Blackmoor Vituperative

A story over at InformationWeek raised our hackles a bit with the headline “Copyright Protection A Boom Business” followed by the summary saying, “Cracking down on piracy contributed to 6.6% of the U.S. gross domestic product in 2006, according to an industry lobbying group.” Just sounds like more typically inflated and ridiculous claims about piracy that regularly stream out from the content industry, which then get presented to legislators as reasons why we need more laws to bolster their aging business models. Just one problem, though: the facts of the story don’t support the headline at all.

(from Techdirt, Copy Protection A ‘Boom Business’, Except When It Isn’t)

Just more lies from the Digital Rights Mafia.

While Sony BMG already settled the class action lawsuit against it for their rootkit malware that opened up security holes on computers that were difficult to fix and hidden in a way that made them difficult to find, there was also an investigation to see if the rootkits violated federal law — and as I have been saying since Day 1, they did. The company has reached an agreement with the FTC, and unlike the typical agreement where a company “doesn’t admit guilt,” in this case Sony BMG clearly states that they violated federal law with the rootkits, and will reimburse people up to $150 if their computers were damaged by the software.

Why the hell aren’t these people in jail, barred from using computers for years, and so on, like any other hacker? Because most hackers don’t have millions to spend on their defense, that’s why. If you think the law is applied equally to everyone, this is your wake-up call. (Although if you really needed that wake-up call, you have other problems.)

As regular readers know, I’ve been working through a series of posts on how economics works when scarcity is removed from some areas. I took a bit of a break over the holidays to catch up on some reading, and to do some further thinking on the subject (along with some interesting discussions with people about the topic). One of the books I picked up was one that I haven’t read in well over a decade, but often recommend to others to read if they’re interested in learning more about economics, but have no training at all in the subject. It’s Robert L. Heilbroner’s The Worldly Philosophers. Beyond giving readers a general overview of a variety of different economic theories, the book actually makes them all sound really interesting. It’s a good book not necessarily because of the nitty gritty of economics (which it doesn’t cover), but because it makes economics interesting, and gives people a good basis to then dig into actual economic theory and not find it boring and meaningless, but see it as a way to better understand what these “philosophers” were discussing.

Reading through an early chapter, though, it struck me how eerily a specific story Heilbroner told about France in 1666 matches up with what’s happening today with the way the recording industry has reacted to innovations that have challenged their business models. Just two paragraphs highlight a couple of situations with striking similarities to the world today:

“The question has come up whether a guild master of the weaving industry should be allowed to try an innovation in his product. The verdict: ‘If a cloth weaver intends to process a piece according to his own invention, he must not set it on the loom, but should obtain permission from the judges of the town to employ the number and length of threads that he desires, after the question has been considered by four of the oldest merchants and four of the oldest weavers of the guild.’ One can imagine how many suggestions for change were tolerated.

Shortly after the matter of cloth weaving has been disposed of, the button makers guild raises a cry of outrage; the tailors are beginning to make buttons out of cloth, an unheard-of thing. The government, indignant that an innovation should threaten a settled industry, imposes a fine on the cloth-button makers. But the wardens of the button guild are not yet satisfied. They demand the right to search people’s homes and wardrobes and fine and even arrest them on the streets if they are seen wearing these subversive goods.”

Requiring permission to innovate? Feeling entitled to search others’ property? Getting the power to act like law enforcement in order to fine or arrest those who are taking part in activities that challenge your business model? Don’t these all sound quite familiar? Centuries from now (hopefully much, much sooner), the actions of the RIAA, MPAA and others that match those of the weavers and button-makers of 17th century France will seem just as ridiculous.

(from Techdirt, History Repeats Itself: How The RIAA Is Like 17th Century French Button-Makers)

This is brilliant. I look forward to the day when the Digital Rights Mafia are in the history books right next to Tammany Hall, the Southern Pacific Railroad… and 17th century French button makers. 🙂

Tim Lee, over at the Technology Liberation Front is breaking down a recent report defending software patents from the Progress & Freedom Foundation — a think tank which claims to be libertarian, but is consistently a huge supporter of granting government-granted monopolies on intellectual property. They were huge supporters of the DMCA, and keep trying to make it even worse. Tim raises an important question about software patents that should actually apply to just about any intellectual property issue, but which is rarely asked: what are software patents good for? He notes that all of the defenses for software patents actually are attempts at debunking the arguments against software patents, rather than explaining why software patents are necessary.

(from Techdirt, But What Are Software Patents Good For?)

I don’t see how anyone who supports abominations like DMCA and software patents can see themselves as remotely libertarian. That’s like being a pro-choice, free-speech-loving Republican, or a fiscally responsible, gun-owning Democrat. The things just do not go together.

I have changed my mind on GPL v3. After doing more research and reading more about it at Opinions for the second discussion draft of GPLv3, I think the new terms are a good idea, and address real concerns.

Barney’s days as a litigious purple Tyrannosaur that terrorized Web sites daring to poke fun at his sizable girth or singing abilities have become extinct.

Lawyers for the plush children’s icon have agreed to pay $5,000 to settle a federal lawsuit filed against them in August by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which was defending an anti-Barney Web site called the “Source of All Evil.”

The settlement, announced on Tuesday, caps a five-year campaign by the New York firm of Gibney, Anthony and Flaherty to rid the Internet of unflattering images of its plump saurian client.

(from ZDNet, Barney’s legal threats end up extinct | Tech News on ZDNet)

I would like to see us get to the point when lawsuits like this one are immediately thrown out as frivolous. And $5000 is too little. What’s that, a day or two of one lawyer’s time? For using the legal system to bully law-abiding citizens for years? That’s an outrage.

But let’s hope this is the start of a trend.

Way to go, EFF.

It appears the Russian government has agreed to shut down popular music site AllofMP3.com in order to appease US objections to it joining the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

However, the management of the site still insists it is legal.

The summary of negotiations from the US Trade Representative, dated 19 November, names AllofMP3.com as an illegal distributor of music. The letter outlines an agreement between the US and Russia on what it must do in order to join the WTO.

The summary says: “The United States and Russia agreed on the objective of shutting down websites that permit illegal distribution of music and other copyright works. The agreement names the Russia-based website allofmp3.com as an example of such a website.

“Russia will take enforcement actions against the operation of Russia-based websites, and investigate and prosecute companies that illegally distribute copyright works on the internet.”

But Putin’s government might have a fight on its hands.

Mediaservices, the parent company of AllofMP3 and Alltunes, put out two statements again insisting the services are completely legal. An FAQ on the site – available here – claims the service is legal under Russian law.

Another document explains why it is legal for US consumers to buy music from the site. The company also again offered to take down any material which rights holders want removed from the site.

Vadim Mamotin, director general at Mediaservices, said: “If the RIAA had done its homework, it would have discovered that even under US law consumers apparently have a legal basis to purchase music from AllofMP3. There is absolutely no legal basis for the campaign against AllofMP3.”

The US’ letter calls for legislation to stop such sites by 1 June 2007. “Amendments to the law to provide that collecting societies may act on behalf of rights holders that explicitly authorise such action; and provisions needed to implement the World Intellectual Property Organisation Copyright Treaty and WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty.”

The US also wants Russia to increase penalties for convicted pirates and to protect information relating to pharmaceutical tests.

The Russian government also promises to take action against CD and DVD pirating companies using military facilities to make their copies. The side letter says: “Ensure that facilities on the territory of government-controlled military-industrial sites are not leased or otherwise made available to companies producing optical media bearing content protected by copyright or related rights.”

The summary of bilateral negotiations is here, the side letter is here, or you can see allofmp3’s FAQ here.

Allofmp3 is very much online at the time of writing. Site monitoring service Pingdom reveals the site has only had 18 minutes of downtime in the last week. More here.

(from The Register, AllofMP3 faces more government action)

It appears that the Digital Rights Mafia and the media robber barons have successfully conned and/or bribed the US government into oppressing foreign countries for profit. I guess RIAA, MPAA, and their ilk looked at the War For Oil and figured what’s good for the goose is good for the gander. Scumbags.

I am disappointed in Russia. What happened to the Russia that faced down the richest nation in the world for decades? What happened to the Russia that put missiles off our coast and dared us to blink? Damn, I miss the Cold War. The USSR may have been evil (and they were definitely evil), but at least they had a spine. It’s just sad when one of the great nations like Russia (Russia is a great nation, make no mistake) caves in to bullying from puppets of the Digital Rights Mafia. It’s just depressing.

Not to mention that the Russians made better movie villains. Who do we have for movie villains nowadays? Terrorists? Pfft. Terrorists are pathetic losers. There’s no glory in fighting religious nutjobs who have nothing to lose. It’s as glamorous as spraying for cockroaches. Big corporations and/or organized crime? Please. They’re just common criminals. Call an honest cop and shut them down. The USSR, now, that was a movie enemy you could respect.

sigh

U.S. Supreme Court justices on Tuesday appeared to take issue with the current legal standard for granting patents, which many high-tech firms claim is ineffective at weeding out inventions that should be obvious.

During hour-long oral arguments in a case that’s closely watched by the business community, Chief Justice John Roberts suggested that an existing federal court test for determining patent obviousness relied too little on common sense. Justice Antonin Scalia went so far as to call the test “gobbledygook” and “meaningless.”

“It’s worse than meaningless because it complicates the question rather than focusing on the statute,” Roberts went on to say of the test, which requires evidence of a past “teaching, suggestion or motivation” that would lead to a particular invention in order for it to be declared “obvious.”

The case, rooted in an obscure patent spat about gas pedal designs between the Canadian firm KSR International and Pennsylvania-based Teleflex, has attracted the attention of high-tech, pharmaceutical, biotechnology and other patent-dependent firms because because it addresses one of the fundamental questions in patent law: What makes an invention, particularly a combination of existing parts, too “obvious” to warrant protection?

If the high court decides to rewrite the legal standard of patent “obviousness” to make it more restrictive, it could have wide-ranging effects by reshaping U.S. intellectual property law and reducing the number of marginal patents. Tuesday’s arguments are the only ones that will be heard in the case. A decision is expected by July 2007.

(from ZDNet, Supreme Court weighs ‘obviousness’ of patents)

I have to admit, I am completely surprised that the Court is even hearing these arguments. But this is actually the third major patent case the Court has heard this year. It’s almost enough to put a dent in my knee-jerk cynicism.

A study by the Australian Institute of Criminology revealed that software and music industries couldn’t explain how they calculated piracy losses, even though this data was used for lobbying efforts and in court cases (The Australian reports).

According to The Australian, the Music Industry Piracy Investigations (MIPI) – a body responsible for “investigative and intellectual property rights enforcement related services to the Australian music industry” did not know how piracy estimates were calculated as data it collected was processed by the IFPI in London. The MIPI manager commented that: “The reason … [she] wasn’t personally aware of how they are prepared is because they are compiled by the IFPI… They have a group that has been doing this for some time.”

Also the report noted that often the following misleading assumption is used to estimate piracy losses: a person who acquired pirate goods would otherwise have paid full price for the legal product. Moreover, unverified extrapolations were used by lobbyists to present the problem to the government.

Finally the report suggests that if these statistics are not thoroughly explained by the purveyors they should be withdrawn.

This study is a draft so far and the institute plans to check it further (after the criticism voiced by the industry) before it is handed over to the Australian government as “senior researchers disagreed with its conclusions”.

Piracy stats don’t add up, The Australian
New music ‘piracy’ statistics, p2pnet
Piracy losses fabricated – Aussie study, The Register
Australian Agency Questions Piracy Damage Valuations, Digital Music News

There’s a good reason the music industry can’t explain how they are calculating piracy losses. To my knowledge, there’s only ever been one serious large-scale research project conducted to try to calculate the direct effects of “illegal” downloading. The researchers’ conclusion was that peer-to-peer downloading’s effect on CD sales was so minimal that it was indistinguishible from zero.

This is yet another indication that the entertainment industry’s global push to expand their stranglehold on intellectual property rights is not about protecting creativity; it’s about the desire of a handful of global oligarchs to claim ownership of all forms of human creativity.

You can download a copy of the full study at: www.unc.edu/~cigar/papers/FileSharing_March2004.pdf

(from AllOfMP3.com, Music industry fails to explain how the piracy losses are calculated)

I have been saying for years that the whole “losses from piracy” argument is based on fallacies and that it’s just smoke and mirrors so that the media robber barons can seize and retain control of our cultural future. In my opinion, this observation falls into the “water is wet and teen-agers are horny” category. But some people are so damned gullible that they’ll believe anything the Digital Rights Mafia says unless there’s an egghead study that tells them what anyone with eyes could see for themselves.

As the Buggles told us, new technology kills old technology. Thanks to the DMCA and the media robber barons — aka the Digital Rights Mafia — DRM is killing innovation. In the latest death to functionality, the TiVo To Go is no more. TiVo Series 3 HD is Defective By Design.

If you want to help fight the Digital Rights Mafia, please also tell Congress to reform the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which limits unlocking DRM even to make legitimate uses, like moving recorded content to your portable video player.