A pretty concerning statistic for Americans is that 17% of kids in the US are obese. The solutions to reduce that figure range from getting kids to eat better school lunches to eliminating various kinds of advertising aimed at getting kids to equate food with fun. There are a few other crazy ideas to keep people from getting fat, without trying to eat less or exercise more. Here are just a sampling of such suggestions.

• There's a chance that the bacteria in our intestines have some influence on obesity. From a preliminary study, morbidly obese people were found to have different bacterial communities in their intestines, but it's not clear if the different flora are a cause (or a result) of obesity. If there is a causal relationship, maybe there will be an effective treatment that involves cultivating different intestinal microbes. [url]
• "The Parasite Diet" isn't a new idea. At the turn of the 20th century, some people used tapeworms to lose weight (before modern medicine convinced people this was a very bad idea). But genetically modified tapeworms that are benign to people could be a reality someday. [url]
• Freakonomics has yet another podcast on obesity called "100 Ways to Fight Obesity" that covers some interesting proposals to prevent overweight adults and children. Some suggestions, such as smelling a vial of vomit to curb an appetite, are not so pleasant -- and not really guaranteed to work that well, either. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Cross-posted from
Animals are cool. People are a-holes. Any bill that prevents people from senselessly harming animals is a good thing.

The natural enemy of the family dog is the local cop. Some of the stories we hear about cops shooting dogs, man, it’s like they don’t even try to deal with the animal reasonably. They shoot first and put the leash on later. I get that some people are just irrationally afraid of dogs, but cops are armed and in stressful situations. And since “dog murder” isn’t really a thing, there’s no incentive for cops to hold their fire.

We’ve reported in the past about how jury awards are going up when cops are found to recklessly kill family pets. But money cannot replace the companionship of a best friend.

Now, one state is trying to take more decisive action by requiring cops to learn how to deal with “short, hairy children”….

The Denver Post (gavel bang: ABA Journal) reports that a bill called the “Don’t Shoot My Dog” law is making its way through the Colorado State Senate.

The bill would require police officers to undergo training on how to deal with dogs. And it has bipartisan support:

“The reason I think it is important is dogs are not just property to most people, they are their short, hairy children,” [said Jennifer Edwards of The Animal Law Center]. “They are a part of the family, and it is absolutely devastating to lose an animal and to lose an animal so wrongfully when it could be solved by better training and better understanding of dog behavior.”

The bill’s sponsors, Democrat Lucia Guzman and Republican David Balmer, point out that “landscaping companies [and] delivery companies” deal with dogs all the time, without shooting them.

Some of the stories about police brutality to dogs are disgusting:

Among those expected to testify in favor of their bill is Gary Branson of Pueblo, whose 4-year-old labrador mix was shot multiple times by a Commerce City police officer after the pet escaped a relative’s home.

In Branson’s case, the 58-year-old left Chloe with a relative while visiting his brother in California last November. The dog got out through an open garage door and was running around the neighborhood.

Commerce City police said the dog was aggressive and continued to behave that way after being restrained with an animal-control noose. Chloe was shocked with a Taser and then shot multiple times.

What kind of sick person Tasers and shoots a family lab that has already been restrained?

Dogs are not people and shouldn’t be treated as such under the law. But they’re not mere property either. We need to carve out a legal space for our furry companions that at least respects our rights to keep them alive.

Senate panel OKs “Don’t Shoot My Dog” bill after emotional testimony [Denver Post]
‘Don’t Shoot My Dog’ bill moves forward, would require more police training [ABA Journal]

More stories from Above The Law

• Administration FREAKS OUT Students With Reports Of Possible Death Threat Before Realizing It Was Just Homework
• This Is Perhaps the Wittiest Response to a Pissy Law Student Email Ever
• Beware Greek Organizations Bearing Insurance Coverage

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Technology and courtrooms have clashed before. Whether it's tweeting from court, judges connecting with lawyers via social media, or juries using the pesky interwebz during a trial, concern over how modern technology can trouble legal proceedings is nothing new. That said, what you will tend to find in examples like the above is, regardless of your thoughts on their impacts, that they usually stem from mostly innocuous intentions by all concerned.

Not so in the case of Alpha Walker, a man accused of attempting to extort ivory-tickler Stevie Wonder. Walker is bringing a lawsuit against TMZ, claiming the tabloid secretly placed hidden microphones in the courtroom at strategic locations to allow them to both hear conversations that would otherwise be inaudible as well as stream those recordings directly back to the company. During the proceedings, Walker's attorneys objected to the presence of media in the courtroom and then the discussion evolved to the illicit microphones that were placed on the judge's bench and behind books on both sides of counsel table. According to the complaint, which asks for a permanent injunction, "It was then learned that these privileged communications were instantaneously transferred to the headquarters of TMZ Enterprises." While I'm generally less concerned with the use of technology in courtrooms than some, this is likely to create some fairly large problems for TMZ if true. Judge Ray Jurado is understandably less than pleased and he's stated that he was unaware of the hidden mics and that this would absolutely not happen again. It seems clear that TMZ would know that this move was wrong, assuming it's true, given that they don't appear to have requested placement of their microphones. Fortunately, Judge Jurado has reviewed the recordings and stated that they don't contain any "discernible voices", but that doesn't mean that enhancements couldn't change that. TMZ, for their part, has declined to state that they would destroy the recordings.

Not surprisingly, this has opened up questions from Walker about his faith in the judicial process. Walker says that as a result of TMZ's conduct, he has experienced "tremendous fear and distrust of the judicial system" and is suing for wiretapping, invasion of privacy, intentional infliction of emotional distress and eavesdropping on confidential communication. He's seeking $100,000 in actual damages and more in punitive damages.

The complaint also asserts that TMZ's "conduct is ongoing" and violates attorney-client privilege. Asking for a permanent injunction over TMZ's alleged conduct, the plaintiff says "its threat to the public interest is tremendous. No matter who the alleged victim in a case is, there can be no lawful justification." And it's hard to dismiss those claims. While I'm hard-pressed to think that this revelation has any material impact on Walker's case, I can certainly understand a degree of paranoia. Part of what makes for a fair trial is the setting of the court and its rules. If court security can't, you know, secure the court, and if there's even the slightest chance that hidden mics could pick up privileged information in a trial, it's a problem. In the future, any media member that wants to utilize technology in courtrooms needs to do so above board. The judicial process is simply too important to kneecap.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Well, this won't come as a huge surprise. Twice this week we've written about a pair of parodists who have been mocking Time Warner Cable and its customer service, first with a video in which they pretend to be TWC Customer Service reps asking people how they can make service worse for customers, and then involving a recording with a customer service rep who suggested that you weren't allowed to record your phone calls with TWC Customer service, even though they were recording you. The efforts were part of a parody campaign for a website called TWCCustomerService.com. For what it's worth, Time Warner has since said that there is no corporate policy saying that callers cannot record their calls, and that was merely a case of one rep overreacting.

That said, Time Warner Cable has apparently decided that the duo at TWCCustomerService have gone way too far in their parody attempt and have been going after their various social media accounts one by one. Already killed are their YouTube account and a bunch of Twitter accounts. The latest is that TWC's legal department has approached GoDaddy, seeking to have the TWCCustomerService.com domain name taken away. According to Kevin Collier at DailyDot, the guys are actually Jason Selvig and Davram Stiefler of the comedy duo The Good Liars, and they have a history of doing similar types of pranks. In this case, TWC claims that the duo went too far in using the real name (and image) of Time Warner Cable's CEO, Glenn Britt.

As we noted in our first post about them, some might think that their website and efforts pushed some boundaries, since nowhere do they state directly that they're a parody account, but any human being with a few functioning brain cells should be able to tell within seconds that these guys clearly do not represent Time Warner Cable at all. I can understand why TWC decided to try to shut down the various accounts, but, in the end that's probably exactly what Selvig and Stiefler wanted, as it merely serves to call that much more attention to their antics.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

We've seen this in the past as well, but TorrentFreak has noticed that a number of movie studios have been sending Google DMCA takedown notices that reference earlier DMCA takedown notices now appearing on ChillingEffects.org. 20th Century Fox and NBC Universal appear to be the main culprits. While it is true that those DMCA notices provide links to the original content, it seems a bit ridiculous to then argue that those notices themselves need to be taken down. ChillingEffects provides much needed transparency in how the DMCA is being used (and frequently abused) by companies. Google, thankfully, has so far refused to comply with such takedown requests. It's not clear if these are just the result of the usual robot searches by the studios (probably) or a concerted effort to hide takedown notices (less likely, but still plausible). Either way, it does highlight the ridiculousness of arguing that Google should be liable for links to sites that link to possibly infringing content. But... that's how the legacy Hollywood players view the DMCA these days. Anything, anywhere in the chain that might possibly lead one to a possibly infringing work must be liable as well, and those responsible for those sites must then, obviously, act as Hollywood's personal police force.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Remember that whole SimCity thing, where the always online requirement of the game turned into launch failures, massive backlash, and caused EA/Maxis to lie like it was their job? Yeah, good times. It was almost as if the whole debacle was some kind of how-not-to-do-video-games piece of performance art. Well, the good news is that everyone in the video game industry has learned their lesson, realizing that they need to treat their customers with respect and understand that their demands fuel sales, which means not including requirements they don't want. Yup, they all get it now. We won.

Hint: If all of you aren't laughing like this by now, your sarcasm detector needs tuning
Image source: CC BY-SA 2.0

Just kidding! You see, amid heavy speculation that the next Xbox from Microsoft will require some form of always-online component, Microsoft's Creative Director Adam Orth decided now was the time to head to Twitter for what appears to be an "insulting customers and forgetting logic" incantation that I can only imagine is intended to Bloody Mary his career. Let me first stress two things: the rumors about the Xbox are not confirmed, and Orth does not make mention of the Xbox specifically. Instead, Orth tweeted: "Sorry, I don't get the drama around having an "always on" console. Every device is "always on". That's the world we live in. #dealwithit" Except that isn't true, of course. My iPad isn't always online. Neither is my phone. Or, hell, my damned computer. In fact, come to think of it, this side of a couple of poorly thought-out pieces of gaming software, I don't know that I own a single device that is required to always be online. And what about potential customers that might not have access to reliable internet connections? Or might not have connections at all? Well, according to Orth: "Those people should definitely get with the times and get the internet. It's awesome." It's hard to imagine a more out of touch dismissal of a reasonable question. There are people who, for a variety of reasons, don't have reliable connections. Broadband penetration in the United States is pretty wide, but in terms of speed and reliability we're well behind the rest of the industrialized world, 15th out of 30 in penetration and 26th globally in terms of speed. And that doesn't even take into account less common circumstances, such as those serving abroad that might not have access to the internet for a host of reasons. You're simply telling them to "get with the times?"

But if you thought that was bad, Orth then goes completely off the logic rails in what he thinks is a rebuttal to shoddy internet connections. "Sometimes the electricity goes out. I will not purchase a vacuum cleaner. The mobile reception in the area I live in is spotty and unreliable. I will not buy a mobile phone." This is where I get really, really pissed off. If you want an always online system and if you want to dismiss part of a potential customer base in the process, go ahead. I don't think it's smart, but it's your business, do what you want. But when you start filling my eyes with bullshit like the above, you've gone too far. See, the thing is that a vacuum cleaner isn't a device that could run without electricity but was designed to not work unless it had it. Always electrified isn't a choice for vacuum cleaners. And with spotty mobile coverage, guess what, sir? If I couldn't use the damned phone due to crappy coverage, you're damned right I wouldn't spend the money on the phone. Who would? But even so, the very nature of the phone requires coverage. It isn't a manufacturer choice, it's the nature of the device. Game consoles, most software, and a host of other technology products, on the other hand, opt in to always-online. Pretending those analogies are the same is a further insult to your consumers, who you must think are too stupid to know better.

So, to recap simply, we don't know if the new Xbox will have an always-online requirement, but we do know that Microsoft has a real problem at the head of one of its departments. Perhaps someone should explain to Adam Orth that insulting customers isn't the best way to do business. Personally, I'd like to see that explanation written on the back of his termination papers.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

We had Ken White's awesome analysis of what happened at the Prenda Law hearing earlier this week, but now the full transcript of the hearing has been released so you can read along (or figure out how to incorporate it into the necessary movie script). Here's just a snippet, though the full thing is at the link above and embedded below. THE COURT: Can you tell me, for example, who directs the litigation here in California? Who makes the decision as to whether or not cases are dismissed or settled for how much money? Can you tell me that?

MS. ROSING: Your Honor, I can't testify.

THE COURT: "Yes" or "no", please. Because we need to move through this. Can you tell me that?

MS. ROSING: I personally cannot tell you that, your Honor.

THE COURT: All right. Do you know whether or not there is another Alan Cooper other than the one that was here at the last hearing?

MS. ROSING: I am not aware of another Alan Cooper, your Honor.

THE COURT: All right. Good. What happens to the settlement money?

MS. ROSING: Your Honor, obviously, I represent Mr. Duffy and Ms. Van Den Hemel. I don't have personal knowledge of any of this.

THE COURT: Why weren't notices of related cases filed? Who made the decision to hide from the court the fact that all of these cases were related.

MS. ROSING: I do have a judicially noticeable document on that, your Honor, where the Northern District declined to relate the cases.

THE COURT: That is a different thing. That is consolidating them.

MS. ROSING: It is actually an order declining to relate them.

THE COURT: Same plaintiff, same film, same causes of action, and they are not related? Excuse me? Okay. Tell me this. Who made the decision not to disclose to the court the fact that the law firms have a financial interest in the outcome of this litigation?

MS. ROSING: Your Honor, there is no evidence before this court at all that the law firm or any, well, certainly, my clients, Paul Duffy or Angela Van Den Hemel, have any financial interest in the outcome of this litigation.

THE COURT: Excuse me. Did you read Hansmeier's deposition?

MS. ROSING: Yes, I did, your Honor.

THE COURT: And then you make the statement you just made? That is one (quite reasonably) unhappy judge...

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Patrick McKay, who has been a harsh critic of some of YouTube's failings when it comes to the DMCA process and various takedowns, has highlighted a very serious issue with YouTube that has received little attention. YouTube now admits that, when it comes to some videos that contain content from certain "partner" companies, it won't repost those videos, even if the video uploaders file a counternotice and show that they're relying on fair use. YouTube claims that it will still keep some of those videos blocked due to "contractual" obligations: YouTube enters into agreements with certain music copyright owners to allow use of their sound recordings and musical compositions.

In exchange for this, some of these music copyright owners require us to handle videos containing their sound recordings and/or musical works in ways that differ from the usual processes on YouTube. Under these contracts, we may be required to remove specific videos from the site, block specific videos in certain territories, or prevent specific videos from being reinstated after a counter notification. In some instances, this may mean the Content ID appeals and/or counter notification processes will not be available. Your account will not be penalized at this time. If this sounds vaguely familiar to something in the past, you may recall that a few years ago, Universal Music and Megaupload got into a bit of a spat when UMG issued a questionable takedown of a song promoting Megaupload, which featured a ton of big stars singing the praises (literally) of Megaupload. Megaupload eventually sued UMG, but ended up dropping that lawsuit as a month or so later it had bigger legal issues on its hands, following the US's decision to shut down Megaupload. But, at the time, Universal Music made a strange claim that it had some sort of contractual agreement that allowed it take down videos like Megaupload's. YouTube quickly came out with a statement denying this, but the situations described in McKay's post certainly raise serious questions about this, and clearly suggest that YouTube has made at least some deals that effectively wipe out fair use for some users. I assume it will surprise next to no one that the key example that led McKay to discover this situation... also involved Universal Music.

As I noted at the time of that UMG/Megaupload spat that I believed the real issue might be YouTube's contract with Universal Music for Vevo -- and I suspect that's still the case now. As I said then, part of the "announced" deal was that as part of providing the backend for Vevo, YouTube would transfer over the videos of various UMG artists, such that they appeared exclusively on Vevo. I suspect that's the same thing happening here. Because part of the Vevo deal is a promise that Vevo gets exclusive rights to videos involving certain artists' works, it allows YouTube to simply ignore fair use claims from users on such content, and refuse to ever post them again.

Now, as McKay notes, this is (mostly) well within YouTube's rights. I remember, a few years back, seeing a discussion on some legal blogs about this question. The DMCA implies that if you file a legitimate counternotice following a DMCA takedown and if the copyright holder does not take further legal action, the service provider is obligated to put the work back up in no less than 10, but no more than 14 business days. But, to some extent, that seems questionable. After all, as a service provider, any site has the right to not allow certain content to be published if it doesn't want to. And yet, if read literally, some could make the argument that the DMCA obligates a service provider to put up content even if it doesn't want to. As McKay notes, in this manner, the only liability is to the person who filed the counternotice, and any such liability would likely be pretty limited.

Either way, there's no way to look at this that makes YouTube look good. Following so soon on our other story about YouTube taking down a video on a questionable "terms of service" violation and then refusing to repost the video, it's once again a situation where it seems like YouTube needs to do a much better job handling these situations. While we obviously don't know the details of the UMG contract, fair use rights cannot be signed away, especially by two third parties. It would be a shame if YouTube decided that it would arbitrarily give UMG the ability to deny someone's fair use rights in posting a video.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

So this is interesting. Yesterday, CNET had a story revealing a "leaked" Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) memo suggesting that messages sent via Apple's own iMessage system were untappable and were "frustrating" law enforcement. Here's a snippet from that article: Encryption used in Apple's iMessage chat service has stymied attempts by federal drug enforcement agents to eavesdrop on suspects' conversations, an internal government document reveals.

An internal Drug Enforcement Administration document seen by CNET discusses a February 2013 criminal investigation and warns that because of the use of encryption, "it is impossible to intercept iMessages between two Apple devices" even with a court order approved by a federal judge. CNET posted an image of the letter: In reading over this, however, a number of people quickly called bullshit. While Apple boasts of "end-to-end encryption" it's pretty clear that Apple itself holds the key -- because if you boot up a brand new iOS device, you automatically get access to your old messages. That means that (a) Apple is storing those messages in the cloud and (b) it can decrypt them if it needs to. As Julian Sanchez discusses in trying to get to the bottom of this, the memo really only suggests that law enforcement can't get those messages by going to the mobile operators. It says nothing about the ability to get those same messages by going to Apple directly. And, in fact, in many ways iMessages may be even more prone to surveillance, since SMS messages are only stored on mobile operators' servers for a brief time, whereas iMessages appear to be stored by Apple indefinitely.

That leads Sanchez to wonder if there might be some sort of ulterior motive behind the "leaking" of this document, done in a way to falsely imply that iMessages are actually impervious to government snooping. He comes up with two plausible theories: (1) that this is part of the feds' longstanding effort to convince lawmakers to make it mandatory that all communications systems have backdoors for wiretapping and (2) that it's an attempt to convince criminals that iMessages are safe, so they start using them falsely believing their messages are protected. Which brings us to the question of why, exactly, this sensitive law enforcement document leaked to a news outlet in the first place. It would be very strange, after all, for a cop to deliberately pass along information that could help drug dealers shield their communications from police. One reason might be to create support for the Justice Department’s longstanding campaign for legislation to require Internet providers to create backdoors ensuring police can read encrypted communications—even though in this case, the backdoor would appear to already exist.

The CNET article itself discusses this so-called “Going Dark” initiative. But another possible motive is to spread the very false impression that the article creates: That iMessages are somehow more difficult, if not impossible, for law enforcement to intercept. Criminals might then switch to using the iMessage service, which is no more immune to interception in reality, and actually provides police with far more useful data than traditional text messages can. If that’s what happened here, you have to admire the leaker’s ingenuity—but I’m inclined to think people are entitled to accurate information about the real level of security their communication enjoy. While both scenarios are plausible, both seem fairly cynical as well. I'd like to think that law enforcement is above attempting such tricks, but unfortunately that might just be naive these days.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

We recently wrote about Senator Orrin Hatch's plans to create a special new ambassador-level role within the USTR for someone focused solely on pushing copyright and patent maximalism around the globe. Hatch actually claimed that intellectual property issues don't get enough attention in international trade negotiations. This is ridiculous, as IP issues have actually been getting way too much attention -- so much so that the announcement of the bill came just days after a huge number of public interest groups put together a letter stating that we should take intellectual property out of international trade agreements entirely.

There was one oddity, of course: despite announcing the bill, and even having a bill number for it (S.660), Hatch did not immediately release the actual text of the bill he was proposing. That text is now out and the EFF has jumped in with a thorough analysis of why it's a disaster. Basically, as expected, this is not about more effective or reasonable stances on intellectual property in international trade agreements. No, the bill is fairly explicit that this is solely about helping out legacy companies push through what's in their own best interests, rather than the public's interest (which is what the Constitution says patents and copyrights are supposed to be about). The new Chief “Intellectual Property" Negotiator would have to be approved by the Senate Finance Committee — of which Senator Hatch himself is the Ranking Member — and would be required to "be a vigorous advocate on behalf of United States innovation and intellectual property interests." That is to say, this representative wouldn't be there to represent the public interest, or the average Americans who are paying his or her salary.

Worse still, this proposal comes at the precise moment that the legacy content industry's trade agenda has shown itself to be most at odds with the public interest. In particular, opponents of an effective and permanent fix to the Digital Millenium Copyright Act's ban on phone-unlocking have cited language in recent trade agreements as a reason why any such legislation could be impossible — even though it's been described as simple "common sense" by the White House. Regardless of the truth of those opponents' claims, they slow the pace of change, even for extremely popular proposals. In other words, industry interests at the international level are trying to tie the hands of democratically elected legislators and dictate which laws are unacceptable. Hollywood is already deeply, deeply embedded into the process of negotiating international trade agreements. It seems rather blatant to create a position whose role is pretty clearly designed solely to serve Hollywood's interests at the expense of the public. Senator Hatch is making it clear who he serves, and it's not the public. To be so explicit, and to state directly in the bill that the role of this job is to "advocate on behalf of... intellectual property interests" is incredible. Congress shouldn't be in the role of picking winners and losers, but Hatch has decided to write into the law that only one particular industry must win, even if it is obsolete. As Upton Sinclair once famously wrote: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it." On this point, Hatch's proposal is clear: question the assumption that "vigorous" copyright and patent enforcement may be at odds with innovation, or that the public interest should supercede industry interest, and you're out of a job. Appointing a representative for the industries dedicated to "strong" copyright and patent laws all but guarantees that U.S. trade policy will reflect the industry-friendly regulations that representative is paid to promote, regardless of whether they are in the public interest.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

I'm always amazed at how copyright maximalists from the entertainment industry insist that no one can comment on their own businesses unless they're "in it" while freely commenting on other businesses they clearly know nothing about. Here's the latest example. The musicFIRST coalition, which is basically a lobbying operation set up by a few of the big legacy players in the recording industry (including the RIAA, A2IM and SoundExchange) in order to push for ever higher royalties for music, has been fighting hard against any effort to create royalties for internet companies that would allow those companies to survive. Like the Golden Goose, the labels have decided that if anyone online is making money, it's best to squeeze as much of it out of them as possible until they're dead, rather than allowing them to grow and to provide sustainable revenue back to the industry.

But their latest blog post really takes public cluelessness to new and impressive levels. It's a response to the news that Pandora's listener base has been growing. That should be celebrated, but, as Pandora has been pointing out for ages, thanks to the crazy high royalty rates that it has to pay SoundExchange (which are many times the rates of satellite radio and infinitely larger than terrestrial radio, since terrestrial radio has an exemption from performance royalties) it is close to impossible for Pandora to ever be profitable. Even worse (for musicians, the industry and the public) these crazy high rates means a lot less competition, fewer new authorized services and a smaller market overall. Pandora has been seeking more reasonable rates that would actually allow it to provide more services and to grow the overall pie even more by adding more value. However, so far, that's been cost-prohibitive given how much goes out the door to SoundExchange.

So, along comes MusicFIRST with the "solution" to all of Pandora's profitability problems: sell more ads. No, that's not a joke. They seriously seem to think that Pandora's problem is that it has chosen to take on less revenue and that all it has to do is turn the knob up and sell more ads: As economist Jeff Eisenach testified last year regarding Pandora royalties, "the ratio of Pandora's content costs to its revenues is within Pandora's control: To raise its revenues, it need only choose to sell additional advertising" or find other ways to cash in on its popular and successful product.

Pandora is choosing to limit revenues for now by keeping advertising low and attracting customers to its free service tier.... It's no reason to plead poverty in the face of massive audience growth and "better than expected" earnings reports. As someone who relies on advertising for a portion of my income, I wish musicFIRST had just told me all along that the fact that ad rates are so low and that fill rates are so dismal on advertising all across the internet is because I just wasn't trying enough and that I'd purposely been "limiting revenues." Why don't we just flip that one around? Perhaps the reason that the major labels and SoundExchange have been making so little money is that they're not selling enough. All they need to do is sell more and all their problems are solved. No need to go plead poverty to Congress and demand a jacking up of rates, since -- by their own logic -- they just need to sell more, and clearly, that's easy. If they're not selling more, it's because they've decided to limit revenue.

Stories like this make you wonder if anyone actually takes musicFIRST seriously.

Separately, musicFIRST trots out the lamest trope in the book in the attacks on Pandora: focusing on the value of the company and the equity its founders hold. Only someone who is deliberately misleading or completely clueless on basic financial issues would equate a company's valuation with revenue. The two are wholly different beasts. And yet, these lobbyists pretend that the equity that Pandora execs hold somehow is taken unfairly from artists. That, of course, makes no sense if you actually understand the difference between equity and revenue. Any artist could have had the same equity if they had built Pandora. They didn't, so they don't.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

We've been talking a lot lately about the need for serious reform of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), which was initially supposed to be a law about malicious hacking, but has been used repeatedly by the DOJ and others to attack something so simple as a minor terms of service violation as a potential felony. While certain courts have rejected the DOJ's interpretation, that has not stopped the DOJ from claiming that its interpretation can be applied in other circuits. Even more bizarre is that, rather than fixing the law, Congress's most recent actions have suggested an interest in expanding the law even further, increasing the punishment levels for those the DOJ decides to go after.

The EFF has pointed out just how ridiculous it is to argue that violating a terms of service is a potential felony, noting how that even makes children who read online news sites potential felons for violating terms of service. This is, in part, due to another bad law that we've spoken about, the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, or COPPA. The issue here is that online sites have stricter rules if they're seen as targeting children under the age of 13. To avoid this potential liability, many websites simply inserted a clause into their terms of service saying that you can only read the site if you're over 13 (some sites say 18 and others say between 13 and 18 need a parent's approval). While this is somewhat lazy lawyering on the part of those sites (to ban outright), those are their terms of service. And violating such terms violates the CFAA under the DOJ's interpretation.

The EFF notes that such age exclusion provisions are pretty common, and sites like the NY Times and NBC News bar children under 13 entirely. This means that inquisitive 12-year-olds who visit NBCNews.com to learn about current events would be, by default, misrepresenting their ages. Again, this could be criminal under the DOJ's interpretation of the CFAA.

We’d like to say that we’re being facetious, but, unfortunately, the Justice Department has already demonstrated its willingness to pursue CFAA to absurd extremes. Luckily, the Ninth Circuit rejected the government’s arguments, concluding that, under such an ruling, millions of unsuspecting citizens would suddenly find themselves on the wrong side of the law. As Judge Alex Kozinski so aptly wrote: "Under the government’s proposed interpretation of the CFAA...describing yourself as 'tall, dark and handsome,' when you’re actually short and homely, will earn you a handsome orange jumpsuit."

And it’s no excuse to say that the vast majority of these cases will never be prosecuted. As the Ninth Circuit explained, “Ubiquitous, seldom-prosecuted crimes invite arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement.” Instead of pursuing only suspects of actual crimes, it opens the door for prosecutors to go after people because the government doesn’t like them.

Unfortunately, there’s no sign the Justice Department has given up on this interpretation outside the Ninth and Fourth Circuits, which is why the Professor Tim Wu in the New Yorker recently called the CFAA “the most outrageous criminal law you’ve never heard of.” Then the Atlantic Wire helpfully jumped in and highlighted many other publications and their online terms of service, showing that young readers of many of today's most popular news sites are potentially breaking the law every time they do so under the DOJ's clearly stated position on the CFAA.

The EFF followed it up by pointing out that, until just recently, if you were a 17-year-old girl (or younger!) reading the magazine Seventeen online, you were almost certainly breaking the law under the DOJ's interpretation of the CFAA, since its terms restricted visitors to those 18 and older.

Rather than "trusting" the DOJ not to abuse this kind of thing, wouldn't we all be better off fixing it?

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

For many years we've been highlighting how the federal government (mainly the FBI) has widely abused the "National Security Letter" (NSL) process to get information on American citizens with almost no oversight. Part of the issue is that NSLs include a complete gag order, barring recipients from telling anyone about them. It's been very rare for anyone to challenge them, and doing so is risky in and of itself, since it involves having to break that gag order. There have been a very few examples of companies fighting back against the NSLs, and whenever we hear about it, it tends to be done by an anonymous company, since they can't even name themselves. The only previous instance I can recall of it being known who fought an NSL was Nicholas Merrill, the head of Calyx Internet Access, who was only able to admit his role in fighting an NSL years later. He talked about how he'd be involved in conversations with people about the "anonymous" ISP fighting NSLs and couldn't even indicate that he was the guy being discussed in that very conversation.

The last few weeks have been quite interesting in the world of NSLs, however. As we noted, a few weeks ago, a court in California ruled that NSLs were unconstitutional. And, now, it's come out that Google appears to be fighting an NSL, potentially in response to that very ruling. Of course, it appears that this news of Google fighting back wasn't supposed to be public either. Bloomberg broke the story after spotting a motion from Google that hinted strongly at what was going on. That motion was briefly available via PACER, but since the Bloomberg story came out, it has been put under seal by the court. Of course, even though Bloomberg (for reasons that escape me) chose not to release the document itself, plenty of others have gotten a copy from before it went under seal. You can see it at the link above or embedded below.

The motion itself doesn't directly reveal that much -- but does tell you just enough to show that Google is likely fighting an NSL. The document itself is not the "petition" in question, but rather a motion to be able to file a petition under seal. Ordinarily, you would expect the motion to be filed under seal as well, which is where someone messed up, letting this out. However, the motion reveals that the petition Google is seeking to file is to "set aside a legal process ... pursuant to 18 USC 3511 (a) and (b)." That law says that an entity can petition the court to set aside a request for information, including a national security letter, "if compliance would be unreasonable, oppressive, or otherwise unlawful." It also notes that it is requesting to file this petition under seal as required by 18 USC 2709(c)(1), which is the part of the law about keeping NSLs secret.

Going through all of this, it strongly suggests that Google has responded to the ruling from a couple of weeks ago by pushing back against NSLs, pointing out that a court has ruled NSLs illegal, and filing a petition against at least one (and perhaps more) NSLs to let the court know that, under 3511, complying with the NSL would be "otherwise unlawful" according to that court ruling. It's worth noting that this motion and petition are before the same judge, Susan Illston, who declared the NSLs illegal in that case a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, we may never know how the court responds to the petition itself, since I imagine the results of this will be under seal as well. The court ruling from a few weeks ago declaring NSLs illegal did stay that decision pending appeal, so a court may have leeway to say that existing NSLs can proceed, but you could also see a court recognizing that it need not just allow such a rubber-stamping to move forward.

Either way, even if it was an accidental leak, it's good to see that Google is using this as an opportunity to fight back against NSLs. Hopefully, this means that other companies are doing the same thing as well.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Although the prevailing winds are now beginning to shift a little, it has been the opinion of many in law enforcement (and backed up by the courts) that they are welcome to search the contents of a detainee's cell phone without obtaining a warrant. The thought process seems to be that anything on that person (or in their immediate vicinity) is fair game.

The EFF has filed an amicus brief in the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals opposing this mentality in hopes of preventing the state's flawed logic from becoming legal precedent. The case the EFF is involved with began with a warrantless search of a teenager's cell phone while he was detained at a Texas county jail. Teenager Anthony Granville was arrested at his high school for a misdemeanor and booked into the county jail. All of his belongings, including his cell phone, were taken from him and placed in the jail's property room while he was locked up. Three hours after his arrest, a different officer than the one who arrested Granville at the high school went into the property room and, without a search warrant, looked through Granville's phone in search of evidence connected to another, unrelated felony. Fortunately (and correctly), the trial court suppressed the evidence "recovered" from Granville's phone, stating that the officer had time to obtain a warrant. It also pointed out the likely reason for the lack of a warrant -- namely, "no exigent circumstance" to justify searching for unrelated evidence on Granville's cell phone.

The state appealed, rationalizing the officer's actions using a couple of rather incredible claims, the second of which shows a complete (or willing) lack of comprehension as to how much information the average cell phone can contain. The state appealed to the Texas Court of Appeals, arguing that Granville had no expectation of privacy in the contents of his cell phone while it was in the jailhouse, noting that looking through the phone was no different than looking at a person's clothes when they are booked into jail. (I would imagine "looking at" means "searching" a person's clothes, rather than, say, admiring the stitching.)

The appeals court followed the trial court in shooting down the state's arguments, along with its generally terrible comparison. The appellate court disagreed with the government's analogy, finding the amount of information stored on mobile devices make a cell phone search far more invasive than a search of clothing. Despite the count being 0-2, state prosecutors show no willingness to stop swinging, bringing the case to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, where it will once again pit its lousy justification for Fourth Amendment violations against the EFF, the Texas Civil Rights Project and the ACLU of Texas.

The EFF's amicus brief shoots several holes into the state's "cell phone = pants" equation. In our amicus brief we explain the government had no excuse for not obtaining a warrant before searching Granville's phone. A person doesn't surrender their expectation of privacy in the contents of their phone once the phone is in the hands of jail officials. Plus none of the exceptions to the search warrant requirement applied. This wasn't a search "incident to arrest "since it took place hours after Granville was arrested, when the phone was out of his control. And it wasn't an "inventory search" because once the phone itself was inventoried and secured by the police, there was no need to inventory the data on the phone. Plus, an inventory search can't be used as a pretext for a clearly investigatory search, which this certainly was. Refining broad search policies and eliminating procedural gaps is a necessity as cell phones move further and further away from being simply portable phones. The amount of personal information contained on the average cell phone, along with the number of cloud-based services accessed through them, can make for a very rewarding fishing trip.

These days, searching a phone under the pretenses stated above isn't much different than an officer letting himself into a detainee's home and rooting around on the home computer. Between social networks and cloud services, much of what's "contained" in a cell phone is accessible from multiple points. Arguing that a cell phone is nothing more than a set of pants pockets is deliberately understating the reality in order to justify skirting the Fourth Amendment. Here's hoping the state goes 0-3.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

We've seen some pushback against fair use/fair dealing over the years -- especially by copyright maximalists who like to pretend that such public rights as codified as fair use and fair dealing somehow violate international treaties. That's ridiculous. Jonathan Band and Jonathan Gerafi have put together a fantastic handbook detailing every fair use and fair dealing law they could find around the globe. The end result? Over 40 countries, covering more than one-third of the world's population, have these laws as a part of their copyright laws. That doesn't mean that all of them are well written or as strong and protective of the rights of the public as they could be. However, as Band notes, this suggests that "there is no basis for preventing the more widespread adoption of these doctrines, with the benefits their flexibility brings to authors, publishers, consumers, technology companies, libraries, museums, educational institutions, and governments."

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Cross-posted from
Like the four who held the job before him since its, er, difficulties began five-and-a-half years ago, Steve Freiberg did not do a particularly good job running E*Trade. But he’s been compensated handsomely for facing the wrath of an angry Ken Griffin before getting a pink slip in August.

E*Trade Financial Corp. said it paid its former Chief Executive Steven Freiberg $10.7 million in 2012, including a severance payment, according to a regulatory filing early Friday.

In its proxy statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the online brokerage said Mr. Freiberg received $3 million in stock awards, $630,769 in salary and a $7 million lump sum cash severance payment.

E*Trade also said Mr. Freiberg collected a prorated bonus of $1.6 million paid in February and outstanding equity awards, which were valued at $3.3 million under an accelerated vesting schedule.

E*Trade also handed over $2.5 million to its chairman, Frank Petrilli, including $2.2 million for doing Freiberg’s old job during the waning days of 2012. And E*Trade wasn’t the only good place to be a former or soon-to-be-former CEO last year.

Marsh & McLennan Cos. gave outgoing chief executive Brian Duperreault a $17 million pay package last year, a 17% increase from 2011, according to the company’s annual proxy released Friday.

Mr. Duperreault’s compensation included a $1 million salary, stock and option awards of $10 million, and a $5 million bonus. It also included the personal use of the company’s corporate jet, valued at $441,875.

Mr. Duperreault, a longtime insurance executive who ran Marsh & McLennan for five years, stepped down at the end of 2012. The proxy said his pay increase was based in part on the company’s financial performance for the year, his work in positioning the company for future growth, and the “successful transition of CEO responsibilities” to Mr. Glaser.

Good Friday compensation disclosures were less kind to the poor schmucks who still have to run their companies. Charles Schwab CEO Walt Bettinger hasn’t gotten a raise in four years, and the IntercontinentalExchange gave CEO Jeffrey Sprecher a 15% pay cut for the year in which he bought the fucking New York Stock Exchange.

Mr. Sprecher, who has led ICE since its formation in 2000, in 2011 was the second-highest-paid exchange CEO after Duncan Niederauer, CEO of NYSE. Under terms of NYSE’s deal with ICE, Mr. Niederauer will become president of the combined company, while Mr. Sprecher will remain chairman and CEO.

Former E*Trade CEO Paid $10.7 Million in 2012 [WSJ]
Marsh & McLennan’s Outgoing CEO Got $17 Million [WSJ]
Schwab CEO Pay Stays Around $10.2 Million [WSJ]
InterncontinentalExchange Chief’s Pay Down 15% [WSJ]

Other posts from Dealbreaker:

• S&P Cries “Conspiracy!”
• Half Of Hedge Fund Employees Pretty Sure Their Competitors Are Up To No Good
• M&A Bankers Developing Serious Jealousy Of IPO Guys

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

The last flu season was pretty rough, but there's a new H7N9 strain that has no vaccine (yet!) and is starting to infect and kill people (instead of sticking to birds). We're just about coming to the tenth anniversary of SARS, and we're still creating over 100 million flu vaccines every year using egg embryos -- a process that takes months, time that we might not have if a really serious flu strain spreads quickly across the globe. Here are a few projects that are making vaccines more quickly.

• Tobacco plants can be made transgenic in order to grow vaccines for us, and they've been shown to be able to produce over a million doses of vaccine in a few weeks. DARPA has a challenge out to anyone who can produce vaccines at a rate of 10 million doses in a month. [url]
• Genetically modified tobacco plants can be grown and harvested by robots -- producing vaccine proteins very quickly and efficiently -- without the need for human labor. These robots can grow tens of thousands of tobacco plants in a batch, and it's likely only a matter of time before researchers can get these plant factories to produce other kinds of pharmaceuticals. [url]
• Flublok relies on insects to grow flu vaccines for us -- a process that has been used for other kinds of vaccines, but has only started to be used for the flu. Flublok has already been FDA approved, so it will be available to patients for the 2013-2014 flu season. [url]
• Bananas could potentially be grown with edible vaccines, but the regulatory hurdles for development have caused researchers to focus on non-edible vaccines grown in other plants (like tobacco). Bananas grown for edible vaccines might still be viable for treating fish or other animals. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

There's a lot of talk about "cord cutting" going around. On one hand, the techier side of the spectrum feels this is the new normal and that it spells out the eventual demise of cable companies. On the other hand, cable companies are stating loudly that this isn't happening and displaying chart after chart of flat (or slightly declining) subscriber counts as evidence that things are still "pretty OK." In between, you have the public, which is blessed with more options for content consumption than ever before. Sure, many of them still have a cable line running to the house, but it's debatable how much of that piped-in content is being consumed via the cable box. After all, most cable providers are also ISPs, which brings content into the home via services like Netflix, Amazon Prime and Hulu.

Cable and satellite companies have long fought against having to inform its current (and potential) customers that their services aren't needed to receive free, over-the-air TV. This is why many networks are battling antenna manufacturer Aero in court -- to protect the carriage fees they receive from cable companies. If the cable companies lose subscribers, they lose these fees. Cable companies aren't happy about these antenna manufacturers either, and are pushing back by limiting the reach of their advertising. Vidiot sends in this GigaOM story about Antennas Direct and its run-in with Charter Communications. You don’t need a cable subscription to watch ABC, CBS or NBC – but don’t expect to learn about alternatives if you’re a Charter customer. Over-the-air antenna maker Antennas Direct recently wanted to buy some air time on Charter‘s cable channels to explain how TV viewers can access these channels without a pay TV subscription.

“We thought it was a fairly benign message,” Antennas Direct President Richard Schneider told me Thursday. Charter disagreed – and rejected the spot for competitive reasons.
While Antennas Direct may compete somewhat with Charter's core business, its purchasers are limited to free, over-the-air channels. Charter offers many channels (along with phone and internet services) unavailable over the air, along with premium offerings. Someone knocking a handful of channels out of the hundreds available shouldn't be a concern -- unless cord cutting is more a threat than these companies want to admit. Charter's refusal to air this aid is an implicit admission that cord cutting is more of a problem than it's willing to state in public. As Richard Schneider, president of Antennas Direct, points out in a blog post at the company's site: “When a multi-million dollar antenna company can strike fear into the heart of a 7 billion dollar giant, you know your message has merit.”

Along with giving people a viable reason to ditch their cable subscriptions, these antennas offer something else the cablecos can't: uncompressed HD. Ever-expanding channel lineups have run headlong into bandwidth limits, forcing cable companies to compress their HD offerings. Not that you'd know it from cable company advertisting or their channel lineups, which list dozens of HD channels, most of which are delivered in less-than-true-HD form with compression that can run anywhere from 1-40%.

So, while there's nothing wrong with Charter's actions from a business perspective, blocking a few "competitor's" ads isn't going to save it for long. After all, more and more people are getting their advertising (and other information) from a variety of screens, rather than relying on TV broadcasts. This ad shutdown does nothing for Charter and gives Antennas Direct a huge boost in publicity. Maybe it would have been smarter to just let these ads run in their "normal" environment, commercial breaks, where the message would have become background noise for fridge runs and bathroom breaks. Instead, Charter has allowed Antennas Direct to walk away with the win and spead its message to savvy internet users, most of who are more than happy to ditch services they find incomplete, limiting or unnecessarily expensive.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

We just recently had a post on the head of one of Homeland Security's "Fusion Centers" (the same Fusion Centers found by a Congressional investigation to be a near total waste of time and money, finding no terrorists, but violating the public's civil liberties) who claimed that the DHS centers did not spy on Americans, and then immediately admitted that they spied on "anti-government" Americans.

The definition of "anti-government" was mostly left as an exercise to the reader. However, in a bout of good timing, the Partnership for Civil Justice has released some new DHS documents it received via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, showing that DHS regularly spied on peaceful demonstrators and activists. Because exercising your First Amendment rights must make you one of them there "anti-government" Americans, which means the DHS is free to spy on you. Functioning as a secret political police force against people participating in lawful, peaceful free speech activity, the heavily redacted documents show that the DHS “Threat Management Division” directed Regional Intelligence Analysts to provide a “Daily Intelligence Briefing” that includes a category of reporting on “Peaceful Activist Demonstrations” along with “Domestic Terrorist Activity.” (p. 68)

The PCJF has obtained thousands of pages of documents pursuant to its Freedom of Information Act demands and made them available for public viewing. The newly obtained documents show coordination and intelligence monitoring by the DHS, the FBI, the NYPD and other law enforcement agencies of “Occupy-type” protests.

The documents show the routine use of Fusion Centers for intelligence gathering on peaceful demonstrations as well as the use of DHS’ “Mega Centers” for collection of surveillance information on demonstrations. And it's not just the big cities. The new documents show that DHS is involved in spying on peaceful protesters and activists around the country. It also shows that DHS helped local law enforcement "crack down" on the various Occupy gatherings. But the key thing is that DHS seems to have no qualms at all about spying on anyone who disagrees with the prevailing positions of today's federal government. And it's clearly not because they're trying to protect others from any threat of actual harm. They seem to be focused on spying to further the goal of preventing the administration from looking bad: The documents show a Department of Homeland Security that appears obsessed with the question of whether any and all protests that are being surveilled receive media attention and coverage. Reporting within the DHS on media coverage of First Amendment protected activities, even in the smallest places, appears to be a routine part of DHS intelligence reports. None of the documents explain why media coverage of peaceful demonstrations is of interest to law enforcement or concerns “homeland security” in any way. That's because it doesn't concern "homeland security" at all. It concerns the job security of those employed by Homeland Security.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Unless you've been totally under a pop-culture/music rock for the past few months, you've probably heard of Macklemore and his hit song (and video) Thrift Shop. Now at well over 200 million views, the song itself has been at the top of the charts and has sold over 4 million copies. In case you somehow have missed it, or in case you just want to watch it again, here's the video: The song itself was released last year, and built up a lot of buzz throughout the fall, but completely exploded at the beginning of this year. While I became aware of the song a while back, I didn't realize until recently that Macklemore is actually yet another story of a totally independent artist who found success not by signing with a label and having them throw a ton of money into promoting him, but by carving his own independent path (and using YouTube to connect with fans). In many ways, his story reminds me of Alex Day's.

A few weeks ago, Macklemore sat down with Chris Hardwick on the Nerdist podcast and it's great. Beyond some interesting discussions about sudden fame (and then doing laundry in the communal laundry room of your apartment building days after appearing on SNL), he does talk a little about being a successful musician without a label. Chris asks him about the no label part and mentions what a great story it is: Chris: To see you and Ryan Lewis come out of Seattle just making stuff you like making, with no label, and oh you're at the top of the charts, and all these people are talking about the song... that's just a great story.

Macklemore: Yeah, I appreciate it. It is a very cool story. It's what you always hope for in terms of picking the independent path. It's cool to see that that's been a focal point. It's not just "Thrift Shop"; it's this kind of do-it-yourself attitude behind the music we've made -- that is also within the midst of this thrift shop song. That these two dudes chose to go independently, to turn down the labels. That the music industry is changing. That it's evolving. And to be at any sort of place where we're at the forefront of that, at the moment, is exciting.

Chris: It's so inspiring to so many young people who maybe -- and I think people are more and more used to the fact that they can just make stuff in their bedrooms and it can turn out to be huge. But every time it happens, it's that much more inspiring to a younger generation of people who go... 'there's no excuse any more to not go out and make stuff that you want.'

Macklemore: Absolutely. And that's what we watched people that came before us that have done it independently, whether it's Sub Pop, or whether it's... Mac Miller did it independently. And he had every major label hollering at him with huge seven figure offers and turned it down and still went number one on Billboard. There's examples of it that came before us, that had us say 'I think that it can work -- I'm not sure that it can work." But, at the end of the day, what's most important, and creative control is number one for Ryan and I. It's a no brainer.

Chris I'm sure you've been approached a million times at this point, but you still don't want the infrastructure of a label?

Macklemore: Yeah, there's no reason to do it. With the power of the internet and with the real personal relationship that you can have via social media with your fans... I mean everyone talks about MTV and the music industry, and how MTV doesn't play videos any more -- YouTube has obviously completely replaced that. It doesn't matter that MTV doesn't play videos. It matters that we have YouTube and that has been our greatest resource in terms of connecting, having our identity, creating a brand, showing the world who we are via YouTube. That has been our label. Labels will go in and spend a million dollar or hundreds of thousands of dollars and try to "brand" these artists and they have no idea how to do it. There's no authenticity. They're trying to follow a formula that's dead. And Ryan and I, out of anything, that we're good at making music, but we're great at branding. We're great at figuring out what our target audience is. How we're going to reach them and how we're going to do that in a way that's real and true to who we are as people. Because that's where the substance is. That's where the people actually feel the real connection.

And labels don't have that.

So you sign up for a label. There's not some magic button they're now going to push and it means that people are going to like who you are. Or that they're identify with your vision or your songs. It actually comes from sitting down, staring at a piece of paper for months or years on end, trying to figure out who you are as a person, and hoping that it comes through in the end. But a label's not going to do that for you. Uh huh. Once again, it makes you wonder what people are thinking when they claim that YouTube is putting artists out of work.

The whole episode is worth listening to as Macklemore has a great perspective on all of this, and it's interesting to hear him discuss the oddity of his sudden increase in fame and how he's dealing with it, without letting it go to his head. But considering how often we've had similar discussions about artists who choose to go independent, I thought some would enjoy that particular snippet especially.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story