The Pirate Bay Launches Blog System For Those Worried About Censorship

from the standing-up dept

You have to hand it to the folks who run The Pirate Bay. They certainly don't hesitate to stand up for themselves and refuse to be pushed around. They've spent so much time fighting back against attempts to take them down and sue them, that they figured they might as well make use of that "core competence" in other areas. So, apparently, they're setting up a censorship-free blogging platform, which they claim will be available for those who don't want to worry about weak-willed hosting firms pulling down a blog at the first legal threat. There have been a few hosting firms who have advertised similar services, but the Pirate Bay guys have the reputation to live up to their word.

Filed Under: blogs, censorship, pirate bay, takedowns
Companies: pirate bay

Amid Fears of an Internet Downturn, Gawker Sells Properties

from the pop-goes-the-internet dept

Yesterday's news that Gawker Media will be selling three of its sites caught many by surprise. Particularly shocking was the revelation that Wonkette was among them — it was an early site in the network, and one famous enough to be featured in the newly-reopened Newseum.

But more interesting than the news was the reasoning behind it, which was explained by Gawker chief Nick Denton in an email to Fishbowl NY:

[S]ince the end of last year, we've been expecting a downturn. Scratch that: since the middle of 2006, when we sold off Screenhead, shuttered Sploid and declared we were "hunkering down", we've been waiting for the Internet bubble to burst. No, really, this time. And, even if not, better safe than sorry; and better too early than too late.

Everybody says that the internet is special; that advertising is still moving away from print and TV; and Gawker sites are still growing in traffic by about 90 percent a year, way faster than the web as a whole. But it would be naive to think that we can merely power through an advertising recession. We need to concentrate our energies... on the sites with the greatest potential for audience and advertising... [T]hen, once this recession is done with, and we come up from the bunker to survey the Internet wasteland around us, we can decide on what new territories we want to colonize.

Say what you will about Denton — and many people do — but he's proven himself to be a shrewd businessman. As he notes, it's easy to find wishful thinking when it comes to online advertising's capacity to withstand the recession that most experts say is coming or already occurring. But, as that second link notes, there's no denying that advertising expenditures declined during past economic downturns, or that online ads have fared even worse than other media. So while Denton is just one businessman, it's a safe bet that he's not the only one girding for lean times.

This isn't to say that the organizations buying these Gawker properties are making a mistake. Mike has written before about the need to marry content and promotion in a way that's compelling to an audience. Idolator and Gridskipper in particular seem well-positioned to do just that, as they join newly-consolidated ventures from Buzznet and Curbed, respectively (Wonkette, which exists in a media environment filled with publications that largely subsist on donor largesse, may have a harder time of it).

But whatever the fate of these particular sites, a recession-sparked advertising downturn would clearly be bad news for the web. With so much of the internet economy built on top of ad models — Google's foremost among them — vulnerable startups may do well to follow Denton's lead and hedge their bets now.

Filed Under: blogs, online advertising
Companies: gawker media

Malaysian Politicians Go From Hating Blogs To Requiring Them In Record Time

from the well-how-about-that dept

It would appear that some politicians in Malaysia have gone through quite a transformation when it comes to blogging. Almost exactly one year ago, some Malaysian politicians got into a bit of an argument with some bloggers and started trashing the entire concept of blogging -- leading to some politicians there declaring that all bloggers needed to register themselves with the government if they wanted to keep blogging. That resulted in an uproar, and the politicians backed down on the registration requirement. In fact, they started to check out blogs a little more carefully, and even liked what they saw. By the end of that same month, the government agreed to set up a special government agency to follow blogs and interact with bloggers to respond to any concerns they might have. Fast forward a year and not only do some of the original leading critics of blogging have their own blogs, but the ruling political party is now requiring many of its political candidates to blog. Anyone who wants a "youth post" needs to have a blog. The guy in charge of the party's youth wing explained: "All candidates must have blogs. If not, they are not qualified to be leaders."

So they've gone from hating blogs to requiring them in about a year. To be fair, a lot of this is politically motivated. Apparently the opposition has been getting plenty of attention because its leader has a popular blog. So this is likely a politically motivated response. Also, it seems almost equally as extreme as the original plan to require bloggers to register. Not everyone should blog. Not everyone wants to blog. Requiring a politician to have a blog, even if it's helpful, seems a bit extreme. It certainly won't lead to good content if people are forced to blog, rather than blogging for a good reason.

Filed Under: blogs, malaysia, politicians

Brazil Bans Bully And A Bunch Of Blogs

from the can't-stop-banning dept

Brazil seems to be really into banning things online these days. You may recall the totally pointless ban on YouTube to hide a single video (which a lot more people saw after the ban was put in place). Eventually the courts reversed the ban and even required the model whose video resulted in the ban to pay Google as compensation for the unnecessary ban. Even with that experience, however, it looks like the Brazilian courts are prone to overreacting and broadly banning anything it doesn't like.

First up is the news that a Brazilian court has banned the sale of the video game Bully. This would be the same video game that Jack Thompson went to court to have banned even though he had never played it -- and even though anti-bullying activists praised the game, noting that it really was no different than movies like Rushmore or Napoleon Dynamite. The judge's explanation for the ban is a bit weak: "The aggravating factor is that everything in the game takes place inside a school." I really don't see how that matters. The game is about a kid learning to deal with different cliques and factions in a school. That seems rather realistic. Does the judge think that real life cliques in schools will suddenly disappear if this game is unavailable? Perhaps Stephen King can head to Brazil and convince them why this is wrong.

On top of that, news is coming out that a Brazilian court has also banned access to Wordpress.com, one of the most popular blog hosting sites around. It looks quite similar to the YouTube situation, where the judge really just wanted a single blog banned, but without an easy way to do that, ISPs are blocking the entire site and every blog carried on Wordpress. This is, just as with the other bans, a total overreaction. Not only will it call more attention to the "problem" blog, it will piss off and inconvenience a ton of totally innocent people as well.

Filed Under: bans, blogs, brazil, bully, wordpress
Companies: take two interactive, wordpress

Why The New York Times Should Stop Using The Term 'Newspaper'

from the bad-advice dept

I'm probably biased since our blog is our primary communications vehicle here at Techdirt, but I thought Mark Cuban's suggestion that mainstream media outlets like the New York Times should shun the word "blog" to describe their work was pretty silly. Cuban thinks mainstream media outlets should make up a term like "RealTime Reporting" to describe their blog-like products. The Times's Saul Hansell makes the essential point: "blog" describes a medium, like "column" or "newsletter." Calling something a blog doesn't imply anything about its level of quality. To the contrary, one of the advantages of blogs is that people can subscribe to them on an individual basis. This allows them to make fine distinctions. Not only are readers perfectly capable of distinguishing between the New York Times blogs and 15-year-old girls on LiveJournal, but readers will also learn to distinguish among the blogs on the Times itself. If some of the Times's blogs are brilliant and the others are mediocre, readers will figure that out and the best blogs will get more traffic over time. Another way to illustrate how silly Cuban's line of reasoning is is to put the shoe on the other foot. The New York Times company publishes a "newspaper." There are thousands and thousands of bad "newspapers" out there, from the National Enquirer to those free weekly papers that get tossed in peoples' front yards. So by Cuban's logic, the Times should avoid the word "newspaper" in describing its product to avoid associating itself with the riff-raff. Perhaps it should begin describing it as "PaperBased Reporting" instead.

Filed Under: blogs, mark cuban, newspapers

Troll Tracker Sued For Defamatation By Patent Attorneys In East Texas

from the you-knew-that-was-coming... dept

Just this morning we were lamenting the fact that the formerly anonymous Patent Troll Tracker had shut down his blog, but now we know why. It appears that two patent attorneys in East Texas have sued him and Cisco for defamation. One of the attorneys happens to also be the son of the judge who helped make Marshall, Texas famous as a favorite for patent holders. The details on the case suggest that this lawsuit may have been the reason that Rick Frenkel outed himself, as it was actually filed back in November and used as a way to unmask the Troll Tracker.

The defamation claim is based on a post that Frenkel put up back in October, which we wrote about. It involved the fact that the Texas lawyers in question had filed a patent lawsuit against Cisco in Texas, the day before the actual patent was issued (which you're not supposed to do). In response, Cisco (perhaps Frenkel himself) had quickly filed for a declaratory judgment in Connecticut. Later on, the date on the original filing in Texas was changed, a fact that Frenkel found quite questionable. No matter what, that case was eventually dismissed entirely -- but the lawyers in question are still suing both him and Cisco for defamation. Cisco, I'd imagine, isn't thrilled about the whole situation, but one would hope execs there are reasonable enough not to punish Frenkel for this. It would be great if lawyers could weigh in on the defamation claim. The links above have most of the text being used in the defamation claim, and I'm struggling to figure out what's actually defamatory about it. There doesn't seem to be anything that would count as defamation at all. Even if there is some defamation in there somewhere, it's also difficult to see how Cisco could be found responsible for the speech. Even though Frenkel worked at Cisco, he clearly did not post the story as a representative of Cisco, and was quite careful to point to other sources that had reported the news first (i.e., not using internal Cisco info). Anyone know if Texas has a SLAPP law in place?

Filed Under: anonymity, blogs, defamation, patents, texas, troll tracker
Companies: cisco

The Other Side Of The Jurisdiction Issue: UK Politician Upset That US-Based Blogs Follow US Laws

from the the-internet-is-its-own-jurisdiction dept

We were just talking about why the US had jurisdiction on a UK travel agent's websites, and here's a story that flips the situation around somewhat. It appears that a UK politician with a blog got upset that people were posting potentially defamatory comments on his and others' blogs hosted by Google. He demanded that Google take them down, to which Google responded, correctly, that under section 230 of the CDA, they are merely the service provider and will not remove the contents of blog posts. The politician proceeds to then go on a rant about how it is unfair that suddenly British libel law no longer applies, and for that reason, he has shut down his own blog.

He's wrong on a large number of factual points in this claim, all of which should be pointed out. First, it's not clear why he shut down his own blog over this. If the comments were on other blogs, why would that make a difference? Second, he seems to have confused the issues of whether or not British libel law applies with the question of who is responsible. The problem is that he did not sue for defamation. Instead, he merely demanded that Google remove content without any proof that the content was actually defamatory. Thus, Google is absolutely right to refuse. Google is merely the service provider here. Instead, if he had sued in a British court for defamation, then a subpoena could have been issued for the identity of the anonymous posters (assuming that defamation was actually established, and here the UK is much more willing to unmask anonymous speech) and the court could require the person who actually was responsible for the defamation to remove the content. Instead, this guy blames Google rather than the people responsible, and complains about jurisdictional problems without taking the necessary steps to require action.

Furthermore, if the world worked the way this politician preferred, then suddenly we'd automatically have the lowest common denominator of all laws when it came to internet content. Suddenly countries with very strict laws about online content -- such as China or Iran -- could start claiming that any content anywhere else in the world broke those laws, and had to be pulled offline. This guy doesn't seem to think that far ahead, and merely thinks that because he doesn't like US libel laws, a US company should ignore them in his favor. But how will he feel when someone in Iran doesn't like UK libel laws and demands that his website be taken down based on Iranian content laws? Then will he start complaining that they have no right to trump UK laws?

Filed Under: blogs, defamation, jurisdiction, politics, uk
Companies: google

When Anyone Can Be A Publisher, Defamation And Free Speech Issues Get Trickier

from the old-rules-may-not-apply dept

We've been seeing all sorts of lawsuits lately that show how the rise of technologies like the internet have really caused troubles. Most of these laws were written in a time when it was impossible to imagine a day when anyone and everyone could be their own instant publisher. Take, for example, a divorce case that is suddenly getting a lot of attention, due to legal questions drawn out by the husband's decision to publish a "fictional" account of his marriage on his blog. The wife asked the divorce court to issue an injunction, which it did, claiming that the site is harassment. However, the husband is fighting it, refusing to take down the content, noting that it's a violation of his free speech rights, especially since the order bars him from posting anything at all about his wife. There are a number of complications on top of that. First of all, there's the question of whether or not you can use an injunction to stop speech, even if it's defamatory. Then there's the question of whether or not the speech really is defamatory (made even more confusing by the guy's claim that the story is fictional). We're going to be seeing more and more of these cases, as it's going to take quite some time before people realize that the internet changes the way many people will think about certain types of laws.

Filed Under: blogs, defamation, first amendment, freedom of speech, prior restraint

Political Mudslinging Reaches New Lows: Using Anonymous Blog Comments In Attack Ads

from the well,-that's-just-too-easy dept

I almost hate to post this, because anything that touches on politics tends to dissolve into pointless name calling in the comments, but it is interesting (if sleazy) to find out that political campaign attack ads are now using anonymously posted blog comments to smear opponents. The ad in question has a voice-over announcing "what others are saying..." about the candidates opponent, and then shows some really negative comments that were placed anonymously on a blog post. Yes, this seems incredibly low. In fact, if campaigns are going to do that, they could simply post whatever kind of comment they wanted to any random prominent blog (as long as it has open comments) and then use that quote in their campaign ad. Yet, because it's now on a blog somewhere, they can pretend it's legitimately "sourced." So this is what they meant when people predicted that blogs would revolutionize politics?

Filed Under: attack ads, blogs, politics

Blog Demonstrates Alternative To Closed Academic Journals

from the open-knowledge dept

Academic journals have never been particularly big moneymakers, but they can offer successful contributors a certain amount of prestige. Still, it's never made much sense that these journals are so reluctant to open up their content to the public, potentially exposing contributing authors to a much wider audience. As it is, many interesting academic articles are locked behind prohibitively expensive paywalls. Any follow-on conversation is locked up as well, further reducing the value of the paper. The world of academic blogs isn't exactly a substitute for academic journals, although it does help bring some of these conversations out into the open, as well as offer professors an avenue to promote their research. Over at the popular law blog The Conglomerate, they're doing an interesting experiment, whereby several academics are discussing a paper that's been made open to the public. While you might not be interested in the subject itself -- Privatization and the Law and Economics of Political Advocacy -- the experiment offers a good opportunity to glimpse the kind of discussion that would occur among academics, usually behind closed doors. It would seem to behoove the world of academia to encourage more of these open discussions. Not only would it raise the profile of more professors, but it would continue to level the playing field, by eroding the dominance of a handful of elite universities and journals.

Filed Under: blogs