4-5 months ago, the hardware on my old flip phone was dying (that happens when it's from 2008). I was out of contract with AT&T and so I could have chose to get a new subsidized phone & shiny new 2-year contract with them, but I simply bought a used out-of-contract iPhone 4 from my friend and swapped in my sim card (that whole commitment thing again). Again, no problems. America! Neat.

After using the iPhone as a dumb phone for all intents & purposes (call, text, no data) for the last 4-5 months or so, I get a text message out of the blue from AT&T that they've detected I'm using a smart phone and that all smart phones require a data plan - never mind that I actually had data turned off. That would be only a little annoying if it was just a notification message, but they went ahead, chose a data plan for me, and started billing me from then on.

Offering customers choices is a good thing. Limiting them is not. Forcing a plan on someone who has no intention of using it and charging them for it is about the best way I can think of to lose a customer. When Runyon contacted AT&T about this, they apparently replied that this was "standard practice," in which case it should probably be "standard practice" to find another carrier.

The IFPI has a stab a reconciling that contradiction, writing: "The truth is that record companies are building a successful digital music business in spite of the environment in which they operate, not because of it." However, it desperately needs some proof of that statement, because otherwise the simplest explanation is that piracy is not a serious problem, and that the recording industry is thriving, just like the rest of the creative industries.

The IFPI probably thinks it has found some proof in the French HADOPI experience, which, according its report, demonstrates that introducing three-strikes measures against unauthorized sharing boosts digital sales.

A new academic study -- The Effect of Graduated Response Anti-Piracy Laws on Music Sales: Evidence from an Event Study in France, by Danaher et al -- has also found evidence that Hadopi has had a positive impact on iTunes sales in France. The authors studied sales of digital singles and album downloads on iTunes from July 2008, before the law was adopted, until six months after the start of notices. They developed an estimate of what French iTunes sales would have looked like in the absence of Hadopi by studying a control group of similar markets.

The analysis found that French iTunes sales saw a significant uplift at exactly the period when awareness of Hadopi was at its highest, in Spring 2009, when the law was being debated in the National Assembly. This effect was maintained throughout the period studied. French iTunes sales were 22.5 per cent higher for singles and 25 per cent higher for digital albums than they would have been, on average, in the absence of Hadopi.

The graph of iTunes sales for France clearly diverges from that of the control group, lying consistently above it. The divergence begins around about the time that HADOPI was first presented to the French National Assembly, increases slightly, and then decreases a little after the first warning letters were sent out. From this, the researchers deduce that the discussion around HADOPI caused significantly increased sales of iTunes compared to the control countries:

these estimates indicate that French track sales units rose about 25.5% in the control group after March 1, 2009 but by 48% in France, indicating that French iTunes track sales were 22.5% higher on average than they would have been in the absence of HADOPI. Similarly, album sales units rose by 42% in the control group but 67% in France, indicating that HADOPI increased iTunes album sales an average 25% per week in France.

What it found were five very pronounced peaks in the French searches that corresponded exactly with five (smaller) peaks in iTunes sales, and also to five well-defined external events: the launch of the Iphone 3GS and iPhone 4, and three Christmas seasons. The effect was so marked in France because it was starting from a lower base: according to the researchers, the average sales of iTunes in France were 450,000 per week, while in the UK they were 2,900,000 per week. So an alternative explanation for those impressive increases in sales is simply the uplift in iPhone ownership generated by new launches and the holidays in an immature market with plenty of room for growth.

The researchers do offer one other piece of evidence for the uplift in sales being due to the crackdown on piracy:

EMI surveys of French citizens show that that Rap and Hip Hop are the most heavily pirated genres, even relative to popularity in legal sales channels. While Rock and Pop experience average levels of piracy, the data also indicate that genres such as Classical, Christian, Folk, and Jazz experience significantly lower levels of piracy.

As the Le Monde analysis points out, another explanation is that many recent iPhone purchasers are younger people, who are generally the most interested in acquiring the latest technology as soon as it comes out. And younger people, by and large, listen to more Rap than Classical or Christian music, which would explain the difference in the increase across genres.

Spending so much effort here on exploring one research report might seem excessive, but it matters. The IFPI is already branding this supposed increase in digital music sales -- quantified by the researchers at $18.6 million annually for France -- the "HADOPI Effect". In the months to come, you can bet that the recording industry's representatives and lobbyists will be visiting governments and showing them this "proof" that three-strikes really "works" -- and demanding they follow suit to "protect" the artists.

What's ironic is that the IFPI report spends many of its pages discussing a much more sensible way of reducing unauthorized sharing: offering high-quality music streaming services instead, as recent market research from Scandinavia indicates. Unfortunately, the recording industry is so obsessed with punishing pirates that it can't see that its future lies in promoting innovation, not legislation.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and on Google+

Starting an online interactive pornography firm where woman will use the iphone 4 to video chat with potential customers on a pay as you go basis.

Hours are flexible, pay will increase as the business builds. Woman will receive a free iphone 4 to use as personal time when not working. Woman will talk to potential clients and chat with them and perform various acts as desired by clients. All information will be confidential.

"Some customers, up until now, have been hesitant to sign up for a $30 monthly data plan" for unlimited access, says Ralph de la Vega

The non-discrimination principle that Genachowski seeks to mandate would prohibit service providers such as AT&T, Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile and Sprint from using their network resources to prioritize or partition data as it crosses their networks so as to improve the performance of specific applications, such as a movie or massive multiplayer game. Yet quality wireless service is predicated on such steps. The iPhone, for example, would not have been possible if AT&T and Apple did not work together to ensure AT&T's wireless network could handle the increase in data traffic the iPhone would create.

Likely scenario: An employee is denied an iPhone (or possibly any company-provided smartphone) and decides to get his own personal iPhone for use at work. This surreptitious infiltration is actually a bigger concern than a handful of managers; at least with them you still get to control the configuration and deployment process. If you don't know that workers are using iPhones in your company, you can't secure them at all. You can't even be certain what data might be stored on them.

And since the iPhone is fairly easy for even novice users to set up -- they can sign onto wireless networks, access intranets, and even gain access to an e-mail server -- it's no stretch to imagine that a lone, unauthorized iPhone could seriously compromise confidential data, as well as access to your network and the services running in it.