If you stick two bricks together, they still won't float. With that in mind, it is probably a good thing that Blockbuster pulled out of its $1.3bn deal to buy American electronics retailer Circuit City last week.

Now the company that once led the world in video and DVD rentals must contend with the realisation that it has become, in business terms, a brick, with all the associated buoyancy problems.

It is hard to believe that, back in 2002, Blockbuster shares were trading at more than $30. Today, as the idea of a high street video rental chain becomes more of an anachronism every week, the shares are trading at just $2.67.

There is a very simple reason. In the fast-paced world of entertainment media, the idea of going out to a shop to rent such a thing as a silver disc in a box has become faintly ridiculous. Few people these days, in America at least, buy similar silver discs when they want to listen to music. Most with disposable incomes and a strong moral compass buy their tunes directly from online retailers such as iTunes, and store them on their computers and iPods. The rest of us simply download them free from our friends or from friendly websites that still offer such nefarious services.

The same goes for films. I know some hardcore web pirates who haven't rented or bought a DVD movie or TV series for years. Instead, they download their cinematographic booty from the internet overnight, or while they are out at work, ready to watch when they get up or get home.

But until recently this sort of behaviour wasn't much of a thorn in Blockbuster's side - at least, not compared with its other problems. Because, for the best part of a decade, Blockbuster has struggled even to keep up with subscription and mail order DVD rental outfits like industry leader Netflix.

Blockbuster is still the DVD rental market leader in the US, with some 20 million customers coming through its doors every year. But the company has somehow squandered its market dominance, allowing Netflix to become an industry darling with 8.2 million subscribers to its mail order service and a catalogue of 100,000 movies to choose from.

Blockbuster simply failed to see Netflix as a serious competitor until it was too late and launched its own DVD by mail subscription service in 2004. Since then, the old high street stalwart has limped along, making one embarrassingly large loss after another, while Netflix - and technology - continue to leap forward with remarkable agility, at least by comparison.

You would think that, after missing the Netflix trick by such a wide margin, Blockbuster would be keen to jump aboard the next movie rental bandwagon with all the gusto it could muster. Sadly, it has missed out again.

Legal movie downloads are the next big thing in home entertainment. In fact, they have been the next big thing for quite some time in America. Just as Napster spawned iTunes and other paid-for online music services, so too have the online movie pirates given way to commercial movie download systems like Apple TV and Roku.

Apple, the untouchable consumer electronics company, is already on to version two of its Apple TV service, which allows subscribers to download movies via iTunes on to a set-top box - as well as hundreds of free video podcasts - and watch them on the television sets in their living rooms.

The sleek, easy-to-use Apple TV service is set to debut in the UK later this year and will offer the latest movie releases in high definition for around £3.99 each.

Netflix has teamed up with Roku to produce its own version of the Apple TV set-top box, which will allow its subscribers to download any number of films at the touch of a button - so you won't even have to wait for the post to watch a film any more, never mind walking down to the video shop.

Blockbuster, meanwhile, is still 'planning' to launch its own online streaming video service - but, once again, the rest of the market is some way ahead and likely to remain so.

So with all these problems to contend with, it is odd indeed that Jim Keyes, the relatively new Blockbuster chief executive, should decide that buying Circuit City, a stumbling electronics retail chain, would save his neck and turn the company around.

Investors were equally mystified, but sounded resounding approval when the deal was pulled last week by sending the shares up more than 6 per cent, their biggest increase for some time. None the less, it is a sad state of affairs when the best way a chief executive can get his shareholders to like him is by scrapping his big ideas in favour of inaction.

Blockbuster still has a slim chance to muscle in on the downloading market, despite the formidable headstart gained by Apple and Netflix. But if Keyes so much as stumbles over this one, it may be time to call 'cut' on Blockbuster's final scene.

A French court last week ordered eBay to pay €38.8m (£30.6m) in damages to the luxury products group LVMH for letting fake versions of its designer bags be sold on the online auction site.

The case was brought on two separate grounds - that eBay's measures to stop counterfeit goods being sold in 2006 were inadequate and it allowed genuine, but unauthorised, sales of certain perfume brands. The court awarded damages of €16.4m to Louis Vuitton, €19.28m to Christian Dior and €3.2m to the perfume brands. It rejected eBay's claim that it was just a host of millions of auctions and individual traders were responsible for the legality of their lots.

EBay is to appeal and accuses LVMH of using the issue of fakes to crack down more generally on online sales, but the legal climate in which eBay operates is becoming more hostile. So is the media environment. Last week, BBC2's Newsnight exposed the burgeoning trade on eBay in Marks & Spencer credit notes, which can only be plausibly explained by the hypothesis that these are based on the exchange of shop-lifted goods.

In America, eBay has been sued by Tiffany, the iconic jeweller, on the grounds that the site has aided violations of its trademarks by allowing counterfeit items to be sold in its auctions. Tiffany claims that 95 per cent of all the items sold on eBay under the Tiffany trademark are fakes and that the site's measures for policing this trade are inadequate.

Regardless of what happens on appeal, these lawsuits, and others like them, are bad news for eBay. It now seems likely that at least some of the jurisdictions in which the company operates will insist that it becomes much more rigorous in policing activity on its site. And that spells trouble for the company's business model because policing is expensive, and eBay relies on skimming modest fees from billions of transactions run entirely by software with no human intervention. The key to its success is scale - it has 84 million active users, handles more than 500 million auctions every quarter and last year the total value of everything sold on its sites approached $60bn.

Policing is a labour-intensive business, so eBay's profitability would be drastically impaired if it were compelled to do it on any realistic scale. The majority of auctions are legitimate, but it's clear that there are a lot of scammers on the site, and they don't just focus on Louis Vuitton luggage or M&S credit notes. Recently I bought an excellent Apple notebook on eBay, bringing gasps of astonishment from my techie friends, most of whom seem convinced that laptops plus eBay now equals fraud. In fact I had originally been outbid in the auction for my laptop, and only got it because the seller contacted me afterwards to say that the 'winning' bidder had defaulted.

EBay is one of the Big Three internet companies founded in the mid-1990s, the others being Amazon and Yahoo. It was the only one profitable from day one and its meteoric rise created a marketplace in which anyone could sell just about anything. But along the way it ran out of ideas about what to do after it became 'the' online auction site.

Its only significant internal innovation was the 'Buy It Now' system, which effectively transforms the site into a standard e-commerce operation for small operators. Otherwise, it has aped Microsoft in 'innovating' by acquiring other companies. First it bought PayPal, which made sense because it enabled financial transactions between buyers and sellers to be relatively painless and reasonably secure. But then it bought Skype, the internet telephony outfit, at a colossally inflated price and without any clear strategic rationale.

It is instructive to look at how the Big Three have fared in their first decade. Only Amazon is really thriving. Why? First, it continues to provide impressive customer service: if you have a problem with an Amazon purchase, you can reach a human being in a reasonable time. Second, it has continued spinning off innovative new businesses from its core. Witness how it has diversified by opening up its marketplace to a host of other sellers (and taking a cut off every transaction).

More important, it has built an amazing new business by renting out access to its servers at reasonable rates. In the old days, you had to spend a fortune on kit to start an internet business. No longer: Web 2.0 is a pay-as-you-go operation, courtesy of Jeff Bezos.

john.naughton@observer.co.uk

Chris Dobson, a senior executive at Microsoft's online business, commutes to his London office from Hertfordshire, where his local paper, the Welwyn & Hatfield Times, has been noticeably thinner of late. 'The property section used to be page after page. Now it's four sides. As a consumer, it really struck me.'

Like other titles, the paper has been deprived of valuable advertising as the downturn in the property market means fewer homes are being sold. Income generated from other ads, including jobs and cars, is falling too.

That is a huge headache for regional papers, for whom classified advertising is a lifeline, but there is a longer-term problem to contend with: more people are getting their news from the internet, and advertisers are following them online. Microsoft employs its own journalists and the company's search engine, like its rival Google, represents a daunting competitor for news organisations, while new recruitment and property sites are competing for advertising that would once have gone to local papers.

When the economy improves and classified advertising returns, a far larger share will go to Primelocation or Monster.com. Research in the US has shown that, while advertisers spend 42 per cent of their budget on print, consumers spend only 9 per cent of their time reading newspapers and magazines. The implications for print are obvious.

The global economic downturn, combined with this structural industry change represents one of the biggest challenges the regional press has ever faced, with profound implications for local news.

Lord Fowler, who once chaired the Birmingham Post group and now chairs the House of Lords Communications Committee, says: 'Regional newspapers face an extraordinarily difficult time. Advertising is going to the internet, circulations are going down and they are not helped at all by the serious decline in the economy. There is a prospect of rapid decline, particularly in the cities. They are more affected by the internet, despite setting up their own sites. The problem is the revenues can't match those generated by newspapers.'

Fowler's committee recently warned that could have a devastating effect on the provision of news, and recommended that restrictions on cross-media ownership be lifted at a local level to allow newspaper groups to buy radio companies in an attempt to shore up their businesses.

The economic climate is likely to worsen in the coming months. Investment bank Citigroup said last week: 'US markets are seeing classified property and recruitment down 30 per cent and in worst-hit areas 50 per cent. Recent UK trends also suggest massive deterioration.' Evidence to support that claim was supplied when Daily Mirror owner Trinity Mirror, which owns 150 regional papers, issued a surprise profit warning that prompted a share price collapse.

Just under half its profits are generated by local titles. At Johnston Press, whose papers include the Scotsman and Yorkshire Post, classified ads account for up to 70 per cent of advertising revenue and half the company's profits (£178m last year). The Citigroup note makes frightening reading for the big four regional owners, Johnston, Trinity, Northcliffe Media (part of Daily Mail owner DMGT) and US group Gannett. New car sales are forecast to fall by nearly 8 per cent over the rest of the year, driving down motor advertising by 27 per cent, recruitment is expected to fall by 20 per cent and property by 26 per cent.

'The cause of the problem is pretty clear,' says Johnston Press chairman Roger Parry. 'But a forward-looking newspaper owner recognises that when this cycle finishes things are going to be different. When [advertising] comes back it will come back online, and it will come back in special supplements and magazines.'

Johnston's shares have also fallen over the last year, but Parry insists there are reasons for optimism. 'The slump represents a fantastic opportunity to change. Profits will be poor for a couple of years but a stronger, more relevant business will emerge.'

Michael Pelosi, MD of Northcliffe Media and chairman of the Newspaper Society, agrees that the sector faces 'a tough few years', but adds: 'Our titles are read by over 80 per cent of the adult population in one week, so we still have high penetration. There's no doubt our readers are being more casual but they still relate to these very strong brands.' Like every newspaper group, Northcliffe has been busy reinventing itself for the digital age, launching online offerings and buying established classified websites.

'There is a crossover of people who read our papers and our website,' Pelosi says, 'but we are also gaining new readers at our local sites. The trick is to get them to come back more often.' That can be done by offering content that may seem mundane, including local traffic news, bus timetables or even the night chemists' opening hours, he says.

Clawing back revenue lost to new on-line competitors may prove more difficult: of the top 10 recruitment websites, only three are owned by newspaper groups. But Parry points out that new websites can gain ground quickly: 'In the online world consumers will [go] to the best technology. They don't have the "stickability" of newspapers. It will be possible to migrate our readers online.'

Like its rivals, Trinity Mirror, headed by Sly Bailey, has invested in digital journalism. 'We now have more websites than we do newspapers,' says Neil Benson, editorial director of its regional division. 'The web is now the biggest news medium. Newspapers are more about campaigning and opinion forming.' Trinity shut several titles after rejecting offers from local papers that would have fallen foul of competition laws, but Parry insists closures are not on the agenda. Local papers are becoming 'community media franchises', he says, an amalgam of websites, magazines and traditional print products, and will continue to play a vital role.

'The reason people will go to your website four or five times a day is because they'll want to find out about the battle to save the local post office or the local hospital. A typical weekly paper might reach 60 per cent of a community; a well-developed group of websites plus a paper will reach 80 per cent. The developing community media companies will play a greater role in local democracy not less.'

An NHS whistleblower, who revealed that nurses caught viewing child porn had been allowed to continue treating patients, claims ministers disregarded her warnings that the disciplinary panel charged with rooting out rogue staff was failing.

Moi Ali, who was on the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC), which deals with complaints against nurses and midwives, said she had tried for four years to pursue concerns about child protection. She resigned from her post as vice-president of the council last week.

She said the council was riven by in-fighting, with up to eight members of staff pursuing internal grievances and thousands of pounds spent on lawyers. But when she attempted to warn ministers that the council was being dangerously distracted from its job of protecting the public, she was repeatedly told they could not intervene.

When an official inquiry into the regulator concluded last month that the council had 'serious weaknesses' - including delays in responding to child abuse concerns - jeopardising its ability to protect patients, Ali believed she had been vindicated.

Instead, she found herself and the other two senior members of the committee pressured to resign by the junior health minister, Ben Bradshaw.

Last night the Labour MP Jim Devine, a former nurse, criticised Ali's 'outrageous treatment'. Ali is now taking the council to an industrial tribunal claiming racial discrimination, alleging that as its first black vice-president she was excluded from meetings and kept out of the loop. The NMC denies the allegations.

'If an organisation spends so much of its time and energy on in-fighting, it can't be doing the job,' she said. 'In a period of about 18 months, approaching £400,000 had been spent on this in-fighting, not just on legal fees but on the costs of investigations into council members.'

Her concerns began in 2003, when she learnt of two cases where nurses caught with child pornography had been cautioned but allowed to continue working on the wards. 'What worried me was that maybe the people on our panels did not really understand issues around the making of these images, that children are abused. I wasn't convinced that our panellists understood the pattern of abuse, that many people who go on to abuse children [view pornography first].'

She wrote to the chief executive asking for panellists to be trained in hearing child abuse cases. For the next four years, Ali repeatedly raised the issue and was told it was being handled. But it was autumn 2007 before any training was given - almost three years after a third nurse had come before a panel accused of looking at websites with names including 'Preteens' and 'Rape' while on night duty in a ward of teenagers at a major London hospital. He, too, was cautioned but allowed to carry on working after he expressed regret over his actions.

Ali said she could not understand why it had taken so long to train staff in child protection. 'That is such a fundamental public protection issue,' she added.

Last June, she and a number of other council members wrote to Lord Hunt, the health minister, warning that the council was 'spiralling dangerously out of control' and that in the first three months of that year alone it had spent nearly £40,000 on legal advice in its attempt to remove one lay member from office.

'We believe that there is a culture of bullying and harassment within the NMC affecting both staff and council members,' they wrote, adding that they 'cannot protect the public and raise standards in the professions if we are torn apart by internal wrangling'.

The Department of Health wrote back saying it could only intervene if there was an 'actual (not anticipatory) failure' of the NMC to protect the public.

Ali's case was backed by two other lay members of council, Anthea Rose and Steve Powell, who also wrote to Hunt, the health secretary Alan Johnson and the Charity Commission, complaining about the sums being spent on legal costs arising from a flurry of more than 20 'claims and counter claims' involving at least eight members of the council, rather than on protecting patients.

The inquiry by the Council for Health Regulatory Excellence was launched only after Ali approached Labour MP Jim Devine. He said that when he tackled ministers on the issue, he was told there was nothing to worry about. Unconvinced, he raised it in parliament, and the inquiry was launched.

Last month the CHRE concluded that there were serious weaknesses in the NMC's governance and culture, including delays in processing complaints, which could take up to two years to resolve, and that 'too often sectional interests and the internal difficulties of the NMC have distracted the executive and some members of the council' from protecting patients.

It heard evidence of 'inappropriate and aggressive language by council members'; it warned that the 'constant recourse to lawyers in all and every complaint has not been helpful' and was perceived as intimidatory, although it said the actual fees paid were not excessive.

The NMC's current president and chief executive, Nancy Kirkland and Sarah Thewlis, announced last week they were resigning from their posts but both would remain on the council.

This weekend it emerged that the Privy Council, an organisation of senior MPs and ministers overseeing Crown bodies, may hold its own inquiry.

A blogger who faced charges of intimidation in cyberspace has won a legal judgment that anti-censorship campaigners claimed this weekend will protect freedom of expression across the worldwide web.

Alan Murray's blog highlighting violence, vandalism and creeping sectarian division in a part of Belfast's university district landed him in court on Friday.

The 40-year-old was charged with three counts of intimidating a member of a local residents' committee, which included intimidation on the internet. The judge, however, found Murray not guilty on all counts at Belfast's Magistrates' Court. Index on Censorship - a global campaign group that defends free speech - welcomed the judge's ruling this weekend.

Murray's blog, www.holylandswarzone.blogspot.com, details allegations of violent drunkenness involving university students in what was once the most religiously integrated area of the city during the Troubles. The two-year-old blog also criticises university authorities, landlords and the local housing authority for allowing the Holy Land district, where all the streets have names from the Bible, to become a 'student ghetto' that has driven out residents who have lived there for decades. He also claims the area has become mono-religious, as most of the students come from Catholic areas of rural Northern Ireland.

Last year, however, a member of the local residents' association objected to Murray's blog and also made allegations against him, claiming he had given her a dirty look and made a verbal threat. Murray, a mature psychology student, has always denied any intimidation.

In an interview with The Observer this weekend, Murray said he felt 'totally vindicated' after Mr Justice McKillop threw out all three charges against him.

'During my testimony in court I said I was only trying to criticise those in power or those that would speak for us. That right has been upheld by the judge's decision. If the judge had ruled against me, then every blogger would have been vulnerable to charges of intimidation because those at the end of their criticism could claim they were being picked upon. A very bad precedent would have been set,' he said.

Murray said the ruling also established that bloggers had the same rights to freedom of expression as journalists. 'Bloggers don't have legal departments and large media organisations to back them up. They are vulnerable people and would have been even more open to censure if this case had gone the other way.'

He also revealed that he has reported the Police Service of Northern Ireland to the Police Ombudsman's office. Murray said he made a complaint to Northern Ireland's police watchdog over a number of officers' conduct in the case.

'I want the Ombudsman to find out why on earth police officers saw fit to prosecute me for expressing an opinion on the internet about where I lived. I also intend to sue the police over this entire waste of police time and resources, which took more than a year to reach this point,' Murray added.

Index on Censorship also criticised the PSNI's intervention in the debate between Murray and his opponents. Padraig Reidy, Index's news editor, described the PSNI's behaviour as 'patently absurd.'

Reidy compared the Belfast blogger's case to that of Channel 4's battle with the West Midlands Police over its Undercover Mosque programme. Channel 4 earlier this year won £100,000 from the police force and the Crown Prosecution Service for falsely accusing the production team of distorting television footage.

'The case of the Belfast blogger is as important as Undercover Mosque in terms of protecting the right to criticise and the freedom to inquire. The judgment in Belfast protects the blogosphere's freedom and it means the rich, powerful or any interest groups, whoever they are, can't bully bloggers using the law.

'As for the police in this case, they and the law should not be intervening in legitimate debate,' Reidy said.

A blogger who faced charges of intimidation in cyberspace has won a landmark judgment that anti-censorship campaigners say will protect freedom of expression across the web.

Alan Murray's blog highlighting violence, vandalism and creeping sectarian division in a part of Belfast's university district landed him in the city's magistrates court on Friday. The 40-year-old was charged with three counts of intimidating a member of a local residents' committee, including intimidation on the internet. However, the judge found Murray not guilty on all counts.

Index on Censorship - the global campaign group that defends free speech - welcomed the ruling. News editor Padraig Reidy said: 'The judgment protects the blogosphere's freedom and it means the rich, powerful or any interest groups ... can't bully bloggers using the law.'

Murray's blog, holylandswarzone.blogspot.com, details allegations of violent drunkenness involving students from rural parts of Ulster in what was once the most religiously integrated area of the city. It also criticises the university authorities, landlords and the local housing authority for allowing the Holy Land district, where the streets all have biblical names, to become a 'student ghetto'.

Last year, however, a member of the residents' association objected to Murray's blog and also alleged that he had given her a dirty look in the street and made a verbal threat. Murray, a mature student of psychology, has always denied any intimidation.

Murray told The Observer he felt 'totally vindicated' after Mr Justice McKillop threw out all three charges against him.

Motorists are facing further pain after a warning yesterday that the latest surge in crude oil prices to record highs could add another 20p to a litre at the pumps within weeks.

The forecast, from the Institute of Advanced Motorists (IAM), came as new figures showed car sales falling in the face of high fuel prices and collapsing consumer confidence.

Fuel prices set yet another record yesterday at the pumps, rising to an average of 119p for unleaded petrol and 132.4p for diesel, according to the IAM Motoring Trust, which monitors pump prices daily. Further rises are also on their way.

IAM's technical director, Tim Shallcross, said the surge in oil prices in recent days to fresh records above $146 a barrel had yet to feed through to the pumps. "If crude prices stay around their current level, we could well see another 20p on a litre over the coming month," he said.

Crude prices retreated by around a dollar a barrel yesterday but were still just under $145 a barrel, with many predicting they will soon push above $150.

Shallcross said that petrol retailers had not passed on the full cost of the 100% rise in crude prices over the 12 months to the end of June. If they had, he said, unleaded would already be at 140p a litre on average and diesel 150p.

The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) said that car sales totalled 209,000 last month, a fall of 6.1% from May - the steepest decline so far this year. Private (non-fleet) sales suffered much worse, tumbling by 12%.

"We are now seeing concerns about rising fuel bills and household costs dampening consumer confidence, leading to slower demand for new cars," said Paul Everitt, the SMMT chief executive.

He said the sharp fall meant that sales which had been doing well in the spring, had moved back into line with the SMMT's forecast that sales would continue to slow and total around 2.35m cars this year.

The rising price of fuel had encouraged people to change to smaller cars.

"Cost pressures, environmental concerns and technological advances have ensured consumers have taken the choice of buying more efficient vehicles, and record numbers of cars are now in the lowest CO2 vehicle excise duty bands. The share of cars in the A band has increased more than tenfold in the past year," said Everitt.

Band A cars, however, still account for only 0.13% of the new car market because there are so few cars available that emit less than 100g of CO2 per kilometre. The SMMT figures showed big increases in band B and C sales, but falls in bands D to G, which include cars with higher emissions.

The SMMT figures showed diesel cars continued to grow in popularity in spite of the widening divergence in price between petrol and diesel. It said this was because its greater economy and lower CO2 emissions and tax bands outweighed the pump price disadvantage. Diesel cars accounted for almost 43% of the market last month.

Despite environmental concerns, sales of alternatively fuelled vehicles such as the G-Wizz electric car decreased for the second successive month - down 6.7% to 1,447 vehicles.

Ford Kuga, Ford Kuga, sounds familiar ... Got it! Sounds a bit like Ford Cougar. Phonetically identical, in fact. That's not very imaginative; they couldn't think of a new name for their new car, so they just took an old name, of a car they used to make, and spelled it differently. What next? The Kapree? The Ford Korteena? I preferred it in the olden days when Ford just named their cars after bad magazines for chaps: Escort, Fiesta - a car that still exists, come to think of it - so why couldn't they just carry on? Ford Penthouse, Ford Asian Babes...

But they didn't, and this is the Kuga, and there's nothing that can be done about it. Anyway, it's a 4x4 (Ford Big Ones?), so that's a big boo to begin with. Did no one tell them that it is no longer socially acceptable to drive a 4x4 unless you live on a Welsh hill farm? I give them the finger (4x4s, not the Welsh), which is, after all, what they are doing to our dear planet. In order to avoid hypocrisy, I had to adjust the rearview and wing mirrors, and give myself the finger throughout my test drive. Got a few funny looks.

Ford would argue that the Kuga isn't totally sticking its finger up at the planet. At the moment it's available only with a two-litre turbo diesel engine, does around 44 miles to the gallon and pumps out 169g per kilometre - not brilliant, but better than other 4x4s. But what's the point of that? People will still think you're evil, they won't let you out, and they'll give you the finger. I will, anyway. It's like walking around with a sign saying "paedo" round your neck, when you're not one at all. Or only slightly a paedo.

It's quite pleasant inside. My "Titanium" model has a bit of leather round the place, you can do clever things with the seats and I managed to switch on the radio simply by shouting "radio" in the direction of the dashboard (cars are becoming more like dogs, have you noticed?).

To drive, the Kuga is perfectly nice. It certainly isn't exciting, but modern diesels have a bit more poke then they used to. It's crisper round the corners (hey, I'm getting into this motoring journalism!) than other 4x4s. Because I'm a proper motoring journalist (actually, because Simon the photographer asked me to), I decided to test out its off-road capabilities by driving it on to a Sussex beach. The shingle was softer than we'd anticipated, but we just made it up and down a shingly hill, and then drove it through some big puddles to celebrate. Not that it matters a jot how it behaves off-road, because none of them will ever go there.

Which brings me back to my main point about this car: what, exactly, is its point? Why not get a Ford Focus with the same engine instead? You'll be going along the road a few inches lower down, but that means it's even more crisp round the corners. You will also be richer - not just because you'll have spent less on the car itself, but also because you'll be filling up less often and paying £50 less for road tax. You'll be a little less ungreen, and you'll get to wherever you're going quicker, not just because the same engine will make a lighter car go quicker, but because people might let you out. And, obviously, you won't get the finger wherever you go, which is always nice, especially if there are children in the car with you.

Price £22,495
Top speed 112mph
Acceleration 0-60 in 10.7 seconds
Average consumption 44.1mpg
CO2 emissions 169g/km
Eco rating 5/10
At the wheel Gillian Taylforth
Bound for Backcountry. Not.
In a word Why?

Astonishing how things can pass one by. There was I thinking that Black Label is a whisky when in fact it's a series of phones. The new LG "Secret" KF750 (free on contract, dependent on tariff: lgmobile.com, 0870 873 5454) is one of a line of LG mobiles dubbed Black Label, previously featuring the "Chocolate" and the "Shine". Ah yes, chocolate. Another bell going off there ... is it Ghirardelli's Black Label chocolate sauce, or just Black Magic misremembered?

Something semiotic is going down, in any case. More or less everything about the Secret is sleek, black and sexy. Unpacking it, you feel as if you're engaging in a hotel-room tryst with a mysterious, elegantly dressed stranger. The thing is so erotically charged, it should have been called the LG Secrete. Marketing job done, then? Well, not quite.

The comparators bear examination. What a fine nip is Johnny Walker Black Label - acclaimed masterpiece of blending, favourite of Winston Churchill, "at once powerful, intense and unassailably elegant" as the company's literature puts it.

Experts agree. "Very few malts can match this for complexity," says Jim Murray, author of Classic Blended Scotch (1999). "This is the Savoy, the Everest, of deluxe whiskies."

Ghirardelli products, meanwhile, deliver "moments of timeless pleasure", being crafted to achieve "the perfect chocolate intensity". Its website shows a woman in the throes of chocolate ecstasy: such open-mouthed, shut-eyed rapture not seen since Bernini's statue of St Theresa.

The commercial language of the LG Secret borrows from chocolate, whisky and luxury goods rhetoric in general: "Boasting style that lasts, the LG Secret has been specifically developed to satisfy the refined tastes of trendsetters who desire a sophisticatedly designed, yet durable handset. Following the success of its predecessors... this third model from the LG Black Label Series is as feature rich as it is stylish."

Like the pleasure induced by Ghirardelli chocolate, the Secret's features are presented as timeless: a carbon fibre and tempered glass casing ("timeless style"); a five megapixel camera and the ability to take video at 120 frames a second ("timeless memories"); multimedia functions including music, photos, games, documents and FM radio ("timeless entertainment"). Alas, there is no eBook reader function, with which time-exempt users might catch up on Latin proverbs. Like memento mori, say, or carpe diem.

The LG Secret has many top specifications. But its principal innovation - the combination of a slide-out keypad with a glass touchpad - simply does not work very well. The touchpad is a sort of halogen hob (between the screen proper and the keypad), rather than a full, iPhone-style touchscreen. It seems like intermediate technology to me. This is confirmed by the constant need to use an old-fashioned metal return/action button that rises like Uluru out of the glass.

The maker of the Secret is Korean-based LG Electronics which, according to its representative, has recently overtaken Sony Ericsson as the fourth biggest handset manufacturer in the world. I am sure they're all super fellows down at LG HQ (they sponsor Fulham FC), but others are not yet convinced. Technology site unwiredview.com has accused another LG phone on the horizon, the LG Dare, of being an "iPhone knock-off". Who'll dare say that when BlackBerry's touchscreen device, the BlackBerry Thunder, comes out?

I couldn't possibly comment on any of this, but another semiotic bell has just tinkled. It's Carling Black Label, of course, now reduced to plain Carling for snappier cross-bar ordering. LG should be careful with whom it mixes: when Carling Black Label was first sold in Britain in 1954 (by the inestimable Carling Kuntz Ltd) and prior to that in North America, the Black Label signalled not deluxe but economy.

· Stephen Fry returns later this month.

I recently bought a TomTom satnav that claimed to be compatible with Apples. In reality, it's limited: I had a total crash, and the company's advice is to find someone with a PC to correct the problem. Do you know of any satnav systems that are totally compatible with Apple Macs?

Many people have found they are unable to update satnav units or fix bugs because they aren't truly Mac-friendly. A year or so ago, there would have been little option but to suck it up, but you are in luck: Garmin has bought up a small company called MotionBased, which makes Apple-compatible systems - go to garmin.com/macosx for more details.

I have a pre-Scart TV that I'd like to connect to a Freeview box. Is there any way of linking old and new?

Older sets don't have the same connectors as new ones, but there are several easy fixes. You could buy a Freeview receiver with an in-built aerial output - Switchhelp.co.uk recommends the £39.99 TVonics MFR 200. Or you could run your Freeview through another box that has an older aerial connector, such as a video recorder. If all that fails, buy an RF modulator - this will convert one signal to another - for around £25 from any high street electronics shop.

I used to teach a course to staff at King's College London on copyright law, and one of the main pieces of advice I gave was that contrary to popular belief, content on the internet is not free. Yes, you can access certain information online, but this does not mean that is legal to upload or download it, as the case may be.

It therefore came as no surprise that a US district court judge ruled in favour of Viacom's demands to see who has been uploading their video content on YouTube. Call it payback time. This is part of a $1bn case which Viacom has undertaken to establish whether it is an infringement for YouTube to host copyright material on their website without permission.

The unexpected aspect of the case was that the judge decided to force Google to hand over data which includes the user names and web addresses of anyone who has logged in to watch clips on the site. There may be a legal challenge to the judgment, as many insiders are already questioning whether this is a breach of privacy law, both in the US and the EU. Still, it is unlikely that internet service providers will now have to divulge the details of individual users, unless they have actually posted clips belonging to Viacom.

Viacom is claiming (pdf) users put up pirated video clips on YouTube "by the thousands".
Google, which paid $1.6 bn to acquire YouTube in 2006, is likely to be hit by a massive bill if they lose the case, and the value of YouTube will be substantially reduced. The English Premier League is also involved in the litigation, and is seeking class action status. This means they can join in the action against YouTube by showing that they have a similar complaint.

Disclosure of the details of YouTube users will help Viacom to find out the extent of the illegal content on the site, and may form the basis for actions against individual infringers. It is unlikely mere viewers will be sued, as organisations that police copyright have generally only taken legal action against people who download or share content, and counterfeiters making money from it.

Attorney Kurt Opsahl, for privacy campaigners the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), said, "The court's erroneous ruling is a set-back to privacy rights, and will allow Viacom to see what you are watching on YouTube. We urge Viacom to back off [from] this overbroad request and Google to take all steps necessary to challenge this order and protect the rights of its users." EFF called the judgment "a set-back to privacy rights."

It is time that YouTube and other file-sharing services operated more responsibly. The well-meaning users who upload their favourite clips, or make parodies of videos which are owned by big media companies may feel they are doing nothing wrong. Some people argue that organisations like Viacom and the Premier League make enough money already. But there is a more important principle at stake. Most copyright owners make very small amounts from their work, and they should be entitled to prevent low quality copies from being distributed on YouTube if they wish.

Copyright owners have the right to object to illegal file-sharing, and downloading of their content. The result of this court action is that YouTube will need to police the material that people upload. They will also need to set up a system of royalties to pay content owners and authors for the rights to use their work. This will reduce the value of the YouTube brand, and force them to share their profits on a more equitable basis, instead of just enriching Google.

There's a meme going round that I think we need to stamp on, quick, because I know you won't give this piece much of your time. The reason for that is not because the internet is making you stupid, but because this piece will only appear on screens (unless you print it out onto paper, you environmental villain).

The idea that "the internet is making me stupid" has gained some traction in recent weeks. Nick Carr kicked it off with an article in The Atlantic magazine called "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" in which, contrary to longstanding requirements of headlines that ask questions, the answer was not "No, next!" but "Perhaps, yes".

His line - roughly - is that access to all this information, and the tendency to leap around as we consume information in little chunks, means that we're becoming unfamiliar with mastering long, complex arguments, and give up reading after a few screens of HTML.

Others chimed in, saying that they, too, found it hard to concentrate on things.

Well, sure, we have a lot more distractions these days. There's always the computer, and your mobile, so a tweet or a quick check on your Scrabulous game on Facebook is never far away. We're easily distracted, though I suspect that's just part of how we're built as humans. Nobody criticises birds for being prone to fly away when we approach them; it's a defense mechanism against predators. Humans, too, will flit around, given the chance, just in case we find something that's fabulously useful to us.

But I think the root cause of all this handwringing is much closer to home than Google. It's the screens. Reading on a screen is tiring. You read slower on a screen. Add in a non-optimal font (sans serif, without the little marks you find at the ends of letters, works best on screen because it's easier for the computer to draw) and you have a recipe for slow reading.

It's interesting to go back and see what Jakob Nielsen, the usability expert, was saying about this 10 years ago: "Low-resolution monitors (including all computer screens until now) have poor readability: people read about 25% slower from computer screens than from printed paper. Experimental 300dpi displays (costing $30,000) have been measured to have the same reading speed as print, so we will get better screens in the future. People will simply not read long texts at a reduced reading speed, so unless they have much better screens, electronic books will have a problem."

He added: "Even when e-books gain the same reading speed as print, they will still be a bad idea. Electronic text should not mimic the old medium and its linear ways. Page turning remains a bad interface, even when it can be done more conveniently than by clicking the mouse on a "next page" button. It is an insufficient goal to make computerized text as fast as print: we need to improve on the past, not simply match it.

"The basic problem is that the book is too strong a metaphor: it tends to lead designers and writers astray. Electronic text should be based on interaction, hypertext linking, navigation, search, and connections to online services and continuous updates."

(Interestingly, he said the two ideas that would work were print-on-demand, and downloadable audio. Have you subscribed to Tech Weekly?)

So this 25% slower figure: is it true? Yes. Other studies bear it out: this one in 1998 found that higher-resolution screens mean you read more accurately, though still not as fast as print; another more recent one at Manchester University (PDF or Google HTML cache) found reading on paper 10-30% faster.

There's another thing about paper. You're not tempted to go and check your email. I find I can read 5,000-word pieces in the New Yorker magazine (one of the last refuges of really long, well-written pieces, along with the London Review of Books) as long as they're on paper. On screen, I haven't a hope: they're about 10 screens long, and one does simply get tired of having to click through while retaining everything you've read. And there's always the distraction of following a link that you won't have in print.

Computer screens, meanwhile, are still a long way from mimicking the quality - in terms of dots per inch - of paper. Jeff Atwood of Coding Horror did an interesting comparison at the end of 2006 to show how far we haven't come, comparing commercial printing (about 2,400 dots per inch, or dpi) with a good, cheap printer will give you between 600 and 1,200dpi.

A typical computer display, by contrast, is between 72 and 100dpi (in some cases up to 150dpi - though often the screen is then very small, so the letters of words become hard to read. (There are other differences, which is that the screen has luminance, where the paper reflects light. This, as you already know, is why you can read a computer screen at night.) Atwood's conclusion: "We have a long, long way to go before computer displays can get anywhere near printer resolutions."

The only niggling question I have is whether anyone has investigated reading speeds for the Amazon Kindle, which has low luminance and a 167dpi screen. That's good, but it's still a long, long way from paper. (I can't find any studies about reading speeds on it; perhaps it's too early.)

OK, you've read to the end. You know now that the internet isn't making us stupid; it's just making us read slower. Go on, go and check your email. You've earned it.

Christian Heilmann, a developer at Yahoo who has worked in Munich, San Francisco, Mumbai and London, gives his tips on HTML and CSS structuring, Java testing and use of Yahoo's almost-open-source libraries

If you're anything like me - nothing to be proud of, I know - you probably spend your idle moments surfing the crucible of modern life that is YouTube. In just a few short years it's gone from being a niche video website to the basic staple of online entertainment.

It's worth pointing out, then, that if you're a YouTube user you will soon have your personal information handed over by YouTube's owner, Google, to the American broadcasting company Viacom. As part of Viacom's $1bn lawsuit alleging that YouTube encourages piracy, a US judge has ordered that the millions of unique internet addresses, email accounts and viewing histories of the site's users will be made available to Viacom lawyers.

The actual numbers of people affected are a little muddy - Google doesn't like to disclose exactly how many people around the world spend their coffee breaks looking at the Numa Numa kid - but it's clear that this is one of the greatest. Privacy advocates understandably have their knickers in a twist, because Judge Louis Stanton has helped Viacom manage what even the US government failed to achieve.

Google is no stranger to privacy debates. As the internet's single most powerful force, it has access to a vast array of information about internet users: not only every search request you've made, but every website you visit from Google's search page and every advert you click on while you're there. If you use YouTube, it knows what videos you watch, and if you use Gmail, it knows every intimate detail you share with friends and family. If you use Google Maps, it probably knows your physical address, and if you use Picasa it's probably got pictures of you as well. That's just the beginning: Google is moving into mobile phones, television ads and other parts of our life with a hunger bordering on the ravenous.

In the past Google has argued that it's not a danger to your privacy. Yes, it might know all that stuff, but the crucial bit of data - your IP address (the virtual telephone number that identifies every machine connected to the internet) doesn't uniquely identify you.

After all, they say, many people share IP addresses: in offices or family homes, for example. And the prevalence of open Wi-Fi hotspots means that you might not even know who else is using your connection. That's exactly the argument that Virgin Media, which recently started sending letters to customers asking them to make sure their internet connection wasn't being used illegally, has made.

In an ironic twist, though, this was the argument that Viacom used in order to gain access to the YouTube logs: it used Google's mantra over IP addresses against the company itself. If it's not unique and personally identifiable, Viacom's lawyers said, then why can't we have it?

The internet industry might deny the usefulness of IP addresses, but the unspoken reality it's the crucial piece of the jigsaw for identifying you. Even if it doesn't single you out specifically, it's probably close enough. And when given extra context - such as the things you've searched for - it's almost certainly enough to pull you out of the crowd.

That's why this isn't just about MTV knowing that I watched some silly video clips. This is about who knows what about you - and that's what has privacy campaigners so worried.

What's your favourite piece of technology?
That would definitely be my MacBook, because it's changed my life. I was a PC user before, but now I couldn't live without a Mac.

How has it improved your life?
It's my companion - I tour so much that it's my lifeline to friends and family.

When was the last time you used it, and what for?
About five minutes ago, when I was making some amendments to a concert program that I'm performing soon.

What additional features would you add if you could?
I would definitely add a mirror compact on it so I could put my makeup on in front of it before going on stage, because I always have my Mac on my dressing table wherever I am.

Do you think it will be obsolete in 10 years' time?
Absolutely not, no. My own Mac may be, because it gets so knocked about, but no, they are amazing machines and they are only getting better.

What one tip would you give to non-MacBook users?
Go and buy one now, because they're cheap and they're absolutely fantastic on all levels. It's so much easier than a PC, and they look nicer as well.

Do you consider yourself to be a luddite or a nerd?
A luddite, I'm afraid. I'm getting better, but I'm not naturally hugely excited by technology. That's probably because I never have the time to read the instructions, so I end up getting terribly frustrated.

What's the most expensive piece of technology you've ever owned?
It would probably be my Audi GT, which I only bought recently and am permanently scared of crashing.

Mac or PC?
You already know the answer to that!

What song is at the top of your iPod's top 25 most played?
At the moment I'm really into Donny Hathaway, and it's a track called I Love You More Than You'll Ever Know. It's just got the most amazing vibe.

Will robots rule the world?
Absolutely not. I think the world would definitely be a poorer place for it.

What piece of technology would you most like to own?
I've got two - probably a brand new MacBook that's already programmed with all my information on it; or, if I'm being really greedy, the new Alfa Romeo 8C in bright red, because it's rather lovely.

Natasha Marsh's self-titled new album is out now

LVMH's successful case against eBay (eBay hit with £30m fine for sales of fake luxuries, July 1) once again highlights the lack of protection that exists for consumers using online auction sites. The e-commerce of illegal goods impacts on companies in all markets, from fashion and record labels to fragrance and pharmaceutical manufacturers. While auction sites are a great example of how the internet has opened up access to new goods and business opportunities, the online marketplace has been damaged by unscrupulous traders and carries with it its own set of risks.

The recent settlement in France sets an expectation on auction sites to ensure that they create a secure and legal shopping environment for consumers, protecting confidence in the e-commerce model. The software industry is committed to raising awareness about the availability and risks of illegal and counterfeit goods on internet auction sites, but the distribution of pirated and unlicensed software, both online and offline, remains big business. Software losses in the UK hit £925m in 2007, highlighting that there is still some way to go to address these deceptive practices.

It is essential for auction sites to voluntarily implement stronger policies and procedures, as well as civil and criminal referrals on rogue traders, in order to protect the consumer. In addition, all industries must work together to educate consumers about the risks, so they are more savvy about their purchases. The maxim "if it's too good to be true, it probably is" cannot be overlooked when picking out the genuine article from the fraudulent counterfeits.
Robert Holleyman
President and CEO,
Business Software Alliance,
Washington DC

Did it take your browser a little bit longer than normal to open this article? Have you found yourself twiddling your thumbs recently as you wait two or three seconds (rather than the usual millisecond) for an email to send? Perhaps you've even found yourself making a cup of tea while waiting for the homepage of a particularly image-heavy website to download. Using the web, do you sometimes feel like you're stuck in 1998 - all slow connections and snail-paced emails - rather than 2008?

If so, it might be because somewhere else on the web, a few thousand people are watching last week's Question Time or downloading the new Coldplay album (though heaven knows why). Welcome to the internet crunch. As more web-surfers listen to music and watch TV shows and movies, there is great concern that the broadband infrastructure won't be able to cope, and that things will slow down and possibly even come to a standstill.

New audio- and video-based sites have started to take up more and more bandwith, yet the networks - all those miles of fibre-optic cables that were laid in recent years - have not been properly upgraded. As a result, the infrastructure of the internet, the physical stuff it is built on, will potentially struggle to cope with increased demand for new, improved, snazzy online services.

Some are concerned that BBC iPlayer, which allows web-users to watch BBC TV content from the previous seven days, is putting the internet under severe strain. Though it's only been online for six months, already iPlayer accounts for 3-5% of all internet traffic in the UK. In April alone, there were 17.2m requests to watch programmes via iPlayer.

Meanwhile, YouTube continues its rise as one of the most popular sites in Britain (and the world), more people are making phone calls via the web, and if you still buy CDs you are either over 25 or way behind the times technology-wise: everyone else does music online.

All of these new services are putting an extraordinary strain on the infrastructure. For example, downloading a film in the Blu-Ray format (that's high definition) takes up as much bandwith as a whopping 2.5m emails or 100m webpage downloads. Fifteen years ago, people like me thought it was amazing that we could send an email to a friend; today's web-users think little of sending the equivalent of a couple of million emails as they download the latest Hollywood blockbuster.

And when you consider that the first episode of The Apprentice was watched 100,000 times via iPlayer - which must be the equivalent of someone sending millions and millions of emails, or visiting an ordinary website a few billion times - it is clear that the bandwith and infrastructure issue is one that needs to be resolved.

So how bad is the problem - and who should fix it? My website spiked is hosting a public debate on the internet crunch next Tuesday evening, at which esteemed speakers and an audience of interested parties and the interested public will interrogate the "traffic jam crisis".

One speaker - David Crow, the tech correspondent for City AM - says "our broadband network is completely unprepared for the extra strain as online video-streaming becomes more mainstream."

"Laying new fibre-optic cables is expected to cost £15bn", he says, but it isn't clear who will pay for it: "It's highly unlikely that the BBC will ever have to foot the bill, not least because it can't; the £15bn projected cost is around three times the corporation's annual budget. Nor is the government likely to fund the new cabling through general taxation."

Meanwhile, Rob Killick of cScape says there are elements of special pleading and scaremongering in the debate about the internet crunch. He argues: "What seems to be driving today's panic about an internet crunch is the needs of ISPs and media competitors, who have an interest in stoking up fear about the BBC and others causing an internet collapse, and also a general sense of cultural pessimism."

Is there likely to be a collapse of the internet, or is than an exaggeration? Clearly the infrastructure needs to be improved, but who should fund that improvement? If we demand that the government stumps up the money, won't that mean increased government control - and therefore more government regulation and restriction - of the internet in general? Does anyone want that?

These questions and more will be debated at Traffic Jam: Are We Heading for an Internet Crunch? at the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors in Parliament Square from 7pm on Tuesday 8 July. Click here to book a ticket. I hope to see you there.

Celebrities, beware! There is nowhere left to hide. Darryn Lyons, the larger than life founder of the Big Pictures photo agency, is encouraging budding paparazzi with nimble fingers and a mobile-phone camera to start sending him celebrity shots.

Lyons is getting in on the user-generated content boom by launching a new service allowing snap-happy punters to upload and sell celebrity shots directly from their mobile phones.

He will be offering the new service via a mobile version of the website, MrPaparazzi.com, which he launched 18 months ago, combining celebrity news, photos and videos in a Perez Hilton-style blog.

The new mobile version, built by mobile content specialists MoMac, makes all the content accessible by mobile, but also allows users to upload celebrity photos that, once approved, can be sold on by Big Pictures.

Lyons' agency has previously sold on images sent in by nimble-fingered picture phone snappers to MrPaparazzi.com of Cameron Diaz surfing, which made £16,000, and pictures of Amy Winehouse, sold for £500.

Contributors earn around 50% of licence fees Big Pictures gets from selling images sent in via the website.

Lyons said the website, which claims 1.7 million unique users each week, is already profitable through a combination of selling material, a branded bingo service and advertising. He now wants to extend the reach of the site by expanding onto mobile.

"The difference [from Perez Hilton] is that we own and generate the content - he doesn't," he added.

Lyons said contributors to the MrPaparazzi.com site had to agree to clear terms and conditions stating that submissions have not invaded the privacy or caused inconvenience to any subjects.

"Photos from the biggest news events are rarely taken by the media, like 9/11 and 7/7. The better quality, iconic images of the news are always by professionals, but often someone has exceptional access or is in the right place at the right time," he added.

· To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 7239 9857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 7278 2332.

· If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication".

Virgin Media and the BPI have sent warning letters to people whose IP addresses have been identified as having been used for file-sharing. Both letters are reprinted below.

The text of Virgin Media's letter to customers

We're writing to you about downloading and sharing of copyrighted files on the internet. That's because we've received a report that copyrighted music has been shared using a computer linked to your Virgin Media internet account. Please allow us to explain.

As we're sure you'll know, many files that can be saved on your computer (like music and videos) are protected by copyright. While it may be okay to store them for personal use, it's unlawful to download or share them without the permission of the copyright owner - for example, the record company or film studio that released them. Otherwise it's a "copyright infringement", which can lead to legal action being taken against the person responsible.

It's one of the jobs of the BPI, which represents British record labels, to make sure that copyrighted music files aren't unlawfully shared over the internet. They wrote to let us know that they believe your internet connection is being used to share files.

We understand you may be concerned about this, and you might be unsure how it happened. One possible answer is that other people in your household have used your computer and/or Internet connection, and they might have shared these files with others by using unauthorised "peer-to-peer/P2P" filesharing networks like "BitTorrent" or "Limewire".

However, you need to make sure that these files aren't downloaded or shared from your Virgin Media internet connection in future - for example, making sure they're not being made available through the use of file sharing networks, and securing any wireless router that you have. We encourage all our customers to use appropriate security solutions to safeguard their computers whilst online, and therefore we recommend that you use PCGuard, our suite of security services.

This can also help to prevent the spread of computer viruses which are sometimes disguised as illegal music files. All this will help make sure that no further steps are taken against you.

We've included a summary of the BPI report below, we hope that this and the enclosed BPI letter helps explain how to prevent unauthorised downloading and filesharing and how to enjoy music safely online. If you'd like details of any further technical information supplied to us by the BPI or if there's anything else you'd like to know, just call our internet security team on 0845 454 1098. Please note we have not shared any of your account or personal information with the BPI as part of this communication.

Text of the BPI's letter to filesharers

Dear Virgin Media Customer
Enjoying Music On The Internet & Illegal Filesharing

We're writing to you about enjoying music on the internet and about illegal downloading and filesharing. It's an issue which affects you, so it's very important that you read this letter carefully.

We're exceptionally lucky in Britain to have a world-beating music-making community, with a strong and sophisticated fan base. But we can only keep it that way if we all work together to ensure that the musicians who create this great music are rewarded for doing so.

That's where copyright comes in - copyright applies just as much to online music as it does to physical CDs. That means that you can't upload or download files on your computer without the authorisation of the copyright owner. Legal download services such as iTunes and 7digital authorise
you to download music and make a few copies for your own personal use. But it's illegal to download from unauthorised peer-to-peer/P2P networks such as BitTorrent. It's also illegal to share music files with other people, unless you have specific permission from the copyright owner. Otherwise
musicians won't be paid and record labels won't be able to invest in the kind of new music that you might want to enjoy in the future.

That's why the BPI team carries out regular checks online. We have information that someone - and it may not be you - is using your Virgin Media internet account to access music illegally. However it happened, it is illegal. We therefore need you to take steps to stop it from happening again. The steps you can take are set out in the enclosed "What To Do Next" section. You should know that if you don't do this and the problem happens again, then you could face legal action.

We don't want you to face legal action or risk losing your internet service - we want you to enjoy music legally. The good news is that there is plenty of online music for you to download legally. Take a look at pro-music.org for a list - there are millions of tracks available of all types and genres.

If you'd like to discuss any concerns you have in relation to this letter, then please don't hesitate to get in touch. Our contact details are set out in the "What To Do Next" section. We're ready to help.

Thanks for your time.
Yours sincerely
Geoff Taylor
Chief Executive, BPI

Virgin Media customers who illegally share copyrighted files online will not face having their internet connection cut off, the company said today.

Last month the country's second-largest internet service provider started sending letters to a number of identified filesharers, outlining the nature of illegal downloading and pointing to internet services that offer music and videos within the scope of the law.

Following reports today regarding the letters, however, a Virgin Media spokesman told the Guardian that this was not a prelude to a "three strikes" policy which could see persistent offenders lose their internet access.

"As part of this we don't make any kind of accusation about the user - it could be somebody else in their house, their block of flats or they might have an open Wi-Fi connection," said the spokesman.

"We can't point the finger at the account holder, but we can point out what's happening with their connection. Often it's a lack of education that's causing the problem."

The letters are the latest move in a plan being pushed by British music industry body the BPI, which is waging a long campaign against filesharing. The BPI is advocating a system similar to one proposed by French politicians, in which those who share files illegally are given a series of warnings before having their internet connection closed down.

That idea, mooted by French president Nicholas Sarkozy, has yet to be passed into law and has provoked controversy both at home and abroad.

The approach taken by Virgin means that any potential prosecutions of filesharers would have to be put in process by copyright holders themselves, or the organisations which represent them - as is currently the case.

Earlier this year the BPI warned ISPS that they must take action against filesharers or it would seek an injunction against the companies. Some reacted angrily to such threats - including Charles Dunstone, the chief executive of Carphone Warehouse.

"Our position is very clear," he told the BBC at the time. "We are the conduit that gives users access to the internet. We do not control the internet, nor do we control what our users do on the internet."

"I cannot foresee any circumstances in which we would voluntarily disconnect a customer's account on the basis of a third party alleging a wrongdoing."

Virgin already employs so-called throttling measures to prevent heavy downloaders from using the full scope of their internet service - regardless of whether they are acting within the law or not - as a way to maintain the level of service for its other customers.

A beach rave party advertised on a social networking site was cancelled as organisers urged people not to go to Torquay after a police chief said last night the event would not be allowed to go ahead.

More than 4,000 people confirmed on a Facebook site that they would attend the event, touted by organisers as the "biggest open party Torbay has ever seen" and planned for this Friday night, continuing until Sunday lunchtime.

But organisers put up a message on the site they had originally used to advertise the party last night, saying: "This event is now cancelled."

Torbay police commander Superintendent Chris Singer said he was "delighted" that the organisers have "seen common sense and taken the responsible step."

He said there would be public safety issues if the party went ahead with the possibility of people getting cut off by the weekend's high tides.

While he admitted police did not know where exactly the event was planned to take place, he warned that police would still have resources in place. His message to potential revellers was: "There is no point in coming down to Torbay if you are looking to attend an alcohol-fuelled event."

The Facebook site explained that due to the unexpectedly high number of people planning attend, it would require a licence to go ahead "legally and safely".

"An application for such a licence is a lengthy process and cannot be completed within the given time constraints," it read, saying that factors such as "traffic management, waste disposal and sanitary conditions" had to be carefully planned.

It went on to emphasise that anyone who turned up would be arrested or asked to leave: "Do not travel to Torbay - there will still be a high police presence around the coast." Having originally promised a weekend with "lots of people and lots of alcohol", the organisers were now urging people to spread the word that the party is longer going ahead. "Sorry for any inconvenience" they apologised.

Details on a Platte

· Ashley Bateup [says]: "Over 35% of consumers pay by postal order - this in itself says something about the consumer and their wish to remain anonymous"(Popup billing finds a new screen, June 26). Bateup has missed, or chooses to misrepresent, the point here. People pay by postal order because they don't want Platte, MBS or whoever having access to their credit card details.
michaelpollitt.com/wordpress/?p=187

· My son is now too scared to answer "yes" to any [online] query when he's on the PC - which is no bad thing.
cathykeir.co.uk/blog

My ideal phone

I found my ideal mobile on eBay, a five-year-old PalmOne Treo 600 Smartphone (Apple upsets the iPhone cart, June 12). It syncs with my iBook and my work Windows PC. It features a Qwerty and an onscreen keyboard, icon-based touchscreen (take that, Nokia N95), oh, and the ability to thread text messages - just like the iPhone.
Steve Hooker, Rotherham

The tools are out there

· I've seen this kind of thing before, and typically it's one guy with a copy of 3D Studio Max and delusions of grandeur (Regenerate! Fans revive 60s Doctor Who, June 26). However, I recognised some of the backgrounds as being from different guys with 3D Studio Max and delusions of grandeur. They've put all the tools out, backgrounds, textures, line art for facial expressions ... all of it.
skmdc.livejournal.com

Data in an Oyster shell

Oyster cards aren't just for pre-paid fares: monthly and annual season tickets (Travelcards) are all issued on them as well (Newly asked questions, June 26). So does TfL's apparent complacency about loss of revenue on a hacked card also extend more dangerously to possible loss of the substantial personal information provided when a passenger applies for or renews a long-term ticket?
Don Keller, London

· While I agree that the ability to crack the Oyster card, per se, is not going to cause serious problems, I wonder what this means for the combo Visa, debit and Oyster card issued by Barclays. Does cracking the Oyster card open the possibility to get access to the wallets in these combined cards?
Stephen Moffitt, London

Flaming Firefox

There are two widely differing experiences of Firefox 3 - those who apparently love it and those, like me who believe it's a disaster (Technophile, June 26). I may have the answer to these differing experiences - we're not seeing the same thing. I believe that some mirrors are distributing corrupted versions. The thing should work perfectly straight out of the box - and it doesn't.
Ron Graves, Prenton

· You know you're going geeky when you read about a new version of a browser over breakfast in the online version of your newspaper, and you just have to go and get it there and then.
pigstyave.blogspot.com

Who's watching who?

· It seems clear to me that Britain is becoming an increasingly petty, officious, fearful, paranoid and authoritarian society (Read me first, June 26).
magnacartaplus.org/news

Killing isn't a game

· Most people are concerned that Grand Theft Auto desensitises kids to violence in the real world. What I worry about is the army taking these gamers, putting them in front of consoles, and not telling them that on the other end of the game they are playing are real human beings they are killing (Robots on the battlefield, June 26).
fearandloathingingtown.blogspot.com

· Read all this week's letters in full at blogs.guardian.co.uk/technology

Asi Burak has quite the task ahead of him. The Israeli-born, Pennsylvania-based game developer is trying to court mainstream audiences into buying his titles. His first effort, PeaceMaker - an astonishingly sophisticated simulation of the Israel/Palestine conflict, wherein players become the president or prime minister of either nation and vie for peace - earned significant press coverage last year, and was even distributed by the Peres Center For Peace. But Burak doesn't feel the game reached his ideal audience - "people who watch The Daily Show with Jon Stewart; politically aware, socially conscious people" - because, ultimately, PeaceMaker was seen as a videogame. And according to that audience, Burak reasons, videogames are dumb.

He may have a point. Mainstream videogames may have all but conquered the 18-34 male demographic, and proven extremely pervasive throughout others, but their social stigma persists. One of the most obvious reasons for this - and one of the key points of the Byron Review (dfes.gov.uk/byronreview) - is the vast "generational gap" between gamers and non-gamers. Of course, this argument implies it's just a matter of time before MP Keith Vaz sits down to a game of Grand Theft Auto VII, but Burak believes that before this can ever be achieved, we need to "dismantle the notion of the 'gamer'". "If you think about it," he says, "you won't call someone a 'radio listener', or 'TV viewer' - I mean, you might, but everyone is, right? Everyone is a filmgoer. This idea that people are 'gamers' is going to have to change. Everyone should be a gamer!"

Playing to the masses

It's a sensible idea, but, as Burak notes, the difference between a gamer and a TV viewer is that the latter requires absolutely no skill or prior knowledge. Most games have several barriers to entry - the hardware required to run them, their cost and, importantly, the skills necessary to play and enjoy them. For someone who's played few videogames, even BioShock - often considered the apex in sophisticated interactive storytelling, and winner of last year's Bafta "Best Game" award - is a daunting experience. Ultimately, one could argue, the very reason videogames are so rarely taken seriously (other than by gamers, of course) is that only gamers know how to play them.

In the years before arguments about videogames' artistic and social value were ubiquitous, games were a lot more intuitive. Consider Pong, the first videogame to reach a mainstream audience. In it, players have just one task: do not miss the ball. As a gameplay concept it's somewhat crude, but Pong is nonetheless instantly accessible to anyone. And as an argument for the universal merits and appeal of videogames in general, it's fairly strong: after all, Pong in its various incarnations and compilation releases is without question one of the highest-selling videogames of all time, and also the best-known.

Even with the luxuries of more sophisticated technology available and the expectations that brings, many games have met similar (or even greater) success by remaining relatively spartan in their demands of the player. Pac-Man gave players two tasks: aim in the direction of pellets to accrue points, and aim away from ghosts to progress. It is still commercially viable and instantly recognisable by gamers and non-gamers alike.

Similarly, Super Mario Brothers, while giving players a much more detailed world to enjoy, was essentially about running to the right of the screen and jumping. The meagre number of tasks given to the player made understanding and playing (if not mastering) Super Mario Brothers a minor undertaking. As a result, Mario has become the de facto mascot of the videogame business, and the Mario franchise has sold more then 200m units.

Play Myst for me

On a smaller scale, this "less is more" philosophy has yielded significant returns, not only for developers but for the industry itself. Myst eschewed the keyboard completely; Cyan created a surrealistic and puzzle-heavy (but absolutely conflict-free) world that PC users navigated entirely using the mouse. And for all the criticism levelled at it years on, few other mainstream PC titles have been able to capture as large and diverse and audience as Myst managed.

More complex simulations have benefited from making interactivity instantly possible, rather than a learned skill. The Sims, for instance, shifted more than 50m units because it took Maxis' legacy of deep simulation gameplay - SimCity, SimEarth, SimLife, etc - and implemented it into a game about the minutiae of daily life. Men, women and children took to the game in unprecedented numbers, primarily because it was easy to grasp. Maxis did away with complex micromanagement with the Sims and focused on parts of life that players of all ages could understand.

The Sims achieved commercial dominance through clever game design, but Nintendo managed to conquer the console market by tackling the issue of accessibility at a hardware level. The Wii is unquestionably the most intuitive piece of videogaming technology ever; its motion-detection control system becomes, essentially, an extension of the player's body. Coupled with its range of titles - from traditional action games (Zelda: Twilight Princess) to exercise assistants (Wii Fit) - the Wii's uniquely physical control system has made a "lifestyle device" out of Nintendo's console. Which, one suspects, is exactly the perspective with which Burak wishes Wii players would see the rest of the games industry.

If these examples demonstrate anything to games developers, it is not that all should compromise complexity where it is due; rather, accessibility should be a high priority. Put simply, the longer it takes for someone to understand a game, the less likely it is that they'll stay to play it. And this chronic lack of understanding about the nature of interactive media will undoubtedly come to the fore yet again in the weeks and months after Grand Theft Auto IV's release. It will be accused of encouraging violence against women, and being a platform for dormant Ted Bundys to live out their wildest, most nightmarish fantasies - essentially, an exercise in sociopathy. It will be judged by those who have never played it, and who have no concept of its nature nor the nature of any games like it. And Burak's right: we only have ourselves to blame.