The RIAA is perplexed. To a certain extent so am I. But a judge has ruled that just because a file is in a Kaazaa directory does not meet the definition of ‘distribution’. The confusing part? This very same judge ruled otherwise in a similar RIAA case against a different party.

In most cases, the answer has been yes. Judge Neil V. Wake, presiding over Atlantic vs. Pamela and Jeffrey Howell, bucked that trend by denying the RIAA’s motion for summary judgment in that case.

According to him, just because the RIAA’s investigative partner MediaSentry was able to download 12 copyrighted songs from the Howell’s Kazaa account at two in the morning on January 30, 2006, that doesn’t necessarily mean that other people were downloading the songs too. In fact, the judge held, there is no proof that the couple distributed copyrighted songs to anyone except the MediaSentry investigator.

“The statute does not define the term ‘distribute,’ so courts have interpreted the term in light of the statute’s plain meaning and legislative history,” wrote the judge. “The general rule, supported by the great weight of authority, is that ‘infringement of [the distribution right] requires an actual dissemination of either copies or phonorecords.’” Last year, the same judge ruled the other way on this case, so the Howells and their attorneys must have made significant progress since then.

Pols wonder why Americans consider going to court a crap shoot. Regardless this is an interesting twist. If upheld the legal bar for the RIAA has just been raised. Not only must they prove that the files were available but ALSO that someone other than the RIAA has downloaded the files. The rub is P2P systems tend to anonymousize [sic] the file transfer. So if the RIAA is not in the loop at the actual time a 3rd party downloads the file that may never capture the act of doing so. Heh.

And battle marches on…

Linky.

The man pictured at the left is Senator Robert Byrd, all time champion and reigning king of the pork barrel and earmarks. Senator Byrd has successfully driven more federal spending per capita to his home state than any other elected representative in history. West Virginia is home to boundless interstate highways and federal office buildings. If there is a close vote in the Senate, you can bet Mr. Byrd will demand a little something extra for the folks back home before he’ll sway. Based on his actions, it seems Senator will not be happy until every square inch of WV is accessible from a federal funded road and any WV infrastructure project will be done twice for good measure. Now here’s the rub: West Virgina is far behind the rest of the nation in broadband availability.

The Southwest Virginia region around Roanoke and Blacksburg came in dead last in a Scarborough Research report that measured broadband use in 79 U.S. markets, with only 29 percent of adults reporting high-speed Internet connections in their homes.

Ranking one above Southwest Virginia was the Charleston/Huntington market, which reported only 33 percent of high-speed Internet connections in homes, tying with the Fresno-Visalia, Calif., region.

The low number of high-speed Internet connections in the Southwest Virginia region paled in comparison to the rest of the nation, which quadrupled broadband use from 2002 to 2007, according to the Scarborough Research study. (Bluefield Daily Telegraph)

Please don’t get the idea we advocate federal funding of broadband projects, we couldn’t think of a worse idea. This is just to make a point that the current crop lawmakers in Washington DC are clueless. The fact that man most likely to get the feds to pay for any imaginable infrastructure project in his state has done nothing to improve access in his state on the federal spend is very telling.

Please remember to vote in November.

Here’s more proof that the content and access businesses don’t mix well under the same corporate roof.

Time Warner is splitting off its cable services division, the company said Wednesday.

Time Warner currently owns around 84 percent of Time Warner Cable. The media giant, which has been struggling of late, has been rumored to be discussing merging the AOL division with Yahoo.

“A complete structural separation of Time Warner Cable, under the right circumstances, is in the best interest of both companies’ shareholders,” CEO Jeff Bewkes said in a release. (Cnet)

This blog wasn’t here when the Time Warner entered the cable business, but I can assure you the entire Third Pipe team agreed it was an unworkable marriage.

Just kidding but like the disaster that will be the DTV transition, it now appears that we have an issue with wireless health monitors. Now CNet paints a picture of possible problems. We don’t doubt that might be true. But CNet also paint a picture of a ‘woe is the hospital’ when in fact companies like GE Medical Systems knew that there would be a transition. They did not take advantage of the changeout. Heck there is even a channel space that has been designated for such systems for several years now.

What’s that old saying? Oh — “Bad planning on your part, does not constitute panic on mine.” Please get off the White Space mindset. Properly designed digital systems have tightly constrained spectrum use.

But this does point out that the whole transition will be a problem.

With somewhere around 96% penetration amoung American households the only way to grow a business is to steal customers. Verizon and AT&T have been very successful at this to the expense of Sprint and T-Mobile. But it also means that slowly the customer is becoming more important.

Case in point, taking a page out of the auto dealers, flipped customer playbook. Cellular South is willing to pay off a customers ETF if they sign up with them. The maximum is $200 and it is a service credit. Most likely you won’t see the bill off till the end of your contract with them. Recommend you read the fine print before you make a move. But if the it makes sense to you then consider it.

Linky.

Alright you have a Verizon Wireless contract and you want OUT. Well they have upped their administrative fee again. Well that is a material change in your contract. Yes you can get out for a change of .15c. Consumerist has the whole process here. Play it right an you will be able to leave without being hit for a early termination fee.

But I want to address this fee itself. Think about this a moment — a monthly administrative fee of .85c. Small fare right? Ok, but mulitply that by millions of customers times 12. That ladies and gentlemen is not chump change. Which is the beef. You do realize that ‘administration’ is what is called a Gerneral and Administrative expense on the accounts. That was the cost of doing business. So what Verizon is doing is shifting that expense to the customer.

Nice gig if you can get it. But the practice is a crock.

Yeees. You got it. In the Web 2.0 world it is now possible to know exactly where a toilet is located. The website is sponsored by Imodium, the gastric product. I am detecting a trend here. It has been that sponsorships of websites have been on a per click basis. But I am starting to see cases where sites are being created and sponsored by product manufacturers. The website is the product placement which is remiicient of the ‘in place’ ads on network television of the 50’s.

Linky.

There is a paradigm shift taking place before our eyes. Vertical, centralized, command and control organizations are in decline. This is largely due to cheap universally available information, thanks to the internet. As reported here earlier, the daily newspaper in most cities is dying.

The media communications agency has published its Wave 3 report, after having interviewed 17,000 representative Internet users from around the world on their use of social media. The report is the third in a series that examines how Internet usage trends are changing, and points out that the trends of both reading and writing for blogs are still growing.

Universal McCann found that 45 percent of those surveyed have started a blog, up 14 percent since June 2007. Perhaps unsurprisingly, a handful of Asian countries led the pack, with China, Taiwan, and South Korean users all reporting over 70 percent participation in blogging. By comparison, Internet users in the US only had 26.4 percent participation, with the UK at 25.3 percent and Canada at 22.5 percent—perhaps because we have collectively had access to the Internet for much longer, we are more curmudgeonly when it comes to adopting new trends like blogging. Still, those surveyed expressed positive feelings about using blogs as a means of expressing themselves, for companies to communicate with customers, and for socializing with friends. (Ars Technica)

Newspapers love to blame the blogger for their downfall, and they are correct in doing so to a point. The old media never learned the first rule of business: if you do not provide what people want, someone else will. That is unless you can, with the help of government, limit competition. Newspapers and broadcast network lost their monopolies on the control of information before they understood what was happening. The same rules apply to any information based enterprise, and to government. The era of bigger is better is over.

Dear FCC and Congress: Tell me again how the marketplace has become competitive enough to dump local loop unbundling. Darth V’s FIOS product faces so little competition in either speed or price, that they’ve been able to incrementally bump prices on a regular schedule. The average big bundle FIOS customer pays around $150 for what can be had for $40 in Paris. Before we start hearing excuses, France has a more antiquated legacy infrastructure, more labor union control of business, higher taxes, higher salaries and a shorter work week.

Discussing this morning’s earnings, Verizon CFO Doreen Toben told investors, analysts and reporters on a conference call today that FiOS users can expect a new round of price hikes this quarter. “You may recall we increased prices for selected products in the first quarter last year,” said Toben while discussing FiOS (see transcript (pdf)). “We anticipate increasing prices once again in certain products and bundles in the second quarter this year.” Which FiOS products and bundles was not specified.

Verizon has consistently nudged up the price of FiOS broadband, especially for customers who refuse to sign up for long term contracts or add additional bundled services. Standalone broadband service jumped $5 in many markets last fall, while double and triple play bundles have consistently increased anywhere from $5 to $20 since FiOS was launched (depending on the product market). (Broadband Reports)

The pulp news sources continue their slide to oblivion. Of 10 pulp dailies, only the Wall Street Journal showed an increase in readership. NYT, LAT and WashPost showed steep declines. The body count. –

• The New York Post lost over 3% daily and more than 8% on Sunday.
• Daily circulation at The Orange County Register plunged 11.9% to 250,724 and Sunday fell 5.3% to 311,982.
• In Los Angeles, the Times lost more than 40,000 daily copies. Daily circulation there was down 5.1% to 773,884. Sunday declined 6.0% to 1,101,981.
• The San Francisco Chronicle reported that daily circulation dropped 4.2% to 370,345, while Sunday dropped 3.0% to 424,603.
• The Boston Globe’s daily circulation fell 8.3% to 350,605. Sunday declined 6.4% to 525,959.
• The Miami Herald reported daily circulation lost more than 11% with 240,223 copies while Sunday dropped 9% to 311,245.
• Daily circulation at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution declined 8.5% to 326,907 while Sunday fell 5.0% to 497,149.
• Daily and Sunday circulation at the Chicago Tribune both dropped 4.4% to 541,663 and 898,703, respectively. In a statement released this morning, the paper noted that it increased its readership with its other products like the free Redeye and its Web site.

The point of all this of course is pulp is dead. But moving pulp content to an online presence is no guarantee either. Both the left and right side of the blogosphere has staked out positions on the net. They have developed skills and processes that far outshine the pulp presence on the net. There is already consideration of a possible fiscal realignment of NYT by outsiders.

So are there opportunties in this demise of the pulp papers? Yes. If NYT died tomorrow for example who would take over syndication feeds? Won’t be www.DrudgeReport.com. He uses a lot of NYT feeds for content. But somebody will. Or what about the local and social news that fills ‘B’ section? These vacuums will be filled somehow.

Linky.