Tech News
Shocking News: Communication Tools Don't Discriminate
In response to an article about how "Web 2.0 gives new tools to hate groups" I was tempted to write an entire post, mimicking the original, except changing every instance of "hate" to something positive. Yes, blogs and social networks can and are being used by hate groups. But they're also being used to combat ignorance and hate. They're just communication tools, and the fact that hate groups use them (as well as anti-ignorance groups) is hardly surprising. But rather than creating some moral panic about hate groups using these tools, why not encourage more people to use such tools to combat ignorance and hate? Instead, we get a bunch of supposed "experts" talking about how these uses need to be shut down. That does nothing productive. It just makes the hate group members feel even more angry and persecuted, which just fuels the hate. The solution is to educate -- and (oh, look at that!) web 2.0 provides some pretty good tools for spreading knowledge and fighting ignorance.
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MacBreak Weekly 115: MacBroke
Google Voice Search, Yahoo's Yang gone, touch physics, and more.
Audible pick of the week: Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, Abridged, By Doris Kearns Goodwin, Narrated by Richard Thomas. For a free audiobook, visit Audible.com/macbreak.
Bandwidth for MacBreak Weekly is provided by Cachefly.
Hosts: Leo Laporte, Scott Bourne, and Alex Lindsay
Running time: 57:06No Surprise Here: PFF Blasts Jammie Thomas Judge For His Mistrial Call
We've written plenty of times about the so-called "think tank" the Progress & Freedom Foundation. The group, which has called itself a "free market" think tank appears to be anything but free market when it comes to intellectual property issues. For years, it's been a huge supporter of increasingly strengthening gov't granted monopolies, often resorting to highly questionable arguments, such as suggesting that fair use harms innovation and that the DMCA shouldn't be changed because that would be gov't meddling in the free market -- ignoring, of course, that the DMCA itself is actually meddling in the free market. For years, the face of PFF's twisted claims on copyright was Patrick Ross, who then moved on to become a lobbyist for the entertainment industry (basically cementing what he was already doing at PFF with a more direct relationship). We thought it would be difficult to find someone who could twist arguments quite as much as Ross did, but PFF surprised us and went one step further.
It hired Tom Sydnor, who made quite a splash by writing one of the most ridiculous attack dog papers we've seen, taking a bunch of Larry Lessig comments completely out of context to accuse him of being a communist sympathizer. It was pure McCarthyism. The worst was when a variety of others pointed out Sydnor's out of context comments and put them back in context -- and Sydnor still stood by the paper, refusing to admit he took a single comment out of context. The truth was that it was difficult to find a single comment that was accurately portrayed.
Based on this, I tend to be immediately extra skeptical of anything that comes out of PFF (Adam Thierer's work is usually good, but that seems the exception). Sydnor's latest is an attack on the judge in the Jammie Thomas trial for declaring a mistrial in her case for wrongly instructing the jury that simply making a file available should be considered infringement. As the judge realized (correctly, in our opinion, and the opinion of plenty of legal experts) this was a "manifest error of law." For copyright infringement to occur a copy needs to be made. Simply making something available is not making an infringing copy. In typical Sydnor fashion, not only does he claim that the judge was wrong, he makes the judge out to be totally off the reservation in making such a ruling, claiming that the judge "misread or disobeyed precedents, federal treaties, scholarly reviews and the three branches of government."
Sydnor, of course, conveniently ignores pretty much everything on the other side, including precedents, scholarly reviews and the three branches of government (not international treaties for the most part, since the relevant ones have all been written by the legacy industry -- so indeed, they agree with Sydnor's assessment, but that's hardly compelling). The fact is that there have been folks who have weighed in on both sides, and there have been widespread legal rulings on both sides of the "making available" issue, as well as scholarly reviews. In fact, William Patry, a much more widely recognized and respected copyright expert than Sydnor, has written extensively on the issue, and seems to disagree with what Sydnor repeatedly claims is "inarguable."
More importantly, the recent trend has been quite clear: most of the courts recently taking up the issue have realized how little sense it is to accuse someone of copyright infringement when no copy has been shown to have been made. There are some exceptions, certainly, but most of the cases these days seem to be going against Sydnor's interpretation, which hardly makes it "inarguable" or as crazy as the paper makes out. Sydnor's decision to take some comments out of context, and then ignore the weight of the arguments on the other side, in order to paint the judge in this case as some sort of clueless rogue, is, tragically, fitting with PFF's reputation for throwing truth, reason and logic out the window in order to support the entertainment industry's position at all costs.
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It hired Tom Sydnor, who made quite a splash by writing one of the most ridiculous attack dog papers we've seen, taking a bunch of Larry Lessig comments completely out of context to accuse him of being a communist sympathizer. It was pure McCarthyism. The worst was when a variety of others pointed out Sydnor's out of context comments and put them back in context -- and Sydnor still stood by the paper, refusing to admit he took a single comment out of context. The truth was that it was difficult to find a single comment that was accurately portrayed.
Based on this, I tend to be immediately extra skeptical of anything that comes out of PFF (Adam Thierer's work is usually good, but that seems the exception). Sydnor's latest is an attack on the judge in the Jammie Thomas trial for declaring a mistrial in her case for wrongly instructing the jury that simply making a file available should be considered infringement. As the judge realized (correctly, in our opinion, and the opinion of plenty of legal experts) this was a "manifest error of law." For copyright infringement to occur a copy needs to be made. Simply making something available is not making an infringing copy. In typical Sydnor fashion, not only does he claim that the judge was wrong, he makes the judge out to be totally off the reservation in making such a ruling, claiming that the judge "misread or disobeyed precedents, federal treaties, scholarly reviews and the three branches of government."
Sydnor, of course, conveniently ignores pretty much everything on the other side, including precedents, scholarly reviews and the three branches of government (not international treaties for the most part, since the relevant ones have all been written by the legacy industry -- so indeed, they agree with Sydnor's assessment, but that's hardly compelling). The fact is that there have been folks who have weighed in on both sides, and there have been widespread legal rulings on both sides of the "making available" issue, as well as scholarly reviews. In fact, William Patry, a much more widely recognized and respected copyright expert than Sydnor, has written extensively on the issue, and seems to disagree with what Sydnor repeatedly claims is "inarguable."
More importantly, the recent trend has been quite clear: most of the courts recently taking up the issue have realized how little sense it is to accuse someone of copyright infringement when no copy has been shown to have been made. There are some exceptions, certainly, but most of the cases these days seem to be going against Sydnor's interpretation, which hardly makes it "inarguable" or as crazy as the paper makes out. Sydnor's decision to take some comments out of context, and then ignore the weight of the arguments on the other side, in order to paint the judge in this case as some sort of clueless rogue, is, tragically, fitting with PFF's reputation for throwing truth, reason and logic out the window in order to support the entertainment industry's position at all costs.
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National Geographic getting into video games
National Geographic, best known for its yellow-framed magazine and often breathtaking nature shows, is getting into video games.
Apple Adds HDCP To New Laptops; Piracy Continues, Legit Users Get Annoyed
It appears that Apple has begun using HDCP copy protection technology on some content it sells through the iTunes Music Store, and implementing it in its latest laptops. HDCP "protects" content as it travels across different types of connections, and is generally implemented in such a way that an HDCP-compliant source won't play content on a non-HDCP compliant connected display. So HDCP-ified content can't be played on a number of older displays, or ones that don't use one of the compatible types of connections.
You know how this thing goes down: movie studios insist on some new magic method to protect their content from piracy, it gets implemented, does nothing to stop piracy (sometimes even helps pirates), and ends up getting in the way for legitimate customers. In this instance, a guy who'd bought a movie from iTunes tried to play it over a projector connected to his Mac via a VGA connection; instead of being able to enjoy the content he'd legitimately purchased in a reasonable way, he was greeted with an error message. So here's a customer who legitimately purchased some content, and is being stopped from enjoying it in a perfectly reasonable, legitimate and legal way. Once again, it's puzzling to see content and technology companies implement these roadblocks to frustrate their paying customers. What's the incentive for this guy to pay to download a movie, rather than download a pirated version that he can watch on his projector? Apparently, it bears repeating for content and device companies: you don't stop piracy by annoying your paying customers.
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You know how this thing goes down: movie studios insist on some new magic method to protect their content from piracy, it gets implemented, does nothing to stop piracy (sometimes even helps pirates), and ends up getting in the way for legitimate customers. In this instance, a guy who'd bought a movie from iTunes tried to play it over a projector connected to his Mac via a VGA connection; instead of being able to enjoy the content he'd legitimately purchased in a reasonable way, he was greeted with an error message. So here's a customer who legitimately purchased some content, and is being stopped from enjoying it in a perfectly reasonable, legitimate and legal way. Once again, it's puzzling to see content and technology companies implement these roadblocks to frustrate their paying customers. What's the incentive for this guy to pay to download a movie, rather than download a pirated version that he can watch on his projector? Apparently, it bears repeating for content and device companies: you don't stop piracy by annoying your paying customers.
Carlo Longino is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Carlo Longino and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.
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Tuesday Evening Links -
ZTE, Qualcomm and Aircell Collaborate on In-flight Mobile Broadband System cellular-news.com
FCC Publishes 'White Spaces' Rules lightreading.com
Sprint mulls managing Indian WiMax networks business-standard.com
FCC's Martin: Safe TV Bill Not Good Enough multichannel.com
AT&T's Wayport Acquisition Defines Wi-Fi's Role in a 4G World yankeegroup.com
Forrester Research: Economy will slow broadband growth cedmagazine.com
Qualcomm Found in Contempt unstrung.com
Dead network provider arms Rustock botnet from the hereafter theregister.co.uk
Spain watchdog hopes for broadband deal with Brussels reuters.com
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RIAA Gets Tennessee Law To Force Universities To Filter Networks For Copyrighted Content
After more than a decade of watching the entertainment industry (mainly the RIAA and the MPAA), one thing I've learned is that the organization never gives up in pushing its legislative agenda. If there's a setback in one area, you can be sure that others from the organization are eagerly pushing the exact same rules through some other angle. The typical MO is that they try to get federal legislation passed in their favor. However, if that fails, they switch to the fallback plans which involve international treaties and state laws. Both of these are great because they tend to get a lot less scrutiny. State laws are a bit of a pain, because you have to get a few of them approved to create the "groundswell" that makes other states jump on board, but changes to state laws can often pass through under the radar.
That appears to be what's happening in the effort to force universities to install filters monitoring their networks for any unauthorized transmissions. You may recall that the RIAA pushed strongly to get Congress to pass laws requiring filters. Basically, the entertainment industry first flat-out lied (yes, lied) about how big a problem file sharing on campus was, and that got some Congressional Reps (with plenty of campaign contributions from the entertainment industry) to introduce legislation punishing universities if they didn't filter their networks. Widespread outcry against that legislation helped water it down, but it appears the industry just moved on to state legislatures.
The RIAA is now celebrating the fact that Tennessee has passed legislation that requires universities to install filters if they've received at least 50 DMCA requests. Considering the massive number of DMCA notices that the RIAA has been known to file, this is hardly a large hurdle. The law will cost Tennessee taxpayers nearly $10 million in the first year, and another $1.5 million each year -- based on the state's own estimates. And for what? To put in filters that won't work, just to try to prop up an obsolete business model from legacy players in an industry that needs to learn how to adapt to the market?
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That appears to be what's happening in the effort to force universities to install filters monitoring their networks for any unauthorized transmissions. You may recall that the RIAA pushed strongly to get Congress to pass laws requiring filters. Basically, the entertainment industry first flat-out lied (yes, lied) about how big a problem file sharing on campus was, and that got some Congressional Reps (with plenty of campaign contributions from the entertainment industry) to introduce legislation punishing universities if they didn't filter their networks. Widespread outcry against that legislation helped water it down, but it appears the industry just moved on to state legislatures.
The RIAA is now celebrating the fact that Tennessee has passed legislation that requires universities to install filters if they've received at least 50 DMCA requests. Considering the massive number of DMCA notices that the RIAA has been known to file, this is hardly a large hurdle. The law will cost Tennessee taxpayers nearly $10 million in the first year, and another $1.5 million each year -- based on the state's own estimates. And for what? To put in filters that won't work, just to try to prop up an obsolete business model from legacy players in an industry that needs to learn how to adapt to the market?
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Company Reinvents BountyQuest In Attempt To Bust Bogus Patents
Many of you probably remember BountyQuest, the company set up by Tim O'Reilly and Jeff Bezos as an attempt to bust bogus patents by reaching out to the "wisdom of the crowd" to dig up prior art. The initiative got plenty of attention, thanks to Bezos' and O'Reilly's involvement, but the project faded out and eventually just shut down after it failed in its high profile attempt to invalidate Bezos' own infamous "one-click patent" (which has since run into troubles on prior art found by others).
Apparently, though, there's a new startup that's attempting to do pretty much the same thing. The Associated Press has an article about Article One Partners, whose business plan sounds like a photocopy of BountyQuest's original plan. Apparently the AP reporters weren't aware of BountyQuest, because it's not mentioned in the article. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but considering the striking similarities between the two operations, you'd think it would at least merit a mention. Hopefully Article One can survive where BountyQuest flopped, but I'm not that hopeful, honestly. It could potentially work for a few high profile patents, but on average, it's tough to get random people to get excited about digging up prior art on patents.
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Apparently, though, there's a new startup that's attempting to do pretty much the same thing. The Associated Press has an article about Article One Partners, whose business plan sounds like a photocopy of BountyQuest's original plan. Apparently the AP reporters weren't aware of BountyQuest, because it's not mentioned in the article. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but considering the striking similarities between the two operations, you'd think it would at least merit a mention. Hopefully Article One can survive where BountyQuest flopped, but I'm not that hopeful, honestly. It could potentially work for a few high profile patents, but on average, it's tough to get random people to get excited about digging up prior art on patents.
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