The Copyright Royalty Board is a horrific abomination of a judicial process -- it's basically a board of three totally out-of-touch judges who get to pick out of thin air what certain copyright royalties will be. They have a terrible track record, agreeing to set "webcasting" rates that would have effectively killed off most internet webcasting. Even more ridiculous is that they only realized they were writing a death sentence for webcasting after basically everyone involved in webcasting protested. Legal challenges to the rates haven't gone well, though some are still ongoing, and many webcasters have cut separate deals to stay alive (barely) but without having to pay the CRB's insane rates.

Some, however, have continued to fight certain aspects of the CRB rates... but many have also started to focus on legal challenges concerning the very constitutionality of the CRB itself. This is based on people remembering the Appointments Clause of the Constitution, that basically says judge appointments may only be made by the President, the courts or the heads of a department. That's a problem. The CRB is appointed by the Librarian of Congress, who is not the head of a department (hell, isn't even technically a part of the executive branch, since the Library of Congress is -- you guessed it -- a part of Congress).

Anyway, last week an appeals court listened to an appeal about this and related issues in a case brought by Intercollegiate Broadcasting Services (IBS), a group that represents the interests of various college radio stations. They have particular concerns about all of this, because many (if not all) college radio stations re-stream their broadcasts online, even though many of those streams probably violate the law (even if the original broadcasts are perfectly legal). This is due to the insanity of having different rules for internet streaming as compared to radio. IBS actually raised a whole bunch of constitutional questions about not just the CRB, but also the DMCA itself.

Unfortunately, the court is only focusing on the CRB constitutionality at this point. As I've noted with other similar cases, while it may feel good to challenge the constitutionality of the CRB based on the Appointments Clause, it seems like a distraction to me. At best, the courts will throw out the old rulings, and dismiss the judges... but that almost certainly will lead to the same, or a similar, panel of judges being immediately reappointed under the proper rules. And in the meantime, the more important detailed challenges to the actual webcasting rates or things like the constitutionality of the DMCA get left by the wayside....

The linked analysis of the appeals court hearing suggests that the court recognizes what is obvious to pretty much everyone: the CRB appointments are pretty clearly unconstitutional. This isn't a complex part of the Constitution. It's just that it's been ignored for years. But the court is looking for ways to "minimize" the impact of such a ruling. So even if they find (correctly) that the appointments were unconstitutional, I wouldn't expect much to change in the long run.

The Earth is obviously covered in a lot of water, but a lot more water could potentially exist below the Earth's surface. It's actually somewhat difficult to know exactly how much water exists on our own planet, so it's even harder to figure out how much water exists on other planets or moons. We also don't really know where all the Earth's water originally came from -- icy comets, asteroids or some chemical process that could only occur while the Earth itself was forming. But in any case, water is a fascinating substance to look for, and here are just a few articles on this unique liquid.

• Jupiter's moon, Europa, could have a vast saltwater ocean below its surface -- possibly containing more liquid water than all of the Earth's oceans. Images showing the bumpy surface of Europa suggest that there are "chaos terrains" similar to those on Earth, which could help us understand the geology of Europa better. [url]
• The "Goldilocks Zone" for extrasolar planets refers to the orbital space where the conditions are just right for liquid water to exist. But that doesn't mean water actually does exist on the other worlds we've discovered so far. [url]
• Russian scientists are drilling down through over 2 miles of ice to Antarctica’s biggest subglacial lake, Vostok. There could be exotic lifeforms in these waters which haven't seen daylight for millions of years. [url]
• Based on radar measurements, the sediment coverage on the surface of Mars suggests the red planet once had two oceans. These oceans may not have existed long enough to support life formation, and it's not known where all the water went. [url]
• To discover more links on space exploration, check out what's floating around in StumbleUpon universe. [url]  

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

One telling sign of the widespread concern about SOPA/PIPA was that the non-profit Mozilla Foundation, which oversees the open source Firefox and Thunderbird projects, abandoned its non-interventionist policy, and came out strongly against the bills. It first signed a joint letter sent to the key sponsors of both bills, and then modified its home page, pointing to further information about SOPA. That, in its turn, linked to a post entitled "PIPA/SOPA and Why You Should Care," written by Mitchell Baker, the Chair of the Mozilla Foundation.

Baker has now written another, entitled "ACTA is a Bad Way To Develop Internet Policy", which explicitly links ACTA and SOPA/PIPA:

One aspect of the controversy about ACTA is the closed process where only a tiny subset of people affected by the law were allowed to participate. Another great controversy is about the actual content of ACTA. We know that the goal of stopping unauthorized access to digital content can lead to very dangerous results. The proposed SOPA and PIPA legislation in the U.S made this abundantly clear. This is an area where even good intentions can lead to imbalanced and dangerous results.

The post is fairly restrained, and basically recommends that people should find out more about ACTA and "make their voice heard." But it's a further indication that people from all sectors are waking up to the problems with ACTA, just as they did with SOPA/PIPA.

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

Perhaps you've been following the "Linsanity" story over the last week or so. Even if you're not a sports fan, it's a pretty incredible story. The short summary for the six or seven of you who are sharing a rock to live under is that Jeremy Lin, who excelled at basketball as a high schooler in Palo Alto, was all but written off as having a real future in basketball. No college would give him a scholarship, and many thought that he should sign with a lower ranked college where he could play for fun, but not have any future. Even Stanford, which has a great basketball program and is literally across the street from where Lin played in high school, had little interest in getting Lin to play for them. He ended up going to Harvard (who did want him, but doesn't do academic scholarships and isn't known for its basketball program) and then wasn't drafted by any NBA team. He did eventually sign with the Golden State Warriors (making him the first Taiwanese American NBA player) who played him sparingly last year and then cut him. He was with the Rockets in the pre-season, but they cut him before the season started. Then he signed on with the Knicks who had sent him down to the D-League and were rumored to be getting ready to cut him... before "Linsanity" began about 10 days ago.

Thanks to injuries to several Knicks players, they needed him to play, and over his past six games, he's been a revelation -- scoring more than any other player in the modern era of professional basketball in his first six games. Even Stephen Colbert has picked up on "Linsanity" (and even managed to get off a trademark-related joke about the NBA's logo). It's been a huge sensation around the country. Last night, after it looked like he might finally have a "down" game, he came back with a massive fourth quarter, and scored a rather spectacular three-pointer with no time left on the clock (after letting the clock run down himself) to win the game (a game they had been losing pretty much since the start). Even though the Knicks were the visiting team, the crowd in Toronto went crazy cheering for Lin. This is all from a guy who was crashing on teammates' couches just two weeks ago, because he fully expected to be cut any day.

So what's any of that got to do with what we normally talk about here? You guessed it! People are trying to use bogus intellectual property claims to lock up "Linsanity." Bloomberg reports that there have already been two separate trademark claims on "Linsanity." Both appear to be from people not directly associated with Lin, but merely looking to cash in by locking up the term. One told Bloomberg that he just "wanted to be part of the excitement." By locking up the term used to describe it? How does that work? The other trademark claim comes from someone who claims he coached Lin in high school and started registering a bunch of Lin-related domain names years ago. Frankly, this comes off a bit more creepy, since even he admits that Lin has no idea that these domains have been registered.

Either way, neither of these guys has a strong claim on the trademark, but just the fact that they're seeking such a trademark highlights the ridiculous "ownership culture" that has been built up around intellectual property laws today. It's as if nothing can be shared culturally these days, without someone trying to claim ownership. Even if the claims are bogus, this is what you get when you spread the idea that every concept or cultural reference should be owned and locked up. The whole Jeremy Lin story is a great story that lots of folks are following, and sure, some people will want to cash in on that. But locking it up and denying the right for others to use it is just a really sad statement on the nature of culture today. Part of the reason why cultural events are cultural events is because of the fact that they're shared moments or stories. Intellectual property law often seeks to block that by limiting the ability to share such cultural moments. It's really unfortunate.

Yesterday we wrote about the bizarre seizure of a music blog, RnBXclusive.com, by UK law enforcement officials. Many people doubted that it was real, given the insanity of the splash page that SOCA -- the UK's Serious Organized Crime Agency -- had put up on the site. However, SOCA has since confirmed that it's real. SOCA is also claiming that this is about "fraud" rather than copyright infringement, because the site apparently had posted some pre-release music (something that happens pretty frequently). It's called a leak, not fraud. And many artists embrace them -- or (quite frequently) leak the works themselves because it builds up buzz.

SOCA is also making the absolutely laughable statement that this one blog was costing the labels "approximately £15 m per year." Perhaps in some fantasy land where the IFPI/RIAA is in charge of "new math," but not anywhere in reality. Now, certainly some of these leaks may have broken the law, but at best they should be civil issues and actual harm should be proved, rather than fantasy harm. While RnBXclusive was a decently widely read blog among music blogs, Dajaz1 (who, again, knows in great detail how all this insanity works) is pointing out that if the £15m claim is accurate, then you could easily sum up all the music blogs around, and they would account for more losses than "what the recorded music industry has made total since the very first record deal was signed. Per year."

Isn't it time that law enforcement stopped relying on fantasy numbers and started living in reality? Especially when it comes to censoring blogs?

It's that time again when the Librarian of Congress is considering special exemptions to the DMCA's anti-cicrumvention provisions. One of the key proposals, which we discussed earlier, was Public Knowledge's request to allow people to rip DVDs for personal use -- just as we are all currently able to rip CDs for personal use (such as for moving music to a portable device). The MPAA (along with the RIAA and others) have responded to the exemption requests (pdf) with all sorts of crazy claims, but let's focus in on the DVD ripping question, because it's there that the insanity of Hollywood logic becomes clear.

Effectively, the MPAA is arguing that there is no evidence that ripping a DVD itself is legal, and since anti-circumvention exemptions are only supposed to be for legal purposes, this exemption should not apply. Leaving aside the sheer ridiculousness of the fact that we need to apply for exemptions to make legal acts legal (I know, I know...), this is quite a statement by the MPAA. While it's true that there hasn't been an official ruling on the legality of ripping a DVD, the fact that CD ripping is considered legal seems to suggest that movie ripping is comparable.

But the bigger point is that the MPAA is arguing that because they offer limited, expensive and annoying ways for you to watch movies elsewhere, you shouldn't have the right to place shift on your own:

Copyright owners include with many DVD and Blu- Ray disc purchases digital copies of motion pictures that may be reproduced to mobile devices and computers pursuant to licenses. Blu-Ray disc purchasers can also take advantage of "Managed Copy" services that are scheduled to launch in the U.S. later this year. Movie distributors and technology companies are also making available services such as UltraViolet, which enables consumers to access motion pictures on a variety of devices through streaming and downloading. Many movies and television shows are also available online through services such as Comcast Xfinity, Hulu and Netflix, or websites operated by broadcasters or cable channels, which consumers can enjoy from any U.S. location with internet access. With all of these marketplace solutions to the alleged problem PK points to, it is unlikely that the presence of CSS on DVDs is going to have a substantial adverse impact on the ability of consumers to space shift in the coming three years.

Notice that almost all of these "market solutions" mean you have to pay multiple times for the same content -- and they ignore the fact that these offerings are all very limited and may not have the content on the DVDs people have. Public Knowledge has a quick summary of how these "solutions" are not solutions at all:

The MPAA had two specific suggestions. First, consumers could re-purchase access to a subscription service such as Netflix of Hulu. They did not dwell on the fact that 1) this would require you to pay again to access a movie you already own; 2) these services require a high speed internet connection in order to work; 3) There is a reasonable chance that the movie you own is not available on any of those services at any given time; and 4) MPAA member studios regularly pull videos that were once available on those services off of those same services.

The MPAA’s second suggestion was even less helpful. In their comments, they pointed to Warner Brothers’ DVD2Blu program. This program allows people to use their existing DVDs as a coupon towards the purchase of a handful of Warner Blu-Ray disks. They did not dwell on the fact that 1) this program is limited to Warner Brothers films; 2) the program is limited to 25 exchanges per household; 3) while some Blu-Ray disks include digital copies that can be moved to other devices, it is unclear how many of the disks in the DVD2Blu program include that option; 4) only 100 movies are included in the entire program; and 5) each exchange costs at least $4.95 plus shipping (which, for the record, is about as much as it would cost to buy the digital file from Amazon.).

When you think about it, this is really quite crazy. They're saying because they offer you an option to pay for a way too expensive, very limited option that might not really exist, you shouldn't have the right to rip your DVDs. This would be like the recording industry claiming you can no longer rip CDs because they offer a limited locked down selection of music in an online store. People would revolt at such a claim, and they should find the MPAA's ridiculous claims here equally as revolting.

If the MPAA stopped there, it would be crazy enough... but no, in the mind of Hollywood, they have to take it even further. They claim that because the ability to rip your DVD might take away their ability to keep charging you for the same content over and over again, that it goes against the purpose of copyright law. Seriously. They're actually claiming that their ridiculous "windows" are "new business models" that copyright law is designed to encourage:

In fact, granting PK’s proposed exemption would be directly counter to the purpose of this rulemaking. It would undermine emerging business models that increase access to creative works in precisely the manner Congress intended the DMCA to promote.

But that's pure bullcrap. The business models in question do not "increase access." They increase the ways in which you can pay. If they want to increase access, they would let you rip your damn movie.

It is clear that access controls have increased consumers’ options with respect to motion pictures in digital formats. The Register should not interfere with that progress. Instead, she should endorse it.

Up is down, black is white, day is night. Controls have increased consumer options? No freaking way. Controls have limited options... but have allowed the MPAA studios to set up tollbooths and charge people multiple times for content they legally had purchased the rights to.

Last week, I spoke on a panel at Stanford Law School concerning SOPA. There were two lawyers representing the MPAA's views, and at one point one of them said that he hoped that Hollywood just wanted to "meet in the middle" with those opposed to SOPA and find "a solution" that worked. Lawyer Andrew Bridges got up and asked a rather reasonable question: when, in the past, has the entertainment industry ever been willing to "meet in the middle" on copyright issues? He began listing out every single expansion to copyright law from the past 30 years. In 1976, we got the Copyright Act of 1976, which flipped copyright on its head and expanded it massively. Not only did it switch from an opt-in system with registration and renewals to an "everything is automatically opted-in," but it also massively expanded the length of copyright. You might think that the industry would be satisfied from that point forward. In fact, as key SOPA supporter Steve Tepp from the US Chamber of Commerce recently claimed: "To me if I get what I ask for, I stop complaining."

So, did the entertainment industry "stop complaining"? No. Since the Copyright Act of 1976 went into effect (in 1978), we've expanded copyright law 15 times on issues related to "stopping piracy" (and many, many more if you look at all copyright law expansions -- beyond just anti-piracy efforts -- such as expanding coverage to semiconductor chip designs, boat hulls and other things). It really started in 1982, meaning that we've had 15 new anti-piracy laws in just 30 years. If SOPA/PIPA had passed, it would have been 16 -- or more than once every two years. Let's take a look:

1. 1982: Piracy and Counterfeiting Amendments Act: Increased criminal penalties for infringing records, tapes and films from $25k & 2 years in jail to $250,000 and 5 years in jail. Also... made it so that first-time offenders could get the maximum.
2. 1984: Record Rental Amendment of 1984: Outlawed music rentals (have you ever wondered why there were no Blockbusters or Netflixes for music?)
3. 1990: Copyright Remedy Clarification Act: Allowed copyright holders to sue states for copyright infringement (before that, states could claim sovereign immunity)
4. 1990: Computer Software Rental Amendments Act: Outlawed software rentals
5. 1992: Audio Home Recording Act: Mandated DRM on certain digital audio devices (mainly DAT), added a royalty on such devices.
6. 1994: Uruguay Round Agreements Act: Not only did it seize works out of the public domain and put them under copyright (this was what was challenged in the recent Golan case), but it made it a criminal offense to bootleg concerts (audio or video).
7. 1995: The Digital Performance Right in Sound Recordings Act: Created a new "performance" right for copyright holders concerning digital "performances."
8. 1996: Anticounterfeiting Consumer Protection Act of 1996: Expanded racketeering laws to include criminal copyright infringement, as well as "trafficking" in computer software, documentation or packaging, as well as trafficking in movies or audiovisual works. Also let the government seize property associated with these activities (precursor to domain seizures...).
9. 1997: No Electronic Theft (NET) Act: Decreased the threshold for what counts as criminal infringement (such as taking out the monetary profit requirement).
10. 1998: Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act: You should know this one. Expanded copyright terms by 20 years.
11. 1998: Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA): Again, you may have heard of it. Created anti-circumvention rules and the notice-and-takedown system for online infringement, among many other things.
12. 1999: Digital Theft Deterrence and Copyright Damages Improvement Act of 1999: Massively increased statutory damages for infringement
13. 2004: Intellectual Property Protection and Courts Amendments Act: Set up penalties (civil and criminal) for counterfeit labels, documentation and packaging in association with copyrighted goods (yes, separate from the content itself). Also lowered the bar to show willful infringement.
14. 2005: Family Entertainment and Copyright Act: Criminalizes recording of movies in theaters and also lets theaters detain people merely suspected of recording in theaters. Criminalizes releasing a work online before it's been officially released (if it's "being prepared" for commercial distribution).
15. 2008: Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property (PRO-IP) Act: Increased civil penalties for infringement. Increased government seizure & forfeiture powers (which is how the government currently justifies its questionable domain seizures) and created a job in the White House to focus on greater enforcement.

But apparently we're told that the internet is a "lawless wild west" when it comes to copyright issues? I think not. All we've seen is expansion after expansion after expansion, always using questionable claims of rampant infringement that is supposedly destroying industries. Each time, the various industries would create a moral panic about why this law was absolutely needed. Forgive us for being a bit skeptical. We've seen this game pretty damn frequently. To claim that there are no laws, or that we need to "meet in the middle" seems pretty bizarre. As Bridges noted at Stanford last week, if they want to "meet in the middle," are they willing to give up half of these laws to get SOPA/PIPA?

While the proposed Obama 2013 budget for the federal government is supposed to be about cutting extraneous expenditures, one area where it's seeking more money is to expand the Justice Department's copyright enforcement efforts. You see, this is what happens when you hand the Justice Department over to the RIAA and MPAA. DOJ is seeking an extra $5 million to focus on these kinds of efforts, to hire 14 new employees, including nine lawyers, claiming that it's "had an increase in the number of cases that we're dealing with in IP." Oh really? You mean like the case of Dajaz1? The site that the DOJ illegally held and censored for over a year? Perhaps if they had a few more lawyers on staff, someone would have taken the time to realize that they were supposed to give the domain back within a specified time frame. Or perhaps they could have used those people to realize that the site was posting music sent by the copyright holders. Of course, that's not what would happen. Instead, they'd just focus on seizing more sites and creating more collateral damage. The real question, of course, should be why are we allowing the government to be Hollywood's private police force?

With the massive success of Double Fine's Kickstarter campaign (which has passed quadruple what it asked), a lot of people are commenting about just what it means to be successful in today's digital climate. Among those talking are indie game developers who are taking the time to reflect on this phenomena and how they might be able to duplicate it for themselves. One of these indie developers is Robert Boyd, the creative mind behind retro JRPGs Breath of Death VII and Cthulhu Saves The World. After a series of tweets on the topic of Double Fine's success, Robert closed with this profound statement:

If people like you and like your work, they'll buy your games. If they like your work but don't like you, they'll pirate them.

The first half of this statement is at the heart of the idea of connecting with your fans. Part of this ability to connect with your fans is to be more open and human with them. We have seen repeatedly how artists sell more of their work and scarcities associated with their work as they become more human to their fan base. As fans come to trust you and feel that they can approach you directly, even if that is through email, Twitter or Facebook, they will be far more likely to trust you enough to part with their money. This trust is one of the keys to Double Fine's success and a key to the success of any game developer. Similarly, it was seen in the way Louis CK treated his fans.

The second half of this statement is a lesson that many larger publishers, developers and others in the entertainment industry have forgotten. Because of that, they are suffering the fallout. DRM and other methods that show how little the developer or publisher trusts its fans breeds contempt within the fan community. While those consumers may still like the product, they don't like the way they are treated. This is one of the driving factors behind piracy. To top off the problem, these creators and gatekeepers set up walls between themselves and their fans. They do everything to avoid contact with fans outside carefully orchestrated scenarios. This turns fans off and decreases the amount of trust they have for these individuals and companies.

It's often said that people will just get stuff for free if they can. But, clearly, that's not true. We've seen so many cases of content creators being supported by their fans at tremendous levels (such as the two cases mentioned above) that there's clearly more to it. And it seems that a key element is whether or not fans actually like you. Some people suggest that the disconnect with piracy is that people value the work, but won't pay for it. But a more accurate realization may be that people value the work... but don't value the creator if the creator doesn't value them. When the two sides value each other, it seems people are more than willing to pay.

Peter Sunde, a very thoughtful and insightful guy, who's been completely demonized by the entertainment industry for his role with The Pirate Bay, has written up an interesting piece for Wired UK where he not only goes over highly questionable issues related to his conviction, but raises a larger question about why we, as a society, allow one obsolete industry to have so much power in government and policy issues. The connections between those involved in his prosecution and the entertainment industry are simply too numerous to be fair:

The Swedish prosecutor sent out a memo in 2006 saying that TPB wasn't guilty of "main" crimes -- at best it aids and abets (he also mentioned that the people running TPB were very clever). But Hollywood was not happy with this and forced the Swedish Minister of Justice to visit the White House and talk about it. The United States told Sweden that if they didn't get rid of the site, they would not be allowed to trade with the US!

The minister (illegally) told the prosecutor what had happened which forced him to raid TPB -- only a few weeks after sending out that memo about how legal it was.

Evidently, Warner Brothers felt that the investigation was taking too long. The studio contacted the police officer in charge of the investigation (one person that worked mostly by himself) and before I had even been questioned by him, he interviewed for a job with Warner Brothers.

When we found out he'd been hired (by him changing his employer from "Polisen" to "Warner Bros" on Facebook) the reply we got was that it was proof that Swedish IT police are of such high caliber that even the big US companies would hire them.

I got promoted from "witness" to "suspect" a week after the job was promised.

During the trial it turned out that the judge was the chairman for the Swedish pro-copyright society, one lay judge ran a record company, another one was formerly the chairman for the songwriter lobby organisation. I could go on.

It's stories like this that raise significant questions about the prosecution. Even if you believe that Sunde was guilty of what he was charged with, I would think you should be able to admit that the list of things above should not have happened under any circumstance. When you read that... and then realize that the guy leading the prosecution against Megaupload for the US DOJ used to work for the industry as an "anti-piracy" exec -- you see the same pattern happening again and again. People who have too close connections to industry are making decisions on these issues designed to protect their industries, rather than looking at the actual impact on society and the economy. That's a pretty big problem, and shows how "regulatory capture" can sometimes become "judicial capture" as well.

One of the frustrating things about the SOPA/PIPA debate was the way that defenders of the bill tried so hard to dodge the censorship label. However, as Professor Derek Bambauer helpfully pointed out months ago, any form of content blocking by the government is censorship. It's just a question of whether or not it's acceptable censorship -- and, most people are comfortable with some level of censorship. But SOPA/PIPA defenders often refuse to admit this... hiding behind some claim about how since infringement is illegal, it's not censorship.

But this misses the point: every form of government censorship is based on the claim that the censored content is "illegal" in some manner.

Witness the situation in India. A few months ago, we wrote about Indian Minister of Communications and Information Technology, Kapil Sibal, who had apparently been pushing internet companies to pre-screen all user-generated content to stop jerks. Then, last month, some Indian courts similarly told internet companies to block content. Apparently, recently, another official -- Minister of State for Communications & IT, Sachin Pilot, (whose title seems to overlap quite a bit with Sibal's) -- said that internet companies "must comply."

Well, now, Sibal is back, insisting that the government won't censor social media at all:

"I want to say once and for all, without any obfuscation, no government in India will ever censor social media."

Except, that's not true. In clarifying his earlier remarks to those same companies, Sibal said he saw "the need for a new system to be enforced for dealing with content that is in breach of Indian law." But what is that, other than censorship? Sibal is playing the same game as SOPA/PIPA defenders -- insisting that as long as certain content is declared illegal, it can be censored, but leaving out the fact that they get to decide what is and is not declared illegal. The defenders of these kinds of things like to pretend that it's universally obvious what's "illegal" and what's not, and that it could never ever happen that legitimate content -- such as critical political commentary -- would ever get falsely flagged as being illegal. But, having seen exactly that happen too many times (including through the use of bogus copyright claims), it's a very legitimate concern.

What Sibal is really saying here is that the government won't censor content that he thinks is okay. But if people in the government don't think it's okay, it'll get declared illegal and get censored. That takes away greatly from his unequivocal statement about no censorship, doesn't it?

You may remember last fall's numbers concerning how many first, second and third strikes Hadopi, the French agency in charge of kicking people off the internet for possible copyright infringement, was sending out. Now come reports that France is finally moving beyond just the strikes, and has passed along info on those accused (not convicted) of infringement to "prosecutors" for the next stage, which could result in them losing internet access.

The report also notes that Nicolas Sarkozy, who was the original champion of three strikes plans, is already looking to expand the law to go after cyberlockers rather than just peer-to-peer, as is the case with the current Hadopi plan, apparently. I'm sure, in an effort to support such a move, politicians will push the misleading claim that Hadopi has actually worked, even if the actual data suggests what really worked was wider availability of legitimate services and tools.

Following the news that Sony Music raised prices on Whitney Houston's music very, very soon after news broke that she passed away, the company has now said that it was a "mistake" and issued an apology:

"Whitney Houston product was mistakenly mispriced on the UK iTunes store on Sunday. When discovered, the mistake was immediately corrected. We apologize for any offense caused."

Of course, that seems to raise more questions than it answers. What kind of "mistake"? Human error? Did someone just accidentally jack up the price? Or was it someone doing it on purpose... and Sony now thinks that his or her decision to do so was the mistake?