Techdirt. Stories filed under "travel" Easily digestible tech news... http://www.techdirt.com/ en-us Techdirt. Stories filed under "travel"http://www.techdirt.com/images/td-88x31.gifhttp://www.techdirt.com/ Mon, 10 Sep 2012 09:25:21 PDT Wikitravel And Wikimedia Are In A Legal Battle... But Not Over Creative Commons Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120908/02103120318/wikitravel-wikimedia-are-legal-battle-not-over-creative-commons.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120908/02103120318/wikitravel-wikimedia-are-legal-battle-not-over-creative-commons.shtml legal dispute between the company Internet Brands and the Wikimedia Foundation (the folks behind Wikipedia). By Gerard's account, Internet Brands -- a company that runs a bunch of content sites, including Wikitravel.org, which it bought in 2006 -- was suing some volunteer admins of the site for "forking" the content on that site and taking up with the Wikimedia Foundation to create a new travel wiki there. As noted, Wikitravel content has a CC-by-SA license (Creative Commons ShareAlike). In response to all of this, the Wikimedia Foundation took it upon itself to proactively file for declaratory judgment that creating a "fork" of Wikitravel is not breaking the law (confusing matters just slightly -- a bunch of former Wikitravel admins had already forked the content and created a separate site in 2006 called Wikivoyage, which is merging into this new travel wiki under the Wikimedia Foundation).

Now, let me be clear: I think that suing your volunteer admins is unbelievably stupid and shortsighted. It pretty much guarantees that it's going to be difficult to attract such help in the future. Similarly, some of Internet Brands' actions in trying to stop this new travel site seem at least somewhat questionable. But... in looking over the details of the initial lawsuit, it seems that Gerard and the Wikimedia Foundation (who I almost always agree with) are not telling the full story, and are being slightly misleading.

The actual lawsuit against the volunteer admins (and again, it's stupid to sue those admins) isn't because of the "forking." In fact, Internet Brands makes it clear in its own filing that the content is CC-by-SA and can be copied with attribution. Instead, the concerns are over how the admins presented themselves and their relationship to Wikitravel in convincing others to move over to the new project. Specifically, Internet Brands suggests that these admins implied that they were speaking for Wikitravel and the entire community there, by saying that the community was moving over to the new operation.
For example, on August 18, 2012, Holliday improperly and wrongfully emailed at least several hundred of Wikitravel members, purporting to be from Wikitravel and informing members that the Wikitravel Website was "migrating" to the Wikimedia Foundation.
This is Internet Brand's version of things, but you can see how their complaint might be a bit more legitimate if Holliday really suggested that it was Wikitravel itself that was "migrating." Of course, the text of the actual email (at least the text shown in the filing) suggests that Holliday didn't go quite that far -- though he was at least somewhat vague.
Specifically, Holliday's email contained the Subject Line, "Important information about Wikitravel!" and its body stated, "This email is being sent to you on behalf of the Wikitravel administrators since you have put some real time and effort into working on Wikitravel. We wanted to make sure you are up to date and in the loop concerning big changes to the community that will affect the future of your work! As you may already have heard, Wikitravel's community is looking to migrate to the Wikimedia Foundation."
That's not quite as clear-cut as IB stated in the preceding paragraph. He doesn't claim to necessarily be "from Wikitravel." He notes that he's writing on behalf of "Wikitravel administrators," which is slightly different, since many of the administrators are volunteers, not employees or representatives of the site. That's part of what makes this tricky. Separately, he doesn't directly say that the entire Wikitravel website is migrating... but rather that the "Wikitravel community" is "looking to migrate." It's a subtle difference, and one could read the email in multiple ways. However, even in the interpretation that favors Holliday the most, you can certainly argue that he was unnecessarily vague, and at least implies that he's speaking for the site and the community as a whole, when he's really just speaking on behalf of some admins and some portion of the community.

Finally, IB also complains that even with the CC-by-SA license, the new site failed to provide proper attribution. This is always a bit tricky too, because people disagree over what constitutes proper attribution. But for all the people jumping immediately to Wikimedia's side in this dispute, it's worth noting that on this point, if you're a Creative Commons supporter, you might be interested in IB's argument, because if they're right here, it could provide ammo to others who seek to enforce any CC "attribution" license in situations where people don't attribute.

Nothing in the lawsuit really, directly, appears to be about the fact that these guys were creating a "fork" -- despite Wikimedia's claim about the legal fight. Now, you could argue that this is the true intention of the lawsuit -- that it's designed to intimidate these admins and try to throw a wrench into this competitive effort. But, at least on its face, the actual legal filings seem to have a bit more merit than Wikimedia's initial claims suggest. In the end, I (once again) think that Internet Brands is making a tactical (if not legal) mistake in suing, because it will likely tarnish the brand and may make it difficult to attract new admins. And, conceptually, I'm all for Wikimedia Foundation setting up a fork of Wikitravel and trying to do more, and create value that brings the community from Wikitravel over to the new site.

But the lawsuit is about these specific activities, in which the filing makes a reasonable argument that a few admins implied they spoke for Wikitravel (or for the wider community) when that was not necessarily the case. Either way, it'll be interesting to see what happens, but I hope that people read the details before automatically assuming the spin that's been making the rounds is entirely accurate. The claims that these admins are being sued for forking Creative Commons content appear to be simply incorrect.

Similarly, in my read of Wikimedia's lawsuit seeking default judgment, it seems like they may be going a bit too far. The filing tries to argue that Internet Brands is seeking to prevent the use of the content itself, but the actual filing does no such thing. Thus, it's possible that Wikimedia Foundation may run into some problems, if the court doesn't believe that an actual "controversy" is being presented here. For what it's worth, courts don't always look kindly at declaratory judgment cases if there's no real controversy, as they see them as a waste of time. While there is perhaps the germ of a controversy here, I could definitely see the court reading Wikimedia's filing and Internet Brands' actual lawsuits, and realizing that what Wikimedia describes is wholly different than what IB actually said in its lawsuit, and then just dumping the case.

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]]> misrepresentation-may-be-an-issue http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20120908/02103120318 Tue, 10 Jul 2012 11:44:00 PDT Hipmunk Raises Money... And Is Immediately Threatened By Patent Troll Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/blog/innovation/articles/20120709/02383719619/hipmunk-raises-money-is-immediately-threatened-patent-troll.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/blog/innovation/articles/20120709/02383719619/hipmunk-raises-money-is-immediately-threatened-patent-troll.shtml Hipmunk, if you're unfamiliar with it, is a wonderful travel search site, which really thought hard about how to make searching for flights and other travel info much more useful and intuitive. For me, personally, it's almost entirely replaced other sites like Expedia. A few weeks back the company announced on its blog that it had received $15 million in funding and also mentioned that it was doing okay in the revenue department. These days, that's both a sign for celebration... and blood in the water for patent trolls. I recently spoke to a lawyer for a decently large startup that isn't making any revenue, who has said that he's been contacted by patent trolls, who basically just keep circling, saying they won't sue until his company is making money, and then they'll pounce. It appears something similar happened with Hipmunk.

Just days after the announcement, a "company" (and I use that term loosely) called i2z contacted them, demanding they obtain a license, according to a report by Jeff Roberts. i2z is already suing a ton of travel/location companies, including Google, Travelocity, TripAdvisor, Yelp and more in Delaware (while not as famous as Eastern Texas for patent lawsuits, Delaware has been getting some attention as a "favorable" venue for patent trolls). It has also sued Hotels.com in a separate action... in Texas (northern district, not eastern) and Microsoft in Oregon. Of course, i2z (like so many patent trolls) appears to just be a patent lawyer, based in California: Rakesh Ramde.

The patent in question (5,345,551) covers a "Method and system for synchronization of simultaneous displays of related data sources." It was originally issued all the way back in 1994 to Brigham Young University... who held onto it until just about a year ago when it was assigned to "Gregory Cuke" who appears to be a real estate guy in Longview, Texas. And, yes, it turns out that i2z, despite actually being a lawyer in California, is technically based in Longview, Texas. Ramde claimed that Hipmunk violated claim one of the patent, which reads (in its entirety):
1. A system for synchronizing the presentation of data on a digital computer display, comprising:
first and second window-controlling means, each of said window-controlling means displaying information in at least one display window,
a synchronization control means, and
means for communications between said synchronization control means and each of said first and second window-controlling means;
wherein said first window-controlling means displays first information from a first source, and said second window-controlling means displays second information from a second source;
wherein said first information and said second information have sections, and at least one section of said second information corresponds to a section of said first information;
wherein said first window-controlling means sends a message to said synchronization control means over said means for communications indicating a change in viewing position to a new section of said first information;
wherein said synchronization control means sends a message to said second window-controlling means over said means for communications requesting a change in viewing position to a section of said second information corresponding to said new section of said first information; and
wherein said second window-controlling means displays said corresponding section of said second information on at least one display window.
In response, rather than letting i2z shop for its favorite forum, Hipmunk went to court in Northern California, asking for a declaratory judgment saying that (1) Hipmunk does not infringe and (2) the patent isn't valid anyway. On that first point, it seems that Hipmunk has a reasonably strong argument, since the whole point of the claim seems to involve multiple windows, and Hipmunk displays everything in a single window.

Either way, this is the kind of crap that tons of companies face. The second they're deemed even slightly successful, they get hit with patent infringement claims from non-practicing entities, wielding broad and vague patents that have nothing to do with what the company is really doing. And people still don't think this is a problem?

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]]> innovation-tax http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20120709/02383719619 Tue, 15 Nov 2011 17:00:00 PST DailyDirt: Getting To Space Ain't Easy Michael Ho http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100802/22570010460/dailydirt-getting-to-space-aint-easy.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100802/22570010460/dailydirt-getting-to-space-aint-easy.shtml
  • The Russian Phobos-Grunt spacecraft isn't going to make it to Mars -- and some waterbears that were along for the ride won't make it back. Over the last year, about 10% of space missions that launched have failed (seven out of about 74). [url]
  • Iran's space program tried to send a monkey to space, but the monkey didn't survive the trip. Iran's space program will probably get a bit more attention when it succeeds... [url]
  • Fortunately, the International Space Station will be occupied by astronauts as planned, following a successful launch of a Soyuz re-supply mission. The ISS will resume a full 6-person crew in mid-December. [url]
  • To discover more links on space exploration, check out what's floating around in StumbleUpon universe. [url]  
    • By the way, StumbleUpon can also recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

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    ]]>     urls-we-dig-up http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20100802/22570010460     Mon, 3 Jan 2011 08:39:06 PST Expedia Against 'Search Discrimination'... Unless It Gets To Do The Discriminating Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110102/12091112485/expedia-against-search-discrimination-unless-it-gets-to-do-discriminating.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110102/12091112485/expedia-against-search-discrimination-unless-it-gets-to-do-discriminating.shtml pull out of Orbitz, the online travel booking site (we covered how American Airlines has wanted to do this for years, and was finally allowed to go through with it). Almost immediately after that happened, Orbitz competitor Expedia apparently decided to "punish" American Airlines by first hiding AA results in Expedia's own search and then dropping AA altogether. While this kind of "solidarity" with a competitor might raise some collusion questions, an even bigger issue is that it lays out Expedia's blatant hypocrisy on the question of "search discrimination."

    That's because Expedia is a leading member of a lobbying group called FairSearch, which was set up mainly to protest Google's planned acquisition of ITA. Both sides on that fight have been bombarding me with press releases/articles on a near daily basis, all of which I've ignored, because it's a silly fight. However, considering that Expedia is one of the main members of the group, and one of the key points that the group is supposedly fighting for is protesting "search discrimination," the whole thing rings a little hypocritical. From the FairSearch website:
    TRANSPARENCY: Consumers -- not search engines -- should choose winners in the marketplace. Consumers benefit from more choices in the search marketplace competing to win users, innovating to improve products and displaying results transparently. When search providers engage in search discrimination -- manipulating search results to promote a favored product and punish competitors -- consumers pay the price.
    This comes just one paragraph above a nice Expedia logo:
    Yup. So, just as Expedia, in an attempt to complain about Google, claims it's against search providers discriminating by manipulating results to promote or punish certain players, it's doing so in a way that's significantly more noticeable than anything Google is doing. I agree with Eric Goldman that Expedia should be able to set up its search engine however it wants, even if it means making life worse off for customers by hiding certain results purely as retaliation to a company it doesn't like. There's choice in the marketplace, and this move means that I'm much less likely to use Expedia. But to complain about this exact form of discrimination, while doing it in a way that's much more noticeable than the one you're complaining about? That's pure, unadulterated hypocrisy. Way to go Expedia.

    All that said, I'm a bit confused about this entire dispute. What's to stop Orbitz from simply getting American Airlines fares from wherever it wants to get them and including them? The data is factual data, not subject to American Airlines' control, so I don't even see how AA can legally stop Orbitz from including it. The real issue, it seems, is that AA wants Orbitz and others to get their data directly, rather than via middlemen, but the way to do that is to make it easy for the travel search engines to do that in a way that's more convenient and cheaper than getting it through any middlemen. Not sure why that requires a legal dispute...

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    ]]>     hello-hypocrites http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20110102/12091112485     Fri, 6 Feb 2009 15:02:00 PST Will Technology Really Displace Business Travel This Time? Carlo Longino http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090206/1218463673.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090206/1218463673.shtml fell right back down. Several months ago, more such predictions were made with oil prices driving the cost of business travel through the roof, and now, the motivation is apparently the drive to cut costs. For instance, Cisco's CEO John Chambers says that by using the company's own communications technology, it's been able to slice its per-employee travel spending by more than half, and that it won't increase again, even after the recession. Of course, as the NYT notes, Chambers is making a look-how-we-eat-our-own-dog-food sales pitch. But it's worth wondering if a prolonged recession could finally give these travel-replacement technologies the boost they've long been looking for, and supplant business travel, rather than just add to it, as they have largely done thus far.

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    ]]>     trendwatching http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20090206/1218463673     Fri, 26 Sep 2008 03:44:00 PDT Time For A Moron In A Hurry To Explain The Difference Between Microprocessors And A Trip To China Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080925/1254002376.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080925/1254002376.shtml any use of the prefix "intel" to anyone using the phrase "something inside," even if it's completely unrelated to the business that Intel is in. Trademark, of course, is not intended to give a company "ownership" of a word or phrase. Instead, it's a consumer protection system, designed to prevent consumers from being tricked into believing that they're buying a good from one company instead of another. That's why trademarks are only applicable in the business area that the company is using the mark. Thus, Johnny's Soda doesn't interfere with a trademark on Johnny's Dry Cleaning -- because they're totally separate businesses. That's also why we have the moron in a hurry test. If a "moron in a hurry" is unlikely to be confused by the use of the mark, then there's no trademark infringement.

    Unfortunately, that hasn't stopped Intel from trying. Over the years they've gone after a maker of jeans (Intel Jeans), a marketing firm (for using the term INTELMARK for one of its products) and an artist's cooperative for using the name "Art Inside") among various other cases over the years. Its latest is to go after a travel agency called Intellife Travel that books trips between the US and China. The travel agency clearly explained to Intel that unless Intel's trademark covered the travel business, there was unlikely to be any infringement. Intel took a year to think about it... and then filed a lawsuit. Hopefully, Intel gets smacked down quickly on this clear abuse of trademark law.

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    ]]>     it's-not-that-hard,-really http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20080925/1254002376     Mon, 1 Oct 2007 16:56:00 PDT Looking For A Travel Deal? Have Your Browser Do The Walking... Out Of The Country Dennis Yang http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20071001/002223.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20071001/002223.shtml debate, but now a new angle has emerged in the quest for lower prices. Booking travel through non-US websites may yield travelers a better deal -- even for the same exact offering. In one example, the rental car price quoted was 58 percent lower when booked through the foreign site. Travel companies defend this practice, claiming that they need to be able to set different prices in different markets in order to compete. But, this is merely the economic principle of price discrimination at work -- if you're able to get a higher price for any reason, then it technically is exactly what the market will bear. The mere fact that American customers visit different websites than Spanish customers naturally segments the market. So, by being able to increase their utilization by lowering prices in the appropriate markets, the price of the goods is driven down in the long run by this practice. That said, people will still be pissed off by this practice because buying from a different website does not seem like a "reasonable" explanation for that price difference. At least companies have not implemented higher prices for the wealthy -- that would definitely raise some eyebrows.

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    ]]>     go-local http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20071001/002223