Easily digestible tech news... http://www.techdirt.com/ en-us http://www.techdirt.com/images/td-88x31.gifhttp://www.techdirt.com/ Thu, 13 Dec 2012 03:20:00 PST Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121211/00445121345/anti-piracy-group-demanding-getting-domain-names-torrent-sites.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121211/00445121345/anti-piracy-group-demanding-getting-domain-names-torrent-sites.shtml asking them to hand over their sites... or face a lawsuit. This is only slightly nicer than having the government come in and seize the domains, but barely. Considering that FACT was the group that ran the privately funded lawsuit against SurfTheChannel's Anton Vickerman, it at least suggests that they might actually take various sites to court. And, in response, many sites are just handing over the domains. That's gotta be cheaper and easier than fighting, and that seems to be a lot of what FACT is banking on. Still, demanding a URL as a condition of not getting prosecuted really does seem like bullying activity that borders on extortion. You'd think that FACT would have better things to do these days than go after websites it doesn't like with expensive threats.

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]]> nice-little-site-you-have-there http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20121211/00445121345 Tue, 12 Jun 2012 04:03:00 PDT Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120611/03043319267/when-entertainment-industry-cant-legally-shut-down-site-it-doesnt-like-bogus-charges-can-do-trick.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120611/03043319267/when-entertainment-industry-cant-legally-shut-down-site-it-doesnt-like-bogus-charges-can-do-trick.shtml arrested. At the time, we noted that it wasn't at all clear what he was doing that was illegal, as the site was merely a forum. Though some people did, in fact, use that forum for the sake of infringement, that shouldn't implicate the forum host. And, in fact, after about a year and a half, the courts dropped the case, realizing that the arguments the industry kept feeding law enforcement didn't add up to anything illegal. The court noted that the charges never should have been brought in the first place. Of course, that's small comfort to the folks who ran the site and had to go through this ordeal. The site has announced that it's shutting down, and the arrests and lawsuits were a big part of what killed it.

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]]> industry-bullies http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20120611/03043319267 Tue, 7 Jul 2009 09:31:00 PDT Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090706/1713445461.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090706/1713445461.shtml legit search engine from an illegal one. However, more details on the case are coming to light, and the whole thing seems questionable. Someone, who prefers to remain anonymous, sent along the news that the lawyers for Scopelight have now won the first battle against FACT, and the full decision reveals some rather troubling details about how closely FACT -- a private industry group -- collaborated with the police in the initial investigation, and then FACT's own actions after the police investigation concluded.

It's already troubling enough that a private industry group, involved solely in activities designed to protect a business model, was allowed to work so closely with police in a criminal investigation. FACT alerted the police to potential illegality at Scopelight, which is fine, but from then on FACT was intimately involved in the criminal investigation. When the owners of Scopelight, Anton Benjamin Vickerman and his wife Kelly-Anne Vickerman, had their home raided by the police... FACT came along for the investigation. Not only that, but they had their own private investigator copy information from the Vickerman's computers (exactly what and how much was copied is apparently in dispute). When the Vickerman's were questioned by the police, FACT members took part in the questioning.

It seems troubling enough that private industry reps were allowed to be so closely involved in a criminal investigation where they have clear bias, but it gets worse. The police seized various computers and equipment as part of arresting the Vickerman's, and then allowed FACT employees to inspect the computers and the information found on them -- which, again seems to be granting way too much access to a private group. Then things got even more bizarre: the police gave a bunch of the equipment to FACT to allow FACT to continue to examine the equipment.

A few months after the original raid, investigation and arrest, the police decided that there wasn't enough for criminal charges, and decided not to prosecute the Vickerman's. The police told the Vickerman's their property could be returned, so the Vicerkman's lawyers contacted FACT asking for the equipment back, at which point FACT refused, claiming it was holding onto the equipment because it was considering bringing a civil suit against the Vickermans -- which it eventually did bring.

So beyond the rather stunning close working relationship between the police and a private industry group on a criminal investigation, including handing over evidence to a private party, once the police decided not to prosecute, that private party decided to keep the computer equipment and use it for a civil suit. Thankfully, the court has ruled that this latter decision was improper, and the moment the police decided not to prosecute, the equipment should have been returned. So while this is a victory for Scopelight, it's still a rather stunning revelation of how closely integrated a private industry organization is with criminal investigations, and certainly raises questions as to why such a group should get such access.

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]]> that-doesn't-seem-right... http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20090706/1713445461 Mon, 21 Jan 2008 10:51:00 PST Michael Ho http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080120/01355613.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080120/01355613.shtml universities, the London bureau chief of the Agence France Presse (AFP), Pierre Lesourd, stated that the news agency's reporters are not allowed to use Facebook and Wikipedia as sources. However, Lesourd at least clarified the policy -- saying that reporters can cite any online resources as long as they also refer to other reliable, independent sources to verify the facts. Lesourd announced the AFP's position after the issue came up due to several news agencies being fooled by a fake profile of Bilawal Bhutto Zardari on Facebook.

Fortunately, the AFP realizes that fact-checking is an important part of its journalistic mission, but it seems a bit disappointing that this basic principle of responsible news reporting needs to be re-affirmed for "new media" sources. Then again, there will always be mistakes in any kind of research, so the real lesson here may be that there is an equally important basic principle of reading the news: "Don't believe everything you read."

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]]> isn't-that-part-of-the-job? http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20080120/01355613