For dozens of years, criminal prosecutions have relied on junk science. Forensic science, properly applied, can actually provide matches that identify suspects. But it's not properly applied. In the hands of the DOJ, forensic evidence examination is a closed loop. Outside scientists have been granted access to the DOJ's DNA work, but everything else -- from fingerprints to hair samples -- has been locked away in the government's database.

Still, the DOJ insists its science is solid, something it bases on confirmation bias. The matches determined in its forensic labs are "scientifically certain" because the DOJ's expert witnesses have said so in court. Not only are outside scientists locked out of examining evidence and forensic processes, but defense lawyers are as well.

The DOJ has finally decided to dial back its "scientific certainty" a bit by issuing guidance instructing its experts to not make this claim in court. This follows years of bogus matches being presented as sure things by forensic experts in court, leading to an unknown number of false convictions. This step back is a step forward for an agency that is mostly unwilling to admit to any mistakes or wrongdoing.

This small change is likely due to a damning report [PDF] issued by the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) that asserts that the "scientifically certain" evidence prosecutors rely on is severely flawed.

The questions that DNA analysis had raised about the scientific validity of traditional forensic disciplines and testimony based on them led, naturally, to increased efforts to test empirically the reliability of the methods that those disciplines employed. Relevant studies that followed included:

• a 2002 FBI re-examination of microscopic hair comparisons the agency’s scientists had performed in criminal cases, in which DNA testing revealed that 11 percent of hair samples found to match microscopically actually came from different individuals;

• a 2004 National Research Council report, commissioned by the FBI, on bullet-lead evidence, which found that there was insufficient research and data to support drawing a definitive connection between two bullets based on compositional similarity of the lead they contain;

• a 2005 report of an international committee established by the FBI to review the use of latent fingerprint evidence in the case of a terrorist bombing in Spain, in which the committee found that “confirmation bias”—the inclination to confirm a suspicion based on other grounds—contributed to a misidentification and improper detention; and

• studies reported in 2009 and 2010 on bitemark evidence, which found that current procedures for comparing bitemarks are unable to reliably exclude or include a suspect as a potential biter.

Beyond these kinds of shortfalls with respect to “reliable methods” in forensic feature-comparison disciplines, reviews have found that expert witnesses have often overstated the probative value of their evidence, going far beyond what the relevant science can justify. Examiners have sometimes testified, for example, that their conclusions are “100 percent certain;” or have “zero,” “essentially zero,” or “negligible,” error rate. As many reviews—including the highly regarded 2009 National Research Council study—have noted, however, such statements are not scientifically defensible: all laboratory tests and feature-comparison analyses have non-zero error rates.

Despite these conclusions, law enforcement forensic scientists, along with the FBI and DOJ are promising to continue using junk science to convict people. The Attorney General's response to the report is basically, "Thanks for all the hard work, but we're not changing a thing."

In a statement reported by the Wall Street Journal, Attorney General Loretta Lynch said that the agency remains “confident that, when used properly, forensic science evidence helps juries identify the guilty and clear the innocent, and the department believes that the current legal standards regarding the admissibility of forensic evidence are based on sound science and sound legal reasoning.” As such, she said, while “we appreciate their contribution to the field of scientific inquiry, the department will not be adopting the recommendations related to the admissibility of forensic science evidence.”

The FBI's response [PDF] is no more enthusiastic. Its one-page blast claims the entire PCAST report is flawed. It also asserts there are "multiple studies" that back up its forensics work. However, the FBI turned down an invitation to participate in the PCAST study and one of the PCAST members points out that the studies the FBI claims contradict the PCAST findings actually do no such thing.

Asked about the FBI’s complaints, Eric Lander, co-chair of the presidential council and president and founding member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, a biomedical research group, told The Intercept that the FBI is mistaken. “Neither report says that proficiency testing be used to estimate the ‘error rate’ of forensic methods,” he wrote in an email, and both reports agree that examiners should be subject to proficiency tests. And Lander said he is “not aware” of what studies the FBI believes were ignored by the report. “We specifically received FBI’s input on studies to consider and we did so.”

[...]

Lander wrote that the presidential council did in fact review the six studies the FBI complains that it missed. “However, these studies are clearly not empirical studies ‘providing support for foundational validity,'” he wrote. “Indeed, only one of the papers even reports an empirical study of current forensic method at all!”

But the most defensive response [PDF] to the PCAST study has come from the American Congress of Forensic Science Laboratories. Unsurprisingly, the group isn't pleased that its conclusions and methodology have been questioned. Before addressing the shortcomings it feels the study contains, the ACFSL first tries to claim the whole thing is just a politically-motivated attack on the good people in law enforcement.

Interestingly, the PCAST report comes during a presidential administration that has demonstrated a deep sensitivity to the needs and demands of trial attorneys, criminal defendants, and advocates of sweeping criminal justice reform. Future administrations may take a different approach, tending to champion positions traditionally held by police and prosecutors. We have no opinion in these matters. But these swings in ideological perspective cause commensurate changes in how forensic science and its role in our criminal justice system are perceived. In the current political climate, forensic science is looked upon with far more suspicion and, in some cases, disdain than would be the case in other political circumstances. And because forensic science is both expected and apt to remain independent of these political currents, it is vulnerable to being misportrayed and even bullied in a way that compromises its occupational stability.

It's somewhat interesting that a field where evidence has been used to deprive innocent people of their freedom -- and whose courtroom assertions are treated as nearly-unassailable despite a long history of uncorrected errors -- can somehow be bullied by a report both the DOJ and FBI have already indicated they're going to ignore.

It also attacks some of the contributors for their work with the Innocence Project (Eric Lander) and their previous assertions about the intrusiveness of DNA collections (Tania Simoncelli) -- all the while claiming it has no interest in "disparaging" the authors of the study. Even in this, the forensic scientists' sample size is way too small. Attacking Lander for his Innocence Project work conveniently overlooks his considerable contributions to the scientific community.

[Innocence Project's Chris] Fabricant said the congress’ assertions were absurd. “To suggest that the leading scientists in the country would cash in their credibility to do – what? What possible agenda could they be pursuing except scientific validity?” he asked. “I’d like to know what agenda they propose is being driven, and how somebody like Eric Lander – who mapped the human genome — is going to preside over a process that is intended to undermine the criminal justice.”

These responses indicate business -- as lousy and inaccurate as it is -- will continue as usual until the DOJ is forced to confront these issues, either by litigation or legislation. Not exactly heartening news for citizens who don't like being locked up for crimes they didn't commit.

Have you hit up our super-early holiday gear sale yet? Because you've only got until Monday, and then it's all going away for the rest of the year! Of course, there has been some debate about what exactly our designs mean. Since Teespring lets us superimpose our gear onto a parade of photogenic models, I figure we'll let force them to do the talking, with speech bubbles! So if you're confused, prepare to be enlightened:

Nerd Harder is available on T-shirts, hoodies, mugs and stickers »

Takedown is available on T-shirts and hoodies »

Home Cooking Is Killing Restaurants is available on T-shirts, mugs and stickers »

Math Is Not A Crime is available on T-shirts, hoodies, mugs and stickers »

Vote2016() is available on T-shirts, hoodies and stickers »

The sale ends on Monday! Hurry up and order your gear today! »

While politics isn't generally a topic we dive into around here, technology policy and issues certainly are. And, since presidential election cycles infect every conceivable topic like a wine stain spreading across your favorite couch, we've talked about the two mainstream candidates quite a bit recently. And I get the complaints from all sides against both candidates, but it's become somewhat breathtaking to watch Donald Trump build a campaign in large part on nonsensical and easily debunked conspiracy theories, such as how the planned internet governance transition will cede control of the web to China and Russia, or that our current sitting President might be a secret communist Muslim clay-person, but maybe not.

And, of course, there is the constant claim of victim-hood at the hands of that damned liberal establishment, which now apparently includes Google. Some background for you is in order. Over the summer, a really dumb video went viral after claiming to show that Google was manipulating autocomplete searches to keep any bad press out of the results for searches about Hillary Clinton. Compared with Bing, for instance, Google's autocomplete failed to finish off a search for "Hillary Clinton cr" with "Hillary Clinton crimes", instead completing as "Hillary Clinton Crimea." While your drunk uncle lost his goddamned mind over a conspiracy surely proven, Google chimed in to note that it specifically designed its autocomplete feature to keep disparaging results from anyone's name, not just Hill-Dog's. This was easily shown by putting in "Donald Trump cr", which likewise autocompleted as "Donald Trump Crimea."

And that really should have been the end of that. But, because Donald Trump's campaign isn't one to pass on a good chem-trails story, its candidate tried to deflect a general panning of his debate performance by repeating this already disproved accusation.

While discussing polling numbers at a rally in Wisconsin on Wednesday, Donald Trump offhandedly accused Google of manipulating search results in favor of rival Hillary Clinton, because hey, why not?

“The Google poll has us leading Hillary by two points nationwide,” said Trump. “And that’s despite the fact that Google’s search engine was suppressing the bad news about Hillary Clinton, how about that? How about that?”

I'm always reminded of a supposed quote from Michael Jordan back in the 90's when a reporter asked him why he didn't endorse political candidates, despite such an endorsement being so potentially powerful. His response was supposedly something along the lines of: "Because Republicans buy gym shoes, too." Imagine for a moment if Google, in the business of making money essentially by getting as many people as possible to use its search engine, decided to alienate roughly half of the American population by trying to dick around with search results for a political candidate. It would literally have to hate money to take such an action. Anyone think that Google hates money?

And, separately, I know that politicians generally lie, and have for quite some time, but it used to be that a candidate for president wouldn't simply be able to say something easily refuted and get away with it. I don't mean refuted in a murky way that can be debated. This conspiracy theory that Trump is continuing to raise has been debunked. It isn't a real thing. Yet he continues to repeat it. Some in the media may even call him out on the lie, but those that do will be accused of liberal bias and the whole thing will feed the playback loop.

This can't be a good method for picking our national leaders.

Journalists and citizens attending this week's Presidential debate at Hofstra Univserity found themselves facing an unexpected surprise when they were informed that WiFi at the event would cost them $200. Worse, perhaps, was that attendees said that the college was going around using this $2,000 WiFi signal detector to identify those using their smartphone as a mobile hotspot, and encouraging them to instead shell out the big bucks for a few hours of Hofstra WiFi:The behavior caught the eye of FCC Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, who proclaimed on Twitter that there's "something not right" with what Hofstra was doing, and that it potentially violated FCC rules: Several times over the last few years, the FCC has fined hotel and conference center companies for willfully blocking users' hotspots from working, forcing them to shell out exorbinant rates for conference center WiFi. The crackdown began with Marriott in 2014, which initially tried to fight the fine before realizing it was outnumbered by regulators, annoyed consumers, and even companies like Microsoft. The FCC subsequently fined Hilton for similar behavior, as well as for actively obstructing the FCC's investigation into what Hilton was doing. Several smaller conference center WiFi companies have been fined by the FCC as well.

The difference in this instance is that Hofstra wasn't actively jamming personal hotspots in the same way conference centers have. And when pressed for comment, Hofstra representatives laid the blame for the $200 price tag at the feet of the Commission on Presidential Debates. They also claim they worked to shoot down people's personal hotspots out of fear that they might cause interference with the existing network:

"The Commission on Presidential Debates sets the criteria for services and requires that a completely separate network from the University’s network be built to support the media and journalists. This is necessary due to the volume of Wi-Fi activity and the need to avoid interference. The Rate Card fee of $200 for Wi-Fi access is to help defray the costs and the charge for the service does not cover the cost of the buildout.

For Wi-Fi to perform optimally the system must be tuned with each access point and antenna. When other Wi-Fi access points are placed within the environment the result is poorer service for all. To avoid unauthorized access points that could interfere, anyone who has a device that emits RF frequency must register the device. Whenever a RF-emitting device was located, the technician notified the individual to visit the RF desk located in the Hall. The CPD RF engineer would determine if the device could broadcast without interference."

While interference is certainly real, it's not particularly likely that a user's personal tethered hotspot would grind the Hofstra network to a halt if properly designed. Regardless, Rosenworcel says she has urged the FCC Enforcement Bureau to take a closer look at whether debate staffers went too far. Regardless of the outcome, Rosenworcel is probably happy to have her name in print for something other than her failure to support the FCC's quest for cable box competition, a position fueled largely by inaccurate claims by the US Copyright Office.

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A few weeks ago, CNN had a story on how a jury failed to convict Peter Wexler, an unemployed IT worker, who had been arrested and spent nearly a year in jail (without bail) for writing some mean stuff on his blog. He was literally arrested for five blog posts (which came with 20 criminal charges, as they had multiple charges on each post) and was facing up to 15 years in jail for those posts. Ken "Popehat" White blogged briefly about it, noting that it was a huge First Amendment win in a case where the defense team included one of his partners, Caleb Mason (along with lawyer Marri Derby, who was appointed by the court to represent Wexler through the Criminal Justice Act). It's also a case that involved... me. I was an expert witness in the case, brought in to explain to the jury the nature of internet discourse, including how trolls quite frequently say outrageous things to get attention, and how it's (for better or worse) not that uncommon to see people post angry rants on the internet, or to talk about how certain people should die, or to photoshop famous people into weird scenarios.

I've avoided writing about the case up until now, mostly because of my involvement. And since Wexler was found not guilty on some charges, while the other charges resulted in a hung jury (the jury foreperson said that they voted 8 to 4 to acquit on those other charges), there's a chance there may be a second trial. So recognize that it's a case that I may still have future involvement in -- and where I'm choosing my words carefully (the prosecutors in the case tried to take some of my posts on Techdirt out of context to attack my credibility, and it's possible that could happen again -- though I will admit to some confusion over being asked, twice, on the stand if I consider myself "an advocate for internet freedom," as if that were a bad thing).

What I will say is that I was asked to review Wexler's blog -- and while I certainly don't agree with much of what he wrote there, I didn't see anything that seemed out of character in many internet forums. Much of it seemed straight out of 4chan's /pol/ honestly. Wexler cheered on ISIS beheadings and cop shootings. He blasted US politicians and US policy both at home and abroad. He's not a fan of the mainstream media. He's not a fan of any "establishment" politician, and would mock them all, while cheering on both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. In short, he had opinions and he expressed them, sometimes angrily and in ways that were clearly designed to get people to react. At one point, responding to the news that the online troll Joshua Goldberg had been arrested (a story we wrote about, in part because of my own interactions with Goldberg), Wexler declared himself to be an "ISIS SUPPORTING ONLINE TROLL" (echoing the language being used to describe Goldberg): Even an FBI special agent, Voviette Morgan, noted to others in the Bureau that "everything we have reviewed to date [on Wexler's blog] falls into the category of First Amendment protected speech." But the FBI still sent some agents to visit him. And that led him to post some fairly angry rants against the FBI and the FBI's top agent in Southern California, David Bowdich (who has since moved up to a new position in DC), including the one in the image above.

After a few more posts calling out Bowdich, and photoshopping him into a variety of images -- including taking a picture of a Bowdich press conference and overlaying a forearm and hand holding a gun pointing at Bowdich, overlaying a target on Bowdich's face in a press shot, and photoshopping Bowdich into a still from an ISIS beheading video (something that Wexler did with other people, including Brian Williams and Ben Carson, which the FBI also seemed to think was protected speech), Wexler was arrested, with the charges focusing on his posts about Bowdich, and arguing that statements like what he says above about how he wants "to shove my Fat Man Gadget up David Bowdich's limpwristed West Los Angeles ass, and I intend to!" should be seen as a legitimate threat on Bowdich's life (anyone know what a Fat Man Gadget is?).

Wexler then spent basically the last year in jail for a bunch of angry blog posts, without even the option of being bailed out allowed. There were a number of other issues at play in the trial, some of which I may get to in a future post, but I was there to just explain the nature of online trolling, and how what Wexler said -- while certainly distasteful, and perhaps offensive -- was hardly out of the ordinary in certain online communities, and how many people in those communities recognized that kind of shitposting for what it was, and would laugh at those who "fell" for such extreme and offensive statements. I got to explain 4chan and trolling and even the creation of memes (yes, I explained rickrolling to a jury). I discussed numerous examples of similar blog posts, tweets, Facebook posts and forum posts. I highlighted numerous examples of people declaring publicly that some public figures (and some not so public figures) should be executed. I talked about (and showed examples of) politicians calling for the death of Hillary Clinton. I talked about photoshopping and photoshopping contests -- including ones that involved photoshopping targets or First Person Shooter-style overlays onto images of people. I showed many examples of famous people having targets overlayed on their images.

Basically, I showed the simple fact that in some corners of the internet, posting crazy offensive stuff is pretty commonplace, and it rarely means they're actually planning to go out and do anything. I don't know how useful my testimony was, though the fact that Wexler was not convicted and is now free from jail at least suggests it did not hurt the case. I recognize that what Wexler was saying on his blog is stuff that many people find offensive -- but if what he said was a crime, then a hell of a lot of people spouting off online are criminals too, and I'm pretty sure that's not how the First Amendment is supposed to work.

Once the case is really over, there are some other elements of the case that I'd feel more comfortable discussing, but for now, since a few people had asked about it, I did want to share this part of the story. A guy just spent nearly an entire year in jail because he blogged some (admittedly extreme) things in expressing his anger over the state of things in the world today. I may not agree with Peter Wexler's views on most of those things, but it seems like he should have the right to express himself on a blog without being thrown in jail for a year (or much longer).

Last year, Chicago proudly declared that the city would be expanding its 9% amusement tax (traditionally covering book stores, music stores, ball games and other brick and mortar entertainment) to online streaming services and cloud computing. While Chicago was hungrily pursuing the $12 million in additional revenue the expanded tax would provide, it ultimately faced a lawsuit questioning the legality of Chicago's move. The ongoing lawsuit by the Liberty Justice Center claims Chicago violated city rules by not holding a full vote on the changes, and is violating the Internet Freedom Tax Act.

Legal or not, Chicago's push to impose a Netflix tax has opened the floodgates.

Earlier this year, the Pennsylvania legislature expanded the state's 6% sales tax to cover digital downloads and subscription services like Netflix and Hulu -- but also music, e-books, apps, online games, and ringtones. And now Pasadena, California, has joined the fun, applying its own 9.4% tax on streaming video providers such as Netflix, HBO Go and Hulu. In fact, Pasadena is one of 46 total California cities that are rushing to embrace the tax to help shore up city budget shortfalls. But much like Chicago, there are a number of groups ready to sue over the move, claiming these cities don't have the authority:

"Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, called the tax “very suspect.” The association’s legal team is currently investigating the legality of the new interpretation of the tax.

"We will be taking a very close look at this,” Coupal said. “If we determine this is an extension of an existing tax, then under the Constitution, they need voter approval. They can put as much lipstick on this pig as they want, but the pig is still a tax increase."

Pasadena, however, says that city laws have always provided it with the authority to tax cloud-based services:

"Pasadena’s Finance Director Matthew Hawkesworth made his determination Thursday that the tax applies to video games and streaming services similar to cable “regardless of the content of such video programming, or the technology used to deliver such services,” according to a memo to City Manager Steve Mermell.

"It’s our interpretation because of our code, these types of video services have always been eligible to be taxable," Hawkesworth said. "The administrative ruling is instructing the various companies that offer video service that the tax includes their services as well, and it will be incumbent upon them to collect the tax and remit it to the city."

The efforts to tax all cloud services are creating an absolute legal minefield over determining exactly where a cloud-based transaction is taking place, when to apply said tax, and who intends to collect it. Who pays sales tax when an app developer in New York relies on a cloud computing provider in New Jersey, and sells to customers in Illinois? Nobody appears to know and the answer may differ state by state. But one thing's for sure: lawyers certainly won't be going to bed hungry as cities rush to cash in on the rise of the internet video revolution.

We've noted time and time again that the cable and broadcast industry could compete with cord cutting by lowering prices, it just chooses not to. Even with last quarter seeing the biggest quarterly defection by paying subscribers ever recorded, time and time again you'll see sector sycophants proclaim that cord cutting either doesn't exist, or has been violently over-hyped and isn't worth taking seriously. In fact, most sector executives still believe that the shift away from traditional cable will magically end once Millennials start procreating (protip: it won't).

As such, they've continued to raise cable TV rates at an absurd rate in the belief that they can keep milking the legacy cable TV cash cow in perpetuity. And while broadcasters certainly take the lion's share of the blame for raising the cost of programming, you'd be hard pressed to find a cable TV provider that isn't making things worse by also saddling consumers with misleading fees for nothing and soaring cable box, modem, and other hardware rental costs.

The end result is users paying 40% more for cable TV than they did just five years ago. In fact the average cable bill is now $103.10 per month, an increase of 4% in the past year. And while the cable sector is quick to proclaim that this just reflects the "increased value" of cable TV, the reality is that most cable ops are trimming back overall channels to try and offset the bloated, soaring cost of sports programming.

While it remains true that the vast majority still subscribe to cable TV and cord cutting is a slow trickling phenomenon, last quarter saw 800,000 pay TV customers leave for cheaper pastures. And things are actually a little worse than that when you remember that cable TV subscriber totals aren't scaling with a rebounded housing market. In other words, millions of people are not reconnecting cable after they move:

"About 82% of households that use a TV currently subscribe to a pay-TV service. This is down from where it was five years ago, and similar to the penetration level eleven years ago," said Bruce Leichtman, president and principal analyst for Leichtman Research Group, Inc. "The rates of those exiting the category, or intending to leave, are actually similar to recent years. The decline in penetration is also due to a lack of those who are coming into the category, and the industry not keeping pace with movers and related rental housing growth."

A different study this week predicted that TV providers could lose nearly $1 billion in revenue as another 800,000 customers cut the cord over the next 12 months:

The study, which is based on an online survey of 1,119 U.S. customers, estimates that pay-TV providers lose about $1,248 per cord-cutter annually. That’s because the average cord-cutter saves $104 a month—about 56% of their bill--from dropping cable TV...“The consumer is discovering they don’t need the mean, evil cable company to get the content that they want, and they can get it for a better deal,” said Steve Beck, managing partner at cg42. A $1 billion loss of revenue is small for the entire pay TV industry, but it is a warning sign.

And it's a warning sign that's going to continue to be ignored by the cable and broadcasting industry. It's abundantly clear that beyond lip service to "innovation," the cable sector doesn't plan to do the one thing that would stop cord cutting dead in its tracks: lower rates. Instead, knowing full well they hold a monopoly over the broadband last mile, they've decided to raise rates on broadband via usage caps and overage fees. Should customers continue to cut the cord, skyrocketing broadband usage surcharges will simply let them grab their expected pound of flesh in a different way.

The idea behind smart meters -- that detailed information about how you consume electricity will allow you to use power more efficiently and thus cut your bills and your home's carbon emissions -- is a good one in theory. And yet smart meters are still not used very widely, even in countries like the UK, where the government has a strategy to install millions of them by 2020. Actually, the likely savings by users are small, but smart meters also promise to allow the electricity industry to lower salary costs by carrying out meter readings remotely, which is one reason why it is so keen on the idea. Another is because smart meters make it is easy to cut off someone's supply if they don't pay their bills.

The slow uptake of smart meters seems in part to be due to public concerns about security. People are worried that their smart meter will spy on them, sending back information to electricity companies that might be intercepted and used for targeted burglary when they are away. Similarly, there are fears that if the smart meter control system were compromised, domestic electricity supplies might be at risk on a large scale.

One of UK Parliament's most important committees, the one monitoring science and technology, has just published a report into the UK smart meter roll-out, offering recommendations for ways to speed it up. Security is an issue it discusses, and one of the committee's recommendations is as follows:

We recommend that the Government consider further how to communicate the level of thought that has gone into designing a secure system for smart metering

More about that "level of thought" is found in an appendix to the report, which contains the UK government's evidence on this topic, including the following statement:

The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has worked with GCHQ since the very early design stage of the rollout, when the programme was initiated. The engagement with GCHQ has been one of partnership, issue discussion and resolution.

Helpfully, GCHQ has written a long and interesting description of its work on smart meters, and how it has tried to make UK smart meters resistant to attack. The post concludes:

We hope that this article has explained the thinking behind the design of the Smart Metering System. DECC, with support from GCHQ (part of which will be become the National Cyber Security Centre) has security right at the top of the list of things it cares about. Of course, no system is completely secure, and nothing is invulnerable. However, we’re confident that the Smart Metering System strikes the best balance between security and business needs, whilst meeting broader policy and national security objectives.

It's interesting that the post mentions national security objectives. As Techdirt has reported, one of the worst features of the UK's Investigatory Powers Bill that is currently wending it way through Parliament is that it creates a legal framework to allow GCHQ and the other intelligence agencies to hack into any kind of equipment in order to carry out surveillance. Of course, that's really rather easy when you were the one who designed its security systems.

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While the industries that dominate digital products generally aren't great at recognizing the true nature of the threat of piracy to their businesses, it seems to me the video game industry is better at this game than most. Whereas the movie and music industries are dominated by a great deal of fists pounding tables, some game developers have for some time recognized that piracy might actually be an opportunity in wolf's clothing, if they would only try connecting with these potential customers and ingratitate themselves to this wider potential audience. Still, because this idea that should be easily portable to other industries is so rarely entertained by those other industries, it's worth pointing out the ongoing examples of how gaming companies combat piracy by being awesome and human.

One such recent example is the story of how PM Studios, makers of Playstation Vita game SUPERBEAT: XONiC, reacted to a discussion on Reddit's r/VitaPiracy/ thread detailing how to pirate the game. The game developer decided to jump into the comments themselves with the following:

Hello everybody!

We feel honoured that you enjoy our game SUPERBEAT XONiC so much, we would like to invite you to take this opportunity to purchase it on sale at the Playstation Store.

You can enjoy the original game and show support to the team for just $15.99 (60% off), no Playstation Plus required!

https://store.playstation.com/#!/en-us/games/superbeat-xonic/cid=UP2011-PCSE00717_00-SUPERBEATXONIC02

Have a nice day!

This, quite simply, is how it's done. Rather than flying into a rage, which would be somewhat understandable on a thread designed specifically to show how to play the game without paying for it, PM Studios decided to treat those on the thread with respect, even thanking them for trying out the game. This acknowledgement that some percentage of piracy is comprised of those wanting to see if they'll like a game before buying it, combined with simply ignoring those that pirate without any intention of ever buying the game, and wrapped up at the end with a link to where the game can be bought while on sale, was met with enthusiastic responses in the comments.

And not only that. PM Studios stayed in the thread and had a relatively lively but respectful debate about how it views piracy, the harm of piracy, and describing its status as a small team just looking to make great games. In other words, rather than simply screaming about piracy, it connected with its potential customers in a respectful way. In the end, several comments came to the defense of PM Studios.

[–]DidntEvenReddit 5 points 3 days ago*

For a small team making Xonic it really is a way to keep the developers on the payroll post-release and keep in mind this is a third party exclusive game on the fucking vita to begin with so the margins are already against them. I have no idea why you would equate the practices of AAA publishers to PMStudios or why you wouldn't want to support them. You're not sticking it to the big corporate man by fucking over a small studio like this

One imagines that this kind of thing builds up goodwill amongst potential buyers of PM Studio games. Some of the comments on the thread state as much. It won't do anything with the pure-pirate folks out there, but, then again, nothing will. Worrying about those that were never going to buy the game would have been wasted time and energy. Instead, the developer chose to try to win over those that might indeed want to support its efforts.

Here's hoping PM Games gets the positive reinforcement needed to confirm that this kind of thing is the right way to deal with piracy. And that other studios are paying attention, as well.