It's been a bit hard to understand what's been going on in the UK concerning copyright reform when we keep hearing two very contradictory messages. On one side, there's the ridiculous Digital Economy Act, which was proposed by the unelected, debated by the ignorant and voted on by the absent in order to put in place much stricter copyright laws, including putting much of the burden on online service providers. That process is continuing to expand with plans to make the censorship part of the bill even clearer. Those behind the law, when pressed, admitted that they had absolutely no evidence to support the claimed need for this law.

And yet, while all of this was happening, there was also the Hargreaves Report, which was a very reasonable look at copyright issues, which listed out a bunch of pretty tame recommendations (so tame that creating a "fair use" policy was seen as too controversial). Of course, it also was pretty clear that the UK should stop its faith-based copyright regulating, and no more changes should be made to the laws without solid economic evidence.

So guess which process is getting attacked? You guessed it. The latter process, as Member of Parliament (MP) Peter Wishart apparently went on the attack against the Hargreaves report and the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) that commissioned it. Peter Bradwell, over at the Open Rights Group, hits back by noting that it's pretty ridiculous to question the IPO while ignoring everything going on with the Digital Economy Act, which came out of a different part of the goverment: the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). Bradwell's article breaks down the differences here:

So to caricature the two departments: one is asking for evidence and consulting widely and openly. One has spent the past few years consulting narrowly, opaquely, and with no evidence or analysis to speak of.

The IPO come under fire in Peter Wishart's speech for being sloppy with evidence and ignoring the creative industries. DCMS' proposals are to be 'got on with'. He calls the IPO 'a bureaucratic front to devalue the people whom it is supposed to support' which the Government must 'get to grips with'. 

That is slightly strange. The issue of policy making for copyright involves managing a complex mix of evidence, principle and opinion. Disagreement, and the management and channeling of that disagreement in the formulation of policy, are two separate things. Whatever position one takes on the substance of this debate about IP, there is a right way and a wrong way to make public policy.  It has to be democratically legitimate, open, transparent and involve proper debate. Over the past 12 months, the IPO has beaten DCMS hands down on that metric. 

Yeah, but being open, transparent and relying on actual evidence isn't just hard work -- the big content gatekeepers don't like it when that happens. And we have to support them at all costs, apparently...

Lots of folks have been waiting on the Senate's version of the cybersecurity bill that's been talked about for a while, and what's clear from the details and the press release put out by the Senate Commerce, Science & Transportation Committee is that the folks behind this bill are bending over backwards to point out that this bill is not like SOPA:

The Senators stressed that the Cybersecurity Act of 2012 in no way resembles the Stop Online Piracy Act or the Protect Intellectual Property Act, which involved the piracy of copyrighted information on the internet. The Cybersecurity Act involves the security of systems that control the essential services that keep our nation running—for instance, power, water, and transportation.

Indeed, the details make it clear that the bill is much more limited than previous versions (or suggestions). For example it has dropped the idea of a "kill switch" (which was already exaggerated) and made it clear that private companies could appeal any security regulations that they fall under. It certainly appears that the bill is designed to be limited by focusing on core "critical infrastructure" -- such that it only will apply to those facilities where a disruption "would cause mass death, evacuation, or major damage to the economy, national security, or daily life." Of course, that could be interpreted broadly. Hell, the MPAA would argue that file sharing created "major damage to the economy," even if there's little to no evidence to support that.

A bigger question, however, should be whether there is any empirical evidence that we need this cybersecurity bill. I'm not saying that it's absolutely not needed -- and I'm glad that it appears the backers of the bill are trying to bend over backwards to hear from all concerned parties (and to avoid a SOPA-like situation). But one of the key things that we learned from SOPA is that Congress needs to stop pushing legislation without real evidence of the nature of the problem, and the evidence here remains lacking. The article linked above, by Jerry Brito and Tate Watkins, highlights all of the hype around cybersecurity and the near total lack of evidence of a problem, other than ominous "trust us, it's a problem!" scare-mongering. They have three suggestions before moving forward with cybersecurity legislation:

• Stop the apocalyptic rhetoric. The alarmist scenarios dominating policy discourse may be good for the cybersecurity-industrial complex, but they aren’t doing real security any favors.
  
  
• Declassify evidence relating to cyber threats. Overclassification is a widely acknowledged problem, and declassification would allow the public to verify the threats rather than blindly trusting self-interested officials.
  
  
• Disentangle the disparate dangers that have been lumped together under the “cybersecurity” label. This must be done to determine who is best suited to address which threats. In cases of cybercrime and cyberespionage, for instance, private network owners may be best suited and have the best incentives to protect their own valuable data, information, and reputations.

Good luck seeing any of that happen, of course. The big companies pushing this bill are profiting heavily off of the fear, as the government spends billions on "cybersecurity." This bill would ensure the gravy train continues, even as the evidence suggests that the "hacking" threat may be less and less of an issue. Of course, most of the press loves to just lap up claims of threats and damages without digging into the details. Fear about impending cyberdoom attracts attention. Talking about reality doesn't.

Of course, who knows if this bill will ever actually get anywhere. Already, many in the Senate are pushing back and asking Senator Harry Reid to slow down with the bill.

Lots of people get married or propose on Valentine's day, and the diamond industry has successfully made its shiny minerals part of the wedding tradition. But can fast food restaurants get into this romantic ritual, too? Here are just a few ways that couples can get hitched --along with a reasonably priced meal.

• Order your perfect Pizza Hut proposal for just $10,010 (plus tax) which includes a $10 dinner box. Limit 1 per customer. Supplies are limited. [url]
• An Illinois couple tied the knot at a Taco Bell -- with the bride wearing a $15 "Taco Bell purple" wedding dress. Make a run for the border, indeed. [url]
• There have actually been several white weddings at White Castles over the last few years. "It was the most amazing thing I could ever hope for..." [url]
• McDonald's in Hong Kong offers a variety of wedding-themed decorations and services -- including wedding dresses and photography sessions. Are you lovin' it? [url]
• To discover more food-related links, check out what's floating around in StumbleUpon. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can also recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

Yeah, well there's a title I never thought I'd write. It seems that Mike D of the Beastie Boys, along with his wife, filmmaker Tamra Davis, and John Silva (of Silva Artist Management, one of the more forward-thinking artist management groups out there, representing a ton of big name acts), have helped to get the SEC to require telcos (mainly AT&T) to include a resolution among shareholder votes over whether or not those shareholders want the company to support wireless net neutrality concepts. Remember, the telcos have been willing to bend (a tiny bit) on wireline neutrality rules, so long as wireless rules have been exempt. So, letting shareholders vote on a resolution concerning wireless neutrality certainly could become a pretty big deal.

I've said in the past that I'm very, very wary of any net neutrality regulations from the government -- because we've all seen how that works, where the telcos take control of the process, and the end result is quite the opposite of what supporters intended. Regulatory capture can be a big deal. But... I am a big supporter in the importance of the concept of net neutrality and the principles of an end-to-end network. If it can be forced on these companies by shareholder proxy that may be the most compelling solution so far. In the past, the SEC has said this issue was not a big enough issue, and could be omitted from shareholder votes as "ordinary business matters." But, now the SEC has come around to realize that net neutrality is, in fact, a big issue, thanks in part to the letter from a group representing Mike D and the others mentioned above. The SEC responded in a pretty straightforward manner:

In view of the sustained public debate over the last several years concerning net neutrality and the Internet and the increasing recognition that the issue raises significant policy considerations, we do not believe that AT&T may omit the proposal from its proxy materials in reliance on rule 14a-8(i)(7).

Of course, who knows if enough shareholders will vote for such a thing. I could easily see a rather confused Wall Street thinking (incorrectly) that breaking the end-to-end principle would be good for business, even if it erodes network usefulness and value.

It's been an interesting day for Meltwater News -- a news aggregator that has been fighting in the UK over claims that it has to pay to aggregate news from the Newspaper Licensing Association. It originally lost its case last year, but successfully got the court today to slash the fees the NLA wanted to charge by 90% (showing just how much some gateekeepers overvalue their own content). Still, as Meltwater notes, the really ridiculous situation is that anyone who aggregates news and links to sources in the UK may now risk having to get a license to do so (even if the licenses won't be nearly as expensive as the NLA would like).

And... merely hours after this ruling in the UK, the Associated Press sued Meltwater over the same basic thing in the US. The AP has always been confused about aggregators and insisted they were illegal -- and has successfully pressured many other ones (including Google and Yahoo) to pay up. Now it's suing Meltwater, claiming that the site is "a parasitic distribution service" and that it "has a significant negative impact on the ability of AP to continue providing the high-quality news reports." To put it mildly, that's ridiculous. If the AP can't continue providing news because Meltwater is aggregating their stories, then the AP deserves to die.

The full lawsuit is embedded below (it's a long one). The AP insists that it's not against aggregators in general (though it suggests that it's really just not against aggregators who pay them). The lawsuit seems to want to pin the general decline of the AP's business model almost entirely on services like Meltwater. Where the AP's argument is stronger is in highlighting that Meltwater does archive full works for subscribers (not for the public). But the details aren't as crazy as the AP would like to suggest they are. It does not appear to make those archived works fully available -- but it does two things. First it just keeps an index so that if you search on terms for AP articles that are no longer online, it tells you that they once existed. That shouldn't be seen as infringement as it's an index and the full articles themselves are not being displayed.

The second archiving issue is that Meltwater lets customers, at their own discretion, archive the text of articles they find. This is no different than tons of other online archiving services like ReadItLater or Instapaper. They don't even make this that easy. A user has to literally cut and paste the content into a box to archive it -- just as they could cut and paste it into an email or a text file. It's difficult to see how that should be pinned on Meltwater, rather than its users.

On top of that, it seems like there's a reasonable fair use argument to be made here: archiving these works for research purposes, not unlike a library would. While the AP does highlight the UK ruling discussed above... it doesn't happen to mention that the UK does not have fair use, while the US does.

While many of the charges are about copyright infringement, the complaint also drags back out a "hot news" claim -- which has suddenly become popular again after years of being considered a totally dormant concept. Of course, so far, hot news claims haven't fared well in court, and I doubt this case will be any different.

For a few years now, we've covered the rather insane lawsuit filed by Daily Variety (owned by Reed Elsevier) against the band, The Vandals because of an old version of an album cover that parodies Daily Variety's logo. Years ago, when the band originally planned this album, it was threatened by Variety and changed the logo to the one at the bottom:
I still don't fully understand why they agreed to change the logo, since they had a strong argument, but who wants to fight in court if you can avoid it? Either way, years later, versions of the original album cover appeared in various places online -- but not on the Vandals' own site. Variety still blamed them for this and sued the band. The band's bassist, Joe Escalante, who was an entertainment lawyer -- but not a litigator -- actually handled the case entirely on his own. He got himself admitted to practice law in Delaware, where the case was filed, and convinced the court there to transfer the case to LA where it belonged.

Now, just as the actual trial was set to begin, Escalante is saying that Variety has agreed to drop the case in a "settlement" that doesn't involve the band paying anything. The Hollywood Reporter has been following the story, and seems to enjoy tweaking its main competitor Variety. Escalante seems relieved that the whole ordeal is over:

"This was the worst thing that's ever happened to me, and to the band, and the hardest thing I've ever done," says Escalante, who represented The Vandals himself. "However, as my wife says, the crash course in federal court litigation made me a better lawyer."

For what it's worth, Escalante recently had me on his radio show, where we got to talk about SOPA, copyright and a variety of other issues concerning how IP laws can be abused -- things that Escalante has taken a much deeper interest in lately.

We've noted a few times recently that over the last few years WIPO has at least appeared to be more receptive to views from developing nations that strict copyright and patent enforcement could do a lot more damage than good. There are actually tons of compelling economic evidence that developing countries are best off mostly ignoring IP laws as they grow. Hell, the US is example number one of a country that completely ignored foreign IP laws while it developed, much to its advantage. Of course, the US, which leads the developed countries these days, absolutely hates this concept and has taken a strong maximalist position that all countries must respect US IP laws (or go even further). A big part of the reason that ACTA was negotiated outside of WIPO was because WIPO was actually listening to countries like Brazil and India that were expressing concerns about over-enforcement and the harms it created.

However, WIPO itself has expressed concerns about this... but rather than working to convince the US that its approach is incorrect, it looks like WIPO may be going back in the other direction of supporting pure maximalism (i.e., the US agenda). Witness the ridiculous situation shaping up in Africa, where "WIPO" is organizing a "training" program about intellectual property that appears to have been entirely created by the US. It's scheduled to take place in South Africa in April, but it's strictly focused on enforcement and concepts that the US supports, rather than more reasoned issues about what countries in Africa actually need:

“It’s as if the last five years didn’t happen – no WIPO Development Agenda, no discussion on copyright limitations and exceptions, no proposals in favour of libraries and archives, education, blind and visually impaired people,” said Teresa Hackett, Electronic Information for Libraries (EIFL). “But they did happen, and we will work to ensure that delegates attending the African IP Forum hear a diversity of opinion and perspective, and have the opportunity to debate these issues that are critically important to libraries in Africa and around the world.”

People discussing it note that this meeting doesn't appear to really be about effective intellectual property, but about setting the stage to force ACTA or ACTA-style agreements across Europe:

A particular concern of NGOs is that the conference will advance anti-counterfeiting legislation across Africa that will lead to damaging restrictions to the local populations and economies. They also raised alarm that the conference does not appear to include discussion on how to use the hard-won flexibilities that developing countries are allowed to employ so as not to apply IP rights if not in their national interest.

Furthermore, groups worried about this meeting note that the event is sponsored by private groups who have strong interests in greater IP enforcement, rather than the interests of what's best for various African nations. Among the sponsors is the International Chamber of Commerce's Business Action to Stop Counterfeiting and Piracy (BASCAP). From that, it's pretty clear that the entire meeting's goals are suspect.

If there's going to be an effort by the international community to explore IP issues in Africa, the least they could do is acknowledge the fact that IP laws are supposed to be about what's best for the people, not what's best for big international corporations who want to maximize profit from African markets. But thanks to US involvement, that doesn't seem possible.

Last year, we wrote about how the UK was following in the footsteps of the US's Homeland Security/ICE domain seizures. As we noted, the process there is even less rigorous than in the US -- often without a court being involved at all. Law enforcement just had to ask, and Nominet would take down the domain. Still, we hadn't heard about any specific domains that were seized -- and we hadn't heard of any non-Nominet (which handle .co.uk domains) being subject to UK claims.

Until now.

Dajaz1 -- who, of course, had its own issues with bogus domain seizures -- has a story up about how the site rnbxclusive.com appears to have been seized via UK law enforcement, who put up a splash page even more ridiculous (though with fewer eagles) than the ICE splash page: The site, like many music blogs, did post various videos and commentary about new music. Perhaps some were infringing, but you'd think that there would be a trial first. This takedown is apparently happening via SOCA, the Serious Organized Crime Agency in the UK -- who, amusingly, puts a copyright symbol on their takedown splash page. There are all sorts of issues to be raised here.

1. First and foremost, as mentioned, this is the first time we've heard of a foreign country seizing a .com -- which the US DOJ/DHS appear to claim as their own jurisdiction. While perhaps this was done in concert with US law enforcement, it seems pretty questionable that the US would allow what they insist are "domestic" domains to be seized by foreign countries. Think of the precedent that sets for... say... Iran. The operators of the site appear to have been in the UK, so that may be the reasoning behind this, but it still raises significant jurisdictional questions about just who can seize a .com.
2. Second, the big red warning at the top is insane. Merely downloading music wouldn't be a criminal offense with a possibility of 10 years imprisonment. While I'm not as familiar with the differences between civil and criminal infringement when it comes to UK copyright law, I believe it's not that different than the US, where merely downloading is going to be civil, not criminal. A quick review of UK law suggests that it can only be a criminal issue if it's done at commercial scale, and doesn't seem to apply at all to personal downloads. In fact, the UK explicitly fought the idea of expanding criminal sanctions to file sharing. So, SOCA is basically lying.
3. Next, the splash page claims that the music was "stolen" from artists. While the copies may be infringing, it's doubtful that the music was literally stolen.
4. The scare tactic of displaying your IP address and pretending that this suggests they're coming after any visitor to the site. This is, again, insane. The RIAA tried this years ago when it got the Grokster site and it was just as silly then as it is now. Merely visiting a site is not breaking the law, and splashing your IP address next to a message suggesting visitors are about to be put in jail is insane hyperbole.
5. Further, claiming that SOCA has the ability to "monitor" you is also an exaggeration. While it may be able to monitor certain transactions, it seems to be implying that it's watching your every move.
6. Claiming that "young, emerging artists may have had their careers damaged" because of this site is pretty silly. Most young, emerging artists are actively leaking their works to such sites so they can emerge. They know that obscurity is a much bigger threat than piracy ever was or will be.
7. Saying that downloading music means you have (absolutley) "damaged the future of the music industry" is again insane hyperbole. The music industry has continued to grow pretty consistently over the past decade. It's just one segment -- the direct sales of music -- that has stumbled, and that was the part that rarely pays artists very much anyway.

This whole thing is pretty crazy, and I'm surprised such blatant censorship by UK law enforcement of a "US" domain hasn't received more attention yet.

You may recall a lawsuit we wrote about last year, involving some questions about which parts of The Wizard of Oz movie were public domain, and which were still under copyright. It's a bit confusing. The books are public domain, having first started being released in 1899. No doubt about that. But the movie, made in 1939, is still under copyright. And here's the tricky part: which parts do the copyright cover? Technically, things directly from the book should be public domain -- but any creative additions put into the movie (such as the ruby red slippers...) can be covered by copyright, and held by Warner Bros.

So, here's the problem. Disney (not WB) has decided that it's going to make a movie out of The Wizard of Oz -- which it has titled Oz, the Great and Powerful. And it appears that WB wants to do everything possible to make life hellish for Disney if it moves forward on this plan. The first step? According to Eriq Gardner over at THResq, it was to quietly apply for a trademark on "The Great and Powerful Oz." Note the similarity to what Disney has called its movie. Except, it turns out Disney was sitting pretty... having filed for a trademark on its version of the phrase/title... a week earlier. Thus, Disney has the lead here and WB's application got tossed.

The THResq piece questions if WB was planning to make wider use of trademark to try to prevent things like this from happening, avoiding the fact that the copyrights on the works have long gone into the public domain.

In the past year, Warners has been one of the most aggressive filers of oppositions at the USPTO's Trademark Trial & Appeal Board. Especially over The Wizard of Oz.

For instance, the company has gone after potential merchandise associated with Dorothy of Oz, a $60 million-budgeted animation film scheduled to be released later this year by Summertime Entertainment.

Warners also has attacked registrations on a series of neuroscience books entitled "If I Only Had A Brain," a restaurant called "Wicked 'Wiches Wickedly Delicious Sandwiches," a clothing line known as "Wizard of Azz," Halloween costumes under the brand name "Wicked of Oz," and dozens of other Oz-related marks.

It goes on to talk about one ongoing case in particular, concerning a company selling wines in Kansas that it's named after aspects of the Wizard of Oz. The company is claiming (correctly) that the book is in the public domain. But WB is claiming it doesn't matter, because public domain only applies to copyright.

While that case continues, you can bet that WB won't let Disney just go ahead and make this movie without putting up a bigger fight.

Perhaps the biggest illusion in content-centric industries is the belief that the content itself is the main product. For the end-consumer, music is not a product or a service. End-consumers rarely pay for music. They put down money for copies of music, such as CDs, sheet music or music downloads. They put down money for tickets to live experiences. They put down money for subscriptions to music services. Those are all products, but music itself is not. Arguably, the only way to directly 'pay for music' is through commission or donation.

So what is music, or any other type of content? It's what adds value to the CD in the box. It's what makes 2 covers separated by a stack of paper worth buying from the book shop. It's what brings hundreds of people to one place for a shared experience. But it's not a product.

For people that have effectively programmed their minds to see their content as a product, this might be an uncomfortable revelation. Yet while uncomfortable, it can also be very empowering and here's why:

• Digital-proof. For a long time the music industry 'got away' with believing that the content is what people buy. However as music went digital, an increasing amount of people were able to separate the content from the product; thus leading to an uncontrollable proliferation of the content through unauthorized networks. Understanding that music ≠ the product fully acknowledges the digital reality, which is the first step to finding viable alternatives for products.
• Flexibility. Understanding that music is not the same thing as the product which creates the financial reward is a great way to rethink the products that are created surrounding your music. Music is neither a CD nor a download. It can add value to anything. Some people actually create content around physical things to make them more valuable and easier to sell (it's called Significant Objects).
• Fan-centrism. Separating product and content means you no longer have to sell fans what you want them to buy. You can sell them what they want to buy and let the music add value. By understanding who your most avid fans are, you can provide them with something they'll be happy to spend money on. Example (oversimplification alert): got hipster fans? Sell subscriptions to exclusive content via an iPhone app. Got teenage girl fans? When doing a live show, give them a number to send a text message to for an x amount of money & give them exclusive backstage content from the show when they return home. You can do anything; just understand your audience by being connected with them and realize that it's not the content itself that's being sold.

This way, everybody wins. The fans win, because what they pay for is more relevant to them. The artists win, because not only do you have increased chances to monetize, but you will also create a stronger connection with your fans by giving (or selling) them what they want.

Some great, classic examples of artists & labels that 'get it' are:

• Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor (Mike's case-study on Trent Reznor & the formula for future music business models);
• Younger Brother & Twisted Music (Case Study: How Shpongle Went From Yelling At Fans To Embracing Fans);
• Cee-Lo Green (uses his content to make himself & his endorsement the scarce good);
• Dave Matthews Band (particularly the fan club and the emphasis on merchandising).

In short, the value of the products you sell can be raised dramatically by attaching your content to it. Your content is valuable, but for end-consumers, it's not your product.

An argument we frequently hear in the comments is how whatever's working for sucessful artist A won't work for artists B-Z. Whether it's Jonathan Coulton giving away his music while still making $500,000/year, Joe Konrath bypassing major publishers on his way to megabucks in self-publishing or a game developer using the Pirate Bay as a distribution system, we hear the same thing: this is all well and good for whoever's being discussed, but it's no good for anyone else. John D. Cook at The Endeavour boils down the argument thusly:

Yes, that would be the smart thing to do, but it won't scale. The stupid approach is better because it scales.

And that's it, in essence. Despite the fact that creative artists have to compete with free in this day and age, many people, even some in the creative community, still believe that this is optional. So, they lash out against any artist who has chosen to attack the perceived "piracy problem" by performing such aberrational acts as "connecting with their fans" and giving them a "reason to buy." Strange how that works.

But the arguments are always there. "This only works for X." "This artist is too small/unknown/niche/etc." If they're not running through the normal gatekeepers, it's made to seem as though every success story is yet another single example whipped up in a vacuum. Maybe the problem isn't the business plan that works, it's the outdated thinking that says that if it doesn't scale, it's not worth examining. Cook responds:

If the smart thing to do doesn’t scale, maybe we shouldn’t scale.

One size will never fit all. Get over it. Look at what works and adjust per individual situation rather than looking for the simple "Plan A" that's supposedly a be-all and end-all for every creative artist. That doesn't exist any more.

It's no secret that the major record labels are a business where the bottom line is everything. However, they like to present themselves as something much more than that. They talk about lofty ideals of delivering culture, of sustaining art and of helping artists. But, when tragedy strikes... dollar signs seem to win over all. According to various reports, within 30 minutes of Whitney Houston being reported dead, Sony Music jacked up the prices on her Ultimate Collection album on iTunes and Amazon.

But instead of reverence in the wake of Houston’s passing, Sony chose to raise the price of one of her most popular hits collections. The Ultimate Collection album in the U.K. jumped in price by more than 60 percent from £4.99 to £7.99 within 30 minutes of Houston’s death, according to Digital Spy. The album price fell back down to £4.99 some time during the weekend, but it’s unclear when it happened.

Fans originally blamed Apple for the price hike on iTunes, but The Guardian is reporting that Apple automatically raised the price after Sony Music “lifted the wholesale price” of the album.

You have to think the price dropping back down was due to someone, somewhere realizing just how crass that looked.

Last month, we noted that, Kader Arif, the ACTA rapporteur -- or the guy in charge of "investigating" ACTA for the EU Parliament -- had resigned in disgust over the fact that the EU was moving forward with ACTA. He noted that he was denouncing both the process and the agreement itself. Arif recently gave an interview with the WSJ where he went into much more detail about the problems associated with ACTA. It's really worth reading the whole thing because while defenders of ACTA (like defenders of SOPA before them) keep insisting that the complaints are based on misinformation, you can't accuse the very guy Parliament had investigate the agreement of being a victim of misinformation. Here's a snippet:

The problem with ACTA is that, unlike its title indicates, it is not only an agreement related to the fight against counterfeiting, but a much broader agreement meant to tackle all forms of violation of intellectual property rights, including on the internet. And here I am very much concerned because I (and many international experts) consider that the text of the agreement breaks this very fragile equilibrium between interests of right holders and protection of civil liberties. I would like to give two examples to illustrate this concern.

First is the article 11 of the agreement, which states that the right holder has the right to ask for information “regarding any person involved in any aspect of the infringement or alleged infringement”. This article is worded in such wide and unclear terms that it leaves a great deal of room for interpretation. In practice, almost anyone could be linked to an infringement of intellectual property rights and face criminal sanctions under such a vague definition. It is our responsibility as legislators and people’s representatives not to leave it to a judicial authority to decide of the scope of an agreement which could affect people’s civil liberties.

The second is the issue of having travelers’ personal luggage searched at borders. ACTA foresees that the use of counterfeited goods on a commercial scale can lead to criminal sanctions. But here again no definition of “commercial scale” is given. Article 14 of the agreement clearly states that, unless contrary action is taken by one of the parties, it is possible to search people’s personal luggage, including small consignments. So if a traveler has on his laptop or MP3 player a tune or movie downloaded illegally, could he face sanctions ? How many tunes or movies would one need to set up a commercial illegal activity? In theory one would be enough… The problem again here is that ACTA does not give any clear indication. Besides the fact that it is an extremely sensitive issue to authorize for the search of all travelers’ luggage, and personally I am totally opposed to it, I see here a great risk for abuse and unjustified sanctions.

Later, he explains how those backing ACTA, by saying that it won't have any impact on EU laws, are being misleading. He says that if that's true, then the document is useless. And if it's not true, then it's a threat to people's rights:

So if ACTA does not create any new rights for this foreign company, what is the point of the agreement? Or is it that only our companies gain new rights for the action they want to take in partner countries, while the companies set in these partner countries do not gain anything? The argument of the Commission is that ACTA does not change anything for European citizens, but that it represents a huge progress for our companies operating abroad. This is not serious. Maybe, if China or India had been part of the agreement, we could have considered that ACTA was a way of exporting to these countries our legislation which is very protective of intellectual property rights. This could have been a real progress. But this is not the case, almost all ACTA parties are developed economies with well functioning judicial systems. The conclusion is simple: either ACTA is useless, or it is a threat.

Later in the interview he explains some of the reasons for his resignation, including the claim that some in Parliament more or less were trying to use some obscure procedures to force him into getting the document ratified in a very short period of time -- a timeframe he describes as "surreal for such a controversial file."

That point becomes even more important as information comes out about Arif's replacement, David Martin, who appears to not have a very good track record on issues like this. This is unfortunate. Apparently a few other Parliament Members who were in line for the job, but who had already taken stands against ACTA, turned it down. So, it may have fallen to someone who will say it's fine.

Three years ago, we wrote about Bottin Cartographes, a French mapping company, suing Google because Google offers its Google Maps product (mostly) for free. Bottin argued that this was unfair competition, and suggested that it was a version of dumping -- whereby Google was giving away the product to intentionally wipe out the competition, at which point it would raise prices. Amazingly, an economically clueless French court has now agreed, and told Google to pay a fine and damages for its nefarious practice of giving away a product "for free." This is, to put it mildly, ridiculous. Is there any example of Google first wiping out all competition in a market with a free product... and then suddenly jacking up its prices? Yes, Google recently started charging for those who uses its mapping API a lot, but there's nothing, whatsoever, to suggest that the use of free here is somehow an anti-competitive move, rather than just a recognition of a wider strategy. In the meantime, if Google offering free maps in France is somehow illegal, you have to wonder what they think of a project like OpenStreetMap?

Open e-textbooks are hardly new: Techdirt has been reporting on the pioneer in this market, Flat World Knowledge, for several years now. But a new entrant called OpenStax College is noteworthy for a number of reasons:

OpenStax College is a nonprofit organization committed to improving student access to quality learning materials. Our free textbooks are developed and peer-reviewed by educators to ensure they are readable, accurate, and meet the scope and sequence requirements of your course. Through our partnerships with companies and foundations committed to reducing costs for students, OpenStax College is working to improve access to higher education for all. OpenStax College is an initiative of Rice University and is made possible through the generous support of several philanthropic foundations.

Those foundations include the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, probably the leading philanthropic organization in the field of open education, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. But the Rice connection is just as important as the funding.

Although MIT is known as a pioneer of sharing its courses freely online through its OpenCourseWare project, arguably Rice University went even further with its highly-modular Connexions program, which offers what it calls "frictionless remixing". The use of small learning modules, together with a permissive cc-by license for everything, allows educators and publishers to create their own courses by drawing on Connexions' material.

Given that the founder of Connexions, Richard Baraniuk, is also the Director of OpenStax College, it's hardly a surprise that the same cc-by licensing applies to the latter's textbooks. Still, that's a step beyond Flat World Knowledge, which allows textbooks to be modified, but under the more restrictive cc by-nc-sa license. Even though OpenStax College is a non-profit, and Flat World Knowledge a company, both adopt the same business model: the e-textbooks are given away, while printed copies and supplementary materials require payment -- a classic example of using abundance to make money from associated scarcities.

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