Week in review: Swapping on the ropes

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iTunes and Napster. Although offering few details, the company said it has worked closely with Microsoft to build a service called Urge that will let listeners experiment with new music, as well as offer "original, hand-crafted content" from MTV and its other cable channels.

The company's anticipated entry into the music business could help shake up dynamics that have long favored Apple. MTV first announced that it would enter the digital music market in late 2003, not long after Apple launched the first version of its iTunes store for Windows.

On the Hill
The U.S. House of Representatives approved a Republican-backed proposal to extend and modify the Patriot Act, clearing the way for a high-stakes battle in the Senate.

In a vote that largely fell along party lines, House members approved legislation that would renew the portions of the Patriot Act that expire on Dec. 31 and require the FBI to file additional reports with Congress on how the law's surveillance powers have been used. A Senate vote is expected next week.

A bipartisan band of senators, however, has warned that the bill approved by the House does not include sufficient curbs on police power that would protect Americans' civil liberties. In a bid to buy extra negotiating time, they've suggested a three-month extension as an alternative.

Sixteen portions of the massive law, including ones relating to electronic and Internet surveillance, expire on Dec. 31. The majority will stay in effect unless repealed.

The Federal Trade Commission would gain expanded policing powers and could share information about spammers and other miscreants with foreign governments under a bill approved by a U.S. Senate panel. Intended by its sponsors to help combat such menaces as spam, spyware and telemarketing fraud carried out on international turf, the bill would allow the FTC to collaborate with foreign law enforcement agencies and swap information on a reciprocal basis.

As the Wikipedia turns
The Wikipedia took another twist when the identity was revealed of the prankster who posted an inaccurate article on the online encyclopedia.

Brian Chase, an employee at a Tennessee delivery company, admitted he is the perpetrator of the false Wikipedia article that linked a former journalist to the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy. Chase confessed to the deed after discovering that the media and Wikipedia Watch founder Daniel Brandt were hot on his tail.

In the days after the scandal came to light, Brandt, a San Antonio, Texas, book indexer, set out to find the author by following clues about the IP address of the computer used to post the article.

CNET News.com tracked down Brandt, picking his brain about why he got involved in the search for Chase and why he thinks Wikipedia is flawed.

However, a study published in the journal Nature, found that Wikipedia is almost as good a source of accurate information as Britannica, the venerable standard-bearer of facts about the world around us. For its study, Nature chose articles from both sites in a wide range of topics and sent them to what it called "relevant" field experts for peer review.

In the end, the journal found just eight serious errors, such as general misunderstandings of vital concepts, in the articles. Of those, four came from each site. They did, however, discover a series of factual errors, omissions or misleading statements. All told, Wikipedia had 162 such problems, while Britannica had 123.

Also of note
Microsoft told employees that it has split its entertainment and devices division into four distinct business units...The Department of Homeland Security Agency is grappling with crashes and incompatible computers...Taiwan's Quanta, the biggest manufacturer of notebooks in the world, has signed on to the $100 laptop project.

Yeah, like anyone intelligent

uses major public distribution methods to gain access to music/movies/files/apps. It's called PRIVATE SERVERS.

No one who knows how to get around these nazi-like organizations uses kazaa or public torrent sites.

Swapping dead? I think not.

[Luke_Cage]

Smells like propaganda?!

The file swapping article sounds like spin to me. the drop in file sharing only reflects the fact that many major artists only released greatest hits albums this year. No one of top caliber even attempted a full blow release for this holiday season. RIAA counting victories in a market dip. watch what happens in the spring, when the artist with longevity hit with summer concerts on the horizon, numbers will return to normal. Plus downloading gets old quick when b-side artists and one hit wonders dominate the airwaves. It just becomes easier to buy for the legal sites for those singles.

[SeizeCTRL]

Complete BS!!!

30 songs will never be worth $22,500. The RIAA is no better than the Mafia. If anything, the court should have made her buy each one of the CD's for each of the 30 songs.

What about music and movies that are out of print? How do we go about getting those legally?

There are so many private torrent sites, private FTPs and private DirectConnect hubs... not to mention countless IRC servers, usenet etc... So many ways of getting copyrighted content other than the infamous KAZAA.

The MPAA / RIAA simply does not have the resources and manpower to constantly monitor the entire internet 24/7/365.

[Eskiegirl302]

I THINK YOUR RIGHT JOEY....I

Have been researching and studying up on torrents. I think I would like to try this, but to me, trying to figure out how it works is confusing to me. Do you download torrent software and then just download? How do you know which files you still need? and when you download all these, does the BT software connect them all so that you can then listen to the music? or am I way off base? I have found in my research just how these files travel, but not what to do with them. Any help would be appreciated.

Esk

[Bill Dautrive]

Ironic

It is ironic that thieves(MPAA, RIAA) are complaining about "theft" against them.

[bobby_brady]

Don't support the RIAA download from allofmp3 or p2p

RIAA is a pro-Nazi like organization.

[viperpa]

No matter how you butter it up

Even if this article is true, RIAA has seen no increase in sales. Infact they are still losing money. So the campaign of suing everyone is not working. It is only giving the RIAA and the musicians bad PR as we seen in Sony's case.

[unknown unknown]

Don't be so quick to declare a winner

As far as the number of filesharers go IDT says they're down while Big Champaign says the number are up. Let's not forget that it's hard to get an accurate picture for these decentralized networks.

Not only that...

But much filesharing these days would be via secured channels that are even less prone to observation. I would assume that illicit file-sharing is probably booming, it's only that those doing it have adapted faster than the music/movie industry.

Historically, no anti-piracy measure or campaign has had a positive effect for an industry. In the best case scenario, they've been ineffective, and in the worst case scenario they've alienated consumes (like Sony's DRM has done recently, or region codes on DVDs).