"Digital-rights-management technology is the next step in providing real protection, but at what cost and to whom?...

...Most companies mistakenly believe that content protection is about protecting content. Consider that renting a new video release for a single night costs $4 to $5, but renting an old video for five days costs $5. Most content makes the majority of its revenue in the first few weeks of release. Thus, content protection is really about protecting the release window...

...It is in these real-world individual issues that DRM will meet the most resistance. Content owners want strict definitions of stealing and honesty. However, schemes that are too difficult to work with or appear insensitive to individual circumstances may drive 'honest' people to reconsider what honesty really means..."

http://reed-electronics.com/ednmag/index.asp?layout=article&articleid=CA326913

Programmer points way to iTunes DRM Hack

"The Norwegian programmer who distributed the first widely used tool for cracking the copy protection technology found on DVDs has turned his attention to Apple Computer's iTunes... late last week, programmer Jon Johansen posted a small program called QTFairUse to his Web site, with little in the way of instruction and even less explanation. But during the next few days, it became clear that the program served as a demonstration of how to evade, if not exactly break, the anticopying technology wrapped around the songs sold by Apple in its iTunes store..."

http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104_2-5111426.html

The Economics of File Sharing

"Every major label is drooling over the money-making prospects of having its own iTunes or Musicmatch. But they are all, in the immortal words of Johnny Cash, 'born to lose, and destined to fail.' Why? The music industry's problem is fundamental: the implicit contract between music companies and listeners is no longer viable.

The music industry fails to understand that a primary reason that consumers illegally share music files is that they want insurance against the music industry itself. File sharing is as much about risk sharing as it is about the theft of value. Technology makes file swapping possible - but the music industry's business model, which is at odds with the implicit contract it signs with listeners, is what makes it probable..."

http://www.herring.com/ForumPage_111903-04.aspx

Can Google Grow Up?

"Google is one of the best things to happen to the Net. So will its IPO, expected this spring, be a must-buy? A look inside reveals a talented company facing trouble..."

http://fortune.com/fortune/technology/articles/0,15114,548765-1,00.html

SCO's 'Las Vegas code': All show?

"The examples shown by SCO chief executive Darl McBride in Las Vegas this summer amounted to nothing but fist-pounding, according to a professor of law in the latest debunking of SCO's case against Linux...

...Two examples showed code from Linux that was said to have been copied from SysV Unix. But Moglen contends that this code is not only the original work of Linux developer Jay Schulist, but that it was originally part of BSD Unix. Because it was copied, perfectly legally, into SCO's SysV Unix from BSD, says Moglen, the code in Linux and in SysV Unix have a common ancestry -- so SCO's 'pattern-matching' search of the two code bases turned up an apparent example of copying. 'SCO didn't do enough research to realise that the work they were claiming was infringed wasn't their own,' he says..."

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/031126/152/eez66.html

SCO vs. Linux

"Here is the letter that IBM received from SCO as one of 'the notorious gang of 1500'..."

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20031127100124265

Mapping the Internet

Opte has released their latest maps of the Internet, after announcing they have successfully mapped the entire network...

http://www.opte.org/maps/

Microsoft to Revamp Windows Security

"Microsoft Corp. is preparing a series of major changes to the security capabilities in the Windows client and server platforms, and they will further lock down the company's flagship operating systems... the biggest change will be in the server product, which will get a feature that can prevent unsecured machines from connecting to corporate networks..."

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,4149,1394350,00.asp

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