Author: Carlo Longino

Before its recent ouster, the government in Krygyzstan began to crack down on pro-opposition media. In one case, Kyrgyz financial police raided Stan TV, an independent TV channel and shut it down by seizing all of its computers, it claimed, on the authority of Microsoft (via Boing Boing), because they were supposedly running pirated software. It should be stressed that Microsoft had nothing to do with this, it was solely an action of a repressive regime. But we’ve reached a point where a government seizing computers on behalf of private companies because of piracy is a believable excuse used to justify repression. Also, don’t think it’s something that can only happen under some repressive regime in a small country on the other side of the world. The FBI’s done the bidding of the entertainment industry here in the US — a role several entertainment industry groups would love to see grow.

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Web filters are seen by lots of people as some sort of silver bullet for so many of the ills they see on the internet, whether it’s stopping piracy or blocking child porn or just “cleaning up the internet” in general. But there’s just one small problem with filters: they don’t work. Despite claims from politicians and other groups, they simply aren’t effective, and often end up blocking desirable content while letting undesirable stuff flow through. Given the long history of filter failures, it’s a little surprising to see people who seem shocked that filters don’t work. The latest example comes from The New York Times, which has discovered that YouTube’s Safety Mode filters don’t really work at all. The company’s weak defense of its poor filters seems more like a shrug of the shoulders than anything, creating an impression that the filters are there for appearances and little else. The NYT does deserve some credit, though, for recommending that parents take an active role with their kids in helping them determine for themselves what’s inappropriate viewing material on YouTube. That’s really the bottom line: you can’t expect filters to replace parenting.

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A judge in Ireland has ruled that plans by ISP Eircom to use a three-strikes system to yank file-sharers’ internet connections don’t violate the country’s privacy laws, and can move forward. Eircom instituted the plan after it was sued by a music industry trade group for not stopping file-sharing from occurring on its network, and the extreme language used by the judge would indicate that the group’s efforts to force other ISPs to play along have gotten a significant boost. The judge in the case said that copyright was “a fundamental right” under Irish law, and that “The right to be identified with and to reasonably exploit one’s own original creative endeavour I regard as a human right.” That’s a huge hole for record labels to drive their agenda through: now they’re fighting for human rights, like people trying to stop genocide, hunger, discrimination and other noble pursuits. U2 manager Paul McGuinness, an outspoken supporter of three-strikes rules, is understandably thrilled. But he still can’t explain how kicking people off the internet — and pissing off customers — is a viable business model.

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Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones was recently caught on video in an apparent state of inebriation using some pretty colorful language (via Barking Carnival) to describe former Cowboys coach Bill Parcells and NFL draft prospect Tim Tebow. The video, as you might imagine, became pretty popular, prompting Jones to clarify that he was having a “social moment”, and when he says somebody “isn’t worth a s**t”, it’s a “familiar, caring term of endearment”. Lots of old media news outlets ran with the story as well, prompting quite a reaction from longtime Dallas sportscaster Dale Hansen, who pilloried his own station for running the story:

That story we had earlier tonight about Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, if that’s what it is (and our news director thinks it is), is yet another example of the decline of journalism as we once knew it. Our business now, too many times, is a fat kid in a T-shirt in his mother’s basement, eating Cheetos and writing his blogs — and we make it news. Jerry Jones in a bar, being Jerry Jones, is not news to me. And the fact that some creep slides up to Jones, records the conversation without Jones knowing, then tries to sell that recording — and that becomes news — is an embarrassment to us all.”

Clearly Hansen is working on his entry for this year’s Buzz Bissinger Award For Achievement In Grouchy Sports Journalism. He characterizes the decision to run the story by his station’s news director as: “Public figures are fair game, and our game is reduced to following the lead of others.” Fox Sports’ Jason Whitlock decries this as yet another horrible example of “gotcha journalism”, saying that it’s no wonder athletes don’t want to talk to the media when they run stories like this.

But isn’t that the real crux of the issue? Many sports journalists appear to be afraid to do anything that might jeopardize their access to athletes and their teams, so they’ve supported the PR efforts to carefully craft the outside appearances of sports figures, and are largely hesitant to do anything to upset these appearances. Hansen calls this sort of story evidence of the decline of journalism, but it’s really the result of sports journalism. Stories like this become popular and notable among the public because they’re so out of character for anybody within professional sports. Other pieces have called Jones’ behavior in the video “just Jerry being Jerry.” And you know what? That’s fine. The content of the video isn’t even really that objectionable — and perhaps has some interesting insight into the fact that Jones might have hired Parcell solely for PR value, something which seems to have gone unacknowledged among the mainstream media. But it’s only these reporters, who have been let inside the magic curtain, that know that. The public at large sees the staged media persona of somebody like Jones, and then this video differs significantly from it, making it interesting.

Whitlock says sportswriters “owe Jerry Jones an apology and all sports fans an honest explanation of why athletes/celebrities have every right to avoid us.” That makes it sound as if the goal of sports journalism is to be friends with athletes, to buy into, and to help build up, the carefully crafted, positive images of athletes — not to cover the world of sports. That’s what makes the downfall of somebody like Tiger Woods so sensational and so interesting to the public. But it seems reasonable to ask that given the intense media interest that follows someone like him around, why didn’t the story of his escapades break sooner? It wasn’t until the situation became irretrievably public — like the Jones video — that the mainstream media ran with it. These stories break in blogs because their writers aren’t beholden to the same model, and often don’t care about being so close to their subjects. Whitlock alleges that sports figures like Jones “can’t be human.” That’s not the case at all; rather the mainstream media often doesn’t make any effort to show them as human, making these rare moments where they’re seen without their protective PR cover so dramatic, and so compelling.

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Germany-based DigiProtect has a long history of using a machine-gun approach to “fight piracy”, in which it sends out tens of thousands of letters to people it says have illegally downloaded its clients’ content, and demanding a “pre-settlement” payment to stop them from being sued. The big problem is that the company’s net catches lots of innocent people, and it’s been condemned by all sorts of people, even including the British equivalent of the RIAA. The BBC has been asking some questions of DigiProtect, and as you might expect, the firm sees absolutely nothing wrong with what it’s doing, calling its method “the only proven effective proceeding” for dealing with piracy. How, exactly, is the method effective? Because as far as we can tell — and as far as the recording industry is concerned — the amount of illegal downloading going on really isn’t slowing down much. What it’s effective at is generating revenues for DigiProtect, which tells the BBC that after deducting costs, it pays rightsholders at least 50% of the remainder of the “pre-settlements”, leaving it a nice commission. These answers from Digiprotect are completely unsurprising, and it’s not clear if the BBC expected the company to have some sort of epiphany and shut down or what. After all, another company using a similar model in the UK called it quits last week, saying it was “surprised and disappointed by the amount of adverse publicity that our firm has attracted in relation to this work.” I mean, who in their right mind would think that sending out these bully-like letters, particularly to lots of innocent people, would upset anybody?

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Ransomware viruses that hijack a a user’s computer and demand payment for snake-oil anti-virus software are nothing new, but there’s a new twist on it in Japan. A new virus targets people downloading hentai (an explicit form of anime cartoons) from P2P networks, and poses as an installation screen for a game that asks for users’ personal info. Once this is entered, it starts taking screengrabs of users’ web activity, which it posts online under their name, and asks for payment of 1500 yen (about $16) to “settle your violation of copyright law” and take down the page. There’s a similar scam running in Europe, says a security firm, in which a virus scans a computer’s hard drive, and regardless of what it finds, demands payment of $400 for a “pretrial settlement” of copyright infringement claims. Essentially these scams are just online versions of what firms like Digiprotect, ACS:Law and Davenport Lyons do through the mail — send out thousands of letters demanding people pay up for supposedly downloading copyrighted content. That scheme (which manages to ensnare plenty of innocent users) is quite profitable for the firms that run it — so it shouldn’t be too surprising to see malware scammers move in. It’s an interesting question, though: really, what’s the fundamental difference between what the malware peddlers and these supposedly legitimate companies are doing?

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For quite some time, authorities in South Korea have contended that a lot of kids there are addicted to the internet. One of the more misguided steps take to try and “cure” these kids was to put them in a boot camp where they couldn’t use computers, but apparently that effort failed. So, now, the government is mandating a six-hour nightly curfew (via Gizmodo) for 19 online role-playing games that account for 79 percent of the Korean online game market. Apparently the curfew will help “eradicate video game addiction”, and will apply only to underage users. However, it’s not clear how the government will ensure users are accurately representing their age. It’ll be great that some kids will be prompted to get their sleep, but once again, it seems like the curfew will just treat a symptom, not the underlying problem that leads people to get unhealthily immersed in online games.

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Back in March, Derek Kerton noted in a post here on Techdirt some peculiarities popping up around Skype’s plans for mobile devices. In particular, he pointed out how Skype announced a version of its client for several smartphones on the Verizon network, but the app looked crippled because it couldn’t function over WiFi and routed Skype calls over a standard voice connection. When the app became available, I downloaded it for my Android device on Verizon, and I too, noticed that it forced me to shut off the WiFi connection on my device. This didn’t make much sense to me: I’m already paying for a flat-rate data plan, so it’s not as if this would force me to spend more money. In addition, given the way that mobile operators have been saying their networks are overwhelmed by data traffic, why would they force me to use the mobile network when I could offload the Skype traffic to a WiFi connection? Then, when I placed a Skype call through the app and saw that it was actually routed through a voice call to an access number, I was confused even more.

As Derek noted, the Skype app for Verizon followed a series of several other moves that call into question Skype’s actual commitment to open networks, and that combined with US operators’ historical positions against openness, it was natural to assume that the app shut off WiFi on Android devices because of some nefarious purpose. But Verizon has explained itself, saying the app behaves this way because of a combination of technology and legality. In short, Verizon lawyers felt like voice calls made through Skype needed to be treated like standard voice calls from a legal perspective. This means conforming to 911 regulations, as well as the CALEA act, which opens networks to wiretapping by law enforcement. Verizon contends that CALEA dictates that call-signaling info travel over its data network, rather than unknown (and possibly unsecure) WiFi. This is where the technology comes in: apparently it’s impossible for the Skype app on Android to choose to use the Verizon data network if the device is connected to WiFi. So therefore it has to completely shut off the WiFi connection to be sure its data travels over the mobile network. On BlackBerry devices, this isn’t the case, so the app doesn’t force users to shut off their WiFi.

Given mobile operators’ past penchant for closing off their networks, it’s forgivable that somebody would assume one had nefarious purposes for blocking WiFi access to Skype. That may not be the case in this narrow instance — but many of Derek’s other questions about Skype’s much-touted commitment to openness remain unanswered.

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Nearly every single year of the past half-decade or so has been touted as “the year of Mobile TV”, the year in which the long-heralded service would finally break through and get widespread adoption. It didn’t happen in 2008, it didn’t happen in 2009, and while the upcoming World Cup is supposed to be a tipping point, we’re not holding our breath. What mobile TV backers don’t seem to realize is that regardless of whatever new technology they come up with, people just really aren’t very interested in mobile TV — particularly when it’s built on a linear, channel-based programming model that’s largely fallen out of favor for standard TV viewing. But that doesn’t stop the announcements, the latest being that a number of broadcasters are banding together to develop a new national mobile TV service using spectrum they control.

Some observers see this as little more than an attempt by broadcasters to head off the FCC, which wants to seize unused broadcast spectrum and refarm it for use by mobile broadband services — just like the FCC did with analog broadcast spectrum. So the broadcasters want to launch a service “to provide content to mobile devices, including live and on-demand video, local and national news from print and electronic sources, as well as sports and entertainment programming” — wait, doesn’t that sound like the mobile web? But they want to use a variation of the ATSC digital broadcast technology to set up their own closed system, and also go out of their way to say that the network can be used to deliver public-safety information during emergencies. But they still don’t explain just how they think they’ll build any interest in these services. Maybe getting that government handout based on spurious public-safety claims is their only hope.

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AT&T is apparently “miffed” that a recent report from a research firm said that it carries less data traffic on its mobile network than either Verizon or Sprint. Meanwhile, the rest of us are trying to figure out exactly why the company cares so much. AT&T has been much maligned for its network’s inability to keep up with iPhone users’ data (and sometimes, voice) demands; perhaps the company is concerned that ranking third in overall data traffic will somehow push the perception that its network is underpowered even further. AT&T’s own analysis of mobile data traffic shows it carries more than half of US mobile users’ data, it says — which is great. But that figure doesn’t matter much to an iPhone user who can’t connect to the network or whose device doesn’t live up to their expectations because of spotty coverage. And those users’ stories are probably much more persuasive among consumers than some pretty meaningless stats.

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Plenty of broadcasters are still upset over the digital TV transition, in which they lost their analog spectrum rights — rights which they never had to pay for — as the FCC sought to reclaim it and put it towards more efficient and useful purposes. Getting the analog spectrum for free, and then having it replaced with the digital spectrum, again for free, was a massive government handout that’s formed the bedrock of broadcasters’ businesses. It’s a tradeoff that’s worked well: the broadcasters get the chance to make some money, and the public gets free over-the-air TV. But broadcasters are now looking for another handout, making noise that the FCC should mandate that every cell phone sold in the US have a digital TV receiver in it (via Ars Technica). It’s a great plan, according to broadcasters, because (of course) it will make us all safer. The TVs in every phone are apparently the best way to distribute information in case of public-safety emergencies, so we should all have them. Never mind, of course, that when there aren’t emergencies on, we can all tune in to great television programming brought to us by our totally altruistic broadcaster friends.

Apparently it’s a foolproof plan, because first, the FCC could mandate it (just like they took away the analog channels, we are reminded), and second, Americans replace their phones so frequently, that the life-saving feature could make its way into most of our phones within 5 years. One major oversight in the piece, though: there’s no mention of who’s going to pay for all of these tuners, which we’ll interpret to mean that it sure as hell won’t be the broadcasters who will conveniently then rely on them to help generate revenues. If the real interest here is public safety, why not mandate plain old radio receivers, which are much cheaper, and much more easily integrated into mobile phones? Maybe because public safety isn’t the real interest?

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It’s no secret that porn can be a tremendous driver for the adoption of new technologies: VCRs, DVD players, cable and satellite TV, and the internet. But apparently it’s also helping teach Chinese folks how to scale the country’s Great Firewall. A few days ago, the Twitter name of a Japanese porn actress got “discovered” in China, and thanks to her apparent popularity, tons of people started trying to access her Twitter page. Twitter, though, is blocked in China, and since the woman is a porn actress, information on her is blocked as it “could cause harm to youngsters’ mental and physical well-being”. These blocks are apparently driving people to learn how to use software to get around the Great Firewall (via Jan Chipchase) so they can follow the actress on Twitter. Perhaps the best way to deal with China’s internet censorship isn’t technical tricks, but to point Chinese surfers to porn so they’ll learn about how to get around the wall on their own?

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A new report estimates that some 800,000 American households now watch TV only via the Web, as the move to abandon cable, satellite or OTA broadcasts starts to gather pace. This represents a small percentage of the pay TV industry’s 101 million subscribers, but the number is expected to double by the end of next year. These are the earliest adopters, though, and they account for just 3 percent of all full-episode online television viewing — meaning that plenty of people are already supplanting their standard TV viewing with online episodes. It’s clear already (and has been for some time) that TV viewers are undertaking a fundamental change in how they want to access and view content. The combination of the Web and DVRs allowing on-demand viewing has made the linear TV channel something of an outdated concept, and at some point, TV providers will need to realize that on-demand shows are now how a growing number of people want to receive their programming.

Cable companies, for one, recognize this to a certain extent, so they’ve responded with TV Everywhere, a plan to offer programming online. But that plan is doomed to failure because it’s being implemented in the hamfisted way you might expect from cable companies, and is set up simply to force people to keep paying for cable if they want to watch shows online. If the plan to capitalize on online viewers is first to force them to keep paying for something they don’t want, then by further embracing the “features” of current systems that drive users away, it’s hard to see TV companies having a whole lot of success. The key is not to shoehorn the cable model onto the web, but to embrace the positive features enabled by the web and apply them to the rest of their business.

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A site called Earsucker.com recently posted a couple of images of a leaked itinerary from pop artist Lady Gaga’s Australian tour, detailing her (largely uninteresting) schedule for a couple of days, prompting a friendly letter from Australian music industry group MIPI, threatening legal action if they weren’t removed. Unsurprisingly, the group claimed the images infringe some undefined copyright, as well as breach some confidentiality. Earsucker responded with some helpful legal education by pointing out that it’s based in the US, where Australian copyright law doesn’t apply (not yet, anyway), and that it can’t be held responsible for some third party’s breach of confidentiality with Lady Gaga or her management.

That’s all well and good, but it misses two important questions: first, what in these images could be protected by copyright? Second, what the hell does MIPI or its backers gain from getting this piece of content taken down on a copyright claim? It’s understandable that Lady Gaga and her management wouldn’t want this sort of info appearing online for security reasons. But what’s it got to do with MIPI (which stands for Music Industry Piracy Investigations)? This sort of episode, in which somebody uses the threat of a copyright lawsuit to get content they simply don’t like taken down, reinforces the need for real repercussions for bogus takedowns and threats. Copyright laws and legal threats shouldn’t exist as vehicles for record companies and their pals to stifle free speech, but when they can do so with no real repercussions, it’s hard to imagine they’ll actually stop.

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Andy Marx writes in to share a letter Daily Variety magazine sent to its subscribers, letting them know that it will soon be putting up a paywall, or as it prefers to call it, a “velvet rope”.

The reason for the switch is simple: There has been a boom in showbiz coverage, but much of it is hearsay and spin, making it hard for readers to separate rumors from truth. A lot of the “reporting” has become more sensational as many of our online peers have been lured by the notion of bringing in more consumer eyeballs (and, they hope, more ad money). At Variety, we are apologetically focused on people in the industry. Think of the paywall as a velvet rope, allowing you access to stories that have been confirmed by impartial sources and stories that will better inform you about the world you’re working in. Denied access behind the rope are items based on gossip, half-truths and anonymous rants.

So it would appear that publications face a choice: put up paywalls, or write about “gossip, half-truths and anonymous rants”. It’s really not clear what one has to do with the other; after all, Variety can write about whatever it wants, how it tries to charge for it is a completely separate matter. What’s really amusing though, is that Variety is basically trying to dress up its paywall as some guarantee of quality for readers. In essence, it’s saying “since we are charging for this, you know it must be good.” But when its full letter to subscribers contains seven typos, it looks like Variety is more interested in having the appearance of quality and authority than actually having quality content.

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Venom-filled anonymous internet comments are often a favorite target for politicians, writers and plenty of other folks who use them to represent everything that’s wrong with the internet. Many sites have a love-hate relationship with comments, including news sites, which often want to encourage “participation” but don’t get much out of the comments, including ad revenue, since many advertisers don’t want their ads alongside them. Now, many of these news sites are rethinking their commenting systems, with a view towards cutting down in the bile that’s often spewed by commenters on their site. Typically, these efforts amount to little more than switching comments off or forcing people to use their real names, with many publishers (and pundits) believing that the real problem is anonymity. But anonymity isn’t the issue; the quality and tone of comments is. So if that’s the real problem, why not seek to change it, instead of taking aim at a completely separate issue? As we’ve noted before, Techdirt gets a lot of comments, including the occasional unfriendly one from a jerk. Sometimes this jerk is anonymous — but if they’re a jerk, it doesn’t much matter if they’re anonymous or using their real name. With that in mind, it’s nice to see that some of the sites in the NYT article above are actually looking at ways to tackle the real issue, and not just anonymity — though there are plenty that still seem to think everybody will be nice if they use their real name.

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Last week, when Apple announced version 4.0 of the iPhone OS, it also made a significant change to the license agreement for its iPhone developer program. One section of the agreement was changed to say that iPhone “Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine” — a move that blocks developers from using cross-platform development tools and third-party development environments. So, for instance, if a developer already had an app written in .NET, they can no longer use something like Monotouch to port it to the iPhone. There has been a lot of speculation that this was just the latest step in the ongoing spat between Apple and Adobe, since the latter company will soon release a Flash-to-iPhone compiler, triggering a “go screw yourself Apple” from an Adobe employee.

But this move is actually bigger than that: it’s Apple’s attempt to lock developers in solely to the iPhone. Steve Jobs claims “intermediate layers between the platform and the developer ultimately produces sub-standard apps and hinders the progress of the platform”, and they do — from Apple’s perspective. By requiring developers to use Apple’s tools and follow its rules, the hope is that developers will follow along blindly and develop first for the iPhone, since it’s currently the best monetized channel to market for them, and then will develop for other platforms later, if at all. The issue for Apple, though, is that it’s not competing in a vacuum. Everybody and their mother are opening app stores, with other major smartphone platforms like Android and BlackBerry building theirs into viable competitors for the Apple channel. And as the App Store continues to get flooded with apps and becomes more competitive (and it becomes more difficult for developers to earn a living there), its position at the top of the pile is far from assured. At that point, heavy restrictions on developers and the closed ecosystem becomes a real burden for the company, not a benefit.

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