Archive for November, 2008

Here in New Zealand a new copyright act went into effect on 1st November. The most controversial clause has been delayed until 28th February. This clause says that an ISP must have a policy of disconnecting anyone repeatedly accused of copyright infringment.

I agree that this act would place the responsibility of judge in the hands of the ISP. But without some governing body working with the ISPs instead of against them, it seems the RIAA is setting the ISPs up for some muddy waters.

Within the wishlists of RIAA is making ISPs liable for copyright infringement that happens through their networks.. This we need to be very vocal about. How’s an ISP to know what that packet you pull is a copyright infringement?? by only allowing you to talk to sony.com + apple.com ?

This I can also agree with, to an extent. Without the pressure to localize and enforce copyright infringement on the Internet, then those committing the crimes won’t have any reason not to do it. The right thing to do notwithstanding, the world is faced with a new twist on an old problem. I believe the legislation will eventually balance itself out, and freedom/justice will find it’s way to Internet.

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Have you seen those lawn signs around your city that say something like “Single? SanDiegoSingles.com” or something similar? I certainly have seen them everywhere. I have been very interested in how this company’s model works and how successful it has been thus far. Apparently they are pulling in a “solid six figure” revenue. I am no expert in guerrilla marketing or the matchmaking business, but I imagine it can get interesting and quite lucrative. After all, they aren’t really selling anything but opportunity. I’m more interested into the legal implications of a business model that relies massive scale print marketing (involving signs that are often placed illegally). Apparently not much has been done by way of stopping them, although I wonder if a company sponsoring gross illegal sign placement is guilty of more than hundreds of thousands of “petty crimes”? Well, Robert Moore didn’t touch on that aspect of it but he did break it down every other way possible, with great graphics to boot! Definitely a great read about one man’s insightful modern investigation. Update: Tim Williams has posted more information about the prosecution of this company.