A company called RogueFinder is claiming that it has automated the process for finding rogue sites:

The basic idea is to draw links between seemingly unconnected “rogue” web sites, e.g. web sites selling counterfeit goods. According to the RogueFinder web site, its software takes minutes to do what it takes forensics teams months to achieve.

It uses data from registries, registrars, web hosts, servers, and ISPs as well as inspecting the sites’ “invisible source code”.

Sounds useful for playing parlor tricks. Not so sure for a system involved in blocking protected speech. As we've discussed time and time again, one of the issues in all of this is that determining what is and what is not infringing is not an easy task. At all. It takes a human being who can actually analyze the situation and how it falls under copyright law -- including exploring specific exemptions. It's time that we got rid of the myth that there's any significant way to magically identify what's infringing and what's not.

We've discussed in the past how tweeting jurors represent a new sort of challenge for courts, who haven't quite figured out what to make of the practice. However, the Arkansas Supreme Court recently overturned a murder conviction and ordered a new trial, because one of the jurors was tweeting occasionally during the case. As in the past, I tend to think this is a pretty big overreaction. From the tweets quoted, it does not appear he actually discussed any specifics of the case at hand, but rather some rather general thoughts:

Mr Franco tweeted: "Choices to be made. Hearts to be broken... We each define the great line."

Other tweets sent included: "The coffee here sucks" and "Court. Day 5. here we go again".

I fail to see how those should lead to the end result being suspect in any way. It doesn't appear he discussed the case at all, but merely shared some of his general thoughts. It appears the court would prefer that he pretend he not even have those thoughts at all. How does that possibly make sense? Denying someone from mentioning what they're thinking doesn't stop them from thinking what they're thinking.

Young kids can be really fun to play around with, but sometimes they can be little terrors, too. By understanding how little kids think and behave, parents might be able to cope better with the "terrible two's" (which can extend into the "terrible three's and four's"). Here are just a few interesting links on studying our descendants.

• There's a nascent science studying the phenomenon of children's temper tantrums. All tantrums could have a predictable pattern that might lead to better ways of coping with them and maybe avoiding them someday. [url]
• Plenty of parents try to tell their kids to "use words" to describe what they want. Are kids hard-wired for grammar to use their words, though? [url]
• While human babies weigh about 6% of the weight of their moms, newborn apes generally weigh about 3% of their mother's weight. Having big babies may have influenced the development of human society, encouraging our ancestors to become more social creatures to care for our kids. [url]
• To discover more interesting articles on the human mind, check out what's currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]  

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

Over the last few years, the NY Times has been whining about blogs and sites like HuffPo that it feels "pirates" its stories. Former executive editor Bill Keller trashed such things a few times over the past year.

Too often it amounts to taking words written by other people, packaging them on your own Web site and harvesting revenue that might otherwise be directed to the originators of the material. In Somalia this would be called piracy. In the mediasphere, it is a respected business model.

Now, as I said at the time, this is a pretty silly way to look at things. But it struck me as especially interesting since last week, we broke the news about the feds censoring Dajaz1.com for a year, before giving back the domain name. That was Thursday morning. Friday evening, the NY Times wrote its own version of the story... with nary a mention of our story. Their story didn't add anything beyond reporting what we and some others had done previously.

Now, let me be absolutely clear: I actually don't think crediting whoever scooped a story is really that big a deal. I tend to think it's a nice and neighborly thing to do, but hardly required, and I think some people put too much emphasis on it. However, I think it's kind of amusing that a newspaper like the NY Times, whose bosses have complained about others doing this kind of thing, would so regularly do this themselves. And, yes, the NY Times does this all the time. And, for what it's worth, people definitely noticed.

My point is not to complain about not getting a mention. My point is to highlight how the NY Times' looking down on other publications for supposedly just taking their stories and how that's "piracy," might deserve a pretty big rethink. News travels around in a lot of ways. Sometimes the NY Times gets there first, and sometimes they don't. Attacking others for reporting on the same thing they've reported on is going to make them look foolish when they do the same thing, as happened here.

Update: This morning both the editor and the reporter emailed to apologize and say that the original story did, in fact, mention Techdirt, but it got edited out by accident. To be honest, it's for reasons like this that I noted above that many people focus too much on the whole "credit" issue. The point of this post was never to demand credit, but to point out how when you always demand credit, it can come back to bite you. Either way, I appreciate the NY Times' quick response and the apology.

Righthaven just keeps on flopping. After Randazza Legal Group, in the Hoehn case, has continually tried to get further access to Righthaven's assets to satisfy the attorneys fees that Righthaven owes, the court has now granted Hoehn's request to appoint a receiver and begin to assign Righthaven's intellectual property. Of course, that raises questions about what IP Righthaven actually has... considering that part of the reason it's in this whole mess is that it supposedly does not have the rights to any of these copyrights. Furthermore, Righthaven boss Steve Gibson, along with Raisha "Drizzle" Y. Gibson (I have no idea) have been told to appear before the court on January 5th to provide testimony under oath concerning Righthaven's assets -- or face contempt charges. It's worth noting that part of the reason for the court's decision in the first document is the failure of Righthaven to file any response at all to the request, which has become par for the course for the company. Makes you wonder if the Gibsons will actually show up on January 5th...

A little over two years ago, we wrote about how (the absolutely incredibly brilliant) comedian Louis CK had gotten some news by asking politely for some fans to take down a video from a file sharing site, noting that it was new material he was working on, and he wasn't ready for it to be seen widely yet. The request worked. Louis himself stopped by our comments to provide some more detail. Throughout the entire situation, he did what he does, and what makes people like him: just be himself -- and be thankful and appreciative, while explaining his reasoning. In that case, he noted that he wasn't against file sharing, it's just that he didn't want this work out in the world yet. He even said that once the same work is released officially on a DVD or special, he'd be fine with the original clips going back up on file sharing sites. He was also quite clear that he didn't demand anyone take down any content, he just asked politely.

Given that attitude (and given plenty of other things he's done recently) it came as little surprise that he's released his latest "live" video directly himself off his own website, for $5 via Paypal, and is offering it with no DRM or anything like that. There are download and streaming limits, which I assume are to avoid bandwidth issues. There are a few ways he might have been able to deal with the bandwidth to offer more downloads or streams, but on the whole, he appears to be doing everything he can to make the process as simple and convenient as possible. He even put up a short note about file sharing on the page:

To those who might wish to "torrent" this video: look, I don't really get the whole "torrent" thing. I don't know enough about it to judge either way. But I'd just like you to consider this: I made this video extremely easy to use against well-informed advice. I was told that it would be easier to torrent the way I made it, but I chose to do it this way anyway, because I want it to be easy for people to watch and enjoy this video in any way they want without "corporate" restrictions.

Please bear in mind that I am not a company or a corporation. I'm just some guy. I paid for the production and posting of this video with my own money. I would like to be able to post more material to the fans in this way, which makes it cheaper for the buyer and more pleasant for me. So, please help me keep this being a good idea. I can't stop you from torrenting; all I can do is politely ask you to pay your five little dollars, enjoy the video, and let other people find it in the same way.

Once again, as he did a couple years ago, it's a polite and friendly request, not a demand or any sort of threat or anger. On top of that he explains his reasoning. In both cases, he comes across as being human, which all too often doesn't happen with stars.

To market this release, he hit the perfect target audience for this thing, doing a Reddit IAmA discussion (basically a Q&A for those unfamiliar with Reddit). Once again, throughout that discussion he was... incredibly human, and he answered a ton of questions. Not surprisingly, it's a really fun and interesting read.

Sometimes, when we talk about business models built around CwF+RtB (Connecting with Fans plus a Reason to Buy), people seem to falsely assume that means you absolutely have to give away all your content for free. We've said time and time again that that's simply not the case at all. If you can really connect with fans, and then make it convenient and reasonable for them to support you, they will do so (as I did). And that's exactly what Louis has done here.

I don't think anyone doubts that the film will end up being available from unauthorized sources. It may already be available that way. Hell, I'd bet that Louis himself expected it to show up for free pretty quickly. But the point is that the people who still "pirate" the video really don't matter. Those people were never going to pay anyway. What Louis has done, this way, is give tons of people (including plenty who normally don't pay for content) a really good reason to buy: which is by being polite, awesome and human. Compare that to so many who are rude, mediocre and programmed.

He seems to recognize this directly in some of his comments, where he notes that he went to The Pirate Bay for the first time the day before the release, and tried to think about what to do:

I don't know yet if I'll do it again. It hasn't run it's course. But I AM SO HAPPY I DID IT. Just so fun and it has been massively gratifying to share the positive of it with so many people who have written and expressed their feelings.

The day before I posted the video I went on pirate bay, which i had never visited and i read the guy's thign where he posts letters from media co's and artists and then his nasty and kind of hilariously chest beating responses. I thought "jesus. This guy is a piece of work. I would NEVER tangle assholes with this guy." and then I thought about it. What do I say to these people? To hope they don't make me regret putting it out there naked like this? So I wrote that little "to torrent" letter, just being a guy saying "dude. please?" it's the best I can do. If it doesn't work, well.

I've talked a few times now about reasons to buy, but the more and more we see success stories, I tend to think the simple list I have above is really a key point. Being polite, awesome and human takes you a hell of a long way towards both being able to connect... and giving people a reason to buy.

It would appear that this post will be my 40,000th blog post on Techdirt. 40,000. And that's just by me. If I include all the other bloggers, there are a bunch more posts. That's a lot of blogging. Along those lines, the Guinness Book of World Records apparently still has 17,212 blog posts by a single person listed as the most prolific. Perhaps it's taking them time to have someone count up all my blog posts. Anyway, it just seemed like a neat milestone that I figured I'd note, along with a huge thank you to folks here in the community who keep coming back and making it worthwhile to write, share and discuss. Here's to the next 40,000...

So remember Carrier IQ? That would be the company that is providing what's been deemed a root kit on a ton of mobile phones. While the company has sought to downplay the security and privacy risks of its software (to the point of threatening the main researcher behind the revelation), further research suggested that the software likely tracked actions down to the keystroke. Again, Carrier IQ has insisted that its only purpose was to help mobile operators get data and information to help out when users are having problems. For example, it notes the ability to highlight when and how users have dropped calls. And if this was all it really does, then the software might be slightly reasonable (though, the fact that it's hidden and almost impossible to remove represents a significant problem no matter how benign the software might be).

However, Michael Morisy over at the site Muckrock, decided he might try a different angle to learn about Carrier IQ and whether it was used for surveillance: he filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the FBI to find out if and how it uses Carrier IQ data. Not too surprisingly, the FBI won't provide him any details, but the way in which it turned him down was actually quite telling. Rather than just saying there were "no responsive documents," it instead said that it did have responsive documents "but they were exempt under a provision that covers materials that, if disclosed, might reasonably interfere with an ongoing investigation." That may imply, contrary to Carrier IQ's suggestions, that its software isn't for monitoring and spying, that the FBI views it quite differently, and already makes use of some Carrier IQ data. Of course, Morisy notes that there is another possible explanation: the FBI could be investigating Carrier IQ itself following these allegations, and it won't reveal the data for fear of compromising that investigation. Either way, it at least raises some significant new questions concerning Carrier IQ and how its data is being used.

Update: Carrier IQ has come out with a response insisting that it has never given out info to the FBI. I would imagine that's true, but it's besides the point. The issue is whether or not the FBI uses Carrier IQ data that it receives via the mobile operators.

In the wake of the news about the federal government completely censoring dajaz1.com for over a year on no legal basis, we've been wondering about some of the other websites that ICE has seized that have asked for the domains back -- without any further due process. Torrent-finder.com, which unlike the blog Dajaz1.com, is just a search engine, let us know that their situation is just slightly different. But what it comes down to is that the Justice Department doesn't like search engines and is waiting for Torrent-Finder to come up with a way not to find infringing materials:

The status of torrent-finder is different than other domains: we’re working with ICE to regain the domain by proposing methods torrent-finder can modify its search engine to ameliorate problems identified in the seizure. Broadly speaking, these are problems that IPR has identified with search engines in general. We’re confident that this process will result in release of the domain name, and validation that torrent-finder.com’s business is not based on infringement. In the meantime, my client’s torrent-finder.com business has essentially been given the death penalty: over one year has passed with the domain offline, while the wheels of justice seem to grind more slowly than ever.

Is this really what we want or what the law allows? For the government to completely shut down a search engine for over a year with no actual court process, while the search engine gets to "propose" different ways to build a search engine... while waiting (and waiting and waiting) for DOJ officials to get back to them on how search engines should work in their "expert" opinions?

Senator Bob Casey of Pennsylvania has taken virtual pen in hand and crafted a letter to Tim Cook, Apple's new CEO, in order to provide free advertising for warn him about a possibly "rogue" app that allows iPhone users to create phony drivers' licenses.

He has a lot to say in his full page ad overly concerned email concerning "Drivers License" and waxes effusively about all the fun terrible things that could possibly happen should the app fall into the wrong hands. It's not simply a matter of a couple of kids going on a beer run. No, the "Drivers License" app could quite possibly tear down this great nation. From the inside.

Dear Mr. Cook:

I write to express my concern with "License" by DriversEd.com, an application available for download in Apple's App Store which can be used to create counterfeit identity documents. I believe this application poses a threat to public safety and national security, and I request that you remove it from the App Store immediately.

Sure, to the average iPhone user (who, until today, had most likely never even heard of this app), this piece of software looks like a clever little distraction that could be used to crank out replica IDs, only with cleavage, buttocks or buttock cleavage in place of the usual mug shot. Or perhaps the average user might whip up a couple of fake IDs for their 10-year-old twins in the interest of making them easier to tell apart.

Bob Casey sees it another way. The only purpose this app serves is to grease the wheels of a multitude of criminal and terrorist enterprises.

By downloading "License", anyone with an iPhone or iPad can easily manufacture a fake driver's license by taking a photo and inserting it into one of fifty state driver's licenses' templates. Users then have a high quality image resembling an actual driver's license which they can easily print, laminate, and use for any number of illegal and fraudulent activities.

Waitwaitwaitwaitwait. ... what?

"Laminate?"

I may not have done any actual research on this, but I'm fairly sure laminated state IDs went the way of the mimeograph machine and the Fourth Amendment. I'm guessing the only place a laminated ID is valid is at the community college book store and even then, the student discount does not apply to textbooks.

Today's typical state ID is a modern marvel, chock-full of holograms, magnetic strips and a thinly disguised Mark of the Beast.* It takes a bit more than some purloined office supplies to create a passable fake these days and your average inkjet just isn't up to the task.
*Bible Belt only.

Moving on:

While DriversEd.com markets the app as a fun game, it can also be used in a way that allows criminals to create a new identity, steal someone else's identity, or permit underage youth to purchase alcohol or tobacco illegally.

Once again, if a laminated fake is out there living your life in a ways you only dreamt possible, your beef is with those who accepted a laminated printout as a legitimate form of identification, not with the app that helped create this faux-you that went out skydiving/dynamite purchasing. This includes the staff at the bottle shop who have just become both everyday heroes and easy marks for hundreds of thirsty (and previously smoke-free) teenagers.

But the real issue here (among several other equally real issues, except that this is truly the REAL issue) is the threat this app poses to America!

National security systems depend on the trustworthiness of driver's licenses, yet with a counterfeit license created by this app, a terrorist could bypass identity verification by the Transportation Security Administration, or even apply for a passport.

Good lord! This isn't an app! It's an all-in-one terrorist creation kit! Your (probably) non-local terrorist need do nothing more than sign a 2-year contract with a cell phone company, download and install the app, take a couple of headshots, take a couple more headshots with Instagram for old-time lulz and then it's off to the explodey races!

But Bob isn't done yet. It's back to the original "real" problem:

By assisting in the creation of counterfeit driver's licenses, "License" threatens to ease deception by criminals and contribute to the rising problem of identity theft. Given these risks, I request that you remove this application from the App Store immediately, as well as any other available applications that allow users to create, steal or alter false identities.

So... all photo apps need to be deleted? Any photo editing software? Anything that could pull up a template or reference image for photo IDs? Like say, browser software? How about the built-in camera, Bob? Should that be removed as well? After all, it does take pictures, and as we have seen, a facial photo is the gateway drug to corrupting minors, racking up Mom's JC Penny card and attempting to detonate underwear bombs.

The best part about this overwrought letter? Thousands of people who had no idea something this much fun/trouble was available in the app store are now being informed that yes, such a thing exists and here's the link to purchase it. [No longer available. See below.] Does it ever occur to people like Senator Casey that maybe, just maybe, if no one else is worked up about something that maybe the best thing you could do, as a person in a position of power, is just let it go? Otherwise, Sen. Barbra, this is the sort of thing that happens. Everyone thinks you're ridiculous and the app in question enjoys a spike in popularity.

The lesson is: if you want to see something you'd like to get rid of go viral instead, just throw your weight around and start cranking out blustery emails to corporate CEOs.

PREPRESS UPDATE:

And Apple has killed the app. I suppose with millions of other apps still for sale there's no reason to make a stand for a single app. That doesn't make it any less disappointing to find out that with the right name signed to the bottom of a misguided letter is all it takes to get someone else's craftwork killed. I guess the real lesson is: if you want to see something you'd like to get rid of go viral instead, just throw your weight around and start cranking out blustery emails to corporate CEOs.

Senator Casey takes a moment to congratulate himself over at his website:

"I urged Apple to take the responsible step of removing this dangerous app, and I'm pleased that the app is no longer available in the store," Senator Casey said. "As Pennsylvania and states across the country deal with the rising problem of identity theft, tools that facilitate breaking the law should not be available to potential criminals."

Roughly translated:

"I overreacted to something and now it is gone. We still have our work cut out for us dealing with the rising problem of identity theft and I am sure that pulling this app has done little to nothing towards fighting that problem. Instead, it has given the office of the Senator the appearance of Having Done Something, and in the end, isn't that what really matters?"

 

A whole bunch of folks sent over Andy Baio's recent brilliant post entitled No Copyright Intended, after the exceptionally common phrase found all over YouTube, where uploaders (mostly young uploaders) declare that, or the slightly modified "no copyright infringement intended," with videos they post. These are almost always on videos of songs or remixes -- in other words, content that almost certainly does infringe on someone's copyright. But the key point is that young people today intrinsically recognize that this doesn't make sense -- and they assume that their non-commercial use and intent not to profit mean that it should be fine. Legally, it's not. But it's certainly important to recognize that very few young people seem to recognize or care about this:

How pervasive is it? There are about 489,000 YouTube videos that say "no copyright intended" or some variation, and about 664,000 videos have a "copyright disclaimer" citing the fair use provision in Section 107 of the Copyright Act.

As he notes, many kids really seem to hope that just explaining their intentions will ward off a takedown, even though so many takedowns are automated these days. But the key point that Baio makes is at the end, where he notes that "no amount of lawsuits or legal threats will change the fact that this behavior is considered normal..." And from there, he suggests that as this generation ages, and begins voting, the trend of ever more draconian copyright laws is going to start to look pretty silly:

Here's a thought experiment: Everyone over age 12 when YouTube launched in 2005 is now able to vote.

What happens when — and this is inevitable — a generation completely comfortable with remix culture becomes a majority of the electorate, instead of the fringe youth? What happens when they start getting elected to office? (Maybe "I downloaded but didn't share" will be the new "I smoked, but didn't inhale.")

Remix culture is the new Prohibition, with massive media companies as the lone voices calling for temperance. You can criminalize commonplace activities from law-abiding people, but eventually, something has to give.

We've been arguing the same thing for a while. We're often told that as these kids grow up and "learn" more about copyright they'll change their minds. I just don't see it. It may happen for a small percentage, but it's tough for these kids to deny reality. Sharing content, remixing content and building on content is so natural to them. The idea that it should be illegal simply makes no sense at all. No amount of "education" (even if it involves McGruff the Crime Dog) can fool people into believing that nonsense is reasonable.

Following Megaupload's marketing campaign that involved getting a ton of big name stars (many signed to major record labels) to speak out in support of Megaupload (and then putting those quotes into a song), Universal Music Group started issuing questionable takedowns for the video. We've heard numerous theories as to why UMG might think it can do so, but none seem to hold up to much scrutiny. The music in question is not UMG's.

TorrentFreak reported that MegaUpload is preparing to sue Universal Music for the bogus takedowns, while THResq has the details. You can also see the actual lawsuit here (pdf or embedded below).

Universal is claiming that one of its artists, Gin Wigmore, had unauthorized work appear in the song, though it's unclear where or how. Megaupload continues to insist that it owns all of the music. Where it gets more bizarre is that apparently will.i.am, who appears in the video saying that he uses Megaupload to "send files across the globe" also sent his own takedown:

But we've also learned that Ken Hertz, attorney for Will.I.Am, also filed a takedown request last week with YouTube. What's going on here?

Hertz says that like many of the artists who appear in the video, his client had never consented to the "Megaupload Mega Song."

UMG echoes that sentiment. “This is an on-going dispute that surfaced several weeks ago with respect to the unauthorized use of a performance from one of our artists," a UMG spokesperson tells us. "We heard from a number of our other artists and their representatives who told us they’ve never consented to being portrayed in this video."

Now this is where things get interesting. If this is true, it certainly appears that Hertz is admitting to a bogus takedown. Even assuming that what he states is true -- that will.i.am did not give permission -- that's not a copyright claim. It would be a contractual issue. Furthermore, it seems like a pretty strange claim. It's pretty clear that will.i.am did, in fact, state that he uses Megaupload to send files across the globe. Megaupload insists it has clear contracts with all the artists in question, and I'm sure the details will come out as things move forward, but it still seems like Universal (and, now, will.i.am) have a lot of explaining to do.

And, of course, it seems really bizarre that UMG would think this was a prudent course of action, when the only thing it's really done is driven a hell of a lot more attention to Megaupload. Congrats, UMG, you just spent your efforts increasing the power of Megaupload's marketing campaign.

Remember the story about the composer who found his music featured in anti-piracy ads and had a difficult time getting paid out, triggering a corruption scandal at collection society Buma/Stemra? It was obviously a bit ironic that the music in question was used in anti-piracy ads, but it appears the irony truck forgot to unload a package - filled to the brim with humiliation.

Using YouHaveDownload, a tool that tracks torrent transfers on various public torrent trackers and matches them with IPs, a popular Dutch weblog has uncovered piracy at that aforementioned collection society. They scanned the IP range of Buma/Stemra's HQ and among the pirated material they found:

• An episode of Entourage (whois).
• A copy of the game Battlefield 3 (whois).

The tool only covers about 4 to 6% of what's available on the networks it tracks, so it's possible that there's a lot more sharing evil piracy going on from their offices as well.

If anything, this scandal really shouldn't be a scandal. Anti-piracy lobbying and campaigning has led to sharing becoming a taboo, while the money spent could have been used to facilitate sharing and to build sustainable business models on top of that. Despite pirates among their own ranks, organizations like Buma/Stemra feel that the Dutch policy of downloading from unauthorized sources for personal use being legal should be altered (read their statement). Even though the Dutch parliament disagrees, the Dutch government is trying to get exactly such laws altered citing EU pressure, even though the Digital Agenda Commissioner, Neelie Kroes (herself Dutch), has stated opposite goals. With people in parliament who do not know "what or who is a torrent," it's not entirely unlikely that the govt actually manages to get the law changed after all.

Buma/Stemra was quick to respond and acknowledge that IPs are not reliable to determine infringers. Apparently the IP addresses used for piracy (ending in .246 and .248) cannot be used by employees to access the web internet, so the collection society claims they were spoofed. (Update: their, now removed (cache), statement said internet, instead of web - apologies). Oddly, the IP from which the email with the press announcement was sent, ~.247, hasn't been spoofed. Did I mention they brought up spoofing after a spokesperson first claimed that the IP addresses could have originated from anywhere in the business park even though everything from ~.240 to ~.255 is linked to Buma/Stemra's office?

Sure, this scandal is humiliating, but it's not as embarrassing as the war against innovation. You can use this moment to better understand the human nature of sharing, to understand that downloads don't translate directly to lost sales, and to rethink your lobbying strategy to push for a more sane framework. Or, you know, you can continue to upset fans whilst amusingly tumbling from one scandal into the next.

Meanwhile, it will be interesting to see if there are more pirates in disguise amongst hardline politicians, RIAA & MPAA folks, and other classic opponents of more flexible copyright legislation. You all know where to find the tool now, so perhaps it can happen through a lesson about crowdsourcing. That is, have fun and see what you can find...

We've pointed out many, many times in the past that the absolute best (and perhaps only) way to really get people to move away from infringing is to offer better, cheaper, more convenient and feature-filled legitimate services. But those are pretty difficult to come by -- in part because of the insane demands by the legacy entertainment industry players. Why do you think it took over two years for Spotify to finally come to the US? Because the labels demands were crazy and unsustainable. Michael Robertson is now revealing some of those demands, but sums it up best in his first paragraph:

Imagine a new hot-dog selling venture. Let’s also say there’s only one supplier to purchase hot dogs from. Instead of simply charging a fixed price for hot dogs, that supplier demands the HIGHER of the following: $1 per hot dog sold OR $2 for every customer served OR 50 percent of all revenues for anything sold in the store. In addition, the supplier requires a two-year minimum order of 300 hot dogs per day, payable all in advance. If fewer hot dogs are sold, there is no refund. If more than 300 hot dogs are sold each day, payments to the supplier are generated by calculating $2 per customer or 50 percent of total revenues, so an additional payment is due to the supplier. After the first two years, the supplier can unilaterally adjust any of the pricing terms and the shop can never switch suppliers.

Doesn't seem like a particularly good business. When you hear of deals like that, it's kind of amazing that any of these businesses exist at all.

The Vice President of the European Commission responsible for the Digital Agenda for Europe, Neelie Kroes, recently made quite a stir when she dubbed copyright "a tool to punish and withhold". Now she's back with two major projects: a pan-European open data stategy and the "No Disconnect Strategy":

European Commission Vice-President Neelie Kroes has invited Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, a former Federal Minister of Defence, and of Economics and Technology, in Germany, to advise on how to provide ongoing support to Internet users, bloggers and cyber-activists living under authoritarian regimes. This appointment forms a key element of a new "No Disconnect Strategy" to uphold the EU's commitment to ensure human rights and fundamental freedoms are respected both online and off-line, and that internet and other information and communication technology (ICT) can remain a driver of political freedom, democratic development and economic growth.

Of course, that's rather rich coming from a region where France already allows disconnections as punishments (HADOPI), and where the UK has legislation in place that will allow it to do the same (Digital Economy Act). But it turns out that the ironies are even deeper.

The reason that Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg -- once seen as a likely successor to Germany's current Chancellor, Angela Merkel -- is no longer the Federal Minister of Defence, and of Economics and Technology, is that he resigned when it emerged that he had plagiarized significant parts of his doctorate.

After initial denials, Guttenberg was forced to admit the extent of his plagiarism thanks largely to a crowdsourced wiki called GutenPlag (original German) offering "collaborative documentation of plagiarism", which went through his thesis searching for passages taken from elsewhere without acknowledgement. In total, it claims to have found "1218 plagiarized fragments from 135 sources, on 371 out of 393 pages (94.4%), in 10421 plagiarized lines (63.8%)." There's even an interactive, color-coded visualization of what happened where.

Certainly, Guttenberg has been punished: as well as losing his position in the German government, he was also stripped of his doctorate. But his appointment as (unpaid) advisor to the "No Disconnect Strategy" raises a question. Is somebody whose downfall was mostly brought about by a website and its crowdsourced revelations really the right person to lead a project that aims to support online activists?

There is also the issue of Guttenberg's multiple copyright infringements. This was investigated with a view to charges being brought, but then, as Wikipedia explains:

In November 2011, the prosecution dropped the charges, having found 23 relevant copyright violations but only marginal economic damage. Guttenberg had to make a payment of 20,000 Euros to a charitable foundation, the court ruled.

In jurisdictions with extreme copyright laws, that "marginal economic damage" argument wouldn't be enough to protect those accused of infringement from prosecution or from being disconnected. So again the question has to be: is Guttenberg really going to understand what "No Disconnect" means to human rights activists living under authoritarian regimes when he got off so lightly himself?

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