Netflix Embracing Both DVD and VOD

Video is in a transition, much the same as the one music experienced a few years ago. We’re moving from a world in which the content is provided on a standardized physical medium to one where the content exists as packets, somewhere out there. Right now we have one foot in each world. If you are a video service provider, you can choose one world over the other, or you can do as Netflix as done and support both.

The iPod and iTunes experience demonstrates that when technology is ready to change, it can happen in a hurry. When was the last time you browsed in a music store? It wasn’t that long ago that every town and every mall had at least a couple music stores full of CDs and a smattering of LPs. Now they’re as hard to find as a vinyl 45 record. The MP3 player, and especially the iPod, put music in the electronic realm with no need to move a physical medium from place to place. The Internet works just fine when your content is in digital form.

Few of us have film cameras and projectors anymore, but we’ve got DVD and Blu-ray players galore. Still sitting on many shelves is the VHS tape player, probably powered off. If VHS tape represents the vinyl record, DVD and Blu-ray represent the CD. They are just different ways to physically transport video content. But what happens when you have the infrastructure to move the content electronically? Do you really need that physical medium anymore?

Broadband Internet enabled music downloads. It’s fast enough now to enable both streaming and video downloads. When fiber optic bandwidth becomes the norm, we’ll really have the information superhighway and there will be little need for “sneaker net” to transport software, data files, music or video. With DOCSIS 3.0 and higher speed DSL developments, we may already have all the bandwidth we really need for video on demand.

You’re starting to see the beginning of it. Video stores are disappearing the way music stores did. Our local grocery store has converted their video department to sell posters and picture frames. Blu-ray is giving the disc medium another lease on life, but it will probably be short lived. The latest wrinkle in retailing is the Blu-ray rental vending machine. It’s a clever idea, but you still have to physically travel to rent and return discs. I give it a few years before even this seems too inconvenient.

Netflix is the video rental service that saw this transition coming and is taking advantage of it. The first thing they did was differentiate themselves by renting DVDs by mail rather than building a portfolio of physical stores. With 100 shipping locations, they can get a DVD into your mailbox within a business day most of the time. The service is sold as a reasonably priced monthly subscription to eliminate mad dashes to the store in time to avoid late fees. When you want another movie, you drop the one you have in the mail. The mailers are provided and postage paid to eliminate the usual annoyances of using the mail.

This is a slick system that supports DVD, Blu-ray and any other physical medium the video industry comes up with. But the lure of fast and easy online viewing is tilting the pendulum toward digital delivery. Netflix has responded by adding Internet streaming to its service at no extra charge. The amount of content is limited right now, but there’s enough to make it interesting and give you plenty to watch on the spur of the moment. Between Netflix plans that start at $8.99 a month and free over the air TV, a good number of people have found it a lot cheaper to eliminate their cable or satellite service and still get as much viewing variety as they need.

Does Internet viewing mean you need to sit in front of your computer to watch a movie. You certainly can if you want to, but you also have the option to view Netflix rentals on your television. Some TVs offer the ability to be used as VGA monitors, making connection to the big screen easy. Some of the latest flat screen TVs have Internet access built-in, so you can watch Netflix and even YouTube videos. Some LG HDTVs are Netflix-compatible, as are some Blu-ray players. Netflix has even gone beyond this to enable gaming consoles, such as the Wii, PS3 and Xbox 360 to access your video account. These devices are already connected to a television, so they are logical “set top devices” for Internet based video.

Sprint HTC EVO - BestBuy

Sprint HTC EVO - BestBuy

Oh snap, BestBuy now has a page up for the Sprint HTC EVO where you can input your E-Mail address to receive alerts.

Rumors started last week with BestBuy employees stating the device will be sold for $199.99 with a contract. Which coincides with what my Verizon sales rep friend has been saying since the HTC EVO was leaked a few months back.

Also rumored is that late next month BestBuy is going to start accepting pre-orders for the phone and it should be released by the end of June.

HD video and a zippy mobile device here I come!

Next for Philly papers? Look at Minneapolis

Philadelphia publisher Brian Tierney castigated his creditors a few weeks ago as he sought to fend off their efforts to take control of the newspapers he bought for too much money and then steered into bankruptcy. But the consequences were not nearly as calamitous as Tierney suggested when some of the same creditors took over the Minneapolis Star Tribune late last year. Though the outcome

What is 4G and Why Do You Want It?

You see ads for 3G cell phones and wireless modem aircards. Now here comes 4G. What is this advance in technology all about and why should you want it now?

2G, 3G, 4G. All those G’s, what do they mean? What we’re talking about is a shorthand for the generations of wireless broadband service. It’s been advancing so fast that it’s not unusual for different generations of service to be available in the same area. That’s by design. If you are in a weak service area for 3G, then your device will automatically seek out a lower speed service such as 2.5G or 2G. You won’t get as high a bandwidth, but at least you’ll be connected.

Wireless broadband is generally a companion service to cellular telephone. It uses the same towers and base stations. Coverage areas are pretty much the same. The exception is when a particular tower site hasn’t yet been upgraded to the latest cellular broadband generation. In that case, you’ll get a lower level of service until you move into the coverage of a cell tower that is at the latest standard.

I should mention here that there are two wireless broadband services that have nothing to do with cell phones. One is the WISP or Wireless Internet Service Provider that offers home and business broadband. You need to be within line of site of their tower and install an outdoor antenna on your roof. These WISPs are pretty much locally owned an operated, and generally serve locations that aren’t wired for DSL or Cable.

The other non-cellular wireless service is the WiFi hotspot. There are so many of them, that they could almost form a cellular-like network of their own. That hasn’t happened because hotspots are also largely local services, mostly offered by restaurants and hotels. There’s no network to tie them together, so once you leave a hotspot you have to log into another one at your next stop.

That’s where 4G steps in. Imagine that you are connected to a 4G service and are reading a document while parked in your car. You can go into a client’s office or your own and you’ll still be on the same service. The idea of 4G is to blanket a city with a signal strong enough that you have high bandwidth connectivity without worrying about where you are located.

But doesn’t 3G do that? To some extent, yes. But 4G has the advantage of higher bandwidths. With the 4G service that is available today using the WiMAX standard, you can get 3 to 6 Mbps on a normal basis, with bursts of to 10 Mbps.

WiMAX 4G is also not limited to mobile service the way that 2G and 3G are. It’s designed for both desktop and mobile service. That puts this 4G network in a class by itself. You can get a WiMAX modem for your desktop computer and a plug-in 4G aircard for your laptop computer. You’ll have the same service at your desk as you do on the road. There are even 4G phones coming out sometime this summer that look to become a game changer in the wireless service industry.

There are two standards that will dominate 4G service. One is LTE which will be deployed later this year and through 2011. The other is WiMAX broadband that is available now in many cities and states. Find out if your location qualifies for 4G wireless broadband
now.

News and views: snippets from Russia and Australia

The 1709 Blog's mailbox receives some interesting bits of news and comment. Just in are two items worth sharing with readers:

* Sasha Yelnik writes to tell us that, during a World IP Day meeting, the director of the Russian Authors' Society RAS said that the time has come to establish specialised courts that would deal only with copyright and the related matters. She adds:

"His suggestion was based on the increasing number and complexity of copyright infringement claims. Mr Fedotov from RAS thinks that the main reason for the phenomenon is the "legal nihilism that has become entrenched in the minds of the largest part of the society". Another problem which requires an urgent solution (which was not proposed at the meeting) is licensing music downloads from the internet (see Pravo here, in Russian) I think it is a big achievement that the need for specialised courts has been voiced and recognised but -- knowing the speed with which anything requiring at least a bit of formality is happening in Russia -- the realisation of the idea seems unlikely to take place in the foreseeable future".

* Anne Sanders (AAPT) writes on the subject of artists' resale royalties and asks: "Is the UK aware of the detail of Australian legislation?" She explains:

"It is nothing like the compulsory statutory licence that the the copyright agencies pursued. In fact, it is a poor precedent from their point of view. I believe that the agencies in the EU & UK might mention the royalty being adopted in Australia but forget to mention that:

(a) individual artists have an individual right to waive the royalty on a case-by-case basis (Clauses 22/23).

(b) the royalty will only apply to the first resales of artworks purchased AFTER the introduction of the legisalation. There is no royalty imposed upon the first resales of artworks purchase in the decades before the introduction of the act.

(c) the Australian scheme is sui generis - it is not an extension of copyright because even in its current form it is , too tax-like under our constitution to be part of copyright".

Ethernet Over Fiber Needed By Business

We’ve all heard that fiber optic bandwidth is the future, but are you sure it isn’t the right service for the present?

Most business telecom services have traditionally been copper based. It starts with the binder cable that gets installed during building construction. All those twisted copper pair provide the multi-line telephone service that is as standardized in business as the metal file cabinet. Copper pair are also used to bring in ISDN digital trunking for PBX phone systems and T1 lines for broadband Internet and linking business locations point to point.

For many small and medium businesses, this is the telecom infrastructure. It’s been that way for decades. Why should it change?

To get an idea about where network speeds are going, take a look at the broadband services offered to consumers. Both DSL and Cable left the 1-2 Mbps download speed is the dust years ago. Consumers now expect at least 3 to 6 Mbps, and many clamor for 10, 20, 30 or 50 Mbps. Cable is getting to these levels with new DOCSIS 3.0 modems. Verizon is offering double digit broadband as a matter of course over it’s FiOS fiber to the home service.

If consumers are getting used to high bandwidth Internet services, some using fiber optic service, it should be no surprise the pressure on business users to expand their network bandwidth is increasing. It’s not just the businesses generating bandwidth-demanding content for the consumer market. Business applications are getting more sophisticated to improve worker productivity, including audio, video and interactivity. They’re also headed to the cloud. Processes that always put demands on company local networks now put those demands on the outside connections.

Once you get beyond 10 Mbps or so, in becomes increasingly necessary to bring in fiber optic service. Ethernet over Copper can work up to 50 Mbps in special situations, close to carrier points of presence. That’s the limit, and it only works for a minority of business locations. What you want and need is fiber optic service that is almost bandwidth unlimited.

But what about the cost? This is where the newer Ethernet over Fiber services have become the high bandwidth solutions of choice. Ethernet is generally less costly than traditional telecom bandwidth on a per Mbps basis, sometimes dramatically less expensive. Scalable bandwidth options are readily available, once you have the fiber connection. That means you can start off with 10 Mbps Ethernet and easily upgrade to 20, 30, 40 or 50 Mbps as long as terminal equipment will support those port speeds. The fiber itself will take you to Fast Ethernet at 100 Mbps and on up to Gigabit Ethernet or GigE, perhaps even to 10 Gigabit Ethernet or 10 GigE. Don’t roll your eyes. The days of needing those bandwidth levels are not that far off.

Are you frustrated with your WAN network connection speed? if so, it’s time to be looking into fiber optic solutions. It may be much less expensive than you think. The way to find out is to check Ethernet over Fiber prices and availability for your business location.

The European Copyright Code

This 1709 Blog team member has received so many emails drawing his attention to the launch yesterday of the European Copyright Code that he hopes this information is not equally old news for his readers. The Code is the result of the Wittem Project, established in 2002 as a collaboration between copyright scholars across the EU who were concerned with the future development of European copyright law. Its aim is "to promote transparency and consistency in European copyright law" and, incidentally, to remind legislators of the contribution that academics can make to a debate which is too often dominated by stakeholder interests and the pursuit of the nearest least-damaging compromise.

The Code is not a plea for harmonisation, a restatement of principles or a basis for codification of European copyright law. It takes into account the existing framework of international norms (essentially Berne and TRIPS) and, where possible, the Directives which have been inflicted on the EU Member States.

The Code's methodology is laid bare, its text is clear and its authorship is impeccable. For anyone wishing to be reacquainted of the fundamentals of the economic and moral dimensions of copyright, this is a very good place to start.

The Need for Low Latency Networks

When we think of network performance, we tend to think of bandwidth. After all, bandwidth equals speed. The faster your network runs, the faster your can transfer files from place to place. The faster those data transfers go, the more work can be done. That can also translate into bandwidth equals productivity. But there is another characteristic of network performance that is getting attention as of late. That is the matter of latency.

What is latency? It’s the time delay in the network. In other words, how long it takes to get a packet from node to node. You might be inclined to think that latency has something to do with bandwidth, but they are quite different characteristics.

Here’s an example. Suppose we are transmitting a data stream up to a satellite in geosynchronous orbit. One application is video feeds from the other side of the world. You see them on the TV news every night. Have you noticed that there is a slight delay in the connection? The TV anchor has to wait a second for the reporter to reply or they’ll talk over the top of each other. That pause is latency. It has to do with how long it takes for the signal to go up to the satellite and back down to the far location.

Now, how much do you suppose that it would speed up the television feed if we doubled the bandwidth? The answer: Not at all. As long as you don’t have packets waiting in a queue because of insufficient bandwidth, doubling, tripling or making the bandwidth 100x won’t speed up the circuit at all.

Why? Because the radio signal traveling thorough space is already at the speed of light. The Einsteinian limit of 186,000 miles per second sets the threshold on how low latency can be between point A and point B. You can’t make the signal go faster, but you can sure make it go slower.

Signals traveling to satellites in space go slowly enough. If you have a satellite Internet connection, you know that quite well. VoIP is impossible unless you want to use your connection like a walkie-talkie. Only one person can talk at a time and then wait for the other to reply. That’s called half-duplex. We’re used to full duplex, where two people can talk at the same time and still hear each other without interruption.

Low latency was inherent in the analog telephone system. There was very little but wire connecting two telephone sets. It takes maybe a millisecond to go a hundred miles. The same is true for TDM (Time Division Multiplexed) circuits such as T1 lines. You lose a little in the conversion process, but the synchronized channel propagates as fast as the signal can travel in copper wires or glass fibers.

So, what slows things down on the Internet? It’s all those routers between source and destination. Each one adds some milliseconds or fraction thereof to the process. Get a dozen or more routers between you and the other end of the transmission, and you’ll notice the latency building up.

Sometimes latency is important and sometimes it isn’t. The Internet was designed for things like scientific data file transfers and email. Neither of these applications is going to be much affected by a few dozen or hundred milliseconds of latency. It wasn’t until real-time interactive applications came along that anyone really took note of the latency issue.

What is latency sensitive? VoIP telephony for sure. Even so, 100 ms is considered quite workable for phone conversations. That same 100 ms can be a real annoyance to real-time gamers who might find the small but noticeable lag between action and reaction to be annoying. But 100 ms can be the difference between profit and loss in high speed financial trading. With new financial centers being built and traders increasingly using computers to automatically place their trades, the subject of networking latency has become a hot topic for very high speed networks.

So how do you decrease the latency on your network? First, forget the Internet or anything modeled after it. The Internet was designed to be self-healing, so it will route your packets any which way it can to get them to their destination. The lowest latency networks have high speed fiber in as straight a line as possible between locations. There is also as little equipment as possible between end points. Signal regenerators may be needed, but switches and routers need to be minimized. Whatever switching and routing equipment does exist has to be designed to minimize latency by running as fast as possible internally and doing a few functions as absolutely necessary. The more you process a signal, the longer it takes.

If low latency it essential to your operation, you need to specify that. Just saying that you want a 10 Gbps connection will guarantee you bandwidth, but not necessarily the lowest latency possible. Many major carriers are sensitive to the needs of financial trading and other businesses where network latency makes a difference. They offer special low latency network connections designed specifically for those needs.

Do you have a low latency requirement for your business? If so, be sure your say so when you check high bandwidth network service prices and availability for your locations.

A non-profit news model that might work

MinnPost, a scrappy news start-up in Minnesota, is beginning to show how to run a sustainable non-profit venture without depending on major philanthropic support. And it is doing so in two ways: First, by keeping costs low. Second, by raising money almost continuously through such diversified initiatives as advertising, NPR-style user contributions and even an annual gala featuring

Football match lists – copyright penalty

Last week judgment was given in Football Dataco & Ors v Brittens Pools & Ors. Brittens Pools, Yahoo! and two betting companies had been sued for using the fixture lists of the English and Scottish leagues without a licence. Were the lists protected by database copyright, database right or non-database copyright?

IF YOU DON’T WANT TO KNOW THE RESULTS, LOOK AWAY NOW.

Database copyright: yes
Database right: no
Non-database copyright: no

Database copyright - s. 3(1)(d) CDPA

This protects databases that constitute the author’s own intellectual creation by reason of the selection or arrangement of their contents.

Football fixture lists do not easily fit the definition of a database. Usually a database would be the selection and arrangement of pre-existing chunks of information but the makers of fixture lists also create the chunks of information (X plays Y on date, home/away). The list makers select teams and arrange them to create chunks of information but they don’t select or arrange the chunks beyond listing them in chronological order. However Floyd J held that:

‘In my judgment the selection or arrangement required by Article 3(1) is not confined to selection or arrangement performed after the data is finally created. The process of selection and arrangement of the contents of a database can and often will commence before all the data is created. I see no reason why selection decisions made about the contents of the database in the course of arriving at the final version should not properly be described as selection or arrangement. To cut out from consideration these selection decisions, merely because they occur whilst the database is being created, seems to me to be arbitrary, and conceptually fraught with difficulty. Nevertheless it is necessary to focus on skill and labour which is actually concerned with selection and arrangement, and to exclude that which is not.’

Did the lists constitute ‘the author’s own intellectual creation’? Floyd J determined that the test was whether the selection and arrangement involved the author’s judgment, taste or discretion. How much of this would be required? A recital in the Database Directive might imply a high threshhold, saying that making a compilation of songs on a CD would not meet the conditions for copyright protection. On the other hand, a 2005 German database copyright judgment ‘plainly takes the view that not very much room for manoeuvre is required to allow for the creation of a copyright work’. The list makers, Floyd J held, had made a sufficient number of non-deterministic choices.

Database right – s. 13 Database Regulation

This protects a database if there has been a substantial investment in obtaining, verifying or presenting the contents of the database. Floyd J said that the lists were not protected for the same reasons the ECJ had given in the three Fixtures Marketing football lists judgments of 2004. Although there had been investment in creating the contents of the lists, there had not been any additional investment in ‘obtaining, verifying or presenting’ that contents. The purpose of the right was to promote investment in systems for storing and processing existing information, not the creation of materials capable of being stored.

Non-database copyright in a literary (written) work

Floyd J couldn’t conceive that the fixture lists attracted copyright protection beyond the selection and arrangement of data.

Ethernet Over Copper Can Be A Lifesaver

You know how it is when you are caught in an impossible situation? One of the worst is when the very life of your company is at risk due to some unforeseen situation and there appears to be no way out. It’s at times like these that a clever solution can be a real lifesaver.

Here’s a potential scenario. You needed only a limited amount of bandwidth when you started your venture. In fact, a T1 line seemed like more than you really had use for. But you went ahead and installed the service. The years of reliable operation proved this to be a wise decision. But recently your business has developed services that need far more bandwidth than your trusty T1 line can provide. You do the logical thing. You call your service provider and say that you are ready to upgrade to DS3 level service. Problem solved?

Not so fast. Your T1 service provider can double or triple your bandwidth easily. But no way can provide you with anything above about 10 Mbps. If you need 25 or 50 Mbps, you’ll need fiber optic service. Sadly, there is no fiber to your building or even on your street. They’ll be happy to bring in new fiber service, but you’ll have to wait months and come up with tens of thousands of dollars in construction capital.

Now you are faced with a real dilemma. You can come up with money and wait for provisioning or go looking for a location that is already lit for fiber optic service. Both solutions are going to be expensive and time consuming. That delays the launch of your service and puts your company at financial risk. Just getting a loan to tide you over is dicey these days. Is this a hopeless situation?

Not yet. There may be another option available that can solve this problem quickly and with little or no construction cost. The potential solution is Ethernet over Copper service. You are already getting your T1 line over copper wiring. That same twisted pair bundle can be used with special terminal equipment at each end to transport a newer protocol service called EoC or Ethernet over Copper. Depending on how far you are from the nearest carrier point of presence, you can get anywhere from 10 to 50 Mbps using the same copper pairs that carry analog telephone conversations now. Since the wiring is in place, all that is required is to install special terminating equipment at your location and turn up the service.

It’s fast. It’s generally the lowest cost bandwidth per Mbps available. It installs quickly. Could this be the lifesaver your business needs? Find out what Ethernet over Copper service is available for your business location.

‘Stop, thief!’ Privacy and copyright give chase

During a burglary on the night of 29–30 March a laptop was stolen. On the laptop there were images of its owner and others. The laptop’s owner successfully applied for an interim injunction preventing these images from being sold and published. The injunction was based not only on infringement of privacy but copyright infringement too – a friend had made an assignment of copyright to the laptop’s owner. Presumably an account of profits in a copyright claim of this nature could add substantially to the damages.

In yesterday’s judgment, TUV v Persons Unknown, Mr Justice Eady considered how many media companies should be given notification of an application for an injunction not to communicate stolen data. Since Sir David Eady is responsible for many English privacy law judgments, it was no surprise that he found himself quoting a previous judgment of his to reach a conclusion. ‘Taken at face value,’ he went on to say, ‘it is hardly surprising that a reader would infer from this passage that there is indeed an obligation to give prior notice to all relevant third parties.’ However, not prepared to take his own words at face value, Sir David then quoted Sir Charles Gray’s interpretation of his words:

‘ … Eady J cannot have been contemplating an obligation being imposed on individual claimants, who may be of limited means, to arrange through their legal advisers to serve what might be a substantial body of evidence on a large number of media non-parties. It seems to me that the obligation to serve them must, as a matter of common sense and economy, be confined to those media organisations whom the claimant has reason to believe have displayed an interest in publishing the story which the claimant is seeking to injunct.’

So did Eady J take his own words at face value or follow Sir Charles’s view?

‘It is probably appropriate to have in mind the court’s objective in these cases; namely, to provide a fair and practical balance between the potentially competing Convention rights of the relevant protagonists. As I pointed out in X & Y, it is necessary to take account of “a proper consideration for the Art.10 rights of media publishers” as well as paying due regard to the rights of an applicant under Article 6 and Article 8. That is what arises in all of these cases. When the court is confronted with a need to balance competing Convention rights, it will rarely be appropriate to adopt a blanket approach or apply a rule of thumb. Usually, it will be right to arrive at a conclusion in the light of an “intense focus” upon the particular facts: see e.g. Re S (A Child).’

He concluded that ‘the law should only impose an obligation to notify those who are already believed to have shown some interest in publishing.’

So in arriving at a decision on this point, a judge should balance media publishers’ Article 10 right (Freedom of Expression) and an applicant’s Article 6 (Right to a Fair Trial) and 8 right (Respect for Private and Family Life). But there is one right missing from this list: First Protocol, Article 1 (Protection of Property), i.e. copyright.

More privacy plus copyright cases are likely in the future. Millions of photos are uploaded to social networking sites on a private basis but can (and are) easily downloaded and shared outside of the private circle. The human rights that are balanced will have to budge up to make room for another right. But what if the Conservative Party scrap the Human Rights Act? Too late to wipe, these rights are backed up – by the Treaty of Lisbon.

Parody as a defence: an academic speaks

Next Thursday, 29 April, 6pm to 7.30pm, Professor Ronan Deazley (Glasgow University) is delivering the CIPPM Annual Lecture, "Parody, and its Discontents", down on the sunny south coast of England at Bournemouth University.

Right: some works just lend themselves to parody -- American Gothic has been the subject of several cultural and social comment parodies, of which this is one. Grant Wood's original is here. Some other parodies can be seen here.

According to the abstract,

"In 2006 the Gowers Review of Intellectual Property made a series of recommendations for reforming the intellectual property regime to better serve the interests of both consumers and industry. Among the proposed recommendations was that an exception for parody be introduced within the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988. In January 2008 the Intellectual Property Office (the IPO) launched the first part of a two-stage consultation process entitled Taking forward the Gowers Review of Intellectual Property: Proposed changes to copyright exceptions. As part of that consultation process the IPO proposed a "fair dealing style exception" for parody, and sought views on whether a new exception should be introduced as well as what form it might take.

In December 2009 the IPO launched the second stage of this consultation process. The Second Consultation document rejected the case for a new parody exception. This lecture considers the place of parody within the copyright regime, and the objections levelled against the introduction of an exception set out within the IPO's Second Consultation document.

It invites the IPO to reconsider its decision not to recommend the introduction of a specific exception for parody within the UK".

Professor Deazley has authored an impressive 33-page response to the Second Stage proposals on behalf of the Intellectual Property Foresight Forum (IPFF), which you can read here.

Please note (say the organisers): The topic of the lecture has been changed in response to recent policy developments. Full details of the lecture can be found here. To reserve a place, please email Denise George.

The Gift of Bandwidth For Administrative Professionals

This week is Administrative Professionals Week. It’s a time to honor those “Radar O’Rilleys” of the office who keep everything running smoothly so management and staff can concentrate on getting their own jobs done. You’ve no doubt signed a nice greeting card and perhaps taken your secretary, administrative assistance, receptionist or other admin. support pro to lunch... Haven’t you? If not, better scramble and do something nice quickly. You have no idea how much doo-doo you could be in on Monday.

After the hoopla ebbs, there is something that still needs attention. Besides a little fawning and personal kudos, what administrative professionals could really use is better tools to help them be more productive. I’ve dealt with many great administrative assistants over the years and can attest that they are models of efficiency. They’ll take whatever’s available and make it work magic. But think how much more would get done if the tools worked better.

One big bottleneck in any business can be the WAN bandwidth connection. That includes point to point lines linking your business locations, and broadband Internet service. When the network slows down, everybody slows down. Those high performance admins that burn through a keyboard a week wind up drumming their fingers on the desk while waiting for critical files to transfer. Does that sound like a wise use of resources to you?

I’m going to make a suggestion here. Why not take about a minute or so and ask your administrative assistants if they are being slowed down by the performance of your computer network, especially for outside files. If the answer comes back “yes,” you probably can’t make a better investment than increasing that bandwidth.

That can be easier and cheaper than you imagine. Just ask your assistant or IT manager to run a quick bandwidth pricing check through a telecom broker. It can be done online in almost no time. All you need to know is the address of the business, who should be contacted and how much bandwidth you have in mind. Start with double what you have now and see what the results are. You might be shocked to find that you could have a lot faster network service for the same money as you are paying now. Wouldn’t it be a shame to let that opportunity go to waste?

Pssst. If you are one of those hard-charging administrative assistants being limited by data connections that are way too sloooowww, why not take charge and make this happen. When you tell your boss that you could get a lot more done with a faster network connection, also mention that you can take care of researching this without distracting from your critical work. Then get an instant online quote for bandwidth services and print off the results. Good chance the boss will say: “Go ahead and order that.” Then you’ll have one really sweet gift for Administrative Professionals Week.

Recent publications and copyright materials

An attractive publication for people who toil in the fields of archives and record management is the fourth edition of the aptly-named Copyright for Archivists and Records Managers, by Tim Padfield. The author, who has some three decades' experience in what is now The National Archives, is also chair of the Libraries and Archives Copyright Alliance (LACA).

In the book's web-blurb, publishers Facet explain what this book is about though, with four editions coming out within a space of just nine years, it will need neither explanation nor introduction for its regular readers:

"As an archivist or records manager it is essential to keep up to date with the complexities of copyright legislation, and Copyright for Archivists and Records Managers will prove an invaluable tool in enabling you to do so.

What is copyright? Who owns it and for how long? What rights does it confer, and what are the limitations and exceptions? This comprehensive manual uniquely outlines copyright law in the UK with special reference to materials relevant to archive and records collections such as maps, legal records, records of local authorities, records of churches and faiths, most notably unpublished works. It also offers advice on rights in the electronic environment and the problems associated with rights clearance; and covers related areas such as moral rights and rights in databases.

The fourth edition of this respected work has been extensively revised and updated to include:

* advice to take account of recent decisions of courts in the UK and of the European Court of Justice, for instance on the nature of a ‘substantial part’ of a copyright work
* a list of key points about copyright that frequently raise questions, such as the duration of copyright in works whose copyright is owned by companies and other bodies
* details of the duration of copyright elsewhere in the British Isles and in Gibraltar [having had to chase up copyright duration and other information for, inter alia, Gibraltar and the Falkland Islands, I know how useful this sort of information can be]
* details of the duration of copyright in a selection of overseas countries: Australia, Barbados, Brazil, Canada, China, Egypt, Hong Kong, India, Israel, Jamaica, Japan, New Zealand, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, Switzerland, Turkey and the USA
* changes to the licensing of Crown copyright material
* advice on liability [the 1709 Blog's advice is "avoid it"]
* a discussion of the legitimacy of the electronic supply of copies by archives.

Readable and accessible for people without legal training, this approachable guide is essential reading for archivists and records managers. It will also be of substantial value to LIS professionals in libraries, museums and galleries, to students, researchers and genealogists, and to anyone who wishes to understand the implications of copying without recourse to legal texts".

This book certainly does what it says on the cover and, at the rate things are changing, a fifth edition must be expected in the next year or so.

Bibliographic details: xv +345 pages. Paperback. ISBN 978-1-85604-705-0. Price: £49.95 to ordinary mortals, £39.96 to members of CILIP. Book's web page here.

Meanwhile, the Copyright Clearance Center has not been idle. Here are some recent items that may interest readers of this weblog:

* An article has just been published on Publishing Perspectives on the current and future state of copyright. In the article, Copyright Clearance Center's CEO Tracey Armstrong discusses her belief that copyright holders have the right to price and term their works and the ways in which this can be achieved in the digital world. You can find it here.

* An interview was conducted between Copyright Clearance Center’s Chris Kenneally and the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s attorney Fred Von Lohmann at CCC’s conference OnCopyright. During the interview Fred reflects that, just as broadcast radio and VCRs challenged existing business models for the media, the internet is doing so today. He expects that, within 5 to 10 years, the kinks in copyright law will all be worked out. If you want to know what has generated such optimism you can listen to it on the CCC podcast Beyond the Book here or read the transcript here.

* Next Tuesday, 27 April, there's a live podcast which promises to explore mobile content, how much publishers should charge for it and how users can share it. During the programme, listeners can call in and participate in the debate. The show is scheduled for 2pm EST and you can access it here. The podcast, put together by CCC, is hosted by author and digital media authority Bill Rosenblatt with Director of Author Relations and host of Beyond the Book Chris Kenneally.

* The latest issue of Research Information contained an article featuring Tracey Armstrong and gives information on how CCC handles copyrights for ebooks. You can find the article here, though you’ll need to scroll down a bit for Tracey’s part".

Punch in ’94: Who needs info superhighway?

If you want to know how newspapers got into the pickle they are in today, read the text of a remarkable 15-year-old speech just unearthed by Jim Fitzpatrick, a retired editor and relatively new entrant to the journo-blogosphere. The speech in question, which essentially writes off the Internet as anything for publishers to worry about, was given in May, 1994, in Kansas City by Arthur (Punch)

Earth Day Means Money For Electronics Recycling

It’s Earth Day, the day to hug those trees and generally show appreciation for Mother Nature. We better show a little respect for Momma Earth, before she decides that we’re the ones who ought to be recycled. Even so, can’t we find some way to make a buck off all this environmental goodness?

You bet we can. I’ll bet even Ed Begley, Jr. wouldn’t be too horrified at the idea of pocketing a few dollars from doing a good thing for the ecology. I’m certainly not above it. How about yourself? Would you like to do a little painless recycling and put a few bucks in your pocket for the effort?

I thought so. Well, here’s the deal. We’re a world swimming in a sea of unwanted electronics. Grandpa would be horrified at the thought of setting his Atwater Kent out at the curb for trash pickup. But thanks to automation and mass marketing, electronics is now a throw away commodity -- literally.

Think about it. Where is the cell phone you had before the one you have now? How about the one before that. We’re probably talking less than six years for three generations of cell phone design, and this has been going on for a couple of decades. So, is it in a desk drawer? Or was it dumped unceremoniously in the trash during last spring’s cleaning frenzy?

This is typical of not only cell phones, but digital cameras, MP3 players, gaming consoles, home audio equipment and computers of all types. Would you be shocked to learn that the “junk” electronics you set out at the curb last Sunday night could have taken you to a nice dinner and a movie, or financed the next electronic gadget on your wish list?

It’s true, and if you’re suspicious that this just can’t be so, find out how much cash you can get for your electronics now.

Oh, you think that running ads and trying to sell that stuff is more trouble than it’s worth. That’s probably true. But you don’t have to run any ads or wait for people to come to the door and then try and talk you into a lower price. There’s no need to go through that grief when you can just check electronics recycling prices online in a minute or so. If you like the price this recycler is offering, then click to order a free shipping box. Drop your stuff in the mail and back comes a check. Does it get any sweeter than this?

So, where’s the Earth Day tie-in to this blatantly capitalistic activity? It comes from keeping electronics out of the landfills here and abroad. This equipment may look benign, but left out in the environment it starts to decompose and leach out all sorts of toxic materials. The legacy of trashing your iStuff is iPoisoning for some future generation. You don’t want to be responsible for that, do you? Of course not. So even if your old unwanted electronics proves worthless, send it in for proper recycling anyway. Your Mother Earth will appreciate it.

Free advice on how to charge for content

This column originally was published in the April edition of Editor & Publisher Magazine and is being reprinted with permission. To subscribe to the magazine so you can see the full array of industry coverage when it first appears in print, click here.The California Newspaper Publishers Association recently invited me to drive down the coast on a Saturday to give a free lecture on how to

Call for Disclosure - a response

Last night, the writers of this blog, alongside a plethora of other copyright bloggers, received an email from one "Wayne Borean, aka the Mad Hatter", who blogs on (among other things) copyright matters in his home nation of Canada.

The essence of Mr Borean's email is the following "several writers who are legal professionals have written articles under their own names, which quite possibly are being influenced by their professional work. This is not to say that the influence is in any way wrong, but rather that if there is a connection, it should be disclosed, even if the writing is of a personal nature, so that the reader can consider that connection when evaluating the article..." - you can read his "call for disclosure" and his request that we should swear affidavits [sorry Wayne, no] in more detail here

From this writer's perspective, the answer is clear - under the ethics rules applicable to my profession, I can only disclose the names of my clients and the work I do for them with the consent of those clients. However, it would not take an interested reader (should such a thing exist) very long to find a range of client names either on my firm's website or in various legal directories, such as the Legal 500 or Chambers - from which they would discover that we have clients on all sides of many controversial issues of copyright law, from studios and record companies to ISPs and telcos. Indeed, many large companies have conflicting views between different divisions on some of these issues - think of what will happen when the Comcast/NBC Universal merger closes - or even within divisions; broadcasters are the creators of copyright programmes but are also heavy "consumers" of the works of other rights holders.

Most lawyers are the same - we are paid to argue for a client's position, whether it accords to our personal views or not. But when it comes to writing a blog, while I agree that, if one is advocating a cause on behalf of a client, that should be disclosed, the default should be taken as read that we have a professional interest in copyright matters.

At a more philosophical level, I wonder why legal professional bloggers are held out for particular scrutiny - surely the same accusation could be made against anyone in the blogosphere? The regular occurrences of people trying to (mis)use blogs for PR purposes are not normally conducted by lawyers or indeed using anyone's real name.

And why does it matter? It is not as if blogs such as this are in a position of power. I am reminded of a maxim often quoted by Tony Benn (who, for non-UK readers, was a high-profile left-wing politician here in the '60s and '70s), who used the following (and variations on it) to measure democratic accountability "If one meets a powerful person--Adolf Hitler, Joe Stalin or Bill Gates--ask them five questions: "What power have you got? Where did you get it from? In whose interests do you exercise it? To whom are you accountable? And how can we get rid of you?""

1709 falls at the first question - we have no power, so are free to express our views without answering the other questions. I occastionally read postings on this blog, posted by my co-authors, with which I do not agree - but I defend absolutely their right to say it - and if I do disagree, then like other people, I have the right to add my own comments.

3G 4G Mobile Bandwidth

The Internet long escaped the desktop and moved onto the mobile phone. The problem is that it has been following a similar learning curve that took us from 300 baud telephone modems to DSL & Cable broadband and now to high speed wireless and fiber optic service. Mobile bandwidth is undergoing a steady evolution, with the demand for higher and higher speeds pushing the technology. Let’s have a look at what’s available and what’s coming soon.

The benchmark today is 3G wireless. This service offers somewhere between 500 Kbps and 1.5 Mbps and is owned and operated by the cellular carriers. The same company that sells you your cell phone minutes also sells you 3G wireless Internet access. The signals come from the same towers, so if you are in a dead spot for phone reception you won’t be surfing the Web or watching videos either.

The 3G build-out has been proceeding at something of a panic level, especially since the introduction of the Apple iPhone. The first iPhone used the AT&T EDGE network, which is actually called a 2.5G network. That means it has considerably less bandwidth than the newer HSPA or High Speed Packet Access 3G network, perhaps as little as a tenth as much. HSPA is offered by GSM carriers AT&T and T-Mobile and is also known as HSUPA.

A competing 3G service is offered by CDMA carriers Verizon and Sprint using a different technology. Theirs is known as EV-DO and EV-DO Rev A. Download bandwidths are in the range of 1 to 2 Mbps, depending on signal conditions.

Note that 2.5G and 3G cellular broadband not only gives cell phones the ability to download videos and surf the Web but also gives you the option of adding 3G to your laptop computer. The functionality is added using a plug-in wireless modem aircard. These are sold with data-only service plans, since they don’t work as telephones. The aircard and wireless service has been a boon to field sales people who don’t always have the ability to set up shop within a WiFi hotspot.

The newest service on the market is called 4G mobile bandwidth. Right now the run away leader is the WiMAX service offered by Clearwire and Sprint under the CLEAR trademark. WiMAX is yet another wireless standard, albeit a global one not associated with the cellular phone system. WiMAX offers a powerful signal that covers an entire city. It’s strong enough to penetrate buildings so that you can have the same WiMAX broadband on your desktop and laptop computers. Download bandwidth typically ranges between 3 and 6 Mbps, considerably faster than 3G networks.

The cellular companies aren’t sitting still, though. Both AT&T and Verizon plan to deploy another standard called LTE to compete with WiMAX. It will likely be a year or two before these two 4G technologies are competing head to head in most populated areas. For now, WiMAX gives you the most mobile bandwidth at the lowest cost in the cities and states where it is available.

Get Your Mobo On For Long Work Sessions

You’re banging away at the keyboard till all hours of the night. You’ve got to get that last few lines of code or last few pages of the novel written. Now your shoulders hurt. Too bad. You’re on a deadline. No pain, no gain. Right? Wrong!

Whoever came up with that dumb expression, anyway? The fact is that physical suffering is not a requirement for productivity. Physic misery? Perhaps, but that’s another topic. What we’re talking about here is a way to spend long hours working at the keyboard, gaming, or enjoying other intense hobbies and feeling better while you do. Oh, is there an App for that? Nope, but there is an appliance. It’s called the Mobo. Watch the video and you’ll get the idea.



Now, don’t you wish you had one of these to take a bit of the load off? Avid indoorsmen, like myself, can identify with the aches and pains of too much time worshiping the glowing pixels while tickling the little square keys. Looks like Mobo is on to something here. Why suffer for your hobby or profession when you can ease the stress for not all that much money. Learn more and get your Mobo Ergonomic Computer Station now.

Unflinching journalists, risking it all

The financial drain of defending himself against a libel suit forced journalist John L. Smith to file bankruptcy at the same time his 8-year-old daughter was diagnosed with a brain tumor. But he says his work was worth the personal cost. Reporter Diana Washington Valdez of the El Paso Times says she narrowly dodged arrest and kidnapping on multiple occasions as she reported on the deadly

iWeb To Help Queenie The Elephant

An advocacy project that my wife and I are involved in is helping circus and zoo elephants find a better life at animal sanctuaries such as the Performing Wildlife Animal Society (PAWS) and The Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee. One elephant of particular interest is Queenie, also known as Boo. You may have seen her performing or giving rides at the Shrine Circus. Queenie has been marooned in Texas, sometimes chained to a tree, since the USDA ordered her off the road and pulled the license of her exhibitor months ago.

We’ve been advocating that the USDA transfer Queenie to the rolling grassy hills of the PAWS sanctuary in California, where she is wanted and will be well taken care of for life. However, just last Friday we heard that the USDA has made the decision to send her to a small, dark and barren elephant exhibit area at the San Antonio Zoo. This is being done against the wishes of the owner and all of us who recommend a transfer to PAWS at no cost to the government or the owner.

Well, friends, this is America, the land of free speech and personal initiative. Since our business and social network is primarily online, we immediately decided to take action by spreading the word on the plight of poor Queenie and asking for quick action on the part of those sympathetic and willing to spend a few minutes to help Queenie get a better deal. But how could we get an attractive and informative website up quickly enough to do any good? The answer is iWeb. It comes included with every iMac computer as part of the iLife software bundled with the system. Could it do the job?



You decide! I had the welcome page for Help an Elephant up in less than an hour with a basic appeal for help and links to the IDA Blog from In Defense of Animals and the PAWS news statement as backgrounders. The template is the “travel” theme, one of many designs included with iWeb. I kept all the defaults for layout, font face and color. The picture of Queenie is one I took myself when she appeared at the Shrine circus in Loves Park, IL last June. Notice that her back leg is chained to the truck with only a few feet of chain. All I did was drag the picture from my photos file to a blank spot on the page template and there it is.

At the time I was working on the welcome page, Barbara wrote a blog post and added another picture of Queenie giving rides at the event. iWeb includes a blog feature as part of the tool. All you have to do is select what type of page you want and it takes care of the code details for linking and provides an RSS Subscribe button. At some point we’ll add a YouTube video using the YouTube widget in iWeb.

How easy is it to get one of these sites online? Pretty easy. You have a choice of using your MobileMe cloud service from Apple if you are a subscriber. Or you can publish to your own domain on your hosting service, if you prefer. I’ve got a reseller account that I use for many commercial websites, so I just added another account there and entered the settings into the iWeb FTP client. You don’t need a separate FTP with iWeb ‘09, although the earlier ’08 version does require it. This site went up Friday Night. I did a quick submit to the search engines at the same time. By Sunday afternoon, I found it listed in Google on the first page for a search of “help an elephant.” Pretty fast.

There are two morals of this story. First, if you have a cause or point of view that would benefit from being on a website, you can get something really nice looking and functional up and running in a matter of hours using iWeb. From there, you can promote it in the search engines and using social media, such as Twitter and Facebook.

Second, if this story tugs at your heartstrings and you’d like to spend just a minute or so helping Queenie get to a better life, make a quick phone call to USDA Secretary Vilsack’s office at (202) 720-3631. The nice lady will add your name to a petition to send Queenie to the PAWS sanctuary. The idea here is to show public demand by flooding the government phone system and letting them know there are a lot more of us that care about this issue than they might think. I’ll let you know how it works out. Best of luck also with your own advocacy, charitable or political initiatives.

Paper.li - a Twitter moneyspinner

Paper.li is a new site that allows you to turn your Twitter feed into a newspaper. Where a tweet hyperlinks to another site, paper.li displays the entire article without redirecting you to the source - which gets no traffic or advertising revenue. A news-reporting copyright exception seems ambitious - apart from anything else, the articles aren't all news stories. (For what it's worth, the user terms are governed by Swiss law.)

The 'Daily on Twitter' newspapers are covered in advertising (supplied by Google). 'Paper.li is not affiliated, sponsored or endorsed by Twitter', which presumably means they don't make anything out of this either.

Can paper.li last long enough to be tomorrow's fish 'n' chips wrapper?

Limited term assignments: a reader writes ...

One of this blog's readers has posed the following question and would welcome responses (posted below as comments, please!):

"In an assignment of copyright for a limited period (where ownership is assigned for a period of, say, two years and thereafter the ownership will revert back to the assignor), is it possible, or reasonable, to insert a clause into the assignment agreement that the assignment (which is essentially a sale of the copyright) is personal to the assignee and shall not be directly or indirectly transferred, disposed of, encumbered or shared with any party, other than on the express terms of the assignment agreement? Can the new owner of the copyright, albeit only for a limited two year period, be restricted in this manner?"

When commenting, please indicate -- if it's not immediately apparent -- the jurisdiction from which you hail.

Death-notice price gouging: Why?

Sure, newspapers are hard up, but exploiting bereaved families with exorbitantly priced death notices seems to be a distasteful and strategically inept way to try to make ends meet. I stumbled across the problem this week when I tried to buy a death notice in my local paper, the San Francisco Chronicle, which proposed charging $450 for the one-day run of a crappy-looking, 182-word death

Resale rights: the Dali ruling

Yesterday, in Case C‑518/08, Fundación Gala-Salvador Dalí and Visual Entidad de Gestión de Artistas Plásticos (VEGAP) v Société des auteurs dans les arts graphiques et plastiques (ADAGP) and others, the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled on how the meaning of Article 6(1) of the EU's Resale Right Directive 2001/84.

The ruling was prompted by French proceedings in which the court wanted to know whether resale right royalties for French sales of Salvador Dalí's works should be payable to (i) the sole legatee appointed in the painter's will -- this being his Fundación -- or (ii) his legal heirs, as French domestic law requires. According to Article 6(1) of the Directive, Member States had to introduce the resale right by 1 January 2006, entitling an artist or, after death, "those entitled under him" to receive that royalty when their original works of art were resold. But what did "those entitled under him" mean?

According to the Court of Justice, there was nothing in Article 6(1) to stop the French limiting the benefit of the resale right to the author's heirs, even if that was to the exclusion of legatees or other successors in title. Nor was there anything in the Directive to rule out the application of rules for resolving conflict of national laws on succession. In short, it's for the referring court to take due account of all relevant rules for resolving conflicts of laws relating to the transfer on succession of the resale right.

As in the case of other IP rights and pseudo-rights, issues involving the ownership and devolution of the resale right are clearly seen in the EU as a fit subject for national law rather than for harmonisation. While testamentary disposition does not normally affect the manner in which the single market works in Europe, it can leave messy and inconvenient loose ends for heirs -- and bodies representing them -- to deal with.

Houston, We’ve Got A 4G Solution

How’s your broadband experience? Lovin’ it or... You know. The speed really drags. It’s dead half the time. Even when it works, it seems to cost a lot more than it should. Worst of all, there are lots of places, even in town, where you can’t even get connected.

Well, you won’t have to put up with that treatment anymore if you happen to be living in Houston, Texas and nearby locations such as The Woodlands, Pasadena, Baytown, Mission Bend, Missouri City, Lake Jackson, Alvin, Conroe, or League City. CLEAR, the new 4G wireless broadband service being deployed by Sprint and Clearwire, has installed their WiMAX Internet service and it’s up and running right now. Can you get it? Enter your zip code and see if you’ve got coverage.



So, is it only the lucky residents of Houston that can get 4G wireless broadband service? No, not by a long shot. There are 10 states and 30 cities that are already on the air with WiMAX service. Others are in the works right now. That’s millions and millions of users who have the opportunity to cut the cord and get away from DSL and Cable if they aren’t satisfied.

One of the unique features of this service is that you can get both fixed and mobile service on the same account. Remember -- this is wireless broadband. That gives you the opportunity to be working on a project at your desk and then take it on the road using the same broadband service. You don’t need to pay twice to get desktop and mobile WiMAX service from different providers. CLEAR will give you both at an attractive price.

What kind of bandwidth is available? The service runs at 3 Mbps to 6 Mbps for downloads and up to 1 Mbps for uploads. That compares favorably with the better DSL and Cable services and completely blows away 3G cellular broadband.

Do you live in the Houston area? If not, are you curious to see if 4G wireless broadband is available for your location? If so, simply Enter your zip code and see if you’ve got coverage.

Onkyo SKS-HT240

I purchased a set of used Onkyo 6.1 speakers for a really good price and planned on running them with my Onkyo 7.1 home amplifier.  I even found an extra set of rear speakers that matched for $49.99.  The set up was running great then all of the sudden the subwoofer stopped working.  So I took off the back plate, checked around, and tested what I knew to test.   I couldn’t find the problem with my subwoofer so I turned to the internets for some help. 

http://forum.allaboutcircuits.com/showthread.php?t=36671

Spotify - full house or flushed away?

BASCA, the association that represents songwriters, composers and authors, has hit out at Spotify saying that the payments for copyright uses generated by the streaming on demand service are "tiny" and called for the company to be more transparent about the nature of its business. Last year it was claimed that over a five month period there were over one million plays of Lady Gaga's hit Poker Face – the most downloaded song in the British chart history, and one of the most successful songs of the 21st century to date – but this earned the songwriters just $167 from Spotify. BASCA CEO Patrick Rackow told the BBC: "At the moment, the amounts of money that are actually being received are tiny. That might be because there is no money there. But there is no clear trail that can be established so that the songwriter can trace back what they ought to have got. These things are behind a blanket of secrecy, and that is extremely worrying and Rackow added "The danger is that these deals all become so secret that the mist that descends creates uncertainty, creates fear. That allied to the fact that the sums being paid through are very small creates a climate of suspicion. I think it harms Spotify, it harms the writers' perception of Spotify and this is a service they want to support."

The Swedish-owned company, set up by serial web entrepreneur and a technologist Daniel Ek has been hailed by some as a saviour of the music industry, offering users free streaming of a huge catalogue of music punctuated by short adverts. A monthly premium of £9.99 allows users uninterrupted access to the catalogue. The service is part owned by the major record labels.

Spotify would not comment on the BASCA claims, but has said that as more subscribers sign up and advertising revenue increases then that money will trickle down to the people who make the music.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/apr/13/spotify-songwriters
http://www.spotify.com/int/about/press/background-info/
See our previous blog on Spotify here
http://the1709blog.blogspot.com/2009/10/spotify-musics-holy-grail-or-tune.html

Do not adjust your sets -- just amend your records

This morning's online version of the Official Journal of the European Union brings the full text of a brand new piece of EU legislation: Directive 2010/13/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 10 March 2010 on the coordination of certain provisions laid down by law, regulation or administrative action in Member States concerning the provision of audiovisual media services (Audiovisual Media Services Directive). It's nothing to panic about, though. Directive 89/552 -- the original Directive -- has been substantially amended several times and, "in the interests of clarity and rationality the said Directive should be codified".

You can access the new Directive here.

Drowning In A Sea Of Free Cell Phones

Every two years, like clockwork, your cell phone contract expires and you are free to move about the marketplace. Most of us do. The churn in cellular service is legendary. Part of the motivation to dump the old phone and grab a new one is dissatisfaction with your chosen carrier. But most of the impetus is that cell phone technology is advancing at breakneck speed. What was once cutting edge is now old school. If you want to get the latest capabilities, you’ll have to get one of the latest phone models. You'll also have to pay big bucks to upgrade. Or... will you?



If you are smart about where you get your next cell phone, you can move up to the latest technology for little or no money. I’m looking at a list of this week’s top 10 selling cell phones at Cell Phone Plan Finder, a newly update online resource. Nine, count ‘em nine, of the top ten phones are available free of charge. These include the AT&T Motorola Backflip, Droid Eris by HTC, T-Mobile BlackBerry Curve 8520, Sprint BlackBerry Curve, AT&T Samsung Impression, Motorola Cliq XT, AT&T Samsung Mythic, Sprint Samsung Exclaim and Verizon Wireless LG Chocolate Touch.

What about the 10th phone? That would be the Verizon Wireless Droid by Motorola. This is a different model from the HTC Droid. It’s also highly in demand for its new technology. How much is this non-free phone going to set you back? It’s all of $19.99.

I see that you are scrunching your face. Something about these prices doesn’t sound right. After all, you’ve been shopping the cellular stores locally and maybe dropping in on the big box retailers. They’re not giving away these phones. They expect you to pay for your new cell phone, sometimes a lot. How can this be?

The reason is the efficiency of online comparison shopping. Cell Phone Plan Finder offers an enormous selection of phones by all the major manufacturers for all the major carriers in all price ranges and functionality. They’re delivered to your door, set up for the service plan you choose and ready to use immediately.

But what about those service plans? Don’t they cost more online? No they don’t. They’re exactly the same as the one’s you sign up for in the stores. Probably the big difference is that nobody is going to pressure you to select one plan over another when you shop at your leisure online. You can review all the choices for the phone model you want and pick just the right plan for your needs. That includes family plans where you can often get two or more free phones sharing the same bundle of minutes. What a deal!

If you are in the market for a new cell phone or perhaps your first one, take a few minutes and browse the huge selection of cell phones and wireless service plans you’ll find at Cell Phone Plan Finder now.

WiMAX 2 Will Challenge Fiber For Speed

There is a notion going around that copper and wireless have about had their day in the great bandwidth race. Copper has gained a new lease on life as a last mile technology for Metro Ethernet service. Wireless has a unique position in that no wireline or fiber service can match it for mobility. But there’s a wireless technology in the works that may blow away fiber optic services even on the basis of speed.

Wireless bandwidth higher than fiber? Ha!

Well, not so fast. Not all fiber optic service are pumping out 10 GigE to users. In fact, a lot of fiber optic bandwidth is delivering 50 and 100 Mbps ports to customers. That’s especially true of FTTH or Fiber To The Home that is only now starting to approach 100 Mbps. What would you say to being able to pluck 100 to 300 Mbps out of the air anywhere in the city? Wouldn’t that make your netbook scream? Might you consider going wireless to the desktop with that kind of speed?

High bandwidths and low latency are the promise of a new standard in the works called 802.16m. If that number sounds familiar, it’s because you know 802.16e as the basis of WiMAX service. WiMAX is a mature standard based on SOFDMA (Scalable Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access) and MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) radio technologies. It’s the platform used by Clearwire and Sprint for their CLEAR 4G broadband service, now expanding nationwide. This first generation WiMAX offers 3 to 6 Mbps downloads with citywide coverage. The upgrade will increase that more than an order of magnitude.

The 802.16m standard is now being dubbed WiMAX 2 to indicate it is a upgrade to the current international WiMAX standard. It’s a backward compatible upgrade, which is certain to ease deployment.

What will WiMAX 2 be used for? It will certainly be in high demand by mobile business and consumer users, perhaps even for advanced smartphones. The first WiMAX phone is expected to be out this summer. By the time WiMAX 2 has a nationwide footprint, the technology may well be giving traditional cellular services a run for their money. The higher bandwidth capability of WiMAX 2 make it a natural for high definition video and perhaps the long awaited Internet enabled vehicle.

But WiMAX also has the potential to serve millions of users not wired for DSL or Cable broadband and loath to accept the high latencies and limited bandwidth of satellite Internet services. That makes it a natural to be the service of choice in rural areas, perhaps with deployment accelerated by the current stimulus funding available for rural broadband. WiMAX 2 speeds will get the attention of both consumers and business users dissatisfied with their current broadband services and looking for something competitive that doesn’t require construction costs. WiMAX to the desktop is reality now, even in areas heavily dominated by DSL and Cable broadband services.

Less conspicuous will be wireless backhaul applications for WiFI hotspots, 3G cellular and even other 4G technologies. To get beyond today’s bandwidth limited cell sites means either fiber optic or high speed wireless backhaul. WiMAX was always intended for this application, although consumer and business Internet services are what’s being talked up in the media.

Android Banking App Mint

Managing Cash and Checks Made Simple with Mint.com | Business Wire

I've been using Mint for a couple of years now and love it. The only issue I have is that my credit card is listed just like my checking and saving with the same log in.

Mint doesn't understand that and can't pull the credit card data, which is why I switched over to www.yodlee.com. Pretty much a similar financial web application but works correctly with the way my bank set up it's customers credit cards. Yodlee also has some more advanced features such as bill pay and utility company balances, which is something Mint doesn't have.

Either way you choose I'm looking forward to trying out Mint mobile and hopefully they have addressed this credit card account issue.

Also a quick note about Assistant Free Android App, I don’t like it because it always runs in the background even though it’s set to not do so. Support didn’t respond to this issue. I’ve since uninstalled Assistant Free and my G1 which already has limited memory runs much better. Really there is no need for a financial application to be running all the time in the background upon boot up of the OS.

No LAN Is An Island

Corporate LANs or Local Area Networks have traditionally been just that -- local. But now you have the option to link multiple business sites into one very large, all encompassing, business LAN. You do that with layer 2 Ethernet services.

You may wonder what the big deal about this is. After all, you’ve successfully linked multiple locations together for years. But actually, you’ve been linking multiple islands. Each LAN is separate and independent. It has a very clear scope. Usually, the domain of one LAN is a single building. Occasionally, very large buildings may have multiple LANs. It’s also possible to connect multiple buildings on a common campus on the same LAN. The deciding factor is where your ownership of the property leaves off. Once you leave the building or corporate campus, you typically hire a common carrier to transport your network packets.

The reason that your business locations each have their own LAN networks and simply communicate between them is that there has traditionally been a protocol conversion needed to get across town or across the country. Telecom standards have been based on telephony requirements consisting of multiplexed channels. LAN networking standards have settled on packet switching using the Ethernet protocol. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could just extend your Ethernet-based LAN across town?

Well, now you can and you won’t have to run the cabling yourself. Carriers are now setup to transport Ethernet signals as Ethernet. The connections can be either layer 2 switched or layer 3 routed. With layer 2 switching, the Metro Ethernet link becomes part of your overall LAN topology. The office across town is no farther away on the network than the office down the hall.

What level of services are available? You’ll be pleased to know that you can order Ethernet services in the same standardized speeds as used on your network. That includes 10 Mbps Ethernet, 100 Mbps Fast Ethernet, 1000 Mbps Gigabit Ethernet or GigE, and 10,000 Mbps 10 Gigabit Ethernet or 10 GigE.

What’s more, you aren’t limited to simply connecting buildings in the same metropolitan area on the same network. You can extend Metro Ethernet services beyond your immediate metropolitan area to other metropolitan areas. That typically includes medium and larger cities and suburbs. Competitive carriers with nationwide fiber optic footprints can provide as much bandwidth as you require.

Are you ready to interconnect your far-flung LAN networks for more efficient operation? Would you like to enjoy the cost savings that Ethernet offers over conventional telecom services? If so, then find out what cost and performance advantages Ethernet has for your company or organization.