The More Innovative You Are, The More You Get Sued; Yet Another Patent Lawsuit Over Shazam

from the aren't-patents-great? dept

Earlier this year, we noted that Apple and AT&T had been sued for patent infringement concerning Shazam, the popular service for identifying music. At the time, we noted how this was a clear demonstration of the difference between just the idea and the actual innovation. Shazam has been around for ages, and despite having a good idea (ability to identify music just by hearing it), it struggled for many, many years until the iPhone came along, and there was a platform on which its concept made sense. During that time Shazam kept trying out new things and improving its service. The basic concept behind Shazam (identifying music) isn't that interesting. It was all the work that Shazam kept doing over the years to find the right mix of things that consumers wanted that made it worthwhile.

But, of course, patent holders continue to insist that it's the original idea only that's important.

So, once again, Shazam's service is involved in a patent lawsuit, this time from Digimarc, who has sued Shazam directly, claiming infringement. Now, Digimarc claims that Shazam is infringing on its patents, even though Digimarc does not offer a similar service at all. In fact, Digimarc is in an entirely different business: it's really a DRM company who wants to try to stop people from sharing or appreciating content, by locking it down. More recently, Digimarc has been focused on patenting its watermarking concept (despite plenty of prior art), and going the lawsuit route.

So, we have the tales of two companies who have been around for quite some time. One is focused on providing unique and compelling solutions that make consumers' lives better. And the other is focused on locking things down and talking about its intellectual property. Guess which one's getting sued by the other? So, please, explain again how patents encourage innovation? Once more, it looks like patents are being used to prevent actual innovating by those who prefer to lock up ideas.

7 Comments | Leave a Comment..

Cable Industry Joins MPAA In Asking FCC To Allow Them To Stop Your DVR From Recording Movies

from the without-any-reason dept

Ars Technica has allowed the cable industry lobbyists' top lawyer to explain why the cable industry supports breaking your DVR in a misguided effort to add more windows to movie releases. Not surprisingly, he simply repeats the MPAA's flat out lies and misrepresentations on this particular issue. For example, he claims that the movie studios need this or they won't get content out to the industry early enough. But that's wrong. There is nothing stopping the movie studios from releasing content whenever they would like. In fact, we've already seen that some of the major studios are releasing movies in exactly this manner (prior to DVD release), despite claiming that it's impossible to do so without enabling this form of DRM.

If the movie industry wants to add a new window where they release movies for pay-per-view offerings before they come out on DVD, there is nothing stopping them from doing so today. Nothing.

The claim that this is about preventing "piracy" is flat out bogus. Even the movie studios themselves claim that nearly every movie is already "pirated" by the time the movies hit the theaters. And these pay-per-view offerings (they like to call them video on demand, but it's really pay per view) are for a window later than the theater release. So the movies will already be available via unauthorized channels. That won't change at all.

So, what are we left with? The two main arguments simply don't make sense at all. There's nothing stopping the studios from adding this window now. And enabling selectable output control (SOC) to stop your DVR from recording these movies won't do a damn thing to reduce unauthorized file sharing of the same content. The only thing it will serve to do is make legitimate customers pissed off, because they'll be confused and annoyed when the DVR they purchased to record what comes out of their TV sets refuses to record this movie that they legally are accessing, but want to time shift (which, again, is perfectly legal).

Contrary to the MPAA and the NCTA's bogus claims, this has nothing to do with enabling some "awesome" new service. This has everything to do with trying to lock down your TV and DVR in an age when consumers are finally getting back some control. What's amusing, of course, is that this comes just as the TV industry is finally realizing that letting consumers do what they wanted with DVRs didn't harm the TV industry, but helped it. One of these days, maybe the MPAA and the NCTA will come to that realization as well. In the meantime, though, they want to get a foot in the door to let them stop your DVR from working as advertised, in the misguided belief that they need to push back on what legitimate consumers want to do with the content they watch.

45 Comments | Leave a Comment..

Romance Publishing Giant Offering Ebooks Without DRM; Reporter Upset By This

from the how-dare-you-give-customers-what-they-want dept

Kevin Cummings writes in with the news that romance novel publishing giant Harlequin is setting up a new ebook division to offer digital books directly from the company's own websites, as well as via various online retailers. That, by itself, isn't a huge surprise these days, but the article does note that the publisher decided to go without DRM on the books. Now, that seems like a smart, consumer-friendly move that should be applauded. However, the reporter who covered the announcement claims this move is "troubling," which seems like an odd statement. How could treating customers with respect be "troubling"?

24 Comments | Leave a Comment..

Buyers Who Purchased Modern Warfare 2 Via Steam Discover DRM Puts Them 2 Days Behind Everyone Else

from the that-sucks dept

When talking about video games, we sometimes hear that Valve's Steam is one of the few examples of "DRM that works," but that's hard to accept when you hear ridiculous stories like this one. Apparently people who downloaded Modern Warfare 2 via Steam, expecting to be able to play the game today (along with everyone else who bought it in a store today) have discovered that the DRM has been setup so you can't actually play the game until Thursday. Ouch. It's yet another example suggesting that Infinity Ward really does not care at all about PC gamers. The game will likely sell millions of copies anyway, but it's really amazing to see how badly the company treats its PC gamer fans.

63 Comments | Leave a Comment..

FCC Poised To Let Hollywood Break Your TV And DVR

from the based-on-nothing dept

Earlier today, we wrote about how even the MPAA's own members have shown they don't need to break your TV and DVR with selectable output control in order to release video-on-demand movies prior to DVD releases. Yet, if you hadn't noticed, the MPAA has been on a big rampage lately insisting that they need to do this to add yet another window to its release schedule. That's because the way Hollywood thinks is that they only way to make money is to take away what consumers want and, instead, add more annoying "windows." This is faulty thinking. However, it's even more faulty to claim that they need to break your TV and DVR to release this content. The MPAA's basic argument is that without this, there will be piracy -- but even the MPAA admits that every movie is pirated by the time it's in the theaters (i.e., before it would need this window).

Want to know why the MPAA got 60 Minutes to run its propaganda piece on movie piracy this week? Because it knew this fight was close to a deciding point, and a little moral panic might help tip it over the edge into Hollywood's favor.

For a while, the FCC has pushed back and refused to grant the movie studios an exemption in order to break your TV, but word is coming down that, despite promises to make decisions based on "evidence," the FCC is ready to give in and let the MPAA break your TV and DVR in order to stop you from recording the movies it releases. Why? There's no good reason at all, other than the administration's cozy relationship with Hollywood these days. The industry's own actions show that this will do nothing to make it easier for it to release movies earlier. The industry's own claims show that it will do nothing to decrease piracy.

The only thing it will do is harm millions of consumers who believe their TV and DVR should work the way they were intended to work.

Public Knowledge is asking people to send a letter to the FCC, protesting this decision. I'm not a fan of "form letters," but I would suggest reading over the suggested letter and then crafting your own (polite, well argued) version, and sending it to the FCC. Hopefully the FCC realizes that breaking your TV and DVR for the sake of protecting Hollywood's billions (which still continue to go up) is not progress. It's a blatant attempt to take away consumer rights.

79 Comments | Leave a Comment..

Oh Look: Hollywood Doesn't Need To Break Your TV To Release PPV Movies Early

from the who-would-have-thunk-it? dept

For a while now, the MPAA and the major movie studios have been asking the FCC for permission to break your TV and DVR by enabling "selectable output control," which would block the recording of certain movies. The MPAA's claim for why they needed this is to add another "window" for releasing movies as video on demand prior to them being released on DVD. But that makes no sense. As we pointed out, when they first made this claim, there is absolutely nothing stopping them from releasing these movies earlier for VOD. There's nothing to stop them from doing so -- and it's not like SOC would actually block the movies from being online. Every movie ends up online around the same time (usually before) it gets into the theaters, so these movies would all be available for file sharing prior to the VOD release anyway. The MPAA keeps saying that it simply can't release the movies earlier without this form of DRM, but it appears that the studios own actions prove that we were right, and the MPAA was lying. Public Knowledge is pointing out that Warner Bros. has released two recent movies for VOD prior to DVD, even as the MPAA is still insisting that it's simply impossible. Oops.

34 Comments | Leave a Comment..

Disney's Keychest: Is Giving Back Your Fair Use Rights With More DRM Really A Step Forward?

from the redefining-fair-use dept

A bunch of folks have sent in different stories about Disney's new "Keychest" technology offering, which would (in theory) allow users to purchase content that would be stored online, and which they could then access from any "participating service."

With Keychest, when a consumer buys a movie from a participating store, his accounts with other participating services--such as a mobile-phone provider or a video-on-demand cable service--would be updated to show the title as available for viewing. The movies wouldn't be downloaded; rather, they would reside with each particular delivery company, such as the Internet service provider, cable company or phone company.

The idea, supposedly is:

to address two of the biggest hurdles blocking widespread consumer adoption of movie downloads: the difficulty of playing a movie back on devices other than a PC or laptop, and limited storage space on those computers' hard drives.

Now, while you must admit that allowing people to access the same content after a single purchase on multiple devices is definitely a step up from the "old" way of doing things, it does kind of ignore some important points: such as the fact that, for the most part, you could already do this on your own. As we know, it's legal to rip your CD's and then store that content on an iPod or on your computer and listen to the music how you want to do so. And, even though this is perfectly legitimate fair use of content for movies as well, Hollywood has used the worst provision in the DMCA -- the anti-circumvention provision -- to block people from doing what is accepted fair use with movie and television content.

So all Keychest really seems to be doing is giving you back your fair use rights on content -- but also wrapping it in additional DRM, such that it only works on "participating services." Oh, and it could include other limitations as well:

And Keychest would allow movie studios to dictate how many devices, connected to which distribution networks, a given title can be played on.

So, kudos to Disney for recognizing that people hate having to buy the same content over and over again and hate being limited on what devices they can view content on... but, creating a new, more permissive DRM solution, just to give back some of an individual's fair use rights, isn't really a huge win.

15 Comments | Leave a Comment..

Public Knowledge Points Out MPAA's Lies On Why It Wants To Break Your TV

from the nice-work dept

For quite some time now, the MPAA has been asking the FCC for permission to break your TV, so you won't be able to record certain movies shown on TV. Specifically, it wants to be allowed to use something called "Selectable Output Control" to tell DVRs that they can't record a show. It's basically the whole "broadcast flag" concept all over again. The MPAA's argument for why it needs this makes no sense at all. It basically makes two arguments, neither of which are true. The first is that they need this in order to be able to put movies on TV earlier. This is not true. There's nothing stopping the studios from putting movies on TV earlier, other than a misguided fear that people will "pirate them." And that's the second problem: even the industry admits that the movies they'd release on TV are already pirated and available on file sharing networks, so it's not like having this would stop that. The movies will still get out there. SOC won't stop piracy at all -- but it will piss off a ton of people who bought a DVR expecting to be able to record what they want to watch.

Consumer rights group Public Knowledge, thankfully, has now sent a letterexplaining all of this to the FCC:

"The MPAA has submitted no proof that grant of the waiver will serve the public interest at all. To the contrary, what proof exists in the record shows that the 'problem' of a longer window for release of movies to MVPDs than for release on DVDs is a business decision made by MPAA's members. Rather than shed crocodile tears for the poor shut-ins and busy parents who must either subscribe to NETFLIX to get the earlier window or wait a whole thirty days, MPAA's members could simply negotiate a shorter release window."

Hopefully the FCC listens.

41 Comments | Leave a Comment..

DRM Ridiculousness Just A Part Of The PSP Go's Problems

from the how-unappealing-does-this-sound dept

A bunch of folks have been sending in various versions of the stories popping up all weekend about the disastrous PSP Go launch, with a product that seems designed to piss off as many consumers as possible. And, of course, one of the big problems? DRM. Apparently a promotion in Europe gave people free downloads of games -- but if you have both a PS3 and a PSP and were used to downloading games to the PS3 to put on the PSP, you're out of luck with the PSP Go. The games are locked to the platform where they were downloaded.

Sony, Sony, Sony. This is the same company that has been locking things down for years, and always regrets it. Way back in 2005, the company admitted that it needed to stop locking down content, and learn to open up more. The company got a lot of press for that statement... and kept locking stuff down. Earlier this year, Sony got a ton of press for basically saying the same thing about being more open. So what does it do? It goes and releases another device using locked down content. At some point you have to wonder who's in charge at Sony.

26 Comments | Leave a Comment..

DRM Doesn't Enable Business Models; Blind Fear Disables Business Models

from the get-over-it dept

A bunch of folks have asked if I had any comment on analyst Michael Gartenberg post over at Engadget claiming that DRM has been demonized too far, and for all the "bad" things about DRM, most people really don't mind it, and we should be happy that it "enables new business models." I've discussed this before, but not in a while, so it seems worth revisiting.

First, it's a lie that DRM "enables new business models." Gartenberg doesn't realize it, but he admits it in his post, when he suggests that DRM made all-you-can-eat subscription models possible, while immediately countering that point by admitting the real factors are elsewhere:

Take subscription services for example. Sure, I'd love a service that would allow me to download unlimited content in high bitrate MP3 format for a reasonable fee every month. Except economics and greed will never let that happen.

Notice what he says here. The DRM isn't what enabled the business model. It's fear of how people will use such a service that does. It's fear that people will actually use what's been given to them -- leading to the claim of "economics and greed" stopping such a service from ever coming about. But, that makes no sense. People already have access to pretty much every song ever recorded with no DRM at all. Claiming that they need DRM to enable such a service makes no sense. It's already there -- just not legally. So what does the DRM stop in such a service? Absolutely nothing. If the fear is that someone takes a song and shares it online... too late. It's already happened. The only thing that DRM does in that situation is put up a restriction on a legitimate, paying customer. That makes no economic sense at all.

And that's my real problem with DRM. It cannot enable a new business model economically. That's because it's only purpose is to limit behavior. There are no business models that are based solely on limiting behavior. It may be the case that some companies may be too afraid to implement a business model without this faux "protection," but that's entirely different than saying DRM enables the business model. DRM takes an economic resource and artificially restricts it. It takes away options, it does not enable them. DRM hasn't been "demonized." It's a pointless solution that prevents no unauthorized sharing and only serves to hinder the activities of legitimate customers.

50 Comments | Leave a Comment..

Cable Lobbyists Side With MPAA On Getting Permission To Break Your TV

from the not-really-a-surprise dept

As Hollywood keeps asking for permission from the FCC to break your TV with Selectable Output Control, it's picked up an unsurprising ally. Cable companies. NCTA, the lobbying group that represents the cable industry has come out in favor of the request, claiming that it will let them offer movies earlier. This is a myth that they want regulators to believe. The MPAA and cable companies could offer up movies whenever they want. They just don't want people to record them, because they want to introduce yet another annoying window. So, they declare that they need to break your TV and DVR from recording. Hopefully, the FCC knows better than to break TVs and piss off so many people just because Hollywood is upset some people will want to record movies.

24 Comments | Leave a Comment..

Sneaky UK Attempt To DRM Television

from the not-this-again dept

Danny O'Brien over at the EFF has the details on how the entertainment industry is attempting to push through an attempt to DRM TV in the UK. It's not quite a "broadcast flag," but close enough. In the last few years, since the original fight over the "broadcast flag" ended in "failure" for Hollywood, they keep attempting to sneak it through in other ways. In the US, it's been via "selectable output control," or SOC. Over in the UK, it's a bit different, but no less ridiculous. Basically, there would be some encoded metadata with all digital TV channels, and the algorithm would be kept "secret." As Danny notes, this has nothing to do with preventing copying, and everything to do with giving the entertainment industry yet another "veto" on innovation (similar to the anti-circumvention clause of the DMCA):

In Britain, as in the United States, this proposal isn't about piracy. It's about creating a rightsholder veto over new consumer technologies in DTV.

No British commercial digital TV manufacturer would risk any innovation that might invalidate their "metadata compression parameter" license, and leave them open to litigation. And competition between devices would be limited by the byzantine requirements that DRM requires (it's notable that the BBC says the rightsholders demands came via the Digital Transmission Licensing Administrator (DTLA), a DRM consortium who would clearly benefit from mandatory adoption of its own system.)

But, of course, in an era of copyright moral panics, we'll hear over and over again about how this is all about stopping "piracy" -- even though it actually does nothing to prevent unauthorized copying.

11 Comments | Leave a Comment..

Revisiting The Replicator Analogy: How Infinite Goods Create More Jobs

from the bring-in-the-tomatoes dept

Recently, in writing about a DRM scheme, I used the analogy of the Star Trek food replicator to explain why it made no sense to turn infinite goods, like content, into artificially scarce goods. There was a lot of back and forth in the comments about the appropriateness of the analogy, though I still think the basic point stands: it makes no sense to artificially limit an infinitely available resource. In fact, it only leads to bad things. However, one of our readers has written up a fantastic blog post where he tries to present a similar, but much, much better analogy:

A better analogy would be if the replicator only made tomatoes. You could have as many tomatoes as you wanted, they'd always be perfect and delicious, and they'd always be free. This would put tomato farmers out of business. But these tomato farmers could likely start growing something else instead. And what happens to the rest of the economy? Pizza and pasta restaurants suddenly find that a major ingredient in many of their dishes just became free. Now, for the same dish, they can charge less, or buy higher quality ingredients, or make more profit. And if you're a really talented cook specializing in tomatoes? Your skills are now in very high demand.

And there is still a demand for the people who bring the tomatoes from the replicator to your table. There is still a demand for the person who stews and cans the tomatoes, or dices and seasons them. And all the other food items, the ones that aren't in infitnite supply, still need people to produce, process, and distribute them.

This is what's happening in the music industry, and starting to happen in the publishing industry. Some parts of the industries are finding their functions obsolete. Instead of looking at the money they could save with electronic distribution, and what good use they could put that money to, the industry is seeking new laws and regulations to limit the infinite supply so business can continue as usual.

Even if every single song, book, and movie was distributed digitally for free, there would still be a need for the music, publishing, and movie industries. There would still be demand for editors, producers, marketers, and all sorts of other services that these industries have always provided.

Reasonable people aren't calling for the abolition of the music, publishing, and movie industries. They're just asking these industries to look to the future, and stop trying to limit supply to protect obsolete business models.

Read that over a few times. It's about the best description/analogy of what we've been trying to say here that I've ever heard.

115 Comments | Leave a Comment..

DRM Company: If You Think Patents Are Bad, You're Un-American

from the protect-protect-protect dept

In our recent discussion about another bad idea for a new type of DRM that will surely fail, Steve R. pointed us to an article in Forbes about Intertrust, the DRM company, who apparently is cooking up yet another DRM scheme. But, unlike the system we talked about in the original post -- where the guy noted that the concept had to be widely adopted as a standard, and not protected, Intertrust goes on and on and on about how it's got a ton of DRM patents to protect this new DRM scheme. This isn't a surprise. Intertrust's entire business model was based on suing Microsoft for patent infringement.

And, of course, it should be no surprise that a company that thinks DRM makes sense also believes in the patenting the crap out of everything. But it's quite telling that even the way Forbes describes the company, it's the patents that come first, ahead of the DRM:

Talal Shamoon, chief executive of Intertrust Technologies in Sunnyvale, Calif., believes he has an answer. Intertrust holds a treasure trove of patents that help content owners manage digital rights; it has spent five years and tens of millions of dollars developing a standard called Marlin, which aims to keep content secure in a way that legitimate consumers won't find offensive

If you're leading with your patents, you don't have a good product. It's that simple. Meanwhile, the article goes on and on about just how many patents Intertrust has, and doesn't actually get around to describing "Marlin" until many paragraphs later. It doesn't sound particularly unique or special. Basically, it's still DRM that allows you to make limited copies. Yippee.

But, really, the most stunning line in the whole article is this lovely gem:

"I think it's un-American to think that patents are bad."

That's from Intertrust's CEO. It's quite a statement given the tons of evidence that patents have been a net negative on innovation and a massive waste of resources for most tech companies. It's un-American to want innovation to move faster? It's un-American to think that companies shouldn't be throwing money away on protectionist schemes? I'd love to better understand how. The purpose of the patent system is not to create more patents, it's "to promote the progress." If evidence suggests patents are not doing that, how is it possibly "un-American" to complain about that and try to change things?

41 Comments | Leave a Comment..

Bad Ideas: Trying To Make Content More Like Physical Property

from the bangs-head-on-desk dept

Let's play a little hypothetical. Let's say that someone had discovered a way to automatically -- without any additional cost -- create all the food that the world's population needed, and automatically have it appear wherever and whenever needed. Think of it like the "replicator" device in Star Trek, where you can just walk up to it, and it'll create whatever food you want. The entire issue of hunger and worries about the "scarce resource" of food would go away. Who, in their right mind, would want to break such a machine, and force this newly abundant resource back to being scarce?

Yet, that seems to be exactly what's happening in the music world. A whole bunch of folks have sent in this positively ridiculous attempt by some guy named Paul Sweazey to get the IEEE to endorse a new standard to make content act more like physical property by allowing it to be "stolen." It's basically a weird DRM system that would allow the content to be fully "taken away" from the original holder. I've read the article a few times, and I have to be honest, that I don't quite get it. Those who get the content would still be able to share the actual content with whoever they wanted, however many times they wanted it -- but there's a separate "playkey" and someone can "take" that away, such that those who had it before can't use it after. But why would anyone "take" the playkey, other than to be a jackass?

But the bigger issue is why bother in the first place? Why purposely try to limit an abundant resource by making it scarce? Sweazey claims:

His answer is that such freely-copiable goods breaks the basic business model of human commerce by making goods nonrivalrous; it no longer has aspects of a private good, and this makes it difficult to sell.

But, this is wrong. It shows an out-of-date understanding of economics. While it may mean that you can't directly create a (paid) market in that private good, it opens up and enables many more markets. Going back to the food analogy: if you had many more people in the world who weren't hungry, and didn't have to spend all their money on food or food production, would that be good or bad for the economy? It seems rather obvious that it would be good, as money could be spent on higher level things that expand the economy.

Taking an abundant resource and actively working to make it act like a scarce resource makes no sense. It limits progress and the wider economy, and it's the last thing that a group like the IEEE should be supporting.

66 Comments | Leave a Comment..

Hollywood Asks FCC For Permission To Break Your DVR Again

from the because-pissing-off-consumers-is-always-a-good-strategy dept

Every few months for the past year and a half or so, the MPAA has basically begged the FCC to let it make use of "selectable output control" on televisions to block DVRs from recording stuff shown on TV. The MPAA claims this is necessary to release certain movies on TV, but that's hogwash. Rather than focusing on what consumers want, the movie studios are simply trying to add in yet another "window" to try to squeeze more money out of people. And, of course, like any DRM system, it won't do a damn thing to stop file sharing of the content (all anyone needs is one copy, and by the time any movie is broadcast on TV, it's too late, the content is out there). All this would do is piss off legitimate viewers, who are pissed off because their TiVos didn't record some movie, despite it being on TV.

In the MPAA's most recent attempt, it's back to begging the FCC, but Matthew Lasar notes that the MPAA is finally admitting that if it gets its way, it may actually require some people to buy new equipment. So, not only will the plan functionally break lots of DVRs by not letting them do the one thing they're designed to do (record what's on TV), but they may break other parts of the process as well, such that people will need to buy new equipment.

And all for what? It won't stop or even slow down file sharing. But it will piss off a lot of people. The MPAA insists that it physically cannot release movies on TV prior to its DVD release unless it gets this DRM enabled. But that's ridiculous. If the studios wanted to they could absolutely release the movies for TV viewing prior to the DVD release. It won't change a thing. But they really, really, really want to believe the myth that somehow file sharing magically goes away, and no legitimate customers get annoyed, when they try to lock up their content.

36 Comments | Leave a Comment..

If The AP Is About Clear And Concise Reporting... Why Can't It Explain Its New Plan?

from the it-needs-an-editor dept

We've been discussing the Associated Press attempt to DRM the news using some technology it clearly doesn't understand. But the most infuriating part is that the AP simply hasn't been able to answer the myriad questions thrown at it about this silly plan -- and when pressed, suddenly announced it wasn't talking any more.

This seems especially ironic when you realize that the AP is supposedly in the business of explaining complex news events to the world. John Temple, a former newspaper editor, is pointing out, amusingly, that the AP really should have found an editor to go over its plan before it released it -- because that editor would have hopefully done a better job forcing the AP to explain itself:

So why do I say AP's planners needs an editor? Because editors make writing clear and understandable. And this "plan" is neither.

When reporters write news stories about the challenges an industry faces, it's important that they be clear -- and, of course, accurate -- about what the problems are and what steps are proposed to address them. The reporters' job is to help readers understand the problems and evaluate possible solutions. It's also important that reporters be clear about the potential industry or company conflicts that stand in the way of or complicate possible solutions.

The first paragraph of the AP document makes a bald assertion without the facts to back it up that a good editor would require of any reporter. It talks of news content being monetized without fair compensation and "rampant" unauthorized use of AP content on literally tens of thousands of Web sites. It says the problem is quickly spreading. The document goes on in this vein and seems to mix and muddle two concerns: unauthorized use -- the blatant stealing of entire stories or photographs -- and the use of headlines and snippets by search engines and others. It never makes clear how big the first problem is. Is there really that much revenue being stolen from the owners of content as a result of bloggers and others cutting and pasting AP stories? I don't know the answer from reading this document.

Of course, one might argue that the reason the document is so unclear is because the Associated Press itself doesn't understand it.

7 Comments | Leave a Comment..

Sony Recognizes That Openness Is A Competitive Advantage

from the finally dept

It may have taken the (very) long way to get there, but it looks like at least some folks over at Sony have figured out that openness can be a competitive advantage, and have decided to support the open ePub ebook format for its ebook reader. Now, there are lots of caveats here. Amazon has effectively been able to capture the leadership position in this market, while Sony has languished, so partly this is a hail mary pass -- which we've seen happen elsewhere as well. And, of course, despite it being an open format and the fact that Sony is ditching its own DRM, the new format will still have Adobe DRM -- so this isn't a truly opened up solution, but it is a step. It may be difficult for Sony to recapture the lead in this market by this point, but it seems like that the open ebook platforms will only gain steam (and eventually Amazon will end up supporting it as well). It's the natural progression that we see over and over again: a closed platform may help define the market, and then weaker competitors often circle around an open platform, realizing it's their only chance to fight back against the lock-in of the market leader. While it often takes some time, the open platforms do tend to get better and better, even to the point that the original leader is eventually forced to adopt it as well.

41 Comments | Leave a Comment..

European High Court Will Examine DRM Anti-Circumvention Rules

from the free-speech-anyone? dept

A European directive from a few years ago included a DRM anti-circumvention clause that even made it illegal to host an "organized discussion" of techniques for circumventing DRM. That seemed excessively broad (and unfairly limiting) to Mikko Rauhala, who set up a discussion site where people could discuss CSS, the notoriously lame copy protection used on DVDs that has been broken for ages. He did it mainly to get the issue into court -- which it did. Two years ago, a Finnish court had an odd ruling on the case, in which it claimed circumvention was okay if the DRM was ineffective. That's because the directive specifically claims that it applies to "effective DRM." Of course, taken to its logical conclusion, one might think that means if you can break DRM, then you haven't violated the anti-circumvention language, because you've proven that the DRM is ineffective. It's a bit of a logical pretzel. So, while I agree that it's silly to make discussion of circumvention illegal, the legal reasoning was a bit twisted.

So, it came as little surprise a year later, when an appeals court overturned the lower ruling. However, from a free speech perspective, this was still quite troubling. Banning any organized discussion about a technology seems tremendously questionable. The good news (as found via Michael Scott) is that the case is now going to the European Court of Human Rights. One hopes they'll recognize this as a violation of basic civil rights. It's troubling enough that simply circumventing copy protection on legally purchased goods is considered breaking the law. It's much worse to say that even talking about it is against the law.

6 Comments | Leave a Comment..

High School Student Sues Amazon For Deleting His Summer Homework?

from the pr-nightmare dept

Well, you just knew that there were going to be class action lawsuits filed over Amazon's decision to delete unauthorized George Orwell ebooks that had been sold for the Kindle, but it appears that the class action lawyers have found the most headline-worthy story to get the word out. As we mentioned in the original post on this story, at least one kid lost the notes he had been taking on one of the books. So, we get a story about how a high school student is suing Amazon for deleting his summer homework, and the lawyers are hoping to turn it into a class action.

As bad as Amazon's actions were, I can't see this lawsuit getting very far. For most Kindle users, they're going to have a hard time showing any sort of real "harm." The kid with the lost homework might be able to show some (small) amount of harm, but I have to imagine that Amazon is mostly protected from liability in such cases. Still, with Amazon being quick to apologize and swear it would never ever ever delete an ebook again, you have to wonder if Amazon will step up and just try to appease the kid (and get the lawyers to go away).

12 Comments | Leave a Comment..