There are a lot of ways to deal with unhappy Kickstarter backers. Being generally unresponsive to complaints isn’t a good idea. Withholding already-delayed shipments and blaming it on allegedly defamatory comments definitely isn’t.
Cobblebot promised shipments to its earliest backers by October 2014. It’s now April 2015 and some have yet to see the 3D printers they’ve paid for. Worse, other backers of other products by Cobblebot have already received theirs. (Cobblebot started another Kickstarter project shortly after this one was funded, as well as using IndieGogo to raise additional funds.) It’s the earliest backers — at least those who have been critical of numerous shipping delays — who are still waiting for their paid-for printers to be shipped.
Whatever the real reason behind these delayed shipments, Cobblebot has chosen to portray this as a (highly dubious) legal issue.
One customer, who goes by the handle of JeffRandall on the Cobbleverse forum, recently contacted the company via email with the following message:
“Can you please tell me what the status is for my final shipment. I paid the final invoice over a week ago and I am one of the 99 super early bird backers [these backers had an expected delivery date which passed 6 months ago!]. The message from you was that the package had been prepared, yet it hasn’t shipped in over a week.”
Jeff received the following, rather alarming reply shortly after:
“Hello Jeffrey,
Sorry for the delay and an explanation is necessary. Your account was placed on hold by our legal department. Under Texas law, it is unlawful to engage in defamation of another’s character and reputation. The law presumes certain categories of statements are defamatory per se, including statements that (1) unambiguously charge a crime, dishonesty, fraud, rascality, or general depravity or (2) that are falsehoods that injure one in his office, business, profession, or occupation. Main v. Royall, 348 S.W.3d 318, 390.
Several of your recent posts on various internet forums were being reviewed by the legal department for inclusion in our fourth round of upcoming legal actions being filed to protect our company’s reputation from the illegal act of defamation.
All the above being said, we did receive a hold release from the legal department today and will proceed with the shipping of your package. What does it mean when the legal department releases a hold? It normally means one of two things: 1) The legal department has decided the reviewed statement(s) were not defamation under Texas law; or 2) They have decided to issue a warning (Cease & Desist letter) to provide the opportunity to stop defaming the company’s reputation.
Keep in mind that the support department does not have access to the legal department’s records, so we don’t know anything for certain. We are just attempting to explain the type of hold that we saw placed on your account and what that type of hold means.
In any case, the hold has been released and we will move forward with the shipping of your final package.
Thanks for supporting Cobblebot and have a wonderful day!Cobblebot Team”
Category: Censorship
Hollywood Urged Cameron to Keep DVD Ripping Illegal
To most consumers it’s common sense that they can make a backup copy of media they own, but in the UK this was illegal until late last year.
After consulting various stakeholders the Government decided that it would be in the best interests of consumers to legalize copying for personal use.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, not all copyright holders were in favor of the legal changes. In fact, emails published from the Sony Pictures Entertainment hack reveal that Hollywood wanted to stop the plans by urging UK Prime Minister David Cameron to keep Hollywood’s interests in mind.
The first email mentioning the issue was sent January last year. Here, Sony Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton was informed that MPAA boss Chris Dodd wanted him to give Cameron a call.
“Essentially, Dodd thinks (and we agree) it would be helpful for you to call Prime Minister Cameron if you are willing in order to ensure our position is fully considered,” the email from Sony’s Keith Weaver reads.
According to Weaver it was still uncertain whether Hollywood’s concerns would be properly heard in Parliament.
“This is because prior interactions with the U.K. government over the last few months have left us with no certainty that our concerns will be addressed in the proposal that will be presented to Parliament for an up or down vote in February,” he explained.
Stop the war between privacy and security – EU data watchdog
Security and privacy are not mutually exclusive says Europe’s privacy watchdog – and people should stop saying they are.
The European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS), Giovanni Buttarelli, told a Brussels conference he was concerned that “the objective of cyber-security may be misused to justify measures which weaken protection of [data protection] rights.”
“Cyber-security must not become an excuse for disproportionate processing of personal data. Let’s not forget that when the European Court of Justice (ECJ) last year found the Data Retention Directive to be invalid, one of the reasons was concern about the inadequacy of the data security provisions in the directive,” he continued.
Although some commentators interpreted the ECJ ruling to mean that data must be stored within national borders, Buttarelli disagreed.
“Physical location is not the determining factor in security. Rather, it is degree of control, accountability and responsibility which data controllers demonstrate when processing personal information. They must take full responsibility for all the measures they implement, regardless of the technology they use. Responsibility must not vanish in the clouds,” said the newly appointed EDPS.
Negotiations on a new Data Protection Regulation are currently underway and Buttarelli says that accountability should not be sacrificed in the inevitable compromise.
“One tool for reinforcing accountability is the introduction of a general data breach notification obligation, which will force controllers take the necessary organisational and procedural measures,” he said, pinning his colours to at least one legislative mast.
US Marshal Shuts Down Citizen Recording By Grabbing Phone And Smashing It On The Ground
There’s a message being sent by this “tactical gear” and it says that these Marshals think they’re a military detachment and everyone around them not clearly labeled as law enforcement is the “enemy” — including anyone with a camera.
Now, it’s pretty well established that citizens have the right to film law enforcement officers while in public places. There are exceptions, of course, but none of those appear to be in play here.
What does appear to be in play is the mental exception far too many law enforcement officers feel they can deploy whenever they’d rather not be “watched.” According to an interview with Beatriz Paez, whose filming was “interrupted” by the US Marshal (and fortunately filmed by yet another person from across the street), the officers first turned their backs to her (which is fine) and then proceeded to keep moving towards her to block off her view.
When this more subtle intimidation failed to deter Paez, the US Marshal simply stormed up to her, grabbed her phone, smashed it to the ground and finally, kicked the shattered device back to her.
I guess she can be thankful he didn’t demand she hand over the phone as evidence. Although, if he had deployed that BS tactic, he’d just look stupid rather than abusive and potentially dangerous — a person armed to the teeth who can’t control his impulses.
ROCA LABS public records
Ladies and Gentlemen, I’m just gonna leave these right here for any of the people out there who have felt the victimizing thwack of Roca Labs’ censorious sting. You see, Roca Labs is very very very upset if you say anything bad about them.
So upset that they file legal claims and bar complaints to try and shut you up if you dare speak out.
Meanwhile, feast your eyes on this stuff.
This Roca Labs user got sick from the product (Roca User got sick)
Here is a complaint about their deceptive trade practices (Deceptive trade practices)
Here is another Roca Labs user who got sick and complained about their trade practices (Sick and trade)
Here is a report from an FDA Special Agent documenting a consumer report about Roca Labs’ product allegedly being packaged in a garage with cockroaches on the floor, with no gloves or protective gear (spcial agent)
If you’re being sued by Roca Labs (or if you’re handing cases or complaints against them) please enjoy these documents with my compliments.
I can see why they might have very hurt feelings.
Court Orders UK ISPs to Block Popcorn Time Sites
Following a series of blocking orders issued by the High Court, UK Internet providers Sky, TalkTalk, Virgin, BT and EE are currently required to restrict access to many of the world’s largest torrent sites and streaming portals.
More than 100 websites have been blocked in recent years and today the court issued the first injunction against domains that offer no direct links, but only software.
The order, obtained today by Hollywood’s Motion Picture Association, targets five popular Popcorn Time forks: popcorntime.io, flixtor.me, popcorn-time.se, and isoplex.isohunt.to.
In his order Judge Birss notes that the Popcorm Time software has little to no legal use. Instead, he mentions that it’s mostly used to download and stream pirated movies and TV-shows.
“It is manifest that the Popcorn Time application is used in order to watch pirated content on the internet and indeed it is also manifest that that is its purpose. No-one really uses Popcorn Time in order to watch lawfully available content,” Judge Birss writes.
“The point of Popcorn Time is to infringe copyright. The Popcorn Time application has no legitimate purpose,” he adds.
Pirate Bay Blockade Censors CloudFlare Customers
Like any form of censorship web blockades can sometime lead to overblocking, targeting perfectly legitimate websites by mistake.
This is also happening in the UK where Sky’s blocking technology is inadvertently blocking sites that have nothing to do with piracy.
In addition to blocking domain names, Sky also blocks IP-addresses. This allows the site to stop https connections to The Pirate Bay and its proxies, but when IP-addresses are shared with random other sites they’re blocked too.
This is happening to various customers of the CDN service CloudFlare, which is used by many sites on the UK blocklist. Every now and then this causes legitimate sites to be blocked, such as CloudFlare customers who shared an IP-address with Pirate Bay proxy ilikerainbows.co.uk.
Although the domain is merely a redirect to ilikerainbows.co, it’s listed in Sky’s blocking system along with several CloudFlare IP-addresses. Recently, the CDN service received complaints from users about the issue and alerted the proxy owner.
“It has come to our attention that your website — ilikerainbows.co.uk — is causing CloudFlare IPs to be blocked by SkyB, an ISP located in the UK. This is impacting other CloudFlare customers,” CloudFlare wrote.
The CDN service asked the proxy site to resolve the matter with Sky, or else it would remove the site from the network after 24 hours.
“If this issue does not get resolved with SkyB though we will need to route your domain off CloudFlare’s network as it is currently impacting other CloudFlare customers due to these blocked IP addresses.”
Sony Once Again Ridiculously Warns The Media Not To Report On Leaked Emails
Back in December, when the Sony emails first leaked, we wrote about how Sony hired super-high-powered lawyer David Boies to send off ridiculously misinformed letters to media outlets warning them that they should not write anything based on information in the leaks. Boies took it a ridiculous step further, threatening to sue Twitter for not blocking screenshots of the emails. Both threats had no real legal basis.
Of course, now that the emails are in the news again, thanks to Wikileaks posting the archive online and making it searchable, Sony is apparently shelling out more big bucks to Boies to send around another version of the letter. You can see the letter here or at the bottom of the post.
Once again, the legal reasoning in the letter is… questionable at best. The included attack on Wikileaks is even more confused, arguing that freeing up this information helps North Korean censorship. It’s difficult to see how that’s really true, but okay. But the really ridiculous part is arguing that the media should not publish this information to support the First Amendment. Really.
“Safe Spaces” And The Mote In America’s Eye
My three kids are sarcastic and irreverent. This isn’t a shock to anyone who knows me. Their mouthiness can be irritating, but usually I manage to remember that I don’t set much of an example of rhetorical decorum.
Maybe I should start giving the same consideration to other people’s kids.
For some time I’ve been mean to university students who feel entitled to a “safe space” — by which they seem to mean a space where they are insulated from ideas they don’t like.
I call these young people out for valuing illusory and subjective safety over liberty. I accuse them of accepting that speech is “harmful” without logic or proof. I mock them for not grasping that universities are supposed to be places of open inquiry. I condemn them for not being critical about the difference between nasty speech and nasty actions, and for thinking they have a right not to be offended. I belittle them for abandoning fundamental American values.
But recently a question occurred to me: where, exactly, do I think these young people should have learned the values that I expect them to uphold?
Today’s college students came of age in the years after 9/11. What did we teach them about the balance between liberty and safety in that time?We should have taught them not to give up essential liberty for a little safety. Instead, we taught them that the government needs the power to send flying robots to kill anyone on the face of the earth without review and without telling us why. The government, we’re told, needs to do that for our safety. We also taught them that the government also needs the power to detain people indefinitely without judicial review, again in the name of safety. We taught them that to ensure our safety the government needs the records of what books we read and who we talk to. With that as a model, it seems like small potatoes to say that safety requires disinviting Bill Maher from a university commencement, because he’s something of a dick.
We should have taught them that it’s noble to speak out for liberty. We didn’t. We taught them that concern with liberty is suspicious. They grew up in an America where police say that talking about civil liberties suggests involvement in criminal behavior and that criticizing law enforcement priorities provides a good reason to investigate you. They grew up in an America were the FBI monitors protestors and activists in the name of safety. They grew up in an America where questioning the War on Drugs is called unpatriotic.
We should have taught them that it’s shameful to oppose liberty and work to undermine it. We didn’t. They grew up in a world where a man can advise the government to disregard our liberties and waffle on whether the state can crush the testicles of children to torture information of of their parents, only to be rewarded by a prestigious position at a top law school.
We should have taught them to think critically when someone says that “safety” requires action. We didn’t. We taught them to submit to groping by TSA agents recruited via pizza boxes who single us out based on transparently bogus junk science. We taught them that even if you demand policy changes based on junk science that is demonstrably deadly, you can still be taken seriously if your politics are right.
We should have taught them that our subjective reaction to someone’s expression isn’t grounds to suppress that expression. We didn’t. They probably didn’t learn that lesson from the freakouts over mosques at ground zero or in Georgia or in Tennessee. They probably didn’t learn it from calls to deport Piers Morgan for anti-gun advocacy or by the steady stream of officials suggesting that dissent is treason or from their government asserting a right to “balance” the value of speech against its harm. They didn’t learn it from state legislators punishing universities based on disagreement with curriculum.
We should have taught them to be suspicious of claims that speech is harmful in a way the law should address. We didn’t. We taught them that making satirical videos about police is criminal “cyberstalking” and that stupid jokes by teens justify imprisonment and that four-letter words are crimes (or should be) and that swearing at cops online is “disorderly conduct” and that singing a rude song to imaginary children justifies prosecution.
We should have taught them to be suspicious of rote invocation of airhorn words like “racism” and “sexism” and “trauma” and “unsafe,” especially when those terms are used to limit liberty. We sure as hell didn’t do that. We taught them that jailing grandmas for buying two boxes of cold medication is justified because think of the children. We have taught them that cops can cops can rape and torture people because drugs are bad. We teach them that “terrorism” is an existential threat, a magic word that can be invoked to justify anything. Rather than teaching them to question catchphrases, we teach them to respond to them in Pavlovian fashion.
We should have taught them to question authority. Instead we taught them to submit to it without question if they didn’t want to get shot or tased.Instead, we are teaching them, even now, that climbing a tree outside our view, or visiting a park unattended (as many of us did when children) is a matter requiring state intervention. This is not a Yakov Smirnoff joke: in Russia, complete strangers will approach you on the street to scold you if you’re wearing your scarf the wrong way. “You’ll catch cold!” We are becoming the Russia our grandparents warned us about: not a Stalinist tyranny, but a tyranny of concern. For our own safety, of course.
Sure, occasionally we manage to assert that free speech trumps feelings or that speculative safety doesn’t trump liberty. But those few messages are drowned out by the drumbeat of safety, safety, safety.
Should we expect universities to teach them to value liberty or question safety? Please. Universities think that free speech is something to be confined to tiny corners of campus to protect students from the trauma of being handed a copy of the constitution. Universities are places were administrators censor Game of Thrones t-shirts and Firefly posters then censor the posters complaining about censorship, all in the name of “safety.” Universities are places where enraged educators cut down free speech walls and attack protestors and tell students to destroy displays they don’t like. Sending people to American universities to learn to respect liberty is like sending them to a brothel to learn chastity.
Today’s young people are responsible for their own actions. They are bound, like all of us, by this truth: the government saying something is right doesn’t make it right. But it’s not fair to ignore our culture’s role in shaping the values that lead to an appetite for “safe spaces.”
I’m not going to stop calling out university students who assert that they have a right not to be offended, or who claim that they are entitled to spaces safe from ideas they don’t like.
But I hope that some of them will call me out — call all of us out — in return now and then.
TV Companies Will Sue VPN Providers “In Days”
As Internet users demand more freedom online alongside an ability to consume media in a manner of their choosing, tools allowing them to do so are gaining in popularity.
Notable has been the rise of VPN services, which not only provide an increased level of privacy but also allow users to appear in any country they choose. This opens up a whole new world of content availability – such as better service from Netflix – often at better prices than those offered on home turf.
While popular with consumers, this behavior is frowned upon by distribution companies that spend huge sums of money on content licensing deals specific to their regions of coverage. Losing customers to overseas providers isn’t part of their plan and now some are doing something about it.
Earlier this month media companies SKY, TVNZ, Lightbox and MediaWorks told several Kiwi ISPs that if they don’t stop providing VPN services to their subscribers, legal trouble would be on the horizon.
Within days one of their targets, Unlimited Internet, pulled its VPN service after receiving a letter from a lawfirm claiming breaches of the Copyright Act. However, CallPlus and Bypass Network Services have no intention of caving in to the media giants’ demands.
“To receive without warning a grossly threatening legal letter like that from four of the largest companies in New Zealand is not something we are used to,” wrote Bypass CEO Patrick Jordan-Smith in a letter to the media companies.
“It smacks of bullying to be honest, especially since your letter doesn’t actually say why you think we are breaching copyright.”
Pulling no punches and describing his adversaries as a “gang”, Jordan-Smith likens the threats to those employed by copyright trolls in the United States.
“Your letter gets pretty close to the speculative invoicing type letters that lawyers for copyright owners sometimes send in the US ‘pay up or shutdown or else were are going to sue you’! Not fair,” he writes.
“We have been providing the Global Mode facility for 2 years. In all that time, none of your Big Media Gang have ever written to us. We assumed they were OK with Global Mode and we continued to spend money innovating the facility and providing innovative NZ ISPs with a service that their customers were telling them they wanted – a service that lets people pay for content rather than pirate it.”
The response from Bypass hasn’t been well received by the media companies who now say they will carry through with their threats to sue over breaches of copyright.
“Our position has not changed and unless they remove the unlawful service we will begin court action in the next few days,” says TVNZ chief executive, Kevin Kenrick.
“Each of our businesses invests significant sums of money into the rights to screen content sourced legitimately from the creators and owners of that copyrighted material. This is being undermined by the companies who profit from promoting illegitimate ways to access that content.”
Claiming that the action is aimed at defending the value of content rights in the digital world, Kenrick says that the legal action is not consumer focused.
“This is not about taking action against individual consumers or restricting choice, indeed each of our businesses are investing heavily in more choice so New Zealanders can have legitimate access to the latest TV shows and movies,” the CEO concludes.
While the commercial position of the TVNZ chief is understandable, his claim that this legal action isn’t aimed at reducing choice simply doesn’t stack up. Kiwis using Netflix locally get access to around 220 TV series and 900 movies, while those using a VPN to tunnel into the United States enjoy around 940 TV series and 6,170 movies, something which Bypass Networks believes is completely legal.
“[We provide our service] on our understanding that geo-unblocking to allow people to digitally import content purchased overseas is perfectly legal. If you say it is not, then we are going to need a lot more detail from you to understand why,” Jordan-Smith informs his adversaries.
“Simply sending us a threatening letter, as frightening as that may be, does not get us there and is not a fair reason for us to shut down our whole business.”