David sends in the news about a startup called MoviePass, which has a plan to get you out of your comfy chair and into the theater. Being touted as a possible savior for the theater industry and the "Netflix of local theaters," MoviePass promises "unlimited movies" at theaters nationwide starting at $29.99 a month.

As plans go, it's not bad. All-you-can-eat-pricing and an integrated app might prove tempting to film buffs. But these same film buffs pose a major problem for MoviePass. The customers the service will most appeal to -- frequent moviegoers -- are the same customers that will make it very tough for it to turn a profit. Theater owners may have partnered with MoviePass for the potential uptick in sales, but it's unlikely that much of a discount has been applied, as the profit margin just isn't there. Generally speaking, tickets are loss leaders for theaters. The real profit comes from the concessions. MoviePass can get more people through the door, but whoever's eating the loss on the ticket sales is going to be hurting if members take full advantage of the service. 

This business plan needs a wide variety of customers to pay off. It needs a number of "subscribers" to pay a minimum of $360 a year while rarely using the service in order to subsidize frequent filmgoers. The problem is that casual viewers can do the math and realize that they're losing money unless they attend more movies. And so, they'll attend more movies, making the situation better for them, but worse for MoviePass.  It's what the economics kids call adverse selection.

Another hitch is that MoviePass requires you to sign up for an entire year, which is the sort of thing people shy away from. Once again, those who dive into a one-year contract will likely be those whose heavy usage will make it tough for MoviePass to turn a profit. Memberships can be cancelled, but MoviePass assesses a $20 fee and, if you've used more than $29.99 worth of tickets, you're responsible for paying the difference. 

There are other stipulations too, all of which are in place to keep MoviePass from getting completely screwed. First, the $29.99/month is the starting price. Most people will be charged in the "and up" range. You're only allowed to buy one ticket per day and only one ticket per specific movie. No repeat viewing. No cruising the theater all day, waving around your MoviePass card. No 3D, XD, IMAX, etc. 

How MoviePass plans to turn this into a profitable venture remains to seen. Assessing it from the information available makes success seem unlikely, mainly because the people who want it most are the worst for the business. 

Halloween is here, so what better time to talk about human brains? Zombies are always looking to eat fresh human brains, and evil scientists need to re-stock their supply of replacement organs, too. So here are just a few links for any parties that might be interested in getting their hands on some grey matter.

• Whole brain transplants don't seem to be a practical medical procedure (yet), but maybe brain tissue engineering could help people with brain damage with brain grafts. Restoring neural pathways would be tricky, and growing viable brain tissue isn't a walk in the park either. [url]
• Dr. Robert White performed some experiments that could have been useful for doing a human brain transplant. White successfully removed a living monkey's head and attached it to another monkey's body -- and it survived for about a week. [url]
• A human brain about 2,684 years old was found, preserved in a bog, in excellent condition for its age. It apparently belonged to an Iron Age man who was hanged and decapitated -- and when 2,684 years old you reach, look as good you will not. [url]
• Scientists have isolated the brains of monkeys, dogs and cats -- keeping them alive for varying amounts of time without a body -- and a guinea pig brain has lasted about 8 hours in a fluid-filled tank. This is a repeatable procedure, but it apparently requires a lot of attention to keep the guinea pig brain going (and it only works for a day). [url]

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

If you look through all the Techdirt posts tagged for Halloween, it will take you about two minutes. There just isn't a whole lot of them. That needs to change, considering that Halloween is the second best holiday next to Thanksgiving. I mean come on, if you're a kid, you get to utilize an old Irish festival called Samhain to dress up as friggin' Iron Man. And if you're an adult, you still dress up like Iron Man, but you've also got chalk odds in favor of running into other adults who clearly spent so much money on their costumes that they couldn't also afford dignity.

Still, Techdirt is all about economics, right? Frankly, my first brush with the satanic art of econ was almost certainly Halloween, or rather post-Halloween, because that's when the front of my grade school ceased to be a gathering of innocent children and instead turned into an unholy candy stock exchange. Hell, Gordon Gecko would have been eaten alive. So, I offer up for all of you this Hallow's Eve a little distraction from the serious: Buzzfeed's The Guide To Trading Candy:

 

Happy Halloween, Techdirters!

Techdirt has been a great believer in connecting with fans and giving them a reason to buy for many years, but it's always interesting to see people come up with new variations on this theme. Here's the idea in an extreme form, from a couple months ago: sharing a new album stream with just one "superfan" who then spread the word with dramatic results:

To recreate the word-of-mouth phenomenon that made them famous, the xx shared their album stream Coexist with a single fan just outside London last week -- days before its official US release.

It was a risky marketing move that set out to test whether the band could replicate their initial viral success with a map that tracked shares with a visualization on the Coexist stream's host site.

Twenty-four hours after the stream was shared with a fan on Facebook, the site crashed from the millions of streams, with the average user spending 2.1 hours on the site.

The "superfan" was chosen on the basis of frequent postings about the band "the xx" in the past. This meant he or she was certain to be fired up by the prospect of exclusive access to the new album ahead of everyone else. That in its turn increased the likelihood the initial post revealing the location of the stream to the rest of world would be positive. It would also come with the implicit authority of someone who was presumably well-known in the music community for writing about the band, adding to its impact.

Alongside the massive interest this approach generated, the other big benefit for the band is that it avoids the uncertainties of releasing the album first to music journalists, who are much more unpredictable in their reactions. Indeed, it was only the next day that the music press got hold of the story, by which time the huge viral success of this campaign meant that there was no question of ignoring the new album or its enthusiastic uptake. In other words, the traditional news outlets found themselves forced to acquiesce in the narrative generated by the fans, rather than being in control and telling those fans what to think.

Clearly, this isn't a strategy that can be used too often, and there's also the issue of how good this kind of connection is at generating sales. But it does underlie the importance of fully understanding the social structure of the community of fans -- in this case, in order to find a superfan who could be used to seed the rest of the fan base via an enthusiastic recommendation. There are many other possible ways of involving people who are key "nodes" in the social graph -- the ones whose influence really counts -- and we'll doubtless be hearing about them in due course.

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

In the ongoing saga of all of the Megaupload servers that the federal government seized and then handed back to hosting company Carpathia, telling them to effectively destroy them (and with it all sorts of important evidence in the Megaupload case), the judge is considering holding a hearing to dig into some of the questions raised by the case -- leading a few motions to be filed. The first, of course is by Kyle Goodwin, represented by the EFF, over his desire to get his data back. The filing also raises significant questions about the entire situation:

... the available record already shows that the government acted (and continues to act) with a callous disregard for third-party property rights in data stored on Megaupload. For example, the government knew Megaupload operated a data storage business, and thus held the property of third parties lawfully using Megaupload’s storage services. The government knew its search and seizure of Megaupload’s assets would deprive such third parties of the ability to access and retrieve their property. In seizing domain names and executing the search warrant at Carpathia, the government took constructive possession of all the third-party owned data it had seized and to which it had prevented (and continues to prevent) access by their owners. The government then “released” the third-party owned data in a manner that deliberately made the data both inaccessible to property owners and subject to government-sanctioned destruction, while at the same time blocking all reasonable efforts to allow access.

These failings are striking given that the government is well familiar with the need to accommodate third-party Fourth Amendment rights through minimization when it executes searches and seizures, especially of electronic material.

Of course, Goodwin isn't the only one asking the court to pay attention. Megaupload itself pointed out that it should be included in any such hearing, even though it's technically outside of this part of the dispute. It notes that if the courts order the data retrieval, someone who understands what's on the servers and how to find the relevant material would be helpful. Furthermore, the company is concerned about how the servers will be handled, since it still believes there's useful evidence there that the DOJ appears to want to destroy.

Of course, if Megaupload is filing for something, you shouldn't be surprised to find out that the MPAA is right behind with its own filing, warning that it wants to be sure that the court magically make sure that no infringement occurs if anyone can access their backup data. We've heard this story before, but here it goes again.

... any remedy granted should not compound the massive infringing conduct already at issue in this criminal litigation.... Additionally, if it would be helpful to the Court to consider evidence from the MPAA or its members on such issues as the lack of authorization for the reproduction and/or distribution of their works via Megaupload, or the overwhelming amount of infringement of the MPAA members’ copyrighted work on Megaupload, they will of course cooperate.

Of course, the issue right here has nothing to do with the MPAA's fears about infringement. It's about getting someone back the legitimate data they have on the servers. Why would the MPAA fight so hard against that?

I would imagine this is going to drag on for a while.

We just heard some good news about the protection of the 4th Amendment with regards to cell phone data. However, we've also learned that some law enforcement officials apparently find getting warrants to read our email to be incredibly annoying. These LEOs shouldn't fret too much as they now have some good news of their own -- they apparently don't need a warrant to turn your property into a movie set if your property resembles an open field.

That's the ruling from Green Bay, Wisconsin, where the fight against the world's mildest drug (marijuana) is apparently worth twisting the 4th Amendment into a giant pretzel.

U.S. District Judge William Griesbach ruled that it was reasonable for Drug Enforcement Administration agents to enter rural property without permission -- and without a warrant -- to install multiple "covert digital surveillance cameras" in hopes of uncovering evidence that 30 to 40 marijuana plants were being grown.

This is in response to the two defendants in the case seeking to have footage from said surveillance cameras thrown out in their court case on unreasonable search and seizure grounds. Judge Griesbach made this ruling on the recommendation of US Magistrate William Callahan, who based his position on a US Supreme Court Case ruling that open fields were not covered under the 4th Amendment and didn't require a warrant. Perhaps ironically, this ruling was made in 1984, a time when the prevalence and sophistication of such surveillance equipment wasn't what it is today.

Still, I'm struck by two problems in this ruling (and the previous Supreme Court ruling as well). First, the two defendants in this case had fences and signs up around their property that said "No Trespassing", so I'm not sure if the definition of "open field" fully applies here. Secondly, even if you argued that it did apply, how is this exception to the 4th Amendment not completely throwing the door wide open for abuse? What, after all, constitutes an "open field"? Is there a certain acreage criteria that needs to be met? A certain number of trees or shrubberies? Rabbit hole count?

And this doorway to abuse has been opened all because police didn't want to bother to get a search warrant to put video equipment on private property.

India's copyright laws are a bit of a mess right now. Late last year, at the request of a movie studio, ISPs were instructed by an Indian court to block several file sharing sites. A full blockade was set up, eliminating access to complete sites, rather than specifically targeting the offending files. Six months later, the Indian government ordered another round of ISP-level blocks, this time taking out access to another set of file lockers and, for some reason, Vimeo. Then, once you thought you had India's government pinned down as an overzealous anti-piracy enforcer for the movie industry, an ISP found itself being fined by a consumer group for going too far with its blockage.

Well, it would appear the dust has settled momentarily as new legislation is discussed, and India's government is, at the moment, still an overzealous anti-piracy enforcer. This time, however, it's the music industry that's looking to have the government expand its enforcement. The Indian Music Industry has filed a petition in support of India's IT Rules. This has been filed in response to Shojan Jacob's petition challenging the constitutionality of the proposed rules.

What the music industry is interested in is the powers granted by the IT Rules, which allow content to be taken down within 36 hours, without any notice to the content creator or uploader. There's no doubt many in the content industry would like such a rule to be implemented worldwide, but considering how many bogus DMCA takedowns there are, it would definitely be a bad thing for anyone not protected by the legislation.

The Indian Music Industry cites the following in support of its wish to unilaterally zap content off the net without having to be troubled with trifling details like court orders or if the content is actually infringing. It would rather streamline the process into a shoot-first-ask-questions-never free-for-all.

- The Internet is the fastest and most widespread medium for diffusion of sound recordings in digital form. This is done through ISPs.

- Many websites allow streaming, reproducing, adapting, distributing, communication, transmitting, disseminating or displaying and downloading songs, without taking any license from copyright owners. Owners of websites are unknown, and it's impossible to track. However, ISPs have details of the owners of the website, and it is practically impossible for copyright owners to take action against people located outside India.

- The IT Rules allow the designated officers to block the contents of the website.

While a majority of what's stated is factual, it's a rather big leap to go from "the internet makes it easy to copy" to "let us decide what's infringing and simply have it removed without notifying anyone." And the pointing at ISPs as somehow being contributors to infringement is a rhetorical tactic nearly as old at the internet itself. It's based on the faulty assumption that people wouldn't purchase internet access if they couldn't help themselves to infringing content, plainly ignoring the thousands of legitimate uses ISPs facilitate every day.

But what exists already in India, as skewed as it is towards copyright holders, simply isn't good enough. IMI wants more.

Did the Indian Music Industry need the IT Rules to get those 104 websites blocked? We think not. Can they still get content blocked without the IT Rules? Yes they can. What the IT Rules do is that allow the IMI to go into overdrive, and block access to websites through ISPs and domain registrars, without going to court. In their current form, the IT Rules assume that the complainant is always right, and put intermediaries (ISPs, websites etc) under pressure to act-or-be-taken-to-court; the IT Rules don't offer proper recourse to someone whose content is being blocked, which is something that the reworking of the IT Rules should allow.

That seems to be the case the world over. The endless pressure from these industries for more expansionist policies and fewer options for recourse is now the standard operating procedure. IMI will probably find a strong ally in the Indian government if the recent past is any indication. Most governments are looking for ways to control what their citizens say and do on the internet and the IT Rules, if left unchanged, give the Indian government the perfect backdoor towards more censorship.

The copyright protection clause in the IT Rules isn't the problem: the issue is with other provisions related to broad terms used to define intermediaries and some of the subjective and broad provisions under which content can be taken down (grossly harmful, disparaging, impacting friendly relations between nations and suchlike), apart from the fact that the rules don't provide for adequate transparency and recourse, which impinges on freedom of expression...

Between the copyright industries and a seemingly natural tendency for governments to impose as much control on the "wild west" internet as possible, India's IT Rules are bad news for anyone not on the inside of these entities.

Now that we're neck deep in election campaigning, we're all used to the attack ads and the "fact checking" behind them showing how many of them struggle with being truthful. But most campaigns get this and move on (or they release their own attack ads that are just as bad). However, incumbent Rep. Jeff Denham (from California) is so spitting mad at the attack ad against him that he's suing the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and various local TV stations who ran the ad. First of all, the ad doesn't sound particularly different than plenty of typical campaign ads, many of which distort the records of opponents. Most candidates respond with a simple explanation of why the ad is a lie. But Denham decided to go that extra mile and actually file a lawsuit.

There are a few interesting/bizarre things to note here. First, the DCCC that he's suing is led by... other Congressional Reps. So he's basically suing a bunch of his existing colleagues in the House. I know that partisan politics can get rough, but lawsuits between existing members of Congress over an attack ad... that seems somewhat excessive.

Even if we get past that, and even if we accept that the attack ad goes so far above and beyond the norm that it's considered defamation (which is quite tough with a public figure where it would need to be shown that the mistruths were done willfully and maliciously), the fact that Denham is suing the TV stations who aired the ad is just crazy. He claims that he "warned" them, but the details of the lawsuit show that he warned them on October 24th... and filed the lawsuit on October 25th. Not much in the way of warning. While there aren't direct "safe harbors" a la Section 230 for online content, there are still serious questions about whether or not it makes sense to make a TV station liable for the content of an advertisement.

Even if he feels he has to hit back to counter the narrative in the ads, it seems quite likely that such a lawsuit could backfire, showing a politician with exceptionally thin skin, which tends not to be a useful trait in the job. Yes, attack ads suck. But it's the nature of the business. Suing other politicians and TV stations just seems like a massive overreaction and excessive poor judgment.

The Washington Post has a profile piece about Washington DC power dealmaker David Cohen, who has led Comcast's policy and lobbying efforts for the past decade. It starts out (and ends) with a whopper of a story about Cohen explicitly had Comcast not offer a special internet offering for the poor since he wanted to use it as a bargaining chip in the NBC Universal purchase:

In fall 2009, Comcast planned to launch an Internet service for the poor that was sure to impress federal regulators. But David Cohen, the company's chief of lobbying, told the staff to wait.

At the time, Comcast was planning a controversial $30 billion bid to take over NBC Universal, and Cohen needed a bargaining chip for government negotiations.

"I held back because I knew it may be the type of voluntary commitment that would be attractive to the chairman" of the Federal Communications Commission, Cohen said in a recent interview.

At the end of the article, the reporter (Ceclia Kang) notes that the FCC later "took credit" for this program when it was launched:

The initiative may not have sealed the FCC's decision to approve the NBC merger. But it helped, Cohen said.

The proposal clearly captured the fancy of regulators. Late last month, Genachowski, the FCC chairman, touted the program, seemingly claiming some credit for its creation.

"This particular program came from our reviewing of the Comcast NBC-U transaction," Genachowski said in a speech. "Comcast embraced it as good for the country, as well as good for business. And I'm fine with that."

In other words, Cohen delayed a program to help the poor... in order to help make Comcast much, much richer in buying NBC... and then conveniently engineered it so that the FCC takes bogus credit for the program which would have been launched much earlier if Comcast hadn't used it as a bargaining chip. It's hard not to be cynical about politics in general and the FCC in particular when these kinds of stories hit the press. We've long been concerned about the FCC's ability to be played like a fiddle by industry lobbyists, and this only seems to confirm that point.

The adult film industry gets mentioned on Techdirt frequently because, as everyone knows, "the internet is for porn." Typically, we get to write fun little stories about silly journalists believing horse-poop statistics on home pornography. Or else an ice cream company is suing an adult film studio over a porno-parody of their silly flavors. Those stories are good for a laugh because, let's be honest, there's something inherently funny about movies of people bumping uglies coupled with the far less fleshy world of news and IP law. What isn't laugh-worthy is when a tragedy occurs, such as the senseless slaying of a 10 year old girl, and the result is a bunch of grand-standing jackwagons lining up to use her death to promote their own false agenda.

Yet that's what is happening with the case of Jessica Ridgeway's murder, now that the accused killer is a young man who reportedly is addicted to pornography. Let's highlight one of the aforementioned grand-standing jackwagons, just so we can identify who is saying what before I get to the elephant-in-the-room-sized problem with his nonsense. Meet the ironically-named Patrick Trueman.

“News that the boy accused of killing Jessica Ridgeway is addicted to pornography will come as no surprise to law enforcement agents with experience in sexual crimes,” says Patrick A. Trueman, president of Morality in Media and former chief of the U. S. Department of Justice Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section in Washington, D.C.

“Pornography consumption causes addiction and leads many, children included, to sexual violence. It’s high time the U.S. government took the issue of pornography seriously again and began vigorously prosecuting the major producers and distributors of hardcore pornography.”

Got that? Pornography, and the prevelance of it, is so directly to blame for murders like Jessica Ridgeway's that our government should be prosecuting producers. Note the lack of nuance in the statement, by the way. All pornography is lumped into this charge. Not child porn. Not porn that in any way depicts violence. Not fantasy rape porn. All porn. So says Patrick Trueman, who, as the president of Morality In Media, must have some evidence for his claims, right? Then we get to his next quote:

“We do not know and may never know exactly how much influence pornography played in these two crimes, but sexual crimes by minors do not happen in a vacuum; porn is almost always a significant contributing factor,” Trueman said.

Well, if that isn't the dream stance of a prosecutor, I don't know what is. He's essentially saying he doesn't have any clue what role pornography plays between the two crimes, but surely it must play some role (presumably because he finds coitus icky), so prosecute all the pornographers. Outstanding. Yet his silliness continues.

“When the U.S. Department of Justice gave up enforcing federal pornography laws, it gave up on our children. Now addiction, sexual experimentation mirroring scenes from violent porn videos, as well as sexual violence are all too common among children. Child-on-child sexual crimes, once unheard of, are also on the rise. The porn industry is directly responsible for these trends and the harm to our nation’s children. But law enforcement officials, such as U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, who refuse to enforce anti-pornography laws, designed to protect children and society from sexual predators, bear much responsibility also,” he continued.

Yes, you read that correctly. The other group responsible for Jessica Ridgeway's murder is the Justice Department, including Eric Holder.

Now, that massive problem I mentioned with Trueman's logic? Well, his entire premise lies somewhere on the spectrum between "pretty dubious" and "ultra-mega-wrong". The prevelance of the internet, on which pornography is so graciously widespread, has risen exponentially in everyone's lives since 1990. This includes its use amongst children, obviously. So, with the massive rise in access to pornography by adults and children, how are the statistics of sex-crimes correlating?

Well, for sex-crimes in general, they're dropping, and fairly significantly so. In the last 20 or so years, the United States has seen a 15% drop in forcible rape rates. That's despite the growth of internet use, and likewise the growth in viewing pornography, and also despite a culture change in which reporting rape and sex crimes is only becoming more acceptable (thankfully -- though society still has a long way to go in encouraging reporting of such cases). And, if you want to drill down to child-on-child sex crimes, which Trueman focuses on, the data there doesn't support his claims either. According to that USA Today article:

The latest juvenile crime data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics indicates that arrests of juvenile sex offenders declined by about 25% from 2000 through 2009. That would mesh with a decline in child sex abuse committed by adults, as well as a decline in the overall juvenile crime rate.
But data from New York City, Florida and elsewhere indicates that the prevalence of child-on-child sex hasn't dropped noticeably.

So, while there's less in the way of concrete super-damning data in the realm of child-on-child sex crimes, the general consensus is that its occurence is either dropping significantly, or not changing much. This doesn't seem to mesh with Trueman's warning klaxon about how pornography is turning all of our children into SVU suspects.

The conclusion is obvious, though no less anger-inducing. It would appear we do not have a child sex-crime epidemic on our hands. However, we apparently might have a grandstanding jackass making use of a high-profile tragedy for his own ends epidemic.

It appears that Faulkner Literary Rights -- the operation set up by the estate of William Faulkner to oversee his copyrights -- has really decided to go all in with the crazy lawsuits. Last week, we wrote about it suing Sony Pictures because of a Woody Allen movie (Midnight in Paris) in which the character played by Owen Wilson misquotes a Faulkner line (while also saying it was by Faulkner). The quote was all of nine words from a Faulkner book. I'm not quite sure what Faulkner's estate is thinking, but it seems they believe that anyone who quotes the bare minimum of Faulkner owes them money. The second lawsuit, filed Friday, was against the Washington Post and defense contractor giant Northrop Grumman. Why? Because Northrop Grumman ran an ad in the Washington Post that quoted (with attribution) a single sentence from a Harper's article that Faulkner once wrote.

The ad, which ran on July 4th, 2011, included: "We must be free not because we claim freedom, but because we practice it. -- William Faulkner." It had a giant image of an American flag and some more text celebrating July 4th. As of the time of this posting, Northrop still has a pdf of the ad on its site (pdf). Pretty harmless. But Faulkner's estate pulls out the same arguments it used against Sony Pictures against both Northrop and the Washington Post -- both copyright and trademark claims.

Once again, it appears that both companies have very strong defenses as either de minimis use or fair use -- though, again, I'd be worried about both companies deciding it's cheaper to pay off the Faulkner people than fight this.

Given two such crazy cases filed in two days, for such short quotations, how likely is it that these are the only such lawsuits the Faulkner estate intends to file? Stay tuned...

We've been talking about the unfortunate set of cases in the UK lately, in which people acting like jackasses online are being held criminally liable for being a jerk online. There are, of course, significant problems with this. And if you thought it was just limited to Europe, where they tend to have a slightly less absolute view of the right to free expression than the US, well, don't be so sure. There's a lot of talk about whether or not legal action should be taken against one jackass who used Twitter (using the account @comfortablysmug -- which, perhaps, should have been a tipoff) to spread fake news about emergencies and damages, while most people were sharing legitimate news. The guy in question was eventually outed by Buzzfeed as hedge-fund analyst and political consultant Shashank Tripathi.

While some big name news organizations initially retweeted some of his claims -- such as the false news that the NY Stock Exchange had flooded -- others quickly corrected the reports, and, as some have noted, Twitter seemed to do a pretty good job of self-correcting the bogus claims that popped up. Of course, those who wish to argue that legal action needs to be taken compare the bogus tweets to the classic "yelling fire in a crowded theater" argument, in which the speech can then put people in danger or incite violence. It seems unlikely that any charges would actually hold up in the long run, but that might not stop attempts to go after Tripathi under the law (this is the US, after all, where our second national pastime after shouting about politics is filing questionable lawsuits).

But it's unclear what good that would actually do, other than potentially leading to bad precedents for other forms of speech. It seems that existing social structures already take care of the bad speech here. Tripathi's identity was revealed by others, and his actions are now closely associated with his name. He now needs to live with the social consequences of his statements, and that seems like it should be more than enough. And, indeed, the response online has been to absolutely slam him for his actions.

Well, well. Last year, there was a lot of attention paid to a so-called "revenge porn" site called "Is Anyone Up"? The site reposted submitted nude photos, linked to the person in the photo's social networking accounts. The "idea" (a horrific one) was that spurned people, who had naked photos of their ex's, could publicize them. Not surprisingly, many people were completely horrified by the concept and the media coverage was not kind. The site eventually went down, but others popped up to take their place. Lawyer Marc Randazza has decided to go to war with one of them, which uses the very similar name "Is Anybody Down" (and, no, I'm not linking to it). Randazza points out that he has no problem with porn or porn sites, but when the participants are not consenting (and not necessarily adults) he has serious problems.

However, his main issue with this other site is in what he believes to be its sneaky business model. There is apparently an "advertisement" on the site for a "lawyer" named David Blade, who will help you get your photos off the site for $250. Randazza argues that it's really the site's own business model:

Here’s their business plan:

Step one: Register the domain name “isanybodydown.com”

Step two: Get ahold of nude photos of people who never consented to having their photos published.

Step three:Publish them, along with their names, home towns, and links to their facebook profiles.

So now how do you “profit?”

Well, openly saying “I’ll take down the photo for $250,” would probably create some legal issues for you. So, instead, you create a fake lawyer persona and say “I am an internet lawyer, named David Blade, III, and I’ll get your pics down for $250.”

The "ad" goes on at length about how successful "David Blade" is in removing images from the site, and how it's much cheaper than going to any other lawyer. Blade has his own website, called TakedownLawyer.com. Randazza has a few damning facts. The registration info for both sites... are by the same person. The "ad" by "Blade" insists that they're different people, with Blade claiming to merely be a college friend of the operator of the site -- and someone who disapproves of the site. "Blade" claims that as he's tried to convince the operator of the site to take it down, their "compromise" is that the site owner has allowed him to place that "ad" that just so happens to help "Blade" make money any time someone wants their images down from the site. The other bit of damning evidence? There is no record of a David Blade as a registered NY attorney (where he claims to operate). Oops.

In an email discussion (pdf) with "Blade," he insists that he really is a lawyer, but that Blade isn't his real name. That, too, is a big issue, since lawyer advertising is pretty heavily regulated, and one of the common requirements is having your real name and contact info. Randazza points to the NY law to that effect, and "Blade" (still using that name despite admitting it's not real), insists there's no violation since he's not engaging in "case law, civil law or trial law," but merely doing "mitigated/mediated takedowns, which are not considered to be a legal service."

Of course, soon after this exchange, the website for "Takedown Lawyer" announced: "Due to ethical concerns our business and the website will now be called 'Takedown Hammer'." Uh huh. Meanwhile, the operator of the "Is Anybody Down" site sent Randazza a profanity laden email asking "why the fuck are you messing with me and Dave?" And it gets worse from there, resorting to ethnic slurs and much, much more. Of course, one could read that email to suggest that the site and "Dave" are, in fact, partners.

There are other little tidbits in this mess, including the fact that the Is Anybody Down site has a blog post asking for investors:

A. Investors, Funding, Etc.

We need more funding (i.e. seed money and/or potential Stage 1 funding) in order to upgrade our server and make T-shirts. Please click the “submit” button to contact an admin if you wish to invest, donate, etc. We are looking for investors, venture capitalists, angel groups, etc.

The seed money will be used for equipment/hardware (computers and server costs), software to be used in the production of the website and the manufacturing of T-shirts which will be sold for value.

Our goal is to raise $50,000+ in seed money to help expand this website, followed by a round one investment prior to an IPO which will return upwards of 600%

There are, of course, a whole bunch of other legal issues brought up by the site, but the statement above? Yeah, that's a pretty blatant violation of securities law. Publicly advertising for investors is already a no-no, but then also promising an IPO (I'm trying not to laugh) and a return of "upwards of 600%" go way beyond what you're allowed to say.

Oh yeah, and "Blade" eventually claims that he's going to hit back at Randazza for "extortion," which is interesting since Randazza didn't ask Blade to give him any money (though he does ask him to return the money from those who have paid up to remove their images).

All in all, this certainly feels like yet another one of these "only on the internet" stories where it may be time to get out the popcorn and wait to see what happens next.

There is a natural tendency to accentuate the negative when it comes to drones -- concentrating on how these "spies the sky" represent a threat to privacy and civil liberties. But as Techdirt has reported before, there are other applications that many might find not just acceptable but welcome. And that's not surprising: like the Internet, drones are just a neutral tool, and as such can be deployed for both good and bad purposes.

Here, for example, is a fascinating idea: using drones to get medical equipment to people faster than ambulances (found via Chris Anderson):

You create an app that anyone trained in first aid signs up to, creating a mobile community. You then station defibrillator-equipped drones on top of tall buildings across the city, linked by sensors. When someone needs help, they, or someone nearby, sends a request. The nearest first-aider accepts the task, and rushes to the site, and the unmanned vehicle sweeps from the sky, delivering the kit where it's needed.

This could have a big impact on the numbers of deaths from heart attacks. According to the same article in Co.Exist quoted above, 76,000 of the 250,000 deaths caused by cardiac arrest outside US hospitals could have been prevented, had the right equipment arrived soon enough. Now, it may not always be enough to use a drone to deliver a defibrillator to heart attack victims, but it seems likely that many tens of thousands of lives could, in theory, be saved in this way.

And of course the idea extends to many other life-threatening situations -- delivering blood or medicines to places that are otherwise hard to reach in time to save the patient. It's a useful reminder that drones aren't necessarily evil, it's how we use them that counts.

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