Swedish Court Backs ISP In Not Handing Over Data On Accused 'Pirate'

from the nice-to-see-some-sanity dept

Earlier this year, Sweden put its anti-piracy IPRED law into effect, and earlier this summer we noted that the ISP ePhone was refusing to give up a user's IP address, and appealing a court ruling ordering it to do so. The details of the specific case suggested a unique circumstance, involving a server that supposedly contained infringing material -- but which was never made public. It was always behind a password and thus, Ephone argued, there was no infringement. While the lower court disagreed, the appeals court has overturned the lower ruling, saying that probable cause for infringement had not been shown. Given some of the recent rulings in the Swedish court system on copyright issues, it's nice to see a court not just accept the entertainment industry's claims on some of these things...

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File Sharing Sites Team Up To Help Promote Indie Films

from the no-legitimate-purpose? dept

While some continue to insist that there's nothing good or legal that comes from file sharing sites, many content creators who have embraced those sites have found them to be wonderful tools for distribution and promotion. Now, it looks like a bunch of them are teaming up to do even more. Mininova, The Pirate Bay, isoHunt, Miro, Vuze and Frostwire have all agreed to work with a new project called Vodo, which will help promote indie films. Filmmakers can offer their films through Vodo and get promoted on the various file sharing sites -- and the system is designed to let people easily donate. While I'm not a huge fan of a pure "donation" business model, it should be interesting to see how Vodo evolves over time. Certainly, it could be a valuable tool to indie filmmakers who recognize that obscurity is a much bigger threat to their efforts than piracy.

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Michael Dell Recognizes Blocking What Customers Want To Protect Your Own Biz Model Is Dumb

from the smart-man dept

There have been lots of different writeups on Michael Dell's recent Churchill Club talk, with most focusing on his trashing of netbooks or talking up Windows 7. But at the end of that article there was something even more interesting, which Derek pointed out to us:

Clark asked Dell about the fact that, through virtualization, many companies end up buying fewer servers, and less hardware in general. "The first thing you have to remember is that any time a new technology comes along that's good for customers, you get in the way of it at your own peril," Dell said.

Indeed. This is a point that so few companies seem to recognize. Instead of focusing on what the customers actually want, they freak out about how it may cause them to sell less of what they currently offer. This is the key in avoiding the innovator's dilemma and marketing myopia. You have to focus on what benefits the customer actually gets -- and if you try and get in the way of that, they'll just go somewhere else instead. But it's so rare to hear execs actually recognize that point -- so, kudos to Michael Dell for acknowledging it.

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UK Politician Proposes Motion Against Kicking People Off The Internet

from the some-sanity dept

While a bunch of politicians in the UK had been under the influence of entertainment industry lobbyists in believing that kicking accused (not convicted) file sharers off the internet would somehow magically bring back a working business model, at least there are some who recognize what a futile and backwards effort this would be. MP Tom Watson has put forth an "Early Day Motion" against such proposals:

That this House notes with concern the Government's proposals on file sharing which would allow rights holders to request internet service providers to disconnect for a period of time, or throttle, the internet connection of people who may be accused of copyright infringement via peer to peer networks; believes that disconnecting alleged offenders will be futile given that it is relatively easy for determined file-sharers to mask their identity or their activity to avoid detection; acknowledges that illicit file-sharing only costs rights-holders money when people download infringing content in preference to buying it; further notes that identifying offenders using the Internet Protocol address of a specific machine may punish those who share a web connection; and calls on the Government to ensure that any citizen accused of illicit file-sharing is given the right to legal redress in a court of law before sanctions are imposed.

I'd even take issue with the claim that it costs rights holders money when people download instead of buy -- as there's ample evidence that such things can lead to additional purchases down the road. But, still, this is a good start, and great to see some politicians not falling for the industry's claims.

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Australian ABC Promises To Stay Free; Mocks Murdoch And Paywalls As 'Old Empire' Thinking

from the take-that,-rupert dept

One of the key points we've raised in the past about the futility of newspapers putting up paywalls is that doing so would only open up a huge opportunity for other, smarter journalism organizations to take their market share by remaining free. And, indeed, more and more organizations are starting to point out that's exactly what they would do. Reader Jamie writes in to let us know about a speech by the managing director of ABC in Australia (not the Disney owned ABC in America), Mark Scott, taking on the "old media" thinking around such things as paywalls:

Scott's most virulent words were saved for News Corporation (owner of The Australian) chairman Rupert Murdoch and CEO Europe and Asia, James Murdoch.

He called Rupert Murdoch's recent call for content providers to charge online distributors for content as "a classic play of old empire, of empire in decline. Believing that because you once controlled the world you can continue to do so."

"When you have been so powerful and dominant for so long, it is hard to believe that empire is slipping away," he said.

Scott argued traditional media companies had been out-thought by technology companies in strategy.

And... oh yeah, if Murdoch goes paywall, Scott promises to do the opposite:

He reiterated the ABC would continue to provide free online news content and said the ABC must remain audience-focused

Not just that, but he seems to be recognizing that the way people interact with news has changed, and they want to be much more involved:

... he noted the only media organisations to survive will be those that: know and accept that all the rules have changed; are endlessly inquisitive about the new; empower their audiences to contribute, to create and share media....

Nice to see some news business execs who seem to recognize what's happening.

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Sorry ASCAP, A Ringtone Is Not A Public Performance

from the nice-try-though dept

ASCAP and BMI have been pushing all sorts of ridiculous claims over the past few months, trying to squeeze extra money out of pretty much everything, rather than actually doing right by those they represent and helping them adapt new business models based on giving people a reason to buy. Beyond claiming that Congress should make sure their royalties never decrease, they've also been saying they deserve money for things like YouTube embeds (even though YouTube already pays them for that same traffic) and the 30 second previews on iTunes and other music stores. However, the most ridiculous of all was trying to claim that ringtones are a public performance, and thus mobile phone providers need to pay ASCAP/BMI. The thing is, ASCAP and BMI already get paid for ringtone purchases -- but this was an attempt to get a second payment on top of that for the fact that people might hear the ringtones.

Thankfully (as a whole bunch of you have sent in), a judge wasted little time totally rejecting that reasoning. The court pointed out that the Copyright Act is pretty clear that there's no royalty needed for any sort of "performance" that isn't done for commercial advantage and "customers do not play ringtones with any expectation of profit." It's a pretty complete rejection of an obvious stretch by ASCAP.

We might hope that ASCAP will take this and begin to recognize that the best way to serve songwriters is helping them embrace new business models, but we expect that instead they'll keep looking to squeeze more money and double dip from other providers... while continuing to pay industry insiders to smear those who want to protect consumer rights.

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Why Did Pandora Sign Away Its Right To Petition The Copyright Royalty Board For Lower Rates?

from the well,-that's-obnoxious dept

It's already quite troubling that Pandora appears to be supporting the RIAA bailout tax against radios (Pandora's competitors), but now we have a better understanding of why, thanks to a little birdie who highlighted what's going on. Among the nasty little hidden gems in the recently agreed to webcaster settlement agreement (pdf) is that, if you want the lower rates in the settlement, you have to remove any objections to previous rate arbitrations and not participate in any future Royalty Board fights over royalties:

Article 6

Non-Participation In Further Proceedings
CPB and any Covered Entity making Web Site Transmissions in reliance on this Agreement shall not directly or indirectly participate as a party, amicus curiae or otherwise, or in any manner give evidence or otherwise support or assist, in any further proceedings to determine royalty rates and terms for digital audio transmission or the reproduction of Ephemeral Phonorecords under Section 112 or 114 of the Copyright Act for all or any part of the Term, including any appeal of the Final Determination of the Copyright Royalty Judges, published in the Federal Register at 72 FR 24084 (May 1, 2007), any proceedings on remand from such an appeal, or any other related proceedings, unless subpoenaed on petition of a third party (without any action by CPB or a Covered Entity to encourage such a petition) and ordered to testify in such proceeding.

Basically, this takes away the right of any company to fight for more reasonable royalty rates in the future -- which doesn't seem like it should be allowed. Based on this, there's basically no one left who can protest future rate increases -- which means that the RIAA/SoundExchange will easily be able to repeatedly push through greater rate increases.

Thus, since Pandora and the other webcasters won't be able to protest higher and higher rates, it needs to drag others into the fight to get help protesting constant massive rate increases: hence its support of the Performance Rights tax. In theory, if the NAB (who represents radio broadcasters) gets dragged into the fight, then there's a big dog who isn't subject to the draconian clause above, and can push back on the Copyright Royalty Board for lower performance rights taxes. Of course, that assumes that the NAB would fight for lower overall rates, rather than just focusing on rates for radio, and leaving the webcasters to fend for themselves...

No matter how you look at this, it's stunning that Pandora and other webcasters would sign away their right to state their own case in front of the CRB. RIAA/SoundExchange are laughing all the way to the bank. They get to make their case to increase royalty rates... while those who get stuck with the royalty rates have to shut up and take it. Regulatory capture at its finest. Again, we're left wondering why the Copyright Royalty Board even exists. Why are a group of old judges setting the price of music anyway?

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Post Script On Edwyn Collins: Power Of The Press Gets His Music On MySpace For Free

from the no-thanks-to-warner-music dept

A few weeks back, we were one of the first publications to highlight how singer Edwyn Collins was unable to put his own hit song on MySpace for free download (as he wanted to do) because Warner Music claimed copyright over it -- even though it had no such copyright. Despite quite an effort by Collins' manager/wife, Grace Maxwell, nothing was changing. However, the story started to spread, including making it into some major media properties, such as the BBC and The Guardian... and whaddaya know, suddenly everything gets fixed. Mesanna writes in to let us know of an update post from Maxwell, where she points out that the power of the press seemed to finally accomplish what simple reasoning with both MySpace and Warner Music could not:

However, whaddaya know? After 30 odd fruitless emails, A Girl Like You is now available in full on the myspace player! So, todays lesson is simple:

THE MOST POWERFUL DEPARTMENT IN ANY ORGANISATION IS THE PRESS OFFICE.
The whole sad world runs scared of bad publicity, especially from a righteous source like Edwyn Collins.

While Maxwell says it's not worth the ridiculous effort it would take to sue Warner Music or any other major label claiming copyright over Collins' songs, she's more than willing to help out in other cases against them:

Warner Music Group has no connection with Edwyn whatsoever and yet they are still corporately arrogant enough to steal Edwyn's copyright and God knows what else from others. A guy from myspace advised me to treat their copyright department with kid gloves if I wanted a result. It didn't work. If the shoe was on the other foot they'd have been down on us like a ton of bricks. The next time a major tries to take ANYONE to court for copyright infringment, I'm volunteering my services as a witness for the defense.

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Access Copyright Says That There Should Be Less Fair Use

from the let's-not-listen-to-our-customers dept

Access Copyright, a Canadian copyright collections agency that has already positioned the discussions on copyright reform in Canada as a war against consumers, has had its submission to the government on the topic published, and it's really quite stunning in that it says that "fair dealing" (the Canadian version of fair use) is already too broad and needs to be greatly restricted. But the really stunning statement from the filing is the following:

Access Copyright submits that good public policy should not be dictated by legalizing common public practices.

Actually, it seems that's the very definition of good public policy. You know what bad public policy is? Destroying basic consumer rights and criminalizing basic consumer behavior because some obsolete organization can't figure out a way to adjust its business model.

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Why Did One NBA Player Get 800 Domain Names From A Cybersquatter?

from the huh?.com dept

Here's an odd one. Apparently Toronto Raptors forward Chris Bosh was given control over 800 domain names related to NBA basketball players that had been cybersquatted. I'm not sure what it is with professional basketball players and domain name speculation -- as this is the second such story involving that combination -- but what struck me as odd about this is why Bosh was given all the domain names. Bosh had sued over the registration and use of chrisbosh.com -- so you could understand a ruling that gave him control over that domain name. But why give him the other 799 domain names involving other players as well? Bosh has said he'll hand over the rights to the other players for free, but it still doesn't make sense why he got control over them in the first place.

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Fake Car Noises Being Added To Many New Cars... May Be Required Soon

from the vroom-vroom dept

Last year, we pointed out that some car companies were experimenting with adding fake engine noises to their cars, after complaints were heard that hybrid and electric vehicles were "too quiet" and sneaking up on people. Apparently, those original experiments are turning into a groundswell. After some politicians decided to put forth legislation requiring such sounds, apparently lots of car companies are adding sounds to their cars, such as Nissan's recently announced plan to include futuristic Blade Runner-style sounds. Reading through that NY Times article, it seems like the car companies are less concerned about the safety issues, but are excited about the idea of opening up a new market for selling "car tones" -- like ringtones, but for your car noise. Can't we just set it to vibrate? In the meantime, there appears to be no evidence that these hybrid and electric "menaces" are causing any more accidents in their "silent, but deadly" current state.

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News Corp Lawyer: Aggregators Steal From Us! News Corp: Hey Check Out Our Aggregator!

from the hypocrisy-in-action dept

We've already covered how Rupert Murdoch has flip flopped his position on free online news, but his recent foray into blaming search engines and aggregators is really reaching the height of hypocrisy. We've already looked into the issue of aggregators and found there's no problem there at all. Most aggregators either direct traffic to the original sites or are too small to matter. There's no evidence they actually siphon any traffic away at all... but it seems that the old newspaper guys need an enemy, and these days it's those evil "aggregators."

Following on the lead of his boss, News Corp. General Counsel Lawrence Jacobs made some interesting statements, claiming that aggregators are a big problem:

"Aggregators and Google News are, to us, the worst offenders," general counsel Lawrence Jacobs said today at a luncheon talk at Brooklyn Law School. "They make money by living off the sweat of our brow."

This isn't just ridiculous and wrong, it's hypocrisy of the worst kind. As Gabe Rivera points out, just a few years ago, News Corp was happily hyping up its own aggregator, and even today it appears to run a number of different aggregators, with a Wall Street Journal editor proudly talking about how useful the aggregator is. Fox News has its own news aggregator, the WSJ's tech page has Popular Technology Stories from Around the Web and AllThingsD has its "Voices" section -- all of which aggregate content from elsewhere with no payment.

So, according to News Corp., News Corp., is one of the worst offenders, right?

And, of course, things get even worse, the more you look at what Jacobs has to say. As one of our readers pointed out earlier this week, not only doesn't Fox News use robots.txt to block Google and other aggregators, it specifically tells Google News where to find its news. So as its execs and lawyers are whining about how evil Google News is to index its site, its tech people are putting up a big glowing sign that says "Hey! Google News! Over here! Come and get it!" Hypocrites. By the way, Weston Kosova, over at Newsweek even wrote up a nice little column based on our reader's comment. According to News Corp. and Jacobs, Newsweek just made money "off the sweat of our brow" (or technically, our readers). But, frankly, I think it's pretty awesome that someone from Newsweek isn't just reading Techdirt, but getting value out of our community as well.

Oh, and why stop there? Seeing as Lawrence Jacobs is general counsel of News Corp., one has to assume that he's a lawyer with a real law degree and such. And thus, you would think that he was familiar with copyright doctrines in the US, and would choose his language carefully. It's then especially odd that he chose the phrase "sweat of our brow" in describing his complaint, given that in Feist, the US explicitly rejected "sweat of the brow" as a reason to grant copyright. Since Jacobs appears unfamiliar with the ruling in Feist, here's a quote for him:

It may seem unfair that much of the fruit of the compiler's labor may be used by others without compensation. As Justice Brennan has correctly observed, however, this is not "some unforeseen byproduct of a statutory scheme." Harper & Row, 471 U.S., at 589 (dissenting opinion). It is, rather, "the essence of copyright," ibid., and a constitutional requirement. The primary objective of copyright is not to reward the labor of authors, but "to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts.... The "sweat of the brow" doctrine had numerous flaws....

So, let's sum up. While Murdoch and Jacobs are out trashing aggregators for making money based on the sweat of their brow, News. Corp. itself gleefully offers up at least three aggregators itself, which its writers and editors happily promote. The tech staff uses its robots.txt file to point aggregators to exactly where they should go, explicitly calling out some aggregators (the "worst" according to Jacobs) by name. And, oh yeah, the Supreme Court has already ruled that the "sweat of the brow" argument is meaningless when it comes to copyright law.

Time for a rethink, perhaps?

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It's Natural To Freak Out Over Someone Copying Your Stuff... But It Doesn't Make It Rational

from the getting-past-the-oh-shit-moment dept

Owen Kelly has a nice post up, where he basically admits that, even though he's not against copying, he had an initial visceral bad reaction when he recently saw his own work copied, but after taking a step back and thinking about it rationally, he realized it wasn't so bad. The problem is that most people, when they see their own work copied, never take that second step. They see it, they freak out and go negative (or, worse, call in the lawyers). But if you take a step back, you can ask yourself (1) if the copying really matters one way or another and (2) if there's any way to use that copying to your advantage, rather than freaking out about it. That's the point we've been trying to make for years. In most cases, freaking out isn't going to make the situation any better (and it has a better than even chance of making it worse). But embracing it, and figuring out ways to use the copying to your own benefit can be tremendously rewarding.

But, of course, that doesn't mean we don't recognize that normal impulse reaction. It's entirely natural, even if it's irrational. So, we're not necessarily surprised when people overreact to such things -- even if we think it's not a particularly smart long-term strategy. But, hopefully, as more and more people show how allowing more widespread copying helped rather than harmed them, this won't seem so counterintuitive to so many people.

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AT&T's Ridiculous Argument Against Google Voice

from the break-it-down dept

We've been covering the ridiculous attempt by AT&T to sic the FCC on Google for deciding to block certain calls via Google Voice. AT&T is being misleading and incredibly disingenuous. While there are some issues with Google's decision to block certain calls, the issue there has nothing to do with net neutrality -- as AT&T aims to tweak Google for supporting net neutrality -- and everything to do with bad regulations -- which AT&T is just as against as Google is.

But the latest letter/PR play from AT&T sinks to ridiculous lows -- and it's a shame that no reporter I've seen so far calls AT&T on any of the crazy claims. While there's some fun in mocking the use of nuns (who are apparently also blocked), AT&T's "slippery slope" argument isn't just questionable, it's wrong:

Indeed, if the Commission cannot stop Google from blocking disfavored telephone calls as Google contends, then how could the Commission ever stop Google from also blocking disfavored websites from appearing in the results of its search engine; or prohibit Google from blocking access to applications that compete with its own email, text messaging, cloud computing and other services; or otherwise prevent Google from abusing the gatekeeper control it wields over the Internet?

But... uh... that's the thing. The FCC cannot stop Google from also blocking disfavored websites from appearing in its results. That's because Google has every right to determine what sites appear in its index and which don't -- and the courts have said exactly that in the past. Google's rankings and site index are Google's own opinion, and there's no legal right for Google to include anyone if it chooses not to. Google knows this. The FCC knows this. AT&T certainly knows this -- so why is it pretending that this is some big issue?

Then there's the claim about Google "blocking access to applications that compete with its own email, text messaging, cloud computing and other services." Except... Google physically cannot block such things, because Google is not the pipe. If I want to go to another email service provider, I just type that URL into my address bar, and Google isn't a party to that at all. The only one who could block such a thing is (oops) my ISP: AT&T. So why even make this argument? It's totally nonsensical.

Obviously, AT&T is having fun poking at Google over this particular issue, but, honestly it should at least limit its complaints to things that actually make sense.

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Three Economic Nobel Laureates In A Row Recognizing Power Of Infinite Goods

from the this-is-a-good-thing... dept

With the Nobel Prize in Economics being awarded to Elinor Ostrom (as well as Oliver Williamson) this year, plenty of people are noting that Ostrom's seminal work has to do with how the concept of "the tragedy of the commons" isn't really true in many cases, and how that "commons" can often self-regulate itself. And, Ostrom definitely recognizes how this applies to the "commons" that is the public domain. I didn't want to comment right away on this. While I've read Ostrom's work in the past, I wanted to revisit some of it, to refresh myself on it.

But what comes out in reading through her work is that she recognizes that government intervention -- such as with monopoly rights -- really doesn't make sense in many situations of "public goods." In a recent discussion on this site, people pointed to the concept of a "public good" as something that needs government intervention -- and I noted that more recent economic analysis showed that wasn't true at all. Ostrom's work is much of what kicked off that line of analysis (Coase deserves credit as well...). Her key finding was that in commons situations, the players can often work out perfectly reasonable solutions on their own, that don't involve regulatory efforts to put up fences or restrictions. The idea that a commons will automatically get overrun simply isn't true in practice. And that's exactly what we've seen in areas where there isn't intellectual property protections. The supposed fear of a "tragedy of the commons" never seems to show up. Instead, the markets adjust.

What struck me as really interesting, however, is that this is the second time in three years that the Nobel committee has awarded someone whose research highlights this point. In 2007, the award went to Eric Maskin, who has done work showing why patents can often be harmful (his focus was on software) -- again, suggesting that government intervention can be harmful in cases of "public goods." And, while it's less tied to the reasons why he got his Nobel or his core areas of research, last year's award winner, Paul Krugman, has recently come around to recognizing that "infinite goods" or public goods aren't a problem, but a potential opportunity as a market shifts.

It's nice to see the Nobel committee helping to get these ideas out there -- and highlighting the research that debunks the old wisdom that the answer to any public good is to create a gov't regulated monopoly system, rather than letting the market work out a solution on its own.

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Jim Dolan's Lawsuit Against Cityfile Highlights The Need For Stronger Anti-SLAPP Laws

from the silencing-dissent dept

The Citizen Media Law Project has yet another story of bogus lawsuits being used to silence something someone doesn't want written about them. In this case, it involved Jim Dolan, known (but not particularly liked) to New Yorkers as the owner of Cablevision, the Knicks and Madison Square Garden. More recently, Cablevision bought the newspaper Newsday -- so you might think that Dolan would be a little more aware of why it's bad to sue a news publication claiming defamation over a clearly speculative piece. And, yet, sue he did. Dolan sued the blog Cityfile for posting a piece about rumors that Dolan was considering getting rid of the famous "Christmas Spectacular" involving the Rockettes at Radio City Music Hall in New York. As Arthur Bright points out, the original post doesn't seem all that different than speculative articles published all the time in pretty much every media outlet.

Unfortunately, facing a protracted legal fight, Cityfile agreed to settle and "retract" the story. Bright notes that this is silly, and any decent lawyer should have been able to get the lawsuit tossed on First Amendment grounds. The problem is the time and resources needed to fight such a thing.

Bright then points out how this highlights the need for stronger anti-SLAPP laws in New York. Anti-SLAPP laws let people fight back against such bogus lawsuits, whose purpose is only to silence speech (SLAPP stands for Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation). The problem, however, is that right now anti-SLAPP laws are at the state level, and only a few states have really strong ones. New York is not one of them. While Bright says this is evidence of why NY should strengthen its anti-SLAPP laws, a better solution might be a strong federal anti-SLAPP law, that shows a strong support for freedom of speech, and helps prevent bogus lawsuits whose only purpose is to allow those with more money to silence speech they dislike.

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Smart Use Of Facebook By College Helps Students

from the it's-a-tool dept

Earlier this year, a study claiming that students who used Facebook had lower grades got a lot of attention, with the typical fear mongering and moral panics coming out of the woodwork. But, of course, correlation does not mean causation, and Facebook is just a tool. For schools that use it in a smart way, perhaps it could do good. Reader Ben Ketteridge points us to the news of how Gloucestershire College has embraced Facebook to help students do better. It's kept the staff and faculty better in touch with students and reduced drop out rates, so far. It's also helped students work together in virtual study groups, something that other colleges have complained was a form of cheating. It's nice to see at least some higher education institutions looking at ways to use tools to improve the overall experience, rather than just complaining about such online services.

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