Marketing Music Through Non-Linear Communication: Accepting The Full Reality Of The Digital Age

from the i-just-can't-hide-it dept

I'm so excited to finally present the public version of my thesis, which investigates the problem of record labels' adjustment to the digital age and provides a solution. One of the key inspirations while composing the thesis was Mike's Trent Reznor Speech at MIDEM. Throughout the two years I spent composing my thesis, some of the thesis' content was already posted to Techdirt. There was the Shpongle case-study, in which a band went from yelling at fans to embracing them in a remarkable way. Then there was an analysis of the unique way in which deadmau5 connects with fans. Most recently, I posted a case-study of Fulkultur's The Ugly Dance, which is really a genius way to get your music discovered. Oh, and there was a white paper with music business model case-studies, but it was not directly related to my thesis. Thank you, Mike!

Today however, I can finally launch the entire thesis! It is free, it should be shared and I would love for folks to remix it!

Go for it.

Personally, I have some favorite findings that I will further explain here on Techdirt.

The "Pirates-Buy-More-Music" Chart



This chart seems to indicate that there are different groups within pirates. As is obvious from the chart, the group on the left side is more likely to have bought music recently than 'non-pirates' (people who engage in filesharing less than once a month or never). I thought this was an interesting result from the survey, especially since some people are generally too quick to disqualify pirates as economically interesting music consumers.

One size price fits does not fit all

I asked surveyees to respond to the statement "One US dollar ($1.-) is not too much to ask for a song." This resulted in two groups that were almost evenly split. Around half of the respondents agreed, and the other half disagreed. This indicates that prices of music should perhaps be much more variable than they are today and real attention needs to be paid to one's target group when trying to sell copies.

Instead of inventing numbers to argue how things should be - as a marketeer, I'm much more interested at looking at the reality and using that reality to maximize the potential. So what do you do when your business model (that relies on control) gets disrupted through peer-to-peer filesharing and other types of non-linear communication? You adjust to the new reality and make use of that non-linear communication.

The solution that originates from this non-linear communication is 'the ecosystem' and this excerpt from my thesis probably describes it best:

The ecosystem is an active fanbase which is interconnected through non-linear communication. This means producing a story worth telling to turn the internet's non-linear communication and loss of control over distribution into an opportunity to get discovered. The second step is retaining the attention by connecting with listeners and connecting them to each other like the host of a party would with guests. Turning the ecosystem into a fun party helps energize the fanbase and amplifies the aforementioned "story that's worth telling". Marketing opportunities come from listening to the ecosystem and releasing the products they want, as opposed to the classic approach of pushing the product that you want them to buy. Internet-enabled concepts such as pre-ordering and digital releases allow labels to offer their ecosystem abundant choice to play into all the different expectations regarding price and product characteristics. This most likely will involve a mix of (feels like) free and publishing products or services that are better than free.

The answer is the ecosystem. Note that in the below picture, both the artist/label as well as the target audience are part of the same ecosystem.

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NJ Judge Says Using GPS To Track Spouse Is Not An Invasion Of Privacy

from the expectation-of-privacy dept

DannyB was the first of a few of you to send in this story about a NJ court ruling that said a wife putting a GPS device in her husband's car, in order to help investigators she had hired to tell her if he was cheating on her, was not an invasion of his privacy.

“There is no direct evidence in this record to establish that during the approximately 40 days the GPS was in the ... glove compartment the device captured a movement of plaintiff into a secluded location that was not in public view, and, if so, that such information was passed along by Mrs. Villanova to (Leonard),”

Venkat Balasubramani has an excellent analysis of the ruling and notes some of the oddities in it. The one that struck me in particular was the fact that the court didn't seem to pay much attention to the fact that the car was jointly owned by the couple, which you would think would lend even more credence to the idea that she had the right to put a GPS device on the car:

There was an interesting fact that didn't receive as much as attention as I thought it should: the car was jointly owned. I'm surprised the court did not discuss the fact that since the wife owned the car, she could have argued that she had the right to track its movements. (On a related note, the plaintiff, who was a police office, tried to argue that he used the car for law enforcement purposes once in awhile, but the court is extremely skeptical of this argument.) Another fact that the court did not focus on directly is whether the result would have been different if the investigative firm (rather than the wife) was the one who did the GPS tracking....

It was also interesting that despite using a "reasonable expectation of privacy" standard, the court does not discuss the diminished expectation of privacy for the husband vis a vis his wife . . . who is trying to investigate him for having an affair. I'm not suggesting that spouses waive their privacy rights with respect to one another, but if you're having an affair, is it not reasonable to expect that your spouse may be checking up on you?

I'll admit that I'm not nearly as troubled as I am by similar stories involving police putting GPS devices on cars. In these types of cases, there do seem to be plenty of additional reasons why such GPS tracking is not nearly as egregious. I'm sure putting a tracking device on your spouse (or in their vehicles) may serve as a perfectly good reason for a divorce, but as a legal matter? Seems like a stretch.

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The Dark Side Wins: Lucasfilm Shuts Down Star Wars Fan Movie Marathon

from the the-force-is-not-with-you dept

AdamR was the first of a few of you to send in this story of how lawyers for Lucasfilm sent a cease-and-desist letter to a group of Star Wars fans who had organized a (free, not for profit) Star Wars movie marathon (all 13-hours) at a bar in Brooklyn. It's the sort of fun thing that Star Wars fans might enjoy and which would increase their connection to the franchise. But Lucasfilm, of course, calls it copyright infringement, and says that there's a ban on public display of the film right now. Legally, there's no doubt that Lucasfilm is in the right here. But, practically speaking, why would the company do this? What good does it do? Would it have hurt Lucasfilm in any way to allow this to go on? Instead, you have about 200 annoyed (former?) fans. This is exactly how you don't connect with fans, but piss them off.

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DailyDirt: Strange Planes

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Everyone knows what an airplane looks like, but maybe some types of aircraft won't be so recognizable in a few decades. Plenty of folks are working on flying contraptions with some unique capabilities. Here are a few more competitors to the usual "2 wings and a tail" design.

• A winged helicopter powered by an electric motor demonstrated its flying prowess at the Paris Air Show, recently. Watch out, Bin Laden wannabe's... [url]
• The D-Dalus aircraft propels itself in just about any direction using its four turbines with angle-adjusting blades. This thing doesn't look anything like a helicopter, but it can hover and take off vertically -- as well as "stick" its landings onto moving platforms. [url]
• Airbus has a transparent plane concept that it thinks could be the future of air travel. But not everyone wants to fly like Wonder Woman... [url]
• To discover more cool sites about aviation, check out what's currently flying around StumbleUpon. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

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Appeals Court Tosses FCC's Media Ownership Rules

from the does-it-really-matter? dept

You may recall that, four years ago, the Kevin Martin FCC pushed through (despite massive complaints from people) some incredibly meek media ownership rule relaxations. As you may know, there were existing rules that said the same company couldn't own a newspaper along with a local TV station. The reasoning behind this was the fear that a single operator of both the paper news and broadcast news would dominate the local news dissemination business and could influence the public too much. Of course, in the age of the internet, that seems really silly. And the FCC's rule change was incredibly minor. As we wrote at the time:

In the top 20 media markets, newspapers can merge with a single radio or TV station -- but not if that TV station is one of the top 4 stations in that market. In other words, newspapers who are struggling to get beyond just being newspapers can finally expand into other media areas. I can't understand why people are freaked out about this. At best, a newspaper can now own a tiny radio or TV station. The fear of only one point of view getting through is totally laughable for a variety of reasons. First, there are more sources of media than ever before in history -- by a long shot. To think that a single TV station or newspaper can dominate the conversation is laughable. Second, since it can't involve a top 4 TV station, it's hard to believe that this new entity will have all that much dominance in the market.

But people still went crazy about this and lawsuits were filed. Over in the Third Circuit, a court has now dumped the new rules on what appears to basically be a technicality. Apparently, the FCC ""failed to meet the notice and comment requirements of the Administrative Procedure Act" to make this change. The standard procedure requires 90 days of response time, but Kevin Martin only gave people 28 days to comment.

Again, this whole thing seems pretty silly. Even if people still rely on broadcast news, this simply isn't going to have that big of an impact.

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Lawyer Trying To Trademark Bitcoin Explains His Legal Theory

from the mock-away dept

We just wrote about how lawyer Michael Pascazi was trying to file for a US trademark on "Bitcoin," which most people agreed was laughable. Making it even more ridiculous was that his attempt to prove use in commerce was apparently to have his wife send a letter to a relative of hers offering to sell some Bitcoins. The whole thing was quite dubious, but Pascazi himself stopped by our comments to elaborate.

First, he claimed that "for strategic reasons," he and his wife had abandoned the US trademark filing... but, at the same time, they've commenced trademark applications in other countries, which have a first to file rule, rather than a first to use:

Simultaneously therewith, trademark applications have begun in those civil law countries, wherein, "first to use" status is not recognized as a defense to trademark registration. These civil law countries, which account for most of the world's population, and land mass, only recognize a "first to file" basis for trademark registration. The penalties for infringing trademarks in those civil law "first to file" countries are as severe as the common law jurisdictions, such as the USA, UK, Canada, Australia, etc., which utilize a "first to use" basis.

Therefore, jumping up and down exhorting that "Bitcoin" has been in use in the USA, or another common law country, since the dark ages is no defense, repeat no defense, to a claim of infringement of a properly registered mark in a "first to file" jurisdiction.

Pretty shameless. He's basically admitting that he has no actual rights to Bitcoin, but he's going to try to use the fact that many countries (especially the EU and India) have a first-to-file system, to take ownership of the word. Thankfully, another lawyer, John William Nelson, who actually is an expert in these areas (Pascazi is not), explained why Pascazi's new, extra slimy, scheme probably won't work either:

Mr. Pascazi does not really understand trademark law, it appears. While he is correct that many civil law countries have a first-to-file process, that does not mean they have no ability to challenge the issuance of the mark.

A trademark must be a source identifier. In other words, Mr. Pascazi's 'client' must be recognized as the source of a product by consumers if the mark Bitcoin is used.

As for enforcing international marks in the U.S., this is not as easily done as Mr. Pascazi would hope. Especially if he is able to obtain a registration abroad on such shaky grounds. It could still be subject to the same cancellation process as a U.S. mark.

The question is whether Mr. Pascazi will truly try and enforce a foreign mark on foreign soil. Paying international lawyers is not cheap.

And will he continue to maintain the mark and defend it against attacks?

Mr. Pascazi's client is over-reaching. I recommend Mr. Pascazi or his lawyer consult real trademark attorneys about this. They might receive more thorough advice.

So, there you have it.

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More Fraud Investigations Over Recording Industry Execs; Swiss IFPI Boss Resigns

from the well,-look-at-that dept

Following the news of corruption charges in Spain over SGAE execs, comes the news that the head of the IFPI in Switzerland has been forced to resign over some sort of scheme to avoid paying taxes. The details are a bit convoluted, but, basically, it sounds like he was able to route some IFPI things through a separate company he ran, in order to get a more favorable tax position. The IFPI is trying to throw the guy under the bus, but the report suggests other IFPI honchos knew all about the scheme. I find it amusing, by the way, that our regular commenters, who (falsely) call me a criminal, haven't had anything to say about these music industry folks and their scams.

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TSA Planning New, Even More Invasive Security Measures In Response To 'Threat' Of Implanted Bombs

from the security-theater-is-reactionary dept

One of the main problems of the TSA's brand of security theater is that it's totally reactionary. Nearly every bit of it is designed to stop the last threat, rather than face the larger issues of identifying threats in general. A group supposedly planned to use liquid explosives? You can't bring liquids through security any more! Some jackass tried to light a shoebomb on fire? Everyone remove your shoes! This has resulted in people guessing just how far this will go. Years back, this even led Bruce Schneier to run his movie threat contest, in which the goal was to come up with all sorts of movie-plot style threats, which would then render the TSA helpless.

And, now, for all the talk of the ridiculous new naked scanners and gropings, people have realized that won't do any good if someone has a bomb implanted within them. So... guess what? The TSA is now claiming that they have reports that terrorists are planning to implant bombs inside people to blow up on flights... and that the existing scanners won't spot them. So they may start implementing brand new security procedures which they won't tell anyone about just yet.

Somehow, none of this makes me feel any safer... and my bigger concern here remains the TSA over terrorists. Nothing in what's being done suggests that the TSA is even close to focusing on who is getting on flights, and instead continues to focus on what is being brought on flights, which is a pretty pointless endeavor when you realize that there are always ways to get the next thing on board.

I certainly agree that it would be incredibly tragic if someone had an implanted bomb and it blew up a plane. And, contrary to the claims of some, I'm not advocating that we do away with security altogether. I'd just like to see security that actually focuses on trying to stop a real attacker, not on finding the lady with 4 ounces of liquid in her purse.

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Did The Entertainment Industry Backdoor In Forcing ISPs To Kick People Offline, While Claiming It Did Not?

from the sneaky,-sneaky dept

Never underestimate just how sneaky entertainment industry lobbyists can be. They're able to push through all sorts of things that appear innocuous at first, but down the road turn out to be anything but. The ProIP Act (not to be confused with the PROTECT IP Act) is a perfect example of this. It had all sorts of awful provisions, originally, which lots of people protested about. But that allowed the industry to slip in a single "innocuous" provision almost entirely unnoticed. The provision that allowed feds to seize and forfeit "property" used for infringement. This provision got very little scrutiny, and the short discussions that were had about it concerned the ability of the feds to seize things like CD and DVD burners in commercial counterfeiting operations. Not something many people would have an issue with. But, instead, that provision has been used to justify Homeland Security's outright seizure of domain names under very questionable legal theories.

So forgive us for not taking some of the comments from the entertainment industry at face value. We've been burned many times before. As we noted in our post about the new "voluntary" agreement between the entertainment industry and top US ISPs, while the report tries to bend over backwards to insist that the "graduated response" plans don't include disconnecting from the internet, this really isn't true. First, it does push ISPs to cut people off from the web, which for most people is their internet access.

But, it gets even more pernicious than that. The EFF is pointing out a questionable bit of the agreement, which suggests the entertainment industry may be knowingly backdooring disconnections into the agreement by misinterpreting a section of the DMCA (which they also helped write):

The materials emphatically state that ISPs are not required to terminate subscriber accounts as a condition of the agreement with the content industry and that the collaboration does not amount to a “three strikes” regime. But the materials also take pains to assert that the DMCA “requires that the ISPs have in place a termination policy for repeat copyright infringers as a condition of availing themselves of the Act’s ‘safe harbor’ provision.” Translation: The content industry is staking its position that ISPs that don’t terminate subscribers after 5 or 6 alerts will lose their DMCA protection. There are plenty of arguments for why that position is wrong; given that an alert represents nothing more than an allegation untried by a court, we think loss of Internet access would be a draconian measure that Congress did not intend. Nonetheless, it may take an ISP willing to litigate the issue to make the argument.

In case it's not clear, the EFF is showing language that clearly suggests the entertainment industry believes that if ISPs don't kick off those accused (not convicted) of repeat infringing, they lose their own safe harbor protections under the DMCA. And, as we've seen with the way DMCA takedowns work, to nearly everyone, the threat of losing safe harbor protections is the equivalent of a requirement. No company wants to increase their liability, and thus, to avoid a potential claim that failing to kick a user off violates the DMCA, there seems like a good chance most of these ISPs will including kicking people offline entirely as an option here.

The obvious retort from the industry will be that this part is no different than what's been said in the past, because the DMCA has been in place for over a decade. However, while it may be true that the DMCA has been in place that long, no copyright holder has tested this theory that not kicking people off violates the DMCA. By putting it in this document, the entertainment industry is effectively putting ISPs on notice: saying that they may now start focusing in on this.

Pretty neat trick, huh? Claim upfront that the plan has no disconnections, while on the backend include language and a statement that clearly alerts ISPs that if they don't disconnect, they can face much greater liability.

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Using Gaming To Drive Desired Behavior: Privacy Policy As A Game

from the pros-and-cons dept

I had just been listening to a recent On the Media rebroadcast of their episode all about video games. The episode is fantastic, but the part that I found most fascinating was during the final section on the future of gaming, which includes a wonderful clip from a presentation by Jesse Schell, in which he talks about the potential to "gamify" pretty much everything in life, giving people "points" (possibly points that can have tax implications) for desired behavior. Some of that behavior may be "desired" because it's good for you (if you brush your teeth long enough, you get extra points). And some of it may be "desired" because it's good for some companies (if you drink five Dr. Peppers this week, you get extra points).

JESSE SCHELL: And what will that world be like? Well, I think it'll be like this: You get up in the morning to brush your teeth and the toothbrush can sense that you’re brushing your teeth, and so, hey [BELL TONE], good job for you! [AUDIENCE LAUGHTER] Ten points for brushing your teeth. And it can measure how long, and you’re supposed to brush ‘em for three minutes, and you did. And so you get a bonus for that. Hey [BELL TONE], you brushed your teeth every day this week, another bonus. All right, and who cares? The toothpaste company, the toothbrush company; the more you brush, the more toothpaste you use. They have a vested financial interest. So then you go and you get on the bus. The bus, why am I taking the bus? You’re taking the bus because the government has started giving out [BELL TONE] all kinds of bonus points to people who use public transportation, and you can use these points for, for tax incentives. And you get to work [BELL TONE] on time, good job. You, you get a, a special bonus. So then you go to lunch and you've had Dr. Peppers all week, and so you know you got to have another Dr. Pepper ‘cause you get 10 points [BELL TONE], 10 points [BELL TONE], 10 points [BELL TONE], 10 points, and then you'll have another one [BELL TONE]. You know there’s a special with Dr. Pepper this week. If you have five Dr. Peppers in a week [BELL TONE], 500 bonus points, so you definitely have to take advantage of that.

And then you've got a meeting at another building that’s a half a mile away. And you could take the shuttle over but you decide, I'm gonna walk because the health insurance plan that you’re on [BELL TONE] gives you bonus points if you walk like more than a mile each day, and we can sense that easily, you know, through your digital shoes. And if you get your heart rate up [BELL TONE] above a certain, a certain amount, then you get more bonus points from your health insurance company. So then you’re going shopping on the way home, and man, this is like a place you can get a lot of points, and it’s really complicated so you let your like your app figure it out. It like looks at all the point systems you have, it looks at what you want and then it tells you which ones to buy [BELL TONE] in order to get, ooh, wow, a lot of points, just because I make good choices shopping. And then you get home and your daughter’s like, oh, I got my report card. And you’re like [BELL TONE] oh, good job. I mean, you’re getting 2,000 points from the state for getting’ such good grades, and [BELL TONE] [LAUGHS] you’re getting 5,000 as a parent from the Obama bonus for the good parenting bonus, which you’re excited ‘cause you can use that as tax relief. And then you say, hey, wait a minute, wait a minute, did you practice your piano? And she’s like, yeah, I practiced my piano. Well, what score did you get? It’s like, oh, well, I got 150,000. A hundred and fifty thousand, that’s the best you've ever had on that particular [BELL TONE] sonata. That’s 9,000 points given by the Arts Council for your scholarship fund, so go you. Right?

Obviously, some of those things may strike some people as "good" and some may strike some people as "bad." But either way, understanding the likelihood of these things coming about is important, and you can see the full (extremely entertaining) video below. In the opening of the video, before he gets into all the stuff above, he talks about Facebook accounts, and things like Farmville, from Zynga, which he describes as "scary." Well, perhaps the scary folks at Zynga watched the video too, and at least thought a little about it in relation to privacy policies. That's because Zynga has revamped their privacy policy to make it a game, called PrivacyVille. Now, I'm on record as saying I think the entire idea of a privacy policy is a failed concept. No one reads them. No one understands that the privacy policy could say "we don't care at all about your privacy." Even those who read them don't know what they mean. It's a joke that makes some "privacy experts" feel good to say that sites need privacy policies.

But, this gets a bit more intriguing, when a company actually tries to give people incentive to not just read, but to understand a privacy policy. I don't think that others will suddenly "gamify" their own privacy policies, but I'm definitely intrigued by the concept of doing something very different with a privacy policy, rather than just what everyone else does.

Update: Or, as pointed out in the comments, it could all end up like this comic....

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Trolls: The Town Drunks Of The Internet

from the don't-quit-your-day-job dept

A study conducted by researchers at Northwestern University has reached a conclusion that many of us have entertained but dismissed as "not having a study conducted by researchers at Northwestern University behind it." Namely: trolling is like being sloppy drunk.

According to the science guys:

A new study has found that anonymity gives people the same feeling of abandon as power and alcohol intoxication.

"Although these pathways appear to be unrelated on the surface, they all lead to disinhibited states through a common psychological and neurological mechanism," said Jacob Hirsh of the university's Kellogg School of Management.

Dr Hirsh's colleague Professor Adam Galinsky said the loss of inhibition led to "significant behavioural consequences".

Ah, "loss of inhibition!" Is any combination of words sweeter to the ears (and livers) of trolls and drunkards alike? To be a troll is to be transported back to the heady days of frat house "Pre-Saturday Night Party" parties, where the cheap beer flowed like cheap beer and many bad decisions were made, most of them irrevocable.

Much in the same way that alcohol can turn a fertile mind into a karaoke-singing, one-man party bursting with OPINIONS! (and some vomit), trolling can turn a regular, possibly decent person into an apopleptic nightmare full of half-formed rejoinders and circular logic, which often devolves into schoolyard name-calling flameouts (well, a schoolyard full of drunks...) or sudden exits from the conversation, presumably to go "sleep it off" on the bathroom floor.

There's more from the professor, which explains a lot of what we see here at Techdirt on a daily basis:

When people lose their inhibitions, they often behave in a manner more consistent with their true motives or character. At the same time, they also tend to be more easily influenced by their environment.

"In effect, disinhibition can both reveal and shape the person, as contradictory as that may sound," Professor Galinsky said.

The end result is that power, alcohol and anonymity can all inspire either strong pro- or anti-social sentiments in people.

The study may help explain why anonymous commentators on the web often appear to hold extreme views.

Extreme views? Anti-social sentiments? Random hollering about someone's day job? It's all here. And for all the talk about "not feeding the trolls," it's hard to resist, especially when they're packing a buzz and getting the conversational munchies. Besides, who wouldn't want the chance to respond to a non sequitur composed of misspelled words and terrible analogies? We really want to take the high road, but the troll road is like a free ride straight downhill into STFU-ville. (Plus, the troll booths are closed! Bonus!)

Sooner or later, if the subject matter is contentious enough, the Techdirt comment threads are overrun with loudmouth drunks/trolls, not unlike the state of Wisconsin on any given night. (Or afternoon.) Ugly words are exchanged and brash statements made, most of them sorely in need of a citation. Hours later, it becomes a wasted blend of ALL CAPS shouting and any number of logical fallacies, before presumably heading quickly downhill to muted futile sobbing and calls to former sexual acquaintances.

And much like the virtual alcoholics they are, the trolling commenters will rarely let a day go by without a quick pull from the hip flask labelled "Submit," even if they've got nothing more than a quick "FUD" to spit out like an accidentally swallowed cigarette butt. Even the worst of hangovers won't stop the trolloholic from popping in quickly to call someone a liar or misread the byline on a post.

So, keep this valuable information in mind, Techdirt readers, the next time you find yourself trapped in an elliptical argument with an armchair Bukowski (sans the everything-that-made-Bukowski-appealing): they're just drunk on trolljuice, a potent blend of ignorance, anger and "chicken hawk syndrome."

How else would you explain this AC's one-man flamewar, in which he paints every disagreeing commenter with a broad paintbrush dipped in self-hatred (often mistaken for "mockery," but the acidic taste of bile gives it away), painting everything the same ugly shade of misanthropy?

Or this one?

Need one more?

Don't let the Anonymous Coward label fool you, though. Techdirt is filled with thoughtful and humorous AC's, while also serving as a host for a variety of proudly-named trolls. The real trolls are the commenters who show up for one reason: to insult as many Techdirt readers as possible while simultaneously trying to reframe the debate around their own twisted logic. You'd think it would be harder to type with such an outsized chip on your shoulder, but the internet never ceases to amaze.

Trolls, like the ones singled out above, are like the uncle you purposely uninvited to your wedding. The one who shows up anyway and spends the entire night alternately abusing the open bar and the wedding guests, bitterly decrying organized religion and the institution of marriage to anyone who will listen and others who are actively eyeing the exits. He swaggers around in a state of progressive drunkeness, alienating people left and right, before collapsing anti-climatically in the coat room after making a last-ditch pass at your newly-minted sister-in-law.

As the hangover ebbs, he remains secure in his belief that he "totally ripped those backwaters rubes a new one" when in all reality, all he did was pound home the fact that people hate him for a reason.

Trolls, just remember that your spluttering anger and misplaced indignity is often a source of amusement for us. Other times, it's just the same old shit, like when dad starts hitting the sauce and pounding out angry letters to the editor decrying the city council's recent decision to change local street signs to initial caps only. Sure, he seems to be truly perturbed by this now, but by the next day, it's just another piece of paper that ends up going straight from the Smith-Corona into the nearest wastebasket. The only difference is that, thanks to the miracle of THE INTERNET, the "angry letter" can be submitted instantly, 24/7, requiring nothing more of the brainstem-operating troll than the minute amount of hand-eye coordination needed to push a button.

So, bring on the worn-out cries of "Freetard!" and "Kool-Aid!", you trolling lushes. Just remember, our beverage of choice is booze-free. 

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Because Of Online Pranks, German Politician Recommends Kids Get Internet Licenses

from the say-what-now? dept

There have been various stories in the press about people using Facebook to set up small parties, in which they accidentally make the invite public. Hilarity ensues as thousands RSVP and attend. One of the big stories where this happened involved a German girl and, apparently, German politicians don't like this at all. They're now debating a plan to outlaw such things:

“If, in advance of an announced Facebook party, there are concrete indications of a danger to the participants or third parties, then it is the duty of the local authorities to ban the party.”

But, even worse, one politician, who supports the ban, also claimed that kids be required to get "internet driving licenses" that "would explain the dangers of Facebook." That seems a bit extreme. Thankfully some politicians recognize this:

“The simple fact that excesses happen on the sidelines of such events does not justify a general ban,” Wolfgang Bosbach, the chairman of the domestic affairs committee in parliament, told the daily Kolner Stadt Anzeiger, according to Spiegel. “There are also riots on the sidelines of football games and demonstrations but that does not mean that we should completely ban them.”

Is it so hard to admit that sometimes kids get involved in silly pranks and they don't require massive legal changes?

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American-Statesman: Suspect Position, Bad Example, Another Bad Example, Debunked Statistics, Contradiction

from the so-much-silly dept

Most of the time the articles we take issue with at Techdirt have something in them we disagree with or find silly.  And by something, I mean to indicate that there's a singular wrong in there that we point out.  Or, at most, a couple of wrongs.  But sometimes you encounter a piece written for a supposedly reputable publication that seems so much as though it was written to be completely wrong, that I start to wonder if LulzSec has begun infiltrating the mainstream press.  Take this American-Statesman article by Gary Dinges piece by piece for an example of what I'm talking about:

"Months and months of hard work available for illegal downloading free of charge in a matter of minutes.  That's the difficulty facing authors, filmmakers and musicians across the nation, costing them untold sums of money each year."

Well, gee, Gary, that sounds positively terrifying.  It must be hard on these creators who are clearly in horrific dire straits.  Care to share an example?

"It has become rampant," said Sandra Brown, a Dallas-area author with 60 New York Times bestsellers. "I have an assistant — a real Internet guru — who spends the bulk of her time monitoring the Web."

Ah, got it....wait, what?!!?  I just want to make sure I understand this completely.  You're offering up a well-known author who is routinely on the best sellers list?  In order to demonstrate the struggle of authors with regards to internet piracy?  Maybe next you'd like to do a piece on the political glass ceiling of minorities in America and use Barack Obama as your prime example?

And here's another question: How bad has internet piracy made things for you when you have the resources to pay an assistant, a real internet guru no less, (whatever her salary is) to spend the majority of her time "monitoring the Web"?  And what the hell does that even mean?  And why are you doing it?  I for one totally envy that internet "guru" getting a fat check to play Bejewelled all week then turn in a report saying "yup, the internet still exists".

Okay...vitriol aside, how can this possibly make sense economically?  If we were able to get some concrete answer as to which ended up costing Sandra more (real, not potential) money overall, the evil and vengeful internet or the salary of her faithful assistant for "monitoring" it, which do you think it'd be?

But back to Dinges' article.  He then offers us Dano Johnson, an animator who we learn has had his own battles with internet piracy.  Apparently he animated a movie that ended up on YouTube and was viewed five thousand times or so before a DMCA takedown was issued.  Dano's response?

"'I feel like I got robbed 5,000 times,' he said."

Well golly gee willickers, friend, sometimes I feel like a character from a Mel Brooks spoof movie, but feelings don't really mean a whole lot here, do they?  The fact of the matter is that you weren't robbed five thousand times.  I wonder how many of those folks who viewed the YouTube video would have done so if it weren't there to see for free to begin with?  I wonder how many of them came across it for the first time when someone shared a link?  I wonder if YouTube felt "robbed" for five thousand instances of promoting you at no cost?  Did you pay YouTube for any of that?  Book yourself, Dano (sorry, couldn't resist).

Now, after the article then goes on to quote all the billions and trillions of sweet American dollars that are being directly removed from the economy, ostensibly never to be seen again, we get back to the best line of the piece with one final quote from Dano Johnson on what effect piracy has had on his willingness to create his art:

"Piracy isn't going to make me want to stop making films."

Oh, sweet internet Gods, thank you for this.  Piracy, while perhaps annoying, doesn't stop creation.  And if you acknowledge that copyright is supposed to be an incentive to create, we arrive at the inevitable conclusion that nuclear options like ProtectIP, which is what this article was actually all about even though they didn't name the increasingly controversial bill by name, are not the answer.

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Can Health And Human Services Copyright New Smoking Package Warnings?

from the copyfraud? dept

As you hopefully know, content created by the US federal government is supposed to automatically go into the public domain. There are a few exceptions, mainly having to do with work created for the government by others. But Dave P. reasonably asks why the highly publicized new graphic (in more ways than one) "warning" labels for cigarette packages appear to have a very blatant copyight notice, claiming that the copyright is held by HHS (Health & Human Services). You can see the full PDF, which is also embedded below, but you can see the first image here, with a © notice in the lower lefthand corner:

The really bizarre one is the last one, which appears to just be a red triangle with an exclamation point: It appears that a red triangle with an exclamation point is widely used in other areas as well. In fact, if you do an image search for such things, you can find tons upon tons of red triangles with exclamation points inside. Perhaps HHS should sue.

Or, better yet, recognize that this is copyfraud and drop the bogus © notices.

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Wizard Of Oz Court Ruling Suggests Moviemakers Can Reclaim Parts Of The Public Domain And Put It Under Copyright

from the we're-not-in-kansas-any-more,-toto dept

Another day, another story of the law letting the public domain be locked up. Back in February, we wrote about an important case about the public domain involving The Wizard of Oz and some other films. Prior to 1976, of course, you had to register works to have them covered by copyright. A company named AVELA recognized that some publicity posters for The Wizard of Oz, Gone with the Wind and some Tom and Jerry cartoons were not registered (or in some cases, were registered, but not renewed), and thus were officially in the public domain. It then made t-shirts out of some of the images in the poster.

The lower court gave a very confused ruling, in which it admitted the original posters were in the public domain, but then said the characters were still copyrighted, even though the movies came out later, because that imbued new characteristics on the public domain works and protected them. Or something. Making this even more complicated, when it comes to the Wizard of Oz, is that the original books are definitively in the public domain, but the original movie is not.

On appeal, the Eighth Circuit court seems to have more or less supported the original ruling, though with different reasoning. The court does say that the publicity materials are in the public domain. But then says that the new works (the designs on the t-shirt) results in a derivative work that "comes into conflict with a valid copyright." Conceptually that makes sense. You can't take a public domain work and then assume that gives you free reign to bring in other copyrighted work. But it's troubling to see how the court then concludes that such derivative works occur in this case. It basically says that because the actors in the movie imbued the characters with specific traits beyond what was in the original works, even the use of still images that are public domain can infringe on the copyrights of the depictions of those characters.

We agree with the district court’s conclusion that Dorothy, Tin Man, Cowardly Lion, and Scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz, Scarlett O’Hara and Rhett Butler from Gone with the Wind, and Tom and Jerry each exhibit “consistent, widely identifiable traits” in the films that are sufficiently distinctive to merit character protection under the respective film copyrights....

AVELA correctly points out that the scope of copyright protection for the characters in the films The Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind is limited to the increments of character expression in the films that go beyond the character expression in the books on which they were based. See Silverman, 870 F.2d at 49 (“[C]opyrights in derivative works secure protection only for the incremental additions of originality contributed by the authors of the derivative works.”). While true, this has little practical effect in the instant case, as a book’s description of a character generally anticipates very little of the expression of the character in film....

The film actors’ portrayals of the characters at issue here appear to rely upon elements of expression far beyond the dialogue and descriptions in the books. AVELA has identified no instance in which the distinctive mannerisms, facial expressions, voice, or speech patterns of a film character are anticipated in the corresponding book by a literary description that evokes, to any significant extent, what the actor portrayed. Put more simply, there is no evidence that one would be able to visualize the distinctive details of, for example, Clark Gable’s performance before watching the movie Gone with the Wind, even if one had read the book beforehand. At the very least, the scope of the film copyrights covers all visual depictions of the film characters at issue, except for any aspects of the characters that were injected into the public domain by the publicity materials.

As THREsq notes, it's this section above that may be sending Hollywood lawyers into a bit of a tizzy as it appears to potentially extend the encroachment on the public domain, by suggesting that any general "character" traits that are added by a film adaptation, even of a public domain work, can be copyrighted. Considering there are a bunch of adaptations being made of The Wizard of Oz based on the public domain books, some lawyers are worried that this ruling gives Warner Bros. leverage over those other movies:

As we noted in our past article on this topic, there are nine Wizard of Oz projects currently in development, by one count, including a big-budget 3D film by Disney directed by Sam Raimi and starring James Franco that's meant to be a prequel to the classic film.

Might these films have to be very, very careful going forward?

One lawyer believes so.

"The court's statement that the film copyrights cover 'all visual depictions' of the characters recognizes that there is often a quintessential version of a literary character that exists in the public's mind as a result of a popular film adaption," says Aaron Moss, the chair of litigation at Greenberg Glusker. " Any filmmaker that wants to create a new version of a literary work -- even one in the public domain -- needs to be careful not to use copyrightable elements of characters that first appear in protected motion picture versions of the works. Of course, when it comes to characters depicted by live actors, this may be easier said than done."

In case you didn't get that, if you were to create a movie Wizard of Oz entirely based on the book, if one of the actors does pretty much anything that suggests a similarity to the movie version, rather than the book version, it could be infringing. At the very least, this completely rules out any attempt to make a nod or homage towards the original film. But, more importantly, if just in the nature of being an actor, one of the actors imbues one of these characters with similar traits to the 1939 movie... that can be infringing.

And that's insane. That goes way beyond the intent of copyright law, and again seems to destroy the laughable notion that there's a real split between protection of ideas and expression.

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Flying Car, Already Cleared For Skies, Now Cleared For Roads Too

from the but-where's-my-flying-car dept

Ah, the cry of we-want-the-future-now folks has been "where's my flying car?" Well, a very simple version of one may finally be coming to market. A year ago, we noted that the Terrafugia Transition "roadable aircraft" had been approved by the FAA for flight as a light sports aircraft (meaning you don't even need a full pilots license). But it apparently took another year for the Transition to get the necessary "exemptions" from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to let the thing go on the road.

In case you're wondering why it needed exemptions, the LA Times has the details:

So what kinds of special exemptions does a "roadable aircraft" (best name ever) need? Well, special windows, for one. Regular laminated automotive safety glass is too heavy for the Transition while in the air, and there's always a danger that a bird could fracture it. (Dang birds!) Instead of glass windows, the Transition will use a polycarbonate material less prone to shattering. NHTSA also signed off on the use of special tires.

Now, of course, this isn't really the Jetsons-like vision of the flying car people have talked about for ages. The reason it's called a "roadable aircraft" rather than a "flying car" is that the emphasis here is definitely on the aircraft part, and you still have to take off and land at an airport. It's just that you can drive to and from the airport in the same vehicle. And it'll only set you back $250,000 (about $50,000 more than what was reported last year). By the time it actually hits the market next year, perhaps it'll cost even more.

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Wikileaks Can Receive Visa & Mastercard Donations Again... But Visa Doesn't Understand Why

from the for-the-lulz? dept

Last week, Wikileaks and Datacell threatened to sue Mastercard, Visa and Paypal if it didn't stop blocking payments to Wikileaks. The claims were basically collusion charges, in that all of the major payment companies were blocking payments. Things got strange today, however, when suddenly Datacell announced that payments worked again, and clearly implied that the companies had lifted the blockade. Except, Visa is insisting that it has not lifted its ban on Wikileaks and has no idea how payments are getting through. The details seem a bit sketchy. Some careful wording by Datacell's CEO suggest that he really just found an alternative payment gateway provider, which likely means this is a very temporary loophole, before the payment companies block again.

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Murdochs' Latest Attempt At Crisis Control: Kill Off News Of The World

from the wipe-hands,-problem-solved dept

Apparently all the negative stories about questionable (and potentially criminal) activities by Rupert Murdoch's News of the World, and various advertisers pulling out of supporting the tabloid, have resulted in the Murdoch Family/News Corp. deciding to pull the plug entirely on the newspaper as of Sunday. The crisis control includes finally admitting that the problem was much wider and deeper than the company had claimed earlier. James Murdoch put out a statement, in which he also confirmed that he had tried paying off the victims of News of the World's phone hacking/spying:

Murdoch told employees at the 168-year old title: "The News of the World is in the business of holding others to account. But it failed to when it came to itself".

Murdoch said in a statement: "Wrongdoers turned a good newsroom bad and this was not fully understood or adequately pursued."

Murdoch also conceded the company had "made statements to parliament without being in full possession of the facts. This was wrong".

He said "the News of the World and News International wrongly maintained that these issues were confined to one reporter" but that was untrue, and that the company had passed information to the police which would demonstrate this.

"Those who acted wrongly will have to face the consequences," he said.

Murdoch also said in his statement to staff that he had authorised out-of-court payments to victims of hacking and that: "I now know that I did not have a complete picture when I did so."

He added: "That was wrong and is a matter of serious regret."

While it's good to see the Murdochs finally willing to address the mess head on, it also shows just how bad things are that they couldn't keep trying to brush the whole thing aside as one or two rogue employees.

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DailyDirt: The Space Shuttle Era Ends Soon...

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

The last space shuttle mission will take place pretty soon, and after that mission, the shuttles are all destined to be stored in museums (and not sent to destroy asteroids headed for Earth). Here are a few more programs for continuing to explore space.

• Here's a brief video tribute to the space shuttle program. Disposable space vehicles, FTW? [url]
• Space enthusiasts seem to be looking forward to more deep-space missions now. Settlement missions sound like exciting programs.. for our great-grandkids. [url]
• The European Space Agency is scheduled to have a re-usable autonomous spacecraft in 2013. Robots want to return to Earth, too. [url]
• China has plans for its own space station set for 2020. It'll be a bit smaller than Mir or the ISS, but it's also supposed to be compatible with ISS modules in case other countries ever want to dock with it. [url]
• To discover more links on space exploration, check out what's floating around in StumbleUpon universe. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can also recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

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'Go The F**k To Sleep': Kosher Version

from the halal-version-presumably-right-around-the-corner dept

As Dr. David Arredondo suggested during his panicked moralizing, if Go the F**k to Sleep had been written about "Jews, blacks, Muslims or Latinos," we would all immediately stop our hearty chortling and view Mansbach's best-seller as the evil racist book it actually is.

Good news, everybody! Someone did exactly that! Marc Tracy over at The Tablet converted Mansbach's bedtime story to Judaism (so to speak) and has knocked one "marginalized group" off Arredondo's list. Here's an excerpt:

It's Yom Kippur, and you're far away,
The last thing I want's to be cruel.
I'm your mother, son, you know I adore you,
But please go the fuck to shul.

You'd only go for a few hours,
Shorter than a full day of school.
You'll probably run into people you know
If you go the fuck to shul.

We don't observe the birth of Christ, son,
This isn't some lame fucking Yule.
It's the Day of Atonement, a big deal:
Go the fuck to shul.

Go ahead, eat something beforehand.
Gay gezunt, no reason to drool.
I'm not asking you to believe in it,
Only to go to fucking shul.

The whole thing can be read at the link above.

With that out of the way, and no one the worse for wear, I'm sure it will only be a matter of time before Dr. Arredondo emerges again, perhaps to make a statement like: "Well, that's all good for the Jewish community, but this only highlights how often authors (and bloggers) exclude blacks, Muslims and Latinos from their mockery."

You can't win, but what the hell? You'd think at least we'd be allowed to laugh without having to keep all of these "possible" (I'm using that term loosely, hence the quotes) ramifications at the back of our minds, just in case. Or maybe Dr. Arredondo could have used some of the time he put into creating a set of victims into researching Adam Mansbach, who has already written other books dealing with Dr. A's favorite underserved demographics.

There's The End of the Jews, which "explores the creative interchange between blacks and Jews and the give-and-take dynamic of artistic partnership." Angry Black White Boy is described as Mansbach applying a monkey-wrench to "the formula of the angry black man in the white man's world" and "cutting to the heart of the issue of race in America today." So, if anyone would have written a book dealing with sleep, the word f**k and multi-culturalism, it would have been the evidently fully-qualified Mansbach. And since he didn't do it, there's really no reason to assume that he just forgot to, no matter how perversely happy that would have made a certain overwrought doctor.

The books is, and will always remain, simply a piece of satire. If anyone wants to read anything else into it, they'll have to drag their interpretations, kicking and screaming, into the book and beat them with Fists of Twisted Logic +2 until they fit.

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