Home / techdirt.com rss archive / August-27-2007


Mary Meeker Fixes More Than Her Math In YouTube Report
Last week, Morgan Stanley internet analyst Mary Meeker was embarrassed when it was revealed that a math mistake on her part caused her to vastly overstate (by a factor of 1000x) the revenue potential from YouTube's new ad overlay system. After having her mistake pointed out to her by none other than Henry Blodget, Meeker went back and fixed the report. But she did more than just correct the math. She also tweaked some of her original assumptions so as to boost the significance of the new advertising scheme. Whereas she originally predicted that ads would be shown on approximately 1% of streams, that number has now been boosted to yield a greater revenue impact. Meeker's new model now has the company garnering an additional $75-$189 million in net revenue over the coming year, as compared to the $720,000 that her original model predicted. This whole fiasco is quite revealing about the way Wall Street analysts sometimes operate. Rather than start out with a fixed set of...

Can You Stop Spam By Going After The Webhosts?
While spam filters have gotten better over the years, meaning that email spam is now "manageable" for most people, some people are apparently arguing that a better solution to stopping spammers is to go after the web hosts who host the sites advertised in spam. That sounds nice in theory, but in practice it doesn't make that much sense. In fact, the article even notes that a guy who's been using this approach over the past four years has shut down over 30,000 sites... but the number of spammers out there has remained essentially constant. In other words, despite the entire premise of the article, this method doesn't seem to work very well in stopping spam. It's not too hard to figure out why. First of all, there are tons of different webhosts out there, and some less-than-scrupulous ones have found that hosting for spammers is quite lucrative. There's always going to be someone out there willing to host these sites... and even if there aren't, spammers will probably just...

Are U.S. Educators On The Wrong Side Of The Copyright War?
Last month, the entertainment industry (with the help of Senator Harry Reid) slipped a nice little amendment into the Higher Education Reauthorization Act, which funds colleges and universities as well as students. The amendment would require universities block p2p file sharing or lose funding. A number of universities complained (reasonably) about the expense involved in doing so, but some are arguing that it's about time that universities got away from just the cost argument and stood against this on principle. John points us to an argument for why universities should be fighting back against copyright maximalism, noting that, of all places, universities should recognize the benefits of a freer flow of information, and how trying to artificially limit information only leads to problems. The author notes that the high price of college textbooks should be example number one of how copyright can hinder the educational purpose of a university by artificially driving up the...

Clear Channel Facing Multiple Hurdles In Attempt To Go Private
Last November, radio broadcaster Clear Channel announced that it would be taken private by a group of private equity firms for $19 billion. But the deal is just one of many such deals whose status is currently in doubt, as financing and credit have significantly dried up of late. As part of the preconditions for the sale, Clear Channel agreed to dump nearly 400 local stations across the country. Now, however, that's proving to be a significant snag, as buyers of the stations are now going back on their agreements (via Deal Journal), due to the same financing issues affecting everyone else. Assuming that agreements can't be worked out, the company may be forced to slash the prices on these stations or risk imperiling its own plan to go private.

Now That NY Times Archive Is Online... People Wish They Could Forget The Past
It's interesting to hear that the New York Times gets approximately one request a day to delete an old article, because we get those requests at Techdirt as well (though, not nearly as often). In both cases, it's often due to someone who is upset that, even if the old article was accurate at the time, it's no longer the case any more -- but Google still calls it up on searches. Clark Hoyt, the current Public Editor of the NY Times discusses the struggle the paper has about what to do in those circumstances. Traditionally, they've just said "sorry, we can't do anything" to people. Now there are cases where they may add a correction or an additional note on incorrect information. There's even a bizarre (and somewhat silly) suggestion that they should have their archives simply "forget" certain "less important" news. However, what may be most odd is that the article does not include one of the most obvious way to deal with these issues: post a response from the person who...

Unions Make Ridiculous Arguments Against Patent Reform
Ronald J. Riley runs an organization called the Professional Inventors Alliance, which fights vehemently against any kind of patent reform that might make life harder for patent trolls or those who obtain horribly obvious or broad patents. He has been known to show up here at Techdirt to argue with us in the comments, but his arguments are based on the faulty assumption that pretty much all patents are good and anyone accused of patent infringement has clearly "stolen" the hard work of someone else. The fact is that that's very rarely the case. As we've seen repeatedly, many patents should never have been issued as they don't qualify as non-obvious or they're too broad. In those cases, patents are clearly an economic hardship, and there's plenty of research to back that up. Also, most cases of patent infringement occur when multiple companies come up with the same type of solution independently, which is hardly "stealing." No matter though. By focusing on the false idea...

TorrentSpy Cuts Off US Users, Rather Than Tracking Them
BitTorrent search engine TorrentSpy has been involved in a legal battle with the MPAA for some time now. The lawsuit took a slightly bizarre twist a few months back when a judge demanded that TorrentSpy start logging details about its users -- something the company had never done and had no plans to do. TorrentSpy claims that doing so will violate its users privacy and violate its own terms of service. Apparently, however, that hasn't convinced the judge to change the ruling -- meaning that TorrentSpy has now cut off access to visitors coming from the US as a way of protecting their privacy. Of course, it'll probably take all of about 10 minutes for most people to figure out other ways to get to TorrentSpy (or they'll just move on to another BitTorrent search engine). Congratulations to the MPAA for driving a bunch of movie fans further underground...

iPhone Supposedly Gets Unlocked, AT&T Apparently Freaks Out
There were several reports last week that the operator lock on the iPhone had been broken, meaning that people might be able to use the device with service from a company other than AT&T. The first to emerge was from a New Jersey teenager, who came up with a complex method involving soldering and software; then two separate companies later said they had software-only unlocking methods. To be sure, these unlocking methods and services will only ever appeal to a small number of users, as most general consumers won't really care, or won't want to go to the trouble. With that in mind, it really doesn't seem like AT&T has much at stake financially, but that apparently hasn't stopped its lawyers from threatening one of the software providers. The company claims it got a call from a law firm representing the company, tossing around things like copyright infringement and "illegal software dissemination" in what appears to be an attempt at intimidating the company to keep...

Gateway Gone But Cows To Stick Around
At one point, news that Gateway had been acquired by Acer would have been a significant development in the computer industry. But it's a sign of how far the company has fallen that the move isn't expected to have any material impact on the company's competitors. Basically, Acer, based in Taiwan, is looking to expand its footprint in North America and Europe and it was able to pick up the distant #4 in the US computer market for just $710 million. Because margins are low across the industry, every player is in a desperate race to keep volume high. At one point, Gateway tried to break out of its core business with an ill-conceived foray into consumer electronics, but it was eventually forced to return to its roots. However, things might not change much from the perspective of customers. Owing in part to Gateway's recognizable brand (the cow print boxes), Acer plans to continue, if not expand, the Gateway line.

Have Micropayments Succeeded Long After They Were Dead And Buried?
In the wake of yet another highly touted "micropayment" startup going away, the NY Times is challenging the notion that micropayments will never succeed, specifically pointing to things like iTunes, AdSense and iStockPhoto as examples to the contrary. The article, not surprisingly, references Clay Shirky's explanation for why micropayments don't work, and then suggests they do. There are just a few problems with the argument however. First of all, AdSense isn't about micropayments, no matter how hard the article tries to stretch the definition. Then, neither iTunes nor iStockPhoto are true micropayments in the classic sense of what we were promised (fractions of cents, and so forth). Rather, both are standard normal "payments." There's nothing particularly micro about either (again, unless you stretch the definition). Also, in both cases, the services provided better overall service than alternatives. There was a lot of additional value in using those services, which...

Australian Internet Porn Filter Cracked By Kid; Politicians Get The Wrong Message
Remember a few weeks ago how the Australian government was getting ready to spend many millions of dollars on internet porn filters? We ridiculed the second part of the plan, which was to force ISPs to filter the internet, but the first part of the plan was to hand out free client-side filters that could be installed on computers by parents. The cost to the government was a mere $84 million Australian (about $70 million US). It should come as no surprise, though, that a teenager claims it took him all of about half an hour to crack the filter. Even better, he says he did so in a way that the icon still shows on the computer, so parents will think the software is still working. Of course, there are always ways to get around filters and it's not hard for many kids to figure them out. Still, rather than recognizing that the government has wasted many millions of dollars on a futile program, one of the main political backers of the program said it only highlights why the...

FTC Notices That Diet Pill Spammer's Diet Pills Don't Work
Last week, the FTC announced that a judge had shut down the operation of a diet pill spammer after it turned out (shockingly, we know) that the claims made by the spammers about the pills were either completely false or (at best) unsubstantiated. While the spammers were in violation of the CAN SPAM law, it would seem that they should be in violation of other fraud regulations as well, such as false advertising. Of course, with so much spamming going overseas these days, perhaps what's more amazing is that these guys were in the US and it was possible to find them in order to shut them down. We're sure someone somewhat less easily shut down will quickly fill in the void.

Judge Says That Making Available Is Infringement... RIAA Pounces Immediately
One of the key points in the various lawsuits that the RIAA has filed against people for file sharing is whether or not the RIAA can prove actual copyright infringement. Many have argued that there needs to proof that an infringing file was actually distributed -- otherwise, there's no violation under copyright law, which requires "distribution." The RIAA, of course, feels that just making a file available is enough to be considered distribution. It's not a settled matter of law with some judges ruling that making available is not distributing, but others feel the other way. In the latest such case, a guy who was defending himself without a lawyer (generally not such a good idea) failed to convince a judge that making available wasn't distributing. Unfortunately, in not getting good representation, this ruling is now in the books, and the RIAA immediately used it to push other judges to rule the same way. Luckily, the defendants in those other cases do have lawyers, who...