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.

Get a First Life

A fresh perspective on Second Life: GetaFirstLife.com



My next post will (probably) be relatively more serious...

Apple sparks battle over copyright

Apple sparks battle over copyright

By Joshua Chaffin and Kevin Allison in New York, Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson in London and David Ibison in Stockholm

FINANCIAL Times, February 7 2007 20:45

Apple’s demand that record companies do away with copyright protection for songs they sell online has set up a bitter battle between the two camps as they prepare for broad-ranging contract negotiations.

Steve Jobs, Apple’s chief executive, published an open letter on Tuesday arguing that selling music online without such protections – known as digital rights management – would make it easier for consumers to listen to music on different devices, boosting the overall market.

However, several music executives on Wednesday dismissed his suggestion as disingenuous and reiterated their argument that inter-operability between devices would be improved if Apple were to license its own DRM to other companies rather than doing away with the protections altogether. They also suggested that Mr Jobs’s true motive was to defuse legal problems in Europe, where Apple is being asked to make iTunes compatible with other devices.

Torgeir Waterhouse, senior adviser to Norway’s Consumer Council, said Mr Jobs was “pushing the ball as far away from himself as he can”.

John Kennedy, chairman and chief executive of the IFPI, the music industry trade group, said of Mr Jobs: “I think he’s expressing some frustration at being the bad guy...and people like the Norwegian government beating him up, and he’s taking it out on us.”

While all the major record companies have experimented with releasing songs in MP3 format, which contains no DRM, only EMI currently appears likely to embrace such a format more widely.

In November, EMI launched the first single from Norah Jones’s new album as an MP3 and called the results “very positive”.

However, Gene Munster, analyst at Piper Jaffray, said: “My bet is, at the end of the day, the record labels want some form of DRM.”

Music companies have long complained that Apple has reaped the majority of the benefit of online music through sales of its iPod device, while the music that fuels it is either traded illegally or under-priced.

Last year, Mr Jobs rebuffed their request to introduce variable pricing on iTunes in place of Apple’s 99 cents per track model.

However, several record executives said on Wednesday they would take a tougher line on variable pricing when their iTunes contracts come up for renewal from this May, and may also push for some share of iPod revenues.

The relationship with Apple could become more complicated as mobile phones gain traction as portable music devices.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007