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Not pressure, money. Also, TechDirt points out that his wife "stands to benefit greatly from cispa passing".

What is the legality of keeping them without trial indefinitely ?

Who cares?

The right to a fair trial is one of the inalienable fundamental rights, to which the USA is a signatory.

So fucking what?

If they can't prove it, then the guys must be let go.

Who's going to make them release them? You?

Pragmatically speaking: how many of these still incarcerated are a real risk ?

To the national security of the country? None.
To the corrupt people that run it? All of them.

So what is the purpose of continuing detention?

To protect the guilty.

I suspect some notion of revenge

Sure, why not...

the concept of the USA being a humane and moral nation.

PPPFFFFFFTTTTTTT.....
You, sir, owe me a new keyboard!

Citizens of the USA: what is being done in your name ?

You might as well asked the USSR the same question.

The App Store itself has been an enormous cash cow for developers, large and small alike.

Let's test that theory. First up, who's making the big bucks? corporations. In fact, over half make Less than $3,000. There are other stories showing the lack of millionaires pouring out of Apple's "enormous cash cow" as you put it. I mean, besides Apple.

Apple's financial statements tell you exactly how much profit they make on the store (hint: it's extremely low, but it is above zero), and if you think they're lying about that as has been often suggested then file a complaint over fraudulent financial reporting - it's a very serious crime.

And as we all know, fraudulent financial reporting, because it's such a serious crime, doesn't happen very often. Like Enron, the subprime mortgage crisis, the "too big to fail" financial institutions, that debacle with Lloyds of London, and oh the list goes on. There isn't a week that goes by where fraudulent financial reporting doesn't make the news.

I'd be interested to see how you justify Apple making "the majority of any profit to be had" with some actual numbers, or if it's just more rampant, ill-informed Apple bashing as usual.

As opposed to blind fan-boy support? Well, regardless of your religious preferences, let's look at a similar business model and then discuss it: record companies. They also have made their profit by acting as middlemen in the distribution of apps. Essentially, the same business model Apple uses, except the percentages are different. Apple doesn't offer marketing support to its customers, whereas the record labels do. That's where a lot of that difference goes; And here's the thing... if you ever want your app to succeed, you're going to have to do more than just code it up and submit it. You'll need to market it. And marketing, my friend, is not cheap. There's also hidden startup fees. For example, did you know that Apple charges $99 a year to app developers for an 'iTunes connect account'? Now, when most app developers have made less than $3,000 for their entire portfolio, that "30%" starts looking more like "33%"... and when you add in marketing and advertising costs to get an "app of the day" or whatever, push that number higher. How much? Well, that's up to Apple. It's a "per customer" sale.

Now that we've discussed how many different ways you're screwed as a developer, let's look at the overhead costs for Apple: App approval. Distribution infrastructure. So basically, you hire a couple dozen people to evaluate apps and you need to rent space in a data center. For an $8 billion dollar a year service, I'm guessing this amounts to... uhh... dick.

So there you have it: Apple's making money hand over fist, and the developers... well... not so much. Did you really expect a different conclusion? That Apple is somehow different from every other publicly-traded company on the Earth? They have the largest market capitalization of any country on Earth. They didn't get there by being generous.

Google does seem to fight the government on our behalf.
They just can not legally tell you about it most of the time.

I know you think you're protecting your rights, but it doesn't mean you aren't facilitating trafficking meth, heroin or the next big thing in soma-jolting chemistry when you advocate for an untappable form of communication.

Or facilitating free speech in places where saying the wrong thing leads to torture and imprisonment or worse. There will always be illegal things, but the greater right to free secure speech, I believe, takes precedence over stopping drugs / child porn / cause of the decade.

Your right to privacy is actually a proscription against unreasonable use of governmental power. It's not absolute, and it's not guaranteed the 'evil corporation' we all like to whine and bitch about shouldn't be subject to compliance for such measures as reasonable surveillance.

You means the government that retroactively gives itself powers to invade our rights? There's not much checks-and-balances going on in America.

I don't like assuming that there's an unfriendly, obtrusive ear, eye or nose pressed to my privates either, but there are bigger evils out there than the DEA.

So you're of the opinion that if one has done nothing wrong, one has nothing to hide. How can you enjoy your bread and circuses when your head is buried in the sand?

They already lost. http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110802/02374615353/court-shuts-down-zediva-apparently-length-cable-determines-if-something-is-infringing.shtml

The TSA says they are all about the war on terror.
But their actions prove they are only interested in conducting a War on Diginity.

Groping children
soaking a man in his own urine
Arresting people for wearing watches with exposed gears
Arbitrary strip-searches
Detaining people armed with flash cards
Forcing mothers to drink their own breast milk
Forcing a woman to remove her nipple ring with pliers
Requiring women to remove their bras
Requiring a woman to remove the brace on her sprained ankle and then making her walk on it to prove it was sprained

The list of abuses is into the thousands. Every once in a while they get a taste of their stupidity. But it isn't anywhere near enough.

I'm curious as to why you choose to get involved in controversial patent licensing, rather than, say, Bill Gates style philanthropic work ?

He's doing God's Work.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111208/15341817015/invincible-killer-scorpions-other-drm-hijinks.shtml

As one Former US Senator put it, lobbying is "not legalized bribery, it's legalized extortion." And it's not extortion by companies, but extortion by politicians.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120406/18051618415/is-lobbying-closer-to-bribery-extortion.shtml

Unless, you know, he's playing his own songs.....

That doesn't matter.

From http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090109/1823043352.shtml
"ASCAP and BMI have been aggressively targeting venues that hold open mic nights, and demanding they pay huge fees. Many venues have given up and simply stopped allowing any musicians to play at all. In fact, one made every musician sign a waiver that they would only play original songs, and ASCAP told him it didn't matter because there was no way to know if the singers were really avoiding copyrighted music, so he still needed to pay up for a license. "

So since one person is a thief it's ok for everyone to be a thief? What kind of logic is that?

In other words you support the biggest thief of all, Vivendi Universal? The ones that sued Nintendo and others over trademark infringement when King Kong was in the public domain? The ones that sued Sony over creating a video cassette for watching movies because it could be used for copyright infringement? The ones that sued MP3.COM nearly out of existence over a service similar to what Google and Amazon offer today? The ones that have locked artists into long-term contracts only to totally control the works of their artists while being totally oblivious to how modern music promotion works?

Universal has a history of bully tactics that amounts to thuggery to maintain the status quo even if it slows or halts technological advancement in the entertainment sector. Hell they even reneged on their royalty payments to their own artists. Supporting them is essentially supporting the elimination of independent studios and artists because Universal has and always will show a dislike for competition and will always find ways to eliminate their competitors through legal bullying, especially when their competitors support indie studios and artists.

Sure, go on over to Reddit. You'll be totally safe from this story over there.

(For the record, all of those links are on Reddit right now. I thought /. was bad at dupes, all of those are 100+, 4 of them are from the last 2 weeks, 3 from the last week....)

So how does it work out if I buy a movie and then invite 10 friends over to watch it with me? They didn't pay for it. How does it work if I buy a book and then read it out loud standing on a street corner? The TPB founders are in jail, but by the same logic that was used, J.K. Rowling should be in prison to for having stolen the entire premise for Harry Potter from several authors link

NYT has changed. They are basically working for the gov't/at their behest against Manning. http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130312/17262822304/nyt-former-exec-editor-misrepresents-bradley-manning.shtml

you are wrong and/or the opposite of correct. Techdirt has proved they don't need advertisers, and it's not part of their business model. Just because you claim it absolutely does not make it true.l That's why they created their own techdirt shop, to test if they could make money without relying on ads. It's also worked.

It also helps to read that I said techreport being the worse problem, not techdirt.

how about non-shitty websites?

I'd settle for that. sites like techreport that will ban people for daring to mention adblock need to go fuck themselves. They say they can't live without ads. That's how lazy they are. Are they unique? No, escapist did the same thing.

Even if it's been debunked before, people still trot out the "how do we live without ads"? phrase as if it's a question.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100306/1649198451.shtml = answer.

how about non-shitty websites?

I'd settle for that. sites like techreport that will ban people for daring to mention adblock need to go fuck themselves. They say they can't live without ads. That's how lazy they are. Are they unique? No, escapist did the same thing.

Even if it's been debunked before, people still trot out the "how do we live without ads"? phrase as if it's a question.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100306/1649198451.shtml = answer.

exactly. This would never see the light of day with the NY times, because the NY times is not a press/journalism organization. It's a media-spin government friendly organization which refuses to cover actual issues.

Where was the NYT with the revolutions in the middle east? Not covering them, that's where. NYT is instead always too busy not fact checking anything .

meanwhile the line of unedited cables line is full of shit. minstrelmike is clearly trolling. Whereas NYT can't even get basic information right, wikileaks actually edited the information before releasing it.

WikiLeaks would not have been able to post the unedited cables, as it ultimately did, heedless of the risk to human rights advocates

That's one whopper of a half truth.

Prenda have much bigger things to worry about than the EFF. They have really annoyed a federal judge, and may be guilty of perjury, contempt of court, fraud on the court and identity theft. Probably a couple of other offences as well.

Prenda isn't finished yet, but given the recent hearing they probably won't be around much longer

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121110/17435521005/dhs-fbi-present-you-might-be-terrorist-if-hotel-guest-edition.shtml

Wouldn't you rather receive a warning from your ISP than be sent a bill or legal threat by the RIAA/MPAA?"

No.
This is a form of the prisoner's dilemma.
Individually, it makes sense for each of us to take the easy way out, but collectively, this is bad public policy.
Private accusations of crime, followed by private punishments, is odious to our system of justice.

More and more court cases are ending up like this one, where minimal evidence gets turned away as insufficient.
The real truth is that the copyright industry doesn't want to prosecute these cases, because lawyers and discovery and expert witnesses are expensive.
Even Hollywood can't afford 10,000 cases at a time.

I am not unsympathetic to their problem, but the solution needs to balance the due process rights of the people with the interests of big business.
That hasn't happened since the copyright owners discovered the scale of infringement couldn't be cheaply addressed by the existing legal system.

That said, however, I'm quite diligent when it comes to copyright.

So, you've never recorded a TV show and kept the copy for longer than it took you to watch it once?

You've never downloaded any music, video, or even text without first verifying that the site serving the content had permission to do so? You've never shared more than a link to site with someone, but instead shared the actual content (cut and paste to e-mail, printed it out, etc.)?

There are literally hundreds of other examples of things that you likely do that almost certainly mean you have obtained content in such a way that you have violated copyright. In some cases (like here), they might even specifically say they don't care about anybody copying them, and knowing the owners of that site, they wouldn't ever do anything about it, but technically they could change their mind and start enforcing it, because despite anything they say, it's not a legal license to the content, and thus you would be infringing copyright.

The difference between your Martin Niemoller reference and what I am saying is that what they are going after, is that in Niemoller's case, the people "they came for" may have, at worst, been considered the fringes of society, but they weren't necessarily doing anything that was previously against the law. Copyright infringement actually *IS* illegal, and has been for quite a long time.

I'll take copyright infringement seriously the day that Big Media starts taking the public domain seriously, and not one second before. They thought they could play this game of indefinitely extending the length of copyright terms, effectively stealing from the public domain and all of humanity without there being unforeseen consequences? Guess what? People now take copyrights about as seriously as Big Media does, i.e. not at all.

Fuck your copyrights.

IANAL but I suspect that in a case like this the judge would pierce the corporate veil since Company Y is clearly just an attempt to circumvent the intent of the law with a legal fiction.

In the USA? Um...
Techdirt 2010-02-17 "Nathan Myhrvold's Intellectual Ventures Using Over 1,000 Shell Companies To Hide Patent Shakedown"
Probably safest to not sell your product or do any business in the USA.

Just in case you're not a troll, just really misinformed and confused: almost every point you make is either an argument against a straw man, makes no sense or is simply based on false assumptions. I'll just pick a few examples:

I've been fighting this battle for many years now, regularly presenting significant amounts of evidence in favor of copyfree software. Calling me a "troll" is akin to calling Copernicus a "witch" for presenting evidence that Earth orbits the sun!

And then you go off to say that that's worse than making income (what exactly any of this has to do with income is anyone's guess) through legitimate contracts. Which are enforced by government force. Can you see how that argument makes no sense whatsoever?

Here you are exhibiting total ignorance of the subject matter. You need to study philosophy of law, as well as basic economics.

Making income is an accomplishment - it means you are providing something so valuable to other people that they are willing to compensate you for it. If someone else could provide the same or better value at same or lower price, the buyers would go there instead. Giving away software / code / etc that other people find useful and use is an accomplishment as well, and under certain circumstances it provides more benefits (attention, patches, donations, etc) than selling the software would have. Developers have a Right to choose how they distribute their code (and it is their own, added code that constitutes the value in question).

Freedom of contract is a Natural Right - meaning that we observe its necessity independently of whether it is recognized by any state. Contracts have existed since the dawn of civilization (ex. public oaths), and civilization is impossible without some way of holding people accountable for their promises. Contracts will continue to exist (and be insured and enforced by non-monopolistic DRO's) long after governments as you know them will rot away on the ash-heap of history.

Copyright, on the other hand, is a relatively recent invention of very dubious necessity. It started in the 1600s largely as a censorship mechanism, to suppress dissident literature and reward the loyal propagandists of the state. In spite of its sustained legislative approval, economic evidence for benefits of copyright remain very scarce, and much can be said as to its harm.

"Implicit contract" based EULA's and software licenses are more dubious still. They are completely different from real (explicit consent) contracts, and don't stand the slightest test of logical scrutiny. If GPL is legally valid, then so is any "fine print" attached to anything you may come across! How would you feel if you were to find a dollar bill on the street, put it in your wallet, and then get sued by me for not following the terms of the "license" scribbled on that bill, stating that your wallet now belongs to me?!

You seem to think that the GPL equates copying with theft. Where did you get this idea?

The fact that it drags people to court (which can cost them hundreds of thousands of dollars) for mere copying. And:

"Microsoft and Apple can't steal parts of the code and use it in their OSes legally." -- RedHackTea

That would be a great argument against using the GPL. That is, if the GPL indeed had something to say about how software can and can't be used. Which it doesn't.

Modification is a form of

That's beside the point I was making. Right now Sony says the PS4 will support second hand games. However, they’re still building support for publishers to tie a physical copy of a game to a console. The story that Sony and Microsoft are actively working against the second hand market has become very big lately and is becoming a huge factor in which, if any, console consumers are going to purchase.

What do you expect Sony's response would be?

My expectation would be that they would say they're NOT carry through with their original plan, but I expect that within a couple years we'll see a firmware update silently released that removes the "used game feature". Consumers won't even know that used games won't work on the console until it's too late. Just like the Other OS removal, the courts have already said "OtherOS Removal Was A Bad Business Decision But Not Illegal".

I don't personally care about games. They're games, I just won't buy them, but unfortunately this is really bad for consumers in general. If Sony can do it so can everyone else. How long before compute manufactures decided it's ok to renege on features sold with tablets, smart phones, laptops or other computer parts.

I’m already dealing with this sort of BS where I work. I know it's not the same, but it's pretty analogous to how it'll be in the future. The Information Technology group was told to take steps to "protect" users in our organization after a recent virus outbreak on our network. I came in last week to find out that Opera and Safari were disabled on my machine. The week before they disabled javaScript and deleted bookmarks in Chrome and Firefox, basically some big wig decided that Internet Explorer was the only required and most secure browser. I was able to argue against that and convinced someone that was not the case. As the webmaster for my organization it's been a pretty hectic couple of weeks. Can you imagine what it'll be like when someone's doing that sort of crap to your home PC?

The pain with PC gaming is that everyone's PC is configured differently. Games have dependencies that may not exist on your PC.

This is less of a problem now than it used to be. Anyone else remember MS-DOS' multiconfig? Or swapping config.sys and autoexec.bat files for specific games to try and squeeze out that extra 20k of RAM in the lower 640k?

Console gaming just works.

Except when it doesn't.

The "patent troll" misdirection is harming our ability to fix the actual problem.

Yet once you fix that problem, the fuckers sue you in order to break it again. We don't have enough lawyers (preferably politicos) on the ocean floor.

There is in fact legislation in Korea requiring the use of an ActiveX control as an anti-Phishing measure, and there has been since the 1990's, in order to implement the SEED encryption algorithm in a captive frame; here is a report on it: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120507/12295718818/south-korea-still-paying-price-embracing-internet-explorer-decade-ago.shtml

Similarly, Chinese banks implement an alternate ("software clipper chip") asymmetric key encryption, also in a captive browser frame.

The software that initially implemented this was developed in Germany, and there are a number of major banks all over the world which require ActiveX controls to implement secure banking. This is why if you search for "banking activex firefox" or "banking activex safari" or "banking activex opera", you will see lively discussioms with people bitching about not being able to do banking.

Now, there have been several researchers who have published exploits, which indicate, that it's possible to attck through the ActiveX control, and therefore this type of thing in reality provides no security any longer. But moving a bank or a government is like trying to move a mountain.

Before you fault them, realize that when you are logging into your Google account, you are also doing so in a captive browser frame -- which is why there aren't programmatic ways to log into Google accounts.

What I find funny about copyright and patent issues is that people want to think their preferred party is less awful on the subject. It's a pretty sad state of affairs, really.

Check out his answer on this, from the last time he answered these:
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130107/02583521591/techdirt-interview-with-derek-khanna-author-rsc-fix-copyright-policy-briefing.shtml

He seems to think that the right is in a better ideological position to tackle copyright and patent reform. For my part, I'd bet my bottom dollar we won't see meaningful reform on any of this stuff, anytime soon.

American corruption can be pretty blatant and no one seems to care. And it's not like no one close to the White House ever died mysteriously. One can only wonder what goes on that we don't even know about.

The consumption based on total usage model is just wrong to apply to internet connection. Telco pay (or peer) via connection speeds and totally link utilization. This is a business decision to get more money out of their users by adding artificial scarcity.

Reference on Techdirt

The school now owns the nude photos of children that they spy on with their school-provided laptop webcams while they're home in their bedroom.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100221/2118128243.shtml

Many businesses are receiving letters like this. It's a fraud.

You might want to read this article:

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Cisco-Motorola-Netgear-Aim-Cannons-At-WiFi-Patent-Troll-121594

And this:

http://www.techdirt.com/blog/wireless/articles/20121009/01444620656/cisco-motorola-netgear-team-up-to-expose-wifi-patent-bully.shtml

"Last year, we wrote about a crazy patent troll, named Innovatio, who had sued a ton of restaurants and hotels, claiming that anyone who used WiFi was violating its patents. It was even claiming that individuals who use WiFi at home infringed too -- but that it wouldn't go after them "at this time." Instead, it preferred to focus on shaking down tons of small businesses, offering to settle for $2,500 to $3,000 -- which is cheaper than hiring a lawyer to fight it, no matter how bogus. We noted at the time that Motorola and Cisco had gone to court to try to get a declaratory judgment to protect its customers. "

Coffee shops are a totally different licensing scheme, usually ASCAP, and they're assholes too:

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100518/2341299481.shtml

As per radio:

Music industry groups also want one standard, but one that keeps rates high. For years they have also been pushing for laws that would require terrestrial stations to pay royalties to labels and artists. (In the United States - and almost nowhere else in the world - radio stations pay royalties only to music publishers.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/05/business/media/fight-growing-over-online-royalties.html

publisher = songwriter

From the Wikipedia page:

The Streisand effect is the phenomenon whereby an attempt to hide or remove a piece of information has the unintended consequence of publicizing the information more widely, usually facilitated by the Internet.

Isn't that exactly what happened? CBS didn't want the product to earn the award (thus giving it greater recognition and popularity), so they told CNet not to grant it the award, thereby causing extra press attention focused on the product.

If that's not enough to sway you, how about an article from the guy who is widely recognized as starting the phrase "The Streisand Effect", where he also says that this is an example of the effect?

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130111/00145421637/just-how-dumb-is-it-cbs-to-block-cnet-giving-dish-award.shtml

by Mike Masnick

Hello Streisand Effect. There were approximately one gazillion articles this week about products coming out of CES, and the place was wall to wall with journalists -- probably half of whom were coming up with their own "best of" lists. Most people were completely saturated with CES stories and would barely glance at such a story. Except... now, tons of people are suddenly finding out about this awesome Dish DVR, the Hopper with Slingbox.

I think that when the guy that coined the phrase calls it the Streisand Effect, you pretty much have to go with what he says.

OK, fair enough:

• Legality of piggybacking
• No, Having Open WiFi Does Not Make You 'Negligent' And Liable For $10,000 (rhetorical title)
• WiFi Hotspots and Liability Concerns
• Public WiFi Networks Come with Liability Headaches

Short answer: the law is unclear about it and the law varies wildly by state.

You aren't liable and you'll probably get a successful good free lawyer (well free to you) if anyone gives you grief.

Worried about your door kicked in? I'd say it's your civic duty - and if my reasons aren't good enough for you, maybe you'd consider the optional counter-suits like winning the lottery

Probably "login with Facebook". Slashdot needs to watch out, or the same thing will happen to them as to TechCrunch.
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130123/03271121761/techcrunch-admits-that-using-facebook-comments-drove-away-most-their-commenters.shtml

Here's the direct link to the article for future convenience (it's at the top of the above link right now but I doubt it'll stay there): https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130127/19023721799/redditor-points-out-flaws-simcitys-online-only-drm-gets-banned-ea-his-troubles.shtml

You could live in a oppresive regime without being the target... for a time. Being free mean being able to do the good things, the bad, and the gray ones, without looking over your shoulder because what you did could be seen in another way by someone else. Internet is becoming a mined field, where a private joke could mean being deported, where warning people that have insecure sites could put you in jail, where sharing your daughter fotos with your family could have very bad consequences, or giving less fortunate others with censored internet access could be punished, or even expressing your opinion could mean being targetted by the justice using any excuse to sue you for thousands or put you in jail for years.

But maybe more important, specially related to the "keep in mind", is recognizing what are us, specially facing any communication media. Imitation, sharing, and showing what are us or what we like is part of our nature. Is the way we got here, without it we would be still in caves wondering what happened to the only person that managed to fire a torch. We got here because people stood over the shoulders of giants. Now we get a media that enables us to do it even better than before, and specifically that is not free, not just music, or movies, but ideas. And worse, they forbid you to have ideas, if are remotely similar in a small part to a section of an idea that "own" a corporation. The problem is bigger than just internet, but is the main battlefield today.

He didn't. His personal bankruptcy was annulled.

But even if he did go bankrupt from the CoastJet business failing, should that be broadcast to everyone as soon as they even type in his name into Google? It's completely out of context. He didn't go bankrupt from being sued by patients. He didn't go bankrupt by gambling his money at the casino (although buying into aviation at this stage of the game could be argued as riskier) - the guy is being punished needlessly.

But is it not true that he has some association with bankruptcy?
Is it false information in the leas that he was involved in one?
Its a matter of public record, and if he doesn't want his name associated with bankruptcy he should have run a more stressful business, he purchased a company and that company just happened to go bankrupt, meaning he most likely was the one to cause it to go bankrupt! in fact CoastJet Group, seven companies Hingston "principally controlled, don't shoot the messenger. The very definition of defamation is that its untrue, but by its nature the auto complete mechanism is grouping like terms. So its a little ridiculous.

Anyone who claims this is about freedom of speech are being ridiculous.

Your correct this has absolutely nothing to do with freedom of speech that would imply the the "G" in Google stood for Government, in such cases your typically protected being put in jail for speaking out about the government, that doesn't bar a private entity from firing you for speaking out however.

Should people be able to buy billboard space around the world and declare to the world that you are pedophile? Or something true, a compulsive masturbator?

Yes if it's true, would you like a link to the Public sex offender database?

Automatic burger machines date back to the 1950s. Back then, everybody ate the same thing, so assembly-like type systems were useful. American Machine and Foundry built an automated fast-food outlet in the 1960s, but it wasn't cost-effective. McDonalds tried this out back in 2003.

It's not that it's technically difficult. It's that the volume required to make it profitable is higher than most fast food outlets can sell.

And the RIAA apparently knows that online P2P is not the major source of privacy.

It's actually a peering fight between cogent and france telecom; cogent being google's carrier, with google being the hostage and orange being france telecom's consumer arm.

Basically youtube (and streaming tf1, a popular french tv channel) are getting throttled because there's not enough capacity on the peering links between FT and cogent. Since much more traffic goes from cogent to FT, FT want more money to carry it. Note, this is not unusual in the peering world. Where they agree to carry each others traffic (because it's roughly equal) then they do it for free i.e. peering. When one party sends much more traffic, then sender pays for transit is common - after all, the receiving party is the one that has to pay for more equipment to carry the traffic, often including more 'last mile' infrastructure for that data to actually go to, or big pipes to other networks the transiting party needs access to.

In this case, FT is saying they want more money from cogent for transit, i.e. for all the google traffic - not money from google directly, but from their carrier; and because they have exclusive access to many households because they own and maintain the physical phone lines and exchange infrastructure, cogent can't just peer with someone else and route round FT (many french ISP's have to pay to use the FT infrastructure even though they're competitors to orange, in a similar way that a lot of British ISP's use BT lines and exchanges for DSL). If Cogent don't cough up more cash for transit to, then google traffic will continue to get throttled along with other cogent traffic at the boundary to FT's network.

The reporting on this has been woeful though, confusing the 'receiver pays' model of end users, the 'sender pays' model of big transit networks, and of course google with cogent, and France Telecom with orange.

Actually, through iTunes, at least some artists may get a LOT more than through regular CD sales...

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110404/12211913771/record-labels-may-owe-artists-close-to-2-billion-lawsuits-ramp-up-with-rick-james-lead.shtml

Basically, some stupid lawyer for labels [as it's not like they used the contract written up by the artist's lawyer] included a MUCH higher royalty for licensing music vs the sale of the same music. And the labels have been broadcasting that you only get a license to a song through iTunes and that it is NOT a sale.

In this posting, below, Animats points to an article that says it's really a peering fight between Orange and Cogent, an ISP that Google uses for transit. More detail in techdirt. At least 90% of the time, if you see an article about "ISP Peering Fight", Cogent is one of the players. They're really big, they're really cheap, and they sell lots of bandwidth to content providers. They're pretty much the bottom of Tier 1 - they'd like to get free peering from all the other Tier 1 providers, but that doesn't always happen, and occasionally somebody decides not to peer with them.

Content providers and Eyeball providers each think that the other side should pay them money. After all, content's worthless if nobody can see it. But consumer eyeballs only buy your broadband service if there's something to see. And the transport-oriented networks get squeezed by both sides, which is one reason they usually end up buying or being bought by consumer broadband networks.

You are apparently unaware of FISA and the TOS agreement between Americans and their government, specifically, Amendment 4 of the Bill of Rights.

Here are some links to help get you up to speed:
FISA: http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2013/01/16/redacted-fisa/
AT&T and NSA's laptop in a closet on everyone: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_641A
Retroactive immunity for Telecoms: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111230/00522317232/retroactive-immunity-govt-warrantless-wiretapping-deemed-constitutional-suit-against-govt-lives.shtml
4th Amendment: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution