http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_18/b4082042959954.htm

Does She Look Like a Music Pirate?

Inside Tanya Andersen's private war with the recording industry. Hint: She's winning


Andersen got the piracy case against her dropped; now she's going after the RIAA for conspiracy Brian Smale

by Heather Green

When Tanya Andersen opens the door to her modest apartment in suburban Portland, Ore., her Maltese-terrier mix, Tazz, runs over and wags his tail in a friendly hello. The 45-year-old single mother doesn't seem like much of a fighter. She spends most of her days sitting on an overstuffed sofa with a heating pad behind her back to ease chronic pain and migraines that have kept her on disability for nearly five years. Her voice is soft and halting. Yet this woman is behind a fierce assault on the music industry and its tactics for combating music piracy on the Internet. "I've just got to keep doing what I believe is right," she says, with Tazz curled up next to her on the couch. "And that's fighting and letting people know what's happening."

After being sued by the music industry for stealing songs and winning the case's dismissal, Andersen is now taking the record industry to court. Her case is aimed at exposing investigative practices that are controversial and may be illegal, according to the lawsuit. One company hired by the record industry, she claims, snoops through people's computers, uncovering private files and photos, even though it has no legal right to do so. A different industry-backed company uses tactics similar to those of debt collectors, pressuring people to pay thousands of dollars in settlements even before any wrongdoing is proven. In Andersen's case, the industry's Settlement Support Center said that unless she paid $4,000 to $5,000 immediately, it would "ruin her financially," the suit alleges.

Andersen is going after the recording industry under conspiracy laws. She argues the Recording Industry Association of America, the industry's trade group, and its affiliates worked together on a broad campaign to intimidate people into making financial payoffs. The defendants "secretly met and conspired" to develop a "litigation enterprise" with the ultimate goal of preserving the major record companies' control over the music business. Andersen is requesting class action status for her case, seeking at least $5 million in compensation for the class.

The RIAA says Andersen's allegations are categorically false. It says it isn't violating any laws. In fact, the courts have sided with the industry a number of times when it has faced claims similar to Andersen's. The RIAA emphasizes that it doesn't want to sue music listeners. But aggressive steps are necessary, it says, to stop rampant piracy that it figures costs the U.S. record industry at least $3.7 billion annually in sales. "The magnitude of this [theft] is incalculable," says Richard L. Gabriel, lead national counsel for the RIAA and a partner at the Denver law firm Holme, Roberts, & Owen. "We don't have an illusion that we can shut it down completely, but we do think that the suits will help get the marketplace to a fair place, where the illegal doesn't control the legal."

While the recording industry has gone after thousands of people, Andersen is unusual. Of the 40,000 people the RIAA says it has targeted for legal action, at most 100 have decided to defend themselves in court, says Fred von Lohmann, a lawyer at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group. Few want to pay the legal costs of fighting the music industry, so most settle cases quickly, even if they believe they're innocent. Of the people who defend themselves, only a handful have taken the next step of suing the record industry for their lawyers' fees, and only a couple have won reimbursement. Andersen, one of the few winners on all counts, is the first to file a broad lawsuit that has put the RIAA on the defensive.

JURY AVOIDANCE?

Lawyers around the country who defend people accused of music piracy often share information, and the evidence Andersen uncovers could have a broad impact on the legal sparring. Already, the Oregon Attorney General cited the arguments in Andersen's case when he asked a court to quash a request by the music industry for the names of 17 students at the University of Oregon who allegedly shared music online. "The RIAA is fighting very hard to make sure that [Andersen's case] never reaches a jury," says Heidi Li Feldman, a professor at Georgetown University's law school. "The minute this reaches a jury, they will have to think about settling." Gabriel says the RIAA will pursue the case as vigorously as necessary.

The woman at the center of the dispute grew up in Woodburn, Ore., outside Portland. Her father died of leukemia when she was six, leaving her mother to raise Tanya and her younger sister, Tye. Her mother, Sonja Patzer, worked double shifts as a clerk at the local grocery store, giving up time with the girls for the money to support them. Tanya started working in a nursing home cafeteria when she was 16 and moved away two years later to go to community college in nearby Salem. "The girls were raised that you need to take care of yourself in life," says Patzer, now 66.

When the RIAA first set its sights on her three years ago, Andersen was looking after her eight-year-old daughter by herself in the wake of a divorce. It was December, 2004, and she pulled an envelope out of her mailbox. Ripping it open, she found a letter from Verizon Communications (VZ), her Internet service provider, saying it was releasing information about her. With it was a copy of a page from a subpoena. Andersen had earned a two-year legal secretary degree while in community college, but she had no idea what the documents meant. "I thought to myself: "I haven't done anything wrong,'" she says.

A second, more ominous letter arrived in early February, 2005. The document, from a law firm in Los Angeles, said she was being sued by several record companies for copyright infringement because she had shared their music with others over the Net. "The evidence necessary for the record companies to prevail in this action has already been secured," the letter states. It informed her that the minimum damages for each copyrighted song shared was $750 and encouraged her to contact the Settlement Support Center to discuss a financial settlement. If she didn't resolve the issue, she would be sued.

For the first time, Andersen was scared. She tried to e-mail a contact listed in the letter and called the law firm. A few days later her phone rang. "Ms. Andersen, I am calling to discuss settlement," she recalls the person on the other end of the line saying. "Settlement of what?" she responded. The man explained he was calling from the Settlement Support Center as a representative of the RIAA. He had information that she had been caught sharing songs online. To avoid a lawsuit, she would have to pay $4,000 or $5,000, he said. "You're going to have to pay us, or this won't go away," she says he told her.
THE SECRET SHARER

Andersen didn't know it at the time, but she was part of a new RIAA piracy crackdown. The music industry had spent years shutting down startups that make technology for sharing music over the Internet, such as Napster (NAPS). But for every tech company shuttered, two more seemed to pop up. In the fall of 2003, in a public effort to take on piracy, the RIAA started suing individuals it suspected were giving away copyrighted music. "Nobody likes playing the heavy and having to resort to litigation," said RIAA President Cary Sherman at the time. "But when your product is being regularly stolen, there comes a time when you have to take appropriate action. We simply cannot allow online piracy to continue destroying the livelihoods of artists, musicians, songwriters, retailers, and everyone in the music industry."

The Settlement Support Center was a less public part of the initiative. Its name may suggest a neutral organization set up to resolve disputes with evenhanded objectivity. In fact, it was financed by the record industry and operated like a cross between a call center and a debt collection firm. The SSC has since been dissolved. The RIAA's law firm, Holme Roberts & Owen, is representing the organization in court.

The SSC made its collections by hiring people such as Mark Eilers, an ex-police officer. He called Andersen repeatedly in February and March, she says, reiterating the demand that she pay thousands of dollars. Over the course of the calls. Eilers told her she had shared 1,288 songs on May 20, 2004, at 4:24 a.m. under the screen name Gotenkito. She maintained they had the wrong person and offered to let them look at her computer. She says Eilers told her Verizon had already verified that the illegal activity had come from her home, specified by what's known as an IP (for Internet Protocol) address. Andersen asked to speak with the record industry's lawyers and get a copy of the information they had about her. Eilers said no to both requests, says Andersen. Eilers, who no longer works for the industry, says he doesn't recall speaking with Andersen.

During the summer of 2005, after Eilers stopped calling, Andersen assumed the RIAA had moved on. Then on Aug. 26, while she was having dinner with her daughter, Kylee, there was a knock on the door. Kylee got up to open it, and Andersen followed. A woman standing at the door handed Andersen a piece of paper and said: "There, you have been served," Andersen recalls. In her hand were papers for a federal lawsuit filed against her. "I sat down and I read it. I'm like, "What do I do now?' I'm a single mom. I'm supporting a kid. This is going to destroy my whole life," she says.

Andersen quickly started looking for a lawyer. She searched the Net for a case like hers, although she wasn't sure how she would be able to pay someone on her $1,400 monthly disability check. One local Oregon lawyer suggested she accept a default guilty judgment and then declare bankruptcy. But Andersen had been through bankruptcy before, after her pregnancy with Kylee. She wasn't about to do it again.

Finally she called Lory R. Lybeck, a Seattle lawyer who was handling a similar case. They talked on the phone, then Lybeck sent one of his lawyers down to meet Andersen. "I said to myself, either she's a good actor and a good liar, or what they have done to her is really crummy," Lybeck says. He took the case on contingency, meaning he gets paid only if Andersen collects damages from the recording industry.

Lybeck is a compact 52-year-old with a brawler's attitude. He spent the early part of his legal career at a large litigation firm representing companies such as Chrysler, and in 1992, he set up his own two-person shop. Since then, he has gone after major corporations and government institutions for alleged wrongdoing. "I dislike arrogant bullies," Lybeck says.

What struck him about the RIAA was its negotiation tactics. The record labels accused people of downloading songs worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages, but they set the settlement price at a few thousand. Paying was cheaper than hiring a lawyer. "To me, that says this isn't about lawsuits, it's about an extortion campaign," says Lybeck. The RIAA's Gabriel says: "Our goal isn't to bankrupt people; our goal is to send a message that copyright infringement is wrong and get some compensation for the infringement."

As Andersen and the attorney prepared their defense in 2006, his conviction grew. Yes, Andersen had installed on her computer a software program, KaZaA, for sharing music over the Net—one reason the RIAA suspected her. But Andersen deleted the program after a few months and didn't appear ever to have used it. Plus, some of the music Andersen had supposedly shared online just didn't fit her taste. The songs included rap tunes with titles like I Stab People and Dope Nose.
NUMEROUS ERRORS

Lybeck also became convinced that there are fundamental flaws in how the RIAA uses IP addresses to identify suspects. MediaSentry is the investigative firm the record industry employs to track pirates. When MediaSentry sees people swapping music on file-sharing services such as KaZaA, it records their IP addresses and user names. Then it goes to Verizon Communications or another Internet service provider to find out who was using that IP address at the time of the piracy.

But errors can arise in a number of ways. One IP address may be assigned to a device such as a Wi-Fi router that can be used by several people at the same time to access the Net wirelessly. So if a visitor or a neighbor decides to steal music over the Wi-Fi network, the homeowner would still be fingered. In addition, some people have IP addresses that change every time they log onto the Net, so the IP address you use in the morning could be assigned to your neighbor that afternoon. Verizon and other Web service providers try to track who has which IP address at what time, but their records can be faulty.

More troublesome, sophisticated computer users can "spoof" IP addresses, or use one assigned to somebody else. They use a simple piece of software to forge the IP address on packets of information sent from their computer, much like someone who puts an address on the back of an envelope that isn't theirs. The people most likely to spoof are the very tech-savvy youngsters also mostly likely to be stealing music. Even if the RIAA had an IP address it believed belonged to Andersen, Lybeck thought, that wasn't necessarily the case.

In September, 2006, the RIAA asked Andersen a curious question: Did she know anyone named Chad? She didn't. But Lybeck tracked him down. Chad was Chad Alstad, a carpet layer who lived in Everett, Wash. He had a MySpace (NWS) page on which he wrote about downloading content from the Net. And his user name? Gotenkito, the same name Eilers had said was used in the alleged piracy. Lybeck was amazed: Alstad seemed a much more likely suspect than Andersen.

Over the next few months, Lybeck and the record industry tussled over Andersen's computer. The court ordered Andersen to hand over the computer, and the RIAA took it to an expert so it could be searched for signs of music piracy. But then the industry's lawyers refused to release the expert's report. Ultimately, Donald C. Ashmanskas, the U.S. District Court judge overseeing the case in Portland, ordered the RIAA to turn over the information, which it did in January, 2007. The result? No evidence of piracy.

Lybeck was convinced his defense was airtight. On May 14, he asked the Portland court for summary judgment. Ashmanskas gave the RIAA until June 1 to provide more evidence linking Andersen to the alleged infringement. In the week leading up to the deadline, the RIAA told Andersen it would drop its case if she agreed not to pursue counterclaims. She refused. Finally on the deadline, industry lawyers dropped the case without conditions and agreed not to sue Andersen again.

Lybeck still hadn't made a dime for his efforts. He asked Ashmanskas to make the RIAA pay his legal fees. In September, 2007, the judge agreed. In his ruling, Ashmanskas wrote that he was awarding the fees in part to deter prosecution tactics such as the RIAA's. After two years, "no one even remotely connected to the defendant has been alleged to be the actual infringer," he wrote. He was also shocked that the RIAA never interviewed Alstad until well after it had filed suit against Andersen, and then took Alstad at his word that he hadn't stolen music. "Inexplicably, [the RIAA's lawyers] credit his denials and discredit [Andersen's]," Ashmanskas wrote. He ordered the RIAA to pay Lybeck's fees, estimated at $300,000. "That made me feel that justice was being done," says Andersen.

Gabriel says it's not accurate to say the RIAA dropped its suit for lack of evidence. He says the user name Gotenkito may have been inspired by Kylee, since she admitted she liked Dragon Ball Z, a Japanese anime TV series that has a character with a similar name. He also says Andersen said in her deposition that she knew or listened to some of the country and rock artists whose songs were offered for download. "We took the high road," says Gabriel. "The judge inferred that we dropped the case because we didn't have enough evidence; we could have pursued the case until the end of time." Andersen says she and her daughter had nothing to do with the piracy.

An even bigger battle lies ahead. Andersen and Lybeck filed their own suit against the RIAA, the SSC, MediaSentry, Warner Music Group, EMI Group, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, and Universal Music Group last year and updated it with an amended complaint this month. The record labels declined to comment for this story, referring questions to the RIAA.

Lybeck figures that with all the potential errors in IP addresses collected by MediaSentry, the RIAA has gone after thousands of innocent people. He thinks the addresses could be erroneous as often as 20% of the time, which would mean 8,000 people wrongly accused. He believes that many innocent people have been coerced into paying because they can't afford to fight the RIAA in court. (Although the SSC has stopped operating, an organization called Settlement Information Line Call Center now plays a similar role for the music industry.)
"SERIAL BAD FAITH"

MediaSentry declined to comment, deferring to the RIAA. Gabriel says there have been few instances of mistaken IP addresses. "MediaSentry's investigation isn't flawed," he says. "The proof is in the pudding. We have obtained judgments against hundreds and hundreds of people." He declined to specify the number of settlements.

The RIAA did win a partial victory this week. After a conference call on Apr. 21 with Lybeck and Gabriel, the court struck Andersen's complaint and asked Lybeck to refine the claims. As a result, Lybeck plans to drop charges of fraud and racketeering, which the judge thought would be tough to prove. "The judge understands what we believe, that there isn't any merit to these claims," Gabriel.

Still, Andersen's case is very much alive. Lybeck plans to file another amended complaint by May 1, including the charges of conspiracy, negligence, and abuse of the legal process. Shortly thereafter, he plans to start deposing officials from the RIAA and its affiliates in preparation for a jury trial. "The trick to making this case stick will depend on to what extent Andersen can show that the RIAA engaged in serial bad-faith lawsuits," says Richard C. Vasquez, a partner in Seattle at Morgan Miller Blair who is not involved in the dispute.

From her apartment outside Portland, Andersen remains involved in the broader case. She collects files on her suit and tracks other disputes with the RIAA online. One recent winter day, she sipped a Diet Pepsi and watched Tazz jump from the couch and settle on the floor. "You have to find some positive in stuff, too," she says. "For whatever reason, I have been given a unique opportunity to fight this. I feel a responsibility in a way and want to help others. That pushes me along."

Green is an associate editor for BusinessWeek. With Susann Rutledge

Sunny side of the street

America's wealthy see buying opportunities in sluggish real-estate market
By Amy Hoak, MarketWatch

Last update: 7:41 p.m. EDT April 15, 2008

CHICAGO (MarketWatch) -- Is now a good time to buy real estate? The size of your paycheck likely will play a big part in how you answer that question.
While many average Americans are skittish about the housing market, some of the country's richest citizens see the current conditions as perfect for buying, according to the Annual Survey of Affluence and Wealth in America, released on Tuesday by the American Express Publishing Corp. and Harrison Group, a market research and consulting firm.


Seventy-seven percent of the wealthiest people surveyed think real estate presents a "real opportunity" right now. In the survey, "wealthy" meant having discretionary household income of more than $500,000 a year.

And these high-income earners are putting their money where their mouths are: 40% said they are in the market to acquire real estate this year.

The survey was originally conducted late last year with 1,800 people representing the wealthiest 10% of American households. But the more recent figures are from a follow-up survey with a smaller sample of the original participants, conducted last week to ensure the study reflects rapidly changing market dynamics.

Other survey participants are "upper middle class," with incomes between $100,000 and $149,000; "affluent," with incomes between $150,000 and $249,000; and "super affluent," with incomes between $250,000 and $499,000.

The wealthy aren't alone in their belief that the real-estate market represents a buying opportunity: 67% of the upper-middle-class participants also agreed with that statement, as did 72% of the affluent and the super-affluent.

"There are bargains out there ... severe price pressure across the board," said Jim Taylor, vice-chairman of Harrison Group. That said, at the very top of the market, there is an abundance of buyers and that is holding prices steady at that level, he added.

Still, the wealthiest were the most committed to buying soon. Only 17% of upper-middle-class participants said they were in the market to buy real estate this year, while 24% of the affluent and 26% of the super-affluent said the same.
Home sweet second -- and third -- home

Forty-one percent of those in the wealthy category said owning a second home was "almost a requirement" for people of their economic means, according to the survey.
Thirty-three percent of the wealthiest who said they intended to buy this year are now in the market for a second home, and 25% said they are in the market for a finished third home, according to the survey.

"They're treating it as a portfolio play, rather than a recreation play," Taylor said. "They've moved off the notion that it's just pleasure real estate," he said, adding that the wealthy use second homes to help balance their overall investment portfolio.
Recession now, but rebound coming

Seventy-nine percent of the survey's respondents said the country is in a recession now, but 88% said they are confident that property values will eventually rebound. Still, 18% of respondents said the equity in their home is worth less than what they owe.

Many respondents expressed significant anxiety over the recession, Taylor said. That was especially true of the upper-middle-class and affluent groups, he said.
But not everyone is worried about their own financial stability. Taylor said he expects the number of millionaires to increase by another 6% this year.
Passion for home improvement

A separate survey of senior-level executives found that high earners often are passionate about improving their homes -- even more passionate than they are about spending time on the golf course.

Thirty-nine percent of 552 high-level executives said they were passionate about home improvement, compared with 32% who said the same about playing golf, according to a recent survey by Doremus, a business communications agency.

"Home is seen by most as a respite from the world, a place where people feel they can be themselves." said Hope Picker, director of research for Doremus, in a news release. "And high-powered senior-level executives are no exception.

"Golf is a game, but it's another form of competition and, in many cases, it's also a surrogate conference room where business is conducted and deals made. But home, even for many high-level professionals, is a safe haven. In addition, home-improvement projects tend to be both tangible and finite, in contrast to much of their work."
The company recommended that marketers interested in reaching these high-net-worth individuals should target them through publications, broadcasts and online sites that feature decorating and improvement ideas for the home and garden. End of Story

Labels: Real Estate

Big Quake to Rock Calif. by 2037
Alicia Chang, Associated Press


April 14, 2008 -- California faces an almost certain risk of being rocked by a strong earthquake by 2037, scientists said Monday in the first statewide temblor forecast.

New calculations reveal there is a 99.7 percent chance a magnitude 6.7 quake or larger will strike in the next 30 years. The odds of such an event are higher in Southern California than Northern California, 97 percent versus 93 percent.

The last time a jolt this size rattled California was the 1994 Northridge disaster, which killed 72 people, injured more than 9,000 and caused $25 billion in damage.

"It basically guarantees it's going to happen," said Ned Field, a seismologist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Pasadena and lead author of the report.

California is one of the most seismically active regions in the world. More than 300 faults crisscross the state, which sits atop two of Earth's major tectonic plates, the Pacific and North American plates. About 10,000 quakes each year rattle Southern California alone, although most of them are too small to be felt.

The analysis is the first comprehensive effort by the USGS, Southern California Earthquake Center and California Geological Survey to calculate earthquake probabilities for the entire state using newly available data. Previous quake probabilities focused on specific regions and used various methodologies that made it difficult to compare.

For example, a 2003 report found the San Francisco Bay Area faced a 62 percent chance of being struck by a magnitude 6.7 quake by 2032. The new study increased the likelihood slightly to 63 percent by 2037. For the Los Angeles Basin, the probability is higher at 67 percent. There is no past comparison for the Los Angeles area.

Scientists still cannot predict exactly where in the state such a quake will occur or when. But they say the analysis should be a wake-up call for residents to prepare for a natural disaster in earthquake country.

Knowing the likelihood of a strong earthquake is the first step in allowing scientists to draw up hazard maps that show the severity of ground shaking to an area. The information can also help with updating building codes and emergency plans and setting earthquake insurance rates.

"A big earthquake can happen tomorrow or it can happen 10 years from now," said Tom Jordan, director of SCEC headquartered at the University of Southern California, who was part of the research.

Of all the faults in the state, the southern San Andreas, which runs from Parkfield to the Salton Sea, appears most primed to break, scientists found. There is a 59 percent chance in the next three decades that a Northridge-size quake will occur on the fault compared to 21 percent for the northern section.

The northern San Andreas produced the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, a recent disaster in geologic time compared to the southernmost segment, which has not popped in more than three centuries.

Scientists are also concerned about the Hayward and San Jacinto faults, which have a 31 percent chance of producing a Northridge-size temblor in the next 30 years. The Hayward fault runs through densely populated cities in the San Francisco Bay Area. The San Jacinto fault bisects the fast-growing city of San Bernardino.

Labels: Quakes

test

Digital Age brings challenges to players
04/10/2008 11:07 AM ET
By Mychael Urban / MLB.com

Most big league ballplayers, if not all of them, understand that they're public figures. An increasingly high number of them, however, are being forced into an increasingly private existence.

Cell phones. Camera phones. Digital cameras and recorders. Ubiquitous Internet blogs. YouTube and the like. All of them all-too-frequently at the ready to document and display every unflattering photo and verbal slip-up.

The Digital Age, which allows people worldwide to stay so connected with one another, is creating a disturbing disconnect between athletes and their fans.

"There's no doubt about it," said White Sox outfielder Nick Swisher. "A lot of things have changed ... you have to be on the lookout a little bit."

In short, the fairly new wave of technology is prompting players to reconsider how they interact with the public at large.

"Oh, yeah, it better. It better for everybody," Cardinals pitcher Jason Isringhausen said. "You never know what's going on out there. You've got to watch yourself. There's a lot of people that want to bring you down, that's for sure. There's a lot of jealous people out there, people who will do anything to bring you down."

People like those whose pictures of NFL quarterback Matt Leinart, snapped at an offseason party at Leinart's own home, ended up on some of the many Web sites that traffic in all things sensational and salacious in sports and entertainment -- whether or not the actions are truly sensational.

The photos, some of which show Leinart drinking beer from a beer bong, sparked a media storm of sorts, bringing the brass of Leinart's team into the fray while calling into question everything from the QB's work ethic to his judgment.

It was merely the most recent example of an athlete being subjected to unwanted scrutiny. It's been happening for several years, and baseball players seem particularly susceptible given the amount of time many of them spend signing autographs and/or out on the town.

"You can be in a club, and a woman comes up and says she wants to have her picture taken with you," said Angels outfielder Garret Anderson. "Twenty minutes later, it's on the Internet somewhere, and you might have a lot of explaining to do."

NO PICTURES, PLEASE
Remember when getting your favorite player to pose for a picture wasn't a problem? Those days appear to be all but gone. Common is the refusal of many players to pose with anyone who doesn't still have a bedtime.

"Little Leaguers, that kind of thing, that's safe -- we all want to do what we can for kids," said A's closer Huston Street. "Adults, though, you have to be careful."

If players aren't careful, their picture could very well end up appearing somewhere unauthorized -- digitally edited and taken out of context to seem otherwise incriminating.

"We're all kind of learning how different things are now, with MySpace and Facebook," Indians first baseman Ryan Garko said.

Garko is one of many athletes who has been misrepresented as maintaining their own Web pages when, in fact, the pages have been created by total -- and not always well-meaning -- strangers.

"Harmless situations can look bad if you're in the wrong photo," Garko said. "You definitely have to be smart with cell phones and camera phones. It's different even from when I was in college or the Minor Leagues. Everything's changed. It's frustrating, too, because if you're out having dinner or having a drink and someone wants to take a picture, you have to tell them no. They get mad at you.

"But you've got to be careful. ... It's going to show up on a MySpace page. You may not be doing anything, and it looks like you are."

And that, many players say, can cause unnecessary rancor at home.

"If there is a good-looking girl who wants to take a picture with you, you're probably better off having your buddy in the picture, too," Braves pitcher Tim Hudson said. "Even though it might be at a restaurant or at another acceptable place, that picture can be put somewhere and have a pretty elaborate story put with it."

"Players have to be on their guard all of the time. They have to be aware that whatever they say or do could be put on a Web site."
-- Braves GM
Frank Wren

Just ask White Sox lefty Mark Buehrle. He's from the St. Louis area and grew up a huge fan of the Cardinals, so he wore a Redbirds hat while taking in a game at Busch Stadium with his wife, Jamie, during the 2006 World Series. A fan sitting near them asked to take a picture, put it on his blog and added that the Buehrles had said they couldn't wait to play for the Cardinals.

Buehrle flatly denies that anyone in his family said anything of the sort. He's since signed a four-year, $56 million deal to stay in Chicago.

Did the experience change Buehrle? Absolutely.

"Big-time," he said. "I don't trust anybody nowadays. I don't want to put myself in that situation."

OUT OF SIGHT
Buehrle feels bad for Leinart, but he points to the situation as the type that athletes everywhere should try to avoid.

"He was probably just hanging out, partying, and a lot of people are interested in just hanging out and having a good time," Buehrle said. "[But people] take it and blow it out of proportion. I think you have to watch yourself because only bad things are going to turn out.

"I sign autographs. I'm fine with that. But if you want to take pictures, you kind of have to watch them. It's one of those things where if my wife is there, I'll do it more with her there because she knows the situation. If I'm just hanging out with the guys or out eating dinner and some girl wants to take a picture, I'll be more careful about that. It could turn into something. Then, you and your wife might end up fighting over nothing.

"The next thing I know, you find out you were supposedly hanging out with that person all night and partying with her."

This is why big leaguers who wet their whistles at the popular watering hole, commonplace back in the analog days, are nearing extinction. These days, more players are staying in when their team is at home, and on the road only the lobby bar at the team hotel serves as sanctuary.

"It's all about choices," Astros second baseman Geoff Blum said. "If you choose to be in [certain] places, you're putting yourself up for the opportunity to be on one of those Web sites. ... You have a chance to make a choice on where, how and when. To avoid situations, you have to be smart enough to stay out of those situations."

Atlanta general manager Frank Wren sympathizes with the modern athlete's plight.

"In this age, you never have a down moment," Wren said. "A player can be having a conversation with somebody, not even knowing somebody is around them with a camera or recorder, and say something that is taken completely out of context and put on the Internet for everybody to see.

"Players have to be on their guard all of the time. They have to be aware that whatever they say or do could be put on a Web site."

To make sure its players are aware of such, Major League Baseball touches on the issue in its annual security meeting with each club. Some teams take it a step further. The Yankees, who have had to deal with tabloid-generated controversies regarding published photos of Alex Rodriguez over the past couple of years, emphasize awareness each spring during media training sessions.

"The idea we want to get across to the players is that they've got to understand they are public figures," said Yankees director of media relations Jason Zillo, who conducts the sessions. "And anything they do or say can wind up for the world to know about, whether that's for good or bad. They make that decision with anything they do, whether they're in uniform or not, and they need to know that."

RESPECT AND RESPONSIBILITY
The Red Sox certainly seem to understand what's at stake when they venture out for dinner or a postgame pop. New York might be the media capital of the world, but Boston's athletes know they're under the same high-powered microscope in their sports-rabid region.

"Unfortunately," said third baseman Mike Lowell, "there's nothing you can do about it except be cautious."

Caution doesn't guarantee anything, though.

"Some guys have to do it the hard way -- see themselves out in the papers or on the Internet," Boston first baseman Kevin Youkilis said. "It's kind of a joke. People don't have any regard for humans, and a lot of times it's pointless stuff that doesn't have any bearing on anything.

"If you're smart about it, you'll be all right, but there are certain times where you're doing the right things and just trying to have maybe a drink, and someone has a picture of you drinking a beer and it looks like you're drunk and out of control when you're not at all.

"But that's the price you have to pay sometimes. It's sad."

Street couldn't agree more. Like most 24-year-olds, he's extremely tech-savvy and appreciates the speed and convenience with which people can communicate these days. But he's also savvy regarding the techno-traps into which players can unwittingly fall.

"The Information Age is supposed to be a good thing, but it could really end up backfiring on you," Street says. "Some people just don't respect privacy, so it's hard to live a normal life. That's why we, as athletes, keep our circles small. All of our actions can be called into question, even if the action itself isn't questionable.

"For example, they say a picture is worth 1,000 words, right? Well, the wrong picture can bring up all the wrong words. It's unfortunate -- for us as well as for all of the fans who don't do any of the things we're talking about.

"It's frustrating, because we know that we have to be responsible. But the responsibility also lies with the people interpreting what we do."

This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

Labels: MLB

REMEMBRANCES

Herb Peterson (1919-2008)
At McDonald's, He Was the
Egg McMuffin Pioneer
By STEPHEN MILLER
April 5, 2008; Page A7

In 1972, one of Ray Kroc's franchisees at McDonald's Corp. showed him a new menu concept, a knockoff of eggs Benedict. Mr. Kroc didn't think much of it. "It was a crazy idea -- a breakfast sandwich," he wrote later.

Today, McDonald's sells more than a half-million of the crazy idea every day. It's called the Egg McMuffin, and its inventor was Herb Peterson.
[peterson]
Herb Peterson, a restaurateur who owned three McDonald's in Santa Barbara, Calif., was frustrated that he could only open at lunch. He set out to find a breakfast star. His efforts pioneered the Egg McMuffin.

A restaurateur who owned three McDonald's in Santa Barbara, Calif., Mr. Peterson was frustrated that he could only open at lunch. He set out to find something to sell in the mornings.

After experimenting with hundreds of sandwiches and even hollandaise sauce (which was too runny), he hit on the McMuffin concept. Key to the sandwich's construction was cooking the egg using a stainless-steel, Teflon-coated ring that made it fit on the muffin precisely.

"It fits beautifully with multitasking, with driving while eating. It's not a messy product," says Ron Paul, president of Technomic Inc., a Chicago-based food-industry consultancy. Adds Mr. Paul, "It's part of what really launched McDonald's as the leader in breakfasts, and nobody's caught them since."
[muffin]
Egg McMuffin

Mr. Peterson, who died March 25, gave Mr. Kroc a 14-point presentation on his idea. In his 1977 memoir "Grinding It Out," Mr. Kroc wrote that he was at first skeptical of the sandwich, at the time presented open-faced like its eggs Benedict inspiration. "But then I tasted it, and I was sold. Wow!" Gearing it up for production in McDonald's restaurants across the country took three years. Mr. Kroc wrote, "We went after it like the Sixth Fleet going into action."

The name came later, created by Patty Turner, the wife of the then-chief executive of McDonald's, Fred Turner.

Today, McDonald's says that about 30% of its revenue is generated from sales of breakfast items, including various kinds of McMuffins, pancakes, the McGriddle, which substitutes pancakes for the muffin, and the McSkillet, a kind of breakfast burrito. Weighing in at 300 calories, the McMuffin is one of the chain's lighter sandwiches.

Like the radio and light bulb, the breakfast sandwich had multiple fathers. It emerged in the context of a fast-food war that pitted McDonald's against Jack in the Box Inc. Both chains at the time had about 400 outlets in Southern California. Jack in the Box's entry -- which according to contemporary news accounts predated Mr. Peterson's by a matter of months -- was the "Breakfast Jack," a cheaper ham-cheese-and-egg sandwich still on the menu at that chain's 2,100 restaurants.

Mr. Peterson worked in the 1960s as an advertising executive in Chicago, where he helped design Ronald McDonald's clown suit. He said he based it in part on NASA spacesuits. "It should be a flying-clown costume, with plenty of pockets so he could carry McDonald's food with him," Mr. Peterson recalled thinking. Mr. Kroc offered him the Santa Barbara franchise in 1968.

He retained a pitchman's touch, and at one point tried to hire Julia Child as a corporate spokeswoman.

Thanks in part to his breakfast sandwich, Mr. Peterson's business flourished, and by the time of his death on March 25 at his Santa Barbara home at 89, he owned six McDonald's restaurants in partnership with his son.

Although he received no special remuneration, Mr. Peterson liked being credited as the McMuffin's inventor. "It's a kick to have people say, 'That's the guy who created the Egg McMuffin,' like I was Marconi or Thomas Edison," he told Nation's Restaurant News in 1998.

Labels: Egg

New York City subpoenas creator of text messaging code


By ,
Posted on ZDNet News: Mar 30, 2008 6:58:00 PM
When delegates to the Republican National Convention assembled in New York in August 2004, the streets and sidewalks near Union Square and Madison Square Garden filled with demonstrators.

Police officers in helmets formed barriers by stretching orange netting across intersections. Hordes of bicyclists participated in rolling protests through nighttime streets, and helicopters hovered overhead.

These tableaus and others were described as they happened in text messages that spread from mobile phone to mobile phone in New York City and beyond. The people sending and receiving the messages were using technology, developed by an anonymous group of artists and activists called the Institute for Applied Autonomy, that allowed users to form networks and transmit messages to hundreds or thousands of telephones.

Although the service, called TXTmob, was widely used by demonstrators, reporters, and possibly even police officers, little was known about its inventors. Last month, however, the New York City Law Department issued a subpoena to Tad Hirsch, a doctoral candidate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who wrote the code that created TXTmob.

Lawyers representing the city in lawsuits filed by hundreds of people arrested during the convention asked Hirsch to hand over voluminous records revealing the content of messages exchanged on his service and identifying people who sent and received messages. Hirsch says that some of the subpoenaed material no longer exists and that he believes he has the right to keep other information secret.
"I think I have a moral responsibility to the people who use my service to protect their privacy."
--Tad Hirsch, writer of TXTmob code

"There's a principle at stake here," he said recently by telephone. "I think I have a moral responsibility to the people who use my service to protect their privacy."

The subpoena, which was issued February 4, instructed Hirsch, who is completing his dissertation at MIT, to produce a wide range of material, including all text messages sent via TXTmob during the convention, the date and time of the messages, information about people who sent and received messages, and lists of people who used the service.

In a letter to the Law Department, David B. Rankin, a lawyer for Hirsch, called the subpoena "vague" and "overbroad," and wrote that seeking information about TXTmob users who have nothing to do with lawsuits against the city would violate their First Amendment and privacy rights.

Lawyers for the city declined to comment.

The subpoena is connected to a group of 62 lawsuits against the city that stem from arrests during the convention and have been consolidated in Federal District Court in Manhattan. About 1,800 people were arrested and charged, but 90 percent of them ultimately walked away from court without pleading guilty or being convicted.

Many people complained that they were arrested unjustly, and a State Supreme Court justice chastised the city after hundreds of people were held by the police for more than 24 hours without a hearing.

The police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, has called the convention a success for his department, which he credited with preventing major disruptions during a turbulent week. He has countered complaints about police tactics by saying that nearly a million people peacefully expressed their political opinions, while the convention and the city functioned smoothly.

Hirsch said the idea for TXTmob evolved from conversations about how police departments were adopting strategies to counter large-scale marches that converged at a single spot.

While preparing for the 2004 political conventions in New York and Boston, some demonstrators decided to plan decentralized protests in which small, mobile groups held rallies and roamed the streets.

"The idea was to create a very dynamic, fluid environment," Hirsch said. "We wanted to transform areas around the entire city into theaters of dissent."

Organizers wanted to enable people in different areas to spread word of what they were seeing in each spot and to coordinate their movements. Hirsch said that he wrote the TXTmob code over about two weeks. After a trial run in Boston during the Democratic National Convention, the service was in wide use during the Republican convention in New York. Hundreds of people went to the TXTmob Web site and joined user groups at no charge.

As a result, when members of the War Resisters League were arrested after starting to march up Broadway, or when Republican delegates attended a performance of The Lion King on West 42nd Street, a server under a desk in Cambridge, Mass., transmitted messages detailing the action, often while scenes on the streets were still unfolding.

Messages were exchanged by self-organized first-aid volunteers, demonstrators urging each other on, and even by people in far-flung cities who simply wanted to trade thoughts or opinions with those on the streets of New York. Reporters began monitoring the messages too, looking for word of breaking news and rushing to spots where mass arrests were said to be taking place.

And Hirsch said he thought it likely that police officers were among those receiving TXTmob messages on their phones.

It is difficult to know for sure who received messages, but an examination of police surveillance documents prepared in 2003 and 2004, and unsealed by a federal magistrate last year, makes it clear that the authorities were aware of TXTmob at least a month before the Republican convention began.

A document marked "NYPD SECRET" and dated July 26, 2004, included the address of the TXTmob Web site and stated, "It is anticipated that text messaging is one of several different communications systems that will be utilized to organize the upcoming RNC protests."

Entire contents, Copyright © 2008 The New York Times. All rights reserved.

Labels: Texts