The good folks over at the EFF have posted a letter from a group of startups and innovators to Congress seeking reform of the CFAA (Computer Fraud and Abuse Act), which has been abused for years, most notably and recently, in the case against Aaron Swartz (full disclosure: I helped review the initial letter and helped the EFF get some of the signatures on the letter). This is important, because, as we have noted, plenty of innovators and entrepreneurs could have been charged under this law for some of their random hacking experiments, some of which directly led them to create amazing innovations.

Many people have thought that the tech industry isn't as interested in CFAA reform, since it supposedly protects them in cases where they have been hacked, but that's not the case. Through out the startup community, I've heard many people who were horrified to learn about the charges against Aaron Swartz, as they quickly realized how easy it would be for a Justice Department official to spin what they themselves were doing into something nefarious sounding. That does not help innovation.

No one is in favor of having no rules at all, but clearly the CFAA is outdated, broken and widely abused. Fixing the law to focus on actual malicious and nefarious attacks would be a huge step forward, not just for the public, but for innovators and entrepreneurs who often build great things by starting with a simple hack.

Online education is set to revolutionize higher education, making it more affordable, more accessible, more efficient, and more effective. Of course, online education works only if it's done right. It's not enough to simply lecture to students through a computer. Online courses also need to be dynamic and interactive to compensate for the lack of human contact through a physical classroom. Here are some other considerations about online education.

• Online courses have at least two major problems to overcome. First, the student attrition rate for some online courses can be as high as 90% compared to traditional face-to-face classes. Second, online courses aren't a good fit for struggling students who need more contact with instructors to do well. [url]
• Stanford University and Khan Academy are experimenting with different ways to make online education more effective. Stanford has been "flipping classrooms" by making class sizes smaller, setting up interactive versions of classes online (which include pop-up quizzes every 15 minutes), and adding social media elements that let students ask questions of each other. Khan Academy has added a feature that lets students tutor other students to earn badge rewards. [url]
• Udacity, an online education startup founded by Sebastian Thrun, offers many college courses for free. Thrun believes that the key to effective online teaching is to have students solve problems. His teaching philosophy involves giving students quizzes, one every 2-5 minutes, that become the centerpieces of each lesson. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

One of the things that we've found odd about the decade and a half history of the legacy entertainment industry seeking (often successfully) to shut down a variety of new platforms, is that if you actually looked at the artists who didn't completely freak out at these new services and who recognized what the new services were (better platforms for distribution and promotion, rather than the end of all civilization and culture as we know it), you quickly find that, if done right, the platforms could be used to those artists' advantage. We saw artists use the original Napster to their advantage, only to see it shut down. Ditto for MP3.com, Grokster, Kazaa, Limewire, Megaupload and more. Plenty of artists have discussed how incredibly useful The Pirate Bay has been as a platform for distribution and promotion.

Now, admittedly, many of these companies and services were shut down for some form of copyright infringement or inducement to infringement. So, you can argue that they were illegal. But if we went back even further, we saw the same complaints against many other platforms including the radio, cable TV, the VCR, the DVR, the MP3 player and online video services like YouTube. And yet, every one of those has survived, and they have turned out to be very important parts of the market. In fact, you can look and see how each of those helped expand and grow markets, even as they were decried as being tools of infringement when they first came on the scene.

This is why I'm so fascinated by the artists who are the early adopters -- who jump onto these platforms in the early days and show how they can be used to the artist's own advantage. Because it's through those people that we learn how these platforms, be they tools of infringement or not, can quite possibly help artists much more than hurt them -- if those artists learn to use the tools correctly.

All of that is prelude to this case study, concerning a band called Quiet Company that teamed up to take part in Grooveshark's new Artist Development project, in which Grooveshark would see if it could help "break a band" via the internet. Grooveshark, of course, is a company that is currently being sued by a large chunk of the recording industry for its music player. In talking to various artists about it-- even those who often are more willing to experiment with new platforms -- I've seen many artists really dislike Grooveshark. But, clearly, it has built up a giant, loyal and engaged user-base. And, as always, it seems that, if done right, artists could embrace that to a positive effect, which is appears to be what happened with Quiet Company. First up, if you'd like to hear some of their music, you can click the widget below: I spoke to Quiet Company's manager, who told me that the band was being courted by various record labels, but they quickly realized that they were getting offered deals that weren't the most "artist friendly," and that they had no desire to work with a record label unless they knew that the band was the one with the leverage. So, when Grooveshark approached them, noting that Quiet Company seemed to be doing quite well on Grooveshark, and that they wanted to try to help "break" the band online, the band thought it was a great idea. In terms of what Grooveshark did for the band, it included promoting the band more heavily within Grooveshark and in other places, promoting YouTube videos (more on that below), promoting tours with "tour skins" in locations where the band was heading, highlighting releases, doing promos, contests and the like. They also did some more traditional promotions work, including pushing college radio and festivals, while also finding brand sponsors.

There are a number of interesting tidbits in the case study looking at an entire year or so in which Grooveshark worked to help Quiet Company. One thing that's important to note, of course, is that the band didn't just rely on Grooveshark, but worked to use Grooveshark in combination with other platforms to get attention. Grooveshark seemed to drive steady growth in part by using its own tools to help drive growth elsewhere, such as YouTube. Take a look, for example, at the following timeline: You can see that there's a massive spike coming when YouTube engagement ads ran. Those ads are something that Grooveshark launched last year, to help promote artists, and it looks like that clearly had a pretty big impact. The "ads" ask Grooveshark users to view a portion of a music video to get to use the rest of the site ad free for a period of time, and that massively increased the YouTube views for the band. The timing did also coincide with last year's SXSW Music, where the band played (and got significant press attention -- Time, NPR Music, Billboard -- which certainly helped), but the band says that Grooveshark was instrumental in getting the necessary exposure.

Furthermore, a closer look at Grooveshark promotions, shows that they also impacted things like visits to the website and Facebook likes. But, perhaps more importantly, the end result of this experiment was that the band started making more money with a much broader, international fanbase. The band had a popular following, locally in Texas, where it was from, but had much less support as they got further from home. On Facebook and YouTube, the "top cities" were all in Texas. However, that changed drastically, leading to the ability to tour more widely. After the partnership, rather than just cities in Texas, they had big followings (via Facebook) in Bogota, Sao Paulo and Barcelona, among many other places. The top countries for followers if you looked at YouTube and Facebook included not just the US, but the UK, Canada, Germany, Brazil and Spain. The band is getting ready to perform outside the US for the first time. And, not surprisingly, with a broader fan base, their touring revenue shot up as well. All in all, it's an interesting case study of a band that had a loyal local following, but hadn't "broken." Then it embraced a platform like Grooveshark and to see if it helped or hurt the band. It certainly seems like the band is in a much better position after working with Grooveshark than before. Even if you make the case that their success had nothing to do with Grooveshark, but was due to other factors, it certainly doesn't look like working with Grooveshark harmed the band, as some would imply.

In talking to the band's manager, he repeatedly pointed out that the exposure from Grooveshark made all the difference in the world, and took the band from having a loyal and devoted local following to a band that really had a big following in many places around the globe. He pointed out that the key, in his mind, was that this was a promotional platform, with the focus being on building up a fanbase who loved the music, and to then tour to make money to support that. When asked if there were any "lessons learned" or regrets, the one thing he noted is that they should have been better prepared to go out on tour as soon as things started to break. He felt that they could have done a bit more if they were ready to tour more widely earlier last year.

Something else really interesting came out of the case study and the discussion: after all of this, Quiet Company actually got a private investment from a group of fans to continue what they're doing. That is, rather than signing with a record label, a huge fan actually approached the band and asked them about investing in them, and set up a deal (with a few other fans) that is better than a record deal in that it's very artist friendly. Quiet Company's manager told me that this fan has been a big supporter of the band for a long time -- often buying a bunch of tickets to their shows and just giving them out to a bunch of her friends, and they were pleasantly surprised when that turned into her investing directly in the band.

Separately, he notes that the band believes strongly that this kind of thing was a result of the band really working hard to connect closely with their fans, and that with this greater exposure, it lets them try to do that on a larger scale.

This isn't, of course, to say that every artist should automatically jump on board with Grooveshark. It's just yet another case study in a growing list that shows that where artists carefully and smartly construct a broad strategy that leverages various tools to help promote and distribute their works, combined with connecting with the fans, they can have really compelling success stories. Even as some decry those platforms for claimed copyright infringement, it seems like these platforms can be helpful in doing the most important thing: building a fanbase. And, from there, the band needs to work to connect with that fanbase, and give them ways to support the band. It would be great if, rather than attacking such platforms over and over again, we spent more time like this, looking at ways that artists can use various platforms to their own advantage to succeed.

We've discussed before just how secretive the court martial process has been for Bradley Manning. Part of that is that there is no recording allowed in the courtroom, and thus there was no recording or official transcript of Manning's long statement to the court, even though some reporters tried to piece together a statement from their notes. However, it appears that someone snuck a recorder into the room, and recorded Manning's statement, which has now been leaked by the Freedom of the Press Foundation. As they note, this is actually the first time that the public has been able to hear Bradley Manning speak. As the FPF notes:

A group of journalists, represented by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), has been engaged in a legal battle to force the court to be more open. While the government has belatedly released a small portion of documents related to the case, many of the most important orders have been withheld—such as the orders relating to the speedy trial proceedings or the order related to Manning’s prolonged solitary confinement.

Michael Ratner, president emeritus of CCR, called the government "utterly unresponsive to what is a core First Amendment principle." Ratner noted this is a public trial, the information being presented is not classified, and that contemporaneous access to information about the trial is necessary to understanding the proceedings. Nonetheless, the lawsuit has been tied up in the appeals court for months.

Meanwhile, Glenn Greenwald highlights why this is so important:

The US government and its military has carefully ensured that people hear about Manning from the government, but do not hear from Manning himself. It is way past time for Manning's voice to be heard.

Greenwald has also broken down the statement and highlighted some key points. For example, he notes that many of Manning's critics argued that Manning released information willy nilly with no concern for what was in the documents, and whether releasing them would cause harm. From the transcript, we learn that this is simply untrue. He did review the content, and came to the conclusion that the documents he was releasing needed to be released for the benefit of the US, and not to harm the US. He admitted they might be embarrassing, but that's very different from harmful.

Up to this point, during the deployment, I had issues I struggled with and difficulty at work. Of the documents release, the cables were the only one I was not absolutely certain couldn't harm the United States. I conducted research on the cables published on the Net Centric Diplomacy, as well as how Department of State cables worked in general.

"In particular, I wanted to know how each cable was published on SIRPnet via the Net Centric Diplomacy. As part of my open source research, I found a document published by the Department of State on its official website.

"The document provided guidance on caption markings for individual cables and handling instructions for their distribution. I quickly learned the caption markings clearly detailed the sensitivity of the Department of State cables. For example, NODIS or No Distribution was used for messages at the highest sensitivity and were only distributed to the authorized recipients.

"The SIPDIS or SIPRnet distribution caption was applied only to recording of other information messages that were deemed appropriate for a release for a wide number of individuals. According to the Department of State guidance for a cable to have the SIPDIS caption, it could not include other captions that were intended to limit distribution.

"The SIPDIS caption was only for information that could only be shared with anyone with access to SIPRnet. I was aware that thousands of military personnel, DoD, Department of State, and other civilian agencies had easy access to the tables. The fact that the SIPDIS caption was only for wide distribution made sense to me, given that the vast majority of the Net Centric Diplomacy Cables were not classified.

"The more I read the cables, the more I came to the conclusion that this was the type of information that should become public. I once read and used a quote on open diplomacy written after the First World War and how the world would be a better place if states would avoid making secret pacts and deals with and against each other.

"I thought these cables were a prime example of a need for a more open diplomacy. Given all of the Department of State cables that I read, the fact that most of the cables were unclassified, and that all the cables have a SIPDIS caption.

"I believe that the public release of these cables would not damage the United States, however, I did believe that the cables might be embarrassing, since they represented very honest opinions and statements behind the backs of other nations and organizations."

It really is a travesty that the US government has kept all of this so closed, and has refused to release a recording or a transcript. Are they really so afraid that the public might hear Bradley Manning explain himself?

One of the nastier tricks of copyright maximalists has been to lump together "counterfeiting" with "copyright infringement" in an effort to conveniently jump back and forth when making silly arguments. Basically, they can argue that copyright infringement is a huge issue, because of the massive amount of unauthorized sharing that happens online. But they have a lot of trouble showing real harm. On the other side, counterfeiting really isn't that big of a problem when you look closely at the details, but there are a few, extremely limited cases (faulty counterfeit airplane parts, some fake drugs) where there could be real harm. So if you lump them all together you can claim "massive problems" with "real harm." But that doesn't work if you look at them individually.

We recently wrote about some Canadian politicians introducing a bill to get Canada in compliance with ACTA, despite the fact that ACTA has been totally discredited around the globe. Some political opponents are now pushing back on that, calling the bill in question an attempt to get ACTA in "through the backdoor." However, in response Canadian Industry Minister, Christian Paradis, just keeps repeating the "counterfeiting" mantra and ignoring the entire ACTA elephant in the room. Amusingly, Paradis seems unable to even admit that there are concerns here:

During Question Period on Monday, Borg asked Industry Minister Christian Paradis directly if the bill paves the way for ratification of the discredited treaty:

Mr. Speaker, last July the European Parliament rejected the anti-counterfeiting trade agreement over serious concerns about the regressive changes it would impose on intellectual property in the digital age. Yet on Friday, the Conservatives introduced a bill in the House that would pave the way for the ACTA without question. Canadians have concerns about goods being seized or destroyed without any oversight by the courts. Will the minister now be clear with Canadians? Are the Conservatives planning to ratify ACTA, yes or no?

Paradis refused to respond to the ACTA ratification question:

Mr. Speaker, we are very happy to have introduced an anti-counterfeiting bill in the House. Counterfeiting is a growing problem in Canada. Counterfeiting deceives Canadians and is linked to security-related issues. So it was our duty to modernize the legislation to ensure that we can end counterfeiting, so that Canadians are not deceived, and to provide better security.

Borg tried again with a direct link between Bill C-56 and ACTA:

Mr. Speaker, a number of countries have rejected this unacceptable agreement. The anti-counterfeiting trade agreement - ACTA - was drafted behind closed doors and would incriminate the daily users of cultural content. This agreement will turn our border officers into instant copyright experts, without the adequate legal support. Canada must seriously study the problem of counterfeiting. However, the failure of Bill C-30 means that Canadians do not have faith in this Conservative government. Is Bill C-56 not simply a way to support ACTA through the back door?

Paradis ducks the question once again:

Mr. Speaker, let us be clear: Bill C-56 is a way to support and protect Canadian families.

Counterfeiting is a growing problem that must be stopped. Counterfeiting deceives Canadians and poses risks to the safety of Canadians. We must ensure that the legislation is updated and appropriate in order to equip the authorities with effective tools to fight counterfeiting, which is exactly what was introduced on Friday. If the NDP is responsible, I hope they will support us.

See the talking point? When asked about ACTA just lie and repeat "counterfeiting is a serious problem" over and over and over again, despite little proof to actually support that. And, when really challenged, pull out the "it's for the children" card by saying that it's needed to protect families. Yes, the families of the US-based executives of the legacy entertainment industry.

Sadly, for my purposes at least, internet trolls aren't always as entertaining as the antics of On press Inc. In fact, often times childish and uncreative trolling can produce some really unfortunate results. In particular, I'm recalling the twitter troll whose efforts culminated in a SWAT team and TV crew showing up at the wrong guy's house. That story aside, there is a certain amount of truth to the notion that anonymity can spark horrific behavior, with keyboard cowboys feeling safe in saying incredibly hurtful things to people. Twitter couples that occasion with a connection to public figures, allowing those who wish to, to engage in trollish and hurtful behavior with the rich and famous. Typically, those attempts are shrugged off by targets, and often times the shrugging off is done by whichever PR team is handling the celebrity's Twitter feed. Those that man their own Twitter posts can always use the helpful "block" button to keep the worst aggressors at bay.

Or you can go the Curtis Woodhouse route, which is to sleuth your way to finding the street the troll lives on and go hunting. And if any trolls out there don't think this is a scary enough prospect on its own, consider that Woodhouse is a professional boxer. To be fair to the troll, his tweets aren't the worst I've seen:

@woodhousecurtis Haha u lost u silly mug fight a 10 year old next time if u want to actually win u waste of spunk

— the master (@jimmyob88) March 11, 2013

And:

@woodhousecurtis Whats funny u put so much effort in sacrificed all that time and failed to defend your mickey mouse title #wasteofspunk

— the master (@jimmyob88) March 11, 2013

As I noted, certainly not nice, but not unlike the kind of thing we see in our own comments section from time to time. I'm not particularly sure what this guy thought he was getting out of antagonizing a professional boxer on Twitter, but I can be certain he didn't think this was going to happen.

Unfortunately for the troll, Woodhouse decided that he wasn't going to take such abuse sitting down. Somehow, he managed to discover what street his antagonist lives on, and he set out to pay him a visit while mercilessly live-tweeting his trip.

Oops. Woodhouse live-tweeted all the way up to parking on the guy's street, indicating that he was "coming over for a brew" and asking anyone who knew to tell him what number house he lived at, so that he wouldn't have to "knock on every door." Predictably, the troll first went silent, and then moved on to the kind of apologies reserved for someone who knows they are about to meet a pissed off pugilist face to face.

Now, it would be quite easy to side with Woodhouse here and think that scaring the hell out of a troll would be a satisfying thing. But that would be short-sighted and stupid. Woodhouse is a professional athlete and a public persona and, if he wants to continue that career, he needs to learn pretty quickly that there are people out there who are going to say mean things. That's what the "block" button is for. In my mind at least, tracking down a member of the tweeting public instead only makes him look like a loon. Additionally, I would have to think that it makes him a prime target for future trolling.

We've written plenty about the Librarian of Congress' decision to remove the DMCA anti-circumvention exemption that applied to mobile phone unlocking, along with the White House petition that got over 100,000 votes, and the White House's quick response to say that it agreed that phone unlocking should be legal. But for reasons that are not at all clear, it seemed to think it was something that could be fixed by telco law, even though it was copyright law that got us into the mess.

Lawyer Jonathan Band, who works for the Association of Research Libraries, has put out a really excellent short legal primer on the issue, which is a highly readable 8 pages, and covers all the necessary details and background, including a few things you probably have not read elsewhere (such as how some court cases had already narrowed the old "exemption" anyway). However, the most interesting part to me is where he talks about how the White House's position is likely in violation of existing international trade agreements and almost certainly against what the administration itself, via the USTR, is proposing in the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) discussions:

The White House position, however, may be inconsistent with the U.S. proposal in the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) and existing obligations in the KoreaU.S. Free Trade Agreement (KORUS) and other free trade agreements to which the United States is a party. This demonstrates the danger of including in international agreements rigid provisions that do not accommodate technological development.

KORUS obligates the United States and Korea to adopt provisions concerning the technological protection measures based on section 1201 of the DMCA. Furthermore, KORUS mandates that the parties "confine exceptions and limitations" to the circumvention prohibition to a specific list of exceptions that matches the specific exceptions in the DMCA. Cell phone unlocking, of course, is not on that list. KORUS does allow for administrative procedures like the DMCA's rule-making to adopt temporary exemptions, but not permanent ones. The challenge before Congress is to devise a permanent exception for cell phone unlocking that does not breach the obligations under KORUS and other similar free trade agreements.

The draft text for TPP is secret, but the U.S. proposal for the IP chapter was leaked two years ago. The leaked proposal contained KORUS's closed list of exceptions. Because TPP is currently under negotiation, there still is time to make sure that the TPP does not prevent national governments, including the United States, from amending their laws to permit the unlocking of cell phones and other wireless devices.

This is why we find international agreements like ACTA, TPP and now TAFTA so worrisome. Even when they do not directly change the law, they often lock us into bad laws such that we cannot easily fix them. This is one small example, but an important one. Hopefully, the White House and the USTR will (1) release the current negotiating text for the IP chapter on the TPP so that knowledgeable people can go through and it make sure these little "easter eggs" are not present (2) make a clear and definitive statement that it will not agree to any international agreement that would do something as ridiculous as tie Congress's hands when it comes to allowing people to unlock their mobile phones.

A few years ago, we wrote about how many elected officials in Congress get to skip through airport security when they fly -- which might explain why they're not so concerned with the intrusive nature (and lack of effectiveness) of today's security theater at airports. It turns out that this only applies when they travel with law enforcement. At other times, if they're traveling alone, they do, in fact, have to go through the standard TSA process, and it appears that Senator Claire McCaskill was not too happy about her latest experience:

Today in my airport screening, test on my hands was positive. Got private, more aggressive pat down. OMG. #veryuncomfortable

— Claire McCaskill (@clairecmc) March 11, 2013

She later said that this sort of #veryuncomfortable and "OMG" experience is something she's gone through frequently due to the fact that she has a metal knee.

Of course, the real question is whether or not this will actually change anything at all. As some have pointed out, Senator McCaskill has been criticizing such pat downs for years (while also arguing in favor of "full body scanners") and it hasn't changed much. In some ways, it just feels like another piece of the theater act.

In a conversation with some folks in the tech industry recently, someone pointed out that nearly every super famous entrepreneur likely could have, at some point, been legitimately accused of violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), which is the law that prosecutors used against Aaron Swartz, and is in desperate need of an overhaul. Over at the EFF, Trevor Timm has a great post exploring how Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg all might have faced charges under the CFAA. You should read the whole thing, but here are a few snippets:

On Zuckerberg:

In 2006, while a sophomore at Harvard, Zuckerberg created a website called “Facemash” which compared photographs of Harvard’s entire population, asking users to compare two photos and vote on who looked better. Zuckerberg allegedly got access to these photos by “hacking” into each of Harvard’s nine House websites and then collecting them all on one site. It’s not clear what this “hacking” was, but since the charges against him included “breaching security,” it may have fun afoul of the law.

On Jobs:

Columbia Law Professor Tim Wu notes in the New Yorker that Apple co-founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, did acts that were “more economically damaging than, Swartz’s.” The two college roommates made what were called “blue boxes,” cheap devices that mimicked a certain frequency that allowed them to trick AT&T’s telephone system into making free long-distance calls. They also sold blue boxes before moving onto bigger and better ideas.

On Gates:

In his autobiography, Allen told the story of when the two future billionaires “got hold of” an administrator password at the company they worked at before starting Microsoft. The company had timeshared computers and Allen and Gates were getting charged for using them for their personal work.

The two men used the password to access the company's accounts and set about trying to find a free runtime account so that they could carry on programming without having to pay for the time. They also copied the account database for later perusal. However, management got wise to the plan.

"We hoped we'd get let off with a slap on the wrist, considering we hadn't done anything yet. But then the stern man said it could be 'criminal' to manipulate a commercial account. Bill and I were almost quivering."

Of course, defenders of the existing law will argue that these episodes are entirely unrelated to the later greatness that all three of these folks were eventually involved in. But that's not actually supported by the facts. Facesmash almost certainly directly led Zuckerberg to Facebook. And, in the case of Steve Jobs, he specifically told an interviewer:

“Experiences like that taught us the power of ideas…And if we hadn’t have made blue boxes, there would’ve been no Apple.”

Innovators innovate because they hack away at stuff. They push boundaries and they try new things to explore uncharted worlds. Do we really want to be punishing people like that with threats of 35 years in jail? (And, yes, the government absolutely did threaten him with 35 years.)

Most sane human beings have stopped trying to keep up with the interwined legal actions arising out of the smartphone patent wars between Apple, Google, Motorola, Nokia, Microsoft and all the rest. The cases, though, are still grinding through the courts, which periodically throw out their verdicts. According to Florian Mueller, one such decision in Germany is imminent:

Judge Dr. Matthias Zigann of the Munich I Regional Court just told Google and its Motorola Mobility subsidiary in no uncertain terms that his court is at this point (prior to counsel's argument on claim construction, infringement and validity) inclined to hold Google Inc., its subsidiary Motorola Mobility LLC and MMI's German subsidiary liable for infringement of a key Microsoft patent, EP0845124 on a "computer system for identifying local resources and method therefor", which is the European equivalent of U.S. Patent No. 6,240,360.

Here's that EPO patent:

A map of the area of a client computer (10) is requested from a map server (11). Information relating to a place of interest is requested from an information server (12) by the client computer (10). The information is superimposed or overlaid on a map image at a position on the map image corresponding to the location of the place of interest on the map. The information (or "overlay") server (12) may contain details of, for example, hotels, restaurants, shops or the like, associated with the geographical coordinates of each location. The map server (11) contains map data, including coordinate data representing the spatial coordinates of at least one point on the area represented by the map.

As the claims make clear, it's exactly what any half-way competent engineer would come up with given the task of providing certain kinds of information local to a geographical location. Moreover, it is of course implemented in software; given that Article 52 of the European Patent Convention explicitly excludes "programs for computers" from patentability, the fact that the EPO granted a patent here is an early example of how it circumvented that exclusion because a computer was used to run that software (well, doh.)

There's another problem with the patent, as Mueller's post makes clear:

Microsoft is seeking, and now very likely to obtain, a German patent injunction against the Google Maps service, the Google Maps Android client app, and web browsers providing access to Google Maps. In order to comply with the injunction that looms large, Google would have to disable access to Google Maps from computers using a German IP address, discontinue shipping the Google Maps Android app in the German market, and distribute web browsers in Germany only if they block access to Google Maps in a way comparable to Internet filters used for the purpose of parental controls.

If that turns out to be the case, and Google isn't able to code around the problem, that means that the patent was ridiculously over-broad -- essentially, it's a patent on all implementations of the basic idea. That's unlike traditional patents, where alternative, non-infringing inventions can be devised to solve a given problem.

Moreover, Microsoft can't fall back on its usual justification that it spent years of research and huge amounts of money developing this "breakthrough" idea, and therefore deserves its sweeping monopoly. According to both the European and US filings, the original patent was granted to Sean Phelan, based in London. Here's the background:

Sean started Multimap.com as a bootstrap start-up in his spare bedroom in 1995 and built it into one of the 10 most popular British web services, with revenues of £12M and profits of £1M

Sean formed Multimap.com to bring together his lifelong love of sailing and navigation with his experience with the internet and web-based technology. Through Multimap, Sean realised his vision of services based on the integration of navigation, wireless communications and the web. He is one of Europe's original internet entrepreneurs, with a unique combination of business and technical skills. In December 2007 the company was acquired by Microsoft for £30 million, cementing its position in the ranks of Britain's internet success stories.

And good for him. But buying his patent doesn't give Microsoft -- or anyone -- the right to lock out competitors from the entire online map space. If Mueller is right, and a broad injunction is granted against Google Maps, the net result will be millions of Germans unable to use this popular service in a Web browser or on their smartphones. In what way does that benefit society or promote innovation?

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

Ah, Congress. Even when they're doing something, they're good at not really accomplishing much. We've already written about some various proposals on Capitol Hill to respond to the White House's request for Congress to make phone unlocking legal, contrary to the Librarian of Congress' decision to remove it from DMCA exemptions. So far, as we noted, all of the bills really failed to tackle the real issue, and some were just poorly thought out entirely. At the end of that piece, we noted rumors that Rep. Goodlatte was introducing a bill. Late Monday, Senator Leahy (with Senators Grassley, Franken and Hatch) introduced his bill and it's believed to be the same one that Goodlatte is likely to push in the House. Since Leahy and Goodlatte lead the Judiciary Committees in the Senate and the House, it has to be assumed that this bill has the pole position in being the one likely to get traction.

If so, it's a disaster. It does nothing to fix the problem. Worse, it just kicks the can down the road in the hopes that people will forget about it. Here's what it does:

1. It tells the Librarian of Congress to "repeal" the existing failure to exempt phone unlocking and replace it with the exemption that was put in place back in the last rulemaking in 2010 (which was a weaker unlocking rule than the one before it). That "new" / "old" ruling will stick around until the next rulemaking in 2015 when the Librarian might decide to dump it again.
2. Within one year, the Librarian of Congress, with the help of the Register of Copyrights, is supposed to determine whether or not to extend the exemption further to things like tablets (as requested by the White House).
3. It explicitly states that nothing in the bill changes anything of importance.

In other words, "oh, gosh, someone noticed how totally screwed up the system is, and how the walls are crumbling, and let's just patch up this one little hole here with a bit of spackle." This is not a solution. This is a total punt by Congress. The other bills proposed so far have been bad, but this is worse.

Congress has a real chance to fix something here, but so far has chosen not to actually take a position of leadership and do anything. How typical.

I'm not sure why it is that PETA feels it needs to pick fights with video games, but it continues to do so even after its last couple of efforts (vs. Pokemon [catch ALL the fake animals!] and Cooking Mama [dead animals for dinner!]) have backfired spectacularly. Its latest target is none other than the latest Assassin's Creed game, which, at this point, exists only as a trailer.

There's plenty of assassinating and plundering on the way, it would appear, but none of that bothers PETA. Nope, it's the fake killing of fake whales that has the group back in full statement-issuing pique. Here's what it had to say about the deadly digital whaling:

Whaling—that is, shooting whales with harpoons and leaving them to struggle for an hour or more before they die or are hacked apart while they are still alive—may seem like something out of the history books, but this bloody industry still goes on today in the face of international condemnation, and it's disgraceful for any game to glorify it. PETA encourages video game companies to create games that celebrate animals—not games that promote hurting and killing them.

I don't know which intern gets handed instructions to "write something angry" about video game animal abuse, but I can only imagine they're fairly resentful of the interns that get handed plum assignments to write about actual, real-world, horrific animal abuse. Statements like these, directed at fiction, make me believe there's some sort of "DAYS SINCE LAST OUTRAGE" board posted at the PETA office, and heads (HUMAN ONLY) start rolling if it passes single digits.

Ubisoft obviously felt this statement deserved a response, and handled it with all the dignity it could muster while still leaving room for plenty of withering, bone-dry sarcasm.

"History is our playground in Assassin's Creed," Ubisoft said in a statement to the publication. "Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag is a work of fiction that depicts the real events during the Golden Era of Pirates. We do not condone illegal whaling, just as we don't condone a pirate lifestyle of poor hygiene, plundering, hijacking ships, and over-the-legal-limit drunken debauchery."

"And even if the game does glorify whaling — as it certainly glorifies the life of a pirate — I don't think it will lead to a generation of gamers who head to the Caribbean to hunt down humpbacks. Just as I don't think anyone who played the previous Assassin's Creed games have found employment as a murderer for hire."

Point: Ubisoft. Although honestly, scoring a point against manufactured outrage from one of the most prolific outrage manufacturers on the planet is a bit like putting one into your own net, in terms of effort. Still, the statement deserved a response, because (he said, mixing sports metaphors like a mad scientist with a handful of smoking flasks and beakers) if PETA's going to hang one directly over the plate, it seems a shame to pass up an opportunity to send it rocketing into the upper deck.

PETA could be a useful contributor to society if it would just focus on actual, heinous animal abuse rather than attaching bits of crazy to whatever happens to fall within miles of its actual purview. But it looks like it would much rather continue to cement its reputation as an "out there" special interest group only slightly more credible than "birthers" or conspiracy theorists utilizing numerology to detail the connection between gold prices, the Illuminati and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Now that the US and EU have officially announced the start of talks on a new bilateral free trade agreement -- sorry, a "trade and investment partnership" -- groups in both regions are trying to work out what this will mean for them and their constituents. Arguably the most important constituency of all is the public, and yet it is also the one that until now has been systematically shut out of previous negotiations for things like ACTA or TPP. One representative of that huge group -- though not, obviously, the only one -- is the Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue (TACD), which describes itself as follows:

a forum of US and EU consumer organisations which develops and agrees on joint consumer policy recommendations to the US government and European Union to promote the consumer interest in EU and US policy making.

With commendable speed, it has submitted an open letter on the proposed agreement, addressed to Ron Kirk and Karel de Gucht, who are leading their respective delegations (pdf). Early on, it states the TACD's basic position:

We believe that advancement of consumer well-being must be the primary measurement of whether such a trade pact should be adopted or not. We are very sceptical that a trade partnership built around regulatory convergence will serve consumer interests, and we will vigorously oppose a deal that dismantles existing EU and US consumer protection.

The concern here is that the trade pact will have the effect of levelling consumer protection downwards, to the lower of the two standards found in the US and EU. That might be convenient for industries looking to cut costs and boost profits, but as TACD points out, consumer interests are unlikely to be served. It then goes on to address several particular areas of concern, including copyright and patents:

Provisions on intellectual property (IP) rights should ensure governments may enact robust limitations and exceptions to rights, and limitations on remedies. IP enforcement should be proportionate and respect the right to a judicial remedy. In some areas, mandatory minimum exceptions should be addressed, such as robust cross-border exceptions for disabilities or distance education. Access to medical technologies and knowledge should not be undermined.

It also has strong views on the increasingly-problematic area of investor-state disputes:

Investors should not be empowered to sue governments to enforce the agreement in secretive private tribunals, and to skirt the well-functioning domestic court systems and robust property rights protections in the United States and European Union. Experience elsewhere shows how powerful interests from tobacco companies to corporate polluters have used investor-state dispute resolution provisions to challenge and undermine consumer and environmental protections. Investors must not be empowered to sue governments directly for compensation before foreign investor tribunals over regulatory policy (including "indirect" expropriation), contract disputes, nor guarantee a Minimum Standard of Treatment for foreign investors.

It concludes by raising the key issue mentioned at the start of this post: the fact that the public has been comprehensively excluded from previous trade negotiations, even though the latter are supposedly conducted in its name.

With talks now slated for a fully-fledged Transatlantic trade agreement, it is vital that governmental negotiators reform their engagement with consumer organisations and civil society. We must have a fully open process. Citizens in Europe and the United States will not accept a closed, secret process, with the results revealed only when negotiations are concluded for an up or down vote.

Nothing is more important to an open process than publication of negotiating texts as they are developed.

That last point is important. Once texts have been discussed during the negotiations, there is no reason not to publish them: after all, there are no "secrets" that might be revealed to the other side -- the usual excuse for not allowing the public to see texts as negotiations are being conducted. Industry insiders already have access, so the only people that would be kept in the dark by not publishing them are the 800 million citizens of the US and EU.

Just as the advancement of consumer well-being should be the "primary measurement" of whether the trade agreement should be signed or not, so the public must be recognized as the primary stakeholder that has a right to see all texts once they have been discussed. If they don't, then those negotiations simply forfeit any claim to real legitimacy in a world where basic transparency can be achieved instantly, and for almost zero cost, by publishing materials on the Web.

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