How The Guy Who Didn't Invent Email Got Memorialized In The Press & The Smithsonian As The Inventor Of Email

from the damn-you-wikipedia dept

Late last week, the Washington Post reported that The Smithsonian had acquired "tapes, documentation, copyrights, and over 50,000 lines of code from V.A. Shiva Ayyadurai, who both the Smithsonian and the Washington Post insisted was the "inventor of e-mail." There's just one problem with this: It's not actually true. Lots of internet old-timers quickly started to speak out against this, especially on Dave Farber's Interesting People email list, where they highlighted how it's just not true. As is nicely summarized on Wikipedia's talk page about Ayyadurai, he was responsible for "merely inventing an email management system that he named EMAIL," which came long after email itself. The Washington Post eventually offered the following "clarification":

Clarification: A number of readers have accurately pointed out that electronic messaging predates V. A. Shiva Ayyadurai’s work in 1978. However, Ayyadurai holds the copyright to the computer program called "email," establishing him as the creator of the “computer program for [an] electronic mail system” with that name, according to the U.S. Copyright Office.

Except... that "clarification" seems to confuse copyright with patents. Copyright is only over the specific copyrightable work created -- which would be the specific code he used. It does not, in any way, establish him as "the creator" of "the" electronic mail system -- merely an electronic mail system -- and hardly the first one. I could write some sort of email management software tomorrow and copyright that... and it would no more make me an "inventor" of email than Ayyadurai.

There's a detailed history of email over at the NetHistory site, and you'll note that Ayyadurai doesn't warrant a mention -- which isn't surprising since his work comes way after most of the important stuff was done. Thomas Haig sent a detailed email to the SIGCIS list, breaking down what happened. Apparently, Time Magazine ran a profile of Ayyadurai a few months back, calling him "the man who invented email," which resulted in the Smithsonian's interest. But even that article notes at the beginning that Ayyadurai actually just holds a copyright on EMAIL, rather than email itself. It even asks about the fact that Ray Tomlinson is often credited as being the inventor of email -- and his efforts came much earlier.

Either way, it appears that Ayyadurai has played up this idea that he's the inventor of email, despite little to back that up (apparently frustrating many people who actually know the history). Yes, he copyrighted a particular bit of code, but there's little to support the idea that he had very much to do with "the invention of email" in any way. But, that's not what the Washington Post (or, apparently, the Smithsonian) will tell you...

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ACTA Approval On Hold While EU Commission Asks EU Court Of Justice To Weigh In

from the this-could-be-interesting dept

It appears that ACTA's main political backers, the EU Commission, have finally realized that they were increasingly in trouble in terms of actually getting ACTA ratified. The EU's main negotiator on ACTA, Karel De Gucht has now said that the Commission is going to ask the EU Court of Justice to weigh in on ACTA:

In recent weeks, the ratification process of ACTA has triggered a Europe-wide debate on ACTA, the freedom of the internet and the importance of protecting Europe’s Intellectual Property for our economies.

But let me be very clear: I share people’s concern for these fundamental freedoms. I welcome that people have voiced their concerns so actively – especially over the freedom of the internet. And I also understand that there is uncertainty on what ACTA will really mean for these key issues at the end of the day.

So I believe that putting ACTA before the European Court of Justice is a needed step. This debate must be based upon facts and not upon the misinformation or rumour that has dominated social media sites and blogs in recent weeks.

This could get interesting. As we've noted in recent weeks, the EU Court of Justice has actually been pretty good lately in expressing concerns about overbroad copyright enforcement.

Of course, other parts of De Gucht's statement are pretty questionable. He talks about how the EU Council "adopted ACTA unanimously" leaving out that they did so by hiding it in an agriculture and fisheries meeting. He talks about how ACTA "will not change anything in the European Union" but is merely about "getting other countries to adopt" stricter laws. However, some EU countries have already noted that they would have to change their laws to comply with ACTA.

Either way, it will be worth following the specifics of exactly what the EU Court of Justice is asked to review and how the process works.

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NSA: 'Anonymous Might One Day Hack Power Grids!' Anonymous: 'Huh?!?'

from the cyberfud dept

The fight to ramp up the fear mongering over cybersecurity has reached new and even more ridiculous levels -- in which an "anonymous" government source claims (without quotations) that the head of the NSA, Gen. Keith Alexander, recently briefed the White House claiming that the non-group Anonymous might be able to mount a cyberattack to take down parts of the power grid. The dubious sourcing already makes the story suspect, and without more context, the whole thing seems silly -- especially given that anyone who actually has any inkling of how Anonymous actually functions would question why it would ever seek to shut down a power grid. Anonymous tends to do things either for fun (i.e., for "the lulz") or (more frequently) out of a more vigilante sense of justice (sometimes misguided, but usually well meaning). The attacks are pretty carefully focused on causing temporary inconveniences, rather than lasting damage, as a sign of protest, or on revealing secret info that it feels deserves a wider airing. Attacking the power grid fits with exactly none of that -- a point that Anonymous itself made in response to this claim:

Why would Anons shut off a power grid? There are ppl on life support / other vital services that rely on it. Try again NSA. #FearMongering

But, even more to the point, the WSJ piece is so ridiculous that it's hard not to laugh when you read the following part:

A stateless group like Anonymous doesn’t yet have that capability, officials say. But if the group’s members around the world developed or acquired it, an attack on the power grid would become far more likely, according to cybersecurity experts.

I think Jerry Brito summed this up perfectly by saying:

Shorter version: Anonymous doesn’t have the power to attack the grid, but if they were able to get it someday, then they would have it. Got it.

You could go even further. I mean, why not just start listing out other hypotheticals using those ridiculous two sentences as a basis. I'll start:

• That baseball player doesn't yet have the capability to hit a baseball thrown by a pitcher, officials say. But, if he somehow developed or acquired it, his likelihood of being able to play baseball effectively would become far more likely, according to sports experts.
• An infant doesn't yet have the capability to drive, officials say. But, if toddlers around the world develop or acquire it, automobile accidents would become far more likely, according to automotive experts.
• Prisoners don't yet have the capability to shoot each other, officials say. But, if inmates around the world developed or acquired it, gunfights in prison would become far more likely, according to anger management experts.
• Techdirt readers don't yet have the capability to make clueless government officials get transferred to jobs washing toilets, officials say. But, if the community there develops or acquires it, dumb politicians being out of work would become far more likely, according to political pundits.

In what journalistic world is it okay to write something where the entire point of the article is to fear monger about a group having a certain power, and then brush aside the fact that it doesn't have that power... and appears to have no interest or possibility of obtaining that power... but then saying, "boy, if it did have that power, that would be dangerous!" None of the hypotheticals make any sense if there's no info on the interest or likelihood of the group in acquiring or using such capabilities. There is some speculation, based solely on Anonymous' (kinda stupid) idea to try to take down the entire internet to make a statement next month, that the group is moving in "this direction," but it still seems pretty silly.

Furthermore, you have to get 10 whole paragraphs down in the article, before it's mentioned that there really isn't any real "cyberthreat" to the power grid. It seems like that sort of information belongs at the top of the article, along with a message about how the rest of the article is fear mongering about stuff that really isn't likely to happen.

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Techdirt Deemed Harmful To Minors In Germany

from the ah,-censorship dept

Hanno alerts us to the news that Techdirt has apparently been deemed harmful to minors in Germany. The German Media Control Authority has apparently been pushing internet "youth filters" to protect kids from dangerous things online. So far, it has officially approved two internet filters. Hanno got his hands on one and discovered that Techdirt was one of many blocked sites (Google translation from the original German) -- as the filter declares that Techdirt has pornographic images and depictions of violence. We do?

Hanno reached out to a spokesperson for the JusProg filter, and got the usual runaround. "We do not want to censor political opinions." The spokesperson claims that the system is automated and looks at links. When asked why Techdirt was blocked, it was explained that since we use certain words "perhaps twenty times" in discussions about pornography and censorship, the system deemed us clearly a danger. Apparently, we can appeal to JusProg, but it appears that might require some familiarity with German... So, in the meantime, let's just hope that we haven't already damaged the youth of Germany too much.

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FTC Reminds EPIC That Suing The FTC To Get It To Investigate Google Might Not Be The Best Idea

from the standing? dept

If you're unfamiliar with EPIC, it's an extremist "privacy" rights group. We've called the group out in the past for its rather ridiculous position on privacy issues. EPIC has particularly had it in for Google, which it appears to think is the evilest of evil sites and the government has to step in and stop it from collecting information to make your search experience better (even if users can block such data collection themselves). What I hadn't realized was that EPIC has such an infatuation with Google that it actually sued the FTC (pdf) to try to force it to investigate Google for its recent privacy policy change. No matter what you think of Google's privacy policy issues, it's ridiculous for EPIC to go that far, and the FTC is making that clear to the overzealous organization, pointing out that it has absolutely no standing whatsoever in terms of making the FTC do anything at all. The FTC may still investigate, but EPIC should have no part of that.

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The 'New' Righthaven Offers Discount To Techdirt Readers Who Want 'Spineful' Hosting

from the enjoy dept

Remember Righthaven? No, not that Righthaven who sued tons of people and companies on questionable claims in order to get them to cough up settlements. We're talking about the other Righthaven... the Swiss company that bought the Righthaven.com domain that was auctioned off after the old Righthaven failed to pay the attorneys' fees it owed. The new Righthaven is all about being the anti-Righthaven in many ways: it's about setting up an ISP that provides "spineful" hosting, that will stand up to questionable takedown attempts. This does not mean that they're offering "no questions asked" type hosting that spammers and malware providers love. Quite different. They're simply looking to host those who often have their free speech rights challenged, and who won't fold under questionable pressure without a valid legal basis. As the company explains:

There are many hosting providers who maintain a "no questions asked" policy with respect to their clients and use this approach and lax, evasive or non-existent abuse handling infrastructure to effectively provide a safe-harbor for bad actors. That is not our business model.

Instead, we focus on hosting expression that has traditionally been subjected to frivolous legal threats based on its content. Our approach focuses on our team's wealth of expertise in dealing with high tech abuse and legal issues and our willingness to zealously defend our clients from frivolous, manipulative, abusive or outright fraudulent litigation. Our experience and expertise in issues ranging from fair-use to libel and whistle-blowing protections means we can often gently (and sometimes firmly) remind third parties about the many protections afforded legitimate publishers in these areas.

Often a proactive, responsive and competent abuse management team engaging in an open dialogue and discussion with copyright holders or their legal counsel is all it takes to close what might otherwise escalate into a frivolous suit.

But dialogue isn't always enough. Against this unfortunate possibility we have a second level of defense: In cooperation with our upstream providers in Switzerland we have some of the best free speech counsel in the world on retainer.

The folks behind the company, which is based in Switzerland, admit that they're a bit more expensive than other hosting companies, but that's to cover the cost of actually having people who will take the time to understand legal threats made against you.

Either way, the kind folks over at this new Righthaven are offering a 15% discount to Techdirt readers on everything except their bandwidth upgrades as a "thank you" for speaking out on various issues lately:

Remember us? The upstarts over at Righthaven.com? Providers of "spineful" shared, virtual private server and dedicated server hosting services from the copyright-sane environs of Switzerland?

We've enjoyed your coverage of SOPA, PIPA, ACTA (and us) and since we're launching this coming week, we'd like to give your readers the first bite at the jellyfish (so to speak).

So for the next 14 days new accounts opened by Techdirt readers get 15% off of everything except bandwidth upgrades. Readers who sign up for 3 or 6 months can lock that discount in for the duration.

Just browse on over to our order page at https://plutus.righthaven.com/ and type "dirtlaunch" when prompted for a promotion code.

Just our way of saying "Thank you" for increasing digital rights awareness.

We certainly cannot vouch for these guys, but we absolutely appreciate the need for more ISPs that have a spine in protecting their customers' free speech rights. Hopefully more ISPs will realize that that's a good selling point to potential customers.

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Megaupload Boss Kim Dotcom Granted Bail After US Fails To Prove He's Got Cash Stashed Away To Make An Escape

from the nice-try dept

Whatever you might think of Kim Dotcom (originally Schmitz), the founder of Megaupload, he at least deserves a fair trial. US officials had worked hard to keep him locked up without bail, but a New Zealand court has finally granted him bail after no one could show him having access to vast funds elsewhere that he could use to make a run for it. Apparently, US officials insisted that he must have those funds, but couldn't produce any evidence, and the court realized that's not a particularly good reason to keep him locked up:

In the North Shore District Court this morning, Justice Nevin Dawson said that after a long time where officials could investigate the Dotcom's potential access to funds - none of significance had been found. Justice Dawson said it was "highly unlikely" that he had other financial resources available to him that had not already been seized.

Prosecution acting for the United States Government had said that because Dotcom was "very wealthy" it was probably he had more bank accounts.

However, Justice Dawson said that put Dotcom in the position of having to "prove a negative" and that assertion was not enough to imply his flight risk.

Four new bank accounts were discovered in the Philippines, but they were empty, he said.

"The suspicion that Mr. Dotcom is very wealthy is not evidence of further assets and cannot be used against him."

I've certainly noticed attempts by many to try Dotcom based on his outward appearance or the fact that he clearly was a show off who flung money around. And I can understand that desire. But, any trial should be based on the actual facts against him, not the fact that he was apparently tacky and a showoff when he spent money. If that, alone, was a crime, then tons of famous musicians, movie stars and athletes deserve the same treatment.

That said, the conditions of bail include no internet usage, which (as we've noted in the past) is pretty ridiculous, since nearly everything touches the internet these days, including popular phone systems. It seems perfectly reasonable to say that he can't have anything to do with cyberlockers or Megaupload or such, but a complete internet ban seems extreme.

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Dutch Economics Minister Says ACTA Is Designed To Shut Down Child Porn Sites... Even Though That's Not True

from the outright-lies dept

If you've been paying attention lately, you've probably heard SOPA/PIPA/ACTA supporters insisting that anyone against those bills is involved in a misinformation campaign. This seems pretty ridiculous, considering the level of misinformation that has been spewed for decades in support of these kinds of laws. But it's reaching a new level of crazy over in the Netherlands, where the Dutch Econimics Minister Maxime Verhagen has apparently announced that "ordinary" people have nothing to worry about concerning ACTA because its focus is to take down child porn sites. Talk about misinformation. ACTA is about intellectual property infringement and has nothing to do with child porn.

Because the Google translation was weird, I asked a native Dutch speaker to confirm the original translation, and, though he provided a bit more context, he confirmed the basic statement. Apparently Verhagen brings up child porn not once, not twice, but three times in the course of the interview. Sometimes it's just to provide an analogy, about how blocking internet sites is okay if it's child porn, so there's no problem if it's also done under ACTA, but that's a totally separate issue because child porn and infringement are extremely different situations. But on the third mention, as the article suggests, Verhagen does, in fact, link ACTA to child porn:

"Regarding internet users that download - this treaty doesn't cover that at all. It's about, for instance, the possibility to shut down a child pornography site (not the person who goes there, but the person who puts it online). Or when there's big-scale commercial abuse in such a way that the labor of the creator is taken away from him"

I recognize that he's saying the purpose of ACTA is to go after sites not users, but that really is besides the point. People are concerned about the wrongful censorship of sites, and ACTA itself has nothing to do with child porn. Using that and claiming that's what ACTA is about is simply fear mongering. Of course, it's become all too typical these days to wrap other forms of legislation in "child porn" claims. This comic from over a decade ago remains all too true, as we're seeing with politicians around the glob using child porn to press for draconian legal changes.

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Romney Campaign's Finance Co-Chair Accused Of Being SLAPP-Happy

from the time-for-a-federal-anti-slapp-law dept

We've covered, repeatedly, the problems of people using SLAPP -- Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation -- lawsuits against people trying to speak their opinion. While some states have anti-SLAPP laws (with the quality of those laws being quite mixed), we still believe that we really need a strong federal anti-SLAPP law. If you're not familiar with SLAPP lawsuits, they are lawsuits with little basis that are filed with the sole purpose of silencing someone who is speaking out in some manner.

Last week, Glenn Greenwald, over at Salon, went into tremendous detail in accusing Mitt Romney's billionaire national finance co-chair, Frank VanderSloot (oddly, links to this page don't seem to work, but if you go to Greenwald's blog you can still get to it -- at the same URL), of regularly using SLAPP-like suits or threats of SLAPP-like suits to silence critics. He lays out a number of examples, involving publications both big (Mother Jones, Forbes) and small (various small time bloggers). Unfortunately, it appears that many of those publications simply backed down, often removing the material entirely. You would think that publications like Forbes and Mother Jones would stand up to such actions, but they both took down the articles critical of VanderSloot, though Mother Jones eventually (a week or so later) posted a new version that was apparently edited to address the complaints.

VanderSloot is CEO of Melaleuca, which has been described as a multilevel marketing company. In that Forbes article, Melaleuca is described as a "a pyramid selling organization." Elsewhere, in complaints to the government, it has been described as a "pyramid scheme." VanderSloot and Melaleuca have argued, however, that it is not a "pyramid scheme." He's also been very politically active, not just in the Romney campaign, but various other political campaigns -- including paying for billboards to speak out against the local PBS station showing a particular documentary about gay issues. Forbes recently used this story to suggest that VanderSloot was "a large contributor to a number of anti-homosexual causes." That article has since been removed but copies can be found online. Greenwald also details a blog post by James Tidmarsh on the site IdahoAgenda, which claimed that VanderSloot "has a pretty solid anti-gay history in Idaho." VanderSloot and his lawyers appear to take exception to such claims, and the Tidmarsh blog post has since been removed after he apparently received multiple communications pressuring him to take the post down or face consequences.

As we've seen in SLAPP cases we've looked at in the past, at times he uses copyright to try to threaten legal action -- including in one case where his lawyers registered the copyright on a takedown letter they sent a blog, which they then used to claim infringement against the person who posted the letter on the site (to explain why the original blog post was removed). In that case, since it involved anonymous bloggers, VanderSloot's company, Melaleuca also tried to issue subpoenas to identify the bloggers. Similarly, they apparently claimed copyright infringement in a letter to a blogger who made use of a VanderSloot corporate headshot -- a common practice, and one for which there is at least some legal precedence for fair use (and that threatening over such uses can be seen as a SLAPP attempt).

We've seen many similar cases, but Greenwald lays out so many similar stories involving VanderSloot and Melaleuca (many with detailed citations), that I'm kind of surprised that we hadn't come across these before. Either way, you can tell that Greenwald (who is a lawyer) was quite careful in drafting his writeup, most likely expecting at least some pushback. He also highlights the cause of one blogger, Jody May-Chang, who does not seem to want to back down against VanderSloot, after having received a letter (pdf) recently about an old blog post (for which it's likely any defamation claim is long past the statute of limitations).

Once again, stories like these really highlight the need for a strong and clear federal anti-SLAPP law. It would certainly be interesting for someone in the political press to ask Mitt Romney for his position on a federal anti-SLAPP law, given his relationship with VanderSloot. Either way, I feel it's a shame that we don't have such a strong federal anti-SLAPP law in place already. Such a law would go a long way towards protecting basic First Amendment principles. I'm always most amazed at the rich and powerful using these types of tactics (see: Snyder, Dan) not just because such people are public figures (where the bar for any defamation claim is significantly higher), but because you would think that, having gotten to such a level, they'd be secure enough in their arguments that having random publications snipe at them should be of little concern.

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Be Afraid: Russia And China Seek To Put In Place Top-Down Regulation Of The Internet

from the pay-attention dept

For all the talk of SOPA/PIPA/ACTA/TPP, there's another much bigger threat to "the internet as we know it." It's a bunch of countries who are seeking to use the UN's International Telecommunication Union (ITU) to create a top-down regulatory scheme for the internet. This process began a few months back, but FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell has a pretty good summary of the situation in the WSJ, and why those who believe in internet freedom should be afraid. It is worth noting, of course, that things like ICANN and IETF are far from perfect today, but handing many of their functions over to the ITU with the goal of a pretty broad top-down regulatory plan for the internet is not the solution. McDowell highlights a few of the key points in the plan:

• Subject cyber security and data privacy to international control;
• Allow foreign phone companies to charge fees for "international" Internet traffic, perhaps even on a "per-click" basis for certain Web destinations, with the goal of generating revenue for state-owned phone companies and government treasuries;
• Impose unprecedented economic regulations such as mandates for rates, terms and conditions for currently unregulated traffic-swapping agreements known as "peering."
• Establish for the first time ITU dominion over important functions of multi-stakeholder Internet governance entities such as the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the nonprofit entity that coordinates the .com and .org Web addresses of the world;
• Subsume under intergovernmental control many functions of the Internet Engineering Task Force, the Internet Society and other multi-stakeholder groups that establish the engineering and technical standards that allow the Internet to work;
• Regulate international mobile roaming rates and practices.

Again this attempt to give the UN and certain governments unprecedented control over parts of the internet is not new. It's actually been in process for a few years, but it's expected to heat up in the next few months, and most in the US don't seem to even know it's about to happen. While there are some issues that are worth discussing among the proposals, it's been pretty transparent from the start that a lot of the plan is to give certain governments much more control over how the internet is used... and not in a good way. The internet thrives today in large part because it's not controlled by governments, no matter how much they've slowly tried to encroach (and the US is particularly guilty of that lately).

The fact that this effort is mainly being led by Russia and China should give you a sense of the intentions here. Neither country is particularly well-known for supporting the principles of open communications or freedom of speech.

Unfortunately, as McDowell notes, the US doesn't seem to be taking the issue particularly seriously, and hasn't even assigned a negotiator to handle the discussions (though, I'm afraid to find out who they eventually do assign to that role). McDowell also points out that simply saying "no" to any changes probably won't go over well with many countries -- and all Russia and China need to get this approved are half of the countries to side with them on this proposal. Since doing nothing is often seen as ceding the internet to the US, that could be a problem. Of course, that doesn't mean caving in. It means engaging and getting enough people aware of these issues so they can make a reasonable case for why a top-down management system would have massive unintended (or, um, intended) consequences that the world doesn't want:

As part of this conversation, we should underscore the tremendous benefits that the Internet has yielded for the developing world through the multi-stakeholder model.

Upending this model with a new regulatory treaty is likely to partition the Internet as some countries would inevitably choose to opt out. A balkanized Internet would be devastating to global free trade and national sovereignty. It would impair Internet growth most severely in the developing world, but also globally as technologists are forced to seek bureaucratic permission to innovate and invest. This would also undermine the proliferation of new cross-border technologies, such as cloud computing.

A top-down, centralized, international regulatory overlay is antithetical to the architecture of the Net, which is a global network of networks without borders. No government, let alone an intergovernmental body, can make engineering and economic decisions in lightning-fast Internet time. Productivity, rising living standards and the spread of freedom everywhere, but especially in the developing world, would grind to a halt as engineering and business decisions become politically paralyzed within a global regulatory body.

Any attempts to expand intergovernmental powers over the Internet—no matter how incremental or seemingly innocuous—should be turned back. Modernization and reform can be constructive, but not if the end result is a new global bureaucracy that departs from the multi-stakeholder model. Enlightened nations should draw a line in the sand against new regulations while welcoming reform that could include a nonregulatory role for the ITU.

This issue is going to pick up steam pretty quickly in the next few months, so educate yourselves now...

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Recording Industry Can't Wait To Start Kicking People Offline In France For Listening To Their Favorite Songs

from the yeah-that'll-work dept

As we reported last week, the French agency in charge of scaring internet users with the threat of potentially losing their internet connections based on accusations (not convictions) of copyright infringement has finally started passing on "third strike" notices to prosecutors, to see if they choose to start kicking people offline. The NY Times has an article discussing this latest step in a manner that repeats a bunch of the record labels' favorite talking points, and seems to accept a number of the industry's claims without question (a practice that is becoming way too common in the pages of the NY Times lately).

Studies show that the appeal of piracy has waned in France since the so-called three-strikes law, hailed by the music and movie industries and hated by advocates of an open Internet, went into effect. Digital sales, which were slow to get started in France, are growing. Music industry revenues are starting to stabilize.

These are all stated as if it's clear that the three things are connected, even though the evidence there is lacking.

“I think more and more French people understand that artists should get paid for their work,” said Pascal Negre, president of Universal Music France. “I think everybody has a friend who has received an e-mail. This creates a buzz. There is an educational effect.”

This is wishful thinking on the part of Negre. Multiple studies have shown that piracy is almost never an educational issue. It's not about people needing to "understand that artists should get paid for their work." As we've seen time and time again, if you give fans a good reason to buy, fans have no problem spending (and spending big) on artists. As for "the buzz" created by Hadopi emails, from what the various reports we've heard out of France are saying, much of that "buzz" is around how to make use of VPNs and other tools... as well as how to use cyberlockers and such tools that are not (yet) covered by Hadopi.

Eric Walter, the secretary general of Hadopi, said that the relatively low number of third-stage offenders showed that the system had succeeded.

“Our work is to explain to people why piracy is a bad thing and why they should stop,” he said during an interview in the agency’s nondescript headquarters behind the Montparnasse train station in Paris. “When the people understand that, they stop. Of course, some people don’t want to understand. Then we have to transfer their dossiers to the justice system.”

Again, this assumes that piracy is merely an educational issue, and people would just stop infringing if they only knew that it was illegal. Yet there's little evidence to support that claim. Most kids understand that it's illegal, but it doesn't make a difference to them.

A report commissioned by Hadopi, which has a budget of €11 million and employs 70 people, showed a sharp decline in file-sharing since the system was put in place.

A separate study by researchers at Wellesley College in Massachusetts and Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh suggests that Hadopi has given a lift to legal downloads via the Apple iTunes music store. Since the spring of 2009, when the debate over the measure was raging, through mid-2011, iTunes sales rose much more strongly in France than in other European countries.

Oddly, the NY Times fails to name the study or its authors, or link to the actual study. But we will. It's The Effect of Graduated Response Anti-Piracy Laws on Music Sales: Evidence from an Event Study in France, by Brett Danaher, Michael D. Smith, Rahul Telang and Siwen Chen. If this study sounds familiar, it's because it's the one the IFPI has been hyping in support of similar laws. It's also the report that isn't nearly as strong as the IFPI (or the NY Times) insists and has been pretty thoroughly debunked for anyone who uses it to claim that Hadopi's notice system educated people into buying from iTunes. As some have pointed out, the actual data shows the "change" in sales behavior (relative to other countries) happened way before Hadopi came into effect. And... when Hadopi actually started sending out its notices? No noticeable impact.

That kind of takes the wind out of the sales of the two folks quoted above who insist that it's the educational nature of the notices that leads to the increase in sales. And, as we reported last month, when Le Monde took the same data and plotted it against announcements about new iPhones or Christmas, it found a much stronger connection, suggesting the increase in sales had little to do with Hadopi and much more to do with more people having iPhones.

These are the kinds of things that you would think the NY Times might note. But it does not.

There is other evidence in Europe that tougher online copyright enforcement can lift media industry revenues, at least briefly. Music sales rose 10 percent in Sweden in 2009, for example, after the country tightened up its copyright laws, bringing previously lax standards into line with E.U. norms.

Mr. Negre, at Universal Music, said it was probably no coincidence that Sweden and France had produced the two big European success stories in the legitimate digital music market: the streaming services Spotify and Deezer. These companies — the former was founded in Sweden, the latter in France — resemble pirate sites in that they give users access to millions of songs free, at least for their basic services.

This may be the most ridiculous claim of all. First off, Deezer, in France, launched back in 2007, or about four years before Hadopi went into effect. Similarly, Spotify launched in Sweden in 2008. The IPRED law in Sweden? Went into effect in 2009. In other words, both of these services pre-dated the laws, rather than post-dated them as Negre from Universal Music implies. And, perhaps that also has a lot more to do with the rebound of some parts of the recording business in both of those countries. After finally allowing services to offer fans what they wanted, should it be any surprise that they actually are happy with that? Oh, as for the claim that IPRED reduced file sharing in Sweden? Reports had the amount of sharing traffic surprassing pre-IPRED numbers within months. It may have suppressed infringement briefly, but not for long. Of course, it's worth noting that much of the effort has been focused on movies. With music, thanks to Spotify, the reasons to infringe are almost gone.

And, really, that should be the key lesson we're talking about here. If the industry stops meddling and starts letting companies treat their customers right and provide them with more and better ways to consume, they will do so. Playing wac-a-mole, kicking people offline and scaring them is no way to build a long term business.

There are two other really interesting bits later down in the article. The first is that Sarkozy's opponents in the upcoming election all seem to want to dump Hadopi, demonstrating just how unpopular the law really is in France. Then there's the fact that Hadopi appears to have been caught sending notices to the wrong people:

Mr. Thollot argued that someone had pirated his log-on to a nationwide Wi-Fi network and downloaded the material while he was in class. After interviewing him, Hadopi dropped his case.

“It’s like when someone steals your bank card number,” said Renaud Veeckman, co-founder of SOS Hadopi, an organization that offers legal help to people who have received warnings from the anti-piracy agency. “Are you responsible, or are you the victim?”

SOS Hadopi has worked with five people whose dossiers have reached the third stage, including Mr. Thollot; all five have been cleared before going to court. This suggests that the actual number of cases that have been forwarded to the justice system may be considerably lower than the 165 third-strike offenders cited by Hadopi. Mr. Walter at Hadopi declined to provide a specific figure.

This part especially should raise significant questions about the quality of the information being used. Because, so far, it sounds like a big joke... other than the fact that some people might lose their internet connections over it.

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Kenny Rogers' Lawsuit Shows The Many Ways That A Major Label Screws Artists (Even The Big Ones)

from the here-we-go-again dept

We've seen this many times before, where famous musicians are totally screwed over by the major labels. A bunch of folks have sent over a summary of Kenny Rogers' lawsuit against Capitol Records (EMI), which highlights the levels to which Capitol Records went to not pay Rogers. The central facet of the lawsuit is similar to that of lawsuits that a number of artists have been filing, concerning whether or not iTunes transactions are sales or licenses -- for which massively different royalty rates apply.

However, there's plenty of other crazy things in the lawsuit, most of which involve an "audit" that Rogers requested from Capitol in April 2007... and which took until March 2009 to complete. Yes, it took two years. For a basic audit just to make sure he was getting the money he was owed. Oh, and the audit showed that he was not getting the money owed. From there, things got worse... with all sorts of stalling and foot dragging, finally resulting in the lawsuit. That stalling included repeated promises to resolve the problems and pay up. Rogers was told at times that the company was "still ironing out a few things," and then later found out that the people he'd been negotiating with were no longer at the company -- replaced by a lawyer who just told Rogers that he would be happy to work with Rogers to "promptly try to resolve the Rogers audit" -- nearly two years after the audit was completed and four years after it was requested.

Among the problems in the audit are a bunch of unprocessed royalties that were put into a "suspense" file for no reason. These kept $76,956 from Rogers. There were also actions in foreign territories where Capitol appears to have ignored the royalties it's supposed to pay Rogers. There were also things as simple as just not reporting royalties on money from record club sales. The company is also accused of playing some tax games to double count taxes to avoid paying royalties. There's also the fact that Capitol charged Rogers the full amount for a video production to his own expenses (i.e., money they'd "recoup" out of his portion of royalties), but they ignored their own contractual agreement that only 50% could be expensed that way.

Then there's the fact that Rogers wants his cut from the money Capitol has received in various lawsuits -- those against Napster, Kazaa, AudioGalaxy, Grokster, BearShare and others. As we've noted in the past, the labels have bent over backwards to avoid paying out such money to the actual artists -- but Rogers wants his piece:

Such lawsuits have resulted in Capitol Records receiving monies from entities such as Napster, Kazaa, Audiogalaxy, Grokster, BearShare, and others. Capitol Records has refused to provide Kenny Rogers with an accounting regarding the amounts actually received. A portion of the monies received by Capitol Records is attributable to the Masters and Kenny Rogers is entitled to that portion of Capitol Records‟ receipts. Capitol Records‟ refusal to account to and pay that money to Kenny Rogers has resulted in Kenny Rogers suffering direct financial harm in an amount that cannot be determined until Capitol Records provides a full, fair, and accurate accounting.

There are a few other charges as well, but those are the big ones. None of this, of course, is to say that it's "ok" to infringe because the major labels are somehow "bad." But it does show just how ridiculous it is if anyone assumes the majors represent the best interests of artists in any way.

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Twitter Sued For Defamation By Someone Who Thinks It's Responsible For 'Publishing' Tweets

from the hello-secondary-liability dept

I would have hoped that, by now, most people could understand basic secondary liability issues, such as the difference between a service provider who provides the tools/service for communications and a content creator and/or publisher who actually creates or chooses the content. Unfortunately, when large sums of money are involved, people often have difficultly distinguishing the two. The latest situation involves a guy in Australia, named Joshua Meggitt, who appeared to have a legitimate defamation claim by Australian writer/TV personality Marieke Hardy. On her blog, she accused Meggitt of writing "ranting, hateful" articles about her. She then posted a link to her blog on Twitter, where it got a lot of attention. Hardy and Meggitt have already "settled" the dispute between each other, with a rumored $15,000 changing hands, but Meggitt has now sued Twitter directly claiming that it "published" the tweet by putting it on its front page.

It strikes me that there are a number of (significant) legal problems with this lawsuit. First, perhaps this happened a while ago, back when Twitter did show tweets on its front page, but nowadays it does not. Second, I'd be shocked if anyone really used Twitter's front page without an account to find links. Instead, it sounds like people who actually followed Hardy saw her tweet in their views from the site -- which wouldn't have anything to do with Twitter making any kind of editorial choice at all. Even if it was back under the (very) old system when Twitter did display some tweets, I'm pretty sure those were just random tweets from the stream. Arguing that Twitter has any real selection choice in those is pretty ridiculous.

Furthermore, it appears from the description in the article that the tweet from Hardy didn't even name Meggitt. Perhaps it did elsewhere, but the tweet repeated in the Sydney Morning Herald just says:

Her tweet read: ''I name and shame my 'anonymous' internet bully. Liberating business! Join me,'' with a link to her blog, where she incorrectly named Mr. Meggitt as the author of ''ranting, hateful'' articles about her.

In other words, it's unclear if even the tweet itself should be considered defamatory, rather than the blog post. Linking to a defamatory blog post should never be seen as defamatory itself. Either way, it seems we're getting even further and further away from any actually defamatory statement. If Twitter somehow is liable for defamatory comments written on a blog because someone then tweets a link to that blog, Twitter is going to become a hell of a lot less useful.

While Meggitt claims that he's not subject to Twitter's terms of service, since he doesn't use it, that's meaningless. The issue has nothing to do with Twitter's terms of service. It has to do with who's the actual liable party and that would be the person who made the defamatory statements. And, from everything that's been said, it sure likes like Meggitt has already settled the claim with that party...

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Belgian Anti-Piracy Group Facing Copyright Fraud, Embezzlement & Money Laundering Charges

from the funny-how-that-works dept

The Belgian anti-piracy group, SABAM, has been one of the most aggressive anti-piracy groups out there. The group recently lost two huge court cases in which it tried to get courts to force ISPs and hosting firms to put in place filters to stop infringement. Perhaps more controversially, the organization has tried to require social networks to pay a flat fee for all the infringement happening on their networks. A year ago, there was a story of SABAM taking cash for a band they didn't represent after a TV show played a "joke" on the group.

However, in what appears not to be a joke, it looks like SABAM and some of its execs are facing some pretty serious charges, including "falsifying accounts to cover up bribe payments, abuse of trust, copyright fraud and embezzlement," according to TorrentFreak. Apparently, according to the charges, SABAM wasn't very good at actually distributing the money it was supposed to distribute to artists. Things to keep in mind every time one of these groups insists it's looking out for the interests of artists...

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Canadian Universities Agree To Ridiculous Copyright Agreement That Says Emailing Hyperlinks Is Equal To Photocopying

from the poor-decision-making dept

In the past, we've written a few times about how Access Copyright, the Canadian collection society that gets revenue from universities for professors photocopying copyrighted works, and how it's been trying to increase rates by 1,300% by claiming that simply "posting a link" counted the same as making a copy. As we noted back in 2010, that's a crazy claim. Lots of universities decided to drop out of Access Copyright's system to avoid such crazy fees. However, not everyone decided to support this move. As a ton of you sent over, the universities of Western Ontario and Toronto have both signed agreements along those lines:

The agreement reached last month with the licensing agency includes provisions defining e-mailing hyperlinks as equivalent to photocopying a document, an annual $27.50 fee for every full-time equivalent student and surveillance of academic staff email.

As the article notes, it seems incredibly premature for anyone to sign such an agreement, since the Supreme Court is expected to weigh in shortly about Access Copyright's mandate and limits, so there's simply no reason to rush into such a ridiculous deal. But, even worse is the message this kind of agreement sends to students. Accepting the idea that emailing hyperlinks is like making a photocopy is a ridiculous message that only serves to make more young people mock copyright as being a law that makes no sense at all.

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Vic Toews Apparently Not A Fan Of Others Seeing His Personal Data

from the is-he-for-child-porn? dept

You may recall that Canadian Minister of Public Safety Vic Toews announced Canada's "lawful access" (read: government monitoring of the internet) bill by saying that if you weren't in favor of the bill, you supported child porn. Over the weekend, he also seemed to admit that he didn't even understand the bill he was supporting.

That was pretty ridiculous, and a Twitter meme was developed in which lots of people shared info with Toews about things that were going on in their lives. Of course, it was only a matter of time until someone did the opposite... and started revealing info about Toews. Indeed, late last week, a Twitter account calling itself Vikileaks showed up on the scene... leaking info about things like Toews' divorce. After that created a lot of press attention and controversy, the anonymous person behind the account shut it down. However, Brendan noted that for a while it appeared to be blocked in Canada, but not elsewhere. He provided a screenshot from Canada where it says no such account exists, as well as one via a proxy which shows the account. If the user deleted the account, it's possible that it was a caching issue...

Either way, it appears that Toews is not at all happy that his own personal info is being shared. There were some claims that the account holder was accessing the account from within the Canadian House of Commons (something the user denied), leading Toews to demand an investigation into who was behind the account. Of course, as the report notes, it may be difficult to impossible to get any useful info, since all House of Commons traffic shows up as coming from one of just four IPs, so zeroing in on the particular user may not be possible.

But, no matter, Toews wants an investigation (at taxpayer expense). And who gets to investigate those who abuse Toews' lawful access proposal to access private info of citizens? Perhaps, rather than chasing down a ghost, Toews would be better served to think a little more seriously about the complaints people have raised about government over-surveillance.

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Jeremy Lin Joins The Linsanity Trademark Scrum, Files His Own Application

from the ownership-society dept

This one was probably inevitable after the reports broke of two random trademark applications for "Linsanity" -- the phrase popularly associated with unexpected sports phenom Jeremy Lin. It appears that Lin has filed for his own trademark on the term. Again, this isn't surprising, but I actually wonder if even he has a legal right to it. It doesn't appear that he's the one who came up with the term, and while there might be a publicity rights issue, I'm not sure he gets to claim ownership of it just because it refers to him. I could easily see him seeking to block the use by others, but does he really need to lock it up himself as well? It's too bad that's the state of society today, where it's not just about blocking someone else's bad trademark filing, but it has to be met with another one.

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Universal Music Album Recalled... For Infringing Content?

from the seize-'em! dept

Probably the most aggressive major record label, when it comes to supporting ridiculously overaggressive attacks on infringement and things like taking down websites, would be Universal Music -- the company whose ex-CEO once gleefully declared to the world that he was too clueless to hire someone who understands technology (he has since moved on to lead Sony Music). Of course, we always discover that the most aggressive copyright maximalists are later caught infringing themselves... So it's not surprising to hear that the release of the album for Universal Music recording artist Tyga has run into some copyright problems. While the album had been sent to retailers and was available for pre-order on iTunes, it was yanked off iTunes, and a note was sent to retailers telling them to "pull and return" the album.

The issue? Apparently the title track, "Careless World," has some sound clips from a Martin Luther King speech... and no one bothered to clear it. Oops. Of course, many of us think that locking up MLK's works are a travesty, but his heirs have been incredibly aggressive over the years in claiming that they deserve to get paid for any attempts to honor MLK. Of course, if Universal Music wasn't such an extreme copyright maximalist we might have a bit of sympathy for their plight. But given that they've made this bed, there's a bit of irony in noting that they now have to lie in it.

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The Pirate Bay May Get Blocked In The UK; That'll Stop The Infringement

from the and-people-will-magically-start-buying! dept

Now that the UK has decided its fine and dandy to censor websites because they might help someone somewhere find some infringing content, they continue to try to broaden that censorship ability. The latest target, not surprisingly, is The Pirate Bay, who is likely to be blocked following a ruling that slams the site for failing to make any efforts to stop infringement (though, it's not clear why it's TPB's responsibility to fix the entertainment industry's broken business model).

The full ruling is an interesting read, though it notes that no one from TPB was there to defend the site. It also appears to get basic facts wrong -- on information that is widely, publicly available, such as in claiming that Carl Lunstrom was an "operator" for the site. He was not. That said, it seems totally pointless to block TPB, because the site can (and will) spring up with its entire same contents on another domain (or many, many domains) minutes after such a block is in place. It's not just a game of wac-a-mole, it's encouraging more moles and more holes. It makes you wonder what the point of this really would be.

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Streaming Rights On Whitney Houston Movie NOT Pulled In Order To 'Make Really A Large Amount Of Money On DVD Sales' [Updated]

from the profiting-off-of-death dept

Update: Netflix denies this story, though the reporter stands by it. See update at the end.

We covered how Sony Music UK jacked up prices on Whitney Houston's music minutes after her death -- then changing them back and apologizing. However, in an even more extreme case, it appears that whoever holds the copyrights on the Whitney Houston movie, The Bodyguard has pulled those rights from Netflix, where it had been streamable (found via Karl Bode, but kudos to Dan McDermott who noticed the problem and found out the details from Netflix). The reasoning is that they figure lots of people will want to buy it now, and this is a chance to cash in on her death:

Netflix rep: "Okay Dan, I just went and talked to my main supervisor as to why the movie had been pulled and the reason it was pulled was the production company pulled the streaming rights from us because all the publicity after Whitney Houston's passing there was an opportunity to make really a very large amount of money on the DVD sales of her movies. So they're going to pull all the streaming titles we have of Whitney Houston so they can make more money off the DVD sales of her movies."

Now, watch the copyright holder complain that there's too much infringement of the movie as well...

Update: Apparently Netflix is denying the story though McDermott -- a long time reporter stands by the story. Netflix claims that the streaming rights to the movie went away last year when a licensing deal ended (and it is true that Netflix has lost some streaming rights in the last few months, though I have no idea if this is one of them). However, McDermott insists that he got the story from Netflix directly. As he told Andrew Couts at Digital Trends:

“I publish three newspapers and first started in news when I was news director at WLVA in 1987. I was aware of the sensitive nature of the story and was cautious and responsible,” McDermott told us via email. “The quote I printed is accurate. I cannot speak to whether the Netflix representative was telling me the truth but I asked him to verify what the Netflix users were saying (that it was pulled after her death) and the guy came back and said what he said. I tripled checked to get the quote accurate.

“He said that he had checked with two supervisors and that the ‘main’ one told him why it had been pulled.

“Personally I believe that the kid told me what his supervisors said. I can’t imagine that they were pulled after her death in some bizarre coincidence.

“Also, it is important to note that Netflix is not the bad guy in this. Unless they lie now.”

I guess it's possible that Netflix is right, and there was confusion on the part of the supervisors...

Update 2: Indeed, it looks like my guess was correct. Netflix was right, and the supervisors of the customer service guy were wrong. Dan McDermott has admitted that the report the guy gave him appears to be wrong. He reported it correctly, but Netflix staffers gave him incorrect info. The movie was pulled from streaming back in January...

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