Slashdot Mirror

actiondan writes: "The BBC has a story about scientists uncovering one of "natures best kept secrets" Apparently, they have discovered the "secret of matter" which allows the universe to exist." Yes, you can go home now -- because "the tiny difference in the decay rates of neutral K mesons and their antiparticles has been determined with a precision of one part in a million."

Paul Egell-Johnsen writes: "All the Norwegian news papers, and some Swedish ones, are raving about the forthcoming "Lord of the Rings" movie after a 25 minutes screening at a chateau near Cannes. BBC reveals why the reviews are that positive, all those who atended had to sign a declaration of goodwill. A New Zealand report spins it differently, apparaently the audience was genuinely impressed. A quote from the end of the article: 'I don't think it will be a film for children. One of the big monsters was genuinely terrifying.'" The stills which have trickled out have been impressive to me, but it's sad if a positive-news-only policy is needed to hype it.

Motor was among the first of the hundreds of readers with this sad news: "Douglas Adams, author of the Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy has died of a heart attack, aged 49." I still remember the first time someone pointed out the Hitchiker's Guide to me, and what a changing point even the first few pages were. It's easy to see he'll be missed.

nerdygeek writes "According to this article from the BBC, NASA chief Daniel Goldin has predicted there will be astronauts on Mars by 2020. We've heard things like this before, but not as strongly worded, especially when he speaks of robots and people heading for other stars."

nerdygeek writes "According to this article from the BBC, NASA chief Daniel Goldin has predicted there will be astronauts on Mars by 2020. We've heard things like this before, but not as strongly worded, especially when he speaks of robots and people heading for other stars."

The Night Watchman writes: "According to article on BBC news, scientists have determined that low doses of radiation can indeed cause alterations in human DNA that are then passed down to future generations. Apparently there was an 'unexpectedly high increase' in genetic mutuations in children born in the area after the Chernobyl disaster." This may shake up the scientific community, which has relied on studies of Hiroshima survivors to evaluate the long-term consequences of radiation exposure.

An Anonymous reader writes "The BBC is reporting that cDc is releasing a new Peekabooty software in July which will defeat totalitarian governments and law enforcement from their current monitoring efforts. The article states: 'A group of hackers are developing a web browser that it claims will make it easier for people to circumvent censorship and avoid the attentions of law enforcers. The software, which is due to be unveiled in July, uses a combination of encryption and a Gnutella-like network...'" CDC of course is famous for tools like Back Orifice, which is mostly controversial because its a perfectly legit admin tool with a really scary sounding name, and the fact that countless crackers use it. This is just another P2P tool, but these guys have a history of making waves, so it'll be interesting to see what happens.

sh64109 writes: "According to this article that just popped up on the BBC, some children were born recently with modified genes. The modification was made to mitochondrial (not nuclear) DNA so only the girls (if there were any) will be able to pass this on. The purpose of the mod was to correct an infertility problem."

DarkenWood writes: "I found an interesting article over at BBC SciTech about a sports car that runs on rotting organic waste. 0-60 in under 6 sec. Very cool."

DarkenWood writes: "I found an interesting article over at BBC SciTech about a sports car that runs on rotting organic waste. 0-60 in under 6 sec. Very cool."

shreve912 writes: "No captured Romulan Birds of Prey just yet, but the beam consisting of a helix of twisting laser light is able to seize hold of objects as small as a protein molecule. Scientists believe it will be an invaluable tool for manipulating parts of living cells or components of micro-machines. Holodecks and Borg implants can't be far off! Check out the article."

Nepre writes: "I came across this story on the BBC web site. It seems scientists have found a tick that was preserved in amber. There is some speculation that it might contain the blood of some prehistoric creatures."

Nepre writes: "I came across this story on the BBC web site. It seems scientists have found a tick that was preserved in amber. There is some speculation that it might contain the blood of some prehistoric creatures."

morn writes: "BBC News is reporting, from a recent article in the Beijing Review, that debate is hotting up in China over the burgeoning Intenet cafe industry. Up to 15% of children in large cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou are now said to be using the cafes. The government appears to be worried, and is overseeing the installation of 'information purifiers.'" (Read More)

"In a debate published on the Beijing Review's website, Communist Party officials warned of "online heroin", saying access to pornographic sites and "illegal games" in internet cafes pose a threat to the country's younger generation, who are becoming blighted by the "online poison". It is being said that "Some teenagers are so deeply entrapped by such internet cafes that their minds are severely distorted."

Scholars are arguing against any sort of curtailing of the cafe business, but against strong words like those, do they stand much chance?"

Lostman writes: "CNN has an article that details a computer glitch that has occured at the international space station. The problem disrupted all communication from the command computers on the station. Although NASA knows that this was because an onboard server had crashed, the cause of this was not immediately known." See also space.com, the BBC, or NASA's status update. NASA is using Windows for most of their computing functions, as mentioned here.

solusthewizard writes " The BBC is reporting that DoCoMo of Japan are delaying the launch of 3G for "further testing". This puts it back to October. Meanwhile, the Isle of Man are up there racing with DoCoMo for the first network. With the Telecomms industry slashing staff and being in so much debt, will Europe or the US ever see this technology? " I think the answer is yes, that this technology will roll out worldwide - but with the amount of debt and other business factors many of the telecoms have, we're going to see a lot of shake-out, IMHO.

solusthewizard writes " The BBC is reporting that DoCoMo of Japan are delaying the launch of 3G for "further testing". This puts it back to October. Meanwhile, the Isle of Man are up there racing with DoCoMo for the first network. With the Telecomms industry slashing staff and being in so much debt, will Europe or the US ever see this technology? " I think the answer is yes, that this technology will roll out worldwide - but with the amount of debt and other business factors many of the telecoms have, we're going to see a lot of shake-out, IMHO.

pHaze writes: "An article on BBC news says 39 Pharmaceutical companies have taken the South African Government to court to try and block legislation which gives the SA government powers to import or manufacturer cheaper versions of brand-name drugs, specifically HIV and AIDS medication. This is an interesting clash of intellectual property rights versus morality, and if the SA government wins this one (and it looks like they might), does it set a precedent on government's ability to violate international patents at will?"

H316 writes "On the BBC web site, I saw an article on an art exhibit about the art of failure. The exhibit is entitled "Dot-Gone." Here is a great example of why the net still has so many issues; this is an interesting story, but we get friggin' thumbnail sized pictures of the artworks. And only a couple of them at that. There's some clever stuff there, but a dozen hi-res photos would have made me extremely happy. That said, the story is really bandwagony (its as trendy today to rip on dot coms as it was 1.5 years ago to write about Linux, of course I'm biased ;). I'd actually like to see this show tho, some of the works sound interesting. Woulda been nice if they showed them to us. I guess I could reconstruct the business card one using all the business cards I keep in a fishbowl saved from tradeshows.

yoink! writes: "Yet another BBC story, run yesterday [April 12, 2001] indicates that scientists have discovered just why we need to munch after having toked. Apparently the chemical is used to try to stop weight loss; our brains, as with THC, have natural receptors for it Not that anyone actually smokes pot or anything, dude."

yoink! writes: "Yet another BBC story, run yesterday [April 12, 2001] indicates that scientists have discovered just why we need to munch after having toked. Apparently the chemical is used to try to stop weight loss; our brains, as with THC, have natural receptors for it Not that anyone actually smokes pot or anything, dude."

yoink! writes: "The BBC news service is running a story which indicates that previous global warming predictions failed to take the oceans and their temperatures into consideration. Those involved with the studies, according to the article, articulate our [homo sapiens'] important role in helping to warm earth's climate. This could very well add fuel to the debate between natural, polution independant, warming cycles and humanity's destruction of our only home."

yoink! writes: "The BBC news service is running a story which indicates that previous global warming predictions failed to take the oceans and their temperatures into consideration. Those involved with the studies, according to the article, articulate our [homo sapiens'] important role in helping to warm earth's climate. This could very well add fuel to the debate between natural, polution independant, warming cycles and humanity's destruction of our only home."

Doctor Fishboy writes: "Aurora are not restricted to our planet -- BBC news reports the sighting of Aurora on Jupiter for the first time. It looks as if it was a happy coincidence that the Hubble Space Telescope was looking at Jupiter when the aurora happened."

redGiraffe writes: "Engineers have test flown a prototype of the world's first robotic insect. Well, OK, not exactly an insect, but pretty small. Imagine future flight symms wired to fly size craft, you could have dog fights in a corner of your room, just keep your mouth shut."

LtCmdr.Com writes "The first blood "substitute" (it's actually an oxygen-transport fluid) has been registered for use in South Africa. This is a great idea, especially with the HIV rate around here. The relevant links: SABC, BBC." Their artificial blood is actually made from cow hemoglobin, so it's not quite as artificial as I was hoping, but it offers the advantage of greater shelf life and smaller risk of infection with human diseases than donated blood, according to the manufacturer.

TikkaMassala writes: "It seems the most powerful particle accelerator in the world has been fired up and accelerating particles. Maybe Tevatron will find the Higgs boson? Only time will tell. Due to its size and power, great things are expected from this PA. Check it out at the BBC. Fermilab's website is here."

Soft writes: "NASA's latest Mars probe has had a good launch on the first try. Stories at SpaceflightNow, CNN, and the BBC. The Delta rocket's onboard camera gave impressive pictures of the ascent..." Read the CNN story for an awesome picture from the nose of the rocket looking back. I want a print of that.

elcosmico sends news that monkey brains are being transplanted. Well, sort of. We post some weird stuff in the science section, don't we?

An anonymous reader pipes up: "Here's some cool news about actually using the jet stream to generate power." Nutshell: aircraft-mounted windmills that lounge in the jet stream. I'm imagining a huge area populated by these aircraft, each held up with a 4.5km electrified tether, and staying on North America for a while.

Slashback tonight with bits on those things that go up coming down; those things meant to go up but which save the trip and just stay down; a nitpicking dissenter (kidding!) on the spelling and goodness of automated supervisory privileges for Canadian televisions; and a nostalgic look back at the ring-mice of yesteryear.

One day it will happen, just not yet. The launch of India's first GSLV anticipated on Slashdot a few days ago appears to have flopped. As Jon Erikson writes: "The launch of the GSLV-D1 has failed. The takeoff was successful, but shortly after its launch flames could be seen coming from the side of the rocket and the launch was aborted. As of yet there is no explaination. The story is here at BBC News." And fiscally-minded defence budget points to Rediff's story on same.

Correction, correction! The name of the country is not "Kanada," either. Jeremy Burman of Toronto's Myubi Search Technologies wrote in response to the recent post about Canadian broadcasters' V-Chip readiness, saying: "You posted a Canadian V-Chip piece to Slashdot earlier today but, unfortunately, the source both misspelled and got the CBC's name wrong. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is one of our country's greatest treasures; the institution of the V-Chip will allow parents more freedom in allowing their children to watch shows, giving the kids control of their TV time and helping them learn independence that much sooner."

The real Canadian Broadcasting Corporation are the ones to blame or praise for all this child liberation, not the devious Candadian Broadcast Company.

Why we used these back in the boiler room, a hundred years ago, and they were old-hat then, too! Isaac Grover of the SJSU College of Engineering writes of the head-tracking pointer system which made a recent appearance on these pages:

"This is *not* new technology. In my Win3.1 days I used a similar device by Spectrum (now Kantek/Spectrum at www.kantek-spectrum.com) called the RingMouse. It has since gone unsupported by Spectrum, but they are still out there and in use (google:RingMouse).

And surprisingly it is still superior to the capabilities of the Naturalpoint device in that it was three-dimensional in applications that supported it."

Wei muss Alles Be Immer About Mir?! Unlike Iridium, which has been pretending to have human owners ever since it gained sentience a few months back, Mir has bit the bullet, bought the farm, shuffled off this mortal coil (or rather back onto it), and is no more. Except possibly for some big titanium balls. (Every space collector's dream?)

Cryptacool writes: "http://www.mirreentry.com posted videos (finally) but it doesn't seem to be the footage from the planes rather captured from a video camera on the ground." Knave trickery, but just as well, since none are available in a Linux-friendly format right now :(

And slathering writes: "CNN.com reports that there are decent odds of bits of charred Mir washing up on the shores of pacific islands. The guy they interviewed thinks that the pieces would be worthless but I imagine they'd fetch a reasonable amount of money on eBay."

Now how much would you pay?

An Anonymous Coward sent in: "The BBC is reporting on works of an Australian scientist who has been developing flying turbines that use the stable jet stream at 4.5 km altitude to generate electricity and send it back to the ground via cables."

benjymous writes: "The BBC have a news story about how the RIAA isn't too happy with Napster's current filtering system. They now want a system implemented whereby Napster can only distribute songs on the list of approved titles: 'The RIAA has asked the court to order Napster to use a "filter in" method, which would allow songs that Napster is authorised to distribute to be placed on its system, rather than blocking the swapping of copyrighted music placed on its service.'" (Read more.)

"So who would decide what songs go on this 'opt-in' list? The copyright holder or the RIAA?

In other words, if I want to distribute a 3-hour recording of me gargling (to which I would own the copyright), would I be able to add it to the opt-in list? If so, what's stopping anyone adding in any old song into the list. If not, who would be responsible for listening to all the material that is submitted, and deciding whether or not it should be added?"

I bet the completely trustworthy, infallably charitable Music Industry would like to be the one making that decision. They know what's best, and how much it should cost (per listen, ideally). Conceding control of what's on people's hard drives to large businesses with vested interests in limited fair use (however you define it) seems like a bad idea.

Andy Smith writes "British production company Celador is to launch an Internet version of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? as reported in this BBC story. This may interest Slashdot readers because the online competition, which will be free to enter, will feature "e-mercials". It's commonly accepted nowadays that the Net's traditional forms of advertising (banners, pop-ups and spam) have a very low success rate, so it seems inevitable that the next step is interruption-based advertising, which has worked fine for TV and radio. The Millionaire web site will display 7 second ads between rounds, and the player must watch them before continuing. E-mercials couldn't arrive in a more high-profile way, so once the online version of Millionaire launches we can expect to see similar ad systems used all over the web." Actually, rollouts of this have already been attempted - the media agencies called them "interstitals" and they are supposed to be 5 seconds between pages or so. Some of the drive behind this is that selling interruption-based ads is easier, because the media buyers who bought TV/radio ads are well familar with them.

This is, I hope, the last Mir story we'll be doing for a long while. Mir's dead. Controllers gave the de-orbit command at 12:08 AM EST, and it apparently came down just before 1 AM EST. Lots of stories out there, here are just a few: Space.com | AP | BBC. Remarkably, pieces of Mir are already being auctioned on Ebay. More information below.

Space.com is giving the splashdown time at 12:58 AM EST, which seems to agree with what everyone else is saying. Unless I can find a more precise time, I'll go with that.

Mir stats: first piece launched Feb. 20, 1986. Returned to Earth Mar. 23, 2001. Total orbits: 86,331 (that's a Trivial Pursuit question in the next edition, guaranteed). Longest stay: 438 days, Cosmonaut Valery Polyakov, currently the record-holder for longest stay in space. Debris footprint: 120 miles by 3,600 miles, centered around 44 S latitude and 150 W longitude.

Jacek Fedorynski took a look at Guess When Mir Will Splash and drew up this nice histogram of the guesses. He also notes that the median guess for Mir's return to Mother Earth was 2001-03-19 10:11:01.

Good guesses:

• 2001-03-23 02:02:02 - looks like 'cowkiller' is our champion Mir-guesser
• 2001-03-23 04:07:33
• 2001-03-23 04:27:42
• 2001-03-23 04:37:28
• 2001-03-22 21:37:19
• 2001-03-22 21:21:21
• 2001-03-23 06:12:25

Well, everybody and his brother wants to let us know that Mir is coming down, really, they mean it this time. Pick your favorite site to track its descent: Yahoo | NY Times | United States Space Command | Heavens Above | BBC. But Frederic Freidel provides an oddly personal note: what goes up must come down.

Jacek Fedorynski took a look at Guess When Mir Will Splash and drew up this nice histogram of the guesses. He also notes that the median guess for Mir's return to Mother Earth was 2001-03-19 10:11:01, so the collective wisdom of slashdot was off by a few days.

Nowhere in this slashdot story do we mention either the stupid Taco Hell advertising campaign or the space fungus or the Crashing Mir Space Station Detecto-Hat.

Midnight Thunder writes "There is an article over at the BBC stating that an NASA is refusing to allow a Russian-backed US businessman onto ISS. Maybe the 'I' doesn't stand for international?" The article suggests NASA would let him go if he had more training, which means he'll be up there eventually...

Midnight Thunder writes "There is an article over at the BBC stating that an NASA is refusing to allow a Russian-backed US businessman onto ISS. Maybe the 'I' doesn't stand for international?" The article suggests NASA would let him go if he had more training, which means he'll be up there eventually...

TDScott writes: "Well, it seems after H2G2 was bought out by the BBC, they've finally managed to get the site up and running again. But here's something new - all the guide entries, even the unapproved ones, are being moderated! Looks like the Beeb doesn't want anything objectionable on it's domain ..." I agree with hemos that E2 is overall a cooler place, but I think a lot of people will like even a bowlderized Hitchiker's Guide.

TDScott writes: "Well, it seems after H2G2 was bought out by the BBC, they've finally managed to get the site up and running again. But here's something new - all the guide entries, even the unapproved ones, are being moderated! Looks like the Beeb doesn't want anything objectionable on it's domain ..." I agree with hemos that E2 is overall a cooler place, but I think a lot of people will like even a bowlderized Hitchiker's Guide.

rm-r writes: "The BBC has a story here saying that two of the largest Martian volcanoes could still be active. The warmth provided by these could have produced conditions fit for life to develop." The article quotes Professor Tracy Gregg of the University of Buffalo, who says: "Of all the volcanoes on Mars, these volcanoes have the largest and greatest numbers of channels associated with them, indicating that there was a lot of water around when they were forming, though there doesn't appear to be any around now."

Tebubaga writes: "The BBC is reporting that IBM has won the contract to produce the next generation of micro-processors for Sony's Playstation 3 game console due sometime in 2004. Sony, IBM and Toshiba are joining toether to create a 'supercomputer on a chip' which sounds like the PS3 will be much more than just another games console. Quote, 'The result will be consumer devices that are more powerful than IBM's Deep Blue super-computer, operate at low power and access the broadband internet at ultra-high speeds". Bet it still won't do my laundry though...'

Ian writes "Scientists at the University of Surrey have developed an LED made entirely from silicon. This is a different approach to optoelectonics which had previously concentrated on nanocrystals. Full report from Nature, also coverage from the BBC, stand back and watch the patents fly (although in this case they are much more deserved)."

Celestius writes "This press release from NASA Ames states that 'An international team of researchers has discovered compelling evidence that the magnetite crystals in the martian meteorite ALH84001 are of biological origin,' and moreover that these crystals are not only older than any previously known form of life, but were also definitely formed before the meteor fell to Earth. Skeptics remain, of course, as quoted in this article from today's Chronicle, but suffice to say, NASA seems pretty confident." There's also a report on the BBC as well.

We'll start this off with Ant's submission -- a hilarious story about The Endor Holocaust which no doubt follows the destruction of the 2nd Death Star. After reading something so clear, confuse your mind confuse your mind (thanks to The Musician). Now that you are adequately confused, cardoso sent us a ridiculous flash app where you can control dancers. This will put you in the mood to enjoy the most retro homepage ever, sent in by mvw Got some money to burn? Check out the Spinal Tap Guitar which features among other things, chrome exhaust pipes and a tachometer that (of course) goes to 11. If you're not a musician, maybe you'd be interested in Randy Rathbun's link to personalized action figures: I could send in my mugshot and be immortalized in plastic, standing forever atop my monitors with Darth, Goku, and Trinity! Or maybe you wanna buy a Dalek? If you're on more of a budget, Jay Novak sent us a great t-shirt from copyleft considering all the layoffs around the net companies. With all of these great things to waste cash on, you might need some cash: geekguy sent in a funny list of ways to cash in on Doom without wasting time making a game (like for example, Doom breakfast serial! Free BFG inside!) Just get id to license ya! For you do-it-yourselfers, mr100percent submitted what might be the most impressive automotive MP3 player ever. The Pathintosh is a beautifully integrated Mac complete w/ steering wheel controls, and a custom bezel. And finally, the eycandy. First up is davco9200's link to Daily Astronomy Astropix which is actually pretty sweet: today is Mars Dunes. Second and last of all, the pr0n: Jeff K sent in Unix-Sex which features sysadmins getting it on w/ Sun Hardware. Thats why we don't let them work 3rd shift.

One year ago, we ran a story about the effects of Napster on the RIAA's 1999 profits, which Michael gave the great title: "Pirates Steal Negative $1,400,000,000 from Music Industry." It's a year later, the new numbers are out, and the RIAA is lying through their pointy little teeth about them. The AP wire story's second paragraph says "Sales of music compact discs fell by 39% last year," which they would have quickly seen was a blatant lie if they'd bothered to look at the numbers. Fortunately, Slashdot is here to bust up the spin. Keep reading, if you aren't afraid of numbers.

(Update one hour later by J : The story was on the AP wire, e.g. here, so it's not the BBC's fault. It was unfair of me to single out the Beeb when they just happened to be the source the submittor submitted this morning.)

The RIAA's figures were released last week, but the AP story was delayed until Monday, when the story would get the most exposure.

CD sales plummeted last year in the U.S. and record industry officials say the figures prove that Napster, the Internet music-sharing service, has harmed their business.

Sales of music compact discs fell by 39% last year according to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).

"Napster hurt record sales," said RIAA president Hilary Rosen.

This article reads like it might have been ghost-written by someone from the record industry. It isn't until paragraph ten that journalistic integrity kicks in enough for the AP to quietly mention what they're actually talking about:

Some experts say [sic] the drop of CD singles as being part of an industry-wide slump, due to economic factors and a weak year musically. (Emphasis mine.)

That's right, CD singles. Unit sales for the singles were down 39%, revenue down 36% (they raised prices, of course).

And CD singles account for how much of the RIAA's profits?

Not quite one percent.

Yes, that's right: they lost 36% of 1% of their profits.

And the news media is reporting it as a 39% loss.

The facts are that their "CD sales" are up this year, even over last year's stunning performance. The RIAA increased the average price of a full-length CD from $13.65 to $14.02, and still managed to sell 3,600,000 more of them.

Total profit increase on this, the core of their business, was 3.1%, or just shy of an extra $400,000,000.

But full-length CDs only account for 92% of the RIAA's revenue. They did have weak performance in the other 8%. CD singles, as already noted, dropped revenue by 36%. But the real casualty percentage-wise was cassingles, which lost over 90% of its revenue from last year.

Gee, why could that be? Maybe because nobody wants them?

In fact, the RIAA's only real money-losing format of any significance was cassettes, which, along with music videos, were the only format actually cut in price. Cassette revenue dropped $436 million.

Wait a minute, what am I saying? "Money-losing"? They aren't losing money on cassettes -- they're just not raking it in this year as fast as last year. And gee, why might that be? Again, because nobody wants them?

And it's not like the RIAA is struggling to get by on slim profits. The big picture is that, in the last nine years, they have tripled their annual income.

But they are desperate to spin this as a loss. The actual fact is that their total revenue is down 1.8% from 1999. Last year, they made $14,584,500,000. This year, they made $14,323,000,000.

But how could they blame Napster if they told the truth? What would they say? "Napster is killing us! Our income is down almost two whole percent! We are only pulling in $14,323,000,000 this year!"

That probably wouldn't fly.

Especially because in the three categories which Napster has precisely zero effect on -- cassettes, vinyl, and music videos -- their combined year-to-year loss was $579.5 million.

That's right. In the digital formats which Napster can trade, they are making more money: $318,500,000 more revenue. In the analog and video formats where Napster is irrelevant, they are making less money: $579,500,000 less revenue.

That's the real story here.

But don't trust the press to report this one fairly. Don't trust the RIAA's press release. Go read the RIAA's numbers yourself.

(Hell, don't even trust those numbers -- they don't add up. I was silly enough to type them into a spreadsheet, and someone over there has some problems doing simple arithmetic. Their 1998 total revenue includes the DVDs twice.)

The RIAA is desperately trying to spin this so that they won't look like greedy bastards for turning down Napster's offer of a billion dollars over the next five years.

If they just took that generous offer, then -- in a year that the AP wire suggests might be an "industry-wide slump, due to economic factors and a weak year musically," and in a year for which Bertlesmann admits "we didn't put that much good stuff out" -- their revenue would only be down $111,000,000 from last year. And that would have been $750,000,000 more than they made in 1998.

But that isn't enough for them.

Why would anyone think the RIAA is greedy? They just want what's coming to them.

(Update one hour later by J : Mea culpa. Three paragraphs up, I originally calculated the numbers as if the billion dollars was all applied in one year; that isn't so. The billion would have been applied equally over the next five years. Actually it probably wouldn't have been applied to year-2000 revenue at all, so it's more of a rhetorical point than anything. Thanks to dachshund for pointing out that it wasn't a lump-sum payment.)

(Update four hours later by J : The AP wire seems to have updated its story, now stating explicitly that it's CD singles, not "CDs," which dropped 39%. I see factually correct versions now at CNN, Salon, Yahoo, and wire.ap.org (search on Napster). The BBC version is still incorrect. In my opinion, the new versions are still misleading. Focusing on a large percentage drop within a subcategory which is a tiny percentage of the whole is a classic example of how to lie with statistics. But compare this to the RIAA's press release, claiming that CD singles had "flat growth in '98 and '99," though 1998 revenue actually dropped 22% -- that's just plain lying.)

One year ago, we ran a story about the effects of Napster on the RIAA's 1999 profits, which Michael gave the great title: "Pirates Steal Negative $1,400,000,000 from Music Industry." It's a year later, the new numbers are out, and the RIAA is lying through their pointy little teeth about them. The AP wire story's second paragraph says "Sales of music compact discs fell by 39% last year," which they would have quickly seen was a blatant lie if they'd bothered to look at the numbers. Fortunately, Slashdot is here to bust up the spin. Keep reading, if you aren't afraid of numbers.

(Update one hour later by J : The story was on the AP wire, e.g. here, so it's not the BBC's fault. It was unfair of me to single out the Beeb when they just happened to be the source the submittor submitted this morning.)

The RIAA's figures were released last week, but the AP story was delayed until Monday, when the story would get the most exposure.

CD sales plummeted last year in the U.S. and record industry officials say the figures prove that Napster, the Internet music-sharing service, has harmed their business.

Sales of music compact discs fell by 39% last year according to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).

"Napster hurt record sales," said RIAA president Hilary Rosen.

This article reads like it might have been ghost-written by someone from the record industry. It isn't until paragraph ten that journalistic integrity kicks in enough for the AP to quietly mention what they're actually talking about:

Some experts say [sic] the drop of CD singles as being part of an industry-wide slump, due to economic factors and a weak year musically. (Emphasis mine.)

That's right, CD singles. Unit sales for the singles were down 39%, revenue down 36% (they raised prices, of course).

And CD singles account for how much of the RIAA's profits?

Not quite one percent.

Yes, that's right: they lost 36% of 1% of their profits.

And the news media is reporting it as a 39% loss.

The facts are that their "CD sales" are up this year, even over last year's stunning performance. The RIAA increased the average price of a full-length CD from $13.65 to $14.02, and still managed to sell 3,600,000 more of them.

Total profit increase on this, the core of their business, was 3.1%, or just shy of an extra $400,000,000.

But full-length CDs only account for 92% of the RIAA's revenue. They did have weak performance in the other 8%. CD singles, as already noted, dropped revenue by 36%. But the real casualty percentage-wise was cassingles, which lost over 90% of its revenue from last year.

Gee, why could that be? Maybe because nobody wants them?

In fact, the RIAA's only real money-losing format of any significance was cassettes, which, along with music videos, were the only format actually cut in price. Cassette revenue dropped $436 million.

Wait a minute, what am I saying? "Money-losing"? They aren't losing money on cassettes -- they're just not raking it in this year as fast as last year. And gee, why might that be? Again, because nobody wants them?

And it's not like the RIAA is struggling to get by on slim profits. The big picture is that, in the last nine years, they have tripled their annual income.

But they are desperate to spin this as a loss. The actual fact is that their total revenue is down 1.8% from 1999. Last year, they made $14,584,500,000. This year, they made $14,323,000,000.

But how could they blame Napster if they told the truth? What would they say? "Napster is killing us! Our income is down almost two whole percent! We are only pulling in $14,323,000,000 this year!"

That probably wouldn't fly.

Especially because in the three categories which Napster has precisely zero effect on -- cassettes, vinyl, and music videos -- their combined year-to-year loss was $579.5 million.

That's right. In the digital formats which Napster can trade, they are making more money: $318,500,000 more revenue. In the analog and video formats where Napster is irrelevant, they are making less money: $579,500,000 less revenue.

That's the real story here.

But don't trust the press to report this one fairly. Don't trust the RIAA's press release. Go read the RIAA's numbers yourself.

(Hell, don't even trust those numbers -- they don't add up. I was silly enough to type them into a spreadsheet, and someone over there has some problems doing simple arithmetic. Their 1998 total revenue includes the DVDs twice.)

The RIAA is desperately trying to spin this so that they won't look like greedy bastards for turning down Napster's offer of a billion dollars over the next five years.

If they just took that generous offer, then -- in a year that the AP wire suggests might be an "industry-wide slump, due to economic factors and a weak year musically," and in a year for which Bertlesmann admits "we didn't put that much good stuff out" -- their revenue would only be down $111,000,000 from last year. And that would have been $750,000,000 more than they made in 1998.

But that isn't enough for them.

Why would anyone think the RIAA is greedy? They just want what's coming to them.

(Update one hour later by J : Mea culpa. Three paragraphs up, I originally calculated the numbers as if the billion dollars was all applied in one year; that isn't so. The billion would have been applied equally over the next five years. Actually it probably wouldn't have been applied to year-2000 revenue at all, so it's more of a rhetorical point than anything. Thanks to dachshund for pointing out that it wasn't a lump-sum payment.)

(Update four hours later by J : The AP wire seems to have updated its story, now stating explicitly that it's CD singles, not "CDs," which dropped 39%. I see factually correct versions now at CNN, Salon, Yahoo, and wire.ap.org (search on Napster). The BBC version is still incorrect. In my opinion, the new versions are still misleading. Focusing on a large percentage drop within a subcategory which is a tiny percentage of the whole is a classic example of how to lie with statistics. But compare this to the RIAA's press release, claiming that CD singles had "flat growth in '98 and '99," though 1998 revenue actually dropped 22% -- that's just plain lying.)

TDScott writes "Woohoo! After a bit of uncertainty, Douglas Adams' H2G2 community site is being integrated into BBC Online! Here's the BBC press release. Nice to know that it's going to survive." I like H2G2 - it reminds me a lot E2, which has a somewhat similar concept.

TDScott writes "Woohoo! After a bit of uncertainty, Douglas Adams' H2G2 community site is being integrated into BBC Online! Here's the BBC press release. Nice to know that it's going to survive." I like H2G2 - it reminds me a lot E2, which has a somewhat similar concept.

sykesm sent us this tale about genetically engineered fish. All I can say is, as soon as the first three-eyed fish comes out genetic engineering is going to have a crisis on its hands.