Techdirt. Stories filed under "ratings"

If Your Kid's Playing M-Rated Games, You Can't Blame The Retailer

Tim Cushing — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 03:51:24 PDT

The nationwide discussion revolving around violent video games and what's to be done with them continues without any signs of abating. The usual handwringers (both professional and amateur) continue to express their dismay that games with guns and shooters are being sold to the youth of America, leading us into a future of non-stop mass shootings and Grand Theft Auto-inspired bursts of nihilistic violence.

The concerned cries of "won't someone think of the children" will likely never subside, at least not as long as video games are perceived to be kid-only distractions. (Note to Nintendo: you're really not helping out with this misconception.) The moral panicists paint a bleak picture in which hypothetical 10-year-olds are walking out of Wal-Mart with newly purchased copies of Murder Simulator 5000 and disappearing into their darkened bedrooms, only to emerge moments later armed to the teeth and greatly overestimating their hit points.

It's a terrible future, and one we should all be prepared for. If only it were true.

You see, the proverbial 10-year-old rolling out of a retail outlet with an M-rated game would now be 23 and perfectly capable of purchasing his or her own M-rated games. Every year, the FTC audits retailers and movie theaters with an army of underaged secret shoppers. And every year, these numbers improve.

Thirteen years ago (2000) was the low point: 85% of minors were able to purchase an M-rated game. As of last year, that number was in the low teens.

Only 13 percent of underage shoppers were able to purchase M-rated video games, while a historic low of 24 percent were able to purchase tickets to R-rated movies. In addition, for the first time since the FTC began its mystery shop program in 2000, music CD retailers turned away more than half of the undercover shoppers. Movie DVD retailers also demonstrated steady improvement, permitting less than one-third of child shoppers to purchase R-rated DVDs and unrated DVDs of movies that had been rated R for theaters.

Not only has this number improved dramatically over the last decade, but it's done it voluntarily. The ESRB sets the ratings and retailers enforce it, all without the threat of fines or legal action. So, if these 10-year-olds are shooting each other in the face with fake guns made of pixels, they're doing it without much assistance from retailers.

And, as stated above, retailers aren't just keeping video games from falling into the wrong hands. Other "destructive" influences like violent movies and sweary rock/rap/bluegrass are also being kept away from impressionable teenage minds -- at least by retailers.

So, while the debate will rage on and the fingers will be pointed (but, good lord, not in a gun-like fashion), those who wish to regulate the sale of "violent media" will have to look elsewhere to find a villain willingly supplying the Youth of America with evil playthings. And every year this number remains low is another victory for systems of voluntary compliance and a swift kick in the forebrain for those who believe nothing can be achieved without legislation.

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Poll: US Adults Think Video Games Lead To Violence But Can't Be Bothered To Understand ESRB Ratings

Timothy Geigner — Mon, 4 Mar 2013 08:54:30 PST

It just keeps coming. More and more news items are hitting my eyeballs and ears about violence and video games. We recently discussed the problem with polling adults over this issue, where a giant age-rift still exists amongst gaming habits and that rift appeared to be tossed out for the purposes of the poll in question. Polls like that might be laughable at first, but when you begin to see misplaced legislation introduced by politicians kowtowing to the results, we've got a problem. But let's take it one possibly controversial step further and ask an important question regarding these polls: do Americans generally have any credibility on the question at all?

Polls like this recent Harris poll, where over half of American adults link violence and video games, make me question whether that is the case. The problem I have isn't that specific result. If half of Americans think there's a link, that's their right. I can disagree with it, but I won't quibble with their right to believe. No, my problem is the results of the follow up questions regarding the ESRB rating system.

Two thirds of US adults said they used the ESRB system to help them decide which games were suitable for their children, although only 14 percent claimed to fully understand what the guidelines meant. 18 percent of adult said they mostly, but not completely understood the ESRB ratings system.

To highlight the absurdity of the respondents, one needs only place all this in a single sentence. Over half of adults believe violence and video games are linked, two thirds of them use an ESRB system, which less than 80% even claim to mostly understand, to decide which games to buy for their children. This isn't to say that the ESRB rating convention isn't without its problems, but come on. If half of adults think there's a link between children and violence, but can't be bothered to mostly understand the rating system (which isn't that complicated), then there's a disconnect somewhere. Either adults don't actually think the link exists, or else they don't really consider the link to be all that important.

Either way, it doesn't speak to the credibility of the American public on the issue, which is sad.

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Australian Milestone: First Game Released For Adults...In 2013

Timothy Geigner — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 15:49:00 PST

As Tim Cushing recently wrote, Australia's Classification Board (whatever the hell that is) decided that this was the year. The year for what, you ask? Well, the year to acknowledge that people over the age of 15 exist within their borders. It seems a little silly that, prior to 2013, Australia's governing bodies chose not to acknowledge that the age of the average gamer is something around thirty years old. Emboldening the morality police "for the children" is one thing, but to do so for law-abiding adults is quite another. I think it showed an immense amount of disrespect towards the Aussie public that it took so long to entrust with them their own entertainment choices.

In any case, Australia has followed through and reached a milestone hitherto unimaginable: the very first R18+ game has been classified, and the honor goes to Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor's Edge. According to the Classification Board:

“Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor’s Edge contains violence that is high in impact because of its frequency, high definition graphics, and emphasis on blood effects.”

So congratulations to Australian adults, who can now play the game as it was meant to be played: bloody, violent, high in impact and in high in definition. I have to imagine that the only thing sweeter for Australian adults than the ability to finally play these kinds of games is the delicious irony in how Australian Rules Football, which is televised, fits the Classification Board's description almost exactly. Foster's all around for everyone!

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Nielsen Sued For Billions; TV Network Claims It Manipulated Ratings

Mike Masnick — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 16:01:22 PDT

In a somewhat massive legal filing, in a NY State court, India-based New Dehli Television Limited (NDTV) has sued Nielsen for billions, claiming that the famous TV ratings service manipulated ratings in India in a way that harmed its own offerings. The accusations suggest massive corruption, which NDTV tries to blame on Nielsen's investor-owners, claiming that the company's owners were trying to cut expenses, leaving the Nielsen process (which has always been somewhat suspect, relying on a relatively small number of "Nielsen households" with tracking boxes) open to manipulation. In India, which already has the reputation of a fair bit of corruption among politicians, there's the added bonus that many "politicians also own cable networks"

It is common knowledge that there are a number of television channels owned by politicians and political parties. Furthermore, politicians also own cable networks in certain Indian states. At the household level, in certain instances PeopleMeters have been installed at the residences of government officials, where tampering of the data also takes place.

It's interesting to see that Nielsen, nominally a Dutch company, is being sued by an Indian TV company... in the state of NY. Part of the reason may be that Nielsen's headquarters are in NY, but also the fact that the main investors are all based there as well.

I have no idea if the charges (and there are many, many of them) leveled at Nielsen are accurate or not, but it's somewhat amazing that we haven't seen more such charges. The lawsuit does suggest similar problems in the odd combination of "Florida, Turkey, the Philippines and across the planet." The lawsuit expands each of those charges into paragraph levels, but with no citations or backup. For example, this is how it explains Florida:

In Florida, many television broadcasters have been complaining about inaccurate ratings data resulting from inadequate sample sizes. Those television broadcasters have been unable to get alternate ratings because Nielsen has a monopoly in that market.

Seems somewhat lacking without more details. Either way, if anything, this should simply raise questions about why we use systems like Nielsen? Nielsen boxes have always been somewhat questionable, providing tremendous influence to the small number of people who have them. In a data-driven, always connected age, it would seem that there are much more effective -- and much more robust -- means of tracking what people are watching on TV.

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AMC Defies MPAA Bullies: Will Show Unrated Documentary To Kids With Permission Slips

Leigh Beadon — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 12:12:00 PDT

There's been a bit of a kerfuffle in Hollywood lately surrounding the documentary Bully, which has drawn attention to the ridiculousness of the MPAA's movie ratings system—and may even indicate the first real erosion of the organization's power in that area. The documentary—which has been well-received as an accurate depiction of real problems, and a potentially important film for parents, teachers and kids to see—was rated R by the MPAA for harsh language, which would stop kids under 17 from seeing it in theatres alone. This sparked a massive push-back from the studio and the anti-bullying activist community, but the MPAA refused to budge, so the studio announced that it would release the film as unrated by the MPAA (though they do include the much more reasonable "Pause 13+" rating it received from Common Sense Media, a non-profit children's advocacy group).

This can confuse people, because it's a common assumption that movie ratings are required by the government. In fact, the MPAA's rating system is unregulated and entirely voluntary, and was created as a way to avoid government intervention. The rating from CSM carries no more or less legal weight than an MPAA rating—but participation by studios, cinemas and retailers in the MPAA system has been so widespread for so long that their ratings are the de facto standard, and essentially mandatory. Any film can be released without a rating, but traditionally that has been commercial suicide, since theatres would treat it as NC17, a rating under which success is nearly impossible since most theatres won't show such films at all. But that's where things with Bully get interesting: AMC has announced that its theatres will show the movie and make it easy for kids to see it. In a unique move, they are providing a parental permission slip on their website for kids to print, get signed, and bring to the theatre:

“AMC will be presenting Bully…as not rated,” said the theater-chain in a statement. “Guests younger than 17 can see the film if they are accompanied by a parent or adult guardian, or if they present a signed parental permission slip.”

That permission slip will be available on Wednesday at this link on AMC’s website. ... (A rep for the company declined to comment on the Parent’s Television Council’s statement that screening Bully at AMC’s theaters “threatens to derail the entire ratings system.”)

That last bit is interesting, because it shows that the Parents Television Council (notorious moralist meddlers in the free speech rights of others) knows exactly what's happening. The power of the MPAA and groups like PTC relies entirely on momentum and force of habit. Nobody is beholden to them, but for a long time it seemed like everyone forgot that. That let the MPAA warp the rating system and use it for their own purposes such as playing politics, screwing over indie filmmakers, and even punishing a documentary that criticized the rating system itself. But now people are remembering that they don't have to play by the MPAA's self-serving rules. In their statement, PTC neatly predicts the future, though they rail against it:

"This move, regardless of intentions, sets a precedent that threatens to derail the entire ratings system," said PTC head Tim Winter in a statement."If a distribution company can simply decide to operate outside of the ratings system in a case like Bully, nothing would prevent future filmmakers from doing precisely the same thing, with potentially much more problematic material."

As with most of the disruption happening in the entertainment industry, this has a lot to do with the internet. In the past, if everyone played by the rules, there was basically no such thing as "unmet demand" for a film with a bad rating. Once the MPAA handed down its death sentence, nobody would touch the project, and it would receive no promotion or screen time, so nobody outside film circles even knew about it. Now lots of people are plugged into the festival circuit and the inside world of film, so a movie like Bully can generate plenty of buzz before it even hits Hollywood. The demand for the film was there, the studios were able to gamble on that demand, and AMC could see the advantage in breaking the rules to meet it. If the film is a success (which seems likely) it will deal a powerful and much-needed blow to the MPAA's ratings regime.

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Interesting Timing: News Leaks That Justice Dept Is Investigating S&P Just After It Downgrades US?

Mike Masnick — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 15:44:03 PDT

So just a couple weeks after S&P's (overhyped) downgrade of US debt, a story leaks that the Justice Department is investigating the S&P's ratings system. The reports say that the Justice Department investigation began before the downgrade -- which I absolutely believe to be true. It also notes that the focus is on conflicts of interest and a quote from an S&P managing director about not killing "the golden goose."

But, here's the thing. The timing of the news of the information getting out is certainly questionable. Even if the investigation is about mortgage debt, not sovereign debt, and even if it started before all this, just having it come out so soon seems like a clear shot at ratings agencies: downgrade the government and we'll ramp up our investigations of you. Does an action like this give Moody's or Fitch pause before changing their ratings on US debt? The report notes that it's "unknown" if only S&P is being investigated, or if all three are, which certainly seems like fair warning: downgrade us and we'll leak some dirty laundry.

As for the legitimacy of the investigation, again it seems to all go back to the fact that these firms ratings are seen -- in part due to US regulations -- as gospel fact, rather than just another opinion on value. That's a problem. Perhaps there's a case to be made that S&P's ratings people believed one thing while publicly stating another, and that can be turned into a fraud claim, but it seems like it may be a difficult case. A rating is still an opinion and an opinion is protected free speech. Getting over that hurdle is possible, but difficult. It seems like a much more effective way to stop S&P from abusing the system is to stop forcing organizations to treat its ratings as gospel. I would bet that would do a lot more damage than any lawsuit or criminal action against the company or its execs.

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Let's Face It: S&P's Analysis Is A Joke... But It Still Has A Right To An Opinion

Mike Masnick — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 16:06:00 PDT

There's been a lot of attention paid to S&P over the past couple weeks, after it was the first of the big three credit rating agencies to "downgrade" US debt. As we pointed out at the time, it's pretty ridiculous to get worked up over the downgrade, because it's just one company's opinion. And, yes, for very ridiculous reasons, the opinions of a few ratings firms are written into the law, and some debt holders are required to hold certain types of debt based solely on the opinions of these companies. The real problem is that such opinions matter. In fact, as many commentators noticed, after the S&P downgrade, people actually rushed to buy up more US debt, driving down the cost, which is the exact opposite of what you would think should happen.

Of course, S&P has other problems. Nate Silver did a brilliant (as per usual) takedown of "Substandard and Pourous," in which he noted that S&P's ratings are pretty dreadful. He goes through the data and shows that listening to S&P will make you poorer. Basically, lots of other information will give you a much better indicator of the likelihood of default on sovereign debt. The specific problem?

S.&P. ratings tend to lag, rather than lead, the market. That is, in cases where the market’s view of default risk is misaligned with S.&P.’s, S.&P. is a good bet to change their rating to catch up to market perception.

And, of course, lots of people have pointed out how poorly S&P did in the housing bubble, rating crap bundles of mortgages as investment grade when it was clearly junk. Then there's other general sleaziness. Pro Publica points out that S&P -- who, it should be mentioned, apparently made a $2 trillion "error" right before downgrading the US debt, is apparently lobbying against a regulation that would require it to report "significant errors."

But does this, as some have suggested, mean that S&P should get into some sort of legal trouble? Michael Moore even made the ridiculous suggestion that the company's CEO should be arrested. Really? You would think that Moore, who has been pretty damn critical of US government policy over the years, would think twice before thinking that someone should be "arrested" for stating an opinion that was critical of the government's ability to repay its debts.

But, of course, we still have some of the First Amendment, and that means you can state an opinion -- even one that turns out to be wrong or useless -- and not be arrested for it. Once again, the real issue is this idea that we need a ratings agency to determine the quality of debt. In the equity world, plenty of investment banks issue "ratings" on the equity (usually some form of "buy, sell, hold") but no one takes them quite as seriously as the debt ratings from S&P, Moody's and Fitch. Again, I'd argue that this is because of the requirements in law about the kinds of debt certain operations can hold, and tying that to just a few opinions. If we had the same rules for equity, we'd see a very different stock market today. Sure, when a big bank downgrades a stock, people sell, but people implicitly recognize it's an opinion. When it comes to debt, something about the ratings system and the requirements about it makes people think that the ratings are more "fact" than opinion.

So, let's get away from that entirely. Let's dump the requirements that any debt holdings should be required of certain levels based solely on the opinions of these ratings agencies with terrible track records. Instead, what's wrong with just letting the market price decide how trustworthy the debt is? You don't have to do away with ratings entirely. Anyone can have an opinion. But without the requirements that make just a few firms integral to the market, you could have a lot more open competition on who really has the best opinion on the viability of certain debt.

So don't arrest the head of S&P. But, stop giving the ratings from these few firms special status that makes people think they're something more than just a random company's opinion.

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Insanity: Getting Worked Up Over One Company's Slight Change Of Opinion In The Creditworthiness Of The US

Mike Masnick — Mon, 8 Aug 2011 02:40:29 PDT

You may have heard (or, at least, I hope you heard) that, late Friday, S&P downgraded the US's credit rating from AAA to AA-plus, causing all sorts of hair pulling and worry. Here's the part that makes no sense: S&P's rating of the safety of US debt is simply an opinion. It's certainly a high profile opinion, but it's still an opinion. What I can't figure out is why anyone is making a big deal of one private company making a slight change to its opinion. People are acting as if this change is a change in facts. They're acting as if an S&P downgrade actually makes US debt less trusthworthy. It does not. The US may very well not be that trustworthy on its debt (in fact, I find that argument quite compelling these days), but having one company say that is meaningless.

We've discussed this before. For absolutely no good reason, the US government decided to put the opinion of various rating agencies into law, requiring certain institutions to maintain certain percentages of "highly rated" bonds in order to engage in certain activities. The insanity is that it effectively forced the world to think about ratings from S&P and Moody's as if they were fact, even though they're really just opinions. And to do all of this even if their ratings go against one's own opinion. And, of course, we all know that the ratings agencies are far from perfect, and have an unfortunate history that suggests that, at times, they've succumbed to pressure.

So, even if you believe that the US government's financial position is a disaster (and, again, a case can be made for that), it's crazy to pretend that one company changing its opinion (just slightly) has any actual meaning. Most of the market can and does make its own decisions on the creditworthiness of US debt, no matter what S&P says. In other words, the (slim) risk of the US actually defaulting is already priced in. The S&P saying what people are already thinking doesn't mean that anything fundamental changed... other than its opinion.

Markets are made based on the interaction of buyers and sellers. Not the (sometimes questionable) opinions of just a few firms.

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Doctors Sue Blue Shield Over Rating System

Mike Masnick — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 01:28:40 PDT

It appears some California doctors are not at all pleased with a new doctor rating system launched by Blue Shield of California and have launched a class action lawsuit against the insurance company. Blue Shield notes that the rating system uses "nationally recognized measures of care," and the data itself comes from doctors groups, health plans and purchasers. Of course, the real question is whether or not a rating system like this can be against the law. After all, it's an opinion. In many ways, this lawsuit reminds me of lawsuits against Google from people who don't like their rankings. Such lawsuits have not gone far. Blue Shield has every right to express an opinion about a doctor, and in this case does so based on a variety of well-accepted measures. I can understand why doctors who don't perform well might not like it -- and I can also see potential problems if the data creates incentives for certain behavior that is less helpful for patients -- but that doesn't make expressing an opinion illegal. Hopefully the courts will recognize that, or we may get a very bad ruling on the books that says that giving an opinion is not allowed if some people don't like that opinion.

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Cop-Rating Website Is Protected By The First Amendment

Mike Masnick — Thu, 6 May 2010 10:04:05 PDT

A couple years ago, we wrote about the controversy surrounding the website RateMyCop.com, which (as the name implies) let's people "rate" their local police officers. While police around the country were "outraged" by this, we noted that police accountability seems like a good thing. While some complaints resulted in the site's registrar temporarily taking the site offline, a more troubling situation developed later in Florida, where a user of the site was arrested, after he posted information (anonymously) about a police officer who he felt did not do a good job. The authorities issued a subpoena to find out who the commenter was, and charged him under a Florida law that forbids "publishing name and address of law enforcement officer."

While the case was dropped for procedural reasons, the guy sued, noting that the arrest and the law went against his First Amendment rights. Thankfully, a judge has agreed, saying that just publishing such information is protected speech:

The judge ruled the First Amendment does not protect "true threats, fighting words, incitements to imminent lawless action, and classes of lewd and obscene speech." But publishing an officer's phone number and address, he said, "is not in itself a threat or serious expression of an intent to commit an unlawful act of violence."

You can read the full ruling below, but it's nice to see a judge note that just because some information can be used for bad purposes, doesn't mean it's okay to prohibit that kind of speech.

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Yelp Adds A Tiny Bit Of Transparency... And Inches Away From Pay For Placement

Michael Ho — Tue, 6 Apr 2010 14:47:00 PDT

Over the past few years, the review site Yelp has been no stranger to controversies regarding its treatment of comments and criticisms aimed at local businesses. Negative reviews on Yelp have spurred various lawsuits, accusing Yelp of unfair business practices that have been called "Extortion 2.0" -- referring to the accusation that Yelp salespeople put pressure on companies to pay up for better ratings to appear more prominently on Yelp (and to remove the bad reviews that coincidentally seem to appear on the site when these salespeople allegedly suggest that better ratings could be bought).

In response, Yelp has explained (over and over again) that its algorithms are optimized to display the most "trustworthy" reviews of local businesses -- in a way that's completely unrelated to its sales efforts. Trying to put a friendly wrapping around its umpteenth explanation, Yelp has even created a cartoon to help educate everyone on its methods:

However, no matter how simply these explanations are conveyed, they have not been particularly convincing to small businesses who feel punished by bad reviews and see Yelp's services as a veiled threat to their livelihood. So Yelp has taken another step by announcing some changes to its services to avoid further confusion:

Businesses can no longer buy a "Favorite Review" like they could before -- so that there's no confusion over businesses being able to influence reviews by paying Yelp. This sounds like a pretty big step towards making it clear that companies can't just buy better reviews, but what does this mean for companies that formerly bought "Favorite Reviews?" Those companies are being penalized with the unexpected removal of this service, and there's still no guarantee that ratings can't be manipulated by cunning business owners or competitors. Though, the conspiracy theorists may never actually be satisfied on this point, and gaming online rating systems will likely always be a nagging concern.

Yelp is still keeping its review filtering algorithms a secret, but it will now display reviews that have been removed by its automated filters in an effort to allow users to see a bit of the reviews that Yelp deems suspicious or untrustworthy. However, Yelp is not exactly highlighting these filtered-out reviews -- just making them available to be viewed in case anyone is curious to see what kind of reviews are tossed out on a regular basis.

Yelp is adding video ads as a service for businesses -- presumably to offset the loss of its "Favorite Review" feature.

Yelp says it's created a Small Business Advisory Council for companies to give feedback to Yelp management. This is an interesting development, but it's not exactly easy to find out more information on how this council works. Granted, it was just announced, but its announcement seems to lack a bit of commitment when there aren't any obvious links about it on yelp.com (yet?).

Yelp proudly states that it's increasing transparency with these changes, allowing businesses and users to peek into what its algorithms are filtering out behind the scenes. But it's not clear that anyone really asked for that feature -- and getting that look at the filtered reviews isn't going to ease the concerns that Yelp's algorithms are inherently weighted against small businesses who don't pay up for advertising space on Yelp.

The more significant change seems to be that Yelp is shifting away from a "Pay for Placement" business model with its reviews. Replacing its "Favorite Reviews" with video ads seems a bit odd, though -- but apparently video ads were a top request from merchants. So at least Yelp is listening to its customers and responding -- and if Yelp really wants to increase transparency, maybe we'll see how Yelp actually handles feedback someday. But since Yelp doesn't allow commenting on its own blog, chime in here and tell us what you think Yelp is doing wrong or right with its approach.

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MPAA Gives 'It's Complicated' An R Rating Because It Shows Pot Might Make You Giggle

Mike Masnick — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 07:36:00 PST

Via That Kevin Smith (who has had his own share of run ins with the MPAA over bizarre ratings) comes the story of how the MPAA decided the romantic comedy It's Complicated deserved an "R" rating, because it has one scene that involves two characters (played by Steve Martin and Meryl Streep) who smoke marijuana... and then giggle. Specifically, the MPAA appears to be upset that there are "no negative consequences" to the two characters smoking pot.

Now, I've never smoked marijuana (or ingested it in other forms either), but I'm at a loss to see how this makes something deserving of an R rating. The NY Times article quotes someone from the Parents Television Council -- the group famous for bombarding the FCC with bogus indecency complaints -- who says "The last I checked, smoking pot was still illegal, illicit behavior." Indeed. But, then again, so is blowing up Los Angeles, and "last I checked," the movie 2012 got a PG-13 rating.

The larger point, of course, is just how incredibly out of touch the MPAA is beyond just its laughable ratings system. This is a group that's still trying to break your TV because it can't figure out how to release movies on TV in a reasonable amount of time without doing so (even though its own studios have figured it out). This is the same group that argues that blames tech companies for its own inability to recognize and embrace what technology allows. This is the same group that insists that piracy is "killing" the movie industry as the industry scores yet another box office record. This is the same group that insists that ACTA is necessary, but won't share what its own lobbyists helped write.

The NY Times article admits that the decision to rate this particular movie "R" is more of a political move from an organization that doesn't want to be attacked during the next elections -- and even that should be troubling. This is an organization that will do amazingly dumb things just to stay in the good graces of our politicians, so that it can continue to push through protectionist laws. One simple rating may not seem like a huge deal (and, by itself, it is not), but it's yet another sign in how out of touch the MPAA really is, and how its actions are entirely about protecting its political power and helping its members get favors from the government, rather than anything else.

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FCC To Study Single Rating System For Movies, Video Games, TV & Music

Mike Masnick — Tue, 1 Sep 2009 09:52:00 PDT

GamePolitics reports that the FCC is planning to study the idea of a "universal rating system" for all kinds of media, including movies, music, video games and television. According to the Bloomberg article on this, the FCC actually has a mandate to do this under a 2007 law that gave it authority to explore blocking technologies, though that seems to go well beyond the official mandate of the FCC to only monitor communications using public infrastructure. Furthermore, every single attempt to put in place a gov't mandated solution for a ratings system has been struck down as unconstitutional (and a bunch have been tried). Every rating system you see now are voluntary agreements from the industry. Having the FCC even explore such an issue raises some serious constitutional questions.

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Great Timing: USPTO Gives Amazon Patent For 'Reliable Ratings'

Mike Masnick — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 12:12:00 PDT

theodp writes "Do bad patents bring bad karma? Less than 24 hours after a hacker identified as 'Weev' claimed he exploited a feature for reporting inappropriate content to wreak havoc on Amazon's product ratings (Amazon blamed a "glitch"), the USPTO issued Amazon.com a patent for the Automatic Identification of Unreliable User Ratings, an 'invention' which - you guessed it - purportedly prevents Amazon's product ratings from being gamed by providing a feature for reporting inappropriate content ('Section 244 also contains a link 254 to a display (not shown) where customer CCC can report that item review 222 contains scandalous or inappropriate material')."

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Using The DMCA To Stop Patients From Rating Their Doctors

Mike Masnick — Fri, 3 Apr 2009 07:30:00 PDT

Last month, Carlo wrote about how a number of doctors were pushing their patients to sign waivers, promising that they wouldn't review the doctors online -- and that one company would go around trying to enforce these waivers and get critical comments pulled down from ratings sites like RateMyMD.com. The whole thing seemed quite odd -- but in another article about the service (found via Michael Scott), the details make it clear that this is even more questionable than we previously thought. That's because the way the "waivers" from the company "Medical Justice" work is by having the patient "assign all intellectual property rights for anything the patient may write (and publish) about the physician to the physician." Then, the physician can claim copyright infringement on any review, and force it offline. So unlike what was implied in the original article, it wouldn't be a specific contractual issue, but a copyright issue.

This is not what copyright law was intended to do.

Of course, it does bring up a few interesting points of discussion. First, is that the main purpose of using copyright here is so that the doctors can make use of the DMCA's notice-and-takedown safe harbor provisions, rather than be stymied by the similar (but not quite the same) CDA section 230 safe harbors for things like defamation. One of the key differences between the two is that Section 230 doesn't have a notice-and-takedown provision (though some have been trying to add one). So, really, all this is designed to do is figure out a way to shift the critical rules in question from the CDA to the DMCA. Sneaky!

Second, is that I wonder if this would be seen as actual copyright infringement anyway, or if reviewers could make a credible fair use defense. In some cases, the review itself might not even be covered by copyright (i.e., if there's no creative expression in it -- such as simple "he's awful!" reviews). In other cases where copyright might exist, the four factor fair use test might allow its use. While it could hurt the doctor's ability to make money as a doctor, it wouldn't be harming the market for the copyrighted content. Also, the use would be for purposes of "criticism." So, it's difficult to see how such content posted on a review site would actually violate anyone's copyright, even if the rights really were signed over.

But... (and this is where that sneaky first part comes into play), this might not matter. Even though you can get in trouble for filing a false DMCA notification (and even for failing to take fair use into account), most online services will quickly pull down content when receiving a DMCA takedown to preserve their safe harbor protections. So in almost all cases, the content will get pulled down, even if the content isn't really infringing. And, then it seems quite unlikely that any reviewer/patient will find it worth the trouble of filing a counternotice.

So, really, this is a fascinating misuse of the DMCA that will live on (unless someone like the EFF decides to make an example of it). What it really highlights is one of the many problems with the DMCA's notice-and-takedown provision, which heavily incentivizes service providers to pull down content as quickly as possible. As a result of that, companies like Medical Justice have tremendous incentives to come up with a plan like this to shift what they do to a copyright issue, solely to make use of the notice-and-takedown provision, even in cases where there's no actual infringement of the copyright.

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Breast-Feeding Photo Brouhaha Shows How Impossible It Is To Rate Websites

Mike Masnick — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 11:59:00 PST

Just after the UK's culture minister, Andy Burnham, announced that he thinks all websites can and should be rated, comes a story that highlights what a ridiculous suggestion it is to say that you can simply classify all websites. Facebook is facing a bit of a backlash after the company started banning some photos of women breast-feeding as being inappropriate. Basically, Facebook has been making its own judgment on which of those photos are "obscene" and which are fine -- and it's pissing off a bunch of moms whose photos have been deleted. And, of course, this is just one simple example. Thinking that there's some sort of single objective measure by which all sites (or content) can be rated is so wrong it's hard to believe that someone thinking such a thing was possible could hold down a serious job, let alone elected office.

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UK Culture Secretary Andy Burnham Wants Websites To Be Rated... To Protect The Children

Mike Masnick — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 08:01:00 PST

The UK sure does have one impressively clueless culture secretary in Andy Burnham. We first came across him nearly a year ago, when he was suggesting that it should be ISPs' responsibility to deal with file sharing by monitoring usage and cutting off users who file share. Then, just a few weeks ago, he made an incredibly poorly thought out speech, where he pushed for copyright extension on performance rights, not for any good reason -- but because of some odd "moral" compunction to take content away from the public and give it to the record labels. For this he was roundly criticized by those who actually understand the topic.

But, of course, it appears he can't stop there. His latest move is to suggest that all websites should be rated and ISPs should be responsible for blocking access to inappropriate content, "for the children" of course. Burnham seems to think that the proliferation of information online is a bad thing:

"If you look back at the people who created the internet, they talked very deliberately about creating a space that governments couldn't reach. I think we are having to revisit that stuff seriously now.... There is content that should just not be available to be viewed. That is my view. Absolutely categorical. This is not a campaign against free speech, far from it; it is simply there is a wider public interest at stake when it involves harm to other people. We have got to get better at defining where the public interest lies and being clear about it."

Because, that's just what the world needs: more government censorship determining what is and what is not "appropriate" online. This is the typical mistake made by politicians who think the internet is a content platform, and not a communications platform. If he's going to censor the internet for such content, will he also make it illegal to say bad things over the phone?

To make it even more ridiculous, he wants to take the UK's libel laws -- already some of the most draconian around -- and make them even worse. He wants it to be easier than ever to sue for defamatory speech, apparently not noticing how many bogus defamation lawsuits are brought by those who are merely upset at being criticized, rather than defamed. Making it easier only encourages more bogus lawsuits.

Would it really be that out of line to suggest that a culture secretary actually understand the internet before trying to regulate it?

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Suckers And Transparency: Preventing Another Financial Crisis

Mike Masnick — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 12:32:00 PST

In continuing to try to understand the root causes of the financial crisis, we find that the whole story just keeps getting more interesting. While lots of folks are trying to blame one single thing (free markets, regulations, greed, poor people, rich people, bankers, mortgage lenders, hedge funds, short sellers, the President, Congress, etc.), the truth is that almost all of those explanations aren't just wrong, they're highly misleading. The problems involve a whole bunch of different things that combined to create the incentives that resulted in this situation -- and preventing it from happening again is hardly an easy proposition.

Finding the last sucker

Earlier this year, in talking about a highly questionable investment firm that was investing in startups, we wrote about how the venture capital game has always been about finding the last sucker to invest. It used to be the public markets, but when that dried up, apparently some VCs moved on to basically skirting public offerings by getting firms like the one described in the post to effectively trick unsophisticated investors out of their money and put it into a "fund" that then went to startups. It was the same process -- but actually less regulated than the public markets, and much more open to fraud.

The more I read about and understand different aspects of the current financial crisis, the more it becomes clear that basically the same thing happened here, but just on a much, much larger scale. It was a giant game of hot potato, where folks were passing along toxic assets looking for the last sucker to take them -- except the process of finding that last sucker became so valuable, that many of the firms in the business of finding new bigger suckers... found themselves. In many cases, the suckers were, in fact, unsophisticated investors like the school districts we described recently, but the various banks got so tied up in the process that they started betting on these things themselves.

Becoming the last sucker

While we've been trying to avoid the blame game, the more details come out, the more it looks like an awful lot of the trouble actually comes from the ratings agencies, such as S&P and Moody's. As we discussed in the story about the school districts, the ratings agencies screwed up pretty massively, by taking collections of poorly rated loans, and effectively claiming that all together, they suddenly became low risk assets. At some level you can see where they were coming from. If they were basing their decisions on the idea that default rates were independent, then bundling a bunch of questionable assets is a potential diversification strategy. You're assuming that only a small percentage will default, and you can look at historical numbers to figure out the risk. But, the problem is that these aren't independent, and as defaults start happening it leads to more defaults -- and the ratings agencies were simply fooled by their own models.

That's the generous interpretation, at least. The other is that there was outright fraud going on at the ratings agencies, and there's some evidence there was a fair amount of fraud. My guess is there was a little of both. The ratings agencies were pushed to rate these financial products highly, and so they created models that would support a high rating. Basically, rather than creating models that actually judged the risk, they created models that told them what they wanted them to say, because, in part, their business model depended on it. It was, as noted, garbage in, financial crisis out.

A lot of this becomes clear in Michael Lewis' excellent (as usual) discussion with a hedge fund guy who recognized this early (and made quite a bit of money doing so). What's fascinating is how much work even he had to do before he realized how fragile the whole setup was. When the financial crisis first went into full swing, many folks pointed the blame finger at hedge funds that were shorting bank stocks, like this guy. However, as the Lewis profile makes clear, he wasn't to blame. He was accurately telling everyone that the financial system itself had been built on a myth -- and the mythmakers were believing their own myth.

The end result is that the race to find that last sucker resulted in plenty of suckers being taken -- but when there weren't enough of those, the banks basically made themselves the next sucker in line, and convinced themselves that they weren't suckers. While there was almost certainly some amount of fraud involved in all of this, part of the problem was that everyone started believing their own bogus models in order to convince themselves that there would always be a later sucker (or, even worse, that they didn't need a later sucker).

So how do you prevent suckers?

And that leads us to the crux of the problem. How do you prevent suckers? At some point, you can just say, well it should be "buyer beware," and to some extent I agree with that sentiment. But, when all of the other incentives are as screwed up as they were in this situation, then even the "aware" buyer finds that almost every single datapoint he or she is using is wrong. That's what was happening here. You could look pretty deep at many of these assets and everything was saying they were solid, when the reality was they were not. In cases of outright fraud by ratings agencies, you can pull out the blame finger, but in many cases it wasn't so much fraud as it was the "experts" deluding themselves. How do you stop defrauding suckers, when it's the suckers defrauding themselves... and then earnestly convincing everyone else in the process?

Radical transparency

The one thing I keep coming back to as a solution is to put in place some aspect of radical transparency on pretty much all aspects of financial instruments, both on the debt side and the equity side. On the equity side, I'm surprised that more folks haven't picked up on Umair Haque's point that quarterly reports are obsolete and not nearly transparent enough. What if public companies provided ongoing reports that revealed a lot more than they do today. And, similarly, any debt instrument provided much more detail concerning what was actually making up the investment.

The reason school districts got stuck with worthless CDOs was because the information they got wasn't transparent at all. Sure, the prospectus was a book three inches thick, but all that information was actually used to obscure what the product was. Hell, the districts thought they were buying actual bonds, not making a side bet on how those bonds would do (what the CDO actually represented). But if there were real transparency within these instruments, and everyone buying into them could easily understand what was actually at stake, then they wouldn't be so reliant on ratings agencies and their crappy models. They'd be able to build their own models -- or openly share and discuss models with others.

While there will always be some "last sucker" out there, we can limit the risk of such things by limiting the suckers as much as possible -- and the way to do that is to become much more transparent and open with information.

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MPAA Now Says It Can Regulate Internet Advertisements

Mike Masnick — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 11:34:00 PDT

It's no secret that the MPAA's highly secretive rating process doesn't make very much sense. Kevin Smith, the well known director (and sometimes actor) got some press recently when he convinced the MPAA to change its initial rating of his new movie, Zack and Miri Make a Porno from an NC-17 to an R. There was also some buzz online about the MPAA's odd rejection of a movie poster for the film that seems pretty harmless. However, perhaps much more interesting is the information hidden at the bottom of a Salon.com interview with Smith about the whole ratings process, where Smith notes that he was surprised to find out that the MPAA now claims authority over not just posters, but any online ads for the movie as well -- even if they don't even include any footage from the movie:

I put up a teaser trailer [for "Zack and Miri"] back in April that had no footage from the actual movie in it. Just Seth and Elizabeth riffing. And the MPAA made us take it down. They said, "Look, we're in charge of all marketing materials as well, and we didn't approve this." So they made us take it down.

The MPAA's job is to rate the movies, not the ads for the movies -- especially when they're appearing online. But since the whole thing is "voluntary" (and secretive) and no theater will show a film without an MPAA rating, basically filmmakers are forced to play ball with the MPAA's regulatory whims. And, those whims can be really bizarre sometimes. Remember the movie poster that wasn't approved because a gun was aimed directly outward (and, the MPAA effectively argued, some people might think it will shoot them).

And it may get even worse. While Smith doesn't seem too worked up about the whole thing (or, rather, he's not worked up at all), he also wonders, as an aside, if the MPAA will also start regulating DVD extras. In noting that, these days, any content that the MPAA requires people to cut, will eventually make it onto the DVD anyway, he sort of wonders if the MPAA is going to expand its purview over DVD content also -- which is where he brings up the issue of the MPAA claiming control over movie trailers.

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Sellers Band Together To Create Their Own Naughty Buyer List For eBay

Mike Masnick — Tue, 20 May 2008 11:36:00 PDT

Back in February, you may recall that eBay announced plans to ban negative feedback from sellers to buyers. The problem was that many sellers were apparently using it as a weapon against buyers who might criticize them. That is, if you had a bad experience as a buyer, rather than fix the problems that resulted in that bad experience, the seller would simply slam you back in the buyer feedback. In other words, it had become something of a nuclear stalemate -- forcing buyers to be too afraid to leave any negative feedback for sellers. Of course, banning negative feedback on buyers seems a bit extreme as the response. And, in the comments to our post, people suggested a variety of alternatives eBay could have tried (including not letting you see the feedback someone left for you until you leave feedback for them). In the meantime, sellers who are upset about this may now have another weapon. One site has set up a system for sellers to share their own buyer "blacklists," effectively creating a large list of problem buyers. What's most interesting to me, is how this shows how the community itself responds to a change in the rules that they feel has too many negative consequences -- rather than just waiting for eBay to fix the problem.

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Police Accountability Is A Good Thing

Timothy Lee — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 06:31:00 PDT

Jim Lippard points out that a site called Rate My Cop is generating some controversy from Arizona police departments who apparently consider the site an invasion of officers' privacy. The site doesn't have pictures, addresses, or other personal information on the site. It only lists officers' names and the department they work for. But this is still too much for the Tempe police department. "If everybody went home everyday and you had the whole world ranking your job, we do make mistakes, but other days we do great things," said one Tempe police officer. I've have a lot more sympathy for the guy if this wasn't true of a ton of other professions. When I do a stupid blog post, you guys all leave comments saying so. Most restaurants and retail business have complaint cards so customers can complain about bad service. There are a ton of sites where consumers rate hotels, bands, restaurants, books, and a ton of other stuff -- such as rating teachers (although some people do want to make that illegal too). The big difference is that police officers have the force of law behind them, so they need to be held to a higher standard than other professions. The worst thing my blog posts can do is annoy our readers and hurt Techdirt's traffic. When a police officer screws up, the result can be innocent people being harrassed, humiliated, arrested, injured or killed. The cops who do those things are a small minority, obviously. But that's precisely why we need sites like this to help bring some public attention to the few bad apples who are out there.

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Judge Points Out That Lawyer Ranking Site Is Free Speech... Even If It's Dumb

Mike Masnick — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 09:19:00 PST

Earlier this year, we wrote about a new website, Avvo, that had created an algorithm to try to "rank" lawyers based on quality. It should come as no surprise, of course, that some lawyers (e.g., the low-ranked ones) weren't particularly pleased with such a system and some of them got together to sue the site as a class action suit -- on behalf of poorly ranked lawyers around the world. While you can certainly understand why lawyers would be upset at such a site, just because you're upset about something doesn't make it illegal. And, just as judges have repeatedly pointed out that things like Google's search rankings are protected free speech as opinions, a judge has dismissed the lawsuit against Avvo, noting that the rankings are merely opinions and that's protected free speech. That's not to say that the judge thinks Avvo is particularly useful. In fact, he points out how ridiculous the rankings are -- but that doesn't mean they're illegal. Chalk one up for free speech online.

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How Long Before Financial Advisors Rating Site Gets Sued?

Joseph Weisenthal — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 13:03:02 PDT

Back in June, the launch of Avvo, a site for rating lawyers, was met with a lot of controversy. Lawyers aren't used to being rated as if they were any other good on the market, and it didn't take long before the site was sued by one lawyer unhappy with his ranking. Now a similar site is getting set to launch, except this time it will focus on financial advisors, another group which isn't used to much scrutiny. It's not clear whether or not this will prove particularly useful, but hopefully the site has some money socked away for legal fees, since it's only a matter of time before one disgruntled advisor sues after a bad rating.

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