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Fred Wilhelms to Dick Huey …

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 05:44:37 PST

- Entertainment lawyer Fred Wilhelms (right), of whom CounterPunch’s Dave Marsh once said “If the corporate music industry had any ethics, Wilhelms would be its ‘ethicist-in-chief’,” has for two years been pressing SoundExchange board member Dick Huey for questions he (Huey) had promised to answer. Yesterday, Huey finally delivered. Below are Fred’s responses »»» I’ll deal with the substantive portion of your contribution below, but there is one part of your preface that requires comment: You said “I’m not interested in being a SoundExchange conduit for every question you’d like answered – SoundExchange has official communication outlets, which you should engage directly with to answer your questions.” I have, and they don’t answer me. Probably because they don’t have to. Take this example: Over two years ago, I attempted to engage John Simson in a discussion of why SoundExchange does not acknowledge it requires sampling to allocate royalties to artists. I was puzzled because the website didn’t mention sampling, and even said “if you get played, you get paid.” Mr. Simson’s initial response was to tell me that SoundExchange had explained its reliance on sampling in filings with the Copyright Royalty Board, and that artists could read the filings if they wanted to know more. He made no justification for the discrepancy between the website and the actual practice. When I asked him for more information on how SoundExchange actually did the sampling, he promised me an answer multiple times for nearly two months, always telling me I would hear from him “soon.” Finally he referred my inquiries to Neeta Ragoowansi, who picked up where Simson left off and promised me multiple times that I would get my answers “soon.” After six more months of that, I got an email from Simson saying that I WASN’T going to get an answer, but that the subject would be addressed on the website. When would that happen? You guessed it, he said “soon.” And here we are, a year and a half after that promise, and there’s still no answer, and nothing on the website but that inaccurate claim. Since then, repeated inquiries to various “official communications outlets” have been met with dead silence. Maybe you can explain why. Now to what you said in the body of the response. Artist Reps and RIAA control of the process – With the exception of the two performer union representatives, everyone on the Board owes their presence in the room to the RIAA. Your suggestion about any artist putting his or her name up for board membership seems to overlook the fact that the only way they’ll get on the board is if the RIAA approves of them. You completely ignore the fact that if someone campaigns and gets on the board, my fundamental problem with the system remains; that director is not accountable to artists. Accountability goes further than just “insularity and contact info,” it means having to explain to your constituency what you are doing, and demonstrating to them that you are standing up for them, and them having the right to replace you if you fall down on the job. It is my belief that SoundExchange’s poor performance in finding and paying artists can be directly attributed to the fact that the “Artist Rep” Directors don’t have to explain that performance to anyone, because there is no penalty if they don’t. All the suggestions about seeking a seat on the Board doesn’t change that in the slightest. If someone actually “wins” a seat that way, there’s still no obligation for that Director to be any more responsive to artists than the current crew. I think it is time to drop the foolishness of anyone successfully campaigning for a seat at the table and to just admit that the Artist Reps will never be accountable to artists, so artists had better learn to live with it. It isn’t going to change, and it isn’t going to get any better. musicFIRST - If you go back and read my initial response, I correctly identified it as a 501 (c) (6). We are going to have to disagree on what SoundExchange’s “tax exempt mission” is. You, and the lawyers you’re quoting, appear comfortable with the idea that SoundExchange’s mission is broader than the one granted by the Copyright Act, and, I presume those corporate documents you’re quoting are going to be considered “proprietary,” so we’ll never really know for sure. I can only base my opinion on what I see, and I see SoundExchange overreaching the statute and the Tax Code. Maybe someday someone will force you to show the cards you’re holding, but the fact that you’re hiding them doesn’t say a great deal about a desire for transparency if I have to trust you when you say you’re holding high trumps. You are going to have to explain if that thing about “members” paying the cost of musicFIRST includes artists as “members” and/or if it includes forfeited money, because what you quoted is doublespeak, and it certainly doesn’t address what I asked about SoundExchange financing musicFIRST.. The unpaid “pool” – It is a good thing that SoundExchange wants to pay artists what they are entitled to, but that’s exactly what the organization promised to do when it got the job. And it is a good thing that SoundExchange has retained that money rather than absorb it, even if I think that the real reason why is that SoundExchange is not now, and never has been, in compliance with the regulation that that money be held in segregated accounts for three years before being forfeited, and the organization can’t risk someone actually challenging you to prove you comply. (This is another one of those areas where your “official communications outlets” have been strangely silent. I simply asked, several times, where those segregated accounts were being held, and where they were identified on the 990. There’s never been an answer to either part. I think you can start to understand why waiting for a response from a SoundExchange “official communications outlet” is a study in futility.) You say the reserve is there to pay every artist in full. It pains me to be this blunt, but you can’t point to a nine-figure reserve and tell me you have to have it to pay artists, when the only reason you have it is that you haven’t paid the artists. I warned you not to play me stupid, but this comes awfully close to testing my limit on that warning. $101 million as of the end of 2007, an estimated $186 million as of the end of 2008. That’s a terrible record, and it’s heading in the wrong direction. The size of that fund is not a good thing, and don’t try to make a virtue out of it. Communications – If I am wrong about the number of artists who have been removed from the unregistered list, what is the RIGHT number? I don’t need names (although I would love to have them, as I have been tracking that list for nearly three years). Just give me the number so I know how SoundExchange has done in finding people since we ended the last grassroots campaign in July, 2008. You see, Mr. Huey, this is a microcosm of the problems a lot of people have with SoundExchange; we can see one thing (a list with few deletions in the last year), and SoundExchange tells us another (there are a lot of artists who have been taken off the list.) This is the sum and substance of SoundExchange’s image. Mr. Huey, that list represents SoundExchange’s ONLY public effort to find those artists, and even more embarrassing than the few names taken off is the realization that not one name has been added in nearly three years (January, 2007 was the date of the last supplemental listing). You and I know that SoundExchange hasn’t found everyone who has been played on Internet radio since then, so I know that if you actually updated the list today, you would be adding tens of thousands of new names, and adding legitimate fuel to the argument that I’ve been making about SoundExchange’s failure to do the job it promised to do. I wish to Hell you could prove me wrong about this. I want SoundExchange to do a great job, but there’s no evidence they even want to. And Mr. Huey, if you have four in house, and four outside people working on the list and can only point to a handful of names coming off, it is a waste of manpower. Take that from someone who volunteered several dozen hours of his time to teach (at the personal request of John Simson and Neeta Ragoowansi) one of your “consultants” how to look for, find, contact and register people, and even gave him a list of over three hundred artist contacts. Sadly, I followed up a number of them six months later (when I noticed the names still on the list) to find that few of them had been contacted by SoundExchange or the consultant, who seemed oddly more excited about finding some of his own musical heroes than reducing the list. And take that from someone who, as part of a grass roots effort without SoundExchange’s resources, or even acknowledgement, consistently have found more people on the list, and found them faster, than the eight people you’ve named. Small webcasters – My comment was directed to your suggestion that Pandora’s charging for high-volume users was part of their business plan. I noted that it was established to discourage high-volume use and restrict their exposure to deadly royalty rate increases, not to increase revenue. The fundamental problem I have with the royalty rate structure is that SoundExchange has decided that maximizing royalty revenue now is the appropriate thing to do for all Entertainment lawyer Fred Wilhelms, of whom CounterPunch’s Dave Marsh once said “If the corporate music industry had any ethics, Wilhelms would be its ‘ethicist-in-chief’,” has for two years been pressing SoundExchange board member Dick Huey for questions he (Huey) said he’d answer. Internet radio - The danger of exceeding revenue/listener caps, with the virtual death sentence of retroactive rate increases, greatly inhibits experimentation with business models by penalizing success. Even if SoundExchange would just do away with that retroactive death penalty would be a lot better for webcasters to innovate. If you really want to address the idea that the discussion is not equally balanced for all artists, you have to acknowledge that SoundExchange’s “one hammer clobbers all” approach doesn’t work either. Metadata – My primary concern about metadata is that labels will find it a free alternative to the marketing information and analysis they currently spend millions of dollars a year on (can you say “Big Champagne?”), and that artists would be paying half the bill for building it. Normally, there are restrictions placed on the use of this kind of collected data when it comes from a non-profit source, and I would expect a Director of a non-profit entity to know that (or be told that by your counsel). You’ll forgive me if I find it dubious that there will be any effective Chinese wall built between the airplay data and the labels. So, what I see is that SoundExchange creates a very valuable resource it’s labels get for free when the artists have paid half the bill for it and most of them can’t get access themselves. SoundExchange will be providing something of commercial value to others in violation of its tax exemption. If you’re comfortable with that, there’s nothing anyone except the IRS can do about it. The issue of artists not getting access to the play data is only part of the problem of them not being members. Their general rights in regard to getting information from SoundExchange are extremely limited. Access to play data is only part of it. My suggestions for artist outreach – I think you’re going to find that I’ve given them all to SoundExchange at one time or another, starting back in 2004 when John Simson first asked for my help in finding artists, then jerked me around for two and a half years every time I contacted him to follow up on his request before SoundExchange finally published the unregistered list. The website – I’ll believe the improvements when I see them. I’ve been told “soon” for too long to simply believe it anymore. Permit my simple skepticism here, but I don’t think letting SoundExchange have a column on the unregistered list where they can say “we’ve already found this guy, so it’s his fault he’s on the list” is really going to help matters. You’ll have to explain why this will be an improvement in service, and not just an excuse. You see, Mr. Huey, when we get down to it, that’s really a perfect example of the core problem I have with SoundExchange, and I think it is one you can address without having to give away state secrets: No one from SoundExchange will ever admit there’s ever a problem. You didn’t even do it in your response, carefully avoiding addressing things (like the one-third of the 2006 royalties still undistributed in March 2009) that defy excuse. SX doesn’t come off as credible when it denies what everyone else can see. “The first step to recovery is admitting there is a problem, according to every twelve-step program I’ve ever heard of,” says Fred adding: “It’s time for SoundExchange to admit it has problems.” Stay tuned. Follow on Twitter. More First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi November, 2009 Use free newsfeeds for your site. It’s really easy! Subscribe to .net | | rss feed: http:// .net/p2p.rss | | Mobile – http:// .net/index-wml.php Net access blocked by government restrictions? Use Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto. Go here for details.

Music lovers of the world, Unite!

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 05:20:17 PST

news view Music | P2P | Politics:- When you see ***** of the World Unite in a headline, it’s usually a joke of some kind. ‘Workers of the World Unite’ was “one of the most famous rallying cries of communism,” says the Wikipedia, and the phrase has been lampooned over and over again. However, with the first word replaced by ‘Music Lovers’, it’s no joke in 2009 as the entertainment industry, with the major record labels out front, subborns world governments in purely corporate interests. The Hollywood and Big Music appointee in the British Labour government is ‘lord’ Peter Mandelson — unelected. Rather, he was inserted “by his friend Gordon Brown,” as KevinH points out in a Reader’s Write. He’s been named Britain’s official government ‘face’ as national elections, expected in spring, approach. He’s now demanding dictatorial powers to wield against online music lovers. And if he gets them, it’ll be the thin end of a wedge which will eventually be used every time the government wants something, anything, done without public knowledge or consent. We can’t let this happen and I’m proposing the formation of a global OMLC – Online Music Lovers Coalition. Mandelson, Gordon Brown, and every other politician who believes vested corporate interests come before those of the people, must be shown we, and not they, call the shots. ‘The power to do anything’ Secretary of state Peter Mandelson “is planning to introduce changes to the Digital Economy Bill now under debate in Parliament,” said Boingboing yesterday, continuing: “These changes will give the Secretary of State (Mandelson — or his successor in the next government) the power to make “secondary legislation” (legislation that is passed without debate) to amend the provisions of Copyright, Designs and Patents Act (1988)”. That would give an unelected official “the power to do anything without Parliamentary oversight or debate, provided it was done in the name of protecting copyright,” said Cory Doctorow in the post, going on »»» Mandelson elaborates on this, giving three reasons for his proposal: 1. The Secretary of State would get the power to create new remedies for online infringements (for example, he could create jail terms for file-sharing, or create a “three-strikes” plan that costs entire families their internet access if any member stands accused of infringement) 2. The Secretary of State would get the power to create procedures to “confer rights” for the purposes of protecting rightsholders from online infringement. (for example, record labels and movie studios can be given investigative and enforcement powers that allow them to compel ISPs, libraries, companies and schools to turn over personal information about Internet users, and to order those companies to disconnect users, remove websites, block URLs, etc) 3. The Secretary of State would get the power to “impose such duties, powers or functions on any person as may be specified in connection with facilitating online infringement” (for example, ISPs could be forced to spy on their users, or to have copyright lawyers examine every piece of user-generated content before it goes live; also, copyright “militias” can be formed with the power to police copyright on the web) “If we can’t stop this, it’s beginning of the end for the net in Britain,” says Cory Doctorow in the Boingboing post, going on »»» It’s a declaration of war by the entertainment industry and their captured regulators against the principles of free speech, privacy, freedom of assembly, the presumption of innocence, and competition. This proposal creates the office of Pirate-Finder General, with unlimited power to appoint militias who are above the law, who can pry into every corner of your life, who can disconnect you from your family, job, education and government, who can fine you or put you in jail. But Britain is only the tip of the iceberg. This isn’t a local issue, and Mandelson is no more than the UK front man for Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony Music, and Disney, News Corp, Time Warner, Viacom, NBC Universal and Sony Pictures, as they try to use their Three Strikes and you’re Gone scheme to gain control of online product and content distribution by turning governments into copyright agents, the bill footed by local taxpayers, and ISPs into enforcers, acting against their own clients. Online Music Lovers Coalition I’m proposing the formation of a global OMLC — Online Music Lovers Coalition — with individual chapters in countries such France, New Zealand, and South Korea where entertainment cartel lobbyists with unlimited and financial and political resources have set up shop, usurping elected administrations. We can use it to make it clear that in the 21st century our will, and not theirs, is what’s important. This morning in Ottawa, Canada, UK recording artist Billy Bragg will join New Democrat Charlie Angus to “talk about how artists, not corporate lawyers, are taking the lead on establishing basic rules for the development of digital culture online”. “The internet brings fans and artists closer together than ever before and brings great benefits to both,” said Bragg, a co-founder of the new artists-to-fans-to-artsts site, a2f2a.com. “Let’s not allow the record industry to keep us apart in order to protect their old broken business model.” Let’s not. Also present will be the Songwriters Association of Canada’s Don Quarles, and Wide Mouth Mason’s Safwan Javad, who’ll represent the Canadian Music Creators Coalition. But the most important people of all, the ones upon whom everything political, musical, you name it, depends, are missing. You and I. Because we have no one to represent us. Corporate corruption is now endemic around the world with industry efforts to gain control of music on the internet only one manifestation of it. We used to be called the Great Unwashed, the Silent Masses, but thanks to the net, that’s no longer true, and we’re no longer silent. In the 21st digital century, we have a voice which can’t be ignored. The world is changing and as our online communities continue to grow, our powers of persuasion and our abilities to directly influence actions and events are expanding exponentially. It’s called People2People Power and no one can stand against it. Can an Online Music Lovers Coalition be put together? I believe it can and if you agree, as a first step, no matter what country you’re in, email me at 2 shaw dot ca and let’s see if we can create a working group to hammer out the how-to’s and get the ball rolling. 10 years ago, this could never have happened, but the net is the Great Equaliser, so in the words of John, Paul, George and Ringo, let’s come together. Right now … Stay tuned. Jon Newton – online citizen Follow on Twitter. More First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi government ‘face’ – Anti-P2P politician UK government ‘TV face’, November 16, 2009 protecting copyright – Biggest copyright sting in history, November 20, 2009 Boingboing – Leaked UK government plan to create “Pirate Finder General” with power to appoint militias, create laws, November 19, 2009 establishing basic rules – Billy Bragg, Charlie Angus, on digital culture, November 19, 2009 Use free newsfeeds for your site. It’s really easy! 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p2pnet World Headlines: Nov 19, 2009, #2

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 11:19:59 PST

AOL: We Need to Fire 2,500 ‘Volunteers’ All Things Digital AOL, which has already told investors it will spend up to $200 million firing a good chunk of its staff, has now told employees. The company is looking for “up to 2,500 volunteers,’ CEO Tim Armstrong told his staff today. That’s a third of AOL’s payroll. The voluntary layoff program begins Dec. 4, a few days before the company spins off from Time Warner (TWX). If AOL doesn’t get enough volunteers, it will ax people on its own. This is lousy news for employees, who are faced with a “jump now or wait to be pushed’ decision, but it is designed to cheer investors: AOL says the cuts will drop its annual operating expenses by $300 million. Through the first nine months of this year, AOL’s operating expenses ran around $1.8 billion. Porn and gaming sites common destinations for city workers: study The Local Surfing for porn, illegal file sharing, and online gambling are common activities for users of municipality-owned computers in Jönköping in central Sweden, a recent analysis shows. Over the period of one month, officials measured how employees and students in Jönköping used the municipality’s 8,000 computers. The results, which were presented on Wednesday, took city officials by surprise. At times, up to 80 percent of the municipality’s internet capacity was used for file sharing, an activity which is oftentimes illegal. In addition, employees and students spent an unexpectedly large amount of time visiting websites featuring pornography, weapons, racist messages, games, and online gambling. New Program Offers Bloggers Free Legal Help MediaPost The Citizen Media Law Project is launching a new program that will provide free legal help to small news sites and bloggers. The initiative, Online Media Legal Network, aims to assist Web publishers with a broad array of legal issues, ranging from handling complaints about copyright to dealing with threatened defamation lawsuits to filing incorporation papers. A large roster of lawyers, including First Amendment specialists like Marc Randazza and firms like Baker & McKenzie, Davis Wright Tremaine, Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal has already signed on. In addition, nine law school clinics have agreed to participate. The Citizen Media Law Project is jointly affiliated with Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society and Arizona State University’s Center for Citizen Media; the Knight Foundation is funding the new initiative. The new program is designed for independent journalists who write about matters of public interest. People who engage in original reporting (or “use traditional news sources in new and innovative ways”) and adhere to standards of “truth, fairness and transparency,” will receive first priority, according to the program’s FAQ. College students arrested for not paying tip Philly.com It was an evening out that college students Leslie Pope and John Wagner will long remember. Not only did they get what they called lousy service, they got handcuffed and arrested. All over a $16.35 tip. They were with a half-dozen friends at the Lehigh Pub in Bethlehem last month, so the establishment tacked what it called a mandatory 18 percent gratuity onto the bill of about $73, according to reports. Pope and Wagner refused to pay. UK police make 2 Trojan computer virus arrests Associated Press A couple suspected of helping spread some of the Internet’s most aggressive computer viruses has been arrested in the English city of Manchester, police said Wednesday. Scotland Yard’s electronic crimes unit said a man and a woman, both 20, were arrested Nov. 3 on suspicion of helping spread malicious Trojan computer programs sometimes known as “Zbot” or “ZeuS.” Police said the viruses are thought to have infected tens of thousands of computers worldwide, and one technology consultant described them as the “most notorious pieces of malware of recent times.” EU ombudsman rebukes EU over errors in Intel case Reuters The European Ombudsman rebuked European Union regulators on Wednesday for procedural errors in their antitrust probe of Intel but the censure will not affect a 1.06 billion euro ($1.58 billion) fine against the U.S. chipmaker. The European Commission levied the record fine in May for illegally shutting out rival AMD. The ombudsman’s decision is non-binding but it could help the world’s No. 1 chipmaker in its appeal against the ruling to Europe’s second-highest court. James Murdoch sees smaller role for newspapers Reuters Newspapers will play a smaller role in News Corp’s operations in future as the group focuses on more profitable pay-TV operations in western Europe and India, the group’s head of Europe and Asia said. James Murdoch, son of News Corp chief executive Rupert Murdoch, also said the company would remain conservative in its use of capital. “We do not feel, looking at the overall environment, that we are out of the woods yet,” he said. “We have got to continue to be pretty cautious.” James Murdoch, told an investor conference that News Corp, the world’s biggest news company, expected to have smaller audiences for online news when it starts charging readers next spring, but journalism would still play a part in the group. Follow on Twitter. More First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi November, 2009 Use free newsfeeds for your site. It’s really easy! 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Biggest copyright sting in history

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 10:52:32 PST

- The British Labour Government has come up with “the most radical copyright proposal I’ve ever seen,” posts Boingboing. More radical than disconnecting people if they fail to toe the corporate entertainment cartel party line? Yup. Head slap, who told us about this in a Reader’s Write, wonders if it isn’t some kind of joke, quoting a cut from the post, to wit »»» Secretary of State Peter Mandelson is planning to introduce changes to the Digital Economy Bill now under debate in Parliament. These changes will give the Secretary of State (Mandelson — or his successor in the next government) the power to make “secondary legislation” (legislation that is passed without debate) to amend the provisions of Copyright, Designs and Patents Act (1988). What that means is that an unelected official would have the power to do anything without Parliamentary oversight or debate, provided it was done in the name of protecting copyright. But it’s no joke, no more than is the Three Strikes entertainment industry business plan that’ll soon become law in the UK, if Mandelson and his Big Music and Hollywood pals have their way. ‘Unworkable and unlawful … ‘ Beau Bo D’Or (from whence came the pic) says Petey is trying to “set up biggest copyright sting in history,” linking to a Guardian article which states »»» In a letter to Harriet Harman, the leader of the house and head of the committee responsible for determining changes to such legislation, Mandelson says he is “writing to seek your urgent agreement” to changes to the 1988 Copyright, Designs and Patents Act “for the purposes of facilitating prevention or reduction of online copyright infringement”. By writing to Harman, the business secretary is seeking to get the change made through a “statutory instrument” – in effect, an update to the existing bill that the government can push through using its parliamentary majority. That can be done with the minimum of parliamentary time, which is already at a premium. The letter, which is circulating inside the government, comes as ministers prepare to publish the digital economy bill at 7.30am tomorrow. That is expected to set out a “three strikes” policy under which people who are found to be illicitly downloading copyrighted material have their internet connections withdrawn after three warnings. Internet service providers have warned that the scheme is unworkable and unlawful. The proposed alteration to the Copyright Act would create a new offence of downloading material that infringes copyright laws, as well as giving new powers or rights to “protect” rights holders such as record companies and movie studios – and, controversially, conferring powers on “any person as may be specified” to help cut down online infringement of copyright. The changes proposed seem small – but are enormously wideranging, given both the breadth of even minor copyright infringement online, where photographs and text are copied with little regard to ownership, and the complexity of ownership. Mandelson says in his letter that he is concerned about “cyberlockers” – websites that offer users private storage spaces whose contents can be shared by passing a web link via email. “These can be used entirely legitimately, but recently rights holders have pointed to them as being used for illegal use,” Mandelson writes in the letter. But the proposal to alter the Copyright Act in this way has caused alarm within government, where some fear that an incoming Tory administration could use it to curry favour with Murdoch, head of the News International publishing group. “They’ve seen that file-sharing is essentially unpoliceable, but the net effect is that a future secretary of state could change copyright law as they see fit,” said one Labour insider. In his letter, Mandelson sets out the expected reaction from the three groups who would be affected by the changes: rights holders such as record companies, internet service providers (ISPs), and consumers. “I expect rights holders to welcome this and to support it. ISPs are likely to be neutral until it is clear what effect it will have on them in terms of costs.” Consumer groups “are likely to oppose [the move] but will see it may lead to further unquantifiable measures against infringing consumers.” “He also expects “a great deal of scrutiny” of the idea in parliament, says the story. But not worry, eh Pete? Your mates — Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony Music and Disney, News Corp, Time Warner, Viacom, NBC Universal and Sony Pictures — will be busily greasing wheels behind closed doors. Follow on Twitter. More First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi Boingboing – Leaked UK government plan to create “Pirate Finder General” with power to appoint militias, create laws, November 19, 2009 Guardian – Mandelson seeks to amend copyright law in new crackdown on filesharing, November 19, 2009 entertainment cartel party line – Britain changes 3 strikes to 2 strikes, November 18, 2009 Use free newsfeeds for your site. It’s really easy! Subscribe to .net | | rss feed: http:// .net/p2p.rss | | Mobile – http:// .net/index-wml.php Net access blocked by government restrictions? Use Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto. Go here for details. News Politics Peter Mandelson Mandelson seeks to amend copyright law in new crackdown on filesharing

Dmitriy Guzner vs Scientology

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 09:51:22 PST

- Three days before his 20th birthday, Dmitriy Guzner was looking at up to two-and-half years in jail and amost $119,000 in fines after pleading guilty to “unauthorized impairment of a protected computer” —- —- a Cult of Scientology computer. “In January 2008, online hackers launched a massive attack on the Church of Scientology’s websites, forcing the church to hire computer security experts to reinstate its online presence,” says nj.com. In the end, only one Guzner, from Verona, New Jersey, “caught the attention of federal authorities after a YouTube video of a protest of the Church of Scientology in New York City identified one of the participants — the individual in the center — as ‘Aendy,’ which is also Guzner’s online handle,”says the story, going on: “According to the Anonymous website whyweprotest.net, the group was upset by the church’s attempts to suppress a leaked promotional video featuring actor and Scientologist Tom Cruise, who made enthusiastic claims about the religion.” “I think they were relying on a very simple premise, that the number of people arrested and convicted of these kinds of attacks is very low,” said Jose Nazario, manager of security research at Arbor Networks, which helps companies keep their websites secure. Video from Scientology raid in New York by the group Anonymous The FBI and US Secret Service, as part of the Electronic Crimes Task Force in Los Angeles, “worked together to identify Aendy as Guzner,”says nj.com, continuing, “They searched his home in Brooklyn and turned up a Guy Fawkes mask.” Prosecutors “have recommended Guzner be sentenced to 12 months to 18 months with no chance of parole, followed by two to three years of probation,” says nj.com adding: “Three weeks ago, a second man was charged in connection with the DDoS attack. A federal grand jury in Los Angeles indicted Brian Thomas Mettenbrink on charges of conspiracy and transmission of a code, information, program or command to a protected computer. The 20-year-old is accused of participating in the attack from his Iowa State University dorm room, according to the indictment. “In March 2008, before his arrest, Guzner posted on an online message board a link to a site he created for a class. Instead of using filler text for one sample page, he included a narrative that spoofs the Tom Cruise video, based on Cruise’s claim that Scientologists are the only ones who can help in a car crash.” Cruise is “depicted rescuing a woman from a four-car pileup on the freeway: ‘Stand back, emergency workers,’ Cruise says in the story, which is widely copied on Anonymous websites. ‘Put down your jaws-of-life and crowbars. I am a Scientologist’.” Follow on Twitter. More First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi nj.com – Verona man admits role in attack on Church of Scientology’s websites, November 16, 2009 leaked promotional video – It’s wild, it’s wooly! Tom Cruise video transcribed, January 18, 2008 Use free newsfeeds for your site. It’s really easy! Subscribe to .net | | rss feed: http:// .net/p2p.rss | | Mobile – http:// .net/index-wml.php Net access blocked by government restrictions? Use Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto. Go here for details.

TweeBating – online, real time

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 09:10:30 PST

- Last week I sat around a large table on the top floor of Bush House in London with about twenty other people while we talked about the ways radio is changing and tried to imagine how English-language programming on BBC World Service could take advantage of the online, multimedia world that is emerging around us. I was invited because I appear on Digital Planet each week to think out loud about the impact of technology on our lives, but this was an internal BBC meeting rather than an open seminar, and the discussion was never intended to be made public. That didn’t stop one of the other attendees, technology correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones, from recording a segment of the introductory remarks that Ben Hammersley, the associate editor of Wired UK, made and posting it online via AudioBoo. And it didn’t stop several of us tweeting about our presence, or me posting a photo of the Rory at his end of the table on yfrog. None of us revealed the substance of the debate, and the online activity was in some ways just a good way of making the point that the world has changed, but we could easily have crossed the line with an ill-considered tweet. It wasn’t the only time that week that I broke the implicit social rules at an event. On Tuesday I was one of the fortunate few to have acquired a ticket for Boffoonery, a benefit event for Bletchley Park that featured great comics like Robin Ince and Robert Llewellyn performing for a cause that’s dear to my heart. During the show I was taking photos, updating my Facebook status and twittering away in a manner that would have got me kicked out of the National Theatre but seemed entirely appropriate for an event that began with geek pinup Simon Singh showing us a real enigma machine. I did it again the very next day when I spoke conference organised by Nominet, the company that runs the .uk domain name registry. During a lively panel session I tweeted about the event, posted a photo of the ‘panel-eye view’ and even used Google to look up the details of the ENUM service that translates a VOIP telephone number into a domain name so I could answer a question. At the end of our session the chair, broadcaster Sarah Montague, expressed her surprise that we been checking our mobile phones so openly, and Wendy Hall, Michele Neylon and I all loudly protested that we hadn’t been reading emails but engaging in debate with the audience, although I’m not convinced we persuaded her that we weren’t just being impolite. Thanks to the easy connectivity provided by smartphones and the growing number of people connecting online through social media sites it is now possible to reach out to the audience at an event or people anywhere in the world while talking on a panel, speaking on stage or sitting in an audience. The shift in the boundaries was in the news this week for much more serious and sombre reasons. On Friday Major Nidal Malik Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, shot dead 13 people and wounded many others at Fort Hood army base in Texas. Once the military authorities realised what was happening the base was locked down and information was provided through a US Army spokesperson but one of the soldiers caught inside Fort Hood, Tearah Moore, used her cameraphone to tweet and upload photographs throughout the incident. Tearah Moore has been widely criticised for doing this. Much of what she said was incorrect, as although she was present she did not actually see much of what was happening, and she seems to have posted without any consideration for the feelings or privacy of those affected. [ ... ] One of the most trenchant criticisms of this ’social reporting’ came from Paul Carr [who] notes that: ‘For all the sound and fury, citizen journalism once again did nothing but spread misinformation… and breach the privacy of those who had been killed or wounded. We learned not a single new fact, nor was a single life saved.’ The contrast between me tweeting from a conference panel and the tragic events at Fort Hood is of course enormous, but it shows the range of situations now being affected by the new social media. The challenge posed by easy access to online tools and services affects everything. Paul Carr doesn’t believe we can or should try to stop this or censor what is published, but thinks that ‘we need to get back to a point as a society where – without thinking – we put our humanity before our ego’. It’s a point echoed by Kathryn Corrick, one of the shrewder observers of the social media scene. In a typically eloquent blog post on ‘the ethics of real-time social reporting’ she points out that ‘gossip and news has always travelled quickly. What’s different is the reach and speed now possible and the wider and deeper impact.’ Our social rules seem to have been overloaded by our mobile phones, netbooks and laptops, because behaviours developed for the industrial age simply cannot cope with the new possibilities for information sharing. We are clearly going to see a lot more inappropriate use of social media before new rules emerge. Bill Thompson – andfinally.com [Thompson is a UK-based writer and broadcaster. He has a weekly column on the BBC WebWise site, and contributes both on and off-line to The Guardian, The Register and The New Statesman, among others. His "inappropriately-titled 'billblog' "appears weekly on BBC News Online in the technology news section.] Follow on Twitter. More First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi November, 2009 Use free newsfeeds for your site. It’s really easy! Subscribe to .net | | rss feed: http:// .net/p2p.rss | | Mobile – http:// .net/index-wml.php Net access blocked by government restrictions? Use Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto. Go here for details.

UCLA tuition riots: 14 arrested, 1 tasered

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 08:54:27 PST

- The full headline is, ‘32% Inflation in UCLA Tuition Causes Near Riots (14 Arrested, 1 Tasered).’ It’s on GooTube and, “It’s just insane, here,” says the voiceover. “About 30 students stormed UCLA’s Campbell Hall and barricaded the doors with chains and bike locks early this morning to protest a student fee increase that is expected to be endorsed by the University of California’s Board of Regents today,” says the Los Angeles Times, going on »»» [Updated at 8:39 a.m.: The UC Regents have started to meet, and hundreds of students have surrounded the building, protesting the proposed fee hike.] Students who spent the night were sprawled outside Campbell Hall in sleeping bags. They carried posters and signs that read, “Don’t take our education away” and “Don’t privatize, democratize.” Many wore bandannas over their faces. Dozens of other students spent the night camped out in tents on top of Parking Structure 4. Hundreds of other students are expected to join the protesters and demonstrate at the UC Regents meeting that will take place later today. “The proposed two-step student fee increase would raise UC undergraduate education costs more than $2,500, or 32%.The annual cost of a UC education, not including campus-based fees would rise to $10,302. says the story. Follow on Twitter. More Los Angeles Times – Students storm UCLA building to protest expected UC system fee increase [Updated], November 19, 2009 Use free newsfeeds for your site. It’s really easy! Subscribe to .net | | rss feed: http:// .net/p2p.rss | | Mobile – http:// .net/index-wml.php Net access blocked by government restrictions? Use Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto. Go here for details.

School employee fired for comment post

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 08:38:35 PST

- “Have you gone out on a limb for a meal? What’d you try? Did you like it? Have you had friends or family who have tried stuff on a dare?” Kurt Greenbaum (right) asked that on the St Louis Post-Dispatch web page under the headline ‘What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever eaten? And did you like it?’ No surprise, he got all kinds of interesting responses. But, “The headline was practically asking for a juvenile response and, thanks to the anonymity of the internet, that’s exactly what happened.,” says ReadWriteWeb, going on: “In the comments section of the article, one user posted a single word response referring to a part of a woman’s anatomy. Of course, the site’s moderators quickly deleted the comment but it soon reappeared – obviously this juvenile was intent on having their say.” I know how that goes. But this time, the site’s ‘director of social media,’ Greenbaum, “did a little sleuthing,” says the story, going on, “and that’s where this story starts to get interesting”. Greenbaum tracked down the poster’s IP address and told the school, ReadWriteWeb says, continuing, “In his defense, he probably thought he was simply tattle-telling on a naughty student who would learn a valuable lesson about internet anonymity and would have to sit through a week’s detention or something of the like.” But this wasn’t a kid. It was a school employee who, as a direct consequence of Greenbaum’s initiative, lost his job. This kind of thing can’t happen on , though. Even if we wanted to rat someone out, which we’d never do under any circumstance, we couldn’t. We’ve always treasured freedom of speech and for that reason, we’ve never logged IP addresses. In other words, anonymous comments on really are anonymous. Was Greenbaum doing the right thing? No way. I see this kind of thing every now and then. I just delete it. End of story. Jon Newton – Follow on Twitter. More St Louis Post-Dispatch – What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever eaten? And did you like it, November 13, 2009 ReadWriteWeb – Leaving a Vulgar Comment Online Might Cost You Your Job, November 18, 2009 Use free newsfeeds for your site. It’s really easy! Subscribe to .net | | rss feed: http:// .net/p2p.rss | | Mobile – http:// .net/index-wml.php Net access blocked by government restrictions? Use Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto. Go here for details.

p2pnet World Headlines: Nov 19, 2009, #1

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 06:25:13 PST

Hi all: I have a lot of stuff happening in the background (as well as being hit by this bug that’s going around) so from today until next week, sometime, I’ll mainly be posting headline roundups, although they’ll be interspersed with stories, if and when I can manage it. But normal service WILL be resumed, and as soon as possible. If you want to help out in the meanwhile, please send submissions (anonymous or named) to @ shaw dot ca. Cheers! And thanks … Jon _______________ Composers and lyricists make pitch to join Teamsters New York Times David Carbonara has a gig many of his peers would covet: He writes music for the critically acclaimed AMC show “Mad Men.” A former jazz trombonist, Carbonara loves his job and is grateful for the work. Yet even after he labors on 13 episodes for a full year, he says he won’t earn enough to support his family. A one-hour basic cable TV show like “Mad Men” pays $7,000 to $13,000 an episode, but at least half of that goes toward hiring musicians, paying for studio time, copying music and other costs that composers like Carbonara increasingly absorb as studios look to lower their expenses. “You have to work 26 shows in a year to earn a living,” said Carbonara, a graduate of the Berklee College of Music in Boston who recently began work on an ABC drama without any idea as to when, or how much, he would be paid. “People don’t understand what we go through.” Unlike most other workers in Hollywood, Carbonara can’t complain to a union about his pay rate or working conditions. That’s because he doesn’t have one. In a heavily unionized industry, composers and lyricists are an anomaly in Hollywood. Along with production assistants, theirs are among the few remaining crafts not covered by a union contract. Telus sues Rogers over ad claims Globe &Mail The wireless phone company with the cute and cuddly animals is baring its fangs. Telus Corp., whose advertisements are known for colourful goats and frogs, is suing its rival Rogers Communications Inc. for what it claims are false and misleading advertisements that suggest the latter’s cellphone and data network is faster and more reliable than Telus’s own network. The dispute stems from the fact that Telus launched a new high-speed network two weeks ago, which it says brings it up to speed with the Rogers service, and thus blunts long-held claims of superiority made by Rogers. Telus says Rogers spurned requests made two weeks ago to remove its ads, prompting the Vancouver-based cellphone company to file a statement of claim in the Supreme Court of British Columbia seeking damages. Hulu lands first music label deal CNetNews Hulu, the Web’s No. 2 video service attracting viewers by offering full-length films and TV shows, now wants to become a video jukebox. Singer Norah Jones will be the first EMI artist to appear on Hulu as part of a new agreement between the companies. EMI Music, one of the four largest recording companies, struck a deal to offer its artists’ select concert footage and music videos on Hulu. Music videos have appeared at Hulu before but this is the site’s first wide-ranging agreement with a major label, EMI said in a statement. Exclusive material from singer Norah Jones will help kick off the deal. The partnership with EMI means Hulu, formed by News Corp. and NBC Universal, will compete more with YouTube for music fans. China military site draws hackers BBC The Chinese military defence website was subjected to 2.3 million hacking attempts in its first month online according to officials. “When there were major events taking place related to the military and national defense, the number of (cyber) attacks rose,” said editor Ji Guilin. Follow on Twitter. More First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi November, 2009 Use free newsfeeds for your site. It’s really easy! Subscribe to .net | | rss feed: http:// .net/p2p.rss | | Mobile – http:// .net/index-wml.php Net access blocked by government restrictions? Use Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto. Go here for details.

‘Stopping the ACTA juggernaut’

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 05:37:20 PST

- “The ACTA juggernaut continues to roll ahead, despite public indignation about an agreement supposedly about counterfeiting that has turned into a regime for global Internet regulation,” writes EFF international affairs director Eddan Katz in Deep Links. “The Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) has already announced that the next round of Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) negotiations will take place in January — with the aim of concluding the deal ‘as soon as possible in 2010′,” h says, continuing »»» For the rest of us, with access to only leaks and whispers of what ACTA is about, there are many troubling questions. How can such a radical proposal legally be kept so secret from the millions of Net users and companies whose rights and freedoms stand to be affected? Who decides what becomes the law of the land and by what influence? Where is the public oversight for an agreement that would set the legal rules for the knowledge economy? And what can be done to fix this runaway process? We wrestle with these questions in an essay on “The Impact of ACTA on the Knowledge Economy”(PDF here) in the Yale Journal of International Law (November 2009 edition). We explain how ACTA got this far, in this form, and propose four mechanisms for USTR transparency reforms, that will give the public a voice in ACTA, if U.S. citizens — and their elected officials — speak loudly and quickly enough. In brief, the ACTA process has been deliberately more secretive than customary practices in international decision-making bodies to evade the debates about intellectual property (IP) at established multilateral institutions. The Office of the USTR has chosen to negotiate ACTA as a sole executive agreement. Because of a loophole in democratic accountability on sole executive agreements, the Office of the USTR can sign off on an IP Enforcement agenda without any formal congressional involvement at all. But the negotiations do not have to be secret, and the sole executive agreement process does have mechanisms for oversight: they have not been used in ACTA, but can and should be. The excuse for using sole executive agreements is that ACTA will be fully respectful of U.S. law. But the constraint of coloring within the lines of US law, as one anonymous trade official described it, is a fragile linchpin upon which the weight of public trust and democratic legitimacy is bearing down. In an interview with “Inside U.S. Trade”, for their June 19, 2009 edition (paywall link here), the USTR was far less confident: When pressed whether the U.S. would be open to any negotiated difference from U.S. law in the ACTA, the official said that the goal of the U.S. “is to stick as closely to U.S. law as possible.” How can the USTR negotiate an international agreement that sets new global IP enforcement norms requiring changes to U.S. law and policy as an Executive Agreement, without the knowledge or involvement of Congress? Having failed to get similar proposal adopted via the World Customs Organization, the USTR conceived ACTA as a plurilateral agreement, avoiding the checks and balances of existing multilateral norm-setting bodies. After the announcement of ACTA but prior to commencing formal negotiations, the USTR had prepared a confidentiality agreement that it asked all negotiating countries to accept, which explicitly binds the negotiating partners from public disclosure. The USTR has exploited this as the justification for classifying all correspondence between negotiating countries in the interest of national security under Executive Order 12958. The Mexican IP Office, which is hosting the next ACTA negotiations, still gave indications that the documents will not be made available to the public. The Internet Chapter was reportedly delivered to negotiating partners in physical, watermarked copies designed to guard against leaks. If the traditional justification for secrecy in trade negotiations is to safeguard details of sensitive US positions in negotiations for diplomatic advantage over other foreign governments, then why is this confidentiality agreement being used to prevent disclosure of ACTA texts to its own citizens? Upon the expiration of Trade Promotion Authority in 2007, the USTR chose to negotiate ACTA as a sole executive agreement. As a result, ACTA will not require congressional advice and approval, which is integral to the constitution’s delicate balance of executive and legislative powers. As staunch a defender of executive privilege as John Yoo once convincingly argued that the limits of executive power to negotiate foreign agreements on intellectual property matters unchecked would deprive the House of its constitutional function. From early on, civil society has protested ACTA’s secrecy, and despite continued public pressure, the USTR’s transparency theater rehearsals of internal review have concluded that showing a selective few Washington insiders the Internet provisions under non-disclosure agreements would satisfy the demands of openness, transparency, and oversight. Sole executive agreements are not meant to be unaccountable. There are in fact systems in place to stop our executive (and private interests) from having untrammeled power to change the law. We’ve outlined four ways that Congress, or an Administration sincere about transparency, could put their house in order. Reform trade advisory committees for more diverse representation Input to U.S. trade negotiators on IP needs to reflect the views of all stakeholders in the U.S. knowledge economyreform of the current trade advisory committee system to include civil society and technology industry participation in the tier 3 industry trade advisory committee on intellectual property, ITAC-15, or the creation of new equivalent level advisory committees. Public interest values such as health and consumer protection should play an important role in the new bipartisan trade policy for the knowledge economy. to counterbalance the disproportionate influence of lobbyists for incumbent industries. This requires Strengthen congressional oversight and negotiating objectives Congressional oversight of foreign trade negotiations, especially agreements affecting areas of non-trade domestic policy, should require the USTR to comply with negotiating objectives that reflect the interests of all stakeholders in the U.S. economy. In addition to the labor and environmental standards articulated in proposed bills like the TRADE Act (H.R. 3012), IP enforcement provisions in agreements must not undermine internationally agreed upon commitments on public health, and flexibilities that protect citizens’ access to knowledge, nor obstruct IP exceptions and limitations appropriate for the digital age. In addition, the Congressional Oversight Group, a statutory supervisory group comprising members of the House and the Senate designed to liaise with the Trade Representative could conduct a thorough review and certify that the new negotiating objectives have been met before a trade agreement could be brought for a congressional vote. Institutionalize transparency guidelines for trade negotiations Given the significance of the substantive provisions being debated to Internet users, the ACTA process especially should enable citizens to participate and provide input on the public policy impacts like in other negotiations, where it is customary practice to make documents available. The Office of the USTR incorporating these reforms should heed the Attorney General’s instruction to adopt a presumption in favor of disclosure to usher in the President’s new era of open Government. At a minimum, negotiating texts, when distributed to all negotiating countries should be made public. Implement the State Department’s Circular 175 procedure. Finally, the State Department plays an important role in checking the unfettered power of the USTR through its Circular 175 Procedure. These are the regulations that “ensure the proper exercise of the treaty-making power.” The State Department Foreign Affairs Manual goes into great detail on the Legal Advisor’s criteria for review of international agreements. There are multiple procedures on hand, including formal congressional consultation, when there is a serious question regarding the type of agreement being negotiated. [11 FAM 723.4(b)] It is also made clear that the approval of authorization to negotiate does not constitute advance approval of the text or authorization to enter into the agreement. [11 FAM 724.2] The State Department investigates whether the proposed agreement is “in conflict with other international agreements or U.S. law” [11 FAM 722(2)] and whether it follows the “general international practice as to similar agreements.” [11 FAM 723.3(8)] Most significantly for the public’s stake in Internet freedom, the Circular 175 declares that: The interest of the public be taken into account and, where in the opinion of the Secretary of State or his or her designee the circumstances permit, the public be given an opportunity to comment. [11 FAM 725.1(6)] The Office of the USTR transparency practices must be reformed, and they have failed at reforming themselves. Now that the leaked documents confirm everything we feared, it is time to take a look at how we might hold USTR Ambassador Kirk and Assistant McCoy, the lead ACTA negotiator, to account for their promises: On diverse representation for advice on trade: “I can assure you that I am committed to working very closely with Congress and all interested stakeholders on all of our trade agreements and negotiations, including ACTA.” (Ronald Kirk Confirmation Hearings, March 9, 2009) On congressional oversight and legislative power: “Q: Will the ACTA rewrite U.S. law? A: No. Only the U.S. Congress can change U.S. law.” (ACTA Fact Sheet, August 4, 2008) On transparency practices: President Obama’s trade officials met with several civil society groups and promised a thorough review of the USTR policies regarding transparency. The review is expected to be completed within a few months. The process will include a meeting within a month to discuss initial specific proposals for openness and transparency. Citizens and NGOs are encouraged to think about the specific areas where openness and transparency can be enhanced and how. (USTR Transparency Review KEI Report, March 19, 2009 – as reviewed by Daniel Sepulveda, Assistant USTR for Congressional Affairs) On public participation: The ACTA negotiations “[p]articipants also discussed the importance of transparency including the availability of opportunities for stakeholders and the public in general to provide meaningful input into the negotiating process.” (USTR Press Release, November 6, 2009) “Such accountability is available in the U.S. system, but it cannot come from the Office of the USTR alone,” says the EFF’s Katz, adding: “If ACTA is going to regulate the global Internet, we believe that should warrant the opportunity for public comment.” Follow on Twitter. More First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi Deep Links – Stopping the ACTA Juggernaut, November 19, 2009 Use free newsfeeds for your site. It’s really easy! Subscribe to .net | | rss feed: http:// .net/p2p.rss | | Mobile – http:// .net/index-wml.php Net access blocked by government restrictions? Use Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto. Go here for details.