Google Blocking Set Top Boxes From Showing YouTube Unless They Pay Up?

from the evil-is-as-evil-does dept

I'm wondering if there's more to this, because it seems rather "un-Google-like." The makers of a set top box that can display internet content are complaining that Google is blocking them from displaying YouTube content, unless they agree to "partner" and commit to buying lots of ads (the amount is in dispute). If this sounds quite a bit like the ongoing battle between Hulu and Boxee, you might be right. However, in that case, at least you could sort of understand the (misguided) thinking behind it, since Hulu is owned by the colossally short-sighted content companies. But what's Google's excuse? If all these set top boxes are really doing is accessing free internet content and formatting it better for a TV, why stop it? They're really no different than accessing content via a computer and a browser -- it's just that the "computer" is a set top box and the "browser" is formatted for a television. That shouldn't require a special agreement, or any sort of ad buy commitment. Update: Received a confused and angry email from YouTube PR linking us to the very Wired article we linked to and demanding we add their PR statement (which is already in the Wired article). However, it does not actually answer the questions raised or change the point of this post. The fact that YouTube restricts set tops from accessing the content still does not make sense.

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Modern Warfare Game Modder DMCA's Infinity Ward

from the bogus-DMCA-claims-are-no-laughing-matter dept

Reader Cameron Boykin alerts us to the news that a game modder appears to have filed a DMCA claim against Infinity Ward for its video of a certain part of Modern Warfare 2, claiming that the element in the game was influenced by a mod he had created. While this may seem amusing to the folks who are pissed off at Infinity Ward for various consumer-unfriendly positions, it still appears to be an abuse of the DMCA. It doesn't sound like Infinity Ward flat out took this guy's code or anything -- and having similar gameplay elements is unlikely to be copyright infringement at all. While it may have just been a joke or a "protest" sort of move, filing a bogus DMCA takedown is bad news no matter how you look at it, and can get the filer into a lot of legal hot water pretty quickly.

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Now Google's Facing A Criminal Investigation In Germany Over Copyrights On YouTube

from the oh-geeze dept

Hopefully, this leads nowhere, but NewTeeVee reports that an angry entertainment lawyer in Germany has filed a criminal complaint against YouTube for music from 25 musicians he represents. The complaint is that Google hasn't taken down the videos and hasn't allowed those artists access to the Content ID program that Google uses to try to block copyrighted works. It's not clear why these artists weren't allowed in. Google seems to deny the whole thing. Either way, it's not at all clear why this should be a criminal investigation rather than a civil lawsuit, as that's all there is (at best) here. There's apparently a half decent chance that German officials will eventually decide that as well, telling the lawyer to file a civil suit instead, but just the fact that a criminal investigation has begun is troubling enough.

Meanwhile, part of the complaint is that this lawyer wants to find out who uploaded the videos, presumably to sue them too, because we all know what works great these days for musicians is to sue their biggest fans, who are out there trying to help promote the musicians they love....

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UK Channel 4 Putting Full TV Shows On YouTube

from the don't-need-another-site dept

mowgs points out that Channel 4, over in the UK, has done a deal with YouTube to put all its shows online. Not just clips -- the entire shows. While many people still seem to think that YouTube is just about individuals uploading stuff, it seems like the company has focused on getting a lot more official content on the site as well. While Hulu has some nice features, YouTube still destroys Hulu in traffic -- and unlike Hulu, YouTube doesn't block out visitors from other countries. Recently, even I can't get to Hulu. Because I use a VPN for security purposes, Hulu claims that I'm trying to sneak in from another country, even as I sit here in California (home of Hulu). Why does the entertainment industry always default to "you must be a criminal unless you can prove otherwise" thinking?

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Eolas Is Baaaaaaaaack; And It's Suing Everyone Over Embeddable Web Widgets

from the because-otherwise... dept

Well, here we go again. As you may recall, Eolas is a company that claimed to hold a patent (5,838,906) on browser plugins. The company sued Microsoft, and a long drawn-out battle ensued. Even though web inventor Tim Berners-Lee presented prior art and asked the USPTO to invalidate Eolas' ridiculously broad and obvious patent, the USPTO eventually upheld the patent (after initially rejecting claims). Even as Microsoft began presenting evidence that it actually had made use of the technology in question before Eolas applied for its patent, losses in the courts and the Supreme Court's refusal to hear the case eventually resulted in Microsoft agreeing to settle rather than continue to fight.

Since then (two years ago), plenty of people have been waiting for the other shoe to drop, concerning Eolas' plans to sue others. Now we know why it waited. It's now received a new patent -- a continuation patent, which is often used to abuse the patent system by putting forth a broad patent, then filing for continuations to make changes that let an earlier "invention" cover technologies that later become popular. In this case, the new patent (7,599,985), which basically just extends the earlier patent on browser plugins, and extends it to javascript widgets. Yes, those embeddable widgets used all over the web? It appears that Eolas thinks that those are infringing and everyone should pay up.

The new lawsuit has been filed against Adobe, Amazon, Apple, Blockbuster, Citigroup, eBay, Frito-Lay, Go Daddy, Google, J.C. Penney, JPMorgan Chase, Office Depot, Perot Systems, Playboy Enterprises, Staples, Sun, Texas Instruments, Yahoo, and YouTube. Apparently, starting small isn't part of the plan. Not surprisingly, Eolas filed in Eastern Texas using McKool Smith -- one of the most popular law firms representing patent holding firms in East Texas.

I am honestly curious how patent system defenders, who are also programmers, can defend this. I'm sure non-programmers will claim that the patent is valid, but I can't imagine how anyone who has any knowledge of basic programming principles can claim that such a patent is valid. In the meantime, tons of companies doing an incredibly basic thing on the web will now have to waste millions of dollars fighting a ridiculous patent lawsuit. How is this promoting innovation in any way shape or form?

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YouTube Smoking Guns? What Constitutes Actual Knowledge?

from the this-ought-to-get-interesting dept

With the judge tossing the Veoh/Universal Music lawsuit last month, it certainly appeared that Viacom might be on weak ground when it came to its lawsuit with Google over YouTube infringement. As with the Veoh suit (which was nearly identical) the DMCA's safe harbors on service providers almost certainly should protect the service provider from the actions of its users (which is a good and reasonable thing). However, I'd been hearing rumors for a little while now of a "smoking gun" from Viacom, and Greg Sandoval is now reporting on the same thing: that during discovery Viacom came across emails showing that YouTube employees "knew" and discussed infringing content on the site and did nothing about it. On top of that, some YouTube employees supposedly uploaded infringing content as well. The key question, then becomes, did YouTube have "actual knowledge" of infringement, and if so, does that remove the DMCA's safe harbor provisions.

But, of course, nothing is that simple. When you're talking about a corporation, what constitutes "actual knowledge"? Is it one employee knowing about things? Is it one executive? And how does fair use play into all of this? Even if YouTube employees saw content that was uploaded in an unauthorized manner, were they then supposed to make a fair use determination as well? And, of course, none of this is particularly simple. According to Sandoval, the same discovery process may have turned up the fact that Viacom employees were also caught uploading infringing materials. This then opens a whole new can of worms. If even Viacom can't determine what's infringing or what's legit, why should YouTube be expected to have that knowledge. On top of that, if YouTube saw that people at Viacom were uploading such content, then how was it possible for YouTube to have any idea that Viacom didn't want the same content uploaded by others? Finally, even if this does constitute "actual knowledge," wouldn't it then mean that the liability for YouTube was limited to the few files of which they had knowledge, rather than the wider spectrum of infringing content? Does knowledge of a single infringing content take away all safe harbors on the other content?

Suddenly, the lawsuit may have become a lot more interesting in that it may address some of those questions...

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Why Is CBS Trying To Take Down Letterman Revelation Video?

from the what-good-does-it-do? dept

Last week, soon after the news broke that David Letterman had confessed, on air, to a variety of affairs with staffers, following a blackmail attempt about those affairs, Peter Kafka over at AllthingsD pointed to a YouTube video of the 10 minute revelation, noting that he expected CBS to be playing wac-a-mole in trying to force all of the clips offline. And, indeed, that's exactly what's happening. CBS has apparently been sending takedown after takedown to YouTube to get the clip offline. This is odd for a few reasons. First, CBS is actually one of the few TV networks to actually like YouTube, and use it regularly to its own advantage. Way back in 2006, the company announced that tests showed that when it put clips on YouTube, it resulted in more viewership, not less.

So why take down all these clips?

The anonymously sourced explanation in the article is just that there was a request from Letterman's production company to CBS not to put that clip online. I can see why that request was made in the first place (who wants that embarrassing clip up there...) but it still doesn't make much sense once you think about it. If Letterman didn't want that video out there, then why discuss it at all on the show? The show went out to millions of people. It's pretty silly to then pretend it doesn't exist at all. All it really does is call that much more attention to the situation. Meanwhile, the clips keep going up, and employees at both CBS and YouTube have to waste a ton of time repeatedly taking them down... And, in the end, the clips will end up on other sites anyway. If anyone wants to see the Letterman explanation, they'll see it. So why not put it up on the official CBS/Letterman feed and deal with it that way?

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That Whole Watch An Ad To Get Content Thing? Patented... And The Patent Holder Has Been Suing

from the watch-out dept

So we were just talking about some new company called Free All Music, which has a plan to let people download free mp3s if they agree to watch a video ad first. I have my doubts about how well it would work... but apparently the company may also need to watch out for another issue: a bogus patent. You see, there's some company called Ultramercial, who not only holds a US patent 7,346,545 on the concept of distributing content where the user can get it for free after watching an ad, but Ultramercial recently went legal. Just a few days ago, it sued Hulu, YouTube and WildTangent for infringement over that very patent. Seriously, USPTO? A patent on watching an ad before getting free content? This is why patent examiners get such a bad rap.

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YouTube Musicians Form The DFTBA Label

from the awesomeness-abounds dept

As part of its MusicTuesdays, YouTube posted a brief plug for DFTBA Records, describing the year-old record label that supports musicians on YouTube. As you might expect, these musicians understand that sharing their music on YouTube is one of the best promotional channels on the internet. So it's not exactly shocking that DFTBA officially encourages anyone to use its music (ok, not all of its music, but most of it) in the background of other original YouTube videos -- which is similar to Moby's gratis license for independent films.

It's good to see that DFTBA Records is yet another example in the music industry of a business that has picked up on connecting with fans, and it even has a built-in reminder with its name (Don't Forget to Be Awesome) to keep its audience happy. Perhaps Warner Music can learn something from these artists: instead of going after fans to punish them, it's better to be awesome and grow a fanbase. Especially since it's becoming clearer every day that musicians can connect with fans on their own, and some artists are beginning to wonder what traditional labels really have to offer.

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Only Took 9 Months, But Warner Music Videos Finally Back On YouTube

from the how-big-were-the-losses? dept

You may recall last December that a spat over how much Google would pay Warner Music for hosting its videos (for free, mind you) created a situation whereby Warner Music videos were taken off the site (there are conflicting stories over who actually made the call to take the videos down). The end result of this was basically bad for everyone -- and even Warner's own musicians got pretty pissed off at Warner -- especially as they saw other musicians use YouTube to grow their audience. It only took nine months, but it looks like Warner Music and YouTube have finally worked out a deal to allow the videos back online. You have to wonder how much harm this did to Warner artists, and to the label itself. I'd argue that the failure to leverage a rather useful promotional platform to connect with audiences was likely to have been much greater than any "harm" done from file sharing.

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Around The Globe, Entertainment Industry Pisses Off Fans Promoting Content

from the spin-the-globe dept

You would think that the various entertainment industry rights organizations around the world would recognize how badly attacking consumers has failed and wouldn't continue to do it in every other country, but apparently common sense travels a lot slower than unauthorized content these days. Roni Evron alerts us to how a bunch of Israeli YouTube users are pissed off after rights holder Unicell convinced YouTube to pull down a bunch of content and close user accounts, even for content that just isn't available anywhere else:

One of the more prominent Israeli users of YouTube is 40-year-old Guy, who has been operating his own homepage there for three years. Guy says that he spends about two hours every day uploading content. He focuses on old archival material: Israeli music which is now considered classic.

"I do it out of love and I have no commercial interests," he says. "The idea behind this is ideological, romantic, to expose older cultural material, to make it accessible to as many people as possible. In most cases it is not readily available anywhere else."

For example, he has uploaded the contents of singer-songwriter Matti Caspi's first album from 1974, and material from the "Siba L'mesiba" ("Excuse for a Party") television program, which aired on the Channel One from 1984-1990.

Most of the responses he gets, according to Guy, are from former Israelis who live abroad; they are enthusiastic and ask him to add more material.

He admits that he is not current on copyright law, but believes removal of the content from the Internet is proof of narrow-mindedness.

"Perhaps exposure to this material in fact increases demand," he says. "YouTube is no substitute for purchasing music in higher quality formats; it simply provokes nostalgia. This work is a community service."

You have to wonder if the recent Israeli ruling that found that the rights of users should be respected, and that copyright claims should only be dealt with if they were "especially severe, wrongs committed in aggravated circumstances," will come into play in these sorts of situations.

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Does No One Remember That Google Tried And Failed To 'Rent' Videos Online In The Past?

from the short-memory-syndrome dept

The tech press is excitedly discussing the fact that YouTube is looking to work with movie studios to allow movie rentals, with many talking up how this is a way for Google to put in place a new business model for YouTube. But here's the thing: everyone seems to forget that, back when Google first launched Google Video (which was a competitor to YouTube before Google bought YouTube and merged the two), it was based on this very idea. You could "buy" videos on the site to watch. And what happened? It failed pretty miserably. People just weren't interested. Instead, they flocked to YouTube to get all that free content and community, and Google quietly changed around Google Videos' entire business model and concept, and then eventually realized that it couldn't compete, and so it bought YouTube.

So why would people suddenly be willing to pay when something that sounds nearly identical a few years ago failed to get much interest at all? Perhaps culture or technology has changed (it's easier to watch downloaded movies on a TV screen, certainly). But, I have to admit to being rather skeptical of this as a big business opportunity. We've already seen this movie, and it didn't end well.

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Music Comes Back To Life On YouTube In The UK

from the but-who-caved? dept

I still can't quite figure out what sort of leverage the various music labels and collections societies think they have over YouTube. Musicians who have embraced YouTube have found that it can help boost their careers and turn out more fans at their shows. And, without music videos, YouTube still gets a ton of traffic. The only ones who lose out with the music taken off the site are the musicians and the labels -- and that was seen in the way the musicians who first complained that Google wasn't paying them enough then freaked out that Google took down all their videos in the UK, after being unable to agree on a payment scheme. Clearly, the musicians valued the exposure a lot more than Google needed to have those videos.

It only took about six months, but PRS for Music (the UK collection society) and Google have finally worked out a deal so that the music videos will return to YouTube. It's not entirely clear what the details are, but it certainly sounds like it was PRS who caved (which makes sense, given the leverage situation). Google is paying a lump sum, rather than a per stream fee. PRS had been pushing for per stream fees that were significantly higher than anything Google could have made on ads. So it certainly seems like PRS folded here, and Google tossed them some spare change just to get them to stop whining and get the videos back online.

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Copyright Conundrum: Was 'Public Domain' Music Silenced On YouTube?

from the it's-in-the-recording... dept

Mark Guertin writes in with an interesting situation that he's dealing with, which I think highlights some of the problems with copyright law today. Guertin put together a YouTube video of some swimming pugs as part of a promotion for a charity he's involved with. Knowing that music on videos is a potential copyright issue, he went to Wikipedia to find some public domain music, and chose Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries to accompany the swimming pugs.

Except... he got blocked. YouTube's content ID system told him that the song was owned by (who else?) Warner Music Group, and thus the soundtrack was muted. Guertin filed a counternotice, and the music was reinstated, but then muted a second time as apparently someone (Google/Warner?) didn't agree with the counternotice. Without knowing the details, my guess is that the situation has to do with the different types of copyright coverage. While the song Ride of the Valkyries is public domain, each individual recording of it is covered by copyright. It seems likely that whatever recording was used is still under copyright.

Guertin is reasonably upset about the situation, especially the whole concept of having the music blocked until WMG has a chance to weigh in on it, noting that "guilt before innocence" seems incredibly unfair.

But the bigger issue may be how this (once again) shows how out of sync copyright law is with what people think is reasonable or fair. If you found out a piece of music was in the public domain, it's natural to assume that a recording of that same piece of music is in the public domain. And to make things more confusing, that's absolutely true (in the US at least) of a photograph of a public domain painting. But making a new recording of a public domain song? Bam. A new monopoly created.

Unfortunately for Guertin, the track he used probably is not in the public domain, even if the music is (yes, that's confusing). That's why, these days, it's probably more reasonable to search out Creative Commons-licensed music than public domain music -- because you can't be as sure whether the PD part covers the recording as well as the music. To some of us, that seems like a problem with current copyright laws, while others appear to view it as a feature.

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Should Wedding Party In Viral YouTube Video Get A Cut Of Music Sale Profits?

from the questions,-questions... dept

Yesterday, we had the story of the incredibly popular viral wedding video, talking about how the music in that video, despite being over a year old and being sung by someone with massive reputation problems (Chris Brown, who assaulted his then girlfriend), was suddenly back in both the iTunes and Amazon top 5 downloads, almost entirely because of the video. Soon after the post went up, we saw that Google had just put up its own post highlighting it as a case study of a copyright holder monetizing an opportunity. Basically, Google allowed Sony Music to:

claim and monetize the song, as well as to start running Click-to-Buy links over the video, giving viewers the opportunity to purchase the music track on Amazon and iTunes. As a result, the rights holders were able to capitalize on the massive wave of popularity generated by "JK Wedding Entrance Dance" -- in the last week, searches for "Chris Brown Forever" on YouTube have skyrocketed, making it one of the most popular queries on the site.

But... as some in our comments began to wonder, shouldn't the folks in the video (or, perhaps the person who shot it) get some of that monetizing as well? After all, if we base our thinking on traditional RIAA-style thinking, the whole reason why there are suddenly so many new sales and renewed interest in Brown and this song is entirely due to this wedding party and whoever shot the video. Now, they might not want or care about the money, but just the fact that Google is hyping up the monetizing of the video... doesn't something seem wrong that the actual copyright holder of the video in question isn't getting any of that money? At the very least, shouldn't there be some sort of "referral bonus" or some such?

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Oh Look, Viral Video On YouTube Boosting Sales... And Reputation For Chris Brown

from the take-it-down! dept

By now, you've probably seen the video of the wedding party entrance for the wedding of Jill Peterson and Kevin Heinz (if not, go check it out). It's been seen by many millions of people, and the number just keeps on growing. The wedding party entrance is choreographed as the entire wedding party dances enthusiastically to Chris Brown's song Forever. The video, of course is almost certainly copyright infringement. Even if we assume that the church in St. Paul where this took place paid its public performance license, that would only cover the venue, not the eventual rebroadcast on YouTube. Now there are some who will insist that every streamed version of this song should require that a fee be paid. But, of course, if that were the case, this video almost certainly would not have been put on YouTube and would not have been seen by so many millions of people.

And what would have happened then?

Well, JohnForDummies notes that the success of this video is having a major impact for Chris Brown (who's reputation is, reasonably, in tatters for assaulting his then girlfriend, the singer Rihanna). Not that we advocate supporting someone who assaulted his girlfriend, but the video is having an impact. The song Forever has jumped into the iTunes top 10, despite having been released over a year ago. Also, the video itself has greatly outpaced an attempt by Brown to create a viral video "apologizing" for his actions.

It's not clear how the record label (in this case, a subsidiary of Sony Music) feels about this (see update below) -- though, I will note that embedding has been disabled on the video (Update: Embedding enabled again, so I'm adding the video below) and there is a link to buy the song on the YouTube page. At the very least, this suggests that Sony (which has a good relationship with YouTube, unlike some others...) worked out a deal to take advantage of the publicity around the video. Though, the disabling of embedding seems rather pointless. Embedding the video would likely guarantee far more views, and with it, more purchases.

Update: Thanks to a bunch of folks sending in the news that Google is now promoting this as a case study of a rights holder taking control over content.

Update: Embedding has been re-enabled, so here you go:

Also... there's already been an amazing spoof video of the couple's "divorce" proceedings: I don't think Sony's "taken control" of this one yet...

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Google To The World: Don't Be So Sure YouTube Isn't Profitable

from the and-there-we-go... dept

It was just a few weeks ago that we were suggesting all the talk about YouTube's inability to be profitable was suspect, and there was increasing evidence not that YouTube was profitable yet, but that the claims of how much they were losing didn't take into account the real situation. Still, it comes as a bit of a surprise for Google to come out with a blog post that basically tells everyone that they are way, way, way off in thinking that YouTube is a huge money loser for the company. The reason it's a surprise is because it actually seemed like Google enjoyed having people think that YouTube was such a loser, since it held back competition. Perhaps there was some fear that it was also holding down the stock price or something. Either way, hopefully we can put to rest the silly idea that YouTube is some sort of blackhole for money.

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YouTube, Warner Music Spat Killing Viral Videos

from the that'll-help dept

The ongoing spat between Warner Music and YouTube over music licensing payments has already been pissing off both musicians and consumers. But apparently now it's gone too far. People are up in arms that the ongoing "silentification" of music in videos has destroyed a popular viral video involving (seriously) a cat playing a piano. There simply is no logical argument for claiming that leaving this video alone harms the music industry in any way. No one is using this video as a substitute for the music in question -- and, if anything, it helps make more people aware of the music. But, thanks to Warner insisting that any and all value comes from Warner and Warner alone -- and anyone must pay for the privilege of promoting its music... fewer people now get to hear the song and enjoy a silly viral video.

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The Secret 'Profits' Of YouTube

from the don't-worry,-be-happy dept

It's become quite common for folks who dislike "web 2.0" or the concept of "free" business models to mock YouTube as an absolute disaster. For example, music industry lawyer (and hater of all things "free") Chris Castle has already declared the site dead (which is news to, well, just about everyone). Over in the UK, the Independent is running an odd little article that goes back and forth on whether or not YouTube is a real business proposition and then tries to extrapolate from there whether or not "free" works as a business model. The whole discussion is a bit off -- since YouTube really doesn't represent a good example of a business model that uses free, since the bandwidth costs of hosting video is so high. To use that as a proxy for the concept of free would be a mistake, since most other business models don't have that same issue.

That said, really the only truly worthwhile parts of the article are the ones where analyst Keith McMahon speaks up. He seems to be one of the few folks out there who actually has bothered to look at YouTube within the larger context of Google itself, and makes a few important points about (a) why YouTube helps Google in many other ways and (b) Google benefits from the widespread belief that YouTube is losing tons of money:

"There are many urban myths surrounding the way that companies extract value from the internet," he says. "Google's spin-off benefits from owning YouTube include the accumulation of our data and strengthening of their network design -- and the more time people spend watching online video, the more advertisers will pour into marketing on the internet as a whole. There's no doubt that Google can afford YouTube."

McMahon also believes that by keeping quiet about YouTube's hidden benefits and by allowing the misconception of it as a deeply unprofitable business to circulate, things work very nicely in Google's favour when it comes to negotiating with copyright holders in the world of TV, movies and music. Copyright holders can't demand money that isn't there, and it would certainly take no more than a hint of profitability at YouTube for lawyers to descend, threatening court cases and demanding higher royalties. In the new, topsy-turvy world of online economics, it seems astonishing that losses on paper have actually made YouTube a more powerful online force.

This leaves out another point as well: the more that people believe YouTube is unprofitable, the less likely they are to build serious competitors. I have no idea whether or not YouTube is actually profitable directly yet (I'd doubt it), but I think those who are insisting that the acquisition by Google was a bad idea, or that YouTube is somehow on its deathbed, haven't taken much time to understand some basic trendlines or the larger picture of how Google views YouTube, and the opportunities it has to make money via YouTube down the road.

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Judge Tosses Out Foreign YouTube Lawsuits; Points Out Basic Copyright Law [Updated]

from the you-would-think-their-lawyers-would-notice-this dept

Admittedly, parts of copyright law are quite complicated, but there are some basics that are rather simple and straightforward: such as that you cannot sue for statutory or punitive damages if you haven't registered your copyrights with the US copyright office. So, when the Premiere Football League sued Google/YouTube for hosting some videos of matches two years ago, I assumed at the very least that it had registered its copyrights in the US. Apparently not. A judge has tossed out pushed back on the Premier League's attempt to get higher damages awards, along with some other foreign claimants' for not being covered by US copyright law. You would have thought this was something the Premier League's lawyers would have noticed before filing the lawsuit. Update: Eric Goldman has a lot more details on the specifics of the case, which the original News.com article was a bit misleading. Definitely make sure you read Goldman's post to understand the mixed nature of the ruling. Also, based on this we're updating some of the points in the post to clarify. Thanks to everyone who pointed out some of the specifics. Update 2: After discussing this with a few different lawyers (as per usual -- none of them agree with each other!) it seemed best to just point people to Eric's analysis of this decision. Once again, this is what's great about using this blog as a conversation, helping us all to learn. Thanks to everyone who chimed in and contributed (whether via comments or email).

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