We just learned this morning that Ron Wyden has put a hold on the CASE Act. It passed the house 410-6 but one Senator, a fairly sleazy one at that is gonna block a bill that would level playing field between silicon valley and small and independent musicians.  the Senator with all those Portland ratepayer-subsidized Google server farms out in the high desert is gonna screw over all those Portland musicians again.  Imagine that?  Essentially making musicians subsidize Google not once but twice. Maybe that’s the way the anti-worker “Nike progressive” rolls but Oregon deserves better.  Symbolic lip service to progressive causes but when it comes to the little guy? He’s firmly on the side of big business.   Wyden has voted 100% with Google on internet policy. He is so pro-Silicon Valley he was the only Senator to vote against the FOSTA the anti-internet sex trafficking bill.  Who the hell is doesn’t want to stop internet sex trafficking?  Wyden. The guy is a bum.  We are going re-run articles all this week detailing his sleazy corporate connections.  Let’s start with who would make a better senator to represent Oregon.

6 Oregon Musicians That Would Make a Better Senator than Ron Wyden (And never had hedge fund in the basement).

Reprint 7 22 2018

Senator Ron Wyden doesn’t seem to understand that he represents a state with a very dynamic music scene.  Over the last two decades Portland, the state’s largest city has become arguably the most dynamic music scene in the entire  country. Yet Wyden has twice now thrown songwriters and performers under the bus, in order to protect a few tech billionaires from California. Yes these billionaires happen to have server farms out in eastern Oregon but these server farms at most employ a few hundred folks. Portland OR alone has thousands of professional musicians.

But it’s not just that Wyden doesn’t understand this, or has forgotten about those musicians in his state. He is actively hostile to their interests.  Check it.

First in 2013 Wyden introduced the Orwellian “Internet Radio Fairness Act.”   This bill would have created “fairness” for internet radio by slashing performer and songwriter pay as much as 70%. It also placed extraordinary restraints on speech of songwriters and performers, threatening prosecution for any group of songwriters or performers that discussed digital licenses and rates with their colleagues. The language of the bill was so broad and regressive it would have punished members of a single band that collectively blogged negatively about bad digital licensing deals. We are not making this up. The congressional research office eventually stepped in because the bill was so bad. Under withering criticism Wyden abandoned the bill.

See our series on this bill:

https://thetrichordist.com/2012/11/08/irfa-section-5/

https://thetrichordist.com/2012/11/14/the-internet-radio-fairness-acts-attack-on-free-speech/

https://thetrichordist.com/2012/11/29/congressional-research-service-memo-on-constitutionality-of-irfa-section-5/

But now Wyden has taken it up a notch.  According to rules of the US Senate a single senator can put a hold on a bill.  Despite the fact the House of Representatives passed the Music Modernization Act 415-0 Wyden intends to put a hold on a consensus bill. What an egomaniac.  To put this into perspective the Dec 8th 1941 declaration of war on Japan and Germany was not unanimous.  The Music Modernization Act enjoys more consensus than WWII!  But Wyden intends to stand in the way.

But it’s even worse.  When you drill down into Wyden objects to what is perhaps the least controversial part of the bill. The part of the bill that extends digital royalties to performers that recorded before 1972.  This “pre-1972 loophole” in digital royalties is pretty much a copyright law typo.  Surely the authors of the 1995 act that formalized digital public performance royalties did not intend to exclude pre-1972 performers.  Indeed until 2013 most digital services paid royalties to pre-1972 performers. It wasn’t until Wyden’s first bill was shot down that Pandora, Sirius and other digital services began to aggressively exploit the loophole.  Coincidence?  Maybe.  But I think not.

This is skullduggery of the highest order. Now consider who is one of the biggest beneficiaries of this loophole: Google/YouTube.

As previously noted Google along with all the other Silicon Valley firms have large server farms out in Eastern Oregon.  And Wyden is eyeball deep in Silicon Valley politics.

As a recent commenter on this blog put it:

Ron Wyden, got his political start as a fairly conservative Democrat, which was necessary for his initial success because outside the Portland metropolitan area (and Eugene of course), the other two-thirds of Oregon’s population is very conservative.

Oregon has always had a boom or bust economy based on agriculture or dwindling natural resources, and pretty much every politician of every skunk stripe collectively bent over and grabbed ankles when the tech sector unbelted and began plowing the “Silicon Forest” with their plastic thingies and their ones and zeros. As you might expect, Google now owns Oregon. QED.

Pretty much all you need to know about Wyden is that he is on the Intelligence Committee. You don’t even approach that gig unless you have been drinking the Kool-Aid for donkey’s years. – Ron or Donna

And indeed our reader is spot on. Oregon politicians have been especially pliant when it comes to Google. The Oregonian estimates that Oregon politicians have given Google tax breaks for a single data center in The Dalles worth $100 million dollars.  The data center has less than 200 employees.  That works out to $500,000 a job.   On top of that the data centers suck down most of the cheap hydro power that should arguably go to rate payers in Oregon.  Seems pretty weird, right?  Oregon enriching a bunch of California based companies for a handful of jobs? Someone somewhere must be making a lot of money on the deal.

Also consider this.  Who do you think has oversight over those federal hydropower rates? The rates the operators of those data centers pay? If you guessed The Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources you would be correct. And who might be on that committee?  Ron Wyden.

The presence of these large data centers is a net negative to the citizens of Oregon.  So why does Ron Wyden feel obliged to do the bidding of Google on a music bill?  Whether it’s ignorance or greed the result is the same.  Ron Wyden sucks at representing citizens of Oregon.  Sure he pleases many Oregon residents when he goes after the trump administration, but surely there are plenty of other progressive democratic politicians in Oregon that would do the same without icky pro-Google Silicon Valley shillery.

Then there is also the matter of the senators adult son, Andrew Wyden, and his “hedge fund” ADW Capital. The one man hedge fund was started it in the Senators Washington DC townhouse in 2011. Andrew Wyden had just graduated from college and someone gave him 3 million dollars to start a basement hedge fund. If the initial 3 million in funds came from campaign donors (specifically longtime Wyden supporter D. E. Shaw) or other investors with business before the senate you could be looking at an FBI investigation.

Even if the senator is clean,  the optics are horrible. And it’s extremely poor judgement on the part of the senator.  If there turns out to be anything to this story it’s entirely possible that Oregon may be looking for a new Senator before his term is up.

So it’s not a joke to start considering who might replace Wyden in the Senate. Given the growing importance of music to the Oregon economy (surely music is responsible for 100 times the number of jobs that Google data centers created) I humbly suggest Oregon voters look at some smart entrepreneurial musicians to replace Wyden. I believe there are probably a number of Oregon musicians that would do a much better job of representing Oregon in the US Senate.

I asked this question on twitter and here are some of the suggestions:

Well the entire band can’t be Senator, but I suppose Chris like most people is thinking of Carrie Brownstein for her role in Portlandia.  Face and name recognition. We have to assume the campaign videos would be funny. Does she still live in Portland?  Well regardless state residency didn’t stop Cheney from running for Vice President. Regardless I wouldn’t discount Drummer Janet Weiss (also of Quasi). Secret weapon. Corin Tucker also a solid choice.

Again not sure he’s in Portland proper. I believe he still lives just across the state line in Washington. I always see him in shows in Portland so he’s certainly close. Again Cheney demonstrated it’s easy enough to move. And Krist does have a keen interest in politics.  In 2004 considered a run for Lt Governor of Washington.  He is also the author of  Of Grunge and Government: Let’s Fix This Broken Democracy.

 

Larry Crane, musician, engineer, producer, music entrepreneur and Tape Op magazine editor. This is my personal vote. Anyone that has had any experience in the studio knows that producing and engineering requires great diplomatic skills. Producing and engineering of a record requires forging grand compromises between many strong personalities and interest groups: labels, managers, and the performers themselves who are often internally conflicted. It’s a tough job Larry but your state needs you!

I always forget Patterson Hood lives in Portland now. Hood hails from the deep red state of Alabama. Yet he is a strong democrat. Patterson and his band Drive-by Truckers have deftly managed to embrace progressive causes (r.g. Black Lives Matter) w/o alienating the portion of their audience that identifies with conservatives. Who else to better bridge the divide between Portland’s urban population and deep red rural parts of the state. Also he is an extremely humble guy and would never even consider a senate run. All the more reason to send Mr. Hood to Washington.

Other suggestions

We love scott.  He already is Portland’s unofficial music ambassador.

Yes indeed. If Mr Matthews simply remained in his cabin in the woods making recordings and never went to DC for a single day, Oregon residents would surely be better off than sending Wyden back to DC.

Please suggest more Oregon Musicians in comments and we will add them to the poll.

 

 

We’ve been covering all week two Google-funded astroturfs, Public Knowledge and EFF, and their efforts to spam The Senate with automated tweets, emails, comments, and phone calls in hopes of blocking the CASE Act (voluntary small claims court for copyright).

To catch up you should start here:

https://thetrichordist.com/2019/10/24/deja-vu-google-funded-astroturf-groups-use-spambots-robocalls-in-senate-to-block-case-act/

As we dug into this, we started focusing on Public Knowledge and their tweetbot. While experimenting with the tweetbot, I discovered it took total control of my twitter account. Like completely. It basically makes your twitter account part of a botnet that is controlled by Public Knowledge or their agent Phone2Action. Look at the permissions it asks for:

But even stranger (or maybe not), shortly after authorizing permissions, I noticed unfamiliar devices logging into my account.

See screengrab above. I was nowhere near Scaggsville MD.  I don’t know that it was Phone2Action, but I’ve never seen this sort of activity on my accounts. I’m pretty security conscious.

Particularly funny (or outrageous) since besides being copyright skeptics Public Knowledge claim to be privacy advocates. That is obviously bullshit.

You can read the full article here:

https://thetrichordist.com/2019/10/25/stunning-privacy-violations-by-privacy-advocate-publicknowledge-and-other-outrages/

Who is Phone2Action?

Phone2Action is the maker of the above tweetbot.  Phone2Action website says:

“In the United States, everyone’s voice counts. The opportunity for civil discourse is what makes our country a model for democracies everywhere. When we have problems, we don’t look the other way—we try to solve them. We built Phone2Action to empower the problem-solver and advocate that lives in everyone. Our tools amplify the voices of movements through technology in order to effect change.” (emphasis added)

Alright, that sounds neat. I mean amplify sounds like a little more than one vote per person, but otherwise it seems cool.  Phone2 Action was founded by two democrats. One married to a former Obama administration official. The third founder seems to be independent but was in the US Digital Service an Obama initiative. So Phone2Action seems generally progressive outfit. And if you look at their webpage front and center they have some non-profits, corporate responsibility efforts, and commercial campaigns by vaguely virtuous companies like Patagonia and Ben and Jerry’s.

But if you dig a little deeper, into the case studies, it’s not long before you find Satan’s cobbler-er, oops I mean the Internet Association. There is also mention of a Net Neutrality campaign, although that seems to be downplayed. Probably because the net neutrality campaign devolved into the mother of all bot-fueled fake public comment disasters. 22 million comments, with reports of half of them being fake.  From an NPR article:

The Pew Research Center took a close look at the comments. Associate Director Aaron Smith said several things popped out. Maybe the biggest, 94 percent of the comments “were submitted multiple times, and in some cases those comments were submitted many hundreds of thousands of times.”

The Net Neutrality fake comment scandal has even become the focus of a US Senate investigations. See here.

Is this starting sound like the massive spamming of the EU Parliament that happened with the EU Copyright Directive (N-Square, SaveYourInternet.eu, EDRi, Open Media and New/Mode)?  Yes, and we will come back to that probably later this week.  Something else caught my eye. This article by the Consumer Technology Association (aka CEA) Chairman Gary Shapiro.

Phone2Action Grassroots Effect: West Coast Ports

Whoa. Shapiro is basically bragging about the CEA and Phone2Action together breaking a union work slowdown by the longshoremen.  Have you ever met a longshoreman?   While the CEA is your usual anti-worker corporate trade group, it seems pretty weird that Phone2Action with its progressive Obama credentials would get involved in strikebreaking.

Now check this out:

“CEA, with support from over 200,000 Innovation Movement members who help us advocate for smart tech policies and several key industry stakeholders, effectively shared the urgency of the West Coast ports crisis via social media, asking Congress and the White House to help keep our ports open for business,” CEA CEO and President, Gary Shapiro, said.

This is a picture of Gary Shapiro. You think this dude leads an auxiliary of a boring-ass trade group that has 200,000 active members? This guy is clearly not a whirling dervish of raw charisma. 200,000 members?  Yeah right.  And the Innovation Movement? I didn’t believe it so I looked it up.  Well there once was a website for the Innovation movement.

But as far as I can tell by 2015, at the time of the longshoreman slowdown, the website hadn’t been active for two years. By 2017 the site redirected to a domain reseller.   I know a thing or two about grassroots organizing, and if you have 200,000 active members helping you lobby Congress you don’t let the website domain around which you organize expire.  That is seriously valuable real estate. Keep your members. Keep them engaged.

So clearly I don’t think they ever had 200,000 members.  My hunch is that they had a few thousand members and then a bunch of fake email addresses and sock puppet social media accounts.  I could be wrong.  I’m not saying CEA or Shapiro had any idea they were fake… well maybe I am saying that, otherwise, why would he let the domain expire? Aw shit, I don’t know.  Politics plus the internet is such a shitshow. Anything seems possible now. But there is no way there were 200,000 real members.

Just let me say this.  I hope I’m wrong.  Cause otherwise Shapiro and Phone2Action ran a spam op and tricked The President of The United States into intervening in a labor dispute.  I hope I’m wrong. I don’t want to believe the worst about our democracy.  Cause if I’m right we are screwed.

 

 

Public Knowledge’s canned message Tweetbot completely takes over your twitter account. How is this any different than a botnet? 

Many of you are familiar with Public Knowledge for their general hostility towards copyright and the rights of authors. In particular, they are currently opposing the CASE Act which would finally give artists a small claims alternative to federal court.  Most independent artists do not have the $100,000+ it takes to pursue a case in federal court.  The court is voluntary, both parties have to agree to use the small claims copyright court. No one is forced into this system.  It’s good for the claimant and the party accused of infringement. By all measures, this is a simple commonsense solution. And an overwhelming bipartisan consensus agrees in congress agrees. The Case Act recently passed in the house 410-6.  Stunning!

The bill now goes to the Senate for consideration.  Of course, Public Knowledge (Google-funded) doesn’t want the CASE Act to pass. So they have attempted to mount a “cyberturf” campaign directed at Senators using some sketchy social media and phone bots. This tweet bot distributes canned messages that are factually incorrect. Hostile foreign governments need not mount disinformation campaigns against our democratic institutions as we’ve already got Google astroturfs on the job!

 

In particular, Public Knowledge is distributing a tool that combines a “tweetbot” and “patch through calling.” The tweetbot is easy to understand.  The patch through calling requires a little digging to understand how it could be (is intended to be?) abused. It doesn’t really provide any extra convenience to an individual activist. Any activist can look up their Senator’s office on iPhone and click on the telephone number.  Whereas, for instance, if you have a boiler room full of paid activists, a third party could easily direct a firehose of phone calls at a wavering Senator, and the calls would be untraceable, the Senatorial staff would not realize it was the same group of paid activists calling over and over. It is my strong suspicion this is the point of these “patch through” phone bots.  This is not far-fetched as something similar seems to have played out last summer in the EU parliament.

So I spent the last few days playing around with the “tools” provided by Public Knowledge (and EFF tools).  The Public Knowledge tools were the most interesting. Perhaps horrifying is a better description. I   came to three extraordinary conclusions:

First. In order to use Public Knowledges tweetbot, you have give total control of your twitter account to Public Knowledge’s contracted agent a company called Phone2Action.  The permissions literally let the Public Knowledge and Phone2Action do anything with your account.  It is as if you have joined a botnet. (See screenshot at top of article)

Second. Public Knowledge Tweetbot allows you to customize your message to Senators (above). But it also will tweet their canned message back to your followers (Below) WTF? This has got to be illegal.  It’s forcing me to make speech that I would never make.  It’s an unauthorized appropriation of my pubic persona to involuntarily endorse something I don’t want to endorse.  What else is this bot doing in my name? 

Third.  After observing the tweetbot in action for a while,  I went to revoke the Twitter permissions I had granted to Public Knowledge (Phone2Action).  I noticed something unusual. Under twitter’s “apps and permissions” I saw an iPhone I did not recognize using my twitter account.  See screenshot below.

Twitter was identifying this phone as being in Cedar Rapids IA.  This seemed very strange.  It was not my iPhone. Was not on airport Wifi and my phone IP address indicated my true location. (Not Cedar Rapids). I was not using a VPN.  Bizarre.  I logged this iPhone out of my twitter account as well as every other device using omy twitter account.* In the confusion, I forgot to disable the PublicKnowlege/Phone2Action permissions.

About an hour later I remembered I hadn’t revoked permissions. I checked my account and I saw that there were two new Ipads logged into my twitter account.  WTF?  One reported its location as Scaggsville MD, which is just outside the beltway in Maryland. I was hundreds of miles from that location.  I have since disabled the permissions I gave to Public Knowledge/Phone2Action.

There have since been no unusual logins on my twitter account.   I have no idea if this tweetbot had anything to do with these mysterious logins. But I have never seen anything like it before. On this third issue, I’m not placing the blame on Public Knowledge.  But I’m having a hard time coming up with an explanation here.

*21 twitter sessions? Yes, I have a lot of computers. And many of them are running programs that monitor twitter and other social media for certain patterns and keywords. It’s part of other research I hope to publish one day.

 

This EFF form allows anyone anywhere to repeatedly call Senators from this webform, no identification, no email, phone or geolocation verification.  Pure cyberturfing. BTW the “tens of thousands of dollars” is false.  Also not mentioned: CASE ACT is a voluntary small claims court for copyright claims. Explicit opt-in process. No one is “on the hook” for anything.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

It’s deja vu all over again.  Looks like Google-funded astroturf groups EFF and Public Knowledge are using the same questionable tactics that Google affiliated astroturfs used in the EU to try to defeat the Copyright Directive. Spambots, Tweetbots, and automated calls.

If you’re not familiar with what happened in Europe here’s a very brief summary:

EU parliament proposed some copyright changes that required digital platforms like Facebook and Youtube to do a better job policing their platforms for copyright infringement.  Naturally, Google did what they always do and mounted what can only be described as a massive disinformation campaign against the proposed copyright changes.  Most of this took the form of angry emails, phone calls and tweets to EU parliamentarians.  And at first it worked.  In July 2018 cowed MEP (Members of European Parliament) voted against a sort of fast track approach to legislation.  This blog noted some very non-organic patterns in the emails, tweets and automated calls (example tweets to Spanish MEPs stayed at a constant frequency in the overnight hours). Further, this blog noted the financial connections between the groups running the campaign and Google.  Eventually, the Times of London and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung became aware of this and ran high profile stories detailing the entire fiasco.

See here:

Google Funds Website That Spams for its Causes

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/google-funds-activist-site-that-pushes-its-views-rg2g5cr6t

Anatomy of a Political Hacking

https://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/medien/eu-and-copyright-anatomy-of-a-political-hacking-15771185.html

The good news is this, EU parliamentarians were so outraged when these tactics were exposed, support for the Copyright Directive dramatically increased and eventually passed.

Now Google-funded groups like EFF and Public Knowledge are using the same tactics in hopes of creating the appearance of a fake grassroots uprising.

Here Public Knowledge is pushing the same call spamming tool as above.  The difference here I was able to “repurpose” the spam tool to connect to the Public Knowlege office (Hey, it was research!).  When I tried it on my own number I was able to make about 3 calls a minute. It would be possible to harass the shit out of anyone with this tool.  It’s like leaving a loaded phone DDOS gun around for anyone to use. I do not believe that this is a bug or defect.  I think that this is the intention of putting these tools out there.  They hope the angry internet-paranoids will abuse these tools. Just like they did in the EU.  Otherwise, why not just provide a phone number to call?  Type in your address and your senator’s phone number appears.  Take out your phone and dial the number. Or Why make the call come from a webtool on the Actnow.io server?  I say it’s cause it is easily hackable and automatable.  Fuck these groups.  Both are objective dangers to our democracy.

There are also tools available for emailing and tweeting your Senator.  I was able to fire off tweets at about a dozen a minute. I changed the text to alert the Senators this was a demonstration.  Can you imagine what 20 sock puppet accounts could do?  Swamp all hundred Senators in a few minutes! Again no geolocation verification.  I could be in Tehran, Belarus, Davos or Mountain View.  No need to be in US!

They are even providing tools for leaving comments on official government websites of Senators. Pretty sure that I read somewhere that there are regulations that forbid the use of automation to leave comments on most federal govt websites. Maybe someone can point me to the text? In the meantime you can always repurpose the tools to spread the truth about these folks.

 

 

I still don’t have all the details on this.  But as the House prepares to vote on the CASE Act  (voluntary small claims copyright court option for creators and users) it appears that EFF, ACLU and others have started a Robocall and spambot campaign against the bill.

The webforms are here and I have confirmed they are easily automatable.  Even from a smartphone.

Use the forms against the tech monopolies.  Flip the script,  make pro Case Act calls.  Put your own pro Case act text in email forms.

Robo call tool  here

https://act.eff.org/action/call-congress-and-tell-them-not-to-let-a-quasi-court-bankrupt-internet-users

Spambot to leave message on Congressman’s website.

https://act.eff.org/action/tell-congress-don-t-let-a-quasi-court-bankrupt-internet-users

 

 

MRI (Music Reports Inc) is a company that collects and licenses royalties on behalf of songwriters and publishers.   They also act as a licensing agent for digital services.  That is, like HFA they work both sides of the digital music market.  Personally, I think these sorts of arrangements present some competition and conflict of interest problems. And eventually, those problems will emerge. As a frequent investor in startups, I don’t invest in companies like this.  But that’s just me. Other folks like to make money by seeking out and exploiting legal loopholes.

So MRI’s appearance on both sides of the streaming music marketplace raises eyebrows. But to be clear that is not illegal.  However, I’ve never seen anything quite like this:  MRI is the DMCA Agent for TikTok!  That means a company that is supposed to be licensing artists and rightsholders work is aiding and abetting a massive infringer (TikTok*) in a whac-a-mole DMCA scam.

And I do mean scam.  Like highly misleading. Bordering on fraudulent. Here’s why. As I detailed in my last blog, I don’t think TikTok qualifies for the DMCA safe harbor on much of the infringing activity that occurs on TikTok. Here is the quick summary:

After a couple of hours messing around with app it appears:

1. TikTok makes available my work and then provides the copy to the user before the user makes any content.
2. The copy would seem to be more than “ephemeral” (an important copyright act legal distinction) as at certain stages I can repeatedly access the content even when my device lacked internet connectivity.
3. TikTok app “marries” or “syncs” the music to audiovisual content provided by their service or uploaded by the user.  Note this is after the recording and composition have apparently been copied and distributed to the user’s device.  In other words, the infringement occurs before user publishes content.
4. Before the “marrying” or “syncing” of the music to audiovisual content I cut off internet connectivity.  The process of marrying video to music failed. This suggests TikTok service requires sync license, not the user.
5. Only after all sync has occurred does user have the option to “publish” the work.  This is long after many activities requiring licenses, and thus infringement has occurred.

DMCA safe harbor provides the digital service protection from its user’s copyright infringement.  Not infringement committed by the digital service.   Grooveshark made this mistake and was promptly put out of business.

I’m saying it appears something similar happens with the TikTok app.  So if in fact, I’m right, that would imply MRI by operating TikTok’s DMCA safe harbor operation they are helping to perpetrate a fraud.

Finally I would like MRI explain to its songwriters and publishers, why it is helping TikTok intimidate songwriters and publishers into NOT filing a DMCA notice.   It’s right on the TikTok website.  TikTok basically says they will doxx songwriters and publishers if you file a copyright complaint. And where will they get those complaints?  From MRI.

This is yet another example of why my focus of this blog has switched from investigating civil abuses of artists and rightsholder to investigating criminal abuse.  My hashtag for the year is: #PutADigitalMusicExecutiveInJail2020.  Why? it’s the only thing that will ever stop the abuse.

*TikTok is a massive infringer.  No public performance licenses.  Few if any “mechanical” licenses.  My work has been used and as far as I can tell, there are no licenses, nor have roylaties been paid. To pretend that TikTok is largely licensed service is objective fiction.

TikTok has recently been in the news for two reasons.

CENSORSHIP

The first is for censorship.  The Washington Post notes they appear to be censoring clips from users that are critical of the Chinese Government or videos in support of Hong Kong protestors.  The Guardian in the UK reports:

TikTok, the popular Chinese-owned social network, instructs its moderators to censor videos that mention Tiananmen Square, Tibetan independence, or the banned religious group Falun Gong, according to leaked documents detailing the site’s moderation guidelines.

TikTok which has headquarters in Los Angeles may at first seem to be simply joining the ranks of the Nike and NBA as (faux progressive) corporate entities that kowtow to authoritarian governments.  But what most people don’t’ realize is that TikTok is a subsidiary of a 78 billion dollar Chinese “start-up” that is heavily staffed with Chinese Communist Party members and directly under control of a government ministry. It is not unreasonable to characterize this company as an influence tool of the authoritarian Chinese state.  Especially if you consider TikTok is not available in China only outside mainland China.  As BuzzFeed notes:

“Eschewing typical forms of Chinese soft power, TikTok could be the arrival of a subtler form of algorithmic influence, with sophisticated Chinese AI controlling what becomes viral content potentially shared among millions of young Americans”

(Editor note: Try this at home.  Look for any recordings from 1990s or 2000s concerts supporting Tibetan freedom on Spotify. I couldn’t find any. It should be noted Chinese social credit rating app maker Tencent owns a 10%+ stake in Spotify).

COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT BY TIKTOK

The Second reason is copyright infringement.  As Billboard reports the National Music Publishers Association has asked the Senate to look into copyright infringement by the social media giant.  President of NMPA David Israelite:

“The scale of TikTok’s copyright infringement in the U.S. is likely considerable and deserves scrutiny. We hope that if Congress looks further into matters relating to TikTok that copyright theft is included in the scope of its examination.”

APPARENT LACK OF LICENSES FOR MY WORK

Interesting.  So last night I looked into this by checking my own catalog against what TikTok makes available, copies and distributes from their app. Both recordings and compositions that I directly control were available on the service. As far as I know, these recordings and compositions have not been licensed. At least, so far I have found no record of licenses. It is always possible that some licenses transferred from Muisical.ly when TikTok purchased it.  But I can’t find any licenses for that service either.

It is important to remember that TikTok is making what are essentially video syncs. Under US copyright law these video sync licenses can not be obtained via ASCAP or BMI.  The federal compulsory license for “mechanical” reproductions can also be ruled out as this does not apply. US compulsory mechanical specifically excludes audiovisual content!

I live-tweeted a lot of this last night as I explored what work was available on their service. I also engaged some of this blog’s “irregulars” to verify what I was seeing.

Here is twitter thread.  Sorry for the typos.

Start here:

Screenshot showing TikTok making avaliable my recording I own, following the steps that 30 second snippet appears to be copied into my device. This is not “user-generated ” activity.  It appears TikTok is making available, copying and distributing my work.  This normally requires a direct license with the owner. 

TIKTOK HAS NO DMCA SAFE HARBOR?

Today a little more research was conducted.  Oh boy, now it gets really interesting.  In order to qualify for the DMCA copyright safe harbor, the infringement must be “User Generated Content.” It is my belief that like Grooveshark, TikTok is actually making infringing performances, distributions, and copies themselves not their users. If my observations can be verified then TikTok would lose its DMCA safe harbor for the same reasons Grooveshark did. I am not an IOS app expert and have just enough technical expertise to get me in trouble. So if anyone out there wishes to verify and correct me I am happy to reflect that in this blog.

With that caveat, my observations after a couple of hours messing around with app:

1. TikTok makes available my work and then provides the copy to the user before the user makes any content.
2. The copy would seem to be more than “ephemeral” (an important copyright act legal distinction) as at certain stages I can repeatedly access the content even when my device lacked internet connectivity.
3. TikTok app “marries” or “syncs” the music to audiovisual content provided by their service or uploaded by the user.  Note this is after the recording and composition have been apparently copied and distributed to the user.  The infringement has already occurred.
4. Before the “marrying” or “syncing” of the music to audiovisual content, if I cut off internet connectivity, the syncing process video to music failed. This suggests TikTok service is doing the syncing, not the user.
5. Only after all this has occurred does the user “publish” the work.  This is long after many activities requiring licenses, and thus infringement has occurred.

WHEN IS CODING A KLUDGE AND WHEN IS IT A CRIMINAL CONSPIRACY?

There is something extraordinarily clunky and strange in the sequence of steps one takes to search for music tracks. Why not just list tracks available.  Log in and try to make a video (you can stop before publishing if you like).  You’ll see what I mean. Also, the choice of wording seems to suggest the peculiar vocabulary of a lawyer when a company is trying not to be sued.

For example, the clunky search results box seems to imply an algorithm (“4 matched sounds”) has provided you with a selection of songs that are just sort of mysteriously found in an unnamed digital domain. The wide-open internet?  TikTok owned/leased servers? What I’m getting at is they don’t use a term like “available” which might imply a license for works. Maybe this seems petty to you, but it seems a deliberate attempt at obfuscating where these “matched sounds” come from. In addition, shouldn’t there at least be some notice at this point that the TikTok user could be committing Copyright Infringement? I mean if I saw a song in a TikTok search result and used it I would like to know that I’m potentially gonna be sued for copyright infringement.

On more popular tracks there are videos already associated with these tracks and this phrasing would make your average user think, “oh these are already uploaded by someone else and I’m using their file.”  However, on my tracks, especially the most obscure tracks, there are no videos associated.  So where exactly is this “matched sound” coming from.  How did it end up in the TikTok search results?   Someone had to put it there.  This is too clever by half.  Also at some point, someone somewhere has edited these “matched sounds” down to 30-second clips.  They all seem to match digital distributors 30-second previews.  That doesn’t necessarily mean anything.  Where is TikTok getting 30-second previews on a mass scale? Which digital music distributor is providing these previews? Someone somewhere knows something.  If the pay scale at these digital distributors is as low as my former music business students claim it should be pretty easy to flip someone with a meager $5,000 reward.

TIKTOK ENCOURAGES THE EXPLOITATION OF “MISSING TRACKS”

Another rather curious feature of TikTok is that it rewards the creators of the first video that accompanies an unexploited “sound.” A fist TikTok music/video sync gets a special “Original” tag and a seemingly higher number of views. Sure at first this seems reasonable.  Tik tok has lots of catalog, so it’s good to have it exploited potentially generating views and thus advertising revenue.  But if TikTok isn’t really licensing the catalog, isn’t it more likely that this simply encourages users to put new unlicensed work online?  How is this any different than Share-Online.biz.  They were raided and shut down the past week by German Police.  Share-Online was known to reward users that illegally uploaded popular albums, films and video games. My suspicion Share-Online’s major vulnerability will be contributing to mass infringement.  Is it possible that TikTok shares the same vulnerability?

THE DOG THAT DIDN’T BARK

Another curious issue.  If TikTok’s search function were truly passive, why is it that the part of my catalog that is available on TikTok does not include the compositions that were listed in the Spotify class action lawsuit?   I didn’t use all my compositions in the Spotify lawsuit. Essentially the tracks used had the cleanest ownership records. The tracks missing are not just my compositions with copyright registrations. No this is a more subtle detail that would need to be gleaned from court documents. That extra bit of obscure information surfacing here is some kind of tell.  What it means I don’t quite know, but I find it extraordinarily curious that apparently someone somewhere knew to eliminate these compositions from the “matched sounds.”  If these songs were filtered out it was done by someone with some legal/litigation expertise. It strains credulity to think this was accidental.  To be clear, I’m not saying it was TikTok, it could have just as easily been someone further upstream, a third party retained for licensing and identifying tracks, for instance.

Also, suppose coders or lower-level employees at TikTok or third party were instructed to work around these tracks. That’s coming awful close to conspiracy. And you’ve already got mass copyright infringement going on, so can you all say “RICO?”

Now there are other ommissions of compositions and recordings from the matched sounds.  But these are all controlled by Universal Music Group and its subsidiaries. I would assume from this that UMG has not yet licensed TikTok, or is in some sort of dispute with the app.  But this does not fully explain the other missing tracks.  Again I could be wrong.  This is not a smoking gun, but it deserves investigation from someone other than me.  Law enforcement perhaps?

Put a Digital Executive in Jail in 2020

To be clear.  I have no plans to file any copyright lawsuit against TikTok.  I’ll let someone else do that.  I’ve graduated from that league. I’m much more interested in working with law enforcement. After 20 years of artists and rightsholders fighting these fucks we need law enforcement to step up and launch a criminal investigation. It’s a pattern. My experience is that these services make so much fucking money they have learned it’s cheaper to pay the fine or lump sum settlement.  Investment banks like Goldman Sachs will continue to downplay the criminality of these companies “business models” to potential investors and your fucking pension fund will end up holding the bag.  The C-suite will walk away having cashed in their stock and the cycle will repeat again. The only thing that will scare these pricks is Jail time. It would be so much more efficient for courts; artists would be so much better off, and this shit wouldn’t keep happening. Perp-walked a single digital music executive into an LA federal courthouse (Or New York or Nashville) and this shit will stop really fast.  #PutADigitalMusicExecutiveInJail2020.

PS: I notice there is some unfounded speculation about my resignation from the MLC.  Simply put, I don’t have the bandwidth to do this kind of research and also sit on the unclaimed funds committee of the MLC.  I’m the bad cop.  This is my calling. I like to make the bad guys lives miserable. Every hour I spend on MLC work is one less hour I spend doing this. 

This article was written by my colleague Volker Rieck.  It has been translated from German. It originally appeared here.  While the failure of internet self governing bodies may seem far afield from my usual focus on artists’ rights, it is not.  Artist rights and royalties have been greatly diminished because of a market failure caused by lax enforcement of copyright protections on the internet. And the reason there is little enforcement of criminal activity on the internet is because the “self-government” of the internet, ICANN, and its regional affiliates are spectacularly inept or corrupt.  This article details how the RIPE (the European/Mideast arm of ICANN) has ignored its own internal reports and continues to provide services to criminal organizations. I am not an expert on US Treasury sanctions, but looking at RIPE’s own report it’s likely that RIPE is violating the US prohibitions against providing services to companies/individuals on the Office of Foreign Asset Control “Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List.”

-Dr. David Lowery

PS.  RIPE client CyberBunker was just taken down today by German police.  See here.

and Republic of CyberBunker?  Clearly RIPE does not give a shit about its responsibilities and duties here. Time to make RIPE and ICANN accountable to the rule of law.  Just like the rest of us. 

Internet self-administration a la RIPE NCC: An oath of disclosure!

There are many examples of successful self-regulation in business. One of them is the age ratings for films and games. The rating processes are relatively quiet and, despite there being many films and games to rate, there are very few complaints.

The reason for this could be that film and game self-regulation assigns duties and responsibilities to all parties involved.

RIPE NCC: Epic Fail

The exact opposite of this successful self-regulation is the sort of self-regulation you find on the internet. RIPE NCC (Réseaux IP Européens) is responsible for assigning numbers and names on the Internet for Europe and parts of Asia. Other parts of the world are represented by 4 others organizations of ICANN, the worldwide Internet self-government organization. As early as spring 2018, this blog pointed out the failure of RIPE NCC to abide by it’s responsibilities as required. Crucially my article revealed that RIPE NCC provides services to criminal customers. Conversely these criminals pay for membership in RIPE NCC and hence help fund RIPE.

While I’m not surprised that the internet overlords pay no attention to this blog, I am quite surprised to find they seem to have ignored their own internal reports.  Recently I discovered on RIPE’s own website a presentation which describes the problem even more clearly and in depth: “Criminal Abuse in RIPE IP space.”

The presentation was given by Dhia Mahjoub, PhD, who is Head of Security R&D Cisco Umbrella, at the RIPE 77 Conference. According to Mahjoub’s CV, he seems to be a proven expert who has given presentations at several conferences. His presentation was held on 18 October, 2018 and can be downloaded here.

Undoubtedly the most interesting thing about this presentation is the fact that it was held at a meeting of RIPE NCC. In other words: those responsible at RIPE NCC have been aware of the illegal activities of their members since October 2018 at the latest.  Yet, RIPE NCC still allows these companies to use the Internet for criminal purposes.

In the 64-page presentation, Mahjoub describes how dubious data centers develop infrastructure for criminals with the help of RIPE NCC. He examined 30 suspicious data centers of which 11 are in the care of RIPE NCC.

The variety of criminal activities taking place is manifold: botnets, sending spam, distributing malware, fake shops, fake software, phishing, money laundering, illegal video streaming, Bitcoin mining, Trojans, etc.

Mahjoub names three countries that stand out for :

Switzerland, the Netherlands and Sweden.

He also gives examples of data centres whose business model is to support criminal activities in total or in part. Specifically: Private Layer PA/CH (which appeared in our 2018 blog post), Serverius NL, Worldstream NL, Altushost NL, Felicity NL, Portlane SE, etc.

Mahjoub gives a very detailed breakdown of how the participants are related to each other:

Illustration: Excerpt from the presentation – Private Layer network.

The German company Corebackbone is also involved:

Illustration: Excerpt from the presentation – Corebackbone, Germany.

The dubious players in this space have been well known for years and have been left to pursue their business undisturbed.

The presentation also shows how these companiescompanies are scattered across different countries which obviously hampers prosecution. And is it any surprise thatIt Mahjoub’s presentation references offshore letterbox companies that can be found in the Panama Papers?

Illustration: Excerpt from the presentation – How to make a business resilient on the Internet.

The presentation also describes how such businesses are rebuilt over and over again with low investments:

Illustration: Excerpt from the presentation – The recipe of a dedicated hoster.

RIPE NCC: Blind in both eyes – where is the self regulation?

Anyone who thinks that the findings from the presentation have changed anything at RIPE NCC will be sadly mistaken. Although many evil organizations and their criminal activities were clearly described in the October 2018 presentation, they are all still present and all this with the blessing of RIPE NCC. There is no better way to show that self-regulation of the Internet has failed completely.

RIPE’s refusal to take action against criminal members would only be understandable if RIPE itself were a part of organized crime. RIPE NCC’s Executive Board Treasurer, Remco van Mook, was country manager for Equinix in the Netherlands. Equinix provides a wide range of hosting services for Private Layer locations, Panama and Switzerland, as well as peering in over 5 data centers in Europe. (Editor note: It’s also a US Government contractor! Yikes!) Let’s hope for the executive board members of RIPE this is simply incompetence and arrogance, not criminal conspiracy.

Is it time for law enforcement and politicians to address this problem? What a crazy world we live in, where powerful tech elites make it so easy for criminals. Perhaps by regulating the RIPE’s self-regulation, we could make the Internet much safer for everyone involved?

Editors note #1 – Over the last year, this blog has been reporting on Google’s apparent use of proxies in an attempt to intimidate members of the EU parliament into voting against the proposed EU Copyright Directive. The Copyright Directive requires social media platforms above a certain size to do more to counter copyright infringement and to fairly negotiate licensing deals with creators. We focused in on the Google-funded/directed Canadian “engagement network” (whatever that is), Open Media and its subsidiary New/Mode.  Newspapers like The Times of London and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung followed up with damning stories of their own here and here.  We now go back and look at something slightly off topic for us: the doxxing and harassment of FCC Chairman Pai because it involves many of the same actors and bears a striking similarity to what happened in Europe.

Editors note #2. UPDATE: Thanks to a tipster we found a note in The Schmidt Family Foundation tax returns that seems to tie Eric Schmidt, the then Chairman of Google directly to one of these groups.

 

Eric Schmidt then CEO of Google personally gave Fight For The Future money to do education on something to do with fossil fuels during the net neutrality fight. Yeah sure. As far as we can tell Fight for the Future doesn’t do this sort of work. This sure looks like a false statement to federal authorities about the purpose of a contribution.  Isn’t this similar to what Martha Stewart did? 

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Google Doxx: Google funded groups in 2017 illegal

doxxing of FCC Chairman

Wayback Machine archives of Popular Resistance Website a couple days before they doxxed Ajit Pai and sent protestors to his house. A tiny clue in the referenced URLs led us to Google funded websites 

Huh what? FCC? Ajit Pai? Title II Net Neutrality?

Yes, we rarely cover the topic because it doesn’t directly relate to copyright and the music community. We have kept an eye on the net neutrality issue for one reason only: the same Google proxies, non-profits, and astroturfers that oppose us on copyright legislation desperately want Title II FCC oversight of Net Neutrality restored.

There are several groups with direct or (barely) indirect funding from Google that come to mind; Fight for The Future (former Google lobbyist/outside consultant Marvin Ammori is on the board), Open Media (Directly funded by Google, board of advisors includes ex-Google policy chief for Canada, Jacob Glick), Public Knowledge (named on the Oracle v Google “Shill list”), and Free Press (Ammori was general counsel until 2010). These groups work in lockstep with Google on copyright and other public policy issues important to Google’s bottom line. Tight little circle there.

 

FCC Title II enforcement of Net Neutrality is one such issue.  For Google, a Title II net neutrality regime ensures Google’s data intensive network of (often unwanted) display, videos ads and other services continue to “free ride” on the bandwidth consumers purchase.

A little background: Until 2015, a less strict version of Net Neutrality was voluntarily observed by most internet service providers. Occasionally there would be reports of abuses but public outrage or threats to pursue antitrust type actions against ISPs seemed to largely keep abuses in check. Not always, but mostly. It wasn’t perfect but most people generally enjoyed their internet experience. Hence its popularity.

And it was the popularity of streaming television and the paid prioritization of traffic for services like Netflix that began to cause concern. I’m a Title II net neutrality skeptic but I rate these concerns legitimate. Were ISPs behaving in an anti-competitive manner by forcing (or allowing?) streaming services to pay for “fast lanes?” Companies like Google didn’t like this development either. They didn’t want to pay for “fast lanes” to deliver their data intensive services to the public. They preferred to enjoy what amounts to a free ride. Paying would surely hurt their bottom line.

I get that. Google is, after all a for-profit company.

However, it gets weird. Fast. Google was extremely close to many folks in the Obama Administration.  And eventually the Obama Administration bought into Google’s argument for FCC enforcement of Net Neutrality and began to pressure the FCC.

White House visitor logs seem to indicate that Obama’s senior internet advisor David Edelman met with 30 net neutrality activists weeks before Obama announced his net neutrality plan. On the day Obama unveiled the plan, several of the activists who met with Edelman at the White House six weeks prior blocked then-FCC Chairman Tom Wheelerfrom leaving his driveway.

Many of these organizations were/are still funded by Google. Basically, it appears the Obama officials coordinated with Google funded activists to lobby the FCC, and in Wheeler’s case, prevent him from leaving his own driveway. The problem is that legally, the FCC is supposed to be independent of the White House. While it might be technically legal for the White House to coordinate with activists who, then on their own decide to harass the FCC, it’s definitely “not cool, man.”   And the activists with whom the White House coordinated did some pretty disruptive things at FCC hearings and events. The FCC eventually caved under this pressure and the result is the FCC Title II Net Neutrality regulatory regime that prevailed 2015-2018.

In the end, most consumers didn’t notice the change. But the move was controversial in some camps. Obviously broadband providers like Comcast, Verizon and AT&T were upset by what they saw as heavy-handed regulation and a disincentive to invest in their networks. Whether Tittle II caused broadband providers to stop investing in their networks or not is hotly disputed.

However, there were also more nuanced concerns from network experts.  Many questioned whether consumers really wanted “strong” net neutrality.  Do you want your ISP holding up that new Orville Peck video you want to watch because “neutrality” requires it to wait for data packets from the sketchy Moldovan auto-roll video advertisement trying to play in a pop-up browser window? Probably not. (No offense Moldavians.)

Others pointed out that many young consumers liked “zero rating,” a practice actvists argued violates strict Title II Net Neutrality.  Zero rating is, for instance when a mobile service provider does something like allow you to stream Spotify or Netflix without it counting towards your mobile data allowance. Under Title II neutrality, zero rating is seen as favoring some services. I personally think it’s good that mobile services, their customers, streaming companies and content creators are experimenting with new ways of delivering and monetizing content over communications networks. It also just seems anti-innovation that the FCC would want rules that forbid packaging experiments.

Finally, there is also the very real concern that Title II regulation gave  unelected FCC bureaucrats extraordinary control over the internet. Am I the only one that finds it ironic that many anti-Trump activists now also insist the (Trump) FCC continue to strictly regulate the internet through Title II?.

You see, Net Neutrality is a much more complex issue than you might think.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Skip forward now to 2017 when Republicans took control of the executive branch.  Ajit Pai became head of the FCC.  Pai immediately began talking about ending Title II authority and rolling back regulation of the internet to the pre 2015 status quo. Many people, rightly or wrongly, took this to mean “ending” Net Neutrality. Either way it was a reversion to the pre 2015 status quo. Which IMHO was not that terrible. However…

MASSIVE FUCKING FREAKOUT by all the Google aligned astroturfs.  Especially those groups that were in the aforementioned Obama White House meetings.  Groups like Fight for the Future, EFF, FreePress, Open Media and Public Knowledge were particularly strident in their calls to keep the FCC (a Trump FCC mind you) in control of Net Neutrality.  It is understandable in some ways as these Google funded astroturfers had worked very hard to put FCC Title II Net Neutrality in place.

Fight for the Future and FreePress  were particularly harsh in public statements towards Ajit Pai. For example, FreePress.net had this (sort of weird thing) to say about the (Indian-American) Chairman:

“That the Trump administration peddles lies and propaganda to prop up its hateful agenda is well known.Trump’s FCC chairman, Ajit Pai, is no exception — this year he’s stooped to incredible lows in his attempt to justify his repeal of Net Neutrality and a plethora of other consumer protections.”

This from a FreePress blog post titled “Ajit Pai’s biggest lies of 2018.”

Evan Greer (she/her) spokesperson for Fight for the Future simply tweeted “Fuck Ajit Pai.” Greer, at the time was often a featured speaker alongside US Senator Markey (D-MA) at Net Neutrality events in DC.  Greer also attended the White House meeting with Edelman. The point is, Greer is not a random person on Twitter, but a key player at a Google related astroturf. She’s also pretty radical: In 2012, Greer campaigned on behalf of an Al Qaeda terrorist.

Vitriolic and hyperbolic? Sure. A little weird linking “Trump Hate” (we all know what that means) to the Indian American guy? Yes. But hey they never seemed to cross the line into outright harassment and intimidation.

Margaret Flowers from Popular Resistance led a group of protestors to the FCC Chairman’s house. Popular Resistance then escalated the harassment by posting the Chairman’s address on its website. Pai has young children and Flowers, a pediatrician was clearly aware of that. Go figure.

No, the folks that crossed the line, the folks who actually broke the law were an outfit named PopularResistance.org (Sometimes operating as Protect Our Internet). What did they do?  They sent protestors to the home of Ajit Pai. Repeatedly.  And when that didn’t seem to make him change his mind, they then posted his address on their websites. Obviously, I’m not giving out the link but here is a partial screenshot. They also posted it on a now deleted Facebook event.

This isn’t just annoying and scary. It’s actually a federal crime as it is considered a form of cyberstalking.

From a DOJ document describing Doxxing:

“Posting personal information publicly with the intent to shame, defame, harass or endanger is illegal. It places the doxed individual in a potentially dangerous situation. The federal law often utilized to address doxing is 18 U.S.C. § 2261A:”

I would argue it’s even more serious. Since the intent is to make the guy about to vote on something fearful for the safety of his family if he votes the wrong way, I’d argue it’s a form of political terrorism as it was clearly designed to achieve a political end.

The environment in which all of this was happening was already supercharged with dire warnings (“It will destroy the internet”) and hysterical proclamations (“end of democracy”). It would be an understatement to say emotions were running high. The doxxing of Ajit Pai by Popular Resistance was like throwing gasoline on the fire.  And then predictable happened.

In November 2017 The Washington Post reported, “FCC chairman Ajit Pai says his children are being harassed over net neutrality.” The Post noted there were pretty offensive and threatening signs posted in front of his house. I won’t reproduce them here. There were death threats. One federal official noted the frequency of threats reached the frequency of threats the President receives. Around the time all this was happening, I read a story about it in Variety. I was shocked to see the story had at least half a dozen comments that approved of the threats or made additional ones. Some of the commenters appeared to have used real names! The coordinated campaign against Pai normalized death threats against him.

Eventually the police arrested (and later convicted) a man that had made several threats to kill Pai’s family.  The man plead guilty and later admitted he did it just to frighten Pai into changing his mind (see political terrorism comment above.)

The day of the vote there were two separate bomb threats to the FCC. The first was an email to the Washington Post from someone claiming to be from the hacking collective Anonymous. The person claimed to have sensitive private information on the FCC staff and that Anonymous had wired the FCC with explosives. For whatever reason, this threat wasn’t taken seriously.

The second bomb threat was regarded as more serious. Just as the commissioners were going to vote, a Net Neutrality supporter and serial bomb hoaxer phoned in a threat. The room was briefly evacuated, bomb sniffing dogs were brought in but eventually the vote was taken.

The last part of the story has a terrible twist. The man who was eventually arrested and convicted for calling in the FCC bomb threat turned out to be a for-hire “swatter” who had swatted a father of two in Wichita, Kansas who was  shot to death by police when he opened door. 

Sure, unpopular politicians occasionally get threats, but they don’t simultaneously have their addresses posted online and have unhinged protestors in their yards.  They are generally not subjected to months of vitriol and venom from a corporate funded network of astroturf groups.

There is a very bright line between political demonstration and purposely trying to stir up violent mobs or dangerous lone wolves. This is just my opinion and I’ll go into it more later, but I think Popular Resistance and their fellow Google-funded “Ajitators” (their word not mine) Free Press, Fight For The Future, EFF and Public Knowledge knew what they were doing and they all tacitly approved the doxxing.

A few weeks after Pai was doxxed, a gunman showed up at a practice for the Congressional Baseball Game and shot and critically wounded Rep Scalise (R-LA). This had nothing to do with Net Neutrality but this was the political environment at the time all of this was going on. When Popular Resistance doxxed Pai and his family, the intention was to not let the man live in peace.  Given the Scalise shooting and the superheated environment, something bad seemed much more likely to happen. Popular Resistance and their allies clearly knew this and exploited it. They intended to terrorize Pai into changing his vote.

This is an insane development for democracy like ours. Terroristic threats changing the way politicians vote because they are concerned for their own safety? Whether you agree with Pai or not you should be very frightened if this becomes the norm. Especially if you are on the progressive left (as Popular Resistance claims they are), as generally those on the extreme right have a lot more guns. (Ed note – um…not always).  We can’t let this sort of intimidation become the norm for political discussions.  But I digress.

Popular Resistance should have been sent a bill for all the extra local, state and federal manpower devoted to protecting Pai after targeting and doxxing created higher probability of threats translating into violence. Surely the security costs were significant. Pai canceled a speech at the Consumer Electronics Show because CES couldn’t afford the extra security required to protect Pai. And that was just one day.  Now imagine months of extra security.

Also, does anyone enjoy the irony that so called  “free speech” advocates like Free Press limited Pai’s ability to freely express himself?

Eventually Google stalwarts Free Press and Public Knowledge knew the whole thing had gone too far.  The groups issued statements condemning the racist attacks, threats of violence, and general harassment that Pai and his family had been subjected to. Somewhat disingenuously in my opinion.

All three groups set out to create the impression of an existential crisis and they carefully directed the public’s anger at a single government official. Just because it was Popular Resistance that crossed the line, doesn’t mean Free Press, EFF and Public Knowledge should get a pass.  Besides, it’s pretty clear all these groups coordinated with Popular Resistance.

Popular Resistance: Harmless Progressives? Violent Marxists? Cyberlibertarians? Corporate Shills? All of the Above? 

First, let’s try to figure out exactly what Popular Resistance is?  Progressive do-gooders? Radical Marxists? Cyber-libertarians?  Putin’s useful idiots? Mercenary Protestors? Google 5th columnists?  Performance Artists?  I can make an argument for all the above.

So who/what are Popular Resistance? The website states:

“With the corporate takeover of federal and state governments, growing state violence and oppression, a widening wealth gap and the climate crisis, more people are becoming politically active in new and creative ways.

A growing culture of resistance is utilizing nonviolent direct action and civil disobedience as primary tactics, and is forming real democratic organizations to empower local communities—as opposed to working within the corrupt government dominated by a two-corporate party system and within an unfair, big finance, capitalist economy.

PopularResistance.org is a resource and information clearinghouse for this movement of movements. We provide a daily stream of resistance news from the United States and around the world, and a national events calendar. Follow us by signing up for our Daily Digest or subscribe to our free weekly newsletter.”

They also have a weird habit of reporting on themselves via themselves via their (literally) fake news bureau that seems to be staffed by the members of Popular Resistance.

Okay we know the type of organization: A standard, professional lefty, anti-capitalist group. But hey, their views seem no different than many of my musician friends.  Nothing new to me. Still, let’s dig a little deeper.

Well that’s different. I read this wrong at first.  I thought they wanted an investigation of Russian interference in US elections.  Whatever your opinion of Russian collusion story, you have to agree this is not your typical progressive lefty grassroots organization.

And this….

Oh dear. Here are members of Popular Resistance defending Venezuelan dictator Maduro by occupying the Venezuelan embassy in Washington, D.C. to prevent the internationally recognized Government from taking control of the embassy.

At this point, these folks are beginning to diverge from the views held by my typical lefty musician friends. I don’t know a single one that thinks it’s reasonable to defend Maduro. Especially if they are animal lovers.

However, as U.S. citizens they have a right to their opinions and a right to protest. I certainly disagree with them, but they have their rights to do this. And at least they are non-violent. Or are they?

Well here is a still from one of their training videos on YouTube.

My summary: So it depends on who is defining violence, and violence is generally discouraged because most of the time it doesn’t expand movement, but sometimes it does and then it’s okay?

Did I get that right? Pretty sure I did.

Okay, radical far left revolutionary Marxist organization. Again, what’s new? I think my UC Santa Cruz student run food coop actually styled themselves a revolutionary Marxist collective. I may have even been a member. For all I know, I may even have revolutionary Marxists in my own band. It’s not illegal to hold these views and Popular Resistance is a legal organization, at least until they commit actual violence, the FCC Chairman files a doxxing complaint against them or….

..until they illegally occupy the Venezuelan Embassy and are arrested by US Secret Service (with actual Venezuelans cheering and applauding the DC police and Secret Service).

Countering the argument that these really are hardcore pro-Maduro revolutionary Marxists is the above photo. Those are the most pathetic revolutionary solidarity fists I’ve ever seen! Hard to brandish an AK-47 convincingly with a tepid fist like that.

Except for the guy on the far left with the baseball cap. I want him on my Venezuelan Civil War reenactment team!

But if they are revolutionary Marxists what’s all the above bullshit about? This is a post to one of their websites during the Net Neutrality debate. They seem care a fuck of a lot about technology startups considering they are anti-capitalists. Aren’t venture funded technology startups the very definition of wild west capitalism?  “Comrade, so nice to see you shaking the invisible hand of the venture capital marketplace!”

And here they are arguing for free markets. Not something you see every day from solidarity-fist-raising-Maduro-supporting-revolutionary-Marxists. And the use of the term “crony capitalism?” That is what real capitalists complain about when they see the government creating subsidies for pseudo capitalist corporations like Fannie Mae or Tesla. I think Popular Resistance needs to establish a tribunal to root out the reactionary capitalist running dog in their midst! Find him/her/them and gulag them.

Popular Resistance Creates New Project “Protect Our Internet”  Or do they?

And then Popular Resistance claims to do something quite extraordinary. On May 8th 2017 they announce the creation of a new Popular Resistance project called  “Protect Our Internet.”  This website appears to be used to manage their Net Neutrality mailing list, protests and doxxing events. They even created a special URL  ProtectOurInternet.org.

The only problem with this claim?  It is not quite true. Protect Our Internet domain was created by someone else. Not a member of popular resistance. It’s still owned by this person. It’s never clear how this was ever “their” website. Or if they did any management of the website.

The website was recently wiped and replaced with a generic WordPress blog with two very generic posts. So to really view it you have to use The Wayback Machine.  It also recently changed domain registrars and perhaps someone forgot to put the anonymization proxy service back in place? Oops. That’s how I got this information.

Protect Our Internet appears to have been created in 2014 right before the White House meeting with Net Neutrality activists.  It was not created in response to Ajit Pai’s repeal of net neutrality. It was created under the Obama administration by someone named Christian Beedgen of Redwood City or possibly someone spoofing him. I reached out to Mr. Beedgen for comment and have not received a response.

There is a fairly well known internet entrepreneur named Christian Beedgen at that address in Redwood city.  He is the co-founder of Sumo Logic. One of the newest Silicon Valley “unicorns” (privately valued at more than $1 billion). I’m not positive it’s the same person, but when I used Google street view to navigate to the address, I found a building that proudly displays the Sumo Logic logo. Could be someone has decided to impersonate him.  If so, it is an inspired choice. The Crunchbase profile for Sumo Logic indicates the investors are a veritable who’s who of Silicon Valley venture capital. If Protect Our Internet is really a project of a radical far left group like Popular Resistance, why does the website belong to this internet entrepreneur guy and not one of the members of Popular Resistance?  Why was the website registered 2 1/2 years before Popular Resistance created this “project?”

Also, since Popular Resistance says the protest at Pai’s house (address listed) is a Protect Our Internet event, does this mean Beedgen is responsible for the event?  If I was Beedgen, I would immediately get a really good lawyer. This seems to make him a co-conspirator in the doxxing of a federal official in an attempt to intimidate him into changing a vote. Dude needs to straighten this shit out if he has nothing to do with it. When you have as much money as the Beedgen apparently has, there’s bound to be a clever litigator out there that will want to make him the deep pockets. Not Popular Resistance.

Seriously, what is really going on here? This is absolutely nuts.

Let’s leave it as a weird loose end for now, and I’ll get back to it in a minute.

+++++++++++++++++++++

I showed this Popular Resistance bullshit to a friend of mine and he joked, “it makes more sense as a government run domestic spying operation, disguised as a ‘resistance action clearing house.’ Check to see if these folks do business with Palantir.”

Pretty funny if you know anything about Palantir.

A more plausible explanation? Protect Our Internet is just a wing of Google’s far flung influence peddling operations. Let’s examine that now.

 

What’s the Google connection?

“Free Press began building a broad coalition of groups to petition the FCC for Title II reclassification under a campaign called “Save the Internet.” Aaron was quick to give props to more than another 40 groups, such as Demand Progress, Popular Resistance, Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and Fight For The Future (FFTF). “We kept plugging away at Net Neutrality and filed hundreds of pages of detailed comments with the FCC,” he said.” –Popular Resistance Website May 11 2017

 

This comment from the Google funded Free Press caught my eye.  There is no way Free Press was not at least aware of Popular Resistance’s doxxing. It is their only real contribution to the Net Neutrality fight. It’s basically the only song on the Popular Resistance Greatest Hits Record.

If you go to the Popular Resistance concert the crowd sounds like this:

“Doxx Pai”

“Doxx Pai”

“Freebird!”

“Doxx Pai!”

And again, a reminder about the other groups Free Press mentions:

• (UPDATED) Fight for The Future is run by a former(?)Google lobbyist and former(?)outside counsel. Also in 2016 Eric Schmidt, the Chairman of Google personally gave Fight For the Future $30,000for “Raising awareness around environmental impacts of fossil fuels.” I can find no evidence that Fight for the Future ever did such work. (I suggest Mr. Schmidt and Fight for the Future amend their tax returns as we intend to contact relevant non-profit and tax authorities).
• Electronic Frontier Foundation has received millions from Google. And its apparent lobbying for Google has twice made it the subject of judicial scrutiny.  In Oracle v Googlethe court forced Google and Oracle to disclose “paid bloggers.”  Guess who appears on that “shill list?” And in Frank v Gaos the Supreme Court of the United States was being asked whether Google could really be “punished” by forcing it to pay a cy pres award to EFF seeing as it was funded by Google in the first place and sides with the search monopolist almost 100% of the time.
• Public Knowledge also appears on that “shill list.”
• Demand Progress has Marvin Ammori from Fight for the Future on the Board. And Mike Masnick, who also appears on the so-called “shill list,” and whose Copia Institute is funded by… Google.

Eric Schmidt, then CEO of Google personally gave Fight For The Future money to do education on something to do with fossil fuels during the net neutrality fight. Yeah sure. This sure looks like a false statement to federal authorities about the purpose of a contribution.  Isn’t this similar to what Martha Stewart did? 

It’s all so fucking fake.  Fake grassroots activists getting contributions for fake work. Fake consumer rights organizations. Fake think tanks. Fake websites. Fake revolutionaries.

Still, none of this means that Google was directly coordinating with Popular Resistance. And Popular Resistance and Fight for the Future were keen to make sure everyone knew this. Popular Resistance website:

“Ammori said that the groups weren’t talking directly to each other so the key was to coordinate them. He focused on pulling together startups in the business community.”

Never mind this contradicts what Free Press says in the previous quote.

“Shut up Free Press! We weren’t coordinating, I swear! You’re so stupid”

Does anyone really believe they weren’t coordinating? Aside from their guilty consciences, who was asking the question?  If no one was asking the question why anticipate the question? And why does he make a point of saying this to Kevin Zeese at www.dcmediagroup.us which is the press bureau staffed by Popular Resistance?

And these guys know we can just look at the Facebook event and see who went/was interested/was invited to the protest at Pai’s house. Right? “Dear FBI/Secret Service: here is a list of people to interview”

Lame. Lame. Lame.

These guys are terrible conspirators.

As an aside, Dylan Petrohilos who actually went to the Popular Resistance protest in front of Pai’s house is a particularly nasty piece of work. In 2009, Petrohilos was charged with criminal damage to property after surveillance photos showed him jumping on the back of a police car and kicking out its window. When he was arrested, police found what appeared to be a plastic bag full of feces in his backpack.

Screenshot from the Popular Resistance website. There they go again writing about themselves as if they are a disinterested third party. 

As interesting as all of that is, this turns out to be the long way around to making the case Google was involved.

It is much easier to make a direct case that Google, or at least a Google funded group under the command and control of a Google public policy team, aided Popular Resistance.  It turns out all you have to do is look at the web archives and source code for ProtectOurInternet.org.

Here it is. May 8th just as Pai was doxxed.

Even non-technical folks can tell can tell looking at only the “external links view” that this page is 90%+ generated with elements that come from another website.  A website called New/Mode.  What’s the significance of this?

Who is New Mode?

According to Times of London New/Mode is an engagement platform that Open Media helped to found in 2016 and“New/Mode boasts that its one-click tools allow campaigns to ‘flood targets with public messages’ on social media and ‘blanket local media with stories from your supporters’”

However….

…the New/Mode website back in 2018 claimed they founded Open Media (claim since deleted), and…

New/Mode CEO, Steve Anderson is introduced as “Senior advisor Open Media Co-founder of New Mode.” This at 2017 Net Squared Conference in Vancouver. Jesus guys, try to keep your stories straight. Is there also an olive oil company in the mix somewhere as well?

All kidding aside, the statements taken together, plus now deleted 2016 financial statements lead to the conclusion New/Mode and Open Media are for all practical purposes, the same organization. If this were a RICO case (and I’m not saying it isn’t) the prosecutors would treat them all as the same organization.

So who is Open Media?

Open Media was founded in 2014, and Jacob Glick was one of its founders. Glick previously worked for Google in Canada and the USA in the areas of public policy and government relations. He worked there long enough and at a high enough level that I wouldn’t be surprised if he has significant stock or stock options. He still serves on OpenMedia’s board today.

OpenMedia is partially funded through donations, but the enterprise also has “sponsors.” The company’s “platinum sponsors” include Google, Mozilla and the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (WTF?).  Sponsors in the platinum category have paid more than 20,000 Canadian dollars, but it is not clear whether this relates to one-off or repeat payments. Nor are the exact amounts donated known. Open Media is a Canadian non-profit. Which doesn’t mean jack shit. In Canada, what we call non-profits are called “charities.”  Open Media is just a company that doesn’t make a profit. Unlike non-profits in the U.S., Canadian “charities” are not really required to disclose their finances. It’s essentially a black box.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Now lets’ return to the screwy ownership of the Protect Our Internet website. Popular resistance did not register the website. They still don’t own it. It wasn’t transferred to any of the members.  So how did they manage the website?  I mean even if it’s hosted on WordPress, the owner needs to set that up for whoever is using it. The inescapable conclusion is someone else built, managed and operated the website.

So the million dollar question in the Doxxing of FCC chairman Pai is “who managed the website?”

Some of the most important bits (if not all) of the website is running on New/Mode code. This includes management of mailing lists; distribution and posting news (including of doxxing of FCC Chairman Pa) and alerts for protests at Pai’s house. The finger seems to be pointing at New/Mode & Open Media. These are exactly the services that New/Mode advertises they provide.

And remember Open Media (New/Mode) were running their own campaign against Pai at the time. See below.

Regardless of who was running it, Google funded organizations appear to have provided material support to Popular Resistance in the doxxing and months of harassment directed at the FCC, the FCC chairman and his family. They were complicit.

The billion dollar question?

What did Google public policy know?

Is it really plausible that the Google public policy team did not know this was happening?

I suppose it’s possible Jacob Glick at Open Media/NewMode and Marvin Ammorri at Fight For The Future weren’t communicating with former bosses on Google’s #1 policy issue that year. It just seems unlikely.

I also suppose it’s possible Free Press, Demand Progress and Fight for the Future weren’t letting an important funder know what was happening as all three happily collaborated on a Google priority.

Someone somewhere knows who set up and ran that Protect Our Internet website.  Start by asking this guy.