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• Jackass 2.5: Good Concept, Mediocre Execution
  Paramount is touting the release of "Jackass 2.5" as the first studio-backed film to be released online. In a lot of ways, Jackass seems like an ideal candidate for an experiment like this: it's a series of short vignettes that would likely get tiresome in a single sitting anyway, so it makes good sense to allow users to watch it in segments online. It was extremely cheap to produce, so there's little reason to worry about cannibalizing sales in other channels. And it's precisely the kind of gag humor that I can see being a good candidate for viral distribution. Unfortunately, the Times story suggests that Paramount's release strategy is rather confused. The video will apparently be released exclusively through Blockbuster's Movielink site for the first week, suggesting that Mac users like me won't be welcome. A week later, the movie will apparently be offered for purchase for $10-15 online or $30 on DVD. And then starting in January, it will once again be available for free on sites like Joost. It's rather confusing. The idea seems to be to experiment with different outlets to see which ones generate the most traffic, but it's hard to imagine why anyone would pay $10 for an iTunes download of a movie that had been available for free viewing (on Movielink) a week earlier and would be available for free viewing again (on Joost) a week later. It seems like all these format switches are just going to confuse and annoy viewers, who have to keep track of which sites will have the video on which weeks. Paramount apparently does know how to distribute video in an embeddable Flash-based format. It seems like it would have made more sense to simply distribute the whole movie that way from the outset. Or even better, given that Jackass isn't so much a coherent movie as a series of discrete segments, an even better idea might have been to release one segment per day over a period of weeks, increasing the chances of viral distribution and getting users in the habit of visiting the site regularly. That would generate a lot more buzz, and it would still leave them the option of selling a DVD of the whole thing once the final clip had been released. So Paramount deserves some credit for experimenting with new distribution strategies, but they still don't seem to quite get Internet distribution.

  Tim Lee is an expert at the Techdirt Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Tim Lee and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

  
  
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• Opposition To Canadian DMCA Grows
  Michael Geist reports that a Facebook group he created to oppose Canada's version of the DMCA has swelled to 20,000 members in under two weeks. Perhaps as a result of citizen opposition, the Canadian government has apparently shelved the proposal for the year, although it will likely be brought up again next year. There are a couple of interesting things about this. First, a decade of bad press about the American DMCA has no doubt helped to galvanize Canadian activists against the legislation. The bad effects of the Canadian copyright proposal aren't hypothetical. Canucks just have to look to their neighbors to the South for real-world examples of the problems created by anti-circumvention law. Secondly, it's interesting how easy Facebook makes it to organize an effort like this. A generation ago, it would have taken thousands of dollars and months of effort to build a list of 20,000 people interested in a political issue. Now it can be done for free in a matter of days. It remains to be seen if opposition to a Canadian DMCA will be successful, but the odds are certainly better than they would have been a decade ago.

  Tim Lee is an expert at the Techdirt Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Tim Lee and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

  
  
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• Can Trade Regulations Prevent Chinese Internet Censorship?
  In my experience, you should generally be skeptical of organizations trying to force foreign countries to do things due to "trade agreements." This is one of the most common tricks used by the entertainment industry to push for monopolies in the name of free trade. So, consider me skeptical on a new argument raised by a California group suggesting that the WTO stop China from censoring the internet because it somehow violates a free trade agreement. While it's admirable to come up with a reason to put pressure on China over its online censorship, this opens up a very dangerous slippery slope. Should this actually get anywhere, it would be just as easy for other countries to accuse the US of similar things with its laws. It's even more ridiculous when you consider that the US itself has been ignoring similar trade agreement violation rulings from the WTO concerning Antigua and online gambling. Yes, it would be a good thing if China backed down from censoring the internet -- but using trade agreements as a lever to put pressure on China doesn't seem like a good idea. The chances of it being effective are minute, and even if it is effective, it simply will open up a number of other trade disputes that are probably better left alone.
  
  Of course, an approach that's even less likely to be successful is the one proposed by barely-registering-in-the-polls presidential candidate Chris Dodd, who showed up at Google and suggested the company voluntarily leave China. As is noted in the article, this doesn't do much to actually help China, as Google users in that country would then just be forced to use an even more restrictive search engine -- which, if anything, would probably make the Chinese government even happier. It's great to take a principled stand -- but if you don't bother to think through the reactions and responses and the incentives you're creating, it's not going to do much good in the long run.
  
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• Oh Look... Another Open WiFi Criminal Caught Through Detective Work
  For many years, there have been all sorts of fear mongering stories about how today's cyber-criminals can simply use any open WiFi network and never get caught. Of course, that's ridiculous. Anyone committing a crime leaves all kinds of clues behind -- and just because you can't track them down via their IP connection, it doesn't mean they can't be tracked down. It's like complaining that a bank robber who wears gloves can't be caught because he doesn't leave any fingerprints. Chances are that he left other clues behind. That's why it should come as no surprise that an extortionist who was using open WiFi to cover his tracks was eventually caught t