Getting Upload Filters Wasn't Enough: EU Copyright Industry Starts Stealth Campaign To Demonize Internet Companies Even More

from the won't-somebody-think-of-the-children? dept

The EU Copyright Directive was supposed to bring copyright into the digital age. Instead, it turned into an attack on the Internet ecosystem by companies that once dominated analog media, and which are still struggling to accept the arrival of online services with a global reach. For example, the upload filters that are unavoidable under Article 13/17 of the Directive are really directed against Google, which ironically won't be much inconvenienced by them. Ordinary people, by contrast, may find their perfectly legal uploads forbidden without explanation. You might think the EU copyright companies would be pretty satisfied now they have this powerful new right to block uploaded materials using automated filters as their proxy, without needing a judge's approval. Not a bit of it. The German Web site Netzpolitik has obtained a leaked document revealing a coordinated campaign by copyright companies to hammer home the message that Internet companies are today's baddies:

politicians at national and European level, as well as officials and judges who have to make decisions and judgments against the five digital monopolists Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple and Microsoft, need to be supported indirectly. The successful enforcement of our rights as broadcasters and press publishers depends on precisely these authorities and court decisions (Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection, EU Competition Commission and [Court of Justice of the European Union], Regional and Higher Regional Courts). The importance of continued information to the wider public has been demonstrated by the adoption of the EU Copyright Directive.

Here are the specific aims and how the copyright companies hope to achieve them:

Objective: To influence the formation of public opinion on dealing with digital monopolists and the resulting indirect training of officials, politicians, judges and decision-makers to make judgments and decisions that ensure that the digital monopolists once more comply with the law. That is: antitrust law, data protection law, laws protecting children and adolescents, tax law, equality laws and the protection of intellectual property.

Selected path: The concerns of originators and their copyright holders, composers, music and press publishers, authors as well as broadcasters and their individual authors, are mentioned, but not highlighted. This problem is presented as one of many, perhaps even larger ones. Only in this way we avoid the comment of critics that we are only concerned with the economic interests of our media companies, rights owners and authors.

So the EU copyright companies want to pretend the campaign is about tackling society's big challenges -- and not about boosting their own profits. After all, that lie worked well enough when used during the vicious lobbying in support of the worst aspects of the Copyright Directive, so why not try it again, but on a larger scale? The new campaign has its own Web site, "Fair Net", which turns the "OK Google" command into a "Not OK" theme. For example:

Not OK, that profits are more important than freedom of speech and the press.

That's rather rich coming from the companies that helped ram through Article 13/17 and Article 11 in the EU Copyright Directive, which do precisely that -- putting copyright companies' profits ahead of freedom of speech and the press. The site's final argument is a classic:

Not OK, that the Internet giants are not doing enough to protect the little ones.

Resorting to this tired old kind of emotional blackmail pretty much sums up this shoddy campaign. It shows that there is no dirty trick that the copyright industry won't stoop to. And it confirms that no matter how many special privileges they are given to ride roughshod over the rights of citizens in an attempt to prop up their outdated business models, they always want more.

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Filed Under: antitrust, article 13, article 17, copyright, for the children, internet companies, propaganda, upload filters

Is 'This Time Different' Concerning Big Internet Dominance?

from the a-question-worth-asking dept

I've made a similar point a few times in the past, but now that the antitrust knives are out for the big tech companies (mainly Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple), it does seem worth noting just how quickly the tech landscape seems to change. I moved to Silicon Valley 20 years ago. At that time, the "dominant" companies were: Microsoft, Sun, Oracle, Netscape, IBM, SGI, Intel and Yahoo. Those were still the days of "no one gets fired for buying IBM." Google's headquarters today were once SGI's. Facebook now occupies Sun's headquarters (affectionately nicknamed Sun Quentin, for its resemblance to the prison a bit north of here). A decade or so ago, I remember the general refrain about the startup ecosystem was that there were three "dominant" companies in the marketplace that any startup was trying to sell to. The so-called "GYM" companies: Google, Yahoo, Microsoft. Yet, today, all anyone can talk about is "GAFA" (Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple) or in some versions "FAANG" (add in Netflix).

The tech market is one of disruption. It's a celebrated term around here -- often mocked by outsiders. But dominance has a way of falling. And falling fast. So I appreciate a recent piece by Ryan Bourne at Cato asking some fairly pertinent questions regarding the new antitrust focus on "GAFA."

Almost exactly the same arguments about how “network effects” might make Facebook or Google entrenched monopolies were used against Myspace, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and AOL’s Instant Messenger. Analysts worried that web managers optimizing sites for IE because of its high use numbers would ossify the browser market in Microsoft’s favor. In the case of AOL, 40 companies wrote to the Federal Communications Commission asking it to make AOL’s network compatible with others. Of course, Myspace was rendered obsolete by Facebook, Internet Explorer by Google Chrome, and AIM by, well, a lot (there are many apps with instant messaging facilities).

But it’s not just network effects. In 2007 Forbes was running articles about how economies of scale for Nokia would act as a barrier to entry for rivals. The higher profits were generating “more money to invest in research and development.” It was said Nokia’s supposed technological superiority meant “no mobile company will ever know more about how people use phones than Nokia.” That year saw the first iPhone launch.

Today, consumer groups wail against Apple’s supposed “monopoly” power with its app store, saying it’s unfair to bundle it into its phone while prohibiting other means of download. Yet similar arguments were made about Apple’s iPods inability to play songs that weren’t downloaded from iTunes. Of course, developments in the music purchase market, mobiles and speaker technology completely unbundled music purchase from listening devices.

None of this is to say that there can't be antitrust concerns or market-power concerns to watch out for with these companies. But, the burden should be on those insisting that the only obvious thing is to "break up" these companies to explain why this time is different, and why no new competitors will be able to really enter and disrupt the legacy players.

When I first came to Silicon Valley, it was just as the antitrust effort against Microsoft was heating up -- and I totally supported it at the time. In retrospect, it's unlikely that case did much at all. There were other forces at work that limited Microsoft's power (though it's still a very big company doing quite well). After working around here for over two decades, though, and seeing just how much this place changes every few years, I've yet to see a convincing case that "this time is different." Indeed, I see plenty of entrepreneurs who are eager to disrupt the big players.

Filed Under: antitrust, big tech, dominance, internet companies, monopolies
Companies: amazon, apple, facebook, google

Trump Thinks That The Government Can And Should Sue Internet Companies Because He Doesn't Like The People Who Work There

from the not-how-it-works-don dept

In a move that will surprise absolutely no one, our President once again blindly and incorrectly lashed out at big internet companies and said that they should be sued for what appears to be the illegal action of having employees who didn't vote for him. I mean, that's not what he said, but that seems to be the only real reasoning behind the argument.

President Trump on Wednesday said the U.S. government “should be suing Google and Facebook and all that,” then wagered that “perhaps we will,” in a new broadside against Silicon Valley at a moment when it already faces heightened antitrust scrutiny in Washington.

Trump did not detail the exact basis for such lawsuits, which he raised after assailing European regulators for their investigations into U.S. tech companies.

So... he's against EU regulators investigating the companies, but he wants to have the DOJ do it? On what basis. Apparently, on the basis of a laughable, out-of-context propaganda video from an organization famous for producing misleading, out-of-context propaganda videos.

In doing so, Trump also swiped at Google, claiming the search and advertising giant is “trying to rig the election.” He then claimed that Twitter has made it “very hard” for users to find and follow him. But Trump did not provide new evidence for his latest allegation that the companies exhibit bias against conservatives, which Google and Twitter long have vehemently denied.

The "rig the election" is one that's been making the rounds this week after a group of people deliberately misrepresented Google's ongoing (and very public) efforts to prevent foreign intervention in the US election. If you think that blocking foreign intervention is "rigging the election," well, then you've got much bigger issues.

As for the claim that Twitter has made it "very hard" for users to find and follow him, he currently has 61.4 million followers -- which appears to make him the twelfth most followed account on the platform. He has more followers than Kim Kardashian. I don't think anyone is making it hard to find or follow him. Or, if Twitter is doing that, please, Twitter, make it just as hard for people to find and follow me on the platform.

Look, I get that Trump and his fans don't like the fact that tech company employees overwhelmingly didn't vote for him. But, that's not any basis for making up lies about them and sending the DOJ after them. There may well be legal and regulatory issues that deserve scrutiny regarding these legal companies, but making up fantasy stories only makes it that much harder to sort out what's legitimate from what's utter nonsense.

Filed Under: antitrust, doj, donald trump, internet companies, social media
Companies: facebook, google, twitter

Senator Feinstein Revives Stupid Idea That Internet Companies Are 'Materially Supporting Terrorism' If ISIS Members Use Their Sites

from the not-how-it-works dept

Last year, FBI Director James Comey floated a ridiculous idea that retweeting ISIS tweets could be seen as "material support" for terrorism. Indeed, an American teenager got sentenced to 11 years in jail for pro-ISIS tweets, with the "material support" being that some of those tweets linked to pages that taught people how to use Bitcoin. Some have taken this idea even further, and argued that internet companies can be slapped with "material support for terrorism" claims or charges if they let ISIS members or other terrorists make use of their services.

This is ridiculous for many, many reasons, not the least of which is that (like in the encryption debate) it seems to presume that there's some algorithm to magically determine who is good (not a terrorist) and who is bad (terrorist!). And just like ridiculous and impossible arguments for "kicking ISIS off the open web" -- it would be ridiculously counterproductive. Not only would it be ridiculously costly to internet companies, but it would actually take away a major source of intelligence about terrorist groups, since they often reveal useful things on social media.

But guess who's seriously thinking about looking to see if it's possible to slap "material support of terrorism" charges on internet companies? Why, it's a Senator who actually is supposed to be representing many of their interests as California companies, Senator Dianne Feinstein. Jenna McLaughlin, a national security reporter for The Intercept, noted that Feinstein floated the idea this week, as if Feinstein had just thought of it:

DiFi: have we tried slapping material support charges on companies for letting terrorists use their services?

— Jenna McLaughlin (@JennaMC_Laugh) March 9, 2016

We've already discussed how dumb an idea this is (even more so that it comes from a California Senator), but ACLU deputy legal director Jameel Jaffer had an excellent response as well, highlighting the sheer stupidity of Feinstein's suggestion:

I heard that terrorists use hotels, credit cards, and phones, too. We're going to need a lot of indictments. https://t.co/N6HsYIz2Tb

— Jameel Jaffer (@JameelJaffer) March 9, 2016

Filed Under: dianne feinstein, first amendment, intermediary liability, internet companies, isis, material s upport, material support for terrorism, terrorism

France To Require Internet Companies To Detect 'Suspicious' Behavior Automatically, And To Decrypt Communications On Demand

from the going-from-bad-to-worse dept

Techdirt has been charting for a while France's descent from a bastion of enlightenment values to a country that seems willing to give up any freedom in the illusory hope of gaining some security. According to a story in Le Figaro, even worse is to come in the shape of a new law (original in French, found via @gchampeau):

[the proposed law] wants to force intermediaries to "detect, using automatic processing, suspicious flows of connection data". Internet service providers as well as platforms like Google, Facebook, Apple and Twitter would themselves have to identify suspicious behavior, according to instructions they have received, and pass the results to investigators. The text does not specify, but this could mean frequent connections to monitored pages.

As well as being extremely vague, none of this "automatic detection" will require a warrant, which means that the scope for abuse and errors will be huge. And then there's this:

The Intelligence bill also addresses the obligations placed on operators and platforms "concerning the decryption of data." More than ever, France is keen to have the [encryption] keys necessary to read intercepted conversations, even if they are protected.

As we've noted before, there is a global push to demonize encryption by presenting it as a "dark place" where bad people can safely hide. What's particularly worrying is that the measures proposed by France are easy to circumvent using client-side encryption. The fear has to be that once the French government realizes that fact, it will then seek to control or ban this form too.

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Filed Under: encryption, france, free speech, internet companies, liability, suspicious behavior
Companies: apple, facebook, google, twitter

Feds Reach Settlement With Internet Companies Allowing Them To Report Not Nearly Enough Details On Surveillance Efforts

from the too-bad dept

It appears that the lawsuit that a bunch of big internet companies had filed against the NSA in an attempt to reveal just how often they get FISA court information requests and how many of their users are impacted is now over, as the government has reached a settlement with the companies, allowing them slightly more leeway in sharing information, but in a very limiting way.

Not too long ago, the government had started allowing companies to reveal, for the first time, how many national security letter (NSL) requests they get, but said they had to reveal that number in ranges of 1,000 starting with 0 to 999. However, they did not allow any such reporting on FISA Court (FISC) orders, which covered things like the now infamous PRISM program under Section 702 of the FISA Amendments Act. It appears that the settlement more or less follows the outline of what the government allowed with NSLs. Companies are given two options. One is to basically report FISC requests like NSL requests, in bands of 1,000, and to similarly report "number of customer accounts affected" for NSLs, "FISA orders for content," "number of customer selectors targeted under FISA content orders," "FISA orders for non-content," and "number of customer selectors targeted under FISA non-content orders." All of those can be revealed separately, but always in bands of 1,000, starting with 0 to 999.

Alternatively, if companies are willing to lump these various programs together, they are allowed somewhat more granularity. So, if they lump together NSLs and FISA orders into a single number, they can reveal the details in bands of 250, starting with 0 to 249. Similarly, they can list the lumped together "customer selectors targeted" under combined NSLs and FISA orders in bands of 250.

This is a step forward, but it's not nearly far enough. As Kevin Bankston notes:

"Asking the public and policymakers to try to judge the appropriateness of the government’s surveillance practices based on a single, combined, rounded number is like asking a doctor to diagnose a patient’s shadow: only the grossest and most obvious problem, if even that, will be ever be evident."

Among the problems here, are that while they can reveal the number of customer accounts impacted for NSLs, that's not what they can do with FISC orders. Instead, they can only reveal "customer selectors targeted." That can be very different. You can imagine a "customer selector" that impacts many, many user accounts. And that's what many people are worried about -- and with this agreement, we won't actually know.

Furthermore, the agreement has a ridiculous clause that says if a FISA court order covers a "new capability" (i.e., getting access to a service that previously was not being tapped by the NSA/FBI), the companies cannot share that information for two years. The thinking here is rather obvious. Say, for example, a company launches a new voice communications service, like Skype -- and then gets hit with a FISA court order demanding that the NSA be able to listen in. The companies would be blocked from revealing that for two years. Clearly, the idea is to keep people from knowing how quickly the NSA is able to tap into any new form of communication, but that also opens up plenty of opportunities for the NSA to abuse its powers.

There is still some indication that Congress may require greater transparency here. I can understand why the tech companies agreed to settle, but it's a bit disappointing that they threw in the towel so quickly.

Apple has already updated its transparency report to note 0 - 249 "national security orders" and 0 - 249 "total accounts affected." Since they're doing ranges of 250, they're clearly lumping together both national security letters and FISC orders as "national security orders" though that's a bit confusing. Also, I don't think Apple is actually allowed to say "total accounts affected" from the terms of the agreement. When it comes to FISC orders, they can only list "customer selectors targeted," and saying "accounts affected" would suggest more information than the agreement appears to allow. Still, the obvious suggestion is that the government isn't requesting that much information directly from Apple, though other reports suggest it gets plenty of information, not directly via Apple, but by hacking their way into iOS devices....

Filed Under: doj, fisa orders, fisc, internet companies, national security letters, nsls, transparency, transparency report
Companies: apple, facebook, google, linkedin, microsoft, yahoo

Times Change; Dominant Tech Firms Change

from the antitrust? dept

An amusing tongue-in-cheek post from Adam Thierer looks back at the internet titans of the mid-90s (merely a decade and a half ago), and wonders if they should have been regulated for antitrust problems at the time:
click for larger version If you can't see it that well, it's a spread from PC Computing, showing Prodigy, CompuServe, AOL and MSN as the "top online services." How quickly things change. That's why, a few months ago, we thought it was pretty amusing to see people fretting about a new "gang of four" who dominate the internet space: Google, Apple, Amazon and Facebook.

Fifteen years from now, do people really think that any of those four will still be as dominant, let alone all four? The tech world changes fast. Companies come and companies go. It's ridiculously difficult to stay on top for very long. The idea that the government needs to get involved just doesn't make much sense.

Filed Under: antitrust, dominance, internet companies
Companies: amazon, apple, facebook, google

Why Google Should Buy The Recording Industry

from the pocket-change dept

Rumours about Google's music service have been swirling for a while now, but they certainly seem to be reaching a new stage with stories like this:

The latest rumor to emerge from the Google campus is that the company's much anticipated music service is just about at the end of their rope with the major label licensing process. A source close to the negotiations characterizes the search giant as "disgusted" with the labels, so much so that they are seriously considering following Amazon's lead and launching their music cloud service without label licenses. I'm told that, though very remote and my guess is that it would never come to this, Google may go so far as to shut down the music service project altogether.

When there are rumours that you're about to give up on a project, you know it must be real.

But what really caught my attention was the following paragraph and its final, throwaway line:

I'm told that this is when the idea of launching without licenses came up. Google may be starting to think that if the industry weren't going to sue Amazon, then why would they take on Google? After all, who needs whom the most in this scenario? Could you even wrap your brain around the legal costs? As a source pointed out to me, "Larry, Serge and Eric could buy the entire music industry with their personal money."

The fact that this is literally true tells us something that is often overlooked: the music industry is economically quite small and unimportant compared to the computer industry. And yet somehow -- through honed lobbying and old boy networks -- it wields a disproportionate power that enables it to block innovative ideas that the online world wants to try.

On a rational basis, the music industry's concerns would be dwarfed by those of the computer world, which is not just far larger, but vastly more important in strategic terms. But instead, the former gets to make all kinds of hyperbolic claims about the alleged "damage" inflicted by piracy on its income, even though these simply don't stand up to analysis.

But that throwaway comment also raises another interesting idea: how about if Google *did* buy the music industry? That would solve its licensing problems at a stroke. Of course, the anti-trust authorities around the world would definitely have something to say about this, so it might be necessary to tweak the idea a little.

How about if a consortium of leading Internet companies -- Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Baidu, Amazon etc. -- jointly bought the entire music industry, and promised to license its content to anyone on a non-discriminatory basis?

At the very least, the idea ought to send a shiver down the spine of the fat-cats currently running the record labels, and encourage them to stop whining so much just in case they make the thought of firing them all too attractive to the people whose lives they are currently making an utter misery....

Cross-posted from Open...

Filed Under: internet companies, licensing, music, record labels
Companies: google

Internet Company Valuations Now Below Their Lows From Last Bubble Burst

from the in-case-you-didn't-realize-how-big-the-financial-crisis-has-been dept

I doubt there's anyone out there who would claim that the dot com bubble bursting was a bigger deal than the current global financial restructuring that's been going on. However, plenty of people (myself included) have suggested that internet companies are more isolated from the root causes of the mess this time around -- and that's almost undeniably true. Last time, a lot of the trouble came directly from overvalued internet companies. This time, it's had little, if anything, to do with internet companies. However, apparently some are noticing that the valuations of 50 or so top internet companies have dipped below their lowest point from when the dot com bubble popped. Of course, in the aggregate, that's rather meaningless. Each of the companies looked at have different circumstances. Besides, the current global financial mess means that no one's really sure how to value anything, meaning that current valuations of pretty much any stock should probably be taken with a huge grain of salt.

Filed Under: financial crisis, internet companies, valuations

Have The Big Internet Companies Turned Their Back On Net Neutrality?

from the that's-what-you-get dept

In general, I side pretty strongly with Tim Lee's recent net neutrality paper suggesting that we shouldn't rush into net neutrality legislation that is likely to have unintended consequences -- but at the same time, we shouldn't downplay the importance of a neutral end-to-end internet. One of the key points of his paper was that the net neutrality battle, as portrayed in the press, was quite misleading. It has never really been about "internet companies" vs. "telcos." And, this point becomes especially important for consumers who value neutrality, who mostly lined up behind the big internet companies on the assumption they would fight hard to protect net neutrality.

However, as the Wall Street Journal is noting, it seems like many of those big internet companies that were strong supporters of net neutrality are now moving away from that position, and some may be going in completely the opposite direction. In fact, the article highlights (without any named sources... so...) that Google has been busy negotiating preferential traffic deals with various internet providers, such that it would get to place its own servers on their premises to give users a faster route to Google's servers. Google's only comment was to deny that this would violate net neutrality concepts, though some might disagree. On the whole, I'd have to agree that this doesn't appear to violate network neutrality rules, as it's more like Google setting up its own private Akamai-like CDN, and, as we've explained before, a CDN does not violate neutrality.

So, to be clear, it looks like the WSJ is blowing this totally out of proportion when it comes to the Google/net neutrality angle. But that doesn't mean it doesn't raise other important questions for those who line up behind the big internet companies in the expectation that Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Yahoo will fight various fights for them. The article details how each one of those companies has stepped back from the fight in recent days, and even have been doing deals with telcos that are perhaps on that fuzzy border of a non-neutral internet.

In some ways, this is similar to the point we've been making in some other areas, where people and companies, who used to rely on Google's legal team to fight their battles, now need to realize that Google is no longer the defender of Silicon Valley. While the company used to take the stance that what was good for the internet user overall would be good for Google in the long term, in the last year or so, the company has increasingly made decisions that go against that principle. Instead, it's done a number of deals that allow it to leverage its cash reserves to make life more difficult for others, but allow Google to protect itself.

So, even if Google isn't really backing away from net neutrality right now, given its other actions recently, people need to increasingly realize that Google no longer always views "what's good for internet users is good for Google," and should plan accordingly.

Filed Under: internet, internet companies, net neutrality
Companies: amazon, google, microsoft, yahoo