Report: In Bollywood, Movie Piracy Is Largely Carried Out By Rival Publishing Houses

from the inside-job dept

To hear it from the film industry writ large, a certain picture is painted in one's head when film piracy is discussed. That image is of a person, typically young, perhaps living in Mom and Dad's basement and covered in Cheetos dust, illicitly downloading film after film for their personal enjoyment, cackling evilly all the while. And, hey, personal downloading that amounts to infringement is certainly a thing.

But it's not the only thing. In India, where Bollywood has often put out the same old story about the evils of piracy, and where the government recently ramped up criminal penalties for recording or transmitting films and audio, one newspaper has comments from within the industry that suggest much of the film piracy in question is specifically enabled by rival publishing houses.

According to a Tamil cinema DVD seller, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, piracy is mostly an inside job. The source explains that movie companies are leaking each other’s films, as a competitive move.

“People from rival production companies or those from the creative department secretly release the movie online or circulate it as DVDs to hit the collection at the box office,” the source said.

This sounds like a Wild West story, but the allegations don’t stop there. Another source said that the local censor board and distribution houses are also on the piracy bandwagon.

“Another industry source said insiders in the censor board and distribution houses sell these copies for up to `5 lakh. The copies are uploaded on private portals that have dedicated passkeys,” the Times of India reports.

None of this specifically excuses downloading a film illicitly, of course. However, it most certainly does call into question the industry claims that piracy is by and large harming the wider film industry. If that were true, then these industry insiders uploading cam-footage and other films of recent releases would be committing self-inflicted wounds. Doing so would make little sense, were the larger claims of the industry true.

Amazingly, this goes even further down the chain, supposedly. These insiders work with theater owners to get these recordings, rather than movie-going citizens.

When it comes to recording video and audio at movie theaters, it is believed that some movie industry insiders work in tandem with theater owners to leak high profile films. As a result, some films appear online just hours after their official premiere.

So we have multiple layers of India's film industry facilitating the infringement of that industry's films to harm the competition, all while the studio heads and government say that it really hurts the entire film industry. If all of this is true -- and it's definitely an "if" --, it would appear that Bollywood is very busy harming itself for reasons that can't be explained.

Other than to say that the industry's hand-wringing is overblown, of course.

Filed Under: bollywood, competition, india, movies, piracy, studios

Techdirt Podcast Episode 204: The Failure Of High Tech Policing

from the bad-tech-or-bad-cops dept

Sometimes people ask us why we write so much about the police on Techdirt. Though our coverage has grown somewhat beyond the boundaries of incidents directly involving technology, the reality is that the problems with law enforcement persistently intersect with the same technological and legal issues we've always discussed here. But this week the focus is squarely on cops and technology: Mike is joined by Matt Stroud, author of the new book Thin Blue Lie, as well as our own Tim Cushing, to talk about the failure of high-tech policing.

Follow the Techdirt Podcast on Soundcloud, subscribe via iTunes or Google Play, or grab the RSS feed. You can also keep up with all the latest episodes right here on Techdirt.

Filed Under: law enforcement, podcast, police, technology
Companies: taser

Officer's Body Cam Fails To Capture Footage Of Woman Shooting Herself In The Head While Her Hands Were Cuffed Behind Her

from the another-law-enforcement-miracle dept

There's more than one contortionist performance going on here. (h/t Greg Doucette)

A 19-year-old woman whose hands were cuffed behind her back when she committed suicide during a traffic stop in Chesapeake died of a gunshot wound through the mouth, according to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.

This is the official line -- one repeated several times by local journalists. The traffic stop leading to this highly unlikely conclusion occurred July 25, 2018. Here's what the Chesapeake Police Department said then:

Officers pulled over the car at 4:24 p.m. Wednesday near the intersection of Berkley Avenue and Wilson Road, police said in a news release Wednesday afternoon.

The exact timeline is not clear, [spokesman Leo] Kosinski said. As officers used a stun gun on the driver, Wilson, who was a passenger, shot herself, he said. Police attempted life-saving measures and called for medical assistance, but she died at the scene, the news release said.

The original report also noted the PD was looking at body cam footage from the scene to determine what happened.

Less than a week later, the initial impression was the official narrative.

Police had handcuffed Wilson when Medlin began resisting arrest and trying to flee, said Officer Leo Kosinski, police spokesman. Wilson was left standing next to the passenger side of the car while police rushed to help the officer who was trying to arrest Medlin, he said.

It was then that Wilson somehow got a gun and shot herself in the head, Kosinski said. It was not immediately clear how Wilson got the gun, but it was not a police weapon, he said.

“We clearly ruled that it was a suicide,” Kosinski said.

"We." I guess that means the PD since the medical examiner didn't hand down his declaration until March 14, 2019. The police department, however, made its own unscientific findings public twice in one week.

As for the body camera footage, there was nothing usable there.

One officer was wearing a body camera, but it was “knocked offline” while Medlin was fighting the officer, Kosinski said. If the camera hadn’t gone offline, it still wouldn’t have recorded the shooting, Kosinski said, because the officer was struggling with Medlin.

The police department has 356 cameras and deploys "40-60 per shift." The department has 525 officers so it seems the odds were in favor of there being multiple cameras on the scene. But the only footage recorded didn't capture the incident. Multiple police cruisers were on the scene, but the Chesapeake PD decided to eliminate dash cams when it acquired body cameras, removing one more impartial witness.

With the official word from the state, the Chesapeake PD closes the book on an extremely dubious "suicide." Whether this is just a bunch of lies or some very terrible police work, the end result is the same: someone in handcuffs ended up dead. The odds that this person decided to escalate a traffic stop to a successful suicide attempt are incredibly low. Something fucked up happened that afternoon and the police department hasn't even attempted to explain how something like this might have happened. Since the medical examiner has spoken, the Chesapeake PD has decided it's no longer obligated to provide an explanation.

The CPD launched an internal investigation into Wilson's suicide in July. Kosinski confirmed that the department has since concluded that investigation, but declined to comment on its outcome.

Worse, there's been no pushback from the local media covering this arrest and its ensuing, and completely unbelievable, suicide. This isn't journalism. It's stenography.

Filed Under: arrest, body cam, chesapeake, handcuffs, holden medlin, journalism, police, sarah wilson, suicide

Rep. Devin Nunes Sues Internet Cow For Saying Mean Things About Him Online

from the the-nunes-effect dept

Last year, Devin Nunes co-sponsored the Discouraging Frivolous Lawsuits Act. Twelve days ago, he voted for a House Amendment "to express a sense of Congress that free speech should be protected."

And yesterday, he sued an internet cow for making fun of him.

By now you may have heard, as first reported by Fox News, that Rep. Devin Nunes -- who spent two years making a total mockery of the House Intelligence Committee -- has decided to sue Twitter and some satire accounts, and a real political commentator for a variety of "offenses" from defamation to shadow banning. The complaint, filed in a local court in Virginia, is not yet available anywhere but Fox News' posting of it (so you can click the link above, but we can't embed it yet).

Let's just get the first part out of the way: the complaint is utter nonsense. It is a complete joke. It makes a total mockery of the judicial system and its an embarrassment that Nunes thought this was a good idea. We'll get into the details in a moment, but rest assured, we see a lot of really dumb lawsuits, and this one is up there on the list of truly special ones.

At the very least, it highlights exactly what kind of content gets under his skin. It's mostly a bunch of dumb tweets mocking Nunes that not that many people saw... and now absolutely everyone will see. Apparently, Rep. Nunes has never heard of the Streisand Effect, but he's learning quite a bit about it now.

Let's dig in. The caption for the lawsuit is... truly special:

If you can't see that, it lists Nunes as the plaintiff followed by four defendants: Twitter, Liz Mair, and then two obviously satirical Twitter accounts: @DevinNunesMom and @DevinCow. Yeah.

The lawsuit does not get any better from there. He's seeking $250 million and almost every argument in the lawsuit is beyond laughable. The very first footnote, on the first page, completely misrepresents Section 230 of the CDA to a laughable degree:

The term “information content provider” means any person or entity that is responsible, in whole or in part, for the creation or development of information provided through the Internet or any other interactive computer service. See Title 47 U.S.C. § 230(f)(3). The word responsible ordinarily has a normative connotation. See The Oxford English Dictionary 742 (2nd ed. 1998) (stating one definition of responsible as “Morally accountable for one’s actions.”). As one authority puts it: “[W]hen we say, ‘Every man is responsible for his own actions,’ we do not think definitely of any authority, law, or tribunal before which he must answer, but rather of the general law of right, the moral constitution of the universe....” James C. Fernald, Funk & Wagnalls Standard Handbook of Synonyms, Antonyms, and Prepositions 366 (1947). Synonyms for responsibility in this context are blame, fault, guilt, and culpability. See Oxford American Writer’s Thesaurus 747 (2nd ed. 2008). Accordingly, to be “responsible” for the development of offensive content, such as defamation, one must be more than a neutral conduit for that content. One is not “responsible” for the development of offensive content if one’s conduct was neutral with respect to the offensiveness of the content (as would be the case with the typical Internet bulletin board). We would not ordinarily say that one who builds a highway is “responsible” for the use of that highway by a fleeing bank robber, even though the culprit’s escape was facilitated by the availability of the highway. Twitter is “responsible” for the development of offensive content on its platform because it in some way specifically encourages development of what is offensive about the content. FTC v. Accusearch, Inc. , 570 F.3d 1187, 1198-1199 (10th Cir. 2009) (citing Fair Housing of Council of San Fernando Valley v. Roommates.com, LLC , 521 F.3d 1157, 1168 (9th Cir. 2008) (“a website helps to develop unlawful content …if it contributes materially to the alleged illegality of the conduct.”)

This is totally misrepresenting Section 230 and a variety of lawsuits around it. It focuses in, bizarrely, on the definition section 230(f)(3) ignoring what the law actually says in 230(c)(1) and (2) about the lack of liability for the platforms. Instead, it focuses narrowly on "responsible" as if that's all the law says. It's wrong and no court agrees with this analysis. Indeed, it misrepresents two key CDA 230 cases to try to make this point. The Accusearch case involved a databroker that sold user data, and tried to claim Section 230 immunity after the FTC sued. But as the court found, since Accusearch itself was selling the data, and that was the action the FTC went after the company for, it was liable for those actions, not the user-generated content. And, in the Roommates case, the 9th Circuit was pretty clear that while Roommates could be found liable for violating the Fair Housing Act, it would only be on the specific content that Roommates.com itself created (namely, a pulldown menu for users to disclose their sex, family status and sexual orientation -- which the court ruled could lead to discrimination). Again, in both cases, the law is specifically applied not to any of the content by users, but specifically to direct content or actions done by the platforms themselves.

Nunes is trying to use those cases to argue that Twitter loses its CDA 230 immunity because it's moderating content, because those moderation choices are actions, a la what happened in Accusearch and Roommates:

Twitter is an information content provider. Twitter creates and develops content in whole or in part, through a combination of means: (a) by explicit censorship of viewpoints with which it disagrees, (b) by shadow-banning conservatives, such as Plaintiff, (c) by knowingly hosting and monetizing content that is clearly abusive, hateful and defamatory – providing both a voice and financial incentive to the defamers – thereby facilitating defamation on its platform, (d) by completely ignoring lawful complaints about offensive content and by allowing that content to remain accessible to the public, and (e) by intentionally abandoning and refusing to enforce its so-called Terms of Service and Twitter Rules – essentially refusing to self-regulate – thereby selectively amplifying the message of defamers such as Mair, Devin Nunes’ Mom and Devin Nunes’ cow, and materially contributing to the libelousness of the hundreds of posts at issue in this action.

This interpretation literally ignores basically every Section 230 decision (other than the two it misreads entirely) and completely ignores the entire point of the law, which is to immunize platforms in response to their moderation choices. Remember, CDA 230 was passed in response to the ruling in Stratton Oakmont v. Prodigy that found Prodigy liable for moderation choices it had made. The entire point of the law is that making moderation choices for user content leaves you immune from liability.

Furthermore, there is no actual evidence of conservative bias on Twitter, and another lawsuit claiming the same thing got tossed out just last week. As for the claim of "shadowbanning," Nunes is again completely misrepresenting reality. Last year, we wrote about this (in the context of Devin Nunes grandstanding on this), but the claims of "shadowbanning conservatives" was based on a misleading report in Vice. There was a temporary glitch in Twitter's "autocomplete" feature, that meant that some users' names did not show up in the autocomplete pulldown, and some people noticed that some of those impacted were well known conservatives. That's it. They were not shadowbanned. It was a temporary glitch for a very tiny feature (autocomplete) that had no bearing on whether or not users could find those impacted. And it impacted over 100,000 users, not just conservatives.

The story we wrote last year mocked Nunes for insisting he was considering taking legal action over this, and we would have thought that maybe lawyers would have talked him off of this, but apparently not. In short, the entire legal basis for including Twitter in this lawsuit is nonsense.

And from there, the complaint gets even worse. Because most of the lawsuit is little snowflake Devin Nunes whining about how a couple of satirical Twitter accounts, as well as one Republican political commentator, mocked him mercilessly, and Nunes just can't take it. If you want to know how to get under Devin Nunes' insanely thin skin, he's just given the entire world a guide.

We seriously don't have enough time to go through all of the claims in the lawsuit, but suffice it to say almost all of them are (a) opinions, (b) opinions based on clearly disclosed facts, or (c) rhetorical hyperbole. And note: none of those are defamatory. Also, the complaints reveal what Nunes is most afraid of: people looking into his "family farm" that is so much a part of his origin story, as well as an investment he made in a Napa winery. While the lawsuit doesn't go after these two articles, he does seem to consider references to the following two articles magically defamatory. And therefore, you should probably join in with thousands of others people today in reading the following two articles from last year:

1. First up, an article in the Fresno Bee about Nunes investment in a Napa winery, with the following headline: "A yacht, cocaine, prostitutes: Winery partly owned by Nunes sued after fundraiser event." That can't look good. The details do show that it was merely a winery that Nunes had invested in, and there's no allegations that Nunes had anything to do with the yacht, cocaine or prostitutes, but Nunes has carefully tried to avoid commenting on it, leading to even more coverage. And Liz Mair keeps reminding him of all of this, leading Nunes to call the following tweet the "most egregious and defamatory" of her tweets towards Nunes:

This is not defamatory. The facts stated are not in dispute. The Fresno Bee wrote about the story. Nunes did invest in the winery. The winery was involved in a lawsuit where it was alleged that prostitution was used on a boat and it was alleged in the lawsuit that some of the prostitutes appeared to be underage.

2. Then we have this truly amazing story in Esquire by Ryan Lizza about how Devin Nunes' family sold their California farm, opened a new dairy farm in Rep. Steve King's district in Iowa, where nearly all of the farms in the area employ undocumented workers. The story is completely worth reading, and I would have never known about it, absent this lawsuit (there's a term for that...). Basically Lizza goes to Sibley, Iowa to try to track down why Nunes is so secretive about his family moving there, and discovers a friendly set of people in the town who readily admit that they think Steve King and Donald Trump's views on immigration are bad, and worry that ICE raiding the farms in the town would put all the farms out of business. But, then Lizza is basically chased out of town by Nunes family -- and, amazingly, at the same time a years-old article that Lizza had used to find out about the Nunes' farm in Iowa magically disappears from the internet.

The rest of the lawsuit, concerning the two satirical accounts @DevinNunesMom and @DevinCow are truly something to behold. This is "someone is mad online" in the form of a $250 million lawsuit. I mean, look, when your lawsuit has this paragraph, I'm afraid you've already lost:

Defendant, Devin Nunes’ Mom, is a person who, with Twitter’s consent, hijacked Nunes’ name, falsely impersonated Nunes’ mother, and created and maintained an account on Twitter (@DevinNunesMom) for the sole purpose of attacking, defaming, disparaging and demeaning Nunes. Between February 2018 and March 2019, Twitter allowed @DevinNunesMom to post hundreds of egregiously false, defamatory, insulting, abusive, hateful, scandalous and vile statements about Nunes that without question violated Twitter’s Terms of Service and Rules, including a seemingly endless series of tweets that falsely accused Nunes of obstruction of justice, perjury, misuse of classified information, and other federal crimes

This is followed by a bunch of tweets from @DevinNunesMom, almost all of which are clearly rhetorical hyperbole, accusing Nunes of not caring about his district and of engaging in obstruction of justice (a claim based on some of Nunes' activity as Chair of the House Intelligence Committee, in which he seemed much more focused on protecting the President, rather than actually doing his job). And then there's all of this, none of which is really defamatory. It's just part of being a public person (indeed, an elected official) online:

In her endless barrage of tweets, Devin Nunes’ Mom maliciously attacked every aspect of Nunes’ character, honesty, integrity, ethics and fitness to perform his duties as a United States Congressman. Devin Nunes’ Mom stated that Nunes had turned out worse than Jacob Wohl; falsely accused Nunes of being a racist, having “white supremist friends” and distributing “disturbing inflammatory racial propaganda”; falsely accused Nunes of putting up a “Fake News MAGA” sign outside a Texas Holocaust museum; falsely stated that Nunes would probably join the “Proud Boys”, “if it weren’t for that unfortunate ‘no masturbating’ rule”; disparagingly called him a “presidential fluffer and swamp rat”; falsely stated that Nunes had brought “shame” to his family; repeatedly accused Nunes of the crime of treason, compared him to Benedict Arnold, and called him a “traitor”, “treasonous shitbag”, a “treasonous Putin shill”, working for the “Kremlin”; falsely stated that Nunes was “100% bought and sold. He has no interest remaining for his constituents”; falsely accused Nunes of being part of the President’s “taint” team; falsely stated that Nunes was unfit to run the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence; falsely accused Nunes of “secretly hat[ing] the people he’s supposed to serve”; falsely accused Nunes of being a “lying piece of shit”; falsely stated that Nunes would lose custody of his children and was going to “the pen”; falsely accused Nunes of receiving pay for undermining “American Democracy”; falsely stated that Nunes was “the most despicably craven GOP public official” and that “Devin might be a unscrupulous, craven, back-stabbing, charlatan and traitor, but he’s no Ted Cruz”; falsely stated that Nunes was “voted ‘Most Likely to Commit Treason’ in high school”; falsely stated that “The people of California’s Central Valley are upright folk who work hard, look you square in the eye and give you a firm handshake. And then there is @DevinNunes”; falsely stated that Nunes is “not ALL about deceiving people. He’s also about betraying his country and colluding with Russians”; stated “I don’t know about Baby Hitler, but would sure-as-shit abort baby Devin”; falsely stated that “Alpha Omega wines taste like treason”; falsely stated that “@DevinNunes wanted me to tell everyone that he’ll be releasing a pic soon to get ahead of that AMI thing, and that it only looks that way because of all the blow”; falsely suggested that Nunes might be willing to give the President a “blowjob”; falsely stated “@Devin Nunes look @SpeakerRyan is removing @Rep_Hunter from his committee seat because he’s corrupt and incompetent. I wonder why he let you keep yours?”; falsely accused Nunes of “covering up Trump’s conspiracy against the United States”; falsely accused Nunes of lying to Congress; falsely accused Nunes of suborning “perjury”; falsely stated that “@Devin Nunes is DEFINITELY a feckless cunt”; falsely stated that “[i]f you vote for @Devin Nunes the terrorists win”; falsely stated “please don’t call @DevinNunes compromised. He’s not at all. He’s a complete and total fucking traitor”; falsely stated that Nunes was a “spy” in Congress “passing along information to the subject of a federal investigation”; falsely stated that Nunes knows “a thing or two about throwing away evidence, don’t you Scabbers”; falsely claimed that Nunes was “WANTED” and hiding and “hopes he doesn’t get indicted”; falsely claimed that Nunes would “probably see an indictment before 2020”; and even falsely stated that Nunes has “herp-face”.

Seriously, there is way too much to comment on in there, but pretty sure none of that is defamatory. It's mocking and disparaging, and lots of it contains rhetorical hyperbole, but defamatory? How do you prove whether or not someone has a "her face"? Also, apparently Nunes would like it to be known that he thinks it breaks the law to refer to him as a "presidential fluffer and swamp rat." Also, the "taint team" reference apparently makes it clear that Nunes and his lawyer don't understand puns. Which, you know, not a good look.

And then the part that is getting the most attention of all:

Many of the tweets were vile and repulsive, including tweets that depicted Nunes engaged in sexual acts with the President:

Right.

On to Devin's Cow.

Defendant, “Devin Nunes’ cow”, a person who, with Twitter’s consent, created and maintains an account on Twitter (@DevinCow) for the sole purpose of attacking and defaming Nunes. [https://twitter.com/devincow?lang=en]. @DevinCow has 1,204 followers. Like Devin Nunes’ Mom, Devin Nunes’ cow engaged a vicious defamation campaign against Nunes that lasted over a year. Devin Nunes’ cow has made, published and republished hundreds of false and defamatory statements of and concerning Nunes, including the following: Nunes is a “treasonous cowpoke”; “prosecutors” were “investigating Devin Nunes”; “Nunes needs to be investigated. He knew the truth, yet conspired with a criminal, @realDonaldTrump, to conceal the facts from the investigation. Nunes is a criminal too”; “718 more days until your term is up, Devin. Unless Mueller indicts you first”; “724 more days, Devin, unless the indictment comes first”; “It’s on, Ranking Member Nunes. #nunesindictment”; “Devin Nunes is a traitor”; “Devin Nunes used Leadership PAC funds on luxury vacay in his family’s native Portugal”; Nunes hung out with the Proud Boys at a private invite-only fundraiser; “Devin’s boots are full of manure. He’s udder-ly worthless and its pasture time to move him to prison”; “Devin is whey over his head in crime … I bet @DevinNunes’ cocaine yacht and underage prostitutes won Trump over #AlphaOmega!”

Incredibly, the lawsuit also whines about two other satirical accounts mocking Nunes, but doesn't sue them:

Among these additional Twitter accounts are “Fire Devin Nunes” (@fireDevinNunes) and “Devin Nunes’ Grapes” (@DevinGrapes). The additional Twitter accounts followed the same pattern as @DevinNunesMom and @DevinCow, and published the same false and defamatory statements Nunes was involved in underage prostitution, etc. Fire Devin Nunes published memes of Nunes in prison attire. In a July 30, 2018 post, Devin Nunes’ cow retweeted the following:

Complaining that one of the satirical accounts mocking you retweeted another satirical account mocking you does not suggest you're a big believer in free speech, Nunes.

Anyway, two other points on all of this. As first pointed out by Gabriel Malor, the supposed free speech supporting Devin Nunes first argues that "The ability to use Twitter is a vital part of modern citizenship" and that "Twitter is essential for an individual to . . . engage in any level of political organizing in modern America" just a few paragraphs before demanding that Twitter should permanently suspend Liz Mair's account. It actually goes beyond that. It doesn't just say these accounts should be permanently suspended, but that all of their likes should be removed.

In order to protect Nunes’s property interests and his reputation, Nunes requests the Court (a) to Order Twitter to reveal the names and contact information of the persons behind the accounts “Devin Nunes’ Mom”, “Devin Nunes’ cow”, “Fire Devin Nunes” and “Devin Nunes Grapes”, and (b) to permanently enjoin and order Twitter to suspend @LizMair, @DevinNunesMom and @DevinCow and to deactivate all hyperlinks to all tweets, retweets, replies and likes by @LizMair, @DevinNunesMom and @DevinCow that contain false and defamatory statements about Nunes.

Yeah, you see, while Twitter can make moderation decisions on its own, no court can order such a result, as it would clearly violate the First Amendment. You know, that thing that Nunes is supposedly sworn to protect.

The other key point. As the lawsuit notes, the @DevinCow account had 1,204 followers when the lawsuit was filed. This morning, just 1 day after the lawsuit was filed, it currently has 106,000. And it will probably have more by the time you look at it. The @DevinNunesMom account has been suspended by Twitter, however. Still, congrats to Devin Nunes for telling lots of people about these accounts, and just what kinds of satire you are unable to live with, and which you insist requires people pay you $250 million for.

Despite the fact that both Twitter and Nunes are based in California, Nunes chose to file the lawsuit in a local court in Virginia. Twitter and the other defendants may be able to remove it to federal court, but Virginia's anti-SLAPP law is not nearly as strong as California's. In particular, Virginia's anti-SLAPP law does not do the one thing most important in anti-SLAPP statutes: allow the defendants in SLAPP suits to stop lawsuits before they get ridiculously expensive:

Unlike California and other states, the Virginia statute does not create a special procedure for filing anti-SLAPP motions requiring judge’s to conduct an early assessment of the plaintiff’s probability of success; there is no presumptive limitation of discovery, and no provision for an interlocutory appeal when anti-SLAPP motions are denied.

That means that, as ridiculous as this lawsuit obviously is, it may still end up costing the defendants a lot of money to get it tossed out. And, thus, we have a case in which an elected official is using the burdens of the legal system to tie up some of his critics in a wasteful, time-consuming, expensive mess that could take years to resolve. That's an incredibly shameful thing for a politician who literally supported a bill against "frivolous lawsuits." Devin Nunes is deserving of mockery for a variety of reasons, and this lawsuit is one of them.

Filed Under: cda 230, conservative bias, devin nunes, devin nunes cow, devin nunes mom, free speech, frivolous lawsuits, intermediary liability, liz mair, section 230, shadow banning, thin skin
Companies: twitter

Daily Deal: TREBLAB Z2 Wireless Noise-Cancelling Headphones

from the good-deals-on-cool-stuff dept

TREBLAB Z2 Wireless Noise-Cancelling Headphones feature top-grade, high-performance neodymium-backed 40mm speakers. The Z2s use T-Quiet active noise canceling technology to drown out unwanted background noise and have a signal range of 38 feet. With a 35 hour battery life, you can listen for multiple days between charges. They're on sale for $79.

Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackCommerce. A portion of all sales from Techdirt Deals helps support Techdirt. The products featured do not reflect endorsements by our editorial team.

Filed Under: daily deal

ICE Officers Forging Signatures, Deploying Pre-Signed Warrants To Detain Immigrants

from the at-this-point,-only-ICE-thinks-ICE-shouldn't-be-abolished dept

[N]o warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Or whatever.

Here's ICE's much vaguer take on the Fourth Amendment, according to documents obtained by Brent Oxley, a fired ICE officer.

Internal emails and other ICE documents he obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request, since reviewed by CNN, show that other officers across the five-state region where Oxley worked had improperly signed warrants on behalf of their supervisors -- especially on evenings or weekends. Some supervisors even gave their officers pre-signed blank warrants — in effect, illegally handing them the authority to begin the deportation process.

Oxley forged signatures of supervisors. Other ICE officers didn't go that far. Many simply phoned up the supervisor who was supposed to be reviewing the warrants -- you know, to ensure they were compliant with the Constitution -- and then signed them on their behalf. In all the cases reviewed by CNN, no one was following the rules.

The President claims the "crisis" at the southern border warrants a national emergency declaration. The job ICE does is, apparently, too important to be done correctly. The agency is cooking the books to make it appear as though the nation is overrun by dangerous immigrants. Simultaneously, ICE threw manpower and funding at creating a fake college so it could sweep up immigrants and visitors attempting to comply with the law.

This warrant process that can barely be called a "process" is resulting in the illegal detention of immigrants who haven't violated the law. The Fourth Amendment is supposed to limit government wrongdoing, but ICE officers appear to believe civil rights are inconveniences to be routed around. It wants to make the fun part of the job -- rounding up people and detaining them -- more efficient.

The process is detain first, ask questions later, if ever.

One ICE deportation officer in the Northwestern United States, who asked not to be named because he wasn't authorized to speak for the agency, said his supervisors were not reviewing and signing individual warrants, called I-200s, as prescribed.

"I've had two supervisors since the memo came out. Both do it different ways, neither in the way that's outlined in the policy," the officer said. "My first supervisor would just sign the I-200s; he'd leave them blank and I would fill in the name later. My current supervisor tells us to sign his name for him." Most supervisors in that office do the same, he added.

It's only after ICE has someone in custody that anyone conducts a review of the paperwork. Apparently the agency feels comfortable abusing the rights of non-citizens, even though these same protections are extended to them by the government. It's a collective shrug from ICE towards the Constitution the agency's officers are sworn to uphold.

Brent Oxley is no hero. He's not even a whistleblower. This misconduct has come to light because the union representing ICE officers is trying to get a man who forged supervisors' signatures on warrants his job back. All Oxley was trying to show was that ICE's Fourth Amendment violations are common practice. He wasn't trying to expose the agency's wrongdoing. He was simply trying to justify his own.

Filed Under: 4th amendment, blank warrants, dhs, general warrants, ice, immigrants, immigration, pre-signed warrants, rule of law

US Huawei Blackballing Efforts Stall Due To Lack Of 'Actual Facts'

from the ill-communication dept

During the Trump era, the US government has dramatically ramped up claims that Chinese hardware vendor Huawei is a nefarious spy for the Chinese government, blackballing it from the U.S. telecom market. From pressuring U.S. carriers to drop plans to sell Huawei phones to the FCC's decision to ban companies from using Huawei gear if they want to receive federal subsidies, this effort hasn't been subtle.

While Huawei should never be confused with a saint (what telecom company would be?) there's several problems with the effort. The biggest being that despite a decade of hand-wringing and one eighteen month investigation by the US government, there's still no public evidence Huawei uses its network gear to spy on Americans. That's not sitting well with countries we've asked to join along in the fun.

The UK, for example, recently noted that while some Huawei products can pose risks by nature of simply being low quality, they've yet to see any threat posed by Huawei that necessitates a global ban. That position has since been repeated by other allies who have been pointing out how despite years of bluster on this subject, they've yet to see the US government release the slightest bit of evidence supporting the allegation:

"European and Asian officials have complained privately that recent American intelligence briefings for allies did not share any sort of classified information that clearly demonstrated how the Chinese government used Huawei to steal information, according to people familiar with the discussions. European officials have told counterparts that if the United States has evidence the Chinese government has used its companies to do so, they should disclose it.

One senior European telecommunications executive said that no American officials had presented “actual facts” about China’s abuse of Huawei networks.

Of course this is all hidden behind claims that this information is classified. But how hard is it to redact and provide at least some information proving your point? These allegations have also been bubbling up in fits and starts for over a decade now, and not a single security expert or any government official has been able to provide any evidence whatsoever to prove their point. While it's certainly not impossible that Huawei helps the Chinese government spy, evidence is important. Can you imagine the hysteria on countless fronts if a US company like AT&T was banned from other countries without any supporting data?

Unmentioned in coverage of this hand-wringing about Huawei has been the fact that much of the hysteria on this front has been drummed up by US networking companies, who simply don't want to compete with cheaper Chinese gear. With countless global gear makers rushing toward the trough as wireless carriers build next-generation 5G wireless networks, these efforts have only intensified. US gearmakers and their favorite lawmakers have a good schtick going: profess China must be banned from all global telecom markets based on claims of spying, then hide behind national security when anybody asks for proof.

Also ignored is that all of the hysteria about Huawei obfuscates a larger security threat (much of it originating in China): the lack of security in shitty internet of things gear. At this point you don't really need Huawei to spy on Americans, since we're connecting millions of poorly secured devices to our home and business networks annually voluntarily. Gear that often lacks any sensible security countermeasures whatsoever.

Similarly ignored is the fact that the US has engaged in most of the behavior we accuse Huawei of, including having broken into Huawei to spy on company executives. You'll often see stories like this one highlighting China's nefarious attempts to tap into undersea cables. But the press ignores that the US has been engaged in its own undersea cable and satellite communications wiretapping efforts for decades. Many of these efforts began decades ago (like Echelon), and were ridiculed as tin-foil-hat fantasy until the Snowden documents were revealed.

Again, none of this is to defend China's actual abuses, or to suggest that Huawei hasn't engaged in bad behavior. But imposing a global ban on a telecom giant for spying based on no actual evidence remains a shaky proposition, and it's something countless supporters of the blackballing effort would be screaming about incessantly were the shoe on the other foot.

Filed Under: blackballing, china, competition, fear mongering, spying, telco equipment, us
Companies: huawei

As Recording Industry Announces Massive Growth, Why Do We Need Article 13 Again?

from the questions-to-ponder dept

A key claim by those who support Article 13 is that it's necessary to get "fair compensation" for artists on the internet. Whenever more specifics are needed, supporters almost always point to musicians, and talk about "the value gap" and how internet companies are taking all the money and recorded music has been destroyed by the internet and all of that. And, of course, if you've followed the rhetoric in the last 20 years since the introduction of Napster, you'd believe that the recorded music business is in a never-ending death spiral. Of course, as we've pointed out, the "recorded music business" is just one segment of the larger music business, and nearly all other aspects of it (especially live music) have continued to grow pretty consistently each year.

But, a funny thing has happened in the past few years that undermines the doom and gloom message: the recorded music business has been growing. Rapidly. And it's entirely due to the internet and all of the various services that the RIAA had been slamming for years. Indeed, it did seem notable when the RIAA put out its latest revenue numbers for 2018, showing the incredibly rabid growth over the past four years of the recorded music business. So I started taking an even closer look at what's happened over the past decade. Thankfully, the RIAA actually makes all of the data available, and so I put together this handy chart:

So, yes, things sort of bumbled along for the first few years of the past decade, but the last few years are ones of massive and incredibly rapid growth due to online streaming. The US recorded music business is right at about $10 billion (if you're interested, the live music business in the US is about the same, counting both ticket sales and sponsorship).

Now, you might say, well that's just the US, and Article 13 is about Europe. Thankfully, IFPI puts out similar numbers (counted slightly differently, unfortunately, so it's not an exact comparison). IFPI has not yet released its 2018 numbers, but looking at the report from last year you see that the global numbers show a pretty similar change, again, with things bottoming out a few years back, and then showing new growth, almost entirely from the rapid increase in streaming services. I expect when IFPI releases its 2018 numbers, we'll see just as dramatic a bump up as we see with the RIAA's US numbers:

So, it certainly looks like the internet (as some of us predicted...) has absolutely been the savior to the music business -- it just took the legacy companies hellishly long to embrace it.

But, again, I'm left wondering why is it that we need Article 13 again? To hear Axel Voss and other supporters talk about it, the recording industry is in a death spiral without it. Yet, the actual stats show things are going quite well and growing like gangbusters.

Filed Under: article 13, copyright, culture, eu, eu copyright directive, growth, recording industry, streaming
Companies: ifpi, riaa

Monster Energy Loses Trademark Opposition As UK IPO Mentions That The Letter 'M' Isn't Distinctive

from the m-kay dept

Monster Energy: is there no trademark opposition they can't lose? The drink company, which might be more well known at this point for its trademark bullying than its beverages, has been handed loss after loss after loss after loss in trademark oppositions to everything from industrial paint manufacturers to the NBA and on to other beverage companies. Why the company spends so much time opposing trademarks is literally anyone's guess, but the losses all amount to the complete lack of potential confusion in the disputed trademark applications, as well as Monster Energy believing it can control words and images that it most certainly cannot.

The latest of these, in yet another opposition Monster Energy lost, has the UK's IPO explaining to Monster Energy that it cannot prevent other companies from using the letter "M" prominently in their logos.

In a decision on Wednesday, March 6, the UK IP Office ruled that Monster Energy could not stop Robert Marchington from registering a trademark, finding there was no likelihood of confusion.

In its opposition, Monster relied on its earlier registered marks (EU numbers 2439068; 3227041; 12924973 and 14226765) which depict animal or monster scratch marks that create the letter ‘M’. The mark was for a pair of legs which took the shape of the letter ‘M’ and seemed to be taking a step forward.

In its decision the IPO said Marchington’s applied-for mark and Monster’s trademarks were visually similar only to a low degree. It said that the presence of the letter ‘M’ in both parties’ marks “does not convey any particular meaning”.

The fact that Monster Energy needed to be told as much serves as a wonderful barometer for how ridiculous Monster Energy trademark oppositions generally are. Again, when it comes to trademark law, the entire point is to prevent public confusion as to the source of goods. Monster Energy's logo is indeed distinctive, as it makes the letter "M" out of claw marks. This does not somehow grant exclusivity to the letter "M" to Monster Energy, however. Legs and clawmarks, in other words, are different.

As are the markets of soft drinks and alcohol, according to the IPO.

“Whilst soft drinks and alcoholic drinks are similar in nature in that they are both liquids for consumption, consumers will consider them to be different categories of goods,” the IPO said.

Additionally, it said that “syrups and preparations”, covered by Machington’s mark, cannot be considered a finish drink product, and therefore will not be in competition with Monster’s beverages.

I continue to be baffled as to how paying all of these billable hours, or the salaries and benefits for the in-house legal team, just to handle the load of trademark oppositions that routinely end up as losses, makes any financial sense.

Filed Under: m, robert marchington, trademark, uk
Companies: monster energy

Federal Court Blocks Washington State's Unconstitutional Cyberstalking Law

from the fixing-stupid dept

When legislators craft unconstitutional laws, it's a safe bet the first people to abuse them will be members of the government. We've seen this happen with outdated criminal defamation laws and the new wave of "Blue Lives Matter" legislation. Attempts to curb online evils like cyberbullying and revenge porn tend to disregard the First Amendment. If they're not challenged, they go on to be tools deployed by government officials to silence critics.

That's what happened in the state of Washington. A vociferous government critic found himself targeted by a displeased politician who used the state's cyberstalking law to obtain a very restrictive protective order to silence his online nemesis. As the federal court notes in its decision [PDF], the speech the critic engaged in is the very reason for the First Amendment's existence. (via Courthouse News)

Rynearson is an online author and activist who regularly writes online posts and comments to the public related to civil liberties, including about police abuse and the expansion of executive power in the wake of September 11. Rynearson’s writings are often critical—and sometimes harshly so—of local public figures and government officials. These writings are well within the traditions of independent American political discourse, and are intended both to raise the awareness of other citizens regarding the civil-liberties issues that Rynearson writes about, and to hold civic and political leaders accountable to the community through pointed criticism. This sort of expression is at the very heart of political speech which the First Amendment most strongly protects.

Rynearson's online posts were highly critical of politicians he felt didn't condemn the indefinite imprisonment of foreigners, something authorized by the NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act). One politician he felt was too enthralled with indefinite detention was Clarence Moriwaki.

[I]n February 2017, Rynearson wrote a series of public posts on Facebook criticizing Clarence Moriwaki, the founder of the Bainbridge Island Japanese-American Exclusion Memorial (“Memorial”), for failing to criticize Governor Inslee and President Obama for voting for/signing the NDAA. The thrust of Rynearson’s posts was that Moriwaki should be removed from his role as board member and de facto spokesperson for the Memorial because Moriwaki used the lessons of the internment, and his role with the Memorial, to criticize Republican politicians (chiefly, President Trump) in many media articles or appearances related to the Memorial, but failed to criticize Democratic politicians.

As the court notes, Rynearson used "invective" and "ridicule" to make his points. Moriwaki reported this ridicule (which, as the court points out, did not contain obscenity or threats) to local law enforcement. This did not result in an arrest, but Rynearson received a letter from the prosecutor notifying him she would "revisit" the possibility of prosecuting him if he didn't shut the hell up.

This also resulted in Moriwaki obtaining a protective order against Rynearson -- one that decided the First Amendment simply didn't exist.

For a period of time, from March 2017 to January 2018, Rynearson was also subject to a civil protection order imposed by the Bainbridge Island Municipal Court based on posts critical of Moriwaki. Moriwaki v. Rynearson, No. 17-2-01463-1, 2018 WL 733811, at *12 (Wash. Sup. Ct. Jan. 10, 2018). The cyberstalking statute was one of the statutes invoked by the Municipal Court in imposing the protection order. Moriwaki, 2018 WL 733811, at *5. The order imposed sharp limits on Rynearson’s speech, such as barring the use of Moriwaki’s name in the titles or domain names of webpages.

This order was vacated by the same court after Rynearson's Constitutional challenge. Now, Rynearson is challenging the law itself, pointing out (very reasonably) that the law's unconstitutional restrictions could see him on the receiving end of future protective orders or criminal charges.

The federal court says Washington's law is unconstitutionally overbroad, threatening a whole lot of protected speech.

Section 9.61.260(1)(b)’s breadth—by the plain meaning of its words—includes protected speech that is not exempted from protection by any of the recognized areas just described. Section 9.61.260(1)(b) criminalizes a large range of non-obscene, non-threatening speech, based only on (1) purportedly bad intent and (2) repetition or anonymity.

The state couldn't come up with much to defend its bad law -- just a couple of unpublished opinions that don't say quite what the state imagines they say. The federal court offers its rebuttal, which only cites the highest court in the land.

[T]he Supreme Court has consistently classified emotionally distressing or outrageous speech as protected, especially where that speech touches on matters of political, religious or public concern. This is because “in public debate our own citizens must tolerate insulting, and even outrageous, speech in order to provide ‘adequate breathing space’ to the freedoms protected by the First Amendment.”

With that, the federal court declares the law unconstitutional, handing Rynearson an injunction preventing the state of Washington from using the law against him.

Based on the record before the Court it is highly likely that in the final analysis the Court will declare the provision is unconstitutional and therefore unenforceable. Anonymous speech uttered or typed with the intent to embarrass a person as here, is protected speech. The plain meaning of the italicized words render 9.61.260(1)(b) unconstitutional.

For the reasons given here, this Court concludes that RCW 9.61.260(1)(b) is facially unconstitutional.

The law is effectively dead. The only thing surprising about this is that the law has survived so long without being struck down. For 15 years, it's been illegal to "embarrass" people online. It took a politician abusing the law to silence a critic to finally get it struck down.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, cyberstalking, free speech, washington