Pakistan's love/hate relationship with the internet seems to be mostly "hate" these days. Over the past couple of years, the Pakistani government has done as much as it can to cripple local access to the web, including seeking a nationwide web filtering system that would block off access to 50 million websites.

More recently, it joined a variety of nations which imposed a Youtube ban (or at least complained loudly and violently) because of Google's refusal to block or remove the "Innocence of the Muslims" video. Reacting to violent protests, Pakistan cut off Youtube, much to the dismay of its estimated 25 million internet users.

After the protests switched from decrying the offending video to decrying the offending censorious government, Pakistan decided to lift the ban... only to put it back in less time than it takes to sing [insert viral pop tune title here]:

A ban on YouTube, which Pakistan imposed after an anti-Islam video caused riots in much of the Muslim world, was lifted Saturday, only to be reinstated — after three minutes — when it was discovered that blasphemous material was still available on the site.

Much to the censor's dismay, the offending video remained just where the uploader had left it. The government stated it had "taken steps" to block offending content, but somehow the very thing that had prompted the shutdown had eluded the blockade, putting Muhammed directly in the path of badly-dubbed criticism.

This three-minute unbanning prompted another round of government-aimed criticism, this time with a bit more of a sarcastic edge, as a Pakistani journalist compared interior minister Rehman Malik to a kid playing with the light switch and pointed out that the same government that couldn't handle a website wants to be entrusted with stopping terrorism.

Unfortunately, part of the collateral damage of the Youtube ban is one of Pakistan's own -- Mohammed Shahid Nazir, a fishmonger whose song "One Pound Fish" has gone viral on the video service, racking up over eight million views.

The Nation’s report gave a sense of how famous Mr. Nazir managed to become, despite the ban on the video-sharing site in his home country: “Around 250 people, including local politicians met him at the airport, showering him with rose petals and chanting ‘Long Live One Pound Fish!’ while TV networks interrupted coverage of the fifth anniversary of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto’s assassination to show his return live.”

Of course, that's the danger of blocking or taking down content viewed as dangerous, blasphemous, heretical or just plain infringing -- very often, legitimate, non-dangerous, non-offensive content gets caught in the sticky webs of overreaching entities.

I suppose the government has to be grateful that this past weekend's up-and-down action managed to leave the rest of the internet intact. It has to be tough living down a surreptitious Youtube blockade that manages to kill your own country's internet service while blocking the Youtube connection of a handful of unrelated (except by ISP) countries. 

As our planetary odometer rolls over yet again (and we thankfully didn't cease to exist after December 21st), lots of folks are coming up with new resolutions for happier, healthier lives... but what about just longer lives? Here are just a few links on extending our lifespans indefinitely.

• Do short people live longer than tall people? Studies have shown mixed results over the last 100 years, but more recent studies are leaner towards shorter people having a slightly longer life expectancy. [url]
• The immortal jellyfish has been studied for its unique ability to reverse its aging and repeat its lifecycle without dying. However, there aren't that many jellyfish experts in the world, and we still don't know much about how/why this creature can seemingly live forever. [url]
• Nature (the scientific journal) has made several articles on aging open and free to the public. The science of senescence is fascinating, even if it hasn't really resulted in immortality. Who wants to live forever, anyway? [url]

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

We've seen a bunch of stories over the years about local businesses upset about critical online reviews on sites like Yelp and Angie's List. Sometimes these business owners go to court, but rarely get very far. However, in a hearing last month, a court in Virginia issued a preliminary injunction, telling Jane Perez that she needed to make two changes to reviews she posted on those two sites of DC contractor Christopher Dietz. Dietz had sued Perez for $750,000 over the negative reviews, and arguing that Yelp and Angie's List should be held responsible as well, despite their clear protections under Section 230.

The preliminary injunction made her change some claims about possible "stolen" jewelry as well as her characterization of a small claims lawsuit that Dietz had filed against her for non-payment (that case was dismissed due to procedural failures, though she described it as a win for her on summary judgment), but did allow the rest of the posts to remain. This was a partial victory for Perez, since Dietz wanted the entire posts removed, but it still raised some significant questions. Public Citizen and the ACLU asked the court to review, noting that this was classic prior restraint:

Thus, even in jurisdictions that allow an injunction against the repetition of a libel that has been found false and defamatory after a full trial, or in which that issue remains open, injunctions may not issue against speech that has not been finally determined to be false and defamatory. For this reason, courts have rejected attempts to obtain preliminary injunctive relief against Internet speech.

Basically, a court cannot issue an injunction on speech that might be defamatory. It needs to wait until it's actually been proven to be defamatory. As the filing notes, in this case, the court didn't even find that Dietz had shown a "likelihood of success" let alone determined that the statements were defamatory.

Thankfully, the Virginia Supreme Court quickly recognized the error and has vacated the injunction allowing the original text to stay in place while any lawsuit continues:

Upon further consideration whereof, the Court also finds that the preliminary injunction was not justified and that the respondents have an adequate remedy at law.

Good news for free speech, though it's unfortunate that the lower court didn't get it right the first time. Of course, as always, this kind of thing makes you wonder what good it could have possibly done Dietz to file this lawsuit. Whether or not the original allegations were true, now he's made it clear that he's willing to sue over reviews as well. It seems like most people might see that and decide to hire a contractor who not only has good reviews, but doesn't have a history of suing his customers over their online reviews.

We've been covering a number of stories about copyright trolling law firm Prenda Law lately, and each time, we're somewhat amazed at their really brazen attempts to abuse the court process to basically get information which they can then use to pressure people into paying Prenda not to be sued over copyright infringement. Some of the more amazing cases we've highlighted include the one in Florida where the judge accused Prenda of fraud on the court after a court hearing that was worthy of a comedic movie. And then there's the ongoing questions about the mysterious Alan Cooper who may or may not be Prenda founder, John Steele's, housekeeper, rather than an actual executive running a firm that Prenda is representing. Oh, and let's not forget Prenda's big bag of tricks in another set of cases. Basically, every time Prenda Law / John Steele pop up, it's not long before serious questions follow.

So... here we go again. The site DieTrollDie has the story of a Prenda case in Colorado against one William Cisa and "1385 "joint tortfeasors." Basically, Prenda is trying to get information on 1,386 people... from whom they will then demand settlements. Unfortunately, the judge in that case initially allowed "discovery" to go forward, allowing Prenda to get some info on all of those people. Eventually, the magistrate judge realized that something sketchy was going on and reversed the order on discovery and killed the outstanding subpoenas to ISPs for info. The magistrate judge, Kathleen Tafoya, also made it clear to Prenda not to contact anyone whose info it had received:

Insofar as any personal identifying information of the non-party “joint tortfeasors” has already been provided to Plaintiff from the “joint tortfeasors’” ISPs, Plaintiff is prohibited from further communicating with these subscribers.

Sounds good... except that the anonymous person behind DieTrollDie noticed that a lawyer hired by Prenda, Timothy Anderson, had been filing lawsuits for Prenda in Virginia -- including some against the people associated with the IP addresses uncovered in the Cisa case. And, remember, the CO court made it clear that Prenda is prohibited from communicating with those people... and yet it's filing lawsuits.

The person behind DTD sent an email to the court alerting it to this likely violation of Judge Tafoya's order... and soon after that Anderson sought to dismiss the Cisa case entirely, without bothering to respond to the claims of violating the order. Whether or not the judge decides to do something about this, I imagine that the judges in the cases in Virginia may be informed about the background here...

Whatever you thought of the so-called "Occupy" movement of the past year or so, it seems clear that there has been at least a bit of overreaction to them. I mean, treating these protests, which have, by and large, been peaceful, as terrorist groups is just silly. But, as you may have seen over the past few days, that's exactly what the FBI did (as uncovered by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF)), and they did it in a coordinated manner with both Homeland Security and privately held banking corporations. This certainly isn't the first time government organizations have allowed for the appearance of impropriety this way, but just as when DHS held a press conference from Disney's HQ, there's a certain flaunting feeling when the coordination with private companies against the public is so blatant.

All that being said, you'd at least expect the FBI, no matter what level of corporate bowing they wish to engage in, to at least keep American citizens apprised of threats against their life. Unfortunately, it would appear the FBI disagrees when the citizens in question are Occupy leadership, as they allowed a plot to murder Occupy leadership in Texas with suppressed sniper rifles go untold until a rights group dug it up.

Last week, Digital Journal reported that the documents obtained by PCJF detailed how the FBI cooperated with the Department of Homeland Security, US military and private corporations to monitor and investigate Occupy Wall Street protesters as "domestic terrorists" and "criminals." The documents prove that federal agencies are "functioning as a de facto intelligence arm of Wall Street and corporate America," PCJF said.

Thorough analyses of the documents has now revealed a heavily redacted file that clearly mentions a plan to use snipers to assassinate Occupy protesters. The names of the groups or individuals involved in the murderous plot have been redacted, so it is impossible to identify them at this time. What is known is that the FBI never alerted any of the potential victims of the danger to their lives.

We're talking heavily redacted text here, which strips out a bunch of details, but here's the text that is available.

An identified [redacted] of October planned to engage in sniper attacks against protesters in Houston, Texas, if deemed necessary. An identified [redacted] had received intelligence that indicated the protesters in New York and Seattle planned similar protests in Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and Austin, Texas. [Redacted] planned to gather intelligence against the leaders of the protest groups and obtain photographs then formulate a plan to kill the leadership via suppressed sniper rifles.

What's plain as day is that some group somewhere was plotting to murder OWS leadership in Texas. It's also clear that the FBI never bothered to inform the targets of the threats against their lives. This stands in apparent contrast to how closely they worked and coordinated with private banks to handle the OWS protests as a whole. And, remember, this is the same FBI who has put tremendous effort over the past few years into breaking up its own terrorist plots. You'd think that when it had a chance to go after actual plots to assassinate leaders of a political movement, they might, you know, actually do something and then trumpet the success in stopping a real plot. Apparently not.

So the lesson here is simple. If you're a private bank, the FBI will help you demonize non-violent protesters as "terrorists," but if you're a protester, you don't get to know that you might have an infrared dot dancing on the back of your head -- or have the FBI take it as serious as one of its own made up terrorist plots.

In the latest example of just how broken our patent system is, Joe Mullin has an excellent and detailed article unveiling one of the latest patent trolling scams: using some vague and highly questionable patents, combined with a series of shell companies, to send out tons of letters to small businesses, demanding approximately $1,000 per employee from any company that has a scanner connected to a network which has a "scan to email" function (as most new scanners do). The story is bizarre and complex, but that's part of the "game" that the trolls are playing to try to hide their trail.

Go read the long version, but the more compact version is that it appears that patent trolls are learning from some of the "innovations" of today's copyright trolling programs in which the focus is to broadly hit a ton of small possible "licensees" in the hopes that a reasonable percentage pays up. Traditionally, patent trolling mostly focused on larger companies with big bank accounts, thinking that most would rather just pay up than deal with the lawsuit. But this new generation is even more nefarious. The example in the article is a series of ridiculous patents originally granted to "Laurence Klein," which lawyers are now claiming cover using a scanner that's connected to the internet to email a scan. Here are the patents in question:

• US Patent 6,185,590: Process and architecture for use on stand-alone machine and in distributed computer architecture for client server and/or intranet and/or internet operation environments
• US Patent 6,771,381: Distributed computer architecture and process for virtual copying
• US Patent 7,477,410: Distributed computer architecture and process for virtual copying
• US Patent 7,986,426: Distributed computer architecture and process for document management

The article talks about how a company called Project Paperless LLC started sending around threat letters about those patents, telling companies that they had to pay $1,000 per employee if they had a scanner that was networked and had such a feature -- which scanners from HP, Brother, Xerox and Canon all do. But, rather than go after those companies, the patent troll in this case claims that any company using one of their scanners is liable and has to pay these outrageous sums. One of the companies who received the notice, BlueWave Computing, led by Steven Vicinanza, decided this was ridiculous and fought back, following the Drew Curtis / Fark "How to fight patent trolls" plan to a tee: he pointed out he didn't infringe, made it very, very clear he would fight this to the end and that he was going to make it as painful as possible for the troll. While Paperless Post sued BlueWave, it quickly backed down and dropped the lawsuit two weeks later, leading BlueWave to issue a press release (continuing with the Fark plan of publicizing the result).

While all this was happening, there was also an ongoing effort by some unnamed people to expose Project Paperless' effort and to show that the patents aren't valid.

Among the things they discovered was that it appeared that some of the partners in the law firm that "represented" Project Paperless, likely had an ownership interest in the patents. Hill, Kertscher, and Wharton, LLP is the firm, and research suggested that partners Steven Hill and Scott Wharton had holding companies, Bonita Sunrise and Wexford Holdings, that at least partially owned the patents. Given that exposure, plus the success of BlueWave in fighting loudly, what happened next was only too predictable: Project Paperless wrapped up its various lawsuits and... "sold" the patents to MPHJ Holdings, whose ownership is completely unclear. Soon after that, a whole series of companies popped up sending letters to companies demanding similar per-employee-payments for network-connected scanners. Among the companies Mullin uncovered doing this: AccNum, AllLed, AdzPro, CalNeb, ChaPac, FanPar, FasLan, FulNer, GosNel, and HunLos. Note a similarity in the style of all of those names?

Mullin includes a (redacted) threat letter from AllLed as an example. He also has the transcript of his phone call with the number listed on the letters (it's the same number on all the letters):

As for the phone number on the letters, 855-744-2360—I called it. The conversation was not enlightening.

"Thank you for calling the legal department," said a youngish-sounding man. "This is Kevin, how can I help you?"

I was calling about a letter I was holding from AllLed, I explained. Kevin asked for my letter's "file number," which was the one thing I couldn't give him—it would have revealed the source from whom I had received the letter. I told Kevin I was a writer who had been given the letter by someone else. All I wanted to do was contact AllLed, LLC directly—so how could I do that?

"We don't have any information on the entities that send the letter," he said. It was just an answering service. "We don't have their contact information."

"Well, who are you the 'legal department' for?" I asked.

"Hmmm," said Kevin. "Legal department."

"I don't get it—is 'Legal Department' a real company?" I persisted.

"Hmmm," said Kevin again. "We're just Legal Department."

"Well, you work for someone, right? What company do you work for?"

"This is Legal Department. That's all we can say."

As Mullin notes, this isn't a one-off case, either. There have been a growing number of similar attempts by patent trolls to go after large numbers of people or companies further down the supply chain, clearly following the traditional trolling strategy of just seeking lots of "settlements" from people who can't afford a lawsuit and don't understand the specifics.

No matter how you look at this, though, it's yet another example of how the patent system is completely broken. It hearkens back to the 19th century when scam artists roamed the countryside hitting up farmers for "licenses" for "patents" on common farm equipment. At that time, they were called patent sharks, and Congress actually changed the rules on what could be patented to fix the problem. Of course, today Congress isn't known for actually fixing problems.

We already wrote about how the Center for the Study of the Public Domain recently published their list of things that should have entered the public domain in the US this year, but didn't. But that's not the only reason to lament. 2012 was particularly painful for the public domain for a separate reason, as the Center noted in a lament about the shrinking public domain, with a harsh, but completely justified, condemnation of the ridiculous Supreme Court decision in the Golan case, which tragically was decided the very same day as the SOPA/PIPA protests. Just as the public was telling DC the importance of not strengthening copyright law, the Supreme Court announced that there was no problem at all with Congress taking works out of the public domain and putting them back under copyright by force.

This decision marked a significant departure from the “bedrock principle” that once works enter the public domain, they remain there, free for anyone to use and build upon. The law at issue in Golan – Section 514 of the Uruguay Round Agreements Act – “restored” copyright to foreign works that had entered the American public domain for any of three reasons: the author failed to comply with copyright formalities, the U.S. did not have copyright relations with their country of origin at the time of publication, or they were sound recordings fixed before 1972. Golan was different from Eldred because while the works in Eldred were on the brink of entering the public domain, the works at issue in Golan were already in the public domain, and conductors, educators, film archivists and others were legally using them.

In upholding the law, the Golan majority explicitly endorsed the position that the public has no rights to the public domain. None. Under U.S. law as declared by the Court in this case, copyright is now officially “asymmetric.” While those who have copyrights enjoy vested, legally protected rights, “[a]nyone has free access to the public domain, but no one, after the copyright term has expired, acquires ownership rights in the once-protected works.” The majority could not seem to imagine that the public had rights other than “ownership” over a free, collective culture. In a dissenting opinion, Justices Breyer and Alito asked “Does the [Constitution] empower Congress to enact a statute that withdraws works from the public domain, brings about higher prices and costs, and in doing so seriously restricts dissemination, particularly to those who need it for scholarly, educational, or cultural purposes – all without providing any additional incentive for the production of new material?” Their answer was “No.”

We were just discussing recently if the government taking away copyright could be considered an illegal "takings" issue under the Constitution. For those who support such an argument, I can't see how they can, at the same time, then argue that works seized from the public domain and locked away under copyright aren't a similar "taking." And, yet, the Supreme Court basically argued that Congress can take away the public domain at will. This is horrifying for a variety of reasons:

What are the limits on this decision? Could Congress recall the works of Shakespeare, Plato, Mozart and Melville from the public domain, and create new legalized monopolies over them? It is hard to imagine anything more contrary to the First Amendment – would privatizing Shakespeare by government decree abridge freedom of speech? – or to the attitudes of those who penned the Copyright Clause that limits Congress’s power to create new exclusive rights. Yet if one reads Golan, one searches in vain for any limiting principle on Congress’s actions. In this decision, Justice Ginsburg’s majority opinion effectively denies the public domain any meaningful Constitutional protection. Under the U.S. Constitution, says this case, the public domain is “public” only by sufferance. It may be privatized at any moment, at the whim of the Congress and without violating the Bill of Rights.

In our opinion as legal scholars, this decision is shockingly cavalier in its dismissal of the importance of the public domain to free speech and to the progress of science and culture. It is also, again in our opinion, unsupported by the text, structure and history of the Constitution. Indeed, it seems flatly contrary to the dictates of the First Amendment and the limitations imposed by the Copyright Clause. Yet its message, however lamentable, is clear. If the public domain is to be protected in the United States, it is not going to be through the Constitution, but through reasoned argument, democratic pressure and legislative action. The public domain will be “public” only so long as the public demands it.

And this is one of the many reasons why it's important for the public to understand the importance of this stuff. It's become obvious that Congress and the Supreme Court don't understand it at all.

Reason has a great (if disappointing) post noting the very different reactions from both the press and the public to silly and exaggerated stories about privacy issues around Facebook as compared to the Senate reapproving the FISA Amendments Act, which has almost certainly allowed massive surveillance of and collection of data and communications from millions of Americans. You'd think the latter would deserve more attention, but nope.

There's currently nothing on the New York Times web site about the votes (either yesterday's or today's). The Associated Press wrote a story about the House's vote in September but nothing yet from yesterday or today. The Washington Post did post a story this morning. A Google news search will land hits with mostly tech or web-based media outlets.

Compare the lack of response to the way people react to privacy breaches connected to Facebook or Twitter. Media outlet after media outlet carried reports about a private picture of Randi Zuckerberg, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg's sister, accidentally being made public somehow through social media channels. And how many of your Facebook friends posted that silly, pointless "privacy notice" on their walls?

The post, by Scott Shackford, notes that you can't just blame the media for failing to cover the FISA Amendments Act votes -- they're just responding to what the public wants. And because Facebook seems more "real" to people than the NSA recording all their info, it seems to hit closer to home, even if one is a real abuse of privacy, and the other isn't.

The degradation of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments is an academic or theoretical matter for so many people and often lacks a strong human narrative to draw public outrage. Indeed, the very secrecy behind the application of federal domestic wiretapping has made it impossible to introduce a human narrative. We do not even know how many Americans have been spied on due to these rules (which was what Wyden's amendment was trying to fix). Like our foreign drone strikes and indefinite detention laws, the public's distance from the actual rights violations (and government-fueled fears of acts of terrorism) is a useful barrier for the state to get away with expanding its authority beyond the Constitution's limitations without significant voter pushback.

Whereas, just about everybody's on Facebook. Facebook's privacy systems affect them directly every day, and they see it. So Americans are furious that Instagram might sell their photos, while shrugging at what the federal government might do with the exact same data.

As he points out, this is why it's been so important for the government to keep the details of its spying program a secret. If people realized that the government really was sweeping up all sorts of data, they might realize that this directly impacts them too. But, that's all secret.

No matter how brazenly people abuse the DMCA takedown process, and no matter how ridiculous the notices get, it seems like there's always someone waiting to do something even stupider. This latest incident, submitted by Anonymous American, is a serious contender for the crown dunce cap: a DMCA takedown over a login page.

And not just any login page, but the barely-modified default login page of an open source website platform, which the operators of iPhotographyCourse.com claim infringes on... their own barely-modified default login page of a different open source website platform. Yeah. Jenny McCann, who runs the Institute of Photography website built on the Moodle content management system, received a takedown notice claiming that her login page was infringing. When she asked for clarification, she was simply told "entire page copied". Here's the supposedly infringing page:

And here's the "original":

Even at first glance, the claim is obviously idiotic. There is nothing similar about the pages beyond the purely functional login page elements. But things get really amusing when you realize that the iPhotographyCourse page is virtually unaltered from the default Wordpress login page:

The only expressive choices—a requirement of copyright protection—are the inclusion of the logo (the rather poor inclusion, as there are visible artifacts at the top of the image that show the logo was sloppily clipped from the site's front page banner, meaning the designer didn't even have a copy of it on hand) and the rounding of the button corners (which may actually just be a Wordpress version discrepancy). As if that wasn't enough, the supposedly infringing login page is itself just a minor modification of the default Moodle page:

A new frame, color scheme and accent image—nothing major, but actually significantly more design changes than the iPhotographyCourse page, and far more likely to qualify for some level of copyright protection. And, quite clearly, in no way an infringing copy.

According to later comments from McCann on the Moodle forum thread, the login page was specifically included among other items in the takedown which related to actual content on the site. It could be that there is more merit to the other complaints, but McCann does not believe there is, and judging from the utter stupidity of this example, I'm inclined to suspect she's right. Either way, the people behind iPhotographyCourse, like so many before them, have exposed their true intentions by targeting such an obviously non-infringing page: this isn't about protecting intellectual property, but interfering with competition by abusing the DMCA process. Either that, or they are tragic victims of our ownership culture who also haven't logged into a website in the past ten years.

One of the most depressing developments in recent years has been the gradual adoption of legal approaches to tackling copyright infringement that a few years ago would have been regarded as totally unacceptable, and the hallmarks of a tinpot republic run by some ridiculous dictator. Here's another example, this time from Israel, involving secret courts and inscrutable judgments, as Jonathan Klinger explains:

Israel is to attempt, again, to pass a bill that authorizes police officers to issue warrants to Internet service providers to block or restrict access to specific websites involved either in gambling, child pornography or copyright infringement. The bill itself proposes that such administrative procedures shall be clandestine and that court decisions shall be made ex-parte, where some of the court's ruling will not be even disclosed to the owner of the website, and the court may hear and use inadmissible evidence.

So not only are we talking about a process that can be conducted in secret, based on "inadmissible evidence" and in the absence of the accused (ex-parte), but one where core aspects of the final judgment may be withheld from the individuals affected, who will therefore have no way of knowing what they stand accused of, and hence no way of challenging the block.

Some might regard this as proportionate when combatting crimes as serious as child pornography; but undermining basic principles of law to tackle gambling sites, or those allegedly providing unauthorized access to copyright materials, seems an incredibly high price to pay for very little benefit. It's yet another indication of the way in which a continuing but unwinnable war on sharing has seriously damaged fundamental aspects of how justice and society now function.

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

Last month, we wrote about some of the more ridiculous subsidies that Hollywood studios get these days, in which approximately $1.5 billion in taxpayer money goes straight to Hollywood studios in the US (and even more internationally). While the reasoning given for most of these programs is that they create jobs, a thorough study of the various programs showed that almost never happens. Of course, most of those programs have been state subsidies. The federal government also has its own subsidies for Hollywood -- and they just got renewed in the fiscal cliff deal, despite being scheduled to expire.

It's one of the head scratchers that some noted would take people by surprise given all of the talk about the "fiscal cliff." Here's what it looks like: Like many such things, this started out with good intentions, with the idea being to help small, independent films stay in the US. But that changed:

The original tax incentive applied to productions costing less than $15 million to make ($20 million in low-income areas). The 2008 extension applies to all films, up to a deduction of $15 million (or $20 million in low-income areas). The incentive is especially generous to television series; it applies to each TV episode.

Apparently, this sucker costs the American taxpayer about $150 million per year. As that link notes, "Disney's Gotta Eat." Yes, this was just one of many such "pork" efforts slipped into the fiscal cliff deal -- along with things like providing Goldman Sachs subsidies for its headquarters, special breaks for NASCAR, tax benefits for Puerto Rican Rum, and more -- so perhaps it's not that surprising. But, it's stories like this that explain why so few people trust Congress, and why they're fed up with "crony capitalism."

We've been covering the bizarre situation surrounding some of copyright troll Prenda Law's cases that involve two companies -- AF Holdings and Ingenuity 13 -- where a mysterious person named "Alan Cooper" was listed as CEO. That, alone, isn't so mysterious. But what made it odd was that a guy who took care of one of John Steele's homes reached out to some of the courts hearing cases involving those two companies to note that his name is Alan Cooper, and he had reason to believe that Prenda had used his name illegally as the pretend CEO of these companies. A lawyer in California fighting some of these Prenda / Ingenuity 13 cases, Morgan Pietz, called this to the attention of the court. In response, Prenda's California lawyer, Brett Gibbs, threw a bit of a hissy fit in which he refused to answer some simple questions concerning who actually runs Ingenuity 13, and who "Alan Cooper" really is. Gibbs then sought sanctions against Pietz, which were quickly rejected (pdf) by Judge Otis Wright.

Pietz then asked the court to basically put the case on hold and to order Gibbs / Prenda to respond to his questions concerning AF Holdings and Ingenuity 13:

This motion is made on the ground that "good cause" exists to authorize the limited discovery requested, per Rule 26(d)(1), because, very recently, deeply troubling factual allegations have been made which suggest the plaintiff is engaged in a widespread and systemic fraud on the Courts affecting thousands of ISP subscribers. Specifically, very troubling questions have been raised as to whether Prenda Law, Inc., has misappropriated the identity of one Mr. Alan Cooper of Minnesota, holding him out in federal court filings as the principal of plaintiff Ingenuity 13, a shell entity organized in St. Kitts and Nevis, without Mr. Cooper's knowledge or consent. For weeks, undersigned counsel, and others, have sought answers from Prenda Law, Inc. and its clients AF Holdings, LLC and Ingenuity 13, LLC, to try and put these concerns to rest. None of the answers proffered to date have been at all reassuring; to the extent Prenda has engaged on the issue at all, the only answers provided have been evasive to a degree that is almost comical.

The filing goes on to point out that Prenda could have avoided all of this by simply producing the Alan Cooper in question and showing that it's not John Steele's housekeeper.

If Prenda Law would simply identify the "Alan Cooper" who it claims is the true principal of Ingenuity 13, LLC and AF Holdings, LLC, or even confirm that such a person actually exists (notwithstanding the allegations of Alan Cooper of Minnesota), this ex parte application would not be necessary. Essentially, whether or not there is another Alan Cooper is the million-dollar question. However, Prenda Law has explicitly stated that it will not address any of the troubling factual circumstances raised by Mr. Cooper, or answer any questions on this topic, unless it is compelled to do so.

Courts don't often grant this kind of thing... but this time it did. Right after Christmas the judge granted the order in full, meaning that Gibbs and Prenda are now required to answer the following questions:

1. Other than the Alan Cooper of Minnesota who is represented by attorney Paul Godfread, is there another Alan Cooper who is currently the principal of Ingenuity 13, LLC — yes or no?
2. If the answer to the first interrogatory is yes, state all contact information for this Alan Cooper, including current home address, business address, and telephone number.
3. Other than the Alan Cooper of Minnesota who is represented by attorney Paul Godfread, was there ever another Alan Cooper who was, in the past, the principal of Ingenuity 13, LLC — yes or no?
4. If the answer to the third interrogatory is yes, state all contact information for this Alan Cooper, including all known home addresses, business addresses, and telephone numbers.
5. Other than the Alan Cooper of Minnesota who is represented by attorney Paul Godfread, is there another Alan Cooper who is currently the principal of AF Holdings, LLC — yes or no?
6. If the answer to the fifth interrogatory is yes, state all contact information for this Alan Cooper, including current home address, business address, and telephone number.
7. Other than the Alan Cooper of Minnesota who is represented by attorney Paul Godfread, was there ever another Alan Cooper who was, in the past, the principal of AF Holdings, LLC — yes or no?
8. If the answer to the seventh interrogatory is yes, state all contact information for this Alan Cooper, including all known home addresses, business addresses, and telephone numbers.
9. If the answer to the third interrogatory is yes, state each position this Alan Cooper held at Ingenuity 13, LLC and the dates such position was held.
10. If the answer to the seventh interrogatory is yes, state each position this Alan Cooper held at AF Holdings, LLC and the dates such position was held.
11. Eleventh Special Interrogatory: Was the Alan Cooper of Minnesota who is represented by attorney Paul Godfread ever a principal, even unwittingly, of Ingenuity 13, LLC?
12. Was the Alan Cooper of Minnesota who is represented by attorney Paul Godfread ever a principal, even unwittingly, of AF Holdings, LLC?
13. On November 26, 2012, when undersigned counsel emailed Brett Gibbs to ask for a routine extension request, Mr. Gibbs responded by email “I would have to check with our client about that request. Just an FYI, our client usually does not like to grant these types of requests on short notice unless there is a reasonable chance that settlement may occur in the case.” Later, Mr. Gibbs purported to have an answer on his query to the “client” regarding an extension. Who is the client contact at Ingenuity 13, LLC that Mr. Gibbs spoke with on this matter? Note, no details of the communication are being requested, just the name of the client contact.
14. Reference is made to the following civil actions filed by AF Holdings, LLC and Ingenuity 13, LLC in the Northern District of California: 4:2012-cv-02049-PJH; 3:2012-cv-02393-CRB; 5:2012-cv-02394-LHK; 3:2012-cv-02396-EMC; 3:2012-cv-02404-SC; 4:2012-cv-02411-PJH; 3:2012-cv-02415-CRB; 4:2012-cv-03248-PJH; 3:2012-cv-04218-WHA; 5:2012-cv-04219-LHK; 5:2012-cv-04446-EJD; 5:2012-cv-04447-RMW; 5:2012-cv-04448-EJD; 3:2012-cv-04982-CRB; 3:2012-cv-04216-JSW; 3:2012-cv-04217-RS; 5:2012-cv-04445-LHK; 3:2012-cv-04449-SC; 3:2012-cv-04450-MMC; 3:2012-cv-04976-JSW; 3:2012-cv-04977-WHA; 4:2012-cv-04978-PJH; 5:2012-cv-04979-LHK; 5:2012-cv-04980-EJD; 3:2012-cv-04981-RS. With respect to the copyright assignments attached to the complaints in these actions, as Exhibit B thereto, which all appear to have a similar signature by "Alan Cooper," please state whether the person who signed these assignments was the Alan Cooper of Minnesota who is represented by attorney Paul Godfread — yes or no?
15. If the answer to the fourteenth interrogatory is no, then state all contact information for the person that did sign these documents, including all known home addresses, business addresses, and telephone numbers.

The order also requires them to produce identification documents for the people identified in the questions above, along with proof of their employment at the companies in question. Oh yeah, and also to produce the "signature" of Alan Cooper on documentation which Gibbs had claimed (in earlier court documents) that he had seen on various other court documents.

Given that the judge has, in short order, denied Gibbs' request for sanctions while granting Pietz's request for such discovery, it would appear that the judge isn't buying Prenda's story and is at least curious as to whether or not Prenda can turn up an actual Alan Cooper who is not John Steele's housekeeper. It appears that Prenda has until January 10th to produce the information. Of course, instead of doing that, Prenda appears to be throwing the judicial equivalent of a shit fit.

On New Year's Eve, Gibbs filed one of the more extraordinary motions you'll see, arguing that Judge Wright, in merely asking Gibbs to answer who the CEO is of Ingenuity 13, is impossibly biased against copyright holders and should be removed from the case. I am not joking.

The story Plaintiff now sets forth is rather simple: Honorable Judge Otis D. Wright, II simply abhors plaintiffs who attempt to assert their rights with respect to online infringement of pornography copyrights. Honorable Judge Wright’s abhorrence of such assertions of right under the Copyright Act has risen to a level such that a neutral observer would have reasonable grounds to question Honorable Judge Wright’s impartiality. Indeed, in light of Honorable Judge Wright’s conduct, Plaintiff contends that it would be impossible to convince a neutral observer that Honorable Judge Wright regards this particular type of case impartially.

What follows is a rather ridiculous diatribe, in which Gibbs argues that somehow Judge Wright has it in for companies like the ones he represents, because they dare to enforce their copyrights. He points to an earlier ruling from Judge Wright in a Malibu Media case in which the judge is clearly aware of how copyright trolling works, and says it's somehow unfair for the judge to actually call these companies out on the fact that they're using the court system as part of a business model, rather than for a legitimate judicial purpose. More importantly, he never points out why this absolves him from having to identify just who is Alan Cooper, and whether or not Prenda lied to the court about Alan Cooper and the various companies he's associated with. Of course, nowhere does the evidence show that Judge Wright is biased against copyright holders -- merely concerned that those who are engaged in copyright trolling have a legitimate purpose for what they're doing. His actions, to date, have all revolved around requiring such companies to prove that they're not just in the legal shakedown business -- but rather than do that, Gibbs is throwing a temper tantrum. Crazy.

The record labels have a long history of knowing how to manipulate key numbers to their advantage. Look how labels have manipulated the various charts over the years and you'll find that it's a big part of how they do business. So it probably struck little by surprise to hear that the labels were now being accused of massively manipulating YouTube view counts to make certain songs look a hell of a lot more popular than they really are. The only problem? It's not actually true.

The DailyDot -- who normally does a fantastic job -- broke the story that got most of the attention, reporting:

Google slashed the cumulative view counts on YouTube channels belonging to Universal Music Group, Sony/BMG, and RCA Records by more than 2 billion views Tuesday, a drastic winter cleanup that may be aimed at shutting down black hat view count-building techniques employed by a community of rogue view count manipulators on the video-sharing site.

Universal's channel is the one that took the biggest hit. According to figures compiled by the YouTube statistics analysts at SocialBlade, the record company's YouTube channel lost more than 1 billion views from its preexisting tally of 7 billion views Tuesday.

Lots of other publications then picked up on the Daily Dot version and suddenly the story was everywhere -- in particular claiming that the labels were being punished for faked video views. Only problem? That's not really true. The report suggests that YouTube has begun a big campaign against view inflation by YouTube users across the board. That part is true. But the untrue part is that the major labels were faking so many views. Instead, it turns out that most of the issue was just that the labels had moved their videos from YouTube to Vevo -- the online video site that the labels had started a few years ago (built on top of YouTube technology). As Billboard notes, the "de-spamming" effort did delete about 1.5 million views from Sony and Universal Music videos -- so there may be some funny business, but that's tiny compared to the 2 billion views that disappeared. But the reason those went away was much more mundane:

The answer comes in the second way that YouTube changed its view count. The company recently decided to remove view counts for videos that are no longer live on the channel, or so-called "dead videos." For Universal and Sony, that meant thousands of music videos that over the past three years slowly have migrated to the VEVO channel, which is jointly owned by the two companies. A senior label executive confirmed the migration....

That meant high-profile videos that once lived separately on the Universal and Sony YouTube channels have been relocated to Vevo. As a result, the views that those videos received during their time on the dedicated label channels were taken away in YouTube's latest "clean up" effort.

In other words, those views happened; they weren't "faked" or even double counted when they went on to Vevo. But because the videos are no longer on the channel, YouTube considers them "dead videos." They still live on in YouTube, just under a different channel.

Considering how many people have been sending this story over, I know lots of people would like to believe Sony Music and Universal Music faked 2 billion views and were now being punished for it, but it's just not the case.

A couple weeks ago, I pointed out that, while some stuff was entering the public domain in many countries around the globe on January 1st, here in the US, we got a big fat empty set. The good folks over at the Center for the Study of the Public Domain at Duke University have put out their depressing annual post about what should have been entering the public domain this year if we still were working under the previous copyright law regime, before it changed in 1978 via the 1976 Copyright Act. Under that law, the maximum length of copyright was 56 years -- meaning that works from 1956 would have entered the public domain yesterday. There were some impressive works that will remain locked up for decades: The post lists out a bunch of books that would be going into the public domain:

• Winston Churchill, A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, Volume I and Volume II
• Philip K. Dick, Minority Report
• Ian Fleming, Diamonds are Forever
• Fred Gibson, Old Yeller
• Billie Holiday, Lady Sings the Blues
• Alan Lerner, My Fair Lady
• Eugene O'Neill, Long Day’s Journey into Night
• John Osborne, Look Back in Anger
• Dodie Smith, 101 Dalmations

They also list out a bunch of movies, music, scientific publications and much, much more. All locked up. As they note, the more popular of these works continue to survive (but not have the same sorts of revivals they might otherwise have), but lesser works are literally disintegrating and disappearing because we can't make copies. Extra shameful are some of the movies that were made on top of existing public domain works -- yet whose own adaptations may never reach the public domain. Movies like Forbidden Planet and Around the World in 80 Days were examples of works built on the public domain, but which themselves remain completely locked up. It's very sad if you support culture.

And, of course, this only covers works that were kept under copyright for the full 56 years. Since the earlier copyright law required a renewal at 28 years, and 85% of copyrights were not renewed (suggesting that the vast majority of copyright holders don't value them past 28 years), lots of works from 1984 should also be entering the public domain, but probably won't get there for another century or so.

And the real sad part is just how much culture we're losing because of all this:

Perhaps the most troubling aspect of the current copyright term is that in most cases, the cultural harm is not offset by any benefit to an author or rights holder. Unlike the famous works highlighted here, the vast majority of works from 1956 do not retain commercial value. This means that no one is benefiting from continued copyright, while the works remain both commercially unavailable and culturally off limits. The public loses the possibility of meaningful access for no good reason.

It's difficult to see how this situation makes any sense at all.