Last month, we wrote about Apple and HTC settling their ongoing patent dispute, and the subsequent request by Samsung to see the details, which were being kept confidential. It wasn't so much the amount paid that interested Samsung, but which patents were included in the settlement. That's because, in the Apple/Samsung case, Apple has argued that it would never license some of its patents, and thus there should be an injunction banning the sale of certain Samsung devices. However, if those same patents are found in the HTC agreement... then Samsung can point out that, not only is Apple lying to the court, but that an injunction should be off the table. That's because the law suggests injunctions only make sense when there is "irreparable harm." And if you can just pay up the missed license fees, then it's clearly not "irreparable."

The court quickly granted Samsung's request and has now gone a step further, saying that the agreement itself should be made public, except for pricing and royalty terms. Bizarrely, it was actually Samsung who sought to have the information about what patents were included under seal -- such that it could see it, but the public could not. Either way, the judge has made it clear that the patents need to be made public as there's no compelling interest in keeping them secret.

Earlier this year, the JOBS Act passed Congress with widespread bipartisan support, and was signed into law by the President. There were a few different pieces involved, but one that got plenty of attention was the opening up of crowdfunding for equity (i.e., owning actual shares in a company). In the US, you can't do a crowdfunding campaign that results in giving ownership in the company. Until the JOBS Act passed, that was considered a form of a public offering, which is a highly regulated area, in which you have to file all sorts of documents with the SEC, get an underwriter, go on a road show, all that fun stuff. But for smaller businesses looking to raise some money, this doesn't make much sense. The JOBS Act opened up a small sliver of space in which smaller companies could raise a little bit of money in exchange for equity. The SEC actively opposed the whole thing from the beginning, but once the bill was law, it was also tasked with setting up the rules for how it would work to limit possible fraud.

Back in August, we noted that the SEC's rules were due out any day, but had been pushed back at least a week as various state regulators argued that the whole thing was just going to be used for massive scamming. Since then the whole process has been fought over and changed numerous times. Newly released emails suggest that it wasn't because the SEC was struggling with setting the best rules possible... but because SEC boss Mary Schapiro was worried about her legacy. She's leaving the position in two weeks and apparently didn't want to put in place strict rules for fear that it would tarnish her reputation as being "pro-investor."

"I don't want to be tagged with an anti-investor legacy," Schapiro wrote in an e-mail to [Corporation Finance Director Meredith] Cross with the subject line "Please don't forward."

"In light of all that's been accomplished, that wouldn't be fair, but it is what will be said ..."

Whether or not you think the rules are good or bad, we should have SEC commissioners who focus on doing what's right... now how things are going to look on their resume when they go hunting for a job in the industry after leaving public service.

While digital forms of payment are becoming increasingly popular, cash probably isn't going away anytime soon, and a lot of people still like to collect coins. For the amateur numismatists out there, here are just a few interesting coin stories.

• New Zealand is minting a series of coins with Hobbit characters on them -- with the most expensive Hobbit coin made of about 28 grams of gold. The coins will be legal tender, but they'll probably be hoarded by Hobbit fans and coins collectors for being preciousss. [url]
• The Royal Canadian Mint has a glow-in-the-dark quarter with a dinosaur on it. Canada killed its penny, but collectible glowing coins apparently have a bright future up north.... [url]
• A 1909 Lincoln penny is on Mars, as part of the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) instrument on the Curiosity rover. This penny will serve as a calibration target, and it's probably the most valuable penny in the universe. [url]
• The US GAO recommends replacing dollar bills with dollar coins -- even though dollar coins are a hugely unpopular with people who actually spend American money. The US Treasury had to stop minting a lot of dollar coins last year because it had such a ridiculous surplus of dollar coins that weren't making it into general circulation. If only people would use dollar coins, the government could save a bit of money when it makes money. [url]

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

It's time to announce the latest Techdirt Book Club book: Cory Doctorow's excellent new book Pirate Cinema. Many of you may have picked it up in the recent Humble Ebook Bundle that it was a part of. If not, you can, as always download it from Cory's site. Of course, if you'd like to support Cory, there are plenty options for buying the book as well. Sometime at the end of the month or (more likely, given the holidays) beginning of January, Cory will join us here for a video chat like previous authors. If you haven't read it already, please check it out.

We've noted that among the proposals being pushed this week at the ITU's World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) are a few that are solely designed to divert money from innovative internet companies to stodgy old telcos who haven't adapted. The ITU has defended such proposals as being about sharing revenue more fairly, which tends to be a warning sign for most folks that failed organizations are about to take money from successful ones. Indeed, a number of proposals have suggested a form of "sending party pays" infrastructure for peering, claiming that such a system was successful (via the ITU) for telco buildout, and so they could do the same thing for the internet. Of course, this leaves aside the vast differences in how the networks work and where they came from -- and how a "sending party pays" internet system would almost certainly lead to a balkanized and fragmented internet.

But, it's even worse. A new study by Eli Dourado looking at how well "sending party pays" actually worked in the telco system found that it tended to hinder growth, rather than accelerate it:

The possible extension of the telephone system’s “sender-pays” rule to the Internet is a contentious international political issue under consideration at the World Conference on International Telecommunication (WCIT). This paper examines whether higher international telephone rates support or impede telecom sector growth in the receiving country. It uses data on international telephone rates from the US from 1992-2010 to explain growth in foreign telecom sectors during the same period. I find that higher international calling rates are correlated with slower growth in the telecom sector, which suggests that countries are not primarily using higher charges to finance additional expansion. These findings cast doubt on proposals that would extend sender-pays to the Internet sector.

In other words, the key argument the ITU likes to make for this diversion of funds... isn't actually supported by the facts. Instead, it's what we expected: about helping big telcos (often either state-owned, or formerly stated owned with still close connections) get a bunch of money for nothing... which they then won't invest in expanding the network (why should they?). And, oh yes, the implementation of such a system might just also make it easier to limit internet access and/or spy on nearly everything people do (how else do you charge if you're not monitoring activity?).

There's some bad news on the copyright front in Canada, but at least it's tempered with some, if not actually good news, reasonable news. The bad news is that file sharing lawsuits are returning to Canada, assisted by forensic software companies like Canipre, which has been collecting information on infringing users for the past several months.

A forensic software company has collected files on a million Canadians who it says have downloaded pirated content.

And the company, which works for the motion picture and recording industries, says a recent court decision forcing Internet providers to release subscriber names and details is only the first step in a bid to crack down on illegal downloads.

“The door is closing. People should think twice about downloading content they know isn’t proper,” said Barry Logan, managing director of Canipre, the Montreal-based forensic software company.

Logan said while last week’s court case involved only 50 IP addresses, his company is involved in another case that will see thousands of Canadians targeted in a sweep aimed at deterring Internet users from illegally downloading movies and other digital content.

Logan said his company has files on one million Canadians who are involved in peer-to-peer file sharing and have downloaded movies from BitTorrent sites, identifying them through Internet Protocol addresses collected over the past five months.

Moving beyond the obvious problem with identifying infringers through an IP address, it looks as if Canadian citizens are going to be on the receiving end of lawsuits brought by members of the content industry. Whether this results in a corresponding sales boost to the industries involved remains to be seen, but the tactics involved (mass lawsuits, IP addresses) seem to have been taken from the copyright trolls' handbook. In short, there's nothing remotely "good" about this news.

Even though the tactics are familiar and the companies involved state that they're modeling their actions on their American counterparts, there's one aspect that trails far "behind" the US system: statutory damages. Michael Geist reminds us of the reasonable news, which is as close to "good" as this situation gets:

While it is possible that many will receive demand letters, it is important to note that recent changes to Canadian copyright law limit liability in non-commercial cases to a maximum of $5,000 for all infringement claims. In fact, it is likely that a court would award far less - perhaps as little as $100 - if the case went to court as even the government's FAQ on the recent copyright reform bill provided assurances that Canadians "will not face disproportionate penalties for minor infringements of copyright by distinguishing between commercial and non-commercial infringement."

Compared to the US statutory damage laws, which allow for up to $150,000 per infringement, Canada's limits bring personal liability down to something more in line with the "damages" of non-commercial infringement. Even commercial infringement is treated more realistically, capping out at $20,000 per infringement.

This would be the small bit of "good" news contained within the unwelcome return of file sharing lawsuits. Geist theorizes on the mass lawsuit process, lending more credence to the idea that the represented industries are heading out for a bit of trolling. Fortunately for Canadian citizens, a low cap on damages means very few of those swept up in mass filings will end up in court.

The lawsuits will likely follow a three-step process. First, rights holders will seek a court order requiring Internet providers to disclose customer name and address information. Second, should the court order the disclosure, rights holders will use the information to send settlement demand letters to subscribers. The letters will allege infringement and likely offer to settle the case for several thousand dollars. If subscribers refuse to settle - perhaps they believe the allegation is inaccurate or the settlement demands unfair - it will fall to rights holders to follow through with a lawsuit. Given recent changes to the law, there is reason to doubt those cases will be filed as the individual liability is very limited.

If you can't keep rights holders from casting a wide net in hopes of swift settlements, the next best thing is to keep them from seeking outrageous statutory damages. With the very real possibility of showing up in court only to walk out with a $100 bill, one would suspect that settlement requests will stay at more realistic levels.

We've covered how often DMCA notices seem to be sent improperly, taking down others people's work, but it's also true that we see people send DMCA notices on their own work pretty often. TorrentFreak has done a great job detailing many cases where Hollywood's biggest and most famous studios have been issuing DMCA takedowns on their own movies, as well as their own movie promotional pages. Among the takedowns are ones from Lionsgate taking down authorized versions of a film on iTunes, Amazon, Blockbuster and Xfinity.

Then there's 20th Century Fox trying to protect Family Guy... by issuing a takedown of the Wikipedia page about the show. Even worse? Another takedown for the show How I Met Your Mother, in which the "original work URL" listed is the CBS website for the show (which makes sense), but that very same URL is listed for takedown Other studios seem to takedown press stories about their movies. The BBC, for example sent takedowns on a bunch of press coverage and reviews of their film "Ill Manors." While Sony Pictures issued a takedown supposedly about their film "The Other Guys," but which really targeted a ton of articles... about Megaupload. And then there are just random ones like notoriously aggressive about IP studio Summit Entertainment issuing takedowns over the movie 50/50... but including an announcement about US Energy Secretary Steven Chu delivering a keynote speech at the "50th Anniversary" of SLAC (the Stanford Linear Accelerator). Apparently, you can't take a chance with anything that has "50" in the title. Might be the movie.

While these may be amusing to point out, they raise a much larger issue. Copyright holders like to insist that companies like Google and others can just "obviously" tell what is and what is not infringing and they should be able to magically stop piracy because of that. And yet... here we are, where the studios themselves can't even figure it out. How the hell do they expect others to figure it out for them?

It's no secret that the US government is often way too secretive. More specifically, it seeks to "overclassify" documents to keep them secret when there's little reason that they should be. While this may stem from the natural reaction of governments to stay secret, this can have some pretty serious consequences. In fact, there are reasons to suggest that some of our intelligence failings, including the failure to prevent 9/11, came from a lack of communication due to overclassification. Partly to deal with this, President Obama signed the Reducing Over-Classification Act, which required various parts of the federal government to (you guessed it) reduce over-classification. As part of implementing this, federal inspectors general are supposed to "evaluate" the classification policies of the organizations.

The folks over at NextGov note the irony that the Defense Department's memo (pdf) concerning its IG's evaluation of its over-classification issue was itself classified as "For Official Use Only" (FOUO). Now, to be fair, FOUO documents are still considered "unclassified," so you could argue that this isn't really about overclassification. But, it certainly seems to go against the spirit of the effort, which was to encourage greater information sharing and make it easier for the public to remain informed as well.

GEMA's ongoing efforts to destroy as many music venues as possible in the name of "performance rights" continue unabated. If anything, GEMA's approaching some sort of event horizon in terms of PRO insanity.

Recently, GEMA was given permission by the German parliament to assess levy increases of up to 1,400% on some of Germany's most iconic underground clubs, threatening their continued existence. The reason given for granting GEMA its exorbitant requests was, unbelievably, that it was too difficult to assess performance rights fees accurately. GEMA's new "simplified" rates are based purely on the size of the venue and the length of the event -- it has nothing to do with whether or not GEMA represents the artists played.

There has been a little pushback on the extra fee assessed to events that run more than five hours -- as they often do in underground clubs -- but GEMA has decided that because it gave an inch, it's fully justified in taking a mile. FACT Magazine brings us the news that GEMA is adding a brand new fee to the mix, bizarrely aimed at DJs who utilize laptops and play MP3s rather than records or CDs.

It now appears that GEMA are attempting to knuckle down even harder on club performances. So far this has only – to our knowledge – been reported on German language websites, but at the heart of these newly proposed set of changes is a tax (or “laptop surcharge”) on DJs playing music from laptops, to the tune of 30% for every music file under five minutes with an increase of 20% for each additional minute. What we’re unsure about is whether this only refers to files that are played, or all music on the offending laptop – we’d presume the former, but the post on Tanith implies the latter (“e.g. 10,000 mp3s on the DJ laptop would [require] 1,300 Euros”).

The gist of it, as far as can be made out via Chrome translation, is that venues will pay an additional 30% surcharge on top of the already jacked-up fees if the featured artist uses a laptop. This fee can be waived, however, in exchange for a per track levy. According to the Tanithblog, GEMA is charging a "duplication" fee for each MP3. MP3s under five minutes in length are assessed a 13-cent per track fee. Each additional minute brings with it a 20% increase in price.

It's unclear at this point whether GEMA is assessing this fee for each track played or each track on the hard drive. Considering its "difficulty" with accurately tracking music played, I would assume GEMA will opt for a levy on the contents of the drive, which will be less "onerous" and result in larger fee assessments. If this new fee is levied only on the tracks actually played, this means GEMA has access to actual tracks used during the event, and therefore should charge only for covered artists. But GEMA won't do that. Instead, it will go for whichever fee is larger and easier to assess. Considering 10,000 tracks is probably "traveling light" for any respected club DJ, a 1,300 Euro assessment is probably on the low end.

This is stupid, short-sighted and completely GEMA-like, the last of which is probably the greatest insult of all. Supposedly, this additional "laptop surcharge" was negotiated by representatives of the nightclub industry itself, giving the appearance that GEMA is actually working with club owners to work out mutually beneficial licensing. FACT points out that, in fact, this is just business as usual for the PRO megathug. (The info sheet from DDU and DDO is available here.)

The proposal has reportedly been negotiated with the German Discotheques and Nightclubs unions (DDU and DDO). Dean Driscoll, of German-based promotions company Tailored Communication, explained on Twitter this morning that these unions are “sub-branches of GEMA populated solely by GEMA members.”

It's a rigged game, with GEMA selling out the artists it represents by systematically running venues into the ground. This latest fee is another example of its outsized sense of entitlement and zealous pursuit of every possible revenue stream. The audacity of leveraging a new fee simply because of the technology involved has nothing to do with helping its artists and everything to do with cutting itself in on the ongoing migration of DJs to laptop-driven live sets.

As some commenters at FACT point out, this sort of per-MP3 fee has already been deployed in Hungary and Poland, so it's not the first time DJs have been charged for the contents of their laptops. Another commenter notes that Hungary's version is a per file fee, so if GEMA follows suit, DJs will be charged for every music file on their hard drive (unplayed or not) along with files on removable drives and burned CDs. There's no indication that the PROs assessing this MP3 surcharge have any interest in determining if the tracks they're collecting on are actually under their purview.

In the real world, this is called running a protection racket. Out in the PRO world, it's just business as usual. 

Continuing our series of posts concerning the Republican Study Committee report on the problems of the copyright system and how to fix them (which it quickly retracted under industry pressure), today we're going to explore the second "myth" that author Derek Khanna helped debunk: that "copyright is free market capitalism at work." We've already covered the first myth, about the purpose of copyright, as well as responded to various responses to the report by copyright maximalists.

That response feeds nicely into this post, because the whole argument that copyright is "free market capitalism" depends almost entirely on the key claim of maximalists: that copyright is property, full stop. However, as we noted in our response, copyright has both property-like attributes and many non-property-like attributes. And it's when you look at the actual market that you have to recognize that those non-property-like attributes start to stand out. The only way you can argue that copyright is free market capitalism at work is to flat out ignore the ways in which copyright is unlike property.

To hopefully demonstrate this clearly, we'll start out with two examples of other "markets" that show that just because you set up a property right and create a market, that doesn't mean it's a free market. First up: air. Yes, that stuff we all breathe. It's clearly a valuable good. Extremely valuable. But... if we're to believe the maximalist view, because we don't directly pay for the air we breathe (even if we pay for it indirectly) it must be "valueless" or "worthless." So, clearly, the best way to deal with this is to set up a monopoly privilege in air -- such that you need to buy a "license" to breathe air that isn't yours.

Think of the massive industry that would be built up around this. It would really be a tremendously large industry, because people would be willing to pay every last penny to make sure that they had air to breathe. Talk about having inelastic demand! But, of course, the "problem" is that we have (mostly) abundant supply. Yet, putting monopoly rights on it would solve that problem right away, restricting supply through artificial monopolies, and allowing owners to charge. Boy, would that create a market! Of course, it would be complex, so perhaps we could "ease" things along by creating an Airrights Royalty Board to set some compulsory rates to make the whole market function "better." Think of how we could juice the economy there! Every single person needs air, so they would pay. Clearly, overnight, it would boost the economy.

Of course, this is silly. Everyone knows that it's silly, but as you listen to the arguments for copyright as being a free market, recognize that it's no different than the scenario above. The problem is basically a restating of Bastiat's broken window parable. The government can introduce artificial inefficiencies into the market, but that doesn't mean that it's part of a free market. A free market is one in which resources are being allocated more efficiently. But a market in which you have entities choosing to introduce inefficiencies on purpose to create new markets isn't a "free market" at all. It just creates an inefficient market that draws money to that market and away from more efficient purposes and allocation. You can, if you want, argue that this government / market interference is good for society or a particular group -- but you cannot argue that it's "free market capitalism" because it's not.

The second example is similar. It's the idea that Ed Felten came up with a few years back, known as the Pizzaright Principle, which stated simply is:

Pizzaright – the exclusive right to sell pizza – is a new kind of intellectual property right. Pizzaright law, if adopted, would make it illegal to make or serve a pizza without a license from the pizzaright owner.

Creating a pizzaright would be terrible policy, of course. We’re much better off letting the market decide who can make and sell pizza.

The Pizzaright Principle says that if you make an argument for expanding copyright or creating new kinds of intellectual property rights, and if your argument serves equally well as an argument for pizzaright, then your argument is defective. It proves too much. Whatever your argument is, it had better rest on some difference between pizzaright and the exclusive right you want to create.

This is the same basic concept again. You can create new artificial markets by inserting property-like rights anywhere you want. But most people in other situations recognize that's not free market capitalism at all, but market distorting interference. So, as you listen to those who argue that copyright is free market capitalism, apply these tests. Does it apply equally to airrights and pizzarights? If so, the argument is defective. To date, I have yet to hear an argument for copyright being free market capitalism that doesn't equally apply to airrights or pizzarights.

Of course, there are other important ways in which copyrights are actually against the free market -- and, again, it's here where recognizing the key differences between copyright and scarce property come into play. As Rick Falkvinge recently reminded us, copyright is something that actually limits property rights rather than creates new ones:

Which brings us to the third notable item: “the exclusive right”. This is what we would refer to colloquially as a “monopoly”. The copyright industry has been tenacious in trying to portray the copyright monopoly as “property”, when in reality, the exclusive rights created are limitations of property rights (it prohibits me from storing the bitpatterns of my choosing on my own hardware).

This is a key point that often gets lost in all of this. The only thing that copyright does is limit others' actual property rights. Now, again, this doesn't mean you can't make an argument that this limitation is valuable and important. But it's a simple fact that all the "exclusive right" copyright provides to someone is a way to try to stop people from actually exercising their own property rights over products they own.

In the end, it's fine to argue that copyright has important benefits and value -- but that's not the same thing as arguing that it's a part of free market capitalism. Because it's not.

If you've been following MPAA boss Chris Dodd ever since the death of SOPA, you'll be aware of his stump speech. He seems to give it every chance he can: "the movie industry is all about jobs, jobs and more jobs." Of course, he lies about the number. He usually trots out his favorite 2.1 million figure, ignoring the fact that the Congressional Research Service showed it's really 374,000 people employed in the movie business.

What isn't mentioned so much (though, it depends on the audience) is the fact that various tax subsidies that different states pay to movie studios means that $1.5 billion in taxpayer money goes straight to Hollywood studios. Perhaps that would be justifiable if it created jobs. But the evidence there is actually lacking. That link involves the NY Times looking closely at Michigan, which not too long ago put in place massive subsidies for Hollywood to make movies in their state. The cost? Suffering Michigan citizens foot the bill. However, Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm thought it was worth it because a local movie director wanted more work at home (and because, when she was younger, she had hoped to be a movie star). Lots of studios are looking to make movies in Michigan now, because the cash back from the state is way too lucrative to pass up.

Within two months, 24 movies had signed up to film in Michigan — up from two the entire year before. The productions estimated that they would spend $195 million filming there, and in return they would be refunded about $70 million in cash.

Before long, residents were rushing out on their lunch breaks to catch a glimpse of celebrities like Drew Barrymore, who was filming her movie “Whip It” in Ann Arbor, and Clint Eastwood, who was shooting “Gran Torino” in the Detroit area. Even Michael Moore, who was filming a movie about corporate welfare called “Capitalism: A Love Story,” sought and received incentives.

But does it create jobs? Not really. The story is horrifying. It involves Hollywood hotshots continually demanding more and more subsidies from the state and insisting that jobs would be plentiful as soon as they could get things up and running, but balking any time anyone asked them to put the job promises in a contract:

Ms. Granholm declared the city in a financial crisis in February 2009 and appointed an emergency manager, Fred Leeb. The city’s budget was $54 million a year, but it was overspending by an estimated $7 million to $12 million. Pontiac was also still weighted down by old incentives it had given to businesses like G.M.

The movie studio was an added challenge, since it was seeking financial incentives from the city — not to mention from other branches of the government. It won redevelopment tax credits from the federal government and separate aid from the state that included incentives for technology companies that hire residents.

Job creation became a point of contention with beleaguered Pontiac, which was being asked to waive virtually all property taxes for the studio. The investors claimed that thousands of people would be employed, but Mr. Leeb said that when he asked for job numbers to be written into the contract, the investors refused. “We started seeing some backpedaling,” said Mr. Leeb, who added that the negotiations featured “knock-down, drag-out fights.”

But wanting to bring the big lights of Hollywood to Michigan, eventually the state agreed to it. Who paid for the subsidies? Former state workers basically were forced to bet their pensions on Hollywood:

Over the objections of some local officials, the state agreed to use the state workers’ pension funds to guarantee the bonds. If the investors failed to pay, the retirees would be on the hook.

And the promised jobs? Keep looking. Sure, some crews from LA flew in, but for locals? Almost none.

The studio had created only 200 positions by the summer of 2011, according to correspondence between the company and local officials. And when temporary construction workers were excluded from the tally, Pontiac’s records show, the studio reported only two employees in 2010 and 12 the next year.

Earlier, in the article, they note that this particular project was pushed through with the promise of 3,600 jobs. You don't do that by hiring two people one year and a dozen the next.

How about tax revenue from the local operations? Yeah, big Hollywood studios have ways of avoiding paying that sorta thing, even as they're collecting millions in local subsidies:

The city later had problems collecting some of the taxes because Disney operated through a separate business entity that was difficult to track down, he said.

“This is a glamorous industry if you want to talk about Hollywood, but it’s not very glamorous for the municipality that wants to collect something,” Mr. Schimmel said. Pontiac, he said, was outgunned.

Disney declined to comment.

And... soon after that, the studios moved on to other sexier states that suddenly offering up bigger incentives than Michigan. And who did it cost? Oh yeah: remember those state workers' pensions? Yup. Them.

When the bill for the studio’s bond interest came due in February this year, it paid only a portion, $210,000. The state pension fund had to pick up the remaining $420,000....

In August, the studio defaulted on the entire $630,000 payment on the bond, despite a decision by Mr. Snyder to temporarily allocate some film incentives.

All around, it's a horror story that's being repeated in other states and countries around the globe. Hollywood studios go around pitching "jobs!" and demanding special taxpayer-funded incentives, offering giving them millions to film in a certain location. The filmmakers take the subsidies, bring in crews from LA, hire a couple people here or there... and then move on, leaving a mess in their wake. And this is the industry that is demanding even more protection from the federal government via copyright law? When is enough enough?

Ah, this is what you get when you build up ideas around the idea that every bit of content must be "owned." You may have heard the somewhat heartwarming story last week of NYPD Officer Lawrence DePrimo, seeing a homeless man in NYC without any shoes on, buying the man some boots and giving them to him. Without either man being aware of it, a tourist from Arizona, Jennifer Foster, saw this happening and took a photo of the situation. Some people were skeptical of the validity of the image, but after it was confirmed, DePrimo was hailed as a hero and we were once again reminded that not all people photographing police are doing so to embarrass them.

That said, a reporter for the NY Times caught up with the homeless man in question, Jeffrey Hillman, who hasn't received quite as much attention, only to find that he's barefoot again, saying that the boots were now hidden for his own safety:

"Those shoes are hidden. They are worth a lot of money," Mr. Hillman said in an interview on Broadway in the 70s. "I could lose my life."

From the interview, it appears that Mr. Hillman -- who has been homeless for many years -- may have plenty of other problems as well. However, in a moment of clarity... he put forth the kind of statement we're used to hearing all the time around here:

"I was put on YouTube, I was put on everything without permission. What do I get?" he said. "This went around the world, and I want a piece of the pie."

This is what you get, folks, in a world where you tell everyone that idea, concept, image, etc. must be "owned."

Techdirt has run a number of articles about the ITU's World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) currently taking place in Dubai. One of the concerns is that decisions taken there may make the Internet less a medium that can be used to enhance personal freedom than a tool for state surveillance and oppression.

Against that background, a story published by the Center for Democracy & Technology about the ITU's work in the area of standards takes on an extra significance:

The telecommunications standards arm of the U.N. has quietly endorsed the standardization of technologies that could give governments and companies the ability to sift through all of an Internet user's traffic -- including emails, banking transactions, and voice calls -- without adequate privacy safeguards. The move suggests that some governments hope for a world where even encrypted communications may not be safe from prying eyes.

The new Y.2770 standard is entitled "Requirements for deep packet inspection in Next Generation Networks", and seeks to define an international standard for deep packet inspection (DPI). As the Center for Democracy & Technology points out, it is thoroughgoing in its desire to specify technologies that can be used to spy on people:

The ITU-T DPI standard holds very little in reserve when it comes to privacy invasion. For example, the document optionally requires DPI systems to support inspection of encrypted traffic "in case of a local availability of the used encryption key(s)." It's not entirely clear under what circumstances ISPs might have access to such keys, but in any event the very notion of decrypting the users' traffic (quite possibly against their will) is antithetical to most norms, policies, and laws concerning privacy of communications.

One of the big issues surrounding WCIT and the ITU has been the lack of transparency -- or even understanding what real transparency might be. So it will comes as no surprise that the new DPI standard was negotiated behind closed doors, with no drafts being made available.

But probably most worrying is the following aspect:

Several global standards bodies, including the IETF and W3C, have launched initiatives to incorporate privacy considerations into their work. In fact, the IETF has long had a policy of not considering technical requirements for wiretapping in its work, taking the seemingly opposite approach to the ITU-T DPI document, as Germany pointed out [doc] in voicing its opposition to the ITU-T standard earlier this year. The ITU-T standard barely acknowledges that DPI has privacy implications, let alone does it provide a thorough analysis of how the potential privacy threats associated with the technology might be mitigated.

This apparent indifference to the wider implications of its work is yet another reason why the ITU is unfit to determine any aspect of something with as much power to affect people's lives as the Internet.

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

You may recall that, back in September, the New Zealand government admitted that the GCSB (Government Communications Security Bureau), the local equivalent of the NSA had illegally spied on Kim Dotcom to aid American DOJ investigators. New Zealand's Prime Minister, John Key, apologized and ordered an investigation. Many were asking when Key actually knew about the illegal surveillance, which covered domestic communications, despite GCSB's mandate being focused on foreign communications. It's now come out that the order to "suppress" the information about GCSB's activities, signed by acting prime minister Bill English (normally the Finance Minister) while Key was abroad, was the only such document in 10 years:

The spy agency has stated that the certificate signed by Finance Minister Bill English as Acting Prime Minister was the only one found in "a thorough search of our files".

Mr English was asked by the GCSB to sign the "ministerial certificate" while Prime Minister John Key was overseas in August. The certificate said knowledge of the GCSB's involvement in the Dotcom investigation would damage its ability to detect or prevent serious crime.

The fact it was the only ministerial warrant in 10 years was discovered by the Green Party under the Official Information Act. Its rarity has led Green Party co-leader Russel Norman to question how Mr Key stayed ignorant of its existence until a month after it was signed.

Beyond the concern of who knew what and when, there should be continued outrage in New Zealand at its goverment's willingness to bend over backwards to break the law just because the US entertainment industry was putting pressure on the DOJ to "do something" about Megaupload. The fact that they appear to have not only broken the law, but then issued a one-of-a-kind order to try to hide the fact that they broke the law really says something about the lengths the NZ government were willing to go to please Hollywood.