NewsScan Daily, 29 Jul 2003 ("Above The Fold")

NewsScan Daily, 29 Jul 2003 ("Above The Fold")
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"ABOVE THE FOLD"
        Pentagon's Online Trading Market Plan Draws Fire
        Experts Share Tips on Avoiding File-Sharing Lawsuits
        E-Mail Downtime More Stressful Than Divorce?
        The Movie Pirates
        Travel Package Deals Blur Price Differences
        MSN Reaches Out to France and Germany

FEATURES
        Flash Card
        Worth Thinking About: Embedded Reporters, Circa 1864

PENTAGON'S ONLINE TRADING MARKET PLAN DRAWS FIRE
The U.S. Defense Department's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency 
(DARPA) has plans to set up an online Policy Analysis Market that will 
allow traders to bet on the likelihood of future terrorist attacks and 
political assassinations in the Middle East. The bizarre scheme has drawn 
fire from Senators Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.). "The idea 
of a federal betting parlor on atrocities and terrorism is ridiculous and 
it's grotesque," said Wyden, while Dorgan described the plan as "useless, 
offensive and unbelievably stupid. How would you feel if you were the King 
of Jordan and you learned that the U.S. Defense Department was taking bets 
on your being overthrown within a year?" However, the Pentagon defended the 
initiative, comparing it to commodity futures markets. "Research indicates 
that markets are extremely efficient, effective and timely aggregators of 
dispersed and even hidden information. Futures markets have proven 
themselves to be good at predicting such things as election results; they 
are often better than expert opinions." The market would allow traders to 
deposit money in an account and then use it to buy and sell contracts. If a 
particular event comes to pass, the bettors who wagered correctly would win 
the money of those who guessed wrong. (BBC News 29 Jul 2003)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3106559.stm

EXPERTS SHARE TIPS ON AVOIDING FILE-SHARING LAWSUITS
In the wake of the recording industry's unprecedented moves against 
individual consumers to enforce copyright laws, legal experts are warning 
people who engage in music file-swapping to immediately stop sharing 
potentially infringing files or to disable file-sharing software. "…(T)he 
first thing you should do if you want to be off (the RIAA's) radar is to 
stop uploading," says Electronic Frontier Foundation senior intellectual 
property attorney Fred von Lohmann. But whether that strategy will prove 
successful is uncertain, because the RIAA has been collecting snapshots of 
individuals' shared file folders since June 26 to use as evidence lawsuits. 
Even if a file-swapper has since deleted those files, "that snapshot 
establishes enough evidence to establish infringement," says copyright 
expert Evan Cox. An RIAA spokeswoman says her group might be "willing to 
talk settlement" if a file-sharer has erased the evidence, but that will be 
considered on a case-by-case basis. The RIAA is using a provision included 
in the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act to issue subpoenas requiring 
ISPs to disclose the names of suspected infringers, raising the stakes in 
its battle against unauthorized use of its copyrighted music. "What I think 
they're going to do is start suing moms and dads and families across 
America," says California attorney Ira Rothken. "They could lose their 
house or lose their ability to send their kids to college. That is not the 
intent of copyright statutes, to bankrupt a middle-class family." (San 
Francisco Chronicle 28 Jul 2003)
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/07/28/BU296516.DTL&type=tech

E-MAIL DOWNTIME MORE STRESSFUL THAN DIVORCE?
A study sponsored by data-storage firm Veritas Software found that for 34% 
of chief information officers and IT managers, a weeklong failure of the 
corporate e-mail system would be more traumatic than a minor car accident, 
moving to a new home, or getting married or divorced. Smooth-running e-mail 
systems are essential to the enterprise, and 68% of the companies polled 
reported workers becoming irate within as little as 30 minutes after an 
e-mail system goes down. In the case of a failure lasting as long as 24 
hours, one fifth of IT managers said their jobs would be on the line at 
that point. "E-mail has become far more than a communication tool, placing 
a huge responsibility on organizations to ensure that e-mail is always 
available," says Mark Bregman, Veritas' executive VP for product 
operations. "When IT managers fail to keep the systems running, they 
inhibit the ability of the entire organization to conduct business." (CNet 
News.com 28 Jul 2003)
http://news.com.com/2100-1011_3-5056446.html?tag=fd_top

THE MOVIE PIRATES
An unanticipated by-product of Malaysia's campaign against the sale of 
illegal video discs is the rise of extortionists who impersonate law 
enforcement officers on surprise checks and demand 50 ringgit (US$13) for 
each illegal disc they find. Illegal copying of movies and computer 
software is pervasive in Malaysia and cheap versions of the latest 
Hollywood, Indian and Hong Kong films have been widely available at street 
stalls and in stores. (AP/San Jose Mercury News 29 Jul 2003)
http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/siliconvalley/6409239.htm

TRAVEL PACKAGE DEALS BLUR PRICE DIFFERENCES
Expedia and Travelocity have embraced "dynamic packaging" strategies, 
offering special discounts to shoppers who simultaneously book a flight and 
a hotel, or a hotel and a car, or all three. By showing consumers only one 
price for the entire package, the travel sites make individual prices less 
transparent (and thereby make comparison-shopping more difficult). Expedia 
chief executive Erik Blachford says dynamic packaging is "a way to avoid 
some of the competitive pressure" and allows his company to "be creative 
and give interesting options" based on unique deals Expedia can secure from 
suppliers. Currently, about 15% of all travel is bought online, and 
industry analyst Paul Keung says that companies need to maximize their 
"profit per transaction" by coupling airfares with hotel and rental car 
reservations and by selling tickets for events, tours and other 
"destination components." (USA Today 28 Jul 2003)
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2003-07-28-online-travel_x.htm

MSN REACHES OUT TO FRANCE AND GERMANY
Microsoft has developed German- and French-language versions of its 
subscription-based Web browser MSN 8 as part of an effort to increase 
overseas revenue at MSN, its Internet unit. MSN has been unprofitable so 
far, and competitors such as Yahoo are aggressively marketing their own 
subscription services in Europe. The MSN 8 offering includes a spam e-mail 
filter, parental controls, digital photo-editing software and an enhanced 
Web browser. (Reuters/ZDNet 29 Jul 2003)
http://zdnet.com.com/2110-1104_2-5056371.html

*****

FLASH CARD
      "Literature is the art of writing something that will be read twice; 
journalism what will be read once." (Cyril Connolly)

WORTH THINKING ABOUT: EMBEDDED REPORTERS, CIRCA 1864
      Civil War General William T. Sherman had this to say about reporters 
covering a war:
      "Newspaper correspondents with an army, as a rule, are mischievous. 
They are the world's gossips, pick up and retail the camp scandal, and 
gradually drift to the headquarters of some general, who finds it easier to 
make reputation at home than with his own corps or division. They are also 
tempted to prophesy events and state facts which, to an enemy, reveal a 
purpose in time to guard against it. Moreover, they are also bound to see 
facts colored by the partisan or political character of their own patrons, 
and thus bring army officers into the political controversies of the day, 
which are always mischievous and wrong. Yet so greedy are the people at 
large for war news, that it is doubtful whether any army commander can 
exclude all reporters, without bringing down on himself a clamor that may 
imperil his own safety. Time and moderation must bring a just solution to 
this modern difficulty."
                      ***
See http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0940450658/newsscancom/ref=nosim 
for William Tecumseh Sherman's "Memoirs" -- or look for it in your favorite 
library. (We donate all revenue from our book recommendations to adult 
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