UK Appeals Court Agrees That Clicking A Link And Opening A Website... Is Infringing

from the are-they-serious? dept

Late last year there was a ridiculous ruling against news aggregator Meltwater in the UK. Meltwater, like a number of other news aggregators, pulls together headlines from various online news stories, along with brief snippets of the articles, and links to those articles, helping people find news relevant to them. It's your classic news aggregator. Meltwater focused on an enterprise market, helping companies or PR people keep tabs on what was being said about them or about topics of interest. Pretty standard stuff. But the ruling said that just headlines could be covered by copyright, and thus Meltwater infringed by simply showing headlines and links. I didn't write about it at the time, on the assumption that this was just a clueless ruling that would hopefully be overturned on appeal... but no such luck. The Appeals Court has allowed the lower court ruling to stand, meaning that anyone doing news aggregation in the UK may have to start paying newspapers for the "privilege" of linking to them.

This is, of course, ridiculous. Almost everything in the ruling is ridiculous, frankly. Let's dig into a few of the points from the original ruling, as highlighted by the Independent (first link above):

* The headlines to the various articles reproduced in Meltwater News were capable of being literary works independently of the article to which they related;

Generally speaking, in the US, we don't consider headlines to have enough creative elements to be covered by copyright independent of the article. And that seems reasonable. Does anyone honestly believe that copyright is necessary to incentivize the creation of creative headlines? The whole point of a headline is to sell the story. There's plenty of incentive there. Putting copyright on headlines makes no sense at all.

* The extracts from the articles reproduced in Meltwater News with or without the headline to the article were capable of being a substantial part of the literary work consisting of the article as a whole;

Meltwater News tried to get us as a customer two years ago, and sent us some sample reports, so I'm actually quite familiar with their "snippets." They are clearly designed to get you to click through, and not at all designed to provide a "substantial" part of the literary work. Here's a screenshot from a report they sent us: Yeah. I'm sorry, but those "extracts" are hardly "substantial," and they clearly do not suffice as a replacement for the original.

* Accordingly each of the copies made by Meltwater News' end-users' computers in receiving the e-mail from Meltwater, opening it, and accessing the Meltwater website by clicking on the link to the article, and the copies of the article itself made when clicking on the link indicated by Meltwater News was, on the face of it, a breach of the publishers' copyright;

Read that again. Especially the last part. The copies of the article itself made when clicking a link were infringing. There's no way to respond to that other than to say that's insane. That means the entire web is infringing. Any time you open any web page, according to this ruling, you are likely infringing on the site's copyright.

* Legislation dealing with temporary copies, or fair dealing for copyright material, or Database Regulations did not allow such copying;

If so, the UK really needs to fix its copyright laws, because that's crazy.

* Thus, the end-user required a licence from NLA or the publisher in order lawfully to receive and use the Meltwater news service.

And, thus, the web dies in the UK. But now, suddenly, I'm tempted to send a bill to any UK newspaper that links to Techdirt going forward...

Filed Under: clicks, copyright, infringement, links, uk
Companies: meltwater

UK: Sex Offenders More Deserving Of Internet Access Than Infringers

from the double-standards dept

Does the UK really have stricter punishment for copyright offenders than sex offenders? It appears so. As part of a ruling concerning kicking people offline for sex offenses, a judge ruled that to be unlawful (hat tip to MD1500 for sending this in). The ruling clearly states:

A blanket prohibition on computer use or internet access is impermissible. It is disproportionate because it restricts the defendant in the use of what is nowadays an essential part of everyday living for a large proportion of the public, as well as a requirement of much employment. Before the creation of the internet, if a defendant kept books of pictures of child pornography it would not have occurred to anyone to ban him from possession of all printed material. The internet is a modern equivalent.

I don't know enough about UK law to know if this acts as a precedent that could apply to copyright cases as well, but it would seem to undermine a big part of the punishment set up by the Digital Economy Act there...

Filed Under: civil rights, infringement, internet access, uk

New Study: Piracy Increases The Quality Of Content

from the well-that's-not-going-to-play-well... dept

Eric Goldman points us to a very, very interesting new research paper by Atanu Lahiri and Debabrata Day, showing all sorts of real examples about how "piracy" appears to increase the quality of the related goods that are being infringed upon. Of course, this counters the "common sense" argument that such infringement inevitably lowers the quality of content, since the creators and distributors of said content can no longer invest as much in the content.

The key explanatory factor here: the best way to compete with piracy is to offer a better product yourself. And one way to do that is to increase the quality. For example:

A case in point is the European unit of the cable TV channel HBO, which is fighting against unauthorized distribution of its content by illegal torrent websites by raising the quality of its offerings. The piracy rate faced by HBO is estimated to be between 30% to 50%. HBO has responded to this high piracy rate by churning out new high quality contents in different European languages (Briel 2010). New contents are available through both HBO’s cable TV channels as well as its new IPTV channels. HBO’s innovative offerings have reduced piracy and brought in new subscribers. Valve, a video game manufacturer, has also adopted a similar strategy. Since releasing its game Team Fortress 2 in 2007, it has made frequent quality enhancements, including addition of new weapons and avatars. This strategy has encouraged enthusiastic gamers, who have a strong preference for the latest version, to switch to legal downloads.

The study doesn't just look at such anecdotal cases. It digs in on some evidence as well, showing how investments in R&D from software companies continues to increase, almost directly in line with claims that "piracy" rates for those companies has increased. The conclusion: less enforcement of copyright laws will likely lead to greater quality in output in many cases, and conversely that greater enforcement likely leads to less social benefit as the quality decreases, in markets facing the same conditions. In fact, they find that content creators (or distributors) are likely to increase profits by focusing on product quality, rather than enforcement.

Most of the paper focuses on creating and testing an economic model that explains this behavior, and highlights when such factors apply and when they don't, for the purpose of trying to optimize policy as well as an individual copyright holder's response to piracy. That is, they do find some conditions under which the traditional "common sense" view holds, but it seems relatively rare. In fact, one part of the study models whether or not there are "ethical" consumers who don't infringe for ethical reasons -- and finds that in such a world, there tends to be even fewer reasons for increasing enforcement.

Of course, when you think about much of this, it makes sense. We've argued from the beginning that there are tons of ways to "compete" with unauthorized access, and providing quality is definitely one such way. It's nice to see this bit of research adding deeply to this debate, both with real world examples of this happening today and a detailed economic model that explains the behavior.

And yet... our policy makers continue to think that the best answer is simply to keep on ratcheting up enforcement.

Filed Under: competition, content, copyright, infringement, piracy, policy, quality

Celine Dion Shuts Down Blog Of Ridiculous Pictures

from the publicity-rights-gone-mad dept

It's not entirely clear what's going on here, but someone anonymous has pointed us to a post on a blog that was supposedly posting "ridiculous pictures of Celine Dion" (that's the name of the blog) that says the site got a legal nastygram from Dion's lawyers, claiming infringement. They don't provide details of what they think about the site is infringing (copyright? publicity rights?), so it's tough to analyze the specific legal issues, though I can't see how they have much of a legitimate case. Either way, whoever runs the site has agreed to take it down, because the cost of defending it is too high. Of course, that's what Celine Dion's lawyers were hoping for anyway. So the blog is gone, though it did leave this one image as the avatar of the user who put together the site: In the meantime, how thin skinned and vain a celebrity must you be to shut down a blog showing funny pictures of you? The person who ran the blog notes that it was "superfans" who were using the site, and now they're all shut out of having some fun around a celebrity they like because she's got aggressive lawyers. Sad.

Filed Under: celine dion, censorship, infringement, ridiculous pictures

Justice Department Practicing Mix-And-Match, Sleight-Of-Hand Law In Seizure Case

from the pay-no-attention-to-that-law-behind-the-curtain dept

We've obviously been following with great interest the Federal Government's arguments for why it's allowed to seize domains under the "Operation In Our Sites" banner. The "main event" in the legality of such seizures, for now, is the fight between the Justice Department and the Spanish company Puerto 80, who runs the site Rojadirecta. As you may recall, Homeland Security's ICE division seized two Rojadirecta domain names back in January, despite the fact that the company had been declared perfectly legal in its home country. The Justice Department then did everything it could to stall any of the owners of seized sites from protesting the seizures, often threatening the site owners that if they filed a protest, then criminal charges would be filed against the sites (and, yes, in case you hadn't realized it, that means that all of the sites were seized without any charges being filed).

Homeland Security and the Justice Department are well aware that site owners are challenging the legality of the seizure of five of the domains, but so far only Puerto 80/Rojadirecta has officially gone to court to demand the return of its domains. Almost immediately after Puerto 80 petitioned the court to get its domain back, the Justice Department (as per its threats) officially filed charges against the site. Earlier this month (after stalling once again and getting the court to grant it a delay), the Justice Department finally filed its response to the petition by Puerto 80, which we thought was incredibly weak. Basically, the US Attorneys argued that stifling speech isn't considered "substantial harm" in their eyes, which is a pretty stunning interpretation of the First Amendment.

Puerto 80's lawyers wasted almost no time at all in replying to the Justice Department, and you can read their full filing below. It's absolutely worth reading because it so completely rips to shreds the government's arguments here. I want to go through a few of the key points from the filing, but wanted to call out one huge hole in the government's argument, which is briefly mentioned in Puerto 80's filing, but which appears to be a key point in the overall argument (and which has also been discussed in our comments): the government has completely failed to show any evidence of criminal copyright infringement. Since it can't do that (because it's not clear that any happened), it simply tries to conflate multiple separate parties to pretend there's criminal copyright infringement.

The argument is a little complex, so I'll try to lay it out simply:

1. For criminal copyright infringement to have occurred, the government has to show that copyright infringement occurred with certain key factors described in Section 506 of US copyright code. The key factors: it has to be willful, it has to be "for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain," it has to involve reproduction or distribution of works valued over $1,000 or it has to be on works that are "being prepared" for commercial distribution, but which haven't been released yet (basically leaks). The last factor doesn't apply to Rojadirecta as far as I can tell, because it's accused of streaming sports events that are being shown on TV, meaning that it's not leaking them before they're available.
2. The "willful" part is going to be difficult to show. The government claims that Puerto 80 was well aware that it was receiving complaints from copyright holders. But, as the law itself states, simply showing evidence of infringement is not sufficient to make it willful. Even worse, of course, are the two rulings in Spain that Rojadirecta was legal. Now, supporters of the seizures love to point out that this is US copyright law we're dealing with, and Spanish copyright law means nothing. That's true for the overall charges... but for proving "willfulness," it's still a big issue that puts a major dent in the US's case.
3. But, the much, much bigger problem for the government is in those other factors. It knows that Rojadirecta did not reproduce or distribute any works itself. It merely has users who link to such works. Thus, it's pretty clear that there's no direct infringement -- a point that the government effectively concedes in its filing against the petition. So, instead, it seems to be hanging its hat on the claim of contributory infringement. Since there is no contributory criminal copyright infringement in the law, the Justice Department is trying to claim that it still works under an aiding and abetting theory.
4. There are serious problems for the government in making that stick. Here's the biggest one: just what crime is the government accusing Puerto 80 of aiding and abetting? For there to be aiding and abetting there needs to be criminal copyright infringement done by someone else "aided and abetted" by Rojadirecta. So, here's the problem. Who is that "someone else" that Rojadirecta aided and abetted? The Justice Department will claim that its Rojadirecta's users. But go back up to step 1 above. It's unlikely that any of Rojadirecta's users actually meet the criteria ("for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain") necessary to make their use criminal. Their use may still be infringing, but not criminally infringing. Thus, there is no evidence of a crime committed by someone else that Rojadirecta could have aided and abetted. Certainly, the government doesn't show any such evidence.
5. Basically, the government seems to be conflating two separate parties to try to create criminal copyright infringement out of thin air. That is, it may get Rojadirecta on the first factor, but can't on the second factor. It might be able to get some users on the second factor, but can't on the first factor. So, basically, the government simply doesn't have the goods to prove criminal copyright infringement, and instead is trying to wave its hands in the air really quickly, in hopes that the court doesn't notice this. It seems to think that if it talks about the users' potential civil infringement and quickly switches to Rojadirecta making money from providing a service, it can pretend it's met the factors for criminal infringement... even though it hasn't.

In fact, as part of that hand-waving to distract the court, it seems that the Justice Department is either so incompetent or so desperate that it cited a case that didn't actually say what they claimed it said. Instead, it falsely claimed one case said something when the quote was actually from another case... whose facts were totally different:

The government does not address those arguments or the authority Puerto 80 cites, and instead makes the remarkable suggestion that Puerto 80's failure to "stop an infringing copy from being distributed worldwide constitutes substantial participation in" distribution of copyrighted material. See Opp'n at 21. That is not the law. In fact, it is not the law according to the authority to which the government attributes it—the quote, purportedly from Cubby, Inc. v. CompuServe, Inc., 776 F. Supp. 135, 141 (S.D.N.Y. 1991), is not found in Cubby. Rather, it comes from Religious Tech'y Ctr. v. Netcom On-Line Communication Svcs Inc., 907 F. Supp. 1361, 1374 (N.D. Cal. 1995), in which the court found that a material issue of fact existed on the question of whether an online bulletin board system operator was contributorily liable for distributing material which was hosted on its server. The government makes no attempt to explain how the facts of Netcom align with the instant facts, and, indeed, they do not. But Puerto 80 need not belabor the point, because it is irrelevant. That is because even if Puerto 80 could be held liable for contributory infringement, such liability would not support criminal charges.

Nice work, Justice Department... citing the wrong case. Whether you believe it's incompetence or deception, it looks bad either way.

On top of that, the government plays up the whole aiding and abetting claim in its response to the petition, but as Puerto 80 points out in the latest filing: the government's actual charges in its forfeiture case against Puerto 80 don't include aiding and abetting because forfeiture is not allowed for aiding and abetting:

... the domain names were not seized based on an allegation of aiding and abetting, and the government chose not to bring those charges in its forfetiyre complaint. Even if it had, those charges would not support forfeiture of the domain names because the forfeiture statute does not permit seizure based on those crimes. See 18 U.S.C. § 2323 (permitting seizure based on alleged violations of specific statutes, of which 18 U.S.C. §§ 2 and 371 are not among).

In other words... the government really seems to be trying to completely remake the law here, pretending it says all sorts of stuff it does not. And in order to do that, it basically keeps conflating different parties and switching back and forth in a sort of legalistic sleight of hand. One hopes the courts are not fooled by these rather deceitful tactics.

Now, the government has argued that most of these arguments belong in the fight over the forfeiture, rather than in this petition to return the domain, but again, Puerto 80 points out that this makes no sense, and is the whole reason why the concept of "prior restraint" is an issue. The government isn't supposed to be able to stifle speech and then say "we'll figure it all out at trial later...." Thus, Puerto 80 argues, the only proper thing to do is to return the domains, and then get on to the meat of the problems of the government's entire rationale for the seizures and forfeiture attempts.

The big question now is whether or not the courts are confused by the government's hand-waving, distractions and false citations. Or if it recognizes the underlying problems with the government's entire case. Hopefully, we'll find out soon.

Filed Under: aiding and abetting, copyright, domain seizures, ice, infringement, justice department
Companies: puerto 80, rojadirecta

Judge Drops Key Claim In MPAA's Case Against Hotfile: Cyberlocker Didn't Directly Infringe

from the a-good-start dept

The MPAA has recently decided that "cyberlockers" are enemy number one on its most wanted list, even though they serve perfectly legitimate purposes. As something of a test case, the MPAA sued Hotfile (and its owner, directly) with an astonishingly weak case. After reading it, we were surprised that it didn't include more detail. The case seemed full of conjecture and claims that simply didn't match with reality. While I still think the main show is whether or not Hotfile is guilty of secondary infringement via inducement, the MPAA was certainly betting on a direct infringement claim to be a key part of the argument.

Thankfully, the judge wasted little time in dismissing the direct infringement claims. The judge points out, as we did in our initial post on the lawsuit, that the MPAA's weak filing fails to point out any evidence of direct infringement:

"Nothing in the complaint alleges that Hotfile or Mr. Titov took direct, volitional steps to violate the plaintiffs' infringement. There are no allegations, say, that Hotfile uploaded copyrighted material. Therefore, under the great weight of authority, the plaintiffs have failed to allege direct copyright infringement."

Where this becomes really important is that it means that Hotfile may be protected by the DMCA's safe harbors. Direct infringement isn't covered by the safe harbors. Now, the case will shift (among other things) to see whether or not (like YouTube and Veoh) Hotfile has correctly met the conditions to get safe harbor protection. Of course, it's entirely likely that the MPAA, in its quixotic quest, will appeal this particular part of the ruling, but next time, they should try to provide some actual evidence of direct infringement rather than just insisting that it must be true.

Filed Under: copyright, cyberlocker, direct infringement, dmca, infringement, safe harbors
Companies: hotfile, mpaa

Prop Wars: Can Paramount Prevent People From Offering Up Plans To 3D Print Movie Props?

from the freedom-to-build dept

It wasn't difficult to predict that this was coming. Late last year, we noted that it was only a matter of time until certain industries started to freak out about 3D printing, and how it would allow people to print physical items that others would claim "infringed" on original works. And, it shouldn't be much of a surprise that it's the entertainment industry that is the first to freak out. We had already noted that Gene Roddenberry's son was claiming that anyone who did a 3D printing of a Star Trek prop was infringing his rights (kinda ironic, given the nature of the Replicator device in the Star Trek universe...).

However, Paramount Pictures, a subsidiary of Viacom, has taken this even further. The studio apparently sent a cease-and-desist to Todd Blatt, a mechanical engineer, who has been making 3D printable models of various movie props, sending them off to the popular 3D printing service Shapeways, and offering up the products. In this case, Paramount freaked out that he was offering a 3D printed version of the weird cube-like figure in the movie Super 8. Blatt, not wanting to get into a legal fight, took down the offered object... but the whole thing is raising questions as to whether or not Paramount has a legitimate legal claim here. As Eriq Gardner notes, this is like the Mike Tyson tattoo/Warner Bros. case in reverse.

Obviously, the creator of such a product might run into trouble depending on how the technology is packaged. "Bring home a character from Transformers" might imply a false endorsement. "Look like Angelina Jolie" might constitute a violation of the actress' publicity rights. But copyright? Is a physical re-creation of an object on-screen a derivative?

It definitely seems like a stretch, but if the entertainment industry is good at anything these days, it's stretching the meaning of copyright laws. While nothing more is likely to happen in this case, you can rest assured that this issue isn't going away, and there will almost certainly be court cases in the near future.

Filed Under: 3d printing, copyright, infringement, super 8
Companies: paramount

Could Apple's MusicMatch Be A Tool To Identify Infringers?

from the wouldn't-that-be-interesting dept

When Apple announced its iCloud Music Match service, a lot of people started suggesting that it "legitimized" infringement, or in some manner created an amnesty program for infringers: pay $25/year and all of your infringing copies get replaced by licensed copies from Apple. In fact, this really pissed off some copyright holders. The whole thing struck me as a huge exaggeration, because no one was looking at the files on your hard drive to see if they were infringing anyway.

But... what if they started now? And what if they started now because they could... thanks to Apple's iCloud Music Match.

I still think this is a huge stretch (and I'll explain why below), but Slashdot points us to a story from someone suggesting that rather than "amnesty" for unauthorized file sharers, Music Match could be used to track down infringers. My initial response was that this was totally crazy, because it wouldn't know if the non-iTunes-bought tracks were authorized or not. After all, you could have bought them elsewhere or ripped them. However, the author of the article, Daniel Nolte, does a good job walking through both scenarios and explaining why Apple might still be able to figure out what files were likely infringing:

Although the ‘DRM free’ MP3 now being provided from many of the the major music download companies can be played anywhere, each download is watermarked with header information specific to the exact purchase and purchaser.  This article from Techcrunch gives more details on ‘dirty’ MP3s.  Consequently, if you purchase a ‘DRM free’ MP3 file from iTunes and then share it, and the person(s) who received it saves it to their iCloud, then Apple will know both (i) who shared their copy and (ii) whose copy is illegal.  For files from other watermarked retailers, the same information would only require coordination with the other site.

Next consider music purchased from sites that sell legal but ’clean’ MP3s without watermarks.  These files will have unique MD5 or SHA-2 signatures that can distinguish them to a particular company.  They will certainly have different signatures than the watermarked versions (because the addition of the watermark) and they will be unique from versions of the same song encoded by others.  When Apple’s servers detect a number of copies far in excess of the ‘clean’ mp3 company’s reported sales, they will know where to suspect illegal copying.

Then there will be MP3s that individuals created themselves from, for example, ‘ripping’ their CD collections.  While these are not watermarked to the individual, they appear to be unique for each ‘rip’.  To confirm this, I ran a test with fresh installations of the exact same CD ripping software on two different computers.  I then had them rip the same track from the exact same CD using the unchanged system default settings on both computers.  The MD5 hashes did not match. Small differences between the two reads, the internal timestamps, the system metadata, etc. likely resulted in the mismatch.  It will almost certainly also be different from the file hashes from legal download sites, both those that watermark and those that do not.    In short, if you and thousands other people have MP3s of the same song with the same file hash value, you will not be able to credibly claim it occurred because all of you ripped it from your CD collections.

The obvious next response is that Apple would never let its data be used in this manner, as it would kill the service. But Nolte notes that might not matter either:

Apple would not have to.  They would simply have to comply with an information demand from the RIAA, who has had no problem with being seen as the bad guy in hardball enforcement against file sharing.  Moreover consider this:

1. Apple is the largest music retailer on the planet.
2. Apple believes, possibly justifiably, that it loses billions of dollars annually to illegal music file sharing.
3. The easiest way out of the legal jam over challenged content in your iCloud storage would be to convert the suspected iCloud music by buying it from Apple.  Apple becomes almost like a white knight in the process.

While this is possible, I don't think it's probable for a variety of reasons. While the RIAA may not have a problem being seen as the bad guy in hardball enforcement, I think that even it has some limits, and this almost certainly passes those limits. I could actually see a random misguided indie label seeking this kind of information, but I'm not convinced it would really get that far. I would hope that most courts would recognize that this was a fishing expedition, rather than a reasonable search based on evidence of specific infringement. Simply demanding all data would (hopefully) be a non-starter.

In the end, I think both claims are probably overblown. Music Match is neither a way to launder infringing files, nor is it a honeypot to get you in trouble for your infringing files. It's just a service to sync music.

Filed Under: icloud, infringement, music match
Companies: apple

Forever 21, Famous For Copying Clothing Designs, Tries To Silence Blogger With Infringement Threats

from the wtf? dept

For years, in the discussions on fashion copyright, we've defended the right of companies such as Forever 21 to copy fashion designs, make cheaper versions and sell them in their stores. Actually, Forever 21 is often the poster child of examples from those who want a brand new fashion copyright law. The company has also been subject to a few lawsuits for copying, most of which have settled. However, apparently, the company doesn't recognize the irony in then abusing intellectual property claims to threaten a satirical blogger, who writes a blog making fun of the retailer, called WTForever 21.

Of course, the main focus o Forever 21's lawyers is on the trademark claim, though there is a copyright claim in there as well. One would hope Forever 21's lawyers are aware of the pretty long line of legal decisions noting that websites critical of companies (often referred to as "sucks sites") are perfectly legal, in most cases, in large part because no one would confuse the sucks site for the original. That reasoning certainly applies here. Of course, Forever 21's lawyers point to the increasingly popular "dilution" interpretation of trademark law to claim that connecting their brand with the internet slang term "WTF" is diluting. This is, plainly speaking, ridiculous. Seriously, WTF Forever 21? Someone putting up such a site doesn't harm your trademark.

You know what does harm your trademark? Stupidly threatening the satire site, in the first place.

Separately, the lawyers claim copyright infringement (which, yes, is quite laughable coming from this particular company), because the blogger made use of images from Forever 21. Once again, while the specific uses may matter, it seems like there's likely a strong fair use argument here. But, even more to the point, it is entirely clear from the letter, that Forever 21's complaint has nothing to do with infringement of either trademarks or copyright at all, but the fact that the company doesn't like being made fun of.

This is not what either trademark or copyright law was designed to deal with.

Using both such laws for this purpose is clearly an abuse of the law to try to censor a critic. I may defend, strongly, Forever 21's right to copy fashion designs, but the company has gone way overboard here in an attempt to stifle speech.

Filed Under: copyright, free speech, infringement, satire, trademark
Companies: forever 21

More People Realizing That Infringement Can't Be Stopped, So Learn To Embrace It

from the seems-like-a-good-idea dept

Mitch Wagner points us to a blog post by a fellow blogger at the CMO site, Scott Kinoshita, who explains why fighting against infringement is a losing and wasteful battle. Basically, Kinoshita comes to the same conclusion many of us have: that you simply can't stop what the technology allows and what the people want. I actually think Kinoshita's arguments are a bit weak, claiming that "the pirates will win," because (1) you can't compete with free, (2) the technology "favors the pirates," and (3) dinosaur industries are way too slow to change. Of course, you can compete with free, by offering something better. People still go to theaters despite being able to get movies for free, because the experience is better (sometimes). People still pay for things all the time when there are free or cheaper options. If you can truly differentiate a scarce good, you can always "compete" with free. Where you can't compete is when you're offering an identical commodity good that's free... On the second two points, I agree, but it feels like a little more detail and data would have made the argument much, much stronger.

Filed Under: business models, copyright, infringement