Home / techdirt.com rss archive / September-24-2007


Next Time You Announce An Agreement To Sell DRM-Free Downloads, Perhaps You Should Actually Have That Agreement
Michael Robertson, the founder of MP3.com, Linspire, SIPphone and a number of other companies has a pretty direct formula for getting publicity for his new startups: do something outrageous that pretty much guarantees a lawsuit. Then just assume that the resulting lawsuit will drive the publicity of the startup. Of course, sometimes such a strategy can backfire. Earlier this year, Robertson launched AnywhereCD with the claim that he would be selling DRM-free downloads from Warner Music -- perhaps the most stringent holdout in ditching DRM. Except... apparently Warner Music thought it had agreed to something entirely different and quickly sued AnywhereCD. It was actually somewhat difficult to understand Warner Music's claim. AnywhereCD was selling the physical CD, it was just that they would then also offer the digital tracks from the same exact CD. Basically, all the company was doing was saving people the step of having to rip the CDs they had legally purchased. Either...

Small Companies Look To Move Antitrust Suits To Europe
Following the EU's decision to smack down Microsoft for antitrust violation, we had already noted how this could mean trouble for other successful tech companies. Of course, that just means it's an opportunity for less successful companies. The Financial Times notes that small companies that have been unable to get much traction in their attempts to brand their bigger, more established competitors as monopolists, may now try to move those cases to Europe, where they hope to receive more favorable rulings. That seems a bit extreme and, one would hope, unlikely to succeed in most cases. Still, we have seen more questionable IPOs moving to Europe, so why not more questionable antitrust cases as well?

Copyright Is About Incentives, Not Protection
Whenever we discuss the issue of copyrights and bring up the fact that copyright is not a welfare system to protect creators, people get upset with us. There seems to be this false assumption that copyrights (and patents) are designed for the sake of protecting the creator of content. That's not true and it's never been true. From the very earliest debates about the concept of intellectual property in the US, it has always been about creating incentives for innovation -- or, as the Constitution so eloquently puts it: "to promote the progress of science and useful arts." In thinking over the various debates over copyright, it seems to come down to this particular issue over and over again. Those who are focused on the original purpose of copyrights recognize the problems with the copyright system and are interested in fixing them. Those who believe that the purpose of copyrights is to "protect" don't have a problem with the way things are, or with the idea of strengthening...

Political Mudslinging Reaches New Lows: Using Anonymous Blog Comments In Attack Ads
I almost hate to post this, because anything that touches on politics tends to dissolve into pointless name calling in the comments, but it is interesting (if sleazy) to find out that political campaign attack ads are now using anonymously posted blog comments to smear opponents. The ad in question has a voice-over announcing "what others are saying..." about the candidates opponent, and then shows some really negative comments that were placed anonymously on a blog post. Yes, this seems incredibly low. In fact, if campaigns are going to do that, they could simply post whatever kind of comment they wanted to any random prominent blog (as long as it has open comments) and then use that quote in their campaign ad. Yet, because it's now on a blog somewhere, they can pretend it's legitimately "sourced." So this is what they meant when people predicted that blogs would revolutionize politics?

Symantec Cries Wolf About ThreatCon 4: Imminent Global Internet Failure
Symantec's DeepSight threat warning system sent out an erroneous "ThreatCon 4" warning on Friday caused by an errant product test. ThreatCon 4 is the highest level of warning that can be issued by the DeepSight system, and is supposed to indicate times where "extreme global network incident activity is in progress." The level 4 warning has never been issued; the last time level 3 was reached was back in 2004. Symantec issued a retraction of the false alarm approximately an hour after it was issued, and so far, no reports of harm from the false alarm are apparent. Actually, it doesn't even seem like anyone took this warning that seriously at all, considering the lack of any sort of response. And without any sort of response, doesn't that make the early warning system, well, not that useful? After an hour without much of a response, they should have just said: "This was a test of the DeepSite early warning system. Had this been a real warning..."

Spying On Your Ex-Girlfriend Not Quite What Homeland Security's Database Is For
Every time we hear of yet another plan for the government to set up yet another database of information about people, we wonder about how it will be misused. Supporters always talk about how helpful such databases are (which is debatable), but rarely are willing to take into account how such systems are going to be abused -- and they're always abused. The latest such case involves an employee at the Department of Commerce who used a Department of Homeland Security database to track an ex-girlfriend. This wasn't just a one-off thing either. He apparently used the database 163 times to check up on her. Then he threatened to have the woman deported and her family killed. So, as the government continues to push the boundaries in trying to collect more and more data on everyone, it's at least worth asking if the potential for abuses is taken into consideration and how they're dealt with (if they're dealt with at all).

Even Movie Industry Execs Seem To Think The DMCA Is Unreasonable
We've pointed out for a long time that the DMCA is bad for innovation and needlessly inconveniences users. It seems the point is becoming so obvious that even senior executives in the movie industry are beginning to tacitly acknowledge (via Ars Technica) that the DMCA is unreasonable. At a conference on DRM last week, Scott Smyers, VP of network and systems architecture for Sony Electronics, admitted that he makes backup copies of his kids' DVDs. For those keeping score at home, not only is copying DVDs illegal under the DMCA, but Sony itself participated in a lawsuit to shut down a company making precisely the sort of DVD-backup software Smyers is presumably using to copy his kids' movies. Meanwhile, Jim Helman, the chief technology officer of MovieLabs, a research organization funded by the major studios, says that one of the most promising new devices on the horizon is a video jukebox that will let you rip your DVD collection onto a hard drive and then stream...

'Free, With Ads' Phone Calls Trying Yet Again
At the height of the dot com boom, there was talk of how just about any business model could be shifted to the "free, but with ads" business model. That resulted in the ability to get free computers, free DSL and even free cars... as long as you were willing to put up with ads (or in the case of the cars, cover your car in ads). The concept died down a bit, going back to the traditional areas where such a business model made sense (newspapers, television, etc.). However, it seems like the idea is making something of a comeback in the telco realm -- at least on the company side. Whether or not users actually buy into it (or, rather, view enough ads to make it worthwhile) remains to be seen. First up, is Blyk, a company that we discussed a year ago, but which is finally launching. It doesn't appear that they've adjusted their business model (free mobile phone service and they put ads on your mobile phone) since we panned the whole concept. Similar efforts haven't gone...

Another Day, Another Smackdown By A Judge Against The RIAA
In the early days of the RIAA lawsuits, it seemed like judges just took the RIAA's word on things, but that's long since changed as lawyers defending those accused have become more sophisticated -- often realizing that the RIAA research tactics were questionable, the evidence they had was quite flimsy and the system was guaranteed to accuse all sorts of innocent people without much support. As this has happened, judges have become increasingly skeptical of these RIAA lawsuits and those who haven't done anything wrong actually (finally) have a decent chance of pointing out that the RIAA's evidence is wrong. And, in fact, judges are increasingly pushing the RIAA to pay the legal fees of the people they falsely accuse. In the latest such decision, a judge has smacked down the RIAA and ordered them to pay the legal fees in the case of Tanya Andersen. You may recall that the RIAA had accused Andersen of copyright infringement a few years ago -- and then continued to pressure...

Video Professor Sues Anonymous Critics
If you watch enough TV, you've probably come across the commercials for "the video professor" who offers DVD videos teaching you how to do things like use your computer. The commercials involve an appeal from the CEO and founder of the company to "buy my product" and promote how you can get a trial for "free!" However, if you look around online, you find many, many complaints that the company ended up charging people money for the supposedly "free" products. What is actually happening is that when you sign up for the "free" trial, you're actually signing up for a subscription to receive other training videos periodically. The problem is that many people don't realize this -- and claim that they were mislead (in many ways, this is similar to the Amazon Prime mess that still hasn't been cleared up. Whether or not the company clearly explains to buyers what they're signing up for is open to debate.However, with such widespread criticism for its practices online, it isn't...

Newspapers Need To Learn They're Not In The Newspaper Business
As the debate over newspaper business models continues to heat up, Vin Crosbie reminds us of an important point: newspapers will never figure out how to adapt to the times if they keep thinking of themselves as newspapers. We had discussed something similar back in my series of economics posts, where I talked about the importance of defining your market based on the benefits you were providing, rather than the product. If you think of yourself as a newspaper, you continue to think about ways to make sure that particular product can make money. If you, instead, think of yourself as a provider of useful news information, then you work on ways to continue to do that, no matter what the final "product" is for delivery. The people who are your customers, users and partners don't care that you're in the newspaper business. They care about the value you add to their lives.

Germany Says Nein To Private Copying
A bunch of folks have submitted the news that Germany's upper house of parliament has approved a new copyright law that forbids any kind of private copying of music or movies. There aren't many details in the Variety article about why such a strict law would get approval, though it does note that the politicians ignored widespread criticism against the law. Obviously, this is the type of law that some large entertainment companies would push for, though if it really does become the law, they'll find that it harms them a lot more than it helps them. That's because forbidding private copying will make music, movies and TV shows a lot less valuable to purchasers. If you can't rip a CD to mp3 format to place on your iPod, that CD is suddenly a lot less valuable. It's amazing that such a law would pass, but the end result is going to be criminalizing a large segment of the population while making entertainment products a lot less valuable. It's hard to see how that's beneficial...