Over and over again people have pointed out that one of the reasons people flock to "unauthorized" versions of content is that legitimate versions aren't available. For a decade or so, it's been odd that network TV has been generally resistant to embracing the internet. A big part of the reason, of course, is money driven, since they make so much cash from cable deals (even if their content is free over the air). The fight with Aereo, of course, is not so much about copyright as it is about retransmission fees that the networks can get from cable. So it might seem like a bit of progress to see that the networks are finally moving towards live streaming of content.

While many shows are now available online, they usually aren't available until hours (or sometimes days or weeks) after things air. And while, yes, we're now a DVR world, where people don't always watch shows when they air, there is still a sizable population of fans of shows that like to watch them in real-time. In fact, many have said that the supposedly evil internet is actually making them more interested in watching live, because they can share the cultural experience more widely via things like Twitter and Facebook. So, recognizing that reality, making it easier for people to view the content live at the same time, such as via online streaming, makes a lot of sense. Kudos to the networks for recognizing that, about a decade later than they should have.

Disney's ABC network will become the first broadcast network to stream its shows live online through an ongoing service, starting with viewers of its TV stations in New York and Philadelphia on May 14 and expanding to its other stations by the end of the summer.

Okay, that's the good part. But, given who we're talking about, of course there's a catch. There's always a catch:

Starting on July 1, Disney will only provide its WATCH ABC service to subscribers of cable, satellite and other TV subscription services that have agreements with ABC to offer the service to their subscribers in New York and Philadelphia. Subscribers must provide an authentication code to be granted access to the shows.

Later this summer, Disney said it will expand use of its WATCH ABC service to authenticated subscribers that receive its TV stations in Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Houston, Raleigh-Durham and Fresno, California.

Remember, this is free, over the air, network television we're talking about. But they're so frightened of pissing off the cable/satellite guys from whom they make boatloads of money, they won't offer the content to cord cutters -- only to people who are already paying ridiculous sums for cable/satellite TV.

Oh, and rather than make it work on any platform, it appears to be specific to certain devices:

The app will initially allow users to be able to watch the service on Apple's iPad and iPhone and on the Kindle Fire device, and later this summer on Samsung Galaxy devices.

Oh, and they're not done with the bad ideas either:

The report also claims that in the future, ABC will “withhold its most recent TV episodes from the free versions of Hulu and ABC.com, further limiting access to paying subscribers of cable and satellite providers only.”

Way to take a good idea (live streaming) and make it completely crappy and pointless again (locking it to devices and existing overpriced pay TV offerings while taking away the value for everyone else and further fragmenting the space).

Update: The DHS has released a copy of the warrant, which claims probable cause to believe that Mt. Gox is engaging in money transmitting without a license.

We've discussed in the past how the government seems very skeptical of Bitcoin, and now it may be doing something about it. As a whole bunch of you have sent in, ICE (Immigrations and Customs Enforcement), a division of Homeland Security -- best known around here for its cowboy attitude towards censoring websites with no basis -- has cut off Dwolla transfers to Mt. Gox, the biggest Bitcoin exchange, preventing Dwolla from processing any Bitcoin transfers. According to Declan McCullagh at News.com:

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security confirmed it has initiated legal action that prompted the Dwolla payment service to stop processing bitcoin transactions.

Nicole Navas, a spokesperson for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, confirmed the legal action to CNET this afternoon.

Chris Coyne, from Ok Cupid, posted a screenshot of an email from Dwolla claiming that ICE had "seized" the account of Mt. Gox: Mt. Gox, for its part, claims this is the first it's heard of anything:

MtGox has read on the Internet that the United States Department of Homeland Security had a court order and/or warrant issued from the United States District Court in Maryland which it served upon the Dwolla mobile payment service with respect to accounts used for trading with MtGox. We take this information seriously. However, as of this time we have not been provided with a copy of the court order and/or warrant, and do not know its scope and/or the reasons for its issuance. MtGox is investigating and will provide further reports when additional information becomes known.

I would imagine there will be a lot more to this story, but for the moment details are scarce.

Paul Duffy, as many of you know, is one of the key players in the Prenda/Anti-Piracy Law Group game. In fact, he's "officially" the only named partner of Prenda -- though others have argued that it's really John Steele and Paul Hansmeier pulling Duffy's strings. Either way, Duffy might want to have a talk with his wife. As some folks noticed, late on Monday, his wife, Shari Duffy made a post on Facebook (since deleted) about her husband's activities, in which she lashes out at those who have pointed out that he's engaged in what various courts have now called a "fraud on the court" by calling them "the worst kinds of thieves imaginable." But, the key thing is the final line of her comment: If you can't read the full text, here it is:

Here's a fun fact...my husband sues people for pirating porn and the phone companies for putting it in the hands of people under 18...the men caught really hate his firm and have tried to harm him physically and financially, but they are the worst kind of thieves imaginable and shame on all the mobile carriers for allowing people to move X rated material to the hands of minors. Someone we know paid an undisclosed amount to settle a case so that we would not release his name to the public.

It's worth pointing out that the folks involved in various trolling efforts have generally bent over backwards to avoid saying that they're getting people to pay them to avoid being named, because, you know, that's illegal. As former federal prosecutor, Ken "Popehat" White notes, this "sounds like a confession of interstate extortion to me." And remember that Judge Wright, in the Southern District of California, has already claimed that Duffy's actions (along with Steele and Hansmeier) should be investigated by the US Attorneys for racketeering -- and extortion is generally a key part of many racketeering schemes.

I'm no expert on extortion law, so for those who are, please weigh in, but it seems like 18 USC 875(d) might be particularly relevant here:

Whoever, with intent to extort from any person, firm, association, or corporation, any money or other thing of value, transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication containing any threat to injure the property or reputation of the addressee or of another or the reputation of a deceased person or any threat to accuse the addressee or any other person of a crime, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.

Admitting that the person paid up to avoid being named, and not because of any merit in the accusations seems to be a pretty clear admission to violating that law. We've heard of stupid criminals getting rung up for their own social networking posts, but how about their wives "bragging" about their actions and admitting to federal crimes in the process?

And, of course, not that it needs to be said, but while perhaps some of the people speaking out against Duffy and his firm were caught in his scheme to get people to pay up, many of us have never been involved or accused of infringement, and are speaking out because we think his actions are an abuse of the legal system to shake people down for money -- pretty much exactly as Shari perhaps inadvertently admitted.

IP "enforcement" is a Herculean task (according to the enforcers), one that requires so much time and energy that those pursuing infringers barely have time to make sure their own backyard is clean. Many in the copyright industry (or closely affiliated) have been caught infringing on others' copyrights: hosted infringing material. SOPA pusher Lamar Smith. NBC Universal. Righthaven. The US Copyright Group. The list literally goes on and on.

Here we are again, discussing an entity so concerned with outside infringement, it can hardly be bothered to notice the infringement within its own walls. Canipre, the Canadian "forensics software" company that has hunted down IP addresses for a "million pirates" on behalf of lawsuit-happy studios like Voltage Pictures ('Hurt Locker,' anyone), has decked out its (rather overdramatic) website with the unlicensed photos belonging to others.

Canipre, as a company, offers to track down people who are illegally downloading copyrighted material from record companies and film studios. According to their website, they have issued more than 3,500,000 takedown notices, and their work has led to multimillion dollar damages awards, injunctions, seizure of assets, and even incarceration.

In a recent interview, Canipre's managing director Barry Logan explained that it's about much more than just money—he's hoping to teach the Canadian public a moral lesson:

"[We want to] change social attitudes toward downloading. Many people know it is illegal but they continue to do it... Our collective goal is not to sue everybody… but to change the sense of entitlement that people have, regarding Internet-based theft of property.”

Well, it seems the "sense of entitlement" goes all the way up. Here's a screencap of Canipre's website that features a self-portrait by Steve Houk.


We'll quote Vice here:

So, just to be clear: Canipre has written "they all know it's wrong and they're still doing it." Referring to copyright theft. On top of an image that they are using without the permission of the copyright holder. On their official website.

Houk says no permission was given to use his photo. He contacted Canipre directly to discuss its infringement and to point out that is was "disheartening" to see a company claiming to "champion intellectual property rights" obviously disregarding the rights of others. This led to Canipre's marketing director firing off a volley of emails and phone calls before finally deciding to pass the buck.

Logan claimed that the company used a 3rd party vendor to develop their website and that the vendor had purchased the image from an image bank.

I pointed out to Logan that if that was true, he had basically paid his vendor to rip off other people's creative work. Logan told me that he would contact his web provider and have the image removed. He also told me that he would provide me with the name of the website developer and the name of the image bank where they obtained my photo.

So, it's important that Canipre maintains a presence on the web that properly (and noirishly) delivers its message on the importance of intellectual property rights, but not important enough to dot i's, cross t's and make sure its "third party vendor" isn't simply grabbing images from "the internet" (or image banks with their own infringement problem).

Logan has yet to provide the name of the developer or the image bank, so it still remains somewhat of a mystery which 3rd party vendor slapped Houk's photo onto an IP enforcer's website. And this photo, taken by Sascha Pohlflepp. And this one, taken by Brian Moore. At this point, all of the infringing photos have been taken down, but only after Vice called attention to Canipre's actons.

The ironic thing about the last two photos is that they're both Creative Commons-licensed, meaning all Canipre (or its vendor) had to do was properly attribute the photos. But neither could be bothered.

Now, some might say that in the scheme of things, Canipre's infringement is nothing compared to the infringement it's fighting. But here's the difference. Canipre is a company that helps studios like Voltage sue alleged infringers based on not much more than an IP address. File sharers aren't turning a profit or presenting themselves as righters of the world's wrongs. If you're going to put yourself in the position of "educating" people (via mass lawsuits) about the importance of the intellectual property rights you're being paid to protect, you had better make sure you're not stepping on the IP toes of others.

It will hardly come as a surprise to anyone to learn that a popular writer and well-known critic of China's pervasive censorship system has run into trouble for his views. Fortunately, in this case that doesn't mean getting arrested, but nonetheless involves quite a dramatic slapdown:

The online Sina Weibo microblogging account of Murong Xuecun, one of China's most popular writers and one of the country's foremost critics of censorship, has been deleted from the site, suspected to be part of the government's efforts to crack down on online rumors by targeting high-profile users.

Murong's account, which had more than 1.1 million followers, was taken down from the Twitter-link website on May 11, 2013. His writing as well as his microblogging discusses social issues in contemporary China such as corruption and media censorship.

The Global Voices story quoted above goes on to describe the ways in which some of those 1.1 million followers have reacted, and how many feel that Sina Weibo is diminished by Murong's absence. It also points out that all of his posts have been preserved and are available -- but on the other side of the Great Firewall of China (GFW). Although only those with the requisite technical know-how to tunnel under the GFW using VPNs will be able to access the now-deleted messages, that doesn't mean the Chinese authorities have really won here. After all, using censorship to silence a critic of censorship means that his 1.1 million (ex-)followers now have definitive proof of what he was warning them about.

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The UK's new orphan works legislation allows works to be classed as orphans only after a "diligent search" has been conducted to find the owner. The fear expressed by some is that this "diligent" search won't be very diligent, allowing publishers to use materials that aren't orphans. That's actually wrong for a number of reasons, as Techdirt explained recently, but the continuing furor from photographers in particular has been such that the UK's Intellectual Property Office (IPO) felt compelled to issue a document entitled "The Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act 2013 –Your photos and you" (pdf) explaining how the system would work, and why the fears were unjustified.

However, that document still does not answer the central question of what "diligent" will mean. A post on Out-Law.com provides some information about how this will be addressed:

"The 'diligent search' requirement will be defined through a working group so that it can reflect current best practice across all sectors," a spokesperson for the IPO told Out-Law.com. "This will make sure that any requirements are practical and manageable. The working group will include representation from creators, including the photography sectors, and users such as museums and archives."

Reading that made me wonder who exactly was on this working group, so I contacted the IPO's press office asking for details. Here's the list of organizations they kindly sent me:

Society of London Theatre and Theatrical Management Association
BBC Publishers Content Forum
JISC
National Museum Directors' Council (NMDC)
Copyright Licensing Agency
Musicians' Union
Creators Rights Alliance
British Association of Picture Libraries & Archives
British Equity Collecting Society
Focal
Authors Licensing & Collecting Society
The National Archives
Stop 43
Libraries and Archives Copyright Alliance
The Association of Photographers
British Screen Advisory Council
Publishers Licensing Society
The Association of Illustrators
Society of Authors
Directors UK
Producers Alliance for Cinema & Television
UK Music
Association of Authors Agents

There are two things that struck me about that list. One is the appearance of Stop 43, probably the most vociferous of the photographer groups that have been complaining about the new orphan works law. Let's hope that its presence here, and thus its ability to contribute to the definition of "diligent", means that it drops the rhetoric about how the UK government has "reversed the normal workings of copyright," when that's simply not the case.

The other thing is that in contrast to the two groups representing photographers, there is not a single advocate for the somewhat more populous general public. Of course, that's absolutely par for the course: the public is routinely overlooked whenever it comes to asking "stakeholders" what they think about proposed changes to copyright. The UK's welcome move to liberate hostage works at last would have been the perfect opportunity to break yet more new ground by engaging directly with groups representing the 60 million people whose views are never properly considered. Sadly, that seems not to be happening.

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The Pirate Party of Sweden famously got two MEPs elected to the European Parliament in its last election, and now in an interesting move, Peter Sunde -- probably best known as the former spokesperson for The Pirate Bay -- has announced that he'll be running for the European Parliament in Finland (he was apparently born in Sweden but his ancestry is Finnish). After the Pirate Bay -- which many people incorrectly assume is connected to The Pirate Party -- Sunde went on to found Flattr, a system (which we use here) that helps content creators make money.

I've discovered that people who have never met Peter tend to be very quick to jump to conclusions about him -- almost always entirely incorrect. Amusingly, when I first met him, a few years back in Berlin, he and I were sitting in "the green room" of a conference right before a panel that he was supposed to be on. All of the other panelists on his panel had entered the room and were discussing the panel across the room, without knowing that Peter was sitting right there talking to me. So they started talking about him, and someone explained that "the pirates now hate Peter, because he switched to the other side with Flattr." Of course, nothing is further from the truth. This was never about "sides" but about reality. Peter has always been incredibly focused on recognizing what reality is and trying to respond to reality -- rather than making up artificial boundaries and pretending a fake world must exist where it does not. I'm not sure how well that will play in actual political situations, but it would be great to see what would happen.

The one bit that surprises me, frankly, about the decision to do this via the Pirate Party is that, in the past, Peter has actually distanced himself from The Pirate Party in the past, saying that he preferred other parties, such as the Swedish Green Party. Either way, in my limited experience with him, Peter has always been one of the most perceptive and thoughtful commenters on the state of technology and its impact on society and culture. I've come away from our conversations feeling like I understood a lot more about the world than when the talks started. I recognize that for many who come with pre-conceived notions, it will be easy to try to dismiss him, but for those willing to take a chance and see what he actually has to say, there is tremendous value in hearing what he has to say -- and in a political world, it would be great to see what he could accomplish.

That said, there is the outstanding matter of the ruling against him -- and the fact that he's been sentenced to jail, though it's still never been made clear when or how he will be expected to serve that sentence. I would imagine that somehow, that issue would need to be clarified if his candidacy actually gets any real momentum.

Over a hundred years ago, Albert Einstein published what would become his theory of special relativity, and since then, there have been quite a few experiments that support Einstein's ideas. That's the way science usually works. A theory hypothesis is proposed, and if it's deemed worthy enough, other people will actually try to test out the theory hypothesis and see if its predictions can be verified (and every worthy theory hypothesis needs to be able to predict something that isn't already known). As non-traditional scientific publishing becomes easier and more popular, though, the signal-to-noise for interesting ideas can get a bit difficult to discern. Luckily, there are still some folks willing to bear the burden of debunking extraordinary claims from an endless stream of nearly-good ideas.

• Vinay Deolalikar posted his "proof" that P!=NP a few years ago, but it didn't quite stand up to the scrutiny of some mathematicians -- and you, too, can dismiss an extraordinary proof by watching out for a few telltale signs. It's hard to refute everyone who claims to have a P!=NP proof, but there's a roadmap for how to avoid wasting other mathematicians' valuable time. [url]
• A. Garrett Lisi has a grand unifying theory of the universe, but maybe he should stick to surfing. Lisi's TEDtalk is amazingly devoid of physics, but the Large Hadron Collider may have the final say about whether "E8" provides any unique insights on the universe. [url]
• In 2012, Japanese mathematician Shinichi Mochizuki posted 500+ pages (on the internet!) that "might" prove the ABC Conjecture. Mochizuki refuses to discuss his proof, and so far, no one else has really been able to tell him he's wrong. [url]

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

Labor disputes can certainly get nasty at times, but Porter Airlines out of Canada has filed a $4 million libel lawsuit against some striking fuel workers based on tweets they sent out, which the airline claims involved "false and misleading information about safety protocols and training practices" by the airline. The strikers, who only just unionized last year, include just 22 workers who handle helping to fuel up the planes. Their twitter account, @PorterStrike, only had about 200 followers at the time (though it's now up to a whopping 400). The union quickly hit back, saying that the tweets were protected free speech, and no different than typical striking talk by union members:

“Before Twitter and social media, these things would have been said in a union hall and on a leaflet,” said COPE Ontario legal representative Glenn Wheeler. “The Charter of Rights provides for free expression, freedom of association. So we think we are in our constitutional rights to offer our version of the way we see things. That’s fair comment.”

That's an interesting choice of words, because he doesn't actually say that the statements were true, which would be the best defense to libel. However, even if the statements were questionable, one has to wonder how much actual "damage" they might do. One would like to expect that statements made by striking workers against their employer would already be viewed through a specific prism, and given how few Twitter followers there were, you'd have to imagine that Porter would have a difficult time showing any actual harm from the tweets in question. Separately, I wonder how much more of a reputational hit the company will take for suing less than two dozen striking workers for $4 million over some tweets...

The EFF, who just moved into their new offices, seem to be making effective use of the new kitchen space. They're baking up a special recipe: mean-spirited censorship pie. Yum! Most of you would call it "Derby Pie." But a company called Kern's Kitchen has been going around threatening everyone calling it Derby Pie based on its trademark. Kern's has been forcing blogs to change what they call the pie when they post their own recipes: Hence, the new name: mean-spirited censorship pie*. I hear it tastes great. If you want the full recipe, you can see it here. Just don't call it "Derby Pie" or a bunch of trademark lawyers might start screaming at you. Because, here in America, we lock up our language!

* Also, please make your mean-spirited censorship pie before the trademark application on that name goes through and we all have to find another name.