THE F BOMB STRIKES AGAIN
A Maryland man is suing Wal-Mart for selling his daughter an Evanescence CD that contains an obscenity. Wal-Mart has a policy of not carrying explicit music in its stores.
'BitTorrent' Gives Hollywood a Headache
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Bram Cohen didn't set out to upset Hollywood movie studios. But his innovative online file-sharing software, BitTorrent, has grown into a piracy problem the film industry is struggling to handle.
As its name suggests, the software lets computer users share large chunks of data. But unlike other popular file-sharing programs, the more people swap data on BitTorrent, the quicker it flows — and that includes such large files as feature films and computer games.
Because of its speed and effectiveness, BitTorrent steadily gained in popularity after the recording industry began cracking down last year on users of Kazaa, Morpheus, Grokster and other established file-sharing software.
The program now accounts for as much as half of all online file-sharing activity, says Andrew Parker, chief technology officer of Britain-based CacheLogic, which monitors such traffic.
"BitTorrent is more of a threat because it is probably the latest and best technological tool for transferring large files like movies," said John Malcolm, senior vice president of anti-piracy operations for the Motion Picture Association of America. "It is unusual, perhaps unique, in that the moment you start downloading you are also uploading," he added. "It's what makes it so efficient."
Cohen created BitTorrent in 2001 as a hobby after the dot-com crash left him unemployed. He says the aim was to enable computer users to easily distribute content online — not specifically copyrighted content.
"It seems pretty clear that a lot of people are actively interested in engaging in wanton piracy," said Cohen, 29, of Bellevue, Wash. "As far as I'm concerned, they're just pushing around bits, and what bits it is they're pushing around is not really a concern of mine. There's not much I can do about it."
BitTorrent has proven to be resistant to some of the countermeasures the entertainment industry has taken to sabotage file-sharing, including a process known as file-spoofing in which incomplete or decoy versions of songs or other material are uploaded to discourage piracy.
"Spoofing is very difficult on BitTorrent, if at all possible," said Mark Ishikawa, chief executive of online tracking firm BayTSP Inc. "There's no defense for this one."
Programs such as Kazaa and Morpheus allow users to link their PCs to computer networks and then query a search engine for the file or title they're seeking. The software then churns out a list of other computers sharing the file.
The process is simple and straightforward, which makes it relatively easy to corrupt with spoofed files.
With BitTorrent, however, users don't find whole files. The program seeks out torrent files, also known as seed files, that are hosted by a number of Web sites.
The files on the Web sites are not songs or movies but serve as markers that point the way to other users sharing a given file. BitTorrent then assembles complete files from multiple chunks of data obtained from everyone who is sharing the file.
Attempts to upload bogus files to corrupt the process fail because the BitTorrent program follows a blueprint of the original file when piecing it together.
"It's very difficult for an interdiction company to get in the middle of that system," said Ishikawa, whose company combs file-sharing networks on behalf of Hollywood studios and alerts clients when their movies turn up on the Internet.
Some of the BitTorrent host sites, like SuprNova.org, generate a daily list of new seed files added by users. The site recently had listings for movies such as "Van Helsing" and "Wimbledon," which is not scheduled for release on DVD for another three weeks.
Some sites offer digitized broadcasts of "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart," computer games like "Star Trek: Klingon Academy" and "Half Life 2," e-books on the physics behind an atomic bomb, even footage of kidnap victims in the Middle East.
"A bunch of the different beheadings are online," Ishikawa said.
Downhill Battle, a Worcester, Mass.-based independent music group that has developed its own BitTorrent-based software called Blog Torrent, says the technology is much more than a tool for swapping copyright movies and software (a blog is a Web journal).
"What we're excited about as far as BitTorrent goes is the possibility for people to blog video and blog their own home movies (and) independent films and have a way to distribute them online without having to have a big budget for Web-hosting," said Nicholas Reville, one of the group's directors.
"Bandwidth has been a big barrier," he said. "BitTorrent solved that."
While some of the BitTorrent sites that host seed files have been forced to shut down, many others escape scrutiny because they're only hosting marker files, not copyrighted material.
Malcolm of the MPAA says his organization is not focusing any more or less on BitTorrent than other file-sharing system. He declined to say whether the trade group intends to sue Cohen and wouldn't name any BitTorrent users who may have been included in the entertainment industry's latest wave of lawsuits.
"Anyone who uses BitTorrent and is under the illusion that they are anonymous are sorely mistaken," Malcolm said. "There is no reason why those lawsuits wouldn't include BitTorrent" users.
So far, Cohen said, he has not become a target of the entertainment industry, which has aggressively pursued litigation against other file-sharing software distributors, with mixed success. On Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court (news - web sites) agreed to hear an appeal by movie studios and music labels of a ruling that found Grokster Ltd. and StreamCast Networks Inc., the firm behind the Morpheus software, to not be responsible for their customers' online swapping of copyright songs and movies.
For his part, Cohen said he has received just one legal warning, over a computer game that was being distributed using BitTorrent.
"Someone else was doing something with BitTorrent that I had no knowledge of," Cohen said. "It's not being done on any machines I have any control over ... what do you want me to do?"
'We Are the World' Turns 20 on DVD
NEW YORK (Billboard) - The 20th anniversary of the release of USA For Africa's charity single "We Are the World" will be marked Feb. 1 with the DVD "We Are the World: The Story Behind the Song."
The double-disc set, from Image Entertainment, boasts more than four hours of footage from the historic session, which featured some of the biggest names in music.
The announcement comes on the heels of the release of a 20th anniversary version of Band Aid's "Do They Know It's Christmas," the British famine relief charity single that spurred both the USA for Africa tune and the Live Aid concert. A DVD featuring most of the Live Aid performances also hit stores recently.
Bruce Springsteen, Michael Jackson, Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder, Bob Dylan and Diana Ross were among the artists on hand for the original Jan. 28, 1985, session that birthed "We are the World." It went on to sell more than seven million copies worldwide and win the song and record of the year Grammys.
The single and accompanying album have raised more than $60 million for African famine relief. Proceeds from the upcoming DVD will benefit the same cause.
In addition to an expanded edition of the original "making of" special released on home video in 1985, "The Story Behind the Song" will include a 10th anniversary documentary about the song and two hours of rehearsal and recording footage.
Fans will also be able to use a newly created karaoke function to sing over the song's chorus and instrumental breaks. Additional clips include "We Are the World" performances at the Grammys, American Music Awards and Live Aid.
"I wish I could say that 'We Are The World' solved all the problems it highlighted," says Ken Kragen, one of the original recording session's co-organizers. "Nevertheless, it did shed incredible light on those problems, galvanized many into action and set an example of what people can accomplish when they come together in pursuit of helping others in need."
Godfather of Soul James Brown Has Prostate Cancer
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Singer James Brown, the music pioneer known as The Godfather of Soul, has prostate cancer and will have surgery next week, his publicist said on Friday.
The 71-year-old Brown, who just finished a two-week Canadian tour, will have surgery at an undisclosed hospital in Georgia on Dec. 15, said publicist Simone Smalls.
Brown then plans to begin promoting his memoir, "I Feel Good: A Memoir of a Life of Soul," to be published in January.
Brown has had 119 singles make the charts and made more than 50 albums since his debut record, "Please, Please, Please," was released in 1956.
Fans wanting to direct well-wishes to Brown can address him at JB@intriguemusic.com, Smalls said.
A member of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and honored with Lifetime Achievement Award by the Grammys, Brown was recognized at the Kennedy Center Honors last year where presenter Secretary of State Colin Powell called him the "Secretary of Soul" and "Foreign Minister of Funk."
High Stakes for Star-Studded Caper 'Ocean's Twelve'
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - It sounds like an impossible heist: with the clock ticking and important people demanding payback, Danny Ocean and his eclectic crew of con men have to make off with millions under intense scrutiny.
Can "Ocean's Twelve" work their criminal magic again?
It's the high-stakes question that sets in motion the sequel to the 2001 hit "Ocean's Eleven," but an even more pressing issue for studio Warner Bros, which is counting on the caper to steal the box-office crown after a series of high-profile studio misfires.
The movie, the biggest debut at U.S. theaters on Friday, is expected to dominate the pre-Christmas weekend and top the $38.1 million opening by its predecessor, itself a sequel to the 1960 Rat Pack original headed by Frank Sinatra.
Heavily promoted by its ensemble cast, featuring George Clooney as Ocean, Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Matt Damon, "Ocean's Twelve" cost an estimated $110 million to make after the high-powered principals signed on for a fraction of their usual paychecks.
To hear them tell it, they did it in part for the sheer fun of hanging out in Italy, drinking wine at Clooney's Lake Como villa and enjoying an exchange of escalating practical jokes.
"We're expecting 'Ocean's Twelve' to be one of the biggest movies of the holiday season," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracking service Exhibitor Relations.
He notes that the spectacle of Hollywood's top talent so clearly enjoying themselves on screen "proved to be irresistible" for audiences three years ago.
Oscar-winning director Steven Soderbergh said the idea for a sequel struck him while on the road promoting the first movie in Europe. Other cast members said they saw it as a way to get the party started again.
"When we were doing the press tour for 'Ocean's Eleven,' we were all very adamant about not doing a sequel," Pitt said at a news conference in Rome.
"We were having a beautiful dinner at 'La Bolognese' and a beautiful plate of buffalo mozzarella, and we all love Rome. Steven looked up and said 'I have an idea for the sequel,' and we all threw in our lots and agreed to do it, but it had to take place here."
It does -- as well as skipping through Amsterdam, Paris and Monte Carlo as Clooney's character leads his hastily reassembled cast in a match of wits with a European master thief played by French actor Vincent Cassel.
Along the way, they also have to dodge Zeta-Jones as the conflicted cop with a luscious wardrobe. ("It's good to know that Europol agents wear red leather to work," the actress joked.)
The North American box-office take for "Ocean's Eleven" was an impressive $184 million -- not far off the $160-million plus interest that the characters in the sequel must find a way to quickly steal.
And part of the intended fun of the movie is the way that the caper is held up as a kind of mirror to the bigger confidence game of making a film.
Damon's character, for instance, lobbies for a bigger role this time out. Clooney's Ocean frets over whether he looks 50, and Julia Roberts, who arrived on the set pregnant with twins, sets out to dupe everyone into believing that she is in fact "Julia Roberts" the pregnant actress.
Warner Bros., a unit of Time Warner Inc., could use a breakout hit after a slow box-office start for "The Polar Express," its other major holiday release, and a mixed reception for "Alexander," Oliver Stone's three-hour epic.
So, if "Ocean's Twelve" pulls it off, could there be a Thirteen?
"I'm thinking musical," Pitt dead-panned when asked.