When you think about it, all a spectral analyzer does is take an existing recording, and interprets it into a visual format. All the frequencies are there in various dots in various opacities. In short, all the information in a song is turned into a picture. What if you could take that image and save it as a bitmap? What if you could take that bitmap and re-interpret it as the original sound file?

Many people are certainly aware of Photoshop being a powerful tool. It’s been used in pretty much every field that deals with the standard image including government and military purposes. Bridging the power of Photoshop to sound seemed like a stretch of the imagination at best, but one video a software developer posted on YouTube clearly demonstrates that you can not only read sound via an image, but manipulate that sound and re-insert it back into the program and create a new sound file out of it.

From the perspective of those who actively engage in sampling, this kind of technology is a very exciting prospect because you don’t actually have to filter down that sound through a series of equalizers to get what you want (this method has been known to leave behind issues such as audio distortion to name one side effect)

From the perspective of security and justice, one can’t help but figure that the prospect of using photoshop could help clear up audio evidence such as clearing out pink or white noise in the background to clearly hear someone speaking. Of course, this kind of thing has happened for quite some time, but still, it could theoretically be one more tool that can be used to solve crime.

From a file-sharing perspective, this could be one more way to thwart anti-piracy methods. Let’s say, hypothetically speaking, the anti-filesharing organizations manage to convince a majority of software developers to install programs onto people’s computers that deletes all sound files that didn’t come with the operating system. File-sharers could easily develop a workaround by playing images instead through these kinds of technology.

Granted, in the foreseeable future, it’s hard to envision the bitmap becoming the standard format for trading music. It should also be worth noting that it’s fairly evident the video shows an example in a very ideal circumstance (a series of high sliding notes being played over some basic drum hits) but it opens a lot of possibilities when discussing music or audio clips.

Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.

Will the pirates who believed all along that the copyright industry was making up these statistics on losses due to piracy please raise you hand? A new report in a Swedish news site, IDG, recently reported (Google translation) that officials from the BSA are now admitting that their own statistics shouldn’t be treated seriously or should be treated like a pinch of salt. From the report:

Business In its latest report, the BSA stated that 25 percent of all software in Ireland is pirated. It without having spoken to a single Swedish company. “You should probably not see these numbers as completely accurate,” says BSAs Sweden Chef John Hugosson.

In 2008 was 25 per cent of all benefit programs in Sweden pirated. The economic losses for the Swedish IT industry for the period amounted to almost three billion dollars. It strikes the broadcasters’ association BSA stated in its latest market survey, which was properly space both in Swedish and international media.

The conclusions drawn without a single American has been consulted in the matter. BSA has not contacted either the Swedish company, vendor or computer users in the process of investigation. Both the rate and loss figures for Sweden are built on flat fees and estimates, in turn, based on market research in other countries.

Further, the calculation of the industry’s losses to all the pirated versions of any program on the Swedish market would yield full license revenue for software companies – that is entirely hypothetical figures.

There’s no shortage of people who have argued for years that one download does not equal one lost sale. This latest revelation, for those that have been arguing this, seems to only confirm what they have believed for quite some time – even if it is just the study for Sweden.

Already, there’s been some notable discrepancies between IFPI piracy statistics and the need to put Canada on a “Special 301 report” priority watch list, not to mention the fact that the Special 301 report put Canada on a priority watch list gave some people reason to doubt the USTR reports accuracy entirely.

Perhaps it’s a good thing that the copyright industry is getting the United States to put in place a law that would force the government to pressure other countries into, among other things, reform copyright laws to the copyright industry’s standards because the math behind the numbers to prove the copyright industries point are increasingly looking like they aren’t really adding up. But at the very least, the BSA had the courage to admit this, so that deserves some credit, right?

[Hat tip: Michael Geist]

Have a tip? Want to contact the author? You can do so by sending a PM via the forums or via e-mail at drew@zeropaid.com.

There are those that hear the same old tired scapegoat. Profits down? Blame piracy. Sales down? Blame piracy. Sales up? It’s in spite of piracy and there could be more sales. Profits up? It’s in spite of piracy and they could be higher. Who knew that a major software giant would use piracy to their legal advantage?

It’s an interesting development. According to ALB Legal News located in Australia, “Microsoft may have a viable legal defence against its first ever anti-monopoly claim in China, given the prevalence of pirated Microsoft products in the country and how “market share” is defined by the Chinese authorities.”

The report further comments:

When lawyer Dong Zhengwei, a partner with Beijing-based Zhongyin law firm grabbed the headlines by alleging that Microsoft was using its dominant market share to manipulate software prices in China and calling for a US$1bn fine to be imposed on the global software giant, Microsoft global VP Zhang Yaqin was quick to reply with an interesting counter argument: “Microsoft did not even have the preconditions of conducting monopoly activities in China,” he said “genuine Microsoft products have a very low market share in China because its products are widely pirated.”

It may be a form of confirmation that major corporations need piracy at some point in their existence to gain an edge in the market. While most examples point to long-term solutions, this may be one of the few instances that it’s actually going to help the corporation in the short term.

The debate over whether or not piracy actually helps the major incumbent industries has been around for years. The timing on this, though, is interesting given that it was only late last month that Russell McOrmond pointed to an article on how software piracy actually aids proprietary software in the war between proprietary software and open source/free software.

While the excuse may be convenient for Microsoft at this point, it’s doubtful the company will be thanking software pirates afterwords if the legal argument works.

CustomPC is pointing to an interesting interview on GameIndustry.biz where the issue of software piracy was brought up towards the end. Here’s an exerpt from the portion in question:

Todd Hollenshead: There’s lots of things that [the hardware industry] could do [to stop piracy] but typically just they just line up on the wrong side of the argument in my opinion. They have lots of reasons as to why they do that, but I think that there’s been this dirty little secret among hardware manufacturers, which is that the perception of free content – even if you’re supposed to pay for it on PCs – is some sort hidden benefit that you get when you buy a PC, like a right to download music for free or a right to download pirated movies and games.

Q: You think they’re secretly happy about it?

Todd Hollenshead: Yeah I think they are. I think that if you went in and could see what’s going on in their minds, though they may never say that stuff and I’m not saying there’s some conspiracy or something like that – but I think the thing is they realise that trading content, copyrighted or not, is an expected benefit of owning a computer.

And I think that just based on their actions…what they say is one thing, but what they do is another. When it comes into debates about whether peer-to-peer file-sharing networks that by-and-large have the vast majority, I’m talking 99 per cent of the content is illicitly trading copyrighted property, they’ll come out on the side of the 1 per cent of the user doing it for legitimate benefit. You can make philosophical arguments that are difficult to debate, but at the same time you’re just sort of ignoring the enormity of the problem.

Aside from the fact that there is, not only no solid evidence to support the theory that 99% of all material on file-sharing is unauthorized, but no means to even calculate exactly what is authorized and unauthorized, this seems to point to quite an interesting trend in the anti-piracy movement.

This bit of news seems to follow-up our recent report about software companies sending thousands of lawsuits to alleged copyright infringers.

Earlier this year, there was a movement to get ISPs to stop copyright infringement, but so far, only Britain seems to have been trying to follow through with the plans with France attempting similar action.

Trying everything, the RIAA tried to get anti-virus companies to filter for copyright infringement earlier this year as well, though anti-virus companies would likely be better off actually filtering out Trojan horses rather than keeping MP3’s of Metallica off of people’s hard drives.

Still, the argument that the hardware industry id benefiting off of piracy isn’t without merit. Whenever a physical anti-piracy bust actually occurs, CD and DVD burners as well as computer hardware are frequently confiscated – someone had to buy those somewhere along the line – or at least the necessary parts for it.

On the other hand, the idea isn’t without a counterpoint. It’s really hard to deny that computers have advanced at a fast rate. Part of that development was increasingly less need to compress a program into efficient code since computer processors have increased in performance as well. When there’s less need to compress the code, there is more of a need to increase a software’s capability. That, in turn, creates a need for a computer with better performance – the cycle continues today.

So if the software industry is upset over how well the hardware industry is doing, it also only has itself to blame because the software industry has also benefited from the hardware industry. This raises the issue of why there is sudden tension between the software and hardware industry in the first place when both industries seemed to have benefited from each other for years. Can one even exist without the other?

Then again, these days, there have been breaks in seemingly solid alliances. The major recording industry has upset the radio industry with royalty hikes. Internet Service Providers have been making enemies out if their own customers through spying allegations and filtering. It seems as though one can add the software industry being upset at the hardware industry to the list now. Many have said that companies would be crazy to break such alliances, yet here we are today seeing exactly this. It’s a situation that, to some, would make as much sense as Duracell taking legal aim against the flashlight industry.

One should also take into account that this is just one CEO’s opinion and might not reflect the overall opinion in the software industry (effectively blaming the hardware industry for the software industry’s supposed woes) It would be hard to imagine that everyone in the software industry thinks it’s the hardware industry’s fault that piracy exists. One thing is for sure, in a situation where many things up to the world-wide economy is in a state of flux, nothing is always certain.

PointDev, a small software company, mandated a bailiff to raid one of Sony BMGs owned building in January this year. The raid revealed that four of the Sony BMGs owned servers contained the pirated software.

It appears as though the company discovered this when an IT department employee requested assistance for the use of a product called Ideal Migration. When technical support looked into the case, they discovered that the key used to activate the software was a pirated version.

The report continues (Google Translation) as translated by Charles Eddy, a ZeroPaid reader:

“We’re not interested in a friendly agreement. This is not just a question of money, but more importantly of principle,” rages Paul-Henry Agustoni, CEO of PointDev. “The rate of software piracy software in the business world is very high.” According to the Business Software Alliance, an association representing the market’s major publishers, 47 % of programs used in businesses would be illegal in France.

“We’re forced every week to watch and make sure that pirated keys for our software don’t find their way to the Internet. We’re a small company with six employees. Instead of spending time protecting ourselves, we could spend that same time improving our company,” complains Paul-Henry Agustoni.

Questioned about the fact that this is perhaps the act of a single employee, the CEO of PointDev retorts, “I think that piracy is linked to business politics. If an employee has the necessary budget to buy the software he needs, he will do it. But if he doesn’t, he will find alternative means, because the work has to be done one way or another.”

Essentially, the PointDev CEO says that the BSA has said that French Corporations have a software piracy rate of 47%. The CEO also says that piracy may even be a part of Sony’s business policy – if you can’t afford it, pirate it. It is said that Sony was in the process of merging with BMG when the pirating incident occurred.

An additional report (French) (Google Translation) says that the CEO of PointDev wants to make this piracy case an example.

Sony told La Province to not report on the ongoing investigation. Clearly, Sony is not happy that this case was made public at all.

The service, dubbed Quick Capture, uses a computer’s built-in or plugged-in webcam to record the video with the help of a Flash-based interface. Flash is a multimedia software technology by Adobe Systems Inc. that enables people to create interactive features and is commonly used on the web.

Initiating a Quick Capture video recording session triggers a request for the user to grant the Flash player access to the camera and microphone. Once granted, the YouTube member must identify the type of connection the webcam uses, fill in the video’s title, description, tags or keywords, video category and language and then click a button to record.

The video is automatically stored by YouTube, eliminating the need to record a clip and upload it to the site later.

Seeing this as a good market, Microsoft had been following suit and they jumped on the bandwagon of BitTorrent file-sharing software. In 2005, Microsoft researchers in Cambridge, UK were working to develop peer-to-peer file sharing software to keep up with the demand.

Have you seen anything out there by Microsoft yet that might be developed or is this still in the works? I did find a peer-to-peer development kit at this location but no details to further my search. It seems to be included in the “advanced networking pack” but I have not seen use of it anywhere.

Code named Avalanche, the program was said to offer the same process of BitTorrent by dividing files up and offering them bit by bit. I have yet to see this on the market and the articles that I did see on ‘Avalanche’ were quoting that they had no official plans to include the software with any bundles or even to release the technology.

Using the same concept as BitTorrent in development is certainly a smart move and could be used in a business setting if released to the public.

They claimed to have securely created this technology so that instead of illegal uses, the software would be utilized for large file sharing between people that “knew” each other and gave specific permissions. I’ll continue to watch for this from Microsoft in the future.

Digg It!!

It begins in the manner of George Galloway’s infamous salute to an infamous, non-rock star, ego-crazed monster:

“Dear Bono, You have dedicated a major part of your life’s work to fighting for good causes, bringing pressure to bear on the powerful and political elite to effect positive change.”

Snip through a bit and it moves on to the central thrust:

The initiative aims to promote awareness of the legal ramifications of software misuse as well as taking enforcement action against infringements.

‘With the rapid growth in the uptake of the internet, software environments are at a huge risk from the availability of illegal downloads,’ said John Lovelock, director general of Fast.

I’m going to give you all some links to the new programs and the many new sections, over 10 in total. So go check them out and enjoy them because they are all freely available for review and download right here at the home of P2P – Zeropaid.

● Personal Firewall Section – Full of the latest and modern Firewall software!

● CD / DVD Tools Section – All the essential tools to make the most of your drive!

● Codecs Pack Section – Play all that downloaded media with the correct codecs!

● MP3 Tools Section – Harness the sweetness of MP3 with these helpful tools!

● Antivirus Section – Stop all those annoying intruders with these Antivirus programs!

● Compression Section – Open up those downloads with the compression tools!

● Disk Cleanup Section – Cleanup your computer with ease using this software!

● Internet Browser Section – Browse safely and securly in your browser of choice!

● Photo Editors Section – Its the new ages of images, explore and be as creative!

● Registry Section – One of the most important parts of your computer, keep it clean!

● RSS Readers Section – RSS Feeds are the future and here are some great choices!

The BitTorrent, eDonkey, FastTrack and Multi-Network sections have also been updated as well as the other sections in the File Sharing, Tools and Audio & Video so go and check them all out!

If you have any new programs you would like to be advertised here and added to the site, please don’t hesitate to contact me with the programs information and I’ll gladly review it and add it to the site.

Contact me at ZP II Skype Me!

~ Auggie2k