The Lies Of NBCUniversal's Rick Cotton About SOPA/PIPA

from the how-are-those-corn-farmers,-rick? dept

Chris Hayes, over on MSNBC, decided to be the first to seriously break the mainstream cable news' boycott over SOPA/PIPA with a big debate on the bill -- mainly between NBCUniversal's top lawyer, Rick Cotton, and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian. Chris's opening discussion is quite good, and suggests he's certainly sympathetic to all of us who are vehemently opposed to the bill. You can watch it below: Alexis does an excellent job in the brief time he's given to speak (though Cotton gets probably four times the amount of time to speak), but what I wanted to focus on, are the lies of Rick Cotton, because it's simply despicable. He flat-out lies about the bills -- and, even worse -- does so in a manner that implies that it's everyone else who's lying about the bills. He kicks it off by insisting that the bills only apply to sites that are "wholesale devoted to theft." That's simply not true. He actually uses the word "wholesale" maybe two dozen times (at least). The text of PIPA -- the key bill at this point -- says that a site is considered "dedicated to infringing activities" if it "has no significant use other than engaging in, enabling, or facilitating" infringement. That does not mean that the site is "wholesale devoted to theft." Under this definition, of course, a site like a YouTube (if it were based on a foreign domain) would be questionable, given that it has no significant use other than enabling infringement. That doesn't mean that it's always used to infringe, but it's main use absolutely enables or facilitates infringement. Cotton may want to believe the language says otherwise, but it does not.

Second, Cotton gets pretty angry about the "disinformation" around the bills, and insists that the bills "would not effect a single site in the United States." This is false. As we've explained repeatedly, while the targets of the legislation are sites with foreign domain names, the entire remedies section is about US sites -- meaning that they will have significant compliance costs, and potential liability under these laws. Furthermore, the anti-circumvention provisions of the bill are not limited to just foreign sites. Alexis pushed back on the anti-circumvention point, and Cotton claimed that Alexis was "simply wrong." But he's not. Cotton is "simply wrong" here again. Cotton claims that we should debate what's in the bill, and he should try reading the bill. In fact, Alexis has said that Cotton admitted after they were off the air that he was correct that the anti-circumvention provisions were not limited to just foreign sites. But that doesn't do any good for those who saw the segment but don't know the specifics.

Next, he claims it's totally wrong that a small amount of "legitimate activity would be threatened by this legislation." To be fair, Cotton and his buddies already got the power to take down tons of "legitimate activity" with the last copyright expansion bill they passed a few years ago, the ProIP bill. Either way, he's still wrong. Tons of legitimate content can and will be put at risk under these bills. We've already seen that companies -- including NBCUniversal -- have wrongly declared publicly that certain sites are "rogue" sites, despite the fact that they have tons of legitimate content. If you believe that Cotton and NBCUniversal will suddenly get better at finding sites that really only deal in infringement going forward, you haven't paid much attention over the last decade or so. Under existing law, we're already seeing legitimate websites taken down, and legitimate speech infringed upon. Hell, even the one prominent legal scholar who agrees with Cotton, Floyd Abrams, has admitted that protected speech would be censored under the bill.

Next, Cotton claims that the internet is "lawless" and that this whole thing is really a policy debate about how we finally put laws on the internet. This is, to put it mildly, insane. As Alexis points out in response, there are tons of laws that apply to the internet, and directly apply and are used every day to deal with infringing activity. To pretend otherwise is ridiculous. In fact, as Alexis notes, the DMCA is regularly abused by copyright holders to go way beyond what the law is supposed to allow.

Towards the end, Cotton claims that when a court in the Netherlands ordered The Pirate Bay blocked in that country, traffic to the site dropped by 80%. That's a flat out lie. I mean, ridiculously false. First off, considering that the legal fight over that has continued for years, and the court only ordered ISPs in the Netherlands to actually block The Pirate Bay... five days ago -- and gave them 10 days to comply -- I'm curious as to how he knows how much impact such a court order has had (er... will have) on traffic to The Pirate Bay. Separately, in every other place that has ordered such a block, traffic to TPB has actually gone up, not down, because the court order to block tends to give the site more attention. Just to make sure, I asked someone in the Netherlands if TPB was blocked for them, and he sent me the following screenshot showing that it's totally accessible (though, they're warning about the new ruling!). Either way, Cotton was flat out, 100%, totally lying about these "stats" from the Netherlands. No such block has occurred. All in all, this is the same duplicity that we've been seeing from SOPA/PIPA supporters for the last few months. They attack those of us with facts on our side as spreading disinformation, but when you look at the details you realize that it is, in fact, they who are flat out "wholesale" lying. Rick Cotton should be ashamed, and NBCUniversal should admit to its errors. Chris Hayes promises to cover the topic in more detail again in the future, and he should challenge Cotton on the multiple false statements he made.

Filed Under: alexis ohanion, chris hayes, lies, msnbc, pipa, protect ip, rick cotton, sopa
Companies: nbc universal

Comcast -- Owner Of NBC Universal -- Admits That DNS Redirects Are Incompatible With DNSSEC

from the well-look-at-that dept

Well, well, well. Here's something interesting. Comcast, who owns NBC Universal (one of the main forces behind SOPA/PIPA), is officially a SOPA/PIPA supporter. However, yesterday, Comcast put up a post congratulating itself (deservedly so!) for completing its DNSSEC deployment, making it "the first large ISP in the North America to have fully implemented" DNSSEC across the board. That's huge, and a clear vote of confidence for DNSSEC, obviously. They also urge others to use DNSSEC:

Now that nearly 20 million households in the U.S. are able to use DNSSEC, we feel it is an important time to urge major domain owners, especially commerce and banking-related sites, to begin signing their domain names. While in the past those domains may have wanted to do so but felt it would have limited effect, they now can work on signing their domains knowing that the largest ISP in the U.S. can validate those signatures on behalf of our customers.

All of this is good... but what may be much more interesting is that, along with this announcement, Comcast has also mentioned that it is shutting down its Domain Helper service. Domain Helper was a somewhat controversial DNS-redirect system, so that when you mistyped something, it would suggest the proper page or alternatives. Many in the internet community complained that these types of redirects mess with the underlying DNS system (which they do). But, as the DNS experts have been saying all along (and NBC Universal has been trying to play down), DNSSEC is incompatible with such DNS redirects. So... that makes this next part a little awkward. Comcast is now admitting, indeed, that DNS redirects, such as Domain Helper, are incompatible with DNSSEC:

When we launched the Domain Helper service, we also set in motion its eventual shutdown due to our plans to launch DNSSEC. Domain Helper has been turned off since DNS response modification tactics, including DNS redirect services, are technically incompatible with DNSSEC and/or create conditions that can be indistinguishable from malicious modifications of DNS traffic (including DNS cache poisoning attacks). Since we want to ensure our customers have the most secure Internet experience, and that if they detect any DNSSEC breakage or error messages that they know to be concerned (rather than not knowing if the breakage/error was "official" and caused by our redirect service or "unofficial" and caused by an attacker), our priority has been placed on DNSSEC deployment -- now automatically protecting our customers...

Let's be doubly clear about this, because it's important. Just as NBC Universal and other SOPA supporters continue to insist that DNS redirect is completely compatible with DNSSEC... Comcast (and official SOPA/PIPA supporter) has rolled out DNSSEC, urged others to roll out DNSSEC and turned off its own DNS redirect system, stating clearly that DNS redirect is incompatible with DNSSEC, if you want to keep people secure. In the end, this certainly appears to suggest that Comcast is admitting that it cannot comply with SOPA/PIPA, even as the very same company is advocating for those laws.

It would appear that the left hand (people who actually understand technology) isn't speaking to the right hand (lawyers/lobbyists) within the Comcast family. But, I think that NBC Universal and anyone else insisting that DNS redirects are fine in DNSSEC owe everyone else a pretty big apology... when their own company's experts are admitting that the two are incompatible.

Filed Under: dns, dns blocking, dnssec
Companies: comcast, nbc universal

NBC Universal's Own Preferred Researcher For 'Anti-Piracy' Stats Comes Out Against SOPA/PIPA

from the well,-look-at-that dept

This is fascinating and unexpected. We've discussed the research firm Envisional a few times here at Techdirt. The company is NBC Universal's preferred research firm for coming up with stats that NBC Universal then uses to insist that it needs new laws like SOPA/PIPA. Some have certainly called into question Envisional's research as a paid vendor. However, a year ago, we noted that if you actually looked at the details of the research Envisional did for NBC Universal, it actually showed that piracy was Hollywood's own fault. NBC Universal and the MPAA twisted those results to say that piracy was a huge problem, but the data certainly suggested the real problem was Hollywood's failure to release what people wanted in formats that they wanted.

Still, we never expected Envisional to come out and actually make that same point (even if that's what the data said). Yet, as this recent Ars Technica article notes, at CES, Envisional's "head of piracy intelligence," David Price, didn't mince words in saying that infringement was, in fact, Hollywood's own fault for not offering products in the way customers wanted and that SOPA/PIPA were the wrong approach to fixing its business model problems:

"The content owners are really fighting the tide of the Internet," Price said. "They're trying to fight the flow of the Internet which is all about making content as widely available as possible, as easily as possible, as quickly as possible. They're trying to hold back the 1.4 billon users of the Internet from doing what the Internet wants them to do."

In discussing SOPA/PIPA:

Price does not like the way the bills are drafted, potentially causing major technical and free speech issues. "When I talk to content owners I try to tell them this is not the way to go," he remarked. "You don't want to hurt people. You want to try and go with a compete approach, put the content out there and hope people will come to you."

Again, none of this is surprising. We've been saying the same thing for ages -- and we get dismissed as "piracy apologists." Yet this is the research firm that NBC Universal has relied on and regularly quotes in making its arguments about just how "big" a problem infringement is. That says something. And that something is that NBC Universal (yet again) is unwilling to face reality.

Filed Under: business models, hollywood, research, windows
Companies: envisional, nbc universal

Major Labels, RIAA, Homeland Security All Spotted 'Pirating' Works

from the telling dept

Early last week we noted that, using the tool, YouHaveDownloaded, some folks in the Netherlands noticed that the local music collection society appeared to be engaging in infringement. You knew that wasn't where things would end. Soon after that, people spotted infringement emanating from NBC Universal, Sony Pictures and Fox Entertainment -- three of the biggest supporters of ever more draconian copyright law. And, of course, that was just the beginning. The RIAA and Homeland Security have now also been identified. And, no, in most of these cases, it's clearly not just for research purposes or to find infringers. The RIAA, for example, could probably get away with downloading music... but the first five seasons of the TV show, Dexter? That's tougher to believe. The folks at Gizmodo have calculated just how much the RIAA's likely infringement here should cost, using the RIAA's own metric of the maximum statutory rates of $150,000 per infringement... and figured the RIAA owes about $9 million. Somehow I doubt we'll see the RIAA pay up any time soon.

Filed Under: copyright, dhs, infringement, pipa, protect ip, sopa, you have downloaded
Companies: fox entertainment, nbc universal, riaa, sony pictures

Keith Olbermann, No Longer Afraid Of Corporate Parent Interference, Willing To Talk On Air About PIPA/SOPA

from the stand-up-to-the-man dept

We've noted widespread, mainstream media coverage of the massive problems with both SOPA and PIPA (PROTECT IP). With papers like the NY Times and the LA Times coming out against SOPA, this isn't just a fringe issue any more. But you know where it's been almost totally absent? TV news. In particular, cable news has been totally ignoring the concerns with the bill. Want to take a guess as to why? Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that all of the big TV news channels -- Fox News, MSNBC and CNN -- happen to be owned by the very companies that are the biggest supporters of this bill. NBC Universal, of course, has been making a big push to get the bills approved. Think they would allow SOPA/PIPA criticism on the air?

So, it's interesting to see that someone who is willing to discuss this issue on TV is Keith Olbermann. Love him or hate him (and I recognize the strong emotional feelings he brings out in people), he's still a big name in TV news... just not on one of the big channels any more. As you may recall, he had a bit of a "falling out" with MSNBC. One of the points he made when he signed on with Current TV was that he constantly felt some pressure not to piss off corporate ownership:

During the conference call, Olbermann acknowledged another upside in his new arrangement: not being tied to a larger corporation like Comcast or G.E. Olbermann said the “purity of this operation” is that he doesn’t have to worry about whether what he says on air will affect the conglomerate's other non-news businesses.

"There is nothing on my shoulder other than getting the best news, information and commentary show on the air every day," Olbermann said, adding later that in writing practice shows, "I’ve stopped myself from stopping myself."

Thus, it should come as no surprise that while the big cable channels seem to have a blackout on anything criticizing these bills, Olbermann had Senator Wyden come on to discuss the problems with the bill, as well as some of Wyden's suggestions for ways to fix the bill. Wyden also noted that he's working on a bipartisan alternative bill that doesn't involve censorship or breaking fundamental tenets of the internet, and which (hopefully) won't hold back innovation online. We'll certainly be interested to see what he comes up with.

Either way, it kind of makes you wonder how much longer the big cable news channels can continue to ignore the story... and what that says about the editorial independence of their reporters and commentators. Still, the message should be loud and clear for those working at any of those stations: if your corporate bosses get pissed off at you for challenging them on SOPA/PIPA... the internet will be quite happy to embrace you.

Filed Under: journalism, keith olbermann, pipa, protect ip, ron wyden, sopa
Companies: nbc universal

NBC Universal Threatens Partners That They Need To Sign 'Grassroots' Support Of SOPA/PIPA Or It Might Have To Drop Them

from the this-is-getting-sad dept

We've talked about CreativeAmerica, the astroturfing group set up by the major Hollywood studios, pretending to be a "grassroots effort" in favor of SOPA & PIPA. A month ago, we challenged the group's claim that it had "sent 100,000 letters to Congress." Turns out that wasn't true. They had sent 4,191, and then about 33,000 people had "signed a petition" that the group had set up. The math by CreativeAmerica is that each thing sent out three letters: one to your Congressional Representative and one to each of your two Senators. Of course, petitions are mostly ignored. Letters have only slightly more weight -- and based on Creative America's own math, they really only had about 1,400 people sign their letter.

Either way, it seemed somewhat amusing to discover that some of the top execs at NBC Universal have been threatening all NBC Universal suppliers to sign the letter that CreativeAmerica put together or NBC might no longer be able to do business with them:

We are writing to ask you for help on an issue that is one our top business priorities – content theft on the Internet, which is a major threat to the strength of our business. Our major guilds and unions are joining us in the fight to keep our businesses strong so that the tidal wave of content theft does not kill jobs. But if the current trend continues, it’s not too strong to say that this threat could adversely affect our business relationship with you.

Grassroots effort? When NBC Universal's General Counsel, Rick Cotton -- who famously once claimed that piracy was destroying the lowly corn farmer, since people who watch pirated movies don't eat popcorn (or something) -- is threatening suppliers who don't sign on? That's not grassroots. That's just insane. Now, it's true that Cotton wrote this carefully such that you can read it to suggest it means that if this law doesn't pass, NBC Universal's business will be in so much trouble that it has to shut down or cut off deals with suppliers. But it seems pretty clear that the obvious implication is: sign this or we may no longer do business with you.

But, given that "the big guns" at NBC Universal are pushing all their suppliers to directly sign (or else!) the letter found at CreativeAmerica's site, you might think that a lot more people would have signed on. Especially over the last month, with SOPA making so much news. So we went and checked. It appears that 4,673 letters have been sent. A month ago it was 4,191. That's a grand total of 482 new letters sent since we last checked almost a month ago. That means in a month, with this story making major news every which way... and the major studios putting a lot of marketing muscle behind it and even threatening partners to sign on, they only rustled up 482 more signatures. And, since CreativeAmerica claims that each person who signs really sends 3 letters, we should divide that by three.

That gives us 161 new signatures (actually 160.666666 etc -- which makes me wonder what happened to that extra third of a person). 161. In a month.

Meanwhile, a real grassroots campaign turned out one million emails to Congress and 87,834 calls in one day. It should be clear at this point that the public clearly does not support SOPA/PIPA, and no amount of "faking it" is driving any public support.

Filed Under: astroturf, creative america, grassroots, hollywood, protect ip, rick cotton, studios
Companies: creativeamerica, nbc universal

CreativeAmerica: When Major Hollywood Studios Set Up Bogus 'Grassroots' Campaigns

from the don't-make-me-laugh dept

For a little over a week now, we've been receiving emails from various actors and musicians, telling us that they've been getting emails from various entertainment industry giants, telling them to join a new "grassroots" coalition called CreativeAmerica, whose main purpose is to advocate for passing the PROTECT IP censorship bill. The whole thing is clearly an astroturf campaign. It was registered via domains-by-proxy to hide who really bought the domain name. It highlights the video that was secretly created and owned by NBC Universal. It includes the totally false claim that "there's no such thing as a free movie."

If you dig into the website to figure out who's really behind it, it claims that it's a "grassroots organization," but fails to name a single creative individual who was behind putting the group together. Instead, it lists out the following companies and organizations who really put the site together (amusingly, they even block you from cutting and pasting this part, so I just retyped it -- meaning I circumvented their DRM... come at me, entertainment industry):

CBS Corporation, NBC Universal, the Screen Actors Guild, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Twentieth Century Fox, Viacom, the Walt Disney Company and Warner Bros. Entertainment

Well, well. That's not a grassroots effort, folks. Now, the site also includes various unions, including the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, the Directors Guild of America and the Screen Actors Guild and IATSE (stage hands, etc.). But these are the old school, out of touch unions that who have done little to nothing to help their members adapt to the times (often doing the opposite). Do we see any of the actually creative folks who have embraced new technologies, new methods of distribution and new business models? Nope.

In the meantime, how can the website seriously claim that it's a grassroots effort when it has every single major Hollywood Studio behind it. Do they think that people are stupid? And should we remind people that these are the same studios who have all sorts of scammy tricks for "Hollywood accounting" to make sure even the most successful films are never seen as profitable, allowing them to avoid paying royalties to the actual creative folks.

Next, if you dig into the website, they have a "send a letter to your elected officials" thing. And the real evidence that it's not a real grassroots effort? Just like other faux grassroots efforts, those agreeing to send the letter have no option to edit the letter. When groups like Demand Progress and EFF let you send letters about PROTECT IP, they let you edit them to your liking -- trusting people to express themselves.

But, this "Creative America" apparently does not trust its own members to be creative. The letter is 100% locked down. You can only send their text. Honestly, if a group supposedly representing creators won't even let its own members express themselves freely, you know that it's not actually about protecting "creative" America.

This is not a grassroots effort. This is not about protecting "Creative America." This is about protecting a few megacorporations who are scared of new innovations, afraid of their dwindling monopoly rents, and trying to force the rest of the world to go back to the way things used to be.

Filed Under: astroturf, creative america, grassroots, hollywood, protect ip, studios
Companies: cbs, disney, fox, nbc universal, news corp., sony, viacom

Reminder: Create A PSA About The Impact Of Technology On Creativity And You Can Win $1,000

from the step-on-up dept

As you may remember, NBC Universal via New York City, is running a contest trying to get NYC school children to create anti-piracy public service announcement (PSA) propaganda videos. In exchange for that, they're giving the "winner" $500... but also taking their copyright. We think it's a bit ironic that a contest where you're forced to only talk about how great copyright is also forces you to give up your copyright.

Anyway, thanks to some generous Techdirt readers (and a matching grant from us directly), we're offering our own contest and the deadline is rapidly approaching. You've basically got a week left. We're looking for the PSAs to be about the impact of technology on creativity. We're not giving you talking points, or even a specific view you have to take. Unlike NBC Universal and New York City, we trust you to make your own arguments, not regurgitate what you've been handed. We're also offering twice the amount of money they are... and we don't force you to give up your copyright. So, step on up. Details of how to enter can be found here.

Filed Under: culture, nyc, psa, technology
Companies: nbc universal

Universal Backs Away From Planned $60 VOD Release Of Tower Heist

from the joke-wasn't-funny dept

It was barely a week ago when we reported that Universal was planning to test a $60 Video On Demand release of Tower Heist only 3 weeks after the theatrical release of the film. In that report, we noted that theater owners were threatening to boycott the film if Universal went ahead with its plans. We now learn that Universal has given into the demands of theater owners and will be putting off its early VOD release of this film. This is not all too surprising as Universal would not want to damage its relationships with theater owners. However, Universal still plans to go forward in the future with this plan as soon as it finds a mutually beneficial deal with theater owners. Nowhere, however, is there any indication that Universal is seeking a plan that is mutually beneficial to consumers.

Filed Under: $60, movie windows, theaters, tower heist, video on demand, vod
Companies: comcast, nbc universal

No One Wanted To Pay $30 For In-Home Movie Rentals... So Now Universal Will Try $60?

from the is-this-a-joke? dept

There are times when I wonder just what various entertainment industry execs are thinking (or drinking or smoking, as the case may be). Back in April we laughed at the idea that people would be interested in paying $30 for video on demand for a movie, just because they could get it a little bit before it came out on DVD. The $30 price point was just too high. And, of course, it didn't take long for the news to come out that... $30 was just too high and almost no one bought.

So what do you do if that plan fails? Well, if you're smart, you look at more reasonable price points. If you're not... you raise the price. Yes, that's right. Universal, with the assistance of parent company Comcast, is now going to test the preposterous $60 video on demand offering. The reason for the jacked up price? Because it'll come out on VOD three weeks after being released in the theaters -- at which point the film will still be in the theaters. The test is also going to be done on what the studio hopes is going to be a blockbuster: Tower Heist, starring Eddie Murphy, Ben Stiller and Matthew Broderick.

Here's what's wrong with this: the studio is thinking about this from the studio's perspective and not the consumer's perspective (at all). Of course, this is NBC Universal we're talking about, so that's not particularly shocking. In the studio world, release "windows" are everything. And each later release window is less and less of a big deal. So it's totally natural to them to think "gee, if we move up the release window, that's more valuable, so let's jack up the price." But a consumer isn't thinking about release windows. A consumer is thinking "I want to watch a movie. I could go out to the theater, or I could watch it at home." And then they look at the option at home... and if they can, say, watch a film at no additional cost from Netflix... or if they can grab a movie at Redbox for $1... and they compare that to $60 for video on demand, who's actually going to do that? The pricing is insanity.

Even funnier, however, was watching how the theaters totally freaked out over the original $30 plan, as they do with any plan to shrink the precious "window" between the theatrical release and any other kind of release. This is because theater owners don't know what business they're in. They think that they're in the content business, when they're really in the business of selling their seats. The fact that theater owners thought they couldn't compete with an insane $30 rental suggests that they don't know how to provide a good experience.

And, of course, now that there's an even more ridiculous $60 price point, you would think that the theater folks would chuckle and say "hey, we can compete with that, no problem." But it appears theater owners may be even more unable to comprehend the mind of the consumer than the execs at NBC Universal. Thus, Cinemark is already warning that it will boycott the movie if Universal goes forward with this plan.

In the meantime, it's also worth noting that the theaters convinced a bunch of big name Hollywood directors to sign an open letter to the studios protesting these kinds of "early" VOD releases. One of the names on that letter, by the way? Brett Ratner. The director of Tower Heist. Embarrassing... He is, of course, trying to distance himself from this trial, noting that he wasn't informed of it until the day before it was announced and had nothing to do with it. Of course, that's part of what happens when you do a deal like this. The studio owns the project, and they can do whatever they want with it.

Either way, don't expect too many people to pay up for this experiment. It almost makes you wonder if the idea is to make it fail on purpose.

Filed Under: $30, $60, movies, studios, video on demand
Companies: cinemark, comcast, nbc universal