Microsoft aims to double PC base

Microsoft software will sell for just $3 (£1.50) in some parts of the world in an attempt to double the number of global PC users.

"This is not a philanthropic effort, this is a business"
Orlando Ayala

The firm wants to bring computing to a further one billion people by 2015. Governments in developing countries can purchase the cut-price software, if they provide free PCs for schools. Other companies and organisations are also trying to boost computer literacy in developing countries, notably the One Laptop per Child project. The OLPC are in the final stages of developing a low cost, durable laptop, designed to work specifically in an educational context. Millions of laptops will be start to be delivered to developing nations this summer. The eventual aim is to sell the machine to developing countries for $100 but the current cost of the machine is about $150. The first countries to sign up to buying the machine, which is officially dubbed XO, include Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Rwanda, Nigeria and Libya.

Business drive

The Microsoft initiative was launched by Bill Gates in Beijing under the banner of its Unlimited Potential scheme, a program aimed at bridging the digital divide.The scheme aims to bring the benefit of computing technology to the remaining five sixths of the world's population, who currently live without it. "Bringing the benefits of technology to the next five billion people will require new products that meet the needs of underserved communities," said Microsoft chairman Bill Gates. One of the first products, that is hoped will reach the next billion people is the Microsoft's student Innovation Suite. The package includes Windows XP Starter Edition, Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007, as well as other educational software. The $3 package will start to be sold to governments in the second half of 2007.

"This is not a philanthropic effort, this is a business," Orlando Ayala of Microsoft told the Reuter's news agency. In many developing countries, pirated versions of Microsoft software are sold very cheaply. Governments will be required to provide free computers to schools, capable of running Windows, to be eligible for the discounted software. The scheme is one of many launched by organisations and big business to address the digital divide. Search giant Google allows anyone to download its Google Apps, which includes spreadsheet, word processing and email programs, for free. In countries such as Egypt, Kenya and Rwanda, Google has also provided engineers and technical support. In addition, chip-maker Intel has developed the Classmate PC, while its rival AMD has launched a scheme called 50x15 that aims to put computer technology in the hands of half of the world's population by 2015.

BBC News Thursday, 19 April 2007, 10:46 GMT 11:46 UK
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6571139.stm

Banks should learn from the XXX debacle

http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/the_web/article1640959.ece

"While it was a misguided effort, the defeated plan to introduce an .xxx domain may prove to be an important milestone in the development of the net. There is need for some select industry-specific regulation of distributing domain names..."

From Times Online
April 11, 2007
By Bernhard Warner

...Mr Hyppönen has a simple solution: create a top-level domain such as .bank or .safe and sell them to reputable banks, credit unions, and perhaps, in the future, retailers. Under such a system – in which an online banking customer at Barclays went to www.barclays.bank, for example – a higher level of accountability would be established. The consumer would have a clear indication that it is, in fact, an authorised bank site they were visiting, not a slick, dressed-up version set up by a scammer.

It’s not a foolproof plan, Mr Hyppönen admits. A canny phisher could set up a re-directing spoof URL, e-mailed to the masses, that appears to carry the dot-bank or dot-safe suffix. But, the chances of pulling off the fraud would greatly diminish as a customer clicking on the legit-looking URL could see that he or she had been directed to a site that ends in some letters other than .bank or .safe. If banks and only banks could secure such a top-level domain, it would help browser makers add layers of defence designed to alert unsuspecting victims that they may not be transacting with their friendly neighbourhood bank.

F-Secure has begun to lobby Icann to take up the long-overdue cause. Whether they heed the calls in a timely fashion (this is Icann, after all) is anybody’s guess. Distributing trademarked domains to the first bidder has created headaches for rights-holders over the years, but in the banking industry, the practice is costing us all. It has given rise to one of the most lucrative scams ever – phishing fraud – that will only grow without some level of regulation.

Controversially, Mr Hyppönen suggests that the dot-bank or dot-safe domain be sold for a good bit more than a fiver. He suggests $500,000 (£254,000). Banks, he says, can afford such a fee, particularly if it means a more secure online banking environment. He also recommends that a single registrar handle the transactions, doling out domain names to banks once they prove they are in fact the high street brand we know, and not some Nigerian scam artist with a poor grasp of grammar.

While it was a misguided effort, the defeated plan to introduce an .xxx domain may prove to be an important milestone in the development of the net. There is need for some select industry-specific regulation of distributing domain names, but the porn industry is no place to start.

High-speed Web Boost for Africa

High-speed web boost for Africa
BBC NEWS

Kenya, Burundi and Madagascar have secured $164.5m (£83.3m) from the World Bank to help roll-out high-speed internet networks.

The World Bank said the money was being made available to boost business competitiveness in the region.

Eastern and much of southern Africa is the only region in the world not connected to the global broadband infrastructure, the World Bank said.

Kenya will take the lion's share of the funding, with a $114.4m loan.

Madagascar is due to receive a $30m loan, while Burundi will receive a grant worth $20.1m, the World Bank said.

Plugged-in

Low-cost, high-quality communications is essential for economic competitiveness
Paul Wolfowitz, World Bank president

The Washington-based lender said businesses in the three countries were being held back because of the lack of high-speed internet networks.

"University students suffer because they cannot access the internet, and government agencies cannot communicate effectively with each other and their citizens because they are not connected," the bank added.

Currently, the region relies on satellite services for connectivity, with costs among the highest in the world.

But World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz said Africa was becoming increasingly "plugged-in".

"Improving broadband connectivity will add tremendous public value for Africa," he said. "Low-cost, high-quality communications is essential for economic competitiveness."

The boss of Kenyan outsourcing firm KenCall backed the World Bank's move.

"It is absolutely imperative that something be done right now to make bandwidth affordable," said Nicholas Nesbitt, the firm's chief executive.

"Otherwise, we're going to miss a huge opportunity and people are simply going to say that Africa is not ready for these kinds of jobs, is not ready for business."
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/business/6525537.stm

Published: 2007/04/04 11:50:39 GMT

© BBC MMVII

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040401688.html

YouTube Blocked in Thailand in Crackdown

By GRANT PECK

The Associated Press
Wednesday, April 4, 2007; 3:32 PM

BANGKOK, Thailand -- The Thai government blocked access to YouTube on Wednesday after complaining that a short clip on the popular video-sharing site is insulting to the country's beloved monarch.

Sitthichai Pookaiyaudom, the country's minister of information and technology, said YouTube had turned down his request to remove the contentious 44-second video, which shows graffitti-like elements painted over a slideshow of photographs of 79-year-old King Bhumibol Adulyadej.

One part of the clip juxtaposes pictures of feet over the king's image _ a major taboo in a culture where feet are considered extremely dirty and offensive. The soundtrack is the Thai national anthem.

"We are disappointed that YouTube has been blocked in Thailand, and we are currently looking into the matter," Julie Supan, a spokeswoman for Google Inc.'s YouTube, said in an e-mail.

According to Sitthichai, thousands of people have called the government to complain about the YouTube video.

Sitthichai said Thailand's military-installed government also has blocked other sites deemed insulting to the king.

"People who create these (Web sites) are abusing their rights and clearly don't mean well for the country," Sitthichai said. "We have closed many and will continue to."

Thailand has no comprehensive law governing the Internet, and limits governing use and censorship are not clearly defined.

It's not entirely clear how the government was implementing the block. Domestic service providers are generally given lists of sites to block, but the control may be occurring at the government-owned gateways through which all Internet service providers are supposed to funnel data entering and leaving the country.

Blocking YouTube, of course, won't prevent someone from e-mailing the video or posting it on a Web site that is less popular and thus less noticed by the government.

But any hurdles, even if they aren't foolproof, are likely to accomplish the government's goals, said Jonathan Zittrain, a professor of Internet governance and regulation at Oxford University.

"A lot of the time, the viral spread happens because it's just one click away," Zittrain said. "If you make something not one click away anymore, you can slow it down a little bit."

Continued at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040401688.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/31/AR2007033101461.html

Malaysia sniffer dogs find second pirated-DVD haul

Reuters
Saturday, March 31, 2007; 10:14 PM

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Two Malaysian dogs trained to sniff out DVDs have made their second big discovery of pirated movies, leading investigators to a hidden stash worth more than $430,000, a local newspaper said on Sunday.

Lucky and Flo, two black Labradors, sniffed out at least 150,000 discs in a secret compartment in a shop in the capital on Saturday after anti-piracy officials, acting on a tip-off, raided the place but failed to find anything, the New Sunday Times said.

"They decided to call in the canine brigade," it said. "Within minutes, the two Labrador retrievers sniffed out the hidden discs in a room that could only be accessed by the push of a button hidden under a plug outlet."

Local media say movie pirates have put a bounty on the dogs after the hounds busted a fake DVD ring last month in the southern state of Johor, sniffing out about $3 million worth of movie and game discs in their first major successful operation.

Authorities say they are treating the threat seriously and have beefed up security around Lucky and Flo.

Malaysia, which figures on a U.S. watchlist on piracy, has dramatically stepped up efforts to rein in copyright pirates as it negotiates a free-trade pact with the United States.

The dogs are being trialled by Malaysian domestic-trade officials in a joint effort with the Motion Picture Association, which groups six major Hollywood film companies.

Department of Homeland and Security wants master key for DNS

http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/87655

30.03.2007 13:09

Department of Homeland and Security wants master key for DNS

The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which was created after the attacks on September 11, 2001 as a kind of overriding department, wants to have the key to sign the DNS root zone solidly in the hands of the US government. This ultimate master key would then allow authorities to track DNS Security Extensions (DNSSec) all the way back to the servers that represent the name system's root zone on the Internet. The "key-signing key" signs the zone key, which is held by VeriSign. At the meeting of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) in Lisbon, Bernard Turcotte, president of the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) drew everyone's attention to this proposal as a representative of the national top-level domain registries (ccTLDs).

At the ICANN meeting, Turcotte said that the managers of country registries were concerned about this proposal. When contacted by heise online, Turcotte said that the national registries had informed their governmental representatives about the DHS's plans. A representative of the EU Commission said that the matter is being discussed with EU member states. DNSSec is seen as a necessary measure to keep the growing number of manipulations on the net under control. The DHS is itself sponsoring a campaign to support the implementation of DNSSec. Three of the 13 operators currently work outside of the US, two of them in Europe. Lars-Johan Liman of the Swedish firm Autonomica, which operates the I root server, pointed out the possible political implications last year. Liman himself nomited ICANN as a possible candidate for the supervisory function.

The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), which handles route management within the ICANN, could be entrusted with the task of keeping the keys. An ICANN/IANA solution would offer one benefit according to some experts: there would be no need to integrate yet another institution directly into operations. After all, something must be done quickly if there is a problem with the signature during operations. If the IANA retains the key, however, US authorities still have a political problem, for the US government still reserves the right to oversee ICANN/IANA. If the keys are then handed over to ICANN/IANA, there would be even less of an incentive to give up this role as a monitor. As a result, the DHS's demands will probably only heat up the debate about US dominance of the control of Internet resources. (Monika Ermert) (Craig Morris) / (jk/c't)

WTO says U.S. online gambling policy out of line

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070330.wnetgambling0330/BNStory/Business/?page=rss&id=RTGAM.20070330.wnetgambling0330

WTO says U.S. online gambling policy out of line

BRADLEY S. KLAPPER

Associated Press

GENEVA — The U.S. has failed to change its ban on Internet betting to comply with a World Trade Organization ruling that said the legislation unfairly targets offshore casinos, the global trade body said Friday.

The ruling opens the door to possible commercial sanctions against the U.S.

In a 215-page decision, a three-member WTO compliance panel sided with the twin Caribbean island nation of Antigua and Barbuda, which has argued that Internet gambling is a lucrative source of revenue and provides an income for hundreds of islanders.

The Geneva-based trade referee has said Washington can maintain restrictions on online gambling, as long as its laws are equally applied to American operators offering remote betting on horse racing.

Shares in London-listed gaming stocks rose after the announcement. Leisure & Gaming PLC closed up 11 percent at 19.75 pence (38.9 cents), while PartyGaming PLC rose 4.5 percent to 52.25 pence ($1.02), after initially surging by 16 percent. 888 Holdings PLC climbed 3 percent to 124.75 pence ($2.46).

"It vindicates all that we have been saying for years about the discriminatory trade practices of the United States in this area, and we look forward to the United States opening its markets," Antiguan Finance Minister Errol Cort said in a statement.

Washington claimed victory in the WTO's initial ruling two years ago because the body recognized its right to prevent offshore betting as a means of protecting public order and public morals. But the U.S. acknowledged Friday that the latest decision was a setback.

"The compliance panel did not agree with the United States that we had taken the necessary steps to comply with the WTO recommendations," said Gretchen Hamel, a spokeswoman for the office of the U.S. Trade Representative. She added, however, that "nothing in the panel's report undermines the broad, favorable results that the United States obtained from the WTO in April 2005."

Washington still has yet to say if it will appeal the compliance panel's findings. A final ruling upholding Antigua's claims would allow the twin-island nation to seek trade sanctions on the United States for its failure to comply.

To avoid the penalties, the U.S. government would then have to either permit Americans to gamble over foreign-based sites or eliminate exceptions for off-track betting on horses, including over the Internet, as permitted under the 1978 Interstate Horseracing Act.

Nevertheless, it appears unlikely that the U.S. will ease access to companies with servers licensed in the nation of 80,000 people — whose legal efforts were largely bankrolled by British-owned Internet gambling operators.

The U.S. Congress caught the industry by surprise last year when it added a provision to a bill aimed at improving port security that would make it illegal for banks and credit card companies to settle payments to online gambling sites. President George Bush signed it into law on Oct. 14.

The decision closed off the most lucrative region in a market worth $15.5 billion last year. Several British-based Internet gaming companies and a handful in Europe and Australia subsequently sold off or shut down their U.S. operations, losing around 80 percent of their combined business in the process.

The arrest last year of two British Internet gambling executives while traveling through the United States also highlighted the U.S. government's escalation in its battle against the industry.

Peter Dicks, the former chairman of Sportingbet, was detained in New York but released after former New York Gov. George Pataki declined to sign a warrant extraditing him to Louisiana, where he was wanted on charges of illegal online gambling. Former BetOnSports PLC Chief Executive Officer David Carruthers remains under house arrest in the St. Louis area awaiting trial on federal charges from the U.S. attorney's office based on the 1961 Wire Act.

On Friday, U.S. Attorney Catherine Hanaway said BetOnSports founder Stephen Kaplan was arrested late Wednesday in the Dominican Republic. Kaplan is named in a 22-count criminal case as the company's top official.

Antigua filed its case in 2003, contending that U.S. restrictions on Internet gambling violated trade commitments the United States made as a member of the WTO. U.S. trade officials disagreed, saying that negotiators involved in the Uruguay Round of global trade talks clearly intended to exclude gambling.

Antiguan authorities also argued that restrictions barring U.S. residents from betting at offshore casinos were harming efforts to diversify its economy. Antigua, a former British colony in the Caribbean, had been promoting electronic commerce as a way to end the country's reliance on tourism, which was hurt by a series of hurricanes in the late 1990s.

There are 32 licensed online casinos in Antigua, employing 1,000 people and generating yearly revenue of around $130 million. Seven years ago, its casinos had annual income closer to $1 billion.

Antigua is the smallest country to successfully litigate a case in the WTO's 12-year history.

iTunes Drops DRM for EMI Tracks

Exciting News!

This is an email I received from FreeCulture @ NYU:

April 2nd, 2007

Breaking news… This is not an April Fools joke: iTunes will release significant portions of EMI's catalog on iTunes without DRM. It hasn't been announced live, but their website has been updated:

EMI Music launches DRM-free superior sound quality downloads across its entire digital repertoire

EMI Group CEO Eric Nicoli today hosted a press conference at EMI's headquarters in London where he announced that EMI Music is launching DRM-free superior quality downloads across its entire digital repertoire and that Apple's iTunes Store will be the first online music store to sell EMI's new downloads. Nicoli was joined by Apple CEO Steve Jobs. The event also featured a musical performance by The Good, The Bad & The Queen.

On this page you can find an audio webcast of the press conference which will be available for live streaming at 1pm London time with on demand archived streaming and MP3 download available shortly afterwards, the press release and a copy of the presentation slides.

Click here to listen to the audio webcast from today's announcement.
Click here to download the pdf presentation.

Other juicy tidbits from the press release:

• EMI tracks with no DRM (Mp3) will cost $1.29 from iTunes and will also be available in other formats (AAC and WMA).
• All EMI music videos will also be available on the iTunes Store DRM-free with no change in price.
• iTunes will continue to offer consumers the ability to pay $0.99/€0.99/£0.79 for standard sound quality tracks with DRM still applied.
• Complete albums from EMI Music artists purchased on the iTunes Store will automatically be sold at the higher sound quality and DRM-free, with no change in the price.

Congratulations to all those who showed up at our DRM protests! Your voices have been heard!

--
The content of this email message is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 License, Some Rights Reserved.
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/ --- You are currently subscribed to free-culture as: sbc281@nyu.edu To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-free-culture-2835305Q@forums.nyu.edu

Tech in U.S. slips

BBC NEWS

US 'no longer technology king'

The US has lost its position as the world's primary engine of technology innovation, according to a report by the World Economic Forum.

The US is now ranked seventh in the body's league table measuring the impact of technology on the development of nations.

A deterioration of the political and regulatory environment in the US prompted the fall, the report said.

The top spot went for the first time to Denmark, followed by Sweden.

Innovation

Countries were judged on the integration of technology in business, the infrastructure available, government policy favourable for fostering a culture of innovation and progress and leadership in promoting the usage of the latest information technology tools.

The Networked Readiness Index, the sixth of its kind published by the World Economic Forum with Insead, the Paris-based business school, scrutinised progress in 122 economies worldwide.

Despite losing its top position, the US still maintained a strong focus on innovation, driven by one of the world's best tertiary education systems and its high degree of co-operation with industry, the report said.


NETWORKED READINESS INDEX RANKINGS 2006 (2005)
1: Denmark (3)
2: Sweden (8)
3: Singapore (2)
4: Finland (5)
5: Switzerland (9)
6: Netherlands (12)
7: US (1)
8: Iceland (4)
9: UK (10)
10: Norway (13)
Source: WEF

The country's efficient market environment, conducive to the availability of venture capital, and the sophistication of financial markets, was also given recognition.

Nordic crown

Denmark is now regarded as the world leader in technological advancement, with its Nordic neighbours Sweden, Finland and Norway claiming second, fourth and 10th place respectively.

"Denmark, in particular, has benefited from the very effective government e-leadership, reflected in early liberalisation of the telecommunications sector, a first-rate regulatory environment and large availability of e-government services," said Irene Mia, senior economist at World Economic Forum.

European countries to make the top 20 included Switzerland in fifth place, the Netherlands, one of the most improved in sixth, the UK (nine), Germany (16), Austria (17) and Estonia (20).

While countries from Asia and the Pacific continued to progress, the powerhouse economies of China and India both showed a downward trend.

India was four positions down on last year to 44th, suffering from weak infrastructure and a very low level of individual usage of personal computers and the internet.

China was knocked to 59th place, nine positions down, with information technology uptake in Chinese firms lagging.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/business/6502725.stm

Published: 2007/03/29 11:06:25 GMT

© BBC MMVII

ICANN speaks out for registrar reform

ICANN's register accreditation process is about to be reformed through the termination of RegisterFly.com. Due to its failure of operation, 75,000 domain name losses were filed in federal court in January and early February of this year and ICANN decided to close it. Therefore, thousands of its registrants have to transfer their domain names to a different ICANN-accredited registrar by March 31, 2007. Continued doubt about its ability to coordinate hundreds of registrars might have a solution through the coming Lisbon meeting between March 26 and March 30, 2007.

ICANN speaks out for registrar reform
Dr Twomey drops the dime
By Burke Hansen
Published Thursday 22nd March 2007

... ICANN has now called for an overhaul of the entire registration and accreditation process, and given the first look at what the future of the relationship between ICANN, the registrars, and domain holders might look like.

"What has happened to registrants with RegisterFly.com has made it clear there must be comprehensive review of the registrar accreditation process and the content of the RAA (Registrar Accreditation Agreement), Dr Twomey emphasized. "This is going to be a key debate at our Lisbon meeting scheduled for 26 March to 30 March 2007. There must be clear decisions made on changes. As a community we cannot put this off."

Tough talk from an organization generally considered toothless.

Dr Twomey's strongly worded statement continued: "ICANN introduced competition to the domain name market in 1998. Back then there was one registrar. There are now over 865. That's a good thing because it has made domain names cheaper and offered more choice. But the RAA was designed and signed when the domain name market was much smaller. The market now supports about 70 million generic TLD names and is growing. Registrants suffer most from weaknesses in the RAA and I want to make sure that ICANN's accreditation process and our agreement gives us the ability to respond more strongly and flexibly in the future."

The announcement listed a plethora of problems with the current system, in which ICANN has little authority over a corrupt or derelict registrar other than to yank the accreditation.

Proposals for what ICANN's role in organizing the structure of the internet should be, or if ICANN is the right group to do it at all, are legion, and could fill an entire conference on their own. Still, the list of options on the table for discussion shows that ICANN is tired of screwing around with Registerfly, and wants to institutionalize changes along the lines advocated by El Reg in the last few weeks.

The most important issue - some kind of escrow system to hold data in trust in the event that there is a dispute about who the owner is - has apparently already been accepted as necessary by ICANN, and even bolder proposals, involving possibly even a new entity to address these disputes directly, are also on this impressive list of potential reforms...

From The Register
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/03/22/icann_registerfly_reform_registrar/

Injunction in Vonage Patent Row

BBC NEWS
Injunction in Vonage patent row
A US judge has banned internet phone firm Vonage from using technology patents owned by rival Verizon after it was found to have infringed its rights.

A permanent injunction was issued on Vonage using the technology to connect users to landline phones but it was stayed for two weeks pending an appeal. Vonage was told to pay $58m (£30m) to Verizon for infringing three patents, as well as royalties on future sales.

Vonage is a pioneer in the market for voice-over-internet telephony.

'Customer erosion'

This allows users to make cheap phone calls.

Vonage shares dropped 6% on the news of the injunction, which it is likely to appeal.

Some industry experts believe Vonage's phone services to its 2.2 million customers could be hit by its loss of the patent case.

But Vonage said that despite the injunction, its business would not be affected because it would switch to different technologies to connect customers.

Judge Claude Hilton said a permanent injunction was justified, on top of damages, since compensation alone did not prevent "continued erosion" of Verizon's client base.

Verizon - one of the largest telecoms firms in the US - argued that continued use of its patents would do "irreperable harm" to the firm in terms of customer defections.

Vonage argued that an injunction would be against the public interest.

In the original court case, Verizon claimed the violations cost it more than $280m while Vonage argued Verizon should not have been granted the patents in the first place.

Analysts believe the dispute has reduced loss-making Vonage's chance of being bought out.

Vonage floated on the New York Stock Exchange last year but has made heavy losses since.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/business/6486671.stm

Published: 2007/03/23 17:26:03 GMT

© BBC MMVII

EU Charges Sony With Price Fixing

EU Charges Sony With Price Fixing

By Adam Cohen

Word Count: 187 | Companies Featured in This Article: Sony, Matsushita Electric Industrial, Fujifilm Holdings, Hitachi Maxell, TDK

BRUSSELS -- European Union antitrust regulators have charged Sony Corp. with price fixing in the market for professional videotapes, the company said Tuesday.

The Japanese electronics maker received the European commission's legal charges and is "looking into them," ...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117441126546042946.html

EU leaders agree to cut greenhouse gases

From the Houston Chronicle

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/world/4616026.html

March 9, 2007, 9:52AM
EU leaders agree to cut greenhouse gases

By PAUL AMES Associated Press Writer
© 2007 The Associated Press

BRUSSELS, Belgium — EU leaders agreed Friday on a bold set of measures to fight global warming, pledging that a fifth of the bloc's energy will come from green power sources such as wind turbines and solar panels by 2020 and 10 percent of European cars will run on biofuels.

At French insistence, the deal — which does not yet include an enforcement mechanism — noted the role atomic energy could play in replacing coal- or oil-fired power plants blamed for pumping out greenhouse gases. The inclusion caused unease for non-nuclear states such as Austria and Ireland and triggered complaints from environmental groups.

European leaders said the agreement, the first to go beyond the 35-nation Kyoto Protocol in its targets for greenhouse gas emissions cuts, marked a turning point in the fight against global warming.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel challenged other nations to follow suit, saying the world still had time to "avoid what could well be a human calamity" caused by climate change.

The EU deal was a compromise between nations that had demanded mandatory targets on clean energy, and eastern European nations led by Poland and Slovakia who had said they did not have the money to meet such high targets for developing costly alternatives.

The deal makes three main promises to be obtained by over the next 13 years:

_ Greenhouse gas emissions will be cut by at least 20 percent from 1990 levels;

_ The EU will produce 20 percent of its power through renewable energy, an increase from the current figure of around 6 percent;

_ One-tenth of all cars and trucks in the 27 EU nations should be running on biofuels made from plants.

"These are a set of groundbreaking, bold, ambitious targets," said British Prime Minister Tony Blair. "It gives Europe a clear leadership position on this crucial issue facing the world."

European leaders hope their commitment to tackling climate change will encourage other leading polluters, such as the United States, Russia, China and India, to agree on deep emissions cuts.

Merkel plans to present the plans to President Bush and other leaders at a summit of the Group of Eight industrialized nations that she will host in June.

"We can once again say to the rest of the world, Europe is taking the lead, you should join us in fighting climate change," said European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso. He called the deal "the most ambitious package ever agreed by any institution on energy security and climate change."

EU lawyers still have to draw up the detailed rules specifying how the deal will be enforced, however Barroso said the legislation "will be subject to all instruments of community law." That implies that the EU's executive arm would be able to launch legal action at the bloc's high court that could lead to the imposition of heavy fines on countries that violate the targets.

The EU's environmental agenda is to be pursued in parallel with commitments under the Kyoto Protocol, the U.N. treaty on climate change.

Major EU economies have committed to cut greenhouse gases by 8 percent below 1990 levels by 2012, and want the United States to sign the treaty. The Bush administration has rejected the Kyoto agreement, saying it would hurt the U.S. economy.

Eastern European nations, which preferred to stay with cheaper, but more polluting options such as coal and oil, went along with the deal after western nations conceded that individual targets would be set for each EU member within the overall goal of 20 percent renewable energy use.

"The text changed significantly following our pressure," said Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico. "The final deal gives us lots of room for maneuver."

Many of the former Communist nations that joined the EU in 2004 lag behind their western neighbors in developing clean fuel. Although their economies are growing fast, most are still struggling to catch up and say they need more time to meet the 20 percent target.

Cooler, landlocked countries such as Slovakia, Hungary and the Czech Republic argued that they were handicapped in developing wind, solar and water-based power sources, which are widely used in countries such as Denmark and Spain.

The French, Czechs, Slovaks and others argued that nuclear power could play a crucial part in helping Europe move away from carbon fuels. The agreement says each EU nation should decide whether to use nuclear power, but takes note of a Commission report that says nuclear energy could contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and help alleviate worries about security of energy supply. It also stresses the need to improve nuclear safety.

Austria, Ireland and Denmark did not want the EU to sanction nuclear power, and the German government is split over whether to develop atomic energy. "

Woohoo for DIY media

From BBC News:

Radio goes the open source route
A new generation of broadcasters are to join the world's airwaves after the launch of open-source software which allows people to run a radio station from a single computer for free.
Campcaster takes a regular PC and turns it into a tool for managing every aspect of a radio station broadcast.

The software is the idea of the non-profit Media Development Loan Fund, which aims to support independent news media in emerging democracies.

Developer Douglas Arellanes told BBC World Service's Digital Planet programme that as well as playing files, which can be done from any media player, Campcaster adds features specifically for radio broadcasting and uses it for all aspects of a radio station, such as the ability to stored and schedule music, line up news clips and interviews, and preview listen to a record before it is played on air.

"You can now pretty much run your radio station off a notebook computer," he said.

Cost and piracy

Until relatively recently, running a radio station required a large amount of hardware, some of it rather complex - and most of it expensive.

Mr Arellanes explained that the software had been developed specifically to tackle this.

"The most important thing about Campcaster is that you don't have to be in the studio listening to the music - you can be sat at home and still operate your studio," he said.


With an open source system, you can actually add on new features as you see fit
Douglas Ariennes, Campcaster developer
"If you want a good playout system, it's going to cost you more than $1,000 just for the licence - and that's only for one computer.
"What we find is that when we go out to various radio stations in lots of different places in the world, that a lot of stations are using pirated software, and that's just wrong.

"Even though we support open source, we're dead against using pirated software. So we said, 'well that's a very strong reason right there - cost and piracy'.

"But there was another thing that we found, which is flexibility. With an open source system, you can actually add on new features as you see fit."

One of these new features is to be the ability to integrate what is played out with a station's website, so that details of the actual track being played can be seen, as opposed to simply the title of the programme.

The most recent version of the software was rolled out in Sierra Leone, and is named after the country's capital Freetown. It is being used in both universities and small communities.

Sahr Gborie, of development group Sierra E Riders, said he had found Campcaster to be "a very good piece of software for broadcasting".

"We have installed it on several radio stations," he added.

"They are finding it easier to present news and do their radio presentations."

Three Ways to Listen Digital Planet
Your guide to the digital world

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe/03/08/france.violence.ap/index.html?eref=rss_topstories

'Happy slap' crackdown sparks row

POSTED: 7:40 a.m. EST, March 8, 2007

• New law in France forbids filming and Net posting of real-world violence
• Critics call it a clumsy, near-totalitarian effort to battle "happy slapping"
• Violators of the law will be subject to up to 5 years' jail and €75,000 in fines

PARIS, France (AP) -- A new law in France makes it a crime -- punishable by up to five years in prison -- for anyone who is not a professional journalist to film real-world violence and distribute the images on the Internet.

Critics call it a clumsy, near-totalitarian effort by authorities to battle "happy slapping" -- the youth fad of filming violent acts -- which most often they have provoked themselves -- and spreading the images on the Web or between mobile phones.

The measure, tucked deep into a vast anti-crime law that took effect Wednesday, took media advocates by surprise with what they say is an undesirable side effect: trampling on freedom of expression.

Experts said the law is the first of its kind in Europe. France made headlines years ago by ordering U.S.-based online company Yahoo to pay a fine of about $15 million for displaying Nazi memorabilia for sale -- in violation of French law.

The new provision takes on "happy slapping," a phenomenon whose name belies the gravity of the attacks. It mostly involves youths, and the victims often are strangers.

Violators of the law, passed in parliament in February, will be subject to up to five years in prison and €75,000 in fines ($98,600). It was championed by Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, who is a top contender in France's presidential election in April and May.

The law was published in the government's Official Journal on Wednesday, bringing it into effect, after the Constitutional Council gave its final approval over the weekend.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/01032007/323/australian-state-bans-youtube-schools-stop-bullying.html

Australian state bans YouTube in schools to stop bullying

Click to enlarge photo

SYDNEY (AFP) - An Australian state has banned the popular internet film-sharing website YouTube from school computers in a bid to clamp down on cyber-bullying.

The move follows public outrage after a group of schoolboys filmed themselves sexually abusing and degrading a teenage girl and uploaded the video onto YouTube.

The horrific film showed a group of 12 youths surrounding the 17-year-old girl, who has a mild mental disability, bullying her to perform sex acts, urinating on her and setting her hair alight.

The education minister in southern Victoria state, where the attack took place, said Thursday the state's 1,600 public schools would block access to YouTube.

"The (state) government has never tolerated bullying in schools and this zero tolerance approach extends to the online world," said Jacinta Allan.

"All students have the right to learn in a safe and supportive learning environment -- this includes making students' experience of the virtual world of learning as safe and productive as possible," she said.

The director of Australia's High Tech Crime Centre, Kevin Zuccato, said at the time of the attack on the girl late last year that it was a disturbing example of cyber-bullying.

"Cyber-bullying between children online is on the rise," he said. "Social networking sites are also putting children at risk."

Low-Cost Internet Subject of Silicon Valley Meeting

Low-Cost Internet Subject of Silicon Valley Meeting
Feb 28, 2007 News Release

The UN Global Alliance for Information and Communication Technologies for Development met today with tech firms in Silicon Valley. A repeated theme was that low-cost Internet could set off the same wave of connectivity that has made mobile phone usage commonplace in developing countries.

In 2004 alone, said the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), Africa added some 15 million new mobile phone subscribers, and such subscriptions have more than doubled since 1999. Telecom de-regulation and skyrocketing cell phone use in Nigeria, for instance, have produced value-added information services that fill social and religious needs, according to Titi Akinsami of SchoolnetAfrica .

But making available low-cost computers and cheap Internet depends on a complex chain of on-the-ground realities, of which technological innovation is only one component, Intel Corp. Chairman Craig Barrett pointed out. Among these are strong connection to international Internet, domestic connections and service providers, and content in local languages which meet local needs, said Barrett, who serves as chairman of the Alliance's steering committee.

A sound regulatory system that encourages fair competition and innovative business models are also prerequisites, added ITU Secretary-General Hamadoun Touré, an Alliance steering committee member.

With its budget of virtually zero, the Alliance is a "low-bureaucracy organization," Barrett told some 100 Silicon Valley technology executives, venture capitalists, academics and journalists gathered at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View. It brings together private, public sector and civil society organizations to collaborate on multi-faceted mechanisms to spread the digital revolution worldwide.

Today's exchange of ideas and experiences covered issues such as bringing broadband to Africa, building a volunteer cyber corps and linking venture capital to development. Also on the agenda were talks on crafting local content, encouraging the spread of telecenters, and mining technological innovations for development payoffs. The event was jointly organized by the Global Alliance and Intel.

Moblie Talk Moves to Web 2.0

Mobile talk moves to Web 2.0

By Spencer Kelly
Click presenter


With a growing demand for a better browsing experience on our mobiles, there is, according to the industry, demand for Web 2.0 on the go.


While text blogging on a mobile is still seen as a minority sport, the explosion of camera and videophones now allows us to upload pictures and videos to our homepages. It is something that is already extremely popular on the successful South Korean social network Cyworld.

The social networking craze has seen phone manufacturers, network operators and big internet names announce various tie-ins to give users access to their own content.

Yahoo's mobile internet service now incorporates built-in access to photo-sharing site Flickr. Other deals include Vodafone's tie-in with both MySpace and YouTube, which will allow customers to access, edit and post to their MySpace pages and upload videos to YouTube.

Newbay is a company that provides mobile networks with servers and back-end support for picture and video uploads. They have seen their mobile traffic triple in the last year.

"Blogging on the internet is different from blogging on the mobile," said Newbay's chief executive Paddy Holahan. "The mobile user is more likely to take a picture or a video and upload it, because he's got a cameraphone in his hands. The internet blogger is more likely to type because he's got a keyboard in his hand.

"When you give people buttons, they press them, and it's a different experience. Mobile tends to be much more about your lifestyle; internet blogging tends to be much more about your opinions, politics, things like that."

Bandwidth issues

Mobile phones are not the best way to access the net.

So, whether it is pictures, opinion or general video buffoonery, the process for uploading your content is often quite complicated. And even with 3G, your top data transfer rate is 384 kilobits per second, which means your upload could take a while.


"The bandwidth issue is basically an issue of quality and speed," said Mr Holahan. "The better the bandwidth, the better the quality image or video you can upload in a short time.

"People will generally wait 10 to 20 seconds to upload something at whatever quality that allows you to do, but they're not going to wait for one or two minutes for something that should be a snap or a snippet.

"One of the key things we do is turn the uploading experience into a one-click experience. At the moment you may have to go through 10 or 15 clicks just to upload a single picture, and in our opinion for every click you halve the usage."

But just as many of us are getting to grips with moblogging and video uploading, the idea of Web 2.0 has moved on. The virtual world Second Life currently seems to represent the cutting edge of the concept, populated as it is by user-generated characters, buildings and businesses.

Bridge between worlds

IBM's private Second Life play area is a kind of "thought lab" where, amongst the bizarre constructions, the company is trying out methods to combine Web 2.0 and mobile devices in a more homogenous way.

IBM's master inventor Zygmunt Lozinski explained his vision does not simply involve accessing Second Life from your phone - it involves using your mobile as a bridge between the virtual world and the real world.


People used to talk about service anytime, anywhere - it shouldn't matter if that's a real or a virtual anywhere.
Zygmunt Lozinski, IBM
"You have a group of people who use virtual environments like Second Life, and they interact within those environments using tools like instant messaging and chat. But what would happen if you could connect people and objects in a virtual world to real world communication networks? To your mobile phone, to phones at home?

"So for example, you can make your avatar ring a bell, like in a hotel lobby, and that would send a message to the owner of that area, to their mobile phone, to say 'there's somebody who's interested in talking to you'. Because obviously you can't spend your entire life in a virtual shop hanging around waiting for someone to stop by and buy something.

"You can then see a photo of the avatar who's calling you. You can then record a video with your mobile, and send that back so your potential customer can see that video being played to them on a video wall in the virtual world."

In effect, IBM's model removes the need for people to exist within a virtual world.

"If you're travelling you may not always have good enough connectivity to interact with people in a virtual world, even if you need to. People can communicate irrespective of whether they're in the virtual or real worlds," said Mr Lozinski.

"People used to talk about service anytime, anywhere - it shouldn't matter if that's a real or a virtual anywhere."

Japan Establishes Spy Satellite Network

Japan Establishes Spy Satellite Network

By ERIC TALMADGE
The Associated Press
Monday, February 26, 2007; 4:52 PM

TOKYO -- After nearly a decade of trying, Japan has succeeded in establishing a network of spy satellites that can peer at any point on the globe, officials said Monday.

The successful launch Saturday of the last of a fleet of four reconnaissance satellites significantly boosts Japan's ability to gather independent intelligence and re-establishes Tokyo as a major player in Asia's accelerating space race.

Previously, Japan had to rely more heavily on its main ally, the United States, for spy satellite data.

"I welcome the success of the launch, and I hope Japan's space program will mark results that are appropriate for a leading nation in space," said Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, in a statement. The satellite lifted off aboard an H-2A rocket from the remote island of Tanegashima.

Japan started its spy satellite program in 1998 after North Korea launched a missile over the country's main island. The Japanese program has been plagued by delays and setbacks _ including a spectacular mid-air explosion three years ago and problems with optics aboard the probes.

But officials said Monday the latest satellite had attained its orbit and was functioning without problems. A prototype for future more advanced probes was also launched aboard the rocket.

"The satellite will undergo a three-month test period," said Yasuhiro Itakura of the Cabinet office in charge of the program. "But it is functioning fine so far."

The launch, which was delayed three times because of bad weather, reaffirms Japan as one of Asia's top space powers. Officials stress the Japanese-designed-and-built H-2A rocket has a better than 90 percent success rate in its 12 launches to date, which is comparable to other advanced countries.

Tokyo needed the boost.

In November 2003, Japan's second spy satellite was aborted and the spacecraft exploded in a fireball. A short time later, China put its first astronauts in orbit, establishing itself as the leader in Asia's push into space.

Last month, China blasted a satellite out of orbit with a ground-based missile and last week, Pakistan tested one of its most advanced long-range missiles. India's rocket development efforts are also rapidly advancing.

These military programs have influenced Japan's goals in space.

Japan has limited its space program to non-military uses since 1969. Late last year, the ruling party proposed the military be allowed to mount space missions, as long as they were for defensive purposes.

Japan, following China's lead, is also mulling the possibility of launching manned space flights. It has yet to send astronauts into space, though Japanese crew members have flown aboard U.S. Space Shuttle flights.

"With China planning a moon mission and rapidly improving its space program, Japan is at a crucial stage," The Nikkei, a major business daily, said in an editorial. "We must continue to have successful launches."

Japan's spy satellites have been slammed by critics as inadequate _ the quality of the photos they provide is far worse than their U.S. counterparts.

The improved version isn't due for launch until 2009, after the first two satellites complete their planned five-year lifespan.

Egyptian court sentences blogger to 4 years in prison

From MercuryNews.com - http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/news/editorial/16760332.htm

ALEXANDRIA, Egypt (AP) - An Egyptian blogger was convicted Thursday and sentenced to four years in prison for insulting Islam and Egypt's president, sending a chill through fellow Internet writers who fear a government crackdown.

Abdel Kareem Nabil, a 22-year-old former student at Egypt's Al-Azhar University, had been a vocal secularist and sharp critic of conservative Muslims in his blog. He often lashed out at Al-Azhar -- the most prominent religious center in Sunni Islam -- calling it ``the university of terrorism'' and accusing it of encouraging extremism.

Nabil's lawyer, Ahmed Seif el-Islam, said he would appeal the verdict, adding it will ``terrify other bloggers and have a negative impact on freedom of expression in Egypt.'' Nabil had faced a possible maximum sentence of nine years in prison.

His conviction brought a flood of condemnations from international and Egyptian human rights groups, as well as fellow government critics on the Internet.

``I am shocked,'' said Wael Abbas, a blogger who writes frequently about police abuses and other human rights violations in Egypt. ``This is a terrible message to anyone who intends to express his opinion and to bloggers in particular.''

The Committee to Protect Journalists, a New York-based media rights group, said Internet writers and editors are the fastest growing segment of imprisoned journalists, with 49 behind bars as of December.

``With this verdict, Egypt has opened up a new front in its efforts to stifle media freedoms,'' said Joel Campagna, the group's senior Middle East program coordinator.

In Washington, Deputy State Department spokesman Tom Casey said he had no specific comment on Nabil's case, adding the U.S. is always concerned when freedom of expression is infringed.

Judge Ayman al-Akazi sentenced Nabil to three years in prison for insulting Islam and the Prophet Muhammad and inciting sectarian strife and another year for insulting President Hosni Mubarak.

Nabil, sitting in the defendant's pen, did not react as the verdict was read and made no comments as he was led to a prison truck outside. Seconds after the door was closed, an Associated Press reporter heard a slap from inside the truck and a scream.

Egypt, a top U.S. ally in the Mideast, arrested a number of bloggers last year, most of them for connections to the pro-democracy reform movement. Nabil was put on trial while other bloggers were freed -- a sign of the sensitivity of his writings on religion.

Nabil, who used the blogger name Kareem Amer, was an unusually scathing critic of conservative Muslims. His frequent attacks on Al-Azhar, where he was a law student, led the university to expel him in March, then push prosecutors to bring him to trial.

The judge said Nabil insulted the Prophet Muhammad with a piece he wrote in 2005 after riots in which angry Muslim worshippers attacked a Coptic Christian church over a play deemed offensive to Islam.

``Muslims revealed their true ugly face and appeared to all the world that they are full of brutality, barbarism and inhumanity,'' Nabil wrote in his blog. He called Muhammad and his 7th century followers, the Sahaba, ``spillers of blood'' for their teachings on warfare -- a comment cited by the judge.

In a later essay not cited by the court, Nabil clarified his comments, saying Muhammad was ``great'' but that his teachings on warfare and other issues should be viewed as a product of their times.

In other writings, he called Al-Azhar the ``other face of the coin of al-Qaida'' and called for the university to be dissolved or turned into a secular institution. He also criticized Mubarak, calling him ``the symbol of tyranny.''

Alaa Abdel-Fattah, a pro-reform blogger who was detained for six weeks last year, said Nabil's conviction will ``have a chilling effect on the rest of the bloggers.''

``We (the Egyptian people) are enduring oppression, poverty and torture, so the least we can do is insult the president,'' he said.

------

On the Net:

Nabil's blog, in Arabic: http://karam903.blogspot.com/

A movie event: Mali v. World Bank and IMF

I heard about a movie I think you might enjoy because it is related to our discussions of globalization. The movie, Bamako, is a fictional story that touches on the themes of economic takeover, or liberation, depending on who you ask, of an African country by the World Bank/ IMF.

Check out this link to learn more about the film:
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/02/16/1548228

Check out this link for showtimes in NYC:
http://www.google.com/movies?hl=en&near=nyc&sort=1&mid=1beacb60b6474ffd

Latest on WIPO Development Agenda

A post for global governance week. This one is interesting because it shines a little light on the officially non-official nature of the meeting taking place. A lot of deal-making goes down in the corridors of WIPO rather than at the official gatherings, so negotiations at this kind of level can especially revealing. btw, in WIPO speak, "technical assistance on IP matters" means US reps explaining how to more effectively prosecute piracy - physical and digital - rather than anything altruistic or especially helpful to a 'development agenda'.


From IPWatch:
By Tove Iren S. Gerhardsen
A United Nations meeting next week on proposals to improve developing countries’ benefit from intellectual property rights got a head start when participants from nearly two dozen countries met informally in India and agreed on some priorities, according to government sources. Meanwhile, member governments are preparing to discuss papers drafted for the meeting by the General Assembly chair.

On 5-7 February, the participants discussed the 111 proposals that have been submitted to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) on a development agenda, which was initiated by a group of developing countries in 2004.

These countries, led by Argentina and Brazil, have argued for substantive reform of WIPO to better reflect the various stages of development of its member countries and their respective proprietorship-public domain balances, instead of allegedly making and implementing intellectual property regulation in a “one-size-fits-all” manner. Since 1974, WIPO has been a specialised agency of the UN.

On 19-23 February, the third session of the Provisional Committee on Proposals Related to a WIPO Development Agenda (PCDA) will be held, the first of two “special sessions” to be held in 2007 (IPW, WIPO, 30 September 2006).

The informal preparatory meeting was hosted by India as a follow-up to an earlier proposal it made at WIPO, a source said. A participant at the meeting told Intellectual Property Watch that this was not a WIPO meeting per se, but WIPO had supported it. Three WIPO officials attended, sources said, and briefed participants on the development agenda.

The participant said that a document had been produced but there was “no official outcome” and it would have no status in the overall development agenda talks. The meeting had attempted to streamline and compress proposals. The official said it had been a “good exercise in learning” about everyone’s positions. The non-paper is entitled, “Development agenda proposals, Annex A.”

This view was echoed by another developing country official, who confirmed that it was an informal meeting with an informal discussion, and a non-paper document had been produced. The proposals in the document do not reflect the official positions of the member states, the official said, as they had all participated in their personal capacities. The official did not expect the paper to be tabled at the PCDA. India did not comment for this story.

more at the site...

Piracy case collapses in Russia

Piracy case collapses in Russia

Mr Ponosov had been accused of knowingly using pirated software

A Russian court has thrown out a criminal case against a rural headteacher accused of using pirated Microsoft software in his school.

The court in Perm, some 1000km (620 miles) east of Moscow, dismissed the case of Alexander Ponosov as "trivial".

The trial was seen as a response by the authorities to international pressure to crack down on piracy in Russia.

Industry experts say Russia ranks second only to China in use of illegal computer software and bootlegged music.

"We're off to drink champagne now," Mr Ponosov told the Associated Press news agency after the court ruling.

"Of course, it was trivial," he said.

Mr Ponosov earlier told the BBC that Russian prosecutors had brought the case against him and he was unaware of any Microsoft claim against him.

He said the 12 new computers at his school had been delivered with the unlicensed software already installed. The school in the Urals village of Sepych has 380 pupils.

Both Russian President Vladimir Putin and former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev had publicly voiced support for Mr Ponosov.

When It Comes to Broadband, U.S. Plays Follow the Leader

When It Comes to Broadband, U.S. Plays Follow the Leader

Those nations able to craft genuinely forward-looking telecommunications policies that promote universal access as well as enhancing competition…will be the true trailblazers.

From Information Week, February 15, 2007
By Richard Hoffman

Broadband access in the United States continues to grow at an impressive rate, from 60 million users in March 2005 to 84 million in March 2006, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project. As-yet unpublished survey data gathered by Pew in December 2006 shows that 45% of respondents now report broadband access at home.

Despite these compelling growth statistics, the reality isn’t quite so rosy, especially when comparing broadband progress in the United States with other industrialized countries.

According to a study by U.K.-based Point Topic, as of the third quarter in 2006, the United States led the world in total number of broadband lines installed with 54.5 million lines, followed by China with 48.6 million. The same Point Topic report, however, indicates that broadband growth rates are much higher in other countries — for example, China is now projected to surpass the U.S. in total broadband lines within 2007, given current trends. And the total number of broadband lines, while a useful figure for some purposes, isn’t the most meaningful statistic for measuring how common and widespread access really is, or to compare broadband progress relative to other nations.

For these judgments, metrics based on per-capita household penetration provide a clearer picture. For instance, it’s inevitable that, due to its vastly higher population, China will surpass the U.S. in total number of broadband lines, even if the percentage of people in China with broadband lines stays quite small and access is restricted largely to affluent urban areas.

Looking at the more representative measurement of the percentage of those who have access to broadband connectivity, the United States isn’t even in the top 10 countries, various studies indicate. President George W. Bush admitted back in 2004 that while broadband use had tripled over the previous four years, the U.S. then ranked 10th among industrialized nations for broadband availability, and he added, “Tenth is 10 spots too low, as far as I’m concerned.” Now almost three years later, how much progress have we made, and where do we stand?

http://www.freepress.net/news/21073

Update on the Internet Governance Forum

From the UN:
Inclusive Preparation Process Backed for UN-Created Internet Governance

All interested parties, whether governments, civil society or the private sector, should be able to continue to guide preparations for the second meeting of the United Nations-established Internet Governance Forum later this year, participants agreed at a meeting today in Geneva.

Most of the nearly 200 participants at the meeting, which also reviewed last year's inaugural Forum in Athens, called for preparations to begin as soon as possible so that they are in place for the Forum meeting in Rio de Janeiro in November.
"The purpose of this open consultation," said Nitin Desai, the chair of the meeting and the Secretary-General's Special Adviser on Internet Governance, "is to take stock of the Athens Forum and to make an assessment of the extent to which it met expectations, to be forwarded to the Secretary-General."
The Forum, which is not a decision-making body, was set up by UN Member States at the 2004 World Summit on the Information Society to carry out policy dialogue on Internet governance, and is designed to bring together not only governments, but academia, civil society, the private sector and members of the Internet community as well.
During today's meeting, participants voiced differing views about the role of the Forum, such as whether it should reach agreed conclusions and policy recommendations or whether it would work better as a platform for exchanging information and ideas and best practices.

"This is not a negotiating process, it definitely is not an executive process, it's not even a negotiating process," Mr. Desai said. "But it must have a structure, a format and an outcome which is capable of influencing things, which can lead to real results at the ground level."

The Forum should be able to tackle policy questions, Mr. Desai said, including the question of Internet core resources. "It cannot be negotiated here because this is not a negotiating forum," he said, "but to the best of my understanding, it's not off the table. There is nothing which is off the table."
The Forum is expected to meet again in May to prepare for the Rio de Janeiro session. The 2008 and 2009 sessions will be held in India and in Egypt.

Last year's Forum in Athens dealt with freedom of expression, access, multilingualism, cyber-crime and a host of other issues. One of the key issues raised during the four days was the tension between relying on market forces and focusing on the "public good" nature of the Internet.
Source: United Nations

Belgian Court Rules Google Violated Copyright Law

BELGIAN COURT RULES GOOGLE VIOLATED COPYRIGHT LAW A Belgian court ruled Tuesday that Google violated Belgian copyright law when it published snippets and links to Belgian newspapers on its Web site without permission. The court ordered Google to remove the material and pay a fine of €25,000 a day. A judge said the fine was retroactive from an initial September ruling, amounting to €3.45 million and counting.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117135913092807050.html

(From BNA Internet News)

Belgian Court Says Google Violated Copyright Law

Associated Press

Word Count: 622 | Companies Featured in This Article: Google, Yahoo, Microsoft

BRUSSELS, Belgium -- A court on Tuesday ruled in favor of Belgian newspapers that sued Google Inc., claiming that the Web search leader infringed copyright laws and demanded it remove their stories.

The Mountain View, Calif.-based company that operates the world's most-used search engine immediately said it would appeal, claiming its Google News service was "entirely legal."

A Brussels court ruled in favor of Copiepresse, a copyright protection group representing 18 mostly French-language newspapers that complained the search engine's "cached" links offered free access to archived articles that the papers usually sell on a subscription basis.

It ordered Google to ...

Google Accused of Copyright Inducement

Showdown looming between film studios and Google over movies and YouTube. Also of note is that Google is being accused under a standard 'inducement to infringe copyright', a completely new legal standard created out of thin air by the Supreme Court in the Grokster P2P case from a year+ ago. A worthwhile take from ZDNet on the story is here: YouTube vs. The Media World: Mutually Assured Destruction.


From Wall Street Journal:
Media Firms Say Google Benefited From Film Piracy
Accusations Cloud Talks On Copyright Licensing;
Imposing New Controls

By MATTHEW KARNITSCHNIG and JULIA ANGWIN
February 12, 2007; Wall Street Journal Page A1

A group of major media companies has accused Internet giant Google Inc. of benefiting from the sale of pirated movies and providing business support to two Web sites suspected of offering access to illegal film downloads, according to several people familiar with the matter.

The allegations are an embarrassment for Google, which assured the companies on Friday it would take measures to prevent a recurrence of the episode.

The flare-up comes amid what have been often-tense negotiations between Google and the big film and TV studios over the unauthorized use of copyrighted programming by YouTube, a free video Web site Google bought last year after the site quickly became a cultural phenomenon.

Media companies regard Internet piracy -- the unauthorized online transfer of movies, music and other copyrighted content -- as a major threat to their businesses and claim that it has already cost them billions of dollars. Yet they acknowledge that consumers want the convenience of downloads, and the companies don't want to miss out on a potential business opportunity or try to block downloads completely, as the music industry for a time unsuccessfully sought to do.

Despite months of talks, first with YouTube and then with Google, none of the big TV and film companies have secured broad licensing agreements for their content. Excerpts from some TV shows, such as "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" and "South Park," both from Viacom Inc.'s Comedy Central, have been huge draws on YouTube.

Core of the Dispute
At the core of the media companies' dispute with Google, which isn't a defendant in the piracy case, is their claim that Google deliberately directed traffic to Web sites that were engaged in fostering piracy. Although people familiar with the situation say the incident doesn't involve large sums of money, several media executives say it has led them to question Google's internal controls. Google told the studios on Friday it would implement new procedures to prevent recurrences.

Meanwhile, talks among several of the media companies about creating a service to rival YouTube have heated up again, according to company executives involved in the discussions. In a move that could also step up pressure on YouTube, MySpace, the social-networking Web site owned by News Corp., is expected to announce today a video-filtering system it hopes will make it easier to bar copyrighted videos from its site.

The media companies, including News Corp., Viacom, Sony Corp., General Electric Co.'s NBC Universal, Time Warner Inc. and Walt Disney Co., based their claims against Google on sworn statements made late last year as part of a civil lawsuit brought by Hollywood studios against two men accused of operating Web sites that allegedly helped users illegally access copyrighted material. These statements indicated that Google representatives sold ads to these two sites knowing they were doing this, and had a close relationship with the two defendants, according to people familiar with the matter.

Some of the documents in the case have been sealed and others are inaccessible.

Executives and lawyers for the media companies recently complained directly to Google and demanded that it end its support of such sites, if any more exist. Google hasn't been accused of engaging in any illegal activity.

Response to the Complaints
On Friday, Google responded to the complaints by agreeing to implement a series of measures it believes will help thwart piracy. In an afternoon conference call with studio representatives, lawyers for Google said the company would remove certain ads the companies objected to, create a list of approved advertisers and refrain from selling keywords used by rogue sites to lure users to pirated material. In addition, the Google lawyers said the company would introduce internal guidelines on monitoring keywords and train its ad sales force about how to avoid selling such ads.

A spokesman for Google declined to comment on the call or the specific allegations the media companies have leveled against it. In a written statement, Google said it prohibits advertisers from promoting "the sale of copyright infringing materials." It also said, "We are continually improving our systems to screen out ads that violate these policies."

A spokesman for Sony Corp.'s Sony Pictures said, "Discussions with Google have been ongoing for a while, and there's hope it can result in a mutually satisfactory arrangement whereby Google will not give support to pirate sites."

He declined to comment further.

Google, whose informal corporate motto is "Don't be evil," generates much of its income by selling ads linked to words or phrases users submit to its search engine. It says it doesn't accept ads for counterfeit designer goods, for example, or certain weapons including firearms. Most ads are sold through Google's automated system, but in this case, the operators of the movie-downloading sites generated enough revenue to win the attention of a Google account representative, said a person familiar with the case.

A Major Challenge
The media companies' allegations highlight a major challenge for Google: how to keep its advertising business flourishing in the often unruly world of Internet commerce while also courting big corporations that say some of Google's clients are trying to undermine their businesses.

The defendants in the case, Brandon Drury and Luke Sample, said in sworn statements that Google representatives offered them credit to buy advertising on Google's search engine. They also said Google supplied them with keywords, including terms such as "bootleg movie download," "pirated," and "download harry potter movie," which boosted traffic to their sites, according to people familiar with the case. In court filings, both men deny any wrongdoing.

A Google employee deposed in the case largely corroborated the defendants' accounts, these people said. The Google deposition has been sealed by the court. Of the $1.1 million in revenue the two sites -- EasyDownloadCenter.com and TheDownloadPlace.com -- generated from 2003 to 2005, $809,000 was paid to Google for advertising, the people said. The sites have since been shut down.

Messrs. Drury and Sample, both 26 years old and residents of Missouri, stand accused of inducing and helping others to infringe on copyrights, which, like piracy itself, is illegal. Neither man returned repeated phone calls seeking comment. The two are representing themselves in the lawsuit, which was filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in October 2005. Plaintiffs include the major Hollywood studios; the Motion Picture Association of America, an industry lobbying group, is coordinating the litigation.

The two sites offered users a "download manager," for $29.95 a year. The software package enabled users to search for movies on the Internet and then download them onto their hard drives. Yet the sites themselves didn't host any illicit material. Rather, they searched free peer-to-peer file-sharing networks, such as Kazaa, LimeWire and Grokster to find the requested material.

The sites represented themselves as offering legal downloads. But often the sites promoted movies that were still showing in theaters, which weren't available legally online at the time. Movies the plaintiffs claim were illegally downloaded using the sites include "The Incredibles," "Lost in Translation" and "Spiderman 2." Instead of relying on spam emails to drive traffic to their sites, the two men decided to rely on Google advertising.

The high volume of traffic on EasyDownloadCenter.com and TheDownloadCenter.com caught Google's attention, according to people familiar with the two men's statements. To help stoke the traffic further, Google assigned the sites account representatives who suggested keywords they could bid on.

Google also offered Messrs. Drury and Sample credit so they didn't have to use their credit cards to pay Google's fees. It isn't clear if the offer was accepted. Google is paid each time a user clicks on ads like those the two men placed on its service.

The Google deposition, which was taken late last year, suggested that the ties between the Internet company and the defendants were close and that Google was fully aware of the nature of their business, according to people with knowledge of the deposition.
--Kevin J. Delaney and Merissa Marr contributed to this article.

Bloggers in the Middle East

Bloggers in Mideast transforming political, social dialogue but authorities hitting back
The Associated Press
Friday, February 9, 2007

CAIRO, Egypt
Wael Abbas hasn't been arrested by Egyptian police, but the blogger fears it could happen any day.
A democracy activist who never leaves home without a camera, he has drawn the attention of state security by posting videos that show what many Egyptians only talk about behind closed doors — police brutality and male harassment of women on the street, such as fondling.
Abbas is just part of a wave of Middle Eastern bloggers who are eroding tight government control on information and thus drawing intense scrutiny from police.
Egyptian authorities arrested a string of prominent bloggers last year, including one who remains jailed and is on trial for allegedly defaming Islam by posting criticism of Islamic institutions on his Arabic-language blog.
"I might be next," Abbas said at a Cairo coffee shop. He said his family has received anonymous phone calls asking about him, which he suspects come from state security.
"I think there is a campaign against the bloggers here," he said. "We are exposing what all Egyptians know but weren't talking about."
Mideast governments for decades have dominated the media, trying to keep a monopoly on information and deter criticism of authorities. But bloggers are chipping away, writing about everything from human rights to the region's rulers to the most taboo topic — Islam.
Weblogs — or blogs for short — started taking off in the Mideast a few years ago as access to the Internet and technology for creating sites grew. There are now hundreds of Arabic- and Farsi-language blogs posted from the Middle East.
Many of the blogs are just personal musings. But many others strive to tackle political and social issues, and their authors are increasingly getting into trouble, with governments blocking their sites and throwing them in jail.
"I firmly believe that blogs now with normal people using them have become the fifth estate. They watch the watchers, especially in this area of the world, because there are no controls over them," said Mahmood al-Yousif, a Bahraini blogger.
Al-Yousif said his blog was blocked by authorities briefly last year after he published articles about an election-related scandal on the Persian Gulf island kingdom.
Reporters Without Borders has five Mideast countries — Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and Syria — on its list of the globe's 13 worst Internet freedom enemies that block Web sites and detain bloggers.
Governments defend their Web regulations, saying they are protecting citizens from "immoral" and "defamatory" content. But rights groups and bloggers say officials are really trying to retain their media control.
"Five years ago, authorities didn't care about bloggers because the Internet's reach was less," said Julien Pain, head of Reporters Without Borders' Internet Freedom Desk. "Now, what is most interesting is the Weblogs in the local languages. You look at what the authorities censor — they censor content in local languages."
Rights groups have been especially critical of Iran, where there have been some arrests of bloggers. Iran has also blocked some Web sites critical of the government — even shutting down access to the video-sharing forum YouTube.com, where Iranian opposition groups abroad have posted videos.
Hamed Mottaghi, an Iranian freelance journalist, blogs in Farsi about human rights from the Iranian holy city of Qom. But Iranians can't view his Web site inside the country — authorities blocked it last year.
That hasn't stopped Mottaghi. He and another Iranian blogger recently won awards from Reporters Without Borders for taking strong stances on freedom of information.
"The number of bloggers is increasing in Iran since people cannot express themselves easily in the society, which lacks freedom. Young people especially are looking for a different place to open dialogue," Mottaghi said.
But some say the jury is still out on whether online opposition will transform into social and democratic reform in the Middle East. Though the number of Internet users has grown nearly fivefold since 2000, only about 10 percent of the region's people have access to the Internet, according to the online Internet World Stats, which monitors Web usage around the world.
A mass pro-democracy movement has not emerged, said Jesse Sage, of the U.S.-based civil rights organization Hands Across the Middle East Support Alliance, which has worked with activists including bloggers in the region.
"Blogging is about venting, and the challenge is whether we can move from venting to acting, and that remains to be seen," Sage said.
But Saudi Arabian blogger Ahmed al-Omran, a pharmacy student who runs one blog in English and another in Arabic, believes the blog movement will make a difference.
"It's a good chance now for bloggers here," he said. "Saudi Arabia is changing, and the margin for freedom of expression is getting bigger and bloggers are taking advantage of this."

EU's Media 2007 to promo Euro film industry

EU's Media 2007 to promo Euro film industry
By Leo Cendrowicz
Feb 10, 2007

BRUSSELS -- The European Union's Information Society and Media Commissioner Viviane Reding will launch on Sunday the Media 2007 program at the Berlinale, which will provide &euro755 million ($981 million) over seven years to help Europe's film industry.The program's priorities include strengthening the production structure of the European audiovisual sector, particularly for small businesses; helping countries or regions with low production capacity or a restricted geographic and linguistic area; and supporting digitization. Reding is expected to call on European filmmakers to embrace digitization to help overcome the fragmentation of the European market and improve the access to Europe's film heritage.Almost 65% of the program's total budget will help screen European works beyond the EU's borders. The funding is focused on the phases before and after film production, with a budget spread across five action lines:Training, including scriptwriting techniques; economic, financial management; digital technologies (7%);Development of projects, catalogs, new talent, and co-productions (20%);Distribution through distributors, sales agents, broadcasters, cinema exhibitors and digitization (55%);Promotion through market access, festivals, common events, and heritage (9%);Horizontal actions to make it easier for small, and medium enterprises to access funding, and to encourage the presence of European films on digital platforms (5%);And pilot projects embracing new technologies, such as digital technologies for film development, production and distribution (4%).The European Commission, the EU's executive authority, says every euro invested in the Media program generates &euro5.8 ($7.5) in follow-up investments, &euro2.8 ($3.6) in education, &euro7.2 ($9.4) in distribution and &euro4.2 ($5.5) in development. The program's priorities also emphasize the importance of European cinema for intercultural dialogue, linguistic and cultural diversity, principles of human dignity, equality and nondiscrimination.Previous Media programs have supported the development and distribution of thousands of films over the past 16 years, as well as training activities, festivals and promotion projects throughout the continent. Half of the European films seen in cinemas enjoy EU support.About 300 European films annually are backed by Media, as well as more than 50 European films distributed outside their countries of origin, including Oscar-winning documentary "March of the Penguins," "Amelie," "Volver," "La Vita e Bella," "Mondovino" and "The Wind That Shakes The Barley."Seventeen Media-backed films are being shown at the Berlin festival this year, up from 12 in 2006. Eight of this year's 26 movies competing for top prizes at Berlin received Media aid: Olivier Dahan's "La Vie en Rose," Sam Garbarski's "Irina Palm," Bille August's "Goodbye Bafana," Stefan Ruzowitzky's "The Counterfeiter," Jacques Rivette's "Don't Touch the Axe," Andre Techine's "The Witnesses," Saverio Costanzo's "In Memory of Myself," and Francois Ozon's "Angel."Four of the five films nominated for this year's best foreign-language film at the Oscars received Media aid: "After the Wedding," "Days of Glory," "The Lives of Others" and "Pan's Labyrinth."

New media expands press freedom

FYI - You may want to keep an eye on this conference -

New media expands press freedom
08-02-2007 (UNESCO, Paris)

Neil Budde, the General Manager of Yahoo!, Oh Yeon-Ho, the founder of the Ohmynews online newspaper, and a wide range of new media and press freedom advocates will join the Conference "New Media: The Press Freedom Dimension" to be held in Paris next week.
The event, to be held on 15 and 16 February at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, will examine the challenges and opportunities of new media for press freedom. The conference will look at how new media is expanding press freedom -- and what repressive regimes are doing to restrict the free flow of information. The event, organized by the World Press Freedom Committee, the World Association of Newspapers and UNESCO, will examine:
"New Media -- Expanding Press Freedom",
"New Media in New Democracies",
"New Media Under Challenge",
"Direct Satellite Broadcasting/Digital TV/Public Service Broadcasting - Opportunities for Diversity",
"News Online",
"How Young People Get Their News",
"Bloggers as Journalists/Local News and New Media/Citizen Media",
"Circumventing the Censors".The conference is supported by the World Editors Forum and the Coordinating Committee of Press Freedom Organizations, which includes, in addition to WAN and the WPFC, the Committee to Protect Journalists; Commonwealth Press Union; Inter American Press Association; International Association of Broadcasting; International Association of the Periodical Press (FIPP); International Press Institute; North American Broadcasters Association; and the World Press Freedom Committee. The conference was made possible by a grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. The Paris-based WAN, the global organization for the newspaper industry, defends and promotes press freedom world-wide. It represents 18,000 newspapers; its membership includes 76 national newspaper associations, newspaper companies and individual newspaper executives in 102 countries, 12 news agencies and 10 regional and world-wide press groups. Participation in the conference is free and there is still time to register at here.

Follow-ups to Jobs and DRM

Lots of responses around the Web today to Jobs' statement on DRM posted below. First of all, EMI -- third largest record company in world behind Universal and Sony-BMG -- is now actively moving towards open mp3, says the WSJ and AP. This is a promising sign in the sense that the major label dam on open formats seems to be breaking. Also interesting is that the locus of much of the decision-making on this issue has shifted strongly towards Europe: EMI is based in the UK, while Sony-BMG is a Japan/Germany split and Universal is French (fully owned by Videndi). Warner Music is barely a proper Major anymore given that it split off from parent Time Warner in the last two years and is now a stand-alone music company.

NEW YORK - Music company EMI Group PLC - home of The Rolling Stones and Coldplay - has been talking with online retailers about possibly selling its entire digital music catalog in MP3 format without copy protection, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday, citing numerous people familiar with the matter.

The MP3 format, which can be freely copied and played on virtually any device, would allow consumers to play music purchased from any online store on any digital music device. Currently, music purchased at Apple Inc.’s iTunes Store, for example, is wrapped in Apple’s proprietary version of Digital Rights Management technology known as ”FairPlay” and can only be played on the company’s iPod devices. Songs purchased from rival online stores that carry different DRM technology cannot be played on iPods. That has caused some to wonder whether it might be hampering sales.

According to the people familiar with the matter, London-based EMI asked the retailers to submit proposals by Thursday telling the company what size advance payments they would offer in exchange for the right to sell EMI’s music as MP3s, the Journal reported.

Speaking of Warner Music, its chief exec has come out strongly against Jobs' statement. Says the FT:

Edgar Bronfman, Warner Music's chief executive, on Thursday slapped down Steve Jobs' suggestion that record companies do away with copyright protections for digital music in order to spur the market’s growth.

Mr Bronfman, speaking to investors as Warner announced its earnings, called Mr Jobs’s argument “completely without logic or merit” and said his company was committed to the continued use of copyright protections, known as digital rights management, in the same way that software makers and film studios safeguard their intellectual property.

The Economist has a decent piece on the story too, concluding thus:

The music giants are trying DRM-free downloads. Lots of smaller labels already sell music that way. Having seen which way the wind is blowing, Mr Jobs now wants to be seen not as DRM’s defender, but as a consumer champion who helped in its downfall. Wouldn’t it lead to a surge in piracy? No, because most music is still sold unprotected on CDs, people wishing to steal music already can do so. Indeed, scrapping DRM would probably increase online-music sales by reducing confusion and incompatibility. With the leading online store, Apple would benefit most. Mr Jobs’s argument, in short, is transparently self-serving. It also happens to be right.