Alternative to YouTube

Inspired by the popularity of YouTube, Viacom, CBS corporation, Index Ventures (European venture capital firm), Sequoia Capital (also a venture capital firm), and Li Ka - shing, an influential telecommunications business executive from Hong Kong have all decided to invest in an Internet-based TV service called Joost. Joost received $45 million from these five investors and may be collecting even more. Unlike YouTube, which is the center of controversy for alleged copyright infringement, Joost has already signed contracts with major content providers, including the aforementioned investors. This will allow Joost to show material from MTV, Nickelodeon, Paramount and Comedy Central without the concern of copyright infringement or any other legal matters.

I think Joost is a good idea and will be very popular once it is launched. It already beats YouTube since it will have legal material on the site and I think everyone would be more excited to see actual television shows, which is what Joost would be offering, rather than random kids filming themselves acting like idiots and posting it on the Internet, which is what YouTube offers. This service might even curtail the amount of illegal downloading if people can watch some of their favorite shows on Joost instead of trying to download them.

Jobs ignores backdating concerns

Recently, there have been allegations of Jobs backdating stock options. Backdating stock options refers to when companies change the date of a grant in order to accrue more profits. This is not always illegal, and usually when the company is upfront about it to shareholders and the government, it does not present a problem. However, when it is not reported, it could be a sign of less than full disclosure to shareholders, evasion of some taxes, or modified earnings statements (to make the company look like it is doing better financially than it really is. The Securities and Exchange Commission have investigated two of Apple's employees, but cleared both them and the company of any wrongdoing. During a question and answer session, Jobs stated that the disputed October 2001 grants were actually approved in August of that year, two months before they hit their very low prices. 80 other companies are under investigation for the same practice said the SEC last week.

I think backdating stock options seems very sneaky as if the company is trying to hide something. This suspicion is even stronger when you think about how doing such a practice could help you financially, such as avoiding some taxes and attracting more investors that would not invest without a modified earnings statement. Modifying earnings statements is reminiscent of Enron and the scandal in which scores of employees lost their entire life savings. I do not think we should be leaving ourselves open to another crisis like that by allowing backdating.

Google does not have to protect freedom of access to the Internet

Today, Google shareholders rejected a proposal that would require them to not self-censor. This proposal was brought about when Google said that it would remove things that the Chinese government would be likely to interpret as offensive when it is building the search engine site in China. Its defense was that only one percent of the all of the information on the search engine would be removed and that by removing that one percent, it guarantees that it can stay in China. By doing so, can allow citizens of China access to more information and therefore, have more choices available to them.

I agree with Google's decision. If it wants to operate in China, it must observe the rules that China puts in place. So, in order for them to set up operations in China, they must follow these rules that the Chinese government has set, including ones that limit the information that can be accessed online by citizens. This is beneficial for everyone involved - it keeps good communication and repertoire with the Chinese government, citizens of China benefit by having more information and options than they have ever had before, and Google has a much larger customer base. As a business, I definitely think that Google made the right decision and those who disagree with Google's decision probably are not taking into consideration that Google is a business first and needs to look after the interests of its shareholders.

Google wants to reorganize public information

Google is at the center of controversy yet again. However, this time it is not a lawsuit; the company wants to reorganize the way its search engines can access government databases. Google claims that much public information is very difficult to find because government computer systems are not programmed in a way which allows them to be accessed by search engines. They also claim that people cannot find the information they need to and, since most go about finding this type of information by using search engines like Google, Google should be able organize it all. This is due to the fact that when people cannot find information by using a search engine, they blame the engine, not the website of the information they are looking for. However, this would make everyone's information easier for others to find. One scary example of information that can be found about you is your social security number. That is not something you want others to be able to look up online. The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) said that the best approach to the problem of identity theft is to collect less personal information and increase the security that is guarding it.

I do not think that Google should try to make it easier to find personal information online. There is already such a lack of privacy online with personal websites and social networking sites that Google does not need to do anything extra to make information even more visible. This is especially true when very personal information such as your social security number is potentially going to be put up. With identity theft being the problem that it is, we do not need anything to make it even easier.

youtube lawsuit

YouTube is again being sued for copyright infringement, this time by Football Association Premier League Limited and Bourne Co. The first is a top division of English soccer and the latter is an independent publisher of music. This lawsuit comes after Viacom's "indictment" of YouTube as a for-profit organization that makes money by building traffic and selling advertising off of unlicensed content, which is against copyright laws, and not doing anything to protect people's intellectual property. Google counters and accuses Viacom of threatening the Internet by not allowing people to use the Internet to legitimately share information and ideas as it was created to by holding carriers and hosting providers accountable for Internet liability. The actions of Football Association Premier League Limited and Bourne Co. could then be seen as the same thing that Google was accusing Viacom of doing.

I think that Google should be doing more to protect intellectual property on YouTube. It should not be held responsible for what its users do; however, I also think if it does nothing to prevent the users who are misusing the site from posting illegal material, it should be held partially liable. If Google shut down the accounts of those who post illegal materials as well as remove the illegal content, then there would be much less of a problem with copyright infringement. The main reason it would not take these actions is because it would lose money if it did. Therefore, if Google will not do anything to prevent illegal activity on its site because they are profiting, they too should be punished along with those who are posting the material.

Ohio U makes all P2P software illegal

After receiving over 100 notices of prelitigation from the RIAA, Ohio University has decreed that all peer-to-peer file-sharing software is no longer allowed at the university. Staff members spent nearly 120 hours going through all of the letters. Chief Information Officer Bryce Bible says that if peer-to-peer networks are left unchecked, they could consume all of the bandwidth and network resources, which they actually did a few years ago when Napster became widely available. Consequences for using these types of software are disconnection from the Internet until students agree to the acceptable use policy for the first offense and disconnection and referral to University Judiciaries for successive violations.


However, some people use peer-to-peer software for legitimate purposes. Students may buy or rent movies and television shows on BitTorrent, one of the software that is banned from the university now. They could also download Ubuntu, a program for Linux from BitTorrent.

I do not think that Ohio University should ban all peer-to-peer software. Just because some people use them for illegitimate purposes does not mean that no one should be able to use them at all. They should just continue to punish those students who use the programs illegally so that the whole university does not have to pay for those students' crimes.

Utah Legislature v Google

Recently, the Legislature of Utah passed a bill called the Trademark Protection Act. This bill, which will go into effect on June 30, will curb keyword - triggered advertising. For example, if you type in overstock.com into Google's search engine, they give you sponsored links for other competitors of Overstock. According to this new law, Overstock would be able to sue Google for that. This is a very controversial law as would be expected and lawyers for the Legislature said that was "very probable" that the law would be found unconstitutional. Many also think that the state is likely to be sued. Google spokesperson, Adam Kovacevich, says that the law will "hurt consumers, violate free speech, and will be inconsistent with both established U.S. trademark law and our capitalist system." Germany and France have similar laws in place; however, and Google is still able to operate there says Representative David Clark, House sponsor of the law. He also states that the law places his state first for trademark protection without going over the edge.

I do not see the problem with having competitors' links come up when you search for a specific site. Advertisements are everywhere on the internet and usually even when sponsored links do come up, people do not click on them if they were specifically looking for something else. For example say you were driving down the street looking for Stop n Shop in a new neighborhood. If you found it and it is across the street from Shaw's, chances are you are not going to go into Shaw's since you were specifically seeking out Stop n Shop. Now if you think Shaw's is a better store and see that it is there and then choose to go to it instead, it is not because you saw it that you decided to go in, but because you have a preference for that store, which you had before you ever drove by it. Therefore, I think this law is unnecessary and could reduce competition.

RIAA and MPAA want permission to pretext

The California Senate wants to make pretexting, using false statements and other misleading practices to get personal information, illegal to protect people's privacy better. In other words, a employee of the RIAA anti-piracy department can obtain information on you or me and use that information when he is talking to a suspect. For example, if he uses his real name and address, the suspect would probably be able to figure out who he works for; however if he uses someone else's name and address, the suspect will have no idea. The RIAA and MPAA want the bill to not apply to them as they claim they need to use deception in order to catch bootleggers and that this bill would seriously undermine their anti-piracy effort. Brad Buckles, the RIAA's executive vice president for anti-piracy, says he wants the criminal to feel comfortable working with him and giving him information, which he can only do by pretexting. The bill comes up for an initial hearing on Tuesday.

I think it is absolutely ridiculous that the RIAA and MPAA can go around taking other people's personal information just to try to catch a bootlegger. They should find other ways to do it because in this case I do not think the ends justifies the means. Furthermore, their amendment was written very broadly saying "any owner of a copyright, patent, trademark or trade secret be able to use pretexting or other investigative techniques to obtain personal information about a customer or employee when seeking to enforce intellectual property rights." This includes far too many people that would be given full permission to use your or my personal information. I just do not think it is worth that invasion of privacy.

In Europe, piracy becomes a felony

The European Union Parliament is attempting to make its first harmonized criminal code. This particular legislation would make piracy a felony. The maximum penalty must be at least 300,000 euros and/or up to four years in prison if the crime is committed by a criminal organization or offenses that endangers others' health and safety. Lesser penalties can include criminal or civil fines of up to 100,000 euros. Although this law may seem harsh, it does not apply to those who just share files privately and do not receive any monetary benefits, ie. those who share the file with a friend and do not sell them to others.

This new law does not seem unreasonable to me. Those who try to sell copyrighted information are committing a far more serious crime than those who just share it with a friend for no monetary gain. This would be similar to stealing clothes or another tangible item and then selling it on the street. The punishment for lesser penalties seems similar to what the US has; however the punishment of imprisonment for larger crimes does seem a bit over the top. Also, I think labelling this crime as a felony is kind of ridiculous as it pales in comparison to other crimes that are considered felonies.

antitrust lawsuit

On March 9, a federal judge dismissed portions of a lawsuit against Intel Corporations for violating antitrust laws. The plaintiffs claimed that Intel drove up prices on some PCs that used Intel's chips. They also state that Intel was able to do this by barring computer makers from using chips from Advanced Micro Devices Inc. The judge did this because the claim is concerning what Intel did in a foreign country, so the US does not have jurisdiction and even if they did and Intel was found at fault, the plaintiffs could not calculate the amount of damages incurred by US consumers and businesses due to the fact that they have to base it on the sales of US companies and not on foreign ones. However, the judge also ruled that Advanced Micro Devices Inc. and foreign consumers can use foreign evidence to build a case in their country. Intel has a motion to dismiss, claiming that instead of artificially raising prices, they were actually lowering prices in an attempt to compete with Advanced Micro Devices Inc. That motion will be decided by the end of March.

SCO Board Member leaves

Ed Iacobucci announced on February 27 that he will not be standing for reelection for the SCO Board of Directors. He cites his other obligations, including those he has at DayJet, of which he is President and CEO, as the reason for which he must leave. Iacobucci has been on the Board of Directors since January 2000 and will discontinue his service on April 26, 2007.

His resignation comes in the middle of a lawsuit with IBM over copyright infringement. Iacobucci says that he appreciates the time he had with SCO on the Board of Directors and that he has "always felt strongly that the future health of our commercial software industry lies in its ability to protect the value of the intellectual property it develops -- I continue to value the importance of SCO's strategy and business direction and wish them success in the future."

week 3

A Supreme Court case was submitted on the 21st that will decide whether or not binary code can be patented. A statute stated that code must be "married to a computer" and that there needs to be a device because you cannot patent an idea or principle. Also, the act of supplying embraces the act of copying; therefore, if a company wants to send a patented product abroad, they must also send copies of the machines used to make it so it can be mass produced in this new country. Now the court must decide if the code AT&T is using can be patented.

I think that code should not be able to be patented because it is not the code, but what the code makes that is important. The result of the code can be patented. This is similar to a book. The book is the final product of putting together many words. The book can be patented, but the words in the book cannot. Since the book is copyrighted, chapters and sentences are protected, too (which is how plagiarism is possible). The machine or device is the final product of putting together code. It can be patented, but the code that it is made up of cannot. The pieces of code that make up the website are protected just as the chapters and sentences that make up the book are as it is illegal to steal code from a website. Since the pieces that make up the book and the machine or device are already protected by this copyright, it is unnecessary to patent the smaller pieces individually as well.

Law and the world wide web

I saw an article that talked about backing up DVDs and whether or not that was a
violation of the fair use concept. The courts ruled that it was because it
conflicts with the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, which exists to address
industry concerns about PC-based media copying. Basically, the industry is so
concerned about people copying and distributing media that they are preventing
anyone from copying it for any purpose. Many people wanted to back up their DVDs
in case they got scratched, corrupted, or otherwise damaged, as any of those
things would make them useless. However, they cannot because someone else might
use the technology to break the law.
I think this is ridiculous. I believe that if you pay for something, you should
be able to ensure that you are able to have continued use of it. Consumers
should not be punished for something that someone else may or may not do.
That is a dangerous precedent, especially if applied to other aspects of life,
such as gun ownership. Most people who own guns do not commit crimes with them;
however, a small percentage do. Does that mean we should prevent everyone from
owning a gun?
Furthermore, laws such as these encourage the very same behavior they were
enacted to put an end to. Why go out and spend $15-$25 to buy a DVD that might
get ruined a while later? You might as well have burned the money. I agree that
illegal distribution is a problem and should not be ignored; however, there are
better ways to do it. Punishing others for the mistakes of a few is not the way,
especially when the punishment includes denying some of the legal rights of the
owner. Furthermore, as with the aforementioned gun analogy, those who choose to
break the law will find another way to do it so limiting the rights of others
does no good to the industry.

week of 2/4/07

Recently there has been a lot of talk about social networking sites, such as Facebook and MySpace, and the privacy issues associated with them. These are sites used mostly by teenagers and young adults to communicate and post pictures; however, employers are using the sites to investigate potential employees. The main things they are looking for are "drinking habits/drug use, nudity, general sleaziness, and criminal behavior ranging from shoplifting to violent assaults".

This has generated a lot of controversy. Students who use these sites do not usually think about a future employer checking them out when they are designing their webpage. This practice brings up the issue of how much or little privacy one should have when making a webpage. I am undecided on the issue. It makes sense that anyone with an account on these websites should be able to look at other people's profiles and I do believe that if you put something on the internet, then everyone has the right to look at it, similar to a diminished expectation of privacy. However, I do not think that people should be judged by their internet profiles. Facebook and MySpace pictures often have things that many companies would not find appropriate, but the behavior presented in pictures on these sites is not a good predictor of behavior in a work environment. The way a person acts depends on their surroundings and employers should realize that no one is going to behave in the same manner at a party and at work. Also, in terms of drinking, many students drink while they are in college; however, once they graduate, they usually stop or cut back dramatically. Social networking sites are poor determinants of professional behavior and employers should not take them into serious consideration when determining who will work for them.