Claude

DRM is "Digital rights management", i.e. technical functions used to control copying. There is no working DRM technology for CDs currently, only copy-preventing technologies. The only real attempt at DRM for CDs was Sony's disasterous rootkit system which had to infect computers in order to work. Currently the electronics industry in Europe has to pay copyright levies on their devices which can be used to copy music (including MP3 players), to compensate the composers and musicicians for (legit) private copying. Of course they don't like that and are pushing towards DRM solutions which would make the users pay for every copy and thus make copyright levies superfluous. On that conference, Apple tried to present their iTunes DRM as safe, but it isn't because in order to be acceptable by the consumers they have to allow them to burn CDs, which removes all copying limitations, as CDs are DRM-free by nature unless you install rootkits on the user's PCs. That's obvious to anyone with basic computer knowledge, but the copyright experts I spoke to were convinced by Apple's presentation.

The small public domain labels are economically insignificant compared to the big players. I'm sure the copyright experts of the Commission and most governments haven't even heard of these small labels. These people generally have to deal with many different issues, have no basic technical knowledge (lawyers ) and are out of touch with the reality of the music market. They mostly rely on "expert opinions" from lobby organisations to form their opinion. I had once participated in a EU conference on copyright levies and DRM, where most people were of the opinion that DRM technologies on music now made it possible to control all copies and made levies on private copying superfluous. They didn't know that there is no such thing as DRM for audio CDs. The Apple representative stated that their iTunes DRM system was absolutely safe, but omitted to say that iTunes allows to burn CDs, thus getting rid of all DRM restrictions. I was disgusted by the lack of knowledge of the government experts and the way lobbyists took advantage of that.

Do you mean the Blue Note JRVGs ("24Bit by RVG") series or japanese mini-LPs in general? The JRVGs are controversial, because the remastering quality varies enormously. Some sound great ("Basra") but others are awful, with the "AM radio sound" (extremely compressed, almost mono, only midrange) that also mars the domestic RVG of Jackie McLean "A Fickle sonance". Other JRVG titles I have sampled sounded similarly bad (some Grant Green, Horace Silver, Jackie McLean and Freddie Redd titles). So it's quite risky to buy JRVGs blindly. If you mean Fantasy (K2 remaster) or Sony mini-LPs (DSD remaster), the few I have heard sound very good, like the domestic Fantasy K2 or Sony remasters.

I was too early in my previous conclusion. This has just been said by the EU Commission in their Work Programme for 2007: http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction...&guiLanguage=fr It seems there is some intense lobbying going on, in the perspective of some very successful pop recordings (Beatles, Rolling Stones, Elvis, etc) entering the public domain in Europe.

I have been a Emusic subscriber during the "All you can eat" phase (until 2003), and I downloaded almost 2000 albums (OJC, Concord, etc) for only $45 (3 months subscription) . I ended up buying more than 200 albums I liked most, because the sound quality of those mp3s was quite limited (it has gotten better in the meantime). But I certainly would not download an album for the full price ($10 average) at iTunes and then later buy the CD. It doesn't make sense. Better buy the CD immediately, and convert it to MP3 for outdoor listening. If I don't like the CD I can always sell it, but downloaded files cannot be sold, even when legally purchased.

And if you lost it, some good free burning software is available here: http://www.cdburnerxp.se (for all sorts of CD and DVD burning) http://www.feurio.de (the best audio CD burning software, maybe too many features for newbies)

I can't see any change. Some covers have always been smaller than others. They never filled the complete page on my screen. I consider this to be quite large:

Some earlier discussion here: http://www.organissimo.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=18282

I never watch football except for the World or European Cup (i.e. a couple of matches every two years). It's only the excitement of the occasion that makes it interesting. I watched the horrible Switzerland-Ukraine game in Delft (Netherlands) on a hotel TV smaller than a PC monitor, with dutch commentary, and I enjoyed it. But after the final, no football for me until the next Cup. As there are large portugese, italian, french and german minorities in Luxembourg, there will certainly be a lot of celebration and disappointment here in the next days.

I just tried entering the code, it says: Even after reading this page, I haven't yet figured out how it works: http://checkout.google.com/buyer/tour.html

According to this Google Checkout page, it works by using the coupon code "gbuy10". http://www.google.com/buy/m.html I may be wrong, but I don't think two affiliates (Google and Organissimo) can benefit from a CD Universe purchase. An idea would be to donate the saved $10 to Organissimo

Because those music videos are being uploaded by Youtube users without the authorization of the copyright owners.

Thanks. It works great. (Check the "See the extension at work" page)

Congratulations Marcus! I hope you find refuge in the french embassy in Rio to celebrate

Big names out suggests cycling admits to doping problem Sat Jul 1, 2006 11:01 AM BST By Julien Pretot http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticl...LING-DOPING.xml STRASBOURG, France (Reuters) - Cycling has eventually admitted to a major doping problem when Giro d'Italia champion Ivan Basso and former Tour de France winner Jan Ullrich were kicked out of the world's greatest cycling race on Friday. Both riders, who were the hot favourites to fill the vacuum left by Lance Armstrong's retirement last year, were suspended by their teams on the eve of the Tour de France prologue in Strasbourg because of their involvement in an investigation on a doping scandal in Spain. "It is a huge blow for everybody," said CSC team manager Bjarne Riis, a surprise Tour de France winner in 1996, after announcing Basso's suspension. "I think this is normal. I think it is a brave move (...) Today, we can do only one thing: be brave," said Tour de France director Jean-Marie Leblanc. The affair is reminiscent of the Festina case, which brought to light the use of the blood-boosting drug erythropoietin (EPO) in the bunch in 1998. Seven-times polka dot jersey winner Richard Virenque was handed a nine-month ban after confessing he was guilty of doping offences. The following year, American Lance Armstrong, who survived a testicule cancer in 1996, opened the longest winning streak in the Tour de France when he brought back to Paris the first of his seven yellow jerseys. CONTROVERSY However, there was controversy over the Texan's honesty, with French daily Le Monde reporting earlier this month that Armstrong, at the time he was treated for his cancer, admitted he was taking banned drugs, including EPO. The former Discovery Channel leader issued a strong denial, just as he did after sports daily L'Equipe claimed last August that it had access to laboratory documents and six of Armstrong's urine samples collected on the 1999 Tour showed "indisputable" traces of EPO. Armstrong was cleared of any wrongdoing last month by Emile Vrijman, a lawyer appointed by the International Cycling Union (UCI) last October to investigate the allegations. With Roberto Heras, who won the Tour of Spain last year, banned for two-years in November after testing positive for EPO, Ullrich and Basso brushed aside, cycling is now without three former stage race winners. This year, just like in 1998, police has had a leading role in the fight against doping, suggesting cheaters were now unwanted disregard for their status. In 1998, the scandal broke when the French customs officers seized a large supply of drugs in a car driven by Festina's soigneur Willy Voet. Last month, the doping scandal erupted after the Spanish Civil Guard raided a number of addresses to find large quantities of anabolic steroids, laboratory equipment used for blood transfusions and more than 100 packs of frozen blood. Doctor Eufemiano Fuentes, who has worked with a number of cycling teams, and Jose Luis Merino, the head of a clinical analysis laboratory, were released on bail after being questioned by Spanish police. UCI'S DECISIVE MOVE Fuentes's involvement suggests cycling has had a special relationship with doctors as Armstrong has also often been tickled about his links with Michele Ferrari. The assistant director of the Comunidad Valenciana team Jose Ignacio Labarta and the sporting director of the former Liberty Seguros team Manolo Saiz were also detained for questioning by Spanish police and then released. Both men have since left their posts. Comunidad Valenciana have had their invitation to take part in the Tour withdrawn. Insurance giants Liberty Seguros withdrew their sponsorship of the team who have now changed their name to Astana-Wuerth. It was not enough, however, since five riders of Kazakh Alexander Vinokourov's team were involved in the "Operacion Puerto" with Astana-Wuerth deciding late on Friday to pull out of the race. Astana have tried to delay the decision, hoping a minimum of six riders would be allowed to start. But UCI, who had been very discreete on Friday, made a decisive move. On Friday evening, Jean-Marie Leblanc thanked the sport's governing body president Pat McQuaid for his contribution in Astana's late withdrawal. The team's retirement means that the Tour prologue will start without last year's top five riders. However, AG2R team manager Vincent Lavenu, who decided to withdraw Mancebo from the race, believes the sport is far from being clean. "Some cheaters have been caught but there are certainly other networks which have not been broken up yet," he said. "Even if such crackdowns are scary, the problem is far from being solved."

http://www.organissimo.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=25095

Here's one: http://forums.allaboutjazz.com/showthread.php?t=8156

The slogan of the current TV ad by AOL in Germany is "AOL - unkompliziert und schnell" "AOL - uncomplicated and fast"

Hypocrites. They train the hotline staff to talk customers out of canceling their account.

Thanks for the address, Flurin. I've never been on that site before. Is something missing?

Could be that it's OOP. It's a german release (36 130 on deltamusic.de) and it's not available on jpc.de and amazon.de . Only the Miles/Stitt set is still available.

http://www.amazon.fr/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00004UI6V/ BTW, as the album was recorded in 1956, this is in the public domain in the EU and could be legally reissued by any label here.

This was reissued on LP in the recent years but apparently not on CD: Discovery! The Charles Lloyd Quartet It's my favourite Charles Lloyd album.

Teen, mom sue MySpace.com for $30 million Suit filed in Travis County claims popular Internet site fails to protects children from adult sexual predators. By Claire Osborn AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF Tuesday, June 20, 2006 A 14-year-old Travis County girl who said she was sexually assaulted by a Buda man she met on MySpace.com sued the popular social networking site Monday for $30 million, claiming that it fails to protect minors from adult sexual predators. The lawsuit claims that the Web site does not require users to verify their age and calls the security measures aimed at preventing strangers from contacting users younger than 16 "utterly ineffective." "MySpace is more concerned about making money than protecting children online," said Adam Loewy, who is representing the girl and her mother in the lawsuit against MySpace, parent company News Corp. and Pete Solis, the 19-year-old accused of sexually assaulting the girl. Hemanshu Nigam, the chief security officer for MySpace.com, said in a written statement: "We take aggressive measures to protect our members. We encourage everyone on the Internet to engage in smart web practices and have open family dialogue about how to apply offline lessons in the online world." Founded in 2003, MySpace has more than 80 million registered users worldwide and is the world's third most-viewed Web site, according to the lawsuit. Loewy said the lawsuit is the first of its kind in the nation against MySpace. Solis contacted the girl through her MySpace Web site in April, telling her that he was a high school senior who played on the football team, according to the lawsuit. In May, after a series of e-mails and phone calls, he picked her up at school, took her out to eat and to a movie, then drove her to an apartment complex parking lot in South Austin, where he sexually assaulted her, police said. He was arrested May 19. The lawsuit includes news reports of other assault cases in which girls were contacted through MySpace. They include a 22-year-old Wisconsin man charged with six counts of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl and a 27-year-old Connecticut man accused of sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl. MySpace says on a "Tips for Parents" page that users must be 14 or older. The Web site does nothing to verify the age of the user, such as requiring a driver's license or credit card number, Loewy said. To create an account, a MySpace user must list a name, an e-mail address, sex, country and date of birth. "None of this has to be true," the lawsuit said. Attorneys general from five states, including Texas, have asked MySpace.com to provide more security, the lawsuit said. Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott sent a letter to the MySpace.com chief executive officer May 22, asking him to require users to verify their age and identity with a credit card or verified e-mail account. Lauren Gelman, associate director of the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School, said she does not think MySpace is legally responsible for what happens away from its site. "If you interact on MySpace, you are safe, but if a 13-year-old or 14-year-old goes out in person and meets someone she doesn't know, that is always an unsafe endeavor," Gelman said. "We need to teach our kids to be wary of strangers." Loewy said he was confident about the lawsuit, which he said seeks damages worth 1 percent of the company's estimated worth. "We feel that 1 percent of that is the bare minimum that they should compensate the girl for their failure to protect her online when they knew sexual predators were on that site," he said. http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news.../20myspace.html

I have the "California with love" LP. I don't think I need 3CDs of Andrew Hill solo.