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DVDs and Blu-rays will now carry two unskippable government warnings

Nate Anderson Ars Technica » Law & Disorder

You know those FBI warning messages that appear at the beginning of DVDs and Blu-ray discs? They're getting an upgrade—and they're multiplying.

The US government yesterday rolled out not one but two copyright notices, one to "warn" and one to "educate." Six major movie studios will begin using the new notices this week.

The main change is that Immigrations & Customs Enforcement (ICE) has, in the last several years, made itself a key player in the copyright wars. The FBI has shown extremely limited interest in going after individual websites, but ICE has done so with gusto; it has so far seized more than 750 domain names after rightsholder complaints. This new prominence is reflected in the broader logos used.

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Netherlands becomes world's second "net neutrality" country

Iljitsch van Beijnum Ars Technica » Law & Disorder

The Dutch Parliament
Flickr user Andrew Griffith

A year ago, the former Dutch telecoms monopolist KPN unveiled a plan to make mobile users pay extra for data used by certain third-party apps, such as WhatsApp and Skype, that replaced KPN services like text messaging and voice calls. In response, the Dutch parliament quickly added net neutrality provisions to its telecommunications law. Tuesday, the Dutch senate at last approved the law, making the Netherlands the second country in the world (after Chile) with net neutrality written into statute.

The new law also requires websites to ask users for permission before cookies can be stored in their browsers, but these provisions won't go into effect until 2013, giving the European Union some time to address the user tracking issue.

How we got here

Let's return to 2011, when KPN issued a press release announcing its annual report. "In Q4 2011, the wireless market remained challenging, and a further decrease of voice and SMS service revenues was noticeable," it said then. "Data usage continued to rise due to the increased usage of communication apps. This changing customer behavior, which was first witnessed in Q1 2011 at the Hi brand, is now also visible at the KPN brand." (The Hi brand is targeted at a young/urban demographic.)

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DHS Considers Collecting DNA From Kids; DEA and US Marshals Already Do

jlynch Deeplinks

Documents just released by US Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) in response to one of EFF’s Freedom of Information Act requests show that DHS is considering collecting DNA from kids ages 14 and up—and is exploring expanding its regulations to allow collection from kids younger than that.

The proposal appears to be working its way through DHS in the wake of regulations from the Department of Justice that require all federal agencies—including DHS and its components such as ICE—to collect DNA from individuals arrested for federal crimes as well as “from non-United States persons who are detained under the authority of the United States,” whether or not they have been involved in criminal activity.  While the law specifically exempts a few classes of “aliens,” the documents we received show DHS may start DNA collection from anyone it fingerprints.  Currently, that’s any child over 14 who’s detained, but we also found records that show ICE could lower that age even more.

DHS estimates that as many as 1 million people who are subject to administrative detention or arrest annually could now be subject to DNA collection.  But it’s important to note that many of these people are not involved in criminal activity.  Collecting DNA from anyone detained by the government for any number of non-criminal reasons—especially juveniles—seems to be yet another step on the slippery slope to collecting DNA from everyone in the United States, no matter their status.

ICE is the first component within DHS to collect DNA under the new DOJ regulations. ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) offices in San Diego, St. Paul, and San Juan, Puerto Rico are part of a 6-month pilot program to test out the new procedures and were set to start collecting DNA around July 2010. After the pilot program, the rest of HSI’s offices (more than 200 throughout the US and abroad) will start collecting DNA and presumably all other DHS components will follow suit shortly thereafter.

When the DOJ expanded its DNA collection regulations in 2009, it specifically required agencies to collect DNA from all populations they fingerprint. DHS regulations allow the agency to collect biometrics from aliens coming into the US who are 14 and older, so DHS can currently collect DNA from kids this age as well. However, the agency may also be considering collecting biometrics from kids younger than 14. A slide presentation from March 2011, titled “Working Group on Expanding the Biometric Age Range” notes that some DHS programs are already collecting biometrics from kids younger than 14 and proposes expanding the age range for more DHS entities (including ICE). Because of the DOJ regulations, this would mean that DHS could collect DNA even from very young kids.

It turns out that DHS is not the first federal or even state agency to collect DNA from juveniles. The records ICE released show that the US Marshals are required to collect DNA from juveniles whenever the Marshals collect fingerprints. And the Drug Enforcement Agency’s (DEA) internal regulations make clear that “Both adults and juveniles who are fingerprinted are subject to DNA sample collection.” Its agents may also collect DNA from non-United States persons who are merely detained (not formally arrested). And according to the Council for Responsible Genetics, twenty-eight states already collect DNA from juvenile offenders, as well.

However, a DNA collection program run by DHS feels very different because it could affect so many people who have no involvement with the criminal justice system. EFF has strongly criticized warrantless DNA collection in criminal contexts, as we’ve discussed here, here and here. The DOJ argues that collecting DNA from all people arrested and non-US persons detained will allow it to find and identify more criminals, solve more crimes, and “prevent and deter subsequent criminal conduct.” but it is hard to see how that argument couldn’t be extended to apply with equal force to mandated DNA collection from everyone.

DNA reveals an extraordinary amount of private information about you, including family background, medical history, predisposition for disease, and possibly even behavioral tendencies and sexual orientation. Once the federal government collects a DNA sample—no matter which agency does the collection—the sample is sent to the FBI for storage, and the extracted profile is incorporated into the FBI’s massive CODIS database, which already contains over 10.5 million “offender” profiles. It is next to impossible to have your DNA expunged from the database once it’s already in there, and once it’s in CODIS it is subject to repeated warrantless searches from all levels of state and federal law enforcement.

For the short term, DHS’s DNA collection program may be quite limited. ICE has redacted most concrete information about the timetable for implementation, but it is not clear that DHS has begun collecting any DNA. The documents ICE released indicate some agency infighting between the DOJ (which requires the DNA collection) and DHS (which considers this requirement to be an expensive unfunded mandate), and it is not clear if the two agencies have yet worked this out.

DHS also appears to recognize the political costs of collecting DNA from people outside the criminal justice system. In a March 22, 2010 letter from DHS Secretary Napolitano to Attorney General Holder, Napolitano sought an exemption to DNA collection from juveniles under 18. Hidden text within one of the documents1 recognizes that collecting DNA from juveniles could increase “ICE's exposure to criticism” and notes:

[t]here is a high likelihood that ICE would face litigation and other opposition from community and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) if ICE were to sample all juvenile detainees.

Further, it appears DHS is trying to avoid publicizing the roll out. Hidden text on another page of the documents notes that “OCR and OPA [ICE's Office of Congressional Relations and Office of Public Affairs] intend to respond to inquiries, rather than making announcements of the DNA sampling pilot program.”

DHS’s stalling is good for privacy in the short run. However, given the hard line the DOJ has taken in past court cases challenging DNA collection, the expansion of DNA collection from an ever-broader array of Americans and immigrants appears imminent.

Follow these links to view all the documents we received from ICE:

- ICE DNA Collection Documents - pages 1-92

- ICE DNA Collection Documents - pages 93-201

- ICE DNA Collection Documents - pages 202-297

- ICE DNA Collection Documents - pages 298-353

  • 1. While the second and third pages of this document look blank, there is actually text hidden within the blank sections. If you download the pdf file and open it in Acrobat or another pdf reader, you should be able to select the text and then copy and paste it into a new document to view it.
Related Issues: 
Biometrics
Privacy
Transparency
FOIA

Musicians Realizing They Don't Need Major Labels Anymore

Mike Masnick Techdirt.

Music reality TV has become a key feeding ground for the major labels lately. Shows like American Idol, the Voice, X Factor and the like seem to be where the labels have been picking up some of their bigger name stars lately -- allowing the shows to help build up an initial following and then picking off the stars with typical record label deals. Except... it appears that some of those musicians are realizing that they don't need the labels any more. Jordis Unga, a singer who has appeared on two reality TV shows (Rock Star: INXS and The Voice), has decided that she doesn't need to sign a label deal. While she didn't win on either show, she did build up quite a following, and she decided that for her debut album, she might as well just hit up Kickstarter, and ask for $33,000. Which she got. In less than a day. In the first day alone her project on Kickstarter raised over $50,000.

Now, perhaps some will complain that she is now beholden to her fans, but that seems a lot better than being beholden to a multinational conglomerate who claims all ownership and control of your work. Others, quite reasonably, will point out that she built up some of this following by being on two prime time network national TV shows. That's absolutely true. No one is saying that the trick to being a successful musician today is to just go on reality TV. But the point is that if you can build up a following -- in any way possible -- the need for a record label diminishes. And there are more and more and more ways to build up that audience today. If the labels aren't worried about these alternatives, they're not paying very much attention.

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an example of the usefulness of bittorrent for entirely legal purposes

wil@wilwheaton.net (Wil Wheaton) WWdN: In Exile

I frequently find myself in an unpopular position in the entertainment industry: I believe in network neutrality, I don't believe that piracy is the end of the world as we know it (I particularly don't believe that a download or file shared automatically equals a lost sale*) and I don't believe in crippling the Internet to protect a business model that desperately needs to change.

One of the things that drives me crazy is the belief in Hollywood that bittorrent exists solely for stealing things. Efforts to explain that this is not necessarily true are often met with hands clamped tightly over ears, accompanied by "I CAN'T HEAR YOU LA LA LA."

As an example of the usefulness of bittorrent for entirely legal purposes, I present the following comparitive images:

Screen Shot 2012-05-13 at 10.39.50 AM
Screen Shot 2012-05-13 at 10.39.56 AM

So yesterday, I decided that I'd download Ubuntu and put it in a Virtualbox on my iMac, just to see how the distro is doing these days. As you can see from the images above, if I'd downloaded the iso straight from their server, it was going to take the better part of an hour, so I decided to grab the torrent instead. Turns out it was a good choice, because it was finished in about six minutes.

I was so happy with the speed and performance, I seeded it until I got to a ratio of 3.0, to give back, you know?

Some ISPs are blocking all bittorrent traffic, because bittorrent can be used to share files in a piratical way. Hollywood lobbying groups are trying to pass laws wich would force ISPs to block or degrade bittorrent traffic, too. Personally, I think this is like closing down freeways because a bank robber could use them to get away, which I know is an imperfect comparison, but is the best I can do after a night of not-especially-good sleep.

Anyway, my point with this post is to illustrate that the bittorrent protocol is useful for more than just infringement, so when you hear industry lobbying groups making a lot of noise about piracy, you'll remember that they aren't giving you all the facts.

 

*Longtime readers may recall that I did not always believe this, but I've, uh ... evolved ... on the issue.

BitTorrent is the New Radio, Says Counting Crows Frontman

Ernesto TorrentFreak

counting crowsLast month Counting Crows released their latest studio album titled Underwater Sunshine (Or What We Did On Our Summer Vacation).

Fans have been waiting since 2008 for the release and it’s selling well, but that won’t prevent the band from giving some tracks away for free.

Counting Crows decided to team up with BitTorrent Inc. and today they release a promotional bundle with the songs Untitled (Love Song), Like Teenage Gravity, Hospital, and Meet on the Ledge.

The download, which also includes high-resolution album artwork and liner notes from lead singer Adam Duritz, is available to BitTorrent’s 150 million users and will be bundled with all new downloads of the uTorrent client.

While this isn’t the first time artists have used BitTorrent’s promotion program to share their works for free, Counting Crows are perhaps the biggest name thus far. To find out why the band decided to embrace BitTorrent, TorrentFreak caught up with Adam Duritz.

“I’ve been a big proponent of giving songs away for a long time,” says Duritz, explaining why the band decided to share their music on BitTorrent.

While the singer doesn’t endorse people simply taking stuff, he realizes that BitTorrent can do a lot of good for musicians.

“I can dwell on the negatives, but I don’t want to miss out on the fact that there’s 150 million people who I can give songs to. You either treat it as just a money drain, like the record companies do. Or you can treat it as it actually is, which is a conduit, meaning it runs both ways.”

“You can either cry about it or make use of it. File-sharing is no different from the rest of the Internet, it is a tool that connects the entire world. It is the cure for Babel,” Duritz adds.

According to the singer the Internet is a “huge benefit” to music. Counting Crows realized this early on and started posting about their music on a message forum in 1995.

In the years that followed the music industry changed dramatically. But while the record labels have been complaining bitterly, according to the band’s frontman musicians are actually better off.

“Record business was never all that great for bands. It was always a 99 percent failure rate of bands. Even if you did do well record labels took 80 percent of your revenue and locked up your rights. And they are completely incompetent,” Duritz told TorrentFreak.

BitTorrent, the Internet and technological advances have democratized music and made it more accessible than ever before. Promotion is not centralized through the labels, but now works through bloggers, social networks and music services.

“On the Internet dependent bands can survive. Perhaps they don’t become megastars, but at least they can survive and thrive. And there’s a lot of great music out there right now.”

People make their own radio stations now according to Duritz, and BitTorrent plays a vital role there.

“If you got 150 million people on BitTorrent, then that’s the new radio station. That’s a better radio station in fact, because people have the choice to play it as much as they want and stop when they get sick of it.”

“I can’t believe everybody’s not doing it,” Duritz says, adding that it’s much better than bribing radio stations or record stores.

“It’s a no brainer to me and now that we’re an independent band we don’t have to listen to a bunch of idiots who tell us what we should or shouldn’t do. We can have smart people or we can trust ourselves.”

The Counting Crows frontman is no stranger to BitTorrent either. He knows sites like crows-town.com that are devoted to sharing his concerts, and he supports them.

“I gave birth to these websites basically because we’ve been encouraging people to tape concerts from the very beginning. We’re a good live band, so they’re going to want to listen to it. It would be great if we could sell concert recordings, but we don’t have to monetize everything,” Duritz told us.

“I have a whole wall of bootlegs in my house, not of us, but of other bands. So it would be a little hypocritical if I started getting angry at everybody else now. I think it’s a great thing and don’t know why bands have ever fought people recording shows because it’s a great advertisement for your product.”

So in part these torrent sites act as a promotional tool. And that’s exactly the reason why Counting Crows is partnering with BitTorrent.

“Giving songs away will draw people to the record, it will also draw people to the tour that’s coming up. Those are pretty big things. The fact that you can give something to that many people is not a small thing,” Duritz says.

“As an artist it’s what you’ve been wanting to do all along, which is to get your music to people.”

That said, Duritz thinks people will continue to buy music. However, they want sincere artists who charge a reasonable price, and not a band that’s backed by a record label people don’t trust.

“I believe in the future of the music business, just not the record labels,” he concludes.

For those who are interested, the Counting Crows bundle can be downloaded here.

Source: BitTorrent is the New Radio, Says Counting Crows Frontman

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Newark Airport security supervisor assumed murdered man's identity for 2 decades

Xeni Jardin Boing Boing

Bimbo Olumuyiwa Oyewole, a security supervisor at Newark airport, lived a double life for 20 years using the identity of the victim in an unsolved murder.

Since 1992, the undocumented Nigerian immigrant worked at EWR as Jerry Thomas, a man who was killed that same year in New York City. Oyewole continued to live as Thomas undetected for two decades, while overseeing security matters at one of America's busiest airports.

According to the Associated Press report, "the private security guards he supervised are responsible for manning TSA security checkpoints after passenger gates close for the evening and before they reopen in the morning. The guards also inspect delivery vehicles for possible unauthorized cargo."

Oops.

(Photo: Newark Liberty International Airport; courtesy Port Authority of NY and NJ.)

The Trouble with Airport Profiling

schneier Schneier on Security

Why do otherwise rational people think it's a good idea to profile people at airports? Recently, neuroscientist and best-selling author Sam Harris related a story of an elderly couple being given the twice-over by the TSA, pointed out how these two were obviously not a threat, and recommended that the TSA focus on the actual threat: "Muslims, or anyone who looks like he or she could conceivably be Muslim."

This is a bad idea. It doesn’t make us any safer -- and it actually puts us all at risk.

The right way to look at security is in terms of cost-benefit trade-offs. If adding profiling to airport checkpoints allowed us to detect more threats at a lower cost, than we should implement it. If it didn't, we'd be foolish to do so. Sometimes profiling works. Consider a sheep in a meadow, happily munching on grass. When he spies a wolf, he's going to judge that individual wolf based on a bunch of assumptions related to the past behavior of its species. In short, that sheep is going to profile...and then run away. This makes perfect sense, and is why evolution produced sheep -- and other animals -- that react this way. But this sort of profiling doesn't work with humans at airports, for several reasons.

First, in the sheep's case the profile is accurate, in that all wolves are out to eat sheep. Maybe a particular wolf isn't hungry at the moment, but enough wolves are hungry enough of the time to justify the occasional false alarm. However, it isn't true that almost all Muslims are out to blow up airplanes. In fact, almost none of them are. Post 9/11, we’ve had 2 Muslim terrorists on U.S airplanes: the shoe bomber and the underwear bomber. If you assume 0.8% (that’s one estimate of the percentage of Muslim Americans) of the 630 million annual airplane fliers are Muslim and triple it to account for others who look Semitic, then the chances any profiled flier will be a Muslim terrorist is 1 in 80 million. Add the 19 9/11 terrorists -- arguably a singular event -- that number drops to 1 in 8 million. Either way, because the number of actual terrorists is so low, almost everyone selected by the profile will be innocent. This is called the "base rate fallacy," and dooms any type of broad terrorist profiling, including the TSA’s behavioral profiling.

Second, sheep can safely ignore animals that don't look like the few predators they know. On the other hand, to assume that only Arab-appearing people are terrorists is dangerously naive. Muslims are black, white, Asian, and everything else -- most Muslims are not Arab. Recent terrorists have been European, Asian, African, Hispanic, and Middle Eastern; male and female; young and old. Underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab was Nigerian. Shoe bomber Richard Reid was British with a Jamaican father. One of the London subway bombers, Germaine Lindsay, was Afro-Caribbean. Dirty bomb suspect Jose Padilla was Hispanic-American. The 2002 Bali terrorists were Indonesian. Both Timothy McVeigh and the Unabomber were white Americans. The Chechen terrorists who blew up two Russian planes in 2004 were female. Focusing on a profile increases the risk that TSA agents will miss those who don't match it.

Third, wolves can't deliberately try to evade the profile. A wolf in sheep’s clothing is just a story, but humans are smart and adaptable enough to put the concept into practice. Once the TSA establishes a profile, terrorists will take steps to avoid it. The Chechens deliberately chose female suicide bombers because Russian security was less thorough with women. Al Qaeda has tried to recruit non-Muslims. And terrorists have given bombs to innocent -- and innocent-looking -- travelers. Randomized secondary screening is more effective, especially since the goal isn't to catch every plot but to create enough uncertainty that terrorists don’t even try.

And fourth, sheep don't care if they offend innocent wolves; the two species are never going to be friends. At airports, though, there is an enormous social and political cost to the millions of false alarms. Beyond the societal harms of deliberately harassing a minority group, singling out Muslims alienates the very people who are in the best position to discover and alert authorities about Muslim plots before the terrorists even get to the airport. This alone is reason enough not to profile.

I too am incensed -- but not surprised -- when the TSA singles out four-year old girls, children with cerebral palsy, pretty women, the elderly, and wheelchair users for humiliation, abuse, and sometimes theft. Any bureaucracy that processes 630 million people per year will generate stories like this. When people propose profiling, they are really asking for a security system that can apply judgment. Unfortunately, that's really hard. Rules are easier to explain and train. Zero tolerance is easier to justify and defend. Judgment requires better-educated, more expert, and much-higher-paid screeners. And the personal career risks to a TSA agent of being wrong when exercising judgment far outweigh any benefits from being sensible.

The proper reaction to screening horror stories isn't to subject only "those people" to it; it's to subject no one to it. (Can anyone even explain what hypothetical terrorist plot could successfully evade normal security, but would be discovered during secondary screening?) Invasive TSA screening is nothing more than security theater. It doesn't make us safer, and it's not worth the cost. Even more strongly, security isn't our society's only value. Do we really want the full power of government to act out our stereotypes and prejudices? Have we Americans ever done something like this and not been ashamed later? This is what we have a Constitution for: to help us live up to our values and not down to our fears.

This essay previously appeared on Forbes.com and Sam Harris's blog.

Pirates win more seats in German state elections

Cory Doctorow Boing Boing


The German Pirate Party has taken seats in the fourth consecutive regional election, this time in North Rhine-Westphalia, where it received 7.5% of the vote, which will likely translate to 18 seats. These state-level elections are being viewed in part as a referendum on austerity and other Merkel doctrines, and there's a growing tide of disgust with business-as-usual across Europe. The Pirates are doing a good job of presenting themselves as a real alternative, albeit one with a specialized agenda. The trick will be for the Pirates to articulate the equation that all copyright policy ends up being Internet policy, and all Internet policy ends up being policy for everything, since everything we do involves the Internet. So far, many people are taking that idea to heart. Party founder Rick Falkvinge provides some analysis of the German PP phenomenon:

The first reason is that the German Piratenpartei was long-term from the get-go. Where most pirate parties are started like any internet project – “we’re going to change the world come next weekend” – the Germans knew they would be around for a long time, and invested early in the organizational foundation for that.

The second reason is timing and ripples on the water. When the Swedish Piratpartiet had its breakthrough in the European Parliament, and was in media all over the world, the German Piratenpartei was able to exploit that momentum when a local minister named Ursula wanted to create a net censorship to fight CP. T-shirts with the name “Zensursula” were common, zensur being German for censorship. The goverment did not win the narrative on that one, and the idea of censorship was abandoned while the Piratenpartei raked in new members. I’d say that this was the breakthrough in activist critical mass.

The third reason is Germany’s federal party support. Having won 1% in the European elections and 2% in the federal elections in 2009 entitled the Piratenpartei to considerable governmental funding, which is paid out to all parties that beat the half-percent mark in elections. This has allowed the Piratenpartei to buy themselves the appearance of an established party out in the streets – their posters and banners are everywhere on paid billboards, as well as on streetlights and more activist-associated locations. But all of it looks professional, yet with a new message. It looks electable, which is key.

German Pirate Party Scores Fourth Consecutive Election Win - Falkvinge on Infopolicy

Yes Men punk TPP and US Trade Ambassador with fake "Corporate Power Tool Award"

Cory Doctorow Boing Boing

US Trade Ambassador Ron Kirk was in Dallas to kick off a corporate power-event to drum up support for the foundering, secretive Transpacific Partnership, a secret treaty that builds on the work of ACTA to establishing punishing copyright laws that include mandatory surveillance and censorship. The Yes Men crashed the gala, taking the podium to present Kirk with a "Corporate Power Tool Award," which he tried to accept, but his minders from the Secret Service wouldn't let him.

The first action began when a smartly-dressed man approached the podium immediately after the gala's keynote speech by Ron Kirk, U.S. Trade Representative and former mayor of Dallas. The man (local puppeteer David Goodwin) introduced himself as "Git Haversall," president of the "Texas Corporate Power Partnership," and announced he was giving Kirk and other U.S. trade negotiators the "2012 Corporate Power Tool Award," which "Haversall's" partner held aloft.

The crowd of negotiators and corporate representatives applauded, and "Haversall" continued: "I'd like to personally thank the negotiators for their relentless efforts. The TPP agreement is shaping up to be a fantastic way for us to maximize profits, regardless of what the public of this nation—or any other nation—thinks is right."

At that point, the host of the reception took the microphone back and announced that the evening's formal programming had concluded. But Mr. Haversall confidently re-took the microphone and warmly invited Kirk to accept the award.

Kirk moved towards the stage, but federal agents blocked his path to protect him from further embarrassment. At that point, a dozen well-dressed "delegates" (local activists, some from Occupy Dallas) broke into ecstatic dance and chanted "TPP! TPP! TPP!" for several minutes until Dallas police arrived.

Party ends badly for U.S. trade reps, federal agents (via David Akin)

Why Nikola Tesla was the greatest geek who ever lived

Matthew Inman The Oatmeal - Comics, Quizzes, & Stories

Why Nikola Tesla was the greatest geek who ever lived

An ode to the father of the electric age.

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Why Are People Resigning Before The Copyright Industries’ Will?

Rick Falkvinge TorrentFreak

In a discussion thread concerning a recent book from myself and Christian Engström, Member of European Parliament, people were concerned. The book is titled “The Case For Copyright Reform”, and is a collection of the most relevant essays over the past year, as well as reproducing contributions from Mike Masnick, Ernesto and Michael Geist. (Did I mention it’s available for free download? Copy and seed.)

The political proposals in the book are also the ones carried by the Green group in the European Parliament, though they originate with the Pirate Party.

Extratorrent did a story on the book, and Reddit got a story linked there with a title saying “Copyright protection is suggested to be cut from 70 to 20 years from publication”. (Which is factually wrong – the proposal is to reduce from life plus 70 to a baseline five years, extendable to 20 through registration, limiting the monopoly to commercial uses only – but still.)

What strikes me as odd, and indefensible, are the reactions of resignation in the Reddit thread.

This is a selection of the highest-voted comments:

- Nice, but it won’t happen. Publishing companies would scream bloody murder.

- This would be fantastic but will never happen because companies have a vested interest in maintaining their ability to collect royalties indefinitely.

- They can suggest anything they like, but I really see no reason why the RIAA or MPAA would listen to anything but making it longer.

I am absolutely flabbergasted that this seems to be the prevailing view. When did people forget that legislators, and not corporations, have the final say over our laws?

The copyright industry is not a stakeholder in the copyright monopoly. They are a beneficiary. Of course they’ll want more benefits.

Who gives a rat’s ass what the copyright industries want?

Their interest is not the public interest. The only reason they have been getting their way in lawmaking is that legislators have believed – up until pretty much now – that this issue is completely peripheral in public opinion, so they haven’t cared about it at all, and they have ignored this field of policymaking to let it be run by easily-lobbied public servants.

To see people confuse corporations for legislators to this degree frustrates me. There is absolutely no reason why we shouldn’t hold legislators accountable for every single button they press – and let them know that it is us, not a special interest, that determine whether they keep or lose their job.

Failing that, one can also replace them entirely, as I set out to do with a movement that has now spread to 50+ countries. That also gets their attention. Guaranteed.

But no matter what, don’t ever accept the resigned position that the copyright industries determine law. They don’t. They’ve gotten away with wishlists because politicians haven’t cared. They do care when tens of thousands of people make noise, and we can do that. We know absolutely well that we’re capable of that and much more.

If the copyright industry collapses – who cares?

The job of every entrepreneur is to make money given the current constraints of society. They don’t get to dismantle civil liberties if they fail to make money – especially if they fail to make money. No entrepreneur has the right to shape society to guarantee themselves a profit.

There will always be culture, and the artists are doing better than ever. It’s more than time to rid our economy and our net of the burden of these parasitic middlemen – and don’t ever dare think you’re powerless to do exactly that.

About The Author

Rick Falkvinge is a regular columnist on TorrentFreak, sharing his thoughts every other week. He is the founder of the Swedish and first Pirate Party, a whisky aficionado, and a low-altitude motorcycle pilot. His blog at falkvinge.net focuses on information policy.

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Source: Why Are People Resigning Before The Copyright Industries’ Will?

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Judge Who Ordered Pirate Bay Censorship Found To Be Corrupt

Soulskill Slashdot: Your Rights Online

TheGift73 writes "TorrentFreak reports that 'This week yet another court order was handed down in Europe with the aim of censoring The Pirate Bay. The ruling forbids the Dutch Pirate Party from not only running a direct proxy, but also telling people how to circumvent an earlier court ordered blockade. However, according to Pirate Party founder Rick Falkvinge, the judge in the case has a history of corruption relating to another file-sharing case he presided over in the Netherlands. The Court of The Hague in the Netherlands has been particularly busy this work with Pirate Bay-related cases.' Falkvinge wrote, '... not only was the plaintiff and judge personally and closely acquainted, the plaintiff in a controversial copyright monopoly case was running a commercial anti-piracy outfit together with the judge in the case. Money was involved. Commercial interest was involved. The judge was, as it appears from this brochure for the quite expensive course, getting money. Shortly after the case. In a directly related matter together with the plaintiff. That makes the judge not only corrupt, but textbook corrupt.'"

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Pirate Bay ‘Censorship’ Judge is Corrupt, Claims Pirate Party Founder

enigmax TorrentFreak

The Court of The Hague in the Netherlands has been particularly busy this work with Pirate Bay-related cases.

Following an earlier court ruling ordering two of the country’s largest ISPs to block subscriber access to The Pirate Bay, the Court ordered a further five ISPs to block TPB IP addresses and 20 domain names Thursday. The Court then went on to make a decision that was perhaps even more controversial than the first.

The Dutch Pirate Party had been running a proxy service to facilitate access to the now-blocked Pirate Bay, but following pressure from anti-piracy group BREIN their activities were outlawed this week by the Court. The Pirate Party was ordered to shutdown its reverse proxy indefinitely and block Pirate Bay domains and IP-addresses from its generic proxy.

However, in a decision that raised eyebrows, Judge Chris Hensen also banned the Party from using their own website to list the locations of other websites that allow the public to circumvent the blockade.

This decision by Henson – which some observers believe amounts to a curtailment of freedom of speech – is not the first the Judge has made of this nature. In 2010, movie studio Eyeworks won its lawsuit against Dutch Usenet community FTD. In that verdict, Judge Hensen ruled that by allowing users to talk about a copyrighted movie’s location on Usenet, FTD was effectively publishing the movie as if they had actually hosted it on their own servers.

After the ruling it transpired that Judge Henson and Dirk Visser, the lawyer for the movie studio, had a closer relationship than had been expected. Visser, who also represented BREIN in their victory over Mininova, had been running courses for copyright specialists where Judge Hensen was once one of the teachers.

Of course, now Judge Hensen has delivered a similar ruling, his connections with Visser are being re-examined, not least by Pirate Party founder Rick Falkvinge who is absolutely scathing.

“This is truly mind-boggling: not only was the plaintiff and judge personally and closely acquainted, the plaintiff in a controversial copyright monopoly case was running a commercial anti-piracy outfit together with the judge in the case,” Falkvinge writes.

“Money was involved. Commercial interest was involved. The judge was, as it appears from this brochure for the quite expensive course, getting money. From the plaintiff. Shortly after the case. In a directly related matter. That makes the judge not only corrupt, but textbook corrupt,” Falkvinge adds.

Claims of bias have hounded many big copyright-related cases in recent years, but for whatever reason have never gained any traction. In 2009 following the conviction of the founders of The Pirate Bay, it was revealed that two of the four judges set to hear their appeal were members of pro-copyright groups. The Supreme Court eventually decided that this would not affect their judgment.

The year before it was revealed that police officer Jim Keyzer, the leader and key witness in the initial Pirate Bay investigation, had been recently employed by Warner Bros, one of the plaintiffs in the case. The controversy deepened when it was discovered that his employment with the studio was only temporary – he later returned to the police to head up an IT Crime unit.

This so-called revolving door phenomenon has raised its head time and again in the past couple of years. In March 2011, U.S. District Court Judge Beryl Howell – a former RIAA lobbyist and anti-piracy company boss – delivered a helpful ruling for potential copyright trolls.

Then later that month it was revealed that a former music industry lobbyist had been appointed head of a unit dealing with copyright and enforcement issues at the European Commission.

During early May commenting on the case against Megaupload, law Professor Eric Goldman bemoaned “the revolving door between government and the content industry.”

Source: Pirate Bay ‘Censorship’ Judge is Corrupt, Claims Pirate Party Founder

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Interactive fiction revival?

Rob Beschizza Boing Boing

Interactive fiction is a thriving genre, but its commercial heyday is long gone. Here's Leigh Alexander on how Kickstarter could usher in text adventures' long-overdue renaissance: "There's more than just nostalgia contributing to a potential revival for interactive stories. A broader gaming audience means appetites for game forms we might have once called "casual" in another time -- and furthermore, the popularity of tablets and e-readers means there's a real appetite for game forms that take advantage of a culture now habituated to reading on luminous screens in ways prior generations were widely not. [Gamasutra]

Mark Twain: Copyright Maximalist Who Also Believed That Nearly All Human Utterances Were Plagiarism?

Mike Masnick Techdirt.

In copyright circles, Mark Twain's speech to Congress in 1906 is well known as being the point at which he made clear his desire that copyright should be vastly expanded to make sure his kids kept earning money:
My copyrights produce to me annually a good deal more money than I have any use for. But those children of mine have use for that. I can take care of myself as long as I live. I know half a dozen trades, and I can invent a half a dozen more. I can get along. But I like the fifty years' extension, because that benefits my two daughter, who are not as competent to earn a living as I am, because I have carefully raised them as young ladies, who don't know anything and can't do anything. So I hope Congress will extend to them that charity which they have failed to get from me.
He later argues for infinite copyright:
The English idea of copyright, as I found, was different, when I was before the committee of the House of Lords, composed of seven members I should say. The spokesman was a very able man, Lord Thring, a man of great reputation, but he didn't know anything about copyright and publishing. Naturally be didn't, because he hadn't been brought up to this trade. It is only people who have had intimate personal experience with the triumphs and griefs of an occupation who know how to treat it and get what is justly due.

Now that gentleman had no purpose or desire in the world to rob anybody or anything, but this was the proposition--fifty years extension--and he asked me what I thought the limit of copyright ought to be.

"Well," I said, "perpetuity." I thought it ought to last forever.
Some have argued, somewhat convincingly, that Twain as actually doing a somewhat brilliant satire, which not everyone understood. That would be awesome, if true, and there are some hints that it may very well be. However, it does appear that Twain himself was somewhat more conflicted on this particular issue. Siva Vaidhyanathan has an entire chapter (pdf) of his excellent book, Copyrights and Copyrwrongs, devoted to Twain's fluctuating views on copyright. However, he does suggest that later on in life -- from 1898 onward basically -- Twain appeared to be a strong maximalist.

So it's interesting to then discover, via Joe Betsill, that during that same period, Twain argued that "the substance, the bulk, the actual and valuable material of all human utterances—is plagiarism" and that this wasn't a bad thing. The specifics are that Twain was writing a letter to Helen Keller, who a decade earlier (at 12-years of age) had just gone through a controversy in which she was accused of plagiarizing heavily from another book for her own work, The Frost King. Twain wrote to Keller, with whom he was friendly, after learning about the plagiarism accusations:
Oh, dear me, how unspeakably funny and owlishly idiotic and grotesque was that "plagiarism" farce! As if there was much of anything in any human utterance, oral or written, except plagiarism! The kernel, the soul—let us go further and say the substance, the bulk, the actual and valuable material of all human utterances—is plagiarism. For substantially all ideas are second-hand, consciously and unconsciously drawn from a million outside sources, and daily use by the garnerer with a pride and satisfaction born of the superstition that he originated them; whereas there is not a rag of originality about them anywhere except the little discoloration they get from his mental and moral calibre and his temperament, and which is revealed in characteristics of phrasing. When a great orator makes a great speech you are listening to ten centuries and ten thousand men—but we call it his speech, and really some exceedingly small portion of it is his. But not enough to signify. It is merely a Waterloo. It is Wellington's battle, in some degree, and we call it his; but there are others that contributed. It takes a thousand men to invent a telegraph, or a steam engine, or a phonograph, or a telephone or any other important thing—and the last man gets the credit and we forget the others. He added his little mite—that is all he did. These object lessons should teach us that ninety-nine parts of all things that proceed from the intellect are plagiarisms, pure and simple; and the lesson ought to make us modest. But nothing can do that.

Then why don't we unwittingly reproduce the phrasing of a story, as well as the story itself? It can hardly happen—to the extent of fifty words except in the case of a child; its memory-tablet is not lumbered with impressions, and the actual language can have graving-room there, and preserve the language a year or two, but a grown person's memory-tablet is a palimpsest, with hardly a bare space upon which to engrave a phrase. It must be a very rare thing that a whole page gets so sharply printed on a man's mind, by a single reading, that it will stay long enough to turn up some time or other to be mistaken by him for his own. No doubt we are constantly littering our literature with disconnected sentences borrowed from books at some unremembered time and now imagined to be our own, but that is about the most we can do. In 1866 I read Dr. Holmes's poems, in the Sandwich Islands. A year and a half later I stole his dedication, without knowing it, and used it to dedicate my "Innocents Abroad" with. Then years afterward I was talking with Dr. Holmes about it. He was not an ignorant ass—no, not he; he was not a collection of decayed human turnips, like your "Plagiarism Court;" and so when I said, "I know now where I stole it, but whom did you steal it from," he said, "I don't remember; I only know I stole it from somebody, because I have never originated anything altogether myself, nor met anyone who had."

To think of those solemn donkeys breaking a little child's heart with their ignorant rubbish about plagiarism! I couldn't sleep for blaspheming about it last night. Why, their whole lives, their whole histories, all their learning, all their thoughts, all their opinions were one solid rock of plagiarism, and they didn't know it and never suspected it. A gang of dull and hoary pirates piously setting themselves the task of disciplining and purifying a kitten that they think they've caught filching a chop! Oh, dam—
That was sent in 1903. Yet just three years later, he was arguing to Congress that ideas were property and should remain in the possession of those that created them forever:
So if I could have convinced that gentleman that a book which does consist solely of ideas, from the base to the summit, then that would have been the best argument in the world that it is property, like any other property, and should not be put under the ban of any restriction, but that it should be the property of that man and his heirs forever and ever, just as a butcher shop would be, or--I don't care--anything, I don't care what it is. It all has the same basis. The law should recognize the right of perpetuity in this and every other kind of property.
Now, plagiarism and copyright are not exact equivalents -- though there can (and often is) significant overlap. But it's difficult to see how the same person can reasonably argue both points. Perhaps that lends some credence to the claims that the Congressional hearing was, in fact, satire. Either way, I think I like the 1903 Mark Twain waxing poetically on how all ideas are plagiarism much more than the 1906 Mark Twain whining about how his children are too useless to do anything and need to keep making money from his books long after he's dead.

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Release Early And Often: Louis CK Realizes He's Can Keep Selling Other Digital Downloads

Mike Masnick Techdirt.

We've talked a lot about Louis CK's massively successful experiment in selling a comedy special direct to fans at a low price with no DRM and (most importantly) being totally open and human about the experience. In response, a few other comedians, like Jim Gaffigan and Aziz Ansari, have basically done the same thing.

However, it looks like Louis CK (like lots of smart, creative artists we write about) is hardly resting on his laurels. He's realized that there's nothing that says he has to only sell this one video and then wait a year or more until another one is ready. He's got the platform, so he might as well sell stuff. A few publications have noticed that he put up another live album (audio only) for the same price using the same system. But in looking at Louis' site, it looks like he's actually put up two additional albums -- the audio version of his HBO special Shameless (previously only available as video) and a Carnegie Hall tour show that's never been released.

Both of these were released with basically no fanfare or no announcement other than a brief tweet.

It will be interesting to see what happens here. First of all, some may feel that audio only offerings don't have quite as much value as video -- though it still seems like a decent price. Others may not be as interested in "old" material, even if it hasn't been released in this format. Also, I wonder what impact there will be for the low-key release. Part of the reason that the original got so much attention was the way he put himself out there: announcing this "big" new thing, doing an AMA on Reddit, etc. Whereas this is just him putting it up. Of course, similarly, there may be some concern of "oversaturation," where people feel they just gave Louis money for that other thing, so is it worth paying up again?

However, I also like the idea that he's combing the archives and finding other stuff that people might be interested in and giving them choices for more things they may want to buy to support him. I think that it's helpful to break out of the somewhat traditional mindset of "I release this album/show and then I'm done for a while." Louis seems to still be thinking about what else he can do, and I'm sure that will lead to some interesting ideas.

I'm not sure how all these factors and variables play together -- and I have no idea if Louis will ever share the results so that the rest of the world can learn with him (though I hope he is willing to do so). I do still love the fact that he's continuing to try things though.

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A Foiled Terrorist Plot

schneier Schneier on Security

We don't know much, but here are my predictions:

  1. There's a lot more hyperbole to this story than reality.
  2. The explosive would have either 1) been caught by pre-9/11 security, or 2) not been caught by post-9/11 security.
  3. Nonetheless, it will be used to justify more invasive airport security.

Senator Leahy Still Insisting That SOPA/PIPA Are 'Needed'

Mike Masnick Techdirt.

It appears that Senator Patrick Leahy has learned absolutely nothing from the public outcry over his ridiculously overreaching PROTECT IP Act (PIPA). At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, in which the White House IP Czar, Victoria Espinel, suggested that perhaps the "problem" was solving itself via voluntary action, Senator Leahy continued to insist that legislation like PIPA was needed:
“Voluntary efforts are wonderful and I am hoping the voluntary efforts will give us some confidence for the legislation we need, because ultimately we still need legislation.” Leahy said.
This is really ridiculous. He isn't just saying that PIPA is needed, but he's arguing that the market working these things out on its own is evidence to support the need for legislation. How does that make any sense at all? What's clear is that Leahy still doesn't understand why PIPA was defeated or why there was so much concern (and so little legitimate rationale) for the legislation in the first place.

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Court Goes Censorship Crazy Against Dutch Pirate Party

Mike Masnick Techdirt.

We've been covering the attempts by Dutch anti-piracy operator BREIN to play a legal game of whac-a-mole to block The Pirate Bay by forcing ISPs to block access, then blocking proxies that provide access, and now blocking anyone from even talking about ways to get to The Pirate Bay. Bizarrely, a court in The Hague has agreed, and has come out in favor of blocking the Dutch Pirate Party from even discussing some of this stuff:
The Court specifically ruled that the Party’s reverse proxy has to remain offline. It was further ordered that Pirate Bay domains and IP-addresses have to be filtered from the Pirate Party’s generic proxy. In addition the Pirate Party can’t link to other websites that allow the public to bypass the blockade. These orders are only valid when paired with an encouragement to circumvent.
Basically, telling people how to get around a block, even if it's linking to a general proxy (not a specific one) is now barred in the Netherlands. The fact that the court now is telling proxies how they can work is a huge overreach. That seems like a pretty blatant restriction on free speech. The thing is, do the folks at BREIN actually think this charade is effective? All it seems to be doing is enraging tons of people in the Netherlands, and doing absolutely nothing to stop them from going to The Pirate Bay.

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