House Judiciary Committee SOPA Hearings Stacked 5 To 1 In Favor Of Censoring The Internet

from the what-are-they-afraid-of dept

Apparently the folks behind SOPA are really scared to hear from the opposition. We all expected that the Judiciary Committee hearings wouldn't be a fair fight. In Congress, they rarely are fair fights. But most people expected the typical "three in favor, one against" weighted hearings. That's already childish, but it seems that the Judiciary Committee has decided to take the ridiculousness to new heights. We'd already mentioned last week that the Committee had rejected the request of NetCoalition to take part in the hearings. At the time, we'd heard that the hearings were going to be stacked four-to-one in favor of SOPA. However, the latest report coming out of the Committee is that they're so afraid to actually hear about the real opposition that they've lined up five pro-SOPA speakers and only one "against."

Why is the Judiciary Committee so afraid to hear the concerns of the wider internet industry?

The five "pro" speakers are the Register of Copryights, someone from the MPAA, someone from Pfizer, someone from MasterCard, and someone from the AFL-CIO. The choice of MasterCard is deliberate, since Visa is against the bill -- because Visa recognizes that supporting a bill that requires them to cut off customers based on accusations of infringement is going to be a huge burden, and one that isn't good for their own customers.

Furthermore, the "one" against SOPA is going to be Google. This is a strategic choice, because the pro-SOPA folks know that Google is easy to dismiss on this topic, because they'll claim (not accurately) that Google just wants to profit from infringement. Google is already under a lot of scrutiny in Congress, and so it makes it much easier for pro-SOPA supporters to say that "ah, the only opposition is Google." And, yet, that's not true. Companies throughout the tech and internet industries have expressed concerns. Facebook, Twitter, Mozilla, eBay and over 160 startups have all come out against the bill. This isn't "just a Google issue." This is an issue of the entertainment industry trying to change the fundamental legal and technical framework for how the internet has functioned -- and in doing so, creating tons of liability and compliance costs for the part of the economy that is growing and has been creating jobs. Just because Hollywood is jealous, doesn't mean that they should get to use Congress to punish the industry that's doing well.

Either way, it's quite stunning that the Committee has decided to go so far in stacking the deck, and it shows just how unwilling they are to hear the real concerns about the bill.

Filed Under: copyright, fairness, hearings, industry, lamar smith, sopa
Companies: afl-cio, google, mastercard, mpaa, pfizer

If At First You Don't Succeed As A Patent Troll, Just Sue Again

from the why-not dept

The excellent new Patent Examiner blog has a post up about a company called SmartMetric, which claims to be in the business of making biometric technologies, but admits it hasn't actually made any money doing that. Instead, it seems to be in the business of being a patent troll. Despite the fact that banks and others have been testing variations on "smart card" technology for many decades, SmartMetric ended up with patent 6,792,464, which it claims covers all kinds of smartcards. Last year, it sued Visa, MasterCard and American Express. And lost.

But why worry about that when it can just sue again?

Yes, even as it's appealing the initial loss, the company has sued the same companies a second time using a nearly identical filing. You can see both filings embedded below. Feel free to do a diff on the two, but Patent Examiner summarizes the two cases this way:

This new lawsuit against MasterCard and Visa concerns both “contact” and “contactless” smart cards (the former are inserted into a card reader, the latter only need to be placed in proximity to a reader), while SmartMetric’s first lawsuit against the credit companies only referred to contactless card systems.

So, basically, after losing, they're just trying to expand what they claim the patent covers. It's hard to see this as anything more than a standard patent troll shakedown of a company that doesn't do anything demanding cash from the companies who do things... even when those things are obvious next steps that were discussed decades before the troll came on the scene.

Filed Under: patent troll, patents
Companies: american express, mastercard, smartmetric, visa

PayPal Agrees To Help IFPI Cut Off Funding For Sites IFPI Doesn't Like Without Judicial Oversight

from the how-to-stamp-out-competition dept

Neppe alerts us to the news that PayPal has now followed the same path as MasterCard and Visa, in agreeing to the IFPI's plan to cut off payments to sites it doesn't like, without any judicial review. Basically, the IFPI will send info about sites it doesn't like (i.e., describes as "rogue" sites) to the London Police. It's not clear what sort of qualifications the London Police have on complex copyright issues, but okay. If the London Police agree with the IFPI (and so far, they have in 100% of the cases), the information about the sites will be passed on to the three payment processing companies, and they will no longer allow those sites to accept payments. Watch out, Internet Archive (which has been declared an infringing site by some in the industry), you may soon no longer be able to accept donations, thanks to the IFPI's fear of technology.

Filed Under: london police, payments, rogue sites
Companies: ifpi, mastercard, paypal, visa

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

from the for-the-lulz? dept

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

Filed Under: antitrust, collusion, europe, wikileaks
Companies: datacell, mastercard, paypal, visa, wikileaks

WikiLeaks Planning Legal Action Against PayPal, MasterCard & Visa

from the thought-this-would-go-away? dept

There hasn't been much talk lately over the fact that PayPal, MasterCard and Visa all cut off Wikileaks late last year, after the US government freaked out about the release of some State Department Cables. None of the firms has done a very good job explaining why this makes sense (or why they continue to allow other groups, such as the KKK to receive funding, while singling out Wikileaks). I'm sure those three firms, which took quite a public bashing when the news originally dropped, would prefer that there not be any more talk about it. However, Wikileaks and the payment firm they used, DataCell, are apparently planning to file a legal complaint this week against all three firms in Europe. A draft of the complaint, which was obtained by Andy Greenberg at Forbes (linked above and embedded below), claims that the three firms violated Articles 101 and 102 of the EU Treaty, effectively a form of antitrust law. While I tend to think many antitrust claims are merely attacks on successful companies, this seems like a case where they could make sense. Here you have basically the only three ways for most people to transfer money easily, all agreeing to block a single (small) client from receiving money, despite no legal ruling against the operation (hell, charges haven't even been filed). It certainly would make for an interesting case.

Filed Under: antitrust, collusion, europe, wikileaks
Companies: mastercard, paypal, visa, wikileaks

IFPI, UK Police, Credit Card Companies Push People To Pirate Music, Rather Than Pay For It

from the did-they-really-do-that? dept

Bizarre move out of the IFPI. It's gleefully announced a new deal, in conjunction with the London Police and Visa and MasterCard to cut off credit card services to online music stores who the IFPI accuses of selling infringing MP3s. This is really targeting sites like MP3Fiesta, which is sort of a modern version of Allofmp3.com. Of course, what they seem to be missing is that both of these sites were examples of people, who would otherwise likely be downloading totally unauthorized versions, being willing to pay for MP3s at a much more reasonable price. What I never understood was why the music industry never realized that these sites actually showed a business model that worked. Tons of people were happy to pay for the music when the prices seemed much more reasonable. What these services really showed was how much the industry has artificially inflated the price of music.

But, of course, in cutting off credit cards to those sites, two simple things are likely to happen in response: first, those sites will simply find alternative payment means. That may still limit some, but it hardly stops these sites from existing. But, more importantly, if people can't get music at these prices, it seems a lot more likely that they'll shift to totally free options, rather than go back to paying $0.99 per song (or more!). So, effectively, all this move really does is drive more people to stop paying for music. Is that what the record labels pay the IFPI to do these days?

Filed Under: credit cards, liability, piracy, uk
Companies: ifpi, mastercard, visa

Will Visa, MasterCard, Paypal, BofA & Apple Terminate Relationships With The NYTimes For Revealing Military Secrets?

from the consistency-is-all-i-ask dept

Glenn Greenwald has a post highlighting how a NY Times' investigative report on US military action in Pakistan appears to reveal key military secrets concerning plans that have not yet been put in place, and which could certainly put Americans and others in danger:

Indeed, the NYT reporters several times acknowledge that public awareness of these operations could trigger serious harm ("inside Pakistan, [] the movement of American forces has been largely prohibited because of fears of provoking a backlash"). Note, too, that Mazzetti and Filkins did not acquire these government secrets by just passively sitting around and having them delivered out of the blue. To the contrary: they interviewed multiple officials both in Washington and in Afghanistan, offered several of them anonymity to induce them to reveal secrets, and even provoked officials to provide detailed accounts of past secret actions in Pakistan, including CIA-directed attacks by Afghans inside that country.

As he notes, all of this seems a lot more revealing than anything that Wikileaks has done, and a lot more likely to put people in danger. Yet, there's been almost no response, and certainly nothing like the attention paid to Wikileaks -- with calls for trials or even killing the head of Wikileaks. Seems odd, doesn't it?

But, an even bigger point is buried towards the end in an update, where Greenwald asks:

Why aren't Visa, MasterCard, Paypal, their web hosting company and various banks terminating their relationships with The New York Times, the way they all did with WikiLeaks: not only for the NYT's publication of many of the same diplomatic and war cables published by WikiLeaks, but also for this much more serious leak today in which WikiLeaks was completely uninvolved?

And, I think, we can add Apple to that list. After all, if these companies keep claiming that Wikileaks "broke the law" (as most of the companies listed here are saying), why do they not feel the same way about the NY Times?

Filed Under: hypocrisy, journalism, state secrets, wikileaks
Companies: apple, mastercard, ny times, paypal, visa

US IP Czar Gets Companies To Cut Off Unlicensed Online Pharmacies

from the borderline... dept

Earlier this year, we noted that the US IP Czar, Victoria Espinel, had been making the rounds to ISPs, registrars, payment processors and others to get them to agree to voluntarily start shutting off certain "infringing" sites. Now we see the results of those talks. Espinel has announced that a variety of companies -- including Google, Visa, Mastercard, Paypal and Network Solutions -- have apparently agreed to effectively disappear and cut off certain websites. The focus, for now, is on "unlicensed web pharmacies," with the idea being that these companies will effectively kill off those sites:

Together, the firms hope to tackle every link in the chain that keeps unlicensed pharmacies operating by stopping them showing up in search results, taking their websites offline, delisting the domains they use and stopping payments reaching them.

Think COICA without COICA -- but just with government pressure on companies. Seeing Visa, Mastercard and Paypal on the list certainly isn't surprising, after those three already did the same thing in cutting off Wikileaks. However, it's a bit surprising to see Google agree to this (Update: Google says that it's only agreed to cut off advertising that violates its policies). If there's a trial and these sites are found guilty of violating the law, then I can see cutting them off -- but once again, it appears that this is the government trying to kill off websites, without a trial.

And, yes, it's for "unlicensed web pharmacies," and everyone plays up the spam and the fake (potentially dangerous) drugs. Those are a serious problem. But they also lump in the (quite common) grey market pharmacies as well -- which often allow people to get drugs from outside the country at much more affordable rates. Shutting down fake drug sellers is fine. Shutting down the grey market drug sellers is a bit of a bigger issue.

On top of that, given the recent ICE domain seizures and the whole COICA law -- both of which Espinel has spoken out in favor of -- it's not hard to see how the mandate behind this particular program is quite likely to grow well beyond "unauthorized web pharmacies" to other sites as well. In fact, MasterCard has apparently already agreed to cut off websites deemed "pirate" sites.

Filed Under: copyright, cut off, ip czar, isps, payment, pharmacies, victoria espinel
Companies: google, mastercard, network solutions, paypal, visa

Iceland Considers Revoking Visa/MasterCard Licenses For Wikileaks Ban

from the what-legal-grounds dept

With Visa and MasterCard cutting off payments for Wikileaks, it appears that some Icelandic politicians are threatening to remove both companies' operating licenses in that country. Apparently, the Icelandic Parliamentary General Committee has asked both companies to explain what legal grounds they used for cutting off Wikileaks and, without evidence of legitimate reasons, both companies could lose their operating licenses. We had already noted that Icelandic firm DataCell, which was handling the payments for Wikileaks, was planning to sue both companies but it appears that the Icelandic government may help out. Of course, I would imagine that Visa and Mastercard both care about keeping the US government more happy than the Icelandic government...

Filed Under: iceland, wikileaks
Companies: datacell, mastercard, visa, wikileaks

Lieberman Praises Companies Helping Him Try To Censor Wikileaks

from the censorship-is-the-in-thing dept

This should hardly comes as a surprise, but Senator Joe Lieberman has apparently put out a statement, along with Senator Sue Collins, praising companies for following through on their political pressure to try to censor Wikileaks, calling them "good corporate citizens," and saying that people should support those companies for their willingness to bow down to government pressure. Yeah, okay. Even the press reporting on this seem to think Lieberman is simply making stuff up. Witness this paragraph from Wired:

"The WikiLeaks data dump has jeopardized U.S. national interests and the lives of intelligence sources around the world," Lieberman said, though there is no proof or even detailed allegations that the release has endangered any intelligence source.

Lieberman apparently wants the world to believe that censorship is okay because "this is no time for business as usual." It appears that Lieberman really wants to go down in history as the Senator who favors censorship of the press and US companies. Quite a legacy.

Filed Under: censorship, joe lieberman, sue collins, wikileaks
Companies: amazon, mastercard, paypal, visa