Adobe, makers of the hugely popular Photoshop graphics software, in use by the majority of serious commercial grapic artists as well as amateurs, has come clean and admitted it has conspired with an international consortium of banks and governments to hide code in Photoshop to prevent copying of images of bank notes.

“Adobe, the world’s leading vendor for graphics software, said the secretive technology “would have minimal impact on honest customers”. It generates a warning message when someone tries to make digital copies of some currencies. “

This is an interesting one. On the one hand, it seems a reasonable move, given that in today’s computerised age, programs such as Photoshop are likely to be the tool of choice by naughty people wanting to produce their own currency without the inconvenience of earning the real folding stuff.

On the other hand, what Adobe has done is allow a bunch of interested parties to include code in a proprietory program. Adobe didn’t develop the code which stops the counterfeiting, it simply included it within the Adobe Photoshop code (as has at least a couple of other graphic software companies according to media reports).

So although the initial concept seems logical, it opens a tough can of worms to digest – the idea that self-interest parties, with sufficient clout, can strong arm commercial, independent companies to modify software – without those companies having access to the original code.

Adobe claims it only adds a fraction of a second to the execution time of the program, they are playing the whole thing down, saying it will not affect ‘honest’ users.

US Federal Communications Commission Chairman Michael Powell says it’s:

“the most dramatic and meaningful stimulation to our economic productivity and growth.”

Gee, wouldn’t it be nice if we head that type of talk from the Australian government – or even Telstra?

Powell went on:

“Everybody talks about it like we’re talking about phone service. Wake up! This is not about phone service,” he said. “It’s about our lives and our prosperity and the role of the U.S. in the 21st century, and will we be a nation of tech leadership.”

Well the new European anti-spam laws don’t seem to working too well:

“The European Privacy and Communications Directive came into effect on 11 December, but in the same month the UK became one of the worst offenders for sending unsolicited email, according to rankings compiled by anti-spam organisation Spamhaus. “

And the Can Spam Law in the USA has resulted in MORE spam!

“US email security company Postini saw the proportion of spam rise from 74 per cent in December to 84 per cent within the first couple of days of the new year.”

A triumph for the lawmakers clearly.

So why should the price of a song be fixed in cement? One company’s taking the opposite tack:

“A little known online music store is experimenting with a new pricing system in which most songs start out costing a dime, and their prices fluctuate from there based on customer demand.”

Rolling Stone is carrying a great article, reproaching the music industry for its anti-download tactics:

“The fact is, the music industry has long been out of whack. Artists have been getting shafted for years. Record companies were over-staffed. And CDs were over-priced. Maybe it’s taken the peer-to-peer “revolution” to put the business back in shape. Geeks term such developments “disruptive technology.” But it’s disruptive in a good way, forcing an old snake to shed its skin for something fresh.”

And reafirming the point that the music industry needs to ‘get hip’ to the brave new world in which we find ourselves, and develop new business cases, instead of viciously protecting its previous entrenched traditions.

Here’s a turn up for the books, consumers suing music companies:

“Belgium-based consumer watchdog Test Aankoop filed the suit against giants such as the Universal Music unit of Vivendi Universal, Sony’s, Sony Music and BMG, reproaching the record companies for selling copy-protected compact discs that don’t play in car stereos or on computers. The consumer group, which says it has received more than 200 complaints about top-selling albums that could not be played on some personal devices, wants the labels to stop copy-protecting the discs and to reimburse customers. “

The theme of the article is “CD sales may stagnate because consumers feel they offer low value”. And how the industry is only angering consumers by imposing copy protection on disks; suing kids and so on.

Love or hate em, the Redmond mob at Microsoft have their hearts in the right place when it comes to spam:

“Not content with merely adding new spam-filtering capabilities to its e-mail software, in the coming year Microsoft also intends to track down and take legal action against spammers, no matter where in the world the junk mailers are located. “

Given Microsoft’s gigantic resources – both financial and technical – this is a welcome attitude, and if genuine, the big time spammers should be concerned.

So why DO so many people download music? Here’s a fascinating analysis and hypothesis about the motivations, psychology and business of music downloads.

“The music industry doesn’t understand the microeconomics of it’s own business. If it did, it would see that it’s business model is not just misguided, but broken- because, DRM or not, the implicit contract it signs with listeners is being broken in both directions.”

Here’s a good example of lateral thinking about the music download issue. An industry group in the USA is suggesting cable internet users pay a flat fee per month, as compensation for accessing music download/file sharing web sites. The fee can then be distributed as copyright payments.

“the new Distributed Computing Industry Association (DCIA) calls on the music industry to drop its fierce resistance to all peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing applications. Instead, the DCIA proposes that the record labels start actively selling their content to all cable modem and other broadband subscribers who use such popular free music file-sharing software as Kazaa.”

Here’s food for thought for live theatre and performing arts managers. In cinema, SMS is now having a substantial impact on sales. Takings for Matrix Revolutions dropped 66% between its first and second weekends, driven, it seems, by the prime market – teen boys – madly SMSing each other that the film sucked:

“The cinema managers tell us that they are seeing the little lights of the handsets go on a few minutes into the movie, as the kids start texting each other”

“…distributors [can] no longer buy success by saturation advertising, because word of mouth now spreads at the speed of SMS. “

Live arts constantly beomans the lack of a promotional budget. They often speak lovingly of ‘word of mouth’, but clearly the challenge is to move that word of mouth into the 21st century.