LightSquared Network Could Block GPS Devices, Report Says - <AUTHOR> http://allthingsd.com/20111210/lightsquared-network-could-block-gps-devices-report-says/ <comment><USER2> Spam. Verbatim copy of [http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405297020341330457708...](http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203413304577089082840505866.html) which it also links to as "read more". That URL hides the rest of the content behind a pay wall (or something like that, I saw the login form and closed the tab).</comment>


FCC: We didn't impose stricter net neutrality regulation because Android is open - <AUTHOR> http://www.engadget.com/2010/12/21/fcc-we-didnt-impose-stricter-net-neutrality-regulations-on-wir/ <comment><USER2> A complete non sequitur. It makes no difference how "open" your hardware or software is if all the ISPs are blocking or throttling or capping all your connections.

<comment><USER3> You could flash a version of Android that uses magic to communicate instead of radio waves. Duh.

(The irony is: you can't flash your own build of Android on most devices, and most Android builds are not 100% open source. Cyanogen is pretty close, though.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> So if linux is open, why were restrictions imposed on non-mobile internet?

<comment><USER5> Android has a significant share in consumer wireless internet. Linux has rounding error in consumer wired internet.

<comment><USER6> I hate to dignify the original argument using openness to justify something completely unrelated, but... I think you're forgetting that the vast majority of websites accessed on "consumer wired internet" are hosted on Linux servers.

<comment><USER5> On the website side of things, though, you have a competitive market for internet services. The impression I've gotten is that the net neutrality debate has been focusing on the consumer end, not the server end, because there is typically only one or two choices for consumers for broadband internet access.

On the website side of things, if you don't like the rules of your hosting provider, you can choose from hundreds of alternatives. Hence, there is much less need for regulation.

For home wireless access, there are usually more choices than for home wired access, with at least 4 choices available in most decently populated areas. With 4+ choices, plus open platforms that make it easier to switch carriers, we may not need heavy regulation--the market might be adequate.

For home wired, an open system like Linux makes no difference for two reasons:

1\. As I noticed, not many use it, so even if Linux somehow made it easier to switch wired providers, it would not have much effect, and

2\. Linux doesn't make it easier to switch wired providers. If you are on, say, Comcast, and decide to switch to DSL, you aren't going to have an easier time on Linux compared to those on Windows or Mac.

<comment><USER6> Net neutrality deals with the transmission, not the server or client, which is why openness and availability of operating systems has nothing to do with these regulations.

As to your second point, it is equally difficult to switch wireless providers (e.g. Comcast) as it is to switch wired providers (e.g. Verizon). Some would argue it's harder to switch wired providers since they are essentially government-endorsed monopolies, but then again many people cannot switch wireless providers due to 2-year contracts, work-provided plans, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Original FCC release at: [http://www.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2010/db1221...](http://www.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2010/db1221/DOC-303745A1.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER8> Anyone want to take bets on whether these rules will even survive the inevitable legal challenges?

My understanding is that since the FCC declined to classify internet as a "telecommunication service" their authority to regulate it is pretty shaky

</comment><comment><USER9> Cars are getting opener, so we don't foresee needing to worry about the roads.

</comment><comment><USER10> This now seems completely plausible within this decade:

<http://i.imgur.com/hmScT.jpg>

</comment><comment><USER11> And there aren't "open operating systems like Android" in the wired world?

This is so nonsensical it's almost like a shout-out to Google.

Perhaps the providers of 10Mbps+ wireline service should tear out their last mile wires and install wireless transmitters for the last hop instead, so they can fall under the same looser regulations as the <1.5Mbps (if you're lucky) wireless providers.

<comment><USER12> I know your last point is meant to be sarcastic, but that is the exact sort of distorted behavior you get with these kinds of ill-conceived regulations.

<comment><USER2> Specific example: <http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125357990638429655.html>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> We are ruled by idiots.

</comment><comment><USER14> Android being open is only helpful for Net Neutrality in that it allows us to route all our traffic through a proxy in another country.

</comment><comment> brown9-2 This doesn't instill a lot of confidence in the FCC.

</comment><comment><USER15> Android's openness is pretty weak at best- it depends pretty heavily on what phone you have/your carrier will let you have.

</comment><comment><USER16> Thanks, Google. >8/

</comment><comment><USER17> This is nothing more strawman justification meant to distract us from the real issue. Android has nothing to do with network neutrality. The software on our handsets has no effect on how the ISPs manipulate the Internet.</comment>


54 Videos on viral marketing - <AUTHOR> http://viralhack.com/ <comment><AUTHOR> I decided to create a course in Viral Marketing.

The course is the result of the last few years testing and refining a methodology on how to make content go viral. It is a course about the mechanics, user behaviors and tactics rather than the content quality. Given an algorithmic and network based world, the more we understand about what increases our chances of producing content that people want to share, becomes increasingly important.

As it turns out. The behavioral mechanics supporting the content, is as important, if not more important than the content itself, in terms of what makes a user interact with the content.

I will continuously update the course based on participant feedback and I feel like it is ready for peer review. Currently there are 1040 participants from over 45 countries taking the course and the most active users have reached about half way through.

If you take the course, feel free to give me feedback here in the comments or in the associated Facebook group.

</comment><comment><USER2> If I haven't seen these already...</comment>


Rate my startup: Tea for iPhone - <AUTHOR>

Hi everyone,
Although I meant to to submit this app as part of the November Launch commitment on HN, I had serious reservations about how usable the app would be. Instead of submitting, I went back to the drawing board the past couple of months, worked with a designer and am pleased now finally to share Tea for iPhone.
As it turns out, this is also my first major software project since beginning programming a year and a half ago after graduating college, which is when I decided that I was tired of hunting for technical cofounders.
Mainly I'd like feedback on this page as a landing page, the concept, and how approachable the presentation is. Any other comments are welcome.
http://www.teaapp.com <comment><USER2> Honestly: The hand poped up and scared the hell out of me. I have no idea if anyone will buy it, but I hear you can make money on tea rebill schemes.</comment>


Shazam-like technology used to identify bars illegally streaming soccer games - <AUTHOR> https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/12/18662968/la-liga-app-illegal-soccer-streaming-fine <comment><USER2> This has the same solution as any other story around copyright infringement.

If you provide people with easy, convenient, legal methods to consume the content in a way that works for them, for a price they find reasonable, then they overwhelmingly won't resort to illegal means.

I'm not saying these bars are correct to resort to illegal streaming, but a wise businessperson would see this as a signal that their product offering doesn't actually match demand, and work to fill that demand. You're not going to make 100% of people happy in 100% of cases, but you can get to a point where the level of illegal streaming just isn't worth cracking down on.

It's such a sad waste that all this money has been spent to identify and track down illegal activity when it could have been spent making the overall legal experience good enough that most people wouldn't need to resort to illegality. It adds insult to injury to note that companies like La Liga are already making money hand-over-fist; it's not like they have some sort of crisis where the lost revenue due to illegal streaming is posing an existential threat to their business. Instead of cracking down and making enemies, they could instead work to make the experience better and turn potential enemies into satisfied customers.

<comment><USER3> > a wise businessperson would see this as a signal that their product offering > doesn't actually match demand, and work to fill that demand

This is not necessarily true. It depends entirely on the shape of demand. By way of simplified example, imagine that there are two types of consumers equally distributed: those willing to pay $1000 and those willing to pay $100. Unless you can distinguish at time of payment between these users and charge them different prices (without possibility of resale), you will always be better off forgoing half of the market and charging only the higher price.

It's _possible_ that the business has estimated things incorrectly and is acting suboptimally, but I think it's as least as likely that they are maximizing profits the way we'd expect a rational business operator to do.

<comment><USER4> > but I think it's as least as likely that they are maximizing profits the way > we'd expect a rational business operator to do

I think you grossly overestimate the ability of most large businesses to behave rationally form an organizational profit maximization perspective. It would just as likely or even more likely be something like personal wealth maximization by an employee or group of employees, personal relationship improvement, ego gratification, maintaining/improving social standing, effort minimization, etc.

This is even more so for a monopoly rights holder like La Liga.

<comment><USER5> > It would just as likely or even more likely be something like personal > wealth maximization by an employee or group of employees, personal > relationship improvement, ego gratification, maintaining/improving social > standing, effort minimization, etc.

Do you have any evidence for this?

> I think you grossly overestimate the ability of most large businesses to > behave rationally form an organizational profit maximization perspective.

You're free to think this but it doesn't really square with common sense. Profit maximization is a stated goal of large orgs, and by definition they're doing ok at it.

In any case, your comment does nothing to diminish OP's point: that the shape of the demand matters. What the shape of the demand is in this case is an empirical question and you haven't provided any evidence.

<comment><USER6> People and businesses don't behave rationally. They behave with bounded rationality [0]. That is, they make the most rational decisions with information available to them. No one is working with perfect information. This leaves plenty of room for them to leave money on the table.

With that said, I have no guarantee that these companies are leaving money on the table. We also have no guarantee that they aren't. The best you are going to be able to do is create a model. Models are not reality. Models use assumptions. You're making two huge assumptions. One, that the models assumptions are correct. Two, the people interpreting the model are doing it correctly. Humans are imperfect, we make imperfect models, those models are interpreted by other imperfect humans. Making concrete statements either way is silly in my opinion.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bounded_rationality](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bounded_rationality)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> One of those cases where both sides are in the mud. La Liga is struggling with piracy of games for long. They have been trying to make money of their product (football essentially features two of the greatest players to play the game in last 10 years, only one now) but struggle due to their whacky ideas and no care about fans. Sample this: The timings of games are as early as 12PM (spanish siesta is at 4PM) and as late as 11 PM local time. They host 10 rounds every week, most in different slots to get more eyeballs. They have acted in bad faith in a sense too. Spanish law requires one of those 10 games to be free to air. They made sure that game is one held on Friday or Monday at 11 PM (teams' fans call it graveyard shift) and nothing on f2a tv on weekend.The ones listed are the ideas which made through while others like having one random game in US thankfully did not. Though, given their ineptitude, its a sure wonder how they managed to execute this so well.

Bars should not be streaming the games illegally either. But since the cable prices are too high, and nothing on free to air, they have to in order to attract crowds. There is no official streaming service - albeit not bundled with cable tv subscription - that people in these countries can make use of to watch games.

The path forward maybe what Formula1 did by introducing a streaming service which is not geo blocked. This way, I can watch a race at reasonable subscription from anywhere in the world. They also allow me a racer only feed, or the global feed, or a feed from a particular stand. I will definitely buy it if any official football league offers that too.

<comment><USER8> > But since the cable prices are too high, and nothing on free to air, they > have to in order to attract crowds.

Somehow I find it hard to believe a business can't afford cable. Even if it costs $200 / month, surely they ought to be able to cover that.

<comment><USER9> Take this with a grain or two of salt, as I don't recall the source, but it seems plausible - I read somewhere that when it comes to businesses like bars, at least in the US, there is a normal rate applied to the cable package, and an additional rate applied 'per head' for the event in question. This may only be for pay-per-view events where multiple people can congregate at a single location which has paid the PPV fee, and not necessarily for widely broadcast events; I've seen sports bars charge cover for highly anticipated MMA matches.

How those rules are enforced is beyond me. Tangentially related, some of the legitimate, paid-for streams have been of pretty low quality, cutting out frequently. Not sure if it's because of draconian DRM or just excessive demand, but it would be interesting to find out.

<comment><USER10> For pay-per-view events there's usually a commercial PPV sales channel as well. Joe Hand Promotions handled it for the UFC up until this year (now it's all under ESPN+). JHP has some formula for determining cost, it's at least partially determined by venue capacity, hence the use of a cover charge.

<comment><USER11> I believe UFC still sells with a commercial formula for bars, I don't know if it's through JHP or not, but my understanding is that ESPN+ is for private consumers only

<comment><USER10> oh, I thought ESPN+ also was doing the commercial licenses. They might handle the delivery now, but yeah, it's Joe Hand still that does the negotiation.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This reminds me of a short story by Paul Ford from a few years back[1]:

 _We had gone to a baseball game at the beginning of the season. They had played a song on the public address system, and she sang along without permission. They used to factor that into ticket price—they still do if you pay extra or have a season pass—but now other companies handled the followup. And here was the video from that day, one of many tens of thousands simultaneously recorded from gun scanners on the stadium roof. In the video my daughter wore a cap and a blue T-shirt. I sat beside her, my arm over her shoulder, grinning. Her voice was clear and high; the ambient roar of the audience beyond us filtered down to static..._

 _I told my waiting daughter to go ahead and pay the few dollars, just part of the latent cost of a ticket. She tapped and the tablet made its cash-register sound, and the video was irrevocably destroyed so that it could never again be shared._

[1] [https://www.ftrain.com/nanolaw](https://www.ftrain.com/nanolaw)

<comment><USER13> I had written (in college) a small story about an "RIAA Task Force" collaborating with the FBI to raid small brick-and-mortar businesses with occupants above some fabled "listener limit" that dared to have an FM Radio or iPod connected to a boombox in the corner of the store somewhere. Everything from Barbershops to Butchershops were raided, and the small infringing devices confiscated.

Given that the RIAA tried to sue a grandmother once, This wasn't too far- fetched.

<comment><USER14> Why is it illegal to amplify music in your store if you paid for the music?

<comment><USER15> Should it be legal to create a drive-in that plays movies off of Netflix?

<comment><USER16> Unpopular opinion, but I would say yes.

It doesn't cost Netflix any more money whether one person or 10 people are watching a particular subscription.

I'd say the major appeal of the drive-in is the venue and all the accessories (big screen, sound, etc) - otherwise you'd just pay for Netflix yourself and watch it at home.

<comment><USER17> Opportunity cost is real...

<comment><USER16> I mean I understand both sides of the argument, but it seems like physical goods manufacturers are doing fine without enforcing restrictions on how their goods are used (I am free to buy an off-the-shelf power tool and then rent it out without paying extra to the manufacturer), so why are we giving this exception to content producers?

In my opinion the law should be changed that content you pay for can be used as you wish _except copying_ (otherwise you'd just copy it and resell). It'll drive up the prices of the "source" content, but the market will quickly fill the gap by offering affordable access to broadcasted versions of such content.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Sky Sports use a far simpler solution that doesn't violate anyone's privacy.

The satellite feed that's licensed for public venues has a small beer glass logo burned in to the image. The amount of beer in the glass changes every day on a pseudorandom basis. An inspector can check whether a pub has the right license simply by looking at the screen - if the glass is missing or contains the wrong amount of beer, it's an unlicensed stream. It's plausibly hackable by a sufficiently motivated person, but it's a remarkably simple and effective deterrent.

[https://mindyourdecisions.com/blog/2016/12/13/game-theory- ap...](https://mindyourdecisions.com/blog/2016/12/13/game-theory-applied-why- is-there-a-pint-glass-in-the-corner-of-tvs-at-pubs/)

<comment><USER19> But what if you are pirating a legal stream? Does the beer glass change per subscriber? And then surely they would know by just asking "does this pub, at this address, have a sky sports subscription?"

Seems simpler?

Also, side note, I've never seen the glass anything other than full.

<comment><USER18> _> But what if you are pirating a legal stream?_

The glass only appears on the (vastly more expensive) pub licensed feed, not on the consumer feed. The higher cost and much smaller pool of licensed customers reduces the likelihood of someone pirating the feed and vastly simplifies the process of identifying the leak. A pirate could burn in the right logo to a standard consumer feed, but they'd need daily information from someone who can view the pub licensed feed.

Given the incredibly devious history of satellite anti-piracy technology, I would fully expect Sky to have a bunch of other, subtler data hidden in the feeds and codecs.

<comment><USER19> That makes sense, thanks! But I can't help but ask again: why would a simple lookup of address -> registration work here? Why would you need a vast array of subtler, hidden data in the feeds?

If you're playing live sports in The Temeraire, and The Temeraire doesn't have a license, then boom. You're knicked. Pubs are licensed and not readily movable things owned by specific (and licensed) people. Walk in the door, if they are playing sports and this pub is not registered then you know right away. You'd in fact only target pubs that _dont_ have a license. No need for any steganography.

Of course you might want it if someone is streaming this sports feed from a pub licensed feed to the internet, but then why have the global changing beer glass?

<comment><USER18> It's a surprisingly complex legal situation. It's very clear that using a domestic Sky subscription in a pub is a breach of copyright, but it's less clear if using a foreign satellite subscription is legal - recent court cases have gone both ways and involve both British and EU law. The fact that a pub is showing a football match without a suitable license from Sky isn't necessarily evidence of wrongdoing.

The glass provides an instant clue for inspectors, but also the general public. A busybody (or a rival publican) can instantly spot if a pub is using a dodgy satellite feed.

There's also the underlying tension between Sky Television and the English Premier League, who both have slightly different incentives around rights enforcement. The pint glass allows Sky to easily audit pub landlords, but it also allows the Premier League to audit Sky.

It's not a comprehensive anti-piracy system in itself, but it's a really useful and really simple tool.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I've never been in a bar where the TVs had their audio on. The sports games are on screens but muted, and some have closed-captioning turned on.

Wouldn't that defeat this?

Slightly off-topic but I feel like relating it:

When I was a kid, we'd watch baseball games on TV, but muted. Then we'd turn on the radio and tune in whatever station was simulcasting the game. Because the radio announcers assume you can't see the action, they narrate a lot more of what's going on, so we could follow the gameplay without having to be glued to the screen every instant.

We also didn't have air conditioning, so baseball season was windows-open season, and more than once a pedestrian would pause to listen, sometimes holler "HEY WHAT'S THE SCORE?" into the house, we'd holler back, they'd continue down the sidewalk. _Everyone_ watched the Tigers in the 80s, and it was said that when a game was on, you could walk clear from Trenton to Mt Clemens and never be out of the sound of Ernie Harwell's voice.

<comment><USER21> Sports in bars is a very different experience with sound on vs. off. Without sound, it's a background distraction that a few folks may be interested in. With sound on (even if the commentary is indecipherable), it's a collective experience that holds everyone's attention. Usually the bar will mute or put on music during commercial breaks.

I do wonder if alternative commentary would ever catch on. Imagine if instead of talking heads you had a music track that would mimic the tension of the game like a music score.

<comment><USER22> Personally, I feel a slapstick comedy track would work best. /joke

What could work really well is some live radio, podcast, twitch of commentary to supplement the detectable pirated audio. The biggest issue would be syncing the video and audio.

<comment><USER20> So someone out there could make a killing by running their own stream that acts as alternate audio for the matches. Couple of super-fans in a booth with a video feed of the match, no audio passthrough, their own SFX person and statistician feeding them talking-points...

Charge bars a few dollars for the feed, and watch 'em rake it in.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Someone I met tried to figure out how to actually legally stream the NBA playoffs recently - apparently there's basically no way to do so without an existing cable subscription or without paying for the entire season. I'm guessing the licensing structure around all of that would make the US tax code look readable, but the result is that it's effectively impossible to decide you want to watch a specific game on a computer and give someone money to do so on a one-off basis.

<comment><USER24> It's so much easier to stream the NBA finals from a pirate site than it is to pay - if there even is a way to pay. I'm looking at waiting 10 days for a cable installer and at least 50 a month plus multiple calls to setup and then cancel to watch the one event I want to watch via cable, or 2 clicks and an ad-free 1080p 60 fps stream on my browser. I'm not saying piracy is legal or moral, but the difference in cost benefit effort and value is so extreme I don't know how you can realistically expect someone who knows all the options to chose cable.

<comment><USER25> Really, how about just signing up to the NBA League Pass? Sure it's expensive, but it doesn't need cable installation, just watch it from basically any internet accessible device.

<comment><USER26> League pass does not apply to nationally broadcast games or games in your local market. I live in LA and root for the Celtics, and watch all the home broadcasts with their arena feed. If I lived in Boston it's not an option and I have to have a cable subscription.

If the team is on a national broadcast, it is also blacked out.

That being said, I listen to the finals on the local radio broadcasts via the NBA app because those are never blacked out.

<comment><USER27> MLB has same problem with blackouts. Irks me beyond belief.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Tangentially related: there is a cool app called Tunity that "shazams" a muted TV, e.g. at a bar, finds the game and lets you play the audio from your phone - syncing it perfectly to the video picture that you shazamed. So you can sit at a bar or waiting room or somewhere with muted TVs, and listen to the audio of the game.

<comment><USER29> ...when the venue has a hearTV device installed and you are connected to their network... But cool nevertheless.

<comment><USER28> I don't know what heartv is. I used it at a random bar and it just synced to the audio fingerprint.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> This is an old story.

The update is the Spanish gov fining the league 1/240th of their top player's salary (250k/61m) for abusing 10m of their residents' personal technology and privacy.

Another way of putting it is 1/100th of the team salary for the lowest spending team (250k/24m). Which, in-turn, spends 1/33rd as much as the top spender.

<comment><USER31> What are `(250k/61m)` and `(250k/24m)`? 250.000 euros per 61 months? How can that be expressed in a fine? 250.000 * 61? I am confused, sorry.

<comment><USER7> 61M is the yearly salary of Lionel Messi. The top earner in Spanish League.

24M is the annual revenue of the smallest spending team in Spanish League.

<comment><USER30> 24m was the sum of the player salaries of the smallest spending team. If they're not losing money, their revenue is higher than that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> I'm really into the dark future of DRM enforcement drones flying around cities listening for illegal streaming.

<comment><USER33> I am not sure how many people outside the UK are aware of this, but a similar thing has existed there for nearly 70 years.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_detector_van](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_detector_van)

<comment><USER34> The vans exist. The implied technology within them not so much.

[https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/08/bbc-tv- licence-v...](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/08/bbc-tv-licence-vans- wi-fi-snooping-analysis/)

<comment><USER35> The Wikipedia page states that they can monitor brightness changes through a window and correlate that to a broadcast programme. How they deal with network delays and time shifting is another matter.

<comment><USER36> That sounds like something that works in theory but not at all in the real world.

<comment><USER37> The full description sounds like a normal digital camera to be honest, almost as if someone has gone to great verbal lengths to disguise the fact it is simply a camera:

"The optical detector in the detector van uses a large lens to collect that light and focus it on to an especially sensitive device, which converts fluctuating light signals into electrical signals, which can be electronically analysed."

For many years I had heard that the real enforcement tool was the fact that anyone selling a TV in the UK, like an electrical retailer such as Comet or Currys, had to submit the name and address of the purchaser to the TV Licensing authority. I just did a quick google, and it turns out this really was the case for a really long time!

> [https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need- > one/business...](https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need- > one/business-and-organisations/tv-dealers-aud18)

<comment><USER36> TV licensing authority? That sounds unnecessarily dystopian.

<comment><USER37> Really? bizzare. Even the UK TV Licensing authority in the UK calls itself the the "Licensing authority"! Given it has legal enforcement powers and a team to enforce them the term "Authority" is absolutely appropriate.

"Since 1991, the BBC, in its role as the relevant licensing authority, has been responsible for collecting and enforcing the TV Licence fee."

> [https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/about/foi-legal-framework- > AB16](https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/about/foi-legal-framework-AB16)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> This really doesn't sit well with me. Yes, the bars in question were breaking the law. However, keep in mind that one business was using private citizens to essentially spy on other businesses without the citizens' knowledge or consent.

I'm sure the users of the app technically gave legal consent via the app's terms of service. But I doubt even 1% of the app's users were actually aware of this aspect of the app.

Also, this is why the permissions an app requires to operate matter. I roll my eyes just as hard as the next person when I see comments in the Google's Play store about the absurd level of permissions required by some apps. But I also think twice when I install apps requiring ridiculous permissions compared with what they're supposed to do.

</comment><comment><USER39> I'd like to see physical switches on all electronics that CUT POWER to cameras and mics and have a clear indicator when they are active or not.

I don't know that people would use them, but I'd like to have the option.

<comment><USER30> Easier said than done. On circuits that use small enough amounts of power, they can run parasitically from the power through pullup resistors on I/O lines. I've seen microcontrollers continue to work fine after lifting their power pin.

<comment><USER39> It would take a deliberate design effort for sure.

<comment><USER40> It would also be a bad design. Reminds me of the Spaceballs quote, "Evil will always triumph, because good is dumb."

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> > Spanish data protection agency claims that the app didn't make [the use of > the microphone permission] clear, and has ordered LaLiga to take down the > app by June 30th

So all they have to do is describe what it does and hope users don't uninstall it? seems lesser than getting removed from the app stores

<comment><USER42> I'm waiting for a company to start paying $X to the first Y people that passively find illegal streaming. Turn people into fully aware copyright cops on your behalf. You leave an app running in the background and it listens 24x7 for unauthorized sports broadcasts.

<comment><USER43> Ironic no? This was one of the major criticism of communism in practice. Except now your neighbor snoops on you for a small profit in protecting the outsized profits of capital.

<comment><USER44> The funny thing of course is under communism copyright and patents don't exist. On the other hand under Stalinism and Maoism owning a printing press was illegal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Semi-related, the technology used in Shazam and other music ID services grew from companies that monitored radio stations to make sure they were playing all the ads they'd been paid for.

In the mid-2000s, I worked on a Shazam-like text message service that would ID songs on the radio for you, and send you an iTunes purchase link. You texted us the radio station you were listening to, and we sent that and the timestamp to a server run by a company with listening stations all over the US, and it told us what song it was hearing at that time. The company's main clients were advertisers checking up on radio stations, but the technology worked just as well for music.

It was a pretty sweet little service for the time, but sadly we never launched. I was amused when I saw far more polished apps like Shazam doing essentially the same thing, years later.

</comment><comment><USER46> It's insane that they can get away with this with so little consequence.

<comment><USER47> edit: I misunderstood OP's comment; makes much more sense when I read it in the light suggested by anchpop below.

...that they can get away with copying a bytestream and decoding the result onto a screen? Which harms nobody?

The insane part is that people, even on HN, have become convinced that someone can own knowledge to such exclusivity that copying bytes can be a crime.

<comment><USER48> So you wouldn't mind if I copied bytes of yours, such as private pictures, private documents, etc?

<comment><USER47> Obviously it is my responsibility to keep those bytes away from you.

If you come into possession of them in the absence of some kind of contractual obligation regarding how you'll handle them (ie a privacy policy to which you and I have jointly agreed), then yes of course you can do what you wish with them.

Isn't this the same argument currently making its way through the public mindshare regarding WikiLeaks? _Of course_ they had a right to distribute and comment on the contents of the State Dept. cables. The fact that the government claimed they were private (classified) can not overcome the basic thrust of freedoms of the press and speech.

<comment><USER48> Ok, so you're walking down the street with a locked phone in your pocket. I send an Android Bluetooth 0-day payload to your phone. Nothing wrong with that, after all I'm just asking your phone if it wants to copy some bytes, and it says 'sure!'. Not my problem if your phone does something funky with those bytes.

Now I have root, and copy off all of your pictures and private data onto my device. Nothing wrong with that, just copying some bytes, right?

Finally, I have all of your data, no contractual obligations to you on how I use it. So I'll just copy some bytes over to Twitter or Instagram and publish your private photos to the world. That's all ok in your book, because all the time I'm just copying bytes?

Your point is so reductivist that it is absurd. It's like declaring that any human action is just wiggling of fingers or flapping of vocal chords, and what can be so bad with wiggling fingers or flapping vocal cords?

<comment><USER47> You've glossed over the important part.

Yes, in a free society, it's my responsibility to be a ward against 0-days. This is the problem with unduly complex and / or closed source software and closed, proprietary hardware being in our pockets in the first place.

To paint over these problems by restraining basic, fundamental speech (ie, you can repeat anything you know to anyone, specific contracts notwithstanding) is throwing away the baby instead of the bathwater.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> IP law in this country need to go away. It doesn't help the market as a whole, it doesn't encourage content creation it encourages legal spending and manipulation.

You shouldn't get paid for having and idea you should get paid and be excited to create content to be first to market and have an consumer base. If somebody can come along and do it better there should be no legal barriers. The result is a highly competitive iterative market that grows exponentially and benefits the consumer. The only protections should be around branding ie you say you are who you are. Everything else can be accomplished with trade secrets. This is especially true when you consider the world is shrinking and the lvels of control are local only. So all of your competitors abroad are benefiting from it while locally we waste millions arguing in court over who is allowed to bring product to market. It creates things like the epi pen markup. There was an alternative, cheaper within a few days but they were blocked from marketing and change the applicator to avoid a broad patent on it.

Also would like to point out that there is a reason why patents and io don't exist in some of the oldest markets (food/clothing). Because otherwise there would be no industry or growth. They live on brand protection and secrets..

<comment><USER50> One of the strongest tools you have as an individual or small business is IP law. It means that the big incumbent that you're trying to take on can't just swoop in and copy what differentiates you from them, and eat you alive.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> Here's the original article, which goes into much greater detail than the summary on the Verge: [https://www.eldiario.es/tecnologia/Liga-Futbol- microfono-tel...](https://www.eldiario.es/tecnologia/Liga-Futbol-microfono- telefono-aficionados_0_780772124.html)

Sadly neither article investigates how effective this technology was, or how many bars actually got caught as a result of the malware in this app.

</comment><comment><USER52> There was a proposed system back in the 90s which involved multiple decryption keys. [https://homes.cs.washington.edu/~mernst/pubs/heraclitean- tr9...](https://homes.cs.washington.edu/~mernst/pubs/heraclitean- tr9413-abstract.html)

</comment><comment><USER53> I thought a better deal for customers might happen in the UK when BT competed against Sky for Premier League football rights.

What actually happened was a bidding war that drove up the cost of the rights which was then passed down to legitimate subscribers.

Or forced them into less legitimate ways of viewing the content

</comment><comment><USER54> Making copies and sharing used to be hard so it made sense to charge money for copies and build business models around that. Now both discovery and copies are nearly free so business models must change. With pay to release payment is collected from patrons and the results can be shared. Modern makers, producers, and business people need to accept modern reality instead of blockading about sharing being theft when it clearly is not.

</comment><comment><USER55> I'd like to know how someone found out it was recording. Wireshark after noticing unusual bandwidth usage? Decompiling an APK?

</comment><comment><USER56> It doesn't feel like sports leagues want me to be a fan anymore. Take the NBA for example. I can't attend games because they're outside of my price range. I can't buy merchandise because a simple jersey costs north of $50. I can't watch the games because the subscription per month costs too much and bars are starting to get priced out of the range too. Encouraging my kid to play in high school to go pro is a joke since there are no minor leagues that he could fall into since he's not a genetic freak.

I want to be a fan but it feels like the sports leagues don't really value fans anymore. Instead, they want to safeguard their product so that only the rich can enjoy it.

<comment><USER57> So don't be a fan anymore? I can't afford to own a Ferrari... so I don't.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> That's a weird angle. This story is not at all about "piracy", but about an app using the microphone in a clearly illegitimate, and probably illegal, way.

<comment><USER59> Yep, it's illegal, they've been fined (by a ridiculous amount by the way)

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> It's possible for bars to mute audio and turn on subtitles.

<comment><USER61> It is also possible for bars to not serve alcohol. What's your point?

<comment><USER60> The point being, a "Shazam-like" detection strategy would not work in that setting.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> Q: If, as a developer, you were asked to implement something like this, would you?

Piracy issues aside, this would be a no-no for me on moral grounds.

</comment><comment><USER63> What about it is Shazam-like? Are they a super hero? Are they funny? I don't get it.

<comment><USER64> They're referring to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shazam_(application)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shazam_\(application\))

<comment><USER63> Ah because it identifies audio input. I see. Quite disappointing, tbh. I thought they refer to the movie.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER65> Could be a good business opportunity.

Make a "compliance device" for shops/hotels/supermarkets that _want_ to comply with their licensing obligations.

All the store owner does is place a listening device in their shop and it listens to what licensed content is used and automatically invoices and ensures compliance.

<comment><USER38> /s? Please?

<comment><USER66> Coming up for YC 3Q 2019

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> Clever. Illegal, but clever.

</comment><comment><USER68> In certain EU countries that could be A) Illegal wiretapping B) GDPR violation

If they happen to record other private information such as what political party one likes, or religion one likes they would be even more in legal trouble. And also recording anything about sexual life which could happen in a bar conversation say between friends.

<comment><USER69> It is a violation, for both a) and b).

They got into trouble.

They didn't pay a lot of money for that, though.

<comment><USER30> They might have lost a lot of legal cases if their basis was illegally gained evidence.

But I have no idea how Spanish civil law works.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER70> US folks - What law or court has proven that Shazam is fair use? The sports broadcasters sue five second clips off the air, yet Shazam is allowed to transform clips of games for this purpose?

</comment><comment><USER71> Does this spy act occur on iphone?

<comment><USER72> Possibly, although they'd only be able to do it inconspicuously if the apps in the foreground (otherwise there's a red bar at the top)

</comment></comment><comment><USER73> Just give everyone headphones.

</comment><comment><USER71> does this spy act occur on ios?

</comment><comment><USER74> Sigh

</comment><comment><USER75> > The app does explain in the terms of service that by giving the app > permission, users are consenting to LaLiga using their phones to detect > fraudulent behavior, like pirated soccer games.

Completely missed this on my first pass. Makes the story a bit less dramatic, still a serious privacy breach, but not so nefarious.

</comment><comment><USER76> This will lead to an arms race with deploying cellular, GPS and wifi jammers. You can order them online right now for low prices, at low power they are very unlikely to ever be investigated.

[https://www.jammer-store.com/gps-blockers-jammers/](https://www.jammer- store.com/gps-blockers-jammers/)

Do note things like this are HIGHLY illegal, and carry pretty insane fines if you are caught.

<comment><USER77> No bar is going to install a cell, gps or wifi jammer to avoid a small fine... as doing so would put them out of business.

No customer is going to hang out in a bar where their cell phone doesn't work.

<comment><USER78> What bar is going to be quiet enough for sound fingerprinting to work?

<comment><USER79> If you have enough time for recording, I guess it doesn't matter. Also I suppose noise in bars is in a rather narrow band compared to the sound from the TVs. Haven't tried though, just my guess.

Of course bars could just stream without noise and just use closed caption ...

Interesting what would happen if patron a brings their phone and watches a match, and patron B next to her is picking up the noise and reporting the bar :)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Ask HN: What business competitions are out there? - <AUTHOR>

There's a lot of talk about getting funding from angel investors. But I seldom hear about business competitions being entered to raise some money without giving away equity.  Why is this?
One possible problem is that many of these competitions are geared towards minorities or are actually urban development programs. And the businesses (or business plans or pitches) are judged by suits generally, who often prefer more traditional businesses. I've entered Jellly, my web app, into two such competitions with no success.
Are there any competitions of this kind that are more web or tech-focused? I'm also interested in hearing about competitions that aren't focused in this way. <comment><USER2> Check out local b-schools. Many have competitions with _a lot_ of flexibility. You don't necessarily need to be attending that school or even be from that state.

We won $8,500 at our b-school competition and it gave us runway for 10 mos.

</comment><comment><USER3> TechCrunch Disrupt. If you win, you pocket $50,000, but also a bunch of angels of VCs will court you to invest.

It's not that hard, just one chance in a thousand.

<comment><USER4> If they give away 50k without requiring equity, what's in it for them?

<comment><USER5> A bunch of cash from the conference. They're making a ton off these events.</comment></comment></comment>


How Much Does It Cost You in Wages if You "Sound Black?" - <AUTHOR> http://www.freakonomics.com/2008/07/07/how-much-does-it-cost-you-in-wages-if-you-sound-black/ <comment><USER2> I have long suspected this to be the case. I have found the most successful black people in my sphere are those who can easily code-switch (this is the linguistics term for switching between language varieties).

I would conjecture that there is a lot of stigma associated with AAVE (African American Vernacular English) due to rappers and gangs and so on due to media portrayal, so even a rather intelligent person who communicated in AAVE rather than Standard American English would be grouped with the others.

Being from the South, I would be interested to see the same study performed on how much it costs one if they sound "redneck".

<comment><USER3> > Being from the South, I would be interested to see the same study performed > on how much it costs one if they sound "redneck".

The article did examine "sounding south" as well, with results similar to "sounding black".

<comment><USER2> I mainly meant sounding "redneck" as in "rural/uneducated" rather than a standard southern accent. I am from a large city in the South, so there is a heavy distinction between "southern" accents and "redneck" accents. Even here in the city, there is a stigma against "redneck" accents (but not southern accents).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> A lot of Ebonics is slang. Is this really about sounding black, or is it just about sounding unprofessional? What if I went to a job interview and said "dude" and "bro" every other word (lets assume I'm not interviewing at a startup)? Infotainment distorting reality to fit its presentation.

<comment><USER5> There was no mention in the article about Ebonics. The article states you "sound black." All that means is that your accent sounds black, or at least, not Midwestern Suburban American.

What you are describing is someone that does not represent a minimal standard of professionalism, which is a very different thing.

My god, sometimes I wonder where people on Hacker News comes from. You mean to tell me you never heard Will Smith talk? He sounds totally black and totally educated. You never worked with a person that has a "black" accent?

If there is any real fault to this article, it is that the study was presumably done in and around Chicago, where racism to a level that offensive to any taste, is rampant.

 _This culture of racism_ is what the article is attempting to describe:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vo1LPf9mnyU>

<comment><USER6> _My god, sometimes I wonder where people on Hacker News comes from. You mean to tell me you never heard Will Smith talk? He sounds totally black and totally educated. You never worked with a person that has a "black" accent?_

And given this distinction between "sounding black" and "sounding unprofessional," one might harbor some doubt as to whether the study in question controlled for perceived professionalism when estimating the effect of perceived blackness. One might even go so far as to post a comment suggesting that factor might have been overlooked or conflated with the phenomenon being estimated.

<comment><USER5> You bring up a human-nature attitude and the proof is around us all the time, whether you are discussing gender, race, age, height, beauty, etc. All of this has been beaten to a dead horse.

Anecdote: I'm a white guy who grew up in the inner city, and one of the most important things I ever did for myself was ridding my ghetto accent. The difference in the way people perceived me over the years is very different.

The simple fact is that humans use short-cuts all the time. I may not like the short-cuts, but I can't blame people that heard my inner-city ("black") accent and assumed that I went to schools with lower education standards and that I am culturally different than they are. Bot assumptions are pretty spot-on, to be honest.

<comment><USER6> _You bring up a human-nature attitude_

Did I? Well, I suppose taking a skeptical view towards new research could be described as a "human-nature attitude." I really don't know what exactly you're reading into readme's and my posts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Its an interesting analysis, the general principle isn't whether you 'sound black' or not, its whether your sound 'correct socio-economic class' or not. Similar research was done in England comparing the wages and job prospects of people with accents from working class towns and neighborhoods versus people with accents from upper class towns and neighborhoods. (and they were all white, no racial biases) finding essentially the same result, if you talked like an upper class person you were treated better.

On a personal level I grew up with 'air force' kids since my Dad was in the Air Force and we moved from base to base, and we all spoke alike (in terms of accent) pretty much regardless of race. One year when my Dad was stationed at Andrews AFB, one of my friends, who was black, was taunted by other blacks in our public school in Maryland because he 'sounded white' which I found really confusing. It was hard on him and I really didn't know what to make of it. That said, later in life I found that generally teasing on accents was common. So it was clearly something which caused others to respond.

</comment><comment><USER8> To steal an idea from and in the spirit of pg's "What You Can't Say" essay: <http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html>

We might look at smug, entitled "aristos" in a period French Revolution film, or look at slave owners in a pre-Civil War period piece and think ourselves better. We might look at those characters treating the urban poor like dirt or see a smug and shortsighted slave owner talking about the music of black slaves as if it were a primitive sign of their inferiority -- and shake our heads and feel smart knowing what we know as 21st century persons. But in the spirit of "What You Can't Say" let me say that there is just as much shortsighted abusive smarminess, smug superiority, and shallow judgment of people by their superficial features in our day as in those times past. And yes, this includes the West Coast, the Bay Area, and no small part of the startup scene.

Remember that the historical persons such that characters mentioned above were based on thought of themselves as cultured, enlightened, and sensitive, much as many of today's knowledge workers do. Remember also that many of them were utterly blind to their own shallow judgements and earnestly thought of themselves as winners in a meritocracy, as many persons do today. Now note that only a minority of such individuals were actually as enlightened as they thought they were.

And lastly, there are those among you who have or will overcome the blindness of your own subculture and time, but remember that only very rarely does this come without some form of shock, surprise, or pain.

EDIT: Another instance where we can relate some media to the subject -- the powerful executives portrayed in Mad Men equated sounding like a top-tier university white male with "sounding professional." They equated looking like one of them with "looking professional." Just as much of that goes on today as did back then, it's just that the styles have changed.

</comment><comment><USER9> I often try to guess what country I am talking to when I call technical support but it dawned on me that they seemed insulted when I ask if they are in India. I am only genuinely curious but they seem to think I am looking down on that fact.

The way support in India use American names and try to fake Texan or Australian accents sometimes makes me think they do not have much cultural pride (when they should). If a company is clearly outsourcing they should not try to hide it.

<comment><USER10> >The way support in India use American names and try to fake Texan or Australian accents sometimes makes me think they do not have much cultural pride (when they should).

It doesn't have anything to do with pride. They make more money if they sound local to their customers.

<comment><USER9> Yikes so I might be costing them their job or demerits or something when I try to call them out on it. Didn't mean to do that.

<comment><USER10> I doubt you got anyone in trouble. But the companies that run call centers have classes in which their employees are trained to speak in the accent you hear. None of this is happening by accident.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> > 84 percent of white speakers were correctly identified as white, and 77 > percent of black speakers were correctly identified as black.

Why is this? For people who are born in America, I don't understand why some would sound different than others. How can you possibly tell race just by listening to someone's voice, unless there are anatomical differences?

<comment><USER12> It's not just one country in terms of language. There are lots of little variances here and there which provide certain signals. For instance, the big freeway is just "101" around here. However, in Southern California, the same route is frequently called "the 101". They tend to use "the" in front of the numbers for whatever reason.

There are many of these things which can give you some insight on someone's background. Is it soda? Or pop? Or "coke" as a generic term?

Do you use "hella" or "wicked" as a modifier, as in "hella cool" or "wicked fast"?

There's the whole "ya'll" thing, and don't forget "all ya'll". Are you "fixin'" to do something? How about "ain't" and "busted"?

This is just word choice. There are all sorts of different ways to pronounce the same words, too, and those also give you some idea of where someone might be from.

<comment><USER13> My first trip to the west coast afforded me some strange looks when I dropped "pissah" into a sentence.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> [2008]

</comment><comment><USER10> Who cares? If you don't want to pay an economic penalty speak standard English.

<comment><USER15> Define standard English.

<comment><USER10> The kind of English you hear from newscasters. No slang, correct grammar, and full enunciation.

<comment><USER16> Just not the black newscasters, mind.

<comment><USER17> What are you talking about? Black newscasters are perfectly good at diction.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


My very favourite website design - what's yours? - <AUTHOR>

This breaks just about all the rules, gets up some peoples noses and some people find it really interesting, I'm one of the latter:
http://noonebelongsheremorethanyou.com/
What's your favourite site design? <comment><USER2> I like how simple the site is but I almost closed the page out before finding the "next" arrow in the bottom right.

</comment><comment><USER3> I thought this was going to be spam - thats pretty good.</comment>


Everyday things on the web the EU Commission wants to make illegal - <AUTHOR> https://juliareda.eu/2016/12/10-illegal-things/ <comment><USER2> The internet in its current form is not under threat from Russian and Chinese government but rather from EU, France & Germany. Germany with its outdated publishers trying to seek rent and France with its bureaucrats practicing neocolonialism on internet (only french residents being privileged enough to be forgotten). If the US government does not counters EU, it wont be too long before Silicon Valley loses its edge. Sadly over last few years the valley has rolled back its lobbying effort. But it cant afford to do that in future.

Currently Chinese entrepreneurs can already innovate faster than American companies due to the lax IP laws. In Xiaomi & DJI you can already see this happening. Imagine if USA lets EU dictates new set of convoluted copyright/internet laws designed to keep old-money publishers and out of touch bureaucrats happy. The eventual casualty would be American businesses which rely on both USA & EU for revenue.

<comment><USER3> So a lot of the issues mentioned in the article seemed, to me, to relate to rights extensions for publishers.

I'm a little surprised that you think that the US goverment is likely to champion the cause of Internet companies against copyright holders give the fact that, AFAIK, the US has led the way in extending the rights of copyright holders. Indeed there was a story today on HN on this very topic ([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13297792](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13297792)) which pointed out that Canada and the EU actually have less restrictive copyright laws than the US.

</comment></comment><comment> hex-m Julias talk on the topic at 33C3: [https://media.ccc.de/v/33c3-8229-copywrongs_2_0](https://media.ccc.de/v/33c3-8229-copywrongs_2_0)

</comment><comment><USER4> The EU leadership is heavily pro-big-copyright at almost all levels, with all the negative connotations that comes with. Oettinger has been one of the worst, and these kinds of proposals aren't exactly surprising coming from him.

That said, the details always matter, and it's also worth remembering that the critic here is a vocal Pirate Party MEP who is obviously not neutral on these issues herself.

Not all of the points challenged here are entirely unreasonable. For example, I've never quite understood how a site like Pinterest isn't flagrantly violating existing copyright laws, never mind any new ones lobbyists might be asking for.

<comment><USER5> > For example, I've never quite understood how a site like Pinterest isn't > flagrantly violating existing copyright laws

They have a DMCA process which seems to protect them.

<comment><USER6> That should only apply in the US, though. How would a publisher in - let's say Sweden - care about DMCA?

<comment><USER7> Sweden is a member of WIPO, too, and it's laws incorporate the same copyright treaties that the US does.

[http://www.wipo.int/wipolex/en/profile.jsp?code=SE](http://www.wipo.int/wipolex/en/profile.jsp?code=SE)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Assuming these proposed laws would only apply to web services operating in the EU, could affected businesses evade these laws by simply moving their services to other continents, outside of EU jurisdiction? For example, registering their business in Hong Kong and renting servers outside of Europe?

<comment><USER9> If you happen to collect any "personal information" about the users from the EU, e.g. things like real names and addresses, you have to operate from the EU, or implement the EU-level protection in your country [1]. All major players, like Google or FB, have EU-based subsidiaries to handle this, AFAICT.

[1]: [http://ec.europa.eu/justice/data-protection/data- collection/...](http://ec.europa.eu/justice/data-protection/data- collection/data-transfer/index_en.htm)

<comment><USER10> The first line of the article you linked says "The Data Protection Directive applies to countries of the European Economic Area (EEA), which includes all EU countries and in addition, non-EU countries Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway."

So, why would it apply to a Hong Kong company, with no presence in any of those countries?

If I use a web service based in Hong Kong, there's no expectation on my part that they keep my data in the EU. And they're not even the ones transferring the data outside the EU. I, as the user, am the one sending the packets from my browser, to their server in HK or wherever.

<comment><USER9> You may not collect personal data of EU residents if you're operating from Hong Kong. If you did, you'd be doing so lawlessly and likely fined. How exactly this could be enforced is a different matter, but likely there are ways to do so, like arresting Hong Kong property if the amount due is high enough. Maybe if you operated from within China, and have enough backing, you could try to ignore it.

So, if you want to make a service for EU residents, make sure you're not collecting any personal information. Should be fine for a MMOG, but probably impossible for an online store.

<comment><USER10> "You may not collect personal data of EU residents if you're operating from Hong Kong."

This is incorrect, unless the Hong Kong business has an establishment in the EU. This was clarified in an opinion by the Article 29 Data Protection Working Party in 2010: [http://ec.europa.eu/justice/data- protection/article-29/docum...](http://ec.europa.eu/justice/data- protection/article-29/documentation/opinion- recommendation/files/2010/wp179_en.pdf)

It's a long document, but in short, the law only applies if the company collecting the data ('controller') has an office ('establishment') in the EU, or if they're processing the data on equipment in the EU. The 'equipment' doesn't count if it's just forwarding the data on (so a router or proxy wouldn't count).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> open-source-ux Like many public officials that hold a 'digital' portfolio, Oettinger is completely unqualified to hold it.

This is the man who recently called Chinese people 'slant eyes' and now he's been promoted to another EU role to oversee budgetary matters. It dents your faith in the EU Commission when people like this can crawl to the top.

More on Oettinger: [http://www.politico.eu/article/the-strange-successful- career...](http://www.politico.eu/article/the-strange-successful-career-of- gunther-oettinger-european-commission/)

</comment><comment><USER11> The European Union has so many stifling regulations, no wonder UK voted to exit.

<comment><USER12> I'm sure UK post-Brexit will be a freewheeling wonderland of copyright sanity!

<comment><USER4> It's tough to say. On the one hand, the British government has historically been heavily pro-copyright itself. On the other hand, in recent years there have been some real attempts at significant, if still rather modest, copyright reform. The last of those actually reached the statute books, though it was undermined shortly afterwards, in part thanks to shenanigans involving European law.

There is still a depressing amount of old school thinking within the civil service and, particularly offensively, the House of Lords, where any time this debate comes up it seems a succession of privileged and wealthy individuals disclose interests that sound a lot like "I own millions of pounds of shares in Big Media companies" before telling us all why big copyright is essential to our national well-being.

But within other parts of the civil service, within the succession of formal reviews conducted by senior judges in recent years, and sometimes even within the Commons, there are also signs of our representatives and political leaders entering the 21st century and realising that the laws of the 20th may no longer serve either economics or technology well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> How can such laws be enforced? If people are uploading thousands of images to my web service every day, who is going to sift through each and every image and determine whether it violates a copyright?

<comment><USER14> No one really cares how you do it...but you have to comply.

<comment><USER4> Which in itself isn't an unreasonable position. Complying with the law isn't optional just because it happens to make an otherwise extremely profitable business more difficult or expensive to run.

What we should be doing is going back to first principles and asking what we're trying to achieve with the kinds of restrictions that IP laws impose, and what sorts of trade-offs and incentives are in the best interests of our society overall. Laws that serve those purposes should be kept or introduced as necessary, and everyone should comply with them. Laws that no longer serve those purposes or perhaps never really did should be removed.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Exit the EU and problem solved, as well as many other problems.

<comment><USER16> I wonder how the German OP is helped when Germany left the EU. What do we do with Oettinger? Tie him to a tree and hope someone feeds him from time to time? He is German, we'd have to take him with us!

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> I wonder how viable the EU is now. They've had so many tests and failed. They failed to have a unified front on the Iraq war. They failed to coherently respond to the migrant crisis resulting in many member states re-establishing border check points and even fences. They failed to provide any military deterrence to the Russian federation - NATO is still completely dominated by the US. And now they failed to persuade one of their most powerful members from leaving.

Co-operation between neighbours is a inherently a fairly good idea, but that doesn't mean the bureaucratic fustercluck of the EU is the only vehicle with which this can be accomplished.

<comment><USER18> The EU has been around for 50 years in evolving forms. It's easy to cherrypick failures, but the achievements ought to get some mention too.

After the fall of the Soviet Union, about twenty countries wanted to join the EU as soon as they could. Some like Serbia are still working to fulfill the entry criteria. Brexit does nothing to change that: Britain was always an exception with its recent imperialist past.

The EU institutions are often bureaucratic. Yet they offer more representation and individual freedom to small countries than does the American constitution, for example. Given the often conflicting requirements, many aspects of the EU work amazingly well.

<comment><USER11> _> Yet they offer more representation and individual freedom to small countries than does the American constitution_

I had to laugh after reading this line. American constitution gives much more power to the residents of the smaller states because of the Senate and the electoral college. In addition, US offers everyone much stronger civil liberties than most European countries. Compare the First Amendment with Germany's hate speech laws for example.

<comment><USER18> The European Council is the most powerful decision maker in the EU, and it decides by consensus except where treaties specifically provide otherwise. For a small country that's hell of a lot more power than the biases of Senate and electoral college representation.

Civil liberties between USA and EU are a toss: the First Amendment is strong in its scope, but on the other hand things like privacy are much better protected in most EU countries. American legislation doesn't do much to protect citizens against corporations.

<comment><USER17> I feel like I need much more protection from governments than I do from corporations - so putting the government in charge of protecting me from something much less dangerous/violent seems very very odd.

I suppose governments are regarded as inevitable, which is why this strange double standard exists.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>