming Section - Microsoft Cuts Xbox Price!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" PlayStation2 Lasts to 2010?
=~=~=~=
->A-ONE's Game Console Industry News - The Latest Gaming News!
""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Microsoft Cuts Xbox Price to Boost Sales
Microsoft Corp. on Monday cut the price on its Xbox video game console in a
move seen as a boost to the game publishing industry ahead of its biggest
gathering of the year in May.
The price cut boosted shares in game retailers and was hailed by analysts
as a catalyst for more share gains in the coming weeks.
Microsoft, based in Redmond, Washington, cut the Xbox price to $149.99 from
$179.99 and also trimmed prices on software such as the karaoke game "Xbox
Music Mixer," "Project Gotham Racing 2" and "Crimson Skies: High Road to
Revenge."
The Xbox price cut is effective Tuesday, while the software cuts take
effect Monday and Tuesday.
"Hardware price cuts should benefit video game publishers and retailers. A
lower hardware price point should translate into higher hardware unit
sales," Banc of America Securities analyst Gary Cooper said in a note.
"In turn, a larger installed base of hardware should lead to higher sales
of video game software. In particular, we believe that these price points
will appeal to a more mass-market audience," he said.
Shares in the specialty game retailers, Electronics Boutique Holdings Corp.
and GameStop Corp., were up on the news. Both had built price cuts into
their outlooks for the year, and other retailers said the move was good
news as well.
"We know price cuts have usually increased public interest in (gaming)
products in the past and we expect that to happen in this go-round."
Circuit City Stores Inc. spokesman Jim Babb said.
The Xbox was released at $299 in November 2001. The price dropped to $199
in May 2002 at the E3 industry trade show and to $179 in May 2003, at the
same event. The new price was widely expected to come at some point before
this year's E3.
The 2002 price cuts led to a sharp upsurge in sales of game consoles and
software in what otherwise would have been the relatively quiet summer
months. However, the cuts in 2003 were smaller than many expected and had
little effect.
The move is a change in strategy for Microsoft, which previously cut the
Xbox price only after similar pricing moves from industry leader Sony Corp.
on the PlayStation 2.
While many analysts expect Sony to eventually match Microsoft's latest
pricing move, there was some doubt on Monday that the cut would come
immediately. Sony executives said last week that their decisions on the
future of the PS2 would not be determined by competitive pressure in the
marketplace.
"We believe that a price cut of consoles will be beneficial for video game
publishers and could signal a price cut of the PS2 soon, although we
believe that Sony faces a Japanese accounting hurdle if it cuts the price
of the PS2 prior to April 16 (within two weeks following the close of its
fiscal year)," Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter said in a note.
Since early this year, analysts and publishers have called a move to $149
necessary for the game industry to achieve its growth targets for the year,
and some have even raised the idea of prices going to $129.
"We doubt a $149 price point will be enough to drive (calendar 2004)
hardware unit sales above 2003 levels," Piper Jaffray analyst Tony Gikas
said in a note last Friday predicting the price cut.
"We estimate that a $129 price point on (Xbox) and (PS2) would result in
1.5 million additional hardware unit sales during 2004 compared to the $149
price point," he said.
Shares in game publishers were broadly higher in afternoon trade. Shares
of Microsoft, which loses money on Xbox sales but makes money on sales of
video games, rose 20 cents to $25.23 on Nasdaq.
Video game hardware and software sales come to $10 billion a year in the
United States. A new generation of consoles to replace the Xbox and the PS2
is expected in about the next two years.
Sony Sees 10-Year Life for PlayStation 2 Console
Sony Corp. believes that its market-leading PlayStation 2 video game
console can continue to sell until 2010, twice as long as most in the
industry had assumed was possible, an executive of Sony's U.S. video game
unit said on Thursday.
In a keynote address at the Game Developers Conference in San Jose,
California, Andrew House, executive vice president of Sony Computer
Entertainment of America, said the success of the original PlayStation,
nearing its 10th anniversary, had convinced the company that two-thirds of
its potential PS2 sales were yet to come.
The PlayStation 2 was released in 2000 in the United States and game
industry observers have expected Sony and rival Microsoft Corp to shift
their marketing efforts to next-generation game machines in 2005 or 2006.
"There are some huge potential gains for us later in the life cycle," House
told a packed auditorium.
But with the lengthening of the sales window for PS2, he said, Sony and
the industry will also have to consider the advancing age of the people
who own and buy the hardware.
"We have to think very carefully about the type of audience we're reaching
with our games," he said.
House also sought to quash speculation that Sony might accelerate
development on its next console, the PS3, to keep up with Microsoft Corp.,
which many in the industry have speculated is preparing the successor to
its Xbox console for 2005.
"Competitive movement will not be a factor in determining our launch
release plans," he said.
But what drew the closest attention from the developers on hand was the few
words House said about the PSP, a portable system expected to rival the PS2
in power and capabilities.
The device will have a wide-screen format, wireless Internet connectivity
and a proprietary storage device, the UMD, with three times the capacity of
a CD-ROM.
House was joined on stage by a team from Backbone Entertainment, which
showed a brief demo of its game "Death Jr." running on a PC with PSP
emulation software. The game drew heavy applause from the crowd, with those
who saw the demo admiring the platform's graphics capabilities.
While "Death Jr." was popular, though, the star of the keynote was an
unlikely American pop hero - William Hung, who gained fame as a talent-show
contestant with limited talent on the TV series "American Idol."
Hung, who has devoted legions of fans and a record deal, sang and danced to
the song "YMCA" with Sony's EyeToy, a device that connects to the PS2 and
translates the player's motion into on-screen action. He was using "EyeToy:
Groove," an upcoming game for the system.
=~=~=~=
A-ONE's Headline News
The Latest in Computer Technology News
Compiled by: Dana P. Jacobson
Spam-Busters Say They're Winning the War
They're the scourge of the electronic age - the modern-day equivalent of
the 19th century snake-oil salesmen hawking their miracle cures, love
potions and get-rich-quick schemes.
Like the rain in Ireland, there seems no escape from the tide of "spam," or
junk e-mail flooding the Internet.
But operating from the backstreets of the Irish capital, a small team of
spam-fighters says it's winning the battle against unsolicited e-mail that
costs big business billions of dollars a year.
During the European day, employees at spam-filtering company Brightmail are
engaged in a war of attrition against the propagators of unwanted e-mail
all over the world before passing the baton to colleagues in San Francisco.
Spam-filtering companies like Brightmail have their work cut out since
figures show the amount of junk e-mail surpassed legitimate e-mail for the
first time ever last year.
And, police say, organized crime gangs are using spam to defraud online
banking customers and distribute computer viruses capable of taking over an
unsuspecting computer user's machine.
To this end, they were given a recent boost by news that four of the
biggest U.S. e-mail providers had sued hundreds of online marketers under
a new federal law that bans the worst kinds of "spam" e-mail. And, the
legal clampdown will intensify in Europe in the coming months, industry
officials say.
"A year ago people were scared that e-mail was going to stop being useful
because the amount of spam was increasing so quickly but now it's starting
to come under control," said Ken Schneider, Brightmail's chief technology
officer.
Brightmail filters 80 billion e-mails a month, blocks two billion spams a
day and looks after 300 million e-mail boxes the world over.
Since setting up in 1998, it has filtered spam for some of the world's most
prominent service providers, ranging from telecoms giant AT&T, EarthLink
and Microsoft Corp's MSN in the U.S. to BT Openworld and Demon Internet in
Britain.
The Dublin office has been up and running for two years, with Brightmail
taking advantage of the relatively low-cost base and highly-skilled
workforce on offer in Ireland.
Part of the problem is deciding what does and doesn't constitute spam,
which Brightmail estimates makes up around 60 percent of all Internet
e-mail.
"We all receive unsolicited messages on a daily basis from our boss asking
us to do something," said Schneider. "You might consider it unwanted e-mail
but it's not generally thought of as spam."
The problem comes with unsolicited e-mail that is sent in bulk to random
addresses with varying subject lines to disguise their true intent.
Brightmail has two million decoy e-mail accounts in existence which attract
unsuspecting spam e-mail and forward it to Dublin for analysis.
Rules are then written about how to block particular types of spam and are
sent out to Brightmail's customers to halt spam attacks in their tracks.
"We prioritize our attacks and go after the biggest first," said Schneider.
He estimated the number of spammers around the world to number under a
thousand with many buying CDs containing millions of email addresses which
they use to ply their trade.
"You find some people who deny it's spam and tell you they bought the
e-mail addresses and you have to explain to them that the recipients never
agreed to receive it," Schneider added.
Making One Spammer Pay
Finally, some payback for all that spam.
It's a 2002 Porsche Boxster S that will be the grand prize in an America
Online sweepstakes starting Tuesday.
AOL obtained the car in settling a lawsuit against "a guy who by our
estimates made more than a million dollars from spamming," said Randall
Boe, AOL's executive vice president and general counsel.
Although the company has previously won cash judgments and destroyed
computers used in spamming, Boe said the latest case "represents us moving
beyond that to the toys, the fruits of spam. We'll take cars, houses,
boats, whatever we can find and get a hold of."
The sweepstakes is open until April 8. Adult AOL members living in the
continental United States are eligible, and they can enter only online.
The two-door, metallic silver gray Porsche with a leather interior has
18,000 miles on it and retails for $47,000, according to AOL.
Boe said the spammer was sued last April and the car had California plates.
He gave no other details, citing confidentiality terms of the settlement.
In that round of five federal lawsuits, AOL targeted individuals and
companies accused of sending a combined 1 billion junk messages to AOL
members, pitching pornography, college degrees, cable TV descramblers and
other products.
Boe said seized assets are usually cash and are used to pay lawyers,
develop anti-spam technology and expand the anti-spam team. He said
spammers are often forced to sell houses or other tangible assets.
AOL made an exception in this case and took the car because of its
"symbolic value," Boe said. "Here was a spammer who made some money fast.
He bought himself a Porsche."
Boe said he hoped the publicity would deter spammers, though he
acknowledged it wouldn't end spam.
EU Orders Legislation on Spam, Cookies
The European Union ordered eight countries Thursday to enact privacy
legislation governing "spam" e-mail and Internet "cookies."
It was the second warning sent to the countries, which have two months to
comply or face lawsuits before the European Court of Justice.
Since the initial warning was sent last November, Sweden has enacted the
legislation, but Belgium, Germany, Greece, France, Luxembourg, the
Netherlands, Portugal and Finland have not.
"We are determined to keep up the pressure," EU Commissioner Erkki
Liikanen said. "The directive is vital to ensure action can be taken and
enforced at a national level in the fight against spam."
Last July, the EU adopted a tough privacy regulation on electronic
communications. It bans all commercial e-mail unless a recipient has asked
for it. The regulation also sets strict rules for installing Internet
"cookies," which hook a computer into a Web site.
However, the regulation must be approved by each national parliament to
become effective.
The EU's difficulty enforcing its own regulations could undercut attempts
to get other countries to join the fight against spam.
About 53 percent of all e-mail in the 15-nation EU is unsolicited
commercial bulk e-mail, according to statistics published by Brightmail
Inc., an anti-spam technology company. About 80 percent of spam is believed
to come from North America.
Under U.S. law, no prior permission is required for sending commercial
messages as long as the recipient is given a chance to "opt out" of
receiving future messages from the same sender.
The EU has called on the 30-nation Organization for Economic Cooperation
and Development to step up international efforts to curb spam.
N.Y. Board to Hold E-Mail Spam Contest
It's called the "Spam and Bologna" contest.
In an effort to expose e-mail scams, the state Consumer Protection Board is
holding an international competition to find the most outrageous examples
of these fraudulent notes on the Internet.
"Advance-fee e-mails try to lure victims with fantastic tales of lost
fortunes. But this spam is bologna," said Teresa Santiago, chairwoman and
executive director of the board.
Santiago hopes the contest - where the winner receives nothing and the
second prize is bologna - will prevent more Internet users from falling for
e-mail scams promising lost fortunes or hidden bank accounts to be shared
with persons willing to put money up in advance.
"Sadly many people, especially the elderly, have lost thousands of dollars
to this scheme, which is one of the largest and oldest on the Internet,"
Santiago said. Variations of the scam date back more than 100 years.
The board said advance-fee e-mails, also known as "Nigerian" and "419"
e-mails, are received weekly by millions. The sender often poses as the
relative of a dead or jailed leader, a bank official or another fictitious
person looking for help.
To enter the "Spam and Bologna" contest, interested parties should forward
the scam e-mails to the Consumer Protection Board at
contest@consumer.state.ny.us. The contest ends May 2.
Overseas Groups Take on Music Swappers
The music industry's campaign of lawsuits and threats against song-swappers
moved overseas Tuesday as trade groups went after 247 people in Europe and
Canada they accused of piracy.
The London-based International Federation of the Phonographic Industry
(IFPI) said individuals in Germany, Denmark, Italy and Canada had been hit
with lawsuits, criminal charges or threatening letters.
The IFPI promised similar actions in other countries in the coming months.
National music-industry groups in Sweden and Britain recently began warning
users of online song-sharing networks by sending them online instant
messages.
"This is our first coordinated effort to take this campaign over the range
of countries where file-stealing is a problem," said Allen Dixon, general
counsel and executive director of the IFPI, which represents the recording
industry worldwide.
The group claims piracy is behind a five-year global decline in music
sales. It said worldwide sales of recorded music fell 7 percent in 2002,
with a similar plunge expected in 2003 figures.
The Recording Industry Association of America began targeting individual
file sharers last fall and has sued 1,977 people. The RIAA has settled some
400 cases, generally for a few thousand dollars each.
The actions in Europe and Canada were taken by national recording industry
groups affiliated with the IFPI. The targets were people who made at least
hundreds of songs - 54,000 tracks in one Danish case - available for
distribution and copying on free file-sharing services, Dixon said.
The tactics differed in each country, but in each instance the IFPI hopes
to wrest a few thousand dollars in fines or settlements.
More than 120 people in Denmark were sent letters demanding that they stop
illegal file-sharing and pay compensation - or face lawsuits. In Germany,
68 people were reported to law enforcement authorities, while 30 Italians
were charged with copyright infringement.
In Canada, 29 people were sued on copyright infringement claims.
In most cases, the industry had the full cooperation of Internet service
providers in identifying the defendants, except in Canada, where the
recording industry filed its cases against unidentified people it hopes to
unmask later.
Analyst Phil Leigh of Inside Digital Media said he thought the actions
probably would have a chilling effect, as the RIAA cases have. If people
are scared into ceasing to share their music collections online, free
downloading services like Kazaa will lose their value internationally.
But Leigh pointed out that the U.S. lawsuits came as the industry began to
provide strong alternatives to illegal song-swapping - commercial
downloading services including iTunes, Napster 2.0, MusicMatch and
Rhapsody. Those services have yet to work out the licensing and logistical
issues needed to launch outside the United States.
Leigh expects the music industry to come under fire in Europe and Canada
for assuming the RIAA tactic without aggressively launching commercial
services there.
So far, licensed commercial download services in Europe are "small little
operations," Leigh said.
Cases against individual song swappers have been contentious in the United
States, where Verizon Communications Inc. successfully challenged the
industry's use of subpoenas to seek identifying information about Verizon's
Internet subscribers.
A U.S. appeals court ruled in December that the recording industry can't
use the subpoenas to force Internet providers to identify file-swappers
unless a lawsuit is first filed. In response, the music industry has sued
"John Doe" defendants - identified only by their numeric Internet
addresses - and expects to work through the courts to learn their
identities.
Jonathan Zittrain, co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet and
Society at Harvard Law School, said it's unclear whether the RIAA's
lawsuits in the United States have significantly reduced free music
downloading.
But he said the cases are part of a broader strategy for the recording
industry.
Zittrain believes the industry eventually plans to sue Internet service
providers (ISPs) directly for failing to police piracy on their networks.
If so, he expects the record labels will point to the individual lawsuits
filed in the United States and now in Canada and Europe and say, "Look, we
have been trying everything - it hasn't been effective," Zittrain said.
"I think the ISPs are quietly worried about it."
File-Sharing No Threat to Music Sales
Internet music piracy has no negative effect on legitimate music sales,
according to a study released today by two university researchers that
contradicts the music industry's assertion that the illegal downloading of
music online is taking a big bite out of its bottom line.
Songs that were heavily downloaded showed no measurable drop in sales, the
researchers found after tracking sales of 680 albums over the course of 17
weeks in the second half of 2002. Matching that data with activity on the
OpenNap file-sharing network, they concluded that file sharing actually
increases CD sales for hot albums that sell more than 600,000 copies. For
every 150 downloads of a song from those albums, sales increase by a copy,
the researchers found.
"Consumption of music increases dramatically with the introduction of file
sharing, but not everybody who likes to listen to music was a music
customer before, so it's very important to separate the two," said Felix
Oberholzer-Gee, an associate professor at Harvard Business School and one
of the authors of the study.
Oberholzer-Gee and his colleague, University of North Carolina's Koleman
Strumpf, also said that their "most pessimistic" statistical model showed
that illegal file sharing would have accounted for only 2 million fewer
compact discs sales in 2002, whereas CD sales declined by 139 million units
between 2000 and 2002.
"From a statistical point of view, what this means is that there is no
effect between downloading and sales," said Oberholzer-Gee.
For albums that fail to sell well, the Internet may contribute to declining
sales. Oberholzer-Gee and Strumpf found that albums that sell to niche
audiences suffer a "small negative effect" from Internet piracy.
The study stands in opposition to the recording industry's long-held
assertion that the rise of illegal file sharing is a major cause of
declining music sales over the past few years. In making its case, the
Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) points to data showing
that CD sales fell from a high of more than $13.2 billion in 2000 to $11.2
billion in 2003 - a period that matches the growth of various online music
piracy services.
The RIAA has fought illegal music swapping by filing a raft of lawsuits
against hundreds of individuals suspected of engaging in music piracy, as
well as suits targeting companies like Kazaa and Grokster that make
software or run Internet downloading services.
Wayne Rosso, president of the Madrid-based file-sharing company Optisoft,
said he hoped the study would spur the RIAA to abandon litigation and look
for ways to commercialize file sharing. "There's no question that there is
a market there that could easily be commercialized and we have been trying
for years to talk sense to these people and make them see that," he said.
Rosso formerly ran the Grokster file-sharing service.
Eric Garland, chief executive of Big Champagne, an Atlanta company that
tracks file-sharing activity, said the findings match what his company has
observed about the effect of file sharing on music sales. Although the
practice cannibalizes some sales, it may promote others by serving as a
marketing tool, Garland said.
The RIAA questioned the conclusions reached by Oberholzer-Gee and Strumpf.
"Countless well respected groups and analysts, including Edison Research,
Forrester, the University of Texas, among others, have all determined that
illegal file sharing has adversely impacted the sales of CDs," RIAA
spokeswoman Amy Weiss said.
Weiss cited a survey conducted by Houston-based Voter Consumer Research
that found those who illegally download more music from the Internet buy
less from legitimate outlets. Of respondents ages 18-24 who download, 33
percent said they bought less music than in the past year while 21 percent
bought more. Of those ages 25-34, the survey found 25 percent bought less
and 17 percent bought more, Weiss said.
Larry Rosin, the president of Somerville, N.J.-based Edison Media Research,
said it was absurd to suggest that the Internet and file sharing have not
had a profound effect on the music industry.
"Anybody who says that the Internet has not affected sales is just not
paying attention to what is going on out there," he said. "It's had an
effect on everything else in life, why wouldn't it have an effect on this?"
Edison Media Research has done a series of surveys for a music industry
trade publication to track the effect of online file sharing on music
sales. Rosin said while file-sharing networks can generate advertising
value for some CDs, the net effect of file sharing on music sales has been
negative.
The Harvard-UNC study is not the first to take aim at the assertion that
online music piracy is the leading factor hurting music sales. In two
studies conducted in 1999 and 2002, Jupiter Research analyst Aram
Sinnreich found that persons who downloaded music illegally from the
Internet were also active purchasers of music from legitimate sources.
"While some people seemed to buy less after file sharing, more people
seemed to buy more," Sinnreich said. "It was more likely to increase
somebody's purchasing habits."
The 2002 Jupiter study showed that people who traded files for more than
six months were 75 percent more likely than average online music fans to
spend more money on music.
Sinnreich, no longer with Jupiter, has appeared in court as an expert
witness on behalf of Grokster, a popular music downloading site that was
sued by the recording industry for facilitating music piracy. In that case,
a judge ruled that Grokster and several other services that distribute
peer-to-peer software could not be shut down just because the software was
used to violate intellectual property rights.
IBM Goes for Jugular in SCO Suit
IBM is going for the throat in its fight with the SCO group, seeking
dismissal of the copyright-infringement case that has stretched on for over
a year.
Big Blue late last week filed a series of counterclaims against SCO, in
essence asking U.S. district court judge Dale A. Kimball to throw out the
case. "IBM does not infringe, induce the infringement of, or contribute to
the infringement of any SCO copyright through its Linux activities," the
company claims, "including its use, reproduction and improvement of Linux."
IBM also maintains that SCO's copyrights in Unix are invalid.
IBM also is suing SCO for compensation for damages - based on the misuse of
rights to the Unix OS and infringement of IBM's own copyrights and
patents - in an amount to be determined at trial. In a countersuit it filed
against SCO in August, IBM claims SCO violated Linux's General Public
License (GPL), as well as a number of IBM patents.
The latest legal volley could represent a turning point in the ongoing
battle, with IBM landing a knockout punch if Kimball decides to dismiss the
case. "It's not surprising that IBM would do this and try to end the fight
early," Yankee Group analyst Laura DiDio told NewsFactor. "But it sure took
them a long time to react to the threat."
SCO, which has become public enemy No. 1 in the open-source world, launched
the battle's first salvo last March, alleging that code from Unix System V
software was integrated into Linux improperly, and that IBM bears ultimate
responsibility for putting it there. SCO then filed a lawsuit seeking US$5
billion in damages from IBM.
Earlier this month, SCO brought its first suits against enterprise-Linux
users, charging auto-parts vendor AutoZone and automaker DaimlerChrysler
with copyright violations. Novell also has been named as a defendant in a
legal action initiated by SCO. In response, Linux vendors Red Hat, HP and
Novell are offering various types of indemnification to customers against
copyright-infringement claims.
As for the amended counterclaims submitted by IBM, DiDio said the company
apparently feels confident in its position. But, she added, a favorable
ruling is not a foregone conclusion. "The whole case has been blown out of
proportion with claims and counterclaims, and Linux extremists have been
fanning the flames."
Still, the case has ramifications for IBM's reputation, which has suffered
along with SCO's, during the length of the dispute, DiDio said. "This still
has a long way to go," she predicts, pointing out that the discovery
process alone is expected to take years.
Sun, Microsoft Make a Billion Dollar Deal
Sun Microsystems has entered into a "broad cooperation agreement" with
Microsoft and settled all outstanding litigation, the company says.
Microsoft will pay Sun $700 million to resolve all pending antitrust issues
and $900 million to resolve all patent issues, the Santa Clara, California,
company says in a release.
Both companies have also agreed to pay royalties for each other's
technologies with Microsoft making an up-front payment of $350 million and
Sun making payments whenever it uses Microsoft's technology in its server
products, Sun says.
Declaring a new relationship between itself and Microsoft, Sun also says
that the companies have agreed to enable their products to better work
together and have entered agreements on patents and other issues.
The agreement includes technical collaboration, giving access to each
other's server technology, as well as Sun's licensing of Microsoft's
communications protocols and Microsoft support of some Sun products.
Sun also announced that it has promoted software head Jonathan Schwartz as
the company's new president and chief operating officer.
Count on Longhorn for 2006 - Maybe
Bill Gates, Microsoft chairman and chief software architect, teased an
audience of nearly 8000 Monday at Gartner's annual symposium, ITexpo, an
event that focuses on emerging technologies, trends and opportunities. In
his address, Gates acknowledged that the industry buzz placing the release
of Longhorn in 2006 is "probably valid speculation."
The on-again, off-again release date for the next version of the Windows
operating system has fluctuated for more than year. At one time, Microsoft
thought it would release Longhorn in 2004. As recently as last May - during
the Windows Engineering Hardware Conference - Microsoft said it would
release Longhorn in 2005.
The release dates is still fluid, though: "Longhorn is not a date-driven
release," Gates cautioned. There are many technological necessities to
address before a firm date is set. However, a beta version is set for
release sometime during the first half of 2004.
Some have not had to wait for a peek at Longhorn. Software developers got
to test drive an alpha version during the Professional Developers
Conference in October of last year. Ivan Mayes, senior technical analyst
for Humana, was one of the early Longhorn users. He told NewsFactor that
this version of Windows is the "most impressive to date."
"They've clearly done their homework," Mayes said. "It is easier to manage
and has a lot of additional functionality, as well as loads of customizable
options - they've obviously been studying their Linux."
Gates also highlighted some of the fundamentals of Longhorn. He noted that
essential security, such as personal firewalls and patch-management
systems, will be enhanced to lock down Longhorn and make it easier to
manage. There also will be a unified storage solution.
"Some of you have heard me talk about unified storage for 10 years," Gates
joked, adding that Longhorn will be the realization of his quest. WinFS
allows users to search for data across the local system, the network and
Web services.
The design permits it to pull data from individual applications so that it
can be stored in one central place and shared universally at the platform
level. For example, contact and calendar information could be integrated
with any number of applications.
Gates focused on the client, saying little about plans for a server version
of the operating system. He did mention that the OS will include new
versions of the client, server and Office. He also emphasized that PCs in
2006 will have the power and storage requirements to support Longhorn's new
presentation system, called "Avalon"; a file system, called "WinFS";
Indigo, a Web-services communication bus built into the OS; and WinFX, the
new programming model to succeed Win32.
Avalon will be a unified presentation model for Windows applications, Web
applications and media, graphics, and animation.
Gates called Longhorn the "biggest release of the decade - the biggest
since Windows 95." While excitement among developers and users builds
towards a firm release date, it will be a team effort to achieve Longhorn's
potential.
"When Longhorn eventually ships in 2006, it will mark a major transition in
the client OS market similar to the DOS-to-Windows migration of the last
decade," MetaGroup analyst Steve Kleynhans told NewsFactor.
Gateway To Close All Retail Stores
Struggling PC maker Gateway (GTW) said Thursday that it plans to close all
188 of its retail stores and lay off 2,500 workers.
The stores will close April 9, Gateway says. Its computers will still be
sold on Gateway's Web site and via phone.
"We're looking for any way we can to reduce our operating costs," says
spokesman Brad Williams.
Gateway plans to provide more details when it announces first-quarter
earnings April 29.
Gateway was the only major PC maker to run its own stores. That made it
hard to compete with rivals, which didn't have the high cost of store
employees and real estate. Gateway's overhead on PCs was often twice as
high as rival Dell's, which sells mainly via phone and Internet, says
Gartner Group analyst Martin Reynolds.
"The stores were an albatross around Gateway's neck," says U.S. Bancorp
Piper Jaffray analyst Ashok Kumar.
Gateway has tried several times to remake itself since 2000. Attempts to
boost sales by remodeling stores and adding more consumer electronics
products failed.
Gateway's shares rose 23 cents, or 4%, to $5.63 in after-hours trading on
the news, released after the market closed. "This should get Gateway back
in fighting shape," says independent technology analyst Rob Enderle.
The closures were an expected part of Gateway's latest big restructuring.
Gateway, the No. 5 U.S. PC maker, announced plans to acquire No. 4
eMachines earlier this year. The merged company looks more like eMachines
than Gateway.
EMachines CEO Wayne Inouye has replaced Gateway CEO Ted Waitt, who remains
chairman. The merged company is moving to Irvine, Calif., near eMachines'
current headquarters. (Gateway is based in Poway, Calif., about 80 miles
away.)
EMachines sells mostly through third-party retail stores, such as Best Buy
and Costco, which is cheaper than running its own. The method also shows
off products to customers who are passing through to buy other products.
Although Gateway has not announced plans to sell PCs alongside eMachines',
analysts who cover the industry expect that to happen any day. That would
increase competition on store shelves, likely lowering prices, Gartner's
Reynolds says.
Free Web Mail: Here to Stay?
Web mail just wants to be free - unless you can be coaxed to pay, of course.
Public providers of e-mail delivered via any Web browser would much prefer
that you pony up for their fee-based services, and they are making
increasingly compelling cases for you to do so.
But Web mail is booming, with no less than 355 million accounts worldwide
at the start of the year, estimates the Radicati Group, a market research
company in Palo Alto, California. Two giants dominate the market:
Microsoft's MSN Hotmail makes up 37 percent of the total and Yahoo Mail is
30 percent, says Marcel Nienhuis, Radicati senior analyst.
Both leaders say they are committed to offering free versions of their
services - largely to keep a full pipeline of potential customers for those
paid services. Moreover, while the no-cost offerings suffer from tight
constraints on storage space, they are gaining slick new features.
"We've continued to make innovations in the interface and the
infrastructure," says Larry Grothaus, MSN lead product manager. Most
visibly, Hotmail rolled out usability improvements last fall, including a
Today view that separates out the mail coming from your contacts. (To aid
this process, you can import your contacts from Outlook or Outlook
Express.) Behind the scenes, MSN is strengthening its efforts to improve
measures against spam and viruses. Storage for a free Hotmail account
remains limited to 2MB, however, and you can't send messages larger than
1MB.
Yahoo Mail is a tad more generous, with free accounts offering 4MB of
storage and messages up to 2MB. In February the service added the
capability to autocomplete addresses after you type the first few letters,
much as Outlook and other client mail packages can do. In the fight against
spam and viruses, "we now scan every single e-mail attachment that comes
in," says Brad Garlinghouse, Yahoo vice president of communications
products. Calendar functions are also available for free.
The two competing services have added a number of nice touches, such as
printable views of messages and integration with their respective instant
messaging software. Both also walk a thin line in terms of the
obtrusiveness of the advertisements that support them. Last year Yahoo Mail
reduced the number of ads it runs, which has worked out well for users and
advertisers, Garlinghouse maintains. MSN's Grothaus, in turn, says that "we
got rid of flashy, annoying ads because of customer complaints."
Given their enormous audiences, the two Web mail providers live in the
center of the spam hurricane, fighting a daily battle against billions of
incoming junk messages.
"The more spam we can keep off the network, the better performance will be
for everyone," Grothaus notes.
While spam is the top issue with users, defining spam is difficult because
the definition varies with the recipient, Garlinghouse says. Yahoo Mail and
Hotmail each encourage users to mark what they consider spam, generating a
flood of data back to the providers, which can tune their filters
accordingly. Also, the services allow users to block addresses and stop
HTML images from loading before they know the images are safe.
Among other steps, Hotmail works with Brightmail, a company that sets up
dummy mail addresses and monitors what spam they collect. It adopted Human
Interactive Proof technology (which makes you eyeball an image and pick out
what it spells) to stop spammers from registering automatically via
software.
The paid Yahoo Mail Plus service offers another twist. You can set up
multiple addresses that you can handle differently within your account -
dedicating one to your EBay dealings, for instance.
The Web mail giants won't disclose how many of their customers haul out
their credit cards for e-mail. Industry analysts suggest the numbers are
significant and growing.
"They try to make it pretty irresistible for people who use it each day to
sign up for paid service," says Robert Mahowald, research manager for
collaborative computing at IDC. "To me, $20 a year for e-mail is a good
price."
"More and more people are opting to pay," agrees Radicati's Nienhuis. "Two
megabytes of storage is almost nothing; you have to look at it almost daily
to delete unnecessary messages." The paid services go far beyond basic
e-mail, with group-collaboration features and other handy extras, he adds.
Hotmail Extra Storage comes in various plans that start at $20 a year for
10MB of storage, the ability to send 3MB attachments, and access via
Outlook or Outlook Express. At the high end, you can pony up $10 a month
for MSN Premium, which provides up to 11 accounts, calendar functions,
antivirus software, and a host of other goodies.
Yahoo Mail offers plans starting with 10MB of storage (and 3MB attachments)
for an annual fee of $10. Yahoo Mail Plus bundles in access to POP e-mail,
local message backups, and other services at a cost of $30 yearly and up.
Among other options, Yahoo also offers a Business Edition for small firms;
at $10 a month, this gives you five e-mail accounts with 25MB of storage
each and ownership of a domain name.
Given the spread of broadband connections and the availability of powerful
Web programming tools, "the lines between Web mail and client mail are
increasingly being blurred," Garlinghouse says.
And as it integrates more seamlessly with other applications, "e-mail is
increasingly less about just sending and receiving messages, and more about
life management," he adds. "It's a communications hub."
This trend is expected to accelerate. For instance, Garlinghouse says, "a
very large number of the attachments we handle are photos. We want to make
a better experience to manage and share them, and to order a print."
Web mail providers expect to continue investing heavily in measures for
zapping spam and viruses. They'll push further into mobile devices, aiming
to improve features and widen distribution on PDAs and smart phones.
They'll watch for incoming technologies to integrate, such as the RSS (Real
Simple Syndication) instant-notification standard.
And they'll keep offering free versions, probably with the current level of
storage limitations.
"Web mail is a growing category," says IDC's Mahowald. "There will always
be a market for Web mail, cheap or free."
Google Introduces Free E-Mail Service
Google Inc. is introducing a free e-mail service to send a blunt message -
the maker of the world's most popular online search engine is pulling off
the gloves in its clash with high-tech heavyweights Yahoo! Inc. and
Microsoft Corp.
The company unleashed the latest blow in a fierce fight for Web supremacy
late Wednesday by promising to deliver 250 to 500 times more storage space
than the market-leading e-mail services provided by Yahoo and Microsoft's
Hotmail.
But there's a catch to the e-mail. Hoping to turn a profit from the
service - dubbed Gmail - privately held Google has programmed its computers
to dissect the topics being discussed in the e-mails and then deliver
text-based ads related to the subjects.
For instance, an e-mail from one friend to another discussing an upcoming
concert might prompt Google to include an advertising link from a ticketing
agency.
"I don't think (the ads) will be annoying at all," Google co-founder Larry
Page said during an interview Wednesday. "We think this will give us a
business model that will work and allow us to provide a high-quality
service."
Page said Gmail shouldn't raise serious privacy concerns because Google
plans to closely guard the content of the e-mail messages. Ads are unlikely
to accompany most e-mails, he said.
Gmail will offer 1 gigabyte of storage space, roughly 500,000 pages of
e-mail. Gmail users will be able to receive up to 10 megabytes in a single
e-mail - more than the free services of Yahoo and Microsoft's Hotmail allow
to be stored in an entire mailbox.
Yahoo offers up to 4 megabytes of free e-mail storage while Hotmail
provides 2 megabytes of free storage. Both services charge for additional
space.
Gmail also will enable its users to type a keyword into a built-in search
box to find information contained in their e-mailboxes within a matter of
seconds.
For now, Mountain View, Calif.-based Google is only opening up the service
to invited users but expects to make it accessible to everyone within a few
weeks, Page said. People interested in signing up for an e-mail account are
being encouraged to register at www.gmail.com.
Google's e-mail expansion is likely to escalate its mounting competition
with Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Yahoo and Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft.
While those two giants have been revving up their own search technology,
Google has recently unveiled a series of improvements to protect its turf.
By offering e-mail, Google is now invading a space dominated by Yahoo and
Microsoft's Hotmail.
Yahoo has 52.6 million unique users per month in the United States,
according to a February survey by online research firm comScore Media
Metrix. Hotmail is next, with 45.4 million users. AOL has 40.2 million
users, but they pay monthly subscriptions.
Officials at Yahoo and Microsoft's Hotmail division declined to comment
specifically on Google's entry into the new category. Yahoo released a
statement promising to "continue to be an innovative leader by integrating
and delivering new features that add value to people's lives."
Google had been testing its e-mail service for about a year internally
before deciding to offer it to the general public.
"We think e-mail is one of those things that is not as useful and as well
organized as it should be," Page said. "People have been asking us to do
this for a long time."
=~=~=~=
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