Week in review: Download dilemma

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The Entertainment Software Association, which represents video game and console makers, had a Nintendo Wii on hand for passers-by to test and decorated its booth with a huge poster that screamed in menacing capital letters: "Game Over Pirates Game Over."

While not being educated about copyrights, politicians debated whether telecommunications companies that may have illegally opened their networks to intelligence agencies should be immunized from lawsuits. A new proposal from House Democrats would impose some additional privacy safeguards and oversight on a shadowy court that meets behind closed doors to approve foreign surveillance requests. The current version of the Restore Act does not immunize either telephone or Internet providers.

In remarks to reporters at the White House, President Bush stressed that the immunization requirement was non-negotiable. "It must grant liability protection," he said, "to companies who are facing multibillion-dollar lawsuits only because they are believed to have assisted in the efforts to defend our nation following the 9/11 attacks."

Without that requirement, Bush said, he would not sign a bill into law.

After news reports said AT&T and other major telecommunications carriers opened their networks to the National Security Agency after September 11, 2001, dozens of civil lawsuits have been filed against them.

Meanwhile, a key U.S. House of Representatives panel unanimously agreed to extend a ban on Internet access taxes for another four years--but not before rejecting proposals to make the tax permanent or extend it for a lengthier stretch of time. The committee almost approved an amendment proposing an eight-year extension. But after several minutes of political gymnastics, all that changed.

At issue is a law dating back to 1998 that generally prohibits state and local governments from taxing Internet access, including DSL (digital subscriber line), cable modem and BlackBerry-type wireless transmission services. It also prohibits "discriminatory" taxes that treat products sold on the Internet differently than those in brick-and-mortar stores, but it does not deal with the separate issue of imposing sales taxes on goods bought online.

The current law is set to expire November 1, and Republicans have complained that their Democratic colleagues are moving too sluggishly to renew the expiring rules.

Sprint's trouble on the line
Sprint Nextel said CEO Gary Forsee has stepped down as chairman and chief executive officer, effective immediately. Forsee's departure comes as investors, upset over the company's poor performance, have put pressure on the board of directors to make a change at the top.

Pressure has been building for months to replace Forsee as investors are becoming increasingly more agitated at Sprint's poor performance. Since Sprint acquired Nextel in 2005, making it the third largest cell phone provider in the U.S., the company's stock has declined roughly 27 percent.

And if Wall Street pundits get their way, Sprint Nextel's next CEO will put the brakes on plans for a new, high-speed wireless network. But such a move, while no doubt cutting costs, could condemn the struggling company to also-ran status.

Among investors' biggest concerns is Sprint's plan to build a next-generation wireless network using a technology called WiMax. The company has committed itself to spending $5 billion in the next three years to build the network, with about $2 billion of that money earmarked to be spent in the next year to get WiMax coverage to about 100 million people by the end of 2008.

Wall Street analysts and investors say Sprint's WiMax dreams are an unnecessary and dangerous diversion for the company, which is still struggling two years after the $36 billion Nextel merger to realize any of the cost savings that had been promised when the merger was announced.

Meanwhile, Internet telephony provider Vonage settled its patent dispute with Sprint Nextel. The two companies have entered into a licensing arrangement that allows Vonage to use patents for voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP, technology that are held by Sprint.

Vonage has agreed to pay Sprint a total of $80 million, according to the company. This includes $35 million for past use of the license, $40 million for a fully paid future license and $5 million in prepayment for services.

In September, a Kansas jury found that Vonage had infringed six Sprint patents. And it ordered Vonage to pay $69.5 million in damages, plus 5 percent for future damages.

Also of note
Electronic Arts has agreed to acquire VG Holdings, the parent company of two game development companies, BioWare and Pandemic Studios, for $860 million...Google is expanding its AdSense program so that Web site publishers can display and make money off embedded video clips from YouTube content partners that have targeted banner or text ads, in addition to the traditional text ads that Google offers...Internet2 has boosted its network speeds to 100 gigabits per second.

[shelleytaylor]

Corporate piracy and RIAA's impotence

I am a staunch supporter of copyright protection. I have be
railing against corporate pirates such as YouTube and MySpace
in my blog for nearly a year. But this so called "victory" by RIAA
against an individual reflects a grand failure in our society to
hold major public corporations accountable for systematically
making available music files available to millions of users
smacks of the kind corruption we only see in tiny little third
world countries ruled by dictators. The message that the RIAA is
giving society and the very consumers who the record industry
they represent need to have in order to monetize their content
(in concerts, t-shirts, downloads, CD sales) is that stealing is ok,
but only if you are big enough to influence (read: control) the
media. Why does the RIAA not join Viacom in their suit against
YouTube or initiate a suit against MySpace on behalf of the
labels that have not yet come to some settlement with this giant
despot? Legal fees would be better spent and the rewards would
be much bigger for the record industry and society as a whole if
people were shown that even (or especially) big companies must
respect the law!

Shelley, alldigdown.com
read more about this: http://www.alldigdown.com/blogs/
shelley/entry/20071009

[George Riddick]

Corporate Piracy

GREAT question, Shelley!!!

The answer, in my opinion, has to be "both". But I agree with you. If we set double standards in this country (Google is far and away the largest copyright infringer on the planet with News Corp/MySpace not that far behind), we might as well fold up our tents. What signal does this hypocrisy give to our children and both the booming and emerging economies around the world who really could care less about protecting Amercian citizens?

Good job. I was pleased to read this post on this beautiful Saturday morning here in Virginia.

George

[e-mail]

[CLBradford]

Is the RIAA even a valid party to seek suit?

First off I find it rich that an organization that has been crooked from the start, now finds the light and seeks recourse through the courts for alledged illegal activity.
Second, The RIAA and ASCAP are non-profits(Yeah Sure) and thus they pay no taxes, meaning they are stealing from us Mr. & Ms. Taxpayer.


Now I have a theoretical scenario I would like to ponder, since I have all these records, cassettes and reel to reels that I OWN or am license to listen to, and I can record them digitally to my computer to make it easier to search and find for my personal use(And there are NO shared directories that I allow on my Computer, too hackable) Let's say I have the complete Black Sabbath catalog, except for Paraniod which got lost or stolen. Since I can't prove I had the album, what law would prevent me from saving myself some time and downloading the full Black Sabbath catalog except for Paraniod which I don't currently own. would this not be a legitimate use of p2p. I've always wondered about that when these issues come up. I'm an old timer so for those that don't know the full history from what I have seen; In the seventy’s I used to buy 45rpm single records for forty-five cents they had two songs on them, the A side had the top 40 hit the B side some filler from the album., Vinyl albums sold for $3.99, Eight Tracks came out and raised the cost a dollar, and would get eaten buy the player after about 25 plays. Along comes the Cassette which was great, I could record simulcast live events, most radio stations would have Sunday night where they would play six albums in their entirety and you could record these. The downside; the little pressure pad that held the tape to the play head would fall off after a while, the cost of Cassette albums was $5.99, Vinyl stayed at $4.99. You could also buy what where called Cut-Outs for $1.99 which where full albums that had either a hole in the packaging or the tip cut of the corner, these were what you would call seconds. I have hundreds of vinyl, cassette and another hundred Reel to Reel albums that I bought during this period and have kept, I am glad I did. Later along comes the CD this product was greeted with consumer contempt, for one reason it jumped the price up to $9.99, another was the fact that it sounded tinny and flat, no real resonance to it. The marketing on them was that they would not scratch and skip like records and would last forever(no one bought this BS either), sales where terrible, CD’s had less market share then Cassettes. So the record companies announced that they are phasing out vinyl, due to the high cost of production, while at the same time justifying the cost of CD’s due to higher production cost. There was huge resistance to this along with petitions to the record companies to just raise the cost of the vinyl records to that of the CD’s. Makes sense so why didn’t they do it? Well, you have to remember this is the same industry that had the Payola Scandal (Google it), was constantly investigated for Price Fixing, stole the artist rights to their own music through fine print contracts.
Here's even more interesting history, the RIAA was a non-profit consumer group! I’m quoting this off of the album cover from the seventies The Band, Stage Fright; “This record has been engineered and manufactured in accordance with standards developed by the Recording Industry Association of America, a non-profit organization dedicated to the betterment of recorded music and literature” Follow me so far? ASCAP As found in the Wikipedia: “The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) is a non-profit performing rights organization that protects its members' musical copyrights by monitoring public performances of their music, whether via a broadcast or live performance, and compensating them accordingly”.Wow I thought RIAA was "Protecting" the ARTIST but it seems that is the job of the ASCAP. This means they may not actually be a party that can sue, and isn't non-profit tax free, if you Google ASCAP you'll see they look shady too I’m a musician, I play guitar, back in the day I was damned good. I never had any interest of getting a band together and getting into the grind because I knew some bands that hit it big and got a contract, I made more money then they did with my day job. Even if you got huge you damned near had to kill yourself to make a decent buck. and you had to give up all rights to your music that you wrote. I have absolutely no respect for the recording industry that cannibalizes all of it’s artist. If you compare them to the Movie industry whom pays it’s employees well and invests in it’s artist instead of ripping them off, you see what a bunch of crooks these guys are and always have been. Personally I hope the recording industry dies quickly

The problem really boils down to there are legitimate uses for p2p as well as there are for nntp (which has more instances and a broader range of pirated material over the years) or WWW or ftp etc. This women may well have had p2p installed for legal uses of which the files were in her "My Documents". If she chose to share that folder which windows defaults to adding music that you make up playlist for from your own purchased CD's in Mediaplayer, she may well have unknowingly made available those files along with other files she had in the subdirectories of "My Documents". Shye may have also been the victim of a trojan install of a proxy, once someone gains control thruough a trojan any executable can be installed, with the files being sent to the client. Thus it is important that her intent to distribute the files be proved.

This example of the woman mistakenly allowing her My Music Directory being a subdirectory of My Documents be shared, though she may have p2p for legitimate use Sharing Public domain and GPL files, or her loss of control of her computer to a trojan would show no intent. However, I have read both that she would have to check a dialog for subdirectories to be included, that would involve intent. I'm not sure how the install goes, never used it, but another poster states as a technichian, he has seen people list C: as the share. I don't beleive ANYONE would intend to do THAT, not with the security problems on the internet today!

[CLBradford]

Jeesh!!!

I HATE notepad too!!

[George Riddick]

What a Strategic Blunder!

Think about it for awhile.

If I broke into your living room and stole your treasured family photo album, and then placed the photos on a card table in my yard sale, would you have a claim whether the photos were actually sold at the yard sale or not?

What if I made copies of all the individual pictures for my own use?

What if we decided to give all the photos away at the end of the day?

What if I shared the photo album with one of my neighbors who was planning a similar yard sale the following week. She made perfect digital copies with her new computer and scanner.

The jury found that the excuses used by Ms. Thomas were not credible. Apparently, they determined that the plea of "you can't prove we stole anything" from her lawyer was nonsense as well.

The judge passed along his instructions based of judicial precedent and his own common sense.

This is what judges and juries do.

Any claims by Ms. Thomas or her growing hoard of attorneys that their interests in this case are not self-motivated (wouldn't surprise me if Ms. Thomas and her lawyer already had a book deal in the works) are completely disingenuous in my opinion.

Here was my reaction when I first heard of this decision early last week:

**************************************************

What a Strategic Blunder!

You know, I have never agreed with the folks at the Electronic Freedom Foundation, or other groups who seem dedicated to changing the long standing laws of copyright protection in this country. But I have noted one thing.

Their allies seem to include some of the brightest young minds in this country. From the law professors and students at Stanford, Berkeley, Harvard, Duke, and others ... to the lawyers at some of the most prestigious IP firms in the land ... to the engineers and scientists at some of our leading technology companies in this country ... the intellectual brainpower in this self-described "new wave" group has been impressive.

How this group could allow a strategic blunder like what we've just seen come out of Duluth is beyond me. Why these organizations didn't get involved, study the case thoroughly, and encourage Ms. Thomas, and her obviously inexperienced attorney, to surrender is truly phenomenal.

This is not the individual, the attorney, the forum, or the time I would want a precedent such as this established. What a strategic blunder!

Maybe these people are not nearly as smart as I gave them credit for. Apparently, they all sat back and naively thought (make that "wished") that Ms. Thomas would somehow end the RIAA onslaught forever.

Don't get me wrong. I applaud the decisions made by both the judge and jury in this precedent setting case. The anti-copyright crowd will suffer the consequences of this loss big time. Our economy will be strengthened. And these decisions will do more to help curtail widespread Internet Piracy than all the politicians, copyright industry executives, and lobbyists in this entire country put together.

I thought good lawyers advised their clients of the downside of their attempts to "change the law of the land" and could be sanctioned if they chose to pursue only "the big payday" or their personal "15 minutes of fame" instead. Read the copyright laws. Displaying and downloading copyright-protected works owned by others without their permission is illegal. It has both civil and criminal consequences. And, as in the case of Ms. Thomas in Duluth, they can be severe. She will have to pay back nearly $500,000 by having her pay check garnished for the rest of her life.

But she doesn't get any sympathy from me. If she had taken this many copyrighted songs out of Best Buy or Wal-Mart, she'd be in jail right now. And owe back a like amount of money as well. None of us - right or left - want to live in a lawless society. It's interesting to debate legal principles and consequences, but fearing to go outside for a cup of coffee or a loaf of bread is not something we have had any experience with in this country at all. Thank goodness!

And if you don't think organized white collar crime families are behind much of this Internet piracy epidemic, you'd better think again.

COUNTERPOINT:

Here is the one issue I have discussed with my 20-year-old son and I do have "conflicts" with. Google infringes more legitimate copyrights every single day than Ms. Thomas could do in a lifetime. Do we now have a country that has completely different standards for the billionaires than we do for the normal working folks? If so, I sure hope this is short-lived as well. I think I'd rather give up the coffee and the bread than have to worry about Google stealing from me every single day.

What's your opinion?

George P. Riddick, III
Chairman/CEO
Imageline, Inc.

[e-mail]

[CopyrightLawSucks]

Real Reason

"So why, then, if the RIAA is taking a PR beating, is the group continuing to pursue Thomas? Why not target people who tug a little less on the public's heartstrings?"

Better yet, why not do what was done years ago regarding home taping? Why not pick a case, throw out the dollars and try it all the way to the Supreme Court to get answers, instead of perscecuting people for listening to music??

That is what the entertainment industry did when the VCR was invented. Rather that sue dead grandmas, handicapped moms, and 12-year-old girls, select a case, drop all right to recover damages, and try the case all the way to the Supreme Court. The real question is WHY DOESN'T THE RIAA ANSWER COPYRIGHT ISSUES THIS WAY?????