Earlier this year, we wrote about how a minority owner of the Miami Heat, Ranaan Katz, was so upset about an "unflattering photo" that a blogger/critic had posted of him, that he apparently bought the copyright on the photo and sued the blogger, claiming copyright infringement.
For the sake of understanding the story, this is the photo in question. Katz also threatened to sue one of the blogger's lawyers directly, which is always a classy move.

However, in a somewhat surprising move, both the blogger and Katz, together decided that, even though this case was filed in court -- which is supposed to have a public record -- they both wanted the details kept secret and filed under seal. Thankfully, even though both parties were asking for such secrecy, the judge clearly rejected the request.

After a review of the parties' Joint Motion and proposed order, the Court finds that the parties have offered no compelling basis to overturn the Court's long-standing principle and practice of maintaining Court proceedings and documents public. "The Federal Judiciary has zealously protected the right of all citizens to free, open and public trials.'' Dorsman v. Glazer.... Open judicial proceedings are "rooted in the 'principle that justice cannot survive behind the walls of silence,' and in the 'traditional Anglo-American distrust for secret trials.'" Sheppard v. Maxwell.... Except in rare instances, it is the right of every American to see the public's business conducted in an open forum.

And, the judge notes, despite both of the parties wanting it, this is not one of those "rare instances." "lndeed, the parties have provided no evidence even suggesting such need." Even more ridiculous, the court notes, is the fact that the defendant in the case joined the plaintiff in asking for things to be sealed. As the court notes, there's some irony in a defendant who is worried about her free speech rights being stifled, then seeking to keep her arguments secret:

Moreover, the Court notes an inconsistency in Defendant joining the instant motion. In her Second Motion to Dismiss, Defendant argued at length that Plaintiff's lawsuit was directed at preventing her from publishing online news articles critical of Plaintiff's business; this case was allegedly no more than an attempt to silence her speech. But with this Joint Motion, Plaintiff and Defendant want to keep the factual development of this case secret.

In the end, the judge says too bad to both parties, noting that they were the ones who went to the public court system to fight this out, and now they need to live with the consequences:

ln addition, the parties elected to seek (and defend) relief in a publicly operated forum, namely the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida. The proceedings held in federal and state courts are open to public observation by any interested party. Pursuant to Local Rule 5.4 for the Southern District of Florida, absent some extraordinary need for secrecy, the judicial acts performed should be open to public scrutiny

That statement may be a little unfair to the defendant, who didn't really have that much "choice" in the matter, but it still seems odd to want to keep the proceedings secret.

We've been talking a fair bit about the UN's International Telecommunications Union (ITU) -- the legacy group that's been around in one form or another for over a century and a half, trying to regulate how telco systems work across national borders. Much of the concern has been about its plans to expand its purview over the internet. As many people have noted, it really seemed like the ITU was realizing that its primary function was losing relevance, as basic telco issues become less and less important as they are superseded by the internet. So, without any reason, need or mandate, the ITU is just looking to force itself into a position of internet governance as well -- with potentially horrific results. Of course, that's not the only arena in which the ITU is trying to shove its weight around and assert relevance where it has none. We've already pointed out that it also wants in on internet security, despite near complete ignorance on the topic.

And that's not all... Back in July, we wrote about the ITU's plan to host a patent summit to respond to the various patent thickets and disputes, with a main focus on the smart phone patent thicket. Now, having discussed problems with patents, and the smartphone patent thicket in particular, this might seem like a good thing, but when the summit was announced, we wondered if the ITU really understood the issue, and whether it would even have the right people participating. While the full details of the summit were apparently off the record, Nick Ashton-Hart's report on what he could say about the event suggests that, once again, it was entirely about the ITU inserting itself where it doesn't belong and where no one wants it to go. He notes that all of the ITU's public statements about the summit positioned itself as "riding to the rescue" of various patent disputes. But there were significant problems with this... in that no one wants the ITU's "help" here:

1 - First, the was an overwhelming lack of support for action at the ITU by the participants. I’ve been to many international meetings over more than two decades. You can tell, through the often exaggerated politeness in which positions are inevitably couched, when a group is willing to continue to discuss an issue and when it is not. It was completely obvious long before the end of the day that there was insufficient interest in the room to take forward the discussion – at the ITU, at least.

2 - Secondly, the ITU had clearly decided in advance what was going to happen, and expected the participants to rubber-stamp their conclusions. This was obvious when an ITU official read out a pre-prepared speech at the end of the meeting, including the following:

“I believe that providing market players with clear, transparent, effective and up-to-date patent policies works for the benefit of the industry as a whole…As the Secretary-General stated in the opening, ITU has a determination to take a leading role in the development of effective RAND based policies in the ICT sector…”

Followed by this bombshell:

“I will therefore request the TSB Director’s Ad Hoc Group on Intellectual Property Rights, which will meet tomorrow, to begin work on a recommendation aimed at providing high level principles clarifying the meaning of reasonable, and the issue of injunctive relief, in the RAND context.”

In other words, ‘we’re going to do what we want and we expect you to go along with it.’

Basically, before the meeting even started, the ITU had decided what the problem was. But, since it's jumping into a space where it doesn't understand the issues, it's suggesting a "solution" that doesn't make sense, and which was clearly not supported by others at the summit. Nick explains further:

I recall only one of the 100 participants asking the ITU itself to do anything as an outcome of the meeting – though a few did suggest that standards organisations in general – of which the ITU is one of many – could usefully look at various technical issues (such as transparency of ownership of SEPs).

He goes on to point out that the focus on standards-essential patents is misguided, and was not a main concern of the attendees. In fact, he even notes one participant who got there thinking that SEPs were a problem, but left with his mind changed -- further evidence that the ITU had decided well before the meeting what the "result" would be -- and the fact that the summit didn't support its position was simply ignored.

Once again, it appears to just be a situation where the ITU has little knowledge, no experience and no mandate... but where it's trying to shove itself in, as it tries to remain relevant in a world that no longer needs it.

One thing we know for sure is that the internet has become a growing part of everyone's lives. People are connecting to the internet for a variety of everyday activities including watching tv and movies, listening to music, reading news and gaming. With the internet becoming so ubiquitous in people's lives, would it be a surprise to see that the number of people who identify such activities as "being online" is dropping?

That is exactly what Forrester Research has shown in its latest study on people's media habits. In a blog post, Forrester Analyst Gina Sverdlov points out that especially among younger internet using adults, being online is a fluid concept.

One of the biggest revelations in this year’s data was the change in attitude of consumers — particularly younger ones — toward the Internet. Since we started tracking this information in 1997, we have only seen the amount of time spent online increasing. But Forrester’s 2012 data shows that US online adults are now reporting a decline in the amount of time they spend using the Internet compared with 2011 and 2010.

What’s going on? Our analysis revealed that “being online” is becoming a fluid concept. Consumers no longer consider some of the online activities they perform to be activities related to “using the Internet.” In fact, given the various types of connected devices that US consumers own, many people are connected and logged on (automatically) at all times. The Internet has become such a normal part of their lives that consumers don’t register that they are using the Internet when they’re on Facebook, for example. It’s only when they are actively doing a specific task, like search, that they consider this to be time that they’re spending online.

You can see this trend in this graphic, along with falling trends in offline activities such as watching TV and reading newspapers among adults. As you can see, there is a drop in the amount of time people spend using the internet. However, as Forrester points out, that doesn't actually reflect people's true online activity. People are using more services and devices that are connected by default to the internet which doesn't resonate as online activity for many people. When people use smart phone applications, for instance, those applications may connect to the internet, but it is not a conscious "I am connecting to the internet" activity. It is just "I am checking Facebook/listening to Pandora/Watching Netflix/etc." With online connectivity as the default for the media choices people make, it would be expected that people would be less likely to consider that "online" behavior. As the rising generation grows up with such online-by-default choices, they will be even more likely to not consider it online activity.

What this means for those media companies that are showing a steady decline in the above graphic, and others not listed, is that if your services do not take advantage of the connected devices the current and rising generation own and use, then you might find yourself out of business. We see this happening now. Despite what some legacy industries might believe or want, that decline in offline activity is not going to reverse itself. The more the legacy industries fight that shift in consumer behavior, the faster they will find themselves irrelevant. The best thing for these industries to do is to embrace that fluid online concept and capture the attention of the rising generation.