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June 23, 2008
UK Gov’t Tells ISPs They Need To Play Copyright Cops For Record Labels
Back in February, we noted that the UK government was putting a lot of pressure on ISPs to “voluntarily” agree to act as copyright cops for the entertainment industry — sending out industry threat letters to users (often based on flimsy evidence) and even kicking off users who are “accused” of unauthorized file sharing three times (the infamous “three strikes”) policy. While the government backed off a… Continue reading
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June 23, 2008
Sorting Out Truth From Fiction In The Cable/Telco Customer Retention Mess
Back in March, we wrote about a complaint to the FCC by cable companies about how Verizon was abusing the number portability system to try to retain customers. In April, Kevin Martin took his expected position in siding with Verizon, the telco. However, it appears that only Martin was convinced. All the other FCC commissioners went in the other direction and sided with
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June 23, 2008
Can The News Be Held Back?
In this internet age where everyone has a huge publishing platform at their disposal, and people are encouraged to become “citizen journalists” is it even possible anymore to keep “news” events quiet? A key example under discussion was the recent passing of famed TV news anchor Tim Russert. About a half an hour after he was confirmed dead at a hospital, someone had updated his Wikipedia
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June 23, 2008
Supreme Court To Investigate If AT&T Is Violating Antitrust Laws With Wholesale DSL Pricing
In most cases, antitrust rules seem fairly bogus. They often are used to try to punish companies for being successful, even if they’re not actually abusing any kind of monopoly situation. However, there are some cases where antitrust laws become a lot more interesting, when it comes to governments effectively granting monopoly rights to certain companies. That’s what’s happened with many telco services, where the government has… Continue reading
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June 23, 2008
Will Always-On Gadgets Change The Way We Think About Knowledge?
While Nick Carr is getting a lot of attention for his weakly supported conjecture that the internet is making people dumber, perhaps a much more interesting question is how technology is changing the way we think about knowledge and information. Carr’s piece was sort of the modern equivalent of parents from a generation ago worrying about kids using calculators in school and forgetting how to do… Continue reading
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June 23, 2008
MPAA Explains Why Proof Shouldn’t Be Necessary In Copyright Infringement Cases
The entertainment industry has been pushing for courts to rule that simply “making available” content for file sharing is the equivalent of copyright infringement. There’s a big problem with this, however. Copyright covers a few different things, and the key ones under which most people are charged is unauthorized “distribution.” But, if there’s no evidence that a file was actually shared, it’s difficult to see how distribution… Continue reading
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June 23, 2008
Patent Hoarder Caught Shuffling Patents Around Has To Pay $4 Million
You may recall earlier this month that we wrote about Erich Spangenberg, who had set up a series of shell corporations for patent hoarding (and suing). Unfortunately, it appears he got greedy after a big win against DaimlerChrysler. As part of that settlement, he agreed not to sue the automaker again over the same issues — but by using the various shell corporations, he had a different shell… Continue reading
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June 23, 2008
People In Massachusetts Pushing To Get Rid Of Noncompetes
Last year, we had a discussion looking through all of the research showing how harmful noncompete agreements can be to entire industries and regions. In fact, the research suggests pretty clearly that Silicon Valley’s success compared to Boston’s high-tech region is in large part due to the lack of enforceability of noncompete agreements in California. While much of this research had been ignored, it looks like some… Continue reading
