Stuff Channel

Tuesday was not a good day for the operators of the Liberty Reserve virtual currency system, who found themselves indicted on various money laundering charges, arrested, and their system of websites shut down. It’s hardly surprising that with the uptake by consumers on virtual currency that these sites would be investigated, but the breadth and depth of this investigation goes much further than virtual money.

The main point made by Preet Bharara, the Manhattan U.S. attorney, is that almost all of the transactions being done on LR were for various illegal activities. Those ranged from the single buying of drugs to the payment for hacking services, for prostitution, and even for child pornography. It was also considered a very good way to obtain stolen credit card numbers, and then to move the money collected from using those cards to other users, making it difficult to trace and all but impossible to recoup losses.
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I am the sort of person who can spend hours reading stuff online, cruising from one site to another. I am sort of a internet junkie with an endless supply of my favourite drug right in front of me, all of the time. Heck, over Christmas and New Years when many companies go into re-runs and pre-canned “best of the year” stories, I start jonesing for some real news and information. The internet is an amazing source of information, that is for sure, and an endless source of entertainment to many of us.

There is an interesting motto that seems to have been coined for the internet, which is “information wants to be free”. I am sure this was around before the world wide web that we have today, but the internet has brought this to a head. With hundreds of millions of people all poking and prodding, tweeting and status updating, sharing links and such, we get almost overwhelmed at times by the amount of information coming our way. Many companies make their livings only on reposting the works of others, making them often the first echoes of information as it supposedly struggles to be free. Yet, it’s that very act of copying and reposting that causes so many of the internet’s problems as well.
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To keep this discussion on the level, let me tell you up front: Unless I show you a specific source for something, you can assume everything I write is my opinion, and nothing more. We are all entitled to our opinion, and having a blog happens to give me a place to express it. It doesn’t make me right, and that’s perhaps the point of this post.

Having been around the internet for as long as there has been a public internet, and quite a bit of time before that, I can say without a doubt that I am seeing a trend in our times that is most disturbing. The internet is clearly killing the print news industry, I have written about how newspapers were rendered almost irrelevant during the Boston Bombing deal, but there is much more to the situation than just that. Sites like Twitter, facebook, and various blogging sites are replacing news sites as people’s primary sources of information.
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One of the recurring arguments that the anti-copyright, pro-piracy types like to toss out there is that shutting down pirate sites (or removing pirated content from a file locker, example) is a form of censorship. It’s a galling argument even for pirates, one that shows where they are willing to go in order to protect their stream of free movies and TV.

Censorship (noun): The practice of officially examining books, movies, etc., and suppressing unacceptable parts.

That’s the first thing that comes up when you check on Google. Now, the Merriam Webster version of censorship includes a much more long form explaination: “Act of changing or suppressing speech or writing that is considered subversive of the common good. In the past, most governments believed it their duty to regulate the morals of their people; only with the rise in the status of the individual and individual rights did censorship come to seem objectionable. ” Once I read that, I think I can understand where these people are coming, from, but I can also understand why they are wrong.

To start with, let’s be clear here: Removing a pirated file or a copyright violating video from YouTube doesn’t stop the original speech. That is to say that the original movie, music, or other work still exists, and the government has not shut it down or censored it in any manner. The protected speech still exists in it’s original form. Now, the PPAC (pro-piracy anti-copyright) types will say “well, what happens if the music was background to protected speech?”. The example cited might be an original video, or perhaps a video of someone dancing to a song. There are fair use exceptions in US law, but they are pretty narrow in definition. It’s pretty hard to imagine that a video called “I Dance to Enter Sandman” would fall in that category. So what is left is an empty argument. See, the protected speech (dancing) could be accomplished with other music, say creative commons stuff, or could use music provided with permission from the band or artist in Question. The free speech (dancing) does not cease to exist because the video was removed from YouTube, the original protected speech can be re-used, re-uploaded, whatever, with non-infringing music. Censorship would have the dance video removed from all computers, including the creators. That is not the case.
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It’s been an interesting period in the piracy world in the last 12 months or so. From the shut down of Mega (just over a year ago) to the latest announcement by the Spanish govenrment that they are considering making piracy illegal, the shocks to the worldwide piracy underground have been massive. On the discussion boards, bulletin boards, and in on the anti-copyright blogs, the messages have gotten more and more strident, as more and more of the safe positions have been knocked down.

One of the interesting things in the process is that the anti-copyright types have been very careful to adopt certain words and certain positions as their safe hiding holes. Kim Dotcom, one of the most outspoken ones on the subject, has continued to base his whole defense on various forms of free speech and such. Yet, it appears that much more of his defense is a love of a lavish lifestyle that he can obtain in this manner, rather than the great moral stand.
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The events at the Boston Marathon were tragic for so many, with death, dismemberment, and of course a certain loss of innocence for many as well. What appears to be an act of two rather twisted brothers has caused so much pain and harm to people and a community. It also prompted one of the most intense police man hunts on record, and perhaps one that had another victim: Newspapers.

What happened in Boston is perhaps the best indication of changes in the way people get information. No longer as we bound to wait for the 6 O’clock news or the morning paper, we get our information instantly, on the spot, as it happens. People were listening to the police scanners, they were glued to twitter, to facebook, and every other social media site around. CNN and other online news stations were running near constant updates, and local TV news in Boston pretty much went around the clock with full on coverage, wall to wall, often streaming online making it available to everyone.
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One of the things about being around the internet for a very long time has done for me is that it’s given me a big appreciation for the power of so many people reading and seeing the same thing. The whole concept of memes comes from that power, as does the horrid parts like 4chan and Anonymous.

One area that has really become intense is celebrity news / reporting sites, such as TMZ, Perez Hilton, and even People magazine online. They keep their readers (and building their readership) with titilation, scandal, and outrageous things that happen with celebs. They can pump almost anything up and immediately it’s trending on twitter and getting yabbered about in Facebook and instagram.

This last week has been a Justin Beiber extraveganza, as the Canadian born brat singer has been really slowly going off the mental cliff. His UK tour has been a bit of a personal disaster, turning up one night 2 hours late for the show (where most of his younger fans have to bust curfew to stay on) and then passing out and ending up is hospital at another one. When it comes to being big news, that is barely up there with me stubbing my toe in the washroom last night, but the TMZ style sites of the world make a killing on this stuff.
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note: They say you should never write angry, or you should never write when you aren’t detached from the subject, but I guess I will break all the rules and do it anyway…

A while back I wrote a post about how causes like Occupy, Anonymous, Medical Marijuana, and bit torrent all have in common, and what happens to the very best ideas. Those who stand for what is good in these things are used as patsies by those who seek to use the cause, the technology, or the situation for personal gain.

This week the world has been saddened by the mass killings of children in Newtown, Connecticut and the mall shooting in Newport Beach. It’s incredibly sad to think that 20 very innocent children had their lives taken by one whackjob armed with his mother’s gun collection. It’s incredibly sad to think that this is so easy, that it keeps on happening without end.

What comes out of it? Well, President Obama said the typical “we gotta do sump’tin”, and that set off the gun lobby in a very predictable fashion. Watching mental midgets like Alex Jones cry out that they are “coming for our guns”, and seeing the almost endless parade of pro-gun wingnuts cheering him on is enough to make anyone cringe. These are people who should be contrite and concerned for their fellow citizens, but they are not. They are worried only about their rights to bear arms, no matter what harm is done to others as a result of their person desires.
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Having been around the internet since long before there was an internet, one of the things you learn is that sites, companies, and products come and go. For every mountain that is built, there is another group with earth movers set to tear it down. So while companies like Facebook and Google currently dominate the internet landscape, there is little indication that they will be there in the future.

There has been plenty of people suggesting that Both Facebook and Google have already “jumped the shark” and have move to points where they are harder to take seriously. Facebook in particular has suffered in dealing with the public on privacy issues, and have dealt business wise with significantly poorer income on mobile based customers. Recent moves to try to shore up the bottom line have gotten some users upset, and lead to Google pointing out that their social network does not permit sponsored stories forced into your timeline.

Google itself is facing plenty of issues. This story from the CNBC suggests that Google could be all but gone in 5 years, but I think that this story misses perhaps the bigger issues that exist within Google, namely that their core search product is actually getting to be a poorer and poorer choice for searching online.
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An interesting story today over on CNN, where Zynga has announced 5% workforce cutbacks. If the name of the company doesn’t mean anything to you, perhaps this will: They are the maker of all of those Ville games on Facebook, such as Farmville, as well as other social media games such as Mafia Wars.

The staff cutbacks come as they choose to shut down 13 games and to trim in other places. It also comes as Facebook’s own financial reports have shown that in the last year, their income from Zynga has dropped 20%, which suggests that Zynga’s revenue has been dropping in that same sort of range. What is key here is that Zynga is the biggest and most prolific player in the social media gaming sphere, and their trials and tribulations are perhaps an indication of things to come.

This also matches up with Facebook admitting that they have a problem monetizing mobile traffic, and now Google admitting the same: mobile users are not as valuable at this point. The same shift to mobile, bypassing much of Facebook’s interface, may be hurting Zynga by taking the games out of people’s view. Changes made over the last few years by Facebook certainly have limited the exposure that most people have to other people’s gaming activity, making them somewhat less social.
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Unless you have been hiding in a hole or totally ignoring the internet, most of you know that this past week was the 1 year anniversary of the death of Steve Jobs. The reactions, the write ups, and the stories published over the last few days really got me thinking as to what this man’s real legacy is, and why people try to hold him up as some sort of near deity.

First off, I have to make a tip of the hat to the people at Wired magazine. Clearly their offices run on Apple Kool-aid, judging on the recent spate of “the Iphone5 is amazing great perfect” style reviews that really weren’t reviews. Moreover, their article “Why We Will Never Stop Talking About Steve Jobs” is one of the pieces that sort of triggered this blog entry. They are perhaps one of the more obvious faces of why Steve Jobs continues to be over-hyped and nearly sainted.

The biggest error that most people seem to make is that they think Steve Jobs came up with all the Apple stuff. The reality is that Jobs wasn’t a creator, as much as a refiner. He had a very strong eye for spotting what was right and what was wrong with a product, and would stick with his ideas right to the end. His ability to find ways to market Apple as the cool option, to create artificial shortages, to pander to the fan base… those are all the things he was so good at.
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Over a year ago, I discussed some of the actions by Wikileaks leader Julian Assange to control the organization and to limit leaks of it’s own materal. I felt that Julian Assange Hurts Wikileaks Credibility with those moves, and more than a year later, we see more proof that he isn’t thinking very clearly here.

Just over a year after that last post, we are now looking at the mindless spectacle of Julian Assange, hiding out in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, having been given asylum from that country so he can avoid prosecution. Well, you might think that this is a good thing, because clearly the US and perhaps a few other countries might want to talk to him about how various leaks were sourced. You would think this is all about freedom of the press and such. But you would be very much mislead if you felt this way.
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An announcement this past week by Google that they would start to adjust the search rankings for sites that get numerous DMCA / copyright complaints came as a surprise to many. For those who try to push Net Neutrality as a cover for piracy, it’s a shocking announcement that has them stammering and without a real answer. The announcement by Google (blog entry here) really adds a whole bunch of fire to an already raging debate.

It comes at a time where there has been a pretty big shift against the piracy infrastructure. The biggest cases include Megaupload, and just this last week the major site Demonoid was both shut down in the Ukraine and apparently had it’s leadership nabbed in Mexico. Paypal and other payment processing systems have been shutting off accounts for file locker sites left and right, as it’s being determined that more and more of these sites depend on piracy to make a living. Sites like Stop File Lockers update the battle from the content producer side, as rights holders go after the lockers with a renewed zeal.
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Unless you have been hiding under a rock, you have pretty much heard that Facebook recently went public. That is to say they are now listed on the stock exchange as a publicly traded company. The immediate effects seem mostly to have confirmed Mark Zuckerberg as one of the richest men on the planet, at least on paper. It’s not been an easy start however, as there are more questions than answers about the true long term outlook for Facebook. The shares have dropped almost consistently since the IPO, and that has some people concerned. Mostly, people seem unwilling to accept the concept that the stock price was nearly 100 times earnings, which is an insane valuation for almost any company. Google, by comparison, trades at 17.5 times. Priced like that, Facebook is worth well under $10 a share, and not the $38 or so asking price to start.

The bottom line profitability of Facebook today however isn’t what I would consider the big issue. For me, the real concern is the cycle of the internet, and how things change over time. You only have to go back and look at companies like Yahoo, MySpace, and other similar internet only companies to realize that things come and go. MySpace was for many the original social media platform, and it was big for sure. Many companies based marketing on MySpace pages, and things were big. My Space has since pretty much collapsed, and was sold off for pennies on the dollar a little while back.
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I am a pretty big fan of reality based TV shows, which is a good thing these days because that is pretty much all of what is getting shoveled at us by the networks. A&E in particular has really gotten on a roll with reality based programming, and one of their huge successes has been Storage Wars.

For those who don’t know, Storage Wars involves what happens to abandoned or unpaided for storage lockers at those U Store Stuff style places. Almost every town in America has one or has one nearby, they are a growing business it seems. When these lockers go unpaid, they get auctioned to the highest bidder, and Storage Wars shows us the interest stuff that they find in these lockers, and reveals how much many of these seemingly innocent items are worth.

As a concept, at least on the surface, it’s really quite cool. You have the fast paced, adversarial action of the auction, and then the digging out of the lockers and the discovery of treasures. This sort of gives me a feeling of sort of an Antiques Roadshow with more dust and less class. It’s been a winning combination, with A&E adding a second Storage Wars Texas series, and Spike TV also doing very well with their Auction Hunters take on the subject.
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