Appeals Court Says California's IMDb-Targeting 'Ageism' Law Is Unconstitutional

from the guess-what-your-tax-dollars-have-been-up-to,-Californians dept

The state of California has lost again in its attempt to punish IMDb (the Internet Movie Database) -- and IMDb alone -- for ageism perpetrated by [checks notes] movie studios who seem to refuse to cast actresses above a certain age in choice roles.

The law passed by the California legislature does one thing: prevents IMDb (and other sites, theoretically) from publishing facts about actors: namely, their ages. This stupid law was ushered into existence by none other than the Screen Actors Guild, capitalizing on a (failed) lawsuit brought against the website by an actress who claimed the publication of her real age cost her millions in Hollywood paychecks.

These beneficiaries of the First Amendment decided there was just too much First Amendment in California. To protect actors from studio execs, SAG decided to go after a third-party site respected for its collection of factual information about movies, actors, and everything else film-related.

The federal court handling IMDb's lawsuit against the state made quick work of the state's arguments in favor of very selective censorship. In only six pages, the court destroyed the rationale offered by the government's finest legal minds. Here's just a sampling of the court's dismantling of this stupid law:

AB 1687 is a direct restriction on speech. The law prohibits certain speakers from publishing certain truthful information – information that, in many instances, is supplied by members of the public – because of concerns that a third party might use that information to engage in illegal conduct.

[...]

SAG-AFTRA contends that publication of facts about the ages of people in the entertainment industry can be banned because these facts "facilitate" age discrimination – an argument that, if successful, would enable states to forbid publication of virtually any fact.

The court also pointed out that the law targeting IMDb did nothing to address the underlying problem. In fact, it appeared the state wasn't even addressing the right problem.

The defendants describe this as a problem of "age discrimination." While that may be accurate on some level, at root it is far more a problem of sex discrimination. Movie producers don't typically refuse to cast an actor as a leading man because he's too old for the leading woman; it is the prospective leading woman who can't get the part unless she's much younger than the leading man. TV networks don't typically jettison male news anchors because they are perceived as too old; it is the female anchors whose success is often dependent on their youth. This is not so much because the entertainment industry has a problem with older people per se. Rather, it's a manifestation of the industry's insistence on objectifying women, overvaluing their looks while devaluing everything else.  

The state appealed and the Ninth Circuit Appeals Court is no more impressed than the lower court. (h/t Courthouse News Service)

Content-based restrictions are generally First Amendment violations. So is the targeting of certain speakers and very specific speech emanating from them. From the opinion [PDF]:

On its face, AB 1687 restricts speech because of its content. It prohibits the dissemination of one type of speech: “date of birth or age information.” And, perhaps more troubling, it restricts only a single category of speakers. Thus, AB 1687 “impose[s] direct and significant restrictions” on a category of speech. It does not apply generally.

The state argued that this only affected subscribers to the site who paid to control the information contained in their profiles. The Appeals Court says this doesn't matter. The law targets more than paid accounts. It forbids the dissemination of age information contributed by third parties.

The statute does not restrict only information misappropriated through the parties’ contractual relationship; it also prohibits the publication of information submitted by members of the public with no connection to IMDb. These restrictions apply regardless of whether an IMDb public profile existed independent of, or prior to, any contractual agreement between IMDb and an IMDbPro subscriber.

Even if money changes hands for paid accounts, the speech being targeted is not "commercial" speech. The site refers to itself as a "database" for a reason. And that nullifies the state's argument.

These free, publicly available profiles are found in an “online database of information” and are surrounded by content that “includes information on cast, production crew, fictional characters, biographies, plot summaries, trivia and reviews.” The content is encyclopedic, not transactional.

The court also dispenses with the state's argument that the publication of age information allows other parties to engage in illegal discrimination. And it does so by pointing out the obvious: the target of anti-discriminatory laws should be the entities that actually engage in discriminatory behavior.

If accepted, SAG’s interpretation of Pittsburgh Press would require this court to permit the restriction not only of speech that proposes an illegal activity but also facially inoffensive speech that a third-party might use to facilitate its own illegal conduct. [...] Rather than restrict truthful speech, the typical “method of deterring unlawful conduct is to impose an appropriate punishment on the person who engages in it.”

The court also notes that the law appears to have been crafted specifically to prevent one site from publishing age information. That's not what "narrowly-tailored" means in the First Amendment sense of the phrase. Narrow tailoring can impose speech restrictions that pass the First Amendment test. Targeting one site while leaving others free to publish what the law says IMDb cannot isn't Constitutional.

On its face, AB 1687 restricts only websites like IMDb.com while leaving unrestricted every other avenue through which age information might be disseminated. This presents serious concerns here because AB 1687 appears designed to reach only IMDb.

[...]

AB 1687 is underinclusive because it fails to reach several potential sources of age information and protects only industry professionals who both subscribe to such service and who opt-in. This malady means that the statute is not narrowly tailored, and thus, is unconstitutional.

And that's it for California's extremely bad law.

Unlawful age discrimination has no place in the entertainment industry, or any other industry. But not all statutory means of ending such discrimination are constitutional. Here, we address content-based restrictions on speech and hold that AB 1687 is facially unconstitutional because it does not survive First Amendment scrutiny.

Even if the law had somehow survived a First Amendment challenge, it still wouldn't have prevented studios from engaging in discriminatory hiring practices. If this was really the state's concerns, it would have stepped up its regulation of the entertainment industry, rather than a single site that was unsuccessfully sued by an actress, who speculated IMDb's publication of her age was the reason she wasn't landing the roles she wanted.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, 9th circuit, ab 1687, actors, age, california, free speech, imdb, truthful information
Companies: amazon, imdb, sag-aftra

Amazon Senses US Isn't Currently Receptive To Its Cop Tech, Puts Rekognition On Mothballs For A Year

from the choosing-your-battles dept

Amazon has spent a few years courting cops with its proprietary facial recognition tech. Documents obtained by the ACLU in 2018 showed the supermassive company was seeking to get a cut of law enforcement's billions by giving them steep discounts on Rekognition, Amazon's branded surveillance tech.

Unfortunately for Americans who may be subjected to this tech, Amazon's brand of facial recognition remains unproven. Tests run by the ACLU managed to get several Congressional reps mistaken for criminals. Amazon responded to the false positives by claiming the ACLU didn't run it at the right accuracy setting. ACLU went with "80% confidence," which is something the tech allows. Amazon claimed only results obtained at the "95% confidence" setting mattered, even though the company does not tell law enforcement to only run Rekognition at that setting.

Amazon has taken a lot of criticism for its tech and its law enforcement hard-sell. It has also taken heat for Rekognition's apparent faults. But it has basically responded with silence. And it had a chance to prove its tech could actually recognize faces, but it chose to sit out NIST's study of more than 80 facial recognition algorithms. Rekognition's accuracy remains unproven.

At long last, Amazon has put its finger to the wind. And it has discovered the air is on fire. Giving cops more surveillance tech is about as popular as most cops at the moment. Rekognition may not be able to accurately recognize faces, but Amazon seems to have a handle on recognizing the obvious: now is not the time for more surveillance tech. From Amazon's blog:

We’re implementing a one-year moratorium on police use of Amazon’s facial recognition technology. We will continue to allow organizations like Thorn, the International Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and Marinus Analytics to use Amazon Rekognition to help rescue human trafficking victims and reunite missing children with their families.

There are a couple of caveats here: the moratorium does not say it applies to other government users that may not be strictly law enforcement agencies. And the moratorium is being put in place to give Congress time to act. Congress may not get anything done in the next year, which means Rekognition could be opened up for business with no meaningful changes.

Then there's this:

We’ve advocated that governments should put in place stronger regulations to govern the ethical use of facial recognition technology, and in recent days, Congress appears ready to take on this challenge. We hope this one-year moratorium might give Congress enough time to implement appropriate rules, and we stand ready to help if requested.

First off, Amazon has hardly been the most vocal advocate of stronger facial recognition tech regulations. Second, this sort of largesse should always be viewed skeptically. When a dominant player in the field calls for more regulation, it's usually with an eye on ensuring it remains dominant. Demanding Congress do something mainly means "do something that our competitors won't be able to comply with." Facial recognition is a crowded field. NIST's study examined 89 different algorithms. Getting Congress to clear out the field a bit is always helpful.

But there's hardly any downside there. We need fewer purveyors of surveillance tech, not more. If it eliminates a few Clearviews, we're probably all better off. But all the same, be wary of large companies calling for more regulation. It usually means they're looking to harm their competitors, rather than become more ethical themselves.

Filed Under: facial recognition, moratorium, police, privacy, regulations, rekognition
Companies: amazon

AT&T's Streaming Headaches Continue As Contract Feuds Keep New TV Service Off Amazon, Roku

from the meet-the-new-boss dept

So we've noted repeatedly how AT&T's entry into the video space hasn't gone according to plan. First, the company spent so much money on mergers ($150 billion for Time Warner and DirecTV) in recent years, it effectively crippled itself with debt. Second, the company passed that merger debt on to most of its customers in the form of price hikes, which defeated the whole point of "cutting the TV cord." Third, AT&T launched so damn many confusing streaming brands simultaneously, it even confused the company's own employees.

Collectively, this resulted in AT&T losing 3.43 million TV subscribers last year alone, which certainly wasn't the kind of sector domination executives originally envisioned.

And there's every indication that things might get worse.

As noted, AT&T already offers a very confusing array of TV services: HBO Go, HBO Now, AT&T Now, AT&T TV, AT&T WatchTV, AT&T U-verse (IPTV) and DirecTV (satellite). Last week the company launched yet another streaming platform, HBO Max. But there's trouble in paradise: because of contractual standoffs with Amazon and Roku, the service apparently won't be appearing on either platform at launch. Given Roku is the most popular streaming hardware in America by a pretty wide margin (39% market share in 2019), that's kind of a problem for AT&T:

"Because of unresolved contractual agreements, anyone who has subscribed to HBO through Amazon, Roku, Comcast or a few other partners will be missing out on all that new content. And while HBO Now is effectively being phased out this week, the network will have to keep HBO Go up and running as a zombie service to give Comcast customers a way to stream.

All of this is more than just a branding nightmare. It's also a reminder of how hard it is for even a big network like HBO to transition to streaming. Pundits have long focused on the growing competition within the industry, dubbing it the "streaming wars." However, some of the most consequential conflicts in this new age of television aren't between Netflix, HBO and Disney, but between the streaming services and the tech companies that have quickly become the new intermediaries, controlling the platforms and devices that deliver movies and TV shows to our homes.

It's interesting to see the tables turned on AT&T, a company routinely used to being in the driver's seat. With Roku now so dominant, AT&T now has to deal with dominant gatekeepers to get its content and services seen on platforms, and so far it's not going particularly great. AT&T had already been in a stand off with Roku that involved the company's creatively-named AT&T TV Now service going dark on all Roku devices. That standoff has now extended to HBO Max, which was supposed to be AT&T's attempt at turning its subscriber losses around.

And while a Roku deal is supposedly getting closer, AT&T remains in a standoff with Amazon over licensing that seems more intractable, given Amazon currently takes a 30-50% cut of HBO subscribers via its "channel" approach to offering other platforms' content:

"Roku is said to be close to a deal, but WarnerMedia has been unable to come to an agreement with Amazon. The ecommerce giant has been distributing HBO online through Amazon Channels, a dedicated marketplace for subscription video services that is tightly integrated into streaming adapters and smart TVs running Amazon's Fire TV platform. Prime Video subscribers can easily add HBO with a few button taps of their Fire TV remote."

So in many ways, the kind of annoying content licensing and retransmission feuds (and annoying blackouts) we saw with traditional cable TV have only simply evolved in the streaming era. But AT&T now finds itself without the kind of power it enjoyed in telecom, where competition is virtually nonexistent and government routinely protected it from the faintest whiff of failure. Even AT&T's attempt to tilt the playing field in its favor to gain leverage in the streaming wars via the net neutrality repeal (ensuring AT&T's unnecessary broadband caps only apply to a competitor's service) isn't likely to help here.

AT&T can probably still right the ship, consolidate its confusing brands, and strike new deals in time. But it's still frequently entertaining to see broadband giants try to compete and innovate after decades of being government pampered monopolies. More often than not, the end result of that steep learning curve (see Verizon's Go90) isn't particularly pretty. Meanwhile, these kinds of standoffs will only lead to frustration and higher piracy rates, which these companies will then blame on everything but themselves a few years from now.

Filed Under: competition, contracts, streaming, video
Companies: amazon, at&t, roku

Local Broadcasters Forget Journalism Ethics, Air Amazon PR Fluff Instead

from the ill-communication dept

While US journalism is certainly in crisis mode, it's particularly bad on the local level, where most local newspapers and broadcasters have been either killed off or consolidated into large corporations, often resulting in something that's less news, and more homogenized dreck (see: that Deadspin Sinclair video from a few years back). Data suggests this shift has a profoundly negative impact on the culture, resulting in fewer investigations of corruption, a more divided and less informed populace, and even swayed political outcomes as nuanced local coverage is replaced with more partisan, national news.

The latest case in point: as Amazon has faced questions about warehouse worker safety during the pandemic, the company has been pushing local news outlets to carry a gushing piece of fluff PR loosely disguised as journalism. More than 11 local broadcasters agreed to do so, and the result is... well, see for yourself:

The spot didn't just involve real reporters reading from a script Amazon provided, it included Amazon PR rep Todd Walker posing as a reporter during the segment:

"Each station introduced Walker as though he were one of their own reporters. He is, in fact, a "PR manager" at Amazon, according to his LinkedIn page. Walker used to be a broadcast journalist, according to his personal website and a sizzle reel he produced for his site."

In reality, Amazon has come under fire recently for ending $2 per hour hazard pay bonuses despite being owned by the wealthiest human being in the history of the planet, something (oddly!) not mentioned during the segments. Nor did the segment bother to mention that at least eight Amazon warehouse workers have died so far during the crisis, resulting in ample criticism from employees about the lack of personal protective equipment and adequate job safeguards. Fortunately not everybody was willing to play along with Amazon, and some journalists were clearly disgusted by the effort:

As media has gotten more consolidated, this kind of fluff has proliferated. Under Section 317 of the Communications Act, broadcasters are allowed to air PR as "news," provided they're clear about where they received the original programming from. Even then, enforcement is sporadic at best, with the last meaningful action from the FCC coming in 2011, when several broadcasters were fined a measly $4,000 for airing advertisements without adequate disclosures.

In this case, it's pretty clear that these broadcasts not only didn't inform viewers that the "news" story came and was produced by Amazon, but they falsely introduced the Amazon PR rep as a station reporter. It's also fairly clear the current Trump FCC won't do much of anything about it.

While the failure of local journalism certainly can be blamed in large part on the failure of local outlets to adapt their business models, the industry is also the victim of relentless merger mania and industry consolidation, resulting in local broadcasters that simply parrot whatever script is handed to them by corporations, politicians, or the national head office (as opposed to doing quality local investigative reporting on things that matter). To cut costs, giants like Sinclair routinely shutter local newsrooms, fire local reporters, and replace more nuanced, non-partisan local reporting with homogenized fluff.

The resulting "news deserts" are often falsely treated as an esoteric problem with an ambiguous impact, but again the data is pretty clear that the end result is a dumber and more divided public, often quite by design.

Filed Under: local news, pr, pr fluff, propaganda, todd walker, tv stations
Companies: amazon

Amazon Sued For Saying You've 'Bought' Movies That It Can Take Away From You

from the this-could-be-interesting dept

For well over a decade we've talked about the many problems that arise when copyright is compared to "property" -- and people try to simply move over concepts from physical, tangible property into the world of digital. A key aspect of this: when you "purchase" something digital online, is it really a "purchase" or is it a "license" (especially a license that could be revoked)? If it was a true "purchase" then you should own it and the seller shouldn't be able to take it back. But in practice, over and over and over again, we've seen stories of people having things they supposedly "bought" disappear. The situation is so crazy that we've referred to it as Schrödinger's Download, in that many copyright holders and retailers would like the very same thing to be a "sale" some of the time, and a "license" some of the time (the "times" for each tend to be when it hurts the consumers the most). This has, at times, seeped into physical goods, where they've tried to add "license agreements" to physical products. Or, worse, when some copyright folks claimed that buying a DVD means you don't actually own what you bought, but rather are merely "purchasing access" to the content, and that could be revoked.

Anyway, I'm amazed that we don't see more lawsuits about this kind of thing -- but one was recently filed in California. Someone named Amanda Caudel is suing Amazon for saying that you've "purchased" a video download, which Amazon might disappear from your library whenever it wants. As the lawsuit makes clear, Amazon directly says that you are buying the movie (as opposed to renting it). From the lawsuit filing itself:

And, they point out, in your account there's a listing of "Your Video Purchases & Rentals." But, the lawsuit claims, what you purchase doesn't seem to behave like a real purchase:

Reasonable consumers will expect that the use of a “Buy” button and the representation that their Video Content is a “Purchase” means that the consumer has paid for full access to the Video Content and, like any bought product, that access cannot be revoked.

Unfortunately for consumers who chose the “Buy” option, this is deceptive and untrue. Rather, the ugly truth is that Defendant secretly reserves the right to terminate the consumers’ access and use of the Video Content at any time, and has done so on numerous occasions, leaving the consumer without the ability to enjoy their already-bought Video Content.

Defendant’s representations are misleading because they give the impression that the Video Content is purchased – i.e. the person owns it - when in fact that is not true because Defendant or others may revoke access to the Video Content at any time and for any reason.

In so representing the “Purchase” of Video Content as true ownership of the content, Defendant took advantage of the (1) cognitive shortcuts made at the point-of-sale, e.g. Rent v. Buy and (2) price of the Video Content, which is akin to an outright purchase versus a rental.

Though some consumers may get lucky and never lose access to any of their paid-for media, others may one day find that their Video Content is now completely inaccessible. Regardless, all consumers have overpaid for the Video Content because they are not in fact owners of the Video Content, despite have paid extra money to “Buy” the product.

The plaintiff (or rather, her lawyers) are trying to make this a class action lawsuit, and are arguing that (among other things) this is false advertising. I am, not surprisingly, sympathetic to the plaintiff -- and remain disappointed at how copyright and similar restrictions are being used to chip away at ownership and actual property rights. That said... I'm not that optimistic the case will get very far. In the past, companies have been able to wiggle out of similar claims, and I'm pretty sure that Amazon tries to push disputes like this to binding arbitration, meaning that the lawsuit may be dead on arrival.

Still, it's yet another reminder of how copyright is chipping away at real property.

Filed Under: amanda caudel, buy, class action, copyright, digital goods, end of ownership, false advertising, ownership, property, property rights, purchase, rent
Companies: amazon

Tim Bray, Early Internet Guru, And Amazon VP Quits Over The 'Chickenshit' Company's Targeting Of Employees Speaking Out About COVID-19

from the good-for-him dept

If you do anything internet related, hopefully you already know Tim Bray. Among tons of other things, he helped develop XML and a variety of other standards/technologies the internet relies on. He's also been a vocal and thoughtful commenter on a wide variety of issues, especially in the tech policy space. For the past five years he's been working at Amazon as a VP and Distinguished Engineer -- but as he's announced he has now quit in protest over the company's retaliation against workers who were speaking up over the company's handling of their working conditions during the pandemic. Bray gives some of the background of workers organizing and speaking up about their concerns, and then discusses the company's reaction (firing the vocal ones and offering lame excuses).

Warehouse workers reached out to AECJ for support. They responded by internally promoting a petition and organizing a video call for Thursday April 16 featuring warehouse workers from around the world, with guest activist Naomi Klein. An announcement sent to internal mailing lists on Friday April 10th was apparently the flashpoint. Emily Cunningham and Maren Costa, two visible AECJ leaders, were fired on the spot that day. The justifications were laughable; it was clear to any reasonable observer that they were turfed for whistleblowing.

Management could have objected to the event, or demanded that outsiders be excluded, or that leadership be represented, or any number of other things; there was plenty of time. Instead, they just fired the activists.

At that point I snapped. VPs shouldn’t go publicly rogue, so I escalated through the proper channels and by the book. I’m not at liberty to disclose those discussions, but I made many of the arguments appearing in this essay. I think I made them to the appropriate people.

That done, remaining an Amazon VP would have meant, in effect, signing off on actions I despised. So I resigned.

Bray does not mince words about how terrible he thinks this response was, and even includes "some descriptive phrases you might use to describe the activist-firing."

1. “Chickenshit.”

2. “Kill the messenger.”

3. “Never heard of the Streisand effect.”

4. “Designed to create a climate of fear.”

5. “Like painting a sign on your forehead saying ‘Either guilty, or has something to hide.’”

Tim notes that while he does believe that the company has been "putting massive efforts into warehouse safety" the workers' own testimony can't be ignored either -- and that firing workers for speaking out and trying to make things better is exactly the wrong response.

Firing whistleblowers isn’t just a side-effect of macroeconomic forces, nor is it intrinsic to the function of free markets. It’s evidence of a vein of toxicity running through the company culture. I choose neither to serve nor drink that poison.

For reasons beyond just the coinage of the phrase, I find it especially interesting that Bray made the Streisand Effect comparison. Amazon has a history of somewhat ruthless employee practices, but straight up intimidation of a workforce speaking out for their health and safety in the midst of a pandemic, when they're more essential than ever... seems just insanely short-sighted and self-destructive. Hopefully, Bray taking a stand and quitting his job makes someone wake up within the company that this is the exact wrong approach.

While Amazon may be right that its warehouse workers have the short end of the power-balance stick, the company is still deep in competition for engineering talent. Bray quitting so publicly and with such clarity of purpose may certainly make a number of top engineers whom the company would like to hire think that they may feel better about their souls by choosing to work elsewhere.

On a separate note, Bray points out that the Guardian, somewhat bizarrely for a major publication like this, simply reprinted his entire blog post without first asking him:

Tim does have a CC BY-NC 2.0 license on his blog, where the post was originally made, but it's not clear whether the Guardian's use would really be considered "non-commercial." Of course, for years we've called out the vagueness associated with what is and what is not "non-commercial" use, but the Guardian is at least on a very thin borderline. I find it somewhat surprising that it chose not to at least ask before publishing it. At the same time, the Guardian has tremendous reach, and if the most important part to Tim is getting his message out, the Guardian is not a bad way to do it.

Update: Tim took out his list of descriptive phrases after someone suggested it was too far. We'll be leaving them in this post. Separately, he notes that the Guardian took down their post and apologized, and he seems content with this outcome.

Filed Under: covid-19, employees, organizing, streisand effect, tim bray, warehouse
Companies: amazon

Ring Docs Show Company Is Testing Consumer Enthusiasm For Facial Recognition, License Plate Reader Capabilities

from the be-the-implemented-changes-you-want-to-see-in-the-world dept

It seems like Ring really wants to add facial recognition tech to its cameras. It employs a "Head of Facial Recognition Tech." It pitches this still-nonexistent feature to law enforcement. And it says it will "continue to innovate" to meet customer feature demands in response to Congressional queries about its facial recognition plans.

But now is not the best time to be trotting out new facial recognition products. Cities and one entire state have enacted bans or moratoriums on facial recognition tech use by government agencies. Even the leader in law enforcement body cams (Axon, formerly Taser) has pulled back from adding this tech to its products. So, Ring is playing it safe even if it's inevitably going to add this feature in as soon as it can justify it.

And it's looking for ways to justify it. Just like it promised Congress, it will continue to "innovate" by adding features customers say they want -- even if it's tech many feel is untrustworthy, if not possibly dangerous. A document obtained by Ars Technica shows the company is feeling out its newest customers on several potential features, including facial recognition.

Ring last week distributed a confidential survey to beta testers weighing sentiment and demand for several potential new features in future versions of its software. According to screenshots shared with Ars, potential new features for Ring include options for enabling or disabling the camera both physically and remotely, both visual and audible alarms to ward off "would-be criminals," and potential object, facial, and license plate detection.

The survey actually suggests two possible facial recognition tech uses: one alert for "familiar faces" and another for "unfamiliar." This feature would presumably be tied to a user-generated whitelist of "familiar" faces, rather than something maintained by Ring. But just as presumably, Ring would have access to user selections and recorded footage. Law enforcement agencies are already running obtained Ring footage through their own facial recognition programs, so this addition would just save them a little bit of time.

And, as noted above, Ring is pitching something new -- at least for its line of products: license plate recognition. This is a new development.

The company has also not publicly discussed any plans for potentially deploying object detection or license plate scanning technology. In the same letter, lawmakers asked Amazon if employees had access to "any previously tagged information in video feeds that specifically identify a person or vehicle," including specific license plate data; to that question, Amazon answered simply "no."

The survey doesn't actually call this "recognition." It calls it "license plate detection." This feature would send an alert to users if a vehicle's license plate is detected and readable by the camera. Again, this wouldn't be linked to any license plate database and would rely on whitelisting for "recognition," but it's still somewhat surprising to see a home security system offer this functionality.

It's not that license plate readers are unheard of in the residential sector. It's just that they're usually included in more expensive systems tied to lucrative 24/7 monitoring contracts. This would put some of that power in a doorbell camera, allowing Ring users to operate not-so-automatic license plate readers during their downtime.

Ring continues to claim it's just engaging in blue-skying with beta testers and has no immediate plans to implement either of these features. But it's not denying it has an interest in being a market leader in domestic surveillance tech and will follow the market wherever it's led… or wherever it nudges the market towards.

Filed Under: doorbells, facial recogntion, license plate readers, privacy, surveillance
Companies: amazon, ring

Defense Department Oversight Thwarted By Defense Department Officials Who Refused To Talk About Trump's Communications

from the cut-to-DoD-officials-tying-gags-over-their-own-mouths dept

Every presidential administration seems to make a game of thwarting oversight. The current one is no different. President Trump is setting himself apart from the pack by firing IGs at an alarming pace. Whatever's being done in our name at various government agencies is being done in the dark. Whistleblowers and leakers are being hunted down and persecuted/prosecuted (another favorite presidential sport).

What would be considered unlawful obstruction in a criminal investigation is just business as usual at the Executive branch. The latest (but certainly not the last) obstruction was revealed in the investigation of the "JEDI" contract procedure. Amazon really wanted to be a part of American bloodsports, but was beaten out by Microsoft for lucrative Pentagon cloud storage contracts. Amazon sued, alleging it got illegally screwed by the President, claiming his frequent derogatory comments about Amazon and the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post pushed the Pentagon towards selecting Microsoft.

An investigation was opened by the Defense Department's Inspector General. And we'll never know what really happened because it appears the administration inserted itself into the investigation. Jacqueline Feldscher has more details at Politico:

The Pentagon’s inspector general “could not definitively determine” whether the White House influenced the procurement process for a major cloud computing contract because senior Defense Department officials were barred from answering questions on the subject during interviews, according to a 313-page report released on Wednesday.

Sticking it to the Deep State, I guess. So, what looks like some impropriety now officially only looks like some impropriety because the Defense Department's general counsel told DoD officials to not answer any questions about communications between the DoD and the White House. "Presidential communications privilege" successfully asserted.

Given the lack of answers, it seems pretty ridiculous for the Pentagon to hang the "Mission Accomplished" banner and declare everything to be above-board. But that's what has happened because that's the the kind of government we have. Here's the Pentagon's spokesperson pretending there's nothing to see here.

"This report should finally close the door on the media and corporate-driven attacks on the career procurement officials who have been working tirelessly to get the much needed JEDI cloud computing environment into the hands of our frontline warfighters while continuing to protect American taxpayers."

Everything is over except its eventual fading into obscurity, washed under the flotsam that is the day-to-day horror of living in an ongoing pandemic. The Pentagon has cleared itself of any wrongdoing by refusing to answer questions related to alleged wrongdoing. The overseers were neutralized by presidential privilege, resulting in the Inspector General drawing inconclusions the Pentagon has declared to be exculpatory with one comment to the press. The IG's office decided to release the incomplete report anyway, stating it did not want to further delay any reporting on its non-findings since it was apparent no amount of waiting things out was going to get these officials to discuss things they didn't want to discuss.

As for Amazon, it must be refreshing to be on the other side of impropriety accusations for once. The run-up to the awarding of the contract saw a few DoD officials becoming far too friendly with the cloud service provider.

The inspector general substantiated allegations of ethical misconduct against Deap Ubhi, a Pentagon employee who worked on the early stages of crafting the JEDI program before leaving the department to work for Amazon.

Investigators did not, however, find evidence of ethical misconduct by other senior defense officials, including former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, who attended a dinner with Amazon officials organized by his former aide Sally Donnelly.

Ah. Well, at least the IG found out something about somebody. The President's dislike for Amazon and Bezos remains under "presidential privilege" wraps and the swamp will continue draining at its current rate of 0 liters/flush.

Filed Under: communications, contract, dod, donald trump, inspector general, jedi, oversight, retaliation, transparency
Companies: amazon, microsoft

Do Your Part, Rights Holders: Open The Vaults!

from the help-the-people-out dept

For those who can stay at home, please do. We've all been advised to socially distance -- the safest thing anyone can do in their individual capacity.

Of course, stir craziness can set in quite easily. (I'm stuck in my apartment with my dog, and while he's good company he's not much for conversation.) This is a great time to catch up on all of the books, shows, movies, and video games you've been meaning to read, watch, play, etc.

While each of us is doing our part to stay indoors, rights holders can do their part to make these trying times a little less tedious for the home-bound. How? By making their content freely available for streamers and downloaders.

So we're clear, I'm not talking about independent artists or those who rely on touring income. These folks are most certainly going to take a hit, and would hopefully be covered by any kind of broad-based stimulus that comes from Congress. (This would also be an excellent time to consider Dean Baker's proposal to give every American a creative works tax credit to donate to an artist of their choosing. To qualify, the artist would have to make their works public domain).

No, I'm talking about the collectors of passive income, those who actually hold the rights to the content: Disney, Netflix, CBS, NBC, Amazon, etc. Rights holders for video games, like Bethesda Studios, Paradox, EA, and Activision could also help. Even if they don't want to release relatively new titles, this would be a great time to make older games free for all to stream, download, and play. Audible should also give everyone a few free downloads, and a few free months of Kindle Unlimited would go a long way.

Now would also be a great time to release the directors' cuts or other deleted scenes that never made it to the theater or online. I personally would love to see the older versions of Rogue One or the rumored J.J. Abrams's cut of The Rise of Skywalker, and I'm sure there are lots of other clips left on the cutting room floor that fans would love to hear.

More controversially, I implore all major rights holders to forgo prosecutions for torrenting, streaming, and other forms of infringement during these times. If illegally streaming keeps someone indoors, then let them stream.

The penalties for copyright infringement are astronomical and disproportionate, and simple peer-to-peer file sharing should be decriminalized in the first place (large torrenting sites and streamers are a separate case). But now is not the time for that -- a lot of people need just a little bit of joy, and the owners of infringed copyrights must appreciate this.

This is especially true when it comes to going after YouTubers and other online commentators who must make use of others' content when producing their own. A great deal of their use is fair to begin with, but dealing with a 512 notice or copystrike is the last thing they need on their minds.

This is a time where everyone must sacrifice both for their own personal safety and the safety of others. Rights holders should pitch in and forgo the benefits of the subsidy that has been given to them to make everyone else's sacrifice a little more bearable.

Filed Under: copyright, covid-19, culture, openness, sharing, vaults
Companies: amazon, cbs, disney, nbc, netflix

Former Refrigerator Manufacturer Says Companies Using Open Source, Royalty-Free Video Technology Must Pay To License 2,000 Patents

from the this-is-why-we-can't-have-nice-things dept

Video streaming is a key part of today's Internet world. According to research from Sandvine, it represents 60.6% of total downstream volume worldwide. The centrality of video to the Internet experience makes video codecs one of the hottest technologies. The most popular format today is H.264, used by 91% of video developers. But H.264 is getting long in the tooth -- its history goes back two decades. An upgrade is long overdue. There's a successor, H.265, also known as High Efficiency Video Coding, or HEVC. However, the use of H.265 has been held back by patent licensing issues. As Wikipedia explains in painful detail, there are two main patent pools demanding payment from companies that use HEVC in their devices. For one of the pools, the patent list is 164 pages long. Partly in response to this licensing mess, and HEVC's high per-device cost, the Alliance for Open Media was formed in September 2015:

Seven leading Internet companies today announced formation of the Alliance for Open Media -- an open-source project that will develop next-generation media formats, codecs and technologies in the public interest. The Alliance's founding members are Amazon, Cisco, Google, Intel Corporation, Microsoft, Mozilla and Netflix.

In contrast to the proprietary and expensive H.265, the new video standard, called AOMedia Video 1 (AV1), is open source and royalty-free. Those features, and the backing of many of the top Internet companies, would seem to make it an obvious choice for manufacturers to build into their devices, leading to better-quality video streaming for end users at no extra cost.

Life is never that simple. Back in March last year, Sisvel announced a "patent licensing program" for AV1. Sisvel is an Italian company that began as a manufacturer of white goods, particularly refrigerators, and has morphed into a group that "identifies, evaluates and maximizes the value of IP assets for its partners around the world". The AOMedia group wrote in response:

AOMedia is aware of the recent third-party announcement attempting to launch a joint patent licensing program for AV1. AOMedia was founded to leave behind the very environment that the announcement endorses -- one whose high patent royalty requirements and licensing uncertainty limit the potential of free and open online video technology. By settling patent licensing terms up front with the royalty-free AOMedia Patent License 1.0, AOMedia is confident that AV1 overcomes these challenges to help usher in the next generation of video-oriented experiences.

But refrigerator companies don't give up that easily. Sisvel has just announced that more companies have added patents to its pool. There are currently 1,050 patents that Sisvel says must be licensed, but in due course it expects that number will rise to around 2,000. The fact that people can claim that there are 2,000 separate patents involved in a video encoding format is an indication of how far the patenting madness has gone. The sheer number claimed for a single technology is an indication of how trivial most of them must be -- and thus by definition undeserving of monopoly protection.

According to an article on c|net, Sisvel is "willing to pursue companies that don't pay its AV1 licensing fees". This probably means we are in for another few years of utterly pointless legal battles over who "owns" certain ideas. That's bound to cast a chill over this whole area, and to negate some of the benefits that would otherwise flow from an open source, royalty-free video standard. Companies will waste money paying lawyers, and end users will miss out on exciting applications of the technology. And all "because patents".

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter, Diaspora, or Mastodon.

Filed Under: appliances, av1, h.265, patent trolls, patents, refrigerators, software patents, streaming video
Companies: alliance for open media, amazon, cisco, google, intel, microsoft, mozilla, netflix