Sandvine menaces p2pnet
p2pnet news P2P | Freedom:- Whenever you see a corporate product with ‘fair’ in the name, you can be 100% sure it’ll be the exact opposite, p2pnet posted on Wednesday, continuing >>>
Apple’s FairPlay DRM is a shining example, and now ace Canadian digital restrictions management company Sandvine has come out with a product sure to make the likes of Bell Canada and Rogers glow.
Sandvine, which coined the notable phrase ‘policy management,’ is now touting Sandvine FairShare to, “enhance its suite of Traffic Optimization solutions”.
For ‘Traffic Optimization’ read bandwidth throttling, and Sandvine’s new consumer control technology ‘empowers’ ISPs, enabling, “fair usage in the shared access network” with “advanced techniques” to “ensure equitable allocation of network resources during periods of congestion,” it says.
And it’s “fully application-agnostic,” meaning BitTorrent isn’t the only P2P file sharing application it’ll target.
Accompanying the post was (and is again) a parody of part of Sandvine’s corporate logo with the words “Intelligent Broadband Networks” replaced by the editorial comment “Broadband Digital Restrictions Management consumer control”.
While I was offline yesterday, my host and friend received a terse emailed command from Sandvine “AVP, Marketing and Corporate Communications” Amanda Weber.
“The use of Sandvine’s logo on the page noted above is an infringement of our trademark and copyright,” she said, incorrectly, going on >>>
I have referred this matter to our legal counsel and demand that you immediately take down the logo and not use it in any manner. We expect it to be down within 30 minutes from now.
Unable to contact me to see how I wanted to respond, my friend took the image down.
It’s now back up and this morning I emailed Weber >>>
Hi Amanda
Re: your demand to have an image featured in my story about Sandvine [http://www.p2pnet.net/story/15991]taken down, Sandvine’s claim has no merit and is a misuse of its intellectual property rights.
Like other news services, I engage in critical journalism and your demand seems directed more towards intimidation rather than any bona fide defense of Sandvine’s intellectual property rights.
For the moment, the image was removed without my knowledge and I may use it in a follow-up news story citing your demands.
If you plan to take this further, please contact:
David Fewer, Legal Counsel Canadian Internet Policy & Public Interest Clinic
CCIPIC is already representing me in an identical example of attempted censorship by SOCAN (Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada) which is threatening me over a parody pic based on the original SOCAN logo I used in SOCAN goes after hair dressers.
It’s all about freedom of speech
Parodies, lampoons, call them what you will, have been used for hundreds of years to highlight all manner of situations which have caught the attention of authors and other commentators who earn their livings by making cartoons to illustrate a point.
No one threatens them —- or if they do, they get short shrift.
I’m Canadian and I’ve been running p2pnet since 2002 and I must have made literally hundreds of images to accompany articles on a ton of different subjects in (as I write this) more than 16,000 different posts, and the only two ‘image’ problems I’ve ever had have come, I’m deeply ashamed to say, from two Canadian companies.
The SOCAN effort hasn’t yet been resolved and meanwhile, I also have two other freedom of speech cases against me pending.
One involves Nikki Hemming, who runs Sharman Networks’ Kazaa P2P file sharing application and who claims I defamed her, and the other, Vancouver businessman Wayne Crookes who’s trying to make a case that by linking to a link which leads to an article he doesn’t like, I’m defaming him as well.
Three of my four of my attackers represent multi-million-dollar companies and Crookes is, I understand, very wealthy.
p2pnet, on the other hand, is a one-man site which manages to stay online only on a month-by-month basis and in fact, my wife and I recently re-mortgaged our house so we can keep going.
Don’t be fooled by the ads. They wouldn’t pay Sandvine’s or Sharmans’ or SOCAN’s or Crooke’s weekly coffee bills.
Lawyered to the eyeballs
I’m a very ordinary person and, like the equally ordinary victims of the entertainment cartels lawsuits I often write about, I find being targeted by these kinds of entities a frightening experience not so much because I’m intimidated by the people behind the attacks —- I’m not —- but because I know I don’t have the resources to properly defend myself.
I’m like a one armed, one legged man, in a basketball match.
Unlike Sandvine, et al, I don’t have legions of lawyers available at the snap of my fingers, or virtually bottomless pockets to support myself while the cases progress.
I’m pretty sure things would be very different if I was on an equal financial and legal footing with the people who want to stop me from expressing my opinion and saying what I believe.
I have no idea how any of these cases will be resolved, but I feel privileged to be in a position where I can stand up for what I believe in.
Because even though I’m not lawyered up to the eyeballs and my financial situation is, to understate it, somewhat tenuous, I do have something going for me.
The Net.
So —- Cheers! And thanks, all you people, for being there.
Jon Newton – p2pnet
.
.Stumble It!
Use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site. It’s really easy!Subscribe to p2pnet.net | | rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/p2p.rss | | Mobile – http://p2pnet.net/index-wml.php
Net access blocked by government restrictions? Use Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto. Go here for details. Download here.
May 23rd, 2008 at 1:51 pm
“We expect it to be down within 30 minutes from now.”
Was there an “or else” behind that sentence?
BTW Google tells me for typing define:vine the following way:
A plant with long stems (woody or not) which depends on other plants or surfaces for support. Vines may get that support by means of[...]
or
a plant that creeps along a surface or requires support to grow upward
With stuff that “creeps along a surface” I normaly associate slimy shit and organis[s]ations[/s] mns that depend on others are defind either as “a human baby” or “a parasite”. I doubt that Amanda Weber is a cute little baby when she can articulate such demands that you quoted!
–
Alter_Fritz
May 23rd, 2008 at 3:09 pm
“If you plan to take this further, please contact: David Fewer, Legal Counsel Canadian Internet Policy & Public Interest Clinic”
Ah HA! Collusion! Newton mentions the CIPPIC in his FIRST ARTICLE !!! http://www.p2pnet.net/story/15991 and now it is representing him!
This is shameful
May 23rd, 2008 at 3:46 pm
Hey Sandvine,
This is to let you know, Sandvine, that use of Sandvine’s corporate identity in a news story about Sandvine’s products is a completely fair use under U.S. law and, most likely, Canada and the U.K. (points of Sandvine’s presence).
The very reason Sandvine would select a particular Sandvine font and Sandvine color is to help non-Sandvine people associate Sandvine’s name in context with Sandvine’s marketplace. While Sandvine is the owner of Sandvine’s marks and names, Sandvine’s name and products are both is in the news and industry buzz.
You’ve developed this Sandvine branding for the public to use to identify Sandvine, and now you dare complain when Sandvine’s name, and the fonts and colors chosen by Sandvine to represent Sandvine are somehow chosen by a reporter issuing news about Sandvine? Why not also take him to task for mentioning your name, Sandvine, which is no more and no less part of Sandvine’s corporate identity (e.g. — they all mean the same thing — Sandvine).
If this Sandvine news report instead carried a picture of “Mayor McCheese” in front of the “Golden Arches,” would Sandvine be more or less pleased about the impact of Sandvine’s “Brand and ID” efforts?
Hey Sandvine? So go pound Sand(vine)!
–Robb Topolski
PS: Get out of the business of selling Sandvine products to customers who want to keep Sandvine’s business relationship with them a secret. Didn’t Sandvine learn anything the first time, or does Sandvine need to lose another 80% in market equity?
May 23rd, 2008 at 5:01 pm
Thanks, Robb:
Now see http://www.p2pnet.net/story/16020
Cheers!
May 23rd, 2008 at 7:13 pm
Onya Jon, I wouldn’t cave in to intimidation either. Keep hemming in the crooks
May 23rd, 2008 at 7:19 pm
This is the “power” I guess that comes from wealth. To get whatever you want by phony legal threats. And they WILL get it too unless people like Jon stand up for themselves and for what is right. Most wealth is not obtained honestly, and dirty tricks are part and parcel of the game.
May 23rd, 2008 at 8:37 pm
Although the use of Sandvine’s name etc is fair use under copyright, denigrating the brand (the graffiti on the logo) is not. Its more similar to taking a coca-cola ’script’ logo and modifying the tag-line.
A trademark is different than a copyright or use of the identify. The trademark is similar to a patent in the protections it affords.
May 23rd, 2008 at 8:44 pm
“The trademark is similar to a patent in the protections it affords.”
I’m not a lawyer, and I don’t have a lawyer on tap, but surely that would apply only if the trademark was in some way hi-jacked for illegal use, applied in or on another product, perhaps, or copied?
This was comment, not re-use.
Cheers!
May 23rd, 2008 at 10:27 pm
For what it’s worth, I just clicked on every ad on the site that I could find.
May 24th, 2008 at 8:37 am
” Although the use of Sandvine’s name etc is fair use under copyright, denigrating the brand (the graffiti on the logo) is not ”
Use for parody or commentary still applies … nice try.
How much they pay you ?
May 24th, 2008 at 10:27 am
“I’m pretty sure things would be very different if I was on an equal financial and legal footing”
They would not ever dare to call since they know they are wrong.
I am sick and tired of all these corporates parasites who act like selfish psychopaths, with no moral standart, no sense of justice and who conduct themselves like criminals.
If I was them I will be carefull because a business is a fragile thing easy to bring down and we don’t need lawers for that. Also the exec in charge of these nasty businesses are not invicible.
May 24th, 2008 at 4:22 pm
Harry Nads Headquarters fully supports your war against Sandvine and every other communist entity that attacks you. If you need our support just holla.
May 24th, 2008 at 5:21 pm
Keep up the good fight, Jon.. Don’t let the assholes get ya down. Godspeed, and Namaste!
May 24th, 2008 at 7:05 pm
Does anyone think that Sandvine would have screamed trademark infringement if that same image had been put up on a site containing articles complimentary of Sandvine ?
May 26th, 2008 at 11:01 pm
ahaha am i the only person who noticed the guys name? wayne “crookes”? lmao