2K Sports Botches Their Perfect Game $1 Million Contest

from the it's-just-so-baseball dept

Ah, baseball. The national pasttime (for every month the NFL isn't playing) is rife with the most wonderful of traditions: Fenway's Green Monster, cheating, Wrigley's ivy, cheating, the divisional rivalries, cheating, the evil empire Yankees, and, of course, cheating.

Yes, it seems that for as long as baseball has been in existence, scandal has followed in its wake. We're finally beginning to emerge from the steroids era, but those of us that love the game are also familiar with the spitballs, corked bats, stolen signs, Pete Rose, and the 1919 Chicago Black Sox scandal. And so it's perhaps with little surprise and a shrug of the shoulders that we receive news from Deadspin that at least one of this year's $1 Million dollar candidates of 2K Sports' MLB2K12 Perfect Game Challenge rigged things in his favor. And there may be more.

For those of you not familiar with the game or the promotion, for the past several years, 2K Sports has paid out $1 Million to the winner of their Perfect Game Challenge. If you can manage to pitch a perfect game against the computer opponent (no hits, walks, or errors in a complete game shutout), you're entered into their bracket to play against the other perfectos, culminating in a championship being awarded on Spike TV. It's a big deal, especially for a game franchise that basically has this contest going for it and nothing else. But, as Deadspin's Owen Good notes, there's a problem:

"Two days ago, I reported on an exploit within MLB 2K12's $1 Million Perfect Game Challenge, in which contestants in the qualifying round of the contest could substitute opposing batters before the game began and still throw an eligible perfect game. I reported very strong evidence indicating that one of the eight finalists 2K Sports is flying to New York this week used the exploit in pitching his perfect game. And that same person has said he believed others in the finalist pool used it too."

That player was William Haff, who insists that his perfect game is legitimate. Ah, it's so simple! Just sub out every good hitter on the other team before the game starts! Face nothing but .200 hitters and we're in the clear.

In the end, I don't know that I can put the blame for this on Haff or any of the other finalists who may have also used this exploit. The blame belongs on the game developers and the ones running the contest. The very idea that 2K Sports would have allowed this in their famous (now infamous?) contest surely caused the kind of stunned embarassement that would result in a heartfelt mea culpa, right? Especially since there was something like 900 other players that threw perfect games, most of which likely were far more legitimate than Haff's substitution-filled no-no. According to 2K Sports...not so much.

"The contest was run properly," 2K Sports said. "We look forward to awarding someone a million dollars on May 10 in New York."

In the end, I'll feel a bit bad for the honest gamers who threw a perfecto and won't get the chance at the money because of dubious actions such as those of William Haff. But mostly I'll chuckle at the fact that 2K Sports' game at least got one part of their baseball simulation correct: cheating. Haff used the exploit that 2K Sports allowed for and explained it away by pointing out there's no rule against it in the contest...much the same way as Jose Canseco could explain his steroid use in the 90's by saying Major League Baseball had no rules against it. And technically, both of them are right.

But they're also both wrong. 

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Israeli/Iranian Citizens Reach Out Over Facebook For Peace

from the come-on-people-now-smile-on-your-brother dept

Disparate aspects of the ongoing advance of technology throughout the world are coming together in a very interesting and heartwarming result. As groups continue the attempt to connect everyone in the world by the near-future, we've also seen how social media has been used recently to organize and deploy protests and citizen activism, particularly in the Middle East. But those two stories are converging into a fascinating display of communication between two rival nations in that troubled region.

In case you've been sleeping under a rock these past few months, it turns out the governments of Iran and Israel have some minor quibbles with one another. As a result, there's been much saber-rattling and boot-stomping between the two governments and popular opinion tends to be it's a matter of when, not if, the bullets and bombs begin flying. If one is not nuanced enough to separate out these nation's governments from their people, one might assume the common people in each state are equally rivalrous. This separation is made all the more difficult by the way both nations close off communication with one another, such that an individual in Israel is completely unable to make a simple phone call to an Iranian area code (it's blocked at the government level).

But if you happen to think closing off all communication is silly and counter-productive (like me), you'll be delighted to know that the internet is here to save the day. CNN has the story of one Israeli citizen, Ronny Edry, a graphic designer, who thinks the prospect of pre-emptive war with Iran is absolutely insane, so he developed some simple but striking "posters" and put them up on Facebook.

"My idea was simple, I was trying to reach the other side. There are all these talks about war, Iran is coming to bomb us and we bomb them back, we are sitting and waiting. I wanted to say the simple words that this war is crazy," said Edry.

The images featured pictures of various Israelies, such as Edry himself and his neighbors along with their children, and a message:

Now if you're cynical, or you watch too much cable news, you might be wondering what the big deal is. So an Israeli made some posters and put them on Facebook. So what?

The response, said Edry, was overwhelming. "In a few hours, I had hundreds of shares and thousands of likes and it was like something was happening.

"I think it's really amazing that someone from Iran poked me and said 'Hello, I'm from Iran, I saw your "poster" on Facebook,' " Edry said.

And that's when the posters created by Iranian citizens in return began flooding in. Posters with messages of peace and commonality. I found one particular post on Edry's Facebook page from an Iranian to be particularly heartening:

We share a common history, have been sharing both our great and ancient cultures, languages and poetry together. ... We are so similar, and politicians cannot cut a tie that has been tied thousands of years ago. I am proud to have you as my friends.

I'm not going to go all peace, love and flower power on you, but this is why the internet age is so important. It's also why cutting off communication between nations, or allowing even the first steps of internet censorship to take hold, must be stopped at all costs. It's not just about copyright, or flash mobs, or YouTube videos showing Spaceballs clips. The internet is ultimately about people sharing with one another, whether they're sharing thoughts, images like this, or whatever. It's about commonality. It's about creating a web of bonds through which communication and understanding can flow.

And now, I'm realizing, it's about giving every man and woman the power to do what their blowhard, acrimonious politicians won't do: talk to one another.

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NCAA Goes Backwards On Streaming The Basketball Tournament

from the same-service,-now-for-a-fee! dept

If anyone has gotten the streaming sports thing right in the past, it's been NCAA Basketball. I've actually pointed to them as an example in the past of how the rest of the sporting world should embrace streaming their games and advertise the hell out of the experience. Rather than locking down access to viewership, like the MLB, NBA, NFL, and NHL, the NCAA Basektball Tournament got it right, partnering with broadcasters to stream the games to their sites free of charge, with all the advertising one would expect on television. It was a wonderful method for ensuring that one of my monitors at work had their games on. It made it certain that I'd be that weird guy staring at images on his phone while taking the train home from work. It confused my neighbors as to how I could somehow simultaneously grill steaks on my deck while announcers went ballistic over last second hail mary shots as time ran out on the clock. I was engaged (sorry Mom and Dad, I mean engaged to the game).

And now they've taken that all away from me. To be fair, they're still streaming the games. And they promise that the streams will work across multiple platforms (computer, iPad, iPhone, Android devices, etc.). And it only costs $4.99 for the entire tournament.

But that's where the lie in all this is. It's not just $4.99 to watch the tournament on every device other than my television (where it's FREE!). There are serious mental transactions to consider here. Like most red-blooded Americans, I'm in an NCAA office bracket. Something like half the games in the tournament take place during work hours across the country. Most of us don't have televisions at our desks, in our cubicles, wherever. Watching at work is kind of the whole point here, with all the ducking and dodging from our bosses we have to do as a result. Now, we can argue all we want whether watching the tourney at work is productive or a good idea, but from the NCAA's standpoint, they shouldn't care at all. They should want people to watch. Asking them to pay $4.99 to do all of this is a massive fail, particularly since all of those same advertisements that were in place remain.

So...they're charging for something that used to be free...without adding any benefit. I watched the games on their feeds the past couple of years. This year, not so much. The obvious question is does the money they're making from the $4.99/subscriber outweigh the eyeballs that are no longer watching the advertising because of that cost. Maybe those in the comments can change my mind, but I'm fairly certain there's more folks like me out there than people buying the "package".

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Dear Pro Sports Leagues: Can I Watch The Game Please?

from the and-make-it-easy dept

In Mike's latest annual New Year's message about innovation and opportunity, he mentioned how technology is allowing the masses to say "no" to impediments set down by those seeking to control:

"The key element this year: the power of large groups of people to make use of the technology to start to say, "No!" to those who have sought to hold back progress."

A heady concept, but one which I think will only prevail as technology marches forward. That said, I had a slightly different take as a result of a personal story that happened on Christmas Day. Like many of you, I made the trek with my girlfriend to my parent's house to exchange gifts, eat too much food, and sit around with my family and friends talking as the television sat in the background displaying football and basketball. As the night progressed, the food cooled, the board games became boring, and the way my family slings around red wine resulted in the urge to go home early in the evening. Since my girlfriend was kind enough to drive us home (sober, of course), I was free to do what I wanted in the passenger seat.

And what I wanted to do was watch sports. The tail end of the Bulls game was still on. The Bears game would shortly follow. Sports on radio never did much for me. I wanted to watch. So I yanked out my smart phone and checked out the NBA site, the NFL site, and the sites of our local television stations. What I found was what I expected: the local stations didn't offer any streaming of the games, but the NBA and NFL have their versions of mobile streaming packages which generally start right around the $50/season mark. This gets you access to their respective broadcasts (not the local ones).

Here's my question: why is any of this necessary? With that same smart phone, I could have gone to one of dozens of websites (evil, evil websites) that would simply stream the games I wanted directly to my device for free. More to the point, they'd stream the local broadcast that I wanted, complete with commercials. Why wouldn't the major sports leagues do the same thing? If advertising is still the major money-maker for professional sports (and, along with merchandise, it is), why wouldn't they want to increase their reach by offering their own free advertisement-laden stream? Coupled with location identifiers, I'd think the leagues could partner with local broadcasters to make sure that people were getting the same geographical broadcast they'd get watching at home. Again, the same commercials can be in place, so what's lost? Why charge me $50 a season to watch the game on my phone or tablet, but not levy that same charge for watching on my television? It's the ads that matter, isn't it?

It seems I'm not the only one with this kind of experience, either. VC Fred Wilson relates a similar tale, touching on the additional idiocy of navigating local blackouts of games with many of these league packages, all in the name of protecting the same local broadcasters whose numbers could be boosted by offering free streams of the game:

"Last night we were turned into "pirates" as the entertainment industry likes to call us. As 2011 turned into 2012, the executives at Time Warner Cable and MSG Network were unable to make a deal to keep MSG on Time Warner Cable. My son was fuming and so was I."

But he wasn't fuming for long, as helpful Twitter followers showed him a plethora of sites where he could get the stream he wanted, for free, with none of that viewership resulting in revenue for the league or the broadcaster. Which is a shame, because if they wanted to, everyone could be making money off this stuff while enhancing the fan's experience with a better quality stream.

And so we get back to the start of this piece, in contrast to Mike's message of masses saying "no" to those who impede technological progress. Because in my case, driving home that blustery Christmas night, with only thoughts of Derrick Rose and Brian Urlacher in my head, I felt no urge to say "no". I only recognized one sentiment as I glanced over the league's packages for streaming and then turned to one of the evil, horrible, death-enducing sites that gave me the stream I wanted just in time to see Derrick Rose drive the lane and score the winning layup to beat the Lakers: I don't need their packages.

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Local Bookstores Call For Boycott Of Amazon For Advertising Their Prices

from the can-we-call-you-hollywood-video? dept

Amazon has faced controversy in the past. They've been involved in ongoing state sales tax disputes, mostly brought on by people who can't figure out what it means to actually have a corporate presence within a state. There have been patent disputes over one-click technology. Even issues of working conditions have raised their ugly heads. But now we will witness the most evil action ever by Amazon: price advertising.

Yes, according to a Huffington Post piece, we learn that Amazon is seeking to make lower priced versions of retail goods easier to find for customers. They've released their Price Check App for smartphones. You'll never guess what it does...it does price comparisons for you! It works like many similar apps, utilizing the phone's camera to scan the barcode of items in retail stores and then listing any identical products and their price through the Amazon online store. Fortunately, we consumers have a savior from this superevil, money-saving device that certainly isn't the first of its kind.

Yes, retail bookstores, in what may be the single most backward thinking request of all time, are asking the general public (i.e. customers) to boycott Amazon due to the release of this phone app. For those too busy playing solitaire to really think this through, let me break this down for you. Amazon can offer goods at lower prices than many retail stores, they release an app that allows consumers to verify whether that's the case on an individual product, the customer stands only to save money through this app, and retailers are asking customers to boycott the company saving them money over it. It'd be like boycotting a doctor for offering a cancer cure because, well, what about all the other doctors who have been making money offering chemo treatments?

Now for the fun part. Some quotes from the article.

"This Saturday, Amazon will offer Price Check customers an extra incentive: up to five dollars off products whose barcodes are scanned using their app. The effect of this is to encourage consumers to use their local brick-and-mortar stores as "showrooms," while not spending money supporting them."

Gasp! Encouraging folks to browse stores for items and then price shop them to get the best deal? And, more to the point, actually providing the consumer with the tools to do so? It's like something Lex Luthor would do! Where the hell is Superman to stop this dastardly customer-friendly company?

"David Didriksen, president of Massachusetts-based Willow Books & Cafe, told Publishers Weekly that the offer is “another in a long series of predatory practices by Amazon. You would think that a company of that size would be willing to just live and let live for small retailers who can’t possibly affect them. But, no, they want it all.”

Uh oh. Apparently Superman got hit one too many times in the head. What does the size of a company have to do with anything? Either you can compete with them, or you can't. And here's a fun question: what competitive act has a company ever taken in the existence of business that couldn't be called "predatory" by its competition? And, to put the ridiculous cherry on top of this nonsense sundae, Amazon's $5 off offer doesn't even apply to books!

Maine Senator Olympia Snow, seeing something grand and wishing to stand on it, called on Amazon to cancel the promotion because "paying consumers to visit small businesses and leave empty-handed is an attack on Main Street businesses that employ workers in our communities.”

First, Amazon isn't paying them to leave a shop empty-handed, they're promoting their new phone app and offering a discount on purchases made using it. Secondly, Amazon employs folks too, the overwhelming majority of them in the United States, so put the jobs nonsense aside as well. Maybe we should go back to bookstore owners to find a real idea on how to compete with this app.

"Meanwhile, Third Street Books in McMinnville, Oregon has chosen to mark Amazon's Price Check offer with a counter offer of their own: on Saturday, customers will get 15 percent off their purchase, plus a $5 gift certificate. All they have to do is provide proof that they have cancelled their Amazon account."

Uh huh. Let's ignore the fact that Amazon provides much more than books, so your coupon doesn't have all that much value over an Amazon account. Let's ignore the fact that there are several other barcode scanning price check apps already on smartphone markets. Let's ignore the fact that Amazon's $5 promo doesn't apply to books. Let's ignore the fact that, even if we grant that droves of customers are going to spend hours mulling through retail bookstores scanning book after book after book, don't folks do the opposite all the time? Who doesn't browse or search products online and then go buy them retail, either for convenience, for atmosphere, or because they don't want to wait for the product to ship?

Perhaps its time local bookstores concentrate on what they can offer to compete with Amazon: their atmosphere. Not unlike the home-viewing vs. movie theater quandary, mom and pop bookstores can add value to the shopping experience. They can have staff picks of books, offer advice on purchases, offer reading clubs and writing classes, sell rare/used books, partner with food vendors for things like coffee, have book-signings, etc. So stop trying to convince your customers to boycott another company for making their lives better and start competing by also making consumers' lives better.

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Dark Helmet's Favorite Posts Of The Week, Jerks....

from the dark-helmet-approved dept

So, apparently someone else was supposed to do the favorites this week, but failed to show up. I can only assume they were afraid of the trolls, which is understandable. In any case, I'll keep this brief, for fear of upsetting Out Of The Blue and sending him/her/it into some kind of schizoid frenzy in which he kills a bunch of people at the local McDonald's because they forgot the second pickle on his Big Mac....

1. Clearly the best written, most interesting story of the week was the tale of a dumbass porn company suing a mobile phone manufacturer. I mean, honestly, the writing? Top notch. I read the prose, the puns, the jokes, it was like a mix of Shakespeare, John Wayne, and whoever hosted The Bozo Show. Pure beauty. Let's recommend whoever wrote this for an Oscar, shall we?

2. Look, all jokes aside, Techdirt managed to shed its opinion site mantra for a quick moment and break what I think is ultimately going to be a really big story. The United States Government, so long the pride of the world, has disgraced itself in the name of profit. Look, the political climate is very much charged these days, whether you're a progressive liberal, a conservative republican, or even one of those weirdos cheering for Ron Paul. We all seem to find ourselves on some kind of a political line, where gangs have grown to make us feel some sense of loyalty for reasons I don't think any of us can articulate. That said, political religion aside, I would hope against hope, pray against all prayer, plead with all the makers of every possible religion, that we would remit our pride in our country when the ruling leadership begins to usher in a time in which entire online outlets are shut down without legal cause. It is funny that we laugh at the ineptitude of our leaders, yet we do not shake at the crimes they occasionally -- or not so occasionally -- commit. Does that make us criminals? I don't know. But read this story with true trepidation. Understand that there is much more at stake than just that in the details here. Read with fear and anger, and educate those around you that this is what is to come should we not act.

3. There are times when I think that we are in for a true fight, we folks on this side of the IP law debate. Then the other side pulls out a gun, aims it carefully at their own feet, and pulls the trigger gleefully, as though they were doing their side any good. Such was the MPAA this past week, essentially comparing their efforts with SOPA to the grand Chinese tradition of attempted and ineffectual thought control. Nothing says, "make me a campaign talking point" like comparing your goals to Chinese censorship.

Okay, there's a ton of stories that get published every week on Techdirt, some of which I write, most of which I don't. We're coming up on the holiday season here, and I don't know how much of a platform I'll have here at the end of the year, so let me take a moment to thank everyone here in the spirit of the holidays. Honestly, it means a great deal to me to have Mike want me to write pieces of a great blog like Techdirt now and again. But, though I respect the hell out of Mike, the reason I love writing and commenting here is all of you. I've been spouting my crap around here for going on three years now. Those folks that have been here since then, or longer, God bless you for helping make Techdirt something special. Mike's a smart guy, but I bet he'd concede that this site is made so much better by all of you, so please accept my sincerest thanks for making Techdirt a place I can call home online, as dumb as that sounds, and for helping this to be a platform to share news, information, and help those that wish to embrace the future, not cower in fear of it. Happy holidays people!

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Porn Giant Vivid to Take Legal Action Over HTC Vivid Name

from the there's-a-fap-for-that dept

Trademark... *sigh*. Such a decent idea twisted horribly, horribly wrong at times. I'll try to keep this one simple for fear of flying off into some kind of puntastic boondoggle.

Reader sinsi sent in the Tom's Guide story about Vivid, best known for pumping out pornography, sending a cease and desist notice to HTC, best known for pumping out phones. The issue, apparently, is that HTC's latest smart phone is called "The Vivid," a word fairly commonplace in the English language. Now, Vivid Entertainment has crossed paths with the technology sector in the past, when they sued the enigmatically-named PornoTube website (I wonder what they have to offer), or when their executives decided that it was Google and Yahoo's fault that kids were seeing the fine cinematography Vivid produces.

Still, I find myself asking the same questions about many of these Trademark suits lately: doesn't there have to be some kind of industry crossover for this to be valid? And at what point are moron-sturbators in a hurry going to confuse a smart phone for a the latest Superhero porno parody? Seriously...how does this happen? Did someone at Vivid overhear an HTC customer say, "This phone blows," and get confused?

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Tootsie Roll Suing Footzyrolls Over Trademark

from the sweet-feet? dept

Trademark is one of the few intellectual property laws left that I think generally serves its original purpose. For the uninitiated, trademark was originally created to avoid customer confusion over branding, thus keeping the buyer from deceit and harm at the vicious hands of fake goods. And, while trademarks can be abused, such as when Nintendo trademarked a phrase it didn't coin for publicity purposes, their existence hovers on the border of benign.

Enter Tootsie Roll, the popular candy product that made a name for itself by being thrown at you in every holiday parade you ever attended. They've decided to take bold action against two ladies selling shoes, which they cleverly named Footzyrolls. Via CNN:

"According to the lawsuit filed in federal court in Illinois, Rollashoe, which makes rollable ballet slippers called Footzyrolls, is infringing on the brand name of Chicago-based Tootsie Roll. Tootsie Roll, which made $521 million in sales last year, alleged that the $2 million Footzyrolls brand will confuse and "deceive" consumers into thinking that the shoes are associated with Tootsie Roll's portfolio of products."

Now, in fairness to Tootsie Roll, I can't tell you how many times I went searching in my house for a tasty treat and ended up gnawing on my shoes. Wait...no, that was the dog, who I happen to have named "Moron In A Hurry". Actually, I'm having trouble wondering how either of these companies is in each other's industry stratosphere. Footzyrolls are ballet slippers and a quick perusal of the Tootsie Roll site offers nothing in the way of footwear. And really, who outside of the New York Jets coaching staff is going to think feet are a sweet treat to be munched upon?

In all, this smacks of a legal department with a tad too much time on its hands, particularly with Tootsie Roll requesting "damages" be paid by the startup footwear company. Rollashoe is fighting back, though the company's lawyer notes the collateral damage:

"'Tootsie Roll is flexing its muscle. This case could now proceed for another year. It will cost the Caplans a lot of money. It could kill their business,' he said."

And thank God for that, for what a pitiful sight it would make to walk down the street and see morons hurrying everywhere, chewing not on the chocolate goodness that is a Tootsie Roll, but on the soles of their sneakers instead.

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Software Developer Connects With Fans At The Altar

from the we-gather-here-today dept

It seems to me that there's a fundemental disconnect that occurs when we discuss CwF+RtB here at Techdirt. Some have trouble latching onto the concept, devolving it into a kind of asanine repetition of "putt putt golf" jokes and t-shirt discussions. It's much more than that, of course. It's a mantra, a way of being, more akin to a philosophy than strictly a business plan. I won't bore you with long-winded diatribes about karmic energies, just the short mention in the words previous. Examples tell the story better, from Kevin Smith merging his brand with the good will of his fans, to going where your fans are (even if that place is unauthorized), to actually taking off your angry artist hat and getting your fans involved in creating the art.

And now Anthony Biedenkapp writes in with the heartwarming Ars Technica story of two crazy kids in love with each other and a videogame, and the story of how the software developer loved them back. Jay Greschner and his fiance were big fans of the game Bastion, developed by Supergiant Games. On a lark, Greschner wrote an email to Supergiant Games asking if there was anyway they could provide some audio for his wedding. They did, in a big way:

"Soon after, Greg Kasavin (writer and creative director of Bastion) got back to me and we had a brief discussion. In my initial e-mails I had sent a couple of example lines but Greg replied that the Narrator had a certain tone that he wanted to keep even though this was out of game and was wondering if he could write some stuff up for Logan. I had no problem with this and Greg said that they'd try and record some lines before PAX Prime.

A couple of days later, I got another e-mail containing 4 recordings that the Narrator had done for us and was just amazed and honored that Supergiant Games would do this for me."

That's a true connection. We have this idea that businesses are these far away entities, disconnected from their fans by whatever middlemen are involved, be they record labels, publishing companies, or retail stores. But that's crap. Even in a big world like ours, true personal connections are possible. More to the point, in the digital era, the world has shrunk and those connections are even more possible than they were before. Kudos to Supergiant Games and many happy years to the Greschners.

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Loaded Gun Falls Out Of Checked Bag. Feeling Secure At Airports Yet?

from the grope-grope-grope dept

It's always fun for me when Techdirt has stories about the TSA, but perhaps not for the same reasons as everyone else here. By that, I mean that the range of reaction to such stories always strikes me as incredibly varied. Get a story about the TSA working with the cosmopolitan state of Tennessee to check drivers for whatever it is they check for, and you'll get serious responses about our civil liberties being eroded. Write about these all-world defenders of truth and justice laying the smackdown on a possible-terrorist but confirmed breast cancer survivor and her mammory implants, and truly flabbergasted readers will demand action from our politicians. Relate the words of the guy that created the TSA to begin with and his apprehension about where the agency has gone in its off-broadway tour of security theatre, and you'll even get some folks defending the TSA in the comments. These are all well and good, true opinions and feelings from either side; the stirring of a wonderful national debate.

Me? I just like to laugh. And no one has made me laugh lately like the TSA.

Gumnos alerts us (without a patdown, no less) to a USA Today story of how LAX's airport security is trying to define ironic comedy. At least, that's what I assume they're doing, because otherwise it means that some of their people may be in need of an IQ test. Look, no security is perfect. Something is going to sneak through occasionally. And we've been told the terrorists are creative, hiding exposives in their shoes (laces out, Dan), their underwear (I'm assuming they have to go with tighty-whities here, right? Or else everything would just kind of fall out?), and we've been told that the clearly deep-thinking and well-funded terrorist networks around the world are looking into hiding a multi-megaton nuclear warhead in a hair bonnet.

But what you don't expect to encounter is what happened at LAX. And that's for a loaded .38 caliber pistol to kind of just fall out of a passenger's duffel bag as it was being loaded onto the plane. Now, to be fair, the TSA promptly and proudly announced that it isn't their duty to screen anything but carryon luggage, as if this was some kind of a win for them. But all that makes me wonder is why a federal agency in charge of ensuring safe transportation is more concerned with slapping around our meaty bits than, oh I don't know, checking the damned luggage that goes on the plane! Again, this is not carryon luggage, but rather checked luggage. But how does it make any sense to parse out different sets of luggage to be checked by different agencies with potentially different equipment and...You know what? I'm not going to try to make sense of this for fear of a complete mental breakdown.

Still, I'm all about the positivity, which is why I pictured myself standing in line, waiting to board the plane (why am I always in Group D, damn it?) and watching the baggage handlers out the window lovingly slam my stuff into the luggage compartment, when a loaded .38 pistol comes spinning out of the bag and lands on the tarmac. After a moment of watching the handlers stare dumbly at each other for a moment, I burst out laughing, pointing at the gun, then back at the airline employees, then off in the distance where some TSA agent is playing puppet with a 98 year old triple amputee (try figuring that one out), then back at the gun. Rinse, repeat. Rinse, repeat.

So take a moment to thank the TSA for all the laughs.

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Teachers Union Thinks It Blocked Online Classes...But It Didn't

from the acted-like-assclowns-to-boot dept

I've always struggled with the concept of unions and collective bargaining. The realist in me knows the history of employment in the early days of this country and how woefully employers treated their people. Early labor unions also had a heavy hand in social reforms for ideals like free public education. Yay, unions! On the other hand, we're all aware of the stories of waste and corruption among big union leadership, the inefficiencies they create in the workforce, and the potentially detrimental effects on the economic competitiveness of America in a global marketplace. Damn you, evil unions!

And so it's under this same conflicted backdrop that I read what SD sent in, a story about the University of California's teachers' union gleefully celebrating the blocking of online courses. More specifically, the union is saying the language in the contract would allow them to block any online course that would result in lessening employment statistics for the school's lecturers, which make up a hefty percentage of the teaching force. Let's tackle a couple of things relating to this story.

First, examine some words from Bob Samuels, President of the union and possible jerky-quote-producing-android-automaton:

 “We feel that we could stop almost any online program through this contract. We feel we got something that the university didn’t really understand."

The article goes on to note:

"And stop it they would. Regardless of any data administrators trot out to argue that students learn just as well online as they do in the classroom, the union would do whatever it could to block the university from moving courses online if it decides the move would make life worse for lecturers, says Samuels."

Now, perhaps you're like me and any time you hear someone say something that so clearly dismisses anyone else's well-being aside from their own, your brain shuts down your ears for fear that your entire faith in the basic providence of humanity would be vanquished in an angry mind-fire. So let me break this down for you. Samuels, President of a union of teachers, is saying that they'll block online courses regardless of any evidence as to their efficacy if it results in even one less lecturer on campus. Learning? Rising costs in education for students? Technological progress? Unimportant, fools! This is where I think back to the union leaders of old, who pushed for social reforms effecting those outside their union members, and wonder where it all went wrong.

(Fun side note: Samuels recently wrote an article for the Huffington Post suggesting that we forgo Obama and the Tea Party in favor on an online activist party. WHAT!!??? And put all those businesses that spring up around both the Obama campaign and Tea Party rallies out of work!!?? You know who disagrees with Bob Samuels? Bob Samuels!)

And here's the really fun part. The University reviewed the langauge Samuels is referring to and promptly chuckled something close to, "what the duck is he talking about?"

“They do not have the power to block the university from implementing new online programs,” says Dianne Klein, a spokeswoman for the Office of the President. The most the [union’s] bargaining unit could do,” Klein says, “is provide written notice saying, ‘We don’t like this.’ ”

I think what's most amazing to me in all of this is that apparently there aren't any Public Relations teachers willing to give Samuels a hand. If you want to gain public support for limiting online classes, it's possible. You come out with some kind of study or research suggesting the benefit of lecturers to the actual education process, you make your argument to the school and the public, and we find out who wins. What you don't do is misinterpret legal language in a contract as saying you have power you don't and then gleefully provide quotes in articles that essentially amount to, "We got one over on a higher education institution and now they can kiss our collectively bargaining asses."

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NFL Ramps Up Security Theatre

from the don't-fumble-my-junk dept

Security theatre has been the goal of the TSA these past few years. Whether they're valiantly inserting their fingers into our orifices , standing bravely to defend travelers from insulin and icepacks, or simply lying to people in telling them they can't be taped during their most nefarious actions, The TSA does fake security like no other group can. Nobody, and I mean nobody, has worked harder at not producing any results than these people.

But that won't keep the NFL from trying, damn it.

Dementia writes in about a Yahoo Sports post describing the new breakthrough security technique at NFL games this year: pat-downs. That's right, the NFL is going to solve security at their games by somehow patting down seventy thousand people as they enter stadiums within roughly an hour's length of time. No, the pat-downs won't be done by federal employees, just low-paid yellow jacket-wearing folks (seriously, click the article and look at the picture, it's awesome). No there aren't any metal detectors or machine screeners a la the airport. Basically, no, these security measurements won't make anyone more...you know...secure. As Chris Chase notes:

"As far as I can tell, the only purpose gate security has is to create a mass of humanity at the entrances and comb through women's purses. The pat downs are jokes. Security personnel only checked from the waist up. If they felt anything in your pocket, their most likely recourse was to ask, "what's that?" A halfway-decent answer got you a pass."

And, as Chris also notes, if you think these measures are stupid now, just wait until the weather turns. I can just picture myself walking up to Soldier Field on a January morning in Chicago, seven layers deep between regular undergarments, long-underwear, longsleeve t-shirt, t-shirt, hoodie sweatshirt, down-insulated winter jacket, and my lovely Where's Waldo-esque scarf to tie it all together, and giving these security types a sideways glance as they attempt to pat me down. I could carry a 1967 Buick Skylark in my pants and they'd never feel it.

Why can't we stop this? Who are the NFL playing to with this nonsense? I'd like to think my fellow citizens and football consumers aren't so totally devoid of intelligence that they can't see how pointless and annoying this all is.

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IL Court: Eavesdropping Law Violates First Amendment When Used Against People Recording The Police

from the hold-on,-is-this-thing-on? dept

We were just discussing the ruling of a 7th circuit federal judge, Richard Posner, about a controversial Illinois eavesdropping case, in which His Honor seemed to fear that allowing people to record interactions with police would...lead to people recording interactions with police. Or something.

"If you permit the audio recordings, they'll be a lot more eavesdropping.…There's going to be a lot of this snooping around by reporters and bloggers," U.S. 7th Circuit Judge Richard Posner said. "Yes, it's a bad thing. There is such a thing as privacy."

To me, that sounds an awful lot like saying you can't increase the speed limit on a street to 65 MPH, because then more people will go 65 MPH. That's kind of the point.

In any case, reader Mark informs us that an Illinois State Court has gone the other way, in the Michael Allison case we wrote about a couple weeks ago, ruling that the law cannot apply to interactions with police and court officials as it violates the 1st Amendment. In the Posner article, plenty of commentors (myself included), drew a line between private interactions between citizens and interactions with public officials, arguing that while administering to a public duty, officials ought not be able to hide behind the veil of privacy. Circuit Court Judge David Frankland outlined a similar, if more eloquent, assertion in his opinion:

“'A statute intended to prevent unwarranted intrusions into a citizen's privacy cannot be used as a shield for public officials who cannot assert a comparable right of privacy in their public duties,' the judge wrote in his decision dismissing the five counts of eavesdropping charges against defendant Michael Allison."

I admit I struggle to see how anyone can disagree. When you're carrying out your public duty, your employer (the public) has a right to document what kind of job you're doing. While, as was Judge Frankland's opinion, we can make some exceptions for the sake of avoiding distractions (Allison actually tried to record in-court proceedings, a no-no), trying to make any of this a felony is downright silly.

The public is the public servant's employer, afterall. And that includes the Justice System as well. It's nice to hear from a judge who hasn't seemed to have forgotten that.

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Father: Why Isn't Facebook Keeping My Kid Off Its Site?

from the parenting-is-for-losers dept

Facebook is a fascinating study in how different countries around the world deal with forward technology and the internet as a whole. It really is something of a Rorschach Test of each nation's legal system and process. We've heard recently how Germany nixed Facebook's "Like" button. UK officials had the brilliant idea that rioters would go back to sipping Earl Grey tea instead of throwing things at other things, if only they weren't on those intoxicating social networking sites. Meanwhile, in America, teachers in Missouri had to sue for the privilege of friending their students (because we might be able to trust these teachers to be in direct contact with our children, but not on the scary internet!).

And now reader Paddy Duke alerts us to the story of a Northern Irishman and his quest to get Facebook to keep his 12 year old daughter off its site. Because, really, who else could possibly accomplish such a feat? He is apparently suing Facebook for negligence.

The issue is that this gentleman's 12 year old daughter didn't tell Facebook she was 12. She said she was older, thereby routing around Facebook's age policy. Then she posted reportedly racy photos of herself along with other personal information, such as her home address and the name of her school. The kicker is that she did at least some of this while in the care of the Northern Health and Social Care Trust facility, which appears to be primarily an institution for children and the elderly who are suffering from mental health issues.

I have two questions. First, if Facebook is negligent in allowing her to use their site, what word should we use for this father also allowing her to use the site and not stopping her unwanted behavior? Supernegligent? Negultragent?

Secondly, what's the solution here? Any age check done by Facebook is going to be porous at best. The linked BBC article has a quote from this Father-Of-The-Year candidate's solicitor (attorney):

"An age check, like asking for a passport number would be a simple measure for Facebook to implement."

If it's so simple, I'd love to see this attorney take a crack at it. Passport numbers wouldn't work for a variety of reasons. First, you're potentially depriving Facebook of a swath of users who don't have passports. I recognize this is probably less of a concern in Europe, but it's still an issue. Also, what's to keep children from swiping their parent's passports to create accounts? This 12 year old girl already routed around her father's attempt to shut down her Facebook page. Do we really think she would have stopped at the "Input Passport Number Here" field, thrown up her hands, and went back to playing with dolls and sugersnaps or whatever her father imagines her doing if only she'd had real parents?

And why should Facebook have to implement such a system, paying the costs for doing so, all so parents don't have to parent? I'm not a father, which I recognize some will use to say that I just don't understand the trials and tribulations of raising children in the internet era. They're wrong. I do understand all that. That's why I'm not a parent. I know I'm not ready for that responsibility just yet. But if I ever do have children, I'll be sure not to take a website to court to cash in on my being asleep at the wheel.

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Author Says eBooks Will Hurt Authors Because Of Royalty Rates

from the but-the-percentages-say-otherwise dept

Opinions on the emergence of eBooks in the modern era come with all manner of widely varied opinions. We saw J.K. Rowling go from staunchly refusing to offer her works as eBooks to routing around her publisher and offering them directly to her fans. Barry Eisler turned down a huge publishing contract to self-publish his eBooks, even as the Mystery Writers of America were telling Joe Konrath, Eisler's friend, self-publishing meant he wasn't a "real author". And, of course, we have the always prevalent opposed viewpoints of the benefits of carrying your digital library everywhere versus the preference for the look and feel of a physical hardcopy tome.

But one argument I haven't heard before (and I spend a decent amount of time reading and learning about the publishing world, for obvious reasons) is that eBooks are dangerous to the future of young authors because the royalty rates won't support them making a living. That's the argument Graham Swift made in an article in The Telegraph by Nick Collins. Graham is quoted as saying:

“The e-book does seem at the moment to threaten the livelihood of writers, because the way in which writers are paid for their work in the form of e-books is very much up in the air. I think the tendency will be that writers will get even less than they get now for their work and sadly that could mean that some potential writers will see that they can't make a living, they will give up and the world would be poorer for the books they might have written, so in that way it is quite a serious prospect.”

Swift is an award-winning author and, as such, I assume he's as or more informed about the publishing world than I am, but I'm having trouble rectifying his speculation on declining royalty rates for eBooks with how such royalties are handled now. Unfortunately, because there is some variance in how royalties are handled in the publishing world, particularly with fiction, there are some distinctions to be made with how this all works.

First, let's quickly look at royalties offered in a standard publishing contract through a mainstream press. Hardcover royalties are typically between 10% and 15%, with some variance in the contract based on the number of units sold. Paperback royalties are typically between 6% and 9%, usually also with breaking points based on sales. Meanwhile, the standard eBook royalty rates tend to be much higher, anywhere between 25% and 50%. Now, Graham appeared to be speaking of the future decline of eBook royalty rates, but the general trend with established publishers has been for those rates to rise rather than fall, recently.

Now, as everyone is aware, the emergence of eBooks has coincided with a boom in the self-publishing industry. I'm going, for the sake of this argument, to set aside true vanity publishers with awful reputations in the publishing world. Some authors out there will tell you horror stories about operations like Publish America, but they have an equally bad reputation when it comes to both hardcopy books and eBooks. Instead, let's deal with how royalties work for self-publish eBook operations like Lulu and the Amazon Kindle market. As someone who has published on both platforms, I'm very familiar with how royalties work with each.

With Lulu, there is some wiggle room for authors to set their own retail price and, therefore, royalty for physical books. The default settings come to something around 9% for hardcopy books. That same default setting for eBooks? Roughly 55% in royalty for the creator. Creators offering up eBooks on the Kindle Direct Publishing platform can expect their royalties to start at 35% (although there are some options that can bump that royalty to 70%, depending on how much the author wishes to sell their eBook for).

And none of that even takes into account authors who are cutting out the middlemen with eBooks entirely and offering up their works with something like a PayPal account, yielding royalties for eBooks effectively somewhere around 75%. This is a sector of authors that's only going to grow, as we've discussed here before. The beauty of the eBook is that an author no longer has to worry about the single most difficult aspect of getting his or her work to the reader: the physical production of the printed book. With that barrier gone, it seems as though more young writers will find themselves suddenly able to enter the market, not fewer.

So, perhaps Swift knows something I don't, but everything I read seems to indicate that eBooks are going to result in options for higher royalties, not lower. So I have to wonder where this fear comes from?

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UMG Watermarks Audiophile Files, Pisses Off Paying Customers

from the hisssssssssssssssss dept

Let's say, just for analogy's sake, you had a defense contractor that supplied weapons and ammunition to Earth's army. Let's say that army was going to war with the evil pod people from the planet Dah-Rull. And let's say that this defense contractor, named Universal Munitions Group, supplied the good guys with new bullet rounds that they promised would completely obliterate the Dah-Rull pod people and make everyone on Earth happy again.

Now let's say that when Earth's army confronted their enemy and fired their weapons...the bullets, instead of firing, simply blew up, taking the limbs of Earth's infantry with them. As a result, the pod people were free to take over the world. You'd be pretty pissed, wouldn't you? Unless you're a pod-person, I mean?

Yet that's about how effective Universal Music Group's latest attempt at watermarking is. You can read the fascinating exchange on the message board of Hydrogenaudio.com, but here's the skinny. A customer of Passionato, a site dedicated to bringing audiophiles high quality recordings of classical music, notices that he was getting an odd thrumming noise on his FLAC file of Tchaikovsky's 5th Symphony that he got from Passionato (the file was advertised as lossless), a noise that wasn't present on the file he got directly from UMG. There's some back and forth between helpful board members about some technical issues that could have been the problem, but eventually, after multiple users go and test files similarly, they arrive at the conclusion that it must be watermarking. It culminates with someone from Passionato showing up and indicating that the file received was faithfully translated from whatever UMG supplied the site, meaning that any sound artifacts would have been the result of UMG's file, not a technical issue resulting from compression or file extension switches. Basically, UMG watermarked files being distributed through their partners. Files which are being advertised as lossless recordings for audiophiles.

A couple of things were clear in that board exchange:

First, nice try, UMG, but this isn't going to accomplish what you want it to. You're talking about a dedicated group of audiophiles here. There were all manner of suggestions for nixing the watermarking, from pirating an un-watermarked file (keeping in mind that it was already purchased in what was supposed to be lossless format), to doing a cut and paste remixing of the file from a clean one to cut out the artifact. Either way, it can be done away with.

Second, these are your damned customers! Seriously, as ridiculous as my opening analogy was, this is equally stupid. Your watermarking is only pissing off paying customers. Now they have to, in addition to... you know... giving you money, go around and figure out a way to fix what you screwed up for them. And that's going to make them buy from you in the future? And that did what exactly to keep the files from being pirated elsewhere?

I can't believe I have to say this to an established company, but: UMG, customers are people, too. Stop screwing with people and sell the product as advertised, or you'll find you'll have no more customers left to piss off.

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If Your Comment Section Is Awesome, It's Your Community's Fault

from the chaos-theory-at-work dept

Meek Barbarian informed us that veteran blogger Anil Dash wrote a piece recently discussing websites having open and anonymous commenting on their sites. I'll preface this with a quick anecdote. I discovered Techdirt some three years back when my boss informed me that, as a technology consultant, it would be useful to follow a couple of technology related blogs to keep up on what is occurring in the industry. I came across Techdirt, found an article I was interested in, and dove in. I was immediately drawn in by the comments section and the community. There were anonymous cowards bravely trolling the threads. There were other anonymous cowards offering up valuable statistics, links, and points of view. There were folks using funny names and cartoon pictures as their avatars, while others used what were apparently their real names and real pictures. Even the author of the article was diving into the comments and responding to some.

I saw information. I saw jokes. I saw supporting views and dissenting opinions. I saw trolls, academics, lawyers, techs, etc. etc. etc. It was true chaos theory at work, with the article setting up a comments section sensitive to the conditions discussed but open to the topological mixing of the wide open world. More than anything else, I think I was most amazed at how this tumultuous soup of free communication provided surprising and useful information, laughter, and references. I was hooked. This was the place for me to offer my view on stories I cared about, read responses from others, get opposing views, and most of all, make more phallic-related jokes than an Adam Carolla on meth.

So that was the background I brought when I read Anil's piece, which he conservatively and open-mindedly titled, "If Your Website's Full Of Assholes, It's Your Fault." Let's dive in:

"The examples are already part of pop culture mythology: We can post a harmless video of a child's birthday party and be treated to profoundly racist non-sequiturs in the comments. We can read about a minor local traffic accident on a newspaper's website and see vicious personal attacks on the parties involved. A popular blog can write about harmless topics like real estate, restaurants or sports and see dozens of vitriolic, hate-filled spewings within just a few hours."

I'll thank Anil here, because we immediately get to my baseline issue with this viewpoint. I read all of the above, hear all about how rudeboy knuckle-draggers will show up on the most innocuous article and scream racist nonsense, spout uninformed conspiracy theories, and call you the kind of names that would make Sam Kinison do that screaming thing he did, and all I can think to myself is so what? Words don't hurt unless you let them. I, as someone with an Irish background, can be called a dumb potato-farming mick, and I can ignore it. More importantly, the idiot that calls me that loses all credibility in the formed community. Even if he's anonymous, all such behavior does is provide a reason for the community to couch their faith in comments provided by ACs in skepticism. The community provides a reason to identify yourself, in the hopes that you'll be taken more seriously. In other words, from the chaos emerges order. And not an unnatural kind of order provided by head-in-the-sand policing and moderation. Assholes exist, both online and in real life. So what?

In any case, Anil prescribes us his wisdom-medication on how everyone should run their website:

"You should have real humans dedicated to monitoring and responding to your community."

I happen to agree. As does Techdirt, actually. You know who is dedicated to monitoring and responding to our community? Our community! As long as we aren't working from a supposition of "words can hurt," we see our community policing itself just fine. Trolls get called trolls, true. But I've seen dissenters stick up for Techdirt supporters. I've seen Techdirt contributors and those with like-minds stick up for dissenters and their opinions (I know this one in particular, because I make a point to do this, though I'm not the only one). ACs have a tougher road in the realm of credibility because of the way the community polices itself. Those with accounts and names have a tougher road because we have a comment history we have to own up to. It's as simplistic as it is beautiful. And it's all emergent behavior, meaning it's natural and not forced or faked. That's what open comments do: they create fertile ground for emerged behavior. And it's amazing how productive that is.

"You should have community policies about what is and isn't acceptable behavior."

Bullshit. And here's why: one man's asshole is another man's prophet. Who am I, or Mike, or anyone else to say what is acceptable and what isn't? Are there things that most can agree suck? Sure. Racism is just plain stupid and ignorant. What does a policy against racism do? Really? "Don't be racist, Techdirt community." Did I just end racism? Did I somehow change the minds of anyone who would read a racist comment and think of it as anything other than pure stupidity to be rebuked or ignored? No, I didn't. So why bother? Remember, words don't have any power unless we give it to them.

"Your site should have accountable identities."

No, it shouldn't. It should certainly offer that option. But I've seen value from both sides of the debate on this site coming from Anonymous Cowards. And I know that some of the folks that contribute anonymously here do so because they're afraid of real repercussions in having their names associated with their words. Does that make their words any less valuable? No, it doesn't. And would making some racist, trolling, or ignorant jackwad sign in with a name make his/her words any different? No, it wouldn't. So why bother with this at all? What's the upside?

"You should have the technology to easily identify and stop bad behaviors."

Again, unless it's just flatout illegal or automated annoyance, what's the point of this? I think we can all agree that a relatively intelligent spam filtering system makes sense, but that isn't the kind of "bad behavior" Anil appears to be discussing. He's talking about controversial speech. Who is getting hurt when someone exhibits "bad behavior"? And how do you define that? If the site is community driven, shouldn't they be the ones to decide what is "bad behavior" and respond accordingly?

"You should make a budget that supports having a good community, or you should find another line of work."

It isn't a matter of cost, it's a matter of reason. What's the point? You're killing off all the good you get from the anonymous and semi-anonymous chaos, and what are you getting in return? People don't have to hear certain words that make them itchy?

I apologize for repeating myself, but I can't say this enough: words do not hurt. They never do. When someone says something designed to inflict pain, you get to choose how to react and respond. If an anonymous coward calls me an idiot and my response is, "Nice argument there, captain logic", then what has that person accomplished? I'm not hurt, they've put themselves on display being a jerk, and the community at large will react accordingly.

Don't lock down your comments. Don't kill off anonymity. Don't pretend the trolls and jerks don't exist. Do the opposite. Open it all up and trust in your community to be smart enough to react accordingly. I know that's largely what occurs here at Techdirt and elsewhere.

And I can't tell you how thankful I am for it and for everyone here, from those that generally agree with us to those that don't. You're welcome here. Forever and always.

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Kim Kardashian Sues Old Navy For Hiring Actress Who Looks Like Her

from the big-ass-infringement dept

Kim Kardashian doesn't get written about much on Techdirt because she's not relevant in the world of...well, in the world, really.  But you may remember her being discussed back when she was upset that some cookie-diet company was featuring news stories suggesting she liked their product on their website.  Now we have a story in the LA Times, sent in by John MacMullen, detailing her new lawsuit against Old Navy for infringing on her publicity rights...or something.

We've been hearing more about these publicity rights being tossed around lately, but that doesn't mean they're new.  Fortunately for us, at least these types of cases tend to be entertaining in their ridiculousness.  Perhaps you've heard the case involving Vanna White and the company that got sued for having a blonde-haired robot that dared to turn letters?  Or the one where Johnny Carson sued Here's Johnny Portable Toilets Inc. because he used the tagline "the world's most famous commodian" on The Tonight Show?  Well, I don't know if Kim can top that, but let's take a look.

Apparently Old Navy hired an actress that looks like Kim and featured her in a television ad campaign.  If you're waiting for a follow up including some kind of long list of Kardashian-related things the actress did in the video or some kind of hinting that Old Navy themselves did to suggest something related to Kim, there isn't any.  She just looks like Kim Kardashian, which apparently is enough to sue over.  You can see the commercial for yourself below (make sure you have a barf bag handy):

So I have a couple of questions. 

First: How does just hiring someone that looks like someone else require a lawsuit?  At no point when I braved my way through watching the commercial did I think to myself, "Oh, that's totally something Kim Kardashian would have done".  I mean, if the commercial showed the actress, oh I don't know, waving the Armenian flag, that would've been one thing.  And perhaps if the commercial showed her videotaping herself being nailed by a mildly talented R&B singer, I would have inferred the reference.  But the casting call for the commercial didn't even call for a Kim look-a-like!  The actress, Melissa Molinaro, told E! Online that her casting call had been "for a true dance pop superstar."

Second: At what point does this work the other way around?  Molinaro said in relation to this story:

"Thank God I booked this commercial because I've gotten so much airtime."

What if, as a result of this thing, she becomes famous?  Like, really famous?  Say, more famous than Kim Kardashian?  Does that mean Kim can't ever do an ad campaign again, because Molinaro will immediately file suit?

 

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Facebook Bans User's Ad Campaigns For Displaying Google+ Ad

from the all-i-see-is-sand dept

There's a longstanding myth about ostriches that, when frightened, they will bury their head in the sand and pretend the danger isn't there. This, of course, is ridiculous. Such horribly unadaptive behavior would have been bred out of the species by the evolutionary process (or by whichever God you believe in tweaking his code a bit) as hungry African predators would have delighted in seeing stationary feathery meals. See, that isn't how you behave when you're threatened. You don't just pretend like the threat doesn't exist.

Unless you're Facebook, of course.

As reported by CNET, apparently a user of both Facebook and Google+ wanted to cross-pollinate his social networking farms and, since Facebook is still the more fruitful territory at the moment, decided to take out an ad with Facebook to get folks to add him on Google+. These two are, of course competitors, currently vying for users attention and loyalty. Apparently Facebook believes the best way to do that is to not only block this gentleman's Google+ ad, but all of his ads on Facebook. The notice he received?

Your account has been disabled. All of your adverts have been stopped and should not be run again on the site under any circumstances. Generally, we disable an account if too many of its adverts violate our Terms of Use or Advertising guidelines. Unfortunately we cannot provide you with the specific violations that have been deemed abusive. Please review our Terms of Use and Advertising guidelines if you have any further questions.

In other words, we're banning your ads because we're banning your ads. The CNET article tries to dig into Facebooks advertising TOS, but basically comes up with nothing other than that they reserve the right to ban for any reason including promoting competing products.

So Facebook, embroiled in a war to win the hearts and minds of internet users, is pretending that the war doesn't exist. There is no Google+, at least not in Facebook-Land, where everything is milk, honey, and Farmville requests. We know why ostriches didn't evolve this kind of behavior.

So what's going to happen to Facebook if they keep their heads firmly entrenched in the sand?

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Definition Of Irony: Deus Ex Leak Spawns Conspiracy Theories

from the the-truth-is-out-there dept

If you don't know the story of the Deus Ex franchise, it's a good one. The original game wove a cyberpunk conspiracy thriller action game that was as critically acclaimed as it was wildly successful. That wild success spawned a wildly lame sequel that disappointed fans of the franchise. But those fans were pleased to learn that another sequel would be coming out this summer, Deus Ex: Human Revolution. There was some speculation as to whether Eidos Montreal could finally put out a worthy sequel to the original, but anticipation mounted.

You know what happened next, because it happens all the time. An early build of the game leaked onto torrent sites. The only thing stranger than the company's reaction to all this is the story of how it happened. First, let's get the legal nonsense out of the way.

According to The Escapist, the publisher sued fifteen "John Does" for accessing the build and leaking it to the public Square Enix was displeased, lamenting (and I swear to you I'm not making this up) the estimated loss of $5,000 whole dollars! So they're bringing suit against unnamed defendents, paying whatever associated legal costs are required for such an endeavor. I'm struggling with the obvious question: why? For $5,000? What's a UK lawyer cost these days?

Interestingly, there was some question about how this whole thing happened and whether or not Square Enix had something to do with the leak. The official story is that a group of bad guys, real revolutionary types, somehow faked Italian journalist credentials to get the early build from Steam. Then, after much smokey back room discussion, uploaded the leak to torrent sites. There was some initial speculation that Square Enix may have leaked this themselves, due to what appears to be consensus that this leak helped the title in marketing and pre-sales, since fears of an unworthy sequel were laid to rest. But most are taking the lawsuit brought before the UK court over the lost $5,000 as evidence that they didn't (because such a suit makes so much more sense?).

As a side note, minus the mucking up of the legal system for all this garbage, how cool would it have been if Square did manufacture this leak and get creative with the story of how it fictionally happened? What if they got the benefit of this leak (laying fears of a crappy game to rest) while simultaneously building even more hype around the game through fictional conspiratorial intrigue? They could have mocked up interviews with internet cafe owners claiming that MiBs came in and used their property to pull off this "heist". They could have taken their cues from the movie The Fourth Kind and created fictional accounts all across the web that I can promise you Deus Ex fans would have absolutely eaten up.

Instead, we have a story about a couple of folks downloading it via Steam and a lawsuit from a video game mega-publisher claiming damages of an amount less than it would cost one of their execs to go on a European vacation.

So you tell me which is crazier, the tale of Illuminati dominance and conspiratorial intrigue woven into the Deus Ex mythos, or a company bringing legal action to court over five thousand whole dollars?

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