EBay Accused of Monopolization Content Integrity8/2/2000; 2:11:02 PM 'The judge in the eBay v. Bidder's Edge case has refused to throw out antitrust allegations leveled by the auction listing re-aggregator against auction giant eBay. 'Bidder's Edge contends that eBay behaved anticompetitively and that therefore the company is guilty of monopolization or at least attempted monopolization.'Mmmmmm... "anticompetitively" because eBay won't let Bidder's Edge use a substantial portion of eBay's bandwidth for reasons that eBay will find possibly economically damaging? I'm having a hard time with this "we have the right to access eBay's data and do whatever we want with it, and if they don't let us, it's anticompetitive" argument coming from Bidder's Edge. Flip it around... why is eBay obligated to let Bidder's Edge in?

'Uncle Spam' wants you!
Spam & E-Mail
8/2/2000; 2:02:48 PM 'Uncle Sam could become "Uncle Spam" if the government follows through with plans for creating an "official U.S. e-mail box" for every address in America, say industry executives briefed on the proposal.'

Is a Stitch Online a Crime? - Napster Case More Then Music Misc.8/2/2000; 12:31:16 PM 'If the $40-billion global music business thought it had problems with the emergence of a revolutionary Internet tool called Napster, consider the now-terrified needlepoint industry. 'For years, grandmotherly hobbyists, hungry for doily-and-swan patterns, have forked over $6 and $7 for them. Without a peep of complaint, they have provided a steady stream of revenue to pattern publishers such as Cross My Heart and Pegasus Originals. ...'As the clash continues, people on both sides of the pattern debate say they are closely watching the Napster case unfold in San Francisco. Their future, they say, is ultimately tied to the fate of a technology start-up that has wrestled control over distribution from major entertainment conglomerates.'

"If You Can Put It On A T-Shirt, It's Speech" DVD & DeCSS8/1/2000; 1:32:46 PM 'We got word last night that Copyleft has joined the ranks of the named defendants in the DeCSS suit - they received their subpoena yesterday, because they "distribute" the DeCSS source code - on t-shirts.'I suppose this is their reward for being used as an example by Touretzky.It's the logical conclusion of the testimony. What's interesting to me is that this is almost an implicit admission by the MPAA that there are indeed speech issues involved... since it nearly torpedos their case to admit that, it's wierd that they'd do this. Yet I suppose they had to, since they can't afford for this 'loophole' to remain open. I suspect they are doing this with heavy hearts, knowing this is probably the loss of the case for them either way...

Market researcher sues AOL, others for blocking email Spam & E-Mail8/1/2000; 1:03:18 PM 'Harris Interactive said it is suing Internet service providers including America Online for blocking the online market researcher's email from reaching registered participants.'Also named in the suit are Microsoft's HotMail, Qwest Communications International and other Internet service providers. Harris said its email is being blocked even though it contacts only those who have registered to take part in its surveys. It doesn't send unsolicited mail.'Keep an eye on this case, it's another one that will probably be under-reported because the implications are too subtle to be seen immediately by the press.This is similar in many senses to the eBay cases (filter on eBay if you have IE5+ or Mozilla M16+)... do I have a right to access your computers for communicating to others, which is then violated if you block me? Also, the Yesmail vs. MAPS that has been left unresolved touches on many of the same access issues.

Net marketing firm receiving personal information
Privacy from Companies
8/1/2000; 12:56:50 PM 'Columbus, Ohio-based Interhack founder Matt Curtin said he found four sites that forwarded personal information to Coremetrics, despite the companies' privacy policies: toy retailer Toysrus.com and its babies' products site, Babiesrus.com, and sportswear sites Lucy.com and Fusion.com.'

Napster Press Room Music & MP38/1/2000; 12:41:15 PM Not much going on today or yesterday, but I wanted to point to this earlier, except my machine wouldn't read the PDF.In Napster's Press Room, in the legal section, is the document requesting a stay of last Friday's injunction, straight from the horse's mouth.In particular, I've heard a lot of people saying "Napster didn't have to come down, they were just ordered to remove all copyrighted material from the server." This document counters that claim (with credence added by the fact that the injunction was indeed stayed) by pointing out that when pressed, even the labels are unable to determine the copyright status of any given piece of music in any sort of timely fashion, or on a bulk scale. This is not make-believe, they really tried and failed. The only choice Napster would have, in light of the number of songs the service indexes, would be to come down entirely.Note that the percentage really didn't matter. Even if only .01% of the songs on the service were in violation of copyright, Napster would still have had to come down, because ferreting out those songs (and filtering through and proving that the rest were OK) would still have been impossible.If the labels can't even do it, how can Napster, or, indeed, Napster's users?

86400 dollars a day
LinkBack
8/1/2000; 9:44:22 AM 'a tale of how kishore balakrishnan uses this most valuable thing in the world every day - off and on the net...'

Multimedia 'Napster' Awaits Fate Music & MP37/31/2000; 11:40:37 AM 'Despite the fact that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals granted Napster a stay on Friday, Scour.net seemed ripe for a similar brow beating at the hands of the recording industry after Judge Marilyn Patel all but dismantled the arguments both companies are expected to use.'...'Despite deals with Miramax and Hollywood Records that allowed Scour to legally distribute certain copyrighted materials, on July 20 the motion picture industry and the recording industry filed an infringement suit against the company.'...'"I am not convinced that Napster has been trounced as some others may be," copyright lawyer Whitney Broussard of Selverne, Mandelbaum & Mintz, wrote in an email. "Judge Patel has, it seems, rewritten the Betamax decision such that a developer of a copying technology now has a duty to ensure that the technology is not used to make copies of copyrighted materials, regardless of whether or not the copy may be protected by principles of fair use. I am not so sure that this ruling will be upheld in the Court of Appeals, or the Supreme Court, if it goes that far."'The Betamax decision refers to the decision ruling that VCRs were legal because they had substantial non-infringing uses, despite the fact they could easily be used. This looks like a good discussion on the reasoning, the ramifications, and the irony of that decision, if you've not read an in-depth analysis before.

Bad News, Europe: EC Will Stand By 'Safe Harbor' Deal Privacy from Companies7/30/2000; 12:21:42 PM 'The European Commission announced Thursday that it will move ahead with the data-privacy deal it hashed out with the U.S., despite the objections of the European Parliament that the deal was too weak. The commission said the deal would take effect by November for U.S. sites that electronically gather personal data from European visitors. 'Under the terms of the U.S.-EC agreement, negotiated over two years by the commission and the U.S. Department Commerce, many U.S. companies that want to continue transferring personal data from Europe must commit to respecting detailed standards of notice, user choice, data access and security. Making that commitment will put the companies into "safe harbor" against regulation under the EU's omnibus Data Protection Directive, which has been in effect in the EU's 15 member nations since October 1998.'Europe to US Companies: "We trust you!"? Who'da thunk it?