Copyright

I am very excited to be attending, and to be one of the speakers, at the Conservative Leadership Conference on "Conservatives and New Media" in Reno Nevada, October 11-13.

• This will be "the first national conference of its kind in the western United States to fully utilize the power of blogging and the internet to promote a conservative/libertarian, limited-government agenda."

The left is massively more organized and involved in new media than conservatives, so I am thrilled to help the CLC, Chuck Muth et al -- build a formidable conservative counterweight to the liberal-dominated blogosphere and new media.

I heartily encourage like-minded folks to attend, learn, and get better at promoting free-market, limited government principles over the Internet.

• The link to learn more and register is here.

Google must be worried about their Doubleclick acquisition having arranged an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal today entitled Googling 'Monopoly' by PFF President Tom Lenard and Emory University professor Paul Rubin.

• While Google must be thankful for the placement in the WSJ, they have to be bummed about the unfortunate title.
  • Google loves to generously slather the "opoly" epithet on any formidable competitor who is in their way, so it must drive them crazy when it sticks to them in the WSJ.

First, let me say that I genuinely respect Mr Lenard and Mr. Rubin, and understand that on antitrust issues, analysts can honestly disagree on outcomes and impacts.

The outrage over Google-Youtube's complicity in rampant content theft and piracy continues to spread around the world.

• As reported by the AP in "Youtube blasted over copyright issues": 
• "A coalition of Japanese television, music and film companies slammed YouTube Thursday, saying the online video sharing service was not doing enough to rid the site of cartoons and other clips that infringe copyright." ...
• "There is no middle ground," Matsutake said. "We demand that all copyrighted material be removed immediately."

Let's focus on the corporate scofflaw pattern here: American, Japanese, and European content owners accross a wide swath of content industries are all outraged and suing Google for theft.

Johna Till Johnson of Network World, has got Google's number in the article "Net Neutrality? Google, go first!"

• "Forget "don't be evil" -- Google's real motto is: "Just trust us (and pay no attention to the man behind the curtain).""

  "Sorry, fellas, I'm not the trusting sort. And I always worry about the man behind the curtain. The reality behind the propaganda is this: The "open" company's considerable fortunes are based around the world's most proprietary search engine. And as for "neutral" -- try Googling Google, and you may notice something surprising: very few negative comments on the company pop up. Odd, no?"

I have been watching with some amusement all of the SaveTheInternet-launched blogilantes ranting about the prospect of Internet backbone networks like AT&T or others, becoming a filtering technology solution to Hollywood's problem of rampant content piracy on the Internet.

Why am I amused?

• Because net neutrality proponents are so predictably knee jerk in their reaction to anything that they see as a threat to their datatopian ideal of a net free of any broadband competition, differentiation or diversity of choice.
• Net neutrality proponents have such a bad case of "myneutralopia" that they can't see the proverbial forest for the trees.
• Over the last year, net neutrality proponents have had to make an increasing number of big concessions about what "bit discrimination" is acceptable in order to remain credible on Capitol Hill.
• They have had to concede and support network management "discrimination" of bits:
• To filter out viruses, filtering which is essential to protect the Internet and users from Net blackouts or shutdowns;
• To filter out illegal spam, so the Internet and email remains unclogged and useful; and
• To allow for law enforcement under CALEA, the ability to surveil criminal and terrorist activity on the Internet.
• If all that network managment "discrimination of bits" is OK,
• Then why isn't it OK for these same network managers to filter traffic for pirated content, i.e. trafficking in stolen goods?
• In other words, if it is OK to filter the Internet for the misdemeanors and felonies of spreading viruses and spam, and it is longstanding law for the Goverment to be able to surveil the Internet to detect criminal behavior, how is new network filtering for illegal pirated content any different or any less necessary?

Once again, the net neutrality crowd's kneejerk reaction is to side with lawbreakers rather than with every day citizens and users of the Internet who are all ultimately harmed by allowing Internet-enabled crimes to go undetected and unnpunished.

Scotland's Sunday Herald reports that : "INTERNET SEARCH engine Google is understood to have reached deals with several large UK news groups over carrying their content on Google News."

This news is on the heels of Google settling with Agence Presse and the Associated Press in separate settlements over IP theft.

• Three data points!
• Seems like an emerging pattern of tacit admission of guilt to rampant IP Kleptomania.   

The real question is:

• Has Google made the first step to recovery from it's IP kleptomania by admiting it has an addiction problem?
• Probably not.
• Most everyone has heard that to truly recover from an addiction, like Google's pathological theft of everyone's intellectual property, one has to be able to publicly admit a problem exists and is hurting others.
• Unfortunately, Google seems to still be in denial.
• Where's the public mea culpa?
• Sneaking back room settlements/bribes to make a problem go away does not inspire any trust that the stealing will stop.
• Where's the settlement with:
• Viacom for its YouTube thefts?
• With the studios for aiding and abetting illegal downloading of pirated movies?
• Publishers and authors for copying their works without compensation?
• For trademark owners who have to pay only Google for keyword extortion so competitor's can't buy competitor's trademarks to send traffic to their site?

Come clean Google.  

Reuters reports that "a federal judge ordered Google to face a jury trial in a trademark infringement suit that aims at the main source of the company's revenue."

• The Federal judge previously had denied Google's motion to dismiss this case.

Why does this matter?

• Google does not want to go to trial on any of the legion of IP theft lawsuits they face... because they fear discovery by clever trial attorneys who will try to get access to executive emails that will show that use of other companies intellectual property for free is standard business practice at Google.
• Google also fears that they can't buy off everyone, because if one company, like American Blind and Wallpaper Factory, does not succumb to Google's settlement bribes to make the case go away...
• it will embolden other companies, whose IP has been violated by serial IP thief Google... to come out of the woodwork to testify or file class action suits against Google.

I also discovered a new and relevant fact in my ongoing research -- that I believe will be used succesfully against Google in this case.

eGoogle-YouTube was sued yet again for rampant copyright infringement in U.S. District Court in New York.

• See www.youtubeclassaction.com

Plaintiffs, including the English Football Association Premier League and others said in their court filing that Google-YouTube is "pursuing a deliberate strategy of engaging in, permitting, encouraging, and facilitating massive copyright infringement" in order to increase the value of Google by generating more traffic which it could monetize without having to pay for.

Why is this British suit particularly interesting? Remember the fact that Google already has 75% share of the search market in the UK?

I always take time to read interviews with CEOs because I always learn something.

• The USA Today cover story interview with Steve Ballmer of April 30th was no exception.

What did he say that was relevant to the Google-DoubleClick?

First, he made the case why the Google-DoubleClick merger is a big deal:

• "I do think that it would be worth the regulators taking time to understand this market, much the way they took the time to understand other parts of the technology business, because the whole future of the media and advertising will move to the Internet. "
• "What we think of television today, what we think of newspapers, magazines, you name it -- all of these things are going to move to the Internet and be funded by advertising. And so we are talking about a pretty important part of ... people's basic lives." 
• What this means is that Google-Doubleclick is about the evolution and the future of advertising. 

In response to a question about being third in search -- Ballmer said:

Google blasted Viacom today in the press for suing Google in court for "building a business on a library of copyrighted video clips without permission," according to the NYT today.

Let's have some fun and dissect some of the Google quotes and translate what they are really thinking behind their PR spin...

• "We are not going to let the lawsuit distract us." Michael Kwan Google lawyer.
• We are very worried we can't buy off this company like we bought off all the others.
• We are in deep do-do if Viacom is smart enough to gain access -- through the discovery process -- to the many internal emails that show Google senior management was supportive or complicit in their systematic copyright heist.

Google's filing said: