'Concerned Citizen' Critic Of Muni Cable System Now Admits He Works For Time Warner Cable

from the well,-look-at-that... dept

The big broadband providers have long been fighting local community/muni broadband efforts, passing laws and making ridiculous claims about those efforts. The real point is that these service providers don't want competition and want to charge monopoly prices. While I have my concerns about how effectively some community broadband projects can work, the attempts to legally block them go way overboard -- especially in North Carolina. Karl Bode now points our attention to the news that one very vocal "concerned citizen" critic of just such a community cable effort in NC has now admitted he works for Time Warner Cable, the monopoly cable provider in the area, though he never disclosed this when criticizing the community effort, and, in fact denied working for the company when asked about it:

Andy Stevens of Troutman has spoken out against the towns’ 2007 cable purchase, posted comments on this and other local websites and started an anti-MI-Connection blog. He has described himself as a concerned citizen and an opponent of government ownership of government involvement in telecommunications. When reporters and local officials have questioned him about his employment, he has repeatedly denied working for the company.

But in an email to DavidsonNews.net on Friday, Mr. Stevens acknowledged he works for Time Warner Cable as an installer. His admission followed an encounter with MI-Connection’s general manager, who spotted Mr. Stevens at a local shopping center wearing a Time Warner Cable uniform and driving a Time Warner Cable truck.

Not only that, but it turns out he doesn't even live in the service area of the community broadband effort. When confronted with all of this Stevens apparently claimed that he "separates" his employment from his criticisms. I guess that must be why he denied working for the company when he did.

Filed Under: broadband, north carolina
Companies: time warner cable

Time Warner Cable, Viacom Go To Court: Does TWC Need Permission To Let Paying Subscribers View Viacom Content On iPads?

from the battles-of-a-lifetime dept

We recently noted that the various TV broadcasters were quite upset that Time Warner Cable was trying to promote their content to subscribers. Seem strange? It is. TWC set up an app for subscribers of both its broadband and TV services, that would let those users watch the TV stations they already subscribed to via an iPad app only if they were accessing the content via their home WiFi. To simplify it, TWC was letting your iPad act as another TV in your house.

Now, normally, if someone sets up an additional TV, they don't have to pay the content providers yet again.

But this is the "internet," you see, where content companies think they should get paid every time something touches their content in a different manner. So they were upset and threatened to sue TWC. TWC caved a bit, and pulled some channels, but then put some others on the app. It's tough to keep up, since the app seems to change each day (which must be great for keeping customers happy). Rather than wait and see if the TV companies would sue, however, TWC has taken matters into its own hands and filed for a declaratory judgment that what it's doing is perfectly legal. Viacom quickly filed the complaint it had ready to go against TWC in response (both are embedded below).

TWC is trying to play down any idea that this is a "fight," saying that "this is not a hostile lawsuit," and that "we need an impartial third party to referee the situation and confirm that our interpretation is correct." Of course, they could have hired an arbitrator rather than burdening the federal court system... but... it's just our tax money. And Viacom, for its part, doesn't seem to be acting as if this is just a bit of a legal clarification among friends. Its response is pretty harsh, if highly misleading.

Viacom's argument seems to be based on the established legal theory of "but... but... everyone else is paying us for this sort of thing so TWC must have to pay for it." In the end, it comes down to a contractual dispute over what TWC's deal with Viacom says, but the whole thing is pretty ridiculous. TWC's offering is really limited, and all it's doing is making Viacom's content more valuable to subscribers. Viacom, in typical entertainment industry fashion, seems to think that everyone needs to pay it for making its content more valuable.

Filed Under: place shifting, tv
Companies: time warner cable, viacom

Broadcasters To Sue Time Warner Cable For Making It Easier For People To See Their Shows & Ads

from the say-what-now? dept

Time-shifting and place-shifting content you are authorized to access is legal, but so many content providers still hate that. Apparently, the TV broadcasters are up in arms and about to sue Time Warner Cable for offering subscribers an iPad app that lets them watch some TV channels via the device. There are a whole bunch of limitations on this device. You have to be a subscriber to Time Warner Cable TV and to Time Warner Cable's broadband service. You can only use it if you're on your home WiFi connection, and it only offers 30 channels. Since it's limited to the home and only to subscribers, this seems like even less than just setting up another TV in your house. This is certainly less than what, say, a Slingbox would let you do. Variety quotes a TV exec claiming that they have to sue, because they "have a chance to win." As Karl Bode points out in the first link above:

There's a certain genius at work when you think you "win" by suing a company that is putting your content and ads in front of not only a broader audience, but people who are already paying a significant amount of money to view it.

We live in bizarre times.

Filed Under: place shifting, tv
Companies: time warner cable

Time Warner Cable Whining About How It's Not Allowed To Pretend It Offers Fiber To The Home Any More

from the truth-in-advertising dept

A few years back, we noted that Verizon -- who has a history of misleading ads itself -- had sued Time Warner Cable for a series of ads that implied that Verizon's FiOS fiber-to-the-home offering was just "catching up" to TWC's own "fiber" offering. Of course, that was blatantly misleading. Time Warner uses fiber within its network but not to the home, which is the whole selling point of FiOS. There have been numerous disputes over this and TWC always comes out on the losing end. The latest, from the National Advertising Review Board (NARB), once again found that TWC's claims were clearly misleading. TWC's response is to petulantly claim that it can no longer accurately describe its own network and this will make it harder to "distinguish their service in areas where their competitors have indisputably inferior products."

Hogwash. TWC can still accurately describe its network and, if it actually is facing off against "indisputably inferior products," it can continue to highlight the specific differences in bandwidth or whatever other metrics that accurately portray the difference. What it cannot do -- and what it clearly had done for a while -- is pretend that its use of fiber deep within the network is, in any way, comparable to Verizon installing fiber all the way to someone's home.

Filed Under: broadband, fiber, truth in advertising
Companies: time warner cable, verizon

More Mass Porn Copyright Infringement Lawsuits Get Dumped

from the not-looking-so-good dept

In the middle of December, we wrote about a judge in West Virginia tossing out all but one of the defendants in one of the many, many "mass" copyright infringement lawsuits that were filed in 2010. The same judge has also done the same with another of the lawsuits, dropping 7,097 defendants. This one involved the movie Batman XXX: A Porn Parody, from Axel Braun Productions. When you think about it, of course, it's rather amusing that such a lawsuit was filed over this movie, since it very clearly relies on fair use to defend using Batman. To then get upset about alleged infringement of your own work is somewhat ironic. However, it appears that Axel Braun is not backing down. His response after all of those subpoenas were quashed:

"Heads will roll. I said it once, and I'll say it again, Fuck 'em all. I didn't get into this fight thinking it was going to be an easy one, but I can assure you that I am not quitting."

Well, okay, then, but you may go broke trying. Of course, as one of our commenters astutely pointed out, under the Copyright Act, filing against all of these defendants in a single lawsuit is actually a really bad idea for those suing, since the Copyright Act says that statutory damages are per work and not per infringement. Thus, if you have 7,000 defendants accused of sharing a single file in a single lawsuit, it likely would mean a single statutory damages award, split between them all.

In the meantime, in another one of these lawsuits -- again, involving a movie that relies on fair use to exist -- Time Warner Cable has refused to reveal more than 10 names per month. The lawyer, Evan Stone, who's been filing a lot of these mass lawsuits lately, is pissed off about this, but apparently the client, Larry Flynt Publishing, has decided not to push the issue, since it has separate business dealings with TWC. Of course, I also do wonder if the public campaign to request Larry Flynt reconsider these lawsuits, in the form of an open letter to Larry Flynt, had an impact as well...

Filed Under: copyright, joinder, lawsuits
Companies: axel braun productions, larry flynt publishing, time warner cable

Oh Look, More Cord Cutters: Time Warner Cable Loses 155,000 TV Subscribers

from the that-river-in-egypt-keeps-growing dept

Back in August, we wrote about a NY Times article insisting that the cable companies had beaten the internet and the idea that people would "cut the cord" and get their TV from the internet was something of a myth. The centerpiece of the story was a single anecdote of a guy who tried to just watch TV on the internet, but went back to cable. Because, you know, a single anecdote must represent a trend. We noted the irony that the day after that article came out, reports broke that cable TV had suffered its first ever decline in subscribers.

And since then, the evidence of cord cutting has only grown. We noted recently that Comcast had lost 275,000 video subscribers, which they tried to explain away by blaming "the economy." Of course, the economy was a lot worse last year. And, now, Time Warner Cable has released the news that it's lost 155,000 TV subscribers. But cord cutting isn't real, right?

Filed Under: cable, cord cutting, tv
Companies: time warner cable

Time Warner Cable Boycotting Epix Movie Channel Because It Did A Deal With Netflix

from the how-petty-can-you-get dept

Apparently Time Warner Cable can be incredibly petty and vindictive when it wants to be. The company has said that it's not interested in carrying Epix, the premium movie channel, because that channel did a deal with Netflix to help stream some movies to Netflix customers. It's hard to understand how this makes any sense at all. If I'm a Time Warner customer (and thankfully, I'm not), a move like this is just a reason to drop them (and to sign up with Netflix). Why treat your customers so badly, just because you don't like a little competition?

Filed Under: cable, competition, epix, movies
Companies: netflix, time warner cable

Another ISP Fighting US Copyright Group Subpoenas; Why Aren't More ISPs Protecting Your Privacy?

from the unfortunate dept

With US Copyright Group filing tens of thousands of lawsuits against people accused of sharing movies like Hurt Locker online, we've been disappointed that many ISPs don't seem willing to stand up for their subscribers' rights, and are willing to hand over names without a thought. Time Warner Cable fought the subpoenas, but its main concern was the volume, not the concept. However, a small ISP in South Dakota, Midcontinent Communications is also asking for the subpoenas to be quashed, noting that its privacy policies say that it cannot hand out customer information to third parties without a court order. It also questions how it can be covered by the jurisdiction of a Washington DC court.

Bravo to Midcontinent Communications for actually standing up for its users. But, the real story here is why other ISPs are not doing this? This should be how pretty much any ISP responds to questionable subpoenas of this nature.

Filed Under: copyright, isps, privacy, subpoenas
Companies: midcontinent communications, time warner cable, us copyright group

Court Orders US Copyright Group To Work With Time Warner, EFF To Craft More Informative Letter To Those Being Sued

from the it's-something dept

The saga of US Copyright Group (really DC-based law firm Dunlap, Grubb & Weaver) continues. As you may recall, the firm is filing lawsuits against tens of thousands of people accused of file sharing certain movies, such as Uwe Boll's Far Cry and the Oscar-winning Hurt Locker. The lawsuits lump thousands of "John Does" into a single suit located conveniently (for Dunlap, Grubb & Weaver) in Washington, DC. Time Warner Cable has been resisting the demands to identify so many of its subscribers, and EFF, Public Citizen and the ACLU joined forces to point out that it isn't legal to lump together so many different totally unrelated defendants into a single case in an unrelated jurisdiction. US Copyright Group defended the lumping together by claiming that since BitTorrent worked by different people sharing little bits, perhaps all of the thousands of people shared together. The judge seemed skeptical.

However, rather than throw out the lawsuits against all but one of the defendants, the judge is asking the various parties -- US Copyright Group, Time Warner Cable, EFF, Public Citizen and the ACLU to all work together to craft a note that can be sent to individuals targeted in these lawsuits. The idea is that this note, unlike the one people get directly from USCG, will inform people of their rights, including the right to challenge the jurisdiction of the lawsuit (and, I assume, the fact that they're randomly lumped in with other people).

My guess is that the judge is still uncomfortable with all these lawsuits being lumped together, but realized that none of the parties in the court room are really the right ones to be challenging the specifics of the lawsuit. That needs to come from someone actually being sued. Thus, this agreed-upon letter could still lead to a lawsuit that says such joining of massive lawsuits into one is not allowed.

Still, given USCG's statements in the lawsuits to date, and the text of the current letters it sends, I'm guessing that there's going to be a lot of disagreement about what goes into this new mutually agreed-upon letter.

Filed Under: file sharing, lawsuits, legal options
Companies: aclu, eff, public citizen, time warner cable, us copyright group

Verizon Handing Over Names For US Copyright Group's Mass Automated Lawsuits

from the shame-on-verizon dept

We've already discussed how the so-called US Copyright Group (which seems like a bit of a front for DC-based law firm Dunlap Grubb Weaver -- tag line: "Lawyers with a Higher Standard" -- since the first named partner in the operation, Thomas Dunlap, also happens to appear to run US Copyright Group) has been filing tens of thousands of questionable lawsuits for certain movie producers, including, most recently 5,000 lawsuits for those accused of file sharing Hurt Locker. Of course, it looks like this particular operation is nothing more than a copy of European operations like ACS:Law, whose main goal is not to take anyone to court, but to get people to pay up to not get sued. In this case, US Copyright Group's starting offer is $1,500 to not get sued. How generous.

When the news of this operation first came to light, it was noted that one major ISP had already agreed to hand over names of folks based on IP addresses. At the time, we wondered who that was. Later on, we found out, Dunlap claimed that 75% of ISPs were cooperating. Again, we wondered who was actually doing this. The only major ISP we know who is fighting handing over the names is Time Warner Cable. In response, Dunlap is trying to advance the novel legal theory (i.e., one that would get laughed out of court) that by not handing over the names TWC is guilty of inducing infringement itself.

Well, now we know at least one ISP that is handing over the names In a rather annoying "photo gallery" put together by News.com that only shows one photo per page so you need to click through a bunch of pages to get the actual story (nice to see News.com stooping to cheap page view boosting tricks), we find out that Verizon is handing over names to US Copyright Group. The photo gallery shows images from one guy who received one of these pre-settlement letters. Verizon apparently gave him less than a week to retain a lawyer to fight the subpoena or it would hand over his info.

This is unfortunate. Verizon was the one big ISP that stood up to the RIAA back in the early days, when it pulled a similar trick, going to court to protect its customers' identities. It's too bad that it no longer thinks so highly of protecting its customers.

Some other tidbits from the letter in the News.com story: US Copyright Group demands $1,500 not to sue, but only if you pay up within a month. After that the price goes up to $2,500. The letter, not surprisingly warns that the producers of the film will seek at least $30,000 per infringement in any lawsuit, with the possibility of asking for $150,000, if it believes it can prove the infringement was "intentional."

The letter cites the ruling against Joel Tenenbaum to support why it's cheaper to pay up. Amusingly, but not surprisingly, it doesn't cite the ruling against Jammie Thomas, who also was ordered to pay huge amounts... until the judge greatly reduced the award. Funny that the lawyers would omit that little fact...

Also, the letter (which is not about Hurt Locker, but about Uwe Boll's Far Cry) points people to www.farcry-settlement.com, which you can check out for yourself.

Oh, as for the guy who showed the letter to News.com. He has an open WiFi setup, says he doesn't know who downloaded the film and appears pretty annoyed by the whole thing:

"For me, the issue here isn't whether or not peer-to-peer is evil," said Harrison, a photographer. "It is whether or not our federal courts and Verizon should cooperate with such an obvious intimidation scam."

Filed Under: copyright, isps, subpoenas
Companies: time warner cable, us copyright group, verizon