Zizibaluba

As most people reading this post will be aware, free media of all kinds is just a few clicks away.

No matter what content is required, a quick Google search (or a Bing one if the relentless pace of DMCA notices is spoiling results) is the only thing required to get almost anything without paying.

But just because one can, does it necessarily follow that one should?

Last evening during a barbecue I found myself chatting with the owner of a manufacturing company about some of what I believe to be the driving forces behind piracy. He told me that his business doesn’t suffer from copyright infringement in any meaningful way and it soon became apparent that with his computing ability he wouldn’t know how to share a file even if i’d taken the time to show him.

Nevertheless, we discussed the issue of availability, of how pirated content is readily and simply on tap. This, versus many of the comparatively off-putting and complex solutions offered by entertainment companies.

We chatted about the possibility that many pirates would not have bought the content in the first place and therefore no real damage had been done by them downloading a copy.

The guy, already into his 70s, was also fascinated by the “sharing is caring” idea, where people gift content in order to enrich the lives of others and society as a whole.

And then he dropped the bombshell. Had I heard of Matza and Sykes? No, I responded. Were they coming to the barbecue? “Unlikely,” he said.

Ipad in one hand and a burger in the other, I searched for these gentleman and discovered that they’d come up with an interesting theory in the 1950s.

The duo theorized that people are well aware of their moral obligations to abide by the law so therefore, when those people commit crimes, they have to employ techniques in order to overcome their inbuilt desire to do the “right thing”. They do this, Matza and Sykes said, through denial and by justifying their behavior.

So how does their theory apply to what we’d just been discussing, I asked. Well, it may not, my beer-drinking friend explained, but he gave me his interpretation anyway.

On the first point, that for many years content providers have failed to make media easily available, I was informed that Matza and Sykes may have explained this in two ways:

Denial of responsibility: The offender (in this case a copyright infringer) would justify his actions by stating that he’d been forced into a situation beyond his control (needed content, but stupid movie studio didn’t make it easily available).

Denial of the victim: The offender (file-sharer) believes that the victim (movie studio) deserved an offense to be committed against them – in this case due to their incompetence in making content available.

So what about the notion that many file-sharers would never have bought the content they download? Yep, Matza and Sykes apparently have an explanation for that too.

Denial of injury: The offender justifies his behavior due to a belief that no harm has been caused by their action. These huge companies don’t need any more money, do they?

But Sharing must be Caring, right? Well maybe, but there’s a theory on that too.

Appeal to higher loyalties: The offender believes that their ‘crime’ was actually for the greater good, with positive long-term consequences. Enrichment of society via the sharing of culture, perhaps?

Playing devil’s advocate, I questioned whether a person’s moral obligations in these instances should always be aligned with the law of the land. For example, if a law existed today but was abolished tomorrow, should individuals immediately change their moral values to suit?

In this case, would today’s justification for committing a crime become tomorrow’s straightforward reason for carrying out a legal activity? Are all laws necessarily moral anyway, or do we sometimes have a moral obligation to fight back?

With more than a few beers consumed and definitely no psychology or sociology degree to fall back on, the conversation was already running away from me – but then it struck me. Most people grabbing free content from the Internet aren’t required to justify their behavior to anyone. They click – and obtain – and there’s rarely any subsequent debate over morals.

However, that doesn’t mean that people won’t play fair. At TF earlier this week we were discussing the new ‘Downloaded’ movie which tells the story of Napster. The reviews aren’t very good and none of us here have yet seen it, but perhaps we should. Despite its availability on dozens of torrent sites, Ernesto put his hand in his pocket and tried to buy it from Amazon. He was informed that it wasn’t available in his location. Clearly the makers of the movie haven’t learned very much.

What this shows is that people can and will do the “right thing” but in order to capitalize on that content providers must also do their bit. It’s easy for Matza and Sykes to say that those committing social wrongs are merely trying to ease consciences with their denials, but their ‘excuses’ in the file-sharing space are valuable indicators of where file-sharers’ morals lie.

So maybe if all the soul-easing excuses uttered by file-sharers were taken away – by making content available, by not being a greedy corporation, by not lobbying for aggressive laws that conflict with social norms – perhaps we’d be left with a situation in which many more people would buy content freely.

Whether that would be through guilt or simply because their service requirements (sorry, excuses) had been listened to would be here nor there. Content would be bought and after all, isn’t that what the fight’s all about?

Source: The Morals of Grabbing Free Content From the Web

So-called copyright-trolling in the file-sharing space was an activity pioneered in Germany around eight years ago.

Ever since, many hundreds of thousands of Internet users there have been plagued by threats from rightsholders of almost every kind of media, with many settling for amounts up to 1,200 euros a shot.

As we know, these pay-up-or-else schemes also spread to the UK and then to the United States, proving particularly popular with porn companies out to prop up their failing business models. One such outfit, Malibu Media, has filed dozens of lawsuits in the United States and recently made efforts to export their project back to Germany. It didn’t go well.

Last year, Malibu issued complaints in Germany that Internet subscribers had illegally shared eight of their X-Art movies including “Flexible Beauty” and “Young passion”. As a result the company wanted to obtain the identities of Internet subscribers behind the IP addresses it held on file in order to extract settlements from them.

However, as outlined in a recently published ruling by the District Court of Munich, the complaints proved problematic.

Firstly, Malibu claimed to be the creator of the movies but the District Court said that the company’s name was nowhere to be found on the videos in question, only references to the X-Art brand. As a result Malibu were unable to convince the Court that they held the rights.

Next there was the issue of distribution. Although Malibu claimed that the movies had been released worldwide, it failed to demonstrate that they had either been released locally on DVD or via an online platform. On that basis the District Court found that the works had never been released in Germany and were therefore ineligible for protection under the Copyright Act.

Finally, the District Court said that the actual content of the videos raised issues under Germany’s Copyright Act. The Court noted that the videos showed “only sexual processes in a primitive way” and are therefore classified as “pure pornography.” As such, the productions are not a “personal intellectual creation” and are not entitled to protection under Germany’s Copyright Act.

The District Court’s ruling is definitely a setback for Malibu in Germany but it should be noted they have been extremely persistent in the United States following earlier problems. They’ll probably be back after some fine-tunes, there’s simply too much money at stake to give up now.

Source: Porn Films Don’t Get Copyright Protection in Germany, Court Rules

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For the beginning (or even experienced) cyclist, making your own bike repairs can seem like a daunting task. Most bike repair guides you'll find around the ol' internet can be complicated labyrinths of instruction that end up doing more harm than good. But taking your wheels to a pro can come with a major price tag. Bike Doctor wants to give you the knowledge you need to save a trip to the shop—but in an easy, digestible form that's useful to all walks of the bicycle world.

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3 friends craft 36-inch controller for art festival

Back in April, we pointed out that the MPAA was working overtime to screw over the blind in the negotiations for a WIPO treaty to make it easier for the blind and those with vision impairment to access works for the blind. They'd already succeeded in screwing over the deaf by getting them excluded from the treaty, despite it initially being for both. Over the past two months, however, the MPAA tried to go on a charm offensive going on and on about how much they really, really liked blind people and wanted to help get a treaty passed, even somehow getting the National Federation for the Blind to throw their own members under the bus by issuing a joint statement claiming to support the treaty.

However, over the past week, the reports coming out of the treaty negotiations in Marrakesh have been consistent about one thing: the MPAA's influence over the US negotiators has been immense, and the US negotiators have been the single source blocking the completion of the treaty by arguing to gut the entire treaty, making it next to useless. They've fought against fair use. They've fought against exceptions to copyright. It's gotten so bad that even the mainstream press has picked up on the MPAA's direct assault on the blind. The Washington Post has an article all about the MPAA's attempts to block and change the treaty such that it is effectively useless.

But the treaty, years in the making, could be in jeopardy because of unresolved differences between advocates for the blind and the Motion Picture Association of America, which says the accord could undermine protections important for filmmakers, publishers and other major industries.

Of course, you might wonder why the MPAA is so concerned about a treaty for the blind, which is mostly focused on written materials, since that shouldn't impact the MPAA very much. The answer is what we've said for years: copyright maximalists will fight against any treaty that recognizes the rights of people to push back against maximalism through things like fair use. And the MPAA isn't even coy about this:

“What happens here could affect other future treaties,” said Chris Marcich, who is in charge of dealing with the negotiations for the MPAA and its international wing, the Motion Picture Association.

Yes, how dare the public have their rights supported during treaty negotiations about what they can do with works they own. Horrors.

The article also highlights that the MPAA was instrumental in getting the negotiators to drop more expansive fair use rights of the public included, insisting instead on only allowing the "three step test" from the Berne Convention included. As we've discussed in the past the three step test is merely one way in which a country can protect the public's rights to limitations and exceptions in copyright law, but maximalists like to claim it's the only way, because if you read it in the strictest sense, it severely limits fair use, because a use fails the "three step test" if it "unreasonably prejudices the legitimate interests of the rights holder." In other words, if the rights holder doesn't like it, no fair use for you. Amazingly, even this test is now not enough for the MPAA:

But the MPAA says the protections afforded by the three-step test are still too weak and wants them to be more effective. Moreover, Hollywood is strongly resisting language in the draft that mirrors the concept of “fair use,” long embodied in U.S. copyright law. Fair use says that copyright material can be used without permission in certain circumstances, such as for nonprofit educational purposes.

Related to all of this, KEI has received, via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, all emails between MPAA lobbyists and the negotiators from the USPTO (who are handling much of the negotiation). It's worth noting, by the way, that the key person at the USPTO (and the person addressed in many of these emails) is Shire Perlmutter, currently the Chief Policy Officer and Director for International Affairs at the USPTO, but prior to that was the Executive VP of IFPI (the international version of of the RIAA) and before that, was VP and Associate General Counsel for Intellectual Property Policy at Time Warner... a member of the MPAA when it owned Warner Bros.

Included in the documents is an incredible attack on fair use by the MPAA, sent in April of this year, just as the MPAA was insisting it wanted to help the blind, and at the same time that the MPAA's Ben Sheffner was, ridiculously, pretending that the MPAA was one of the world's biggest defenders of fair use. Yet, at the very same time, they were promoting a document that claimed the following about fair use:

As has been pointed out by various commentators, open-ended systems such as fair use under Sec. 107 US Copyright Act may raise issues with the three-step test, in particular the first and possibly third step.... Consequently, it is neither necessary nor would it be reasonable or desirable in view of the mentioned difficulties to include an express reference to fair use or fair dealing in the proposed instrument.

A specific reference to fair use or fair dealing could also be misleading for it could be understood as an invitation to implement the instrument in such a way, whether or not it sits well with the particular legal system of the Contracting Party in question. However, any wholesale introduction of a particular legal feature, be it fair use, fair dealing or a closed list, would be contrary to the intended effect of the discretion that Contracting Parties may exercise with regard to the way of implementing their treaty obligations....

At a time when the fair use doctrine is considered by many as a cure for all ills, this would clearly be the wrong sign....

Consequently, for all the foregoing reasons, the reference to specific ways of implementation such as fair use or fair dealing should be omitted from the proposed instrument.

These are the defenders of fair use? These are the folks who claim they're trying to help the blind? That's all a lie. And the quotes above are just a few. There are a lot more of that nature. The MPAA wants to screw over the blind out of a fear that people might realize that fair use and other rights of the public might just be more important than an artificial government monopoly system to inflate their bottom lines.

Later in the documents, you can see the cozy relationship between the key government players, Perlmutter and Justin Hughes (another well-known maximalist supporter, now in the government) and MPAA members and lobbyists. There's also a discussion about how three steps in Berne only applies to certain types of copyright rights (reproduction rights), but does not apply to other things like public performances, and how their wishes are to go even further and make sure the very limiting 3 steps applies to everything. It also shows that the US government, via Perlmutter and Hughes, helped propose back to the MPAA how they might achieve their goals in the agreement. In an email from Scott Martin at Paramount to Perlmutter:

I suggested to Justin the concept that I heard from both you and Karyn Temple Claggett: membership in the VIP Treaty be limited to countries that have ratified and implemented the WCT. Perhaps if there is resistance from non-ratifiers, the US/EU could then proposal a new Article Ebis that would apply only to countries which want to ratify the VIP Treaty but which have not yet ratified and implemented WCT.

Justin seemed intrigued by the idea and mused that perhaps the Japanese proposal for Article E could be expanded to cover this separate goal.

There are also cases where people, such as Time Warner employees, were sending language they wanted inserted directly to Hughes at his request. At one point, Hughes emails Bradley Silver at Time Warner with a simple request:

Could you just send me the whole language?

That was after Silver specifically asked Hughes to "tweak" the language in one section.

Basically, the documents make it abundantly clear that the MPAA is trying to keep fair use/fair dealing way out of the agreement, and then seeking to undermine things even further by putting in place an extreme version of the three step test -- a test that already goes way too far in limiting the public's rights to make use of works. It further shows that the MPAA's public stance that it's in support of a treaty for the blind is hogwash. It's in support of a treaty that strips away many of the rights for the blind.

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Downloading files from the web can be achieved via many routes but for some a download manager is the best solution.

One of the most popular is JDownloader, a Java-based tool that works on Windows, Linux and Mac. Among other features it can download videos, pull files from countless file-hosting sites and finish things off by automatically extracting them.

This week JDownloader found itself at the center of a controversy when news broke that the Hamburg Regional Court had banned the software. That statement turned out to be a little overbroad and was soon corrected, however the problem was still fairly serious.

The Regional Court had ruled against a feature present in an earlier beta (not official) version of JDownloader 2 which enabled the downloading of copyrighted and protected RTMPE streams. The Court decided that this represented a circumvention of an “effective technological measure” under Section 95a of Germany’s Copyright Act.

As a result the Court issued a preliminary injunction against JDownloader2 and threatened its makers, Appwork, with a 250,000 euro fine for “production, distribution and possession” of the Open Source Software.

“JDownloader can no longer be offered with a very specific feature – downloading videos that are ‘protected’ with RTMPE. This feature found its way into a beta of JDownloader 2 through our Open Source community. We removed that feature as soon as we got notified about it months ago,” Appworks’ Alex told TorrentFreak.

As outlined by Alex, the feature to download RTMPE streams wasn’t created by AppWork, tt was a third party tool that in its newest version also made the download of RTMPE streams possible on top of being able to download regular RTMP. This update of the third party tool was added to JDownloader 2 by an open source developer.

“In our new update system, we update every client very frequently. Once an update is committed by one of our longtime Open Source developers it can potentially reach millions of users within minutes. This continuous deployment is an important feature of JDownloader2 and of course necessary to be able to repair broken plugins and features as soon as possible, instead of only getting updates from time to time.”

But despite Appwork itself not creating the feature, the Court is now holding the company responsible, a situation which Alex believes is comparable to any Internet site being held responsible for the actions of its users.

“For us, as Open Source developers, news like this paints a very dark picture of how content owners and lawyers can destroy what has become so important to so many of us: Open Source Software – which is included in almost any electronic device,” Alex explains.

“Is it really OK that Open Source software companies like us are held liable for allegedly illegal updates the community publishes? YouTube is not. Forums are not. So why are software companies liable under German law?” he questions.

Alex says that this legal environment, in which creators can be held liable for the actions of others, will only discourage developers from getting involved in Open Source projects.

“Are developers really liable if another developer in the community commits code that might be protected somewhere in a software patent? How are Open Source communities supposed to check? What if a program that is included in another Open Source program makes an update that adds illegal functionality?” Alex asks.

“We definitely think that Open Source developers shouldn’t have to worry about this, because frankly, they can’t possibly check thousands of lines of code for every software and update they include. We are very worried about this and hope that other developers and users of free software are as concerned as we are,” he concludes.

Alex says that Appwork’s CEO is currently fighting the company’s corner and any assistance from the Open Source community would be gratefully received. The next hearing in the JDownloader case is scheduled for September.

Source: JDownloader Court Ruling Worries Open Source Software Developers

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Now that viewers can get excellent movie theater experiences at homes, studios and theaters are trying different strategies to keep bringing them in. Tomorrow night, Paramount will try a new tactic: offering buyers of its $50 "Mega Ticket" an early viewing of World War Z in 3D, plus a pair of collectible 3D glasses, a movie poster, an HD digital copy of the movie when it's available on Blu-ray, and a small (seriously?) popcorn. We're not sure if making it more expensive to go to the movies is the right way to go, but maybe it's worth it for those who are really hyped about the film. The viewing is only available at a few Regal Theaters, listed after the break if if you're interested in what's listed as $75 worth of value.

Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD

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Source: World War Z Movie (Twitter), Fandango

In this episode, Ledo finally meets up with Kugel, who made himself a God-figure and took control of a crapload of other fleets. I thought this episode was particularly interesting since we know that the anime does have its roots in politics, as stated from Gen himself.

The contrast of the ideological structure between Kugel's fleet and Gargantia is particularly interesting as it can be seen as a conflict between the old systems of imperialist Japan and the new, rising middle class as a result from Western egalitarianism. Kugel runs his society by the idea that each person has an inherent "worth" value, and should be treated better or worse depending on their value to society, while Gargantia is run under the concept that everyone is equal, and everyone deserves (socially) equal treatment, a very liberal idea. In a sense, Kugel is a remnant of the old Japanese imperialist ideas instilled in the older generation, which can still be seen in the form of Japanese corporate structure.

The ideology of Gargantia is that of the Western-inspired youth of Japan, the ones who watch Hollywood movies, read Twilight, Tweet, and become enchanted with the Western ideals of equality, liberty, justice, and rejection of tradition. It is easy to see the differences between Kugel's fleet and the Gargantians just by the way they dress. While Gargantians adorn their clothing with bright, vibrant colors, reminiscent of the flashy outfits of today's Shinjuku youths, Kugel's ship tends to celebrate the suppression of individuality through darker, more conservative tones.

While at first Gargantia seems like the obvious choice for "the good guy," it does have some problems that are presented throughout the show. Gargantia relies on an ideology that takes everyone in, supports them, and redistributes the consequences among the entire group, only relying on the self-governance of the people to prevent any one individual from taking advantage of the reductions in personal risks and gaining extreme power or wealth. Pinion's secession marks the decline and social collapse of Gargantia, as he realizes that he can use Gargantia's resources (Ledo being one of them) for advancing his own self-interests, taking advantage of the self-perpetuating blinding ideology that the majority of Gargantians adhere to.

Although Gargantia's ideology is great for self-expression, Kugel's methodology and definition for happiness is better for maximizing production, and in the show, production is military expansion and imperialism. He defines happiness as "the realization that you're being useful to society," a very quintessentially Japan (and also Asian) traditional ideology, and an ideology that the old hold onto and the youth have come to reject through individualism.

In these two conflicts we have Ledo, stuck between the traditional Japanese values of climbing up the traditional corporate ladder conquering fleets and killing tentacle monsters or returning to being a part-timer on Gargantia and enjoying reproductive privileges with Amy. Caught between the two worlds, Ledo thinks of returning to be a truNEET4lyfe.

So it's essentially Evangelion where Shinji decides that he wants to do stuff because he wants to do it instead of because it'll benefit the entire world, so in the end of 2.0 everyone dies because he wanted to have sex with a clone of his mom.

TL;DR 10/10 Gen does it again!

For October 1, 2013 GRIMES, Iowa, June 12, 2013 – Anime producer and distributor Right Stuf, Inc. and its Nozomi Entertainment division are pleased to...

Happy Birthday remains the most profitable song ever. Every year, it is the song that earns the highest royalty rates, sent to Warner/Chappell Music (which makes millions per year from "licensing" the song). However, as we've been pointing out for years, the song is almost certainly in the public domain. Robert Brauneis did some fantastic work a few years ago laying out why the song's copyright clearly expired many years ago, even as Warner/Chappell pretends otherwise. You can read all the background, but there are a large number of problems with the copyright, including that the sisters who "wrote" the song, appear to have written neither the music, nor the lyrics. At best, they may have written a similar song called "Good Morning to All" in 1893, with the same basic melody, but there's evidence to suggest the melody itself predated the sisters. But, more importantly, the owner of the copyright (already questionable) failed to properly renew it in 1962, which would further establish that it's in the public domain.

The issue, as we've noted, is that it's just not cost effective for anyone to actually stand up and challenge Warner Music, who has strong financial incentive to pretend the copyright is still valid. Well, apparently, someone is pissed off enough to try. The creatively named Good Morning to You Productions, a documentary film company planning a film about the song Happy Birthday, has now filed a lawsuit concerning the copyright of Happy Birthday and are seeking to force Warner/Chappell to return the millions of dollars it has collected over the years. That's going to make this an interesting case.

More than 120 years after the melody to which the simple lyrics of Happy Birthday to You is set was first published, defendant Warner/Chappell boldly, but wrongfully and unlawfully, insists that it owns the copyright to Happy Birthday to You, and with that copyright the exclusive right to authorize the song's reproduction, distribution, and public performances pursuant to federal copyright law. Defendant Warner/Chappell either has silenced those wishing to record or perform Happy Birthday to You or has extracted millions of dollars in unlawful licensing fees from those unwilling or unable to challenge its ownership claims.

Irrefutable documentary evidence, some dating back to 1893, s hows that the copyright to Happy Birthday to You, if there ever was a valid copyright to any part of the song expired no later than 1921 and that if defendant Warner/Chappell owns any rights to Happy Birthday to You, those rights are limited to the extremely narrow right to reproduce and distribute specific piano arrangements for the song published in 1935. Significantly, no court has ever adjudicated the validity or scope of the defendant's claimed interest in Happy Birthday to You, nor in the song's melody or lyrics, which are themselves independent works.

Plaintiff GMTY, on behalf of itself and all others similarly situated, seeks a declaration that Happy Birthday to You is dedicated to public use and is in the public domain as well as monetary damages and restitution of all the unlawful licensing fees that defendant Warner/Chappell improperly collected from GMTY and all other Class members.

The full lawsuit, embedded below, goes through a detailed history of the song and any possible copyright claims around it. It covers the basic history of "Good Morning to You," but also notes that the "happy birthday" lyrics appeared by 1901 at the latest, citing a January 1901 edition of Inland Educator and Indiana School Journal which describes children singing a song called "happy birthday to you." They also point to a 1907 book that uses a similar structure for a song called "good-bye to you" which also notes that you can sing "happy birthday to you" using the same music. In 1911, the full "lyrics" to Happy Birthday to You were published, with a notation that it's "sung to the same tune as 'Good Morning.'" There's much more in the history basically showing that the eventual copyright that Warner/Chappell holds is almost entirely unrelated to the song Happy Birthday to You.

The detail in the filing is impressive, and I can't wait to see how Warner/Chappell replies. As the filing notes, there are a variety of copyright claims around the song, but all are invalid or expired, and the very, very narrow copyright that Warner/Chappell might hold is not on the song itself. In other words, Warner/Chappell is almost certainly guilty of massive copyfraud -- perhaps the most massive in history -- in claiming a copyright it clearly has no right to.

If and to the extent that defendant Warner/Chappell relies upon the 1893, 1896, 1899, or 1907 copyrights for the melody of Good Morning to All, those copyrights expired or were forfeited as alleged herein.

As alleged above, the 1893 and 1896 copyrights to the original and revised versions of Song Stories for the Kindergarten, which contained the song Good Morning to All were not renewed by Summy and accordingly expired in 1921 and 1924, respectively.

As alleged above, the 1899 copyright to Song Stories for the Sunday School, which contained Good Morning to All, and the 1907 copyright to Good Morning to All were not renewed by Summy Co. before its expiration in 1920 and accordingly expired in 1927 and 1935, respectively.

The 1893, 1896, 1899, and 1907 copyrights to Good Morning to All were forfeited by the republication of Good Morning to All in 1921 without proper notice of its original 1893 copyright.

The copyright to Good Morning to All expired in 1921 because the 1893 copyright to Song Stories for the Kindergarten was not properly renewed.

The piano arrangements for Happy Birthday to You published by Summy Co. 111 in 1935 (Reg. Nos. E51988 and E51990) were not eligible for federal copyright protection because those works did not contain original works of authorship, except to the extent of the piano arrangements themselves.

The 1934 and 1935 copyrights pertained only to the piano arrangements, not to the melody or lyrics of the song Happy Birthday to You.

The registration certificates for The Elementary Worker and His Work in 1912, Harvest in 1924, and Children's Praise and Worship in 1928, which did not attribute authorship of the lyrics to Happy Birthday to You to anyone, are prima facie evidence that the lyrics were not authored by the Hill Sisters.

And, now we await Warner/Chappell desperately trying to refute an awful lot of evidence that they've been engaging in millions of dollars worth of copyfraud year after year.

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Perhaps the NSA has finally met its match: copyright infringement. You may have seen the logo that the NSA is using for the PRISM program (shown here upside down for a reason that will become clear shortly): Well, it turns out that the prism image that they used is being used without permission. The photo was actually taken by Adam Hart-Davis, a well-known BBC presenter. You can see the original below:
Photo by Adam Hart-Davis/DHD Multimedia Gallery As Adam's son, Damon, notes in the link above, the image is free for use via his gallery under some simple terms, including acknowledging the author. Damon jokingly suggests asking the NSA for a small donation, though he worries about any undue attention from the folks at the NSA.

Of course, in a country where copyright laws trump all, perhaps Damon could sue for infringement and seek discovery to find out all the documentation on PRISM.

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A Japanese man has finally been arrested after impersonating a mysterious foreigner in order to rape his girlfriend’s two daughters.

The 52-year-old unemployed Okayama prefecture man was dating a local woman, but apparently started to take an interest in her daughters as well.

He broke into her home whilst only her eldest daughter, in her thirties, was home, and raped her whilst she was taking a bath.

He was subsequently also charged with raping and assaulting her other daughter, then in her twenties, in 2005.

In both cases he used a duplicate key to gain entry to his partner’s home when nobody but the daughter in question was present, donning a balaclava and covering his face whilst screaming at them “don’t move!” in English, pretending to be a foreigner of unspecified nationality (all foreigners in Japan are automatically assumed to speak English).

The man is facing multiple charges of rape and assault, though it is not clear if he maintains his innocence – or if the first incident was reported and police spent the intervening 8 years looking for a masked “foreign” rapist.

1. I might be able to still pull all-nighters but I do not nearly enjoy them as much. In undergrad, I’d have a genuine sense of accomplishment after I pulled an all-nighter. And I pulled several to the point it was the norm, not the exception. Since starting my Master’s program, whenever I’ve needed to stay up to complete an assignment, I would  first lay down fetal-style and try not to cry while chastising my need to complete major assignments at the eleventh hour.

2. In connection with not pulling all-nighters, I learned that if you can turn in assignments at any point in the quarter or semester, turn them in early. It saves you so much heartache and stress in the long-run. Also, your professors will appreciate it.

3. I learned that there are so many things I am never ever going to know. While pursuing a graduate degree might make you more knowledgeable in a certain field, you’ll come into contact with so much literature that you’ll begin to recognize just how limited your knowledge of the world really is.

4. I didn’t really learn this next lesson in graduate school but it definitely confirmed something my parents instilled: Having a degree doesn’t make one educated. There are and there will continue to be plenty of uneducated idiots with degrees. The point is to try not to be one of them.

5. Grad students just do not have any school spirit whatsoever. You couldn’t pay a grad student to attend something that is not academic-related. Okay, you could pay us but that would be the only reason we’re going.

6. I learned that professors assess you now more than ever, according to what they think you are capable of. It is annoying as hell if you are somewhat of a good student. And once you get a reputation of being a good student, there is no turning back. All of a sudden, the difference between an A- and an A is the fact that your professor believes you can subjectively do better.

7. I learned you can make an argument that just about anything in life is socially constructed. I also learned that I don’t buy the argument that everything in life is socially constructed.

8. Academics really like the following words: “Socially constructed,” “discourse,” “privilege,” and “hegemonic,” and sooner or later, it’ll disgust you how much you’re starting to use all those words in everyday conversation.

9. Grad school involves looking at the world with a critical lens and the capacity to do this will become a part of who you are. You will see the world differently if you’re doing it right. Sometimes this will have an effect on your interests and your personal relationships. And the effect will not necessarily be positive.

10. Now for the most important lesson: THE WORLD IS REALLY REALLY SCREWED UP. And there’s nothing you can do about it. Okay, just kidding, you can do something about it. You just have to remember that first and foremost, that what needs to change is you. And if you can do that, well, you’re already miles ahead of 95% of most human beings.

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The MPAA has been trying to rehabilitate its image concerning its well documented attempts to screw over the blind and the deaf in blocking the decades-in-negotiations WIPO treaty to improve access to works. Over at KEI, Fedro De Tomassi, has a detailed explanation for how the MPAA fought to keep "audio-visual works" completely out of the treaty, and the massive impact it has on education. First, he notes how frequently video is now used in the classroom:

Since I started taking classes at St. Olaf college 3 years ago, there has not been one professor that has not used some sort of audiovisual aid during the course. I am a political science major, and the trends of using videos is no different in the humanities. For example in my Russian and Eurasian politics class, we studied the relations between the Soviet Union and its satellite states today, and the use of Youtube videos and documentary films were instrumental in giving us a better understanding of the situation. The use of videos in education has become a norm to address the needs of various types of learners as well as to complement the various tools and sources at the disposal of the professors.

Videos are not used solely in the classroom, they are assigned as homework and part of the syllabus and the “reading list” of most if not all courses you have to take to get a bachelor today. Audiovisual materials also compose a large part of the library. Archival footage for example is an essential part of a history major curriculum.

Just last week, I had dinner with a university professor who was telling me the difficulty she had in trying to get the use of videos approved for her teaching, asking a variety of people about the copyright issues of even linking to clips online and getting back vague or contradictory answers.

Fedro then points out how the MPAA made sure the treaty for the blind and the deaf turned into one just for the blind.

In 2009, the Motion Picture Industry began to lobby the Obama Administration to narrow the treaty to "print disabilities" only, and to eliminate deaf persons as beneficiaries. By 2010, the Obama Administration took a hard line in the WIPO negotiations, backed upon by the European Union, to narrow the treaty, excluding deaf persons. This was designed to overcome political opposition from the MPAA, and the USPTO said the compromise on beneficiaries was necessary for the text to move forward. In November 2010, the WIPO SCCR agreed to separate the more "mature" issues of visually impaired and reading disabilities from "other disabilities" in its negotiations. In June 2011, a new committee sponsored negotiating text for this treaty (SCCR/24/9) defined beneficiaries in such a way that deaf persons were excluded.

But, that's not all. There were still questions around "audiovisual works" and the MPAA went to work again:

From 1985 to 2011, the various treaty proposals all would have covered any copyrighted work, including, for example SCCR/23/7, the text published in December 2011. But shortly after the MPAA was able to remove deaf persons as beneficiaries, they lobbied the Obama Administration to remove audiovisual works from the text. The Obama Administration proposed this formally in June 2012, and in December 2012, there was a deal to eliminate audiovisual works from the text, in order to get an agreement to hold a diplomatic conference in June 2013. Since nothing is set in stone in the negotiation, that decision can be changed, but it will probably require a change of position in the Obama White House, which has threatened to block the treaty if audiovisual works are included.

The MPAA's claims that it wants this treaty passed ring pretty hollow. It wants a completely gutted version approved at a time when audiovisual works are increasingly not just important, but necessary, for education.

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We need food to live, but did you know most of what you eat is poison, that every mouthful floods your veins with toxins, brings you ever closer to death? Modern humans are little more than swollen fleshy poison bags, walking the earth, suckling more poison via commercial “food” dispensaries. If you could wring out your body like a sponge, inky black fluid would gush out, contaminants from a lifetime of Standard American Diet (SAD).

Your burger is cancer fertilizer. Your cake is diabetes stimulus. And even if you eat a healthy diet, you are still submerged in toxic people who, via cruelty and casual disregard, incite cellular degeneration. There’s no escape from the poison.

Eggs

Eggs should be good for you, right? Packed with protein and vitamin D, often used in salads, a breakfast staple for decades and—NO THEY’RE POISON.  A recent study found that eggs are about as bad for you as smoking in terms of heart disease, increasing carotid wall thickness (a standard measure for heart disease risk) by nearly as much as someone who smokes regularly. It makes sense since a single egg yolk has 200mg of cholesterol and the daily limit is 300mg, and I mean, who only has one egg at breakfast?

I usually eat four or five eggs to speed up my body’s rate of decay. “Just die,” I whisper with each spoonful of cheesy eggs. “Just let it happen please. Please. Please God, let this end.”

Fish

Fish can’t be bad for you. It has fish oil, low fat, omega 3 fatty acids, and the American Heart Association recommends eating two fish per week, so you should definitely—NO IT’S POISON. Farm raised fish, fattened on grain diets, have high amounts of omega 6, a pro-inflammatory fatty acid. Tilapia and catfish fed on soy and corn pellets can actually have higher fat content than doughnuts, hamburgers, and bacon. And larger fish like marlin contain so much mercury they’re dangerous for pregnant women and children to eat due to the potential for developmental disorders; even regular people can develop memory problems, tremors, vision trouble, etc.

So is your fish healthy or deadly poison? It could be safe nutritious fish like trout or salmon, BUT NO IT’S DEFINITELY POISON.

Cheese

What, no! How could cheese be bad when it provides for strong bones and teeth (calcium), facilitates pregnancy (not conception; don’t be weird), tastes good, and is just all around POISON IT’S POISON IT WILL FLOOD YOUR INSIDES WITH DEATH.

Contrary to popular belief, calcium isn’t as great at preventing bone fractures as previously thought, and in fact, countries with the lowest rates of dairy consumption also have the lowest rates of osteoporosis. Cheese — and dairy in general — with its saturated fat content and high calories (even a thin slice usually has 100 calories) is linked to obesity, heart disease, irritable bowel syndrome, and even prostate cancer. Eating cheese is like drinking from one of those fancy grails at the end of Indie Jones 3.

Rice

I use brown rice in practically every meal I make, partially because I heard brown rice was healthier than white but mostly because it’s a cheap way to quiet tummy gurgles. On the back of the bag, a little info box says brown rice lowers my risk of heart disease and certain cancers, that U.S. Dietary Guidelines recommends 3-6 servings of grains per day, and hey, who can go wrong with rice? It’s the most basic food for practically the whole world—AND IT’S POISON POISON POISON.

Because of pesticides in the soil, rice contains huge quantities of inorganic arsenic, especially brown rice because the residues concentrate in the outer shell of the grain. Arsenic is what the Borgias used to poison enemies. It’s used to kill bugs and rats. And with all the rice I eat, my tissues must be soaked in the stuff. Good.

Red Meat

Growing up, my dad would have a steak and a whole bottle of wine for dinner every night, then stare off at a black television screen, silent, dead eyed, imagining a world where I’d never been born. He’s still chugging along, powered by the vast herds of cattle he’s ingested, unwilling or unable to allow any physical decline. So maybe red meat’s protein really does help build muscle, fortify tissues, and—NO IT’S POISON DEADLY LETHAL FATAL POISON.

In a 20 year study of 110,000 adults, eating a bit of meat the size of a card deck every day increased the chances of death during the study by 13%. An extra serving of meat like a hot dog or a couple slices of bacon increased it by 20%. Previous studies have associated red meat consumption with heart disease, diabetes, and cancer.

Organic Food

Well, it’s a relief to know there’s a reliable healthy alternative to all these toxic processed foods. Turns out all those Whole Foods shoppers really do know better, will live longer happier lives with their families and—JUST KIDDING IT’S POISON.

Organic food, because it’s grown with manure, is 8 times more likely to make you sick with E. coli than regular, um, inorganic food. It’s also more likely to contain salmonella, carcinogenic toxins produced by fungi, and other bacteria. ALL FOOD EACH AND EVERY FOOD IS POISON.

Water

No, not water. Water can’t be poison. It can’t possibly — YES IT IS POISON. Tap water contains fluoride, which has been shown to damage soft tissues (e.g. the brain, kidneys, endocrine system) as well as teeth and bones. It also contains chlorine, which in some studies has been shown to cause breast cancer in women.

So it’s all poison. You are drowning in a toxic soup, choking the life out of you from the moment you’re born to the moment you prematurely die of colon cancer. The air is full of smog, the water full of fertilizer runoff, and the food saturated with toxic chemicals. The healthiest option I can see is to never be born, to float in the ethereal plane of potentiality where no one ever lives or dies, where all are safe from the unbearable horrors of existing in a world made of poison. Mm, one can dream.

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Today during a Pokemon presentation at E3, Game Freak talked about why they introduced a new monster type for the first time in 14 years—the fairy type. It was a move that retconned the type of already existing Pokemon, like the ones pictured above. What gives? Turns out, there's a reason they did it.

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The Facebook Like and Share are so ingrained into our day to day internet lives that they're more than just verbs, they're almost instinctual. But what does an inherently digital, formless thing like a Like actually look like? Well, a lot like this, actually.

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One of the common "defenses" of patents that we often hear is that "investors require them." That's simply not true. There are, certainly, some short-sighted investors who require patents, but more and more of the most respected investors have spoken out against the patent system, acknowledging that it does more harm than good. The latest example of this comes from Rob Pegoraro, who spoke to a bunch of startups presenting at a "Demo Day" and asked each of them about their patent strategy.

While some of them are filing for their own patents, a key point was that their investors definitely didn't require it or push them in that direction.

None said their investors had pushed them to file for patents.

Even more to the point, investors seem to recognize that patents can take a big chunk of money out of early investment if startups file for a patent. Fortify Ventures managing director Jonathon Perrelli pointed out:

“When they’re raising $50,000 to pay for ramen and hosting services and their desks, $15,000 doesn’t have to go to intellectual property.”

The article also asked the startups if they were worried about patent trolls, and, unfortunately, many of the startups seemed fairly naive about the whole thing, suggesting that they're okay since they're not copying anything. That's not how patent law works, of course. Patent trolls pop out of the woodwork claiming you violate some tiny thing all the time. The one company that Pegoraro spoke to that insisted it was impossible that they violated a patent is likely in for a big surprise if it ever gets big enough to attract patent troll attention.

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Just a guess, but it probably sucks to be the IRS right now. Between reports about them snooping on people's emails and their targeting of conservative groups, it's quite easy to paint them as a big, evil bureaucracy. Actually, it was pretty easy to do so before all that. You can generally rely on the hatred of the people for a group that requires meticulous spending records and then collects taxes. Big, bad, evil. What could be worse?

Well, how about hypocritical? That sure seems like an apt word in light of reports on how flighty the IRS was with tax-payer money for their own comforts.

The conference spending included $4 million for an August 2010 gathering in Anaheim, Calif., for which the agency did not negotiate lower room rates, even though that is standard government practice, according to a statement by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
Instead, some of the 2,600 attendees received benefits, including baseball tickets and stays in presidential suites that normally cost $1,500 to $3,500 per night. In addition, 15 outside speakers were paid a total of $135,000 in fees, with one paid $17,000 to talk about "leadership through art," the House committee said.

Infuriating, right? The bald-faced audacity of the organization that collects our taxes using some of that tax money to go to baseball games has the air of outright thievery. Fortunately, thanks to the investigation by the Treasury Department, we now have a full and accurate account of the awful IRS spending, right?

No, we damn well don't, because the IRS -- and I stress this, the IRS -- is claiming it can't find its own receipts, so the spending may well have been even worse.


Hypocrisy, thy name is now an acronym, and that acronym is IRS. This is the type of thing that keeps pitchfork and torch manufacturers in business. In fact, were it not for the undeniably smooth face and impossibly perfect coiffure of Anderson Cooper getting me through this, I might just be leading the mob.


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velox alerts us to the latest example of government officials abusing copyright law (or claims of copyright law) to avoid basic transparency. And this one's quite incredible. Kyle Pell, who runs the website bustedmugshots.com, is involved in a lawsuit after Salt Lake County Sheriff Jim Winder stopped releasing mugshots by claiming he held the copyright on them. Yes, the police, claiming copyright on mugshots. Winder's heart may be in the right place, arguing that sites like that are unfair, but that's no excuse for his own actions.

"I believe that the practice of using these mug shots to belittle and abuse our citizens is immoral and repugnant," he said when discussing the websites in general during an interview Tuesday.

"A compassionate society does not utilize the scarlet letter," he said

In other words, he's admitting that his copyright claim has nothing to do with what copyright law is for, but everything to do with censoring a website. Yeah, that's probably not a good idea.

This is not what copyright law is intended for, and the use as such is a clear abuse of the law. Of course, whether or not there's even a legitimate copyright there is a bit of somewhat unsettled law. While it's clear that works created by the federal government are automatically public domain, it's a little fuzzier when you get down to local governments. Many local governments, smartly, take the position that they face the same rules as the federal government, and assume that such documents are public, but it's not entirely clear under the law if this is necessarily the case. Go down to the level of a sheriff's department, and he could potentially argue that the prohibition on copyrighting works created by government don't apply. It's a weak argument, to be sure, and one that I doubt would hold up in court, but it's not entirely settled.

This is unfortunate, of course. We've long argued -- and believe strongly -- that all government created works should be public domain. They don't need the copyright incentive to be created, obviously. Furthermore, mugshots have long been seen as a part of the public record. To retroactively claim copyright on them is just bizarre. There's clearly no copyright interest in the photos. They weren't created because of copyright. The government isn't using them to promote greater public learning or to support more content creation. It's flat out using it to censor a website that it doesn't like. That should mean that even if a court unfortunately finds that the Sheriff can claim copyright, opening his mouth to flat out say that he's doing it to censor the website probably undermines his argument, as it shows a government deliberately blocking someone's speech.

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The fact that the public is still charged fees to access public records already seems rather questionable. After all, the creation of these documents is paid for by taxpayers. Keeping them locked up behind a governmental paywall often seems like double-dipping.

It's time to add one more to the list of government entities continuing to separate the public from public records with access fees. This time it's the state of California manning the ratchet.

A proposal to drastically increase fees for the public and press to look at court records is still up in the air after divergent votes from the California Senate and Assembly.

The fee, embodied in trailer bill language supported by the governor, the Judicial Council and its administrative arm, will inevitably restrict access to public documents and has raised an outcry from newspaper publishers and open-government advocates.

California courts already charge $15 for searches of court records that take more than 10 minutes.

The proposal from the Administrative Office of the Courts and backed by Gov. Jerry Brown would have the state charge $10 for every name, file or information that comes back on any search, regardless of the time spent.

$10 a search result? Granted, this would be an in-person, human-powered search at a courthouse, but this is ridiculous. Those pushing this increase have offered several different rationales for the increase (curb data mining, raise money, clerks not equipped with stopwatches), but have been completely unable to project whether this increase will offset the (apparently) increased costs.

One argument against the fee is that its advocates have not been able to tie it to an actual dollar amount, a fact admitted in a Judicial Council report that said: "The amount of revenue this proposal will bring in is impossible to estimate."

It's a government thing. Take a vague feeling that the public is draining public services of money and use this non-estimate as justification for a rate hike. Meanwhile, supporters will likely continue to count unhatched budgetary chickens without considering the worst case scenario (which is also the most common scenario associated with tax hikes). Jim Ewert of the California Newspaper Publishers Association points out what should be obvious to lawmakers at this point:

"...[I]f it's adopted there is going to be very little additional funding, because people just aren't going to make the request. There's going to be even less understanding of government court activities. It's very shortsighted."

You raise the price, you get fewer purchasers. Government services aren't that much different from retail services, especially when the "consumer" is paying directly.

So, how does something this unpopular (at least with open government advocates and the press) get as far as this did? Easy. All you have to do is move quickly and exclude interested parties from the discussion.

The votes in both houses were taken at budget subcommittee hearings dealing with a host of judicial branch issues. There was no debate or discussion at either hearing.

The Assembly committee rejected the fee increase. The Senate committee approved it, with a stipulation that members of the press be exempt. There is no language, at this point, on what a press exemption would entail.

There's an exemption, but no one outside of the involved legislators has the details. What seems to be certain is that fees will be increasing, something a cash-strapped government like California's would be unlikely to reject. At this point, the fee increase is scheduled to head to a conference committee for further discussion. Ewert hopes this one will actually involve the public.

Ewert said he hopes lawmakers will give the CNPA and other press and freedom of information groups the opportunity to provide input.

"[I]t's just a bad idea to deny access to records that the public has already paid for, and shield the public from an institution that it already has very little understanding about."

As Ewert points out, this rate hike will only increase the distance between the public and the records they should rightfully have access to. Worse, it will disproportionately affect citizens with limited income. This increase, if passed, will not only allow the state to tax its constituents multiple times for the same records, it will turn public record access into a privilege, rather than a right.

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So it appears that late last week, the MPAA realized that their whole stance on trying to block the approval of an important copyright treaty for helping the visually impaired and the blind gain more access to works was a PR nightmare, and decided to put out a joint statement with the National Federation for the Blind. Apparently, Chris Dodd's initial weak attempt at claiming that it loved helping the blind, despite working hard to stop the treaty, wasn't enough. Of course, the new "joint statement" is really more of the same when you peel back the basics.

We fully support a Treaty that facilitates access to published works in the form of text, notation and/or related illustrations for the blind and print disabled to address the book famine wherein the blind and print disabled have access to less than five percent of published works worldwide.

Then why have your lobbyists been the key blockade in that very agreement for years?

The Treaty must achieve two overarching goals: creating exceptions and limitations in copyright law which allow published works to be converted into formats accessible to the blind and print disabled, and permitting accessible copies of published works to be shared across international borders.

Yup. And that's what's been on the table for quite some time. And you know who's made sure to hold it up? Yes, the MPAA.

Ultimately, we believe it should be for signatories to determine how they will implement the Treaty in accordance with their legal and administrative traditions. We underscore that this important Treaty must not be a vehicle for extraneous agendas. The goal remains, as it has been since the outset, a meaningful treaty to create greater access to published works for the visually impaired.

Again, then you shouldn't have been blocking what's on the table for a while. Furthermore, it's kind of funny to see the MPAA now say that it wants countries to "determine how they will implement the Treaty in accordance with their legal and administrative traditions." Because that's the exact opposite position that the MPAA takes on other copyright efforts, like ACTA/TPP/etc. where the goal is to force the US's way on other countries. Hell, the MPAA has spent years telling other countries they need to add "digital locks" provisions to copyright law, even when that was inconsistent with their own legal and administrative positions. Basically, the MPAA is lying here. They only want that "flexibility" when we're talking about giving the public more rights, because they know they have enough sway with various governments such that those governments will block any meaningful changes to copyright law to allow more access to works by the blind.

From there, they list out a bunch of "core principles" that any treaty must follow, most of which are completely uncontroversial. But the two at the end are the ones that the MPAA is really focused on is:

4. Ensure that the treaty will be fully consistent with international copyright norms.
5. Avoid addressing extraneous copyright issues not directly related to creating greater access to published works for the blind and print disabled.

Basically, the MPAA will ensure that "international copyright norms" doesn't allow for things like fair use or other rights of the public, preferring instead to lock everything down as much as possible. And the "extraneous copyright issues" are, basically, the rights of the public. The MPAA's not a big fan of all that.

It's great that the MPAA is now saying this kind of stuff, and it could have said all of this a couple years ago and we could have had this treaty in place way back then, because nothing they say goes against what's been on the table. So, let's see what happens in the next negotiations, and we'll see how helpful MPAA lobbyists really are in terms of completing this process....

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As Mike discussed in a previous post, the IP Commission's report on "theft of American IP" points a finger almost exclusively at China. And, as was pointed out in another post, the report is also loaded with some genuinely terrible ideas (protect IP with malware, anyone?). Here's another one: starting a trade war with China over intellectual property. This recommendation, taken from the final pages of the document, is both a broadside against China and a genuinely terrible idea.

Generally speaking, instigating a trade war is a bad idea, even when you have the upper hand. Instigating a trade war over something as poorly defined (especially in this report) as "IP theft" is a worse idea. Instigating a trade war with a country that already has you staring down the barrel of a steep trade deficit is just asking for trouble. The US has tried this sort of thing before (to protect the American steel industry) and found itself facing retaliatory tariffs from European nations as well as having its tariffs declared illegal by the World Trade Organization.

No one truly "wins" in a trade war, but there's no shortage of losers -- mainly the consumers caught in the crossfire. But despite the enormous potential downside and the shortsightedness of this move, the commission seems to feel protecting the US from "IP theft" is worth the sacrifice. (It helps that the entire sacrifice will be borne by others.) The commission's recommendation bases itself on the claim that China alone is responsible for around 70% of the "$300 billion" it claims the US is losing every year. And it aims to make China pay... by making Americans pay. In the "Potential Future Measures" section (Chapter 14), the commission makes this suggestion:

Recommend that Congress and the administration impose a tariff on all Chinese-origin imports, designed to raise 150% of all U.S. losses from Chinese IP theft in the previous year, as estimated by the secretary of commerce. This tariff would be subject to modification by the president on national security grounds.

The argument for this proposal is that only by seriously limiting the U.S. market for Chinese goods and services will sufficient incentive be created for Chinese authorities to systematically reduce IP theft. The method proposed to accomplish that goal is to impose the calibrated tariff just described.

While such action would allow retaliation, the huge Chinese trade surplus with the United States could cause the retaliation to be ineffective. Chinese exports to the United States are between three and four times the dollar value of U.S. exports to China.

The Commission is not prepared to make such a recommendation now because of the difficulty of estimating the value of stolen IP, the difficulty of identifying the appropriate imports, and the many legal questions raised by such an action under the United States’ WTO obligations. If major IP theft continues or increases, however, the proposal should be further refined and considered.

Wonderful. Despite the fact the commission openly admits it can't accurately estimate the value of "stolen IP," and despite the fact this plan could possibly be illegal, it proposes that, in the middle of an economic downturn, the government should artificially raise the price of consumer goods in order to ensure the fiscal well-being of the MPAA, RIAA and the BSA. This would add $450 billion in tariffs onto the cost of imported goods. This works out to roughly $1,000 per person annually, or $4,000 for a family of four. China's manufacturers aren't simply going to eat the tariff. They'll either raise prices or stop shipping to the US. Costs of goods will rise in the US no matter which path they take. Kicking a major competitor out of the market tends to have that effect, especially when the competitor prices aggressively.

Now, these industries will make assurances that the money they're receiving (as part of an international "you must be a pirate" tax) will be shoved right back into the economy, either through job creation or additional investments. But those assurances won't mean much to Americans being stretched even thinner by rising prices, especially when they notice this plan basically transfers money out of their pockets and into the accounts of select US companies.

The commission feels that by artificially limiting China's exports, it can force the country to respect US intellectual property. The reward for China would be a decrease in the tariff, provided the "theft" numbers drop. But if I know anything about industries and subsidies (which this essentially is), those benefitting from this "deal" will soon be hooked on the new revenue stream and will have zero incentive to officially recognize any sort of downturn in Chinese infringement.

And if I know this, then you'd better believe China knows this. Instead of being rewarded for making efforts to curtail infringement, it will more likely see the tariff increase or hold steady, rather than decline by any appreciable amount. There's little incentive for China to improve its IP record and next to no incentive for IP industries to wean themselves off the tariff. All this will do is inch us closer to the frontlines of a trade war with the largest exporter in the world -- a war we can't hope to win and one that puts the American consumer right in the line of fire.

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