Home / techdirt.com rss archive / September-17-2007


US Immigration Office Unable To Understand Internet Popularity
In the last few years, we've heard numerous stories of musicians rocketing to stardom, thanks to the internet. In fact, some bands really are coming out of nowhere, with tons of internet support worldwide, even if the band has only been together a short while. Apparently, that's a huge problem for foreign bands looking to tour the US, as the type of visa that US immigration grants to touring musicians requires that those musicians can show that they are "internationally recognized" for a "sustained and substantial" period of time. Unfortunately for internet superstar musicians, US immigration doesn't seem to recognize internet popularity as being "internationally recognized" and the quick rise to popularity hurts on the "sustained and substantial" period of time analysis. The folks in immigration respond that they will consider internet popularity, but since they have no idea if the popularity is real or manufactured, the band needs to prove that the sites that talk about...

NY Times Does The Math: Pay Walls Don't Make Business Sense
As was rumored last month, the NY Times has decided to pull the plug on its TimesSelect paywall service, making all NY Times content from 1987 forward free online (they're also making all of the content from 1851 to 1922 free, but that's already in the public domain). This move comes two years after the paywall was first put in place. At the time, we were one of many who pointed out that this was going to make the NY Times a lot less valuable, and it seems that the business folks at the NY Times finally did the math and came to the same conclusion. They note that subscription growth was slowing (something that was obvious over a year ago) as advertising growth was ramping -- and that they hadn't counted on how many people would be drop-in visitors, coming from other sites. That seems like an odd statement, since it was quite obvious more than two years ago that search engines and other sites tended to drive a tremendous amount of traffic to news sites. Either way, like...

If You Declare Your Content Is In The Public Domain, Can You Still Issue DMCA Takedown Notices?
The same guy who is fighting Uri Geller over bogus DMCA takedown notices may now need to be fighting the "Creation Science Evangelism Ministries," which has apparently forced a video off YouTube via a DMCA takedown notice. The video, not surprisingly, is critical of the group, but almost certainly does not violate the group's copyrights. The one really interesting thing here, is that the head of the ministry has apparently declared that all of the group's content is in the public domain -- which raises the question of whether or not you can still issue a DMCA takedown notice on content you've declared to be in the public domain?

Is Yahoo's Zimbra Buy An Attempt To Move Into The Enterprise?
Earlier today, the news broke that Yahoo was acquiring email and collaboration tools provider Zimbra for $350 million. Some may find this a little odd, since Yahoo just recently (finally) revamped its online email client based on the code it obtained years ago in purchasing Oddpost. However, one reasonable explanation is that this is (yet another) Google-inspired response. Yahoo bought Oddpost soon after Google released Gmail and Yahoo realized its email client was looking woefully dated. More recently, Google's been getting all sorts of attention for its attempts to move further and further into the enterprise with Google Apps -- including pushing Gmail as a solution for enterprise email. Zimbra collaboration offerings were mainly focused on enterprises or organizations that would be rolling out email to many customers (such as ISPs). Yahoo hasn't focused much (if at all) on creating an enterprise-ready solution, so by buying Zimbra, it could be signaling plans to move...

What An Online Bank Run Looks Like
In the bad old days (or in countries with questionable financial situations) when there were concerns a bank might run out of money, there would be an old-fashioned "bank run," with tons of customers all trying to withdraw their money at once. That could cause all sorts of problems, since most banks work on the theory that such runs won't happen. Thanks to the FDIC, you don't see bank runs in the US these days, but apparently that's not the case in the UK, where concerns over the financial status of the bank Northern Rock led to what certainly looks like an old-fashioned bank run. However, in this modern age, not everyone is lining up on the street to get into their nearest Northern Rock branch. Apparently, the bank's website has experienced the equivalent of a bank run on its servers -- meaning that they've been pretty much unable to handle the traffic, frustrating a number of online account holders who say the terms of service say the only way they can retrieve money...

Playlist Patented... Everyone Sued... But Did Apple Pay Up?
A bunch of folks have been submitting the latest story on a patent hoarding firm, Premier International Associates, who appears to have absolutely no other business than getting its hands on questionable, overly broad, obvious patents and then suing everyone possible. In this case, the patent is for the basic concept of a playlist, which can be found just about anywhere. So, it should come as little to no surprise that the list of companies sued is quite long, including: Microsoft, Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, Dell, Lenovo, Toshiba, Viacom, Real, Napster, Samsung, LG, Motorola, Nokia, Sandisk, HP, Acer, Gateway and Yahoo (phew!). That's quite a list, though it's not surprising to see that there are a ton of companies offering software that has a concept so basic and so obvious as a playlist.However, there is one very interesting point here. Apple is missing from the list. As the folks over at Ars Technica figured out, Premier actually had sued Apple about this same patent...

Ameritrade Knew About Data Leak Long Before It Told Customers
Late Friday, the news broke that TD Ameritrade is the latest in a long, long, long, long, long list of companies who have leaked data of its customers. In this case (as in many others) it was apparently due to their computers getting hacked. Considering how many similar stories we see, it almost didn't seem worth writing about. However, it appears that Ameritrade was well aware of the hacking long before they disclosed it. According to a lawsuit that was filed months ago, Ameritrade users had been receiving stock spam to unique email addresses provided only to Ameritrade as far back as October of 2006 -- and some of those users had reported this to Ameritrade. Then, back in May, Slashdot ran a detailed piece on the apparent leaking of Ameritrade email addresses, and even questioned why Ameritrade had not disclosed this breach, as is required under California law. The lawsuit, filed at the end of May, questions this as well. Yet, Ameritrade waited until now to disclose...

Why Did NBC Make Life Harder For People Who Want To Buy Its Content?
It really is amusing to watch how the companies who are most worried about "piracy" (which is a misnomer) always seem to treat their legitimate customers the worst. We've all wondered why the movie companies put up those annoying anti-piracy ads that waste the time of the folks who actually paid. But, what's most amazing is how many of these content companies are so focused on "piracy" that they miss the fact that they need to provide a reasonable experience for people who actually want to purchase their content. Making life difficult is only going to drive those legitimate customer prospects towards the very activity they were most afraid of. Take NBC Universal, for example. The company is so worried about the threat of "piracy" that it's making up ridiculous stories about the harm caused to corn growers due to piracy. However, at the same time, it gets into a petty argument with Apple and pulls all of its content from iTunes -- which is where the majority of folks who...

GameStop Suspends Manager Who Won't Sell Games To Kids With Bad Grades
Last week the news spread about a manager of a GameStop video game store in Dallas who, without corporate approval, had instituted a policy to encourage good grades. The policy was that he wouldn't sell video games to kids unless an adult confirms that the kid got good grades... and if the kid had straight As, the manager would buy him or her a free game. However, as the Raw Feed points out, it appears that GameStop wasn't too happy with this policy and has suspended the guy. This really isn't a huge surprise (going against corporate policy doesn't often end well), but the community reaction to the whole thing certainly suggests that there's a market for this kind of "good grades policy," and if GameStop won't allow it, then perhaps other video game stores might test it out to try to attract more business. It sounds like a lot of parents would support it. Of course, there's really nothing stopping parents from instituting the identical policy on their own... Also, you...

Canadian Recording Industry Suddenly Against Private Copying Levy It Fought So Hard For
For many years, the recording industry has been able to convince the Canadian government that it needs to add a "private copying levy" to various forms of blank media, to reimburse the industry for any "private copying" that happens on that media. This is pretty questionable for a number of reasons -- basically amounting to a government tax to support a private industry and its inability to adapt its business model to the market. At times, this private copying levy can be an astounding 70% of the cost of blank CDs. Once mp3 players (specifically the iPod) started to become popular, the recording industry fought to have the private levy attached to those players as well. In late 2003, the industry got its wish -- but with a catch. A ruling found that the devices could be taxed, but if they were, then downloading unauthorized content would be seen as legal (uploading unauthorized content would still be illegal). A judge later overturned the iPod levy, but some in the industry...

EU Smacks Down Microsoft's Antitrust Appeal
Given just how many times EU regulators have complained about Microsoft's inability to comply with antitrust rulings, it probably comes as little to no surprise to find out that an EU court has rejected Microsoft's appeal of the antitrust ruling against the company, that could cost the company well over $600 million. The court continues to insist that Microsoft needs to sell a version of Windows without Microsoft's media player included while also requiring it to open up more to competitors who want to make sure their software works well with Windows. Of course, it's still not clear how this benefits consumers in any way. It's true that Microsoft bundles its media player, but many, many people have been willing to download and use alternatives. Also, Microsoft is a lot more open than most companies in allowing competitors technology to work on its operating systems. The company has known for quite some time that its success as a platform depends on this. It's hard to...

MediaDefender Internal Email Leak Confirms Plans To Launch Honeypot File Sharing Network
Back in July, there was a report that MediaDefender, a company that works for the MPAA and RIAA polluting file sharing networks with fake files, was working on a fake file sharing network that would trick users into downloading some spyware that could then be used to send details back to the entertainment industry for use in various lawsuits. After the news broke, MediaDefender denied that this was the intended purpose of the project, and said it was just an internal project that was accidentally made public. Speaking of internal stuff accidentally made public, late Friday the news began to spread that a bunch of MediaDefender's internal emails were now available on file sharing systems, and looking through them seems to indicate not only that MediaDefender was spending an awful lot of time on this fake site (called MiiVi.com) but even after it was exposed, the company was still working on it, while trying to find a new name that wouldn't be connected to MediaDefender. Of...