News written by Jari Ketola (January, 2001)

Ben Charny of ZDNet News repots on the current development stage of what many believe (and wish) to be the next Napster / Scour Exchange.

Predictions that Gnutella would quickly offer an effective file-swapping alternative to Napster have proven premature, with the technology's own developers admitting more work is needed before it will take off as a way to trade free music and other digital wares.

"Gnutella is not for mainstream users who don't understand what an IP address is," said Ric Dube of digital music industry watcher Webnoize. "Lack of speed only discourages a person once they figure out how to use it. But first they have to figure out how to use it."

While Gnutella is more or less strugling with it's development, J.C. Nicholas of GnutellaWorld said their version of Gnutella, aptly named 'Gnutella2', "is going to be one of the greatest revolutions since Linux. It will revolutionize the way we exchange information on the Internet."

How exactly Gnutella2 achieves this remains to be seen, since there are no public beta versions of Gnutella2 available to date.

Read the full article on Yahoo! News.

The Napster subscription service, on which Bertelsmann and Napster agreed on when they reached an agreement last year, should be running early next summer.

It remains to be seen whether or not this will spell the end of Napster. Are there enough users that are willing to pay for a service like Napster? And more importantly can Napster and Bertelsmann come to an agreement on spreading music from other labels as well over the service.

Teen pop queen Britney Spears' "I'm a virgin and I'll always will be" -image took a blow in her recent concert at Rio. Apparently she had accidentaly switched on her microphone and was using words she shouldn't even be aware of.

Why do I think it's worth reporting? Well, frankly I have no idea whether or not the story is true or not - actually I don't even give a damn. What makes it worth mentioning is that there's an audioclip available of the whole incident on both Napster as well as BritneySpears.org.

If BritneySpears.org has to remove the clip you can always find it on Napster with the filename "swearsinrio.mp3".

You can be the judge of the authenticity of the clip.

Source:
The Register

The US ISP Verio has refused to remove a Website hosted on their servers against the Motion Picture Association of America's (MPAA) wishes. MPAA claimed that Cryptome.org had posted illegal material, and demanded the content to be removed. The illegal material in this case was the DVD Copy Control Association president John J. Hoy's declaration which includes the DeCSS source-code.

Instead of rushing to remove Cryptome.org Verio decided to contact John Young, the administrator of Cryptome.org, and asked him to reply to the allegations.

In his reply Young states that the Hoy declaration mentioned above does not contain a "circumvention device as defined by the DMCA [Digital Millennium Copyright Act]". And thus Verio decided they have no reason for removing the site's content.

It remains to be seen if MPAA is satisfied with Young's reply.

Source:
The Register

Julien Stern of Belgium and Julien Boeuf of France, a team specializing in cryptography and multimedia, have published their experiences in defeating the SDMI challenge.

The site contains in depth information on the basics SDMI, how the specific attacks were deviced, as well as thorough reports on their findings.

I'm sure the people at the SDMI Group would have prefered paying the price to the Juliens and signing an NDA with them. Luckily for the rest of us Stern and Boeuf decided to release their findings to the public.

Read more at the DeSDMI site.

MP3.com is looking forward to making something dot-com companies aren't famous for - profit. CEO Michael Robertson feels that the company's legal troubles are over and dealt with, and that the company should turn profitable without outside assistance already this year.

Most of the expected profits are, of course, from advertisement sales as well as the My.MP3.com -service. Even though the advertisement money has been slowly disappearing off the net Robertson feels that there's still money to be made there since 80 percent of MP3.com's advertisement revenues come from non-Internet companies.

Source:
Yahoo! News

Our beloved friends at DMusic have come up with a brilliant look at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2001.

The report covers all sorts of wonderful gadgets - from tiny portable MP3 players to DVD players fitted with HDD for MP3-playback. It's all there.

Check out the full report at DMusic.

Miramax Films has announced that it will be offering the movie "Guinevere" available for download on January 22nd. The movie can be downloaded from the movie's official site at www.GuinevereTheMovie.com. The service is provided by SightSound Technologies.

Of course the download will not be free - you'll have to pay $3.49 to get a 24h license to view the movie. If you wish to view the movie again you obviously also have to pay again.

``We can prevent for movies what Napster did for music,'' Scott Sander, president and chief executive of SightSound, said on Thursday.

Now how's that going to happen? By offering the movies for rent at ridiculous prices? Hardly. If someone is capable of downloading a legal rent copy of a movie that's hundreds of megabytes in size, they're also well capable of downloading a pirated copy of the same exact movie.

Actually a "Napster for movies" is bound to emerge as soon as more homes are equiped with high-bandwidth Internet connections. Believe me - we're going to see the Napster vs. RIAA all over again. It'll just be Mopster vs. MPAA.

Now if I could purchase a permanent copy for $3.49 it might actually be worthwhile. Now I'd rather spend $10 more and get a DVD instead.

MP3.com announced it will hold free artist/label promotion lunch on January 25th at their headquarters in San Diego, CA.

The seminar will showcase a demonstration of MP3.com's recently unveiled Music InterOperating System (IOS), which allows different segments of the music industry to work together in new ways. Industry experts will discuss a number of methods for labels to generate revenue online, including utilizing the Internet to discover music licensing opportunities in television and film; successful strategies for gaining exposure in business establishments; using the Internet to promote and develop concerts and events; and marketing artists online to generate advertising-driven revenue.

Read more and register at:
http://www.mp3.com/events/

Dave Matthews Band's single "I did it", which the band offered for free download last week on their web site, will be featured on Napster. This is the first time Napster is able to promote a major artist from a major recording label.

The band's record label, BMG Entertainment-owned RCA Records, has not officially backed the release, but is not expected to oppose it either.

Speaking at the Future of Music Policy conference at Washington MP3.com chief executive Michael Robertson said MP3.com should not be required to pay royalties for music already owned by their users. He was refering to their My.MP3.com service which allows users to instantly beam CDs they own on to their My.MP3.com account.

``What are my rights in the digital world when I buy a CD? That needs to be clarified,'' Robertson said.

Robertson supported a bill introduced last fall by Rep. Rick Boucher who co-chairs the House Internet Caucus. The bill would exempt My.MP3.com from further royalty payments.

``We do need, I believe, some common sense injected into the copyright landscape,'' he said.

Common sense, however, seems to be one thing there's not an abundance of...

Rumour has it that Microsoft is working on a peer-to-peer sharing project code-named Farsite.

The concept behind Farsite is a serverless file system - files are stored on a distributed network of clients with no centralized server or hierarchy.

"We know that (PC) disks aren't full today and machines are idle most of the time. Disks are getting bigger faster than files are. If you could build a centralized file server, it would be more reliable and it wouldn't require centralized administration," Bolosky explained.

Napster and other peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing software are built on a similar premise, but with one key difference, Bolosky said.

"Napster does have a central directory. Only its file store is peer-to-peer," he said.

Source:
ZDNet: News

The first annual Coalition for the Future of Music Policy Conference will take place Wenesday and Thursday in Washington DC. The choice of venue represents the shift from courtrooms to the chambers of Congress.

On the schedule are issues like fair use policy, the digital-copyright law, the collection of digital royalties and post-Napster legal landscape. One panel pairs the head of a much-hyped new audio-encryption standard with the Princeton professor whose students claim to have cracked its code.

The conference was put together by a group calling itself the Future of Music Coalition, whose Web site features a spiky manifesto calling major record labels ``exploiters'' and claiming the Recording Industry Association of America, the powerful industry lobbying group, cannot be trusted to represent artists.

The conference has signed up 750 attendees, including 300 musicians. RIAA President Hilary Rosen is also scheduled to speak.

Source:
Yahoo! News

There are tons of nice portable MP3 players available on the market but none of them are really suitable for enjoying the music in car. Sure you can use a tape adapter, but that's not too convenient - especially if you're driving.
On Thursday, Los Angeles-based PhatNoise announced a deal with Visteon Corp., the second-largest auto parts maker, to license its MP3 jukebox, which will enable drivers to bring music from their PCs to the road.
The jukebox is an add-on to car's existing audio system. It uses a small cartridge as it's storage medium on which the user can transfer MP3 files from his or her PC.
Michigan-based Dearborn is also going to release a similar product. The MP3 player will be available late February, and will let users playback MP3s burned on a CD-R.

Source:
ABCNEWS.com

Motorola spin-off First International Digital announced that it will begin shipping the Irock 680 -player. The Irock 680 player plays back songs in both MP3 and MP3i format.

The MP3i, short for MP3 interactive, is a format deviced by Sondog Network and it integrates graphical data with digital music files. Lyrics, album covers, notes, photographs, advertisements etc. can be shown while the music is playing on the device. If the player does have MP3i support the MP3i files are played back just as standard MP3s are.

At the moment MP3i files can only be purchased at MP3Karaoke.com. There's also a simple beta version of a MP3 Karaoke Player for Windows available at the site. It's more of a technology demo than a player for serious use. You can also download a free copy of the Jingle Bells with karaoke lyrics at MP3Karaoke.com. You can also buy other songs for around $1.50-$3.00 at the site.

Of course having lyrics in MP3 files is nothing new - there even exists the Lyrics3 Tag v2.00 standard for adding timestamped lyrics to MP3 files. Of course MP3i is not compatible with the Lyrics3 standard.

The Irock 680 player will retail at $299 with 64MB of RAM, an FM tuner, a 6-line LCD, built-in microphone, voice recorder, USB-connection and two headphone jacks.

MP3.com will be celebrating the unveiling of the second generation of their My.MP3.com services on Thursday, January 4, 2001. The event will feature demonstrations of latest new music devices, as well as latest in software and wireless technologies from MP3.com and it's partners.

To register and reserve a seat for the event send email to www.mp3.com/events for more information.

Happy New Year everyone! I hope you've enjoyed the next millennium so far! Here's a quick recap on the happenings over the holiday season:

12/29: Napster back in court, but this time they are suing. Napster has sued online retailer Sport Service for trademark violations at NapsterStore.com. The NapsterStore.com is made to look like an official Napster store - which it is not.

1/1: Napster CEO Hank Barry shared his New Year's resolution: To make Napster prosper as a real business and to see that it is just a normal part of how people listen to music. I'm sure we are look forward to seeing the resolution realized!

1/2: Intel pushes into consumer goods with an portable audio player. With the move Intel is looking to broaden it's product line - an expected move after the problems Intel's processors, namely the Pentium4 chip, have gone through lately. The player would hold four hours of digital music in e.g. MP3 format, and retail at $299.99.
Check out the player's home page for an interactive demo and more information.

I guess that's all for now. Stay tuned for for more!