The UK Government wants to introduce a law to allow anyone to use your photographs commercially, or in ways you might not like, without asking you first.

In reading more about the UK Digital Economy Bill, I realize something bigger than any individual has been put into motion: the world-wide culture of content harvesting.

Without exaggeration, Google's business model dictates it must own all the world's content. Right now everybody is okay with that because we all use Google's Web, image, news, blog, map, book, and scholar search services. Every day we are telling Google they are doing what we want.

So why should it surprise anyone when companies use the Internet in the same way individuals do (see image above)? Companies are made of people. Governments are run by people. When it became a cultural norm to pirate books, movies, music, and photographs, why wouldn't company employees do what they do at home?

Enter Clause 43 of the UK Digital Economy Bill. The language legitimizes unauthorized use of intellectual property by lumping all work on the Internet into a "collective". The philosophy seems to be this: creators who put any content on the Internet divorce themselves of control of that content. Side note: I'm seeing more questioning of the hive mentality (recommended reading You are Not a Gaget by Jaron Lanier).

My internal question machine kicks into gear:

• Does accidental publishing of content put it into the collective to be used?
• Can content be retracted?
• Is there any direct recourse for individuals who retract published work?
• Can a web-based service's failure to hide private content provide any recourse for individuals whose works became part of the collective?
• Will I see my daughter's face on a can of soup one day?
• What are the international ramifications? Specifically, does that mean if I know a photographer in the UK, for example, can I use his work without telling him?
• Can people in the UK use my stuff without my permission?
• Who decides what is and isn't in the collective?
• Most importantly: what does this mean for people who make a living as artists and writers? Will the "licensing body" feed their children and pay their rent?

I could come up with questions along those lines all day. Many content creators could.

I agree with the opponents of this legislation. But this is a basic problem with society in general. When things are left up to a government to decide, they will screw it up. Just because technology poses hard questions to answer, we shouldn't leave it up to government bodies to decide. Culturally the world is saying they want everything for free. A large part of the solution is to work on public campaigns, education, and real solutions as to how to handle intellectual property.  The war between people and companies will get nastier, especially when governments feel compelled to get involved and have such a history of siding where the money is.

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• British Authors And Publishers Opt Out Of Google Books By The Thousands (huffingtonpost.com)
• Amazon And Others Slam Revised Google Books Deal (huffingtonpost.com)
• Thousands of authors opt out of Google book settlement (guardian.co.uk)
• UK Internet Filtering Bill Watered Down (yro.slashdot.org)
• Digital economy bill rushing through parliament (iwr.co.uk)
• Photographers rue Mandy's copyright landgrab (go.theregister.com)
• British Telecom and Google oppose clauses in UK's Digital Economy Bill (newstatesman.com)
• 3 Count: Sweeping Reform (plagiarismtoday.com)

(thanks to KEYTLAW)

Titter announced they want to own the word "tweet" (via The Knockoff Report). From Twitter's blog post announcing this craziness (see May the Tweets Be With You):

We have applied to trademark Tweet because it is clearly attached to Twitter from a brand perspective but we have no intention of "going after" the wonderful applications and services that use the word in their name when associated with Twitter. In fact, we encourage the use of the word Tweet. However, if we come across a confusing or damaging project, the recourse to act responsibly to protect both users and our brand is important.

This is where intellectual property collides with the idea that everything in the world can be "monetized". They want the option to enforce modern branding on a word from the mid-1800s (see tweet. Dictionary.com. Unabridged (v 1.1). Random House, Inc. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/tweet (accessed: July 02, 2009).)

The threat of suing consumers over music and movies has already started leading toward cultural apathy toward intellectual property. While the individuals who are sued embrace the enforced respect of IP, the negative press and customer anger grows. I suppose it's natural to want to protect your own ideas and you should. Diminishing returns engages around the time the tiny Scrooge in your head starts word counting. Twitter saying they won't sue unless they feel like they have to doesn't comfort me.

I remember eToys offering half a million dollars for etoy.com. When the group of digital artists who owned the domain declined, eToys filed suit. I clearly remember someone on Silicon Spin on TechTV (ah good times) justifying the suit because it was important to protect the brand they worked so hard to establish. The problem was etoy.com established in 1994, long before eToys. The book, Leaving Reality Behind, chronicles the eToys lawsuit.

Protecting the brand is every company's responsibility to its employees and investors. It's a completely different thing to try and control language and usage through intimidation and lawsuits, especially in attempts at retroactively assuming control of words. The eToys lawsuit was a PR nightmare. Twitter would do well to rethink control of the word "tweet".

While companies should protect themselves, our culture should also protect freedom of speech and expression from being disassembled one word at a time.

Update:

Foggy memories corrected via Google. The company was eToys and I corrected the text to reflect that and linked to sources. I completely blanked on some of this history going on what I vaguely remembered. Note to self: save and publish later if you're not sure.  Also, I could not find any transcripts of Silicon Spin for that particular episode. I believe it aired the week of 12/23/1999. I wish the old non-ruined TechTV content was still available online.

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Why Government Sucks

Since I have a real job, I can't spend all of my time reading documents from other professions in a lame attempt to know everything. For example, as much as I search WebMD, I don't feel comfortable writing my friends' Hydrocodone prescriptions anymore. I didn't go to school for eight years and then suffer more years of an abusive residency under tyrannical, self-important, already-established doctors so I could become one myself.

When I read in Bloomberg today about idiotic senators apparently thinking elections are shortcuts around medical school, I had to rant (see Ruin Your Health With the Obama Stimulus Plan: Betsy McCaughey). I read the bill for myself.

I am not going to quote since it's long-winded, vague, full of passive voice, and wrist-slittingly boring. So if you want, have at it here.

The brainiacs pushing this stimulus down our throats have also decided to shove some health care regulations into our tax holes too. There are so many things wrong with the health care section alone the bill should be exploded. It is going to create some kind of information technology standard by which health care providers (i.e. your doctors) will have to conform. This standard is not defined, but membership is required. That's all my doctor needs is yet another cost to pass on to the insurance companies so they can pass it on to me. All health care needs in general is one more layer of bureaucracy to second guess and frustrate doctors right out of business.

Have any of these so-called leaders ever had to fight an insurance company over asthma meds? Have any of them spend 10 or more hours a week for months trying to justify why they didn't call their doctor for permission to go to an emergency room after an accident? Has one of them even tried to figure out why people hate HMOs?

Imagine a future where not only you must fight insurance companies over your doctor's treatments but you also fight government agencies, all because these soulless hacks just had to stick this on the stimulus bill. This all feels like a prostate exam.

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A woman whose sister died in the Sept. 11 attacks filed a lawsuit over last week's steam pipe eruption in Manhattan, saying Tuesday that the explosion brought back horrible memories.

Francine Dorf's lawsuit accuses Consolidated Edison of negligence, saying the utility didn't properly maintain the pipe that ruptured outside her office and sent a geyser of steam, mud and asbestos-tainted debris over the neighborhood near Grand Central Terminal.

"I thought a building was going to collapse," said Dorf, 52, a legal secretary. She is seeking unspecified damages.

The legacy of Cindy Sheehan lives on: a loved one's death is used as absolute moral authority. This lawsuit is like the Kevin Bacon Game. Let's see, a steam pipe explodes, debris is everywhere, World Trade Center attacks had debris, and that means Consolidated Edison caused 9/11. Nice.

A judge in one of the nation's longest-running school desegregation cases released the Little Rock district from federal supervision Friday, nearly 50 years after President Eisenhower sent in troops to escort nine black students into all-white Central High.

U.S. District Judge William R. Wilson Jr. said the district is substantially complying with a 1998 desegregation plan worked out in the 27,000-student district.

With blacks gaining a majority on the school board last September, the judge said he felt comfortable ending court supervision.

Three is so much more to this story than four paragraphs with a brief reminder of how ignorant and backwards Governor Orval Faubus was.

When I was attending high school in the 80s, I attended a school in the Pulaski County Special School District (PCSSD). It was a good school, albeit small (my graduating class was less than 150). During the mid 80s, the crime rate in the city of Little Rock got out of control as gang activity increased. The so-called "white flight" from Little Rock affected the tax base and the schools.

Now keep in mind that forced desegregation of the Little Rock School District dated back to 1957 with the famous and heroic Little Rock Nine. So for the previous three decades, there had been monitoring of the Little Rock School District. Through a series of lawsuits initiated by the district, the North Little Rock School District and the PCSSD were also desegregated and monitored. On a side note, while researching the history of the Little Rock School District, I found countless lawsuits against PCSSD and other school districts initiated by the district over the years, continuing to this day.

When the "white flight" was peaking in the 80s, the Little Rock School District was 70% black and the district filed suit against PCSSD and North Little Rock School District claiming that the only way to maintain racial balance was to consolidate all three districts. At that time North Little Rock was at 36% and the PCSSD was 22% black. Little Rock School District claimed that consolidation would create equality because then students from all over Pulaski County could be bussed. As a student then, I was worried. I had been bussed as a North Little Rock student in fifth grade and hated it–I went from a neighborhood school in walking distance from my house to riding a bus for two hours a day. As any kid will tell you, the bus sucks.

The lawsuit was not really about racial equality. It was about money. Little Rock was mismanaging the escalating crime problem and middle-class parents were moving their children away from problems. The PCSSD was an excellent district (at that time). Who could blame the parents? (Besides Little Rock, I mean.) Unfortunately, school districts suffer because of other government problems, as Little Rock proved. The consolidation seemed to be to be a message to "white fliers", the county, and North Little Rock: "You are not better than us and you can't leave us behind." Using racial desegregation as a ploy to increase tax revenue was a misuse of our legal system. Little Rock didn't get the consolidation, but they did annex fourteen schools from the PCSSD, which began the the descent of the the PCSSD's quality. As a result of the suit, another twenty years of federal management began. More students were bussed, North Little Rock consolidated two high schools, and the Little Rock School District reacquired tax payers who left the city for a reason.

Ironically, Little Rock was the only district of the three petitioning for the end of court supervision of desegregation as of this writing.

The point here is that there was never any balance, not racially, legally, or even morally. Orval Faubus fought the rule of law at the expense of his state's rights by forcing Eisenhower to federalize the Arkansas National Guard as well as send the 101st Airborne to enforce Federal law. Faubus was a genuine ass and an embarrassment to the state's history. Since then, desegregation has become an apparent legal revolving door for Little Rock. It makes me wonder if Little Rock could have used its legal funds to actually improve education. There is rhetoric about quality education and there is reality. With 70% black students in the 80s, Little Rock has not needed court supervision for a long time. Using the black-to-white ratio of the school board as a marker that the district was finally desegregated was weak and proved that it was never about the students. Students have been needlessly bussed at the expense of tax dollars that could have gone to technology, better teacher pay, or even new schools.

So when I saw the article about the ruling, I thought most Americans cannot appreciate its significance unless they know something of the history of race and the central Arkansas school districts. I recommend the following links:

• Reexamining Central High: American Memory and Social Reality
• A History of the Little Rock School District
• Free at Last: Or will obstacles persist in getting LR schools out of court?

However, he described SOX Section 404 as a "nightmare" and extremely costly. That section requires a company's auditor to attest to the effectiveness of internal controls implemented to protect financial reporting systems and processes.

"What can you expect when you get virtual unanimity in both houses [of government]?" Greenspan asked. "Any bill that gets that can't be good."

He believes that the vast majority of the members of the Senate and the House of Representatives failed to actually read the bill, which passed largely uncontested in 2002.

Greenspan is hopeful that changes to Section 404 are likely, praising the efforts of Democrats Chuck Schumer and Barney Frank seeking a re-evaluation of the legislation. Schumer, New York's senior U.S. senator, was particularly concerned about New York City's status as a financial center. "He was seeing IPOs [initial public offerings] going to London," Greenspan said.

Considering it's Schumer and Frank, I'll be much less hopeful than Greenspan.

Two years of compliance with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) have shored up corporate accounting practices – but with lopsided costs compared to benefits gained.

[snip]

"The Sarbanes-Oxley Act was a critical step in addressing an unprecedented string of corporate scandals that were rooted in very serious governance, accounting and audit failures," said SEC Chairman Christopher Cox in his opening remarks. Section 404 has the potential to improve the accuracy and reliability of financial reporting – but only if it's implemented properly, Cox said. "In practice it hasn't always worked out that way," he acknowledged.

Likewise Bill Gradison, acting chairman of the PCAOB, said that guidance the SEC issued last year and PCAOB's latest auditing standard may not be enough to clarify the rules that govern the reporting and auditing of internal controls. "Based on the information we already have, it would seem that some further changes may be in order," Gradison said.

I'm on a Sarbanes-Oxley project at the moment and I can see how this is ever so true. On the surface, it seems like Sarbanes-Oxley is a good thing for all people. You know, birds sing, flowers grow, and nobody will ever go hungry again all because Paul Sarbanes and Michael Oxley wanted to look like they were doing something about those evil tycoons.

Then reality sets in. Unlike HIPAA, Sarbanes-Oxley is not well defined. So companies have been trying to interpret vague legislation and then change their internal cultures to comply. Further complicating things is that everybody in management is scared, so each company has hundreds of layers of management in CYA mode making their own interpretations of a law written by a clueless legislative body so out of touch with day-to-day reality, they think they needed a law for actual crimes that were already illegal. Naturally, businesses can't stay open unless they can make a profit on top of the cost of compliance. Like the over-regulated medical industry, other industries forced into compliance will pass the costs along. Average citizens pay for both compliance through products and services purchased and enforcement through taxes. Good work, Congress.

Legislation that would require companies with data breaches to notify affected customers will create new expenses for companies, much the way the Sarbanes-Oxley Act did, said Bruce Kobayashi, a law professor at George Mason University. Congress passed Sarbanes-Oxley, or SOX, in 2002, and the law requires public companies to report their internal processes for ensuring the accuracy of financial reports.

"I think Congress has to … slow down," said Kobayashi, speaking at a data security conference sponsored by conservative think tank the Progress & Freedom Foundation (PFF). "Otherwise, we're going to get some SOX-type legislation in which firms spend a lot of money sending out notifications."

I couldn't have said it any better. I'm currently working on a Sarbanes-Oxley project. Not only is it a giant pain in the rump, the end-result is more CYA than actual effect. Maybe the intent of the law was to prevent another Enron, but it has created another money-pit cottage industry for compliance consultancies.

When will Congress learn to leave well-enough alone? Maybe when defense attorneys stop getting by with twisting existing laws to such a literal interpretation that special interest groups feel compelled to have a law for every conceivable scenario. Or maybe when Congress quits being so vain that they stop thinking every headline is about them.

Regardless of the laws passed, law enforcement is the key. The more laws that are passed, the more expensive enforcement is because of compliance. There is more gridlock in advancing a case than there is on the Kennedy Expressway in Chicago's rush hour. But Congress doesn't have to enforce or even fund enforcement. They just have to have daily press briefings with cute little soundbites until they are voted out and replaced with others just like them.

A new federal prosecution again raises the issue of whether computer security experts must fear prison time for investigating and reporting vulnerabilities.

On April 28, 2006, Eric McCarty was arraigned in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. McCarty is a professional computer security consultant who noticed that there was a problem with the way the University of Southern California had constructed its web page for online applications. A database programming error allowed outsiders to obtain applicants' personal information, including Social Security numbers.

For proof, the man copied seven applicants' personal records and anonymously sent them to a reporter for SecurityFocus. The journalist notified the school, the school fixed the problem, and the reporter wrote an article about it.

The incident might have ended there, but didn't.

The school went through its server logs and easily traced the activity back to McCarty, who had made no attempt to hide his tracks. The FBI interviewed McCarty, who explained everything to the agents. Then the U.S. Attorney's Office in Los Angeles charged the security expert with violating 18 U.S.C. 1030, the federal computer crime law.

Read the whole thing. It really shows how it's so easy to go after law-abiding citizens and it's so much harder to investigate, build a case, and prosecute identity thieves and criminal hackers. That would actually take work. It's as if the mentality is to nail some do-gooder when he isn't covering his tracks. At least the prosecutors can show they took another case to trial and put another notch on their desks. This is not about protecting the public; it's about collecting low-hanging fruit while ignoring the rest of the jungle.

After two years and thousands of hours of investigation in conjunction with law enforcement agencies in China, Taiwan and Japan, the company said it had uncovered something far more ambitious than clandestine workshops turning out inferior copies of NEC products. The pirates were faking the entire company.

Evidence seized in raids on 18 factories and warehouses in China and Taiwan over the past year showed that the counterfeiters had set up what amounted to a parallel NEC brand with links to a network of more than 50 electronics factories in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

In the name of NEC, the pirates copied NEC products, and went as far as developing their own range of consumer electronic products – everything from home entertainment centers to MP3 players. They also coordinated manufacturing and distribution, collecting all the proceeds.

No wonder my CD-ROM drive kept smoking. When I was growing up, the big counterfeiting controversy was over Panama Jack t-shirts and those fake Rolex watches you could buy on any New York City street corner.

BUYER, BEWARE. Spitzer's office dispatched investigators who, disguised as customers, were able to purchase affected CDs in New York music retail outlets — and to do so more than a week after Sony BMG recalled the disks. The investigators bought CDs at stores including Wal-Mart (WMT ), BestBuy (BBY ), Sam Goody, Circuit City (CC ), FYE, and Virgin Megastore, according to a Nov. 23 statement from Spitzer's office.

Sony BMG says it shipped nearly 5 million CDs containing the software, of which 2.1 million had been sold. The company says 52 individual titles are affected.

Spitzer's office urged consumers not to buy the disks, and if they do buy them, not to play them in computers. The disks should be returned to the place of purchase for a refund, Spitzer advises.

Are these really the same people who want to discourage piracy? When are they going to learn that consumerism is best managed through the market than strong-arm tactics? Probably never.

Charlotte, N.C.-based Scientigo owns two patents (No. 5,842,213 and No. 6,393,426)covering the transfer of "data in neutral forms." These patents, one of which was applied for in 1997, are infringed upon by the data-formatting standard XML, Scientigo executives assert.

Scientigo intends to "monetize" this intellectual property, Scientigo CEO Doyal Bryant said this week.

Monetize? I'm going to have to add that to my list of obnoxious fake business words. What didn't work for SCO certainly won't for Scientigo. I'd love to see them approach Amazon: "Please review our rather vague patent and cough up the dough or our tiny little company will leave a horse head in your bed."

As the article points out, XML is based on SGML, which officially has been around since 1981 (see The SGML History Niche). I'm really trying to visualize an attorney in front of a judge trying to justify an action against a company using XML. If I was the attorney, I'd be embarrassed–but then again, I'm not an attorney and we all know that attorneys don't seem to embarrass easily. While I'm at it, if I was the CEO of Scientigo and had publicly used the word "monetize", I'd go into hiding, but I digress.

I read through the patents and concluded they are too vague. Sure they could mean XML if it wasn't based on three decades of markup language research, but they could also refer to any number of content technologies. Sadly, there will be a judge to listen to this garbage, there will be media to cover it, and there may even be some smaller companies that can't afford to contest invoices from Scientigo.

Merck & Co.'s legal liability for the withdrawn pain pill Vioxx may be twice as high as previously estimated after the drug company lost the first of thousands of lawsuits, an analyst said yesterday.

Credit Suisse First Boston analyst Catherine Arnold doubled her liability estimate to $10 billion after the verdict, she said in an interview. The new total is based on an assumption that 48,000 U.S. patients will sue and may win payments averaging $200,000 each.

I've seen anti-corporate Web blogs, editorials, and pundits praising the $253 million award as a good thing. Even the news reports seem to provide some praise as they quote proponents early in the story.

"Stop doing the minimum to put a drug on the market," juror Derrick Chizer said. "Go out there and do your very best… Merck makes a lot of medicines. They're staking our lives. Be responsible."

The comment came after the jury Friday decided Merck, the maker of the painkiller, should pay the big dollar amount to Carol Ernst, whose husband Robert died suddenly in 2001 of heart problems after taking Vioxx for pain in his hip and hands.

Naturally the dissenting jury member quote is the last paragraph in the story. I'm reminded a little of the Martha Stewart Juror who said their verdict sent a message to all of the "fat cats" out there. This news story even had the reasons for the verdict in a neat little bulleted list. I hardly think it was that simple. It's not remotely easy to develop and sell pharmaceuticals in the U.S. and it's getting harder for companies to do so, considering they risk pay outs of this size.

I feel for Mrs. Ernst who lost her husband. It may have been because of Vioxx. But I'm cynical and I see a grief-stricken widow as an excuse for attorneys to move in for the kill. Carol Ernst will probably even receive a greatly reduced settlement after appeal, but it will still be in the tens of millions. So will her attorneys. I'm still not sure what good it does to go after a company like Merck for so much when the vast majority of that money is ear-marked for lawyers. Take a look at the reality before you justify that amount of money.

My first thought after the verdict was, "Great, now I have to pay more for my own drugs." It's not just Merck. All the pharmaceuticals will raise prices to cover their new insurance premiums and revised legal budgets.

Another thing is when juries award this much, it's part of a trend and it will not stop with Merck and Vioxx. Attorneys all over the country will act like another wonderful corporate piñata has been smacked open and will circle underneath it for as much as they can collect before the adults come in with tort reform. Just yesterday I saw a CNN anchor saying, "Coming up, after the fallout of the Vioxx suit, what about other drugs? Are your drugs safe?" There it is; the media has just set it up for the lawyers to spike it. There is no risk-free drug and every single side-effect, no matter how small, has the potential for becoming a major law suit.

Merck is not going to close its doors. Merck will pass increases in costs to the consumer just to stay in the black. I'm so glad I could help contribute.

In this case, "it was so clear that his Web site did not create any likelihood of confusion about whether Falwell sponsored it," Levy said in an e-mail.

The court agreed. "Lamparello's Web site looks nothing like Reverend Falwell's; indeed, Lamparello has made no attempt to imitate Reverend Falwell's Web site," wrote Judge Diana Motz.

[snip]

Levy said the recent opinion represents an important shift in thinking about trademarks and domain names. "In some of the early Internet infringement cases, there was some tendency to 'baby' consumers by assuming that Internet users are stupid and that domain names can easily mislead them away from the Web sites of trademark holders," he said.

Here's a question: what if Lamperello changed his Web site to look like Falwell's site after the verdict? I agree with the ruling in the sense that Falwell is a public figure and he can be parodied, critiqued, and fisked. But I'm a little concerned that the domain name is not the crucial issue, but the Web site's look and feel is. Does that mean trademarked names are no longer safe as domain names? I don't know. But the fact this is Jerry Falwell means that this won't receive the proper analysis it should. Falwell, being the religious lightening rod he is, will not receive objective legal review from pundits and analysts.

The response from his legal team makes a good point:

Midlen said the appeals court erred by failing to focus exclusively on the domain name in question. "We have never alleged or argued or litigated whether or not…the content of his Web site was confusing," he said. "We said all along that he is entitled to say on his Web site whatever he wishes to say…Our basic contention is that the Internet surfer who misspells Dr. Falwell's name in looking for him on the Internet is unwittingly hijacked to the pro-gay site that is operated by Mr. Lamparello, and the public is deceived in that action."

The article's spin makes it about the intelligence of end-users as a consideration. If end-users' understanding of intellectual property was a consideration, then the RIAA would not have grounds to sue anybody for illegally downloading files. I think underlying this verdict is a bias against certain types of domain holders, confusion about trademarks and domain names, and existing intellectual property laws versus new technology. So far, companies with limited lobbying power or unpopular public opinion seem to have problems protecting domain names while special interest groups like PETA have successfully reclaimed domains used as parodies. Even the Whitehouse has had its problems with domain names. Yes, this is a generalization without analyzing the details of each case. But there is merit to the argument that domain name disputes are not easily decided and are inconsistently applied.

So back to Falwell. If PETA successfully reclaimed a domain based on their name, then why is Falwell different? Personally, I don't like the man, but I would like to know that I can protect my own intellectual property. These inconsistent rulings turn domain names into a gamble. Is it better to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars buying up every possible domain-name-variation of a business name or to wait to sue anybody who uses one of them?

As a small business owner, I don't have a pool of money I can use to defend my name. I look at these court rulings and wonder how I have any recourse at all when the companies who do have funds can't get consistent rulings.

The suit, filed in 2001, accused Sony of unfair business practices, including the "intentional and systematic deception of consumers," by using fabricated quotes attributed to Manning. Manning was identified as a critic for the Ridgefield Press, a Connecticut publication, and his quotes in praise of such films as "Hollow Man," "Vertical Limit," "A Knight's Tale" and "The Animal" appeared in studio ads and promotional materials.

I just want to say thanks to all of the attorneys who made this possible. Before this lawsuit, I felt trapped by marketing campaigns. I can't even begin to tell you how horrible it was to sit through "Hollow Man" because Sony lied. I felt like there was a gun to my head after I I read how "David Manning" fawned over the picture. I couldn't help myself and I bought the ticket. I didn't realize the movie was such a suckfest until I read other reviews later on. I had given up 90 minutes of my life for what–another movie I can use when playing Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon? Thank god "David Manning" was fictional. All of those contradictory reviews confuses me.

This is where attorneys really show their value to society. They take up for the little guy, like me, who unwittingly spent $7.50 for the matinee, $12.50 for popcorn, a Coke, and a box of Juji Fruits. Even though I was out $20, I can now recover a small portion of what I spent to help bring down those evil Sony executives. I was lied to and I want my due. Where does Sony get off manipulating the printed word like that? In this day of absolute media integrity, this publicity stunt just might make people not trust advertising like they used to.

I think there should now be more suits over false advertising. For instance, I bought some Skittles the other day and my feet never left the ground and I certainly didn't taste the damn rainbow. Not once has Mr. Clean magically appeared in my kitchen. And I'm still upset that Survivor never play me a theme song when I drink a Starbucks Doubleshot. Based on the Sony lawsuit, after attorney fees, I'm due $297.12 for a lifetime of falling prey to advertising. I'm so glad there will always be lawyers to bail me out of my misery.

"I don't know why this is such a big deal," he said. "At no time was the security of the server breached, and I don't know that it has cost the taxpayers any money."

Winkler agreed that the server, where grades and other private records are stored, was never threatened.

Shrawder acknowledged that the students broke school rules, but he and the other parents protested what they believe is the heavy-handed approach to the problem.

Most of the students accused were freshmen, but a few were sophomores and juniors. None of the accused were seniors.

Parents also worried that a felony conviction would permanently damage their child's record for an infraction that may otherwise have resulted in a grounding if it were discovered by a parent.

Let's repeat their logic again: "otherwise have resulted in a grounding if it were discovered by a parent." Well, it was only a computer password for goodness sake. No harm in that. It's not like it was a gun. It's not like they cost tax payers any money. It's not like doing that same thing in the future would cost them their jobs.

I'm going to type a clue here so maybe they will find it. This "no harm, no foul" parenting is dangerous. It gives the children the message that rules don't matter. Blaming the school for being "heavy handed" and incompetent with passwords is akin to blaming a cop when you are pulled over for doing 50 in a school zone. No you didn't run over any children–stupid cop, enforcing the law, grumble, grumble.

According to the article, some kids used the passwords to download music and "inappropriate" content. I worked with people fired for infractions like that at a major U.S. corporation. Ironically enough, they had the same attitude as these parents. In the end, their attitude changed nothing. They were escorted from the building by security and humiliated in front of their peers. It's better to learn how to follow rules rather than being surprised when HR is coming down hard on you for exposing your company to a major lawsuit by a music company or a person offended by the inappropriate content on your PC.

I don't bill by the hour; I bill by the project. It helps me on several fronts. First, there is a trend to get away from paying consultants by the hour thanks to the abuses during the 90s by mega consulting firms. If I have a flat rate, then the customer is better prepared to accept a solid bid instead of an estimate. In addition, bidding by the project usually ensures I don't have to track time for a project.

This is the first time that I've had a client take advantage of a contract. This is partially because they are technology challenged and it's partially because they have been abusing my willingness to help them out. I've taken several trips to their offices in Chicago on my own dime. What I've realized is that I need provisions in my contract to address the areas that have been gray.

Travel

I didn't have any travel provisions in my contract. This may seem like a no-brainer, but I honestly have never needed it in the past. I'm going to include it for all contracts. My client has been demanding I appear in person to work out technical details. Again, they are technology neophytes and they seem to only feel comfortable with face-to-face conversations. I've also had other clients ask me to visit their customers or conduct business on their behalf. My new contracts will have a travel provisions covering the amount I want per mileage and for lodging.

Change Management

This is a software project. I designed the requirements, look and feel, data, documentation, and process maps for the software. However, what I'm delivering is so far removed from the original design that the original requirements seem more like suggestions. How did I get there? Well, it has to with the fact that the client couldn't translate the words on paper to a functioning system. They have claimed that they couldn't be clear about what they wanted until they actually saw a functioning system. In the future, I'm going to redesign the way I complete requirements so that each requirement is understood and initialed by the client. If I have to have a comp for each screen, I will. The contract will then require each requirement be accepted on its own merit rather than as a single document. Coding will not begin until all requirements are reviewed and signed off.

Provisions for Subcontractors

My project is late because of subcontractor problems I had. This is my responsibility, but I want a new provision in the contract that deals with this issue. When I have subcontractor problems, I need timeline flexibility so adjust delivery dates. This would have given me more time to deliver and a basis for creating an updated project plan. This was my fault for sure, but I had my head down trying to deliver the project rather than looking at the big picture.

Live and learn, I guess. Contracts do more than ensure I get paid. They need to cover areas where clients can and will take advantage of my flexibility.

Out of my discussions with thought leaders Ravicher and long-time OSI general counsel Larry Rosen, there is little doubt that the patent system is broken. But those same thought leaders are also in agreement that it's not as simple as wiping out software patents altogether. They acknowledge that developers who make enormous personal and financial sacrifices — only to emerge out of a bunker two or three years later with masterpieces that everybody wants — are probably entitled to some sort of protection that makes their sacrifices worthwhile. Between the protection that should be afforded to that "inventor" and the American patent system as it stands today (as it applies to software and business methods) is a giant gray area for which no detailed correction proposal exists. In other words, not only aren't the answers easy, no one has stepped forward with the obvious answer.

The vacuum is obvious. Everybody is a critic, but there are no proposals to fix the problem. Read the whole posting as it provides excellent insight the battle brewing over software patents.

The bill puts the onus on "any person or entity that sells, offers for sale, advertises, distributes, disseminates, provides, or otherwise makes available peer-to-per file sharing software that enables its user to electronically disseminate commercial recordings or audiovisual works via the Internet or any other digital network."

This is more of the tired, "there ought to be a law," reactionary response to the ever-so-whiny entertainment industry. Read the whole thing.

As the United States' legal system continues slow under the strain of vague, complex, ridiculous, and special-interest pleasing laws, Americans are losing their rights and they are increasingly devalued.

The Federalist Society has noticed and has been studying the effect of the increase of federal criminal laws since 1970. In a new report entitled "Measuring The Explosive Growth of Federal Crime Legislation," John S. Baker and Dale E. Bennett point out that there are currently 4,000 criminal offenses in the United States code. 4,000 is an educated guess based on their research.

Unfortunately, getting an accurate count is not as simple as counting the number of criminal statutes. As the American Bar Association’s Task Force on the Federalization of Crime stated: “So large is the present body of federal criminal law that there is no conveniently accessible, complete list of federal crimes.” Not only are the number of statutes large, the statutes are scattered and complex.4 The situation presents a two-fold challenge: 1) determining what statutes count as crimes and 2) differentiating whether, as to the different acts listed within a section or subsection, there is more than a single crime and, if so, how many.

This makes me ask: Why? Can somebody tell me why federal statutes have to be so complex? The criminal code is just like the tax code. Why does it have to be difficult?

The report points out that there is no general definition of "crime". While this sounds ridiculous, keep in mind that lawyers make their livings by picking the law apart and presenting it in the most favorable way for their clients. The more vague, the better. The federal crime laws provide a serious advantage to lawyers looking for loopholes, easy outs, and language that seems better left to the experts. U.S. laws are not accessible in language nor in structure.

The second problem is that, whether contained in Title 18 or some other title, one statute does not necessarily equal one crime. Often, a single statute contains several crimes. Determining the number of crimes contained within a single statute involves a matter of judgment. Different people may make different judgments about the number of crimes contained in each statute, depending on the criteria used. In the absence of a definition of crime, it is incumbent on the compiler to explain the criteria employed to determine the count.

This is especially important when you see the incredible complexity of the criminal system. As I read the report, I couldn't help but visualize the disconnect between lawmakers and their constituents. I knew many cops when the Brady Bill passed. They complained it didn't actually do much other than create work for already bogged down law enforcement industry. The reality is the Brady Bill was only a public relations victory. There is no direct correlation between the Brady Bill and the reduction of gun-related crime.

Most laws are passed to satisfy our society's squeaky wheels or create an appearance of action. With over 4,000 criminal offenses on the books, I think just about every crime is covered in some way. So what is the point of creating new laws? Hate crime laws, for example, define already existing crimes as crimes again. The only purpose of hate crime laws is not to help reduce crime, but to make people think that "hate" crimes are being prosecuted with extreme prejudice.

This report was covered by Fox News: Has Congress Created 'Federal Police Power'?. There is a quote that gave me shivers regarding the conclusions from this report.

Every American is just a few steps away from committing a crime.

That point is raised in new publications that seek to cast a critical eye on lawmakers for their aggressive approach to going after supposed wrongdoing.

"I think we should be alarmed on a number of different levels," said Bob Barr, a former Republican member of Congress from Georgia who also used to be a U.S district attorney. "We’re changing the very nature of society — the over-criminalization of society."

The only solution I see to this is to help redefine what lawmakers do. How about reviewing laws on the books for relevance? How about studying the affects of a law before it's passed? How about paying attention to reality rather than the PR war disguising itself as politics? Short of that, we are in for many more laws in my lifetime. By the time I'm 80, I'm sure going to the toilet will be a crime in some way.

The mother of a mentally ill young woman who bought a shotgun at a Denton Wal-Mart store and used it to kill herself is suing the national chain, saying it violated federal laws prohibiting such sales.

The suit against Wal-Mart Stores Inc. filed in district court this week in Denton seeks as much as $25 million in damages for negligence in the death of Shayla Renee Stewart.

Ms. Stewart, a 23-year-old University of North Texas computer science student, suffered from bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and suicidal tendencies, court documents show.

The short version of this story is that Ms. Stewart was buying her medication from one Wal-Mart and eventually purchased her suicide shotgun from another one. Her mother is suing Wal-Mart on the grounds that Wal-Mart has never implemented a mind reading procedure. She claims that Wal-Mart should have had some kind of procedure in place to notify all Wal-Mart employees nation-wide that Shayla Renee Stewart displayed violent tendencies in Denton, Texas so don't sell her crazy ass a gun.

I want to clue Ms. Bracy in on what it's like to run a company like Wal-Mart and how it's not possible to have consistent policies and procedures across all stores for customer service, much less a national psycho notification system. I feel that Ms. Bracy needs some kind of idea what it's like in the real world since she works as a legal secretary. Her view of the world is skewed by the schools of lawyers swimming around her office advising her to sue.

For those of us who have worked in places with high traffic retail customers, we can empathize with the poor Wal-Mart employee who sold Ms. Stewart the gun. Let's say Wal-Mart has the national psycho notification system in place, that Wal-Mart employee would have to wade through a list of at least 900,000 names of people showing erratic or potentially dangerous behavior. That list of names would be generated by Wal-Mart employees who were frightened at one time or another by a customer. Oh, make that list at least two million names, then. But the reason such a list does not exist is because:

• The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) prevents any medical information being disclosed to anyone other than the patient or to whom the patient agrees.
• The ACLU would sue the pants off Wal-Mart for even thinking about compiling any kind of list.
• Wal-Mart employees are generally qualified to check you out, stock shelves, and fill prescriptions. They are not qualified to determine if an individual is suicidal. Such a determination usually requires a medical degree or a doctorate in psychology.
• Wal-Mart stores are frequented by people who beat their kids, urinate on inventory, defecate in aisles, yell at their spouses, steal merchandise in creative and strange ways, and are generally disruptive. Welcome to retail.

If I had to guess, at least 15% of Wal-Mart customers are probably crazy. I'd like to see Ms. Bracy devise a system that complies with HIPAA, doesn't piss of the overly sensitive ACLU, and is actually going to prevent all potential disasters.

In addition, ATF Form 4473 has no provisions for mental wellness other than asking if the purchaser has ever been so loony as to not be able to attend to personal affairs. Apparently Ms. Stewart was well enough for her mother to move to Arkansas. She was also apparently going to Wal-Mart by herself. Ms. Bracy is suing for $25 million. It's not going to bring her daughter back and will force Wal-Mart to either settle out of court to shut her up or will fight her. That $25 million comes from Wal-Mart customers and directly affects how Wal-Mart prices products in the Denton area.

Yes, it's tragic that Ms. Stewart took her own life. It's even more tragic for her mother to exploit that tragedy to try and move the blame to Wal-Mart rather than her daughter's unfortunate mental condition. Until Wal-Mart buys those handy machines that see into the future, I think most people should still be responsible for themselves.

Aharonian argues in his complaint that software copyright laws violate the right to due process enshrined in the U.S. Constitution because they do not provide clear boundaries for appropriate use. That means industry players and courts do not have a clear idea of the rules.

"Until you're sued and a judge makes up his mind about what is the idea and expression (at stake), no one knows," Aharonian said in an interview.

This is a valid point about most intellectual property. What was nice about copyright laws before software came along, was that there was a generally accepted legal notion of what copyright protected. I'm afraid that digital technology has only confused judges and lawmakers because they see it all as a tumultuous sea of jargon, concepts, and merged ideas. But the basis of Aharonian's suit is about copyright protection versus patent protection and all of his arguments fall apart because little will differentiate between patents and copyrights as far as the court system is concerned.

The U.S. Patent Office represents the best our government has to offer in bureaucracy. They award patents to just about everything except good ideas and don't have the resources to research the software patent applications piling up today. Imagine giving them more power. It would be similar to when the Brady Bill was passed. All it did was make cops busier and had no real impact on street crime. Software is tricky because there are so many flavors implemented out there. Each piece of software has pieces either developed originally by a programmer or it was part of a library of canned code. Some software programs have millions of lines of code. Who at the patent office is going to review all of that to see if a specific subroutine was stolen? It's not going to happen. Somebody needs to tell Don Quixote to get off the old horse and find a more creative outlet for his ideas.

One thing that might be better than patents is a new type of intellectual property definition for software only. Corporations can contribute to an escrow service to hold source in escrow. If there a perceived violation of the protected code, the escrow service can arbitrate and also deem if civil legal action is necessary.

Another option is for software companies to re-evaluate their business models. It's kind of like the entertainment industry, the Law of Supply and Demand have spoken. Many PC users can't afford for every piece of software they use to be several hundred dollars. At the same time, software companies are trying to squeeze everything they can out of software that really doesn't need upgrades. Smart leaders in these software companies must see that the old tradition of software upgrades every year is going the way of the dot-matrix printer. The software companies of tomorrow will not worry about software licenses and off-the-shelf packages. They will be worried about providing solutions for their customers that are fairly priced and are actually useful.

In the meantime, software companies struggle with each other over intellectual property, piracy, and their increasingly irrelevant business models. While suing to rid software of copyrights is non-traditional thinking, I'd rather see that energy put to solutions rather than getting attention.

The court's action is good news for big record labels and Hollywood studios, which have lost successive rulings on the issue in lower courts. They want software companies like Morpheus parent StreamCast Networks and Grokster to be held legally responsible when copyrighted material is swapped using their software.

For the most part, I don't see where there is much liability associated with the software companies. Is Sears responsible every time a Craftsman claw hammer is used as a weapon? Software companies are in it for the money. They are doing nothing illegal. The illegal activities are at the consumer level. And there is still no definitive proof that file sharing is actually hurting the entertainment industry while there is data that suggests the opposite. Meanwhile, the entertainment industry still thinks the legal system will end the problem.

Prosecuting individuals is not practical. Suing consumers is bad PR. The only way to deal with the problem is education. Until individuals understand and respect intellectual property, there will be illegal file swapping. Going to the Supreme Court only redirects blame toward opportunistic companies, but there will always be open source and there will always be ways to circumvent the law and protection technologies.

Ultimately, the Supreme Court ruling is going to either permanently affix the blame to the software companies or force the entertainment industry to restart their entire campaign. Either way, individuals will still swap files, apathetic to the ruling.

Expressing dismay over recurring reports of steroid abuse by some of the game's top stars, the Arizona senator threatened to legislate stricter rules if the sport fails to police itself.

"I'll introduce legislation in January, but I hope I don't have to do that," he said, speaking to reporters at Andrews Air Force Base.

This is a problem on two fronts. The first is, just like I keep griping about on this blog, professional sports is out of control. Since they want to make money regardless of any ethical standards, they continually have problem players. They have brawls, a serious public relations problem, and a tragically blind eye to player behavior. Pete Rose, for gambling, received worse punishment than players who are on trial for rape. Kobe Bryant, for example, still played during his criminal trial. Even though it was eventually dismissed, Bryant was not suspended pending the trial's results. Imagine a police officer investigated for a crime back on the streets before the findings are discovered. Bryant, a public figure and celebrity, could have been taken out of the public life on some sort of paid administrative leave. But to do so would have changed the game. For Bryant to continue to play says that the NBA doesn't care if it has players accused of rape nor does it care that it has players committing adultery.

There is seemingly no code of conduct in professional sports, resulting in controversy after controversy and leading to the second problem: government's propensity to regulate private industry. What happens when industries don't police themselves? The government's maternal instincts goes into overdrive. The worst part about this is that it's entirely preventable with an easy, easy solution.

Social norms are common actions and behaviors performed by a group of people. For example, wearing clothes outside of your house is conforming to a social norm. Traditionally, social norms are tied to public expectations of moral behavior. The untying of morality and "normal" behavior is a late twentieth century phenomenon–that is sooooo last century Postmodernism. It's time to reunite consequences with poor public behavior. If private organizations don't do it, the government will.