We've been pointing out for a while that one of the reasons why advancements in 3D printing have been relatively slow is because of patents holding back the market. However, a bunch of key patents have started expiring, leading to new opportunities. One, in particular, that has received a fair bit of attention was the Formlabs 3D printer, which raised nearly $3 million on Kickstarter earlier this year. It got a ton of well-deserved attention for being one of the first "low end" (sub ~$3,000) 3D printers with very impressive quality levels. Part of the reason the company said it could offer such a high quality printer at a such a low price, relative to competitors, was because some of the key patents had expired, allowing it to build key components without having to pay astronomical licensing fees. A company called 3D Systems, however, claims that Formlabs missed one patent. It holds US Patent 5,597,520 on a "Simultaneous multiple layer curing in stereolithography." While I find it ridiculous that 3D Systems is going legal, rather than competing in the marketplace, it's entirely possible that the patent is valid. It just highlights how the system holds back competition that drives important innovation, though.

3D Systems claims that Formlabs "took deliberate acts to avoid learning" about 3D Systems' live patents. The lawsuit claims that Formlabs looked only for expired patents -- which seems like a very odd claim. Why would they only seek expired patents? Either way, the lawsuit claims that all of the articles that highlighted how the expiration of patents made Formlabs' printer possible meant that Formlabs must have known about its patents. Again, not quite sure the reasoning makes much sense here.

But what's really crazy is that 3D Systems isn't just going after Formlabs... but Kickstarter as well. You can read the whole filing here. 3D Systems is claiming that because Kickstarter takes a cut, it's equally liable.

Upon information and belief, Formlabs and it sales agent Kickstarter knew or should have known about, or were willfully blind to, 3D Systems' extensive patent rights in the area of three-dimensional printing and stereolithography, including but not limited to 3D Systems' U.S. Patent No. 5,597,520 covering improved methods of stereolithographically forming a three-dimensional object by forming cross-sectional layers of an object from a material capable of physical transformation upon exposure to synergistic stimulation, by virtue of their sales of machines touted by Formlabs as using "stereolithography (SL) technology," which is a technology invented and extensively patented by 3D Systems and its founder Charles Hull.

The accusations against Kickstarter are really ridiculous -- suggesting that it encouraged infringement:

Upon information and belief, Kickstarter contributes to the infringement of the '520 Patent by offering to sell and selling within the United States the Form 1 3D printer which is an apparatus for use in practicing patented processes of the '520 Patent, constituting a material part of the invention, knowing the same to be especially made or especially adapted for use in an infringement of the '520 Patent, and the Form 1 3D Printer is not a staple article or commodity of commerce suitable for substantial noninfringing use.

Upon information and belief, Kickstarter knowingly or with willful blindness induced and continues to induce infringement and possessed specific intent to encourage another's infringement by, or was willfully blind as to the '520 Patent and with respect to, its activities and Formlabs' activities described above.

Most bizarre of all? 3D Systems claims that because Kickstarter encourages "hacker and maker" projects, it's knowingly encouraging infringement -- as if "hackers and makers" are only about infringement. This is a really cynical attempt to tie those words to a negative connotation where clearly none is meant.

Upon information and belief, Kickstarter had specific intent to infringe the '520 Patent by virtue of its agency, business and sales arrangement with Formlabs, which had actual knowledge of the '520 Patent and/or was willfully blind to the existence of the '520 Patent as set forth in the allegations above.

Indeed, in Kickstarter's own Guidelines as to "Project must fit Kickstarter's categories" at http://www.kickstarter.com/help/guidelines?ref=footer, under section 02, under "View Design and Technology requirements," Kickstarter is actively encouraging "hacker and maker" companies to make 3D printers for Kickstarter to sell, stating: "Not everything that involves design or technology is permitted on Kickstarter. While there is some subjectivity in these rules, we’ve adopted them to maintain our focus on creative projects: D.I.Y. We love projects from the hacker and maker communities (weekend experiments, 3D printers, CNC machines) and projects that are open source. Software projects should be run by the developers themselves."

I've read those paragraphs over a few times and I still can't see what the issue is there. How is supporting hackers and makers somehow evidence of "intent to infringe"?

Either way, 3D Systems has now permanently placed itself into the category of companies not worth ever doing business with. Suing Kickstarter just because a competitor was selling a better, cheaper 3D printer and you got jealous? Shameful.

A few years ago, we wrote about some hackers who exposed a really basic security flaw in AT&T's setup for iPad users. Basically, if you fed an ID to a website, it would return the email address of the account. And, on top of that, AT&T appeared to hand out the IDs in numerical order, so it was easy to just run through a bunch of IDs in order and collect a ton of users' info. And that's what these hackers did -- collecting a variety of emails including the President of News Corp., the CEO of Dow Jones and Mayor Bloomberg in New York. They got lots of other government officials as well: "Rahm Emanuel and staffers in the Senate, House of Representatives, Department of Justice, NASA, Department of Homeland Security, FAA, FCC, and National Institute of Health, among others."

This seemed like a pretty massive flaw in the design of the system by AT&T... but of course, all of the blame is falling on the guys who exposed the hole. It seems noteworthy that the pair of hackers who exposed this are known for trollish online behavior, and Andrew Auernheimer, who goes by the name weev, has flat out called himself an internet troll. It seems that the FBI decided to use the trollish nature of Auernheimer and collaborator Daniel Spitler to argue that this hack actually violated the incredibly poorly-worded and misunderstood Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). That's a law that we've been discussing for a few years now, as law enforcement and courts keep trying to stretch the definition of what counts as "unauthorized access" under the bill.

Unfortunately, in this case, a jury was convinced that the discovery of this security hole left by AT&T was actually a crime, and Auernheimer is now facing five years in jail. Not surprisingly, he plans to appeal. Of course, part of the issue is that Auernheimer discussed, but did not actually do, a variety of bad things he could have done with the data in question, before eventually just revealing the security hole to the media.

Obviously, there may be a fine line between "white hat" exposure of security flaws and nefarious activity, but given that all that really happened here was the exposure of really poorly thought-out programming by AT&T, it seems bizarre that the guy who exposed it is now facing years in jail.

You may recall that, earlier this year, we wrote about a very troubling ruling in the UK against the founder of SurfTheChannel, Anton Vickerman. STC was a linking site, no different than others that had been found perfectly legal in the UK. After the conviction, which resulted in Vickerman being put in jail for four years, some additional info came out that was really horrifying. First, there was the fact that this criminal case, including the investigation, was driven entirely by a private anti-piracy organization, FACT, which is financed by the Hollywood studios. Yes, a criminal case that was run by private interests. Actual law enforcement had refused to proceed with the case, saying that there wasn't evidence of direct infringement. Furthermore, some "anonymous" notes from the court room suggested a judge was on a mission to put Vickerman away.

Now comes the news that Vickerman has been hit with contempt of court and given an extra month in jail all for releasing some of the documents that revealed what a farce the case was. Once again, the judge seems focused on punishing Vickerman for his attitude, rather than any real problem:

Vickerman, 38, apologised to Judge John Evans, who had previously branded him the "most arrogant" defendant he had ever come across.

Vickerman, from Gateshead, said: "I genuinely believed that this was in the public domain, so I apologise for that."

The judge jailed Vickerman for an extra month for the contempt, saying: "You were aware that there were restrictions upon what you could publish.

That whole "most arrogant" part is really troubling. If you were genuinely innocent and being railroaded in a criminal case by private money (the same money that financed a competitor to your site), I think you'd be pretty pissed off too.

It's almost Thanksgiving (here in the US at least), and the traditional meal for this holiday is the humble turkey. So here are a few links about turkeys that might be informative or entertaining if this is your first time cooking a large bird. Have a fun (and safe) Thanksgiving, everybody!

• Underwriters Laboratories (UL) continues to deny a safety certification for any turkey fryers because they're so dangerous if used incorrectly. UL even states that the risks are not worth a great-tasting bird. [url]
• Turkeys have been known to "attack" people when taunted. Wild turkeys make lousy house pets. [url]
• There are a lot of meaningless food labels for turkeys -- such as "all natural" or "minimally-processed." But if it's labelled "fresh" that actually means the turkey has not been cooled below 26 degrees Fahrenheit and has not been fully frozen. [url]
• Alton Brown has a Thanksgiving turkey recipe that promotes the benefits of brining. Alton can't guarantee that you won't overcook your turkey, but brining increases the odds that a cooked turkey won't turn out dry. [url]

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

Six years ago, we wrote about Andy Kessler's fascinating book, The End of Medicine, which got me to totally rethink how nearly every society approaches healthcare today. Even though the book is years old, I recommend it frequently. The key issue is that we still tend to treat healthcare as something driven by two key industries: pharmaceuticals and insurance. However, the book is based around the idea that, in pretty much every other industry, technology tends to (1) get better and (2) get cheaper. But that doesn't happen much with healthcare -- and that's because it's all about insurance and drugs. That means it's really about treating the symptoms, rather than actually trying to prevent problems.

One story in the book that has stuck with me is the description of a possible home-based heart scanner. The argument was that we really aren't that far off from being able to wake up in the morning, walk into the bathroom and scan your body, such that your computer (or phone?) would immediately pop up a 3D scan of key internal organs, such as your heart, allowing you to see if everything's okay. No waiting for chest pains before you get your heart checked out. Why not check out your heart every single day, and have the 3D model immediately available?

We're not quite there yet, but a few months ago, I was introduced to Dr. Fabien Beckers and his co-founders of the fascinating startup Morpheus Medical -- and when he described the product they were working on, which some have called "a Google Earth for cardiologists", I immediately recalled that product from Kessler's predictions. Morpheus is building an amazing product, where a simple heart scan creates a 3D model of the heart non-invasively and shows flows and pressure. Morpheus doesn't go quite as far as the example in Kessler's book yet, but this is a serious team and the existing product looks amazing. You can read a bit more about the offering here. Among the key features is the fact that they can just use data from a quick MRI to build this 3D model and show all sorts of useful data to doctors at a fraction the cost of what's out there today. A product that is cheaper, faster, better and can help keep people healthy? It seems amazing.

The team leading the company really is a bunch of all-stars. Dr. Beckers has run a series of companies, often driven by the ability to use technology to advance social good. For example, before Morpheus, he built and ran a company called Kameleon Technologies -- which was initially built off the idea of helping design a better guidance system for the blind. That technology then expanded to be useful in the consumer space, using the same concept to create interactive billboards for advertising purposes, called Mobizone. And, oh yeah, he has a PhD in quantum mechanics from Cambridge University -- hence the "Dr." title. The rest of the team is equally talented. The origin of the company came from a meeting between Dr. Beckers and John Axerio-Cilies, who was working on a PhD in fluid dynamics at Stanford. Add to that Albert Hsiao who has a PhD in bioengineering, and Shreyas Vasanawala, an associate professor at Stanford whose own works is focused on pediatric MRIs, and it's a monster team of innovators building an offering that I hope drives the healthcare revolution in the direction that Kessler described in his book.

It will not surprise some that the biggest roadblocks the company may face are regulatory, rather than technological. But the amazing thing is that the biggest one may be immigration regulations. You see, Beckers, who put the company together and has been instrumental in building it up, is not an American citizen, and due to our immigration policies, there's a very real chance he can't get a visa to stay in the US. Is this really the sort of thing that the US wants to be known for? Kicking out pioneering innovators like Dr. Beckers as he seeks to build a company that can really drive the healthcare market forward would be a massive loss to the US and the public at large, especially if it leads to difficulty in keeping the company going. I know the experience first hand, having tried to start a company many years ago, where my partner couldn't get the appropriate visa, leaving us unable to proceed.

Years after reading that Kessler book and imagining a world where we might finally focus on using technology to really solve healthcare problems outside of the pharma industry, I'm hopeful that we may finally be near such a world. Hopefully our short-sighted immigration policies let that kind of innovation move forward (and move forward here in the US).

We've been covering how the UN's International Telecommunications Union (ITU) has been moving forward with its plans next month to consider a number of proposals to takeover aspects of internet regulation and governance. There are, of course, a number of different proposals being submitted by different countries. The problem, of course, is that the setup of the ITU is not open to the public, and there are some special interests involved -- mainly by countries with oppressive governments looking to use this as a way to gain control over the internet for the sake of censorship, as well as local (often state-run or state-associated) telcos using the process to see if they can divert money from successful internet companies to their own bank accounts. While the ITU likes to present itself as merely a neutral meeting place for all of these proposals, what's been clear for a while is that the ITU leadership has taken an active role in encouraging, cultivating and supporting some of the more egregious proposals.

Some of this is due to the way in which the ITU leadership views the internet. Some of it is due to an organization that realizes its own mandate is obsolete and it really serves little purpose anymore, so it's coping by pretending its mandate is much broader, but doing so in a way that shows it has little understanding of the internet other than "something we want a mandate over."

This seems to be one situation where, in the US, pretty much everyone is aligned against this effort. Politicians and companies -- including telcos, tech companies, service providers and more -- are all quite worried what an ITU-governed internet would lead to (mostly funds being diverted from innovative companies to stagnant players and a much less open internet). But the US has only one vote in the upcoming WCIT event where many of these proposals will be reviewed. ITU boss Hamadoun Toure pretends that the public has a voice in this process, but ridiculously shut down the public commenting tool on the ITU's website before telling everyone about it (nice trick, that).

However, if the ITU won't let the public comment, there's nothing preventing the public from speaking out elsewhere. That is, after all, one of the amazing wonders of the internet, which the ITU refuses to understand: it's a tool of communication and expression. Along those lines, Google has revamped its "Take Action" page to urge people to speak out about the whole ITU/WCIT process which will be kicking off on December 3rd. Also, if you want a simple video that explains what's happening, the one at WhatIsTheITU.org is really fantastic. It explains how the internet grew based on an open, bottom up process of technological experts, rather than a closed, top down setup by a large bureaucracy. And we should be concerned when anyone tries to flip that process.

Over at Forbes, Tim Lee has reminded us that it's the 40th anniversary of the case in which the Supreme Court really banned software patents, arguing that they were really just math, and you can't patent math. That case, Gottschalk v. Benson, had been seen to suggest that software programs, by themselves, could not be covered by patents. As the ruling noted:

It is conceded that one may not patent an idea. But in practical effect that would be the result if the formula for converting BCD numerals to pure binary numerals were patented in this case. The mathematical formula involved here has no substantial practical application except in connection with a digital computer, which means that if the judgment below is affirmed, the patent would wholly pre-empt the mathematical formula and in practical effect would be a patent on the algorithm itself.

As Lee notes, the above effectively applies to any software patent that can be reduced to an algorithm:

Of course, a similar argument could be made about any software patent. A computer program is nothing more than a sequence of mathematical operations—a complex mathematical formula. Therefore, any patent that claims a method of solving a problem by programming a general-purpose computer is, like the patent the high court struck down 40 years ago, effectively a patent on a mathematical algorithm.

So why do we have so many software patents today? Well, as Lee notes, it's basically because the appeals court, CAFC, that was set up to handle all patent appeals (among other things) effectively overruled the Supreme Court on this issue (to be fair: the Supreme Court's ruling was not 100% clear):

Beginning in 1989, the Federal Circuit began handing down a series of decisions that made it easier to get software patents. By the end of the 1990s, all practical limits to patents on software had been dismantled, sparking the software patent arms race that continues to this day.

Yet theoretically, the Supreme Court’s 1972 ruling is still a binding precedent. The Supreme Court re-iterated its rule against patenting software in 1978. The Supreme Court did uphold a patent on a software-controlled rubber-curing machine in 1981, but its ruling emphasized that this was because the patent covered a physical machine that happened to have a software component, rather than claiming a software technique by itself.

I have argued that it's a mistake to specifically try to "carve out" software patents through some sort of regulatory measure, but I have no problem with the court finally recognizing that algorithms alone are math and shouldn't be patentable. I still think that won't fully solve the problems of the patent system (and that we'd be well-served by some other fixes), but it would be a good place to start. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court has avoided addressing the question:

Unfortunately, the Supreme Court hasn't made any effort to rein in the Federal Circuit on the software patent issue. While the Supreme Court saved us from patents on medical diagnostic techniques this year, it hasn't examined the validity of a software patent since 1981. It's past time for the Supreme Court to insist that lower courts respect its precedents, which, after all, are still the law of the land.

What Lee leaves out is that it's not just that the Supreme Court hasn't taken any such cases, but that when it has taken cases where it could comment on this, it has actively avoided the subject, and basically done everything to avoid having to make a direct ruling on this issue. That's unfortunate.

I have to admit, there are times when I find South Korea immensely confusing when it comes to technology. They appear to embrace the hell out of the more modern view of the music business. They're heavily invested in their population's internet connectivity. Yet they can also get goofy when it comes to intellectual property, such as when they decided patenting their military uniforms was a surefire way of keeping the North Korean military from dressing alike. They've also put in place a mildly enforced version of 3 strikes legislation to appease American entertainment companies.

Admitting all that, however, my surprise has boiled over upon learning that a South Korean man was found guilty of "praising, encouraging or propagandizing" North Korea under their "National Security Law" for tweets associated with his account. His crime? Well, mostly retweeting North Korea's official Twitter account, tweeting out a couple of links to North Korean propaganda songs, and tweeting nonsensical nonsense (is there any other kind?) about their neighbors to the north. Oh, and he also mercilessly mocked the hell out of this country he's accused of supporting as well.

Mr. Park denied praising the North Korean government and said his intention was to lampoon the North Korean regime. In a North Korean post that he tweaked and sent out on Twitter, he replaced a swarthy North Korean soldier's face with a downcast version of his own and the soldier's rifle with a bottle of whiskey.

A freedom of speech advocate, who authorities arrested for mocking governments and generally being a smartass? Huh, you know what? That sounds like something that might happen in North Korea. Just to wrap this up in a neat little bow for everyone, South Korea arrested a man for exercising speech because they incorrectly thought he was propagandizing a despotic country. The irony is so thick here, I can hardly breathe.

In his ruling, the presiding judge, Shin Jin-woo, acknowledged that some of Mr. Park's posts were parody. But he said Mr. Park's overall acts were tantamount to "supporting and joining forces with an antistate entity." The justice said his court suspended the prison term, however, because Mr. Park promised not to repeat his act.

You might read this and think that the court was lenient, suspending his jail sentence. I call BS on that. It isn't lenient to agree not to jail someone in exchange for giving up their rights. Now, lest you think that this speech right doesn't exist in South Korea and I don't know what the hell I'm talking about, that's under intense debate.

The United Nations and human rights groups have called on South Korea for years to repeal or revise the law, which the country's past military dictators had used not only against people suspected of being spies but also against political dissidents. But the law has proved resilient in a society where many fear North Korea, which has launched military provocations against the South in recent years.

See, South Korea today is a Republic. They're supposed to enjoy rights like the freedom of expression and freedom of the press. Oh, freedom of the press, that reminds me, I have to mention the final ironic cherry on top of this irony sundae.

The Twitter account whose posts Mr. Park forwarded is run by the North Korean government Web site, Uriminzokkiri, which the South Korean news media regularly cite in their reports.

That's right, kids. Mr. Park was found guilty of disseminating information from a North Korean Twitter account...that the South Korean press regularly uses to disseminate information. You can't make this stuff up.

Last month we wrote about an interesting case in which a judge effectively called the bluff of Malibu Media, a copyright trolling operation that has filed 365 lawsuits, targeting about 6,000 people. And, of course, it's never taken a single one to an actual trial, because that does not appear to be the goal. Instead, it's all about getting people to settle, and it sounds like Malibu has been successful on that front. In the case we mentioned last month, the judge made it clear that he wanted Malibu Media to actually go through a trial, and highlighted four defendants who had claimed innocence, and wanted to use those as a "bellwether" trial, to effectively test Malibu's theories. The judge, Michael Baylson, was pretty clear that he would not be happy if Malibu Media tried to squeeze out of the case.

At the beginning of the month, Malibu filed its "amended complaint" against the "John Does" in question, which gave up on some of the arguments in the original complaint and instead focused on direct infringement claims -- while also expanding the number of works infringed.

Yesterday, the Does hit back. It's interesting to note that they've signed up Marc Randazza (along with Jordan Rushie) to help them, as Randazza has both been on the other side of some porn copyright trolling cases and was also the lawyer largely responsible for bringing down the famed copyright trolling operation Righthaven. His work with porn studios to take part in similar cases has resulted in some worries of ulterior motives in taking on John Does in other cases, though that seems to be a bit paranoid.

Either way, the Does hit back hard. They're throwing the kitchen sink at Malibu Media. Among other things, they're claiming that the decision to expand the case to other possible infringements is ridiculous since the defendants use dynamic IP addresses, and Malibu is basing the other infringements on the same IP, but a totally different date or time. Also: the defendants claim that Malibu initially argued that all of the Does needed to be lumped together in a single lawsuit because they represented a "swarm" and as such had to be tried together. Except, in the amended complaint, they move away from that completely (no surprise, since the judge carved out just these few defendants). However, the defendants point out the inconsistency:

When considering litigating the “swarm theory,” Malibu was faced with the prospect of dozens of defendants, joined in their common defense against the plaintiff, with an initial seeder who very well may have had a license to publish the works to BitTorrent or elsewhere. When push came to shove, Malibu decided to dismiss more than eighty percent of the defendants it initially sued, despite its prior claims that the cases were brought against unified “swarms.” Malibu apparently thought better of the swarm theory, and decided to reduce the number of defendants. However, Malibu cannot properly abandon its foundational theory and still leave the case against Doe 13 intact. The swarm theory of liability relies upon a “swarm” of defendants and renders these now-dropped defendants indispensable to the action. Without even an allegation against the initial seeder, we have no idea whether Malibu itself seeded the relevant files. As Malibu does freely distribute the relevant films, it is entirely possible, if not most likely, that the initial seeder had permission to distribute the files via BitTorrent. If he or she did not, it is entirely likely that a participant in the swarm, from whom Doe 13 received the file, may have had such permission. Malibu’s omissions speak loudly in favor of dismissal. Unless Malibu re-joins these previous defendants, including the initial seeder, the Court must dismiss the action against Doe 13, who is by Malibu’s own theory incapable of according Plaintiff full and complete relief.

That paragraph has footnotes to point out that the company Malibu was using to obtain IP addresses, IPP (formerly Guardaley -- remember them?) is accused of actually seeding the files in the first place, which would suggest the copies were authorized. Of course, it's worth noting that Randazza, when on the other side of these cases, has used the swarm argument in the past.

Either way, that's just the warmup for the problems with the amended complaint. There's also a few other problems -- such as that it doesn't appear that Malibu legitimately owned the copyright in question. Oops. First, there's the fact that the filmmaker argued that the key film was a "work for hire" made for Malibu. Except, Malibu only came into existence in early 2011 and the movie was made years earlier. Malibu claimed this was an oversight in the registration process and then sought to register the copyrights properly just recently. However, again there are problems, as the assignment from the filmmaker failed to assign the specific rights under Section 106 of the Copyright Act, which are what you need if you want to sue. This was the critical defect in the Righthaven cases, in that they pretended to assign those rights, but it was in name only since the original copyright holder really retained all the key rights provided under Section 106. Furthermore, the defendants argue that the assignment statement does not really qualify as an assignment, and is, at best, a license.

In this case, the Assignment contains no provision of any exclusive rights from Field to Malibu Media. The assignment is silent as to what, if any, rights Field has within the films. Rather than transferring any discernible exclusive rights under Section 106 to Malibu Media, Mr. Field has executed what is essentially a quit-claim deed to Malibu Media, giving Plaintiff a jumble of unidentified rights (or perhaps none at all) that, on the face of the assignment, do not include the rights required to sustain an infringement action: exclusive rights under Section 106. Absent any indication that Field possessed full, undivided interest in the copyrighted works or exclusive rights therein, there is no basis on the face of the assignment for finding that Malibu Media acquired any exclusive rights and nothing in the assignment addresses past infringement.

Then they point out that even if the assignment is proper, it still doesn't help Malibu, because it is not clear when the assignment was made. And, under the law, while you can transfer the right to sue (along with other exclusive rights) for past infringements, that needs to be expressly stated in the assignment. That's not the case here.

Then there are other issues concerning the "swarm" argument. The defendants point out that if they were being sued as part of a swarm, the total awards across all the defendants can't surpass the maximum statutory rate. Yet with a bunch of defendants having settled, it's possible that Malibu has already been "made whole."

Malibu has already recovered significant funds in connection with the infringements alleged in the Amended Complaint. Prejudice against Does #6 and #19 before this action was set for a bellwether. (Dkt. Nos. 16 and 17). Presumably, this was because Malibu received adequate settlements from these defendants. In fact, Malibu may have received doubly-adequate settlements from them – in which case Malibu is now triple-dipping by seeking damages that have already been satisfied by third parties Malibu intentionally kept out of this litigation.

Because the swarm is global in scope, and the Plaintiff has likely already been made whole by other undisclosed swarm members, nothing short of full disclosure and setoff would allow Doe #13 to evaluate Plaintiff’s ability to bring this action that it repeatedly claims to be based on the uploading and downloading the exact same file. Since the Plaintiff seeks statutory damages, if the Plaintiff has already collected the statutory maximum for this work from other defendants, then the Plaintiff must stop visiting the well. Malibu filed Notices of Voluntarily Dismissal with

Thought they were done? Not yet. They also claim that Malibu is abusing subpoena powers outside of what was alleged in the complaint. In the amended filing, Malibu notes that its "partner" in identifying infringement, IPP, passed along the info that at least one of the Does has been accused by another IPP customer of infringement as well. As the defendants point out, that's completely irrelevant to the case at hand:

Nucorp, Ltd. is not a party to this action or any other action against Doe #13, and this allegation is scandalous and impertinent. Furthermore, set forth in more detail below, adding allegation also violated two court orders forbidding Malibu from abusing its subpoena power for purposes outside of what was alleged in the Complaint. Accordingly, Paragraph 53 and Exhibit “F” of the Amended Complaint should be struck .

In one of the other Motions to Dismiss, questions are also raised about whether or not Malibu has the proper and necessary licenses to do business in Pennsylvania where the lawsuit was filed.

There's more, but you get the idea. It certainly looks like some are trying to give Malibu the Righthaven treatment. And we all remember how that went...

On Friday, we wrote about the unsealed seizure warrants against Megaupload, and noted that they showed how Megaupload had assisted in a criminal investigation, in which they were told not to interfere with the files, but then those very files were used as evidence against Megaupload itself. It's now come out that this was part of the case against NinjaVideo, which we wrote about a few times. Apparently, NinjaVideo used Megaupload to store some of its files, and the DOJ sent a warrant to Megaupload, which they complied with:

“Megaupload complied with the warrant and cooperated with the government’s request,” Rothken said. He said Megaupload had gotten “a number of such warrant and subpoena type requests a year and still have an expectation that as classic ‘online service providers’ they are immune from liability for the acts of users who are the target of such warrants and subpoenas.”

But, as the unsealed warrants show, the DOJ later used those same files as evidence that Megaupload "knew" there were infringing files on its servers, leaving out the bit about how they had requested Megaupload not delete them. That seems like yet more fairly egregious behavior by the DOJ in a case that's chock full of it. Once again, I'm left wondering how the DOJ could do so many questionable things in their pursuit of Dotcom. It really looks like they bought Hollywood's mythic story about Dotcom hook, line and sinker, and believed that once they took him down, the case would simply fall into place.

Rothken calls the government’s argument “outrageous.” Given the NinjaVideo search warrant, and the government’s specific request for secrecy and to retain the files, Megaupload might have been accused of evidence-spoliation if it had taken the movies down, says Rothken.

“If anything, such a cooperation request by the government bolstered Megaupload’s view that as a cloud storage intermediary it was operating lawfully even if some users may have been misbehaving,” Rothken said.

Back when the Megaupload indictment and arrests first came down, I had a conversation with a couple of lawyers who insisted that, given the claims in the indictment, the DOJ must have had really strong evidence against Megaupload. But pretty much every discovery since then has suggested that they only had strong evidence in their minds...

It's typical to preface a Techdirt article, for me at least, by backtracking to a bunch of articles on related subject matter. I'm not going to do that with another piece on the TSA. Not because there isn't enough material to choose from. Oh no, there's simply too much of it, so if you want to see insanity in its most naked form (this statement assumes you don't live next to Gary Busey), just click here and you won't be disappointed. That said, even those outraged by the pure idiocy of the TSA's post 9/11 production of security theater will normally decry it as a massive waste of money or a gross encroachment on civil liberty. And they're right on both counts. Still, the more striking fact should be that the TSA, an agency with the mission of keeping us alive, is causing death.

Compare the dangers of air travel to those of driving. To make flying as dangerous as using a car, a four-plane disaster on the scale of 9/11 would have to occur every month, according to analysis published in the American Scientist. Researchers at Cornell University suggest that people switching from air to road transportation in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks led to an increase of 242 driving fatalities per month—which means that a lot more people died on the roads as an indirect result of 9/11 than died from being on the planes that terrible day. They also suggest that enhanced domestic baggage screening alone reduced passenger volume by about 5 percent in the five years after 9/11, and the substitution of driving for flying by those seeking to avoid security hassles over that period resulted in more than 100 road fatalities.

Yup, you read that correctly. The TSA, in an attempt to keep us safe through the wonders of naked scanners and light petting, has pushed people away from air travel and out onto the road...where they're dying. I suggest we all stop thinking of the TSA as just a waste of money and add "death-causer" to the list. The absurdity of this fact is striking, to say the least. This is a government agency that has failed on every measurable level, from cost effectiveness, to its terrorist-catching-batting-average, to the blatant offense it causes to American ideals... and now we know people are dying as a result of all this nonsense.

This is just another symptom of our overreaction to the constant drumbeat of the Islamic-extremism threat. While death of American citizens is chief amongst my concerns, the economics are flat out insane.

According to one estimate of direct and indirect costs borne by the U.S. as a result of 9/11, the New York Times suggested the attacks themselves caused $55 billion in "toll and physical damage," while the economic impact was $123 billion. But costs related to increased homeland security and counterterrorism spending, as well as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, totaled $3,105 billion. Mueller and Stewart estimate that government spending on homeland security over the 2002-11 period accounted for around $580 billion of that total.

Three Trillion dollars in response to a single, albeit terrifying, event. I'll excuse us all, myself included, for the first year or so after 9/11, a time that I remember quite well in that I was scared. Much in the same way I'm legitimately frightened at a horror movie when the masked weirdo with the knife rips open the shower curtain to stab some barely memorable woman. But then, a couple minutes later, my heartbeat returns to normal and I remember that it's all just a movie. This holiday season, as all of us endure the uptick in our travel schedules, remember that. It's time for the TSA budget to reflect ongoing reality, not the single terrifying moment.

Since the GOP decided to chicken out on holding the very necessary debate on copyright reform, let's keep the debate going without them, and hope they join in. As we've discussed, the Republican Study Committee released a fantastic report from staffer Derek Khanna, and then retracted it under lobbyist pressure. The RSC wants to claim that the paper didn't go through its full review process, but we've heard from multiple sources that this is simply not true, and that the RSC is pushing this story to appease angry lobbyists (apparently the US Chamber of Commerce has taken over as the leader of the cause on this one, following the initial complaints from the MPAA and RIAA). Either way, all this has done is draw much more attention to the report, which you can still read here.

But, clearly, some in Congress realize this is a debate worth having. So if they're too afraid of some industry lobbyists, we might as well kick off that debate for them. We're going to do a series of posts digging into Khanna's paper. The paper, of course, starts off by debunking three commonly believed myths concerning copyright law, which are often used by policy makers to justify bad policies.

The purpose of copyright is to compensate the creator of the content: It's a common misperception that the Constitution enables our current legal regime of copyright protection -- in fact, it does not. The Constitution's clause on Copyright and patents states:

"To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries" (Article I, Section 8, Clause 8)

Thus, according to the Constitution, the overriding purpose of the copyright system is to "promote the progress of science and useful arts." In today's terminology we may say that the purpose is to lead to maximum productivity and innovation.

This is exactly correct, as we've discussed numerous times before. This is not to say that one of the results of copyright law is to compensate the creator. That's clearly a large part of how the law is supposed to function. The thinking behind this is not too complicated: if we can ensure greater compensation through limiting competition and supply via artificial monopolies, it drives up the price of those goods, leading to greater income.

But that theory includes several assumptions which may not be true. Let me present a hypothetical to make the point. I am not saying this is absolutely the case, but let's say we have scenario A and scenario B:

Scenario A
Artist's works are locked up under copyright, but he sells them for $1 per song downloaded.
Fans pay for and download 100 songs.

Scenario B
Artist frees up his work to the public domain, and encourages them to be spread freely. Thousands of copies of the song are downloaded. Artist sets up a Kickstarter to fund next batch of songs, and quickly raises $10,000

Again, I'm not saying that this is what happens in all cases. I'm just making this point: I don't believe that a single, sane person would argue that scenario A is better than scenario B. In scenario B the artist has more fans, more ability to make new music and more money. It's a much better position. But that income does not rely on copyright.

And that's the simple point that seems to get lost in this debate. Because copyright exists and is so prominent in the business model of artists, many incorrectly believe that it is the business model for content creators, and there can be no other. But, what we've really done is set up a crutch. Because the government has "picked winners and losers" by backing copyright as the core piece of a business model, most content creators have focused almost exclusively on monetizing via copyright. And thus, they argue, any attempt to change copyright is an attack on their incomes.

But, if we all agree that scenario B is a better scenario for the artist and for the consumer, then we've already shown that copyright, itself, may not be the best tool for artists seeking to make a living. I'm not saying that it absolutely isn't -- but that we have little evidence that copyright is actually the best such tool, and plenty of evidence that it can stifle and limit speech and creativity along the way.

There are many ways to make revenue as an artist. The Future of Music Coalition's Artist Revenue Streams worked out 42 different revenue streams for artists. Certainly, many of them rely on copyright, but a significant number do not. But content creators rarely get the chance to fully explore those other methods, because they're so wed to the idea that copyright is it.

Either way, if the idea is to maximize artist revenue, then we should be looking at what actually does that -- what actually results in greater artist revenue? Because there is no evidence that expanding copyright law seems to have that impact.

So all Khanna and the Republican Study Committee (briefly) were saying, was that the purpose of copyright law is to benefit "the progress of science and the useful arts." Part of that certainly may be to help artists make money, but that is not the ultimate goal, nor would it be reasonable as the ultimate goal. If we want to maximize artist revenue, let's explore that issue, but just assuming that's the goal of copyright is clearly faulty, leading to a very distorted market.

Back in October, we wrote about a report that the FTC was preparing to file antitrust charges against Google. In trying to find out more, the story kept shifting. First, we heard it was all about "search manipulation" in putting Google-related info on top of search results (i.e., search for a location and a Google Map shows at the top of the page). Then, there was some talk about how it was going to focus on how recently-purchased-by-Google Motorola Mobility was abusing standards-essential patents. If it was the latter, that seemed like a weird way to go, since it was so unrelated to Google's main business. Similarly, the whole "search manipulation" claim seemed odd. What kind of "harm" is it when someone searching on Google for an address is shown a Google map. It seems like it actually benefits consumers.

Also, for all the talk of Google hurting others, I just don't see it. I'm constantly surprised at how rarely it seems that Google-related results top the list of searches on relevant things. Every time we bring this up, we see people claim that Google should be taken down for favoring its own services when people do searches, but we so rarely see that. Just as an example, I just did a Google search on "browser" and this is what I see: An ad for IE and then Firefox... and then Wikipedia. Chrome doesn't check in until fourth.

How about airplane travel, since that's a key one (Expedia is one of the companies driving the case against Google): Google stuff seems nowhere to be found. Instead you have Expedia up top. In second place you have Kayak... the company that powers Microsoft's travel search. So... I'm at a loss.

So too, it appears, are some folks at the FTC. Despite all the bluster, there are growing indications that the FTC may blink, as it's realizing that perhaps it really doesn't have enough evidence to make the case.

Talking to a number of folks in DC concerning this, I keep hearing the same story over and over again. They're all variations on the following: FTC boss Jon Leibowitz is getting set to leave the job (and go into the private sector, of course), but would like a "defining moment." Somewhere in the last year or two, he decided that going after Google for anti-trust violations would be such a crowning moment. As such, he brought on a number of folks to help him do that, including Tim Wu, who had just written an entire book basically saying that big companies are bad. While I respect Tim, and agree with him on lots of things, I've never understood his argument here. It just makes no sense. Earlier this year, the FTC also brought on outside litigator Beth Wilkinson, which seemed like a clear statement of plans to sue.

And ever since then they've been trying to come up with something. And, from the sound of things, generally turning up nothing. So, if you're Liebowitz and have effectively made a big bet on going after Google, what do you do? One strategy might be to leak a bunch of stories about how the FTC is all set to sue Google... and then tell Google that it better "settle."

Yes, the FTC may have taken the patent troll technique: threaten to sue, but agree to "settle" at a price that is less than it would cost Google to defend, such that the FTC can claim a "victory." Over the last month or so, it's appeared that the FTC was really just hoping Google would play its assigned role and cough up some cash and Liebowitz could claim victory and ride off into the sunset (or cushy corporate job, whichever pays more). In fact, I'd guess there are still decent odds that this happens. Google may well decide that it's cheaper to just pay up and get this behind it. But, from the articles coming out this week, it appears that (1) Google may be willing to call the FTC's bluff and (2) the FTC may be realizing that Google knows it doesn't have the goods to bring a successful anti-trust case to completion.

Either way, it's pretty sad that we're reduced to this. If there was a clear case of consumer harm via unassailable market control, then antitrust activity could make sense. But there seems to be no evidence that we've seen to support that. Consumers, for the most part, seem pretty happy with Google. If they didn't like Google Maps popping up when they searched on an address, they could use any number of other search engines. Personally, I'd find it a lot more annoying if I was forced to see other mapping offerings. Google Maps works for me, and when I search on an address, it's what I want.

So, really, who is the FTC protecting? Consumers? Doesn't seem like it. Google competitors? Is that really the FTC's job? Jon Liebowitz's legacy? Is that what's become of the FTC these days? Really?

For an artist who has worked tirelessly to maintain his artistic integrity (even going so far as to change his name/wear a mask), Prince has done more than most to ensure that his vision remains intact all the way up to the fans' ears. Unfortunately, he seems to view this "connection" with his fans as one-way.

Between starting one of the first CwF websites and swiftly abandoning it after collecting $79/head, suing YouTube, eBay and the Pirate Bay for "making his work available," declaring the internet to be "over" (and thus, unworthy of hosting his music) and claiming that cover versions physically destroy the original tunes (???), Prince has done everything he can to prevent fans from connecting with him.

To that end, Prince has yet again flexed his tiny, presumably purple, muscles to order a fan to cease and desist doing fan-type stuff. Troy Gua, a "serious Prince obsessive" and conceptual artist, just received a cease and desist letter from "Prince's people", ordering him to knock off his puppet-based adoration of the Artist.

Somewhere deep down, we're sure Troy Gua expected he'd someday have to face saying goodbye to the much-lauded miniature doll that was at the center of his art series, Le Petit Prince. This was no small project -- Gua literally recreated many famous Prince moments with the little guy and even included detailed props like the Purple Rain motorcycle. Ironically, we were recently emailing with Gua to do a piece about the new calendar he was putting out featuring some of these photographs, but this week Gua sadly informed us the dream is over. He received a cease and desist letter from the real Prince's people on Monday.

Not only did Troy Gua receive an angry email, but also a very official hard copy via FedEx. The order states that Gua is not allowed to "exhibit the photo work or the sculptural doll," which covers pretty much the entire Le Petite Prince project. Gua has decided not to fight back and has left instructions on his website asking fans to only leave positive comments.

Gua's taking the high road, but Prince seems unwilling to allow any sort of expression based on him or his works to see the light of day anywhere. CityPages points out that another artist was hit with a C&D for posting Prince remixes for streaming only at her SoundCloud page. Presumably, the upcoming calendar would be considered commercial use of Prince's image (I suppose) and that may have urged on the Purple Hammer, but DJ Lenka Paris' mixes weren't being sold or made available for download, so it's not entirely a crackdown on commercial use.

It may be that Prince wants all things "Prince" to originate from Prince only. If so, Prince should learn to let go. No one has that much control and attempting to maintain "artistic integrity" by stomping out anything not officially blessed by the man himself is an awful way to treat fans. Here's exactly how to do CwF WRONG:

If it wasn't clear before, his Purpleness has some very stringent ideas around what his fans can and cannot do in their appreciation of him. In a nutshell: Yes, please do pay $250 for that concert ticket, but 'Hova help you if you seek to publicly admire him through music or art.

Prince has a large fan base and it appears that his fans won't fight a legal battle with a.) someone with much more money or b.) someone they respect greatly, even if that respect is completely one way. One of those is logical and the other is understandable, but either way, it's tough for non-Prince-acolytes to respect an artist whose response to fan efforts that stray into "his" territory is unvarying legal thuggery.

It seems extraordinary that in the area of copyright it is only recently that people have started to consider the evidence before formulating policy. Even now, there is still resistance to this idea in some quarters. Elsewhere, though, there is a growing recognition that policy-makers must have access to the data they need when considering how to achieve given goals.

That's very much the impulse behind a new document entitled "Statistical, Ecosystems and Competitiveness Analysis of the Media and Content Industries". It has been prepared on behalf of the European Commission by the Joint Research Centre, which describes its role as follows:

to provide EU policies with independent, evidence-based scientific and technical support throughout the whole policy cycle.

The bulk of the report is filled with detailed tables of figures and charts attempting to show what's been happening over the last few years in the media industries. Here's a summary of what the Joint Research Centre hopes producing these will achieve:

This study aims first of all to gain a better understanding of the dynamics in the Media and Content Industries (MCI) and to produce an assessment of the current and future competitiveness of the European MCI sector. The study maps the economic value and growth potential of this sector, driven by increasing awareness of the economic value of the sector. The sector itself has grown considerably over the past decades, but it also contributes to the growth of the Information Society. It provides the content which, in digital form, requires high speed broadband networks and thus stimulates the roll-out of broadband networks. The MCI is also an important part of the creative industries, which stimulate a flourishing creative climate thereby attracting other highly skilled economic activities, leading to vibrant urban economies (Florida, 2002; UNCTAD, 2008; European Commission, 2010a).

Secondly, this study aims to gain insights into the fundamental changes in this sector, which have taken place over the past two decades as a result of the introduction of ICT in different parts of the production and distribution process. Some of these technological innovations were so fundamental that they caused changes in the production chain, in the roles and positions in the value chain, in business models and in market structures. In other words, they have led to a transformation of the whole ecosystem.

Significantly, much of the first half of the report is given over to exploring why it is so hard to draw up detailed figures on the media and content industries. Part of the problem is that such official statistics as are available -- and they are relatively limited -- follow older industry categories that don't really fit any more. Even relatively new ones are problematic:

The new OECD definition intends to give a better reflection of the current MCI sector structure. However, the underlying categorization of the Media and Content Industries can not account for one of the most apparent trends in the Media and Content Industries, i.e. its increasing interconnectedness and convergence with ICT (telecom, computer and software industries). Distribution is now separated from MCI and included in ICT category, but increasingly distribution companies are involved in acquisition of content and content rights, packaging and marketing of content, sometimes also adding added value by producing additional services (EPG, communication services etc.) The same is true for new entrants such as major ICT firms like Google, Apple, YouTube, which are also increasingly involved in not just dissemination of content but also in many content related activities.

It is this intermingling of media, content, computers and communications in the digital sphere that makes it so hard to establish what is really happening. For example, the decline bemoaned by many in the traditional copyright industries is in many ways simply a reflection of the fact that new forms of creation and distribution are starting to replace the established ones, but capturing that in official statistics is hard. One way around that is to turn to other sources:

In order to complement the data from official statistics, the study includes 'unofficial' statistics on developments in MCI. With the help of this data, it provides insight into the transformations taking place in MCI that are not immediately apparent in the official statistics. The main topics for which statistical evidence has been collected are the transformations resulting from the impact of ICT, or more specifically the impact of the internet and digitalisation on the production and distribution of media and content. This concerns especially the shift from offline (physical) to online digital distribution of content, and the impact of piracy, P2P networks and user-generated content in particular sub-sectors.

However, in this context the report makes an important point:

From investigating data found by screening major sources from industry associations, consultancies and research institutes specialised in media and content industries, an important conclusion is that it is impossible to directly compare or complement official statistics with unofficial statistics

One source of unofficial statistics is, of course, industry bodies. The report quotes some of their figures in a discussion of piracy:

The industry regards piracy as a serious threat for their business. Table 22 shows estimates by the film industry in 2005 for the losses incurred due to piracy. For the music industry, IFPI (2010) states that the music industry experienced a decline in sales of 30% from 2004 to 2009, which it mainly attributes to file sharing.

It's good to see that those figures aren't accepted uncritically, simply reported. Even more importantly, rather than accept the naïve view that unauthorized file sharing is necessarily harmful to the copyright industries, the report quotes one of the few studies available that looks at what the evidence says:

Although it is difficult to understand the true impact of illegal file sharing on the industry, it is clear that every file downloaded does not result automatically in one less CD or DVD sold. TNO conducted a statistical analysis and calculated the effect of illegal file sharing on the music industry for the Dutch market through a welfare-theoretical approach. They calculated the substitution ratio for the Dutch music industry, and estimated a substitution ratio of at most 5-7%. In other words: for every 15-20 downloads one track less is sold. However, the economic implications of file sharing for the level of welfare in the Netherlands were found to be strongly positive in the short and long terms, because downloaders buy the same amount of music as non-downloaders, and more games and DVDs than non-downloaders. Moreover, downloaders go to more concerts and buy more merchandise (TNO, 2009). It should however be noted that because of the fact that this study is focused on a single country, its conclusions can not be generalized to the EU as a whole without further investigation.

This is just one study, albeit a suggestive one, of what is happening in one country. Clearly many more are needing in order to establish the real impact of unauthorized sharing on the traditional copyright industries. Let's hope the Joint Research Centre can build on its current report and contribute to the gathering of more complete evidence on this crucial topic.

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In retrospect, it is now clear that the pivotal moment in the campaign against ACTA was last January, when thousands of people took to the streets in Poland despite the sub-zero temperatures there. A few weeks later, similar protests took place across the continent, especially in Eastern Europe, which then influenced politicians at all levels, culminating in the rejection of ACTA by the European Parliament on July 4.

Although the SOPA Blackout day was one inspiration for the European street protests, a key question is: why did they happen first in Poland? Krzysztof Kietzman points us to an interesting piece of research, newly available in English as "The Circulations of Culture. On Social Distribution of Content," that goes some way to offering an answer. Here's the summary:

It describes how books, music, and movies circulate among Poles who sometimes buy them, but more often than not acquire them via the Internet and borrow or copy them from friends.

Interestingly, according to the publication's introduction, the document itself played a role in the ACTA debate when it first appeared (in Polish) in January 2012:

The publication took place at the height of the debate on ACTA and became an important element in public debates on copyright and regulation of online circulations of content.

One reason why it may have provoked discussion is because of the terminology it uses:

this is not a report about "pirates" that conduct illegal activities, but rather about people who engage in informal content sharing practices.

As the report's authors explain:

abandoning the simple legal-illegal binary has yet another reason. The goal of this report is to foster real dialogue on the issue of acquiring cultural content in Poland. The overuse of labels such as "piracy" or "theft" will not improve the chances of establishing such dialogue. An opposition between "formal" and "informal" is in our opinion a much better way for framing this debate.

Here are some of the key findings:

62% of Poles do not participate in either the formal or the informal circulations of cultural content. The primary form of cultural activity for most Poles is probably watching television and listening to the radio.

Things are even worse when it comes to buying stuff:

13% of Poles purchase content, as opposed to 33% that obtain it through informal, digital circulations. Only 13% of Poles have purchased a book, a movie, or a musical recording in the year before the survey. On the other hand, one third of Poles are engaged in the informal sphere understood here as sharing books, music, and movies in digital formats via the Internet.

This indicates how important the informal circulation is in terms of sustaining culture in Poland. A key discovery is that informal and formal patterns of acquisition are not mutually exclusive:

The survey did not corroborate the thesis about informal circulations supplanting the formal ones. The people who most actively engage in the informal content circulations (i.e. Internet users who download files) constitute the largest segment of the purchasers. They comprise 32% of all people purchasing books, 31% of all people purchasing movies, and over half of all people who buy music. They also make up the largest segment of people who lend each other content. People from that group probably treat both informal and formal circulations as complementary.

Of course, this is precisely what a number of other studies have found, so it's no surprise to see it confirmed here.

The following statistics go some way to explaining why so many Poles took to the streets in sub-zero temperatures to protests against ACTA:

92% of active [Internet] users claim to have engaged in informal circulations if their definition is expanded to include all avenues of content access (such as streaming, sharing files with friends, etc.). If we include the informal circulation of content stored on physical media (e.g. sharing and copying books or CDs and DVDs) in the aforementioned definition, then practically all of the respondents (95%) claim to have engaged in such content circulations. The survey indicates, that among people who actively use the Internet, the informal, non-market economy of cultural content is the norm.

The cultural importance of this shared content emerges from another figure:

The most commonplace attitude of active Internet users (50% of respondents) towards the informal circulations is moderate and focused on the broadening of cultural horizons. For them, the crucial factor is the ability to know more and see more, not acquire free content.

That's not to say that money isn't a factor:

75% of active internet users indicated price and a wider selection of content available on the Internet as justifications for their behavior. Two-thirds of them pointed to such factors as availability without delays (typical of formal circulations, where global content arrives in Poland often with a delay) or the selection available.

That is, much of the sharing that takes place in Poland is as a result of copyright companies failing to make their material available in a timely fashion, or pricing it inappropriately for the market there. Again, this is just what other research has found, notably the "Media Piracy in Emerging Economies" that Techdirt reported on before.

That work was led by Joe Karaganis, and in a kind of postword to the present research, he offers perhaps the best analysis of why it was Poland, and the other former Soviet bloc countries, that led the ACTA revolt:

most visible was the demand for transparency and democratic accountability in policymaking -- a demand juxtaposed to the secretive construction and potentially far-ranging obligations of the Agreement. Anti-ACTA sentiment became a channel, in this respect, for dissatisfaction with the wider democratic deficits of European governance.

Less explicit, but no less important in my view, was the use of this secretive process to target a prevalent and largely normalized form of access to culture in Eastern Europe -- the copying, sharing, and downloading of media. These are the compensatory strategies that allowed young Poles, especially, to participate in the wider media culture in which they -- and everyone else -- now grow up. It is no accident, in this context, that the major anti-ACTA protests and first government rejections of the agreement came from Poland, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Romania, and Bulgaria -- the economic periphery of Europe.

That is, young people in these countries were not prepared to give up without a fight wide-ranging access to the kind of culture that had been denied to their parents' generation because of Soviet censorship, and to which they now had access despite their continuing economic disadvantages. And so they took to the streets.

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