What, MediaSentry Worry?
August 25th, 2008 Filed Under Lawsuits, Legislation and Regulation, Other Commentary
If you were to make a movie about the RIAA’s campaign of lawsuits against P2P file sharers it could easily be mistaken for something by Monty Python, the Marx Brothers, or perhaps Mel Brooks. It starts with a straight forward premise. Record label executives get together to decide on a course of action to address falling profits from CD sales. Then it takes a left turn into the absurd as a label representative suggests that if their former customers are no longer inclined to part with their money for CDs, they’ll simply sue them claiming millions in lost profits from piracy. After all, what other reason could there possibly be for spending less money on a tired and out dated product?
After much deliberation behind closed doors a plan is then hatched. Many legal problems, from obtaining confidential information from ISPs to proving actual damages are discussed. Given the extensive legal barriers to gathering evidence legitimately they eventually come to the realization that they actually have no chance of winning.
But wait! One enterprising lackey toiling in obscurity in a legal department has a plan. Instead of relying on the law as written, they’ll simply claim the law supports their plan and use a combination of repetition and obtuse technical and legal arguments to make it appear that the law is on their side. After all, the most important thing isn’t the truth of their case. As anyone who watches Stephen Colbert can tell you it’s all about how true it sounds.
This strategy works for quite a while; perhaps even longer than they expected. But now we’re in another phase of their master plan. In any good farce there comes a time when someone catches on to the silly misdirection and puts it to a test of reason. At this point our antagonist has two choices. For a whle they choose the obvious route of loudly repeating the same arguments. After all, if you repeat your flawed argument loudly enough it looks even more like the truth.
Unfortunately that eventually fails. One by one, as they’re tested in court, their arguments get shot down by judges who take the time to consider the merits of each one instead of buying into the rhetoric advanced by lawyers who are little more than PR mouth pieces for the labels. Now they face a new quandry. What can they do to stem the tide of losses?
This brings us up to right now, and it’s where their strategy goes from psychotically brilliant to completely baffling. Their current dilemma has to do with MediaSentry, the firm that gathers evidence against alleged file sharers so RIAA lawyers can sue them. MediaSentry is under investigation in multiple jurisdictions for operating as private investigators without a license.
In Michigan alone, not only are they being investigated by the state agency responsible for issuing Private Investigator Licenses, they’re also the subject of a complaint by a University they’re targeting in their witch hunt for file sharers.
You might expect them to have another pile of vaguely similar case law to cite. This is how they’ve arrived at previous contortions of the law such as the infamous “making available” as copyright infringement argument. In fact they’ve even used some of this twisted logic in the past to respond to these accusations. In reality though, they’re not making any arguments in court, but instead continue to file lawsuits based on evidence gathered by MediaSentry.
Perhaps they figure they don’t have to worry until actual sanctions are imposed or maybe they’re trying to get as many cases in as possible before being force to stop. Or just maybe they still figure they’re 50 feet tall and bullet proof.
Make no mistake about it. Their behavior may sound like wacky antics when viewed from a distance, but it’s no laughing matter for the people who have settled for thousands of dollars rather than face the possibility of losing a lot more - even if they believe they’ve done nothing wrong. Their comedy of legal errors can’t come to a swift enough conclusion for the people who are already faced with financial hardship to avoid financial ruin.
Don’t Be Surprised By Digital TV
August 24th, 2008 Filed Under Legislation and Regulation, Other Commentary
If you’re in the US it’s hopefully no surprise to you that most analog TV signals will be turned off on February 17, 2009. Unfortunately the government has done a particularly poor job of educating the public about what (if anything) needs to be done to prepare. This is hardly surprising since the FCC, an agency not exactly filled with public relations experts or educators, has been given sole responsibility for preparing the country.
I’ve written a new guide to help you figure out what, if anything, you need to do. You may need a Digital TV (to analog) converter, an ATSC tuner, or perhaps neither. Even if your TV is already equipped to receive digital broadcasts it’s possible you need a new antenna.
The most important thing is that you think about it sooner rather than later. Despite the availability of government vouchers for DTV converters, there’s no guarantee you’ll be able to find one if you go to a local retailer. If you want to make sure to beat the masses of people who will be scrambling to get ready before (or even after) next February you should have no problems being prepared.
You can also find more general information about Digital TV in another article I wrote for the Nero website.
That’s The Price We Pay (For DTV)
August 23rd, 2008 Filed Under Legislation and Regulation
It’s amazing that with all the money the FCC is getting from the February, 2009 DTV transition, somehow there isn’t enough to pay more than $40 of the consumer cost for a DTV converter box. This is perhaps the biggest reason why the boxes are so scarce, and contribute to what will probably end up being a huge PR nightmare for Congress and a shining example for the rest of the world to avoid following.
What’s sad is it’s mostly a matter of greed. The Federal Government is too busy counting the revenue from airwave auctions to consider whether more of it should be spent on getting consumers ready to have their analog TV signals switched off.
Let’s start with the basic economics of production and distribution. After all, the most fundamental part of getting DTV converters in the hands of the people who need them is actually making them and getting them on store shelves. If you want this done on a large scale you have to provide some sort of incentive for everyone in the supply chain to deal with them. That means profit.
So obviously it makes sense to simply figure out the cost to get a converter box to market with minimal profit per unit and issue vouchers for that amount. So of course the government has taken a completely different approach. Instead they’ve decided to come up with what bureaucrats consider a reasonable amount and leave it up to consumers to pay the difference, which amounts to anywhere from $10 - $20 per converter. This isn’t a question of price gouging. In fact its led to a shortage of boxes on store shelves, perhaps due to the lack of profitability.
As far as I know there’s exactly one manufacturer making boxes which can be purchsed for the $40 voucher value (plus applicable sales tax). Those boxes are from Echostar / Dish Network. And they’re not being sold for a profit. In fact Echostar has said they’re losing money on every sale. Instead they’re being used as a PR measure in the hope that it will foster goodwill among potential Dish Network customers.
Unfortunately most manufacturers can’t really use the boxes for that purpose. As a result consumers have to come up with as much as half the value of the vouchers out of their own pockets. That doesn’t even take into account the cost of purchasing a new antenna for people in areas with questionable reception. Meanwhile the FCC is preparing to collect enough money from auctioning off the broadcast frequencies being vacated to pay for all of this - probably multiple times.
Who’s In Charge Of Your TV?
August 15th, 2008 Filed Under Legislation and Regulation
It shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone that people don’t like the cable company. Whether it’s a big player like Comcast or Time Warner or one of the numerous smaller companies, you probably don’t know a cable subscriber who thinks his provider treats him fairly. There are any number of reasons they’re so universally disliked. Although some complaints are clearly ridiculous, others are completely justified. Perhaps no complaint is more reasonable than the way the control they have over the technology behind their service.
Supposedly that was going to be changing. In the 1990s the FCC received a mandate from Congress to stimulate competition for cable STB’s (Set Top Boxes). That eventually led to the creation of CableCARD, a flawed technology that allowed consumer electronics manufacturers to create their own boxes which could work with cable signals. CableCARD technology was interesting, but ultimately flawed. Its usefulness was limited by a lack of support for interactive services like Video On Demand.
Now the cable and consumer electronics companies have embraced an add-on to CableCARD called Tru2Way. It promises to fix the interactivity issues, and allow unprecedented access to the cable system. The problem is that cable companies still have too much control.
For starters, they have so far been able to resist working with competing technology like Verizon’s FiOS on developing open standards. Incumbent cable companies are like the leaders in any market. They object to a real free market because competition makes it easier for others to compete with them.
Verizon has pointed this out in a letter to the FCC. Although they praise Tru2Way as a good idea, they quite correctly point out that a proprietary solution does more harm than good to consumers. Making consumer electronics compatible with cable systems, while leaving other services out in the cold certainly seems to provide an unfair competitive advantage.
If you’re asking what’s wrong with the cable industry protecting their business, consider the situation of people who use media center PCs instead of old-fashioned consumer electronics to watch TV. Despite the supposed openness, only Microsoft has managed to get a license to make their software work with CableCARD. if they were using an open standard like TCP/IP and Ethernet, which is what Verizon is asking for, it would show what an arbitrary, and ultimately anti-competitive decision this is.
They also would’t be able to shut out competition from Verizon, who would be able to design their service to be compatible with the same hardware built into TVs and DVRs for CableCARD and Tru2Way. Don’t get me wrong. The free market is not only good; it’s necessary. But the free market isn’t free if you let the top company control it. Without competition you don’t have capitalism.
