Slashdot Mirror

nerdyH writes "As recently as 2007, Linux users waited six months for Flash 9 to arrive. Now, with Microsoft pushing its Silverlight alternative, Adobe is touting the universality of its Flash format, which has penetrated '98 percent of Internet-enabled desktops,' it claims. And, it today released Flash 10 for Linux concurrently with other platforms. Welcome to the future." Handily enough, Real Networks released this summer RealPlayer 11 for Linux, the first release for which they've included a .deb package, and offers nightly builds of their Helix player, for which Linux is one of the supported platforms.

Slashdot contributor Bennett Haselton has written in with a tale of media rippers and corporate giants "In 2001 RealNetworks sued and blocked Streambox from distributing the Ripper, a program that let users rip and save RealAudio and RealVideo streams even if the stream contained a proprietary "do not copy" flag. Then one year ago this month, RealNetworks caused a stir by releasing a beta of RealPlayer 11 that similarly let the user record and save streams from sites like YouTube and Pandora. YouTube rippers and the like had existed before, but this was the first time a major company had included a stream ripper in its media player. And while RealPlayer 11 didn't explicitly ignore any copy protection flags, the release still provoked legal rumblings: in a Variety article by Scott Kirsner, an anonymous network exec said accused RealNetworks of 'aiding and abetting piracy' and said that they would 'more likely than not' take action against RealNetworks. But now that the feature has stayed in RealPlayer for a year, its real impact will be not on piracy but on the perceived legitimacy of ripping programs. The corporate behemoth, raked over the coals in the past for privacy violations and nuisance-ware, strikes a blow for free-culture hackers." The rest of Bennett's essay is available by following that magical link right below these words.

First, the reasons I don't think that RealPlayer has much effect on actual piracy. Yes, if a pirate has uploaded your favorite song to YouTube, you can save a copy of the video file to hear the song over and over, but you can do the same thing on YouTube itself as long as you're connected to the Internet. The anonymous network exec in the Variety article points out that RealPlayer "allows you to own [content] forever on your hard drive, even if the Web site that distributed that content illegally has taken it down in because we've complained." But regardless of what complaints they've been sending, almost all popular songs are currently available for listening on YouTube so that anyone with a Net connection can get them on demand, and that's a separate issue, with or without RealPlayer.

So then it becomes a question of whether RealPlayer enables the user to do more interesting things with the song or video, like take it with them on an iPod. RealPlayer only lets you save YouTube videos as an FLV file. But as long as doing things like playing an FLV file on an iPod requires an outside hack, that option is only available to people who are resourceful enough to go out and find tools like that (admittedly not a very high bar, but too hard for many people). So, suppose you define a "resourceful" person as someone smart enough to figure out how to convert an FLV file into an iPod-viewable format. Then there are two possibilities: (a) either a person is not that "resourceful", in which case if they want content to take with them, they'll still have to get it through legitimate channels like the iTunes store, or (b) if the person is "resourceful", they would have known about tools for ripping YouTube videos to MP3, long before RealPlayer 11 came out (in fact, most sites that come up in a search for "flv to mp3 converter" are just rippers specifically for YouTube). In either case, RealPlayer's ability to save FLV files has no impact on the market for the song.

I haven't talked about some outlier cases where RealPlayer could perhaps help a novice user avoid paying for content (if a novice pirate didn't know enough to download a movie from a BitTorrent network, they could perhaps save up enough interesting videos from YouTube for a long plane ride where they won't have Internet access). But there's an easy way to get a verdict on RealPlayer's impact on piracy: How much have you heard teenagers talking about it? You heard teens through the years buzzing about Napster, KaZaA, and BitTorrent, but... RealPlayer? The cliche among teenagers today is to go "find something on YouTube", but "and then grab it with RealPlayer" has yet to prove useful enough to enter the vernacular.

Similarly, RealPlayer can be used to rip streams from Pandora, but it's just hard enough to do it that most people are likely to give up. Before going into details, I should say that I'm against anyone trying to circumvent paying for music. Most of the time when you read that on the Web, it carries this nudge-wink subtext right before the author launches into a detailed description about how, exactly, to circumvent paying for music. But I really do believe that there is a vast untapped potential of unwritten good music out there, and that it could be tapped if there were only lower barriers of entry for musicians, better channels to distribute music to users, and a guarantee that users would pay instead of stealing it -- all of which is helped by services like Pandora. On the other hand, I also believe that if a copying scheme can be circumvented, and especially if it can be circumvented in a way that's fairly easy to discover, there's no point in keeping it secret: We might as well push things forward by acknowledging that the scheme is beatable, and deciding what to do about it.

The outing commences: if you save a stream from Pandora, RealPlayer will give you an error if you try to play the stream back from your RealPlayer library. But if you find the "mp4" file in your RealPlayer downloads, you can play it in WinAmp. However, the file as saved will not play in Windows Media Player, iTunes, or RealPlayer itself. Plus, since Pandora does not let you pick which song you want to listen to on demand, your stream might contain all the songs that you had to skip past to get the one you wanted, and you'd have to find a utility to edit the mp4 file to get rid of that cruft at the beginnig. At some point, the effort probably exceeds the dollar you'd have to pay to get the song on iTunes (or, if you're a pirate, the effort to find it on a p2p network).

Again, the "teenager buzz test" is instructive. You do hear kids these days talking about listening to songs on Pandora, but not about ripping them with RealPlayer.

Where I think RealPlayer will make the most difference in the long run is in its political and legal impact, by legitimizing stream-ripping as something that "real" companies, so to speak, are allowed to do. In 2006, Google sent a cease-and-desist letter to TechCrunch for hosting a tool that lets users save YouTube videos to their hard drives. Michael Arrington of TechCrunch blogged at the time, "I am likely to remove the tool to preserve my relationship with the company [Google/YouTube]", but the tool is still up, and I don't know whether it was ever taken down at all (TechCrunch did not respond to an inquiry). Today, there are more YouTube rippers than ever, several of them even running AdSense ads. (I'm not sure if that's within Google's rules, but I mentioned those sites while e-mailing back and forth with Google for this article, and they're all still running AdSense ads a week later.) Certainly Google would look pretty silly trying to force TechCrunch to take their ripper down today, now that Google itself is distributing RealPlayer as part of the Google Pack.

RealNetworks could argue that the main difference between RealPlayer 11, and the Streambox Ripper that they sued to have outlawed in 2001, was that the Streambox Ripper ignored the "do not copy" flag present in some RealAudio and RealVideo streams, and thus violated the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. RealNetworks says the do-not-copy flag is no longer used, having been supplanted by more sophisticated Digital Rights Management, and RealPlayer 11 will honor any DRM-protected streams and refuse to save them. But how much difference is there between "ignoring" the do-not-copy flag and "ignoring" the Terms of Service for sites like YouTube (which the program may not be aware of, but which its makers certainly are)?

We've all heard about the First Amendment implications of DeCSS code, the code for decrypting the copy-protection scheme on DVDs, being outlawed in the U.S. But the Streambox case set the bar for "violating the DMCA" considerably lower -- the Streambox Ripper didn't actively decrypt anything, it just ignored a flag set in the streaming media. What are the implications if "ignoring" a flag counts as "breaking" copy protection? Suppose Behemoth Corp releases Version 1 of some media format, and I release a third-party player that plays Version 1. Then Behemoth Corp releases the specs for Version 2 of the format, which is similar enough that it works in Version 1 players, except Version 2 now contains a "do-not-copy" flag, which my player doesn't know about. Is my player now illegal? (Well, in this case Behemoth Corp would just make sure that Version 2 doesn't play in Version 1 players. But what about general-purpose programs like Total Recorder that can record any sound playing through your computer to an MP3 file? Does that program become illegal if a company releases a new sound file format that they don't want to be copyable?) So I think the acceptance of RealPlayer has nudged us closer to legal acceptance of software that can interact with third-party sites and programs in a way that their makers don't like. That's good. It should not be against the law to make a program that interacts with third-party web sites in a way that they haven't given permission for, something I literally grew up saying.

It's brave of Google especially to be distributing RealPlayer along with the Google Pack, at the same time that YouTube is constantly attacked for enabling copyright violations. A content owner mounting a lawsuit against Google, would be foolish not to say something like, "Your Honor, not only does YouTube host thousands of videos violating the intellectual property rights of my clients, they even distribute a tool called RealPlayer that lets people violate YouTube's own Terms of Service by saving the videos to their hard drive!" Logically, of course, it's a weak argument -- RealPlayer is universally available whether Google distributes it or not -- but rhetorically the argument is golden.

On the other hand, since that hasn't happened, and RealPlayer 11 is pretty well entrenched after being out for a year, the result has probably been an expansion of our rights. Anyone else who got sued or threatened for releasing a ripping program would be able to point to RealNetworks. "Look at them, Your Honor, their Web site even tells people, 'Grab videos from thousands of Web sites with just one click', something that those 'thousands of Web sites' would probably not be thrilled with. If it's legal for RealNetworks to tell people that, how can it be illegal for me just to have a ripping program on my site?"

If a small-time programmer had made themselves a legal test case before RealPlayer 11 came out, things might have gone differently; it is an unfortunate truth that courts are probably more likely to consider something legal when it is done by a large and legitimate-looking company like RealNetworks. Big companies do well in court partly because their lawyers are paid to make good arguments, but they almost certainly also get more benefit of the doubt just by virtue of being big companies. I think the time is long overdue for using controlled experiments to measure the bias and objectivity of judges -- for example, having different actors, one white and one black, go into different courtrooms for "mock trials" (which the judges think are real), where both actors are standing trial for exactly identical crimes and their lawyers say exactly identical things, and repeat this experiment enough times to see how differently black and white defendants are treated. (We already see this, for example, in the disparity of sentences for powder cocaine vs. crack, but skeptics may have a point when they say that's not a controlled experiment, because the effects of crack and cocaine are different.) Similarly, have mock trials where a small-time "activist" and a large company are sued for doing exactly the same thing. I would bet that the disparity in the outcomes of those cases would far exceed any bias due to race or gender.

But since it was RealNetworks, with their lawyers and their NASDAQ listing and their former exec in the U.S. Senate, that brought ripping to the masses, that probably makes it OK for you and me. It's not fair, but in this case, it's a good thing.

Slashdot contributor Bennett Haselton has written in with a tale of media rippers and corporate giants "In 2001 RealNetworks sued and blocked Streambox from distributing the Ripper, a program that let users rip and save RealAudio and RealVideo streams even if the stream contained a proprietary "do not copy" flag. Then one year ago this month, RealNetworks caused a stir by releasing a beta of RealPlayer 11 that similarly let the user record and save streams from sites like YouTube and Pandora. YouTube rippers and the like had existed before, but this was the first time a major company had included a stream ripper in its media player. And while RealPlayer 11 didn't explicitly ignore any copy protection flags, the release still provoked legal rumblings: in a Variety article by Scott Kirsner, an anonymous network exec said accused RealNetworks of 'aiding and abetting piracy' and said that they would 'more likely than not' take action against RealNetworks. But now that the feature has stayed in RealPlayer for a year, its real impact will be not on piracy but on the perceived legitimacy of ripping programs. The corporate behemoth, raked over the coals in the past for privacy violations and nuisance-ware, strikes a blow for free-culture hackers." The rest of Bennett's essay is available by following that magical link right below these words.

First, the reasons I don't think that RealPlayer has much effect on actual piracy. Yes, if a pirate has uploaded your favorite song to YouTube, you can save a copy of the video file to hear the song over and over, but you can do the same thing on YouTube itself as long as you're connected to the Internet. The anonymous network exec in the Variety article points out that RealPlayer "allows you to own [content] forever on your hard drive, even if the Web site that distributed that content illegally has taken it down in because we've complained." But regardless of what complaints they've been sending, almost all popular songs are currently available for listening on YouTube so that anyone with a Net connection can get them on demand, and that's a separate issue, with or without RealPlayer.

So then it becomes a question of whether RealPlayer enables the user to do more interesting things with the song or video, like take it with them on an iPod. RealPlayer only lets you save YouTube videos as an FLV file. But as long as doing things like playing an FLV file on an iPod requires an outside hack, that option is only available to people who are resourceful enough to go out and find tools like that (admittedly not a very high bar, but too hard for many people). So, suppose you define a "resourceful" person as someone smart enough to figure out how to convert an FLV file into an iPod-viewable format. Then there are two possibilities: (a) either a person is not that "resourceful", in which case if they want content to take with them, they'll still have to get it through legitimate channels like the iTunes store, or (b) if the person is "resourceful", they would have known about tools for ripping YouTube videos to MP3, long before RealPlayer 11 came out (in fact, most sites that come up in a search for "flv to mp3 converter" are just rippers specifically for YouTube). In either case, RealPlayer's ability to save FLV files has no impact on the market for the song.

I haven't talked about some outlier cases where RealPlayer could perhaps help a novice user avoid paying for content (if a novice pirate didn't know enough to download a movie from a BitTorrent network, they could perhaps save up enough interesting videos from YouTube for a long plane ride where they won't have Internet access). But there's an easy way to get a verdict on RealPlayer's impact on piracy: How much have you heard teenagers talking about it? You heard teens through the years buzzing about Napster, KaZaA, and BitTorrent, but... RealPlayer? The cliche among teenagers today is to go "find something on YouTube", but "and then grab it with RealPlayer" has yet to prove useful enough to enter the vernacular.

Similarly, RealPlayer can be used to rip streams from Pandora, but it's just hard enough to do it that most people are likely to give up. Before going into details, I should say that I'm against anyone trying to circumvent paying for music. Most of the time when you read that on the Web, it carries this nudge-wink subtext right before the author launches into a detailed description about how, exactly, to circumvent paying for music. But I really do believe that there is a vast untapped potential of unwritten good music out there, and that it could be tapped if there were only lower barriers of entry for musicians, better channels to distribute music to users, and a guarantee that users would pay instead of stealing it -- all of which is helped by services like Pandora. On the other hand, I also believe that if a copying scheme can be circumvented, and especially if it can be circumvented in a way that's fairly easy to discover, there's no point in keeping it secret: We might as well push things forward by acknowledging that the scheme is beatable, and deciding what to do about it.

The outing commences: if you save a stream from Pandora, RealPlayer will give you an error if you try to play the stream back from your RealPlayer library. But if you find the "mp4" file in your RealPlayer downloads, you can play it in WinAmp. However, the file as saved will not play in Windows Media Player, iTunes, or RealPlayer itself. Plus, since Pandora does not let you pick which song you want to listen to on demand, your stream might contain all the songs that you had to skip past to get the one you wanted, and you'd have to find a utility to edit the mp4 file to get rid of that cruft at the beginnig. At some point, the effort probably exceeds the dollar you'd have to pay to get the song on iTunes (or, if you're a pirate, the effort to find it on a p2p network).

Again, the "teenager buzz test" is instructive. You do hear kids these days talking about listening to songs on Pandora, but not about ripping them with RealPlayer.

Where I think RealPlayer will make the most difference in the long run is in its political and legal impact, by legitimizing stream-ripping as something that "real" companies, so to speak, are allowed to do. In 2006, Google sent a cease-and-desist letter to TechCrunch for hosting a tool that lets users save YouTube videos to their hard drives. Michael Arrington of TechCrunch blogged at the time, "I am likely to remove the tool to preserve my relationship with the company [Google/YouTube]", but the tool is still up, and I don't know whether it was ever taken down at all (TechCrunch did not respond to an inquiry). Today, there are more YouTube rippers than ever, several of them even running AdSense ads. (I'm not sure if that's within Google's rules, but I mentioned those sites while e-mailing back and forth with Google for this article, and they're all still running AdSense ads a week later.) Certainly Google would look pretty silly trying to force TechCrunch to take their ripper down today, now that Google itself is distributing RealPlayer as part of the Google Pack.

RealNetworks could argue that the main difference between RealPlayer 11, and the Streambox Ripper that they sued to have outlawed in 2001, was that the Streambox Ripper ignored the "do not copy" flag present in some RealAudio and RealVideo streams, and thus violated the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. RealNetworks says the do-not-copy flag is no longer used, having been supplanted by more sophisticated Digital Rights Management, and RealPlayer 11 will honor any DRM-protected streams and refuse to save them. But how much difference is there between "ignoring" the do-not-copy flag and "ignoring" the Terms of Service for sites like YouTube (which the program may not be aware of, but which its makers certainly are)?

We've all heard about the First Amendment implications of DeCSS code, the code for decrypting the copy-protection scheme on DVDs, being outlawed in the U.S. But the Streambox case set the bar for "violating the DMCA" considerably lower -- the Streambox Ripper didn't actively decrypt anything, it just ignored a flag set in the streaming media. What are the implications if "ignoring" a flag counts as "breaking" copy protection? Suppose Behemoth Corp releases Version 1 of some media format, and I release a third-party player that plays Version 1. Then Behemoth Corp releases the specs for Version 2 of the format, which is similar enough that it works in Version 1 players, except Version 2 now contains a "do-not-copy" flag, which my player doesn't know about. Is my player now illegal? (Well, in this case Behemoth Corp would just make sure that Version 2 doesn't play in Version 1 players. But what about general-purpose programs like Total Recorder that can record any sound playing through your computer to an MP3 file? Does that program become illegal if a company releases a new sound file format that they don't want to be copyable?) So I think the acceptance of RealPlayer has nudged us closer to legal acceptance of software that can interact with third-party sites and programs in a way that their makers don't like. That's good. It should not be against the law to make a program that interacts with third-party web sites in a way that they haven't given permission for, something I literally grew up saying.

It's brave of Google especially to be distributing RealPlayer along with the Google Pack, at the same time that YouTube is constantly attacked for enabling copyright violations. A content owner mounting a lawsuit against Google, would be foolish not to say something like, "Your Honor, not only does YouTube host thousands of videos violating the intellectual property rights of my clients, they even distribute a tool called RealPlayer that lets people violate YouTube's own Terms of Service by saving the videos to their hard drive!" Logically, of course, it's a weak argument -- RealPlayer is universally available whether Google distributes it or not -- but rhetorically the argument is golden.

On the other hand, since that hasn't happened, and RealPlayer 11 is pretty well entrenched after being out for a year, the result has probably been an expansion of our rights. Anyone else who got sued or threatened for releasing a ripping program would be able to point to RealNetworks. "Look at them, Your Honor, their Web site even tells people, 'Grab videos from thousands of Web sites with just one click', something that those 'thousands of Web sites' would probably not be thrilled with. If it's legal for RealNetworks to tell people that, how can it be illegal for me just to have a ripping program on my site?"

If a small-time programmer had made themselves a legal test case before RealPlayer 11 came out, things might have gone differently; it is an unfortunate truth that courts are probably more likely to consider something legal when it is done by a large and legitimate-looking company like RealNetworks. Big companies do well in court partly because their lawyers are paid to make good arguments, but they almost certainly also get more benefit of the doubt just by virtue of being big companies. I think the time is long overdue for using controlled experiments to measure the bias and objectivity of judges -- for example, having different actors, one white and one black, go into different courtrooms for "mock trials" (which the judges think are real), where both actors are standing trial for exactly identical crimes and their lawyers say exactly identical things, and repeat this experiment enough times to see how differently black and white defendants are treated. (We already see this, for example, in the disparity of sentences for powder cocaine vs. crack, but skeptics may have a point when they say that's not a controlled experiment, because the effects of crack and cocaine are different.) Similarly, have mock trials where a small-time "activist" and a large company are sued for doing exactly the same thing. I would bet that the disparity in the outcomes of those cases would far exceed any bias due to race or gender.

But since it was RealNetworks, with their lawyers and their NASDAQ listing and their former exec in the U.S. Senate, that brought ripping to the masses, that probably makes it OK for you and me. It's not fair, but in this case, it's a good thing.

rahuja asks: "Buying and using digital music is a far from easy decision today - there are various competing and incompatible formats, stores and players out there in the market, primarily Apple (AAC + iTunes + iPod), Windows (WMA + various stores + WMA-compatible players), and Sony (Atrac3 + Connect.com + Walkman). How do you then ensure that the music and player you buy today will not be incompatible with your player, online store or the OS?" "Burning to audio CD and ripping back is always possible, but it is a painfully slow process and all tag information (song, album, artiste) is lost in the process.

In the past, I've used Sony Connect [Ed: IE 5.5+ only] (thanks to a $10 card I got with a Sony CD Walkman), which locks you in to Sony-only devices, and later, WMA with MSN Music and a Creative Muvo Micro N200. My player just died, and I'm too scared to lock myself into a new player/format/store now. iPod doesn't have an FM tuner yet, and my WMA tracks will be useless if next year I switch to Mac once the new x86 Powerbooks come out. I'm not sure how real Real's Harmony is, and JHymn doesn't support iTunes 6 yet.

In an ideal world we'd all have OGG-based players with FM tuner, and access to DRM-less music, or at least a universal, compatible format.

How are you dealing with this issue? Or is it just me?"

jasonmicron asks: "I am curious as to what you Linux/UNIX people use for a media player that supports both license lookup on the internet and DVD Playback support. I am quite sick of Microsoft's media player telling me that my 'license is invalid', even on DVDs that I own. I find that VERY lame. I ask because not only does Microsoft tell me that my license is invalid but Real Network's Real Player tells me the same thing (even though I place my totally VALID and self-owned DVD in my DVD-ROM player in my DVD-ROM, which runs on Windows). What media players does Slashdot recommend to bypass the total ignorance of Microsoft and Real Networks? I am looking for a Windows solution, though any Linux / UNIX solution is completely welcome."

SlimySlimy writes "This month, streaming audio turns 10. Though first introduced by Real, streaming multimedia is so commonplace today it's hard to believe that it didn't even exist 10 years ago. In line with one of their previous press releases, RealNetworks has released a mysterious website and letter from CEO Rob Glaser celebrating 10 years of Internet streaming audio, as well as announcing a yet-to-be-revealed 'revolution' in digital media. 'On April 26, we are changing the rules of the Internet again, and digital music will never be the same.' Here is their press release from 1995 (when they were still Progressive Networks) announcing the first streaming Internet multimedia."

SlimySlimy writes "This month, streaming audio turns 10. Though first introduced by Real, streaming multimedia is so commonplace today it's hard to believe that it didn't even exist 10 years ago. In line with one of their previous press releases, RealNetworks has released a mysterious website and letter from CEO Rob Glaser celebrating 10 years of Internet streaming audio, as well as announcing a yet-to-be-revealed 'revolution' in digital media. 'On April 26, we are changing the rules of the Internet again, and digital music will never be the same.' Here is their press release from 1995 (when they were still Progressive Networks) announcing the first streaming Internet multimedia."

kforeman (aka Kevin Foreman, GM of Helix RealNetworks, Inc.) writes "As part of the free RealPlayer 10 for Linux, Real has paid Thomson for a legal MP3 playback license and then includes it at no cost as part of the newly released RealPlayer 10. As I speak to people, many are under the false impression that MP3 playback patent and royalty rights are free, since there are open source implementations of MP3 playback available. Not true. Nonetheless, we are glad to do our part of making the Linux desktop a first class citizen by legally providing MP3 playback to users via our new RealPlayer."

kforeman writes "The RealPlayer 10 for Linux and its underlying 100% open source Helix Player are now both finalized. The RealPlayer 10 for Linux has many new features including a Mozilla plug-in, so you can now enjoy all those embedded media clips, as well as the latest RealAudio 10, RealVideo 10, MP3, Flash, and Ogg Vorbis and Theora support. The Helix Player is 100% open source, (now including the GPL!) and includes support for SMIL 2.0 and open source codecs Ogg Vorbis and Theora. Our goal is to make the Linux desktop a first class citizen and we think today's releases are a good first step in that direction."

alphakappa writes "According to Cnet, Real Networks is expected to announce on Monday that it has found a way to make its songs play on the iPod. Now songs bought from the RealPlayer Music Store can be played on the iPod. Earlier Real had made it possible for songs bought from iTunes to be played on RealPlayer by transparently starting the iTunes authentication in the background. However since Apple has not licensed the technology to make file formats playable on the iPod, the latest Real initiative could be construed as reverse engineering. How would this fare under the DMCA? Or is it just for the tiny ones?"

An anonymous reader writes "The new RealPlayer 10 beta was released for Mac OS X. It's got a built-in web browser built off Apple's WebKit. This, along with all the Mac-specific UI tweaks, makes for a pretty solid release overall, imho." lucadex writes "Open Office 1.1.2 has been officially released on Mac OS X. This is the first official O.O. upgrade since version 1.0.3." Tom Davies writes "Oracle has released an early adopter's release of 10g for Mac OS X." adamhauner writes "Mozilla.org released final version of Camino 0.8, a Gecko-based browser optimized for Mac OS X with a Cocoa user interface. This version, besides having other new features, also upgrades the Gecko HTML rendering engine from Mozilla 1.0 to Mozilla 1.7."

Mz6 writes "The New York Times and others are reporting that RealNetworks and the Starz Encore Group will introduce an online service today that will let high-speed Internet users download and watch many of the movies shown on the Starz cable channel. This report is just on the heels of TiVo's announcement to stream from the Web. This move is another early attempt by Hollywood to build a business out of downloadable movies and head off the sort of piracy that has hurt the music industry. The new service, called Starz Ticket on Real Movies, will cost $12.95 a month, and subscribers will be able to download and watch 100 or more movies each month, using Real's media player software, but only if you have a 600Kbps connection or higher."

Mz6 writes "The New York Times and others are reporting that RealNetworks and the Starz Encore Group will introduce an online service today that will let high-speed Internet users download and watch many of the movies shown on the Starz cable channel. This report is just on the heels of TiVo's announcement to stream from the Web. This move is another early attempt by Hollywood to build a business out of downloadable movies and head off the sort of piracy that has hurt the music industry. The new service, called Starz Ticket on Real Movies, will cost $12.95 a month, and subscribers will be able to download and watch 100 or more movies each month, using Real's media player software, but only if you have a 600Kbps connection or higher."

Frustrated Son asks: "I assume that many Slashdot readers must serve as the IT staff for their parents. My folks get my old machines and just enough software to be productive. I try to protect my parents from the forces of evil by installing automatic OS updates, virus checkers, spyware blockers, pop-up blockers... But still I find that my parents end up with unwanted applications and dangerous software. What software or strategies do you use to protect your parents' PCs? Is it possible for inexperienced users to surf the net in safety?"

Karl Cocknozzle writes "European Union antitrust officials have dismissed as insufficient Microsoft's offer to settle their most recent antitrust problem in Europe. Spokespeople for the European Commission and Microsoft declined to comment on a report in today's Financial Times that Microsoft had offered to include rival media player software from Apple and Real Networks on a CD-ROM packaged with personal computers to help resolve the case. Previously, the EU had demanded that Microsoft either unbundle Windows Media Player, or also bundle rival media players with Windows. It appears that Microsoft might get more than a slap on the wrist this time around."

prostoalex writes "British Next-Generation Security Software discovered three vulnerabilities in popular Real Player. A malicious attacker can execute arbitrary code by offering corrupted RealAudio stream. Real Networks posted the instructions on dealing with security flaws."

olcrazypete writes: "Click and Clack are apparently fed up with Real Networks. They have switched to Windows Media Player format. 'Why? Because, for a long time, we've had tons of complaints about RealNetworks. And the one that ticks us off the most is the perceived trickery they use to sell their premium products. This is just our opinion, mind you, but it's shared by enough of our listeners, that we finally decided to take action.' The whole story is here . My favorite line: 'It stinks so much that it even makes Microsoft look good by comparison. That's something, huh?'"

BileDog writes "RealNetworks today announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Seattle-based GameHouse, Inc., a top developer, publisher and distributor of downloadable PC games, in a cash and stock transaction valued at approximately $35.6 million. Seems that online 'casual gaming' creators are starting to consolidate in a similar way to their offline counterparts." PC World has further comments on this deal, explaining: "RealNetworks' RealArcade competes with products such as Microsoft's MSN Games, Yahoo Games, and Pogo.com from Electronic Arts", and including an analyst's comments that: "By acquiring GameHouse, RealNetworks now has control over the content and no longer has to depend on what third parties develop." Apparently, full control over Thomas Kinkade online jigsaws is pretty important in reaching the true mass market.

kforeman writes "You may have heard Real's many announcements today, including the release of RealPlayer 10 with vastly improved codecs, as well as our new Music Store. As a result of the player engine being developed in the Helix community, we're able to offer the benefits of the new RealAudio and RealVideo in in the Helix Player for Linux. We read Slashdot here at Real, especially when the subject of our company or technology comes up, so we know some of you may not have liked recent versions of our player. This release represents a much friendlier direction for us; more options that were 'opt-out' are now 'opt-in'. In developing RealVideo 10, our codec team has been working closely with the Doom9 community, and has been posting updates to that forum (look for references to RV9-EHQ). The tests that have been performed by that community show RealVideo doing quite well against the competition." There's a CNET News article discussing the announcements, including the jukebox's ability to play "secure downloads from the iTunes store", for those looking for another point of view.

Cinematique writes "C|Net is reporting that RealNetworks has released a format-independent Digital Rights Management software called Helix DRM. Real states that MP3, AAC, and even OGG can now be released with a DRM wrapper. And this is groundbreaking how? More importantly, do they expect content producers and consumers alike to really adopt this?"

Spooky Suicide asks: "I own a slightly naughty website that among other things makes 20 some odd videos available for download in MPEG2 and MPEG4 format. I recently received a written letter from Acacia Research telling me my delivery of video is infringing upon some of their patents and I must choose between either licensing their technology or settling this issue in court. I called the EFF who told me they don't specialize in patent issues and don't know what to do next. Obviously, if all video on the web infringes on their patent, you'd think they'd go after the big guys, but they seem to be going after little content providers who can't afford to fight them in court. I can't help but feel like I'm being shaken down by the hi-tech version of Tony Soprano, what should I do? Anyone else dealt with these guys or no of any group of people grouping together to fight this?"

JakiChan writes "Finally Mac OS X users can view stunning RealAudio and RealVideo streams. OmniWeb doesn't seem to like it, but IE and Moz appear to play embedded streams just fine." Be careful, it's a beta.

Slashback entries tonight convey updates on the upcoming Ender's Game movie, one (of many) dissenting voices about impressive network bandwidth, Ogg at the Beeb, and Cool Chips. Read on for more, and enjoy!

When it comes to records, context begets significance. Fandu writes: "In regards to the article about the new internet2 land speed record.. That is not correct, The Canadian CA*Net3 network is about 60X faster still. It may be a net speed record for Internet2, but it's certainly no new internet speed record. See the ABC Article about the network from a few years back and the NOC webpage."

And no one is in line for tickets yet? flea writes: "So, fans of orson scott card (to whom I was turned onto by luna) should be happy. The books Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow are on the track to being made into a movie. Script is being written and OSC is involved in the process. It's being made by Wolfgan Petersen, who has a few hits and misses (http://us.imdb.com/Name?Petersen,+Wolfgang); Air Force One and Outbreak are, well, ya know ... To his credit though, he did Enemy Mine, the movie with Louis Gossett Jr. playing the speach impediment'd alien trapped on a rock after a battle with Dennis Quaid and then LGj gives birth (wtf). C'mon, we all liked that. Anyway, it hasn't even started filming yet and the script isn't done, but things look good. More info here."

Speak up for Ogg Vorbis! SgtChaireBourne writes: "The BBC's testing period for Ogg Vorbis is now finished, but they are still soliciting feedback.

Now's the chance to add any words of encouragement to the BBC regarding Ogg, especially since, perhaps by oversight, RealOne (formerly RealPlayer) is now only available for Windows 98, 2000, ME, NT and XP. Currently, the download page for older versions seem to turn up empty for all requests for Linux versions, but deep links can still get you there.

As far as I can tell, the BBC is the first large (or even medium) news service to try Ogg. Here is last year's announcment on Slashdot about the start of the test."

"Sounds cool." blocksetter writes: "Cool Chips plc appreciates the interest of the Slashdot community. We've made an effort to address the points raised in last week's discussion of our technology and we've posted the resulting FAQ on our site. In the interest of conserving bandwidth, a text-only version is available for your viewing pleasure. We would like to thank everybody whose questions and criticisms inspired us to do this.

If there is something we haven't covered, you can also write directly to Cool Chips President Isaiah Cox, or to myself, Company Wonky Chris Bourne."

pinqkandi writes "Network Computing recently ran an extensive shootout of video streaming servers, in areas from setup to quality to buffering times. The free, open source Darwin Streaming Server, which streams QuickTime content, edged out costly and closed source Windows Media & RealVideo streaming systems." Well, it edged out Real. It blew Microsoft away.

MattW writes "Yahoo is carrying an article from the AP about a development in ongoing Napster litigation. Several major labels and RealNetworks formed MusicNet. Napster complained about an anti-competitive clause in the contract they signed with MusicNet, and Marilyn Hall Patel, best known to this community for her stern condemnation of Napster, agreed, stating that MusicNet had all the hallmarks of an anticompetitive business. The article goes on to state that, "If the recording industry was found to have misused its copyrighted material, it might not be able to successfully pursue an infringement claim on those works.""

Kurobara writes: "just thought everyone would like to know that the NEW LOTR trailer is avabile online (stream only for now). I'd give a description but I'll let the trailer speek for itself, suffice to say it rocks ^_^ (spotted on theonering.net)" It's not at all easy to find the new trailer - if you see the flame and ring, you're looking at the old one. First words of the new one are "Legend tells of a ring...". Ah, here we go: Old Wolf writes: "The latest trailer for Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring can be streamed here, or downloaded in full. Only Real format at this stage unfortunately. A collection of .jpg stills and commentary can be found here at TORN."

Cabal writes: "I recently came across this article on Linux Journal. It discusses some of the more interesting legal ramifications of the theft of Microsoft's source code that I hadn't even thought of and it's effect on open-source projects. Basically, it's saying don't go near any code claiming to be stolen from MS, and with good reason, including quotations from the Samba project. Check it out, it's a good read."

Dean Siren asks: "Now that Apple has released the Quicktime 5 Public Preview, they've upgraded their video codec to Sorenson 3 from Sorenson 2 which Jeremy Neish says pales in comparison to MPEG4 and its derivatives. So, how well does Sorenson 3 compete against MPEG4 as far as quality per bitrate, processor demand, compression times, and streaming are concerned? Can Apple now stay ahead of DivX, Windows Media Player 7 and Real Player 8?" Neish notes that none of the latest codecs are not compatible with Unix so only Mac and Windows users get to take advantage of the latest in digital video formats. When someone gets around to fixing this, then I can again get excited about Quicktime, until then it's just another format to me (and yet another reason why I have to have a Windows box lying around).

Lets start this off with some homework: we were nominated for a 2000 Webby in Community. Please go vote for us (requires annoying login, but please do it anyway! I want a crappy little trophy!) Now with the 'biz outta the way, brainsik pointed us to the Brainshaker: a headmounted subwoofer that looks like it would make Quake a bit to real. Plastik noted a web filter guaranteed to offend the conservative and humorless. But it makes reading Slashdot damn entertaining. And if you're interesting in violating most religions, vkulkarn found an "Escort" who apparently reads Slashdot (will she go out with CowboyNeal?) Speaking of religion, Zippy noted that I am apparently a prophet in the Church of The Enlightenment , along with Jay Stile of Stileproject . Illiad, from Userfriendly.org is a bard. webword sent us CalculusGirls.com which combines 2 of the many things I don't understand. Andy Lester noted that Brunching Shuttlecocks has a book on "Fuzzy Logic Functions", in the style of O'Reilly. yek401 noted that his english professor builds barbie doll cyborgs: god bless tenure ;) Trenchcoat Steve warned us about Moon Land Registry which claims to be selling land on the moon for $10/acre: you even get a deed and mineral rights... and it might be legal! Gravey noted that their are two new Reboot movies going into production. For you conspiracy theorists, backtick noted that everyone's favorite software monopoly might be getting into the furniture biz along with Lazyboy. SgtPepper pointed us to RFC 2795 which "describes a protocol suite which supports an infinite number of monkeys that sit at an infinite number of typewriters" ucsimon noted that LegoLand in California just gota liquor license. Mind you after a few shots of vodka, finding a 2x2 blue block takes a lot longer. Let's wrap up with jyuter's note that Comedy Central has vid clips of the south park kids doing Python's parrot sketch in Quicktime or Real.

fReNeTiK writes, "RealNetworks have announced their licensing of the Microsoft Windows Media streaming format. That brings the number of codecs supported by RealPlayer to 9. CNet story here, Heise News (German) here. This, of course raises an important question: Realplayer being available under Linux, will the next version include the new codec, bringing WMF streaming to Linux and Unix in general?" Based on how slowly RealPlayer has ported their clients to Linux and Unix in the past, it may be a while until we find out. I would personally prefer an open source media player if the codec patent issues can be handled, but sometimes (sigh) you just have to make do with hand-me-downs because they're all you're going to get for a while.

Dobromir Montauk wrote to us to say that Real has released the new RealPlayer 7 beta for glibc 2.0. The installation seems to be nicer than the last one, with support of mime types amongst other improvements. Now, if it doesn't crash my browser, we'll be getting somewhere.

Note: This is part one of a two-part series.

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) was passed by Congress and signed into law more than a year ago, but its true impact is only beginning to be felt. Corporatism squared off brazenly against the geeks, and handily won Round One. If you're wondering where your Napster really went, read more below.

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act is an especially devious title for one of the most significant pieces of Internet legislation yet passed. If you're looking for insight into how corporatism and politics work together to control software and technology -- and to potentially stifle free speech and individual choice -- you can't do better. Nor will you find a more textbook-perfect example of dubious, perhaps even unconstitutional, Internet law.

This is how the struggle over who owns ideas, software and intellectual property on the Internet will be waged; Round One in the battle that is pitting corporatism against the geeks. They won.

The DMCA -- largely the fruit of massive lobbying by the entertainment industry, including companies like Time Warner, Disney and other giants of recording and movie industry -- was passed quietly 16 months ago by a normally acrimonious Congress, and immediately signed by the President. Despite the law's profound and far-reaching implications, Clinton's signing of the measure drew little media attention, online or off, and only in the last few months has its impact begun to be felt.

Central to the law is a clause making it illegal to thwart copyright protection methods through the use of software or hardware. Without that power, argued the lobbyists for record labels, traditional publishers and film studios, their industries would be run out of business by the newly empowered Net generation. This is a generation, mostly young, who've discovered that they could create their own culture on the Net, and get the music they wanted rather than pick only from the choices preselected for them by the music industry. And for free, no less. Thousands of artists who wouldn't have gotten through the record industry's artist-selection machine suddenly had channels to distribute their work and find new audiences. Music software is a powerful example of how the Net gave individuals -- especially ones far removed from corporate models of culture and creativity -- a chance to be seen and heard. And it gave music lovers a chance to hear them as well.

And although the law passed more than a year ago (despite opposition to DMCA by the Electronic Frontier Foundation and other online free-speech activists, the Act's proponents and their lawyers took their time strategizing about exactly how to enforce and implement it.

This year, the gloves came off -- and suddenly people at colleges all over the country are wondering what happened to their Napster sites. Despite what many schools are telling their students -- often that downloading music simply takes up too much bandwidth -- the real reason for their actions is the DCMA.

Pointedly high-profile lawsuits have been filed recently, as the entertainment industry takes the lead in the war against free culture and the spread of forums for artists to disseminate their work -- at least artists the industry doesn't control. The industry has obviously done its homework, studying how software really works and how information moves, and is using the Digital Millennial Copyright Act as its primary weapon against infringement by people using the Net and the Web.

As a result, with little political opposition or discussion, the DMCA is already beginning to redefine entertainment on the Net, and regain control of popular culture, as corporatists move against free music and movie users. As someone who's been writing about First Amendment issues for years, it's hard to imagine a piece of legislation with greater implications for free speech as well as corporate control of intellectual content. This legislation seems to have anti-trust implications as well: how could any law more actively discourage creativity and competition?

If there is a silver lining in the use of the DMCA to dominate entertainment, it's that day by day, the political issues become clearer. Even though many open source advocates see themselves as technologically centered, rather than politically, the DMCA pits the free software movement, squarely against the commercialist threat to the free nature of the Internet. The corporatists grasp what many young programmers don't: Open source is a powerful political idea, and it's antithetical to the way many modern corporations have always worked.

"The anti-circumvention clauses fundamentally change the balance of copyright," Alex Fowlier of the EFF told USA Today's Bruce Haring earlier this week. "Now we're not just talking about rights to the work, but about tying it to the system it is displayed on, or plays on, or is distributed by. That's one level deeper into control than copyright has been associated with." Tying the distribution, display or performance of a work to a system "affects the users in ways we can't even imagine," says Fowler. "It really hampers the future growth of the Internet." It doesn't do much for the present either.

One reason free music sources proliferated so rapidly was that they often piggy-backed on educational and other sites where music seekers congregated. College students could download music on their schools' sites, in part because the schools believed they were simply neutral, non-liable carriers of content. Since there was no Internet law governing content on Web sites, nobody knew if that was true or not. But it certainly isn't true anymore.

The music industry and its lawyers understood that colleges and universities are powerful channels for commercial music, places where artists, bands and even musical genres are discovered and become popular. They realized they didn't have to shut down every free music site on the Net -- those on instant messaging services like ICQ or AIM, for example -- in order to sharply curb the spread of free music. They could use the DMCA as a way to focus on a smaller number of sites, and on universities and colleges. For an industry that garnered $15 billion in revenues last year, the cost of that focused effort is chump change.

Rather than targeting music distributors or downloaders, they lobbied successfully to get a law passed that made it illegal to thwart copyright protection methods in software and hardware. Music industry lawyers then began notifying colleges and universities that they might be in violation of federal copyright protection laws if they tolerated the existence of Napster and other means of music dissemination. Free music users, accustomed for years to downloading what they wanted, were caught unawares.

The DMCA went a step further, in a legally ingenious way. The law decrees that Internet service providers won't be liable for copyright infringement by their users if the providers remove offending material once they're made aware of it. It's that provision that gains entertainment companies so many powerful new allies in their war against "pirates" -- recruiting, in effect, all the institutions and sites that allow content redistribution, and turning them into culture cops. If they block free music, they're off the hook legally. If they don't, they're liable.

Some colleges seem to think they have a far greater stake in avoiding lawsuits than they do in confronting the real issues involved -- like promoting free expression and diversity in culture. And college students are selective in political issues. There is, for example, a broad-based anti-sweatshop movement on many U.S. campuses, but no equivalently passionate and nationally-organized movement to keep culture free.

(Personal note: As an author who writes online and on paper, I am well aware of the complexity of intellectual content and copyright issues. Writing online, especially for this Web site, means relinquishing reprint, royalty and subsidiary rights that used to provide revenue to writers and artists. The work of me and other writers here and elsewhere on the Web is widely distributed, linked and even printed in paper form without permission or payment. But I've also come to believe that the free (open source, if you like) distribution of content -- even opinions -- offers creators new opportunities: broader audiences, greater impact, road-tested ideas, thus eventually, perhaps even more income.)

While the sweatshop issue (students accuse colleges as well as fashion retailers of buying merchandise produced by sweatshop labor) is perfectly valid, one could argue that the effort by corporatism to attack information software and control entertainment is ultimately of equal importance.

Before the DMCA, for example, a university -- or even a commercial Web site -- could look the other way as people presented, distributed and downloaded music. The legal issue was left between the record company and the so-called "pirates." But in recent months the DMCA has sparked legal actions like these:

• Jon Johansen, a 16-year-old Norwegian student who allegedly wrote software allowing DVDs to be played on Linux-based computers, was arrested at the behest of the Motion Picture Association of America. The MPAA claimed the code illegally circumvented DVD copy protection, and sent cease-and-desist orders to hundreds, perhaps thousands of Web sites, including this one, that had allegedly posted the source code or linked to it. The MPAA filed lawsuits against several sites, as well as charges against Johansen and other software developers, and announced it would pursue other offenders.

• RealNetworks obtained an injunction against a portion of software created by Streambox, designed to allow users to capture or record streaming media sent via Real's copy-protected format.

• The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) filed suit against Napster, which allows music seekers to trade song files directly from machine to machine without having to post them on the Net. Following the suit, Napster was removed from scores of college and other Web sites.

Tomorrow: The political issue is as simple as it is significant. Do individuals have the right to define their own cultural and entertainment experiences? Or must they depend on content and products sold by a handful of corporations?

GregGardner writes, "According to this press release, RedHat and Real Networks are teaming together to bring Real products to Linux. RealServer 7.0 and RealPlayer 7.0 will be physically bundled with RedHat and that RealPlayer 7 will be released for Linux within 30 days on Real's Web site. "

askwar writes "Heise reports in this article that Be Inc. is to debut their BeIA dubbed operating system for Internet Appliances today at the DEMO 2000 in California. According to Heise, BeIA will support Real's G2 and Macromedia's Flash. Another nice thing is the file system of BeIA, which will be database like, and allows the users to create their own file types with special attributes. This, and the ability to search for specifically search for these attributes, the system will be suited very well for technical/scientifical applications, says Heise. The article on Heise is in German, so you either have to learn it :-], or go to the Babelfish. "

TRUSTe, the steward of the most visible symbol on the internet, is making a tough decision today. Today, it reveals what it intends to do about its client Real Networks. At stake is whatever's left of its credibility. (Update: 11/08 02:55: Real got off on a technicality: "because the transmission of user data ... did not involve collection of data on the RealNetworks Web site, the privacy incident was outside of the scope of TRUSTe's current privacy seal program.")

Unquestionably TRUSTe is the leader in third-party privacy assurance. Its only alternative is BBBOnline, which can boast only 100 members to TRUSTe's 750. But it's having a hard time living up to its motto, "Building a web you can believe in": sometimes it's hard to know what to believe.

TRUSTe's original idea was to allow a website to display one of three icons, indicating whether its privacy policy was good, ok, or bad. There turned out to be problems with this - strangely enough, no site wanted to post an icon saying that their privacy sucked - and the icons looked too similar anyway. So they went with one icon, a "badge" that every member site posts.

All the badge means is that the site has a privacy policy, and that, as far as TRUSTe knows, they haven't violated it.

If you think this is a questionable basis for a consumer advocacy group, you're right. But the real question is how it plays out in practice. Let's take a look at TRUSTe's track record.

Round I: TRUSTe and GeoCities. In June 1998, the FTC announced - to everyone's surprise - that it and GeoCities had come to a settlement regarding violations of consumer privacy.

Everyone was surprised because this was the first anyone had heard of it. Where was TRUSTe?

Caught flat-footed, TRUSTe scrambled for a few days, then made its own announcement. It pointed out that GeoCities had begun the alleged privacy violations before applying to become a member (in April) and being accepted (in May). Therefore, TRUSTe claimed, the violations were technically not under the scope of their investigation.

But turn that around and put it another way - it was able to become a TRUSTe member even while under investigation by the FTC, and TRUSTe said nothing.

It gets worse. The FTC and GeoCities issued conflicting releases about what the settlement actually meant. The FTC said that GeoCities had "misrepresented the purposes for which it was collecting personal identifying information" (including children's). GeoCities denied the charges.

So who was right? We still don't know. Despite this being precisely the issue that TRUSTe was set up to resolve, TRUSTe refused to confirm or deny the FTC's allegations.

In a 1998 open letter, I asked whether TRUSTe's initial review of GeoCities had included any really tough questions such as "are you currently under investigation by the Federal Trade Commission?" No answer. In fact, mention of the GeoCities incident seems to have been removed from TRUSTe's website.

The organization that wanted to make the FTC obsolete was not off to a good start.

Round II: TRUSTe and Microsoft. March 1999. This was the "Global User ID" case. It turned out Microsoft had been embedding a user ID into every document you created with their software. Since they put that ID on file when you registered their software, they have been capable for years of tracking authorship of even supposedly-anonymous documents.

And don't think it's just a theoretical concern. Just weeks later, the Melissa macro virus was unleashed, and its author was tracked down using this same ID. Any technology that can lead the cops to your door is potentially dangerous technology.

TRUSTe announced that this "compromises consumer trust and privacy" (duh), but said that since the Global User ID does not, strictly speaking, involve the Microsoft.com website, it had no jurisdiction. Their conclusion: "TRUSTe has determined that Microsoft.com was in compliance with all TRUSTe principles."

In reality, Microsoft's privacy page (prominently labeled with the TRUSTe seal) also discusses online registration of software products, and notes that the "personal profile" from their software registration appears on the website and is editable from the website. And that page claims that registration is covered by the TRUSTe guidelines. For TRUSTe to claim it's not requires some Clintonesque redefinitions.

CNET's headline was exactly right: "TRUSTe Clears Microsoft on Technicality."

Round III: TRUSTe and Deja News. April 1999. Again TRUSTe is taken by surprise when a computer sleuth discovers that Deja News has been collecting data on email sent by its users. When a reader clicked on an email link in a discussion posting, the destination email address was recorded, along with the presumable topic of discussion, the sender's IP number, and if registered, the sender's personal data.

This is not what one expects when sending private email! And this clearly involved Deja's website, so there was no question of another technicality.

TRUSTe's analysis of this situation was only two paragraphs long; here's all that happened:

"TRUSTe specified certain clarifying language to be included in the privacy statement. Deja News, independent of TRUSTe, then decided to discontinue the practice of tracking IP addresses in conjunction with the mail-to feature."

In fact, the situation was resolved long before TRUSTe even bothered to issue that statement. TRUSTe's suggestion of "clarifying language" had been obviated long before by Deja's indepedent action. See ZDNet's story of May 4th, which hopes that TRUSTe "will likely issue some sort of statement...this week." But TRUSTe stayed silent for four weeks.

Round IV: TRUSTe and Microsoft (again). A wide-open security hole in Microsoft's Hotmail is breached, and for a few hours everyone's inboxes are public domain. (If you don't think this is a serious privacy violation, read the stunning anonymous tale of cracking into an enemy's email, published on Salon.com the next day.)

TRUSTe's response is to call in an independent accounting firm to talk with Hotmail's programmers and security people, look over the source code, and generally try to make sure such a problem won't happen again. This isn't a bad idea - it just wasn't much of anything that Microsoft wouldn't have done on its own. Locking the barn door after the horse is gone doesn't help the people whose privacy has been lost. Microsoft is out of pocket a few bucks for the audit, and gets more than its money's worth by being able to say that TRUSTe still gives them a clean bill of health.

How can all these incidents have passed by without punishment of any kind? It's because of what TRUSTe is actually guaranteeing. Not that any company will actually keep its data private - but that the company is not lying in its privacy assurance.

That's right. You know those privacy promises you never read, the ones that are different on every website and all seem ten pages long? What TRUSTe does is promise you that, if you had read them, you'd know your rights.

If it wanted, a company could have its lawyers dress up "we will spam your email every day and sell your name and address to anyone who asks for them" in legalese, and get a TRUSTe badge on their homepage. Would you know you were being screwed? Not unless you speak fluent lawyer.

Is the FTC such a bogeyman that we really need to sell our privacy so cheap?

When Ralph Nader was pressing the government to impose strict safety standards on the auto industry, Henry Ford II complained that they were "unreasonable, arbitrary and technically unfeasible." After the laws were enacted anyway, a decade later he conceded: "We wouldn't have [these] kinds of safety ... unless there had been a federal law."

Imagine if our only automotive safety regulations were that Detroit must abide by its lawyers' fine print!

The usual argument is that requiring an actual guarantee of privacy would stifle business. The purpose in forming TRUSTe was to keep the internet corporation-friendly, by keeping the government out. TRUSTe was well-intentioned, no question. It was a noble experiment.

But, according to some influential people and groups, it has failed.

Forrester Research studies topics related to the internet and made privacy its concern in its September 1999 report, "Privacy Wake-Up Call." Its conclusions should not be surprising:

"Most privacy policies are a joke." Forrester says corporate privacy policies are legalese set up mostly to protect the corporations.

"Few companies meet key privacy protection principles." About 10%.

"Third-party programs show little traction." Hundreds of TRUSTe licensees don't amount to much on the billion-page net.

And, "third-party privacy firms...like TRUSTe...become more of a privacy advocate for industry rather than for consumers."

(Slashdot has more on this study.)

Even the Electronic Frontier Foundation, after years of straddling the fence on the issue, has finally recognized that self-policing just doesn't work. The EFF is not just the best-recognized internet rights advocacy group; it created TRUSTe.

Yet, in an October letter to the FTC, the EFF laid down its cards:

"Creation of TRUSTe and its seal program was one such early innovation of EFF. TRUSTe was successful in several areas. ... We now must move out of this awareness-raising mode and into an action mode where real protection can be achieved. Legislation is needed in order to achieve that goal. ... we think it is time to move away from a strict self-regulation approach to protecting privacy online."

The latest nail in the coffin came on November 1, when EFF Program Director Stanton McCandlish laid out the facts on the fight-censorship mailing list:

"Our stance has basically been that industry self-reg would be worth trying, but might or might not be enough. We did the 'proof of concept' ourselves, by launching and spinning off TRUSTe. But TRUSTe was intended to be and is a separate, independent entity, and was created as an experiment. The experiment is in many ways a failure..."

(McCandlish's personal opinion is even more scathing. Follow the link to read it.)

You wouldn't know this if you read the TRUSTe website. Their homepage proudly tells you about the six-month-old Georgetown study, but makes no mention of the Forrester Research report. It tells you that the FTC supports self-regulation (based on Georgetown), but won't tell you that its own parent, the EFF, thinks the ride is over.

If TRUSTe is a consumer rights and advocacy group, why are they only feeding us the feel-good stories? Aren't consumer groups supposed to be the ones that dig up dirt and tell us about potential problems?

The money trail leads to the answer. TRUSTe isn't a consumer advocacy group. TRUSTe doesn't get its money from consumers. Its money comes from corporate sponsors, and nobody wants to bite the hand that feeds them. Besides, those corporations want the message to be one of constant calm. Concerned customers are not good for sales.

Remember the GeoCities FTC findings that TRUSTe wouldn't comment on? GeoCities had just done an IPO and millions of dollars were at stake. GeoCities' sister corporation Engage Technologies (they are both subsidiaries of CMG Industries) was a Contributing Corporate Sponsor of TRUSTe. That conflict of interest was never mentioned.

(GeoCities has since been purchased by Yahoo.)

Remember the Microsoft incidents that TRUSTe waffled on? Microsoft is not just a member, but also a Premier Corporate Sponsor of TRUSTe. That conflict of interest totals $100,000 per year.

Round V. By now you've guessed that this is leading up to the current furor over Real Networks. Real is a TRUSTe member. Do I need to mention that it's also a Contributing Corporate Sponsor?

TRUSTe said that it would render judgement on Real Networks by the end of last week. Now it's saying today.

And it's making noises like they're actually going to do something this time:

"We could take the company to court for breach of contract, since they do have an agreement with us. Or, we can forward the case to the FTC... I guarantee that the damage to the reputation of the first company that we do that to will be big."

For its own sake, it had better. We're talking about a company whose product is a Trojan Horse that secretly scans your hard drive for valuable personal data. If TRUSTe doesn't unload with both barrels, its credibility will be negative zero.

Anything TRUSTe does may have a negligable effect in any case. Corporations only understand the bottom line, and RealNetworks stock shot up 25% in the five days following the privacy debacle. With the company's market cap $1.9 billion higher than it was a week ago, how much are they really going to care about some nonprofit gnat?

We can hope. Real.com today unveiled its new website, a music portal, which investors will be watching carefully. Also happening today is a conference held by the FTC and Commerce Department for data-profilers to announce what they're going to do to protect privacy. So if TRUSTe were trying to maximize the effect of their announcement, today would be the day they'd pick. It could be that the gnat will have a nasty bite that surprises everyone.

Still - you can dress an organization up in not-for-profit clothes, but that doesn't change that it's beholden to its revenue stream. TRUSTe says we can trust them to be objective, on the theory that their revenue stream will dry up if they don't do right by consumers. So far, there doesn't seem to be much truth to that. They haven't been doing us right, but their number of contributors and members just keeps growing.

I enjoy reading about the future envisioned by people like Gibson and Stephenson, where the net is totally unregulated and a "right to privacy" is a dim memory, or a joke. That doesn't mean I want to live in that future. Europe has consumer protection laws that are, from an American perspective, astonishingly strong. Maybe we should take a look at other countries' solutions, to see if there's something we could learn.

So far, all we've learned is what fails.

- Jamie McCarthy

The Rebel writes "It appears RealNetworks has an updated Alpha G2 RealPlayer for Linux. Its dated 9-29-99 and you can get it here." Yep. Fresh dates on the files. Anyone tried this "new" version? Is it really any different from the old one? Should we all run and download it or wait for the beta?

Skijk writes "Realplayer G2 is finally here for Linux. You can get it at Real Player. " The folks at RealNetworks are calling it an Alpha, but I've heard good reports on its' stability-how's it working for everyone?

Skijk writes "Realplayer G2 is finally here for Linux. You can get it at Real Player. " The folks at RealNetworks are calling it an Alpha, but I've heard good reports on its' stability-how's it working for everyone?

Harlequin writes "These three articles from Yahoo center around RealNetwork's decision to support the MP3 format. In an interview between Rob Glaser (founder of RealNetworks) and ZDNet, Rob discusses what mp3s mean to RealNetworks and the industry. MP3 -- it has to change or die is a brief mainstream article about downloadable music and it's future. This article concerns the new product, RealJukebox, that was just released. Of course there's no mention of a Linux port... "

Agnomen writes "RealNetworks has released a beta version of RealProducer Plus G2 content creation tool for Linux. According to their press release "The final release of RealProducer Plus G2 for Compaq Tru64 UNIX operating system is immediately available as is the beta release of RealProducer G2 for the Linux platform." Ok, so it's not oss, but it is good to see. "

Agnomen writes "RealNetworks has released a beta version of RealProducer Plus G2 content creation tool for Linux. According to their press release "The final release of RealProducer Plus G2 for Compaq Tru64 UNIX operating system is immediately available as is the beta release of RealProducer G2 for the Linux platform." Ok, so it's not oss, but it is good to see. "

Rob Lanphier is an employee of RealNetworks who has written a short open letter containing a few of his opinions on some issues that have be discussed on slashdot lately. He comments on the recent MediaPlayer mess, as well as the Real MP3 Problem. Read it if you're interested in that sort of thing. The following is an open letter written by Rob Lanphier to other Slashdot Readers

I'd like to address some of the chatter that has popped up on Slashdot recently about RealNetworks. I have to put the standard disclaimer that although I'm an employee of RealNetworks, I speak only for myself here, not RN.

There's a couple of things I'd like to point out:

1. The Windows Media Player thing:
   

   I can't say much more than what's on the RN website

   This has updated technical details on this subject which are worth the read if you are interested in why this is such a big issue for RealNetworks, and why we are standing by our claims. One thing I would like to add: "We no-o-o-o-ot whi-i-i-i-i-ining. Mo-o-o-om, make them stop saying we're whining".

2. The MP3 Thing:
   

   Speaking of whining, there's a road to redemption for MP3 fans. Our new RealSystem G2 has a file format plugin interface that would allow support for streaming any file format, and one could write a G2 file format and renderer plugin for MP3 using all of the free code that's out there for doing MP3 stuff. A good programmer could knock out a credible proof-of-concept in about a week (I, of course, don't claim to be a good programmer, so I'm disqualified).

   As far as Rob Glaser's alleged MP3 quote that is flying around, I'd never heard that one personally, and I suspect it's being mangled or taken out of context. Does anyone have a direct reference to the quote?

Rob Lanphier is an employee of RealNetworks who has written a short open letter containing a few of his opinions on some issues that have be discussed on slashdot lately. He comments on the recent MediaPlayer mess, as well as the Real MP3 Problem. Read it if you're interested in that sort of thing. The following is an open letter written by Rob Lanphier to other Slashdot Readers

I'd like to address some of the chatter that has popped up on Slashdot recently about RealNetworks. I have to put the standard disclaimer that although I'm an employee of RealNetworks, I speak only for myself here, not RN.

There's a couple of things I'd like to point out:

1. The Windows Media Player thing:
   

   I can't say much more than what's on the RN website

   This has updated technical details on this subject which are worth the read if you are interested in why this is such a big issue for RealNetworks, and why we are standing by our claims. One thing I would like to add: "We no-o-o-o-ot whi-i-i-i-i-ining. Mo-o-o-om, make them stop saying we're whining".

2. The MP3 Thing:
   

   Speaking of whining, there's a road to redemption for MP3 fans. Our new RealSystem G2 has a file format plugin interface that would allow support for streaming any file format, and one could write a G2 file format and renderer plugin for MP3 using all of the free code that's out there for doing MP3 stuff. A good programmer could knock out a credible proof-of-concept in about a week (I, of course, don't claim to be a good programmer, so I'm disqualified).

   As far as Rob Glaser's alleged MP3 quote that is flying around, I'd never heard that one personally, and I suspect it's being mangled or taken out of context. Does anyone have a direct reference to the quote?

Rob Lanphier is an employee of RealNetworks who has written a short open letter containing a few of his opinions on some issues that have be discussed on slashdot lately. He comments on the recent MediaPlayer mess, as well as the Real MP3 Problem. Read it if you're interested in that sort of thing. The following is an open letter written by Rob Lanphier to other Slashdot Readers

I'd like to address some of the chatter that has popped up on Slashdot recently about RealNetworks. I have to put the standard disclaimer that although I'm an employee of RealNetworks, I speak only for myself here, not RN.

There's a couple of things I'd like to point out:

1. The Windows Media Player thing:
   

   I can't say much more than what's on the RN website

   This has updated technical details on this subject which are worth the read if you are interested in why this is such a big issue for RealNetworks, and why we are standing by our claims. One thing I would like to add: "We no-o-o-o-ot whi-i-i-i-i-ining. Mo-o-o-om, make them stop saying we're whining".

2. The MP3 Thing:
   

   Speaking of whining, there's a road to redemption for MP3 fans. Our new RealSystem G2 has a file format plugin interface that would allow support for streaming any file format, and one could write a G2 file format and renderer plugin for MP3 using all of the free code that's out there for doing MP3 stuff. A good programmer could knock out a credible proof-of-concept in about a week (I, of course, don't claim to be a good programmer, so I'm disqualified).

   As far as Rob Glaser's alleged MP3 quote that is flying around, I'd never heard that one personally, and I suspect it's being mangled or taken out of context. Does anyone have a direct reference to the quote?

Dewb via Shro0m writes in to tell us about This Wired Story where you can read about the next generation of RealNetworks net streaming products. There are several interesting comments about Real's new stuff, especially compared to the comparable offerings from Microsoft.

Another area where Microsoft has been throwing its weight around is streaming net content. Its NetMeeting and NetShow apps are direct competition with RealAudio's main products. Streaming data, along with Push represents some of the biggest buzzwords that are going to affect the future of the net, and RealAudio is taking a step towards doing to Right Thing(tm) by opening up a programmers API to the internal organs of their software. This is a nice step in the right direction, but how about following Netscape's lead and releasing the source code under some form of the GPL?

Another area where Microsoft has been throwing its weight around is streaming net content. Its NetMeeting and NetShow apps are direct competition with RealAudio's main products. Streaming data, along with Push represents some of the biggest buzzwords that are going to affect the future of the net, and RealAudio is taking a step towards doing to Right Thing(tm) by opening up a programmers API to the internal organs of their software. This is a nice step in the right direction, but how about following Netscape's lead and releasing the source code under some form of the GPL?