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Mark posted about Kleargear, the company that ruined a dissatisfied customer's credit rating and fined her $3500 for posting a negative review when she didn't receive her goods. The company went into "social media hiding" after the story hit the net, but that didn't help the customers whose lives they'd ruined.

Now, Public Citizen has threatened legal action against Kleargear on behalf of Jen and John Palmer, demanding that the company clear the couples' credit, pay $75,000 in restitution; and agree to refrain from similar future shenanigans. Go Public Citizen!

Public Citizen is representing Jen and John Palmer in seeking redress from KlearGear. Today, we sent this demand letter seeking three actions from KlearGear: first, clearing up John's credit; second, paying $75,000 in compensation for the Palmers' ordeal, which has lasted more than a year; and third, agreeing to stop using this non-disparagement clause to extort money from their customers.

KlearGear's conduct is part of a troubling trend of businesses trying to deter negative reviews by muzzling their customers. Another example is Public Citizen's case against a New York dentist who tried to make her patients agree, as a condition of treatment, that they would not criticize her. And TechDirt has reported about the use of such a clause in vacation rental agreements.

As our letter explains, KlearGear's actions violate state tort law and the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act. If KlearGear refuses to comply, we'll file suit to enforce the Palmers' rights and send a message to unscrupulous corporations that they cannot muzzle their customers, extort money from them when they post critical reviews, or ruin their credit when they refuse outragous demands for payment.

Utah couple seeks relief after credit ruined over "non-disparagement" clause in a website's fine-print (via Techdirt)

This insightful Donna Barstow comic strip perfectly illustrates the depth and breadth of her humor.

In 2012, cartoonist Donna Barstow tried to get criticism of her numbingly unfunny strips taken off the net. Her weapon of choice? An ill-informed belief that copyright not only trumps well-established fair use defenses, but acts as a kind of magic "shut up" button to silence critics. In spite of the embarrassing public results, it seems she has not learned her lesson.

Now, nearly 18 months on, Barstow apparently used Google's takedown tool to request that it remove links to former federal prosecutor Ken "Popehat" White's stern critique of her legal ignorance—a page that now ranks #2 on search results for Barstow's name.

The request claims that Popehat published her "private information", but the only private information concerned is her own signature, as found on her cartoon strips, as published very widely—and not just by her critics.

"I've written back to Google," writes Ken White. "I presume they won't fall for what I can only characterize as a dishonest — and even fraudulent — attempt to de-list criticism."

Barstow may be egged-on by Charles Carreon, a lawyer whose own censorious efforts--and a resulting run-in with more competent legal minds--cost him dearly.

GoldieBlox, which used a Beastie Boys song on fair-use grounds and sued for declaratory judgment upon the band's objection, backed down today.

Dear Adam and Mike,

We don’t want to fight with you. We love you and we are actually huge fans.

When we made our parody version of your song, ‘Girls’, we did it with the best of intentions. We wanted to take a song we weren’t too proud of, and transform it into a powerful anthem for girls. Over the past week, parents have sent us pictures and videos of their kids singing the new lyrics with pride, building their own Rube Goldberg machines in their living rooms and declaring an interest in engineering. It’s been incredible to watch.

Our hearts sank last week when your lawyers called us with threats that we took very seriously. As a small company, we had no choice but to stand up for ourselves. We did so sincerely hoping we could come to a peaceful settlement with you.

We want you to know that when we posted the video, we were completely unaware that the late, great Adam Yauch had requested in his will that the Beastie Boys songs never be used in advertising. Although we believe our parody video falls under fair use, we would like to respect his wishes and yours.

Since actions speak louder than words, we have already removed the song from our video. In addition, we are ready to stop the lawsuit as long as this means we will no longer be under threat from your legal team.

We don’t want to spend our time fighting legal battles. We want to inspire the next generation. We want to be good role models. And we want to be your friends.

Sincerely,

Debbie + Team GoldieBlox

<ringostarrvoice>
  And then GoldieBlox woke up. It was all a dream!
</ringostarrvoice>

*sighs*
*slams book shut*
*toes trashcan pedal*

Andy Baio's laid out a great legal analysis of the Beastie Boys/GoldieBlox kerfuffle. It's a must read, especially if you think that "ads can't be fair use" or "last wills carry more legal weight than fair use" or even "if GoldieBlox's video is fair use, then all advertisers will be able to use any song for free."

The latest tax-filings by the MPAA show that the studios have increased their membership dues to $66.8 million -- up 50 percent. Former Senator Chris Dodd, the architect of the failed SOPA law, has gotten a raise to $3.3M/year. MPAA staffing levels are still down 20% after 2011's layoff of 44 people.

This conclusion comes from the latest tax filing submitted to the IRS by the MPAA a week ago, covering the fiscal year ending December 31st 2012. The paperwork reveals that the movie studios increased their membership dues from $41.5 million in 2010 to $59.7 million two years later.

Total revenue increased from $48.6 million to $66.8 million in the same period. Interestingly and despite the sizable increase in funds, the MPAA cut nearly 20% of its employees to 200 in 2012, down from 247 two years earlier.

The latest tax papers picked up by Variety reveal that MPAA boss and former senator Chris Dodd is handsomely compensated with an income of $3.3 million a year.

MPAA Revenue Up 50% As “War on Piracy” Cranks Up [Ernesto/TorrentFreak]

An illustration by Jaco Haasbroek, shared in the Boing Boing Flickr Pool.

Google turned in a man who copied child pornography to his cellphone using Picasa. Raul Gonzales, 40, was charged with possessing more than 3,000 pornographic pictures of children on the phone.

The FBI says the investigation began in March when Google’s hashing technology found two child porn pictures in his Picasa library. Picasa is a cloud-sharing platform for images owned by Google. From there, the company notified the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which says it found more images on a Tumblr account owned by Gonzalez. That’s when the feds took over. Agents say they also found pictures of a 9-year-old who is close to the family, and that Gonzales admitted to sexually assaulting the child.

"When an image is found," Google assured CBS, "an employee will inspect it to make sure it’s actual abuse and not just a picture of a child at bathtime."

It's good to know that an alleged sexual predator was identified and dealt with, and it's good to know that Google assigns individual humans to inspect our naked children for the authorities' consideration.

Wired on the future of money.

Bitcoin is much more than a money service for illegal operations. It’s a re-imagining of international finance, something that breaks down barriers between countries and frees currency from the control of federal governments. Bitcoin is controlled by open source software that operates according to the laws of mathematics — and by the people who collectively oversee this software. The software runs on thousands of machines across the globe, but it can be changed. It’s just that a majority of those overseeing the software must agree to the change. In short, Bitcoin is kind of like the internet, but for money.

The Beastie Boys have sent a legal threat to toymaker GoldieBlox over the company's extremely clever ad, which parodies the Beasties' early track "Girls". The ad rewrites the lyrics (which are pretty terrible in the original) to insist that girls should take control over their world, reject passivity and subservience, and make things (the video accompanies this with the creation of a Rube Goldberg device that ultimately switches off a TV showing girly toy ads).

The irony here is pretty thick: the Beasties are still being sued over their use of samples on their early albums, including the classic Paul's Boutique. Every pirate wants to be an admiral, of course, but for the Beasties to decry remix culture even as they go to court to defend their (perfectly legitimate) right to make new things out of other creators' old rope is pretty sad.

GoldieBlox is seeking a declaratory judgment that their video is fair use.

According to a lawsuit filed on Thursday by Goldieblox, "the Beastie Boys have now threatened GoldieBlox with copyright infringement. Lawyers for the Beastie Boys claim that the GoldieBlox Girls Parody Video is a copyright infringement, is not a fair use and that GoldieBlox's unauthorized use of the Beastie Boys intellectual property is a 'big problem' that has a 'very significant impact.' "

Goldieblox is now going to a California federal court to get declaratory relief that the video is not a copyright infringement. Read the complaint.

Beastie Boys, 'Girls' Viral Video in Copyright Infringement Fight [Eriq Gardner/Hollywood Reporter]

A leaked internal Microsoft video attacks Google's Chrome Everywhere campaign, drawing pointed attention to Google's program of monetizing personal information, extending Microsoft's "Scroogled" attack ads that characterize Google as a surveillance company.

It's a clever parody and Microsoft's point is actually a good one, but Microsoft doesn't have much moral high-ground here. The company's long history of dirty tricks against free and open source software, its role in patent trolling, and its eager cooperation with NSA surveillance and surveillance by the secret police in China -- see, for example, the creation of back-doors in Skype -- mean that Microsoft's positioning itself as a champion of digital ethics rings hollow.

Internal Microsoft Video Criticizing Google Chrome ‘Now Everywhere’

To celebrate the Great American Smokeout, the Ellen DeGeneres Show replaced cigarettes in Mad Men with party horns.

Miranda Blue of Right Wing Watch, a watchdog blog that reports on the radical right in part by posting fair-use clips on YouTube of activists speaking in their own words, writes: "One of the guys we monitor, former Navy chaplain Gorden “Dr. Chaps” Klingenschmitt, has now figured out a way to get our entire YouTube account taken down for weeks at a time just by filing multiple frivolous claims against our account. Now, we’re trying to get YouTube to change its policies to prevent people like Dr. Chaps from taking down entire watchdog organizations – which is surprisingly easy to do."

Dr. Chaps, by the way, believes President Obama is literally possessed by demons, and that gay men in the military are having sex with each other on the altar at West Point's chapel. He has a website, where he solicits donations for his "religious work."

buy this print!

A couple of comics about Edward, the Black Prince. I love that a man who was brutal in many ways was celebrated as "the Flower of English Chivalry" even into the 1900s. That's from a towering statue in Leeds, where I am headed for this year's Thought Bubble Festival! Love Leeds, love Thought Bubble, love the Black Prince, love his statue. I admit that last year I was proud of myself for identifying the figure from afar - it's all that bullet shaped armour around his head (amiright), a style we all wish would come back.

Also, glory be! New shirts! I am so glad to be stocking the store with new things. The Venus one is not in yet, but coming, but head on over to check out the rest. Deck yourselves in them, deck your friends, deck whoever! Just click the link:

Rogue archivist Carl Malamud writes, "One of the most important public safety laws in Europe is Dir. 2001/95/EC which regulates general product safety. Public.Resource.Org, in our ongoing quest to make legally-mandated public safety codes available, purchased the German instantiation of 40 of these essential codes and made them available on the Internet. Every country in the EU is required to implement and publish these standards.

"Imagine our surprise when we were served notice to appear in Hamburg District Court in Germany."

You can read the docket here, but some of the highlights are that not only is Public.Resource.Org being sued, but “the person of” Carl Malamud is being sued in an individual capacity. The code people are asking for €50,000 in damages. Additional fines of €250,000 are being requested and, if I can't pay, a maximum total period of detention of two years is possible. I am very pleased to say that the premier German public interest law firm, iRights.Law, will be representing us. The iRights.Law group, and their affiliate iRights.Info, play a similar role to that of EFF in the United States and I'm very grateful for their help.

The code people picked 4 specific standards to sue on, including—believe it or not—the EU-mandated standard DIN EN 1400-1, “Child use and care articles - Soothers for babies and young children - Part 1: General safety requirements and product information.”

That's right, we're being sued for the .DE standard for the safety of the Binky® and other brands of baby pacifiers. Before we posted this important safety standard, you could only read the document if you spent €103.90 for the .DE Binky Code, £140.00 for the .UK Binky Code, or €90.26 for the .FR Binky Code.

As the people suing us say in their press release about this important standard:

“Babies fall asleep faster when they can suck on a soother. However, the consequences could well be fatal if a child were to swallow its dummy. Safety requirements relating to the physical and chemical quality of soothers are dealt with in DIN EN 1400-1 ff. Soothers wishing to conform to this standard must have a shield with at least two holes allowing the baby to continue to breathe in the event of the soother becoming lodged in its mouth.”

Sounds kind of important, don't you think?

The standards we posted for product safety from Germany are just one of several such collections we've posted that are mandated by the European Union:

* From Bulgaria, we've posted the EU-mandated standards for agricultural and forest machinery as well as train safety and interoperability.

* From France, the EU-mandated standards for toy safety and green packaging.

* From Ireland, the EU-mandated standards for medical implants.

* From Italy, the EU-mandated standards for food processing machinery.

* From Latvia, the EU-mandated standards for earth-moving machinery, garden equipment, and hand-held tools.

* From Serbia, the EU-mandated standards for personal protective equipment.

* From the United Kindom, all UK national annexes to the Eurocode and crucial standards for the safety of baby carriages and access to buildings by disabled people.

* The entire EU-mandated building code, the Eurocode, which has been transformed into valid HTML with SVG graphics and properly-encoded mathematical formulas.

Citizens of the world have the right to read the public safety codes that govern the safety of our modern technical society. Our work in Europe joins the complete collection of standards from India and our extensive collection of US-mandated public safety standards at the Federal and state levels, as well as numerous standards from around the world. Our goal is that all of the standards that are required by law become available to the citizens of the world so that the rule of law becomes real for all of us. You can't require a license to speak the law, you shouldn't have to have a credit card to read the law.

Be an informed citizen. Copy that code.

The Case of the DeBinky Code

Wikimedia, the nonprofit that oversees the Wikipedia project, has sent a cease-and-desist letter to WikiPR, an astroturfing company that pays people to distort Wikipedia entries on behalf of clients who want to erase embarrassing history or boost their image (or both). WikiPR is thought to be behind hundreds of sockpuppet accounts that made thousands of edits over several years.

To assist in the assessment, the WMF retained Cooley LLP to review and investigate allegations that a company named Wiki-PR has been engaging in paid advocacy editing, in contravention of the Wikimedia Foundation’s website Terms of Use. While the WMF and Cooley were investigating this question, the Wikimedia community banned Wiki-PR and anyone receiving financial benefits from Wiki-PR from editing until certain conditions were met.

Today, Cooley LLP, on behalf of the WMF, sent the cease and desist letter below to the CEO of Wiki-PR, demanding that Wiki-PR “cease and desist from further editing the Wikipedia website unless and until [they] have fully complied with the terms and conditions outlined by the Wikimedia Community.”

Wikimedia Foundation sends cease and desist letter to WikiPR

Michael writes, "When working on SurveillanceSaver (a screen saver displaying random unprotected IP cameras) in 2008, I placed early Twitter messages on the surveillance cameras' images. The results ranged from hillarious to Ballardian.

Random Twitter messages on surveillance cameras’ images (Thanks, Michael!)

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WordPress has gone to bat for its users in court, joining in two lawsuits over fraudulent DMCA claims that used copyright claims as a means of censoring critics. Back in August, a British anti-gay group called Straight Pride UK used a copyright claim to censor the publication of an on-the-record interview with one of the group's spokesmen. And in February, disgraced cancer researcher Anil Potti used copyright claims to censor Retraction Watch, a science watchdog that had reported on the journals that retracted Potti's papers.

Wordpress was the host for both of these sites, and at the time, it cooperated with the takedowns (the law does not require WordPress to honor takedowns that it deems to be bogus, but if it does not honor a takedown, it can be named as a party to any eventual lawsuit over the alleged infringement). But when the users went to court to fight for their right to publish, WordPress got their backs -- bravo!

These cases are both infuriating and increasingly common. While there are no legal consequences (like fines) under the DMCA for copyright abusers, there is a provision that allows victims of censorship (and their web hosts) to bring legal action against those who submit fraudulent DMCA notices. So today, we’ve joined with Oliver, Ivan, and Adam to take a small strike back at DMCA abuse. We’ve filed two lawsuits for damages under Section 512(f) of the DMCA, which allows for suits against those who “knowingly materially misrepresent” a case of copyright infringement.

Until there are some teeth to the copyright laws, it’s up to us – websites and users, together – to stand up to DMCA fraud and protect freedom of expression. Through these suits, we’d like to remind our users that we’re doing all we can to combat DMCA abuse on WordPress.com….and most importantly, remind copyright abusers to think twice before submitting fraudulent takedown notices. We’ll be watching, and are ready to fight back.

We’ll also be actively involved, on behalf of our users, in trying to change the law – both through court cases and in Congress – to make sure that everyone has the right to share their voice on the Internet without threat of censorship.

Striking Back Against Censorship

A prelude to a documentary, Playing With Fear, to be produced should the creators reach their crowdfunding goal by Nov. 30.

It's interesting just how generic and bland survival horror games were throughout the 2000s: same palette, same lighting, same mutants, same tricks.

Beth Pratt writes, "Being poor is different than being middle class. Killer Martinis explains just how different in this post she calls 'Why I Make Terrible Decisions, or, poverty thoughts'. She begins by telling us that 'rest is a luxury for the rich' and goes on from there."

Convenience food is just that. And we are not allowed many conveniences. Especially since the Patriot Act passed, it's hard to get a bank account. But without one, you spend a lot of time figuring out where to cash a check and get money orders to pay bills. Most motels now have a no-credit-card-no-room policy. I wandered around SF for five hours in the rain once with nearly a thousand dollars on me and could not rent a room even if I gave them a $500 cash deposit and surrendered my cell phone to the desk to hold as surety.

Nobody gives enough thought to depression. You have to understand that we know that we will never not feel tired. We will never feel hopeful. We will never get a vacation. Ever. We know that the very act of being poor guarantees that we will never not be poor. It doesn't give us much reason to improve ourselves. We don't apply for jobs because we know we can't afford to look nice enough to hold them. I would make a super legal secretary, but I've been turned down more than once because I "don't fit the image of the firm," which is a nice way of saying "gtfo, pov." I am good enough to cook the food, hidden away in the kitchen, but my boss won't make me a server because I don't "fit the corporate image." I am not beautiful. I have missing teeth and skin that looks like it will when you live on b12 and coffee and nicotine and no sleep. Beauty is a thing you get when you can afford it, and that's how you get the job that you need in order to be beautiful. There isn't much point trying.

Why I Make Terrible Decisions, or, poverty thoughts (Thanks, Beth!)

To promote Bob Dylan's new album Bob Dylan: The Complete Album Collection Vol. 1, Vania Heymann created an interactive video in which people on TV are lip-synching as the song plays. The interactive part is that you can change the TV channel, and still see familiar faces singing along. Each time you watch it, you should see different parts of the 15 channels, depending on how you flip around, so it's virtually a new video each time. It's a viral stunt guaranteed to breathe new life into the 1965 hit song -and sell some boxed sets for the 72-year-old singer. -via The Daily Beast

(YouTube link)

Slackstory put together a new trailer for The Avengers, using footage from the film's blooper reel. Watch each superhero at his/her best! See Thor try to catch that hammer! Watch Captain America dance! Iron Man, well, it's kind of hard to distinguish the scripted version and the blooper version. See the entire blooper reel here. -via Laughing Squid

See also: Star Wars.

The absolutely stunning work of Swedish artist Anders Ramsell, who painted each frame as a 1.5 x 3cm work of art. It's taken him a while to complete the epic job; Pesco wrote about the first three minutes last year. The end result runs about 30 minutes, which is exactly how long Blade Runner should be. [Video Link]

An interesting study on female aggression points out the trouble with making declarations about inherent human nature based on speculation about sexual dynamics. New studies, including this one, are finding that women can be plenty competitive and aggressive. At The New York Times, John Tierney points out that old ideas about female passivity were based on "an evolutionary analysis of the reproductive odds in ancient polygynous societies in which some men were left single because dominant males had multiple wives".

(YouTube link)

Conan O'Brien entrusted Cyriak Harris and Nick denBoer (Smearballs ) to edit 150 hours of season three of his show CONAN into a highlight reel. The result is another work of art with the unmistakable Cyriak look. Yes, it eventually has a cow. -via Daily Picks and Flicks

Remember early-nineties Belgian techno of the sort that (Mike Shallcross quipped, as quoted on the wikies) was "tough, metallic tracks...with harsh, discordant synth lines that sounded like distressed Hoovers?" If you're having a hard time trying to recreate the sound from that description, try this.

This is Belgium Part Two: Cherry Moon On Valium has discovered a cheap and effective way to breathe new life into those old 12 inches: just slow them down to 115bpm, and voila (gesluierd): the intervening decades telescope down to nothing in an eyeblink.

Even though these Belgian records sound very "now", they are actually 20 years old and were meant to be played at a much, much faster speed. At the time this was the devil's music for us, but we have learned to listen through the claps and distorted kicks and discovered that if you slow these really dark and heavy techno records down all the way to about 115 bpm, it suddenly makes them sound less frantic, ballsier and a lot sexier. Belgium at its best when pitched down.

The covers of these records are quite generic and don't really lend themselves to animating , so we figured we would bring you the visual aspect of this musical genre that you can't not be fascinated by: the dance. We were very lucky to have found some people who can still do the typical moves, and with them dancing in front of the record sleeves (and sometimes inside of them) we bring you our ultimate tribute to a glorious period in our Belgian musical heritage.

This is Belgium Part Two: Cherry Moon On Valium

(via JWZ)