Hossein Derakhshan’s trial finally begins in Iran . Cyrus Farivar spoke to a source today. “After many months of nearly no information about the status of Hossein Derakhshan, various Iranian websites and his family are reporting that his trial began on Wednesday in Tehran.” The source told him they expected him to be released after the trial due, in part, to the fact that he’s been in jail, much if it in solitary, since November of 2008. Hoder had moved to Canada when the publication he worked for was shut down in 2000. He went to Israel in 2006 blogging about breaking that barrier. Later, he turned much more pro-Iranian and finally moved back. He was arrested for spying for Israel within weeks of touching down in Iran. Thailand shuts down 113,000 websites . I believe Thailand is trying to set a record. Someone call Guinness . Or at least URDB . Using the old canard of lèse majesté , protecting the honor of the monarchy, the Thai government has gone on a site-blocking spree. Every repressive government uses different tools to silence its people. Given the profound respect in which all Thais hold royalty, this approach is a locally-useful tool of censorship. It is also a fraudulent shtick. Sponsor The U.S.’s top law enforcement authority encourages the sacrifice of liberty for safety . American “founding father” Benjamin Franklin said everything you would think needed to be said on the topic. “Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” Attorney General Janet Napolitano clearly thinks Ben was a big silly. “The First Amendment protects radical opinions, but we need the legal tools to do things like monitor the recruitment of terrorists via the Internet,” she said. What could go wrong? Whirly-eyed Pakistani lawyer files capital suit against Facebook’s CEO . An addle-pated dingbat of an attorney in Pakistan has filed suit against Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Because his company hosted a page for Everybody Draw Mohammed Day and drawing the Muslim prophet’s image is considered by most Muslims to be blasphemous and in Pakistan blasphemy means you get your head chopped off, Zuckerberg could be sentenced to death. This is even more hare-brained than most muddy thinking on the Islamic bank of Crazy River, extra-super-mega-crazied up by the fact that Facebook couldn’t roll over fast enough when Pakistan (and Bangladesh) shut down the site. Saudi blogger detained for seven months without charges . Munir al Jassas has been languishing, without trial or even official charges, since November 7th of 2009. Munir was known for defending the rights of Shiite Muslims online, putting him, no doubt, in conflict with the kingdom’s Sunni Wahhabist imams. Azerbaijani blogger arrested in Iran . Ibrahim Rashidi, a blogger and journalist, was arrested by Iranian secret police in the northwestern city of Ardabil. Rashidi agitated peacefully online for the rights of the ethnic majority. The previous month saw 45 Azerbaijani activists arrested in Iran, 17 of whom remain in prison and 28 of whom were released on bail. Maker of Swedish moose-hunting documentary hunts down, sues file-sharer . Using a Pirate Bay user name, Tor Lundberg hunted down a guy who had put his…moose-hunting documentary on the site for free download and is now suing him. At this point, someone should say, “…and I woke up screaming from the weirdest dream I’ve ever had.” But it’s true. The villain is being sued for $15,000. How much did it cost to track him down and take him to court? Australia to be force to install anti-virus software, deprived of Internet connection if they refuse to comply . In another step of its rush to abandon even the appearance of privacy rights, Australia ‘s House of Representatives Standing Committee on Communications has issued a report on “cyber-crime” which recommends the country’s legislature take those steps. Given the steps Australia has taken in the last several years to limit freedom online, including copying and storing all information from users online , even the normally paranoia proof have to wonder what presents will come wrapped in the anti-virus software. OpenNet Institute introduces updated social network censorship map . Check out the map below to select which social network you wish to review and it will generate a map illustrating which countries are blocking it and to what degree. You need to upgrade your Flash Player Choose a different site Facebook Flickr Orkut Twitter YouTube Lebanese Fight ISP Monitoring . Lebanese are fighting the establishment of the Electronic Signatures & Services Authority, which will be allowed to monitor and discipline ISPs and to access any type of electronic information transmitted through licensed ISP networks. Viacom lawsuit against YouTube thrown out of U.S. courts . A New York-based federal judge dismissed the $1 billion copyright infringement lawsuit. The judge said YouTube’s owner, Google was “shielded from Viacom’s copyright claims by ‘safe harbor’ provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act” which “protect a Web site from liability for copyrighted material uploaded by its users as long as the operator of the site takes down the material when notified by its rightful owner that it was uploaded without permission.” Top photo by Taco Meeuwsen Discuss

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Companies that rely on fair use generated $4.7 trillion in revenues and $2.2 billion in value added – roughly 16.2 percent of U.S. GDP in 2007. This is among the findings of a report released yesterday by the Computer and Communications Industry Assocation. The report based its findings on what it dubs “fair use industries,” which includes educational institutions, software developers, Internet search and Web hosting providers, and manufacturers of consumer devices that allow for the copying of copyrighted programming. Sponsor Noting the importance of the fair use industries for both innovation and economic growth, the CCIA research argues that “enlightened limitations and exceptions to U.S. copyright law have nurtured Internet industries by providing space for them to develop and expand their service offerings to meet the needs of consumers and businesses.” The CCIA findings seem to run counter to the arguments for more strict enforcement of intellectual property laws, most popularly espoused by the entertainment industry. Indeed on Monday – Intellectual Property Day – the U.S. Chamber of Commerce published what seem to be contradictory findings in their study entitled “The Impact of Innovation and the Role of IP Rights on U.S. Productivity, Competitiveness, Jobs, Wages and Exports.” According to the report, “During 2000-07, IP-intensive industries spent almost 13 times more on R&D per employee than in non-IP-intensive industries. Industry spending on R&D in the United States accounts for approximately 72 percent of total R&D spending, totaling nearly $1.2 trillion, an average of $145 billion annually.” The Commerce report contends that IP protection, not fair use, is crucial for economic growth. According to Sec. 107 of the US Copyright Act of 1976 , “[t]he fair use of a copyrighted work for … purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research is not an infringement of copyright.” Earlier this month, the General Accounting Office issued a report questioning some of the statistics that have been bandied about in defense of stricted copyright enforcement, particularly those that cite widespread economic losses based on piracy and counterfeiting. Arguing that the “economic losses resulting from counterfeiting cannot be substantiated due to the absence of underlying studies,” the GAO contends that the economic impact of IP infringement is actually quite difficult to gauge. Nevertheless, the Department of Justice announced on Monday that it was appointing 15 new Assistant U.S. Attorneys and 20 FBI Special Agents, dedicated to combating domestic and international IP crimes. According to Acting Deputy Attorney General Gary Grindler, “Intellectual property law enforcement is central to protecting our nation’s ability to remain at the forefront of technological advancement, business development and job creation.” Questions of copyright, fair use, and intellectual property have become increasingly contentious recently, with the passing of the Digital Economy Bill in the UK and with YouTube cracking down on the popular Hitler “Downfall” meme . The laws that govern intellectual property may not have kept pace with technological innovation. But in a day where we’ve seen several major acquisitions – touted in part for the intellectual property that’s been acquired – it seems as important as ever for entrepreneurs to be able to develop and profit from their innovative ideas. (We posted a list of legal resources for startups and entrepreneurs back in January.) What are your thoughts on this topic? Do you think current IP law protects or prevents innovation? Discuss

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Last week, the big news in DMCA takedowns was the sweeping removal of Hitler parody videos . Earlier this year, it was Google suddenly wiping out six separate music blogs . Today, it’s the removal of a tweet . While this might not seem like a big deal on the surface, it leads to some much bigger questions about free speech, what content should fall under a proper DMCA take-down and whether or not the DMCA is a legal method of applying censorship by any content owner. Sponsor Here’s the story as told by TechDirt: The story involves a music blogger named JP, who runs the appropriately named JP’s blog . Not surprisingly, JP also has a Twitter account , where he mostly seems to post links to his blog posts. One such post was about the leak of the new album by The National. That post includes a link to Amazon where people can purchase the new album… and also a link to a download of one song (in MP3 format) from the album. According to JP’s blog post on the subject, Twitter sent him a message last Thursday “in response to a DMCA take-down notice”. The email, he writes, read as follows: jp917, Apr 22 03:10 pm (PDT): Hello, The following material has been removed from your account in response to a DMCA take-down notice: Tweet: http://twitter.com/jp917/statuses/12499491144 – New Post: Leaked: The National – High Violet http://jpsblog.net/2010/04/20/leaked-the-national-high-violet/ JP denies posting any link to the leaked album in his tweeted blog post, saying that he will not bother filing a counterclaim to the take-down. He also links to an article in Plagiarism Today from a year ago that alleges that Twitter’s handling of DMCA take-downs and counterclaims is problematic and that “there is clearly an organization issue here and that’s leading to confusion.” While last weeks’ take-downs of parody videos may have been “overbroad take-downs of legal content” , as the Electronic Frontier Foundation asserted, this sort take-down may go an extra step, beyond constitutionally protected First Amendment speech. With the YouTube take-downs, at least there was copyrighted content present, although it may have been used according to the law in the end. In this case, according to JP, there was neither pirated content nor a link to any DMCA-violating content. While TechDirt argues that “specifically, nothing in the tweet itself is infringing — which means that the DMCA take-down for the tweet is bogus, and a violation of the DMCA itself”, we spoke with David Sohn, senior policy council with the Center for Democracy & Technology , who said that the question might not be so cut and dry. Section 5.12D of the DMCA relates to cases involving “information location tools” and “links”. “One possibility here is that Twitter has gotten a take-down notice that might not stand up as a totally valid take-down notice,” said Sohn. On Sohn’s advice, we asked Wendy Seltzer, founder of ChillingEffects.org , what this all meant and she explained that the burden of proof lies with the person creating the content and not the platform. All the platform, in this case Twitter, needs to know is that the complaint may be valid and that, by removing the offending content, they cover themselves legally in the eyes of the DMCA. Whether or not section 5.12 D of the DMCA actually applies doesn’t really matter. The introduction to her recent paper, “Free Speech Unmoored in Copyright’s Safe Harbor: Chilling Effects of the DMCA on the First Amendment” (.pdf), speaks clearly to the problem we saw when first reading this story: Each week, more blog posts are redacted, more videos deleted, and more web pages removed from Internet search results based on private claims of copyright infringement. Under the “safe harbors” of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), Internet service providers are encouraged to respond to copyright complaints with content takedowns, assuring their immunity from liability while diminishing the rights of their subscribers and users. Paradoxically, the law’s shield for service providers becomes a sword against the public who depend upon these providers as platforms for speech. The problem with the current format of the DMCA, especially in the case of something like a communication platform such as Twitter, is that a DMCA take-down notice becomes an extremely effective means of silencing information for a legally mandated period of 10 days. In essence, it provides those who wish to silence a voice a quick and legal means of enacting what is called a ” prior restraint “, something clearly prohibited in First Amendment law. “When non-infringing speech is taken down, not only does its poster lose an opportunity to reach an audience, the public loses the benefit of hearing that lawful speech in the marketplace of ideas,” writes Seltzer in the paper. Twitter offered this response: “Twitter regularly receives DMCA takedown notices. We strive to balance the interests of our users and copyright holders by reviewing each notice. After determining whether the notice is compliant with the law, we also consider other factors such as whether the notice is abusive to our users, or fails to take fair use into consideration. You can read more about our DMCA process here: http://help.twitter.com/entries/15795-copyright-and-dmca-policy “We are always working to improve our transparency. Users are notified immediately when content has been removed from their account. In this situation, we responded to a request to remove a Tweet containing a link to download content from an unreleased album. After reexamining our decision, we believe this was the correct first step. If the affected user believes we have made a mistake or that the notice is in error, the appropriate thing for the user to do is file a counter-claim. “We believe that the reasoning of the DMCA claim and its origin should be transparent to both the affected user and other interested parties. We are working on further steps to improve access to this information.” So, our next logical question here is: Since this post includes the email from Twitter, which includes that original link to a blog post that supposedly linked to infringing content, can it too be removed according to the guidelines of the DMCA? Discuss

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We store music on iTunes despite its stringent DRM, preventing us from freely sharing music. But like any innovation in the marketplace, it takes time for us to determine what is acceptable and what is not. The promise of cloud computing and the ability to store limitless amounts of music may perhaps be that turning point. But it could also mark a more stringent time than we have ever known. Sponsor Canonical has unveiled the public beta of its Ubuntu One music store that gives a glimpse of what cloud computing may offer as an alternative to storing music on our hard drives or a proprietary service like iTunes. This is new territory. As Canonical point out, integrating a cloud service like Ubuntu One with buying music is new for digital music stores. Ubuntu One serves as a desktop music service that stores the music in the cloud and syncs it with your computer. It allows someone to purchase music and then store it in their Ubuntu One account . Ubuntu One also serves as a service to store other kinds of information such as images or documents. The service will go live in late April to coincide with Ubuntu’s new release . In the meantime, Canonical is looking for beta testers to give it a try. Helpful infomation is on the Popey blog : As with everything in Ubuntu Lucid, the developers are keen to get people testing the store before Lucid is shipped at the end of April. If you’re running Ubuntu Lucid either on bare metal or inside a Virtual Machine, it would help greatly if you could take some time to test this new functionality. So far only a very limited number of beta testers have been using the store, so opening up the store to public scrutiny should generate plenty of feedback to the developers. These are the early days of music services that allows you to purchase, store music in the cloud and sync with your computer or smartphone And it comes with definite kinks. The Ubuntu One service is free for up to 2 gigabytes of storage. If you go beyond that you start to pay. That could happen pretty quickly as people can use the service to store any kind of information they want. Plus, there are the copyright laws that have had to be taken into consideration for the service. Music, in some respects, defines how we view the ways we store information. Music is deeply personal. We want easy access to it. We want it always to be there. Cloud services may provide this capability but they also run the risk of acting as walled gardens that can be controlled perhaps even more easily than a service like iTunes. Discuss

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It’s services like Put.io that are behind why Google executives argue desktops will be irrelevant in three years, why Steve Ballmer says Microsoft is betting the bank on the cloud, and why storage stats for the newest gadget are becoming less and less important.Everything is going to the cloud. Does it often feel like a waste of time to download something just to watch it once and then delete it? Then Don’t. Use Put.io. Put simply, Put.io fetches files from the Internet and allows you to either store them there or immediately stream them. Sponsor Put.io can get files from bittorrent, FTP, direct download and rapidshare, as well as from standard websites. It can even automatically keep up with downloads, pulling links from an RSS feed. While the immediate question is one of legality, we do want to mention that, aside from pirated movies and television shows, there actually are a lot of videos out there available for download by bittorrent and other means. Beyond that, Put.io addresses the issue of legality and the DMCA , saying that “It is our policy to respond to notices of alleged infringement that comply with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”) and other applicable intellectual property laws. Responses may include disabling access for all users to the material claimed to be the subject of infringing activity and/or terminating submitters of the material ability to use the Put.io service at all.” We gave the service a shot and it downloaded a 750 megabyte torrent in less then a minute. Although the service wasn’t able to stream the MKV format directly on the site (and we had the wrong DiVX player version), we gave it another shot with an AVI torrent and we had streaming video in under a minute. And Put.io stores the files so you can come back and access them again and again. Currently, beta testers get 50 gigs of storage with 150 gigs of bandwidth. The bandwidth is not counted when downloading the files to the service, but instead when you access them – so repeated watching of a large file could surely reach that limit. In addition to the basic functionality, you can share files and folders with friends and access files from anything that supports a browser, from your iPhone to your PS3. In addition to a mobile version, the service is planning to release an API as well as a Boxee plugin. The site is still in public beta, but Put.io is offering 300 invites to our readers. Simply visit this site and get an invite . Discuss

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