From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V12 #169 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Thursday, May 8 2003 Volume 12 : Number 169 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: Marmots Ripped Our Flesh-- Rrrrr! [Laura Ogar ] Re: THC: where rock stars go to die? [gshell@metronet.com] Re: Behind the Website [Laura Ogar ] Re: Marmots Ripped Our Flesh-- Rrrrr! [Sebastian Hagedorn ] Re: Marmots Ripped Our Flesh-- Rrrrr! ["Jonathan Fetter" ] Redd Blood Cells... ["Timothy Reed" ] Duuuude... Daltry was an AWESOME guitarist! ["Rex.Broome" ] RE: ... about as far as I could spit out a rat ["da9ve stovall " ] Re: elton john + anne rice = ["Stewart C. Russell" ] Re: elton john + anne rice = [Tom Clark ] Re: elton john + anne rice = ["Jason R. Thornton" ] Re: elton john + anne rice = [Glen Uber ] X-Men news [Eb ] Barbara Soutar vs. Godzilla [Eb ] Re: X-Men news [Tom Clark ] RE: Ben? When Ben, When? ["Maximilian Lang" ] marmots and daltrey [grutness@surf4nix.com (James Dignan)] FWD: from M. Seligman [Eb ] Bomb the RIAA ["FS Thomas" ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 07 May 2003 10:18:34 -0400 From: Laura Ogar Subject: Re: Marmots Ripped Our Flesh-- Rrrrr! Rex: >So, what was the merchandise, and are you still stuck with it? It was part of what I'm selling on the sb site, mostly the t-shirts. Jeff: >I can't really think of anything that would qualify as an "offending comment." Well, I wasn't very charitable toward Tracy, now was I! It appears that the whole website "debacle" has a certain Rashomon quality about it, and mud-slinging in reaction to mud-slinging never accomplishes much, although I suppose it evens out the composition somewhat (as long as we're painting something that vaguely resembles Guernica). And don't we all hate someone who never contributes to a list, and then pops up only to criticize people? But hey, I warned you. On another front, speaking of cute animals, are lemurs cool or what? http://www.primates.com/lemurs/lemurblue.htm ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 7 May 2003 09:20:32 -0500 (CDT) From: gshell@metronet.com Subject: Re: THC: where rock stars go to die? > PS Who's latest: only formally cautioned yet placed on the sex offenders register for five years, and then fingerprinted and forced to give a blood sample! has he been convicted of anything? drinks flow, news slows, semen looses a step, i forget. and only on the list for 5 years? pedophiles never forget. so is pete a ped, or not? gSs ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 07 May 2003 10:26:02 -0400 From: Laura Ogar Subject: Re: Behind the Website Brian: >I for one would like to thank Laura, Matthew and all involved for a nice >informative and decorative website. You must thank Kim, he took over website duties from Matthew before the new site came into being, and is a perfect dear! Laura ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 07 May 2003 17:22:12 +0200 From: Sebastian Hagedorn Subject: Re: Marmots Ripped Our Flesh-- Rrrrr! - --On Mittwoch, 7. Mai 2003 10:18 Uhr -0400 Laura Ogar wrote: > On another front, speaking of cute animals, are lemurs cool or what? > http://www.primates.com/lemurs/lemurblue.htm Yeah, but I find them a bit spooky. - -- Sebastian Hagedorn PGP key ID: 0x4D105B45 Ehrenfeldg|rtel 156 50823 Kvln http://www.spinfo.uni-koeln.de/~hgd/ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 07 May 2003 11:31:36 -0400 From: Laura Ogar Subject: Re: Marmots Ripped Our Flesh-- Rrrrr! Sebastian Hagedorn wrote: > > On another front, speaking of cute animals, are lemurs cool or what? > > http://www.primates.com/lemurs/lemurblue.htm > > Yeah, but I find them a bit spooky. Ahh, I like spooky, myself. Spooky is good. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 7 May 2003 11:31:51 -0400 (EDT) From: "Jonathan Fetter" Subject: Re: Marmots Ripped Our Flesh-- Rrrrr! Groundhogs are truly lethal: http://www.lancasteronline.com/articles/2312.shtm ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 7 May 2003 11:33:55 -0400 From: "Stewart C. Russell" Subject: Re: Marmots Ripped Our Flesh-- Rrrrr! Sebastian Hagedorn wrote: > > Yeah, but I find them a bit spooky. just don't go killing 'em and chucking them on the neighbours' property, as happens to the poor unfortunate Aye-Aye . Fady, man, it's bad news. Stewart - -- np: the office's entire MP3 share in random order ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 7 May 2003 12:26:34 -0400 (EDT) From: Aaron Mandel Subject: Re: X2 On Tue, 6 May 2003, Capuchin wrote: > It does if you know that Nightcrawler doesn't know who is parents are > and was raised in the circus by a surrogate family and Mystique DOES > know, which gives a really great subtext to the one meaningful > interaction the two characters have in the movie. Didn't I read somewhere that the writers (of the comics) were going to make Mystique Nightcrawler's *father* at some point, but Marvel's editors got cold feet? (I'll cop without shame to reading Morrison's new New X-Men, but beyond that I am ignorant of almost everything that's happened in the Marvel universe since I was 10... the tidbit above came from my sister.) aaron ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 7 May 2003 12:32:03 -0400 From: "Timothy Reed" Subject: Redd Blood Cells... I saw them do an open-air show in Union Square last year and they were great. The gig was an hour and a bit, which I understand is a typical length for their gigs. An hour is a long time to play all the guitar parts, holler and obsessively stare at your ex. Steve MacDonald from Redd Kross dubbed bass lines onto White Stripes songs, which maybe not surprisingly added little to the music. He released the work as an mp3 album last year, wrapped with some unconvincing 'art project' pretensions. IMO the best part was the updated White Blood Cells cover that had Steve's picture photoshopped on. http://www.reddkross.com/fs.html Tim > PS Love 'Elephant'. Has anyone else seen the Stripes live? > Their gig charisma goes some way to explaining the hype. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 7 May 2003 09:51:57 -0700 From: "Rex.Broome" Subject: Duuuude... Daltry was an AWESOME guitarist! Ah, "Eminence Front"... Daltry played the hell out of those four notes! (Well, two notes, one of them three times...) Eb: >>Two good concerts in upcoming days...seeing the Donelly-fortified >>Throwing Muses tomorrow See ya there! ___________ Crowbar Joe: >>PPPS Having been subjected to several days of frat boy twats at the New >>Orleans Jazz Fest describing some fairly ordinary bands as 'awesome' >>(Widespread Tedium anyone?), may I suggest an embargo on the word? Ya know, my wife and I apparently say this more than we realize (albeit without the frat/stoner "accent"), because our two-year-old has adopted it as an exclamation of joy. Coming from her it's really cute, though, and if anything we encouraged it for a while, because it's just funny when she watches me, for example, unscrew the lid of a sippy cup* and the gasp and exclaim "Awwesome!" Such joy in the simple things. Plus, she was born and lives in Southern California, so that word is her birthright. - -Rex *being relatively new to the parenting game, can anyone tell me when these came into widespread use, and were they always called "sippy cups"? That sounds like parent-child pidgin to me (cf. "binkie" or "passy" for pacifier), but it seems to be the universal term and it's even written into some kids' books (including "My First Book of Sushi")... ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 7 May 2003 17:50:48 +0100 (BST) From: crowbar.joe@btopenworld.com Subject: On The Awesomeness Of Leaderless Combos I wrote >I rate Luxor considerably more highly than Bayard What I meant to write was - I rate Luxor considerably more highly than Bayard *does*. I actually rate Bayard more highly than every Robyn-related album, except Underwater M'light and, perhaps, IODOT ;-) Crowbar Joe ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 7 May 2003 13:55:30 -0400 From: "Stewart C. Russell" Subject: Re: Duuuude... Daltry was an AWESOME guitarist! Rex wrote: > > ... were they always called "sippy cups"? I believe they're known as "if you fucken spill that again, I'll gie ye sumhin tae cry about" cups in Glasgow. Stewart (thinking about Roger McGough's poem about babytalk being only suitable for adults.) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 07 May 2003 09:27:08 -0600 From: Cadtharsis Subject: German cliche Quail & Sebastian wrote: > OK, I admit, I'm having problem understanding how a midnight-blue colored > circus freak who looks like a demon, teleports through clouds of sulfurous > blue smoke, is devoutly religious and yet oddly mischievous, and carves > angelic symbols into his flesh every time he commits a mortal sin is a > "clichi." > > Heck, I don't even think his parents were killed by evil mutants. > > I may be way off here, but when he began to speak German, my friend and I > looked at each other and rolled our eyes. Most people here will watch the > film in the German dubbed version, and I don't know how it's going to come > across there. And I suppose it's better than a Lederhosen and Sauerkraut > cliche or whatever, but nonetheless to *us* it felt like a cliche. I'm not > dissing the film for it, just thought I'd mention it. - -------------------- I am a stupid American who enjoys stupid American entertainment and who doesn't anticipate that it will adequately reflect culture (that's what PBS is for, right?). That being said, I think the non-German German is a cliche. Somehow in America we get the Weiss, but not the Weisswurst. We get the Sauberschloss instead of the Zauberschloss, we get the dicht, but not the Dichtung, we get the red herring instead of the red baron, the Germs instead of the Germans, the President who says he is a jelly donut. American television and film and books and media tend to one-dimensionalize their characters (and often achieve great success from it), and in doing so get only, at best, half a character -- half-Germans, half-Italians, half-Arabs, half-Jews, half-Indians, half-Southerners, etc. Not only do we get a fraction of the cultures (ours included), but we get the dorky, silly, twisted and easy-to-dramatize fractions. Aren't all our halflings roll-your-eyesable? Please rebut with movies, book or play recommendations that have excellently developed characters. I don't get out much, - - Bill ------------------------------ Date: 7 May 2003 10:16:22 -0700 From: "da9ve stovall " Subject: RE: ... about as far as I could spit out a rat >Date: Tue, 6 May 2003 16:16:57 -0400 >From: "Stewart C. Russell" >Subject: ... about as far as I could spit out a rat > >"American broadcaster and concert promoter Clear Channels Communication launched a venture, Instant Live on May 5 that will sell live recordings on CD within five minutes of a show's conclusion." > > There's a rather more detailed version of this article here - though you need to register to get it (email me offlist if you want a copy of the text of the whole article): http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/05/business/media/05DISK.html The bands they listed aren't exactly household names - cynically, I suspect that they're just younger, more easily manipulable groups, as I certainly can't see giving Clear Channel the benefit of any doubt. There are plenty of red flags, still: Is Clear Channel gonna start dictating setlists to avoid dealing with copyright fees for cover versions? If they really do end up selling copies through Best Buy as well, there's just another reason to hate the whole thing. One GOOD thing the NYTimes article tells me is that at least they have the sense to use a matrix (audience plus soundboard) mix for these recordings. Brief excerpt: " To make the discs, a master recording is made that blends music from the band's mixing board with ambient sounds, including crowd noise, from other microphones. As soon as the show ends, the master copy is taken to a small tower of CD burners, each of which can duplicate up to eight discs at a time. Fans will be able to preorder the discs when they buy tickets for the concert or place orders at any time during or after the performance. Mr. Simon said Clear Channel would hold as many as five Instant Live concerts a month at small clubs in the Boston area. He said the venture would expand to larger venues and other cities. Clear Channel also has an exclusive distribution agreement with the Best Buy consumer electronics chain to sell Instant Live CD's in eight of its Boston-area stores and, beginning in mid-May, through its BestBuy.com Web site. " I'm dying to find out exactly what hardware and what brand of media they're using for this, and whether they'll be trying to implement any kind of copy protection encoding on the discs. As a fairly experienced CD-R audio geek (and taper), I wouldn't be surprised at all to find pops and clicks aplenty on a good percentage of their output. da9ve ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 07 May 2003 14:44:28 -0700 From: "Jason R. Thornton" Subject: elton john + anne rice = crap? http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20030506/en_nm/leisure_vampires_dc - --Jason "Only the few know the sweetness of the twisted apples." - Sherwood Anderson ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 7 May 2003 17:51:46 -0400 From: "Stewart C. Russell" Subject: Re: elton john + anne rice = Jason R. Thornton wrote: > > crap? can I be not the first to say that that bites? Stewart ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 07 May 2003 14:53:08 -0700 From: Tom Clark Subject: Re: elton john + anne rice = on 5/7/03 2:44 PM, Jason R. Thornton at jthornton@ucsd.edu wrote: > crap? > > http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20030506/en_nm/leisure_vampi > res_dc > Natch. - -tc ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 07 May 2003 14:56:05 -0700 From: "Jason R. Thornton" Subject: Re: elton john + anne rice = At 05:51 PM 5/7/2003 -0400, Stewart C. Russell wrote: > > crap? > >can I be not the first to say that that bites? Surely, it shall suck. - --Jason "Only the few know the sweetness of the twisted apples." - Sherwood Anderson ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 07 May 2003 14:58:21 -0700 From: Glen Uber Subject: Re: elton john + anne rice = On 5/7/03 2:44 PM, Jason R. Thornton was rumored to have said: > http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20030506/en_nm/leisure_vampi > res_dc Songs will include: "I Guess That's Why They Call It The Blood," "Don't Let The Sun Come Up On Me," "Love Lies Bleeding," "(He Shall Be) LeStat," "Honky Bat," and, of course, "Saturday Night's Alright For Biting". Cheers! - -g- "Why of course the people don't want war. . .That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country." -- Hermann Goering, on or about 18 April 1946, Nuremberg War Crimes Trial ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 7 May 2003 15:13:01 -0700 From: Eb Subject: X-Men news [I don't know what's funnier...news of the Matthew Sweet collaboration, or the implication that Hanson is just "choosing" to do a smaller tour this time] LAUNCH Radio Networks Sibling rockers Hanson have parted with Island Def Jam Records and are looking for a label to release their soon-to-be completed studio album, Underneath. The Tulsa, Oklahoma-based trio and Island Def Jam mutually agreed to end their relationship after disagreeing on the band's musical direction. Vocalist Taylor Hanson said, "Our vision for the songs and the production of this record was something we wouldn't compromise. We are thrilled to finally be able to finish the record and move forward with our career." The band is currently working with Danny Kortchmar (producer of James Taylor, Jon Bon Jovi), and recording the last few tracks for Underneath, their third full-length studio album. The set features tracks such as "Deeper" featuring Michelle Branch on backing vocals, and the title track, which was co-written by Matthew Sweet. To promote Underneath, the band plans an intimate club tour that will have a corresponding online presence to help showcase the new material to a larger audience. Hanson made its debut in 1997 with the album Middle Of Nowhere, which was nominated for three Grammys and spawned the hit, "MMMBop." The track reached Number One on the Billboard Hot 100. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 7 May 2003 15:29:04 -0700 From: Eb Subject: Barbara Soutar vs. Godzilla MAY 7--After a four-month investigation, London police today cleared Pete Townshend of kiddie porn charges. But the rock star will still spend five years on a U.K. register of sex offenders because the co-founder of The Who visited a web site containing child porn images. Townshend was nabbed in January on suspicion of possessing indecent images of children, though no such photos were found following a search of his home and computer. At the time of his arrest, Townshend admitted using his credit card to visit a web site offering child porn, but told cops he was just conducting research. Along with being placed on the sex offender registry, the performer had to submit a DNA sample to police and have his fingerprints and mug shot taken. As part of his "research project," Townshend drafted the below six-page treatise on the easy availability of child pornography on the Internet. So easy, in fact, that Townshend, 57, wrote that he accidentally discovered a photo of a two-year-old boy being raped when he typed the words "Russia," "orphanages," and "boys" into a search engine. Townshend claimed that he reached for his telephone and "intended to call the police and take them through the process I had stumbled upon--and bring the pornographers involved to [jail]," but that he decided not to contact authorities after discussing the issue with an attorney. Townshend's paper, which he once posted on his official web site, also notes that the "pathway to 'free' paedophilic imagery is--as it were--laid out like a free line of cocaine at a decadent cocktail party: only the strong willed or terminally uncurious can resist." In the January 2002 porn treatise, Townshend notes that since 1997 he has been working on "some kind of document" relating to Internet porn, but that he feared being arrested by police who were on a "witch hunt" to catch anyone who visited illicit web pages: "Those vigilantes who research these pathways open themselves up to internet 'snoops.'" ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 07 May 2003 15:27:19 -0700 From: Tom Clark Subject: Re: X-Men news on 5/7/03 3:13 PM, Eb at ElBroome@earthlink.net wrote: > LAUNCH Radio Networks > > Sibling rockers Hanson have parted with Island Def Jam Records and are looking > for a label to release their soon-to-be completed studio album, Underneath. > Maybe they should try the DIY approach: http://www.cafepress.com/cp/info/sell/cds.aspx > The Tulsa, Oklahoma-based trio and Island Def Jam mutually agreed to end their > relationship after disagreeing on the band's musical direction. "Crap!" "Severe Crap!" "Crap!" "Severe Crap!" "Crap!" "Severe Crap!" "Let's just agree to disagree." Awesome. - -tc ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 07 May 2003 20:04:21 -0400 From: "Maximilian Lang" Subject: RE: Ben? When Ben, When? Meestor Reed: >Ben Stiller *and* Son of the Beach on DVD!? Oh crap - I'm going to have >to extend my DVD shelf a bit. Oh Tim, Strangers With Candy and now Son Of The Beach! Anyhow, check this out: http://www.bobanddavid.com/section_mrshow_dvd3_annc.html Max "Evil child within the man, doing evil while you can." _________________________________________________________________ MSN 8 with e-mail virus protection service: 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/virus ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 8 May 2003 18:30:14 +1200 From: grutness@surf4nix.com (James Dignan) Subject: marmots and daltrey >> Maybe. But I can't think of groundhogs any more without associating then >> with marmots, which infest Mineral King, the mountainous area adjacent to >> Sequoia National Park (hey, there's two California Natural Wonders right >> there). The weird thing is that they love to chew through brake cables. > >Funny, in Germany that's the martens' job. I admit I had to look that up. >Marten is Marder in German, whereas marmots are called Murmeltiere, which >translates to 'marble anmimals' in English. I guess they're related. Are >there martens in the US? here, the problem is keas. but since the kea is a kind of parrot, I don't really think they're that closely related to marmots As for there being martens in the US, anyone who ever watched Twin Peaks should know the answer to that! >> > On the verge of upfront, the History Channel has unveiled its new >>> fall-season programming, including new series Extreme History with >>> Roger Daltry, which focuses on different extreme historical events and >>> how individuals survived them, and is hosted by the Who's former >>> vocalist-guitarist >>> >>> >>> [PS "Guitarist"?] >> >>"Eminence Front" D-C-D-D D-C-D-D D-C-D-D D-C-D-D, etc... > >I know Daltrey *sometimes* played guitar. But clearly, it's a stretch >to call him a "vocalist-guitarist." Heck, even "vocalist-harmonica >player" would be more apt. don't forget that he played trombone on "Cobwebs and strange"... erm, yeah, it might be worth forgetting it, at that... James (who once helped record a piece of music called "The Marmot Bossanova") PS - went to a pet shop today - they had quails on sale at $15 each. James Dignan, Dunedin, New Zealand. =-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-= .-=-.-=-.-=-.- .-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-. -.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-= You talk to me as if from a distance =-.-=-. And I reply with impressions chosen from another time -=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=- (Brian Eno - "By this River") ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 8 May 2003 02:29:55 -0700 From: Eb Subject: FWD: from M. Seligman [Matthew told me to forward this to the list, regarding the website issue. Eb] I think its very fair...no problems with Laura's she's written in so far as it describe my rather chaotic way of running the website (whilst also trying to run a family, job, have a baby, tour and on occasions do tour diaries etc.), and taking into account the innate inaccuracy of any one single person's viewpoint...... I'm sure she would add, and we've always agreed, that Tracy also deserves a lot of credit for her work, creatively, as indeed does Laura and a root cause in my opinion of all these tensions between the Softs and their website designers is an almost myopic ability on the part of the band either to appreciate their worth, or pay them properly.......the situation has now been hugely helped by the angelic Kimberley picking up the reins when I eventually had had enough and he (like all of us) has ever since been putting in a lot of personal money, time and patience to keep the thing running..... But I'm really sad things ended up so bad with Tracy...she put a lot of work into the site but in the end hitched herself up with a lawyer who gave her what I thought was bad advice....when I tried to renegotiate the "agency" deal, Tracy stomped off court and that, really, was that......I ended up in exactly the same position, and I think its something that Laura has felt too, that really the work put into the site by all of us has been pathetically under appreciated and in quite a few respects, criticised, but I feel like Laura and Kim have got things running smoothly now so maybe that's changing..... I still remember running all over Chicago before the gig trying to find a nice toaster to give Tracy...I appreciated her! But I also had a parsimonious budget to work with, which was a source of regret.... As to what Aiden's agenda is, I really have no clue, I think he's a bit feeble to lie low and not answer my e-mails.....I saw him at a Snail / Ju-Jus gig in February (the one Marc came to)...he said nothing of this....but if (as I understand) he's puzzled about how I hold down a job as a barrister, well really, he's right, its a most unnatural calling but I enjoyed the intellectual task of seeing if I could do it, that was all, a mental/survivial/determination challenge......I'm the first to agree I'm not exactly a "natural" at this job....but I always rthought of him as a friend though maybe I sinned when I didnt recognise him at the Juju's gig...but it was dark and he'd grown his hair since the last time.... anyway, hope all's well in fegdom..... all the best matthew x ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 8 May 2003 08:25:08 -0400 From: "FS Thomas" Subject: Bomb the RIAA From the NY Times: May 4, 2003 Software Bullet Is Sought to Kill Musical Piracy By ANDREW ROSS SORKIN Some of the world's biggest record companies, facing rampant online piracy, are quietly financing the development and testing of software programs that would sabotage the computers and Internet connections of people who download pirated music, according to industry executives. The record companies are exploring options on new countermeasures, which some experts say have varying degrees of legality, to deter online theft: from attacking personal Internet connections so as to slow or halt downloads of pirated music to overwhelming the distribution networks with potentially malicious programs that masquerade as music files. The covert campaign, parts of which may never be carried out because they could be illegal under state and federal wiretap laws, is being developed and tested by a cadre of small technology companies, the executives said. If employed, the new tactics would be the most aggressive effort yet taken by the recording industry to thwart music piracy, a problem that the IFPI, an industry group, estimates costs the industry $4.3 billion in sales worldwide annually. Until now, most of the industry's anti-piracy efforts have involved filing lawsuits against companies and individuals that distribute pirated music. Last week, four college students who had been sued by the industry settled the suits by agreeing to stop operating networks that swap music and pay $12,000 to $17,500 each. The industry has also tried to frustrate pirates technologically by spreading copies of fake music files across file-sharing networks like KaZaA and Morpheus. This approach, called "spoofing," is considered legal but has had only mild success, analysts say, proving to be more of a nuisance than an effective deterrent. The new measures under development take a more extreme - and antagonistic - approach, according to executives who have been briefed on the software programs. Interest among record executives in using some of these more aggressive programs has been piqued since a federal judge in Los Angeles ruled last month that StreamCast Networks, the company that offers Morpheus, and Grokster, another file-sharing service, were not guilty of copyright infringement. And last week, the record industry turned a "chat" feature in popular file-trading software programs to its benefit by sending out millions of messages telling people: "When you break the law, you risk legal penalties. There is a simple way to avoid that risk: DON'T STEAL MUSIC." The deployment of this message through the file-sharing network, which the Recording Industry Association of America said is an education effort, appears to be legal. But other anti-piracy programs raise legal issues. Since the law and the technology itself are new, the liabilities - criminal and civil - are not easily defined. But some tactics are clearly more problematic than others. Among the more benign approaches being developed is one program, considered a Trojan horse rather than a virus, that simply redirects users to Web sites where they can legitimately buy the song they tried to download. A more malicious program, dubbed "freeze," locks up a computer system for a certain duration - minutes or possibly even hours - risking the loss of data that was unsaved if the computer is restarted. It also displays a warning about downloading pirated music. Another program under development, called "silence," scans a computer's hard drive for pirated music files and attempts to delete them. One of the executives briefed on the silence program said that it did not work properly and was being reworked because it was deleting legitimate music files, too. Other approaches that are being tested include launching an attack on personal Internet connections, often called "interdiction," to prevent a person from using a network while attempting to download pirated music or offer it to others. "There are a lot of things you can do - some quite nasty," said Marc Morgenstern, the chief executive of Overpeer, a technology business that receives support from several large media companies. Mr. Morgenstern refused to identify his clients, citing confidentiality agreements with them. He also said that his company does not and will not deploy any programs that run afoul of the law. "Our philosophy is to make downloading pirated music a difficult and frustrating experience without crossing the line." And while he said "we develop stuff all the time," he was also quick to add that "at the end of the day, my clients are trying to develop relationships with these people." Overpeer, with 15 staff members, is the largest of about a dozen businesses founded to create counterpiracy methods. The music industry's five "majors" - the Universal Music Group, a unit of Vivendi Universal; the Warner Music Group, a unit of AOL Time Warner; Sony Music Entertainment; BMG, a unit of Bertelsmann; and EMI - have all financed the development of counterpiracy programs, according to executives, but none would discuss the details publicly. Warner Music issued a statement saying: "We do everything we feel is appropriate, within the law, in order to protect our copyrights." A spokeswoman for Universal Music said that the company "is engaging in legal technical measures." Whether the record companies decide to unleash a tougher anti-piracy campaign has created a divide among some music executives concerned about finding a balance between stamping out piracy and infuriating its music-listening customers. There are also questions about whether companies could be held liable by individuals who have had their computers attacked. "Some of this stuff is going to be illegal," said Lawrence Lessig, a professor at Stanford Law School who specializes in Internet copyright issues. "It depends on if they are doing a sufficient amount of damage. The law has ways to deal with copyright infringement. Freezing people's computers is not within the scope of the copyright laws." Randy Saaf, the president of MediaDefender, another company that receives support from the record industry to frustrate pirates, told a congressional hearing last September that his company "has a group of technologies that could be very effective in combating piracy on peer-to-peer networks but are not widely used because some customers have told us that they feel uncomfortable with current ambiguities in computer hacking laws." In an interview, he declined to identify those technologies for competitive reasons. "We steer our customers away from anything invasive," he said. Internet service providers are also nervous about anti-piracy programs that could disrupt their systems. Sarah B. Deutsch, associate general counsel of Verizon Communications, said she is concerned about any program that slows down connections. "It could become a problem we don't know how to deal with," she said. "Any technology that has an effect on a user's ability to operate their computer or use the network would be of extreme concern to us. I wouldn't say we're against this completely. I would just say that we're concerned." Verizon is already caught in its own battle with the recording industry. A federal judge ordered Verizon to provide the Recording Industry Association of America with the identities of customers suspected of making available hundreds of copyrighted songs. The record companies are increasingly using techniques to sniff out and collect the electronic addresses of computers that distribute pirated music. But the more aggressive approach could also generate a backlash against individual artists and the music industry. When Madonna released "spoofed" versions of songs from her new album on music sharing networks to frustrate pirates, her own Web site was hacked into the next day and real copies of her album were made available by hackers on her site. The industry has tried to seek legislative support for aggressive measures. Representative Howard L. Berman, Democrat of California, introduced a bill last fall that would have limited the liability of copyright owners for using tougher technical counterpiracy tactics to protect their works online. But the bill was roundly criticized by privacy advocates. "There was such an immediate attack that you couldn't get a rational dialogue going," said Cary Sherman, president of the recording industry association. He said that while his organization often briefs recording companies on legal issues related to what he calls "self help" measures, "the companies deal with this stuff on their own." And as for the more extreme approaches, he said, "It is not uncommon for engineers to think up new programs and code them. There are a lot of tantalizing ideas out there - some in the gray area and some illegal - but it doesn't mean they will be used." ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V12 #169 ********************************