Week of December 4, 2005

Developments in online music were all over tech news this week, and we all know that's a top interest with young Internet users. Last week I reported on legal music's amazing growth, this week a reality check...

File-sharing unabated: Online music is simply a growth industry, whether we're looking at legal music downloading or illegal file-sharing. But that illegal "darkside" is not going away. Piracy is flourishing, the Wall Street Journal reports. File-sharers swap more than 1 billion songs a month, according to data from P2P research firm Big Champagne cited by the Journal (more figures can be found at P2P news site Slyck.com). USATODAY's Andrew Kantor paints the picture clearly, saying that even though Kazaa's legal struggle and BitTorrent's deal with the film industry are all over the news, file-sharers are undeterred. But let's look at those two "big stories":

Kazaa's dead? The once wildy popular file-sharing service is having major legal problems and, according to a story and discussion P2P news outlet Slyck, may be barely limping along, but that's not deterring Kazaa users worldwide (they're still song-swapping with Kazaa software they already downloaded). In semi-compliance with an Australian federal court order, Kazaa parent Sharman Networks has only "cut off Australians' access to the Web site from which the file-swapping software Kazaa can be downloaded," CNET reports. Slyck suggests Sharman may not even have the resources at this point to update its software to include filtering of copyrighted content, as the court ordered, since it hasn't updated for several years. [Kazaa, reportedly spyware-ridden, was long ago surpassed by BitTorrent in P2P traffic, which in turn was beaten by eDonkey a few months ago, CNET reported.]

BitTorrent going 'legit': The other big news was BitTorrent creator Bram Cohen's agreement with the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). As USATODAY reports, he agreed to stop letting people search for pirated content (via "torrents," or "pointers to files available for downloading) on his site. The only problem is the workarounds - the many other BitTorrent-indexing sites, among them Torrentspy, where "141,651 torrents available. Each represents a song or a movie or an image or a piece of software. And Torrentspy isn't the largest." Bram's deal won't change much for the film industry. [What USATODAY forgot to mention is that the music industry now views CD-burning (copying) to be a bigger threat than file-sharing. "Burned CDs accounted for 29% of all recorded music obtained by fans in 2004, compared to 16% attributed to downloads from online file-sharing networks, the Associated Press reported last August. Which probably explains the draconian measures Sony BMG took to discourage CD-burning, which led to a major p.r. debacle for the company (see "Death to DRM?").]

The good news... is that legal music is getting a lot more convenient and interesting for digital-music fans. For example, online music retailer Rhapsody has moved onto the Web, the Seattle Times reports. Aiming for a bigger presence in blogging communities like MySpace (with 40 million users) and Xanga (with 21 million users), RealNetworks "is rolling out a Web-services platform that will allow third-party Web sites [such as kids' blogs] to link directly to albums and songs on Rhapsody." Before this, people had to download a software program (like iTunes) to use Rhapsody. Now anyone with a browser can download 25 songs a month for free, but the Times says the Rhapsody software will still have more features than the Web version.

In Other News

  • Talking worm. Tell your kids, now there's a worm that chats with IM-ers, and they do not want to "go there." CNET reports that a new worm in AIM called "IM.Myspace04.AIM" comes in an instant message that says "lol that's cool" and contains a link to a malicious file called "clarissa17.pif." "When unsuspecting users have responded, perhaps asking if the attachment contained a virus, the worm has replied: "lol no its not a virus," IM security firm IMlogic told CNET. Clicking on the Clarissa file opens a "backdoor" to your PC, disables security software, messes with system files, and sends the worm to everybody on your child's buddy list.
  • Rockstars of videogames. One is 24 and made more than $800,000 this year in tournament winnings and computer-parts endorsements, the other is 69 and works for MTV as a "senior" correspondent and game reviewer. Well, grandmother and gamer Barbara St. Hilaire may not exactly be a rockstar-type figure, but gamers obviously think she's pretty cool. "Grandson Timothy chronicles her Xbox, Playstation 2 and GameCube adventures in his blog, OldGrandmaHardcore.com," the Washington Post reports (see the online discussion with Barbara, Timothy, and people around the US at the Post - it dispels a few myths). As for the 24-year-old almost-millionaire gamer, "Fatal1ty" Wendel has won 5 videogame championships playing various games and is profiled in the New York Times and will be featured on CBS's "60 Minutes" (this Sunday, 12/11).
  • Ill. videogame laws struck down. Two state laws banning sales of violent or sexually explicit video games to minors have been blocked by a federal judge in Illinois, Reuters reports. US District Judge Matthew Kennelly said they would "have a 'chilling effect' on the creation and distribution of video games." The laws were due to go into effect January 1. Gov. Rod Blagojevich said he would appeal the decision.
  • "Internet addiction": Some mental-health professionals are calling it "Internet addiction disorder," others are calling it a fad. Whatever, it's increasingly in the news. Citing Dr. Hilarie Cash's practice in Redmond, Wash., the New York Times reports that she and other specialists treating this problem (e.g., Dr. Kimberly Young in Bradford, Pa., and Dr. Maressa Hecht Orzack in Belmont, Mass.) - which skeptics like Prof. Sara Kiesler at Carnegie Mellon U. contrast to actual physiological addictions - are estimating that 6-10% of the US's some 189 million Net users "have a dependency that can be as destructive as alcoholism and drug addiction."
  • Cable TV, family-style. A family package of TV programming is in the works for Comcast and Time Warner customers, USATODAY reports, saying the cable operators are bowing to FCC pressure. Comcast and Time Warner are the US's No. 1 and No. 2 cable companies, serving some 33 million subscribers. The "family tier," which would include the Disney and Discovery Channels would be "free of sex, violence and rough language."
  • "Podcast" = "Word of the Year": That's the decision of the New Oxford American Dictionary, the BBC reports. It'll be added to the dictionary's online version early next year. Its editor-in-chief told the BBC that they thought about adding it last year, but not enough people were listening to podcasts yet.