Michigan Politician Proposes Bill To Regulate Journalists So He Can Tell You Which Reporters To Trust

from the let-me-introduce-you-to-my-friend,-the-first-amendment dept

Romenesko points us to the news of a Michigan state senator, who has proposed a bill that would regulate the press. The bill would require people who want to be considered the press to pay a registration fee and submit writing samples to get registered. Also, you would need to have a journalism degree, three years of experience and a letter of recommendation from someone else in the club of "registered reporters." That old First Amendment makes this one a non-starter, of course. In response to that point, the Senator who proposed it, Bruce Patterson, claims he never expected the bill to pass:

"I mainly just wanted to stimulate discussion," he told me. "I didn't think the bill would be likely to pass, but I thought I'd put it out there and if there was any support from your profession, we'd move forward. Heck, I thought it might be helpful to legitimate journalists," he said.

Indeed, he made some valid points. "There are fewer legitimate reporters who cover the legislature all the time. I see stuff being written by people I never heard of, and I don't know whether they have any credentials.

"You have bloggers and editorial writers who write about what we are doing who never come up here and have no idea what's going on. If I need a plumber, I want one who has credentials and who is licensed by the state."

Of course, that's misleading in the extreme. First of all, it's his opinion as to whether or not there are "legitimate journalists" covering the legislature. Just because he doesn't like a journalist doesn't make him or her illegitimate. As for other regulated professions, such as plumbers, that's a totally different situation (and, of course, there are strong economic arguments for why regulating industries like plumbing are actually bad for consumers as well). Finding someone to fix your sink is not the same thing as reading someone's take on what happened in the news.

It is also important to note that the senator is not proposing preventing anyone who is not a "Michigan Registered Reporter" from writing or broadcasting the news.

"I just thought it might be helpful in terms of helping figure out whose reporting you can trust," he said. And creating a government sanctioned body, that will almost certainly be highly politicized is the best way to do that? Why not recognize that your constituents aren't idiots, and there are all sorts of methods by which they can figure out whom to trust. If there's really a strong demand for filtering out trustworthy journalists, then let a private organization give journalists a stamp of approval, rather than having the government license journalists. But, the real issue is that trust is fluid. People build up trust through their writing and reporting, and the nice thing about the online world today is that if you report stuff that is consistently inaccurate, others can call you on it and you can lose the trust of people. You don't need the government to step in and help.

Filed Under: bruce patterson, free speech, journalism, michigan, regulated press

Little Mermaid Statue Free To Be After Artist's Estate Didn't Expect Negative Publicity

from the funny-how-that-works dept

On Friday, we wrote about how an artist's estate was going after a small town in Michigan, for daring to have a "Little Mermaid" statue to play up many of the town's Danish ancestors. There's a famous Little Mermaid statue in Denmark, and the artist's estate (the artist died fifty years ago) apparently thinks all such statues infringe on its copyright (even though this statue was very different). However, in our comments over the weekend Christopher alerted us to the news that the estate had withdrawn the copyright infringement claim, apparently citing the publicity as the reason. Apparently, being a copyright bully can have a bit of a backlash...

Filed Under: copyright, denmark, greenville, hans christian andersen, little mermaid, michigan

Copyright Cops Go After Town For Creating Little Mermaid Statue

from the cultural-artifacts dept

Dan sends in yet another story about copyright gone wrong. Apparently the small town of Greenville Michigan has a strong Danish heritage, and wanted to show that off with some artifact representing Denmark. It chose the iconic Little Mermaid statue, based on Hans Christian Andersen's story, and a similar iconic statue in Denmark. Apparently, however, the family of the artist who created the statue in Denmark is trying to clamp down and is demanding a lump sum payment or that the statue be taken down. The actual artist died in 1959... but thanks to recent extensions in copyright (yippee), copyright now lasts life plus seventy years.

Of course, I'm wondering if the statue even violates the copyright at all. While the town says it was inspired by the one in Denmark, the actual statue is different:

At about 30 inches high, it's half the size of the original and has a different face and other distinct features, including larger breasts. "We've gotten a lot of heat about that too," he says

Considering that so much of the statue is different, is it even a copyright violation at all? Apparently, this isn't the only town that's faced problems over such statues. The article notes, amusingly, that Vancouver, British Columbia -- after failing to get permission from the artist's estate -- instead put up a statue entitled "Girl in a Wetsuit" and even added swimming fins and goggles to get the point across. It's hard to believe that this one artist, whose been dead for fifty years, should have total control over statues of mermaids, but that's what today's copyright law gives us. Isn't it great?

Filed Under: copyright, denmark, greenville, hans christian andersen, little mermaid, michigan

Can The Lottery Make People Save More?

from the tax-on-the-poor dept

The lottery has often been described as a "tax on those who don't understand probability." However, it seems some enterprising folks are trying to use that basic fact to help people who have trouble saving money (who often overlap with the folks who don't understand probability) to save more. Apparently some credit unions in Michigan are experimenting with a lottery feature as a part of a savings account:

Psychologists have long known that people tend to overestimate the odds of rare events. Applying that behavioral insight, finance professor Peter Tufano of Harvard Business School has devised a clever program called "Save to Win." Launched earlier this year for members of eight credit unions in Michigan, it is a cross between a certificate of deposit and a raffle ticket. Members who put $25 or more into a Save to Win one-year CD are entered into a monthly "savings raffle" for prizes up to $400, plus one annual drawing for a $100,000 jackpot.

Apparently, this program has attracted $3.1 million in new deposits, many (the article claims) from people who have never been able to save much money. In many ways it is like buying a lottery ticket, except that you don't lose the money paid for the ticket. The credit unions make this work by paying out a slightly lower interest rate on the CD in question, but the net effect works out to benefit everyone. Many who put their money into such an account would never have put their money into a higher rate CD in the first place. In some ways, it's a neat example of efficient price discrimination that expands an overall market.

Filed Under: credit unions, lottery, michigan, probability, savings

Michigan Supreme Court Issues New Stop Twittering Rule For Juries

from the stop-that-twittering dept

There have been a few recent stories about jury members using Twitter, and courts have been trying to figure out how to deal with it. Well, over in Michigan, the Supreme Court has issued new rules for judges to tell jurors concerning their use of text messaging and other communication services. While it doesn't name Twitter specifically, it seems like the new rules are pretty clearly directed at jurors who might Twitter or use some other similar communication tool to explain what's happening in the case.

Filed Under: juries, michigan, twitter
Companies: twitter

Why Does The Goverment Hate Satellite Service Providers?

from the Physics,-Economics,-and-Definition-of-'Fair' dept

Earlier this week, Rep. Bart Stupak, from rural Michigan, introduced a bill to require Dish Network and DirecTV (SatTV) to carry local TV channels in all US markets. Stupak said that the current practice of only carrying local channels for major population centers is unfair to rural citizens. But Stupak seems to miss two important economic and scientific factors against his wishes, as well as an understanding of competition and what is fair

Physics sets hard limits to how many channels of TV SatTV can broadcast from their existing satellites. And with the public now clamoring for more HDTV, SatTV is now desperately trying to shoe-horn more HD channels into the limited capacity they have, so they can compete effectively with cable (an important role). SatTV carriers must trade-off between content for the whole country, and content for local audiences. In the case of large metro cities, the audience size tips the trade-off towards local content. Yet Stupak seems to think that it's worth using up scarce nationwide capacity to carry local content for every town that has a TV station. Ridiculous. The needs of the many subjugated to the needs of the few?

Then Stupak also seems to ignore the economic argument that these SatTV enterprises are businesses trying to stay afloat. They are not public services. And the SatTV companies need to deliver a product that can attract a sizeable audience, or the service will be a sure money loser.

If Stupak thinks it's fair to force SatTV to provide product for small towns, they why not force the same of the NFL or airlines? Shouldn't we also require the NFL to put a team in any town that wants one, or is the NFL unfairly discriminating against rural America? And airlines should be required to have flights to every airport, too, right Rep. Stupak? Sir, these aren't public services, nor charities. Your Bill would increase costs to all of us, and reduce available services to the nation by redirecting resources to sparsely populate areas.

I've said it before, and I know I'll get hate responses when I say it again, but there are trade-offs people make when they choose to live in the city, OR in the countryside. Tough. We city folk trade off fresh air, open spaces, bucolic lifestyles, good schools, flora, ample space and land, open roads and more. Rural people sacrifice retail options, entertaiment services, Internet access, and more. Life is full of trade-off decisions. Not everyone makes the same choices, and that IS fair...in fact it should be celebrated and called freedom.

Does the government just dislike satellite services for some reason? Mike has steadily covered the impact of a slow government approval of a Sirius-XM merger. While the merger definitely reduced competitors in the sat radio space, that space is NOT the market in which those two companies operate. If they go broke in part because of gov't meddling, we will only then see a significant reduction in competition in the much wider portable audio entertainment industry, which is the actual market under consideration.

In toto, SatTV has been a fantastic boon for rural dwellers, offering them a range of entertainment options that were never before available outside of major cities. This is the upside of a distribution network that targets the whole country with one signal. The downside is a reduced capacity for local programming. As a bonus to rural dwellers, although satellite Internet isn't great, at least it gives you an option. In town, SatTV delivery market, especially back in the day when cable was unchallenged by the telcos. Aren't satellite services, recent arrivals on the scene, competition engines, and a market success story? Why would the congressman want to squeeze this winner until it can't breathe?

Filed Under: bart stupak, michigan, satellite tv

Using Twitter For Participatory Politics

from the watch-this-space dept

While there are still some non-believers who continue to insist that there is nothing useful about Twitter, plenty of folks who have jumped in headfirst are finding new ways to make the service more useful every day. Here's a recent example, from E-Media Tidbits, which reports that in the recent "state of the state" speech by Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm, the governor's staff first announced a hashtag to be used in Twitter (MiSOTS), and then had the Govenor's staff adding the high points of the speech to Twitter as they came. But the more interesting part is that this created a real-time public participation and commentary on the speech as it was happening. Plenty of others used the official hashtag to respond to points and discuss what was going on in the speech in real-time, providing a fascinating play-by-play commentary of the address that would have been hard to do in any widespread manner previously (perhaps in a specialized chat room -- but that would have a much smaller number of users). While it doesn't appear that the governor or her staff responded in real-time, it also gave them a very useful look at how people were perceiving the address, and also gave them people they could quickly follow up with in the future. While I'm sure some Twitter doubters will still brush this off as nothing special, the ability to better communicate shouldn't be ignored or underestimated.

Filed Under: conversation, jennifer granholm, michigan
Companies: twitter

Google Book Search Critics Ignore The Non-Exclusive Nature Of Scanning Contracts

from the no-monopolies-here dept

Three years ago, Google announced an ambitious effort to scan millions of book in order to create a search engine that would do for books what the original Google search engine did for the web. The debate quickly ran into criticism from publishers who claimed the program was an infringement of the publishers' copyright. Others pointed out that Google's activities were well within the bounds of fair use. The debate has continued on and off ever since. Ars Technica points us to the latest round of this debate. On one side is economist Paul Courant, who was the provost of the University of Michigan when the University became one of Google's first library partners and is now the University's librarian. In his newly created blog, he vigorously defends Michigan's participation in the Google project, pointing out that Google will have the entire seven-million-volume collection digitized within six years, for free, while the competing Open Content Alliance charges "thousands of dollars to digitize books at a rate of tens of thousands of volumes a year." The University of Virginia's Siva Vaidhyanathan responds with a number of criticisms of the deal. In addition to copyright concerns, he's got a number of concerns about what Google will do with the digitized books. He worries about whether Google's search results will be fair, whether Google will promptly correct scanning quality problems, and whether Google will do a good enough job of preserving the files over the long term, and so forth.

These are somewhat puzzling concerns to raise at all given that Google has historically been absolutely obsessive about improving the quality of its search results and archiving useful data. But it also ignores a more fundamental point: Michigan, and Google's other library projects, aren't granting Google exclusive access to anything. Under the terms of the Google-Michigan agreement, Google returns each book after scanning it, and Michigan is free to sign up with other scanning projects, including Google's competitors. It's true that Michigan has agreed not to share the Google-created digital files with others. But the important point here is that those files wouldn't exist at all if not for the agreement. It would hardly be reasonable to expect Google to spend tens of millions of dollars to create digital files that would immediately be available to Google's competitors.

In short, Google is anything but a monopoly. There are already competing book-scanning efforts under way, and if Google's project is a success we can expect more such efforts to be launched in the future. And because Google isn't a monopoly, it doesn't make sense for universities to treat it like one by trying to micromanage every aspect of the service it ultimately offers. In the unlikely event that Google Book Search turns out to be a lousy product, consumers will punish Google by switching to the competing offerings of Microsoft, Yahoo, or others. It's pointless to try to force Google to produce a high-quality product when its competitors already give it plenty of reasons to do so.

Vaidhyanathan also characterizes the Michigan scanning program as "massive corporate welfare," but this, again, doesn't make a lot of sense. The vast majority of the books Google is scanning spend most of their time sitting on shelves unread. In principle, Google is no different from any other library patron: it checks out books, reads them, and returns them. The only difference is that it's doing it on a much larger scale than a normal library patron would. But there's no evidence that Michigan has been playing favorites. If another company approaches Michigan seeking to scan its books on the same terms, and is turned down, then people would have strong grounds for criticism. But that doesn't appear to have happened. Google's just made the best offer so far. The "corporate welfare" label just doesn't fit.

Filed Under: book scanning, libraries, michigan
Companies: google, university of michigan