You are here Piracy
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Wed, 2007-07-25 12:23
Great satire is rare.
Please read it and laugh out loud and shout ouch!
The pen is surely mightier than the algorithm.
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Tue, 2007-07-24 18:58
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Tue, 2007-07-17 09:52
My detailed analysis over the last several weeks leads me to believe that the FTC is likely to block the Google-DoubleClick merger because it will enable Google to dominate online advertising and dramatically increase the opportunity for market collusion and price manipulation in the market for consumer click data, ad-performance tools, ad-brokering and ad-exchanges.
Antitrust is fact-specific and evidence-driven. To understand the true antitrust outlook for a merger one needs to become familiar with the core facts of the case. To date, media and investment coverage of this merger has been remarkably superficial.
I see three big takeaways from my white paper.
First, the more people learn about this merger the more concern they will develop.
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Thu, 2007-06-21 12:10
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.
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Mon, 2007-06-18 12:56
Can you believe it?
Google launches its new public policy blog today and the NetCompetition/Precursorblog is not one of the blog links under "What We Are Reading!" Horrors!
First of all, it is not very "authentic" of the Google bloggers to not admit that they regularly read Precursorblog -- we know they do!
Second, don't you believe for a minute that Google does not want to know what their latest public policy or PR vulnerability is.
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Mon, 2007-06-18 11:54
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Tue, 2007-05-22 16:57
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.
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 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.
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Mon, 2007-05-14 10:54
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."
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.
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Mon, 2007-05-07 10:34
eGoogle-YouTube was sued yet again for rampant copyright infringement in U.S. District Court in New York.
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?
Submitted by Scott Cleland on Fri, 2007-05-04 17:45
I always take time to read interviews with CEOs because I always learn something.
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."
In response to a question about being third in search -- Ballmer said:
Pages
|