|
|
| Home RSS Feed About Blog on this site! Contact LLFCC Contribute to LLFCC Join the LLFCC listserv Login/Register Search |
|
Thu, Jul 3, 9:03pm
media democracy, media justice, diversity, truth, fairness, net neutrality, freepress, benton, teletruth, save the internet, stop big media, freedom of speech, public interest, public access, community media, community access |
news aggregatorMedia Minutes: July 4, 2008Categories: media reform
Can A Company Ban Retailers From Selling Its Products On eBay?Right on the heels of the awful court decision in France saying that eBay can be barred from selling even legitimate products, it appears some companies in England are shooting for a similar ruling. Jon Pyser writes in to let us know that a bunch of baby stroller companies in the UK are pushing hard to stop retailers from selling their legitimately purchased products on eBay. Effectively, they're trying to put EULAs on baby strollers suggesting that the retailer buyers don't actually have the right to resell what they've legally purchased. Not only is this questionable from a legal standpoint, it's dumb from a business standpoint. A healthy secondary market for products increases the value of the product itself, since buyers intrinsically recognize the potential resale market in determining the value of purchasing the original. In fact, one retailer notes that in taking away eBay sales, it's made selling that brand of stroller unprofitable. You would think, after 200+ years of economists explaining how protectionism hurts your own market, that people would understand this concept by now.
Permalink | Comments | Email This Story Categories: tech news and information
Do J.R.R. Tolkien's Kids Deserve Money For The Lord Of The Rings Movies?There are some competing opinion pieces in the LA Times, starting off with one siding with J.R.R. Tolkien's kids in their legal fight for royalties from the Lord of the Rings trilogy movies:
Tolkien obviously isn't Peter Jackson, who directed the franchise, or Liv Tyler or Viggo Mortensen, who starred in it, or New Line Cinema, the studio that financed it, or Miramax, which owned the film rights for a second but couldn't get the movie made, or producer Saul Zaentz, who bought the rights in 1976. He's just the guy who dreamed up the cosmology, the whole shebang of hobbits and dwarfs, orcs, ents, wargs, trolls, whatnot.
Then, there's the other side, pointing out that while it might be true that they legally deserve the money, it doesn't make any common sense:
I find it offensive to common sense to argue that the heirs of J.R.R. Tolkien (who are as dismayingly numerous as Kennedys in the court filing) are entitled to a shilling for work in which they had no hand and which was completed in 1949.
Most of the essay focuses on the question of the length of copyright, which we all know has been expanded to ridiculous lengths. However, it does seem like a reasonable question to ask why the kids of Tolkien deserve money for a movie they had nothing to do with based on an idea they had nothing to do with.
Permalink | Comments | Email This Story Categories: tech news and information
Virgin: We Won't Cut Off File Sharers; Sends Envelope Saying 'We May Cut You Off'After reports said that UK broadband ISP Virgin Media would become the recording industry's copyright cop, Virgin came out denying it, saying that kicking users off the internet was draconian. However, it later admitted that it would send warning letters to people, based on the flimsy evidence used by the recording industry. Now Virgin has started sending out those letters, claiming that it's just sending letters and that there is "absolutely no possibility" that it would ban file sharers from connecting to the internet. That must explain why it sent the first batch of warning letters to people in envelopes that read: "Important. If you don't read this, your broadband could be disconnected." Absolutely no possibility, huh? It's not necessarily bad that Virgin would let customers know that the recording industry had spotted their IP -- but it seems wrong to send out these messages that completely buy into the industry's spin on what that means. And, given how hard the recording industry is pushing governments to make "three strikes laws," that "absolutely no possibility" is looking less absolute and more possible every day.
Permalink | Comments | Email This Story Categories: tech news and information
Pacifica Anniversary Week, Part 6 (Further reading)This is the sixth and final installment in a series of essays about the legacy of the Supreme Court's FCC v. Pacifica Foundation decision, which celebrates its 30th anniversary today. Part 1, presented a general overview of the issue. Part 2 sketched a short history of FCC indecency regulation. Part 3 discussed the misguided logic of the Court's reasoning in Pacifica as it stood in 1978. Part 4 showed how that logic is even more misguided in light of modern developments. And part 5 was a recent joint editorial on the issue I co-authored with John Morris of Center for Democracy & Technology. In this final installment, I thought I would just offer up a some further reading on the issue for those who might be interested in doing further research on the topic. Although it is certainly not an exhaustive list of all the relevant books and law review articles out there, below you find a bibliography of some of the very best material on the issue of the Pacifica case, the "pervasiveness doctrine," and modern First Amendment jurisprudence. I've also embedded a Scribd version of a law review article I penned on these issues last year that ties together all my thinking on this front. It is called, "Why Regulate Broadcasting: Toward a Consistent First Amendment Standard for the Information Age." Why Regulate Broadcasting (Thierer-PFF) - Upload a Document to Scribd Read this document on Scribd: Why Regulate Broadcasting (Thierer-PFF) Categories: media reform
Mark Cuban's Wrong: Porn Filtering On YouTube Doesn't Mean It Loses Safe HarborsMark Cuban has a weird obsession with trying to convince people that YouTube is illegal, despite plenty of evidence to the contrary. His latest discussion on the topic is a real stretch. In response to the bad ruling that gives YouTube log files to Viacom, Cuban is saying that Viacom can now wipe out Google's DMCA safe harbors by showing that the company filters porn.
This is simply incorrect. The DMCA safe harbors do not claim that if you filter any material you must filter it all. Filtering out porn is a different beast than filtering out infringing content. You can tell that porn is porn simply by looking at it. But you cannot tell if content is infringing just by looking at it. It could be put up there on purpose by those who own the copyright. It could be fair use. It's not as simple as just saying that because YouTube removes porn it loses its safe harbor provisions. Also, while not specifically concerning the DMCA, other lawsuits involving the similar safe harbors in the CDA have found that intervening with content on a site does not mean that the safe harbors go away. Having knowledge that some content is porn is quite different than having knowledge of what content is infringing on someone's copyright. Permalink | Comments | Email This Story Categories: tech news and information
Lawyer Seriously Slapped Down For SLAPP Attempt Against Librarian BloggerWe've covered the concept of SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) suits plenty of times before. These are bogus lawsuits filed to try to bully a critic into shutting up. In one such case, involving an incredibly broad subpoena against a librarian blogger compiling information on the potential link between mercury and autism, a magistrate judge has seriously smacked down the lawyer who filed the subpoena. The blogger had merely published on her blog information about the fees the lawyer in question had received. In response, the lawyer subpoenaed a ridiculous amount of information from her: "all documents pertaining to the setup, financing, running, research, maintaining" of the blog, "including communications with representatives of the federal government, the pharmaceutical industry, advocacy groups, non-governmental organizations, political action groups, profit or non-profit entities, journals, editorial boards, scientific boards, academic boards, medical licensing boards, any 'religious groups (Muslim or otherwise), or individuals with religious affiliations,' and any other 'concerned individuals.'"
The judge quashed the subpoena quickly, but has now hit back really hard on the lawyer, Clifford Shoemaker, for filing it in the first place: Shoemaker has not offered a shred of evidence to support his speculations. He has, he says, had his suspicions aroused because she has so much information. Clearly he is unfamiliar with the extent of the information which a highly-competent librarian like Ms. Seidel can, and did, accumulate. If Shoemaker wanted to know if Ms. Seidel was in part supported by or provided information by Bayer, he could have inquired of Bayer or limited the Seidel subpoena to that information. Instead he issued the subpoena calling for production of documents and a deposition on the day before he stipulated to dismiss the underlying suit with prejudice. His failure to withdraw the subpoena when he clearly knew that suit was over is telling about his motives. His efforts to vilify and demean Ms. Seidel are unwarranted and unseemly.... I find that Clifford Shoemaker violated Fed. R. Civ. P. 11(b)(1) and Rule 45(c)(1).... The 11(b)(1) violation may also violate Virginia's Rules of Professional Conduct .... Clifford J. Shoemaker’s action is an abuse of legal process, a waste of judicial resources and an unnecessary waste of the time and expense to the purported deponent. The Clerk of Court is directed to forward a certified copy of this order, the motion to quash, the show cause order, and the response of Shoemaker and Seidel to the appropriate professional conduct committee of the Virginia State Bar in order that it may be made aware of Clifford J. Shoemaker's conduct and so that those authorities may take whatever action they deem appropriate. As a sanction from this court, Clifford J. Shoemaker is ordered to attend within three months, a continuing legal education program on ethics and on the discovery rules in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. He is ordered to file a certification of completion of the programs. Now that's a smackdown. Permalink | Comments | Email This Story Categories: tech news and information
Theaters Working To Make Even The Pre-Show Ads More EntertainingTwo different themes we've discussed here quite often are (1) that movie theaters need to stop worrying about piracy, and focus more on improving the moviegoing experience and (2) that advertising is content -- and it better be good content if you want the advertising to be effective. That's why it's somewhat encouraging to see that movie theaters are now experimenting with much more entertaining and interactive "pre-show" advertising. They're doing things like using motion sensors to have the audience "play" a game as a group, or having them use their mobile phones to vote on certain questions on the screen and immediately showing the results. That latter example may be doubly surprising considering how theaters these days are so anti-mobile phone. Still, while this is a move in the right direction, it's the wrong thing to be focusing on at this point. Improving the overall experience is much more important than making the pre-show ads better, so hopefully this is only one small part of what theaters are working on these days.
Permalink | Comments | Email This Story Categories: tech news and information
Judge: FISA trumps state secrets, binds executive branchA federal judge has struck a blow to the Bush Administration's use of the "state secrets" privilege in a lawsuit over its domestic surveillance practices. The ruling also undercuts the Democrats' rationale for signing off on retroactive immunity for the telecoms. Categories: tech news and information
Has Broadband Growth Stalled In The US?A new survey on broadband adoption in the US suggests that broadband adoption in the US may be leveling off, or stalling out completely as the numbers aren't all that different than they were at the end of 2007 (55% have broadband now, compared to 54% in December). Of course, there are a variety of different groups out there trying to measure broadband penetration in the US, and they all seem to turn up different numbers -- so these numbers shouldn't necessarily be taken as fact. The report suggests the economic situation may have something to do with it, though there appears to be a variety of reasons that factored into the decision of many not to sign up for broadband.
Permalink | Comments | Email This Story Categories: tech news and information
No Google source code for Viacom, just 12TB of YouTube dataViacom boldly asked the judge in its case against Google/YouTube for a copy of Google's search engine source code. The request was denied, but Viacom will get a copy of any video ever pulled from YouTube and a 12TB database of who watched what when. Categories: tech news and information
Viacom Gets To Find Out What YouTube Videos You WatchedIn the ongoing trainwreck that is Viacom's misguided lawsuit against YouTube (the one they would be better off losing) a judge has come out with a ruling on evidence that Google has to hand over to Viacom -- and it's being portrayed in the press as both a win and a loss for Google. On the "win" side, Google does not have to hand over the YouTube source code (or the source code of its filtering system). This makes sense, as the source code is rather meaningless here, and this request was clearly a reach from the start.
However, much more troublesome is the judge's ruling that Google does need to hand over log files including the IP address and usernames of people who viewed YouTube videos. This represents a huge violation of privacy and a clear violation of the Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA). This was the law we were just discussing, due to a lawsuit concerning Blockbuster revealing rental info via Facebook's Beacon program. It was originally passed after the video rental history of Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork was released in the press. The idea is that what movies you rent should be private info not to be shared. The court pretty much ignored this law, only mentioning it in a footnote, suggesting that it only applies to video tapes. But, as the EFF points out in the link above, the law actually says "prerecorded video cassette tapes or similar audio visual materials." But, more to the point, it is not at all clear why Viacom should need this specific information. If it wants to show numbers of people who viewed certain videos, it seems that aggregate info should be sufficient. Having Google hand over much more info doesn't seem to serve any purpose related to the legal questions involved in the case. Update: There are now claims that Viacom will be very limited in how the data can be used -- with the threat of a contempt of court charge if anyone other than the lawyers involved in the case and specific experts see the data, but that's really not sufficient for privacy purposes. There's no way to make sure the data only stays in those hands, and even so it's still a violation of the privacy of users. Permalink | Comments | Email This Story Categories: tech news and information
Report: US broadband market edging towards saturationThe latest data from the Pew Internet & American Life Project shows that broadband adoption is slowing down, its price remains a barrier, and nearly a quarter of the US population just isn't interested in the whole Internet thing. Categories: tech news and information
Beijing Deploys Citywide Wireless Broadband NetworkResidents of Beijing will have citywide Wi-Fi service by 2010, if everything goes as planned. CECT-Chinacomm Communications has finished the first phase which covers 100 square kilometers. They will free Wi-Fi service during the Olympics. I do not know how good the service is because I have not gone to Beijing to test it and I don’t know anyone who has done so. This is one challenging project. Categories: media reform
Virgin, BPI at odds as first infringement letters go outVirgin Media has sent out warning letters to customers as part of a partnership with record industry group BPI, saying that they could have their broadband disconnected if they continue file sharing. Virgin has backed off on the claim, however, saying that it won't take legal action against users, while BPI insists that it will. Categories: tech news and information
US Gov't: Do Not Carry Your Social Security Number; US Gov't: You Must Carry Your Social Security NumberThe classic concept of how to force someone to think for themselves rather than mindlessly obey authority is to have two equally powerful authority figures demand that the individual do the completely opposite actions (an example: having two top generals on either side of a low ranking soldier, one demanding he sit down, and the other demanding he stand). Somehow, though, I doubt that's the reasoning behind conflicting messages coming from the US government concerning whether or not you should carry your social security number on you. Jim Harper points us to the fact that the Federal Trade Commission has suggested it's not wise for American citizens to carry their social security number with them in their wallet -- yet other government agencies seem to require it.
Medicare and the Defense Department each issue cards with the person's SSN included. Medicare seems particularly conflicted about the whole thing. It refuses to get rid of cards with SSNs, saying that "it would be too expensive." Instead, in order to deal with the risk of identity theft over this issue, it suggests that you only carry the card with you when you think you might need it: "don't carry it with you unless you know you're going to need it." In other words, always make sure to properly predict that heart attack or stroke ahead of time so you know to carry the card with you. Of course, Medicare also publishes a conflicting pamphlet that reminds people: "Carry your card with you when you are away from home." Mixed messages indeed. Then, of course, the FTC also recommends that you not write your social security on any check, as that's an easy way for ID thefts to get a hold of it. Of course, on the other side, you have the IRS, who asks taxpayers to write their social security number on the checks you send in. So will the FTC now go after Medicare, the Defense Department and the IRS for helping to cause identity theft? Somehow I doubt it. Permalink | Comments | Email This Story Categories: tech news and information
Judge Orders YouTube to Give User Data to ViacomIf you wanted to keep your obsession with hyperactive YouTube phenomeon “Fred” a secret, you’re in for some bad news. Categories: media reform
Birmingham Mayor Refuses to Do Interview with al-Jazeera ReportersBirmingham Mayor Larry Langford Tuesday refused to be interviewed by reporters from Middle Eastern news network Al-Jazeera English because he opposes the group's coverage of terrorist activities and its graphic display of hostages. Categories: media reform
Fox News Airs Altered Photos of New York Times ReportersEditor's note: To watch the video and see the photos, click here. Categories: media reform
L.A. Times Outlines 'Painful' CutsThe Los Angeles Times plans to cut approximately 150 positions—or about 17 percent—from its print and Internet newsroom staff and reduce the number of pages it publishes each week by 15 percent, Times Publisher David Hiller and Editor Russ Stanton informed staff Wednesday. Categories: media reform
|
|
LLFCC (Lasar's Letter on the FCC); copyright 2005, 2006, 2007. Please feel free to post these articles on your site or whatever because you'll do it anyway. Don't forget to credit the author and link to the site. Ideally you will post part of the article and add a link to the rest. |