Media Unspun will suspend publication Dec. 13, a week from Friday. That's right: Our luck runs out on Friday the 13th.

Our team, which produced Media Grok for the Industry Standard, regrouped as Media Unspun back in January. We launched a subscription- and advertising-supported email newsletter about the technology business during an economic slowdown that is having a particularly violent effect on the publishing, technology, and advertising industries. Despite the high quality of the newsletter, as evidenced by the feedback we receive every day, we can't fight a hurricane.

We would like to continue publishing, of course. If you are an angel investor, a potential benefactor, or a representative of a company interested in sponsoring Media Unspun, I urge you to contact us soon. Maybe you can help, and if you can, this is no time to be shy.

Bookkeeping notes: All subscription and advertising insertion orders received after Nov. 1 will not be processed. We either tore up the checks or initiated credit card refunds. And we are talking to several publishers about having them fulfill the balance of active subscriptions; I'll report back to you when I have something to report.

If you have any questions or comments you'd like to relay privately, please write me at guterman@vineyard.com. If you're more interested in being part of a public discussion, our subscribers-only Weblog is at http://www.mediaunspun.com/weblog.html .

Thank you all for your support. We were able to last as long as we did despite this economic climate because of you.

And now we return to our regularly scheduled programming, with an extra piece today for good measure...

JG

Dirty-minded northern liberals might not be surprised that West Virginia has a problem with "commingling." But let's be kind to the land of country roads. Its real problem is with Microsoft and the integration of Internet Explorer with Windows. West Virginia Attorney General Darrell McGraw Jr. wants to appeal the latest Microsoft antitrust ruling because he says Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly didn't fully address that once-disputed integration. Sure she did, said Microsoft. We'd look for a transcript to settle this once and for all, but we're sure the ruling's legalese is vague enough to justify both viewpoints.

You'll recall that Microsoft was found guilty in 2000, then there was a settlement, then nine states pooh-poohed the settlement and asked for harsher sanctions. The judge said, nice try, the settlement stands. Now two of the original nine, Massachusetts and now West Virginia, are trying again.

West Virginia is one of the most financially troubled states in the country, and the AP noted that its attorney general has a $4.1 million budget compared with Microsoft's $28.3 billion in sales. Citizens Against Government Waste, which the AP called "a pro-Microsoft group," criticized the attorney general's priorities, since West Virginia has a $200 million deficit and its teachers may not get raises next year. (The attorney general's office pays teachers?) West Virginia papers either ran AP copy or weren't updated with Tuesday's stories as of Unspun's deadline, so there was no immediate rebuttal from the local media. But Attorney General McGraw said, "No reputable government should plea poverty and allow an adjudicated lawbreaker to retain their ill-gotten gains."

Observers wondered if the two states had a chance. CBS MarketWatch cited skeptical legal experts, and a Motley Fool columnist (and Microsoft shareholder, she disclosed) said, "Massachusetts Attorney General Tom Reilly is unlikely to get his way, ultimately, and it will cost even more time and money to prolong this thing." The Seattle Times implied that Reilly may not have much choice, considering the political pressure exerted by Massachusetts tech companies, and that Reilly has always been out to prove himself as an aggressive consumer watchdog.

The Boston Globe had different ideas. Massachusetts companies are too busy trying to survive to care about Microsoft's bullying like they used to, said the Globe, and "even some of Reilly's business supporters said they regarded his actions as something of a Quixotic quest after goals no longer at the center of their interests." Reilly denied that there was any political or business motivation in the first place, saying, "I have a core principle that I believe in, that there's no place for politics when it comes to law enforcement." Financial pragmatism versus principles? We're not touching that one with a ten-foot pole. - Jen Muehlbauer

W. Virginia Joins Fight To Appeal Settlement (Seattle Times)
http://tinyurl.com/36jx

Fresh Challenge To Microsoft Settlement (Financial Times)
http://tinyurl.com/36jw
(Paid subscription required.)

Long Odds For State's MSFT Appeal (CBS Marketwatch)
http://tinyurl.com/36jv

W. Virginia Joins in on Microsoft Appeal (AP)
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/business/4650901.htm

Reilly Embarks On Lonely Quest (Boston Globe)
http://tinyurl.com/36jz

Massachusetts v. Microsoft
http://www.fool.com/News/Take/2002/mft/mft02120202.htm

Lyrics: Take Me Home Country Roads
http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~harel/cgi/page/htmlit?Countryroads.html

It's "buy one, get one free" day for readers of holiday shopping reports. Yes, folks, it's true. Today you can buy one analysis of how retailers are faring this season, and get a second, competing analysis absolutely free.

So far, no one's disputing the numbers, which come courtesy of retail tracking firm ShopperTrak. Sales on the Friday after Thanksgiving (also the first day of Hanukkah this year) were up a booming 12% over 2001; sales Saturday jumped 9% from last year. To top it off, the world's biggest retailer, Wal-Mart, set a record for one-day sales. Think that earned retailers a warm, fuzzy buzz? Think again.

Grinchy reporters spun the sales data downward in keeping with the story they'd been told to expect: the worst holiday season in a decade. "Shoppers swarm stores, but will it last?" jabbed a headline from USA Today. Not a chance, replied the Wall Street Journal, which cited a consultant predicting that "Two days of bargain-driven business is not going to change a deep-seated negative trend." Of course, this is buy-one, get-one-free day, so a competing analyst, the much-cited Richard Jaffe, told the Detroit News that Friday's sales could indeed be trusted as a strong indicator of the holiday retail season. Wall Street went with Jaffe and rewarded retailers such as Wal-Mart Monday. On the previous day of trading, Wall Street had taken precisely the opposite tack.

Confused? Not to worry. What you absolutely must realize is that, due to a late Thanksgiving, this year's shopping season is six days shorter than last year's. You must realize this because reporters insist on pointing it out. Just don't expect them to agree on what it means. The shortness of the season will make it hard to gauge sales, a leading forecaster told USA Today. The shortness of the season will have no effect whatsoever, analysts told the Oakland Tribune. The season is short, observed the New York Times' Bob Tedeschi. Why, so it is.

With headlines like "Ailing retailers desperate for strong sales," newspapers painted over the most encouraging news: Online sales are up like a team of sharply goosed reindeer. In fact, according to sales tracker BizRate.com, stores moved 61% more merchandise over the Web last Friday than they did on the first day of the season last year. So unfashionably sunny is this factoid that it was crammed in the last lines of an Associated Press report. That's also where you'll find Reuters mentioning that Web retailers are racking up sales without the deep discounts that are more common than corndogs at the mall. Just imagine the headlines such news might have garnered three years ago, when rose was a fashionable shade for viewing the Web and the world. - Lori Patel

Ailing retailers desperate for strong sales
http://www.detnews.com/2002/business/0211/29/a01-23256.htm

Wal-Mart reports record one-day sales (Financial Times)
http://tinyurl.com/35a3

Discounters fare best at start of holiday shopping season (Associated Press)
http://www.indystar.com/print/articles/6/005310-6006-092.html

Stocks soar on upbeat sales over Thanksgiving weekend (Associated Press)
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/business/20021202-0707-wallstreet.html

Big Retail Holiday Weekend Raises Hopes (Reuters)
http://biz.yahoo.com/rb/021202/retail_sales_5.html

Another winning week for stocks
http://www.startribune.com/stories/535/3465289.html

Deal Hunting for Holidays Pushes Sales Into High Gear
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/02/business/02SHOP.html

Online Shopping Headed Toward a Strong Season
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/02/technology/02ECOM.html

Retail Execs Less Pessimistic in November
http://abcnews.go.com/wire/Business/reuters20021128_195.html

Shoppers swarm stores, but will it last?
http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/2002-12-01-econ_x.htm

Black Friday Rings-Up 4th Highest Sales Amounts for 2002
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/021130/300002_1.html

Holiday Sales in the U.S. Get Off to a Strong Start
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB1038589243138318708,00.html

"Treasure Planet" is tanking at the box office, and the entertainment industry hopes it's not the only pirate ship going under. The record industry and movie studios got together in court yesterday to try to shut down the file-sharing services Morpheus and Grokster. A Los Angeles District Court judge listened to two hours of he-said/she-said as both sides sought to obtain summary judgement in their favor and announced that he will rule later on. Several reporters mentioned the judge's intention to issue a "speaking order," which News.com's scribe helpfully defined as a sort of rough draft decision.

The LA Times's scribe did a good job of untangling the maze of companies involved in the suit. The defendants, Streamcast and Grokster, are the parent companies of the Morpheus and Grokster file-sharing services. Both use variants of the same software employed in the much larger Kazaa network. The record and film companies also want to shut down Kazaa's parent company Sharman Networks, and argued yesterday that Sharman should be added as a defendant. News.com's story previewing the hearing explained that Sharman is headquartered in Australia and incorporated in the South Pacific island of Vanuatu, and "has tried to keep business contact with the United States to a minimum" to minimize its legal risk.

Only two news reports that Unspun reviewed used the P-word in their headlines or stories. Most reporters referred to the defendants' users' activities as "file trading," "music sharing," or "file swapping," all of which sound pretty innocuous. "Piracy" conjures images of killing people on the high seas. Unspun suspects that much of the progress that Hollywood and the record companies have made against file sharing can be traced to their success in slapping such a loaded label on their opponents, and making it stick. - Keith Dawson

File-traders, studios spar in court
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-975801.html

Judge Delays Ruling in File-Swapping Case (L.A. Times)
http://tinyurl.com/36k4

No ruling on Net piracy claims (CBS MarketWatch)
http://tinyurl.com/36kb

Judge asked to shut down Morpheus, Grokster services
http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/business/4654231.htm

Federal judge hears arguments in online file-sharing case (Seattle Post-Intelligencer, AP)
http://tinyurl.com/36k7

Scuttling the pirates
http://news.com.com/2100-1083-975557.html

AOL To Address Tough Questions
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-975783.html

No Big Pickup Seen in IT Spending
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A927-2002Dec2.html

Critics Fear That New Muscle Of Comcast May Hurt Internet (AP)
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB1038890020755084993,00.html
(Paid subscription required)

Liberty Alliance Waves White Flag at Passport
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,740753,00.asp

Java spat to percolate in court
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-975803.html

Does your local pub have WiFi? It's free...
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/59/28381.html

Errors in Some Web Stock Lists
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/02/technology/02WEB.html

Patent holders on the ropes
http://news.com.com/2100-1023-975587.html

Scratching Without Vinyl: A Hip-Hop Revolution
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/03/arts/03SCRA.html

Final Chance To Buy A Vowel
7-foot 'disco E' has starring role at Enron auction
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/business/1685698

Liam Gallagher Loses Teeth In Club Brawl
http://www.billboard.com/billboard/daily/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1772091

Copyedited by Jim Duffy (jimduffy86@yahoo.com).

Editor and publisher: Jimmy Guterman (guterman@vineyard.com).

Media Unspun is produced by The Vineyard Group Inc.
Copyright 2002 Media Unspun, Inc., and The Vineyard Group, Inc.