Kicking People Off The Internet Not Enough In South Korea, Copyright Lobbyists Demand More

from the it-never-ends dept

If you thought that the entertainment industry would stop at having the ability to force ISPs to kick people they accuse (not convict) of file sharing offline, you might want to pay attention to what's happening in South Korea. South Korea, of course, is home to very high broadband penetration, with exceptionally high speeds. And, not surprisingly, there's a lot of unauthorized file sharing going on there. Of course, if you looked at the Korean cultural world, you'd immediately learn that smart entrepreneurs and entertainers quickly learned to adapt and take advantage of this new world. Entrepreneurs like JY Park recognized the changing marketplace, and adapted -- and the massive success he's had with artists like Rain and Wonder Girls, suggests that perhaps "piracy" wasn't a big deal. All you need is some smart business people who can adapt.

But, of course, we've all seen what sorts of companies are afraid to adapt. The big record labels and the big movie studios couldn't be bothered with the tricky proposition of actually understanding the new marketplace and adjusting their business model. So, they went to the US government and said "something must be done." That "something" turned out to be a new "free trade" (ha ha!) agreement with South Korea, that had little to do with free trade, but plenty to do with pushing ridiculously draconian copyright laws on South Korea (i.e., protectionism for the entertainment industry, not free trade). Of course, these new laws went way beyond what any other country had, and included getting the government to shut down file sharing sites while restricting how user-generated content sites could work as well. Not surprisingly, once the law passed, various sites began restricting how they could be used, even limiting the uploading of any songs, even ones that users themselves had created. And, of course, with all that, a "three strikes" plan to kick people off the internet was also included.

You would think that the industry would be happy and leave well enough alone, right?

Of course not. Reader Dan alerts us to the news that some entertainment industry lobbyists are now demanding that all file sharing services must use content filters. Otherwise, they plan to sue. Just another reminder that for some of these folks, enough will never be enough. They will keep pushing for more and more, just as consumers keep pushing back on having their own rights stripped away.

And, don't think this is limited to South Korea. Many of the "leaked" points about the needlessly secretive ACTA deal are supposedly "based on" the trade agreement that was done with South Korea. So take a look at what's happening there and see if that's how you think copyright law should work in the US.

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Administration Finally Releasing Some Info On Telco Immunity Lobbying

from the quite-a-fight dept

After many attempts to block or delay the release of info on who lobbied the federal government last year for telco immunity in lawsuits involving the fed's warrantless wiretapping program, the government has finally agreed to hand over some of the information requested. Of course, since the administration had already won a longer delay, and only some of the info is being revealed, I'm guessing that there isn't much surprising in what's being released -- though it makes you wonder why the administration went to such lengths to hide it.

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Dear RIAA: It's Not 'Working Together As A Team' When It's Under Threat Of Regulation

from the do-these-guys-ever-make-sense dept

I've been trying not to respond to every RIAA blog post these days, but it's hard to let certain things go when they so rarely make any sense. For example, RIAA President Cary Sherman recently talked up the new regulations that force colleges and universities to "take proactive steps" to stop file sharing. He goes on to make it sound like universities decided to do this in the spirit of "teamwork" with the RIAA, rather than because they risked serious financial consequences under the law for not complying. He also leaves out the fact that tons of colleges and universities are pissed off and complaining about how much time, effort and money they're wasting on this just because Sherman and his friends still don't seem able to embrace modern music business models. Colleges and universities have enough to worry about without the government forcing them to act as the RIAA's police force. If it were truly about teamwork, Cary, you wouldn't have had to spend so much time getting Congress to pass a law to force them to do this.

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Retired Telco PR Exec Who Sent XYZ Corp. Letter To FCC Insists He Wrote It

from the uh-huh... dept

We've already written about how a former PR exec from what became AT&T has been outed as the guy who sent a letter to the FCC where he forgot to take out the boilerplate XYZ Organization that was almost certainly left there by the AT&T lobbyists who wrote the letter for him. However, one of our commenters noted that MediaPost spoke to the guy, Bob Sells, who insists that he wrote the letter with the XYZ part included:

Sells, a 77-year-old retired public relations executive in Little Rock, tells MediaPost that he often writes letters with placeholders and fills in the correct text later, but overlooked the reference to XYZ in this case.

Really? I'm really trying to give this guy the benefit of the doubt, but I can't come up with a single explanation for why he would write "XYZ Organization" when writing a letter himself from a group of people he supposedly represents. If you're the one writing the letter, on behalf of your supposed organization, why would you include "XYZ Organization"?

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Guy Who Signed 'XYZ Corp.' Astroturf Letter... Worked As Telco PR Person For Nearly 3 Decades?

from the funny-how-that-works... dept

So, remember last week when we wrote about how anti-net neutrality lobbyists from AT&T had crafted astroturf letters for various "special interest groups" to sign -- but someone forgot to remove the boilerplate "XYZ Organization" in the first paragraph? We also noted that there was little evidence that the group -- the Arkansas Retired Seniors -- actually existed. However, Matt Cutts did a bit of digging and found that the name of the guy who signed the letter -- Bob Sells -- appears to have worked in PR for Southwestern Bell for 28 years (there appears to be only one Bob Sells or Robert Sells in Little Rock). Southwestern Bell, of course, became better known as SBC. SBC, of course, became AT&T after it bought the old AT&T and took on its name. So, if you're an AT&T lobbyist and you want to convince the FCC that "seniors" are against net neutrality -- and you don't want it to appear to come from AT&T employees -- who better to go to than an ex-employee? Still, next time you get a former employee to shill for you, remember to replace the bogus XYZ Organization you left for him in the text of the letter you sent him.

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Dear Lobbyists: When Crafting Astroturf Letters, Remember To Do A Search & Replace On XYZ Corp.

from the just-a-suggestion dept

We were just talking about how one of the worst tricks of DC lobbyists is to get various special interest groups to send letters on your behalf, even though those are really written by the lobbyists themselves. The quote in that original article that highlights the practice shows how it works:

"You go down the Latino people, the deaf people, the farmers, and choose them.... You say, 'I can't use this one--I already used them last time...' We had their letterhead. We'd just write the letter. We'd fax it to them and tell them, 'You're in favor of this.'"

Indeed. Well, it looks like in the process of faxing and telling a senior citizen's group what they were in favor of, AT&T's anti-net neutrality lobbyists forgot to do a bit of searching and replacing. Karl Bode points us to a hilarious letter filed with the FCC about net neutrality (pdf), officially on behalf of the Arkansas Retired Seniors Coalition -- the exact type of group often used in these astroturfing campaigns -- which suggests that someone didn't proofread the letter first: Right in the first paragraph, it looks like the Arkansas Retired Seniors (or perhaps the lobbyist directly) forgot to change out the boilerplate statement: "XYZ organization shares this concern." XYZ organization, huh? Here's an editing tip for AT&T's lobbyists: when crafting such letters with boilerplate language that's supposed to get changed at a later date before being sent off to the FCC, you should highlight that text in a different color. Saves embarrassing mistakes like this one.

In researching this further, Karl also can't find any other evidence that the Arkansas Retired Seniors exist. Separately, he found another mistake by the lobbyists when it sent a different anti-net neutrality letter from Grumman Shipbuilding (ship builders against neutrality?). This one wasn't as egregious, but the lobbyists forgot to remove the header info that says "Governor/PUC Letters to FCC on Net Neutrality" with the neat little classification system the lobbyists use: "Letter 2: Specific to Investment and Employment." Wonder what the original header for XYZ organization was?

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Sports Fan Lobbying Group... Or Anti-Cable Lobbying Group?

from the how-lobbying-works dept

We've talked in the past about the sneaky nature of Washington DC lobbying, whereby the real lobbyists' goals are hidden as some sort of bogus grass roots campaign involving some random group of people. It looks like that's about to happen again, as a bunch of satellite TV and telcos have put together what is officially a "sports fan" lobbyist organization. However, it appears to really just be an anti-cable effort. The initial campaign is likely to be an attempt to stop the cable firms from their current effort to block competing television service providers from being able to carry cable-owned sports networks. The real fight is about who gets to control what TV sports content, but it sounds much nicer to pretend that it's "concerned sports fans" as a lobbying group, rather than "cable company competitors."

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Congressional Reps Rewrite AT&T's Google Voice Complaint, And Send It To The FCC

from the at-least-try-to-be-creative dept

A few weeks back, we noted how AT&T was trying to claim that Google violated the very net neutrality rules the search giant is pushing for by blocking calls on Google Voice to various free conference service lines. However, as we explained at the time, the issues are totally different. However, from AT&T's standpoint, they get to try to kill two birds with one stone. First, AT&T would love to kill the regulatory arbitrage situation that allows small rural telcos to charge incoming call providers ridiculous connection fees. So, complaining about Google Voice draws more attention to that issue. Separately, it gets net neutrality questions moved away from AT&T and onto Google, which AT&T generally dislikes.

Still, it's hard not to be even more cynical when a bunch of politicians suddenly pick up interest in this issue, and ask the FCC to investigate Google using language that appears quite similar to the letter AT&T sent to the FCC. As Broadband Reports notes in that last link, it sure looks like AT&T got a bunch of friendly politicians to suddenly express outrage over something most of them didn't understand -- and they just had to rewrite the letter AT&T had already used. It's as if these companies and politicians don't even care how blatant it is that the lobbyists actually set the agenda.

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Gov't Trying Everything Possible Not To Give Up Telco Immunity Lobbying Records

from the not-so-transparent dept

Remember last month, when a court ordered the Obama administration to turn over records of who lobbied the administration for retroactive immunity for telcos concerning the warrantless wiretapping program? Yeah... well, it turns out the Obama administration isn't so keen on actually living up to that. First, it asked for a 60 day delay, so it could think about appealing (i.e., "give us time to stall, since telco immunity is being debated in Congress now, and we don't want this info out until afterwards"). However, the court said no, and said to hand over the info. And... yet again, the administration has now filed an emergency motion asking for 30 days to consider an appeal. It's difficult to see what this is other than a pure stall tactic. If the court already rejected the 60 day delay, why would it now turn around and grant a 30 day delay. All this is really serving to do is make people a lot more suspicious about what those records might show.

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US Chamber Of Commerce Makes Up Things About Intellectual Property

from the why-do-people-trust-this-stuff? dept

We had just been discussing how the US Chamber of Commerce (currently losing some big name members for its troubling connection to reality on certain topics) was misinterpreting some stats about patent laws to push for stronger protectionism, and along comes an opinion piece by Mark Esper, the Chamber of Commerce's executive VP of its "Global Intellectual Property Center." Take a wild guess what he argues for? You got it! Stronger intellectual property all around. The problem is that the editorial is riddled with factual and logical errors that aren't just sloppy, but are almost laughable.

The legal rights that governed IP for generations provided a known system of incentives that both fostered and spread innovation. It was the inducements built into our free-enterprise system, coupled with the talents and hard work of entrepreneurs, which moved this nation forward. It worked back then, and it will work now.

This is actually entirely unsupported by the evidence. Studies have shown -- repeatedly -- that no causal relationship has been shown between IP rights and innovation. Furthermore, it's pretty laughable to pick a gov't granted monopoly and claim that this is an "inducement built into a free-enterprise system." IP is the opposite of free enterprise. It's a gov't-granted monopoly. Also, in the paragraph above, he's talking about IP post World War II. What he skips over is that after that period, both patent law and copyright law were greatly expanded, such that they barely resemble what was seen following WWII (especially copyrights).

Six decades later, nearly half the U.S. economy is driven by industries that depend heavily on intellectual property rights. If we are to jumpstart a second economic renaissance, then we must begin by protecting and stimulating the lifeblood of America's economy: its ideas.

Well, beyond the lack of evidence that IP stimulates ideas, every time we talk about IP stifling ideas, IP system defenders rush onto this blog to remind us that neither copyright nor patents are supposed to protect "ideas," but rather "expressions" or "inventions." Someone should inform Esper of this.

The counterfeiting and piracy of American goods cost the U.S. economy over $200 billion annually, and the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs. This growing problem, coupled with the fact that some foreign governments are working to weaken IP laws that protect American patents, threatens to slow down innovation by undermining the incentives that foster it.

Where to start? Well, how about that $200 billion number? It's made up. Almost entirely. Both the GAO and the OECD looked into the numbers bandied about by the Chamber of Commerce and other lobbying groups and found (oops) that they were exaggerated, sometimes by an order of magnitude or more.

As for the claim that "foreign governments" are trying to "weaken IP laws?" Again, totally made up. Around the globe, almost all of the efforts have been for strengthening, not weakening IP laws. And, again, studies have shown that stronger IP laws do not correlate to greater innovation, and often the reverse.

This is occurring at a time when industries that rely on IP, such as pharmaceuticals, IT, and entertainment, employ 18 million Americans, and are expected to exceed the national average when it comes to future job growth. At the same time, workers in IP-based industries are projected to earn approximately $7,000 more than their counterparts in non-IP lines of work.

This assumes, entirely incorrectly, that those jobs don't exist in the absence of IP. Unfortunately, the evidence is again totally against Esper. Countries that had no patents on pharma goods, such as India and Italy for many years, still had incredibly thriving pharmaceutical industries. In fact, Italy's pharma industry shrunk after it put in place patents for pharma. So, the idea that stronger patents are needed to protect jobs? There doesn't seem to be any support for that.

In short, America's future depends on intellectual property

See, this is a neat trick. He's assuming that all intellectual output relies on IP laws. That's not true. America's future may depend on innovation, but that's not the same as saying it depends on stronger IP laws.

Our IP is valued at over $5 trillion -- more than the GDP of any other country. Intellectual property also accounts for more than half of all U.S. exports, helping drive 40 percent of U.S. economic growth. In 2006 alone, IP exports contributed $37 billion to our trade balance, demonstrating the power of IP in the global marketplace.

Ah, the use of funny math. Again, this involves some number games, whereby lots of things that have absolutely nothing to do with patent, trademark or copyright law are "counted" as being included in these numbers. The fact that much of it would have happened anyway, even with no such laws, is totally ignored.

In every state in the union, IP has played an integral role in molding the economy. Take President Obama's home state of Illinois, for instance. Illinois is ranked sixth in the nation for patents, and creative industries have contributed to over $1 billion in local wages. It is home to 144 university-based and 71 federal research centers, and features eight premier research and technology parks that grow the high-tech companies and jobs of the future.

Nice job pandering to the President. Of course, again, note the implicit (but false) assumption, that it's IP laws that are entirely responsible for this output. Note the implicit (but false) assumption that the research coming out of those universities and research centers are due to IP laws.

Intellectual property is woven into the fabric of our lives and the nation's economy, and has played a critical role in all the major advancements that have made the 20th century one of the most defining times in human history. It is the author of great American moments, from the Apollo program and the PC, to the Internet and iPods, and all the great songs, stories and movies in between that have shaped our culture.

Again, falsely attributing all of those to IP laws. Amusingly, of course, the internet had almost nothing to do with IP laws, and the only time IP has become involved in internet infrastructure, it's been to hold back innovations. And iPods? The thing (well, its predecessor, the Diamond Rio) that the recording industry tried to sue out of existence using IP laws? Yeah, that's not a very strong argument to put forth. The PC's success was actually based on the fact that much of it was built upon open standards and widely shared and copied technology, rather than being locked down by IP laws. The Apollo program I'm less familiar with from an IP standpoint, but seeing as it was a gov't program put forth due to a challenge from President Kennedy and funded by the US gov't, there's is no indication that it required patents as incentive for that particular innovation...

We cannot take IP rights for granted. Rather, we must strengthen IP enforcement and continue promoting innovation and creativity, and the laws that protect both. The next economic renaissance needs to happen now, and strong IP rights will help usher in this new era of job growth and economic revitalization.

Stunning. Right after naming a bunch of innovations that happened because of looser IP restrictions, you suddenly insist that we need stronger IP enforcement? Have you no shame?

I haven't paid much attention to the US Chamber of Commerce, but does anyone actually take them seriously when they spew nonsense like this? Update: Add Apple to the list of big name companies leaving the US Chamber of Commerce. Time to start paying attention to reality.

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Gov't Needs To Reveal Who Lobbied For Telco Immunity On Warrantless Wiretaps

from the this-shouldn't-be-a-surprise dept

The EFF has announced that a judge has sided with them in saying the federal government must reveal the records of who lobbied to get telco immunity from any warrantless wiretapping charges in last year's FISA bill. There is simply no credible explanation for granting telco immunity except to cover up illegal activity. It's a clear "get out of jail free" card. Still, I doubt that the lobbying records will turn up very much surprising. I'm sure the big telcos lobbied for it, as you would have expected.

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FCC: We Want Net Neutrality

from the yes,-but... dept

As was rumored last week, FCC boss, Julius Genachowski, gave a speech where he pushes to have the FCC's "principles of network openness" codified into law. Basically, he's come out in support of a net neutrality law, giving the FCC the power to regulate the issue. In the speech, he suggests that the four principles that were already put forth by former FCC chair Michael Powell get two additions, and have all six codified as law. The first four are:

• Freedom to Access Content. First, consumers should have access to their choice of legal content
• Freedom to Use Applications. Second, consumers should be able to run applications of their choice.
• Freedom to Attach Personal Devices. Third, consumers should be permitted to attach any devices they choose to the connection in their homes.
• Freedom to Obtain Service Plan Information. Fourth, consumers should receive meaningful information regarding their service plans.

To that, Genachowski adds the following two:

• The fifth principle is one of non-discrimination -- stating that broadband providers cannot discriminate against particular Internet content or applications.
• The sixth principle is a transparency principle -- stating that providers of broadband Internet access must be transparent about their network management practices.

I have to admit that the sixth principle sounds a lot like the fourth, and the whole thing remains pretty vague. The more interesting bit is the plan to include wireless technologies in what's covered here, something the FCC hasn't paid nearly as much attention to in the past.

While I believe that the basic concept of a neutral internet is very important to keeping the internet as a platform for innovation, I have to admit that I'm quite nervous about any attempt to put it into the law. First, many are noting that the telcos will undoubtedly heavily lobby the process to make sure that the final legislation has plenty of loopholes and quid pro quo aspects in it. As Broadband Reports notes:

While anyone and everyone will participate, you can expect lobbyists for AT&T, Comcast and Verizon to continue to get the best seats. Be mindful that lobbyists will likely work very hard to make these principles as weak as possible so they can only be used in the most egregious instances of foul play. This is a perfect opportunity for telecom lobbyists to pre-empt tougher federal laws, that not coincidentally picked up steam in Congress last week.

Also be aware that when lobbyists see discussions of "transparency," their immediate thought is that it's a perfect opportunity to push harder for low usage caps and high per-byte overages. Mega-carriers believe that as long as they're facing expectations of honesty when it comes to network management, they might as well use the opportunity to their advantage in almost vindictive fashion. Expect the industry's continued dream of shifting from flat-rate pricing to metered billing to play a starring role as the rules get hashed out.

Not surprisingly, the broadband providers rushed out prepared statements that all start off with "applause" for Genachowski, followed by something rather different than applause... each positioning reasons for why putting such principles into law is a bad, bad idea. In other words, expect a big fight and any law to be greatly watered down.

My biggest fear, honestly, isn't in what happens with this particular law, but what happens down the road. I believe that Genachowski really is committed to reasonable internet principles. But once we've given the FCC a mandate to regulate how the internet works, then those laws can and will be updated and changed. What if the next FCC chair is a former telco exec -- certainly not outside the realm of possibility. Opening up that door is likely to result in some very bad legislation down the road.

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State Wide TV Franchising Not Living Up To Lobbyists' Promises

from the lobbyists-inaccurate? dept

I'll be the first to admit that I actually agreed with the stance of telcos a few years back that local "franchising" rules were a problem. If you don't know, for a long time, if you wanted to offer cable-based television in a market, you had to get a "franchise" agreement from a local (town/city/region) authority. For many years, this meant a single cable company offering service with absolutely no competition. When the telcos came along with plans to offer television over fiber or DSL lines, they realized (accurately) that having to get approval in every tiny region would be cost prohibitive. This was all absolutely true, and it was also true that it was silly and unproductive for telcos to have to get so many different approvals and abide by so many different rules just to finally give the cable companies some serious competition in markets.

The telcos were successful in making their case, but, of course, these things never happen without a catch. Various states wiped out local franchises, and put in state-wide franchises... but, in doing so, the telcos were often able to dictate the terms of the state-wide franchise rights, making them quite friendly to the telcos, but not so friendly to others or to actual consumers. Apparently, states are now realizing that the promises given to them by telco lobbyists haven't been shown to be true. The insistence that statewide franchising would lead to lower prices for TV service, for example, hasn't been validated at all.

I recently got to hear first hand how the statewide franchise law in California is leading to serious problems for some really amazing local municipal and school networks, which will now get shut down, since the statewide law doesn't require it, as the local franchise rule did. I'm not convinced that the answer is to return to local franchising, which still seems like a process that is too convoluted for innovation. Perhaps the real answer is that none of this will matter eventually, once television all runs through your browser, anyway...

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How The Entertainment Industry 'Launders' Policy Pronouncements

from the policy-laundering dept

It's no secret that a great deal of regulations and policies are really written and pushed by lobbyists, and politicians just put their own names on it. We've seen it quite blatantly at times, such as the case where a politician being quizzed about legislation he introduced deferred questions to the industry lobbyist in the room. However, Michael Geist has done an amazing job taking the recent plagiarized and deceptive report from The Conference Board of Canada, which had been totally rewritten due to complaints from lobbyists and has used it to demonstrate exactly how this "policy laundering" process works. Policy laundering is such a great and accurate term. The industry basically comes up with some totally bogus numbers and keeps pushing them over and over again, trying to get other sources to cite them. Then, once that happens, the numbers are now backed up as "fact" by some other citation, and things get even more involved. It's a neat little trick. When people actually go back and look for the specifics (like Julian Sanchez did recently) they discover a mess of smoke and mirrors and nothing whatsoever at the foundation. But because the numbers have been quoted so widely, often by "legitimate" third parties, they're suddenly taken as fact. Policy laundering indeed.

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New Law In Korea Means Google Bans The Uploading Of Music On Any Blog

from the life-without-safe-harbors dept

While some in the copyright community feel that things like the DMCA safe harbors are bad, it's worth watching what happens in situations where they don't exist. South Korea just changed its copyright law, such that sites that don't filter for copyrighted material can potentially be liable. So, what is the response? Google is now forbidding the uploading of any music files to avoid liability and possible shut down under the law (the law is a three strikes law that doesn't just apply to users, but to sites that the users use) (found via Techmeme). Lucas Gonze does a good job laying out the damage this causes:

The problem is not the freedom to use copyrighted content. I don't know of any such freedom. The problem is the right to play.

A guitar teacher will be unable to post lessons, and a guitar student will be unable to post homework. Two musicians working together at a distance will be unable to share unfinished multitracks. An unsigned classical quartet will be unable to post samples of their work. Only the tiny few who work on commercially published recordings will still be able to be heard, and even only the small proportion of their recordings that are completed commercial works will be heard.

Most musicians are amateurs with no financial interest in copyright. The proportion of amateurs to professionals is so overwhelming that the word "musician" is a synonym for "amateur." Whenever copyright is wielded on behalf of the professionals in a way that makes it harder for amateurs to make music, it is hurting musicians.

Oh, and don't forget, the entire reason why South Korea is suddenly putting in place draconian, self-damaging, protectionist, copyright policies is because the entertainment industry went on a huge lobbying campaign claiming that South Korea was a haven for piracy, and then had the US gov't include requirements for much more stringent copyright laws in a free trade agreement -- despite the fact it was about the opposite of free trade. The entire purpose wasn't free trade, but protectionism of the US entertainment industry. Soon after that passed, we noted that it would require shutting down any service that permitted unauthorized reproduction... and we're seeing the impact of that now.

South Korea has been a leader in internet technologies. It had real broadband (both wired and wireless) to nearly every home well before almost every other country. As such, it has a thriving internet industry... but it has also had a thriving entertainment industry made up of execs who embraced the internet. Folks like JY Park, who recognizes that selling music directly is the past, but by embracing that fact, is building a media empire. But, of course, the folks back in Hollywood don't want to compete and don't want to change... so they got the US gov't to force South Korea to put in place these ridiculous copyright laws that help them and harm pretty much everyone else.

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Lobbyists Get Congress To Investigate P2P Software... Rather Than Bad Security And Employee Carelessness

from the well,-look-at-that dept

Just a couple weeks ago, I received a ridiculous PR pitch from the entertainment industry lobbying group Arts+Labs, suggesting that a story that "hasn't really gotten the attention it deserves" is the "threat" from P2P software being used to "expose private documents to the world." The PR guy offered to help walk me through the process of downloading Limewire and finding such "exposed documents." Of course, what the PR guy left out is the reason this story hasn't received that much attention: because it's a bogus story that's been debunked for years -- but it's a favorite of the entertainment industry and its lobbyists in trying to come up with any reason to get Congress to issue laws against file sharing software.

However, it was obvious that this PR campaign was a setup: something bigger was underway... and, indeed, now we find out that these entertainment industry lobbyists have had a chance to bubble up yet again this silly idea to Congress, leading to yet another investigation of file sharing services, with a specific focus on Limewire. Of course, we did this already. Two years ago, there was a bunch of grandstanding in Congress against Limewire because some gov't officials had leaked documents possibly (though, not definitely) via Limewire. But, of course, the target was wrong. It wasn't Limewire that was the problem, it was government employees being stupid and setting up private government documents in their shared folders and poor government computer security systems that allowed this to happen. But rather than blame bad gov't computer security or clueless users, the government set upon Limewire as the problem (encouraged, of course, by the entertainment industry's lobbyists).

The PR campaign and the Congressional investigation didn't happen in the same month by accident. You can pretty much assume that the whole effort was orchestrated by these lobbyists as yet another misguided attack on file sharing software, playing up the ridiculous idea that it's the software that's responsible for people leaking documents, rather than user stupidity and bad security.

It's nice to see some in the mainstream press not fall for this bogus story. The LA Times notes how pointless this effort is, pointing out how the whole thing is misguided, and accurately noting:

Perhaps the real motive here is to find grounds to ban the software outright, which would please Hollywood but wouldn't solve the problem.

Of course, not all mainstream publications bothered to figure that out. Five days after Arts+Labs pitched me on the "Limewire-is-a-security-leak-problem" story, the WSJ published exactly that story, including (of course!) a quote from Arts+Labs, and no quotes from anyone who would point out what a made up story it is, and how it's been planted by the entertainment industry in an effort to create a moral panic against P2P software. I thought the mainstream press was supposed to be where real journalists did their homework rather than just parroting the story lobbyists hand them?

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Yet Another Copyright Lobbying Group Caught Infringing

from the always-seems-to-happen... dept

These days, it's nearly impossible not to infringe on copyright in one way or another during your regular day -- but it's always amusing when big-time copyright supporters are caught infringing (and it seems to happen quite frequently). The latest is musicFIRST, the lobbying group funded (potentially illegally) by the recording industry, which has been pushing a campaign claiming that radio is piracy and demanding that radio stations pay even more royalties than they already do.

But, of course, when it comes to licensing or paying royalties itself... well, you know... that's a different story.

Billboard has noticed that MusicFIRST appears to have quoted the entire lyrics to the Beatles song "We Can Work It Out" in a mocking press release it put out earlier in the week -- but failed to get the necessary license. Now, of course, many of us believe that quoting lyrics like that is perfectly reasonable fair use. But... the recording industry (you know, the folks behind MusicFIRST) doesn't believe that, which is why they've shut down plenty of people for posting lyrics on the web and even thrown people in jail for posting lyrics on the web.

But, when they do it? It's fine? Funny how that works...

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Behind Nearly Every Google Complaint? A Lobbyist And A Flailing Competitor

from the funny-how-the-system-works dept

Plenty of folks have been sending in links to Wired's article on The Plot to Kill Google, which basically shows how both Microsoft and AT&T -- two companies scared to death by Google, are now working hard not to build better products to beat Google in the marketplace -- but on hiring better lobbyists and marketers to try to destroy public perception of Google. Of course, Google has been doing a bit of the same thing in reverse... pointing out that every bit of critical information just so happens to come from companies or individuals working for (or at least funded by) AT&T or Microsoft. The whole thing has turned into a huge public relations nightmare, with little focus on providing actual value. This is unfortunate. It may be naive in this day and age, but wouldn't it be nice if companies actually focused on creating value, rather than crafting PR schemes directed at politicians and bureaucrats to tear down their competitors?

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Do Google's Patent Lobbying Efforts Matter In Patent Infringement Suits Against The Company?

from the hard-to-see-why dept

Google, of course, is on the receiving end of numerous patent lawsuits (and the number seems to keep growing). In one, brought by Erich Spangenberg's Bright Response LLC (you may recall Spangenberg's name from the fact that he recently was told to pay $4 million for violating a settlement in one of his other patent lawsuits, where he promised not to sue the same companies over the same patents), the patent holder is demanding Google turn over all information concerning its lobbying efforts on patent reform. As Google notes in response, its lobbying efforts on patent reform have absolutely nothing to do with whether or not there's any infringement on automatic message interpretation and routing systems -- a patent, by the way, that the EFF has designated as one of the ten worst patents out there.

This seems like a pure fishing expedition to (a) try to create more work for Google for no good reason and (b) have a well-known exploiter of the current patent system get access to what patent system reformers are talking about in DC. It has no bearing on the case one way or the other, and hopefully the judge agrees.

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Don't Worry About MPAA's Congrats To Obama

from the step-back-from-the-ledge dept

A bunch of folks have been sending in Wired's short article claiming that the MPAA is "already lobbying Obama." And, while I'm certainly never one to suggest that the MPAA isn't full of sneaky tricks, this is hardly anything to get worked up about. I don't even understand why Wired posted it, other than to get people angry. The MPAA, like pretty much every major lobbying organization, put out statements congratulating Obama. That's what you do as a lobbying group, and it's entirely meaningless at this point. I have no doubt that the MPAA will pull plenty of misleading stunts over the next four years, and most likely will convince all sorts of politicians, including Obama, to put into place bad laws. But a simple congratulations statement from a lobbying group is hardly a sign of impending doom.

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