Update On Choruss: Universities Not Talking, Mysterious 10,000 Students Still Nowhere To Be Found

from the still-waiting... dept

We've been pretty big critics of the music tax concept, that was being pushed by Jim Griffin's Choruss along with Warner Music (who had hired Griffin to create this program). Of course, we've only been able to criticize what bits and pieces have leaked out from those who have seen Griffin's presentations. That's because, despite a busy conference schedule, Griffin never seems to publicly describe what Choruss really is. So, every time we hear some new info about Choruss, and explain why it's bad, we get angry emails from Griffin calling me all sorts of insulting names, and insisting that I've mischaracterized Choruss. So, we ask for more details, and we don't get them. Instead, we're given amorphous descriptions about how it's "an experiment." But what is the experiment? Well, it will be lots of things. As soon as we narrow in on an example, however, and explain why it's bad, we're attacked because the plan might not include that particular example. But we haven't yet heard an example that makes sense.

Griffin had agreed (as part of an angry email) to answer questions from the Techdirt community, and we obliged by sending him a long list of questions. Griffin had some personal issues to deal with over the summer, which was totally understandable, but we still haven't heard any answers. I'm beginning to wonder if we ever will.

But the biggest question I had was if he could explain who the "tens of thousands" of students were who Griffin told a conference in June would be using Choruss this fall semester. It seemed odd to find out that so many students had signed up for something when we still weren't being told what it was. As the fall semester started, we asked to hear from students who were using Choruss, and got silence -- which seemed odd. Apparently, it's because those tens of thousands of students hadn't signed up for the fall.

However, as a bunch of you have sent in, now the claim is that six college campuses will be testing Choruss this spring semester, but Griffin won't say who they are and the campuses won't admit to participating. They claim that they're afraid of backlash from folks like us -- but that makes me wonder. If the concept is so good, why not stand up and defend yourself for being a part of the program? If you can't defend the reasons for testing the program, it makes me wonder why you're doing it in the first place.

The article at the Chronicle of Higher Education provides a few new details that don't sound particularly appealing. Rather than (as some had suggested earlier, but since Griffin never made it clear, we just don't know if this was ever true) a system that would let students share files freely under some sort of blanket license, it sounds like "yet another limited music service." It will allow unlimited downloads, but you have to use the Choruss service (again, perhaps the article is wrong, but that's what it says). Similar services have been tried on various campuses and failed, so we're curious to hear what's so special about Choruss that will be different.

It still seems like Choruss is trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist. We're seeing more and more smart musicians put in place business models that work. They work in a way that lets fans choose to send money to the artists they want to support directly, without a big middleman. Choruss appears (from all we've heard) to be an attempt to set up a big middleman that will take big chunks of money and then use some magical process to figure out how to dole it out. But why do we need that overhead? The market is figuring stuff out. It doesn't need another middleman.

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Dear RIAA: It's Not 'Working Together As A Team' When It's Under Threat Of Regulation

from the do-these-guys-ever-make-sense dept

I've been trying not to respond to every RIAA blog post these days, but it's hard to let certain things go when they so rarely make any sense. For example, RIAA President Cary Sherman recently talked up the new regulations that force colleges and universities to "take proactive steps" to stop file sharing. He goes on to make it sound like universities decided to do this in the spirit of "teamwork" with the RIAA, rather than because they risked serious financial consequences under the law for not complying. He also leaves out the fact that tons of colleges and universities are pissed off and complaining about how much time, effort and money they're wasting on this just because Sherman and his friends still don't seem able to embrace modern music business models. Colleges and universities have enough to worry about without the government forcing them to act as the RIAA's police force. If it were truly about teamwork, Cary, you wouldn't have had to spend so much time getting Congress to pass a law to force them to do this.

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University Offers New Grade For Cheating Students: FD

from the fail'd? dept

There's certainly a lot of concern at universities these days about how some students may be using modern technology to cheat in some manner or another, but does that ability to cheat require a change to the grading system? Apparently Simon Fraser University believes so. It's instituting a special new failing grade for students caught cheating: FD. They say it will only be used in cases of repeat offenders caught doing things considered to be egregious cheating -- and that it will only stay on the transcript for two years. It's an interesting idea, but is it really all that different than a typical failing grade? Will students act differently because the potential of a temporary FD grade instead of an F? And if it's a case of a repeat offender taking part in egregious cheating, why not just kick them out and refuse to give them a degree?

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Universities Struggling To Deal With Law Requiring Them To Fight File Sharing

from the what-a-waste dept

For years, Hollywood pushed Congress to pass laws that would hold colleges and universities responsible for cracking down on unauthorized file sharing that happened on campus. The threat was that if universities didn't stop file sharing, Congress could withold federal financial aid funds from students. That's quite a big stick. What justified it? Well, the MPAA put out a report claiming that 44% of "losses" from file sharing came from college campuses. Of course, the number (like so many out of entertainment industry lobbyists) was entirely made up. In fact, it was so ridiculous that even the MPAA came out and publicly admitted the numbers were bogus and apologized!

You would think, after that, Congress would think twice about passing a law that was written based on such bogus numbers. Think again. Congress had no problem rushing it through and getting it signed by the President.

So now what's happening? Well, universities and colleges are wasting a ton of time, money and effort to try to comply (found via Michael Scott, who notes, "what a waste of resources."). The article talks about how universities feel punished for something that isn't even a problem:

"We have not received one complaint about one student. Yet now we have to go out and incur the cost to solve a problem that we didn't really have.... Tying actually capital and operating dollars to it in this economy to solve a problem we don't really have at our scale has been an issue."

Thanks, Hollywood and all those politicians who approved this. Now you're taking away important resources from our educational institutions for a problem that isn't even a problem.

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Jim Griffin Explains Choruss; We're Still Left Wondering Why It's Needed

from the still-don't-see-it dept

Last week, we had a bit of a back and forth with Jim Griffin, who's trying to build Choruss, a recording industry-backed service to have certain gatekeepers (universities initially, then ISPs, then...?) act as gatekeepers, who would effectively pay a per user fee, which they'd likely pass on to users, to allow those users to file share (sorta -- as the record labels would still likely try to shut down file sharing networks and still push for "three strikes" laws). I got to see Griffin present his "vision" for Choruss at the Leadership Music Digital Summit and spent some time chatting with him after (no punches were thrown -- it was quite friendly). That said, having heard from him directly, I'll say I'm still quite skeptical and somewhat worried about where Choruss is heading, and many others I spoke to in attendance felt the same way.

First, Griffin's point is basically this: for the past 150 years or so, any place that "used music to draw a crowd" eventually ended up paying some kind of license for it. It started with restaurants and then moved on to concert halls and radio and movies and television. So, to Griffin, setting up a similar licensing scheme (which he continues to say is voluntary, not compulsory) is simply the next obvious step. He paints himself as a technology supporter -- and I have no doubt that's true. He also points out that "piracy" isn't necessarily the biggest "problem," out there, though he still says it is a problem. He notes that there's a lot more competition for everyone's time and entertainment dollar spend. From his vantage point, the real problem is that all of the different rights holders are sitting around yelling at each other (it's true, it happened on an earlier panel) rather than agreeing to take a dollar and split that dollar. So, while they all fight, that dollar goes somewhere else. So, based on that, the solution is simple: set up a process to get the dollar, and then let everyone fight over that dollar behind the curtain, rather than out front in dealing with consumers directly. I've heard a very similar vision from folks like Fred von Lohmann over at EFF.

While I've been tough on Griffin, I will say that I believe quite strongly that he earnestly believes this is the best solution to the "problems" facing the recording industry. I don't think he's trying to create a pure money grab for the record labels or create what becomes a "music tax." The problem is that that's exactly what such a program is likely to become.

To defend against those claims, Griffin repeatedly says what he said earlier: this is just an experiment! He says that later this year a bunch of universities will launch with Choruss (in fact, he claims that more universities wanted to sign up than they could handle) -- but each may be using a different model. So, one university may require every student to participate. One may be opt-in. One may be opt-out. One may set up their own centralized file sharing server. Even how they measure what files are shared will be a variety of experiments: one may use technology tools. One may simply use self-generated "diaries" (like the old Nielsen/Arbitron systems). Payments may be based on downloads on one system and "plays" on another. The pricing may be different at different universities. Basically, it's just a series of tests, and supposedly we'll all "learn" from it and move on from there. In fact, he's hoping that since these tests will be done at research universities, that professors there will help study the results. So that's why Griffin has been upset about some of the coverage (including ours) that didn't highlight the fact that these are tests that could go in a variety of different directions.

He didn't address any of the questions we raised in that last post, in part because he doesn't have the answers to many of them yet (it's part of what he hopes shakes out from the experiments). However, there are still plenty of reasons to be quite wary of this plan. For all of Griffin's belief that this is the an experiment worth trying, I think it's built on faulty premises and will quickly go down a dangerous road. It's just too tempting to take this concept in exactly the wrong direction.

The faulty premise: that licensing is a way to "handle" the issue (even if he still doesn't want to call this a license). Licenses have always been a way to duct-tape on a temporary solution to a new technology. Adding yet another such license is simply layering on yet another layer when it's simply not needed. Griffin complains that "we cannot tolerate a society where paying for art, culture and knowledge is voluntary," but that's missing the point. It assumes, incorrectly, that paying for the content directly is the only way to make money off of that content. As we've been showing over and over again (and many others at this very event are demonstrating) that's simply not true. There are lots of ways to make money, and many of those are enhanced by having the music be available for free.

Griffin addressed that briefly, suggesting that those other models still work on top of Choruss, whereby Choruss acts as sort of a "basement floor" on top of which those other models can be built. That sounds great, but it sounds to me like a social welfare program, separate from what the market would allow. And once you build such a system, as we've seen over and over again, the folks who control it keep asking for more and more. So even if these are experiments and who knows where the final model will go, given who's backing it, it's not hard to guess: they're going to demand to make it about as close to compulsory as possible. ISPs are going to offer it and will simply add to everyone's bill. The program doesn't work at all if they don't do that -- and that's simply going to piss off a lot of people, just at a time when musicians actually have been showing they can win the trust (and money) from true fans.

Griffin suggests that ISPs won't have to make it mandatory, but will be able to "upsell" people to tiers that include the Choruss tax covenant not to sue license whatever it's called. He uses, as an example, just how difficult AT&T (he didn't name them, but it's clear who he meant) has made it to sign up for naked DSL. He interprets this to mean that the ISPs are good at upselling users. He ignores the fact that AT&T worked hard to hide the option and when that was revealed a rather angry outcry went up among AT&T customers who felt cheated.

When challenged on all this by an audience member -- Dave Allen, member of the UK band Gang of Four, who has now gone on to a second career helping musicians build real business models around their brands -- Griffin used "the cable model" as a way that this all makes sense: i.e., even if you don't like sports, you get ESPN in your basic cable package. Allen smartly shot back the fact that customers hate that and are increasingly looking at alternatives like Hulu and Boxee, that let them get away from such deals. All Griffin could do was insist that such bundling would "come back."

But Allen really got to exactly the heart of the problem with Choruss: it's a plan based on what's best for the existing stakeholders, not the customers. There are plenty of business models out there (and I've been hearing about a bunch more from musicians as I chat to them at this event) that work by creating a true win-win relationship between the musicians and the fans. They're models under which everyone benefits. Choruss doesn't work that way. It seeks to perpetuate the old model, where you have to "get" money out of others in order to "allow" them to do something. It's not about creating win-win models where everyone's happy to take part, making a willing transaction where they feel better off. The examples Griffin gives -- of older licensing models, ISP upsells and cable TV bundling -- are exactly the sorts of things that have always pissed off fans, and it seems likely that Choruss will do the same, no matter how much Griffin hopes to have it avoid that fate.

Instead, there are tons of models that don't involve anyone feeling angry or ripped off -- and those embracing them are finding them to be quite lucrative (in many cases more lucrative than older offerings). Griffin says that Choruss won't interfere with those other models, but that's unlikely (at best). If people feel they're getting ripped off by having to pay a university fee or ISP-fee (tax) for music, they're going to be less willing to participate in these sorts of new business models, already feeling pissed off and that they've "given" already... often under duress. That's not the model on which to build a successful industry.

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Dear Jim Griffin: Let's Have An Open Discussion About Choruss

from the we're-waiting... dept

Yesterday, we wrote a highly critical post concerning the details around Choruss, the recording industry's latest plan to get universities or ISPs to hand over a chunk of money in exchange for "covenants not to sue." On a private email list (which has been forwarded to me by a few members of that list), Mr. Griffin responded by claiming that my "report is factually incorrect in every respect."

I certainly hope that's true!

The points I've raised are that the industry will continue suing file sharing networks, that they'll still pursue three-strikes policies, and that Choruss will be expensive, diverting a chunk of money away from other legitimate business models, which many musicians have been establishing successfully, by adding yet another middleman. Is he saying all of these assertions are false?

Actually, Griffin doesn't address or refute any of these points at all. With respect to the last one, he actually confirms it, by claiming that Choruss will be costly to run.

The only "factual" point he disputes is a rather minor one: concerning whether the program would also cover publishers and songwriters rather than just the labels. He insists that it will, noting that Warner Music owns one of the largest publishers. That's true, but hardly eases the worries. It just suggests, again, that this is a plan for Warner and its subsidiaries, rather than for building a better system for all stakeholders. And he doesn't explain how the system can cover the necessary rights at the price points being discussed. In fact, by noting how costly the program is to run, and how it will lose money at first, it certainly sounds like he's saying "this program will start out cheap, but then we'll jack up the fees."

He claims that Choruss "cannot credibly be claimed to be a money grab -- the costs will exceed the fees," but that's highly misleading on several accounts. First, as noted, it confirms just how expensive the program will be. Second, if it's a pure money loser, than why would anyone be involved with it at all? Obviously the idea, and the whole reason why Warner Music is backing it, is that it expects this to be a money maker, eventually. Claiming that it's costly simply confirms my original point, that inserting yet another costly middleman is the last thing that we need in the process. And this just suggests that any early pricing is, once again... bait and switch. The eventual prices will have to be increased once people are locked in.

That seems to confirm my initial complaints, rather than show how they're "factually incorrect."

Mr. Griffin, (on a private email list), again tries to refute the claim that they haven't included the stakeholders in the process, by noting:

"the calendar is a clear refutation: The coming week has Choruss at SXSW, a music conference in Nashville and the music educator's conference in Boston. We've done appearances and podcasts with Educause, dozens of public meetings at colleges and a keynote at Digital Music Forum."

Yes, after coming up with the plan in back rooms, without input from the actual stakeholders, Griffin has started going out and presenting the plan to others. But there's been no open discussion with those of us worried about the inevitable consequences of his plan. There's been no explanation of why this is actually needed. There's been no attempt to actually respond to the numerous questions that we've raised about the plan and no attempt to bring the actual users into the discussion:

• Why do we even need such a plan when plenty of musicians are showing that they can craft business models on the open market that work?
• How does adding yet another middleman make the music market any more efficient?
• Will the recording industry promise to stop trying to shut down file sharing systems if this program gets adopted?
• Will the recording industry promise to stop pushing for 3 strikes if this program gets adopted?
• How will the program prevent the gaming opportunities, where artists set up scripts to constantly reload/download their songs?
• Why should music be separated out and subsidized while other industries have to come up with their own business models?
• Why should those who don't listen to much music and aren't interested in giving their money to the recording industry be required to participate if their university or ISP decides to make them?

Finally, Mr. Griffin takes a personal swipe at me, saying that no "responsible professional" would write what I've been writing. I've the highest respect for Mr. Griffin, who I do believe is very capable and very smart -- and most certainly has the best of intentions with Choruss. But it's a bad plan and he seems unwilling to address the many, many questions raised about it, other than to brush anyone who disagrees with him aside, and focus on talking to friendlier audiences. If he wants to brush me off as not a "responsible professional," that's fine. I'm willing to let anyone judge me on my work, not on what Griffin says about me. But the very least he could do is actually address the points that I've raised.

To date, his form of "discussion" has been to have Warner Music PR send me a statement saying that it's "premature" to issue any criticism of his plan. That's not discussion and that's not addressing the many, many questions raised by his plan.

But, there's some good news. That "music conference in Nashville" where he'll be presenting about Choruss next week is the Leadership Music Digital Summit... which I happen to be keynoting. So, I'd love to sit down with Griffin and see if he'll actually answer some of these questions, rather than continue brushing us off as being "factually incorrect in every respect," without actually addressing the fundamental questions raised.

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Choruss' Music Tax Plan: Bait-And-Switch

from the ah-the-fine-print dept

Back in December, when we revealed how Warner Music, through consultant Jim Griffin and his new organization "Choruss," were quietly pushing a music tax on universities, Warner and Griffin snapped back angrily, telling us it wasn't fair to criticize the plan, because it was still being "discussed." Yet, as we then asked: where is that discussion and why isn't it taking place with the actual stakeholders? To date, the answer has been a near deafening silence. Despite having reached out to both Griffin and Warner Music directly, neither has shown any interest to actually engage in any form of conversation.

Now we're beginning to learn why.

While we discussed, in detail, why any such music tax is problematic, the details coming out make it clear that this is much worse than originally imagined. In fact, it's so bad that it can be described accurately as a bait-and-switch program designed to make people (1) pay lots of money (2) believing they're now free to file share and then find out that (3) file sharing systems will still be sued out of existence and (4) the users themselves, despite paying, will still be liable for massive lawsuits. It's basically a plan to give the record labels tons of money, handed over by universities (so users have no chance to opt-out) without actually changing anything.

After months of silence on what he was working on behind closed doors and in backrooms, Griffin recently gave a prepared speech supposedly revealing some "details" on the plan -- but as IP attorney Bennett Lincoff points out, what Griffin and Choruss are proposing is to pull the wool over universities and the public's eyes. The plan, as we originally pointed out, isn't a license: it's merely a covenant not to sue -- and that leads to all sorts of problems.

First, considering that the RIAA has been cutting back on lawsuits, that's not particularly meaningful. It'll still pushing for 3 strikes policies that will cut users off from the internet, even if they've paid up through Choruss. Furthermore, as was made clear in the speech, the RIAA won't stop trying to shut down file sharing systems. So, people who think this is a good idea because it will let them use The Pirate Bay or Limewire may discover after getting locked into this program that the lawsuits continue and those services keep getting shut down. Next, since it's just a covenant for the labels not to sue, rather than a license, it doesn't cover all of the other rightsholders, such as songwriters and the music publishers -- meaning that those who file share will still be wide open to lawsuits from those parties.

This is quite a scheme that the record labels and Griffin may pull off:

• Convince universities to buy into the program with no input from students. Universities will buy into it because they think they're "helping" deal with the "problem" of file sharing... and to avoid Congress forcing them into such agreements
• Universities pass the cost on to students (of course), so students are forced to pay for this
• Record labels get a big chunk of money for no good reason
• New expensive bureaucracy (Choruss) gets set up to siphon more middleman cash away from musicians
• Record labels don't do anything different, since they already have started moving away from suing individuals (sorta)
• The public thinks that file sharing is now legal
• Record labels continue to sue and shut down favorite file sharing networks, leaving only crappy, limited and expensive "approved" systems
• Individuals who paid up start getting sued by other rightsholders not covered by this agreement and not getting any money from it

And most of the press will eat it up as a revolutionary agreement whereby the record labels "legalize" file sharing.

Now can you understand why Griffin and Warner Music aren't open to any real conversation and will slam anyone who actually offers to take part in a conversation? A real conversation might bring out these issues, and that's the last thing the record labels want. They want everyone to believe they're working to make file sharing legal, when all they're doing is constructing a massive wealth transfer from people to the labels providing almost no benefit to consumers at all.

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University Report On Dealing With Plagiarism... Plagiarized!

from the how-about-that... dept

Been meaning to write this one up for a bit, and finally got to it. Michael Scott points us to an amusing story about how Southern Illinois University was dealing with some plagiarism problems and decided to put out a report on how to deal with plagiarism. That report included a nice description of plagiarism that turned out to be (you guessed it) plagiarized. Hopefully that makes Southern Illinois University rethink its position on plagiarism... but that seems unlikely.

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More Trouble From Universities And Patents: Lawsuits Between Universities And Professors

from the sharing-the-knowledge-or-grabbing-for-profits dept

We recently discussed how the Bayh-Dole Act, which encouraged universities to look at patenting their research, has done more harm than good for many universities. Because of the Act, many universities set up "tech transfer offices" to try to "commercialize" the research going on at those universities. However, the majority of universities have found that the tech transfer offices have lost them money. That's because (once again) they overestimate the value of the patents themselves (and underestimate the costs of running the transfer office). Now, the Associated Press is highlighting a second problem coming out of this focus on patenting every bit of research: lawsuits with professors.

You would think that a university, whose mission is to help disseminate knowledge, would want to help share ideas. But Bayh-Dole turned many of them into idea-hoarding factories, believing (often incorrectly) that hoarding ideas would bring them profit, thus often stifling research. In the main case described in the article linked above, the University of Missouri gave up trying to commercialize a certain patent developed by a professor at the university. Even so, when the professor tried to reclaim the rights to his own research, for the sake of doing his own startup, the University tried to put in all sorts of strict rules and conditions -- well beyond what it even requires of other organizations it licenses patents to. Thus, the two sides are now engaged in a big lawsuit.

This, of course, hurts everyone. Rather than focusing so narrowly on patenting every bit of research and then trying to squeeze every penny from those patents, you would think that there are much more beneficial ways for everyone to benefit from the research. The professor could build his startup, and the more successful it is, the better it reflects on the University -- who can tout that the research initially came from the university. This, in turn, can lead to new (and bigger) grants and funding for new research, as the university's reputation is greatly enhanced. If the professor remains connected to the university in some fashion, this works out even more. And all of this can be done without patents. In fact, without having the professor license his own research, it keeps the costs down for the startup, making it easier for that startup to succeed. Plus, this would fit well with the recognized value of sharing ideas that come out of academia, rather than trying to hoard them for profit.

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Ruckus Music Service -- Which Was Supposed To Save The Industry -- Now Dead

from the how-about-that dept

Remember Ruckus? That was the attempt by a former recording industry guy and a former Napster employee to create an online music service that colleges would pay for, but which students could use for "free" (free in the sense that students wouldn't be paying for it directly). When we pointed out how lame the service was, we actually got angry emails from some folks who insisted that it really had revolutionized the campuses who had bought into it. In fact, the recording industry used this argument in its big push to force universities to sign up for Ruckus.

Apparently the revolution was short-lived -- and without government help to force colleges to subscribe, Ruckus has shut down. For some of those who got their music from Ruckus, the DRM on the tracks means that the music will be unplayable. Some tracks are still playable, but will apparently die once they hit their "renew date" and can't find a DRM server to renew. Yet another recording industry backed solution to the "piracy problem" that wasn't. At what point does the industry finally realize that piracy isn't the problem at all?

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Student Cleared Of Charges She Spammed Teachers At Her University

from the common-sense-prevails dept

Back in December, we wrote about a student at Michigan State University, who was disciplined by the school for spamming, after she sent out an email to all of the professors at the school concerning a schedule change that would impact their class schedules in a future semester. One teacher complained, and the student was found to have violated the school's anti-spam policy, which said you couldn't email more than 30 people at a time. This seemed silly, as the message was clearly not spam in the traditional sense at all. After a widespread public outcry, and the EFF preparing a lawsuit on the student's behalf, the school has backed down and cleared the woman of any wrongdoing, and said that it will review and potentially change its anti-spam policies.

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Warner Music Pitches Music Tax To Universities: You Pay, We Stop Suing

from the pay-us-not-to-sue dept

Back in March, we noted that Warner Music Group had hired Jim Griffin, a music industry guy who has been pushing the concept of a "blanket license" for file sharing. The idea would be to get various ISPs to simply add an additional fee to everyone's internet access, have that money go into a pool that the recording industry would be responsible for paying out -- and then let people have free reign for file sharing. This is a bad idea for a variety of reasons. It's basically a music tax -- allowing the record industry to be lazy. Someone else gets to go out and collect all this money and hand it over to the industry to distribute (or, actually, not distribute). It effectively sets the business model of the recording industry in stone, and harms better, more innovative business models by inserting the recording industry (and not the musicians) into a role where they don't belong.

We hadn't heard much about this music tax lately, but apparently Griffin has been focused on getting universities to buy into the plan first. An anonymous reader passed on some details, saying that Columbia, Stanford, University of Chicago, University of Washington, MIT, University of Colorado, University of Michigan, Cornell, Penn State, University of California at Berkeley and University of Virginia have expressed interest and talks are under way. A basic presentation that's being given to these universities is below (if you're reading via another site, click through to see it):

There's obviously something appealing about ending the lawsuits and letting people file share freely. But, it's quite problematic to add an effective "tax" when none is necessary. Plenty of other business models, such as those we've outlined here and elsewhere can suffice to fund the creation of music. On top of that, giving the proceeds of this tax to the very industry that has so badly mismanaged musicians for so many years is a travesty -- sort of like bailing out the failed auto industry or banking industry. The presentation says that a nonprofit has been set up to handle the money, claiming that it's "to be clear we intend to operate with good intentions and not profit as a motive," but given the way the industry has acted in the past, that's difficult to take at face value. Also, this isn't really a license. It's a "covenant not to sue" -- meaning that lawsuits could still result.

Of course, while the introduction frames this as a "voluntary" blanket licensing program, the presentation also mentions that they'll need some way to get all ISPs and universities to buy into the plan, or they'll have to work out a way to "avoid massive leakage." So, basically, it's not voluntary at all. It's either join, or get saddled with significant limitations. In other words: all ISPs and universities need to agree to pay a huge tax to the very industry that hasn't been able to adapt, and then trust them to distribute the funds fairly.

Update: Warner Music got in touch and sent us a statement concerning this presentation from Jim Griffin:

"This presentation belongs to someone outside our company and represents that individual's interpretation of issues discussed at meetings held several months ago. It was not made by me or anyone at Warner Music Group. Of course, we are actively engaged with universities and other parties to seek a constructive resolution to a complex issue - how to assure artists appropriate compensation while enabling the widespread dissemination of their work among fans. Therefore, we are undertaking an effort to develop new voluntary business models that seek something other than - and we believe, better than - a litigation-based approach. This is exactly the type of solution that several universities and their associations have been asking for. We recognize that there are many different potential solutions to this issue, and we are determined to continue to think creatively and cooperatively with other parties in order to find the best ones. At this early stage, many ideas may be discussed and discarded, but efforts to prematurely label or criticize the process only hinder achievement of constructive solutions."

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Nathan Myhrvold Now Capitalizing On Failed University Patent Intitiatives

from the privatizing-publicly-funded-research dept

We've discussed, in the past, the infamous Bayh-Dole Act, which tried to push universities to patent more of their research, with the idea that it would make research more commercializable. In fact, the unintended consequences were to significantly harm university research. Universities quickly set up "technology transfer" offices, with the idea of selling off patents for tons of money, but the vast majority of universities discovered that such technology transfer offices cost a lot more than they made, and so they were a drain on university resources (you know, which could have gone to basic research). On top of that, the new focus on patenting everything caused researchers to be much more afraid to share ideas and concepts with colleagues, greatly diminishing the value of research or the ability of researchers to explore other areas where colleagues might have already applied for patents, for fear of "infringing."

However, it looks like Nathan Myhrvold's Intellectual Ventures, which we've discussed at length, in the past, is looking to take advantage of this situation. With so many university technology transfer offices losing money, IV has been going around and signing deals with universities. Basically, IV gives those tech transfer offices some money upfront, allowing IV to effectively add each university's patent pool to its own portfolio that it uses to go around demanding hundreds of millions of dollars from companies to "protect" them against any future lawsuits.

Effectively, the end result is less actual research being done at universities, while some guys who don't actually build anything get rich. And, oh yeah, the companies that actually do stuff are poorer. Doesn't something seem highly suspect about this scenario?

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RIAA Gets Tennessee Law To Force Universities To Filter Networks For Copyrighted Content

from the the-riaa-never-sleeps dept

After more than a decade of watching the entertainment industry (mainly the RIAA and the MPAA), one thing I've learned is that the organization never gives up in pushing its legislative agenda. If there's a setback in one area, you can be sure that others from the organization are eagerly pushing the exact same rules through some other angle. The typical MO is that they try to get federal legislation passed in their favor. However, if that fails, they switch to the fallback plans which involve international treaties and state laws. Both of these are great because they tend to get a lot less scrutiny. State laws are a bit of a pain, because you have to get a few of them approved to create the "groundswell" that makes other states jump on board, but changes to state laws can often pass through under the radar.

That appears to be what's happening in the effort to force universities to install filters monitoring their networks for any unauthorized transmissions. You may recall that the RIAA pushed strongly to get Congress to pass laws requiring filters. Basically, the entertainment industry first flat-out lied (yes, lied) about how big a problem file sharing on campus was, and that got some Congressional Reps (with plenty of campaign contributions from the entertainment industry) to introduce legislation punishing universities if they didn't filter their networks. Widespread outcry against that legislation helped water it down, but it appears the industry just moved on to state legislatures.

The RIAA is now celebrating the fact that Tennessee has passed legislation that requires universities to install filters if they've received at least 50 DMCA requests. Considering the massive number of DMCA notices that the RIAA has been known to file, this is hardly a large hurdle. The law will cost Tennessee taxpayers nearly $10 million in the first year, and another $1.5 million each year -- based on the state's own estimates. And for what? To put in filters that won't work, just to try to prop up an obsolete business model from legacy players in an industry that needs to learn how to adapt to the market?

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University Bans Access To Facebook; Claims It's A Security Issue

from the really? dept

We've seen plenty of stories of silly politicians trying to ban access to social networks in high schools, but in colleges especially things like Facebook are basically the way students communicate with each other. So it's rather surprising to find out (via Michael Geist) that Concordia University has banned access to Facebook on any computer connected to the university network via a wired connection. If you're using WiFi, the university allows it. First of all, that seems like a really strange split. Why should it matter whether the connection is wired or wireless? Even odder is the explanation for this:

The university has decided to implement these restrictions because of concerns that the continuing reliability of the Concordia network could be compromised because of spam, viruses and leaks of confidential information related to Facebook use.

There are spam, viruses and leaks of confidential info all over the internet. So why ban Facebook? And those same issues face wireless users as well as wired users. The whole thing sounds like someone who was very confused overreacted to something in the wrong way.

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How Patents Have Harmed University Research

from the a-travesty dept

When we talk about all the harm patents do, some people respond that even if the market can make up for cover the research costs for commercial products, without patents, basic research would never happen. Nothing can be further from the truth. In fact, there's increasing evidence that patents are harming basic research as well. The main arena for basic research has long been universities. Yet, back in 1980, what was supposed to be a "minor tweak" to the patent system, the Bayh-Dole Act, allowed universities to start patenting their research. And, patent it they did. However, as the NY Times notes, rather than foster new research and innovation, this resulted in much less collaboration, much greater secrecy and much higher costs to innovation.

As the article notes, the problem was in making the same mistake that many patent system supporters make, assuming that the invention stage is the most important part of innovation -- when it is not. Invention is just one part of the innovation process. Locking up the invention stage makes every other part of the process of innovation much more expensive, thereby limiting innovation -- and in fact, that's exactly what the Bayh-Dole Act has done:

Part of the problem has been a lingering misunderstanding about where the value lies in innovation. Patenting a new basic science technique, or platform technology, puts it out of the reach of graduate students who might have made tremendous progress using it.

Similarly, exclusive licensing of a discovery to a single company thwarts that innovation’s use in any number of other fields. R. Stanley Williams, a nanotechnologist from Hewlett-Packard, testified to Congress in 2002 that much of the academic research to which H.P. has had difficulty gaining access could be licensed to several companies without eroding its intellectual property value.

As for whether or not it's actually increased the amount of basic research, a study we wrote about earlier this year found that it had actually decreased basic research at universities. And, the story gets even worse, because it's not even as if this ability to patent university research has resulted in huge monetary windfalls for universities either. While some had hoped to hit the jackpot with patents, they failed to recognize just how costly it is to maintain patents and run a technology transfer office. A recent study found that the majority of tech transfer offices had lost money for their universities.

About the only good news in the article is the fact that the steady stream of studies and complaints from within academia about this impact is gradually waking up some to how big a problem the Bayh-Dole Act was in stifling research and innovation in the US. Unfortunately, just getting basic patent reform moving is difficult enough. And since the pharma industry likes Bayh-Dole (since it allows them to sweep in and get all the value from discoveries made at universities -- see The $800 Million Pill to learn about how pharma and biotech companies have abused the system for years), you can bet that they'll put up a huge fight to repeal this incredibly harmful bit of legislation.

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Universities Realize That The RIAA Is Taking Advantage Of Them In Lawsuits On Students

from the pushback-time dept

We never quite understood why various universities were cooperating with RIAA demands that they send "pre-litigation" letters to students accused of file sharing. These non-binding letters are often used to pressure students into paying fines, even if they're based on weak (at best) evidence of file sharing. It certainly wasn't in any university's best interests to basically help out a private organization in a business model dispute with its students. Yet, some university officials, falsely convinced by the RIAA that this was more than a business model dispute, decided to help out. And the response? The RIAA has increased the flood of notices, and then convinced Congress to move forward on legislation that would legally obligate universities to act as the RIAA's copyright cops.

It appears that more and more universities are realizing that they got shafted. The EFF points out that there's widespread anger among university officials who felt they were trying to find a middle ground by cooperating, but instead find themselves swamped with more and more notifications and this new legislation that increases their legal liability over a business model dispute. And, the worst part? Now that they're pushing back in court, the RIAA points out that dealing with these notices before wasn't a burden, so universities aren't being truthful that they're now a burden. How's that for a thank you for helping out originally?

If it hasn't become clear by now, the RIAA doesn't view universities as partners in all of this -- and any university that thinks of the RIAA as a partner is about to get steamrolled by the RIAA legal machine. It's time that more universities stood up not just for their own rights, but the rights of their students as well not to be targeted by questionable "pre-litigation" threat letters without more significant evidence. And, it wouldn't help for the RIAA to finally recognize that this entire battle has done nothing to deal with the real issue: its own inability to recognize that its business model needs to change.

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Congress Moves Forward With Plan To Make Universities Copyright Cops

from the first-ISPs,-then-colleges dept

For a little over a year, there have been stories about how the entertainment industry has been pressuring Congress to make universities responsible for stopping copyright infringement on their network. This got a lot of attention late last year when Congress tried to tie such a mandate to a provision granting financial aid to students. In other words, the threat was that if universities didn't act to stop file sharing, their students wouldn't be eligible for financial aid. This got plenty of attention, and the bill never passed. The most interesting part of it, though, was that much of the reasoning for the bill was driven by MPAA claims that 44% of all illegal file sharing took place on college campuses.

There was just one problem with that: the number was completely wrong. Earlier this year, the MPAA admitted that it had made a small mistake, and the number was actually something like 15% (and even that could be argued).

You might think that would allow our Congressional representatives to focus their attention on something a bit more important -- but with super low approval ratings, the people they actually represent matter a lot less than their biggest campaign donors. So, of course, the bill to turn universities into copyright cops is back once again. It is somewhat toned down, but will still require universities to basically be the mouthpieces of the entertainment industry, repeating their propaganda and ignoring that the problem is the industry's obsolete business models rather than any legal issue.

However, as you read William Patry's post on this above, you see that the MPAA is also positioning the legislative history on the law so that next year or so, they'll be able to come back and insist on mandatory filters at universities. Basically, it looks like the MPAA tried to bite off too big of a chunk when it pushed for this law last year, so this year, it's taking half a bite, but getting everything ready to get the rest of what it wants next year.

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RIAA Massively Ramps Up Warning Notices To College Students Over File Sharing

from the last-throes... dept

While the RIAA has been sending threatening notices to colleges about student file sharing for a while now, it seems to have recently stepped up the attack. Various colleges are reporting a rather massive increase in these notices, despite no discernible change in file sharing activity. In some cases, they're suddenly getting as many notices in a day as they used to get in a month. Some universities are also pointing out that they don't see any corresponding activity in their log files that would indicate that industry insiders had actually checked to make sure these files were infringing.

One interesting theory is mentioned in the Wired article above. The RIAA has been using the number of such notices as some sort of indicator of how much piracy is occurring -- and even lobbying for laws that would require any university that got over a certain number of notices to install special filtering/monitoring software. So, by showing an increase, the RIAA can try to show how "necessary" this is, even if the notices are totally bogus. As one person points out in the article, it does not seem at all reasonable to judge how much piracy is occurring (or what actions need to be taken) based on an arbitrary number that is totally under the control of the RIAA.

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House Approves Bill To Require Universities To Offer Students Music Services

from the mandatory-Napster? dept

Late last year, we wrote about a bill that would put pressure on universities to put in place an official approved music subscription service or risk losing federal financial aid support for students. This is a bizarre piece of legislation, as it effectively props up Napster and RealNetworks by basically requiring universities to sign up for such a service, even if they don't want to. Despite widespread criticism of the bill, the House has now approved it, even leaving out a promised amendment promising that failure to obey wouldn't threaten financial aid. Supporters of the bill claim that it wouldn't actually be used to cut off financial aid, but if that's the case, why include it in this bill at all? It would basically be a requirement without any repercussions for ignoring. At the same time, no one has clearly explained why universities should be required to sign up for a private music subscription offering. What possible public policy reason could there be for such a thing?

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