In the latest example of extreme trademark abuse, video game company Gaijin Entertainment is not just claiming a trademark over "gaijin" but using it to demand the domain name Gaijin.com, which was registered by Brandon Harris back in May of 1995. The legal nastygram that the company sent is quite incredible, suggesting that Harris registered the domain later and is somehow infringing on their mark: It came to our attention that you registered and maintain a website www.gaijin.com (“Infringing Website”) that infringes Gaijin Mark. By maintaining and offering to public your content via the website, i.e., Infringing Website, having the same domain as Gaijin Mark, you create consumer confusion and mistake as to the source, sponsorship and/or affiliation of the Infringing Website and Gaijin, thereby infringing Gaijin Mark. Luckily, Harris has Mike Godwin (yes, that Mike Godwin, so get your Nazi references in early) as a lawyer, and he quickly sent back the following excellent response. Dear Mr. Goldstein-Gureff, Please be advised that my client, Brandon Harris, disputes your trademark-infringement claim in every particular. That is the most polite way to state how vigorously we dispute your attempt to assert flat ownership of the word “gaijin,” a word so well-established in English that it is an entry in the Oxford English Dictionary. Currently, I’m advising my client to publicize your demand letter, so that the entire game-consuming public will be made aware of your client’s overreaching trademark assertions. In addition, we will of course continue to make clear that Brandon Harris’s website in no way gives rise to any kind of marketplace confusion of the sort that American trademark law is designed to address. In the interests of allowing you and your client to gracefully retract your claim, we have chosen to refrain from publicizing your demand until you respond to this message, provided that you respond no later than close-of-business Monday. Since I am currently in DC, Eastern time applies. –Mike Godwin P.S. I understand that your clients are possibly Russian nationals. You may wish to explain to them the scope and limitations of the Lanham Act in the United States. –MG Obviously, they did not retract the claim in time, and thus, the trademark bullying is now public.Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
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We've pointed out over and over and over again that patents are not a proxy for innovation. In fact, there's little to connect the two at all, except potentially for how patents can hinder and hold back the pace of innovation. A new study really helps to drive home how little patents have to do with innovation. Pointed out to us by James Bessen, the study looks at "R&D 100 Awards" from the academic journal, Research & Development from 1977 to 2004. As you might expect, the R&D 100 Awards are given out each year by the journal in an attempt to name the top 100 innovations of the year. If patents were instrumental in driving innovation, you'd certainly expect most of these innovations to be patented. But you'd be wrong, as the reports authors, Roberto Fontana, Alessandro Nuvolari, Hiroshi Shimizu and Andrea Vezzulli, quickly discovered. A stunning 91% of all of the technologies receiving the prize were not actually patented. That's covering approximately 3,000 technologies winning this award as the most innovative advancement of the year over a period of about three decades. What's interesting to me is that this actually matches very closely with one of my favorite studies on patents, from economist Petra Moser, who looked at historical patenting rates from the 19th century using data on products displayed at the Crystal Palace exhibition of 1851 and the Centennial exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876, which against showed very few of the "economically useful" inventions were patented. Over 80% were not patented. Of course, you might think that back in the 1800s there was less interest in patenting, but this new study suggests a rather similar rate to what Moser found from 150 years ago. The R&D 100 certainly seems to be a good way to look at key innovations. It's judged by a distinguished panel of experts, looking at two key criteria: i) technological significance (i.e., whether the product can be considered a major breakthrough from a technical point of view); ii) competitive significance (i.e., how the performance of the product compares to rival solutions available on the market). Both of these would seem like significant indicators of innovation. And, as the authors note, many big innovations can easily be found on the list: Throughout the years, key breakthroughs inventions such as Polacolor film (1963), the flashcube (1965), the automated teller machine (1973), the halogen lamp (1974), the fax machine (1975), the liquid crystal display (1980), the printer (1986), the Kodak Photo CD (1991), the Nicoderm antismoking patch (1992), Taxol anticancer drug (1993), lab on a chip (1996), and HDTV (1998) have received the prize. Tellingly, even to apply for the award, innovators have to show just how much the innovation was an improvement on what else was available on the market, They have to submit a "competitive matrix" showing this. In other words, these prize-winning innovations tend to be actual innovations in the market that drive the state of the art forward. You could suggest that they are innovations that truly "promote the progress," as (unlike our patent system) to get this award you literally have to show how the innovation promotes further progress. As you can see from the key findings, very, very little of the innovations that won the prize was also patented either three years before or three years after the prize was awarded: Even when you take out "non-corporate" innovations (which have less propensity to be patented), looking at corporate only innovations over 87% were not patented. Of course there are some differences depending on what industry the innovation happened in, as well as where the innovation was originated. The researchers broke down all of that information as well: As you can see, the US actually has a lower patenting rate than Europe and Asia for the most part, which runs counter to the narrative often being told about how the US's leads the world with our patent system, and that Asian innovators have less respect for patents. Though, on that point, the researchers note that most of the patents in the "Asian" section are Japanese, so it's possible that other countries in Asia, mainly China (along with known tech hubs Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore) do, in fact have a much lower propensity to patent. Of course the point that stood out as most interesting to me was the very low rate of patenting in the "chemistry" industry. This covers pharmaceuticals as well. And, of course, we're always told that this industry really "needs" patents because of the ease of copying as compared to the cost of innovating. That doesn't seem to be supported by the data at all. Yes, it's the highest percentage patented in the US, but still only 14% of such innovations are patented in the US. All in all, this is a really interesting paper and a significant contribution to the discussion over whether or not patents are really a good judge of innovation. It would seem from the data available that the answer is a very loud "no." In fact, it would appear that very few of the most significant and important innovations are being patented. That should, at the very least, raise considerable questions concerning those who argue that our patent policy is necessary to encourage innovation, or those who argue that numbers from the patent system are a good judge of innovation.Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
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Back in November 2011, we wrote about the Belgian music royalty collection agency SABAM's demand for 3.4% of Internet subscriber fees as "compensation" for online piracy in Belgium. As Tim Cushing explained back then, this was ridiculous on just about every level. But SABAM doesn't let little things like that get in the way of its desperate attempt to avoid moving with the times and coming up with new business models. So after failing dismally to convince Europe's highest court that it could force ISPs to spy on their customers, SABAM has now moved on to suing ISPs instead, as TorrentFreak reports: This week SABAM sued the Belgian ISPs Belgacom, Telenet and Voo, claiming a 3.4 percent cut of Internet subscriber fees as compensation for the rampant piracy they enable through their networks. SABAM argues that authors should be paid for any "public broadcast" of a song. Pirated downloads and streams on the Internet are such public broadcasts according to the group, and they are therefore entitled to proper compensation. One of the ISPs being sued, Belgacom, has a better analogy for what's going on here: "A postman doesn't open letters he delivers. We are also just transporting data, and we are not responsible for the contents," Belgacom says. That's the "mere conduit" principle, and as TorrentFreak points out, if that defense is overturned here, and the "piracy license" is imposed, the cost will inevitably be passed on to users, which means that people who buy music legally will be paying twice for the privilege. And of course, it wouldn't just be SABAM: the other copyright industries -- films, books, photos, software, games -- will doubtless all line up for their free handout, making online access prohibitively expensive in Belgium. But along with all the other problems mentioned by Tim back in his 2011 post, there's another major flaw in SABAM's logic. According to recent work carried out by the European Commission's Joint Research Centre, it's not even clear that the recorded music industry is being hurt by unauthorized downloads: Perhaps surprisingly, our results present no evidence of digital music sales displacement. While we find important cross country differences in the effects of downloading on music purchases, our findings suggest a rather small complementarity between these two music consumption channels. It seems that the majority of the music that is consumed illegally by the individuals in our sample would not have been purchased if illegal downloading websites were not available to them. The complementarity effect of online streaming is found to be somewhat larger, suggesting a stimulating effect of this activity on the sales of digital music. That is, streaming sites might even promote digital music sales; so maybe SABAM should be giving money to the ISPs, not asking for it.... Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and on Google+ Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
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I know that the big copyright guys now love to use the term "copyright theft" to describe mere infringement. But if the story presented by Harper Lee, the 87-year-old author of To Kill A Mockingbird, in a new lawsuit is accurate, it appears that she's one of the few actual victims of copyright theft. She's now sued her former literary agent Samuel Pinkus, claiming that he effectively tricked her into signing away her copyright on the work to Pinkus' company, Keystone Literary. Lee, who has failing eyesight and hearing, was residing in an assisted-living facility in 2007 after suffering a stroke when she signed a document assigning her copyright to Pinkus’s company, according to the complaint. While the copyright was re- assigned to Lee last year after legal action and Pinkus was discharged as Lee’s agent, he was still receiving royalties from the novel as of this year, according to the complaint. “Pinkus knew that Harper Lee was an elderly woman with physical infirmities that made it difficult for her to read and see,” Gloria Phares, Lee’s lawyer, said in the complaint. “Harper Lee had no idea she had assigned her copyright” to Pinkus’s company. I've been trying to find the case in PACER and have so far failed (so if anyone has better luck, please let me know -- also shame on the news media for failing to post the actual filing). Though, in doing so, I discovered that Pinkus has been involved in a few other legal spats with authors, including with the heirs of John Steinbeck in a key case about termination rights and copyright.Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
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We're still confused as to why Google has continued to have Motorola Mobility play the role of a patent bully ever since they bought it. Over a year ago, we suggested that Google could make a real statement on patents by stopping its aggressive patent licensing program via Motorola. After all, Google bought Motorola Mobility just a few weeks after the company appeared to be taking a strong stance against patent bullying. Ever since, it has seemed rather hypocritical for Motorola Mobility to have kept on being a patent bully. And it seems to be backfiring all over the place. It was the one real area that Google got in trouble over with the FTC's antitrust investigation. And, the patent legal fight with Microsoft hasn't gone well for Motorola Mobility either. And, now, the latest bit of news is that the EU is coming down on Motorola Mobility for seeking an injunction over standard-essential patents as well. Honestly, this whole thing has left me really confused. The patent aggression hasn't worked out at all for Google, is leaving them wide open to fines and complaints from various powerful government bodies, isn't doing much in the courts and (most importantly) is leaving the company itself wide open to charges of hypocrisy. Why not just do the right thing -- the same thing that Google itself has done in the past, and which it has spoken out about on numerous occasions: stop being a patent bully. It makes no sense that they company has continued down this path.Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
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Here on Techdirt we often talk about the copyright ratchet -- the fact that for three hundred years changes to copyright have always been in one direction: longer, wider and stronger. But there's a group of countries where the copyright ratchet isn't in place yet. These are the so-called LDCs -- the Least Developed Countries -- where many of the world's poorest citizens live. That's because the main Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, better known as TRIPS, explicitly allows LDCs a transitional period of ten years, during which time they are not required to meet all the stringent requirements laid down there for granting intellectual monopolies. Moreover, the TRIPS agreement specifies: The Council for TRIPS shall, upon duly motivated request by a least-developed country Member, accord extensions of this period. And as an article on infojustice.org notes: Last November the LDCs exercised their legal rights under the TRIPS rules, and submitted a request to the TRIPS Council requesting an unconditional extension of the transition period for as long as a country remains an LDC. The current transition period expires on 1 July 2013. Article 66.1 of the TRIPS Agreement grants LDCs a renewable exemption from TRIPS obligations. The rationale is that LDCs need maximum flexibility to develop a viable technological base and address their constraints, and that the standard of TRIPS IP protection may be an obstacle in achieving those objectives. The US and EU routinely insist that countries follow TRIPS to the letter, but it seems they are only too happy to ignore their own obligations when it comes to granting a further exemption to LDCs: Developed countries, particularly the United States and the European Union, have offered a poor and impractical deal of an incredibly short extension of 5 years with restrictive conditions to least developed countries that are entitled to be exempted from implementing the WTO TRIPS Agreement. Particularly problematic is their demand that the LDCs agree to a "no-roll-back" clause, a TRIPS plus condition that will prevent LDCs from rolling back (i.e. providing a reduced degree of IP protection) their current laws, even if they adversely impact their development concerns. "No roll-back" is another way of saying upward ratchet. But the US and EU are trying to haggle over details of an agreement that was finalized and signed back in 1994. As infojustice.org puts it: The US and EU demand, if agreed to, would actually amount to an amendment to Article 66.1, but without following proper WTO procedures as required by Article X of the WTO Agreement That is, the US and EU are not only trying to bully smaller countries into accepting unofficial changes to negotiated agreements, in this case to lock LDCs into a system with a built-in ratchet for intellectual monopolies, but they want the upward ratchet to operate on TRIPS itself. Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and on Google+ Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
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We have a variety of concerns with the so-called "Marketplace Fairness Act," which will require companies selling things online to track, collect and distribute taxes based on where buyers are coming from. For small and medium-sized businesses, this is likely going to be a big burden online (and for buyers in many places, this will likely increase what you have to pay on checkout). Given the fact that the bill is mostly supported by brick and mortar stores and shopping centers, it's not difficult to see how it's an attack on online shopping (for what it's worth, Amazon was initially against the bill, but eventually flipped when it realized that it could use the bill to hold back smaller competitors). Unfortunately, the Senate passed the bill by a decent margin, 69-27. The bill will move to the House where it may be more difficult to pass. So it may die on the vine, even as the administration has said it will support it.Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
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Commercials are always trying to get people's attention -- sometimes by being controversial and sometimes by being shocking. But even when a company tries to broadcast only sensitive and feel-good messages, there will always be some folks pointing out that companies don't really care about people as much as profits. Here are just a few advertisements that might have just missed getting their message across. Why is it that car companies seem to have a hard time NOT making offensive ads? Ford India recently apologized for some terrible ads depicting bound and gagged women in the spacious hatchback trunk of a Ford Figo. But Ford wasn't the only example, Hyundai and GM also had some horrible commercials to retract recently. [url] Dr Pepper posted an ad on Facebook with a common geeky joke, showing the evolution of humans -- starting with a chimp-like ancestor and ending with a modern upright person holding a can of his favorite beverage. Poking the beehive of anti-evolution religious folks might be a fairly safe way of creating some controversy, but it probably doesn't sell that much more sugar water. [url] The Economist once ran an ad for itself, asking "Why should women read The Economist?" Maybe publications written by -- and read by -- mostly men should be a bit more careful when trying to step away from being a "Maxim for nerds"..? [url] If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
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Plenty of folks have been waiting to see how Judge Otis Wright would finally rule in the Prenda case he was overseeing. As you may recall, Judge Wright began to see through the tricks and facades put up by Brett Gibbs and Prenda, and eventually ordered everyone to show up in his courtroom (twice). The hearings, as you may recall, did not go well for Team Prenda and all its associated players. While Wright may be somewhat limited in what he can do to Prenda, it appears he's doing his best to throw whatever book he can at them, randomly using as many Star Trek references as he can cram into the tight 11 page order. The discussion lays out the details pretty clearly. We'll post the whole key part of the discussion, because it Judge Wright isn't wasting time and I'm sure many of you will appreciate it: Steele, Hansmeier, and Duffy (“Principals”) are attorneys with shattered law practices. Seeking easy money, they conspired to operate this enterprise and formed the AF Holdings and Ingenuity 13 entities (among other fungible entities) for the sole purpose of litigating copyright-infringement lawsuits. They created these entities to shield the Principals from potential liability and to give an appearance of legitimacy. AF Holdings and Ingenuity 13 have no assets other than several copyrights to pornographic movies. There are no official owners or officers for these two offshore entities, but the Principals are the de facto owners and officers. The Principals started their copyright-enforcement crusade in about 2010, through Prenda Law, which was also owned and controlled by the Principals. Their litigation strategy consisted of monitoring BitTorrent download activity of their copyrighted pornographic movies, recording IP addresses of the computers downloading the movies, filing suit in federal court to subpoena Internet Service Providers (“ISPs”) for the identity of the subscribers to these IP addresses, and sending cease-and-desist letters to the subscribers, offering to settle each copyright infringement claim for about $4,000. This nationwide strategy was highly successful because of statutory copyright damages, the pornographic subject matter, and the high cost of litigation. Most defendants settled with the Principals, resulting in proceeds of millions of dollars due to the numerosity of defendants. These settlement funds resided in the Principals’ accounts and not in accounts belonging to AF Holdings or Ingenuity 13. No taxes have been paid on this income. For defendants that refused to settle, the Principals engaged in vexatious litigation designed to coerce settlement. These lawsuits were filed using boilerplate complaints based on a modicum of evidence, calculated to maximize settlement profits by minimizing costs and effort. The Principals have shown little desire to proceed in these lawsuits when faced with a determined defendant. Instead of litigating, they dismiss the case. When pressed for discovery, the Principals offer only disinformation—even to the Court. The Principals have hired willing attorneys, like Gibbs, to prosecute these cases. Though Gibbs is culpable for his own conduct before the Court, the Principals directed his actions. In some instances, Gibbs operated within narrow parameters given to him by the Principals, whom he called “senior attorneys.” The Principals maintained full control over the entire copyright-litigation operation. The Principals dictated the strategy to employ in each case, ordered their hired lawyers and witnesses to provide disinformation about the cases and the nature of their operation, and possessed all financial interests in the outcome of each case. The Principals stole the identity of Alan Cooper (of 2170 Highway 47 North, Isle, MN 56342). The Principals fraudulently signed the copyright assignment for “Popular Demand” using Alan Cooper’s signature without his authorization, holding him out to be an officer of AF Holdings. Alan Cooper is not an officer of AF Holdings and has no affiliation with Plaintiffs other than his employment as a groundskeeper for Steele. There is no other person named Alan Cooper related to AF Holdings or Ingenuity 13. The Principals ordered Gibbs to commit the following acts before this Court: file copyright-infringement complaints based on a single snapshot of Internet activity; name individuals as defendants based on a statistical guess; and assert a copyright assignment with a fraudulent signature. The Principals also instructed Gibbs to prosecute these lawsuits only if they remained profitable; and to dismiss them otherwise. Plaintiffs have demonstrated their willingness to deceive not just this Court, but other courts where they have appeared. Plaintiffs’ representations about their operations, relationships, and financial interests have varied from feigned ignorance to misstatements to outright lies. But this deception was calculated so that the Court would grant Plaintiffs’ early-discovery requests, thereby allowing Plaintiffs to identify defendants and exact settlement proceeds from them. With these granted requests, Plaintiffs borrow the authority of the Court to pressure settlement. That last paragraph is the key one. Given all of this, Judge Wright looks at what he can do. First, he digs into the failure of Team Prenda to "conduct a sufficient investigation" into whether or not anyone they were suing actually infringed on the copyrights they held. However, he notes, his bigger concern is not the lack of sufficient investigation, but rather Prenda's attempt at a "cover-up" of this point as well as Gibbs' "hasty after-the-fact investigation, and a shoddy one at that." In fact, he calls certain statements from Gibbs concerning the investigation "a blatant lie." Gibbs’s statement is a blatant lie. His statement resembles other statements given by Plaintiffs in this and their other cases: statements that sound reasonable but lack truth. Thus, the Court concludes that Gibbs, even in the face of sanctions, continued to make factual misrepresentions to the Court. However, he notes that even with this, it is inappropriate to impose Rule 11 sanctions (typically used for attorney misconduct) because the cases have already been dismissed. Wright then goes through a list of other deceptions by Prenda, including the Cooper forgery, ignoring the order blocking early discovery, the self-dealing with the copyright, the failure to disclose their own interest in the case, and other attempts to obfuscate facts. However, he notes, sanctions are still not the most appropriate, given that a decently large sanction wouldn't be effective because the plaintiffs "will transfer out their settlement proceeds and plead paucity." However, he obviously does not feel they should be let off the hook. So he orders: They have to pay the defendant's legal fees of $40,659.86, which he then doubles "as a punitive measure" to $81,319.72, noting "This punitive multiplier is justified by Plaintiffs’ brazen misconduct and relentless fraud." He notes that "The Principals, AF Holdings, Ingenuity 13, Prenda Law, and Gibbs are liable for this sum jointly and severally, and shall pay this sum within 14 days of this order." Basically, all of them together are responsible for figuring out how to pay the money. As defined earlier, Steele, Hansmeier and Duffy are "the Principals" though I wouldn't put it past the three of them to claim that they are non-parties to all of this and thus not responsible for the payment. The bigger issue: referring the conduct of Steele, Hansmeier, Duffy and Gibbs to various state and federal bars. As Wright notes: "there is little doubt that that Steele, Hansmeier, Duffy, Gibbs suffer from a form of moral turpitude unbecoming of an officer of the court." That won't look good on a resume. The even bigger issue: alerting the feds of possible racketeering violations: though Plaintiffs boldly probe the outskirts of law, the only enterprise they resemble is RICO. The federal agency eleven decks up is familiar with their prime directive and will gladly refit them for their next voyage. The Court will refer this matter to the United States Attorney for the Central District of California. The will also refer this matter to the Criminal Investigation Division of the Internal Revenue Service and will notify all judges before whom these attorneys have pending cases. For the sake of completeness, the Court requests Pietz to assist by filing a report, within 14 days, containing contact information for: (1) every bar (state and federal) where these attorneys are admitted to practice; and (2) every judge before whom these attorneys have pending cases. And, finally, a smaller issue: Duffy and Gibbs, who are admitted to practice in California are referred to the "Standing Committee on Discipline." That's a relatively minor point given all of the above. The end result may not yet be that satisfying for Prenda-watchers, but Team Prenda may still be in serious, serious trouble. This actually matches Ken White's predictions pretty damn closely, where he noted the limited ability to sanction, but focused on the referrals to the feds and to various state and federal bars. The inclusion of the IRS is an interesting one, as the evidence suggested that Team Prenda wasn't paying taxes on the money coming into the various shell companies. So now we wait to see what, if anything, the feds will do -- though, as Ken noted, when a federal judge recommends such an investigation, the feds tend to follow through.Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
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For many years we've wondered why countries bend over backwards to stay in the US's good graces concerning the infamous "Special 301" report, put together by the USTR. The list has no objective methodology at all. Instead, companies send their complaints to the USTR, and the USTR launders rewrites those complaints and puts certain countries on the "naughty" list. Back in 2007, Canada explicitly announced that it did not recognize the legitimacy of the list, by saying: Canada does not recognize the 301 watch list process. It basically lacks reliable and objective analysis. It's driven entirely by U.S. industry. We have repeatedly raised this issue of the lack of objective analysis in the 301 watch list process with our U.S. counterparts. And we've wondered why other countries do not do the same. When I was in Spain last week, a reporter I spoke to kept asking about the Special 301 list, as it seemed to be such a key concern for people there, and I noted that more countries should do what Canada does. I realize that there are other issues there, and Canada knows that the US isn't likely to create a trade war over the list, but it still seemed odd how seriously some other countries take the list. That's why it's good to see at least one more country follow Canada's lead. Chile, which is on the "priority watch list," has officially announced that it, too, does not recognize the legitimacy of the list (translated): The Chilean government said today it does not recognize as a valid instrument rating called "301 list" that makes the United States on violation of intellectual property rights and this year again includes the country in its Priority Watch section . "This report is conducted outside the margins of the Free Trade Agreement between our country and the U.S., and therefore not recognized by Chile as a valid instrument rating," said a statement released this morning. The "'301 List' lacks clear criteria for categorizing the different countries, but is rather a reflection of the interests of American industry selectively applying their intellectual property standards to other countries," it added. Good for Chile to stand up for itself against the list. Of course, it's no surprise that Chile got put on the list. As we noted last year, the country is actually a pioneer in strongly protecting intermediaries from liability, thus much more strongly protecting internet free expression and innovation. They're also actively encouraging innovation by luring startups to Chile with all sorts of benefits. Basically, Chile is quickly showing itself to be a supporter of innovation, which apparently isn't something the USTR wants to encourage.Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
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The American Psychiatric Association's infamous DSM or Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is often called "the Bible" of classifications for mental illnesses, but it's perhaps almost as famous for its problems than for any usefulness. The list of criticisms and controversies over the DSM are pretty long, and there are significant concerns about the fact that it's not scientific, and that it falls sway to both extreme biases of psychiatrists and their overall profession as well as general cultural biases. The most famous bit of controversy, of course, is that it used to include homosexuality as a mental disorder -- which should be an indication of how trustworthy the book is (i.e., it's not, at all). More recently, the discussion to possibly include internet addiction (or, more officially "Internet Use Disorder" or IUD) in DSM-5 caused a fair bit of mocking. That's why it's great to see that the National Institute of Mental Health has declared that it's effectively abandoning the DSM just as the APA releases the long awaited DSM-5. After highlighting many of the problems with the DSM, it notes: But it is critical to realize that we cannot succeed if we use DSM categories as the “gold standard.” The diagnostic system has to be based on the emerging research data, not on the current symptom-based categories. Imagine deciding that EKGs were not useful because many patients with chest pain did not have EKG changes. That is what we have been doing for decades when we reject a biomarker because it does not detect a DSM category. We need to begin collecting the genetic, imaging, physiologic, and cognitive data to see how all the data – not just the symptoms – cluster and how these clusters relate to treatment response. That is why NIMH will be re-orienting its research away from DSM categories. Going forward, we will be supporting research projects that look across current categories – or sub-divide current categories – to begin to develop a better system. What does this mean for applicants? Clinical trials might study all patients in a mood clinic rather than those meeting strict major depressive disorder criteria. Studies of biomarkers for “depression” might begin by looking across many disorders with anhedonia or emotional appraisal bias or psychomotor retardation to understand the circuitry underlying these symptoms. What does this mean for patients? We are committed to new and better treatments, but we feel this will only happen by developing a more precise diagnostic system. As others have noted, this is a "potentially seismic move" since the NIMH is so central to funding so much research concerning mental health.Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
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In yet another copyright trolling case, it appears that the trolls are so sloppy that they're suing over the same IP address for sharing the same file (the animated movie, Zambezia) in multiple cases. The story focuses on one guy, who has filed a motion to quash in response, noting that the sloppiness of filing three times raises significant questions about the trolling operation. Either they're incredibly sloppy and not very careful, or they're hoping that by repeating the same IP address in multiple lawsuits, at least one judge will let the subpoena go through, leading to the inevitable demand letter. Either way, it should raise some eyebrows from the court about why anyone would file against the same IP address for the same movie in three different cases.Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
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You may recall that in the course of the case against Kim Dotcom in New Zealand, it was revealed that the New Zealand intelligence service, the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB), illegally wiretapped and spied on Kim Dotcom. The GCSB's mandate is that it can only spy on foreign communications, but used its powers illegally domestically. While NZ prime minister John Key apologized for the episode, it has raised lots of questions about his role in the whole matter -- and when he knew the law was being broken. Other info has come out as well, including attempts to cover up the illegal surveillance, and the fact that the GCSB illegally spied on nearly 100 people. Dotcom is now suing the government over this whole mess. Given all that, you might think that PM Key would be focused on putting in place safeguards to stop the system from being so abused in the future. Not so. Instead, as reader aster points out, Key is now trying to change the law to make it easier to spy on citizens and others in the country. In other words, he's seeking to legalize domestic spying for the intelligence agency. The new proposal would allow for domestic spying on citizens and residents if approved by PM Key. As if he didn't already appear untrustworthy in the matter, he's now suggesting that because it has to go through him, it'll somehow avoid abuses? Opposition politicians are pointing out how laughable it is that Key is now asking people to trust him personally that such spying powers won't be abused.Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
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One of the key things that has been a major concern to us for many, many years is how much of copyright policy tends to be driven by faith-based claims about what must be best (often this falls into the "more must be better" category), rather than any objective analytical look at actual data and evidence. We were encouraged when the UK's Hargreave's Report did start to look at some objective data when it sought to understand how best to reform copyright in the UK. And we've been hearing encouraging things out of Australia as well. With copyright reform back on the table in the US, and Congress seemingly open to the discussion, having reality-based policy discussions will be more important than ever. That's why it's actually quite encouraging to see a new report from the US National Research Council that has begun the process of calling for more objective data to inform the upcoming copyright reform debate. You can get the full PDF via the National Academies Press for free. They have an embedding widget which we've placed below as well, though it uses Flash, which is a bit annoying. The effort was funded by a broad coalition of organizations with a variety of different views on the issue, so it's not limited to just one particular view. For example, you've got copyright maximalist organizations like the MPAA and the BSA, but also Google and Pam Samuelson, who tend to take a different view on the appropriate level of copyright protection. There is also support from a number of different government and private foundations, including the National Science Foundation, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the Ford Foundation. The committee who put together this particular work also has a wide range of viewpoints covered, including Mitch Singer from Sony Pictures, former federal judge Marilyn Hall Patel who presided over the case against Napster, Chris Sprigman (law professor who wrote The Knockoff Economy: How Imitation Sparks Innovation and who has been featured prominently on Techdirt in the past) among a number of other big names with various viewpoints. While the paper itself doesn't have any answers yet, it does highlight the key questions that we should be trying to answer, and indicates the beginnings of some research being done in that direction, with the likelihood of more to follow. I am a little annoyed that they still refer to things like the public's rights to access and use content as "exceptions" to copyright, because that feels unfairly limiting, but overall the direction of the work is quite encouraging. Here's a list of some of the initial questions they note it would be good to answer, if possible, which gives you an idea of the research areas they're interested in supporting and encouraging: With respect to changing incentives for creators, distributors, and users, research could help determine how the expenses involved in creative expression and distribution differ across sectors and the role of copyright in generating revenues to offset those expenses; under what circumstances sources of monetary and/or non-monetary motivation outside of that provided by copyright are effective in motivating creative activity; the motivations of various types of users and potential users of creative works, including both infringers and lawful users; the effects of enhanced enforcement remedies on promoting creativity, technological innovation, and freedom of expression; and how the costs of distributing creative content are affected by social media and other new technologies. With respect to the enablers of and impediments to voluntary licensing transactions in copyrighted works, research would help determine the significance of transaction costs as barriers to utilization of copyrighted works; the extent of problems involving orphan works (whose owners cannot be identified), user-generated content, and collaborative and iterative works; what are successful arrangements for managing transaction costs; the roles of public and private institutions in facilitating licensing; the relationship of transaction costs to legal rules such as compulsory licenses; and changes in transaction costs with new technological and business developments. With respect to the enforcement challenges, research could help determine how much is spent by governments and private parties on copyright enforcement; against whom enforcement efforts are targeted and what remedies are sought and granted; the results of enforcement efforts in terms of compensation, prevention, education, and deterrence; how the effectiveness of enforcement efforts is changing with the expansion of digital networks; the costs and benefits of current enforcement methods vis-a-vis those associated with proposed new enforcement methods; the relative vulnerability of different business models to infringement; and the costs and benefits of fair use exceptions and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) safe harbors. In assessing the balance between copyright protection and the statutory exceptions and limitations to copyright research could help determine the costs and benefits of copyright exceptions and limitations in terms of the economic outputs and welfare effects of those individuals, businesses, educational institutions, and other entities that rely on them; how copyright and the various categories of limits and exceptions interact with innovative and/or disruptive technologies and platforms; and what adverse effects, if any, exceptions and limitations have on copyright holders and their potential to generate economic outputs and welfare effects. Eventually, research will help inform decisions about key aspects of copyright policy, including the appropriate scope of copyright protection; the optimal duration of the copyright term; the best arrangements for correcting market imperfections that inhibit voluntary licensing; appropriate safe harbors and fair use exceptions to copyright; effective enforcement remedies for infringing use and the best arrangements for correcting deficiencies in enforcement mechanisms; the advisability of reintroducing a formal registration requirement; and the advantages and disadvantages of reshaping the copyright regime with different rules for different media. The paper itself points to the concerns raised over things like SOPA and ACTA as reason to have a more empirical based approach to copyright reform, which is a good sign (and goes against those who insist that the SOPA protests had no real impact). The report goes into a lot more details, including a number of other important research topics as well. One other point that they raise -- which is a key point we've brought up concerning out own Sky is Rising research -- is the need for those who have this data to be much more open about sharing it for the sake of making good overall policy. Since much of the data is considered "proprietary or subject to trade secrecy and privacy protections," the report outlines ways in which the data might be made available "on reasonable terms to qualified investigators." This, alone, would be a huge step forward in looking at many of the key policy questions above. The lack of real data is a huge impediment to being able to create effective policy. All in all, it's a very good sign that this is underway, as it should really encourage a much more empirically-driven approach to the inevitable upcoming reform process. I hope that the results of future research driven by this particular effort do, in fact, play a role in any future debates on copyright reform. Moving from a faith-based look at copyright to an evidence-based one is a huge step forward, and long overdue.Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
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After posting a bit about Michael Froman, the new nominee for USTR, I was already skeptical that he'd be any improvement over the predecessor, Ron Kirk. After all, Froman was deeply involved in three of the worst free trade agreements that the US has negotiated over the past few years, which more or less set the model for the ambitious and dangerously misguided ACTA and TPP agreements. However, some others have pointed out that it may be even worse, highlighting a Felix Salmon blog post from 2009, in which he calls Michael Froman out as being an "egregious example" of the revolving door problem we've highlighted between regulators and the businesses they regulate. [Michael Froman's] one of the most egregious examples — up there with Bob Rubin, literally — we’ve yet seen of the way the revolving door works between business and government generally, and between Citigroup and Treasury in particular. That's troubling, to say the least. Salmon points to a Matt Taibbi piece for Rolling Stone that highlights some very questionable activity on the part of Froman, including keeping his job at Citibank while helping to select the economic team for Obama's first term... the very folks who would be in charge of regulating Citibank. Leading the search for the president’s new economic team was his close friend and Harvard Law classmate Michael Froman, a high-ranking executive at Citigroup. During the campaign, Froman had emerged as one of Obama’s biggest fundraisers, bundling $200,000 in contributions and introducing the candidate to a host of heavy hitters — chief among them his mentor Bob Rubin, the former co-chairman of Goldman Sachs who served as Treasury secretary under Bill Clinton. Froman had served as chief of staff to Rubin at Treasury, and had followed his boss when Rubin left the Clinton administration to serve as a senior counselor to Citigroup (a massive new financial conglomerate created by deregulatory moves pushed through by Rubin himself). Incredibly, Froman did not resign from the bank when he went to work for Obama: He remained in the employ of Citigroup for two more months, even as he helped appoint the very people who would shape the future of his own firm.... That piece also talks about Froman's role in getting Timothy Geithner his job at Treasury, right after Geithner helped craft the bailout of Citibank that basically put all the risk on the Fed and didn't require any Citi concessions or exec changes, despite their own culpability in making a ton of bad investments. Geithner, in other words, is hired to head the U.S. Treasury by an executive from Citigroup — Michael Froman — before the ink is even dry on a massive government giveaway to Citigroup that Geithner himself was instrumental in delivering. In the annals of brazen political swindles, this one has to go in the all-time Fuck-the-Optics Hall of Fame. Wall Street loved the Citi bailout and the Geithner nomination so much that the Dow immediately posted its biggest two-day jump since 1987, rising 11.8 percent. Citi shares jumped 58 percent in a single day, and JP Morgan Chase, Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley soared more than 20 percent, as Wall Street embraced the news that the government’s bailout generosity would not die with George W. Bush and Hank Paulson. I was hopeful that perhaps we'd get a USTR who was in favor of openness and transparency, but it looks like Froman may be the quintessential example of a backroom dealer, who already has a reputation for pushing through bad trade agreements.Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
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Back in January, we noted our disappointment with the news that there was a proposal underway to add DRM to HTML5 (called "Encrypted Media Extensions" or EME), backed by Microsoft, Netflix and Google. It was further disappointing to see web creator Tim Berners-Lee defend the proposal, saying that it was necessary or "people will just go back to using Flash." While the W3C has tried to defend this position by saying that it's not really about DRM -- and has said it will convene a group to "investigate how to keep the Web maximally open" -- there are still pretty big concerns about this proposal. And it seems quite clear that DRM and locking up content is at the heart of it. Netflix, perhaps the biggest supporter of the proposal, has noted that it cannot support HTML5 until such support is added, and made it clear that the DRM part is what matters. The video content we stream to customers is protected with Digital Rights Management (DRM). This is a requirement for any premium subscription video service. The Encrypted Media Extensions allow us to play protected video content in the browser by providing a standardized way for DRM systems to be used with the media element. For example, the specification identifies an encrypted stream format (Common Encryption for the ISO file format, using AES-128 counter mode) and defines how the DRM license challenge/response is handled, both in ways that are independent of any particular DRM. We need to continue to use DRM whether we use a browser plugin or the HTML5 media element, and these extensions make it possible for us to integrate with a variety of DRM systems that may be used by the browser. This seems disingenuous. While Netflix and its studio partners may like DRM, there is no reason that it actually "is a requirement for any premium subscription video service." Lots of professional content and marketplaces work without DRM. Yes, some will copy, but most don't seem to bother. There is no reason that this needs to be built in, and there are many consequences for doing so. A variety of groups are now speaking out in response to all of this and hitting back against the plan. The EFF's Peter Eckersley and Seth Schoen penned a detailed explanation for why this is a bad idea: In the past two decades, there has been an ongoing struggle between two views of how Internet technology should work. One philosophy has been that the Web needs to be a universal ecosystem that is based on open standards and fully implementable on equal terms by anyone, anywhere, without permission or negotiation. This is the technological tradition that gave us HTML and HTTP in the first place, and epoch-defining innovations like wikis, search engines, blogs, webmail, applications written in JavaScript, repurposable online maps, and a hundred million specific websites that this paragraph is too short to list. The other view has been represented by corporations that have tried to seize control of the Web with their own proprietary extensions. It has been represented by technologies like Adobe's Flash, Microsoft's Silverlight, and pushes by Apple, phone companies, and others toward highly restrictive new platforms. These technologies are intended to be available from a single source or to require permission for new implementations. Whenever these technologies have become popular, they have inflicted damage on the open ecosystems around them. Websites that depend on Flash or Silverlight typically can't be linked to properly, can't be indexed, can't be translated by machine, can't be accessed by users with disabilities, don't work on all devices, and pose security and privacy risks to their users. Platforms and devices that restrict their users inevitably prevent important innovations and hamper marketplace competition. The EME proposal suffers from many of these problems because it explicitly abdicates responsibilty on compatibility issues and let web sites require specific proprietary third-party software or even special hardware and particular operating systems (all referred to under the generic name "content decryption modules", or CDMs, and none of them specified by EME). EME's authors keep saying that what CDMs are, and do, and where they come from is totally outside of the scope of EME, and that EME itself can't be thought of as DRM because not all CDMs are DRM systems. Yet if the client can't prove it's running the particular proprietary thing the site demands, and hence doesn't have an approved CDM, it can't render the site's content. Perversely, this is exactly the reverse of the reason that the World Wide Web Consortium exists in the first place. W3C is there to create comprehensible, publicly-implementable standards that will guarantee interoperability, not to facilitate an explosion of new mutually-incompatible software and of sites and services that can only be accessed by particular devices or applications. But EME is a proposal to bring exactly that dysfunctional dynamic into HTML5, even risking a return to the "bad old days, before the Web" of deliberately limited interoperability. In response to all of this the Free Software Foundation and Defective by Design launched a campaign against DRM in HTML5, and last week delivered a petition to the W3C against the plan (though you can still sign the petition) and awarded the W3C "the best supporting role in The Hollyweb. The simple fact is that DRM doesn't work and has tremendous unintended consequences that tend to harm legitimate buyers of works. It decreases their value while doing little to stop infringement. Lots of people have realized this for years, but it's true that many in copyright-heavy fields still live under the delusion that DRM actually does something useful. And, it might: the only thing that DRM effectively does is give legacy players a veto right on new and innovative technologies. That's really not something the W3C should be supporting -- nor, frankly, is it something that Netflix, Google and Microsoft should be supporting. Business models for content work just fine without DRM. It's time that the industries producing content finally recognize that. Music has mostly gotten there, but clearly the movie industry is still behind the times on this one. If HTML5 provides enough value without DRM, Netflix and others will figure out how to adopt it eventually. The benefits of using it will just be too powerful to avoid, even if some freak out about the lack of built-in DRM. The industry needs to get over its silly obsession with DRM and to move forward with more compelling technologies and innovation.Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
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Post sponsored by As part of our sponsorship program with the Application Developers Alliance, we're highlighting some of the content on DevsBuild.It, their new resource website, that we think will be most interesting to Techdirt readers. We've talked a lot about the tax on innovation that patent trolls create, which is well-known inside startup circles but often misunderstood by the broader public, thanks to the pro-innovation rhetoric of high-profile trolls like Intellectual Ventures. The conversation is getting more attention lately, especially with the recent news of Chuck Schumer's patent reform bill which specifically aims to fight the patent troll problem, and this interview with an anonymous developer from a tech startup offers some perspective from someone who is directly affected by the issue. brightcove.createExperiences(); Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
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When cameras first came about there was a bit of a moral panic around them. People feared being photographed at all and so there were various concerns raised, moral panics followed, and even an occasional proposed law about how cameras could be used. It would appear that we may be approaching a similar moral panic around the coming launch of Google Glass. There's been a growing buzz about "privacy" concerns around Google Glass -- one that has even led former Homeland Security boss Michael Chertoff to worry about the implications, and suggest Congress and the FTC take a look. A publicity campaign called "Stop the Cyborgs" (seriously guys?) has sprung up offering Google Glass Ban Signs for places that want to ban the as-yet-unreleased technology. And, most recently, someone put together a White House petition urging the White House to ban the devices until "limitations on public surveillance" can be put in place. Not that the White House has that kind of authority, of course. The whole thing seems to be screaming moral panic around a new technology, which still might not even catch on. Of course, even if Glass doesn't catch on, this is how technology works, and sooner or later, someone will get this kind of product right, such that eventually it won't even look odd like Glass, but will just fit into a contact lens or be directly embedded. That's just how this stuff is likely to go. People can freak out about it all they want and demand that there be a law, but most people recognize that the technology is coming one way or the other, and that's not going to change or go away. The right thing to do is figure out how to deal with it, rather than looking for ways to stop it. Though, just wait until someone at the MPAA wakes up and realizes that with Glass, someone will be able to record a movie...Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
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When discussing NYPD Police Chief Ray Kelly's assertion that "privacy is off the table" as a result of the Boston bombing, I mentioned I hadn't heard any public outcry demanding the government and law enforcement step in and do something (i.e., curtail civil liberties) in response to the tragedy. The responses we were seeing seemed to be nothing more than legislators and law enforcement officials pushing their own agendas. This isn't just me not hearing what I don't want to hear. There's actual data available that explains the lack of concerned noises from Americans. A CNN/TIME poll shows that nearly two-thirds of Americans aren't interested in sacrificing rights to combat terrorism. When given a choice, 61 percent of Americans say they are more concerned about the government enacting new anti-terrorism policies that restrict civil liberties, compared to 31 percent who say they are more concerned about the government failing to enact strong new anti-terrorism policies. This is a vast improvement over 1996, when a post-Atlanta Olympics bombing poll showed only 23% opposed giving up freedom in exchange for fighting terrorism. Breaking it down further, the poll also shows a bit of split along party lines. Self-identified Democrats are most likely to put their faith in government/law enforcement to make the U.S. "safer" by curtailing freedoms (51%). Republicans are less likely to favor this exchange (41%). For independents, less than a third (32%) are willing to give up some freedom to combat terrorism. There is a bit of bad news contained within this generally positive indicator that Americans are less willing to give up something of theirs in exchange for the vagaries of "safety." The percentage of respondents who support additional surveillance in public areas has increased to 81% from 63% the week after the 9/11 attacks. On the other hand, there's a growing reluctance among Americans to allow the government to expand its surveillance efforts to cover more private venues, like email or cell phones. Only 38% approve of these efforts, down from 54% after 9/11. Now, when legislators and law enforcement reps make strides towards reducing civil liberties, they do have some support. Those over the age of 50 (across all political parties) are most likely to support a loss of freedom (50%, as compared to only 34% for those under 50). Tellingly, this is pretty much the same demographic that feels video games are a bigger "safety threat" than guns (72% of respondents over the age of 45). Unfortunately for the under-50 crowd, the over-50 demographic is historially the most active at the polls. If this perception of widespread support for invasive policies and legislation is going to change, the under-50 demographic is going to need to do a whole lot more voting. If not, these politicians are going to be able to truthfully say they have support for these policies -- at least, the only support that matters: die-hard voters. Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
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For most of the past two weeks I've been extremely busy, travelling around to a bunch of different countries, meeting with policy makers, content creators and industry folks talking about creativity, innovation and (a bit) of copyright policy. It's been a fascinating experience, and I'll try to write up some thoughts on the whole thing once the fog in my brain known as jetlag finally subsides. However, as such, I've been a little less involved in the direct posting to Techdirt over the past couple weeks, and so I got to be surprised by new stories almost as much as anyone else here (well, okay, sometimes I peeked ahead of time...). Given that, I thought that perhaps I'd write up this week's "favorites" posts, from more of a spectator standpoint than usual. Glyn Moody's post on what trade agreements are really about once again helped to shine some light on how corporations are basically using the trade agreement process to route around national legislatures to get policies in place that favor them. It's a huge scam, and I'm amazed that legislatures, in particular, haven't stood up stronger for their own powers concerning regulating commerce. Tim Cushing has been doing a great job over the past few weeks highlighting the overreactions to the Boston Bombings, but none seemed quite as ridiculous as Senator Dan Coats announcement that we need to start watching loners more carefully. I'm thinking that it might make more sense to pay attention to grandstanding politicians. Leigh had a post about politicians behaving badly in Canada, using convoluted copyright claims to try to stifle criticism. Once again, we see how copyright can be used for censorship. Tim Geigner's great analysis of how fans and Douglas Adams' estate have encouraged derivative works rather than freaking out about them is a worthwhile read, as we keep hearing about various estates trying to lock up the works of creators, rather than being a part of continued creation and creativity. There was a lot more this week, obviously, but those were the stories that really caught my attention. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to keep trying to convince my brain that it's not 3am when the sun is shining out.Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
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For this week's awesome stuff post, we've got links to movies about things that we regularly talk about here on Techdirt: the prosecution of Aaron Swartz, the CFAA, patents and piracy. First up, is a documentary about Aaron Swartz called The Internet's Own Boy by Brian Knappenberger, who previously did a documentary about Anonymous. Knappenberger's film isn't a "memorial" about Swartz, but rather an "investigative" documentary about his story and the lawsuit against him, as well as the legal structure that led to his arrest and trial. The video that Knappenberger has put together is really compelling and touching: This project has received a lot of attention, so there's no surprise that it's quite close to its $75,000 target with a few weeks to go. It looks like it should be a great project to support. From once CFAA case to another. Krystof Andres & George Russell are doing a documentary called The Hedgehog & The Hare, all about the CFAA, but mainly focused on the case against Andrew "Weev" Auernheimer. The documentary will also explore how the CFAA goes way too far in trying to criminalize perfectly reasonable computer activities. The target for this project had much more modest goals than the Swartz one, though the production values definitely look a bit more amateurish. Plus, frankly, the rewards on the Swartz movie are a lot more reasonable. That said, with just a few days left, it looks like this movie is likely to squeak by the target even if it's just slightly under as I write this. This next one, I'm a bit less sure about, but the topic could be interesting. It's supposedly a short film, made in South Africa about the big pharmaceutical makers going after generic drug makers, called The Cure. What makes me a bit unsure about is that the filmmakers, Katey Carson and Errol Schwartz, seem a hell of a lot more excited about the fact that (a) they signed up some "Oscar-winning talent" to be in the film and (b) that they're filming the whole thing with an iPhone, than they are about the story, which they barely mention at all. The topic sounds interesting. I just wish they'd actually have said something about that, rather than the other stuff which really isn't that interesting. The project has barely raised any money, and they're pretty ambitious to seek $35,000 for this. But since it's an Indiegogo "flex funding" campaign, they'll get the money even if they don't raise the full amount. Also, the "rewards" you get back seem ridiculously high priced. You have to pay $100 just to get a download of the short film and $50 for the script? Hmmm. Love the idea of a film that highlights problems with drug patents, but not sure this is the best way to do it. And, finally, a documentary about piracy. I mean that's what critics insist this site is all about, right? So I figured, why not. Here's a documentary film about a Somali pirate -- you know, one who actually hijacked a ship, called The Smiling Pirate, which aims to tell the story of the one remaining living member of the pirates who hijacked the Maersk Alabama. As the story suggests, despite a forthcoming Tom Hangs movie about this whole thing, there appear to be a lot more questions than answers about what really happened both aboard the ship and then with the captured pirate after the whole thing happened. Sounds like an interesting story, but it hasn't picked up very many backers yet. It's also an Indiegogo flexible funding project, so will receive any money it raises, but it's not clear if it'll get enough to really support the making of the documentary any time soon. That's it for this week. Next week we'll be back with more awesome stuff.Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
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It's been a bad few weeks for some big brand advertisers, as a slew of offensive commercials had to be pulled and disowned by the likes of Pepsi, GM and Hyundai. In the case of Hyundai, the company apologized for an ad that showed off its new "pure water emissions" SUV by showing a guy try to commit suicide by running the car in his garage, only to discover that the lack of carbon monoxide emissions made that attempt a failure. Yes. Pretty insensitive. The ad agency, Innocean Europe -- which happens to be owned by Hyundai's chairman and his daughter -- also apologized, saying "the intention of the viral ad was to employ hyperbole to dramatise a product advantage, culminating in a positive outcome. Clearly, we were mistaken, and we sincerely apologise." However, rather than just apologize for the ad and pull down the official version, some quickly noticed that Hyundai and/or Innocean went all out claiming trademark violations against every copy posted on YouTube: Of course, in true Streisand Effect manner, that just resulted in more people uploading it: And, of course, the video is now available from other sources as well, such as below: Yes, I can understand why they would make the effort, in an attempt to show that they really, really are sorry and don't want this ad online, but of course once "the story" takes over, a lot more people are interested in seeing the video. And, try as you might, you can't make online content completely disappear.Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
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Techdirt has written several times about the increasing tendency for governments around the world to turn to malware as a way of spying on people, without really thinking through the risks. One company that is starting to crop up more and more in this context is Gamma International, thanks to its FinFisher suite of spyware products, which includes FinSpy. A recent report by Citizenlab, entitled "For Their Eyes Only: The Commercialization of Digital Spying", has explored this field in some depth. Among its findings is the following: We identify instances where FinSpy makes use of Mozilla's Trademark and Code. The latest Malay-language sample masquerades as Mozilla Firefox in both file properties and in manifest. This behavior is similar to samples discussed in some of our previous reports, including a demo copy of the product, and samples targeting Bahraini activists. That's pretty serious: Mozilla's trademark is not only being abused, it's being used to trick people into installing malware that might well have serious consequences for them if their government disapproves of their activities. Quite rightly, then, Mozilla is taking legal action, as the organization's privacy and public policy lead, Alex Fowler, announced in a blog post: A recent report by Citizen Lab uncovered that commercial spyware produced by Gamma International is designed to trick people into thinking it's Mozilla Firefox. We've sent Gamma a cease and desist letter today demanding that these illegal practices stop immediately. Choosing Mozilla as the cover for this malware is cynical in the extreme, for reasons Fowler explains: As an open source project trusted by hundreds of millions of people around the world, defending Mozilla's trademarks from this type of abuse is vital to our brand, our users and the continued success of our mission. Mozilla has a longstanding history of protecting users online and was named the Most Trusted Internet Company for Privacy in 2012 by the Ponemon Institute. We cannot abide a software company using our name to disguise online surveillance tools that can be -- and in several cases actually have been -- used by Gamma's customers to violate citizens' human rights and online privacy. The only consolation regarding this move to create commercial spyware for sale to governments around the world is that it is possible to use conventional legal instruments like cease and desist letters against the companies behind them when they overstep the mark. Nonetheless, it's a deeply disturbing development that even countries like Germany now seem happy to use FinFisher in order to spy on their citizens by means of malware (original in German.) Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and on Google+ Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
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Novartis has been in the news lately for the lawsuit filed against it by the US government for kickbacks it allegedly gave to doctors for prescribing certain drugs. As we noted about that case, it should be no surprise that this sort of activity happens, given that the incentive structure we've created with patents is so extreme. Here's one example of at least some principled doctors striking back against Novatis. Over 120 cancer researchers and doctors have published a paper calling out Novartis specifically for its pricing on the cancer drug Gleevec (marketed as Glivec outside the US). The doctors point out that it can cost over $100,000 per year for Gleevec currently. And, Novartis has been continually jacking up the price. There had been concern when the drug was first introduced a decade ago, that it was priced way too high at $30,000, leading the company's then CEO, Daniel Vasella, to acknowledge the complaints, but to argue that it was "a fair price." Well, now the company is pricing the drug at more than three times what it thought was a fair price, and it should be no surprise that people think this is outrageous profiteering by abusing a government granted monopoly to charge way more than any fair market price would allow. The paper these doctors published points out that such high prices undoubtedly causes harm to patients who need the drug. The lead author of the paper told CNN that this whole situation is unsustainable, and something needs to be done to bring prices down to a more reasonable, market-based level. He just focused on Gleevec because it's his area of research: "These price increases do not reflect the cost of development of drugs or the benefit they provide to the patient," he told CNNMoney. "They are simply related to the drug companies' wish to increase profits beyond a reasonable range." Of course, one key way to help drive down prices is to do the obvious: stop granting government-given monopolies on the production of such drugs. That, alone, is the reason why the prices are so crazy in most cases. Thankfully at least some countries have recognized how ridiculous this is. India recently blocked Novartis from trying to patent a slightly different version of Gleevec, which means that the company will finally face some real pricing pressure from generics in that country. One would hope that other countries would do the same, and recognize that competition isn't a bad thing. It might just save lives.Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has been trying to get the meat industry to reduce its use of antibiotics, even proposing a set of voluntary guidelines in 2012, but it hasn't done much with it since. In the meantime, antibiotic (ab)use on livestock farms continues to grow. According to data from the FDA, the livestock industry now uses almost 80% of all the antibiotics used in the U.S. The main concern is that the practice of dosing healthy farm animals daily with antibiotics will create drug-resistant bacteria. About three-quarters of Salmonella found on ground turkey and chicken breast are now resistant to at least one antibiotic, and almost half of the Campylobacter found on chicken products are resistant to tetracyclines. Here are some other examples of antibiotic abuse in the food industry. Researchers have found 149 different drug-resistant genes in bacteria on antibiotic-intensive pig farms in China. These antibiotic-resistant genes can spread to the environment and end up in many different kinds of human pathogens. [url] Did you know that organic apple and pear orchards are treated with tetracycline to prevent a disease called fire blight? While this may be surprising, tetracycline has actually been allowed for use in organic farming in the U.S. since the mid-'90s (with the understanding that their use would eventually be phased out). Fire blight has already become resistant to streptomycin -- how long will it be before tetracycline stops working, too? [url] If you use logic "borrowed from the anti-GMO crowd," you could argue that antibiotic abuse in the meat industry causes autism and diabetes... because both antibiotic use and the number of autistic children and diabetics have been increasing over the years. Right? Right?? [url] If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.Permalink | Comments | Email This Story
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