Russian BitTorrent User Sentenced... But It May Backfire

from the the-more-they-whack,-the-more-moles-there-are dept

Russia is certainly not known for its willingness to follow American-style copyright laws. About the only time you hear about such things are either after the US has been pressuring Russia, or when Russia is using copyright laws or as a tool to silence critics of the government. It's not clear if either situation is at play here, but apparently someone in Russia has been found guilty of sharing some software via BitTorrent. What's much more interesting, however, is that this lawsuit looks like it may have the opposite response that the software industry wants. While Big Copyright players always talk about how they need to go after file sharers to "educate" people, that education can go the wrong way as well. Supporters of the guy who was found guilty are now trying to spread the software he was accused of distributing even more widely than before, calling attention to how silly the case was in the first place. That's probably not the type of education that the software industry was hoping for -- but it should hardly come as a surprise. After many years of playing a pointless game of whack-a-mole, it appears that people certainly know what's illegal and what's not, but they still choose to take part. At some point, you would think that the industry would stop fighting it and start looking for ways to embrace the trend.

Filed Under: file sharing, russia, software

Make Some Software Better, Get Arrested For Copyright Infringement

from the the-spirit-of-innovation dept

If you look into the history of innovation, you realize that it's all built on the works of those who came before. The single biggest key to innovation is to try to do something better than what's already been done. There's a great book by Robert Friedel that highlights this called A Culture of Improvement. This is seen quite a lot in the software world, certainly. In fact, it's quite common for people to try to improve someone else's software, just to make it better. Take, for example, the massive success of Greasemonkey scripts to allow people to improve on others' websites. However, in this age of pervasive misunderstandings about the purpose of intellectual property laws, many people take offense to the idea that someone wants to improve their work, as we've seen in cases where people have tried to build better front-ends for confusingly designed websites. It gets even trickier when it comes to "improvements" that conflict with business models. There are still some people who think that Firefox's AdBlock extension is "stealing," for example. And, remember, that the folks behind Kazaa flipped out about Kazaa Lite, a version of their software, which stripped out all the spyware included with Kazaa. These all seem to fall under the heading of "felony interference with a business model" which is the concept formerly called "competition."

Now a similar case has appeared in China, but with more dire results. There's apparently a very popular instant messaging client called QQ, from a company named Tencent, that has a few annoying characteristics. A computer scientist in China created a modified version called Coral QQ that got rid of some of those problems, including adding some features that Tencent charges for. For doing so, the guy was recently arrested for intellectual property violations. The company has been fighting with him for years, previously having filed and won a copyright infringement case against him (for which he paid the fine). However, as his software kept getting more and more popular, rather than taking it as a message that perhaps the company should improve QQ and get rid of annoying features, Tencent instead filed charges with the police, who arrested the programmer. As the folks at Against Monopoly point out, this is yet another situation where the concept of intellectual property is being used to hold back innovation (and put someone in jail for improving a product).

Filed Under: add-ons, china, copyright infringement, innovation, software

People Beginning To Question The BSA's Vindictive Campaign Against Companies Using Unauthorized Software

from the a-bit-out-of-touch-with-the-times dept

The BSA is famous for overhyping its claims. It puts out completely bogus stats about how much unauthorized software "costs" the industry -- which count pretty much every unauthorized copy as a lost sale and doesn't count back in any of the benefits software firms get from people using copied versions of their software. The BSA is also the firm that hypes up how you can get a million dollars for turning in your boss for using unauthorized software, even though the details suggest that the firm rarely pays out more than $5,000. Now more people are hitting back at this program, not just for the bogus numbers, but because the BSA seems to take great joy from squeezing small businesses for thousands of dollars when they often simply couldn't figure out the terms of the software licenses they purchased. The Associated Press looked into the BSA's tactics and found that the organization makes a ton of money from going after these small firms, and also notes that its advertisements telling people to rat out their bosses for unauthorized software usage push employees to turn in their employers rather than actually fix the problem by making sure the firm properly licenses its software. Of course, when squeezing small firms is so lucrative, why would the BSA and its big software backers want more legitimate licenses? That just takes away from the ability to squeeze much more money out of small firms than they ever would have paid for in purchased software. And people wonder why more small businesses are looking to make use of open source products whenever possible? Update: Changed the link to a longer version of the AP story that includes even more details about problems with the BSA's tactics, including a couple of interesting points. First, it notes that the BSA keeps the money it gets, rather than distributing it to the software companies who support the BSA. In other words, the group has every incentive to keep squeezing money out of companies, rather than actually reducing unauthorized use. Second, the article points out that the BSA's actions are, indeed, driving more people to swear off the software of the BSA's supporters.

Filed Under: bsa, copyright, software

Russia Continues To Use 'Piracy' As An Excuse To Silence Critics

from the good-work,-US dept

For quite some time now, US diplomats have been pressuring Russia to crack down on copyright violations in the country. While Russian officials have mostly given lipservice to the requests, it appears they've now found a convenient way to kill two birds with one stone: shutting up government critics with charges of software piracy. We first mentioned that strategy back in September, but now it appears to be working quite well. A newspaper critical of the government has suspended publication thanks to a criminal investigation into whether or not the newspaper was using "pirated" software. Since we've already seen that piracy convictions in Russia can mean getting sent off to Siberia, it seems like Russian officials now have discovered how to send many critics off to Siberia while appeasing US demands to crack down on piracy.

Filed Under: copyright, dissent, piracy, russia, software

Yet Another Casino Yanks Jackpot Prize, Claiming Faulty Software

from the unlucky-sevens dept

Apparently faulty slot machines that always seem to malfunction when someone wins big are becoming more popular at casinos -- and they're now not awarding larger sums. Last year, we wrote about two guys in Canada who thought they had won $209,000 using a slot machine, only to be told that they didn't win and it was all a computer glitch. Earlier this year there was a similar story of a man apparently not winning $102,000 at a new casino in Pennsylvania. In that case, the negative press coverage convinced the casino to pay up. The latest such case takes place at the Sandia Resort and Casino in New Mexico, where a guy was told that his $1.6 million slot machine win was actually a computer malfunction. He's suing, but he might not have much of a case -- especially since the casino is on an Indian reservation, and not subject to the US court system. Also, in this case, it's a little more reasonable to understand why the guy might not have a strong case: apparently the machine clearly stated that the payouts were limited to $2,500. Still, it makes you wonder: for all these slot machines with faulty software that's suddenly discovered after people win... what happens when machines screw up the other way? Somehow, we doubt that the casinos call them up to a room in the back (as always seems to happen in these cases) and tells them the machine screwed up and they actually won.

Filed Under: casinos, slot machine, software
Companies: sandia resort and casino

Judge Orders Software Firm To Stop Selling Software For Beating Ticketmaster's Ticket Queue

from the i'm-sure-you-can-buy-a-scalped-version... dept

There's been a lot of talk recently about how ticket scalpers have been able to score so many tickets to Ticketmaster events, locking genuine fans out of buying tickets at list price. The NY Times had a detailed story on the debate a few weeks ago. That story noted a number of things. First, lots of people are pissed off at Ticketmaster for making it so difficult to get tickets. While there are plenty of legitimate reasons to hate Ticketmaster, in this case, it might not be the company's fault. As it noted in its defense, it often does not get to sell tickets for an entire event, as large percentages of tickets may be reserved or offered through other methods. But, more importantly, Ticketmaster pointed the blame at RMG Technologies, a company that apparently makes software popular among scalpers. The software somehow gets around Ticketmaster's ticket limits, allowing them to buy up vast quantities of tickets the instant they go on sale. The article noted that Ticketmaster had taken RMG to court, and now a judge has banned the sale of the software. There are certainly plenty of reasons to want to make the ticket buying process more fair -- but it does seem questionable that this needed to end up in court. Basically Ticketmaster is admitting that it doesn't have the technical chops to build a site that can actually limit how many tickets an individual can buy (or to come up with an entirely different system that allocates tickets more fairly). While what RMG is doing does seem unfortunate, why should it be illegal?

Filed Under: scalped tickets, software
Companies: rmg technologies, ticketmaster

Russia Cracking Down On Software Piracy... But Only On Gov't Critics?

from the sneaky,-sneaky dept

It's no secret that the US has been pressuring Russia to crack down on intellectual property abuses which are rampant throughout the country. And, in fact, there's been some evidence that Russia is now trying to crack down on abuses in order to keep the US happy (and aid its own chances in joining the WTO). However, some are suggesting that while things like unauthorized software use is rampant almost everywhere in Russia, the only ones who are being targeted in the "crackdown" happen to be those who are critical of the current Russian government. Perhaps the authorities in Russia saw it as a way of killing two birds with one stone: show a crackdown on companies using unauthorized software to make the US happy... and come up with something to use to silence local government critics. Remember how the Big Copyright players were claiming that file sharing helps support terrorism (without any real evidence to support it)? Does that mean we can now claim that cracking down on software "piracy" helps stifle gov't dissent? Yes, it's ridiculous, but it's no less ridiculous than the terrorism claims.

Filed Under: piracy, russia, software

Analyst: If You Want To Keep Your Job, Keep Using Microsoft Office

from the end-of-the-road dept

For a long time, Google insisted that it had no intention of competing directly against Microsoft in its core business areas, but as the company started to expand its online office suite, it became clear that the two companies would form a rivalry. That being said, few have argued that Google's office apps actually offer a substitute for MS Office (at least not yet), but rather that they work well in certain key areas. Nonetheless, one analyst is warning that deploying Google apps could be a potentially "career limiting" move for any enterprise architects. In other words, don't throw out your Office licenses just because you can save money going with Google. That might be good advice, except that it's basically just knocking down a straw man, as it's hard to imagine there are many people out there actually considering such a drastic course of action. What's funny is that the analyst then goes on to describe the 'limited' areas where Google's service might be useful; they include startups, small businesses, collaborative projects, and enterprise non-power users. It sure sounds like a large swath of the market could be well served by these tools by the analyst's own admission. Simply warning of dire consequences for anyone who puts too much confidence in Google doesn't really address the question.

Filed Under: office, saas, software
Companies: google, microsoft

One Day After VMWare IPO, Citrix Buys Into Virtualization

from the coincidence? dept

We're sure the timing of this is a total coincidence, but just one day after EMC subsidiary VMWare skyrocketed in its market debut, software maker Citrix systems has announced the purchase of Xensource, a privately held maker of virtualization technology. It's hard to say whether Citrix got a good price on the $500 million deal, but considering the timing, you have to figure that Xensource was able to attract quite the premium. As Paul Kedrosky noted yesterday, the VMWare IPO seemed likely to spur the hunt for more such deals. Who knew things would get kicked off so quickly?

Filed Under: software, virtualization
Companies: citrix, emc, vmware, xensource

Sun And Google Finally Get Around To StarOffice

from the that-took-some-time dept

Back in 2005, there was a lot of hype about a joint partnership between Google and Sun that turned out to be a big load of nothing. While there had been expectations that the companies would partner up to push Sun's StarOffice (an office suite based on OpenOffice), the announcement turned out to be nothing of the sort. As for StarOffice, they did mention that they might do something with it down the road, but that there hadn't been much thought put into it. Well, two years later, we're getting our answer. StarOffice is now available for free as part of Google Pack. Still, it seems unlikely that the move will do much to boost StarOffice. In the two years since the initial announcement, there's been a surge of interest in web-based applications, which will remain Google's priority. If there was ever a time for another offline office suite to steal significant share away from Microsoft, it would seem that time has passed.

Filed Under: office, software
Companies: google, microsoft, sun