Obama's Gift To British Prime Minister Rendered Useless By DRM

from the learning-process dept

A few years back, it emerged that US Senator Ted Stevens had been given an iPod by his daughter, and it had changed the way he saw the RIAA and the measures for which it lobbied. It's always seemed to me that once politicians -- at least those not beholden to the entertainment industry -- experienced the stupidity and frustration of the locks and controls that groups like the RIAA and MPAA put on content and want backed up by law, they'd realize they were little more than attempts to frustrate consumers and prop up outmoded business models. Maybe the UK is prepared for a similar political inflection point: its Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, was recently given a gift of 25 DVDs of classic American movies by US President Barack Obama. When Brown sat down to watch one of them, he found he couldn't -- because Obama had given him Region 1 DVDs, unplayable in Brown's Region 2 DVD player. The pointless DRM didn't stop any piracy, it prevented an absolutely reasonable use of legitimately purchased content. Maybe this experience will help the British government understand how many of the entertainment industry's efforts to strengthen intellectual property controls do little more than irritate legitimate consumers in the name of supporting failing business models.

Carlo Longino is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Carlo Longino and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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White House Confirms: President Keeps His Blackberry

from the now-about-the-IM dept

There were some stories yesterday saying that, despite earlier worries he'd be forced to give it up, President Obama was able to keep his Blackberry -- and now the White House has confirmed it. Apparently, some security software has been added, and a very limited number of people will know the email address. Also, it appears that the administration is noting that the Presidential Records Act does allow an exception for strictly personal emails. So, while the President is being told to consider any emails he sends to be public, strictly personal email to friends or family will likely not be kept and revealed. What isn't entirely clear is who determines what is, and what is not, personal. In the meantime, how long until we hear about the first Obama-email-inspired phishing scam? You know someone's going to try to use a fake Obama email address to try to scam people... Now, let's see what they can do about giving instant messaging back to White House staffers.

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Obama Fighting For His Blackberry... But May Be Losing

from the the-lawyers-win!-the-lawyers-win! dept

Right after the election, there was plenty of talk about how President-elect Obama would need to give up email just as President Bush did when he took office eight years ago. As plenty of people pointed out at the time, this seems like a pretty silly concept. There should be at least some way to allow Obama to continue to use this important and useful form of communication -- if only to allow him some access "outside the bubble" of DC. And, indeed, Obama made it clear that he would fight to figure out some way to keep emailing -- especially via his precious Blackberry. However, the latest news isn't looking good -- as Obama is noting that he still has been unable to convince both the security folks and the lawyers that he should be allowed to keep the Blackberry. Apparently, there are times when it's not so good to be the king.

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No Surprise Here: Telco Employees Access Obama's Phone Records

from the but-of-course dept

We've pointed out plenty of times in the past, that any time there's a database of info out there, the data is almost certain to be abused. The latest example? Employees at Verizon Wireless improperly accessed Barack Obama's phone records to see who he was calling and who was calling him. The access was just for his regular phone used for voice communications -- not his Blackberry. Also, the employees had no access to his voicemail or anything -- just calling records. At least Verizon Wireless came out and admitted this, rather than covering it up, but it's yet another reminder, that data will be abused.

And, of course, Obama isn't the only one facing such an issue. Reader lavi d writes in to point out that eighteen background checks were conducted in Ohio by gov't employees on Joe Wurzelbacher, better known as Joe the Plumber. Eight of those background checks were done for no legitimate reason, including one at the request of the director of Ohio's Department of Job and Family Services (who has now been suspended). We had mentioned three such cases earlier, but even more have since come to light.

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Dear Trademark Filers: You Cannot Get Trademarks Based On Barack Obama's Name

from the president-elect-or-opportunity? dept

With the election of Barack Obama last week, some observers have noted the not-surprising rush by folks over the past few months to try to file for trademarks built off of Obama's name, including Barack Star, Obama -- O Baby! and (my favorite) Pet Barack (a play on the old "pet rock"). Of course, the USPTO has shot all of these down as not actually being approved by the President-Elect, while noting that any products using such trademarks would likely confuse people into believing they were approved by him.

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It Makes No Sense For The President To Not Use Email

from the get-with-the-times dept

Eight years ago, we noted that newly elected President George W. Bush had given up email, in order to avoid problems with open records laws on Presidential communications. Not surprisingly, there's now a lot of speculation concerning whether or not President-Elect Barack Obama will now have to give up email as well. In the intervening eight years, email has become much more important, and, of course, Obama is a known Blackberry fanatic.

Eight years ago we thought this was a silly turn of events, and today it seems even more ridiculous. Email is an important and useful form of communication. It seems silly not to allow Obama to use email, and it's difficult to see what the real advantage of cutting him off would be. The article mentions concerns about security, but no one is saying he should be sending nuclear codes or military training plans via email. The second concern is about the open records laws, that would potentially open up private communications to the public. Again, it seems like this can be dealt with in a variety of ways -- either by changing the law to protect certain emails, or by having Obama make it clear to any and all emailers that their emails should be considered public records. It seems like there are better solutions out there than cutting him off entirely.

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Newspapers Are Souvenirs

from the not-the-most-valuable-of-markets dept

Following last week's historic election of Barack Obama, there was a rush to buy up paper newspapers announcing the news, with the idea being that those newspapers would be quite valuable. In fact, some newspapers were quickly being resold on eBay for up to $400 -- and many buyers plan to preserve the papers, hoping they'll be worth even more in the future. Of course, it sounds as though many newspaper publishers got exactly the wrong lesson from this. Some publishers celebrated the rush to buy newspapers as evidence that newspapers were still relevant and that in "big events" people still turned to print papers. Except, that's not true. Publishers who believe that are deluding themselves. People got the actual news from the internet and TV. The newspapers just represent a souvenir of the event -- not the place to turn to for news about it. Newspapers are never going to figure out how to survive if they take the wrong lessons out of this. People bought newspapers because they could be saved (and resold) -- not because they were suddenly relevant.

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When You're The President-Elect, People Watch Your Website Closely

from the you-can't-just-rewrite-history dept

There's been plenty of coverage about President-Elect Obama's change.gov website, which we recently mentioned as well. However, there's already some controversy brewing, as some folks have noticed that when the site launched, it had full versions of various policy initiatives. Over the weekend, though, many of those initiatives disappeared completely. Of course, it wasn't that completely, since plenty of folks were able to dig up copied versions of them and repost them.

Chances are that this is nothing more than a similar flare up a couple months ago, when Obama's campaign moved some of the content on his campaign website around, pushing more of the policy details into PDFs rather than in the main HTML. In fact, the campaign has suggested just that, by saying that the policy section is being "retooled." However, it should be a clear reminder to folks working on the website that people are watching every move extremely closely, and they're not going to be able to make changes and hope no one notices.

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What Obama Should Do To Get The Entrepreneurial Viewpoint

from the we're-about-to-find-out dept

Two contrasting articles crossed my desktop this weekend, both about how President-Elect Barack Obama is likely to govern. The first, by Mark Cuban, criticizes Obama for the list of economic advisers that Obama chose to consult concerning his plans to take on the economic downturn. Cuban, correctly, worries about who is missing from that list:

Notice anything missing?

Not a single entrepreneur. Yes Warren Buffett started a business, but he will be the first to tell you that he "doesn't do start ups". Which means there isn't a single person advising PE Obama that we know of that knows that its like to start and run a business in this or any economic climate. That's a huge problem.

I absolutely agree. It is the entrepreneurial spirit that is needed right now. But, at the same time, it makes you wonder just how Obama would have accomplished this. Any one or two entrepreneurs are unlikely to do a really good job representing all entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs, for the most part, don't all view things the same way, and there's no real organization of entrepreneurs. The reason entrepreneurs become entrepreneurs is often that they see their own way of doing things and don't want to be locked up by convention. So, while it is worrisome that there aren't any entrepreneur-types on the list, I'm not sure I'd be that much more comfortable with a few entrepreneurs representing the interests of all entrepreneurs either.

That brings us to the second article. It's by David Carr in the NY Times, and looks at how Obama's campaign ran like an entrepreneurial startup itself, leveraging the internet and new technologies to do a complete end-run around much bigger and more well-known "corporate brands" in the political space. And it wonders if Obama will continue to use those tools to govern as well.

So, at the very least, one could argue that Obama, himself, is something of an entrepreneur, but more importantly, one would hope that Obama does, in fact, continue to leverage the internet to hear from folks -- and is actually willing to listen and take suggestions seriously. Why not create an economic roundtable of sorts online that lets more people weigh in? Let ideas in the mix bubble up to the top using ratings systems (and maybe some White House moderators) and contribute them to the mix. If someone has a particularly good suggestion, why not invite them to a meeting with those "big shot" economic advisers as well? It doesn't mean that every hare-brained scheme needs to be listened to, but if there's a good way to allow the best ideas to bubble up and get recognition, it could be quite a powerful new way to govern. To some extent, there's already some indication that this is where things are headed with the transition website Change.gov, but it remains to be seen if that's just a Presidential suggestion box... or something a lot more powerful.

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Don't Worry About MPAA's Congrats To Obama

from the step-back-from-the-ledge dept

A bunch of folks have been sending in Wired's short article claiming that the MPAA is "already lobbying Obama." And, while I'm certainly never one to suggest that the MPAA isn't full of sneaky tricks, this is hardly anything to get worked up about. I don't even understand why Wired posted it, other than to get people angry. The MPAA, like pretty much every major lobbying organization, put out statements congratulating Obama. That's what you do as a lobbying group, and it's entirely meaningless at this point. I have no doubt that the MPAA will pull plenty of misleading stunts over the next four years, and most likely will convince all sorts of politicians, including Obama, to put into place bad laws. But a simple congratulations statement from a lobbying group is hardly a sign of impending doom.

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Will Either McCain Or Obama Commit To Reforming The DMCA?

from the unlikely dept

With the McCain campaign upset at how the DMCA (which he voted for) makes YouTube take down videos even if they might not have infringing content, we wondered if he would go beyond asking YouTube for special treatment, and instead push to fix the DMCA. So far, the campaign has been pretty quiet on that issue, but Paul Alan Levy from Public Citizen has written a letter (pdf) to both campaigns, asking them to commit to having the DMCA reformed in a few significant ways once Congress is back in session.

The suggested changes would definitely be a big step in the right direction -- effectively moving the system from a "notice-and-takedown" system to a "notice-and-notice" system, which allows whoever posted any content to respond before it's taken down. It would also require a lot more openness in the process, including an initial notification to whoever uploaded the content, as opposed to just the service provider, and a system for making the takedown notices public. As it stands now, the system allows anyone to claim infringement and get the content taken down, without the original uploader or the public understanding why. The proposal would also make it easier to punish those who send false takedowns, which might help alleviate some of the problems. Somehow it seems unlikely that either campaign will get behind these proposals, but considering that they've both now seen how the DMCA has worked against them, it would be nice for them to make a concerted effort to fix it.

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Why We Should All Want Politicians Who Plagiarize

from the it's-called-learning-from-others dept

There's been a rather bizarre debate about plagiarism kicked off by charges from Hillary Clinton's campaign that Barack Obama has "plagiarized" some of his speeches. This isn't a political blog, and I won't get into the politics of this, but we do talk about plagiarism here, and it's a ridiculous claim. In the past, we've noted that it's time to rethink the concept of plagiarism, and even pointed to Jonathan Lethem's fantastic defense of plagiarism, which was entirely plagiarized itself. Many people wrongly confuse copyright and plagiarism -- even though they are two separate things. Copyright has nothing to do with making sure someone gets credit for their work. What some people want to call plagiarism, others are realizing is actually a form of collaboration. Ideas and words do not come to us uniquely as a burst of inspiration -- but are built on what we have all learned from others. When anyone speaks, they are "plagiarizing" others in some form or another. Name a political candidate who has only uttered his or her own words, not taking anything from anyone else and improving on it in their own way.

Thankfully, various speechwriters have come forward to ridicule the charges of plagiarism, noting that all political speeches pull from others, and when is the last time you heard a politician credit his or her own speechwriter for a speech he or she had just given? Copyright expert William Patry has blasted the charges as well. In fact, most of the commentary seems to be about what a lame tactic it is. Most amusing of all, perhaps, are the false claims by one news organization that it broke the story. Think about that for a second: a news organization is demanding undeserved credit for breaking a story on a politician who, by omission, failed to credit where his ideas came from. Which is worse? Claiming credit for something you did not do, or failing to credit a friend and advisor who provided you with an idea you built on?

But the key point here is that I want a politician who plagiarizes. I want a politician who takes the ideas of others, mixes them around and comes out with something better. I want a politician who doesn't think that all good ideas spring from his or her head alone, but knows that by listening to others, and by internalizing those ideas, remixing those ideas and building on top of those ideas something better, something more profound, something more meaningful can be produced. Any politician who chooses not to build on the ideas of others and who insists that only he or she creates the speeches and policies put forth is not a politician worth following.

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