NBC’s Online Olympic Video Not Even Remotely Compelling
NBC is hyping up how it's really embracing the web this year in its Olympic coverage. However, the details suggest that (as per usual with NBC Universal) it's taking a very old school approach -- meaning the web is treated as a second class citizen and that it won't be either useful or interesting to people online. That is, there are some restrictions that make its online efforts close to pointless. First, the videos won't be embeddable elsewhere. In other words, one of the key factors for online videos these days -- the shareability of those videos -- won't be allowed. NBC is trying to control and hoard the content -- which goes against everything the web should have taught the big shots at NBC Universal.
Secondly, while NBC is talking up 2,200 live hours of competition being shown online, it's sounding like those 2,200 hours will be of the content that people aren't as interested in watching. That is, the stuff that's being shown on TV will not be simulcast online. In fact, it won't be available to watch online until after it's been shown on TV (so, hardly live). So, any of the big important stuff will have to wait until NBC has shown it on TV (most likely on tape delay). So the only really "live" content you'll see is the stuff that isn't particularly interesting.
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eBay Has To Pay $63m Because A French Court Doesn’t Know A Platform From A User
A few weeks ago, we pointed out that a French court had made a very bad ruling, blaming eBay for actions of its users. The case involved the sale of counterfeit goods from LVMH. Rather than recognizing that eBay is just a platform and has no way of knowing whether products put up for sale by its users are legit or counterfeit, the court somehow ruled that eBay should know. Now the court has ruled on the fine, making eBay pay up $63 million for this exceptionally bad ruling. If you provide any sort of platform, a ruling like this should make you very, very afraid of doing any business in France. You can now be blamed and fined for the actions of your users.
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Is A GoDaddy VP Bidding Against Customers In Domain Auctions?
Slashdot is running an interesting post, suggesting that GoDaddy's VP in charge of managing the domain auctions it runs on expired domains, has been caught participating in the auctions himself, often driving up the prices of those auctions for customers. That's one way to pump up those revenue numbers. If this is shown to be true, it seems incredibly questionable.
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It’s Good To Be A Monopoly: Rogers Prices iPhone Service At 2 Arms And 2 Legs
There's been a fair amount of complaining about the pricing of the new iPhone 3G over the last few weeks. While plenty of people were initially enamored by the cheaper price for the actual phone in the US (and in some other countries), this subsidized low price often hid higher service fees (with a locked contract) that came with it. However, it appears that the folks at Rogers Communication up in Canada really went overboard in its service pricing: offering very expensive service fees that have excessively limited data amounts (and no unlimited data offering). Users also get less talk time. Basically, these service plans make the iPhone a hell of a lot less appealing -- but since Rogers is the only carrier offering the iPhone in Canada, it feels it can get away with such high prices. But, the impressive thing is that people are trying to fight back, putting together a petition against Rogers' decision. While online petitions are notorious for their ineffectiveness, this one seems to be getting an awful lot of attention -- creating a ton of negative publicity for Rogers. If the company has any sense of the harm negative publicity can do, perhaps it will rethink its pricing strategy.
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Categories: Web Stuff Tags: Hd, LAN, Phone Service, Web Stuff
Who Will Be The First To Sue Girl Talk Over Music Samples?
A few weeks back when we mentioned that the musical act Girl Talk was releasing a new album using the pay what you want model, one element we didn't dwell on was the fact that Girl Talk's genre might be best described as "mash up music." That is, Greg Gillis, the guy who is Girl Talk, takes samples from tons of songs and mixes them together to create something totally new. While there may be some who disagree, listening to Girl Talk, I find it difficult to believe that Gillis is any less of a musician than the musicians he samples -- he's just playing a different kind of instrument.
But there's a big question -- whether or not Girl Talk's albums are legal or are they basically massive copyright infringement cases. If Gillis were to actually go around licensing all the snippets he samples, such an album would be impossible to make -- showing (yet again) how copyright would act as disincentive for creation rather than incentive. So far Gillis hasn't actually been sued, though that seems unlikely to last. On the positive side, some big name musicians interviewed in a recent Wall Street Journal article about Girl Talk sound much more honored than litigious to be included on a Girl Talk album. However, with over 300 samples used on the album, there's almost certainly going to be a few who get upset. The article, for example, suggests that the woman in charge of the copyright for the band the Guess Who is planning to go after Girl Talk, noting that: "We'll chase it down. What more can you do?" Well, actually, there's plenty more that you can do -- such as recognizing that no one who hears the music on Girl Talk is going to see that as a replacement to the Guess Who's album -- and, if anything, it might entice new fans to the original.
But, eventually a legal battle is going to pop up -- and while Gillis and his label are banking on "fair use" claims to protect them, the history of court cases on this particular question have shown the courts (wrongly) seem to count nearly any sample, no matter how minor to require a license. This has created a small industry of "sample trolls" getting the rights to various songs (often via very questionable means) and then suing anyone who samples just a few notes from it. It seems quite likely that sooner or later someone is going to go after Gillis for this. And, while it's nice that some artists are honored by Gillis's use of their music, that probably won't stop others from suing. Luckily, Gillis has at least one big supporter in Congress -- and perhaps a lawsuit against him will help bring this issue to the attention of lawmakers.
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Maybe Patent Trolls Wouldn’t Be So Hated If We Called Them Patent Elves
I'm not a huge fan of the term "patent troll" which I agree can be unfairly negative, and without a clear definition often leads to problems. Recently, it seems that the term is most often applied to "non-practicing entities" making some people think that the patent system is mainly abused by those operations. That's a bit of misdirection. There's just as much, if not more, abuse of the patent system done by large companies. If there were actual proof (still waiting!) that the patent system actually did lead to more innovation, then I can easily understand why a non-practicing entity that just licensed its works could make sense. Unfortunately, most of the evidence suggests that patents don't actually lead to more innovation. In those cases, the only thing that non-practicing entities end up doing is hindering innovation.
However, Joe Mullin points us to a rather odd paper, suggesting that non-practicing entities are a good thing and should be called "patent elves" rather than "patent trolls." Part of what makes this paper so odd, is that one of the writers works for that law firm that recently advertised that it wouldn't work with patent trolls. Meanwhile, I guess it wants to let those "patent elves" in the back door.
As for the actual paper, it's really not all that different from earlier papers that try to present non-practicing entities as a boon to competition and innovation. They're all based on a few faulty assumptions, however. This latest one is basically a massive broken windows fallacy. That is, it basically states "if specialization is good, more specialization is better" in that it creates more economic activity. What it fails to do, however, is take into account how the market is distorted by that greater economic activity. Just as the broken window fallacy doesn't take into account the hidden costs of what kind of economic activity would take place in the absence of the broken window, this paper fails to take into account the innovation that occurs in the absence of the patent-holding non-practicing entity -- and simply assumes (falsely) that the patent holder is the key component in driving the innovation forward. Instead, it's much more likely that the patent holder represents the broken window -- a cost that detracts from more efficient economic activity, such as actually bringing a product to market where real innovation occurs.
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Dualshock 3 Controller Arrival Is Imminent
Following a US and Japan release, the UK has finally received confirmation of the arrival of the PS3 Dualshock 3 controller, which as we noted in April seems like the sort of thing you'd want to try before you buy.
Though it costs $55 (around £27) in the US, we'll have to stump up a rather hefty £39.99 when it's released on July 2nd over here.
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Rhapsody To Ditch DRM, Apple Laughs In Face
Following recent news from Amazon and Napster, music service Rhapsody will be the latest to start offering DRM-free downloads.
These moves are undoubtedly an attempt to try and ruffle Apple's feathers as its iTunes store still reigns supreme in the digital music arena, yet its certainly not forthcoming in offering a similar deal to consumers.
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Are Companies Responsible For Actions Of Affiliates?
Back in May we wrote about how shoe store DSW was suing Zappos over potential trademark infringement done by an affiliate -- and now we've got another similar story. The company NameSafe is suing competitor LifeLock over Google ads that make use of NameSafe's name. While we've seen plenty of lawsuits where Google was incorrectly sued over ads based on competitor search terms, this case actually does seem a little more reasonable on those points: rather than suing Google, NameSafe is suing LifeLock, and NameSafe can probably make a half-decent case that the ads could be seen as confusing or deceptive.
However, where this case gets more interesting is on the question of whether LifeLock is to blame -- or if it's the fault of an affiliate marketer, as LifeLock claims. LifeLock says that it terminated the affiliate's account and also reminded all of its affiliates that this type of activity goes against their reseller agreements. That seems like a reasonable response, but for now the lawsuit against LifeLock continues, which will inevitably raise questions about whether or not a company is responsible for the actions of its affiliates and resellers. It seems like common sense to say no -- that the liability should remain with those who actually did the action -- but we've seen stranger decisions from courts before, so it may not be clear cut here.
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