In Finland, piracy fines are orders of magnitude higher than fines for rape, torture and murder —

Thierry sez, "Hey, remember the scandal last week about the girl whose laptop was confiscated for downloading a album from Chisu? Well, here's another shocking story about the same company, with a staggering €400,000 fine to a young man aged 21. According to this, piracy is worse then rape or murder in Finland, i.e. a fine for murder is up to €11,000 and rape/torture €2,000. The fine for downloading is a whopping €800,000 to a couple. Moral of the story? Learn to use a proper peerblock." — Cory •

White House tells blind people: the MPAA says we have to kill your treaty, sorry. —

Jamie Love from KEI sez, "During the WIPO negotiations on disabilities, the White House has told U.S. Blind groups it will kill a WIPO treaty on copyright exceptions for persons who are blind or have other disabilities if the treaty covers audiovisual works, including those used in education, including distance teaching programs. The fight at WIPO is being fought over the definition of a work. The US wants to limit the exceptions to works [in the form of text, notation and/or related illustrations], and opposes [in any media]. India, country with a large film industry, is among those who want to exceptions to cover audiovisual works, and India is supported by other countries. Brazil has suggested the decision on audiovisual works be left to national discretion. The US delegation has sent a tough message to the blind organizations, effectively threatening to kill the treaty is AV works are included." — Cory •

The Electronic Frontier Foundation's Carolina Rossini is at the World Intellectual Property Organization in Geneva, where American-led copyright industry trade groups are prepared, once again, to sabotage a treaty guaranteeing access to blind people and people with other disabilities. At the forefront of stopping blind people from having access to reading is the Association of American Publishers. What a ghastly grotesquery.

The blind should not be treated like second-tier citizens and considered as an afterthought. The protection of liberties online includes making sure that all people, regardless of ability, can participate in the digital world. As technology advances and more books move from hard-copy print to electronic formats, people with print disabilities deserve the opportunity to enjoy access to books on an equal basis with others. For this reason, EFF has supported a binding international instrument, a treaty, on this matter since the beginning of such discussions at WIPO.

In one of the corridor conversations at WIPO, the publishers’ lobbyists have said they do not want to give a “trophy” treaty for those that fight for access to knowledge. The concept that a treaty that would significantly help the blind participate in the literary world would be considered a “trophy” is offensive on the merits. The entertainment and publishing industry has already gotten many such trophy-treaties themselves: They got the WIPO Internet treaties, they got the Performers Treaty, and a couple of decades ago they got TRIPS. It’s time for them to stop kidding themselves and for us to square the deal and get some balance in copyright.

Let’s Close the Deal on a Treaty for the Blind and Print Disabled

(Image: BOOKS ABOUT BOOKS, a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike (2.0) image from jm3's photostream)

VUPEN is an anti-security company that roots out vulnerabilities in common operating systems and programs and sells these vulnerabilities to governments, police forces and others who want to use them to build malicious software to let them spy on people (we've written about them before). Now they claim to have found vulnerabilities in Windows 8 and Internet Explorer 10, and have put these up for sale to customers who want to use them to hijack other peoples' computers.

Our first 0day for Win8+IE10 with HiASLR/AntiROP/DEP & Prot Mode sandbox bypass (Flash not needed) is ready for customers. Welcome #Windows8

— VUPEN Security (@VUPEN) October 30, 2012

Security firm VUPEN claims to have hacked Windows 8 and IE10 (via /.)

In "The Plot to Destroy America's Beer," Businessweek's Devin Leonard chronicles the rapacious AB InBev, a multinational, publicly traded giant corporation that is buying up American (and European, South American and Asian) family owned breweries, cutting them to the bone, lowering the quality of the ingredients used, shutting down breweries that have been running for more than a century, laying off thousands of workers who've given their lives to the companies AB InBev acquired, and changing the recipes to make all the different sorts of beer once on offer taste more or less the same.

InBev was never a sentimental company. Shortly after the merger, it shuttered the 227-year-old brewery in Manchester, U.K., where Boddingtons was produced. It encountered more resistance in 2005 when it closed the brewery in the Belgian village of Hoegaarden, from which the popular white beer of the same name flowed. InBev said it could no longer afford to keep the brewery open. After two years of protests by brewery workers and beer aficionados, it reversed itself. Laura Vallis, an AB InBev spokeswoman, says Hoegaarden exports spiked unexpectedly. “The brand’s growth since is positive news for Hoegaarden and for consumers around the world who enjoy it,” she says.

Yet some Hoegaarden drinkers say the flavor of the beer changed. “I think now it’s not as distinctive tasting,” says Iain Loe, spokesman for the Campaign for Real Ale, an advocacy group for pubs and beer drinkers. “You often see when a local brand is taken over by a global brewer, the production is raised a lot. If you’re trying to produce a lot of beer, you don’t want a beer that some people may object to the taste of it, so you may actually make the taste a little blander.” (Vallis’s response: “The brand’s commitment to quality has never changed.”)

Despite occasional setbacks, Brito’s assiduous focus on the bottom line produced the intended results. InBev’s earnings margin (before taxes and depreciation) rose from 24.7 percent in 2004 to 34.6 percent in 2007. Its stock price nearly tripled. Then he started running out of things to cut. In early 2008, InBev’s results plateaued, and its shares stumbled.

Investors hungered for another deal. Brito complied with the takeover of Anheuser-Busch. He had intimate knowledge of his target: America’s largest brewer had distributed InBev’s beers in the U.S. since 2005. Anheuser-Busch’s CEO, August Busch IV, the fifth Busch family member to run the company, was no match for La Máquina and his mentor, Lemann, who was now an InBev director. Anheuser-Busch’s board of directors accepted InBev’s bid of $70 a share on July 14, 2008.

The Plot to Destroy America's Beer (Thanks, Fipi Lele!)

The Village Voice received an improbable trademark over the use of "BEST OF" in connection with lists of the best things on offer in various cities, and now they're suing Yelp for creating their own "Best of" lists. This ridiculous suit is only possible because of the US Patent and Trademark Office's bungling, terrible methods, as the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Corynne McSherry writes, and will only be resolved when the USPTO cleans up its act:

What is going on at the Patent and Trademark Office? For decades, folks have been complaining (with good reason) that the patent examiners need to do a better job of screening out bogus patent applications. It’s clear that the problem extends to the trademark side as well. The PTO has allowed companies and individuals to register marks in any number of obviously generic and/or descriptive terms, such as “urban homestead” (to refer to urban farms), “gaymer” (to refer to gay gamers), and “B-24” (to refer to model B-24 bombers).

Once a mark is registered, it is all too easy for the owner to become a trademark bully. And while companies like Yelp have the resources to fight back (as we expect it will), small companies and individuals may not. Just as dangerous, the trademark owner may go upstream, to intermediaries like Facebook who have little incentive to do anything other than take down an account or site that’s accused of infringement.

"Good enough for government work" isn't good enough for free speech. It’s time the PTO did its part to stop trademark bullies and tightened up the trademark application process. Fewer bogus registrations means fewer bogus threats, and more online creativity and competition. That's a win for everyone.

Stupid Lawyer Tricks (And How the PTO Could Help Stop Them)

Betcha didn't know that the Daleks featured in a series of TV and print ads that appeared in the likes of Children's Dalek Annual 1978.

Hello people of the past: you... seriously used Dr Who and the Daleks to advertise tobacco?

Of all the stupid clauses in the license "agreements" that the Internet crams down your throat, the cake-taker is "this agreement subject to change without notice." In other words, you're "agreeing" to anything and everything that the company dreams up, for the rest of time. This clause -- and its place in a "browsewrap agreement" that you supposedly agreed to just by visiting a website with "by visiting this website, you agree to our terms of service" on the bottom of it -- was found to be unenforceable by a federal judge in Nevada, who voided out the company's whole agreement on that basis, leaving the company vulnerable to lawsuits after a password leak affecting 24 million customers.

Eric Goldman's posted analysis:

Zappos can hardly be surprised by this adverse judicial ruling. We have known for years that browsewraps are unenforceable (see some of the cases discussed here) and judges clearly dislike unilateral amendment clauses (see, e.g., the uncited Ninth Circuit's Douglas ruling from 2007 and the cited 2009 ruling in the Blockbuster/Facebook Beacon case).

Still, the ruling leaves Zappos in a bad position. Its contract is legally irrelevant, meaning that all of the risk management provisions in its contract are ineffective--its disclaimer of warranties, its waiver of consequential damages, its reduced statute of limitations, its clause restricting class actions in arbitration...all of these are gone, leaving Zappos governed by the default legal rules, which aren't nearly as favorable to it. Losing its contract provisions meant Zappos is legally naked.

Avoiding this outcome is surprisingly easy. Use clickthrough agreements, not browsewraps, and remove any clauses that say you can unilaterally amend the contract.

That's pretty grim: you can load up nearly any BS you want in a EULA, and so long as you stick it in a clickthrough "agreement" and it's binding. Good time to remind you all of my own email sig, the original "Reasonable Agreement:

READ CAREFULLY. By reading this email, you agree, on behalf of your employer, to release me from all obligations and waivers arising from any and all NON-NEGOTIATED agreements, licenses, terms-of-service, shrinkwrap, clickwrap, browsewrap, confidentiality, non-disclosure, non-compete and acceptable use policies ("BOGUS AGREEMENTS") that I have entered into with your employer, its partners, licensors, agents and assigns, in perpetuity, without prejudice to my ongoing rights and privileges. You further represent that you have the authority to release me from any BOGUS AGREEMENTS on behalf of your employer.

Feel free to use this in your own contexts, of course!

How Zappos' User Agreement Failed In Court and Left Zappos Legally Naked (Forbes Cross-Post)

The first of eight prosecutions brought under New Zealand's three-strikes copyright law (passed as a rider to the emergency legislation freeing up money to provide relief for the Christchurch earthquake) has fallen apart.

The RIANZ (Record Industry Association of NZ) withdrew its case against a student in shared accommodation without saying why.

However, as Torrentfreak reports, NZ activists at Tech Liberty point out that the notices sent to the student, and the damages claimed, were all badly bungled and unlikely to withstand legal scrutiny.

The recording group asked for just over NZ $370 (US $303) to cover the costs of the notices and copyright tribunal hearing, plus NZ $1,250 (US $1,024) as a deterrent. However, eyebrows were certainly raised when it came to their claim for the music involved in the case.

The infringements were alleged to have taken place on five tracks with the cost of each measured against their value in the iTunes store, a total of NZ $11.95 (US $9.79). This sounds reasonable enough, but RIANZ were actually claiming for $1075.50 (US $880.96).

“RIANZ decided, based on some self-serving research, that each track had probably been downloaded 90 times and therefore the cost should be multiplied by 90,” says Tech Liberty co-founder Thomas Beagle. “There is no basis in the Copyright Act or Tribunal regulations for this claim.”

I don't think we can count on this kind of cack-handedness in the future. The RIANZ will perfect its procedures soon enough, and we'll start seeing punitive fines and even disconnection based on mere accusation of living in a house where the router is implicated in an unproven allegation of copyright infringement.

Music Biz Dumps First Contested Copyright Case After Botched 3 Strikes Procedure

Coming to America: Six copyright accusations, lose your Internet —

Hey, America, no need to feel left out! You're soon to join Britain, France and New Zealand in having a sneaky program to spy on your Internet connection and cut you off on the basis of unproven accusations of copyright infringement. The six-strikes rule comes from the major carriers, the studios and labels, and will not directly disconnect you -- instead, the ISPs themselves will do it. This is what we call a distinction without a difference. — Cory •