Nice, a SOPA-Site Detecting Chrome Extension
If you know what that means, go to the Chrome Store. Otherwise, here’s Forbes on it: Chrome Add-on Tells You When You’re Browsing A Site That Supports SOPA – Forbes.
In case that story locks up on you, here’s another version from ReadWriteWeb.
Hitler Reacts to SOPA
Here’s a primer of sorts about SOPA, with yet another parody using the oft-trolled Hitler clips from “Downfall” – this time with SOPA as subject. Mostly spot on, and very funny.
I’ve got plenty to say about this (like the irony of the “Downfall” clip being used in this context), but I’m on holiday, so it’ll have to wait.
PROTECT IP / E-PARASITES Act: Worse to Worser
Just dropping some links to important stuff, first from Mike Masnick @ TechDirt, who tells it not-like-a-lawyer: PROTECT IP Renamed E-PARASITES Act; Would Create The Great Firewall Of America | Techdirt. In sum, the House version broadens the bad. Says Masnick:
The bill would require service providers to block access to certain websites, very much contrary to US official positions on censorship and internet freedom, and almost certainly in violation of the First Amendment.
Of course it’s supposed to be about protecting copyrights, but ulterior motives breath beneath the surface, and bad results sure to follow.
Eric Goldman’s Technology & Marketing Law Blog drops this quotable with more links in his 10/5 Copyright Quick Links:
The PROTECT IP Act is an abomination. I signed a law professor letter against PROTECT IP. Entrepreneurs circulated their own letter. Larry Downes offered some suggestions on how to make the PROTECT IP Act less worse.
I had touched on the Protect IP Act previously, back when it was just awful. Happy surfing.
Lady Gaga Loses Domain Claim for LadyGaga.org (with a Doh!)
This morning my inbox coughed up the most recent spate of UDRP decisions from the National Arbitration Forum (NAF) – the body that decides a big chunk of the domain name arbitrations in … er, the world. Breezing through usual types of decisions (e.g., folks registering a variation of known commercial trademarks to create ad-squatting sites) I got a taste of some celebrity fun.
Lady Gaga (née Ms. Stefani Germanotta) – or more precisely, her attorney – brought a UDRP arbitration to obtain the LadyGaga.org domain from its owner, a huge Lady Gaga fan. The site itself is a noncommercial fan site containing prominent disclaimers (keywords: “noncommercial,” “fan site,” “disclaimers”). Claim denied. Here’s the decision.
So then the game is guess-which-element-Gaga-couldn’t-hit. Which I did, and was (kinda) wrong. Our elements are as follows:
(1) the domain name registered by Respondent is identical or confusingly similar to a trademark or service mark in which Complainant has rights; and
(2) Respondent has no rights or legitimate interests in respect of the domain name; and
(3) the domain name has been registered and is being used in bad faith.
The first element is a slam dunk. And there’s enough to establish that nobody … nobody (even stuffy arbitrators, apparently) is denying that Gaga is, like, super famous; as is the Lady Gaga mark. I thought the claim would fall on (3), the bad faith element, but the panel doesn’t get there; it kills the claim at (2), finding the Respondent has a legitimate interest in the domain.
The Panel agrees and finds that Respondent’s use of the disputed domain name in conjunction with a fan website is a bona fide offering of goods or services under Policy ¶ 4(c)(i) or a legitimate noncommercial or fair use under Policy ¶ 4(c)(iii). * * *
The Complainant’s arguments that the Respondent registered the name to take advantage of Complainant’s fame are unsupported by the evidence presented. The Complainant cannot have fame without fans and fans cannot have fan sites without referring to the objects of their adoration. Respondent’s fan site does meet Complainant’s definition of nominative fair use by its identification of Complainant’s music and related goods and services. If the Respondent were to change her use in the future in a manner that indicated an intent to profit, such as by selling items, offering any commerce, or offering or accepting the sale of the disputed domain name such facts might justify a refilling and, depending on the circumstances, could lead a Panel to a different outcome than the one reached by this Panel in the present matter.
So Respondent gets a clear directive here: Do Not Monetize! Easy enough it seems, given the site as it stands.
Then my minor questions are: How much did Lady Gaga have to do with this? (My guess, not a lot.) And why bring this arbitration now? The Respondent argues that there are lots of other Gaga fan sites, and that they have been operating LadyGaga.org for three years without objection. You see these arguments a lot, and while they are not generally legally dispositive, the arbitrators are after all organic lifeforms prone to influence by the obvious.
In my world, a substantial delay in prosecution usually means the site said something the Complainant didn’t like, so Complainant tries to curb perfectly legal speech and opinion through the trademark (and often copyright) laws. Man, I see tons of that, as reprehensible as it may be. I am not saying that is the case here, and I don’t really care.
Notwithstanding, there is the obvious public-relations snafu this might be. Gaga tries to shut down fan site after three years? Sounds like a potential Streisand Effect problem, as well. We’ll see how this plays out in the next few days…
But the big fat pressing question from me is: Why didn’t you register the freaking .org when you were buying domains in the first place? I see this all the time. The clients call wanting to sue over TLDs they should have registered, and their answer to that question is, “Well, we didn’t need them,” and “Why should we pay for them?” Dude, seriously, it’s like $15 a year. It’ll cost a bunch more that that to try to get it from someone else, and as in this case, you may not.
In the end, we have just another standard fan-site case, only with a uber-famous player. Can’t wait to see how the LCD news gets it legally wrong on reporting this one …
Google+ v. Facebook – Why can’t we just get along?
Got your Google+ invite yet? I got one, but who has the time? Looks promising enough … but, I guess Buzz did too, and I was the only one I know who spent any time on Wave (er, nonproductive time).
Anyway, interesting piece in TechCrunch by Tom Anderson (yes, the MySpace guy who left messages for you and seemed so … nice) on why he uses Facebook, and G+, and they’re both cool, except for this or that, and they can live in the same universe … oh, and Facebook didn’t kill MySpace. Good read though. Is Social In Google’s DNA? | TechCrunch.
But … apparently Facebook ain’t so happy about G+, no sir. Or one would think, after Facebook suspended this dude’s ad campaign asking folks to add him to their G+ profile. And to add insult to injury, Facebook apparently killed all of his ad campaigns, though he’d never had a problem before.
I’m not gonna go through the TOS argument for Facebook (terms say you can’t advertise competing product), or the silly “Facebook’s terrified” argument either. More, it’s just a public relations thing. News spreads fast nowadays. And knee-jerk reactions that give someone an argument they’re scared of Google+, like this all-campaigns thing, are pretty easily avoided. I’m still pretty confident Facebook will survive Google+, but then I like both the Padres and the Cubs.
A couple quickies from the they-say-what-they-need-to-so-why-should-I-say-it-again department.
First we have Wired with Internet Researchers Decry DNS-Filtering Legislation | Threat Level | Wired.com. Some technical mumbo jumbo that says one measure of the Protect IP Act (currently stalled in the Senate) would basically allow the feds to order ISPs to send a domain name somewhere other than intended … into the void perhaps? Or to one of the DHS’s nifty splash screens. Experts call it a train wreck amounting to censorship, with the added bonus of disruption of security, collapse of the system, stuff like that.
The story touches briefly on the government’s recent practice of seizing domain names they deem infringing. Here’s the Electronic Frontier Foundation on that issue, and the Protect IP Act.
And related: Kudos to Firefox. TechDirt reported earlier this month that when DHS asked Firefox to remove an extension that rerouted govt-seized domains, they sent DHS a lovely list of eye-brow-raising elephant-in-the-room type questions, like … er … under what legal authority are you asking us to remove an extension? Are you just acting like lawless bullies?
Now onto privacy. Here’s a bit on some proposed legislation designed to beef up our ancient fed Internet laws (circa 1986) so the government can’t get at your emails so easily. It’s pretty glossy, and it’s not really all that easy for the govt … but … Stopping the Government from Reading Your E-Mail – TIME.
Satirical DHS Splash Screen courtesy ottodv.
This isn’t quite as fresh as I’d like, but then it’s law, which keeps not quite like Twinkies, but … nevermind. More on Copyright Trolls as I ranted about, and took quiet joy at the exposure of their sham assignments, and now more nail-in-the-coffiny stuff for Righthaven, the trolls who snag bloggers who republish stuff from the Las Vegas Review-Journal et al.
In this round I actually laughed out loud at the poetic justice. A Nevada District Court found the defendant’s immigration-issue-related-website’s republication of an entire article to be Fair Use. The standard non-commercial, educational type factors were discussed, but the kicker is that the Court finds the work transformative because Righthaven is not in the news business … it’s in the litigation business. That’s just awesome.
First, CIO’s use of the article is transformative. Although the former owner, the LVRJ, usedthe article for news-reporting, the court focuses on the current copyright owner’s use, which, at this juncture, has been shown to be nothing more than litigation-driven. Accordingly, CIO’s use of the article to educate the public is transformative and does not constitute a substitution of the plaintiff’s use. See Perfect 10, 508 F.3d at 1146
Honestly, I’m still laughing. Eric Goldman gives an nice overview with link-backs to his own more sober rants on the subject, and makes this cogent assessment:
Normally, we’d have to wait to evaluate the impact of this ruling until we see how it fares on appeal. However, I believe Righthaven will not be around long enough to see the appellate decision. I have consistently said that Righthaven’s business model isn’t sustainable, and the combination of their avoidable litigation errors (e.g., their 24 hour lawsuit against Eriq Gardner) plus their heavy staff turnover will hasten their demise. At this point, I assume it will only take one or two 17 USC 505 fee-shifts to the defendant to make Righthaven’s economic model irreparably untenable. At this rate, I think 505 fee-shifts are inevitable for Righthaven.
The 505 refers to that pesky attorney-fees-as-costs-in-the-court’s-discretion statute that comes into play more often when people start irking judges.
But wait, there really is more. Here’s TechDirt on the sad (albeit anecdotal) reality that the trolls are not dead yet. Even As Copyright Trolls’ Legal Strategy Appears To Be Failing, The Shakedowns Are Working | Techdirt. And yet another Not-Good-For-Righthaven ruling from Eric Goldman’s blog.
And finally, some techy trolly fun: Wired has a fun find-out-if-you’re-a-BitTorrenter-on-US-Copyright-Group’s-hit list widget. There’s some new films in play, and your IP may have bittorrented one of them. Links to the EFF’s Copyright Trolls page there and in some of my links on the subject.
U.S. Supremes Rip Class Actions a New Mass-Hole
Tied in to my post over a year ago about a guy in Chicago who was going to sue AT&T for (allegedly) illegally taxing his Internet access, now we move to California, where a couple brought a class action over that type of issue.
Goes to the U.S. Supreme Court – yes, that one, so recently renowned for defending the rights of common folk over big biz… snark. And they strike again, split 5/4 right down the political line. L.A. Times lays it out most cogently.
BlitzBlurb: See, CA finds some contract clauses unconscionable and unenforceable, like lopsided contracts that deny class action rights; Couple brings class action over $30 charge for mobile access; issue of class-actionability goes to the Supremes; they say Fed Arbitration Act trumps. No class action here. CNN notes:
In dissent, Stephen Breyer warned requiring consumers to arbitrate disputes on an individual basis could lead them to walk away rather than litigate, if the typical monetary stakes are relatively small.
“What rational lawyer would have signed on to represent the Concepcions in litigation for the possibility of fees stemming from a $30.22 claim?” said Breyer. “Why is this kind of decision– weighing the pros and cons of all class proceedings alike– not California’s to make?”
So, now that big biz has been given a roadmap by the Court, they will all write non-class-actionability arbitration clauses into contracts, then they can rip off as many people as they like … as long as it is for a minor, pointless-t0-sue-over amount. Hey, they can make it up in volume!
Now, to be clear, I am not a big fan of many of these class actions over stupid or unimportant stuff, or even the class actions about something important, but which brings little benefit to the class. Case in point, the Dell Service Contract case, which I only know about because I am a putative class member. Dell allegedly didn’t disclose their first-year at-home service contract cost money. Sounds sketchy (I got it out of them). But is it worth my time to read it and make a claim for $8? No, but Dell must have rectified the issue, so that’s good. But … can’t wait to see what the attorneys get out of it … oh, but they deserve it because they took all the risk (yeah, I know, but $XXX Million?). And so, while I do think there’s something wrong with some of these class actions, they gotta exist.
And I can tell you what would work just as well: one or two plaintiffs who go in an get an injunction against the company for the allegedly wrongful conduct, save everyone else. Ahh … but how often does that happen? Not enough. So we need class actions. Too bad they’re likely to virtually disappear faster than you can say, “Call our contract lawyer.”
For good measure, here’s USA Today.
Super Graphic Courtesy: Electronic Frontier Foundation
