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Mathew Ingram points us to a ridiculous quote by MediaNews CEO, Dean Singleton, who also happens to be the Chairman of the Associated Press, talking up his decision to make one of his papers start charging for online news, claiming that charging magically imparts value:

“When you give it away for free it has no value. When you begin charging for it it has some value.”

That’s wrong on both counts, and you would think that a major American media CEO would understand the difference between price and value. It’s a bit scary that he seems to think that putting a price on something automatically gives it value. Unfortunately, he may have to learn that lesson the hard way. I could say that the blank pad on my desk has a price of $10,000. But that’s meaningless, because no one would value it that high. The price you put on something is entirely independent of the value that buyers have for it. If the price you put on it is lower than the value they get from it, then they may decide to buy. But that value isn’t created by the price.

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By Michael Masnick

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So, with the NHL season now under way this week, the NHL is running a twitter promotion where you have to guess the winner of each of the games this Saturday. Tweet the correct winners to @NHL and you could win yourself a trip for two to a regular season game of your choosing. The promotion is fine and all, but what I was surprised at was the ridiculous background image that is on the NHL twitter page: an image of the entire legal “Official Rules” in both English and French.

Seriously? Whose idea was it to fill the entire background with legalese? It is barely even legible. A simple link would have sufficed, but it almost seems like a childish response to a lawyer’s request to put these rules up on their twitter page. Then again, in reading through the extensive rules, I was reminded of my favorite part of any sweepstakes in which Canadians take part, the math question.

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By Dennis Yang

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For the past few years, it’s become increasingly common for police to put GPS devices on suspects’ cars to track where they are. But, that’s kicked up a bunch of legal questions concerning whether or not it’s legal to do that without a warrant. So far, the courts have not really agreed. Earlier this year, we saw one court (a federal appeals court, 4th circuit) say that police didn’t need a warrant, but then, just days later, a court in NY ruled the other way, saying that it was a violation of the 4th Amendment. Now, the state Supreme Court in Massachusetts has weighed in as well, again saying that a warrant is needed to put a GPS device on your car. So that makes NY and Massachusetts as states where police can’t randomly stick GPS devices on your car. The other 48 states? Good luck…

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By Michael Masnick

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While not directly a tech/business related story, Jonny sent in this rather disturbing story of a grandmother arrested in Indiana for buying two whole boxes of cold medicine in less than a week. As you’re probably aware, most states have greatly limited the ability to buy cold medicine that contains pseudoephedrine, the ingredient that makes most cold medicines effective — but also a key ingredient used in making meth. So, rather than deal with the growing meth problem head on, many politicians sought to annoy pretty much anyone with a serious cold by making it quite difficult to get any drug that actually contains useful medicine.

Apparently, the Indiana law forbids buying more than 3.0 grams of the stuff in a single week, and the two boxes of cold medicine exceeded that amount. The end result? Police show up at the woman’s house and arrest her — and then keep defending the arrest, citing meth abuse, even as everyone admits that this woman was not making meth:

“I feel for her, but if she could go to one of the area hospitals and see a baby born to a meth-addicted mother …”

It’s difficult to see what that has to do with anything considering that everyone knows this woman had no intention of making meth. The whole thing is ridiculous, but is symptomatic of a problem that we’re seeing all too often, where the focus is on enforcing poorly thought out laws, to ridiculous consequences, with no attempt to ever look at the negative consequences and seeing if the original law made any sense in the first place.

We’ve discussed this in the past with regards to other laws as well. In business, if you plan a new initiative, you have metrics and you check to see if you accomplish them, and you monitor negative effects of what you do as well. So why don’t politicians ever do this? When they pass a law to ban spam, increase copyright duration or take away privacy for some reason or another, why are politicians never asked to put in place benchmarks to see if the laws actually do what they promise? Why aren’t there any plans for a change or a removal of the law if it turns out to do more harm than good? Certainly, by this point in time, there’s a better process to creating regulations than simply saying what they’re intended to do without ever bothering to check to see if those goals are achieved?

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By Michael Masnick

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Just weeks after we questioned why juries got to set patent awards, since those awards are often ridiculously high and are increasingly being tossed out by higher courts, it’s happened again. A jury ruling from earlier this year that would have had Microsoft paying $388 million for patent infringement has been tossed out on appeal. It’s become quite clear that juries don’t understand most of the actual issues on patent law. At a conference on patent law last week hosted by the Santa Clara University law school, it was pointed out how little information is given to the jury on patent information. For example, professor John Duffy pointed out that jurors were only given 12 pages of information on how patent “obviousness” is determined, which he says is significantly less than any textbook he’s ever used — and yet, they’re supposed to make a legal determination on it. So, once again, why does it make sense to let juries make these kinds of decisions?

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By Michael Masnick

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We wrote in the past about how the estate of author James Joyce tried to use copyright law to prevent a professor from quoting any works from James Joyce or his daughter Lucia Joyce in a biography of Lucia Joyce she was working on. This was, of course, ridiculous, and after many years in court, the estate didn’t just lose, but was ordered to pay attorneys’ fees as well, totaling more than $326,000. The estate then appealed that as well, but has now agreed to settle, and pay $240,000 in attorneys’ fees to the professor, Carol Shloss. While the end result was good, the fact that she had to go through this whole process just to write a biography in the first place is still quite problematic. Abusing copyright law to stifle free speech is always a problem.

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By Michael Masnick

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theodp writes “At Jeff Bezos’ alma mater, The Daily Princetonian reports that less than two weeks after 50 students received free Kindle DX’s as part of the University’s e-reader pilot program, many of them said they were dissatisfied and uncomfortable with the devices. ‘I hate to sound like a Luddite, but this technology is a poor excuse of an academic tool,’ said Aaron Horvath ‘10, a student in Civil Society and Public Policy. ‘It’s clunky, slow and a real pain to operate.’ How about a second opinion? The device is ‘hard to use,’ added Horvath’s professor, Stan Katz.”

I have to admit that I don’t quite understand the value of the Kindle DX as a reading device for schools or… anything, really. In the meantime, why are schools using closed off DRM-encrusted devices for training students anyway?

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By Michael Masnick

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A bunch of folks have been sending in the recent Wired Magazine article talking about how Netflix’s online streaming offering may be a disruptive innovation that takes down cable. The thinking is that, with Netflix service being built into lots of different settop devices, and the ability to watch various TV shows that are offered via DVD (and the Netflix streaming service, as well), why would people need cable any more? They can just wait until the “video” is out, and stream it via Netflix. The article may go a bit far in proclaiming Netflix as the winner of this battle right now, but it does suggest that (whether it’s Netflix or some other provider) the model that cable television has relied on for so many years is certainly facing a pretty big disruption, one way or another.

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By Michael Masnick

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Brendan was the first of a few to submit the story that New Zealand is telling people that they can’t use their mobile phones for navigation purposes, even if that phone is mounted on the dashboard like a regular GPS navigation device. Regular GPS devices are fine… but a mobile phone acting just like one of those devices? That’s illegal. Why? No one seems to be saying, but you can bet the standalone GPS makers are happy about this… Update: Well, that was fast. Given public backlash, the gov’t has already decided to back down and rewrite the laws to allow mobile phone navigation systems.

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By Michael Masnick

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There’s saying that’s been making the rounds lately, in talking about journalism, saying that “trust is the new objectivity.” The idea is that if you’re trustworthy, even if you have a bias, people are more interested in what you have to say. But, of course, that doesn’t just apply to journalists. It pretty much applies to everyone, in any business. People are tired of fake connections. They want real connections. That’s what connecting with fans is really all about. If you’re honest and open, you build trust. And that trust is valuable. So it’s difficult to understand why so many organizations work so hard to stifle that kind of openness. We saw it recently with the Washington Post’s new social media guidelines, and we’ve seen it elsewhere as well, such as with sports teams.

For example, JJ sends in the news that the Jets benched a player for a Twitter message, despite the fact that the team is actually more open to having its players use social media to connect with fans. Hearing this, I figured it must be quite a Twitter message — seeing as there was just a big controversy over a Redskins player who insulted fans via Twitter, calling them “dimwits” and saying they shouldn’t give their opinion on the team since they work at McDonalds. But what did the Jets player say that was so troubling?

“1 play in the 1st Half, 4 plays in the 2nd half,…. A bit disappointed about my playing time but very happy and satisfied about the win.”

I’m honestly having a hard time seeing how that’s a benchable offense. He was entirely honest, and not accusatory. He was happy that the team won, but wished he could have been involved in more plays. He’s a professional athlete, and such sentiments are pretty standard. It actually seems nice that he’s sharing with fans in that way. He didn’t seem to be complaining or disparaging the team or anyone. He just noted that personally he was “a bit disappointed” that he wasn’t more involved.

The fact is, the internet lets people connect with others — either one-to-one or one-to-many in much more direct and personal ways than ever before in the past. Yes, that has some risks and downsides, but on the whole, that openness and connection builds trust and a relationship, and that’s important. It makes no sense to try to stifle such communications, whether its a journalist or a professional athlete.

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By Michael Masnick

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