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One of the more ridiculous claims, made by the music industry lately, is this idea that ISPs are somehow unfairly "profiting" from file sharing, and that's the reason why they should be forced to act as the entertainment industry's police. The argument makes no sense, but has become quite popular in certain circles. It was one of the many fallacious arguments made recently by U2's manager Paul McGuinness in his quite silly screed blaming everyone but the recording industry for the industry's problems. Thankfully, though, some people are speaking up. Both ZeroPaid and TorrentFreak point us to a blog post from ISP Entanet's head of marketing, pointing out that this claim is not at all accurate: Considering Mr. McGuinness proudly informs us he has been debating on this issue for two years, he seems to totally misunderstand the reasons behind broadband customers' demand for better broadband speeds and equally doesn't understand the current facilities available on the Internet. He asks "Do people want more bandwidth to speed up their e-mails or to download music and films as rapidly as possible?" Well, if he took the time to make an informed comment through proper research he'd see that, in reality, most broadband customers want to be better able to take advantage of 'legal' technologies such as online gaming, YouTube, iPlayer, iTunes, VoIP and a vast array of business oriented services that are currently available. It is simply naive to suggest that customers' desire for faster broadband and more bandwidth is driven solely by a desire to cheat music rights holders out of their royalties through illegal file sharing. Furthermore, without legal services such as iTunes music sales would undeniably decrease. Does Mr. McGuinness want to close down this a distribution model that has proven to contribute positively to music sales? Talk about cutting your nose off to spite your face! It's great to see people who actually understand this stuff debunking McGuinness' argument, though somehow I don't see McGuinness ever responding reasonably to this point. Realistically speaking, this is yet another example of the industry's proclivity to overvalue the content and assume that any of the services or tools around the content are valueless. Similarly, it shows a very broadcast top-down view, assuming that the only reason people are using the internet is to download their content, rather than to communicate with one another. The internet is a communication platform much more than a broadcast medium, and the music industry still doesn't seem to grasp that simple fact. Permalink | Comments | Email This Story Author: Mike Masnick Posted: 9 Sep 2010 at 2:27pm We've been covering various stories about anti-SLAPP laws -- the important set of (state) laws that protect people who are sued not for any significant legal reasons, but in order to silence them -- and there's been a first ruling on Washington State's anti-SLAPP law, which is a bit different than the typical anti-SLAPP ruling. Thomas O'Toole points us to the news that filmmaker Michael Moore has prevailed over a privacy rights claim that was brought against him. Whatever you think of Moore as a fillmmaker (and, seriously, please don't turn the comments into a pro/con fight over Moore), this case is pretty interesting. It involved a clip that Moore used in his film Sicko, that was sent to him by the subject of the video, but not by the guy who filmed it: At issue was a snippet of video taken from several hours of tape Aronson shot while touring England with a friend, Eric Turnbow, in 1997. It showed Turnbow attempting to walk on his hands across Abbey Road and falling, injuring himself. It also contained a brief snatch of a song Aronson composed and sang. According to court filings, Aronson's voice and photograph appear in 16 seconds of the tape. Turnbow, a fan of Michael Moore's, sent tape to the filmmaker in 2006. Moore was soliciting stories about health care outside the U.S. Turnbow's shoulder injury was treated in a British hospital, and Moore used it to compare the health-care systems in the two countries. However, Turnbow did not have Aronson's permission to send the tape, and Aronson never signed a waiver, although Turnbow did, according to the pleadings. Aronson then sued, saying it was a violation of his rights, but the court tossed it out and ordered that Aronson pay Moore for filing a SLAPP lawsuit. Aronson's lawyer, not surprisingly, was not at all happy with the ruling: "This wasn't a strategic lawsuit," he said. "This is a good man who had his videotape used without his permission." It's definitely true that this does seem to be a rather broad interpretation of a SLAPP, but on the whole, such anti-SLAPP results are a good thing for free speech. Threatening or suing people for making a statement of any kind is problematic if you believe in free speech rights. It will be worth watching to see if there's an appeal in this case, as it could really bring out some questions about the limits on anti-SLAPP rulings (at least in Washington... but it could impact laws elsewhere). Permalink | Comments | Email This Story Author: Mike Masnick Posted: 9 Sep 2010 at 1:31pm This one's just a bit strange. TorrentFreak alerts us to the news of an Indian company called AiPlex, which (according to its website) seems to do a bit of medical transcription, a bit of SEO and... just for fun, a bit of anti-piracy work. Apparently AiPlex's CEO explains that one of their anti-piracy methods is to hit non-cooperative sites with a denial of service attack: "In such cases, we flood the website with requests, which results in database error, causing denial of service as each server has a fixed bandwidth capacity," Kumar reveals. And it doesn't stop there. "At times, we have to go an extra mile and attack the site and destroy the data to stop the movie from circulating further," he adds. TorrentFreak also notes that this firm seems a bit confused over how BitTorrent works, in that it lists "Bram Cohen" as a type of BitTorrent client, which I'm sure amuses Bram). Watch out, Bram, or a medical transcription SEO company might try to flood you with requests, resulting in a database error. Permalink | Comments | Email This Story Author: Mike Masnick Posted: 9 Sep 2010 at 12:23pm US courts figured this out a while ago, but it's nice to see that an Australian court has now ruled that newspaper headlines don't deserve copyright protection. The specific lawsuit was over the use of Australian Financial Review headlines in LexisNexis, which also summarized the articles in question. It appears the judge also said that the use of the headlines constitutes "fair dealing," but I'm a bit confused about the combination here. If the headlines aren't copyrightable... then fair dealing shouldn't even come into play. Not surprisingly, the publisher of AFR, Fairfax Media, is not at all happy about the ruling, making the totally laughable argument that copyrights on headlines is necessary: Gill described the judgment as "disappointing", adding: "It is not consistent with what is necessary to protect intellectual property in the digital media environment... We are considering our appeal opportunities." Seriously. If you're relying on copyright protection of your news headlines as a part of your business model, you've got the wrong business model. Permalink | Comments | Email This Story Author: Mike Masnick Posted: 9 Sep 2010 at 10:21am Nearly a decade ago, we wrote about how difficult it was for Cubans to get access to the internet, with some resorting to bootleg access to get around the limitations. It wasn't just that internet access was hard to come by, expensive and incredibly slow, but that it was heavily filtered, leaving little access to many popular sites. Still, back in 2003, we noted (with some surprise) that Fidel Castro was saying that the internet was important in giving people a voice and breaking down communications barriers. Apparently, he still believes that. While Castro hasn't been heard from as much since handing over control of the government to his younger brother Raul Castro, he's apparently still a fan of the internet, and has become something of an internet junkie. In a recent interview he's again talking up the wonders and importance of the internet, and notes that he reads 200 to 300 news items a day, and is a big fan of Wikileaks (no surprise there). As for the vastly limited access on the island, he blames the US embargo (of course), but even if that explains the difficulty and expense associated with access, it does not explain the filters and the limits (including a long period -- only recently ended -- where Cubans weren't allowed to have computers with internet access in their homes). So, the overall position still seems pretty hypocritical. Internet access is important in "putting an end to secrets," as he says... but the Cuban government doesn't want that to apply to itself. Permalink | Comments | Email This Story Author: Mike Masnick Posted: 9 Sep 2010 at 7:23am We were recently talking about how so many in the video game industry seem so antagonistic to the used video game market, despite widespread evidence that a healthy secondary market helps the primary market in a variety of ways. Reader Johnny points us to the news that retailing giant Ikea is now planning to experiment with used goods sales itself via a website in Sweden. The company says that it won't make much money from the offering, but recognizes that it adds value for consumers, thus suggesting they actually recognize how such things help the primary market as well. Nice to see not everyone reacts so badly to used markets. Permalink | Comments | Email This Story Author: Mike Masnick Posted: 9 Sep 2010 at 4:22am Considering that our government has regularly abused requirements for oversight and due process in getting private data about people, it's always nice to see the courts push back at least some of the time. The latest is that an appeals court has ruled that a court can deny the government's request for cell phone location data if the government fails to show probable cause. The ruling isn't a total win. It does reject the magistrate judge's original ruling blocking the release of the data. However, it does say that the law doesn't require the courts to approve such requests, as the government believes. Still, it's good that the court at least realizes that courts may reject such requests: Permalink | Comments | Email This Story Author: Mike Masnick Posted: 9 Sep 2010 at 2:07am A bunch of folks have been sending over this somewhat ridiculous love letter to Intellectual Ventures written up at Gizmodo (a site that usually is a lot more on the ball than what this post shows), which basically takes all of IV and Nathan Myhrvold's favorite talking points (many of which make little sense) and simply parrots them back, acting as if the company is some sort of Willy Wonka chocolate factory of invention -- but leaving out the hundreds of millions of dollars companies pay up as a sort of "don't sue us tax," and the incredibly sketchy nature of the over 1,000 shell companies set up by the firm and the entirely secret nature of many of its business dealings. Instead, the guy at Gizmodo is wowed by the fact that the company has computer hackers trying to cure cancer. Now, I'm all for the idea of bringing together people with a very different perspective to try to come up with unique ways to solve problems, but that's not what Intellectual Ventures actually does. Solving problems is not about invention. It's about innovation. Nearly every great idea for a new invention turned out to be wrong. It was only when the products actually get to market that the creators realize the mistakes and tweak and adjust until the market finally tells them they were right. But that's not what Intellectual Ventures does. At all. Buried in the middle of the article is the random aside that the company has been at this for 10 years and not a single "invention" it's come up with has gone to market. None. Zero. You would think that would be worth unpacking and exploring, but instead, Gizmodo just says "you'd be sorely mistaken if thought IV was merely a "patent holding firm" or "patent foundry," as it's often described." Why would that be mistaken? The article doesn't say. Instead, the writer just seems wowed by the fact that IV has lots of old scientific equipment. What a shame. It would be nice if someone actually asked Myhrvold and his crew some actual tough questions, rather than fawning over the fact he once dug up dinosaur bones. Permalink | Comments | Email This Story Author: Mike Masnick Posted: 9 Sep 2010 at 12:34am In my endless attempt to explain what's wrong with Creative Commons' "non-commercial" and "no derivatives" restrictions, I came across this 2005 article by Benjamin Mako Hill: Free Software's fundamental document is Richard Stallman's Free Software Definitions (FSD) [3]. At its core, the FSD lists four freedoms: The freedom to run the program, for any purpose; The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs; The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor; The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits; ...For the CC founders and many of CC's advocates, FOSS's success is a source of inspiration. However, despite CC's stated desire to learn from and build upon the example of the free software movement, CC sets no defined limits and promises no freedoms, no rights, and no fixed qualities. Free software's success is built upon an ethical position. CC sets no such standard.This has led to a proliferation of harmful and incompatible CC-NC and CC-ND licensed works, mistakenly labeled "Free." Mako Hill points out that while Creative Commons pursued its goal of "Balance, compromise, and moderation," it failed to define or defend any core freedoms. Indeed, there seems to be no concern about what the "Free" in Free Culture means. To most it means, "slightly less restrictive than modern copyright." Even so, most CC licenses are more restrictive than pre-1970's copyright (because modern copyright's extended terms and more draconian punishments for infringements still apply). Fortunately the Four Freedoms of Free Software easily apply to Culture: the freedom to use the work and enjoy the benefits of using it the freedom to study the work and to apply knowledge acquired from it the freedom to make and redistribute copies, in whole or in part, of the information or expression the freedom to make changes and improvements, and to distribute derivative works That's not so hard, is it? Ironically I was arguing with Richard Stallman last month about the Free Software Foundation's use of -ND licenses on its cultural works. A film they sponsored, Patent Absurdity, has "no derivatives" restrictions even though it could be greatly improved by editing, and clips could be highly beneficial in other works. Freedom #4 FAIL. Even the FSF fails to apply the Four Freedoms to Culture! Software IS culture. Many in the Free Software Movement draw a false distinction between "utility" and "aesthetics," claiming software is useful and culture is just pretty or entertaining. But you never know how a cultural work might prove useful to someone else down the line. If you treat it as non-useful, and restrict it to prevent other uses, then of course it won't be useful - you've restricted its utility through an unFree license. The Free Software community needs to learn that Software is Culture. The Free Culture community needs to learn that Free is Free. FREE. CULTURE. It's not that hard. Permalink | Comments | Email This Story Author: Nina Paley Posted: 8 Sep 2010 at 11:05pm Via Slashdot, we find the story of Nevada gubernatorial candidate, Eugene "Gino" DiSimone, who is proposing a somewhat different idea for raising some extra money for the state: offering special "speeding" passes for $25 per day, which would let you drive up to 90 mph on designated highways. He claims it would raise $1 billion per year, which... seems extreme. If my math is correct (and it may not be), that means 40 million uses of this pass, meaning over 100,000 people using it every day. And those would have to be people who not only want to speed, but also figure $25 is worth it balanced against the likelihood of getting pulled over while just traveling 90 on your own. And it will only be allowed for vehicles that pass a special inspection and get a special transponder installed -- further limiting the number of folks who can use it. Also, nowhere are the "costs" of such a program discussed. Not only will there be these extra inspections, the transponders will cost money, and there's technology infrastructure as well, including the ability to read the transponders, manage the database, set up the call-in system that will let people purchase the day pass, etc. The police are against the idea because they say it'll create more accidents, which some might argue isn't proven fact, but it probably does make their lives more complicated as well. Seems like this is more of an attempt to get some attention (oops, it worked) rather than any sort of serious proposal. Permalink | Comments | Email This Story Author: Mike Masnick Posted: 8 Sep 2010 at 9:47pm A growing number of patent attorneys who have worked on cases for patent hoarders have realized that it's such a lucrative game (and it really is a game -- one that wastes money and harms innovation -- but a game, nonetheless) that they've jumped ship, either getting or buying patents themselves and launching lawsuits. An anonymous reader points us to one such lawyer who didn't only do that, but has chosen a rather interesting target for his patent lawsuits: other patent lawyers. Yes, that's right. Patent lawyer Wes Whitmeyer apparently got a couple of patents (5,895,468 and 6,182,078) covering ways to manage patent payments, and he's now going after other law firms. What's particularly unusual is who Whitmeyer is targeting: IP law firms, which are trained to either dish out the pain--or parry the blows--on behalf of others, but rarely find themselves accused of patent infringement. But no less than eight law firms are now in that position, thanks to Whitmeyer's patent claims. In June, through his patent-holding company WhitServe LLC, Whitmeyer sued seven law firms: Brinks Hofer Gilson & Leone; Dinsmore & Shohl; Benesch Friedlander Coplan & Aranoff; Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge, Kusner & Jaffe, Mueting, Raasch & Gebhardt; and Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr. Apparently, Whitmeyer has sued a bunch of companies that make software for managing patent payments (how the hell is that not an obvious offering?), and won one of the lawsuits. The law firms listed above are apparently all customers of that firm, CPi. So, beyond attacking other patent attorneys, Whitmeyer is double dipping here. This is allowed, but it's yet another example of how ridiculously distorted the patent system has become. The article also points out some other incredible parts of this story. CPi, which has been in business for over half a century, is being accused of willful infringement and for copying Whitmeyer's patents. CPi's CEO claims that's false, and notes that he'd never heard of Whitmeyer until he sued CPi. But where it gets really ridiculous is that Whitmeyer's lawyers are asking the court to increase damages just because CPi's CEO called Whitmeyer's patents "silly." Who knew that expressing an opinion on egregious patents might get you hit with greater damages? This sort of situation is not what the patent system is supposed to encourage. Permalink | Comments | Email This Story Author: Mike Masnick Posted: 8 Sep 2010 at 8:34pm Michael Scott points us to a blog post at Mike Cane's blog discussing a question asked in the Google Books help forum asking whether or not a publisher named Kessinger Publishing is taking public domain books scanned by Google, printing them, and then trying to block Google Books from offering the whole thing. The details are a bit sketchy at this point, but it does seem like Kessinger is taking the public domain books scanned by Google and then offering them for sale. The guy investigating it notes that some of the covers on Kessinger's books clearly show the Google Books-generated cover. Now, it's important to note that Kessinger reprinting public domain books scanned by Google is perfectly legal (perhaps an argument could be made that Google could claim copyright over some aspect of that cover page it generates, but even that seems like a stretch). There's nothing infringing (at least in the US -- elsewhere, it's a bit unsettled) about taking someone else's scan of public domain works and then publishing it yourself. What's worrying here is the claim that once Kessinger "republishes" these works, that it's somehow getting Google Books to no longer show the full editions of the books. It's not quite as bad as the initial person claims -- that Kessinger is "taking books out of the public domain," as the books do, in fact, remain in the public domain. The real question is why Google is restricting access to these works. If I had to guess, it's probably due to the fact that Google keeps getting hit with (questionable) copyright lawsuits, so they have a "lock-up first, ask questions later" sort of approach to these things. Unfortunately, if that's the case, it lets publishers effectively hide books that should be freely available, at least for the time being. Permalink | Comments | Email This Story Author: Mike Masnick Posted: 8 Sep 2010 at 7:17pm As a kid, I used to go to a lot of amusement parks. I actually spent a couple summers at a camp that basically drove around the east coast from amusement park to amusement park. After a while, you become pretty familiar with the "standard" rides -- and while different amusement parks have different themes, the rides follow a basic theme, and that's actually a good thing. You do see variations on those themes, as different providers differentiate and tweak different designs to make them better and even more enjoyable. But, these days, that's becoming more and more difficult because, you guessed it, amusement park ride-makers are using patents to stop competitors. Reader Jerry S points us to the story of how Cedar Point, one of the more famous amusement parks around (yeah, I went there too) might run itself into a legal fight because it wants to buy a ride called the Wind Seeker, made by Dutch firm Mondial. The only problem is that competing ride maker Funtime Group, from Australia, makes a ride called the StarFlyer, on which they hold a patent (7666103), and they say that the Wind Seeker infringes. Also, Funtime claims that it'll be suing Cedar Point -- though, oddly, it has no plans to sue Mondial. Now this is actually a case where Mondial admits, straight up, that it came up with this ride as a response to StarFlyer, saying they were getting requests from customers for a ride like StarFlyer, but which functioned better in more windy conditions (hence the name Wind Seeker, perhaps). And this is exactly how innovation is supposed to work. You have one product that doesn't fully meet the needs of clients, even if it has some nice features, and so competitors come along and tweak it and innovate... and the originator is supposed to come along and innovate on top of that as well. Sitting back and threatening to sue for patent infringement isn't innovation at all. Permalink | Comments | Email This Story Author: Mike Masnick Posted: 8 Sep 2010 at 5:59pm I'll have a post forthcoming sometime soon about a very interesting book on the value of companies being able to imitate and build on the work of others, but there are times when you can see it in action. Jack Everitt points us to a short, but fascinating blog post by a guy working with contract manufacturers in China. While there, he went around looking at some of the gray-to-black market products built in China with no regards for intellectual property laws and found some unique, but interesting combinations: Walk around the electronics markets in Shenzhen and you'll see these devices. I saw a great iRobot-branded iPad knock-off with the Android character on it, which was a pretty excellent combination of three brands. But here's one I really liked: the G1-on-the-outside + iPhone-on-the-inside smartphone. Of course, the traditionalists will be horrified at this sort of blatant "copying," but these kinds of "mashups," while certainly not legal, are actually an interesting way to experiment and potentially innovate, by not being hindered and held back by artificial rules that block such interesting combinations. As the blogger notes: It's easy to dismiss these products as the work of cheats and counterfeiters, but that is only half the story. A lot of innovation is occurring in the Pearl River Delta, unencumbered by law and protocol. As an entrepreneur here in the USA, it is fascinating to observe this kind of hardscrabble creativity playing out in different ways in different places. I think this even undersells the importance of understanding what's going on here. China is an increasingly important player in the technology space -- and, yes, much of the work they do today is imitation and copying, but it certainly isn't always that way, and it won't be in the future. Because these firms are able to experiment and innovate, where firms in other countries are blocked, just watch and see how future generations of innovation from China will come out ahead. They have the opportunity to experiment and increment and (most importantly) learn from what happens when you do that -- while those of us elsewhere are held back for no good reason at all. Permalink | Comments | Email This Story Author: Mike Masnick Posted: 8 Sep 2010 at 4:47pm Even with Craigslist censoring itself due to ridiculous public pressure, and even though it's pretty clear that this action will only make things much worse for victims, the so-called "public interest groups" that pushed this misguided media campaign against Craigslist still don't think they've done enough damage. They sent me press releases three times yesterday patting themselves on the back for Craigslist censoring itself and then demanding that it do even more. This is unfortunate, no matter how you look at it. These groups can't seem to admit that blaming the tool rather than the actual people involved only makes the problem worse. Their inability to recognize the basic consequences of moving this activity to other forums that don't cooperate with law enforcement and make it much harder to stop these activities is really quite upsetting. Blaming the tool providers for the actions of users doesn't stop the actions, at all. It just makes it that much harder to do anything. People patting themselves on the back for getting Craigslist to censor itself are worsening the problem they think they're solving. Permalink | Comments | Email This Story Author: Mike Masnick Posted: 8 Sep 2010 at 3:29pm Newsfeed display by CaRP |
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