Techdirt. Stories filed under "astroturf" Easily digestible tech news... http://www.techdirt.com/ en-us Techdirt. Stories filed under "astroturf"http://www.techdirt.com/images/td-88x31.gifhttp://www.techdirt.com/ Mon, 23 Jan 2012 05:41:07 PST Creative America Restocks... Hires Former DHS/ICE Spokesperson Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120121/01515617498/creative-america-restocks-hires-former-dhsice-spokesperson.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120121/01515617498/creative-america-restocks-hires-former-dhsice-spokesperson.shtml astroturf group that keeps pretending that it's a "grassroots" group. It was setup mainly to push for SOPA/PIPA in an attempt to pretend that "normal people" rather than just Hollywood fatcats supports SOPA/PIPA. Just one problem: it was so obviously run by Hollywood fatcats that no one ever took it seriously. It was slickly produced, was backed by the big studios, and all the big movie studios promoted it directly as well. Its executive director, Mike Nugent, came directly from Disney, where he was the company's Senior VP of anti-piracy. Meanwhile, its "communications director," Craig Hoffman came straight from... you guessed it... the MPAA. And before that he worked at Warner Bros. Grassroots!

Well, it seems they knew they were missing out on one key ingredient to prove just how "grassroots" they were... so they went over the law enforcement side of things, snapping up one Chris Ortman from Homeland Security. Yes, the same Homeland Security responsible for abusing copyright laws to illegally seize and censor websites for over a year under no legal basis.

Yes, that's right folks, the group that is pretending to be grassroots, but is really an astroturf organization -- which has bent over backwards to insist that SOPA/PIPA were not about censorship at all -- has hired someone from the very US government agency that has been using similar copyright laws to seize and censor websites. Perhaps his nickname is "grassroots"?

And the group wonders why actual artists aren't buying what they're selling. Perhaps rather than staffing it with former studio execs, MPAA lackeys and law enforcement censors... why not try actual content creators next time? Oh, perhaps it's because lots of actual content creators know that SOPA/PIPA are bad ideas.

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]]> joe-grassroots? http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20120121/01515617498 Wed, 11 Jan 2012 11:51:41 PST Once Again, SOPA Supporters Caught 'Copying' Others' Works In An Effort To Shut Down Sites For Copying Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120111/04340817375/once-again-sopa-supporters-caught-copying-others-works-effort-to-shut-down-sites-copying.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120111/04340817375/once-again-sopa-supporters-caught-copying-others-works-effort-to-shut-down-sites-copying.shtml "remixing" an anti-SOPA email alert from Public Knowledge, and turning it into a pro-SOPA argument. But this next one seems even worse. SOPA supporters, such as the MPAA and the very same Creative America, seemed overjoyed to point folks to an opinion piece in the Salt Lake Tribune by the state's attorney general, Mark Shurtleff, claiming to support SOPA and PIPA.

Just one little tiny problem... there appears to be a fair bit of evidence that Shurtleff "copied" his work from elsewhere and simply "remixed" the work of others. TorrentFreak goes into great detail how many of the statements in the opinion piece supposedly written by Shurtleff, have appeared elsewhere from pro-SOPA folks.
To back up this claim we will highlight a few sentences from the Attorney General’s article, and compare them with those previously delivered by the MPAA and affiliated pro-copyright groups.

The first sentence that caught our attention is: “It will take a strong, sustained effort to stop Internet thieves and profiteers.”

Strong words, but also familiar ones. In fact, former MPAA President Bob Pisano uttered exactly the same words in 2010 when he congratulated the Senate Judiciary Committee with unanimously approving the COICA bill, the predecessor to SOPA and PIPA.
They go on to find lots of other rather complex phrases that show up in both Shurtleff's "new" opinion piece... and lobbying efforts from times past. In fact, the whole thing seems like a classic "remix" -- cutting and pasting lots of works from elsewhere, and creating something "new" out of it. Who knows if this reaches the legal standard for copyright infringement... but it certainly calls into serious question either the legitimacy of the op-ed... or, the competence of Shurtleff. Once again, we think such remixing is good and should be allowed. But it's pretty crazy to argue for laws like SOPA... and do so with what certainly sounds like plagiarized phrases from elsewhere.

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]]> telling... http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20120111/04340817375 Wed, 30 Nov 2011 07:33:44 PST Questionable 'Consumer' Group Releases Most Misleading Report Imaginable, Falsely Claiming People Support SOPA Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111130/01011216929/questionable-consumer-group-releases-most-misleading-report-imaginable-falsely-claiming-people-support-sopa.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111130/01011216929/questionable-consumer-group-releases-most-misleading-report-imaginable-falsely-claiming-people-support-sopa.shtml support things like SOPA and PIPA by a wide margin (basically 80%). Of course, the actual survey used suggests no such thing. If it were true, there wouldn't be so much grass roots opposition to the bills (and hardly any grassroots support).

The details of ACI's study suggest why it got the responses it wanted -- it's basically because they asked ridiculous, leading questions where the answers are obvious, rather than asking anything about what people are really concerned about. You can see the full results here, and the questions have nothing to do with what SOPA/PIPA actually do. These are the three key ones:
3. Would you support or oppose legislation that would increase criminal penalties for anyone who knowingly sells counterfeit goods, equipment and parts to the U.S. military?

A. Support (80%)
B. Oppose (14%)
C. DK/Refuse (6%)

4. Would you support or oppose legislation that would increase criminal penalties for anyone who knowingly sells counterfeit drugs and medicines to Americans online?

A. Support (81%)
B. Oppose (13%)
C. DK/Refuse (6%)

5. Would you support or oppose legislation that would help block foreign-based Internet websites from trafficking counterfeit goods, content or services to Americans?

A. Support (79%)
B. Oppose (14%)
C. DK/Refuse (7%)
Note, first of all, that nowhere does ACI ever actually say what the current criminal penalties are for such offenses. That right there makes the whole thing pointless. How can you ask someone if penalties should be worse or better when most respondents have no idea what the current penalties are. It's like me asking you "do you think I should walk my dog more or less each day." Since you have no clue how much I currently walk my dog, it's a totally meaningless question. You don't ask an "increase/decrease" question when people have no idea what the starting position is... unless your intent is to mislead.

And, of course, these questions are designed to get people to say "support." In fact, the only really surprising thing is that anyone said "oppose." Nobody wants counterfeits going to the military or for counterfeit drugs to be sold to people. But those are the very narrow and extreme cases that supporters of SOPA and PIPA rely on in trying to push this bill forward. If SOPA and PIPA focused solely on stopping people from knowingly selling actual counterfeit military products and drugs, I would support the bill. I don't think many people would oppose it. The problem is that the bill goes way, way, way beyond that, and targets a ton of stuff that have absolutely nothing to do with the military or drugs.

Finally, when you have a five question survey, and you kick it off with the first four questions all being about "horrors" associated with the absolute worst of the worst in counterfeiting -- the parts that everyone agrees should be dealt with -- and then you finish up with a broad question about supporting legislation that would "block foreign-based Internet websites from trafficking counterfeit goods, content or services to Americans?" of course people are going to say yes. You've led them down that path.

At no point did ACI actually explain what SOPA and PIPA really do or the much wider impact they would have. Nowhere does it explain that the mechanism behind the bill is to censor websites, using the same functional system as the Great Firewall of China. Nowhere does it mention that even the leading legal experts who support SOPA and PIPA admit that the bills will censor protected speech. In other words, nowhere does the study actually ask about SOPA and PIPA. Instead, it asks about some mythical version that the US Chamber of Commerce and the MPAA want you to believe SOPA and PIPA are about.

And, of course, we've actually seen what happens when a real academic does a study that asks people about the things really found in the bill: they don't support it.

* You should be quite wary of the "names" of various groups. There are multiple reports out there that suggest that the American Consumer Institute is purely an astroturfing group, with no actual consumer mandate or interest. It came on the scene a few years ago, started by a former big telco exec, and was almost exclusively focused on putting out research that (conveniently) claimed that everything the big telcos wanted was actually wonderful for consumers. Even Consumers Union -- the well-respected publisher of Consumer Reports -- and who really does have a reputation for looking out for consumers -- has called out the American Consumer Institute and questioned why its positions seem to contradict that of "nearly every other major consumer group." Make of that what you will.

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]]> how-to-lie-with-stats http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20111130/01011216929 Tue, 29 Nov 2011 10:28:04 PST NBC Universal Threatens Partners That They Need To Sign 'Grassroots' Support Of SOPA/PIPA Or It Might Have To Drop Them Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111128/10175516914/nbc-universal-threatens-partners-that-they-need-to-sign-grassroots-support-sopapipa-it-might-have-to-drop-them.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111128/10175516914/nbc-universal-threatens-partners-that-they-need-to-sign-grassroots-support-sopapipa-it-might-have-to-drop-them.shtml astroturfing group set up by the major Hollywood studios, pretending to be a "grassroots effort" in favor of SOPA & PIPA. A month ago, we challenged the group's claim that it had "sent 100,000 letters to Congress." Turns out that wasn't true. They had sent 4,191, and then about 33,000 people had "signed a petition" that the group had set up. The math by CreativeAmerica is that each thing sent out three letters: one to your Congressional Representative and one to each of your two Senators. Of course, petitions are mostly ignored. Letters have only slightly more weight -- and based on Creative America's own math, they really only had about 1,400 people sign their letter.

Either way, it seemed somewhat amusing to discover that some of the top execs at NBC Universal have been threatening all NBC Universal suppliers to sign the letter that CreativeAmerica put together or NBC might no longer be able to do business with them:
We are writing to ask you for help on an issue that is one our top business priorities – content theft on the Internet, which is a major threat to the strength of our business. Our major guilds and unions are joining us in the fight to keep our businesses strong so that the tidal wave of content theft does not kill jobs. But if the current trend continues, it’s not too strong to say that this threat could adversely affect our business relationship with you.
Grassroots effort? When NBC Universal's General Counsel, Rick Cotton -- who famously once claimed that piracy was destroying the lowly corn farmer, since people who watch pirated movies don't eat popcorn (or something) -- is threatening suppliers who don't sign on? That's not grassroots. That's just insane. Now, it's true that Cotton wrote this carefully such that you can read it to suggest it means that if this law doesn't pass, NBC Universal's business will be in so much trouble that it has to shut down or cut off deals with suppliers. But it seems pretty clear that the obvious implication is: sign this or we may no longer do business with you.

But, given that "the big guns" at NBC Universal are pushing all their suppliers to directly sign (or else!) the letter found at CreativeAmerica's site, you might think that a lot more people would have signed on. Especially over the last month, with SOPA making so much news. So we went and checked.
It appears that 4,673 letters have been sent. A month ago it was 4,191. That's a grand total of 482 new letters sent since we last checked almost a month ago. That means in a month, with this story making major news every which way... and the major studios putting a lot of marketing muscle behind it and even threatening partners to sign on, they only rustled up 482 more signatures. And, since CreativeAmerica claims that each person who signs really sends 3 letters, we should divide that by three.

That gives us 161 new signatures (actually 160.666666 etc -- which makes me wonder what happened to that extra third of a person). 161. In a month.

Meanwhile, a real grassroots campaign turned out one million emails to Congress and 87,834 calls in one day. It should be clear at this point that the public clearly does not support SOPA/PIPA, and no amount of "faking it" is driving any public support.

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]]> this-is-getting-sad http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20111128/10175516914 Thu, 3 Nov 2011 11:01:25 PDT Warner Bros., Right After Announcing Record Profits, Pleads Poverty In Asking People To Support 'Grassroots' Campaign For E-PARASITE Act Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111102/23363116605/warner-bros-right-after-announcing-record-profits-pleads-poverty-asking-people-to-support-grassroots-campaign-e-parasite-act.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111102/23363116605/warner-bros-right-after-announcing-record-profits-pleads-poverty-asking-people-to-support-grassroots-campaign-e-parasite-act.shtml absolutely no shame. Thankfully, employees at some of those companies recognize just how ridiculous their employers look and have been passing along some details. On Wednesday, Warner Bros. announced third quarter profits (not revenue) of $822 million, representing a 57% increase on last year. Revenues were $7.07 billion, 11% higher than last year. The company sent out an email to employees talking about how it was "another record" quarter for the company. Then, very soon after that email went out, another email went out, telling employees about how difficult life was at Warner Bros. these days due to the scourge of "content theft," and urging people to support the astroturfing group CreativeAmerica.
In July, we informed you about the creation of and Warner Bros.’ involvement with Creative America, a grassroots coalition uniting the entertainment community and others against one of the biggest threats we face as an industry: content theft. Thank you to those of you who have already joined and supported Creative America. This is an important first step, but there’s still more we can do.

Thieves in the U.S. and abroad continue to make millions of dollars off our work, talents and creativity. For instance, “The Big Bang Theory” is one of the most popular targets of digital content thieves, with more than 600,000 illegal digital downloads thus far in 2011. Meanwhile, “The Hangover Part II” was illegally downloaded some 700,000 times in the first five months since its theatrical release.

Content theft doesn’t just affect a single show or film or even studio. It affects residual benefits, pension funds and health plans as well as jobs that our industry supports—whether directly or in ancillary markets and businesses. Therefore, it’s in all of our interests to stand behind Creative America.
I dunno. WB, if you've just made $822 million in profits alone, perhaps you could donate some of that to residuals? Ha Ha, who am I kidding? Movie studios never pay residuals. Remember, this is Warner Bros. And part of the reason it was so profitable this quarter was the latest Harry Potter movie. But last year, we got to analyze the accounting on an earlier Harry Potter movie, showing how Warner Bros. played with the numbers to take a movie that brought in $938 million and still let Warner Bros. claim a $167 million "loss," through highly questionable accounting, designed almost entirely to avoid paying royalties. The trick, of course, is to set up each movie as its own "corporation" that has to pay the parent studio "fees" for certain "services." You keep ratcheting up those fees, and the studio makes a ton, but the "company" that is the movie can always claim a loss to avoid paying royalties.

Honestly, if you know anything about the numbers, you'd know that Warner Bros. is a much larger threat to residuals and other things like health plans and jobs, than any file sharing by some kids who'd never pay to see the movie anyway. SOPA/E-PARASITE isn't going to help people in the business get paid. Execs, sure. But not everyone else. Not by a long shot.

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]]> that's-chutzpah http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20111102/23363116605 Fri, 21 Oct 2011 12:06:31 PDT CreativeAmerica: When Major Hollywood Studios Set Up Bogus 'Grassroots' Campaigns Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111021/10564516449/creativeamerica-when-major-hollywood-studios-set-up-bogus-grassroots-campaigns.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111021/10564516449/creativeamerica-when-major-hollywood-studios-set-up-bogus-grassroots-campaigns.shtml CreativeAmerica, whose main purpose is to advocate for passing the PROTECT IP censorship bill. The whole thing is clearly an astroturf campaign. It was registered via domains-by-proxy to hide who really bought the domain name. It highlights the video that was secretly created and owned by NBC Universal. It includes the totally false claim that "there's no such thing as a free movie."

If you dig into the website to figure out who's really behind it, it claims that it's a "grassroots organization," but fails to name a single creative individual who was behind putting the group together. Instead, it lists out the following companies and organizations who really put the site together (amusingly, they even block you from cutting and pasting this part, so I just retyped it -- meaning I circumvented their DRM... come at me, entertainment industry):
CBS Corporation, NBC Universal, the Screen Actors Guild, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Twentieth Century Fox, Viacom, the Walt Disney Company and Warner Bros. Entertainment
Well, well. That's not a grassroots effort, folks. Now, the site also includes various unions, including the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, the Directors Guild of America and the Screen Actors Guild and IATSE (stage hands, etc.). But these are the old school, out of touch unions that who have done little to nothing to help their members adapt to the times (often doing the opposite). Do we see any of the actually creative folks who have embraced new technologies, new methods of distribution and new business models? Nope.

In the meantime, how can the website seriously claim that it's a grassroots effort when it has every single major Hollywood Studio behind it. Do they think that people are stupid? And should we remind people that these are the same studios who have all sorts of scammy tricks for "Hollywood accounting" to make sure even the most successful films are never seen as profitable, allowing them to avoid paying royalties to the actual creative folks.

Next, if you dig into the website, they have a "send a letter to your elected officials" thing. And the real evidence that it's not a real grassroots effort? Just like other faux grassroots efforts, those agreeing to send the letter have no option to edit the letter. When groups like Demand Progress and EFF let you send letters about PROTECT IP, they let you edit them to your liking -- trusting people to express themselves.

But, this "Creative America" apparently does not trust its own members to be creative. The letter is 100% locked down. You can only send their text. Honestly, if a group supposedly representing creators won't even let its own members express themselves freely, you know that it's not actually about protecting "creative" America.

This is not a grassroots effort. This is not about protecting "Creative America." This is about protecting a few megacorporations who are scared of new innovations, afraid of their dwindling monopoly rents, and trying to force the rest of the world to go back to the way things used to be.

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]]> don't-make-me-laugh http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20111021/10564516449 Wed, 4 Feb 2009 12:24:52 PST If You're Thinking Of Paying People To Talk Nice About Your Company Online, It Probably Won't End Well Carlo Longino http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090203/1802513636.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090203/1802513636.shtml ad, which featured Ed McMahon with a golden toilet and MC Hammer with a gold medallion of himself wearing a gold medallion. But it's also getting some more press online after somebody doing online "marketing" for it apparently emailed a guy that had written an unflattering story about the company and offered to pay him to take it down or rewrite it (via Boing Boing). The search results for the company feature some pretty unfavorable stories about it, but evidently instead of cleaning up its act, Cash4Gold would rather just splash out some Cash4Silence. This comes a few weeks after a Belkin employee got busted trying to pay people to write positive reviews about its products on Amazon. It's hardly surprising that companies do this sort of thing, but the potential downside of getting caught (not to mention the ethical concerns) should give them pause.

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]]> ethics? http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20090203/1802513636 Mon, 28 Apr 2008 11:30:19 PDT If You're Going To Put Up Fake Grassroots Videos On YouTube, Shouldn't You At Least Pretend To Be Real People? Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080425/162736952.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080425/162736952.shtml skdjhfjhse, asdlkfjasdlk and skfhsdfsd don't exactly look like real people posting user-generated content -- and they're not. When asked about it, the RNC admitted that it had made the videos itself and posted them online. Why not post them under the RNC's official YouTube channel? Well, the RNC claims that it's because these weren't television ads, which is also the excuse it gives for not including a "the RNC is responsible for this ad" disclaimer in the videos. However, it seems pretty clear that the idea was to get these videos up for more viral purposes, suggesting something of a "grassroots" support to the production. However, if you're going to do some astroturfing, you might as well at least have the fake "grassroots" supporters look real. Merely typing in a bunch of characters from the central row of your keyboard is a pretty immediate tipoff that these aren't real people.

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]]> just-a-thought http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20080425/162736952