My last discussion here on BlueSocket was how to circumvent the log-in page to connect to Xbox Live. Another annoyance I have had with UALR's internet is the total banning of torrents and peer to peer, even if it is for legitimate purposes. Is it possible to circumvent UALR's block on torrents? Maybe to a few peoples' surprise, to an extent, yes it is!

The cause of this problem is BlueSocket automatically detects when peer to peer software is being used on a system. When it detects such software, it raises a red flag on your NetID and blocks you off the network until you get on your knees and beg for the IT guys to give you back access.

The solution to this problem then would be that you would need to actually download the files from a remote location and then get them somehow in one direct transfer. There are many protocols which we can do this that are not considered P2P. The best one for this job, however, is HTTP :)

Meet TorrentFlux. TF is a fully fledged web-based BitTorrent client that literally uses your web server's resources to download torrent files at blazingly fast speeds - often 100mbps. Once the web server has downloaded the torrent file in question (and it can be as large as you need it to be), all you have to do is download it straight from your browser just like you would download any other file off the internet. Ingenious, eh?

Now we've got another problem. How do we actually use TorrentFlux? You're going to need to find webspace and a host that supports it! Right now I'm looking into GizmoHosting.net; they have a pretty good quality plan for about 35$ annually, and I'm pretty sure they support TF. 35$ is quite inexpensive, especially for webspace. That's about half the price of an Xbox 360 or PS3 game!

Once you get your webspace and have TF installed, all you need to do is simply upload your .torrent file into its downloader, go away for a little while as it downloads the file(s), and then simply download the finished transfer onto your computer. The final transfer from the webserver to your PC is done over the HTTP protocol, which BlueSocket recognizes as being completely legitimate!

Orbene, nonostante la battaglia delle Major su questo fronte, la società RealNetworks, che da sempre è in prima fila proprio per studiare e realizzare sistemi di protezione dei DVD messi in commercio dalle case di produzione cinematografica, ha deciso di fare il “salto della barricata” e di proporre uno strumento, il programma RealDVD, che garantisce agli utenti di poter realizzare la copia di qualsiasi DVD (naturalmente le indicazioni del prodotto raccomandano di farlo solo per uso strettamente personale), anche quelli che possiedono i sistemi di DRM per la protezione dalla duplicazione. Una contraddizione che parrebbe strana, se non fosse che da quando il mercato del “ripping” è diventato più vasto di quello dell’home video, era abbastanza logico che le società di software specializzate in questo settore, si mettessero al lavoro per venire incontro alle esigenze non solo di chi produrre, ma anche di chi usufruisce di contenuti video.

L’Associazione delle case di produzione cinematografica americana, la MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America), che vede fra i suoi iscritti colossi del calibro della Warner Bros, 20th Century Fox, Sony Pictures, NBC Universal, Paramount, Disney e molti altri, non potendo tollerare un atteggiamento di questo genere da parte del “traditore” RealNetworks, ha immediatamente fatto sapere che ricorrerà a vie legali per fermare l’uscita sul mercato di RealDVD. Da parte sua, RealNetworks ha sfoderato le unghie, affermando di essere pronta a sfidare i giganti in tribunale, per dimostrare che il loro prodotto non solo è in linea con le richieste del mercato e quindi degli utenti, ma anche con le nuove frontiere della tecnologia digitale, a cui i colossi di Hollywood (sempre secondo RealNetworks) dovrebbero adeguarsi il prima possibile.

Ma qual è il segreto di questo RealDVD che incute tanto terrore alle Major cinematografiche? E’ presto detto: anziché scardinare il sistema DRM di protezione dalla copia, questo software lo aggira, aggiungendo uno strato ulteriore alla codifica del DVD capace di “coprire” i codici di sicurezza del DRM. Uno stratagemma tanto semplice quanto efficace, che non poteva che venire da chi ha contribuito in maniera determinante alla creazione dei sistemi di blindatura delle copie di film in DVD.

Adesso restiamo ad aspettare i passi della macchina legale americana, che si faranno sentire presto, vista l’importanza e la spettacolarità del caso.

www.fiction-tv.it

www.cartoonmag.org

www.magmovie.org

]]> http://wilkox.wordpress.com/?p=355 Mon, 06 Oct 2008 03:48:12 +0000 wilkox http://wilkox.pl.wordpress.com/2008/10/06/comes-with-music-will-fail/ This week's edition of the Economist newspaper features an article on "Comes with music" (CWM), the latest addition to the legion of subscription-based "solutions" to the file-sharing "problem". Under CWM, mobile phone makers purchase 12 month subscriptions to online-music catalogues and bundle them with handsets. The idea is that end users will not mind paying for music if the cost is hidden inside the price of something more tangible. CWM is touted as a win-win-win model: handset makers get an extra feature to entice customers, end users get "free" music, and record companies get to make a profit. The Economist describes CWM as "potentially a big step forward". I think it is a half-baked idea which is doomed to failure.

The first reason is the restricted nature of the service. Major record companies are a lot like alcohol addicts: although they know as well as anyone how much it hurts them, they just can't compel themselves to give up a bad habit. So it is no surprise that the tracks available on CWM are strait-jacketed with Digital Rights Managment (DRM), the asinine technology which attempts to restrict users from moving or playing music files in anything but the most strictly prescribed way. Of course, even if the DRM method Nokia is using remains uncracked, nobody is going to put up with the restrictions or pay to have them lifted when they can just download the music from a P2P file-sharing network, unrestricted and free. At best, all DRM will achieve is to encourage users to use CWM when convenient - when they want a certain song, right now, on their mobile handset - and carry on downloading the bulk of their music the normal, illegal way. On top of this, the twelve month expiry limit is simply irrelevant to a generation for whom downloading is the norm. If the users even notice that CWM has expired, they will hardly care.

The second reason is that, of course, CWM is not free. The handset maker has to pay at least one record company for the subscription, and that cost ultimately must get passed on to the consumer. Nokia may choose to cross-subsidise the service with profits from other handsets, or cut other features from CWM handsets, or whatever. Regardless, handsets with CWM will be at a competitive disadvantage against handsets without CWM. This is only an intuition, but I strongly doubt that the addition of CWM will sway consumers purchasing decisions more than an infinitesimal amount. It simply isn't a shiny, attractive feature when file-sharing is so easy and familiar, and when mobile carriers and ISPs are already pushing so many other DRM-stunted, mutually incompatible digital music services, subscription and otherwise. The Economist article even suggested that the "unlimited" downloads will in fact be capped by a "fair use" limit, which will tarnish CWM's image yet further. Unless Nokia can find a way to make CWM sexy - a very tall order - or to absorb the cost, CWM handsets will not be competitive.

The final and most basic reason is that the music industry has left it far too late to supply an alternative to file-sharing. My generation grew up with Napster, Limewire and BitTorrent the way our parents grew up with television, air conditioning and jumbo jets. For us, file-sharing is not a way to get music, it's the way. A technologically disinclined friend recently bought a new laptop and asked me what software he should put on it. I suggested, among other things, OpenOffice. He recoiled: even though OO's user interface is a near clone of MS Office, and OO is entirely free, he would rather find a pirated copy of MS Office than deal with a slightly unfamiliar interface. He also turned down my suggestion of Vuze as his file-sharing client; he had been using Limewire for years and didn't want to learn a new system. There are a lot of people like my friend out there, and a lot more who are open to new technologies but who just like file-sharing better. Why would they bother adopting a restricted, closed-catalogue, closed-medium system when they could just keep on downloading like they always have? Boosters of CWM must remember that it is competing against a file-sharing networks which are free, ubiquitous, near perfectly stocked and completely familiar. It's hard to imagine a better music delivery system, much less one that would turn a profit.

I don't know how musicians are going to make a living as music sales continue to plummet, but CWM is not part of the solution. My strong intuition is that anything which requires users to pay for music (or any digital content) is a lost cause, and profits will have to come through adjunct channels. However, I'm skeptical that donations, concert tickets, merchandise sales or advertising will entirely cover the gap. It will be fascinating to see what solutions the market comes up with. At least we can be assured that great music can be given away sustainably.

Image credit: "stereo geisha white", by chotda, under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 Generic license.

In the previous rallies in 2005, 2006 and 2007 the participating rally teams had to accomplish several different tasks during each lap. Concurrently the teams had to validate each navigation system they tested.
On this day the competing rally team will drive several laps, to point out the best navigation system and also to win the “Best Navigation Team 2008” Trophy. The rally will feature Intense usage of several types of navigation equipment (multimodal): personal navigation devices, mobile phones with GPS (for on and off-board, and in-dash systems).
The rally is part of the European Navigation Event, fourth edition, to be held at the High Tech Campus in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, on 7 and 8 October. For more information about the event,  contact p.hermans[at] jakajima [dot] eu.

Prima Release Candidate di uTorrent 1.8.1, uno dei più veloci client torrent. Questa nuova versione dovrebbe risolvere il problema con NOD32 2.5/2.7 e dovrebbe essere ancora più veloce della versione precedente. Risolti diversi bug della beta precedente.

Download uTorrent 1.8.1 RC1 (build 12549)

Pagina skin

Il modo di procedere (o quello che ho trovato io piu' comodo) e' stato il seguente:

La migrazione doveva essere eseguita "a caldo" per evitare che lo share non fosse disponibile.

Dando per convenzione che la dir sul server Gnu/Linux si chiami /share e che sul server Bsd si chiamera' /newshare

Per preservare i permessi, il timestamp e il resto il modo più sicuro e' quello di effettuare il tar del pacchetto.

Dal server Gnu/Linux trasferite tutto lo share con un piped tar over ssh per mantenere i permessi originali

tar -czf - /share | ssh root@indirizzoserverBSD tar -xzf - -C /newshare

il flag -z sul primo tar serve a comprimere il pacchetto per far si che il trasferimento risulti molto piu' veloce.

Inserite la password ove richiesto e aspettate che finisca il trasferimento (sarebbe meglio non usare password di root su ssh, ma si presuppone che questa operazione venga fatta con i 2 server NON disponibili su internet).

Ovvio che e' possibile il trasferimento anche copiando il tar su disco esterno/DVD ecc...

Ricreate utenti e gruppi sul server Bsd (ovviamente con la notazione Bsd partendo da 1001 sia per GID che per UID), una volta finito il trasferimento date il seguente comando da root per modificare gli UID:

find /share -user vecchioGID -exec chown nuovouser '{}' \;

e i GID

find /share -group vecchioUID -exec chgrp nuovogruppo '{}' \;

ad esempio se sul server GNU/Linux l'utente "pippo" aveva come UID 505 sul server BSD darete:

find /share -user 505 -exec chown pippo '{}' \;

Ho utilizzato -exec ... '{}' \; perche' con una cosa come  for i in find... avrei trovato problemi con le directory che contenevano spazi e per una questione di velocita'

Ovviamente poi riconfigurate Samba.

Questa guida e' applicabile a qualsiasi sistema *NIX non necessariamente ai 2 sopra citati.

After an avalanche of bad publicity in the month since Spore's release, Electronic Arts seems to have realized some of its mistakes and is trying to mend its relationship with gamers. From easing up on the SecuROM restrictions placed on its games to trying to discourage piracy in a far more benign way (highlighting specific aspects of the game, like the Sporepedia, that can't be accessed by pirated copies), EA appears to have seen the error of its ways. There's one particular comment of note, though, from EA corporate communications employee Mariam Sughayer, discussing the effects of piracy on sales.

“Stepping aside from the whole issue of DRM, people need to recognize that every BitTorrent download doesn’t represent a successful copy of a game, let alone a lost sale.” 

Interesting. So someone finally admits the fallacy of the potential sale argument. While EA doesn't plan on getting rid of SecuROM anytime soon, this is a step in the right direction. Their decision to deter piracy by highlighting aspects of the game not available in pirated copies is also a positive development, because in Softpedia's words, it shies away from "punishing everyone for the sins of pirates." Think of it as a kinder, friendlier form of deterrence.

If you think about it that way, DRM and other anti-piracy measures basically throw out the baby with the bathwater and impose all kinds of restrictions on people who haven't done anything wrong. It's sort of like somebody misbehaving while the teacher's back is turned and everyone getting detention as a result; it makes no sense and, once again, only succeeds in agitating the consumer.

Yet at the end of the day, SecuROM still exists, and it's still needlessly draconian; but I'm not going to begrudge EA for relenting, if only a little bit. If DRM ever goes away, it's not going to happen overnight.

EA Admits Pirated Copies Do Not Equal Lost Sales [Softpedia]

The Pirate City

There is a new web site called The Pirate City and its a preaty big deal. Apparently its got streaming full lenght movies. Some are cams, some are DVD rips, they are from all over it seems but the biggest thing here is that they are there and you dont have to download a thing to view them.

I am not sure how this works in that most torrent sites work the idea that they are not atcually distributeing the files. Its a fine line to walk but its a line.

Think of it like this.

If I go to a local dead head shop and buy a tobbaco pipe its all legal. If I then take my tobbaco pipe and out weed in it, then it becomes a bong and thats not legeal. The dead head shop didnt break any rules to sell me the pipe. I did when I use it in the wrong manner. 

The Pirate Bay, Mininova, Demonoid, Scenes.FZ, ISO Hunt, and so many more are not actually breaking any laws. Its when I use the torrent file to go get the material that I would be breaking the law.

So here is the problem I see with this site. They have to host these files someplace. And that means that they are distributeing the files. So how does that work? If thats the case you can bet that the MPAA will be all over them like white on rice to burn them as fast as they can.

I have been keeping an eye on Torrent Freak and File Share Freak but as of yet I have heard nothing from them as far as actual post on the subject.

I wonder if this is part of The Pirate Bay or if they are just useing the name to get traffic. What ever the answers are i know that I am already signed up for the site and waiting to see how things develope.

Mr. Nova

Ma i vantaggi di questo sofware sono molteplici: innanzi tutto è open source, quindi la community degli sviluppatori ne migliora costantemente le funzionalità e le prestazioni.

Inoltre dispone di una rete proprietaria, ma supporta anche il protocollo BitTorrent.

Ares fornisce un sistema accessorio di chat per la comunicazione tra gli utenti che permette anche di creare delle chat room private di condivisione dei file.

Il programma è disponibile per Windows e Mac, ma è anche possibile installarlo su Linux con Wine, fate riferimento a questo articolo

Link | Ares

In talking to people since OiNK, one of the most popular private BitTorrent trackers, was shut down by police a year ago, I've come to suspect something. In particular, that a combination of more stringent measures to deter torrents as well as the loss of perhaps the most well-run tracker on the internet was causing people to turn to alternative methods of file-sharing. Well, it looks like I may have been on to something.

ars technica reported earlier today that not only is P2P traffic slowing down, accounting for a lower percentage of overall internet traffic than it used to, but DDL (Direct Download) services like Rapidshare and Mediafire are growing at a stunning rate. DDL allows people to simply download a file stored at one location by clicking on it - that's it. There's no sharing involved, no having to reassemble pieces of downloaded files, no having to wait for seeders - it's just there for the taking, plus it's often very fast. And, of course, there's one major allure.

Unlike with P2P traffic, investigators can't easily grab the IP addresses of those downloading DDL files, and they can't grab copies of the files themselves in order to look for copyright infringement.

P2P, despite the ire directed against it by content owners, at least allows them a window into online behavior. DDL services close the window and plaster over it, and only a sledgehammer from a subpoena (or the cooperation of an ISP) can open it back up. 

I'd be really curious to see the first case where the RIAA or MPAA tries to sue someone for downloading from a DDL service. Not only is it difficult to locate IP addresses of people downloading off DDL and acquire "evidence" (since you're not sharing, they can't download your files as evidence of wrongdoing), but these DDL services have legitimate uses at heart; they're really file transfer sites. To try to restrict DDL traffic in the same way that ISPs do with torrents by throttling their customers would cause many legitimate transfers to be disrupted. It's like opening and examining everybody's mail simply because there's the possibility of something illegal being sent.

BitTorrent is far from dead, of course, as it's still the preferred file sharing method for millions. However, this is just the latest example of the file sharing hydra staying ahead of the game. The loss of OiNK and the sudden uncertainty surrounding private BitTorrent trackers has caused some to take the next step and look for something that will take the authorities even longer to crack.

Once they figure out it exists, that is.

P2P growth slowing as infringement goes deeper undercover [ars technica]

Before going down to the affected areas, I remember waking up one morning to the news reporting how residents where now trying to file claims with their insurance companies, FEMA and other agencies and how the process was so unorganized.  Folks who were with their insurance company for years were stuck filling out numerous forms on clipboards.  "How ridiculous!", I thought, "Where is the technology?".  That's when it hit me.  My start-up.  With all of my experience building contingency applications and trading floors to protect Goldman Sachs and their employees, why not build an application that would allow households to organize, access and share their important family documents.  BINGO!

Upon arriving home that weekend, I had immediately started to draft out my application and its capabilities.  Within a week, I had called upon some former colleagues on Wall Street to come join me and hear my presentation.  We met in a diner for lunch.  I explained what I had experienced a week earlier and pitch my idea.  Not just online storage but and application that could integrate with your life.  One that is easy to use  (Fax, email, upload and mobile tools)  but highly secure (similar security technology that we utilized at Goldman Sachs) .  I even turned over my place mat and drew out a few diagrams to explain how data can be pushed or pulled from different sources (accountant, lawyer, doctor, pharmacy, insurance company).   My friends agreed that this could work in a big way and we all agreed to put it together - Siftsort.com was born.  Within six-months we had developed our Beta site and started to get interest from corporate clients to offer as a human resource benefit to 1000's of employees nationwide.  We officially went live in January 2008.

When you look at all the natural disasters that have hit the US in the past year, you begin to realize the heartache that many families experience from losing everything.  How can you put your life back together when your home was just blown away or burned to the ground?  Losing physical belongings is one thing, but not having access to vital information such as medical records, wills, birth certificates or insurance policies is another insult to injury.

So now my quest is to help every family securely organize, access and share their important documents and records.  I encourage you to check it out.

Darren Conte

Founder and CEO

Siftsort.com

1. Sign up for a complimentary 14 day trial
2. Download the Apeer Professional 1.0 client and install to your PC (running XP or Vista)
3. Invite a guest to join you in an Apeer session
4. Start sharing media and transferring files

Please let us know what you think - and if you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask.

Another file-sharing company is in a bit of legal trouble - in this case, the victim/target is LimeWire, a popular software program for trading files. While this lawsuit (Arista v. LimeWire) is reminiscent of the lawsuits against Napster, there are some interesting differences too. Basically, Arista alleged that LimeWire enables people to commit acts of piracy and infringe on copyright claims of its musicians (and everyone in the room said: "No kidding"). LimeWire countersued claiming that its decentralized architecture doesn't record users or user activity, so they can't be held responsible for what its users do.

What is interesting is that Arista isn't implicating the technology of file-sharing, the accusation is that LimeWire actively promotes infringement (some might suggest that their entire business model depends on user infringement). As a result, it is the promotion of this behaviour - or the lack of measures taken against this behaviour that has found LimeWire in trouble.

While the case isn't about technology per se, innovative software technology may, in fact, be the ultimate casualty. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has filed a brief suggesting that the courts pay close attention to this one. What do you think? Should the maker of software be held accountable for the (illegal) actions of its user-base?

Read more of the story at Ars Technica.

Per non ripetersi cosa dice in estrema sintesi la dottrina Sarkozy? Semplice, chi si macchia di violazione del diritto d'autore dopo una serie di avvisi viene disconnesso dalla rete ed inserito in una lista nera di cattivoni, contenente quindi gli utenti colti con le dita nella marmellata. Ma fin dalla sua entrata in scena questa normativa aveva sollevato problemi di privacy e riservatezza, nonchè il rischio di falsare la stessa essenza di internet ossia la sua indipendenza.

E la Francia probabilmente, complice possedere la presidenza di turno dell'EU, aveva infilato senza troppo rumore le sue norme nel pacchetto Telecom, sperando così che l'Europa seguisse il suo esempio. Ma queste speranze sono andate presto deluse. Cosa ha detto in sostanza l'Europarlamento? Esso ha spogliato il pacchetto di tutte le norme anti P2P e pirateria, sia affermando il diritto di accesso a Internet (considerato come un diritto fondamentale dell'individuo) e la necessità di sanzioni proporzionali all'abuso commesso e comminate solo su ordine del magistrato, sia negando agli ISP il ruolo di guardiani della rete.

Non tutte le norme sono ancora chiare ma il messaggio è chiaro: la dottrina Sarkozy non è normativa comunitaria e l'Europa, per fortuna, è più intelligente del presidente francese. Che poverino ha visto ridimensionare nel suo paese anche Edvige, un grande schedario informatico in cui in origine potevano finire tutti coloro che avevano più di 13 anni e possibilmente anche i loro dati personali come l'orientamento religioso o sessuale.

Concludendo poveri i Sarkozy di turno, tutti coloro che vogliono controllare la rete e i fan del Grande Fratello dopo queste brutte notizie, gli utenti di Internet invece potranno esultare, ringraziando l'intelligenza di quei parlamentari europei che hanno detto coraggiosamente NO.

• Cracked: 6 saints who could kick your ass.
• io9: New season of The Simpsons features Obama.
• Reuters: Obama ahead of McCain amid Wall St. turmoil.
• Inhabitat: SOM's stunning cathedral of Christ the light.
• Wired: Spidey and Colbert team up, save Earth.
• FactCheck: McCain ad claims Obama quiet on economic crisis.
• The Huffington Post: Obama will make debate a townhall if McCain is a no-show.
• Indecision 2008: Colbert asks Stewart to join him in suspending their shows.
• TorrentFreak: European Parliament says no to three-strikes law.
• TechRadar: 10 new features the iPhone needs to beat Android.
• Wall Street Journal: Nader and Barr offer to fill McCain's debate slot.
• AZ Central: Young voters, solidly behind Obama, registering in droves.
• AppleInsider: Next-gen MacBook, MacBook Pro spotted in matching outfits.
• BBC News: People's airbag prevents injury.
• Wired: Will Google Android steal iPhone's App Store thunder?
• Entertainment Weekly: Stewart & Colbert: Exclusive Q&A.
• The Huffington Post: Obama won't cede stage, releases minute-long ad.
• Wired: Bailout outrage sparks national protest movement.
• Los Angeles Times: EA sued over Spore DRM.
• TechRadar: Top 15 things you should never do on Facebook.
• MachoChip: Girlfriend murders Brazilian soccer player Thiago da Silva.
• Film School Rejects: The 10 remaining must see movies of 2008.
• AppleInsider: China Mobile asking Apple to intentionally cripple iPhones.
• PopularMechanics: 5 ways Google's Android beats the iPhone, and 5 ways it won't.
• The Edger: South Park + free speech = a bad day for religion.
• Wired: Bamboo bike-maker grows his frames, bonsai style.
• iSmashPhone: The only one reason to Jailbreak your iPhone: full Internet tethering.
• Make: Ball of batteries cools and forms organic object.
• The Times: New paint can heal its own scratches.
• Reuters: McCain will attend Friday debate with Obama.
• Slate: This call to the bullpen is eroding my stomach lining.

Okay, that gets us through Friday night. I will post all of Saturday's posts as I normally would have. Once again, I apologize this outage, and I will try to limit these types of outages in the future.

Thanks for reading.

But this post is not so much about who did what first but more so about the changing nature of file-sharing in today's music culture. For the past decade or so, we have thought that file-sharing meant illegal downloading on BitTorrent and other methods of various pre-formed "products" such as music and software. But I would argue that that is going to change as evidenced by the move that Radiohead and Kanye have already made. We will now demand not only "songs" but parts of songs or "stems" in order to remix them ourselves.

Some will clearly respond by saying: "This is terrible. As if the Internet wasn't filled with terrible stuff already, now we are going to have 135322623623 horrible remixes." To that I say: "Don't listen to it then." Now, I understand there are many out there who think this trend is going to parallel the fate of the party DJ after the wide adoption of the DJing software Serato Scratch, which allows for DJs to spin on digitally time-coded records their own mp3s from their laptops. Of course, professional DJs are upset and have developed their own language of disdain to refer to the explosion of DJs on the market--"microwave DJs." LOL. It's pretty funny. But nevertheless, I think this is a dangerously culturally conservative position that smuggles in a certain Victorian austerity of "authenticity," which is precisely the opposite of the spirit of hip hop--the first music I ever got into(still my favorite). In the 1980s, we saw a slew of legislation against hip hop acts for sampling (De La Soul and Biz Markie were the first ones to get hit hard). These bands, such as the Turtles, who De La sampled, would make arguments along the lines of: "What they do isn't original. They stole our music, our property." Well, anyone who's listened to De La or any sample-based music (not just hip hop) knows, it's not exactly just stealing someone else's ish and passing it off as your own. Anyone who has made a beat (or attempted) knows this.

Now with the permeation of the idea of "open source" all over the place, many cultural critics have responded with utter disgust. Andrew Keen is one of these people; he is author the book Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet is Killing our Culture. My fear is that peole who consider themselves to be hip hop heads will also become what I think of as "techno-cultural conservatives" like Keen. Those who believe there's some "authentic" creativity that stands above "mass" creativity. This is an argument that the Frankfurt scholars Adorno and Horkheimer made about culture in their Dialectic of Enlightenment. (They thought it dumbed people down and thus took away their ability for critical reason. It may be true but they were widely attacked for not only their elitism but their refusal to rethink their belief in so-called human reason.)

But that's all besides the point. I think this is a significant shift in how we view the base-level quanta of hip hop or music. Is it still "the song" or now something below that, something infra-song, like bits?

X-posted at Human Potential.

Bergamo - Dal 10 agosto fino al 24 settembre 2008 uno dei siti più gettonati della rete, il maggiore tracker BitTorrent, The Pirate Bay, è rimasto inaccessibile attraverso i servizi degli Internet Service Provider italiani. Ma ora, grazie al lavoro di tre esperti, il Tribunale del Riesame di Bergamo ha accettato il ricorso di Peter Sunde e i rubinetti chiusi devono essere riaperti.

A portare il ricorso della Baia dinanzi al tribunale, un ricorso corposo, una ventina di pagine accompagnate da un'altra quarantina di pagine di relazione tecnica, sono stati Matteo Flora, celebre esperto informatico già consulente di importanti società nazionali che ha lavorato pro bono, e i due avvocati Giovanni Battista Gallus e Francesco Paolo Micozzi, entrambi da lungo tempo impegnati sul fronte del diritto nell'era dell'informazione e dell'informatica giuridica. In tre hanno lavorato allo scopo di sottoporre al tribunale tutte le perplessità che dentro e fuori della rete sono state espresse in queste settimane su un provvedimento che ha pochi precedenti.

E pochissimi precedenti, anzi nessuno, ha la vittoria ottenuta in Tribunale: al di fuori degli aspetti tecnici della contesa legale, è la prima volta che viene affermato in modo così plateale il diritto degli italiani alla frequentazione di Internet. Nella generalità dei casi, infatti, provvedimenti di inibizione e sequestro, ed altre procedure atte ad evitare o ostacolare l'accesso degli utenti italiani a servizi internazionali, raramente vengono sottoposti ad un dibattimento di natura penale capace di portare alla luce tutte le conseguenze e tutti gli aspetti, non solo strettamente giuridici, dei provvedimenti stessi.

Al momento di scrivere questo articolo non sono ancora note le motivazioni del Tribunale, ancora non si sa quali siano le ragioni che hanno portato ad annullare il decreto che ingiungeva l'inibizione dell'accesso al sito. Quel che ora accadrà, come accennato, è che la cancelleria del Tribunale informerà della decisione e già oggi è lecito attendersi che gli ISP italiani provvederanno a rimuovere ogni strumento di filtering utilizzato per inibire l'accesso alla Baia, via DNS o via IP che sia.

"Dinanzi al tribunale - spiega a Punto Informatico Giovanni Battista Gallus - abbiamo portato una serie di motivazioni. Parliamo di questioni di natura tecnica legate al diritto alla difesa, come la mancata notifica del provvedimento a Peter Sunde, ed altre questioni legate a procedimenti di garanzia e via dicendo". Ma, al di là delle ragioni di natura formale, dinanzi ai magistrati sono state portate due linee di diritto sostanziali: da un lato l'impossibilità di emettere una inibizione senza sequestro di siti, in questo contesto non c'è il supporto normativo per una operazione di questo genere, dall'altro il fatto che al contrario di quanto espresso nel provvedimento di blocco il mero accertamento statistico sulle operazioni che vi si svolgono non è sufficiente a ritenere che The Pirate Bay sia un oggetto nato per produrre una violazione ai danni del diritto d'autore, né in questo senso può essere considerato il fatto che si chiami Baia dei Pirati, perché altrimenti verrebbe messa in discussione la libertà di esprimersi, anche con dissenso, rispetto alle attuali normative sul diritto d'autore.

"Per sequestrare qualcosa - sottolinea a Punto Informatico Francesco Paolo Micozzi - non è necessario accertare le responsabilità penali ma è necessario che esista il minimo fondamento che il reato sia stato commesso". E in questo caso il problema era tutto lì: dov'è la motivazione? La tesi dell'accusa è che dalle statistiche sulla popolarità della Baia su Alexa e dal fatto che a TPB fossero giunte 450mila connessioni dall'Italia si evincono statisticamente le possibili violazioni, sufficienti a disegnare il fumus commissi delicti. "Il problema - sottolinea Micozzi - è che si dispone una inibizione non sulla base di un reato posto in essere ma di una presunzione statistica allora si censura e non si sequestra".

Il riesame proposto, comunque, non mirava evidentemente a discolpare gli admin della Baia da qualsiasi genere di accusa ma soltanto a dimostrare l'illegittimità del decreto di sequestro.

Fino a quando non si conosceranno le motivazioni del Tribunale non è possibile determinare la portata del provvedimento in sé. Ma cosa potrebbe accadere, quali sono gli scenari che si prospettano? "Se hanno annullato il decreto per profili formali - spiega a Punto Informatico Giovanni Battista Gallus - allora il provvedimento potrebbe essere reiterato. Ad esempio, se a determinare la decisione fossero state le omesse notifiche, il giudice potrebbe, ma è solo una ipotesi e va considerata come tale, ripresentare il decreto. Se si tratta invece di motivazioni sostanziali allora esiste solo il ricorso in Cassazione, con tempi più lunghi".

Quest'ultima sarebbe comunqe una vita complicata, viste le molte sentenze della Corte citate dal riesame stesso e che potrebbero rendere difficile questa via. C'è poi, al di fuori della questione del sequestro, la strada del rinvio a giudizio per gli admin sia, ed è questa una ipotesi evidentemente caldeggiata dalla difesa, l'archiviazione dell'intero procedimento.

punto-informatico

Le motivazioni che hanno portato alla revoca del provvedimento saranno depositate nelle prossime ore ma il sito, che giuridicamente ha sede in Svezia, è tornato immediatamente accessibile.

“Sul sito non si scambia alcun file, Pirate bay si limita a indicizzare del materiale che altri mettono a disposizione, esattamente come fa Google: che facciamo, mettiamo sotto sequestro pure Google?” precisa l’avvocato Giovanni Battista Gallus, che assiste Peter Sunde, uno dei responsabili di Pirate bay.

Il sequestro aveva suscitato roventi polemiche sul web: le autorità italiane erano state accusate di essere “fasciste” e di limitare la libera circolazione del pensiero. “The Pirate bay” fa dal canto suo registrare da anni numeri record nel cosiddetto “peer to peer”: sulle sue pagine sono disponibili circa 1 milione e 200 mila file gratuiti e registra ormai circa 15 milioni di utenti al mese. Di questi, oltre 400.000 sono italiani.

Fonte: BlogGiando

Avevo promesso di aggiornarvi e così è stato fatto. :-)

Per tutti i particolari rimando all'articolo di PUNTO INFORMATICO sull'argomento.

Insomma, una buona notizia. Speriamo che ci siano notizie altrettanto positive per quanto riguarda Carlo Ruta, primo blogger condannato per Stampa Clandestina in Italia... Un precedente molto preoccupante...

A panicky wave washed over campus last week when word leaked that the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) had been investigating file sharing at Elon. While the rumors ranged from company officials physically showing up on campus to being able to backtrack downloaded songs from years ago, Chris Fulkerson, assistant vice president for technology, knew one thing was true: Illegal downloading has to stop.

While Fulkerson is normally notified of these types of infractions on a regular basis, the first two weeks of September marked a period of excess use that merited a severe wake-up call. Fifteen reports of downloading specific songs, which were chosen by the RIAA to trace, were reported by the RIAA to Elon during a three-day period.

“I let out that we had 15 notices and so people are getting nervous,” Fulkerson said.

He said the RIAA has never stepped onto campus, nor do they need to. Instead, they simply use the internet to jump on music-sharing sites, such as Limewire, and pick targeted songs to track.

Fulkerson said the first round of high hits may not be aimed as much at students as it was at the administration as a warning to curb the problem before more serious steps are taken.

The school used to keep logs of complaints for three days, but when the Higher Education Reauthorization Act was passed in August the school became required to keep logs for about two weeks.

“We must comply,” he said. “They don’t take that well [when we tell them no]. That is part of why the new act went into effect — a lot of schools have been doing that.”

Fulkerson said it means several hours of work for him. After the RIAA reports specific IP addresses from computers that are illegally file sharing, Fulkerson's networking people have to go through all the logs and match them up.

“We trace it back to the dorm, to the port, to the wireless connection,” he said. “We try to find out who it is or the general area of where it came from.”

If the RIAA sends a notice they usually ask for names to be turned over, Fulkerson said.
“Our policy has been if we get asked we’ll turn them over,” he said. “We’ve been asked and we’ve said we couldn’t identify the person.”

While no students have been turned over to the RIAA yet, Fulkerson said tracking the exact IP address to a specific student could definitely happen. In that case, they would also be handed off to Judicial Affairs.

“We aren’t required by law to turn the names over, but we do cooperate with the RIAA,” he said.

Fulkerson said he is going to send an e-mail to a specific building in Danieley Center to notify them of activity that has been located in their area.

“I’m not going to go any further,” he said. “[I’m going to say] it was traced to your building. Stop it.”

The new requirement of logging in with an Elon username and password on all campus computers or wireless plays a partial role in downloading illegal items, since now all guests and users have to register before accessing the Internet.

“By keeping guests off our network, we know it is,” Fulkerson said. “Even the guests who come on our network have to log in.”

If caught, it’s $150,000 per infraction, no matter how many songs they find on your computer.

“What they do is they go for the maximum and then settle. That’s the way they have been doing it,” Fulkerson said. “And they’re quite up front with everybody saying were going to make an example out of these students, they’re the ones that got caught.”

Fulkerson said students are taking a chance by breaking the law.

“The recording industry is becoming more aggressive at prosecuting and they’re getting better at finding people and they’re getting the government on their side by being very sympathetic about their industry. It’s the law.”

Score one for the little guy (sort of). The Jammie Thomas trial has been the poster-child for RIAA legal tactics for well over a year now for a couple of reasons. The most obvious reason is that Thomas is a single mother who was sued by the RIAA for sharing 1,702 songs on Kazaa; the RIAA is only targeting her for 24 of these.

However, beyond the "Jesus Christ, suing a single mother?" factor, the big reason why this case is so notable is that this is the first time that an RIAA case has been brought to a jury trial; before now, all of the nearly 30,000 cases brought against individuals had been settled out of court, simply because people the RIAA came after would rather pay a few thousand dollars instead of getting into an expensive legal battle. Thomas, however, decided to fight the charges, claiming that she did not share the files.

The case eventually came to an end, with a judge and jury ruling in favor of the RIAA and ordering Thomas to pay $222,000, or $9,250 per downloaded song. One of the deciding factors in the jury's ruling was "Jury Instruction Number 15," which dealt with Thomas "making available" the files for download. Jurors were instructed that the fact that Thomas had "made the files available" by having them in her share folder, it constituted copyright infringement - despite the fact that there was no proof these files were ever distributed. In fact, a hard drive with the files was never even presented in court.

This changed today when, after the judge had intimated in August that he was having second thoughts, he declared a mistrial and ordered a new one with different jury instructions. He did so because in retrospect, he decided that Jury Instruction Number 15 was "a manifest error of the law." And that wasn't all.

"While the court does not discount plaintiffs' claim that, cumulatively, illegal downloading has far-reaching effects on their businesses, the damages awarded in this case are wholly disproportionate to the damages suffered by plaintiffs. Thomas allegedly infringed on the copyrights of 24 songs -‐ the equivalent of approximately three CDs, costing less than $54, and yet the total damages awarded is $222,000 – more than 500 times the cost of buying 24 separate CDs and more than 4,000 times the cost of three CDs."

This isn't a total victory for digital rights groups, since there will be another trial, albeit this time with different jury instructions. And the judge did note that songs that RIAA investigators had downloaded from Thomas' open share folder could "form the basis of an infringement claim." RIAA investigators got these songs by essentially surveilling users on Kazaa and LimeWire, going into open share folders and taking stock of what was available while also taking down IP addresses. If that sounds shady, that's because it is, and the RIAA is currently facing heavy scrutiny for its tactics.

It's normally a moot point since the RIAA strong-arms people into settlements, but this case is showing just what obstacles there are in trying to nail file sharers. The fact that this judge ruled that making content available is not enough to constitute infringement is pretty big, considering that if that were the case, the RIAA wouldn't have to supply any evidence in order to make the claim. The RIAA lawyers argue, of course, that it's impossible to provide evidence of file transfers.

But then that leads to one major head-exploding dilemma: can you really prosecute wrongdoing if you can't even supply evidence that it took place? Ruling that you can is at odds with pretty much the basis of the entire US legal system. Talk about setting a judicial precedent.

What is positive, however, is that the judge took the size of the penalties to task, rightfully noting that it's outrageous to find someone almost $10,000 for pirating a single song. Perhaps there's hope that one day this ruling will lead to a modification of copyright laws so that this doesn't happen...but that won't even come close to happening when the government can't even agree on a deal to stop a financial apocalypse.

Still, in spite of the victories today, Thomas and file sharers on the whole are far from being out of the woods. But it never hurts when yet another wrench gets thrown into the RIAA's ruthless legal machine.

Judge declares mistrial in RIAA-Jammie Thomas trial [Wired]

Despite the fact that it's sold billions of songs and temporarily resuscitated the flagging, change-phobic music industry, not everyone is a fan of iTunes, particularly veteran rockers AC/DC. The band is among the few major acts whose music is not available on iTunes (the Beatles are among that select group), and that isn't changing with the release of the band's new album, Black Ice, next month. So why do Angus and the boys hate iTunes so much?

"We don't make singles, we make albums," says guitarist Angus Young. "Way back in the Seventies, we drew these figures on the back of an envelope for our record company.

"We showed them how much they earned from us if we sold one million singles and how much they earned if we sold one million albums. The difference was staggering.

"That was to get them off our back because we only very grudgingly release singles. Our real reason is that we honestly believe the songs on any of our albums belong together.

"If we were on iTunes, we know a certain percentage of people would only download two or three songs from the album - and we don't think that represents us musically."

He's got a point. Since launching in 2003, iTunes has sold over 5 billion songs, but that's the key word - songs. Most people now tend to buy singles on iTunes and not the actual album, if only because the single they heard on the radio is really all they want. This leads to eye-popping figures, like Katy Perry selling 2.2 million downloads of "I Kissed A Girl" while only moving 282,000 albums. That sort of massive disparity didn't used to happen with singles and albums until iTunes came around.

And sure enough, of the current top-selling back catalogs, AC/DC and the Beatles are at the top of the list despite neither being available on iTunes. Depending on how successful Black Ice ends up being, this could have an effect on how the record companies view iTunes. Some could choose to pull material off of iTunes altogether in the hope that people will go out and buy the album in a store, translating to more money in the record companies' pockets, as selling a $12 album in a store is a much larger profit margin than one to three 99 cent songs. And when people have a choice between buying a single song and a full album on iTunes, they seem to overwhelmingly favor singles. If people didn't have a choice, however, that would put a whole lot more money in the record companies' pockets.

On the flip side, companies that want to stick with iTunes may demand that their albums be "locked." That is, people would no longer be able to buy single tracks and would be forced to buy full albums, once again translating to increased profit margins.

It's a catch-22 for the record companies. On one hand, they're still selling tons of singles, but on the other, they could be making more if they forced people to (once again) buy full albums. Obviously, they need to make as much money as they can, if only to stay afloat, though I'm not sure how well a backward strategy like this would work. I think it could certainly pay dividends for a big act like U2 or Coldplay that is already well-established.

But when smaller, less-established acts are involved, there's the possibility of this strategy backfiring terribly. Take the case of Estelle's hit single "American Boy" earlier this year. According to the Telegraph, Warner Bros. decided to experiment with how influential iTunes was and pulled Estelle's album, Shine, off of the online store.  Therefore, the only way to get the album and, more importantly, the single, was to buy the album in an actual store. It didn't exactly work out.

The predictable happened: Estelle's US sales figures plummeted, and hilariously (if you weren't Estelle or Warners) a limp cover version of American Boy by an act called Studio All-Stars soared up the iTunes download charts in Estelle's absence.

People were more inclined to spend 99 cents on a shitty cover song rather than go out and pay $10-12 on an album they didn't really want just to get the legitimate version. If there's any clearer evidence of the effect iTunes has had on the buying habits of music consumers, I'd like to see it.

If the record companies do decide to throw caution to the wind, they need to do it on a case by case basis. It's clear that there's more money to be made by forcing people to buy entire albums, but they're asking for trouble by doing this with less-established acts. Sure, "I Kissed A Girl" sold 2.2 million singles and about one-tenth that number of albums, but if this were ten years ago those numbers all would have been album sales - people just didn't buy singles the way they do now. Newer acts need the ability to push a hit single, because the way the market has changed, that's what everybody really wants.

To a large degree, iTunes killed the album, but there's one thing about death: once something is dead, you can't bring it back. Try as they might, the old business model is worm food. Without the ability to push singles and, more importantly, ring tones (the true cash cow of the music industry), new acts would have even more difficulty breaking through.

Then again, the record companies are all about making things difficult for themselves, so it wouldn't be the first time.

iTunes under threat as bands take their business elsewhere [telegraph.co.uk]