SWAT Teams Enforcing Copyright

by on January 17, 2007 · 12 comments

Radley Balko, who has tirelessly publicized the problems created by the promiscuous use of SWAT teams, reports that federal police in Atlanta have used a SWAT team to help the recording industry enforce copyright law. Even worse, the target wasn’t even a commercial piracy operation:

Last night, a federal SWAT team assisted the RIAA in a raid on the studio of Atlanta musician DJ Drama.

This local news report says the locally famous mixtape DJ is under investigation for piracy. But Drama’s supporters say the DJ is a mix artist, not a bootlegger. They say news footage of the raid shows RIAA officials boxing up only recordable CDs filled with mixes, not bootlegs of retail CDs (the local news reporter seems to conflate the two as well).

Assuming for a moment that RIAA and federal officials do indeed know the difference between a mash-up DJ and a bootleg operation, and that they did find evidence of actual piracy in the bust, there’s still the problem of why RIAA officials were participating in a police action, and why a SWAT team was used to raid a professional studio under investigation for a nonviolent, white-collar crime.

Quite so. It’s not like this is a fly-by-night operation selling CDs out of the back of a truck. This is clearly not the sort of problem that justifies dramatic police raids. If the RIAA thinks DJ Drama’s activities violate copyright law, they have plenty of civil law remedies available that don’t involve Gestapo tactics.

Also, check out the gratuitous smearing of the two as drug dealers and gangsters. A police officer comments that “In this case, we didn’t find drugs and weapons, but it’s not uncommon for us to find other sorts of contraband when we execute a search warrant.”

If they didn’t find drugs or weapons, why did this factoid merit a mention in the story?

SHARE: 12 comments

Save Us from Fox News, FCC!

by on January 17, 2007 · 12 comments

Over at Techdirt, Carlo nails Dennis Kucinich’s proposal to bring back the so-called fairness doctrine:

One of the earliest lessons a lot of kids learn (though don’t necessarily accept) is that life isn’t fair, if for no other reason than what they think is fair is often wildly different than what their parents do. Now, once-failed and now long-shot presidential candidiate Dennis Kucinich says he’ll be heading up a new House subcommittee on issues around the FCC, that he might try to bring back the Fairness Doctrine. The Fairness Doctrine was an FCC rule, in force until 1987, that said broadcasters had a responsibility to discuss controversial issues of public importance, and to do so in a balanced manner that addressed differing points of view. While the goal of the doctrine might sound nice, the rule itself is a little troublesome, not least of which because it could be interpreted as violating the First Amendment (though the current FCC isn’t likely to care about that), but also because it holds broadcasters to a wholly subjective ideal. Who decides what’s fair? After all, one popular news network famously uses the tagline “fair and balanced”, when plenty of people feel it’s neither. The Fairness Doctrine also makes less and less sense in an age where the number of media outlets is proliferating. There’s no limit to the number of places that can provide news or opinion, and professionals and the public have more tools than ever at their disposal to tell their own stories and express their own viewpoints. To require certain media to provide an arbitrary level of “balance” makes less sense than encouraging people with disagreeing viewpoints to develop their own media outlets, whether it’s a blog, newsletter or even a cable TV channel. Kucinich says that “the media has become the servant of a very narrow corporate agenda”–but reinstituting the Fairness Doctrine would simply replace that corporate agenda with that of a political appointee, and that’s really not very fair.

It’s truly mind-boggling that someone could look at today’s media landscape, which is by almost any measure more diverse, vibrant, and competitive than at any point in the history of the world, and conclude that we need to turn back the clock to the 1970s, when a government bureaucrat sat in judgment of the “fairness” of each television outlet’s news and commentary.

It’s particularly irritating to see it come from the political left because if there’s one that the Bush administration has taught us about journalistic objectivity, it’s that a White House that’s willing to twist the truth can use the concept of “fairness” to browbeat journalists into putting its obfuscations on an equal footing with more credible observers. This just isn’t the sort of problem that a bureaucracy like the FCC can solve. It can only be solved by journalists who are willing to call a spade a spade, and opposition politicians who are willing to highlight their opponents’ dishonesty. Putting the FCC in charge of determining what’s “fair” is not only an affront to the First Amendment, but it’s not likely to work either.

SHARE: 12 comments

Alan Cox and Patent Stockpiling at Ars

by on January 17, 2007 · 4 comments

I’m excited to report that the good folks at Ars Technica, probably the best source of in-depth technology news and analysis on the web, has asked me to contribute to their site. Ars will be familiar to regular TLF readers because we link to them all the time. If you aren’t already a regular reader, you should be. And not just because you’ll occasionally find my writing there.

My first contribution focuses on Alan Cox’s application for a patent on digital rights management technology:

It’s unlikely that Cox’s patent is part of a grand plan to rid the software industry of digital rights management technology. Rather, the patent application is probably part of Red Hat’s patent self-defense strategy. Microsoft has darkly hinted that Linux and other free software infringes on Microsoft’s patents. Red Hat is responding with defensive stockpiling, applying for about two dozen patents in the last two years. Most likely, it’s working to build a patent portfolio extensive enough that it will be able to retaliate should it become the target of patent litigation.

The fact that even Red Hat, a company publicly opposed to software patents and unlikely to assert them against anyone, feels the need to apply for dozens of patents suggests that there are serious problems with the American patent system. The resources Red Hat spends hiring lawyers to obtain patents it will most likely never use could be more productively spent hiring programmers and customer support personnel to do useful work.

SHARE: 4 comments

Copying Innovation is Hard

by on January 16, 2007 · 46 comments

Mike Masnick offers another example related to last week’s discussion of whether patents are needed to protect software innovations:

Microsoft has long viewed Google as a serious competitor, and apparently Bill Gates and the folks in Redmond have been pulling out all the stops to compete with Google. In many cases, they’ve created products that seem as good, if not better, than Google’s versions. Yet, despite all of that, they’re losing traffic while Google gains it. Once again, it’s not just about the technology, but the perceived view people have of Google as compared to Microsoft. Microsoft just hasn’t been able to convince that many people that its search and mapping solutions are as good or better than Google’s. Despite the claim that there are “no switching costs” for users to go elsewhere, that’s not quite true. The perception that Google is better (and the feeling that it’s “good enough”) means that there’s no reason for people to look elsewhere, and a Microsoft offering would need to be not just better, but significantly better to attract attention. Alternatively, they can work on increasing their brand value as well, in the space of online services. In other words, there are plenty of things that go into being able to innovate and build a successful product–and simply copying someone else’s technology is often a small part of that (and usually not a particularly good strategy). Patent protection only protects that aspect of copying (business model patents are another issue completely), but if they’re supposed to encourage innovation, and the technology is only a small part of innovation, then the incentives are mis-aligned. The market can reward innovation without needing government monopolies and protectionist policies. The trick is to continually innovate, not just in the technology, but in the quality, the service and the brand as well.

Quite so. It needs to be stressed that the goal of patent law is to provide sufficient incentive to “promote the progress of science and the useful arts,” not to maximize the profits of innovators. Clearly, Google has been able to turn a tidy profit (to put it mildly) from its search engine without any significant recourse to patent law. Even after five years, one of the wealthiest companies on the planet has apparently not been able to produce a search engine that consumers perceive as being equivalent to Google’s offering. This suggests, I think, that a software innovator retains significant market advantages even after competitors have succeeded in cloning the major features of its product. And that, in turn, casts serious doubt on the notion that innovative products like the iPhone or Google wouldn’t exist but for the patent system.

SHARE: 46 comments

Identity Crisis Book Forum Thursday at Cato

by on January 16, 2007

On Thursday, the Cato Institute is having a book forum on my book Identity Crisis: How Identification is Overused and Misunderstood.

Commenting on my presentation of the book will be James Lewis from the Center for Strategic and International Studies and Jay Stanley from the ACLU.

The REAL ID Act is under seige from state leaders who are bridling at this unfunded surveillance mandate, and legislation was introduced at the end of the 109th Congress to repeal REAL ID. But the immigration debate this year will surely fuel the push for a national ID with the demand for “internal enforcement” of immigration law. Identity Crisis lays the groundwork for all these discussions.

The event is streamed for those not in the area. To register, go here.

SHARE:

SOX sucks: The case of Apple

by on January 16, 2007

At an Apple Store a few weeks ago a clerk had to take down info from my driver’s license so that I could qualify for the education discount that previously only required that I flash my school ID. “Sorry, Sarbanes-Oxley,” she said. Really? “Yeah. Also, if you buy a custom Mac now, you have to have it shipped to your home; you can’t pick it up at the store anymore.” Whah?

Well, if you need one more reason to believe that the unintended consequences of SOX really suck (especially for Mac people, it seems), today comes word that SOX may force Apple to charge Mac users for a feature that would otherwise be free. See, Wi-Fi comes in three flavors: 802.11b, g, and n, each respectively faster. The “n” standard is still a draft, but it’s almost complete. Apple has been shipping computers with unadvertised “n” capability that they have left dormant. That is, you buy a notebook with what you think is just a “g” Wi-Fi card and three months later, when the standard gets ratified, Apple sends you a software update that unlocks it into an “n”. Voila, surprise instant upgrade and a happy customer.

Unfortunately, the word is that Apple will charge $4.99 for the upgrade, which is a suspiciously un-Apple thing to do. iLounge editor Jeremy Horwitz offers an explanation: “Because of the [SOX] Act, the company believes that if it sells a product, then later adds a feature to that product, it can be held liable for improper accounting if it recognizes revenue from the product at the time of sale, given that it hasn’t finished delivering the product at that point. Ridiculous.”

Update: Houman Shadab took this story and ran with it. He posts a great explanation (via iLounge) of how SOX accounting rules could result in the $5 charge. I’m posting it in full after the jump.

Continue reading →

SHARE:

Blu-Ray or HD-DVD? Does Anyone Care?

by on January 16, 2007 · 2 comments

I’ve got a new article up at The American about the Blu-Ray/HD-DVD fight:

The two camps, each desperate to avoid Betamax’s fate, held dueling press conferences. The more bullish of the two was the Blu-Ray camp, which declared its “victory as the premiere high definition DVD format of choice,” touting broad support from both Hollywood and the consumer electronics industry. But backers of HD-DVD were unbowed, announcing plans for hundreds of new titles in the next year.

Predicting the winner of this battle has become a popular pastime among technology pundits. But there’s a real risk that the combination of consumer confusion and the rapid improvement of Internet-based distribution technologies will doom both formats to niche status.

This article doesn’t have too much of a policy angle to it. When I started on the article, I had planned to discuss the various irritations created by digital rights management restrictions, but I concluded that although those are likely to annoy consumers, they probably won’t be the deciding factor in the success or failure of the formats. The HDCP format gives the movie publisher the right to decide which restrictions on playback will apply to each movie. In theory, a studio can disallow playback entirely on devices that don’t meet HDCP standards. But given that there are thousands of HDTVs out there that were sold before the HDCP standard was finalized, my guess is that they’ll never turn that “feature” on. Hollywood may shoot itself in the foot from time to time, but I doubt they’re so suicidal as to cripple one of their most lucrative revenue streams.

SHARE: 2 comments

No UN Aspirations for Supreme Internet Governor (For Now)

by on January 15, 2007

The International Telecommunication Union has elected its new Secretary-General to a four-year term. Hamadoun Toure recently said that the United Nations will not try to take the lead in determining the
future of the Internet.

The Mercury News reports that Toure said:

It is not my intention to take over the governance of the Internet. There is no one single issue that can be dealt with by one organization
alone.

This is good news for those (like me) that feared aggressive UN posturing to create a "superstructure" regulatory presence over all things Internet. The reality is that what we conceptually view as "the Internet" is actually a multitude of technical layers that would be difficult-if not impossible-to regulate under one governmental body.

Continue reading →

SHARE:

MLK–Let [Technology Help] Freedom Ring

by on January 15, 2007

I spent this morning reading and listening to King’s speeches, and it got me a thinkin’…what if King had the power of the Internet to help spread his message? King was a gifted orator, and his impassioned yet precisely measured delivery hits at the most visceral of levels. Just think of the YouTube possibilities….

One doesn’t have to have been alive in 1963 to understand King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. It’s about fundamental human dignity. King was dreaming back to 1776, when Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence of certain unalienable rights – Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. King was also dreaming back to 1863, when Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address proclaimed that our country would have a second chance at freedom, “that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom–and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

It’s enough to make a technology liberator think that compared to King’s fight for basic human dignity, squabbling over “technology freedoms” – copyright and patent reform, restrictive FCC rules, and even King’s estate’s copyright suit against CBS, etc. – pales by comparison. And it would be ridiculous to say otherwise. But technology can help disseminate information more quickly – information about race-related police beatings, government abuse of civil liberties, and other violations of peoples’ rights.

And as is often the case for those of us here at the Tech Liberation Front fighting for technology freedom, King was mainly dreaming of the future:

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together at a table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

Freedom would have been ringing from Stone Mountain of Georgia and Lookout Mountain of Tennessee more quickly, I think, if the Web of today existed in the 1950s and 60s. But today’s Internet is helping to bring the fight for freedom globally, and technology has the possibility to spread King’s message in new ways to people in China and other authoritarian regimes.

Here’s King’s “I Have a Dream” speech:

SHARE:

Liberals Citing Libertarians in Tech Policy

by on January 14, 2007 · 6 comments

I’ve noted before that there’s been a trend recently of left-of-center academics citing great libertarian thinkers in their writings about copyright and patent law, peer production, industrial organization, and related topics. Tim Wu and Yochai Benkler cite Hayek and Coase, respectively, in their writings. The latest example is Cass Sunstein’s (relatively) new book, Infotopia: How Many Minds Produce Knowledge. I haven’t read it yet, Patti Waldmeir of the Financial Times says:

Sunstein, one of the biggest of America’s internet big thinkers, has written an intriguing new book in which he argues that Hayek’s insights about the genius of markets are equally true of the internet. Sunstein argues, for example, that sharing scientific information online would cure some of the worst problems of the US patent system and foster innovation much more efficiently than costly patent litigation. Sunstein recognizes all the potential flaws of such collaborative projects. Groupthink can be dangerous. But, says Sunstein, the wisdom of the many is a great thing, and sharing knowledge online can lead to remarkable advances for companies, for governments and for the rest of us

Now, obviously, many libertarians (and perhaps Hayek himself) would take exception to some of the details of Sunstein’s argument. But I still think it’s a positive development that the problems Hayek and Coase focused on–how do we organize our economy and society to optimize the dispersion and use of knowledge–are increasingly recognized as central to high-tech policy debates.

Are there other examples of non-libertarian academics citing applying the insights of Hayek, Coase, or other libertarian thinkers to tech policy issues?

SHARE: 6 comments

← Previous Entries

Next Entries →