Musicians, fans and online copyright

Next month the issues discussed in the previous post will be treated in the conference/debate/meeting on Musicians, fans and online copyright on Wednesday, March 19, 2008, 2:00 pm - 5:30 pm at the Old Theatre of the London School of Economics. Ian's email says:

Is home downloading killing music? Should Internet Service Providers monitor customers to try and spot copyright infringement, and disconnect downloaders? Do musicians need new laws to benefit from the opportunities of the Internet?

Join us to debate these questions and more with leading copyright thinkers from the music world, government, consumer groups and universities. Confirmed speakers include John Kennedy (CEO of IFPI), Paul Sanders (Director of Strategy at Playlouder), Becky Hogge (Open Rights Group), Lilian Edwards (Southampton University), Rufus Pollock (Cambridge University) and Michelle Childs (Knowledge Ecology International).

So, see you in LSE!

The unintended consequences of three strikes rule (or using the law to guarantee profiteering)

Two days ago England woke up to the unsavoury news that users were going to have their Internet connection service suspended or terminated if they were caught three times illegally downloading protected content. It is difficult to write or think calmly about the issue because it shows how prostituted the political process has become in many if not most countries around the world. While it seems quite straightforward and for some even fair that if you commit three times the same tort and/or crime the means to keep committing it should be taken away, the question is, is it that simple? Do the creative industries in particular and knowledge industries in general really benefit from this? Or is it yet another instance where the misguided advice of a very small group of industry players with deep pockets determines government policy? Furthermore, doesn’t it violate many established principles of law, existing law and further divorce common people from the concept of the rule of law?
Although it has been repeated hundreds of times in many places, it is unavoidable to re-emphasise the fact that the alleged “billions of pounds” that the industry loses due to piracy are the product of some weird, and probably drunken, fantasy. The industry counts every download as a lost sale and in addition, outrageously, counts the whole price of the downloaded material as potential profit (I hope that I don’t need to remind to anyone where Enron ended for engaging in that type of accounting). Following the poster-child example of the music industry, do you remember the case of Brianna LaHara who was sued by the RIAA for downloading thousands of songs while living in a Housing Authority apartment and being 12 years old? Do you think that those thousands of downloads displaced real sales? Do you really think that she could afford those thousands of songs? Well, those thousands of songs are between the "loses" that the entertainment industry claims is having...

There is an array of explanations as to why the music industry’s sales and profits are lower than in the 1980s and 1990s, and most of them refer to the fact that during those years the sales and profits were unusually high. The main reason for that were the popularisation of the CD and the desire of people to own also in CD music that they already owned in vinyl, which resulted in several generations buying music at the same time. Then, and at the same time, an also unusual expansion of the music market due to the endless promotions carried out through music videos and FM radio, and all that coupled to the fact that the 80s and 90s saw an almost constant stream of very good musicians producing very good music. And all that is compared with the current market where consumers have a wealth of entertainment alternatives, as Internet and video games, and, with few notable exceptions, music that does not outstand for its quality. But somehow, all this information get lost in the way to policy makers and they only seem to hear that music is loosing billions and that is due to Internet. Finally, there are some arguments that point exactly to the opposite, that those that download music in peer to peer networks and can afford it (probably the key issue missing from the entertainment industry analysis), go then to buy more music than they would have bought without downloading and testing first. So, the first step is to identify proper industry players that really care for the health of the industry and not for the big bonuses that they would get next year if they managed to rip unwarranted profits, to then analyse properly whether Internet is a curse or a bless for the entertainment industry.
The legal issues are more complex and deeper, but equally (actually more) troubling. The three-strike and down proposal implies a fundamental breach of humans rights law, because it establishes a system of summary justice without the necessary guarantees of due process (in this side of the Atlantic called right to a fair trial and enshrined into Art. 6 of the European Convention of Humans Rights for both civil and criminal procedures, incorporated into UK law by the Human Rights Act 1998). It goes further for interfering with the contractual relation of the user and the ISP in order to protect the interests of a third party that has others remedies available, with the aggravating circumstance that it imposes a financial cost on the ISPs to protect the profits of a third party. It unduly imposes limits onto the provider of a medium as to how that service should be provided based on inferences and dubious data (for the reasons explained above). Just an example to show how preposterous the proposal is, there is no public road in England where cars are allowed to drive above 70 miles per hours, but there would be a public outcry of the government decided to ask car manufacturers to limit the speed to what is lawful to drive in the country, and in this case the deaths produced in car accidents, the increased oil consumption and the impact on the environment are not fabricated numbers like those used by the entertainment industries. But what it probably would have a deeper impact in English society and in the really creative industries is the fact that, once again, the government undermines the rule of law (the principle for which no one is above the law and the same system applies to the whole society).
We need to clarify the meaning of certain statements to properly visualize the situation. It is clear that if the technology existed to 100% guarantee that every time that somebody downloads protected content the industry received the price that it has decided, the industry would be more than extremely happy to allow downloads, so when the industry says that it opposes the unauthorized downloading and sharing of protected content, what it really means is that it opposes the downloading and sharing of protected content without paying the corresponding fee, which takes out the issue of authorization and lets us precisely define the proposed rule as a principle where when a person (physical or legal) uses three times protected content without paying the corresponding fee that person should be banned to use the medium used to carry out such action. Is the industry and the government suggesting that MGM and New Line should be banned from producing or distributing films in England because that is the medium that they used to, according to a recent lawsuit, use a protected work without paying the corresponding fee? Somebody may be thinking that I am confusing tortious liability (copyright infringement) with contractual one (not paying the fees agreed in a licence agreement) and that I should give back my recent award, but I do know the difference and I still think that once we move out the veil of legal classifications (they are both breach of obligations) the previously mentioned principle applies and makes clear that not lack of authorization but lack of payment is the issue. Furthermore, and keeping it within the tort of intellectual property infringement, is the government suggesting that if a company is found infringing patents three times will be struck from the Companies House registry and banned from trading in the UK? If not, are we, in addition of violating human rights and interfering with third parties contracts, creating a two tier system where the weakest part of the society gets harsher treatment and the strongest does not need to obey the same rules?
I thought that our girls and boys were killing and dying in Iraq because we were against that type of society…

Still no light in the social networking sites business model

The news that Google has announced that its results were quite below expectations in the Google-MySpace advertisement’s deal has lead many to think that the almighty Mountain View’s company is loosing its Midas’ touch. However, I think that the news actually confirms what many have said, that that social networking is a very good idea and quite good for the users, while nobody has found how to make money out of it.
Last week, while explaining to a group of students during the first law class in the first week of the degrees the importance of the law in designing a business model, I used the example of Facebook to show that things that make sense on paper may not make sense in reality and those that make sense in reality may not make sense according to the letter and spirit of the law, which renders them not viable (remember Napster?). The students’ answer was that there was not such a big issue in Facebook because they were going to start making money out of advertisement as Google and, therefore, the model and its legality had been properly tested. My answer was two pronged: I first asked how many of them had ever clicked on a Facebook advertisement (the answer was none) and then warned them about the academic validity of anecdotal evidence like that. But Google’s news goes beyond the anecdotal…
So, how to make money if you own Facebook, MySpace or any of the others? The idea that Murdoch should be happy because it got U$S900 million from Google from advertisement space that made quite less than that, is simple wrong and based on the current culture of very short term gains. Even in the mid-term the news should be bad for Murdoch too because next time that he sits to negotiate with Google, or anyone, they will show him the numbers and if Google couldn’t, he will have to be very persuasive to convince others that they will be able to make money out of adds on social networking sites, which brings us back to the question of how to make money…
The almost obvious answer is to use the wealth of information that these sites collect about the users, either directly or through the applications. Just as comparison, if you put together the information you give about you with the one that can be inferred from your choices in applications, what you have given would make the Total Information Awareness program (stopped by the US Congress due to its privacy invasion features and its very dubious legality) look like a kindergarden’s science project. The combination of information that users give to the sites and the rights the users give to the owners of the sites would constitute the ultimate weapon for marketers and there are some arguments to say that there is no way to collect such an almost perfect consumer profile even if you are asked to write pages and pages of your preferences (some applications, when combined, would give a very precise picture of your interests and preferences that goes beyond what you consciously know about yourself, without even mentioning that it is almost impossible to get out of some of these sites). But, would that be legal?
While, oversimplifying, in the US there seems to be agreement about the ownership of the data being on the companies hands, the European view is quite more complex. It could be argued that when users accept the terms of service they are giving the agreement required under EU law for the processing of personal data, the fact that sensitive personal data is bundled with the non-sensitive information seems to change completely the game (and, again, EU law gives you the right to "leave" with your data, which seems to not be possible in Facebook). In the case of sensitive personal information, like political views, religious believes and sexual orientation (this later being deducted by combining interests), the law would require express consent and in each case, which becomes further complicated when the plan is to sell or share the information with non-European companies (even if the are part of the safe harbour agreement). It could be argued that this previous analysis does not preclude the use of the data for marketing purposes, but it seems that, if the business model is based on its use, the expectations would have to be lowered and the dance of billions that people think these networking services will provide are simple fantasy. Any proposed business model should get a balance between what can be lawfully used without requiring users agreement and how far the users want to go in order to enjoy the sites, and, while such a balance is reachable, the result would probably give a still healthy but lower rate of return on the investments.

Too hot for the teacher: A new case of Cybersacking?

Sarah Green, a teacher at Stockport Grammar School has been suspended due to taking part in a commercial, two years before taking up her school’s post. The advertisement is called Hardcore, A Dirty Movie, and it is available online on YouTube (and here below). With the slogan "It's gonna get dirty", the clip shows Miss Green simulating sex with the builder on a desk while demonstrating the safety features of his clothing. The footage never made it to the screens because it was deemed to be too graphic, but it was sent out to construction firms and in 2005 won two prizes at the world's top advertising awards in Cannes. A copy was later posted on YouTube, where Miss Green’s pupils discovered it earlier this month. It did not take long until the clip of the teacher, who is in her 20s, was being circulated around the school. Finally, some parents want the teacher to be sacked from the mixed-sex school, where she has taught since 2006.
There are several issues here, and none but one of them is simple or straightforward. Unfortunately we don’t have access to Miss Green’s contract with the school, but it could be the case that it contains a clause prohibiting certain type of behaviour. However, it is doubtful that such hypothetical clause would be applicable retroactively, unless there was some duty to disclose information that could affect the performance of the teaching duties. There is not much point of discussing it here because whether they affect or not her performance is a matter of fact, but it is quite plausible that many students were going to be affected in either way by watching the video (some of the actually discovering a renewed interest for the teachings of Miss Green…and by the way, the video has some positive teachings because it is clear that she reaches for a condom before engaging in the casual sex with the builder).
Now assuming that such a duty to disclose does not exist, expressly or by implication, is the video obscene under English law? The parents that are looking for blood may think that Section 1.1 of the Obscene Publications Act 1959, stating that “an article shall be deemed to be obscene if its effect […] is, if taken as a whole, such as to tend to deprave and corrupt persons who are likely, having regard to all relevant circumstances, to read, see or hear the matter contained or embodied in it”, will give them the head of the teacher in a silver plate, but they should hold their horses because it should be noted that in practice the Obscene Publications Act 1959 is used 'almost exclusively against explicit pictorial material dealing with what is generally regarded as deviant behaviour: in other words, sado-masochism, bestiality, paedophilia, bondage, etc' (R Stone, Textbook on Civil Liberties and Human Rights (Oxford, OUP, 2006) at 374) …although there might be some room to consider the video indecent following Knuller v DPP [1973] AC 435 (as Lord Reid said, “anything which an ordinary decent man or woman would find to be shocking, disgusting, or revolting”) taking into account that the fact that the company decided no to air it because being too graphic could prove that was shocking enough.
But, who released it? Was the advertisement company or one of the employees of the one of the constructions company that received it? In this later case we will be talking about copyright infringement due to copying and showing the protected material, as per Sections 17 and 19 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. (where is FACT here?).
But the only issue that is clear from the onset is that we have yet another example about how Internet has changed privacy issues forever: it is not only about your present that you need to care about, is about everything that you have done and has been recorded somehow. We could write a whole blog about what I call Cybersacking (being sacked because something that your employers found about you online even if it does not relate exactly to your job), and it is becoming clear that the temporal boundary of privacy seems not to exist anymore. However, if you go around Facebook and other places where people post things about themselves, most users are not getting the message: be careful what you post because what it seems funny today when you are in college, may come back to hunt you when you want to be a manager…so Internet is not scary, what you do with it might be…
And OK, here is the famous video...(in my case we can argue the educational and/or reporter's exception)

Free Creative Business in the Digital Era seminar

Free seminar with UK's leading social media expert for artists and creative entrepreneurs

Are you a writer, musician, film maker or visual artist? Or maybe you work as a manager, promoter, or executive in the music, publishing, film/TV or visual arts industries? Whether you are creative, a creative entrepreneur, or working at any level in the creative industries, you'll have seen, or experienced, how the internet is 'changing everything'. You'll probably have heard that the web is killing culture and your industry along with it. But the internet creates exciting new ways to distribute and promote creative works and should be seen by the creative industries as an opportunity rather than a threat.

Free culture - giving versions of creative works away, and even allowing others to copy, distribute, sample or create derivative works from them - is at the heart of these new opportunities. This approach seems alien to many in the creative world who assume that free culture cannot generate income, but a freer attitude to cultural distribution will help you connect with a new audience, to develop a more engaged audience and even to make new business connections.

The Creative Business in the Digital Era seminar, presented by Suw Charman, will help you understand the opportunities presented by open IP (intellectual property) and how being open should be a central part of your creative business model.

Who should come?

You could be a C-level executive or an independent creator, or anyone in between, from any size of company:

* C-level executives, independents, freelances, entrepreneurs, corporates, SMEs

* musicians, record labels, music publishing companies

* writers, journalists, publishers

* film makers, production companies, broadcasters

* visual artists, photographers, artists, illustrators and designers

When and where is it?

The Creative Business in the Digital Era seminar will be delivered as a single full-day course, and as an evening course repeated on two days:

* Day Course: 17 March 08, 9.00am to 5.30pm

* Evening Course: 18 March 08, 6.00pm to 9.00pm

* Evening Course: 19 March 08, 6.00pm to 9.00pm

All courses will be held at 01zero-one in central London (main entrance is on Hopkins Street):

Westminster Kingsway College
Soho Centre
Peter Street
London W1F 0HS

Cost

This is a subsidised course and is free to attendees. We will even provide attendees with lunch and refreshments.

How do I apply?

Visit http://www.openrightsgroup.org/creativebusiness/blog/cbde-application-pack/ and download our Application Pack. The closing date is 15th February 2008, and we will respond to all applicants by 29 February 2008.

Any questions?

Contact Suw Charman or Michael Holloway at creativebusiness@openrightsgroup.org

Brazilian judge prohibits Counter Strike and EverQuest

A Federal Judge in Brazil prohibited the sale of the video games Counter Strike and EverQuest. The measure affects the whole country but started to be applied in the State of Goias, where the judge Carlos Alberto Simoes dictated the prohibition saying that the games “provoked permanent stimuli toward the subversion of the public order, [and they] were an attack against the democratic state and the law, and against public security." He went further by stating that the mentioned games were “injurious to the health of the consumers because [they] strengthen aggressive behavior”, which would be contrary to articles 6, I, 8, 10 and 39, IV of the Brazilian Consumer Protection Code. The fines for those not complying with the norm goes up to 5,000 Reais, which is a little less than u$s 2,800 or a little more than 1,400 British Pounds.

The notification of enforcement by the Superintendence for the Protection of Consumer Rights of Goias, says that…OK, I will translate the whole thing from Portuguese (as close as possible)…

In fulfillment of judicial decision pronounced by the Judge of the 17th Federal District of the Judiciary Section of the State of Minas Gerais, valid in all the national territory, on the proceedings of the Public Civil Action n° 2002.38.00.046529-6, the PROCON/GO [Superintendence for the Protection of Consumer Rights of Goias] is confiscating in the State of Goiás the virtual games for video-games and computers: "Counter-Strike" and "Everquest", which had been considered improper for consumption, as they are harmful to the health of the consumers, contrary to what is stipulated in articles 6, I, 8, 10 and 39, IV, all of the Protection and Defense of the Consumer Code.

The game "Counter Strike" (hostages, bomb, escape, murder, weapons, techniques of war, terrorist tactics) reproduces a war between gangsters and the police, and it impresses for its realism. The game was created in the United States and adapted for Brazil. In the video-game, dealers of Rio de Janeiro kidnap and take to a favela three representatives of the United Nations. The police invade the place and are received by fire-arms shots.

The player can choose the side of the crime: to become a gangster to defend the slum quarter under its domain. The more police that are killed, the more points are gained. The sound track is a forbidden funk [???]. Within this scale of violence, each player chooses its weapons: pistols, assault rifles and grenades. In the opinion of specialists, the game teaches techniques of war, taking into account that the player must have knowledge on hiding tactics, as it was a terrorist.

The game "Everquest" leads the player to a total distortion of his values and to “heavy” psychological conflicts; because the tasks that he receives, can be good or bad. The bad ones can be lies, bribes and even murders, which many times after been carried out, the player is left to know (or not) that it was only a test to enter into a clan (group).

Violent games or those that have a violent tone are capable to form aggressive individuals, resulting evident that they have a strong power of influence on the minds, reinforcing aggressive attitudes in certain individuals and social groups.

Any consumer from Goias that comes across the distribution and/or commercialization of the virtual games "Counter-Strike" and "Everquest" must contact PROCON/GO, via telephone 151 or by email: consulta@procon.go.gov.br, aiming at the confiscation of these products.

Wow, terrorist tactics!...is the Department of Homeland Security taking notes?...then they will prohibit Super Mario because it can cause children to interfere with the water supply...

The Law of Informatics' survey (in Spanish)

I am writing, in Spanish, a paper on some aspects of the existence or not of a field of law called the law of informatics or "informatics law". Since the idea is to first concentrate on the Iberoamerican region, and to use some socio-legal studies methodologies that go beyond the exegetic and historical ones, I designed a very simple survey, again in Spanish, to see what those related to the legal profession think about the existence of such a field. The survey is here and you don't need to enter any type of personal data to participate in it.
Thanks

Machinima event's audio

Finally, I managed to upload the audio files from the Bloodspell viewing and panel that Robin Scobey so kindly recorded and provided, so here they go...
First Hugh Hancock's introduction




And then the panel with Lilian Edwards, Andres Guadamuz, Ian Brown and Hugh, with some questions




This posting, well the audio bits, have been possible thanks to the very clear tutorial of Mindy McAdams and the Audio Player Wordpress plugin from 1pixelout. Thanks.

LondonMet Machinima event's audio by Electro Mate is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.

Afraid of privacy breaches? What about monitoring your metabolism at work?

The USPTO has published a patent application filled on behalf of Microsoft for a “unique monitoring system and method […] that involves monitoring user activity in order to facilitate managing and optimizing the utilization of various system resources”. Translated into non-patent attorney language by The Times of London, it means a “computer system that links workers to their computers via wireless sensors that measure their metabolism” to “allow managers to monitor employees’ performance by measuring their heart rate, body temperature, movement, facial expression and blood pressure”. Wow, talking about the mother of all privacy breaches…According to the same newspaper, many groups are crying full, but first it needs to be assessed whether your bodily functions are personal data...since they refer to your health they seem to be sensitive personal data in this side of the Atlantic, as per Article 8.1 of the Data Protection Directive (95/46/EC), but even then clarification would be needed to see whether that data can be requested “in the field of employment law” as in Art. 8.2. However, because the claims refer to offering and providing assistance to the worker when it detects stress and understanding stress as a medical condition, such “invention” could run afoul of the 1997 Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine of the Council of Europe, which in its article 10.1 and 10.2 establishes the right to privacy on health issues and the right to not be informed respectively…needles to say that all these refer to the use of the system without entering to ponder whether such a patent would be a valid one…

Digital Divide and ICT Regulation in Latin America: Call for papers

Call for papers: (castellano mas abajo)

ICT Regulation and the Digital Divide in Latin America

Papers are invited to be presented at a panel on the situation of digital inequalities in Latin America and how ICT regulation has an actual or potential effect on it to be held at the 2009 International Congress of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA 2009), which will have place in Rio de Janeiro on 11-14 June 2009 with the engaging theme Rethinking Inequalities. The panel will deal with the congress’ theme from the technology field point of view and the role that legal developments have technological inequalities.

While the methodology is open, it is expected that the papers would be based on theoretical and empirical work leading to the development of grounded theory, as well as more policy orientated studies which feed directly into the policy making process. They would normally be built on a multi or inter-disciplinary approach.

The panel will concentrate on the following issues:

- Digital divide and E-Government

- ICT policies, innovation and development

- Intellectual Property rights and the digital divide in Latin America

- Digital inclusion policies in Latin America

- Freedom of expression and new technologies

- Open source initiatives in Latin America

- Impact of global digital divide related policies in Latin America.

Submissions in the form of an abstract should be e-mailed to Dr. Fernando Barrio f.barrio@londonmet.ac.uk and it must be received by noon GMT, March 16^th, 2008.

Papers and abstracts can be written in English, Portuguese or Spanish in .doc, .rtf or .pdf format, be up to 250 words and include the following data:

Last name(s):

Given name(s):

Mailing address:

City:

State or Province:

Post Code:

Country:

Email address:

Affiliation:

Co-Author(s):

Solicitud de Ponencias:

Regulación a las Tecnologías de la Información y Comunicación y la brecha digital en América Latina

Se invita a enviar propuestas de ponencias a ser presentadas en el panel sobre la situación con respecto a las inequidades en el acceso y uso a las tecnologías digitales y como la regulación a las TIC la afecta en forma real o potencial, que tendrá lugar en el Congreso Internacional de la Asociación de Estudios Latinoamericanos del año 2009 (LASA 2009), el cual será llevado a cabo en Río de Janeiro los entre el 11 y el 14 de Junio de 2009 con el tema “Repensando inequidades”.

El panel se centrará en el tema del congreso desde el punto de vista de la tecnología y el rol que los desarrollos legales juegan a la brecha digital.

Mientras la metodología es abierta, se espera que las ponencias estén basadas en estudios teóricos y empíricos que lleven al desarrollo de teorías fundamentadas, al igual que estudios más orientados hacia políticas que alimenten directamente el proceso decisorio. Estas estarán normalmente construidas desde un enfoque inter o multidisciplinario.

El panel se concentrará en los siguientes temas:

- La brecha digital y el gobierno electrónico

- Políticas para las TIC, innovación y desarrollo

- Derechos de propiedad intelectual y la brecha digital en América Latina

- Políticas de inclusión digital en América Latina

- Libertad de expresión y nuevas tecnologías

- Iniciativas de código abierto en América Latina

- Impacto de las políticas globales sobre la brecha digital en América Latina

Las propuestas, en forma de resumen, deberán ser enviadas por correo electrónico al Dr. Fernando Barrio, f.barrio@londonmet.ac.uk, y ser recibidas antes de las 12 del mediodía (GMT) del 16 de Marzo del 2008.

Tanto los resúmenes como las ponencias podrán ser escritos en español, inglés o portugués en los formatos .doc, .rtf o .pdf, tener hasta 250 palabras e incluir los siguientes datos:

Apellido(s):

Nombre(s):

Dirección para correspondencia:

Ciudad:

Estado o Provincia:

Código Postal:

País:

Correo electrónico:

Afiliación:

Coautor(es):

Internet is bad for you…again (but this time can kill you)

Two days ago the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain released a news piece presenting research showing that “[m]illions of Brits could be playing Russian Roulette with their health buying prescription-only medicines from rogue internet sites”, and using that strangely concluded data to scare people about Internet. The press release seems to quite correctly addresses the main issues involving the topic, like lack of knowledge of existing regulations from the consumers’ side, reaffirming that there are legal online pharmacies and that the public should be vigilant about buying from rogue establishments (there is a new pharmacy online logo to identify legitimate traders), but even if we forget that the numbers don't add up ("millions of Brits could be playing Russian Roulette", but the same study -carried out in a sample of only 1,950 adults- says that 2 million people buy drugs online and then says that in developed countries only 1% of the drugs are counterfeited, so where do the millions come from?) when the mic is given to RPSGB Director of Practice and Quality Improvement, David Pruce, things go bad, really bad in the form of a soon-to-be-classic opening line:

“The internet presents a real danger to people’s health.”

Excuse me?! So, the problem is not with the inexistence or lack of enforcement of regulations, or the very poor consumers’ education…the problem is Internet, that is not only the realm of terrorists and paedophiles, but now it also presents a real danger to people’s health…Taking into account that we are in the information society and the use of information and communication technologies have an important impact on productivity increases, I suggest that we put proper Internet knowledge and literacy as compulsory requirement to access senior positions in any organization…or at least keep those without a clue far from the press…

Internet in 2020

Janna Anderson has sent me an invitation to take a survey about how things will be in the year 2020. As Victor Borge said, “forecasting is difficult, especially about the future”, what makes Janna’s project “Imagining the Internet” even more interesting and likeable. I have the opportunity to meet Janna’s team in Rio and seeing them at work and I was impressed (which does not happen very often).
The survey does not take long and invites you to imagine how things will be for Internet related issues in twelve years time. You can also add your opinions (anonymously or with your name) and the results will be ready soon. Meanwhile you can check the wealth of data available in the PEW project website…

New book on Cyberlaw, e-business and finance

IGI Global, which is also the publisher for my forthcoming "Intellectual Capitalism and ICT Law Administration: Developing the Knowledge Industry", just published the book Cyberlaw for Global E-Business: Finance, Payments and Dispute Resolution, edited by Professor Takashi Kubota, who was my Masters and Doctoral dissertations’ head advisor at Nagoya University (now at Waseda Law School in Tokyo). The book covers several areas of finance and payment on electronic networks and yours truly has written the chapter on legal and technical issues on card payments. The topics go from the general and foundational to the very technical and specific.
Congratulations to Professor Kubota and a much needed development in the area of finance and cyberlaw.

UK Law Teacher of the Year 2008

A couple of hours ago the UK Centre for Legal Education, part of the British Higher Education Academy, has awarded me and Professor Alastair Hudson, of Queen Mary University of London, the award of 2008 UK Law Teacher of the Year. Thank you to the UKCLE and I hope to be a deserving recipient of the award and that my students really benefit from/enjoy my teaching. It goes to them and to my colleagues that make my teaching possible through their support.

LILAC 2008

I am at University of Warwick where the Learning in Law Academic Conference organized by the UK Centre for Legal Education is taking place. Things are just starting but the everything looks quite nicely put together and the line-up of speakers is as good as it gets...I've met a couple of fellows from previous battles and I think that it will be a good one...

When geeks get it wrong..

A common feature when you attend any meeting where geeks, quasi-geeks, wannabe-geeks or people that understand about computing, is that you see a lot of illuminated apples in the middle of the top of their laptops. The reasons are varied, but, leaving apart the coolness factor, they can be summarized into the belief that everything made by the company located in Cupertino, CA, is better than everything else (especially if made in Redmond, WA) and that those using Apple products make an statement against the evil empire, AKA Microsoft (there is even a Japanese animé depicting Bill Gates as an evil merchant trying to take over the world) .

The being better or not is a matter of fact (if we can agree in a definition of what is good) and there is some sort of agreement that Apple computers tend to be more stable and secure than PCs, although my experience has not been good with them. Just as an example, I don’t write many serious scholarly work due to time constrains but I do have some ideas, so I try to present them in conferences as much as I can, and the form of presentation is important (in one of my classes the way students look during the presentations is part of their mark and when they complain about that I remind them that if Einstein had written his theories in a piece of toilet paper we would still be believing that Newton was right). Accordingly, without the finesse and almost perfection of Larry Lessig, I try my presentations to be original and very dynamic, for which a proper remote control is imperative and I have several that work very well, except when in the conference an Apple is being used…of course, it is the world’s fault that doesn’t prepare things to work with Apple and nobody in its right mind would tamper with Apple’s perfection by installing a non-Apple driver, but the fact is that when I go to places were PCs are used, there nothing to be installed…the remote controls simply work (I have several brands and there are no drivers to be installed). But it could be an isolated example…like the issues that arose when the new Leopard OS was released earlier this year. According to the PC World Magazine

Within days of its release last October, Mac users reported dozens of problems with the new OS, some more serious than others.

Among the many: Wireless connections that slowly petered away, administrative logins that mysteriously disappeared, and a disturbing tendency to nuke data when moving it between two drives if the connection is interrupted.

Worse, a security bug that was fixed in OS 10.4 in March 2006 resurfaced in Leopard, according to Symantec. The Apple Mail vulnerability allows malicious attachments to execute code. German security researchers discovered that Leopard came with its firewall turned off, leaving users vulnerable to attack. Adding insult to injury, some upgraders even reported a Windows-like Blue Screen of Death when upgrading from previous Mac OSs.

But where some geeks (or anyone in the related family) got it really wrong is with the belief, taken to axiomatic level, that Microsoft is the evil empire (probably is) and Apple is not. What they miss is the fact that the reason for Apple not to have behaved in the way that we all accuse Microsoft of doing, rests only in Apple loosing the initial battle for the dominance of the personal computer market, mainly due to its own bad business strategies and not due to, in Google terms, doing no evil. If you want to know somebody true character give that person power, or in this case market share and that is what we have now (which relates to the claim that is technically superior: Apples are almost virus free because geeks don’t write viruses for them and the truly evil minds don’t write them either due to the small market impact that they would have, and by comparison with the early decision of keeping Apples, then were Mackintosh, “closed” we could have a perfectly safe, spam free, virus free Internet, but just few would be able to connect to it and freedom would be reduced to zero) .

Since hitting the right button with iPod and getting ahead of the competition in the portable music gadgets Apple has shown and used all the tactics that represent the antipodes of what a no-evil company is supposed to do. The creation of a proprietary non-interoperable format for the music sold through iTunes cannot be explained in any other way that a clear policy to abuse a dominant position, which should have been subject to close scrutiny by the competition authorities but, very strangely, received the unusual, diplomatically wrong support from the same that were supposed to control them when in this side of the Atlantic somebody thought that something was wrong (I hope that someday in the future we will get an explanation about that and lets hope that the person that made the strange defence does not suddenly decide to join the private sector working directly or indirectly for the company in question). Then to add insult to injury, the intelligence-insulting explanation linking the DRM (like not being able to listen to your music in more than five devices or copying it) with the proprietary non-interoperable format, and all to a request (imposition) by the music industry: if the music industry were calling the shots iPod would not accept “illegal” music from CDs without DRM, and the proprietary format only benefits Apple…Then, in a textbook example of using money and power to quench the competition we had the situation where Apple sued twice Creative Labs in the same week in two different jurisdictions (non related to the location of the companies but using the quite broad choice of venue decided in VE Holding Corp. v. Johnson Gas Appliance Co., 917 F.2d 1574, 16 USPQ2d 1614 (Fed. Cir. 1990), for patent infringement lawsuits), with the obvious aim to tell Creative Labs that the plaintiff had more money and that the merits of the claims were irrelevant to the lawsuits…

Then you have the release of iPhone…there is already too much written about the way that Apple treated the market and its costumers (check what happened to my friend Pablo) and not by coincidence was dubbed as number 5^th in the list of the 15 Biggest Tech Disappointments of 2007, but I have had one in my hands and I don’t get it: if coolness is the deciding factor, yes, is a must have, but it doesn’t do much more things that many others phones in the market, and even the tactile screen is not unique or new (and the problems with it are always reported as temporary, when problems with other systems are presented as set in stone).

The success of the Apple Stores deserves another chapter, but lets briefly say that, although very good for the companies profits, it doesn’t seem too much of a nice thing to do to put out of business most, if not all, the independent retailers that kept the Apple Mackintosh flame burning when the market was not so favourable to the company (and the four times I went there they didn’t have the Apple part that the person I was with was looking for, once in St Louis, MO and three times in London). However, their reviews put them a places close to nirvana and make a point of saying unflattering things about the competition...

So, it seems that what clearly characterizes Apple is the opposite to what some want to believe, that is a “nice” company opposing the evil Microsoft. It is just another profit-seeking company and there is nothing bad with that, but this one gives the impression of having no problem to use any mean in order to maximize its profits and having some control issues (even the corporate information is not easily accessible from their website), while at the same time managing to convince the press and the geeks that they are the ones that represent the ideals of innovation, quality and freedom that we all would like to see…

I just hope that Google starts producing all this gadgets because until now is one of the few companies that tries to do less-evil while delivering as much profit as the market allows...

In the name of the backbone, the router and the cyber-money…

CNN reports that the Catholic Church has started to collect online the normal mass giving, although the Church has clarified that this new way would not replace the old collection basket during the mass. It seems a sensible move to use new technologies to carry out old activities, but the use of Internet changes a couple of things that may not be very clear to the church goers that now interact with their religious bodies in Cyberspace. While it is expected that by changing the way the money is collected would not affect the charitable status of the church and should not change is nature for tax purposes, unless the church uses its own payment sites and some form of payment that does not involve fees, that fact is that an important part of the donation will go to pay different type of fees. The news piece refers to online collections fees of about 2.5-4%, but there are also fees associated with using your debit card, if that is the case (yes, for the surprised Europeans, in the US banks charge you to give you your money and if you use a different bank ATM you normally have to pay twice the same fee, and buying is “like” withdrawing money). And what happens if there is a mistake? Do you have a contract with the “vendor”? Quite obviously not (you do remember the issue of consideration in common law countries), so how do you claim? Through your credit card company…and they? Who do they claim? If they don’t have a clear person to make a claim to they just get it from the insurance, but again, if there is no identified person that is in some form responsible for a mistake (legally responsible) the insurance premiums may go up and then, you know who ends footing the bill…it still seem an interesting development, but the inclusion of purely commercial interests in an activity that represents the purest form of altruism within an spiritual setting as religion seems to add quite a complication…will this also give more ammunition to the EU commission?

Christmas in YouTube

Christmas day is normally used to eat in excess, recover from the excessive drinking of the night before and reflect about all the excesses we have ever committed since Christmas started a couple of millennia ago. One of those has to do with the dire predictions on YouTube after Google decided to buy it, and today I was reflecting about how wrong people seemed to be and how right the people of Google keep seeming to be.
I don't indulge in YouTube a lot (lack of time mainly), but some of the videos are quite useful in class and to entertain the masses in Christmas


It now also has Royal blessing...

CyberChristmas and consumer rights

Keeping with the trend of previous years, it seems that this year the online sales are growing far more than proportional than high street sales in UK, with the addition of having several shops starting their Christmas Sales online before the Boxing Day Sales in their brick and mortars shops. According to the BBC, the Interactive Media in Retail Group's CEO, James Roper, said that their projections suggested an increase of 66% in the amount spent on Christmas day online. On the other hand, in the other side of the Atlantic Internet sales rose at the slowest pace on record, probably due to the impact of the credit crunch, fuel prices and overall economic uncertainty...These two pieces of information can be used for many things, like showing the difference in consumer sentiment across the Atlantic, or proving that the argument that strong consumer and privacy rights hurt businesses and are not conducive towards a online business friendly environment are simply not correct. The difference in protection between UK and the US is huge if type, depth and coverage are combined and, if those proponents of self-regulation were right, the US should always be ahead. However, the fact is that the issue is quite complex and there are many factors that affect the creation of an online business friendly environment, and this Christmas data seems to show that either those other factors outweigh greatly the alleged negative impact of strict regulation or that the strict regulation is one of the factors positively affecting online sales (one of the reports does refer to increased consumer confidence in Internet as one of the causes). So the conclusion, again, is that if consumer protection in general and privacy in particular are a cause of unfriendliness to e-business but other factors are more important, they still should be strictly protected by regulation due to their minimum negative impact and the existence of an array of instruments establishing them as rights, and if they are, as more evidence suggest, a positive influence in the creation of an e-business friendly environment, the main market players should stop being hostage of the few industries that benefit from the lack of strict legislation on consumer rights and privacy protection and start joining consumer rights groups in the quest to get proper cross-sector legislation for the protection of such rights enacted in both sides of the Atlantic.

Shameless

A little of shameless self-promotion...I've been shortlisted for the UK Law Teacher of the Year award...thanks to the UKCLE...and lets hope that I am really teaching well to my students...in any case, it goes to all of those who understand that being a teacher implies actual teaching...