MPAA Boss: If The Chinese Censor The Internet Without A Problem, Why Can't The US?

from the wow dept

The MPAA is getting pretty desperate, it seems. MPAA boss Chris Dodd was out trying to defend censoring the internet this week by using China as an example of why censorship isn't a problem. It's kind of shocking, really.

"When the Chinese told Google that they had to block sites or they couldn't do [business] in their country, they managed to figure out how to block sites."

Is that really what Chris Dodd wants the US government to aspire to? To setting up its own Great Firewall?

His other comments were almost as ridiculous:

"How do you justify a search engine providing for someone to go and steal something?" he asked rhetorically in a recent interview at the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers conference. "A guy that drives the getaway car didn't rob the bank necessarily, but they got you to the bank and they got you out of it, so they are accessories in my view."

But that completely misunderstands and misrepresents the situation. Google isn't the driver. Google is the car manufacturer. Do we sue Ford as an accessory?

It's this sort of ridiculousness that makes it so difficult to take Dodd and the MPAA seriously in these discussions.

Filed Under: censorship, china, chris dodd, us
Companies: mpaa

EU Parliament Warns The US To Stop Censoring The Internet

from the don't-censor-the-internet dept

What a world we live in... when foreign countries are speaking out publicly against American censorship. For a country whose identity has been built around its strong support of the First Amendment and free speech rights, to reach the level where others are condemning our own failings on free speech is really sad. The EU Parliament has adopted, "by a large majority," a statement warning the US to refrain "from unilateral measures to revoke IP addresses or domain names" due to the "need to protect the integrity of the global internet and freedom of communications." This resolution highlights both the practices prescribed in SOPA/PIPA... but also the actions of Homeland Security and ICE in seizing domain names. At what point is the federal government going to realize that these practices are completely undermining any claim the US has to a moral high ground against internet censorship elsewhere?

Filed Under: censorship, domain seizures, eu, first amendment, free speech, protect ip, sopa, us

New Study Shows Majority Of Americans Against SOPA; Believe Extreme Copyright Enforcement Is Unreasonable

from the so-why-are-we-pushing-forward-with-it? dept

One of the talking points we've been hearing about SOPA from the lobbyists pushing to get it approved is that the majority of Americans are in favor of the bill, because they want to "protect" intellectual property or jobs. This has never made much sense, since SOPA doesn't protect jobs at all. It destroys them, by hindering one of the few parts of our economy that has been creating jobs -- new and small businesses, particularly in the tech community. Now, the same folks who brought you that incredibly in-depth study on media piracy in emerging markets, have come out with a new report revealing some of their latest research on infringement among Americans. There are a ton of useful data revealed here, but none more timely and key than the following:

56% of people surveyed oppose government involvement in blocking access to infringing material. This number increases to 64% when the term censor is used.

Furthermore, when asked specifically if ISPs, social media sites and search engines should block access to infringing content if it also meant that some legal content would also get blocked (basically the definition of SOPA -- where even the defenders of the bill admit it will block some legal content), only 36% say that's an acceptable form of copyright enforcement.

In other words, a majority Americans are very opposed to the methods and impact of SOPA.

The study also found that, when compelling legal services are around, it can cause a massive decrease in the amount of content obtained through unauthorized means. This isn't a surprise. We've been pointing this out for a while now. And it again shows why SOPA is the exact wrong approach. Instead of actually decreasing infringement, it will increase the burdens and costs for the new businesses who provide those compelling new services. Separately, the report has a whole bunch of other important factoids as well. We've seen a bunch of disputes in the comments about how "common" infringement is. Part of the problem is that it probably depends on how you define it. What this report shows makes a lot of sense: 46% of adults have "bought, copied or downloaded unauthorized music, TV shows or movies." Look at just the 18 to 29 year old demographic, and that number shoots up to 70%. These are the voters of tomorrow, politicians... In most cases, however, it appears to be personal downloading or sharing with friends and family. 75% of people say it's fine to send music files to family members. 70% say that for movies. 56% of people say it's fine to send music to friends. 54% say that about movies. In other words, an awful lot of the "piracy" that's out there is really just friends and family sharing some content. The really "massive" piracy issue is pretty limited. About 2% of adults have huge collections of unauthorized music, and 1% have huge collections of unauthorized films. Furthermore, a much smaller percentage of people think it's okay to upload content to file sharing services or (of course) to sell copies of unauthorized files:
Given all of this, it shouldn't be a surprise that most people think that enforcement should be pretty limited, and not particularly burdensome. From the report:

• Only a slim majority of Americans (52%) support penalties for downloading copyrighted music and movies -- and limit this support to warnings and fines. Other penalties, such as bandwidth throttling and disconnection, receive much lower levels of support.
• Disconnection from the internet, in particular, is very unpopular, with only 16% in favor and 72% of Americans opposed.
• Among those who support fines, 75% support amounts under $100 per song or movie infringed -- hugely undershooting the current statutory penalties.
• For a majority of Americans (54%), due process in such matters requires a court -- not adjudication by private companies.
• Solid majorities of American internet users oppose copyright enforcement when it is perceived to intrude on personal rights and freedoms. 69% oppose monitoring of their internet activity for the purposes of enforcement. 57% oppose blocking or filtering by commercial intermediaries if those measures also block legal content or activity.

So what is there to make from all of this? It appears that our current laws (especially statutory damages) are way out of line with what the majority of Americans think would be appropriate. Furthermore, a ton of people infringe regularly, and especially think nothing's wrong with sharing among family and friends. On top of that, they seem to agree that enforcement is way out of line with the "problem," and certainly don't approve of the types of changes that SOPA is seeking to put in place.

So why are so many in Congress so out of touch with the American public and so focused on passing a law that goes against the wishes of Americans? This is the question Congress should be answering at tomorrow's hearings. The report's author, Joe Karaganis, should be one of the witnesses testifying, rather than a bevy of industry representatives all trotting out unsubstantiated reasons for moving forward with SOPA.

Filed Under: copyright, joe karaganis, piracy, sopa, survey, us

Court Decision Forcing Twitter To Give Up Info On Wikileaks Associates Challenged In Europe

from the jurisdictional-mess dept

You may recall that the US government has been seeking all sorts of info on some folks who were somehow connected to Wikileaks as a part of its grand jury investigation, using the obscure 2703(d) process, rather than a standard subpoena (the 2703(d) process has fewer privacy protections, of course). Last week, a US district court judge, Judge Liam O'Grady, said that Twitter should hand over the info (it's believed that others have already handed over info as well).

It appears that at least one of those whose info is being sought, Icelandic Member of Parliament (MP) Birgitta Jonsdottir is now trying to challenge this in Europe, where privacy protections are much stronger. This could get interesting for a variety of reasons. While the US does not have such privacy laws, many companies in the US agree to abide by the basics of European privacy laws, in order to be allowed to offer service in Europe. It would be interesting to see what happens if the process in Europe says that Twitter can't give up such info without violating European privacy laws. While I don't think they could stop the handing over of the info (US company, US court...), I wonder if there could be further implications for Twitter, in that it may no longer be able to comply with European privacy rules. That might create quite a mess.

Filed Under: birgitta jonsdottir, eu, jacob appelbaum, privacy, us, wikileaks

UK Judges Think US Makes It Too Hard To Get Patents, Lower Patentability Bar To Show How It's Done

from the you-mean-we-need-even-more? dept

The US patent system famously covers "anything under the sun that is made by man," and is generally regarded as being more "patent friendly" than other jurisdictions around the world. So it comes as something of a surprise to hear of the UK out-doing the US is this respect:

In a unanimous decision, the [UK Supreme] court determined that US utility doctrine creates an unduly high bar of patentability.

The reasoning – or rather lack of it – is just as surprising:

Thus, rather than requiring proof of specific, credible, and substantial utility at the time of filing, the UK court agreed that HGS's genetic sequence coding for Neutrokine-α was patentable even though there was no known use of the protein at the time the patent application was filing. The patent did not reveal how the protein "could be used to solve any particular problem" nor did it identify "any disease or condition which it could be used to diagnose or treat."

It's bad enough that naturally-occurring genomic sequences are being patented at all – sequences that certainly weren't invented by anyone. But allowing those patents without even requiring "proof of specific, credible, and substantial utility at the time of filing" is just insane: it will open the floodgates for even more speculative filings on DNA sequences in the hope that someone, someday will come up with a use for them. Except that if they did, they'd presumably be hit with a patent infringement suit. So how does that promote innovation?

The other danger, of course, is that the US judges might feel that their honor is a stake, and lower the US patentability bar even further to undercut those presumptuous British lords...

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Filed Under: gene patents, patents, uk, us

Rep. Steve King Decides American Consumers Should Pay For Chinese IP Violations

from the robbing-constituent-A-to-pay-constituent-B dept

Iowa Congressman Steve King has had enough of China's blatant abuse of American intellectual property and has decided that something needs to be done. And that "something" is to introduce a bill that would reward American rightsholders with money taken from the wallets of other Americans:

King's legislation, H.R. 3375, directs the President to impose duties on merchandise from China in an amount equivalent to the estimated annual loss of revenue to holders of United States intellectual property rights as a result of violations of such intellectual property rights in China. Under King's bill, the revenue raised by the imposition of duties on Chinese merchandise will be proportionally distributed to provide compensation to holders of United States intellectual property rights.

This is all well and good except that it's actually neither. Imposing a duty on goods just adds to the cost of the product, a cost that will be borne by Americans. China is not just going to swallow the tariff and feel chastened for its misbehavior. Targeting manufacturers who sell to the US with a "you must be a thief tax" is hardly going to improve trade relations with one of our biggest suppliers. And really, this bill is nothing more than barefaced favoritism which seeks to reward certain industries at the expense of American citizens.

Topping it all off is the fact that this tariff will be based on faulty assumptions and faultier math:

"The creative genius of Americans, protected by our copyrights, trademarks and patents, is systematically being pirated by the Chinese whose government appears to be complicit," said King. "My bill levies a duty on all Chinese imports in an amount necessary to both pay U.S. property rights holders for their stolen intellectual property and to administer the program. In short, it says to the Chinese: 'Go ahead and steal U.S. intellectual property-we will do what you have refused to do and pay American innovators their due from the duties on Chinese goods.'"

Are we Americans (you know, the ones who will be ultimately paying for all of this) also invited to "go ahead and steal U.S. intellectual property?" I mean, we're being assured that the Chinese are footing the bill, or at least forwarding it to us. By King's logic, it should be open season on IP once the bill passes, because the rights holders will still be getting their cut, one way or another.

And as for the numbers? King's bill quotes a Congressional Research Report, which would seem to indicate some sort of fact-finding has occurred. But sadly, no. The report (at least what's quoted on King's site) simply regurgitates inflated numbers provided by the industries themselves:

• The U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) estimates that U.S. intellectual property-intensive firms that conducted business in China lost $48.2 billion in sales, royalties, and license fees in 2009 because of IPR violations in China.

• The International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA) estimated that business software piracy in China alone cost U.S. firms $3.4 billion in lost trade in 2009.

• The Business Software Alliance (BSA) estimates the commercial value of illegally used software in China in 2009 was $7.6 billion, a $900 million increase over 2008 levels.

The USITC report? Oh, you mean the one that was based on pure speculation? The IIPA? Sure, those numbers are solid if you decide to ignore the fact that the IIPA is a lobbying group composed of lobbyists for the RIAA, MPAA and the BSA (among others). And if anyone who regularly reads this site hasn't already laughed off the BSA's "contribution" to the inflated numbers, perhaps this set of posts might shed some more light on the subject.

What we have here is bad legislation based on bad numbers which aims to reward certain Americans while punishing other Americans. Politicians seem to be oblivious to the fact that imposed tariffs and subsidies is just another way to take money out of your constituents' pockets and the end result will be absolutely zero change in the way China handles American intellectual property. This bill is nothing more than King offering to hold down American citizens while IIPA members go through their pockets.

Filed Under: china, intellectual property, steve king, tariffs, tax, us

US Blocks Chinese Company From Contract Bid: Worried China Might Spy On US Just As US Spied On Others

from the what's-sauce-for-the-goose-is-sauce-for-the-gander dept

Preserving national security is obviously crucially important, but that concern is hardly the preserve of any one country. The US government seems to have forgotten this in banning Huawei from bidding for a major US telecommunications contract:

Worried about potential spying, the U.S. government has blocked a bid from China’s telecommunications giant Huawei to help build a new national wireless network for first responders such as police, firefighters, and ambulances.

Huawei “will not be taking part in the building of America’s interoperable wireless emergency network for first responders due to U.S. government national-security concerns,” Commerce Department spokesman Kevin Griffis told The Daily Beast.

What's the fear here?

Griffis declined to elaborate on those concerns. But current and retired U.S. intelligence officials tell The Daily Beast the longstanding concern about Huawei is that the company’s chips, routers, and other technical equipment will be bugged in a way that gives China’s government a cyber back door into sensitive information networks.

The technique of bugging equipment or writing software in such a way as to allow undetected access has also been used by U.S. intelligence agencies in the past to gain a window into the communications of other foreign governments.

So, in effect, the US government is worried that the Chinese might do to it what the US has done to other governments.

That's a perfectly reasonable fear: by now, the Chinese intelligence agencies doubtless have the technological capability to do so. But China actually has rather more grounds for concern when buying US communications technology or software: after all, the US has already carried out spying in this way.

This latest move just gives China the perfect excuse for blocking US companies bidding for "sensitive" Chinese projects in the future. When the US complains – as it surely will – the Chinese will simply point back to this episode, noting the symmetry of the situation, and their own worries about national security.

Wouldn't it have been wiser to come up with better tools for detecting attempts to introduce back doors into hardware and software? That would have raised the US's general readiness in this area against all such threats, not just those from China, and would not have given China or any other country a pretext for shutting the US out from their markets.

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Filed Under: china, spying, telco infrastructure, us

Homeland Security Says Homeland Security Hasn't Abused Airline Passenger Info

from the doesn't-that-make-you-feel-safer dept

As there are continued concerns from the EU about US requirements to hand over passenger info to the US, where it will be stored for at least fifteen years, Homeland Security trotted out its own "chief privacy officer," who insists that Homeland Security hasn't abused the information. Somehow, trusting DHS to tell us DHS isn't abusing the information DHS so desperately wants... isn't particularly comforting.

Filed Under: airlines, dhs, eu, passenger info, privacy, us

As Countries Sign ACTA, Many Finally Admit Their Copyright Laws Will Need To Change

from the of-course-they-did dept

It will come as little news to most people that, as was expected, the US signed the ACTA treaty (while pretending it was an "executive agreement") this weekend in Japan. While the EU, Mexico and Switzerland at least had the sense to wait until they had more of a chance to review the legality of the document, the US dove right in, despite huge Constitutional questions about its ability to sign the agreement -- especially as more evidence was put forth showing that (contrary to the US's claims) ACTA is inconsistent with US law.

The US, of course, was not the only one to sign -- and not the only one to recognize that ACTA is inconsistent with local laws, despite promises to the contrary. Canada signed as well, and used it to say that Canada now needs to implement more copyright reform to keep Canada in line with the treaty:

Fast’s office said the government still needs to create and pass legislation to implement the anti-counterfeiting agreement in Canada.

Funny, since all along we kept hearing how ACTA wasn't about changing laws in various countries, but just coming to agreements on how enforcement would be carried out. In fact, when criticized about ACTA, the former Canadian Minister of Industry insisted that ACTA would not require changing Canadian law. Amazing that the Canadian government admits that this was false the day they sign it.

Another signatory? Why, New Zealand, of course. Last year, New Zealand (which already recently changed its copyright laws) said that it didn't foresee any changes to copyright law because of ACTA. And yet... now the New Zealand government admits that changes will be needed to local copyright law before the treaty is ratified.

Singapore, Australia, South Korea, Japan (of course) and Morocco also all signed on. Australia's and New Zealand's signings don't mean quite as much, as their legislatures need to ratify the agreement (the part the US is trying to skip).

Not surprisingly, the RIAA put out a ridiculous statement "saluting" the "will" of ACTA negotiators to complete ACTA. Yeah. The will to continue to hide the agreement from public scrutiny until it was "done" and no changes were allowed? The "will" to pretend that it's an "executive agreement" rather than a treaty, as per the Constitution? The "will" to insist that ACTA is consistent with domestic laws when it's not? Sorry. That's not worth saluting. That's worth not being allowed to participate in these kinds of negotiations any more.

Filed Under: acta, australia, canada, copyright, legal changes, new zealand, signatures, us

EU, Mexico & Switzerland Will Not Sign ACTA This Weekend, Despite The 'Signing Ceremony'

from the a-brief-reprieve dept

With Japan announcing a signing ceremony this Saturday for those who negotiated ACTA, it seemed reasonable to think that most of those listed as planning to attend would be signing. Of course, we wondered about the US, the EU and Mexico -- as there have been legal questions and challenges raised to ACTA in all three cases, with Mexico's Congress specifically telling the President it will not ratify the treaty. The EU had also been investigating whether or not ACTA was in line with EU law, and that process has not been completed, so we thought it was premature for the EU to sign onto ACTA.

Thankfully, the EU Commission agrees... and has now said that it will not be signing ACTA this weekend, and also saying that Mexico and Switzerland have also said they won't sign... yet:

"The EU has not yet completed its internal procedures authorising the signature, therefore it will not be signing ACTA at this event," the Commission spokesperson said in a statement. "Neither will Mexico and Switzerland, since they did not conclude their domestic proceedings."

"For the EU, the domestic process for signature is that the Council [of Ministers] adopts a decision authorising a EU representative to sign ACTA. Since this required the translation of the treaty in all the EU languages, such decision has not yet been adopted. It may still require a couple of months for the EU to be able to sign ACTA. After the signature, the European Parliament will have to vote its consent of ACTA,"

Of course, this is not a complete rejection of ACTA, but it is a reprieve. It also sounds as though all the other countries listed will be signing, including the US, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Korea, Morocco and Singapore. That's a pretty bold move by the Obama administration, considering the evidence that signing ACTA in this manner without Senate approval is unconstitutional. I guess actually expecting the president to follow the Constitution is only important when you're not in office. Once you get there, all bets are off...

Filed Under: acta, copyright, eu, mexico, switzerland, us