Slashdot Mirror

zensonic noted that Intel has announced that they are cancelling the Tinma chip. It was an integrated chip that would be used in low end systems... they cited market demand and design problems as the reason.

oMaT writes: "An article @ CNN states that Sony is having problems purchasing as many of some components as they need. They state that the projected 1m units to be shipped on Oct 26 will actually be more like 500,000. They also hope to have the demand met after the holiday season... Jan-Feb. Bummer." I've heard that if you want to pre-order one, you better pay in advance, as it isn't looking good. Personally, I'm just gonna play the new Zelda, and wait and see what happens with the PS2.

braind writes: "The Stanford group has developed a new way to simulate protein folding ("distributed dynamics") which should remove the previous barriers to simulating protein folding. However, this method is extremely computationally demanding and we need your help. You can read more on the site." It's interesting seeing all these projects coming out - just a reminder that distributed is still around and we can always use more on our team. *grin* [addendum from timothy:] Note that the SDK used for this project was discussed here a few days ago, so you can even roll -- err, fold -- your own.

A few folks noted that Freenet 0.3 has been released. You can read more at the project homepage. The software's description: " Freenet is a peer-to-peer network designed to allow the distribution of information over the Internet in an efficient manner, without fear of censorship. It is completely decentralized (there is no person or computer essential to its operation), meaning that Freenet cannot be attacked like centralized peer-to-peer systems such as Napster. Freenet also employs intelligent routing and caching to learn to route requests more efficiently, automatically mirror popular data, make network flooding almost impossible, and move data to where it is in greatest demand. Changes: This release includes dramatic architectural improvements, addition of internode and data encrpytion, subspaces, along with improved performance in a variety of other areas."

Lenbok writes: "The guys at Dallas Semiconductors have been busy. They've wired a bicycle (pix here) with a local microLAN of web-addressable sensors including temperature sensors, addressable switches, A/D converters, iButtons, and chips to manage battery functions. Quiet electric power, exercised on demand, a full instrument panel (via palmpilot), data login, a Web page for your eBike, and even e-mail while traveling. What more could you ask for? GPS integration? That's on its way." [timothy butts in ...] And don't forget that this is only if you want a semi-normal lookin' electric bike. Don't forget that Steve Roberts has been crankin' the pedals of a series of very wired bikes (and now boats) for a long time. Check out his Nomadic Research Labs for some of the coolest because-we-can technology (home-brewed, and re-purposed COTS stuff) you're likely to find on this planet.

egjertse writes "Norwegian Ecocrime, the department for economic crime; also responsible for investigating computer crime, wants to keep logs on all norwegian internet users according to this article in norwegian business newspaper Dagens Næringsliv. English summary of the article follows: "Ecocrime feels that the increase in internet related crime makes it necessary to demand all internet users to identify themselves online - If ecocrime get what they want, all your activities on the internet will be registered. Attorney general Inger Marie Sunde describes a system where all internet users must identify themselves using some sort of smart-card. Internet cafes will also be required to keep logs on all their customers, their identities, and their activities online - logs that will be handed over to the police when requested. Sunde also wants to increase the penalties for computer crime and make anonymous cellphones illegal.""

Digital Convergence demanded last week that several developers take drivers offline that work with their "CueCat" barcode reader that was distributed freely through Radio Shack and through other places. They have taken the time to respond to the flak that they've taken, and I've attached their response below, interspersed with a few comments of my own. Read on to see what they have to say for themselves.

The following was sent in by Doug Davis from Digital Convergance. Plain text is his. Bold text is mine.

Digital:Convergence understands this Linux issue and the concerns expressed by the community. Had Digital:Convergence been approached by developers we would have been (and still will be) happy to work with them in a constructive direction. Instead, our products were reversed engineered and what has occurred is a public display of what is clearly our intellectual property. It is unfortunate the supporters of the open source community have taken steps to publicize intellectually property in-order to further their own goals and desires. Unfortunately, for us all, some of the people conducting these efforts would not voluntarily remove our IP, even after being contacted.

Thank god. These folks worked hard to write code to use this piece of hardware, and it would be unfortunate if they were forced to take it down. Imagine if Linus had been forced by Intel to take down kernel versions that used their intellectual property in the early part of the last decade. A lot of companies have bullied a lot of people in the last couple of years, and it's only getting worse. Your CueCat, like DeCSS, is going to redefine what IP is. Personally, I hope that when I get a barcode reader, or a DVD-ROM drive (or a car, or phone, or any other physical thing), that I'm allowed to rip it apart and tinker with it at my discretion. I think that's my right as a consumer.

In the strictest legal terms we had no choice but to proceed protect our interests. By posting our IP to the Net the Linux Community has forced us into a position of having to legally defend our technology . Under IP law if we don't PROTECT our IP, we loose any remedies under law to PROTECT our IP. This IS NOT ABOUT stopping hackers, but trying to get the "hackers" and such to WORK WITH US AND NOT EXPOSE US and destroy over 5 years of hard work by a group of "geeks, hackers and techno-whizzes" like each of you!

IP is a weird beast. If you don't defend it, you don't have it. I imagine if Adaptec or Matrox defended the IP created by the work of their "geeks, hackers and techno-wizzes" by forcing Linux driver writers to take down code utilizing their SCSI controllers, hard drives and video cards, their IP would also be unusable under Linux. Which is too bad because I use hardware that they created every day. Oh, and 5 years of development for "base64+XOR"?

Any professional and serious developer will understand the following: .........Unfortunately the Linux Community could of inadvertently created the WINDOW for the BIG companies to come in and control and profit from this process we have created. So if M$ or some other company decides to do what you are doing *for profit" and DigitalConvergence allows the open source group to continue with out proper licenses, DigitalConvergence could loose its ability to effectively stop them. The Linux Community would of actually had a DIRECT HAND in creating what it stands most vehemently against!

You start it off by saying "Any serious Professional will understand" which is a none-too-subtle way of saying, "If you're smart, you'll understand." Fortunately you don't say that any serious developer will agree. What you're saying is that the Linux community should happily take down the code out of fear of some big company (mentioning Microsoft is poor form: it screams like a bad political commercial where they mention a bunch of scary things just to make their ideas seem more true). If big scary Microsoft came along and released their own distribution, there is nothing we could do about it (provided that they played by the common rules of the GPL). That reality constantly exists, but that doesn't slow anyone down. It's not the point. If Microsoft wants to play by the rules of the GPL, I say let 'em. But by your logic, nobody should ever write and distribute source code, for fear that Microsoft would take it. That strikes me as a bit backwards.

It is our hope the Linux community will help us in our efforts by

1. working with us to create a product to support your needs, and;
2. stop and remove illegal posting efforts, and;
3. encourage others in the Linux community to work with us hand-in-hand to develop a various solutions and useful applications. You too, can be part of this valuable tool and project!"

   The weird thing about open source development is that code gets written where programmers itch. I bet you'll find support for #1, but less so for #2. See, your itches might not be the same as their itches. We all define valuable tools and projects differently, and our needs might be a bit different then yours. I don't think that folks posting this code constitutes "an illegal posting effort" any more then I think posting a driver for a scanner does.

   Digital:Convergence supports the Linux/Unix community and plans to make a version of its software available for Linux available in the near future. Also, licenses are available for any developers wishing to work with any aspect of our technology. We welcome the individuals of the community to contact us and use a more professional, orderly and productive manner in adjusting our products to better serve, in tact and based fully upon our various Patents and Intellectual Property, your community, . Professional Licenses and Development contracts are available to the Linux/Unix community and we welcome your direct and professional contact.

   If I own a Ford, do I need a Ford wrench to fiddle with my engine? If I buy a frame, do I need a nail & hammer from the same company in order to hang a picture on my wall? If your tools are the best tools, and at the right price, then by all means, I'd happily use your nail & hammer, but we live in a marketplace where competition drives everything, and you have competition. You have the advantage: you have the technical specifications and the most developed tools, wheras the open source guys are groping blindly in the dark looking for answers. Oddly enough this groping is a large part of the fun. It's a challenge.

   And, by the way, the AT HOME - PERSONAL USE DEVELOPER LICENSE is $20 USD! So please, HELP US PROTECT, what a group of talented developers, have worked so very hard on for over the last 5 years!

   J. Jovan Philyaw - Chairman & C.E.O. ceo@digitalconvergence.com
   Doug Davis - President Technology Group ddavis@digitalconvergence.com

   I seriously wish you guys the best of luck, and hope you figure out a way to work with the developers who are writing this cool code. If you haven't alienated the developers, I bet they would be happy to work with you. My fear is that your business model is shaky: you've given away zillions of barcode readers, (no doubt at great expense) but failed to realize that they, like iOpeners and TiVos and Furbys and AIBOs and DVD-ROM drives and everything else physical, can (and will!) be ripped apart and played with by people. You're trying to use lawyers to take away people's rights to screw around with their own hardware, and that's a problem... your service strikes me as being about a lot more then a silly little barcode scanner and what people do with it. If your software serves a need, people will use it. If some hacker finds some cool other use for the hardware, maybe people will use their code too. This is very real, but this is a free country where we can tear apart our toys and rebuild them if we want.

   On a practical note, you have a website and a net service. Thats different. Thats not a physical piece of hardware that someone can hold in their hands. You should focus on that, and not waste your energy going after hackers who are just poking around with a cool piece of hardware. I'm not a business guy, so I don't know what the answers are, but I do know a dead end when I see it. And don't forget that the percentage of people who are actually gonna mess with this stuff is very tiny. You should concentrate on making your services better for the huge majority of your users who don't run Linux, and wouldn't run software other then yours even if it did exist. It's the blinking 12:00 syndrome. Most users just don't change the defaults.

   I'd also like to say something to the readers: don't get angry and attack these guys. They're just a group of guys trying to feed their dogs by coming up with ideas to make a buck. Yelling and screaming doesn't help anyone. It's easy to forget that every company is just a group of people trying to accomplish something; they aren't evil, even when they make mistakes or do things that we disagree with. But don't stop writing the code. I can think of many uses for this barcode scanner (like maybe software to index my DVDs?). It's still legal to reverse engineer, and that sure better never change.

wildag writes "I've recently come into a battle with a guy who owns this site. You might notice the 'similarities' between his web site and Linux.com. I'm going to doubt that Linux.com bought the interface from him. The acutal battle comes from a statment that is on his message board (posted by the admin - Leo). He says 'The layout of any website is "public domain" which is freely available to the public' (that is avaliable here: http://hobbes.resne t.tamu.edu/forums/showthread.php?threadid=25). What do you guys think? (BTW, Linux.com has been notified and he didn't ask permission)." There are countless websites that are direct ripoffs of others, but few as blatant as this one. My policy with Slashdot has always pretty much been take what you want, but give us credit for what ya lift. I've seen this done many times to many sites and it always bums me out: making a well designed website is hard work, and imitation is the sincerest form of flattery... but isn't saying thanks and crediting your source part of it too? (For those who don't know, Slashdot is owned by VA Linux now, which also owns Linux.com. This doesn't really have anything to do with this story, but I figured I'd mention it). I post this not to point fingers or cause a fight, but to open a discussion about this. Just because you can take something, should you? When are you stealing? Is is hypocritical to demand open source, but not be willing to share your design? And should "Sharing" mean "You can take it, and claim it as your own, and not give the original creator any credit?" Its an issue that spans genres: Web Pages? Source Code? Samples in Music? Fair Use?

On Aug. 30 several folks who have written Linux drivers and apps relating to the free barcode scanner mentioned here a few days ago were sent cease and desist orders demanding that they stop distributing the code. [updated by timothy 20:00 GMT: Please note that what flyingbuttmonkeys received is not officially a "cease and desist" letter; instead, it merely says that the longer the drivers are available, the "longer damages will accrue," citing "intellectual property rights owned by Digital Convergence." ] The barcode scanner is called a CueCat (with some lame marketroid colons that I'm not using because it irritates me when people name things like that). The code included a device driver written by Pierre-Philippe Coupard and a reader/decrypter written by Michael Rothwell. The code is afaik unavailable, but hopefully folks who downloaded it will have mirrors soon. I asked Michael to describe to me what his decoder did, and a few other questions.

> How complicated is the driver/what does it do?

It isn't terribly complicated. There's two programs that I wrote in the package, and one I did not. All are based on the "libcue" I wrote, also in the package. The deocder algorithm is a simple modified base-64 XOR 67. Jean-Philippe 'JP' Sugarbroad figured it out, and Colin Cross wrote code based on it and made me aware of it. I re-implemented it for the learning experience. The program named "decode" reads in a line of output from the cuecat for stdin or as first argument. CueCat output looks like this:

<ALT-F10>.C3nZC3nZC3nYDhv7D3DWCxnX.cGf2.ENr7C3b3DNbWChPXDxzZDNP6.

decode splits the Cue output into fields separeted buy ".". It ignores the first field and runs the rest through the base64+XOR decoder. This becomes the first line output. Digital Converegence added some additional "encryption" to their Web service; their program takes the output of the cuecat and inverts its case befoe sending it off to http://[server].dcnv.com/CRQ/1..[activation code].04.[cuecat scan].0

[Server] can be a, o, s, t, or u. [activation code] is supposed to be the activation code you get from your registration, but can be simply "ACTIVATIONCODE", which is actually what my spftware puts there. [cuecat scan] is the raw output of the device, minus the ALT-F10, with case inverted. Their servers send back a little blob of text containing several fields, including a suggested URL and description. Libcue parses those out and makes them available to its clients. Here's the scan of an NADA car-guide book:

The output of decode looks like this
DATA 000000001768443202 IB5 978034533392650599

CUE 0345333926
AMAZON 0345333926
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0345333926/104-2159322-9263954
Ringworld Larry Niven
http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0345333926.01.LZZZZZZZ.gif

The gnome panel applet reads in CueCat scans, looks up the :Cue at DCNV servers, and redirects Netscape to the suggested site, if any.

> What does their commercial software do exactly?

The same thing mine does, without the amazon lookup and with some annoying GUI features, like a tabbed CueCat panel.

> How many lines of code?

1258 according to "cat cuecat-applet.c cuecat-applet.h decode.c decode.h libcue.c libcue.h | wc -l"

Michael makes another interesting point in a seperate e-mail

When they sent the letter (Aug. 30), my software did not touch the DCNV servers to look up :Cues. It simply decoded the data, and if an ISBN number was scanned, the panel applet made Netscape go to the Amazon page blindly: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/[isbn number here].

So it was not the use of DCNV servers they objected to, but the mere decoding of the output of the cuecat. I didn't release the :Cue and Amazon lookup-enabled version until yesterday (Aug. 31), when the FedEx letter arrived by overnight delivery.

Thanks to Michael for taking the time to answer this stuff. It's pretty scary when the stuff that you have can't be poked at without a corporation demanding you stop. Imagine if Ford had said you can't open the hoods of your car a hundred years ago.

Update: 09/01 02:49 PM by CT : Freshmeat has a perl script CueCat Decoder that will also decode the CueCat's output.

Update: 09/01 02:57 PM by CT : Russel Nelson pointed out that Lineo's Driver has also been taken down following a cease and desist from Digital Convergence (CueCat's parent).

gmhowell asks: "After reading this story on Slashdot, it seems to me that I haven't heard of a good proposal from employees regarding their e-mail/browsing privacy compared to the demands that a company avoid lawsuits. I manage a small business and am well aware of how bizarre the EEOC and others can get when it comes to sexual harassment, racial quotas, etc. For example, if a delivery person flirts with a secretary too much, is it UPS who has created the hostile workplace? Nope. It's my company. Similarly, the company can and will be held liable for any e-mail sent that ends in '@familyhealthcarepa.com'. So we really should be monitoring all e-mail, both internal and external. However, most of our employees are trustworthy, hardworking, and not interested in using our system to create mischief and I really don't want to turn into 'Big Brother'."

"Sure, I'll block a URL here or there but spot checking e-mail? How long until some smartass comes up with a .sig containing all of my keywords?

In general, people are going to be more productive if they take their five minute break at their terminal browsing than screwing around by the coffee machine. Along the same venue, I am not interested in tracking 'abuse' (such as hitting eBay, checking the sports scores, etc.) If someone is using that much time that it interferes with their job, I'll be speaking with them regarding their dereliction of duties in general, and not speaking to them about Internet usage in particular.

So, again, I pose the question: what sort of policy and procedures will protect the privacy of employees' surfing and e-mail, while still protecting my company from liability?"

Peter Wayner contributed the piece below, and it's a good reminder that the conventional wisdom, even as voiced by smart and respected people or institutions, may be out of step with the reality of life. Complexity seems to demand individual autonomy, doesn't it?

The demonization of people who think for themselves continues. Here's a quote from Amy Harmon's piece from Sunday's New York Times examining what software like Napster means for the world. The article itself covers a wide variety of view points and suggests that there's little the law can do if the people don't believe that something is wrong. But it contains a certain amount of worrying and handwringing, courtesy of Esther Dyson:

"We're very much looking at a biological model of an epidemic," said Esther Dyson, publisher of the technology newsletter Release 1.0. "On the Internet, a product doesn't require a central host and it doesn't require central distribution, it just spreads. It's new in business. It's been going on a long time in viruses."

It may not be fair to judge the quote outside of the larger context of Dyson's thoughts, but it still possible to focus on the dangerous assumption that this age is much different from the ones that came before. Products without central hosts and distribution are not new in business. They're old in business. The centralized, one-corporation economy is what's new. In the past, there was competition. Everything was not run by central planners of big corporations.

Consider the food business. It used to be quite local. Small companies and local producers competed with each other. Farmers sold to whomever stopped by their stands. Stores bought from multiple farmers. Now the business section of the same Sunday edition reports that Coca-Cola is gradually squeezing out all competitors from stores in the South. Coke used to fight for the best placement, now they want everyone else off the shelf completely. Should we be surprised that Ben & Jerrys is now just another brand in a big company's portfolio?

Of course, there were plenty of other products that didn't require central distribution or a central host. Almost all of the devices produced in the past lived without reporting home every few seconds because it simply wasn't feasible. Guns produced in the East empowered virus-like settlers, homesteaders, 49ers, and everyone else to swarm over what became the western states. Cars spread just as effectively. People drove them where ever they pleased and fixed them when they broke down.

Books were printed, sold, shared, and loaned without strict copyright laws. In fact, unauthorized reprinting was common. Plus, once they left the store, the newer owner was free to use the book as he chose. The law specifically granted only to the copyright holder the right to extract money from the book, in the form of its first sale.

Even software spread quickly -- and in a virus-like manner -- before the Internet came along. Plenty of software was free before the 1980s, and shareware continued the trend after that. People swapped disks and gave to their friends. It was coming of the Internet that gave rise to the centralized archives of shareware and freeware.

Dyson's words were used to imply that people who think for themselves and do not check with some central host for permission are acting like viruses. It's pretty sad to hear that the free flow of people, capital, and information is something that's scary and bad.

Covalent Technologies has announced what we believe to be the first publicly acknowledged site running the latest version of Apache: Apache 2.0a5. The site also includes some nifty links that gives you a "behind the scenes" look at the resource and load demands it's making on the server. These include the standard Apache "server-status" page as well as a top dump.

EthicalQuanderer asks: "So I'm a software developer that came onto a project and picked up someone else's work. About a week after I started I found a package that was deeply integrated into our project was under a GPLish license for private/educational use, with a specific clause against commercial use without a separate licence to be negotiated with the author. I made an issue of it at the time, and was assured it was something that would be taken care of. Now, a significant time later, I found out that we're in talks with the author for said license after we've used this stuff for well over a year. And the author is demanding sums of money that the company doesn't want to pay." In situations like this, where you've done as much as possible to avert the oncomming train that management was blind to, it may be best to tidy up, pack everything and move on.

"So now the management is making sounds about cleaning up the codebase to remove the offending code, but only where it's in parts that might be exposed to customers. Basically, it seems to be a "fix it where we might be caught, and continue to cheat where we can" kind of mentality. I realize that there are other issues here; we already violated the license, and the author is entitled to something for the use we've already gotten from the work, but that's another issue altogether.

I like my work and co-workers a lot, these schoolground ethics come from a few people at the top. So my question is, what is my ethical path through this? Do I blow the whistle to the author to give fair warning that the company isn't dealing on the level and let them deal with it? Do I issue an ultimatum to the company to fix the problems or else lose me?

I'm open to any suggestions except "let it lie, and trust that it will be fixed". I've tried that one."

This is a terrible situation for a developer to find herself in. More than likely any action that she makes, whether it be making demands to management, blowing the whistle, or even refusing to perform the work, will land her on the unemployment line. However, there comes a time when it is you as the developer that must make the decision and "do the right thing", not only for yourself, but for the company that employs you. When faced with a decision like this, would you take one of the above alternatives or is there another choice that can be discussed?

mblase asks: "According to a recent MacCentral article, one of the benefits of Mac OS X's NeXT-based roots is that "since Mac OS X is BSD based, the ports shouldn't be too difficult. The hardest part, according to Robert Palmer, will be writing the GUI (graphical user interface) front end to make administration easy." My question is, is this likely to happen? Will UNIX developers want to port their applications to an operating system that costs more in hardware and OS software both? Or is the demand likely to come from the other direction -- OS X server admins who want the stability and popularity of established UNIX applications, even if the graphical front-end Mac users have come to expect may be less than ideal? This will doubtless be a big issue for Apple as they tout Mac OS X as a server platform for the future."

nik says: How about "larger installed userbase"? Assume Linux has ~ 7 million users, and the BSD's have about 3 million (both those numbers are on the conservative side). Apple's probably going to ship 10 million or more OS X boxes in the next year or so, and porting most software is going to be no-brainer (particularly if it's already in the Free, Net, and Open BSD ports and packages collections).

Anonymous Employee writes: "I was asked for a feasibility analysis to provide high-quality searching in a large Usenet archive (all expect binary/porn groups and several years worth of archives). This is similar to what Dejanews wanted to provide before they re-branded to Deja last year. Do you think there is a need for this or is high-quality Web searching + Usenet browsing meeting your everyday needs in terms of information retrieval? If not, do the existing Usenet search interfaces suffice (Deja, one year worth of archives, not-so-good search interface - Remarq, three months worth of archives, okay search interface)? ...and also, is real-time indexing (i.e., you can search for an article 'very soon' after it has been posted) important?" In light of Deja's recent faux pas, I think this question is rather timely, and I have to admit, I wouldn't mind the ability to search Usenet posts older than one year.

Several readers pointed to the announcement that 3-D Graphics tool Maya will be ported to Linux. Darkfell quotes the release : "Responding to demand from leading studios worldwide, Alias/Wavefront will deliver Maya on Red Hat Linux in early 2001. story at biz.yahoo.com" The high-end graphics world has sure seen some strange convergences and redirections in the past few years, what with the prematurely announced death of the Macintosh, concerted marketing efforts to replace UNIX with NT, and now ... welcome to the turn of the century, guys.

Joe asks: "I've checked freshmeat a number of times, but I can't seem to find any software that will stream mp3 files 'on demand'. Most software for mp3 streaming (be it windows or unix) is based on the broadcast model (shoutcast/icecast), where a fixed or growing playlist keeps playing at all times. What I want is something that works on the 'play samples' model, where a sample of the tune is played automatically through a streaming protocol, rather than downloaded and played once downloaded. Any such beast exist? If not, why not?"

"I suppose with enough fidgetting, one could write a cgi program (even as a /bin/sh script) that would start a new icecast process on a particular port, start the shout stream, and return to the browser the "playlist" that would signal the browser to start winamp/xmms on the appropriate port; the "start the shout stream" process would wait play silence for a few seconds before shouting the desired mp3 in order to give time to the player...but that seems rather kluge-like."

An Anonymous Coward pointed to a story on the AP wire, writing: "Why does the FBI and US government have problems with this merger? Is there some sinister wiretap access deal between the current US ISPs ? [From the article:] 'An NTT spokesman told the Journal a pending U.S. government review of the deal is a response to FBI and Justice Department concerns that law-enforcement agencies maintain access to Verio's Internet structure to obtain wiretaps and serve subpoenas for information. ... In telecommunications deals, the FBI has asked for assurances that only U.S. facilities be used to handle U.S. traffic. The FBI has insisted the companies employ U.S. citizens to handle wiretapping activities.'" A fellow-traveling A.C. points to coverage on CNNfn. Does this bother anyone?

Several Anonymous Cowards have written in with the news that bsd.tucows.com has gone live. Currently they only cover FreeBSD on i386, but they say that i386 Net and OpenBSD support is in the works, with other architectures to be tackled if there's demand (requests to ajohnson@tucows.com).

Ricofencer asks: "After reading Courtney Love's rant a thought occurred to me. In her speech, Courtney makes reference to a change in copyright law that makes recorded music works for hire. This transfers the copyright to the record label, away from the artist. Yet, Metallica's actions against Napster were based upon the premise that their copyrights were violated. If their works were covered by the new law, doesn't that mean that they do not in fact have any copyrights regarding their recorded works? How would that affect the demands they made of Napster? Can Metallica, and now Dr. Dre make demands of Napster based on copyrights they think they may have but may legally be held by their record labels? Or do Metallica and Dr. Dre actually hold the copyrights of their recorded works? (I don't know, I don't have a Metallica album at hand to examine)" If this is true, this would put the Napster suits (and Metallica's own claims) in an interesting light, wouldn't it? However, even if Metallica and Dre no longer retain the copyrights to their work don't they, as the original performers, have the right to act in their record companies' behalf?