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Legal Issues
by Mike Masnick
Tue, Oct 7th 2008 1:47am
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Filed Under:
cable, patents, voip
Companies:
cox, verizon
Permalink.
Verizon Gets Smacked Down For Its VoIP Patent Suing Spree
from the so-much-for-whacking-cable-competitors dept
Verizon was one of the last players to the VoIP party. Cable companies had been offering VoIP for years, and then Vonage, AT&T and a variety of other startups really built the market before Verizon even bothered to enter the space with an overpriced, uninspiring "me too" product that the market made clear it didn't want. Yet, somehow, Verizon was able to get some patents on the technology, despite a ton of rather clear prior art that showed Verizon's patents should never have been granted.
So, with those patents, Verizon began suing -- and it started with the lame duck in the VoIP space: Vonage. The company has been struggling for a variety of reasons, and a bunch of patent holders swept in to sue the firm that actually made VoIP a viable product in the market. Vonage came under massive pressure from shareholders to get rid of these lawsuits, so it settled rather than deal with a lengthy court room battle.
Verizon interpreted this as a validation of its patents and set off to find others to sue. Its next target was Cox Cable for its digital telephony solution. The plan was clear. After beating Cox, it would turn its legal guns on the big boys like Comcast and Time Warner. Except, it appears the courts have tossed a wrench into those plans by siding with Cox in pointing out that the company doesn't violate Verizon's patents. While Verizon will most likely appeal, this should be seen as a pretty big win for Time Warner Cable and Comcast, who may not even have to defend themselves against Verizon's questionable patent claims at all.
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Legal Issues
by Mike Masnick
Mon, Oct 6th 2008 11:24pm
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Filed Under:
dvd ripping, injunction, realdvd, restraining order, secrecy
Companies:
mpaa, realnetworks
Permalink.
Why Was The Restraining Order On RealDVD Kept Secret?
from the questions,-questions,-questions dept
Monday morning, we wrote about how a judge had issued a temporary restraining order against RealDVD until he had time to review the details and rule one way or the other on a pre-trial injunction. In our comments, one of our readers suggested this story was incorrect, as there didn't appear to be an actual restraining order on file -- suggesting that Real Networks may have pulled the software on its own. Yet, it turns out that, yes, in fact there was a temporary restraining order, but the judge ordered both sides to keep it secret. This is quite odd, as almost everyone immediately figured it out from Real pulling the software, and then it was confirmed by Real in a filing responding to the court. But all this does is raise a simple question: what could possibly be the rationale for keeping the temporary injunction secret?
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Say That Again
by Mike Masnick
Mon, Oct 6th 2008 9:08pm
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Filed Under:
competition, markets, piracy
Permalink.
Piracy Is A Part Of The Market
from the it's-not-the-enemy...-and-it-may-not-be-competition dept
Out-law.com has an interesting discussion with a so-called "anti-piracy expert" where he tries to make the point that pirates are not the "enemy" but are "competition." This is a step in the right direction -- though, one ignored by many industries threatened by unauthorized file sharing. As the MySpace Music offering shows, very little thought is given to actually competing with piracy. Most of these solutions simply try to pretend it doesn't exist -- which is a pretty difficult way to compete.
But it's important to recognize that the market shift goes further than just seeing unauthorized file sharing as competition. To succeed in the marketplace, it shouldn't even be viewed as competition, but as a tool that can be used to your advantage. The business models that embrace file sharing and use it to drive business to other parts of a business model are doing great, realizing that file sharing isn't the enemy and isn't competition, but is a great, efficient distribution mechanism that reaches a lot of people very quickly and effectively. Ignoring ways to make use of that seems pretty dangerous.
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News You Could Do Without
by Mike Masnick
Mon, Oct 6th 2008 7:07pm
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Filed Under:
ireland, kindergarten, movies, royalties
Companies:
mplc
Permalink.
Hollywood Illegally Demanded Payments From Irish Kindergarteners
from the and-this,-kids,-is-what-we-call-a-shakedown dept
It's no secret that the entertainment industry believes that it deserves to be paid (often multiple times) every time anyone accesses, views or listens to any of its content. That's resulted in some really bad policies that limit the potential for future growth, but also some ridiculous scenarios like the one described over at TorrentFreak, concerning the Motion Picture Licensing Company, who illegally demanded 10 euros per child (later reduced to 3 euros) from Irish kindergartens, for the right to watch DVDs in class. It turns out that the whole thing was illegal, as it violated a copyright act in Ireland by not filing for a license to collect royalty revenue (it has since filed for the license). In the meantime, the folks who run these schools are a bit annoyed by the whole thing, noting that they rarely, if ever, show DVDs anyway and don't see why they should have to pay a fee per student. In fact, one educator noted that the only time they showed DVDs was when they would "pretend" to go to the cinema -- and even that would likely lead kids to eventually want to go see more movies.
11 Comments
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The Market
by Mike Masnick
Mon, Oct 6th 2008 5:33pm
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Filed Under:
financial crisis, naked short selling, patrick byrne, short selling, vindication, wikipedia
Permalink.
Sorry, But The Current Financial Crisis Has Nothing To Do With Naked Short Selling Or A Wikipedia Edit War
from the please dept
For quite some time, Overstock's CEO, Patrick Byrne, has been on something of a... campaign against the practice of "naked short selling." Byrne isn't known for holding back his opinions on just about anything, and his complaints about naked short selling resulted in a rather massive Wikipedia edit war -- with folks on every side pointing fingers and arguing with each other over supposed dirty tactics by folks on the other side. Now, with the whole financial collapse thing happening, The Register (one of few publications to take Byrnes' side most of the time, often due to its irrational dislike of Wikipedia) is claiming that Byrne has been "vindicated," first on the evils of naked short selling, and second on the Wikipedia edit wars.
If only it were so simple. As this excellent Alex Blumberg/Planet Money podcast makes quite clear, while naked short selling may be sketchy, it's impact is minimal, if anything. And, as anyone with a most basic understanding of markets can tell you, short selling (naked or otherwise) doesn't drive down the price of a stock. The Register also suggests that Byrne was vindicated in the Wikipedia edit war, by noting proof (that is not shown, and was only provided to The Register by Byrne) that a reporter who had formerly denied taking part in the edit war, actually had been involved. That's not exactly a huge smoking gun either. It may be that this guy had a personal vendetta against Byrne, but it's got little to do with the financial crisis going on today. There are lots of things that created this mess: but naked short selling (even if the SEC came out against it, in part) is currently a minor scapegoat, not the cause.
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Legal Issues
by Mike Masnick
Mon, Oct 6th 2008 3:51pm
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Filed Under:
constitution, convictions, database errors, due process, supreme court
Permalink.
Is A Conviction Constitutional If It's Based On Evidence From An Unconstitutional Search?
from the buttle-or-tuttle? dept
In a case where the legal implications should thrill any fans of Terry Gilliam's movie classic Brazil, the Supreme Court is set to examine if it's constitutional to convict someone, based on evidence that was only collected due to bad data in a government database. There's no question that a search of someone due to bad data in a database is unconstitutional, but the question is whether or not what's found in that search can then be used to charge someone. In this case, a bad (obsolete) database entry in a county database resulted in the search of an individual's car, where drugs and a firearm were found. This resulted in a conviction and jail time, but the search itself wasn't constitutional, because the data was incorrect. The appeals court let the conviction stand, oddly arguing that throwing out the conviction wouldn't put much pressure on governments to keep their data clean. The court also argues that anyone convicted as a result of such bad data, should simply file a separate, civil, lawsuit against the government. Of course, it seems like the bigger issue should simply be on the constitutionality of using any unconstitutionally obtained evidence in a lawsuit.
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News You Could Do Without
by Mike Masnick
Mon, Oct 6th 2008 2:33pm
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Filed Under:
music, online services
Companies:
muxtape, myspace, myspace music
Permalink.
Slate: Dump MySpace Music, Bring Back Muxtape
from the i-second-that... dept
As we had suspected, the early reviews of MySpace Music make it sound like a dud. It sounds, not surprisingly, like the focus was on appeasing the big record labels, rather than actually making a service that's fun and easy to use. Farhad Manjoo, over at Slate, makes the argument clear, contrasting MySpace Music to Muxtape, the small indie site that the RIAA shut down when it couldn't own a big chunk of it. As Manjoo notes, Muxtape was fun, it worked well, and people liked it. MySpace Music, on the other hand, is just not that compelling. He notes that it doesn't offer anything other sites haven't offered for a while, and on top of it, makes the whole interface cluttered and confusing, while limiting what you can actually do. Once again, we see the RIAA shut down a useful service and put up a dreadful competitor.
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Wall Street
by Mike Masnick
Mon, Oct 6th 2008 1:13pm
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Filed Under:
derivatives, hedge funds, leverage
Permalink.
Leverage, Derivatives And Dog Food: How Wall St. Screwed Up
from the and-what-comes-next dept
Following my post on the makings of the financial crisis, some folks noted that I didn't really discuss the issues of leverage and derivatives, and how they ended up screwing up Wall Street something fierce -- as, instead, I focused much more simply on the issue of "risk" and sort of swept those details under the rug. I'd been intending to tackle the subject this week, but it looks like Andy Kessler has already done the job for me, with an excellent description of how Wall Street went from helping people trade stocks into a bunch of cowboy hedge fund traders who didn't even realize what they were trading, but knew they were making tons of money -- so they kept borrowing to do more of it. They got suckered by their own dog food and ate until they became seriously overstuffed.
Still, those profits weren't enough. Their customers were making great money buying Wall Street's derivatives. But why should banks and pension funds and hedge funds have all the fun? What a perfect use for all that capital on their huge balance sheets and cheap financing from low interest rates. Wall Street, en masse, started buying all these high yielding derivatives for their own account. They ate their own dog food, if you will.
It was the easy trade. Borrow at 3 percent and make 6 percent or 8 percent or 10 percent. They liked it so much, they levered up. Meaning instead of just borrowing a dollar for every two dollars of assets they owned (which by the way, thanks to the 50-percent margin requirement, is the amount of leverage that you and I are allowed to buy stocks from these same firms), they borrowed 20 to 1, 30 to 1, and even 50 to 1, if they could get away with it. And man, it was a lucrative trade. So why not?
I'll tell you why not. Because all of a sudden, Wall Street is no longer a business of traders or stock brokers or investment bankers, it's a giant hedge fund. And they have no idea what they are doing. None. I ran a hedge fund for a lot of years and learned rather quickly that if a trade was too good, if everyone was doing the same trade, then I should absolutely turn around and run for the hills. But no one on Wall Street did. The spreadsheets flashed green. Risk was a four-letter word best not said in polite company. Wall Streeters became hedge fund cowboys and loved the spoils, until a tiny little downturn in housing sent everyone rushing to get out of the pool at the same time.
It's a good read. Kessler and I agree that a new sort of Wall Street will come out of this -- and that's for the best. Money will flow again, but there will be new opportunities for banks to get back to basics.
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Legal Issues
by Mike Masnick
Mon, Oct 6th 2008 11:57am
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Filed Under:
ads, black friday, copyright, facts, lawsuits, prices, trade secrets
Companies:
wal-mart
Permalink.
Wal-Mart Threatens Site Over Black Friday Ad Deals
from the didn't-we-do-this-already? dept
Want to know how we know the holidays are coming? It's not the Christmas decorations already showing up in stores; it's the annual ritual of retailers threatening any website that posts the deals from their "Black Friday" (the day after Thanksgiving) sales circular prior to that day. Last year, Wal-Mart went beyond what others stores had done, in pre-threatening sites. In the past, companies like Target and Best Buy had simply threatened to sue sites after the ads went up. But Wal-Mart took it a step further and threatened to sue before the ads even went up, ignoring, of course that they don't own pricing data. The data on sales prices are not copyrightable and cannot be owned. Wal-Mart simply has no legal leg to stand on in demanding the data from the circular be taken down.
But why let that stop them? An anonymous reader alerts us to the fact that Wal-Mart is already sending the notices out to various sites, threatening legal ramifications if the sites were to post the prices prior to the date Wal-Mart makes them "official."
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Wall Street
by Mike Masnick
Mon, Oct 6th 2008 10:41am
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Filed Under:
$700 billion, adverse selection, bailout
Permalink.
Banks May Say 'Thanks, But No Thanks' To That New $700 Billion
from the hello-adverse-selection... dept
Last week, in that big post about the financial crisis, one thing I mentioned is that despite all the talk of "moral hazard" -- the bigger fear might be moral hazard's sister problem: adverse selection. That is, it would only be those with truly awful assets and no other options that would take the government up on its offer to buy its "toxic" assets. That may be happening. Reports are coming out that some on Wall Street are considering saying "thanks, but no thanks" to the new ~$700 billion that the Treasury Secretary has been given. The article paints the issue as being about the strings that come attached to it, such as limits on executive pay and golden parachutes. That almost certainly could be a part of the reasoning, but a much bigger part may simply be that these banks recognize that the assets they have aren't quite as toxic as they're being made out to be.
Yes, there are bundles of highly questionable mortgages, but contrary to what the media tells you, plenty of the people who possess those mortgages are still paying -- and even if they're not, the property and houses they represent still do have some value on the market -- or will someday. Thus, it may be that the only banks that really take up Paulson on a buyout offer, are those with really toxic assets that aren't likely to appreciate in value. That's not good for anyone. The more you look at this bailout, the worse it seems. It also makes you wonder why there isn't more of a focus on using a so-called "stock injection" plan, whereby the gov't becomes an investor in the banks, rather than just buying out certain questionable assets. That would, in theory, help avoid sticking the taxpayers with only the worst of the worst assets.
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Politics
by Mike Masnick
Mon, Oct 6th 2008 9:19am
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Filed Under:
bailout, congress, online poker
Permalink.
Congress Too Busy Gambling With Your Money To Let You Gamble With It Yourself
from the politics-as-usual dept
We had noted recently that Congress appeared to be moving forward with a bill that would actually re-legalize playing online poker. However, reports coming out now suggest that with Congress so busy passing pork-filled bailout bills, the online poker bill has been shifted to the backburner and will probably have to wait until next year. So, you know, if you were planning to survive this economic tough time by making it up playing online poker, you may want to consider moving to, say, Antigua.
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Overhype
by Mike Masnick
Mon, Oct 6th 2008 7:52am
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Filed Under:
bogus stats, commerce department, copyright czar, stats
Permalink.
Commerce Dept Cites Bogus Stats, Chamber Of Commerce Uses Them To Ask Bush To Accept Copyright Czar
from the bogus-stats-are-fun dept
We've seen it time and time again, where totally bogus stats about the "costs" of "piracy" are floated (usually by lobbyists) and then suddenly accepted as fact. It's even worse when it's government officials citing the stats as fact. Yet, we've got that happening again. In urging President Bush to sign into law the ProIP bill, which would give him a copyright czar (something the Justice Department had said it it doesn't want), the US Chamber of Commerce is claiming that 750,000 American jobs have been lost to piracy. Yet, it doesn't cite where that number comes from.
Wired's David Kravets tries to track down the source but finds no one can quite figure it out. Instead, they each point to different gov't organizations which have all quoted the number -- often citing each other, but no one pointing out where it actually came from. Chances are, of course, that the stat comes from a variety of reports, like the easily debunked piracy impact report from the BSA, put together by IDG. That lists out a number for job losses in the software industry that's simply untrue, and is based on only the negative impact of "piracy" impacting jobs, leaving out any positive impact (i.e., if a company used only pirated software, it could hire more people). That's not to defend piracy, but to note that the job loss claim is completely made up -- and now repeated by a variety of different government officials based on... nothing.
17 Comments
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News You Could Do Without
by Mike Masnick
Mon, Oct 6th 2008 6:26am
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Filed Under:
eavesdropping, spying, tapping, uk
Permalink.
Is The UK Really Looking To Spy On All Browsing Habits, Emails And Phone Calls?
from the seems-a-bit-extreme dept
There's not much in the way of detail, and our UK readers have pointed out in the past that The Times Online is hardly the most reputable of newspapers in the UK, but it's reporting that the UK government is considering spending £12 billion on a system to spy on the internet browsing histories, emails and phone calls of everyone in the UK. That seems almost too ridiculous to be true, so consider us to be skeptical that this is actually what's happening -- but we'll mention it here with the link back to the source to see if some of our readers can fill us in on the details (or lack of details, as the case may be).
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Too Much Free Time
by Mike Masnick
Mon, Oct 6th 2008 3:59am
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Filed Under:
featured artists coalition, lobbying, lobbyists, musicians, radiohead
Permalink.
Musicians Realize They Need Their Own Lobbying Group
from the but-will-it-be-more-of-the-same? dept
Many people realized long ago, that contrary to what the RIAA (and the politicians it supports) states, the RIAA is not representing the interests of "the music industry," but rather the interests of a few big record labels. Those interests are often directly at odds with the actual musicians. It's almost amazing it's taken this long, but a bunch of musicians, including Radiohead, are now forming their own lobbying/bargaining group, called the Featured Artists' Coalition. One of the goals, actually, is to put pressure on the record labels to allow the musicians to retain the copyright on their music, rather than handing it over to the labels. At the very least, it ought to be interesting to see the two of them fight this out. Though, my fear is that this new group really just promotes more of the same, and doesn't focus on new business model opportunities, but again looks for ways to "protect" rather than to innovate.
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Legal Issues
by Mike Masnick
Mon, Oct 6th 2008 1:29am
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Filed Under:
dvd ripping, injunctions, realdvd
Companies:
mpaa, realnetworks
Permalink.
Judge Temporarily Blocks Sale Of RealDVD
from the who-does-this-help? dept
In the lawsuit between the movie studios and RealNetworks over Real's DVD ripping software, RealDVD, it appears that a judge has issued a temporary injunction against Real, keeping the company from distributing the software until the judge has had a chance to read through the various documents. A more complete decision allowing or disallowing the sale prior to a trial should come on Tuesday. Of course, the movie studios will claim that Real should be barred from allowing the software to be sold because it will cause "irreparable harm." That, of course, is ridiculous. Real's software only lets you make limited backups, by putting its own DRM on the copies. If someone really wants to make backups, and Real's software isn't available thanks to an injunction, then they'll most likely get a copy of other DVD ripping software that doesn't even include the limitations that Real's does. In other words, in taking RealDVD off the market, as the studios would like, it actually would probably lead to more movies being copied without DRM than if RealDVD were on the market. On a separate note, it appears that Real's decision to rush to court and file for a declaratory judgment on this case was a wise move. The lawsuit has been moved from Southern California, where the studios filed suit later in the day, to Northern California, where Real filed suit in the morning.
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Culture
by Mike Masnick
Fri, Oct 3rd 2008 7:33pm
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Filed Under:
e-voting, mainstream, the simpsons
Permalink.
When Even The Simpsons Make Fun Of E-Voting Machines...
from the and-yet-we-still-rely-on-them dept
Remember back when people first started questioning the reliability of e-voting machines? It was initially focused on Diebold, though later reports have all shown that Sequoia and ES&S are equally as bad. Yet, initially those critics were all brushed off by the e-voting firms as wild-eyed, conspiracy theory. lunatic activists. The only problem is that they keep being proven correct time and time again, and the story has certainly crossed over into the mainstream. If you need proof, look no further than The Simpsons recent clip about e-voting that a ton of you have sent in:
Clearly, the issue has gone beyond the "fringe" and into the mainstream. So, it's really too bad that judges seem to think that the public can't handle a research report on these machines.
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The Market
by Mike Masnick
Fri, Oct 3rd 2008 6:22pm
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Filed Under:
credit problems, debt, economy, financial crisis, lending, small business
Companies:
at&t
Permalink.
AT&T Asks You To Pay In Advance To Handle Its Credit Problems
from the and-there-you-go dept
Despite explaining how the financial crisis will impact everyone, beyond just Wall Street, there are many people who still insist that it will have no impact on them. That's simply untrue. While the impacts may seem small and remote, when added up, they'll be noticeable. Richard Ahlquist writes in to show us a perfect example of this. AT&T has discovered that the commercial paper it relies on is now a lot more difficult to get, causing a bit of a cash crunch for the company. So how is it dealing with it? By pushing that cash crunch to you. Rather than its usual habit of billing you for the month that just past, AT&T is telling customers it's now billing them for the month ahead -- meaning that your latest bill may be double (paying for last month and next month). Effectively, AT&T is changing the credit terms on its customers, from net 30 to prepay. Sure, it may not be a huge deal that your telco bill doubles for one month only, but that's still money that's out of your pocket 30 days earlier -- and if other vendors do the same, it could be quite noticeable.
73 Comments
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News You Could Do Without
by Mike Masnick
Fri, Oct 3rd 2008 5:10pm
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Filed Under:
copyright, lawsuits, strategy
Companies:
eff, riaa
Permalink.
Five Years Into Suing Fans, RIAA's 'Sue Everyone' Strategy Has Failed, Miserably
from the and-yet-it-continues dept
The EFF has a long and comprehensive look into the RIAA's five year (and running) legal campaign against file sharing. It's a great overview that not only brings you up to speed if you haven't been following the whole thing, but also puts the entire campaign in perspective. The summary? Almost every move the RIAA has made in its legal campaign has backfired.
It started with suing technology providers. All that did was make more people aware of file sharing. When it succeeded in getting Napster shut down, plenty of others showed up that were much more difficult to shut down. So, then, the RIAA shifted to suing individuals accused of unauthorized sharing, claiming that it was an "education campaign" to teach people that unauthorized file sharing was illegal. All that's done is turn many more people against the RIAA, while continuing to educate them that file sharing exists. In fact, many more people engage in file sharing now than five years ago when the campaign started.
So, effectively, the lawsuits haven't worked (the RIAA has not had a full trial turn out in its favor yet). It's turned public opinion massively against the RIAA and its associated record labels. It hasn't done anything to slow down unauthorized file sharing, and may have actually helped promote it. About the only "success" of the strategy is that it's turned into something of a cash generator for the RIAA, by frightening people, with strong legal language around flimsy evidence, into paying "presettlements" to avoid being sued. It's like a protection racket from organized crime. Oh yeah, it's worth noting that the musicians don't actually see any of that money.
So, by now it should be clear that this strategy has absolutely nothing to do with helping the music industry thrive or to actually deal with unauthorized file sharing. From the beginning it's always been a way to squeeze more money out of people through threats and intimidation. While I strongly disagree with the EFF's proposed "solution" to this issue (a compulsory licensing scheme), the review of the history certainly puts the whole campaign in perspective, and makes you wonder why anyone (especially any politician) actually thinks it's about helping musicians.
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Overhype
by Mike Masnick
Fri, Oct 3rd 2008 3:51pm
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Filed Under:
bob kearns, flash of genius, intermittent wipers, movies, patents
Companies:
ford
Permalink.
Flash Of Genius: Patent System Propaganda Made Into A Movie
from the unfortunate dept
I've been seeing previews of the new movie, Flash of Genius (which opens today) everywhere, and a few folks have asked my opinion of it. Over at Against Monopoly, there's as pretty good takedown of the premise of the movie. The story of Robert Kearns has plenty of good "movie" elements, and is often held up by patent system supporters as a clear example of a big company "ripping off" an independent inventor. The movie itself is a huge dramatization, that of course, paints Ford as the big evil company that "stole" the idea of intermittent wipers from Kearns. It's highly exaggerated from reality, and perpetuates the big myth that invention comes from a "flash of genius" and is the most important part of innovation.
As anyone who's actually run a business can tell you, the idea is only a tiny part of what's important. The real innovation is in actually turning the idea into something that works, is useful, is cost effective and (most importantly) is something that people want to buy. Almost every actual product is quite different from the initial "idea" that it came from. Furthermore, despite what the movie appears to portray, lots of folks were working on different methods to create an intermittent wiper, and the methods that Kearns used weren't such a "flash of genius" either. They were pretty much the next evolution. As we've seen it's pretty common for multiple parties to make the same "next step" obvious breakthroughs at about the same time.
But, Kearns turned the whole thing into a crusade against the auto companies, so it makes a good David vs. Goliath movie storyline. And, despite the way Ford appears to be portrayed in the movie as deliberately copying Kearns' work, the company was not found to have willfully infringed on the patents. They were found to have infringed -- but through their own work, not from having directly taken Kearns idea (the movie suggests otherwise). As you may or may not know, most patent infringement is not "willful," meaning the company in question didn't "copy" the idea directly from the inventor or his or her patent, but through simply coming up with the idea themselves independently. And, at the time of Kearns case, the standard for willful infringement was even lower than it is today. Yet, because there's no independent invention defense, the automakers will still found to have infringed. The end result? All of the car companies had to pay many millions to Kearns, effectively paying multiple times over what the wipers actually should have cost, increasing car prices for all of us. That's not David vs. Goliath: it's David making cars more expensive for everyone.
The movie itself may be very entertaining (I'll probably wait for it to come out on video to check it out), but it's unfortunate that it promotes the myth of a "flash of genius" being the most important part of innovation, and that it perpetuates the stereotype of "big companies vs. little inventors." At a time when our patent system needs serious reform, a movie like this only serves to falsely promote the value of patents in the public eye. It's propaganda, wrapped in a nice Hollywood veneer.
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Scams
by Mike Masnick
Fri, Oct 3rd 2008 2:44pm
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Filed Under:
419, advance fee, nigeria, rent checks, scams
Permalink.
Latest Nigerian Email Scam: Renters Checks
from the sneaky,-sneaky,-sneaky dept
It's been quite fascinating, over the years, to see how the various "Nigerian" scammers have adapted and evolved their strategies. While variations on the originals exist, over time we keep seeing new scams show up. They started, obviously, with the traditional 419 "advance fee" scam, asking you to help them get more money out of Nigeria. Then, they morphed by paying attention to current events and making the scams more closely related to events happening in the news. Then there was the scam where they would buy something on eBay, but send a forged check that was much, much higher than the purchase price, asking you to send back the difference. Of course, the victim would only find out later that the check was a fake and that he had been cheated out of all the money sent (as well as the value of the sold item). Then, they started combining phishing and advance fee scams, to make you think your friends needed money wired urgently to Nigeria. Oh, and who can forget when they started a scam that didn't prey on the victims' greed, but their love of cute puppies? Awwwwww...
The latest is that they're placing ads for apartments to rent in high rent districts, and then asking prospective tenants to do a money transfer to a friend or relative to prove you have the money available. That seems legit -- and since it's to a friend or a relative, the prospective tenant knows that the money is safe. Except, once they've forwarded on a scanned copy of the transfer payment receipt, the scammers go to the bank pretending to be the recipient and withdraw the money. It's a bit more complicated, but again, it's a scam where the victim is easily tricked because there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with what's happening.
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