Posted on Techdirt - 19 November 2010 @ 10:36am
The US is bidding on hosting the 2022 World Cup, and the decision will
be made in a few weeks. Soccer’s governing body, FIFA, recently released
its technical reports on all of the various bids, detailing things
like the number of stadia available and what would need to be built
should a country win, the availability of training grounds, hotel
rooms, transportation and so on. The US scores very favorably on all
of these accounts, but the bid has been labeled “medium risk” because
“the necessary government support has not been documented as neither
the Government Guarantees, the Government Declaration nor the
Government Legal Statement have been provided in compliance with
FIFA’s requirements for government documents.”
Guess what that means? The US bid committee hasn’t secured a commitment from the US
government that it will give FIFA the right to act as its own
copyright cops and takeover the legal system
so it can do things like criminalize wearing orange clothes. As the full
FIFA report
(PDF) puts it: “However, as the required guarantees, undertakings and
confirmations are not given as part of Government Guarantee No. 6
(Protection and Exploitation of Commercial Rights) and mere reference
is made to existing general intellectual property laws in the USA,
FIFA’s rights protection programme cannot be ensured.”
It’s clear that FIFA expects carte blanche to set up its own special
legal protection in any country that hosts the event; it gives the bid
from Belgium and the Netherlands a black mark because it “contains no
guarantees, undertakings or confirmations with legal effect beyond
existing laws”. It also slates a number of countries for having
“existing regulations… which adversely affect the free and
unrestricted exploitation of media rights”. The report indicates that
just three bids fully meet FIFA’s desire to have the ability to enact
its own copyright and media laws: the human-rights hotbeds of Qatar
and Russia, and the joint bid from Spain and Portugal.
Posted on Techdirt - 5 May 2010 @ 07:10pm
Satellite-radio company Sirius XM has never been the best of friends with the FCC, thanks largely to the molasses-like speed with which the Commission moved to approve the Sirius-XM merger and the silly restrictions it attached to its approval — measures which helped push the company into bankruptcy. The animosity is bubbling up again, as Sirius XM isn’t happy that the FCC may soon allow some radio spectrum that’s near the company’s spectrum to be used for wireless broadband services. The spectrum in question is in the 2.3 GHz range. One chunk of it was auctioned off to telcos in 1997, and it’s since been used for fixed backhaul transmissions for their networks, but the FCC (and the telcos) would like to see it used for wireless broadband services like WiMAX. An adjoining chunk is used by Sirius XM’s network of terrestrial repeaters that complement its satellite signal coverage, and the company is concerned about those repeaters being overpowered and interfered with. This is the typical sort of posturing that comes out of any company who has spectrum that’s “threatened” — like broadcasters seeking to use regulation to stifle any competition from new technologies. The interference issues are important, but the FCC knows that, and typically works to ensure that they aren’t a problem. What makes this objection from Sirius XM a little bit ironic, though, is that the the two companies have been cited in the past by the FCC because their terrestrial repeaters violated interference rules. Rules that allow for the more flexible use of spectrum — while respecting interference — are the best way forward for everyone, and like the NAB’s spurious arguments against the Sirius-XM merger, the satellite company’s objections should be rejected here.
Posted on Techdirt - 4 May 2010 @ 11:46pm
Lots of broadband operators around the world have been talking about how their networks can’t keep up with traffic demands, so they’ll have to shift back to usage-based pricing. In particular, US mobile operators AT&T and Verizon have led the rhetoric, even as they continue to launch the unlimited plans they say are such a problem. The head of one broadband provider in the UK recently said a switch to usage-based pricing, and away from flat-rate plans, was inevitable as soon as one operator in a market made the switch. He dismissed the idea that operators would seek to differentiate by sticking with flat-rate plans, or by taking any other pricing strategy than usage-based plans, ignoring the fact that consumers have grown accustomed to flat-rate offerings, and that the lack of clarity in usage, billing and pricing that per-unit plans are a big turnoff for them. Already, we’re seeing some signs that the operator landscape may not be dominated by such groupthink, as T-Mobile and Leap Wireless have made changes to their mobile broadband plans that are out of step with many other operators. The two companies have changed the way the caps on some of their plans work: for instance, on T-Mobile, when a user reaches their 5GB monthly cap, they don’t get hit with overage fees, the speed of their connection gets throttled, avoiding the uncertainty inherent in usage-based pricing. Perhaps it’s not a perfect situation, but it does show that some operators aren’t afraid to step out from the party line and explore different pricing models. It also builds some hope that when some providers do decide to regress to usage-based schemes, there will be some choices for consumers.
Posted on Techdirt - 4 May 2010 @ 06:09pm
The LA Times has a story about how former FCC Chairman Kevin Martin is working for a number of different groups to oppose Comcast’s buyout of NBC Universal. It expresses surprise from some quarters that a former chair of the main regulatory body for the media, telecom and broadcast industry would take such a high-profile role, particularly in light of his bent for loosening restrictions on mergers. But buried deep in the article, four paragraphs from the end, is the nod to Martin’s past that might help explain things: he’s never appeared to like cable companies, compared to his telco buddies. In particular, he’s had a few head-butting moments with Comcast: he led the push for sanctions against it regarding its traffic-shaping policies, and he held Comcast to a completely different standard on net neutrality than he did AT&T. But perhaps the most telling moment of Martin’s past is how when it came to lifting regulations for telcos, he was all for it, while pushing for new regulations for cable companies — including power to limit their ability to merge. So while it may be unusual for a former FCC chairman to get involved in a case like the Comcast-NBC Universal deal, Martin’s position is completely consistent with his past, even if it has brought him some unfamiliar liberal bedfellows.
Posted on Techdirt - 4 May 2010 @ 12:30pm
There’s been a big push by politicians across the country (and around the globe, as well) to enact laws that ban the use of cell phones while driving. While using your phone while driving isn’t a great idea, neither are these laws. They attack a very narrowly defined distraction, which is really just a small part of a bigger problem: overall unsafe driving. There are many other activities that are dangerous distractions to a driver, but going after each of them, one by one, is inefficient, when the real focus should be on making people more safe drivers in general. It also doesn’t really help that these laws may not be effective in making roads any safer, and that their real focus is revenue generation, not public safety. Now, Oprah has jumped into the fray, devoting an entire episode of her show to the issue, and pushing viewers to sign a No Phone Zone pledge that says they won’t drive while yakking or texting. So far, she’s collected more than 300,000 pledges, and while they certainly aren’t a guarantee that people will stop using their phones while they drive, that figure does illustrate Oprah’s broad reach and her ability to shine some light on issues. Building awareness through educational campaigns like this, that have the goal of actually changing behavior, may be much more effective in actually making the roads safer than narrowly targeted laws that punish behavior after the fact.
Posted on Techdirt - 3 May 2010 @ 07:36pm
Back in 2006, a startup called M2Z Networks asked the FCC to give it a sizable chunk of valuable spectrum for free, and in exchange, it would set up a nationwide wireless broadband network to offer free (and slow) “family-friendly” service and pay the government 5% of the revenues from a paid premium service also running on the network. We were skeptical of the plan because of its aggressive rollout schedule and the network’s slow speed (“512 kbps” — keep that figure in mind — for the free tier/3 mbps for the paid tier), but mostly because of the huge expenditure required to build out a wireless network covering 95 percent of the US population — expenditure which would be very difficult to recover from a free, slow service. The FCC wasn’t convinced, either, and rejected M2Z’s proposal in 2007, though that wasn’t the end of it. A congresswoman introduced a bill tailor-made for M2Z’s specs, but it went nowhere. Still, M2Z lives on, and it’s now looking for a chunk of stimulus funding to start building its network.
It doesn’t look like M2Z has updated its plan at all since 2006, doing nothing to address any of the concerns, beyond replacing the need for private investment with a second government handout, on top of its free spectrum. In particular, they don’t seem to have upped their targets for the speed of their network. What the company was proposing wasn’t exactly fast in 2006, is pretty pokey now, and will be even less attractive by the time its network would get up and running. In addition, it’s worth clarifying that the “512 kbps” M2Z talks about is arrived at by adding the 384kbps downstream speed plus the 128 kbps upstream speed they plan to offer. That’s a new trick we haven’t seen before, even in the world of “up to” broadband speed advertising.
Posted on Techdirt - 3 May 2010 @ 02:49pm
The FTC and the DOJ are reportedly holding talks over which group will launch an antitrust inquiry into Apple’s policies regarding app development for the iPhone and iPad. Apple recently made a change to the terms of its iPhone SDK, barring developers from using third-party development tools. Apple claims it did this to ensure that iPhone apps are of the highest quality, but the real reason appears to be to push developers to only develop for the iPhone, and not other rival platforms. The behavior may be as annoying as it is unsurprising, but it’s hard to see how this warrants antitrust action and government intervention. Apple isn’t restricting access to that market completely, they’re just forcing developers to use certain tools in order to participate in it. While Apple is trying to throw its weight around for its own benefit, what its doing may not necessarily be illegal — but that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea either. This policy seems likely to fail in the marketplace more quickly than any resolution through government intervention could take effect.
Posted on Techdirt - 29 April 2010 @ 06:21pm
Online dating site Match.com sent a letter from its lawyer to rival Plentyoffish.com last week, accusing it of citing statistics about itself and its members (like the fact that they’ll go on 18 million dates this year) that Match says can’t be supported. It then went on to “demand that [Plentyoffish] immediately cease and desist”… or provide Match with user data to back them up. Ever the friendly rival, Match’s lawyer said the company would be glad to sign a confidentiality agreement before taking a gander and Plentyoffish’s proprietary data. POF’s founder basically told Match to get lost, highlighting several figures that Match touts about its service, including one saying that an average of nearly 1000 people per day get married after first meeting on Match. To be honest, a lot of the figures cited by both parties are a little hard to believe, and sound like little more than attempts by the sites to sell hope to prospective users. But starting a fight over a rival’s claims — when all that’s likely to do is call attention to your own — may not be the wisest move for anybody in the online dating business.
Posted on Techdirt - 29 April 2010 @ 04:58pm
Steve Jobs fired the latest salvo in the ongoing Apple-Adobe spat today, with his “Thoughts on Flash” posted on the Apple site. In short, he says that Adobe looking out just for its own interests in drawing developers to its “100% proprietary” Flash ecosystem while Apple supports a great, open standards-based world. But just as we pointed out a couple of weeks ago when Apple moved to block cross-platform development tools, regardless of what Apple says, its interest is locking developers into its Apple-controlled and dominated ecosystem. Nearly every accusation Jobs levels at Adobe and its products can be made about Apple and the way it seeks to control iPhone app development. Jobs brings up Apple’s support for open Web standards, but that’s really little more than a red herring to distract attention from how Apple wants to lock down developers into its own ecosystem. Jobs makes it clear that he has no interest in developers using any platform apart from the iPhone, and any tool that helps them do so is worthy of his scorn. So for him to talk about supporting Web standards — with the point being that they’re standards, available across platforms — is disingenuous when Apple’s strategy for apps is guilty of pretty much everything he accuses Adobe of. None of this, on a strategic level, is particularly reprehensible, they’re just business decisions (even if we don’t agree with the approach). But Apple’s apparent insistence on playing by a different set of rules to everyone else, and the hot air that accompanies it, grates just a little bit.
Posted on Techdirt - 29 April 2010 @ 02:48am
It’s been rumored for several weeks now that Palm was up for sale, with a number of different companies supposedly taking a look at it, but news has come through now that HP has picked it up for $1.2 billion. Palm’s business has been running downhill for a few years now; its worldwide market share has fallen from 3.5 percent in 2005 to 1.5 percent in 2009 — despite the relatively warm welcome its Pre device received. The Pre was the first Palm phone to run its latest operating system, WebOS, which was supposed to help the company compete in a revitalized and highly competitive marketplace against the likes of Android devices and the iPhone. But that hasn’t yet happened. The Pre (and the following device, the Pixi) hasn’t grabbed significant market share, which compounds Palm’s other problem: lack of a strong developer community for WebOS. That is actually sort of ironic, given that an older incarnation of Palm was probably better than anybody in the mobile space at cultivating a huge and loyal developer community, back in the days of Palm OS. So if scale and a lack of developers are the two biggest problems holding Palm back, does the HP deal actually do anything to help solve them? Maybe that’s looking at the situation the wrong way: perhaps the point of this isn’t for HP to fix Palm, but for Palm to bring something more to the table for HP. Like 1,500 patents.
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Re: Cabled or Wireless?
This confusion merely reinforces the contention that this story isn't all it's cracked up to be. The article I linked to talks about doing it wirelessly, but I'm not sure where that came from. The article upon which it appears to based (and which I didn't link to since it's on a registration-based site) talks only about cables:
"Experts believe the gangs first acquire details on where a car's security data is stored - information that only the manufacturer is supposed to know. They then track a vehicle until they know it will be parked in a secluded area, because they need the time to connect their laptop to the car's computer via cable.
The gang runs software that interrogates the car's chips and sends them the right data to break the security barrier. "At key steps the car's software can halt progress for up to 20 minutes as part of its in-built protection," said Hart."
thanks
Thanks once again for your copious insight and for refraining from personal attacks. If the patent office you love so dearly is invalidating these patents, that's a decent enough indication that they shouldn't have been awarded.
Re: Uh?
I guess I didn't lay my skepticism of the claims on thick enough in my post. This is definitely one for the tinfoil beanie file.
Re: Broken link
Thanks for pointing that out -- it's fixed now.
Re: Orange = 3
Orange and 3 aren't the same company. One of Orange's early owners was Hutchison Whampoa, which owns the "3" operators around the world. Orange is now owned by France Telecom, and Hutchison units license the Orange brand for use in Australia, India and Israel.
Re: walled gardens
These comments have good insights and I've made an update to the post to reflect them. As I said, there are plenty of solid reasons to use a custom open-source OS; it would be nice if the project's backers would elucidate further on their reasoning.
Re: A Modest Proposal
I'm aware of the original work. The point was that just evoking the title in the name of his piece doesn't make it effective satire.
Re: not the developers
Ah, thanks for the clarification.
Re: Footbal Fan = Hooligan?!?!?
Hmm. Apparently the "humor" tags here on Techdirt aren't working again.
Re: The Truth About Music at Weddings
Yeah, because clearly what makes a great wedding reception is having somebody "get out on the dance floor and teach a crowd the Hokey Pokey or the Electric Slide".
Re: No Subject Given
Many carriers are looking at these "dual-delivery" systems. One problem is they can come with dual charges, too, where customers pay for the track and also for data traffic. Another issue is that for these types of systems, record labels demand 2 mechanical reproduction royalty payments, since the song is being reproduced twice.
Re: Lowering Prices
What about saving money by buying gas online?
Re: Lowering Prices
While I'm glad to see some backtracking from eBags here, this whole "promotion" is still very odd. Why pay $7 for having accepted a subscription, only if the user cancels it? I guess it's like a rebate -- but it's pretty much the worst rebate mechanism I've ever seen. Never mind the fact they want to share my address and whatever other info with someone without making it clear beforehand they were doing so.
The process was shady, and judging by the comments here, doesn't look like it's won eBags a lot of fans. Whatever rhetoric they want to wrap it in, saying they'll pay somebody $7 (even if it isn't a "refund") if they cancel creates the perception that they're charging a buyer $7 for something they probably don't want, and at the very least, haven't been informed pre-purchase they're getting.
It's the same principle as a rebate, I'd imagine, only sort of in reverse -- generate enough referrals (for which presumably they're being paid) to the magazine so that paying the few people that actually jump through the myriad hoops to get their money back still allows for a profit.
Re: It's still creepy, but...
Really? I don't see it. The only things I see to opt out of are on the very last page before you order, for spam from eBags and their "pre-approved" buyers of their mailing list.
Re: No Subject Given
If you're going to ask Mike to be "a bit more circumspect without having insider knowledge of the financials", you should be too, and leave your financial metrics out of the discussion, since Skype has never disclosed its revenues.
It behooves Skype to keep everybody in the dark regarding things like its real user base (not the pointless number of downloads), the takeup of its paid services, and its revenues. That way, using your "financial metrics" can't enter the equation and it's got to be valued on all its intangibles.