Pirates of the Internet

Steven Levy in this week's Newsweek: Pirates of the Internet. A proposed bill says if you share a single tune with your pals online -- as millions do every day -- you are a felon. Penalty: up to five years in jail. Excerpt:

My guess is that the vast majority of those 60 million file sharers would never steal a physical object from the store. In a mixture of self-interest and rebellion theyíve taken the measure of the record industryís karma (overpriced CDs, a history of ripping off artists), noted that stealing files isnít like stealing stuff (maybe theyíll buy a disc later) and concluded that file-sharing isnít that bad.

Start-up launches `digital newsstand'

From today's Mercury News:

Louis Borders is best known for starting two companies: the hugely successful bookstore chain that bears his name, and Webvan, the dot-com grocer that went belly-up in spectacular fashion.

Now, Borders is getting back into the game. On Monday, he launched KeepMedia, a Redwood Shores start-up that serves as a ``digital newsstand,'' offering subscribers access to archives of more than 140 magazines and several newspapers for a flat monthly rate of $4.95.

Unless they come up with more than this -- say, content tied to tablet PCs -- I don't see the compelling business proposition that will prompt people to pony up $5 a month, given the notoriously tough sell of online subscriptions for magazine and news content.

Universal Music defends DRM, P2P litigation

Internet.com:

NEW YORK -- Larry Kenswil, the president of Universal Music Group's (UMG) eLabs unit, is defending the recording industry's decision to use Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology alongside a litigation strategy to stamp out music piracy, arguing that the survival of the industry was dependent on copyright protection initiatives.

In a lively keynote presentation at the Jupiter Plug.IN Conference & Expo here Tuesday, Kenswil slammed pundits who have been "trying to dictate how to reinvent the music business" by encouraging the theft of copyrighted works.

"We are battling a nasty infection of image-itis. The tobacco company can kill us. The package food companies can clog our arteries. The oil companies can provoke wars. But, apparently, there's no industry more despicable than the music industry. We are hated just because we refuse to acknowledge the public's God-given rights to steal music," said Kenswil, referring to the piracy epidemic that online file-sharing represents to the music industry. ...

Arianna gets ready to run

Editor David Talbot has a report in today's Salon: At a meeting of Hollywood and progressive supporters in her West L.A. home, Arianna Huffington gets ready to run for governor. Her goal: Take Sacramento and shake Washington.

It's not official yet, but she's off and running. That was the message at Arianna Huffington's home in posh Brentwood, Calif., on Sunday afternoon, where several dozen political activists and advisors gathered to hear the author and Salon columnist make her case for jumping into the race to recall California Gov. Gray Davis. The only thing that would keep Huffington out of what is shaping up as an electoral free-for-all would be the sudden entry of a major Democratic rival to Davis -- and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the only likely such 800-pound gorilla, is still rejecting entreaties to rescue the party from the rapidly melting Davis.

Great news.

More on the file-sharing wars

SF Gate: Advice to Avoid Copyright Litigation

... "We won't win any popularity contests. We don't really care what people think, except we want them to know that it (file-sharing) is illegal," [RIAA spokeswoman Amy] Weiss said. "It's unpopular, it's not pretty, but it's the right thing to do for all the people involved in the music industry."

BBC News: File-Sharers Fight Legal Moves

RIAA picks a political veteran as new CEO

Katie Dean of Wired News has the story on the music recording industry's selection of a new CEO: Mitch Bainwol, former chief of staff to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, will take the reins in September.

The voting rights struggle of the digital age

My friend Kim Alexander of the California Voter Foundation has a new commentary up called The Voting Rights Struggle of Our Time. She participated in a study of electronic voting security.

The biggest problem with computerized voting systems is that they are not transparent. Some who think we don't need a paper trail tend to portray those of us who insist we do as paranoid conspiracy theorists. But any reasonable person who takes a moment to think about it quickly understands why it's not a good idea to trust 100 percent computerized, paperless voting systems run on secret software.

On a similar note, John Schwartz in the NY Times had this the other day: Computer voting is open to easy fraud, experts say.

And Don Hazen, editor of AlterNet, has this: A voting and democracy primer.

'Day to Day' debuts this week

Slate founding editor Michael Kinsley is among the first guests on the new public radio show Day to Day, co-produced by Slate and NPR News, debuting this week.

Thanks to IWantMedia for the pointer.

One last byline for Vincent Canby

Now that's one prolific writer: The New York Times's front-page obituary of Bob Hope carries the byline of Vincent Canby, a Times writer who has been dead himself since 2000.

Thanks to IWantMedia for the pointer.

Music customers: Out of U.S., out of luck

The NY Times picked up on the problems with portability of iTunes Music Store tunes outside of the U.S.: Out of the U.S. and Out of Luck to Download Music Legally. Here's the likely culprit:

... Before a song can be distributed online, the labels must first clear two sets of copyrights ó those for the sound recordings and those for the songwriter's publishing rights. American music labels have in many cases licensed those rights overseas to different companies ó agreements that sometimes must be negotiated one artist at a time to regain international digital rights. And since copyright laws in other nations can vary from those in the United States, those discussions also must often take place country by country. ...

Forget Arnold, Meet Georgy

So Arnold isn't running in the California governor recall election, but Georgy is. Dang, she's even got a blog! And an out-of-the-ordinary online guestbook. And the Washington Post's Howie Kurtz is a fan.