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As much as some people may not like it, the First Amendment protects a lot of offensive speech. Montana's laws, however, seemingly don't. In a case currently making its way through its court system, the prosecution is arguing that the state's broadly-written criminal defamation statute encompasses this area of protected speech.

So we already wrote about the absolutely ridiculous Sunday Times piece which claimed that Russia and China had "cracked" the encryption Snowden used on his documents (or, maybe, he gave them to them...) and thus all hell had broken loose and the UK had to remove "agents" from Moscow. Of course there were all sorts of holes in the story, which didn't make much sense. All of the "evidence" was just anonymous quotes from government officials, much of which contradicted itself. And, of course, there were the outright factual errors. When finally confronted about this, the reporter who wrote the story, Tom Harper, admitted straight up, that he was just "just publishing what we believe to be the position of the British government." When questioned about the evidence, he said that you shouldn't challenge him, but the UK government -- as if his job as a "reporter" was just to write down what they said, not actually search for the truth.

Look, you don't get to be the best at something without being fully committed to it. Sports, science, doing that thing where you make farty noises using your armpits to gross your mom out, all of them require not just talent, but the kind of dedication it takes to put in the work to being the best. Comcast has that dedication. You might have thought that after its abysmal customer service record helped torpedo its merger with Time Warner, discouragement would have set in. And maybe if customer after customer after customer publicly lambasted Comcast for doing what it does best, that the company would have been forlorn and simply given up.

As Techdirt has reported, data retention laws are being introduced around the world. One of the less obvious but most pernicious effects of this development is the banalization of surveillance it brings with it. People begin to find it normal that they are spied on by their government whatever they are doing, and accept without a murmur that the police can do so without a warrant. A good example of what this can lead to has surfaced in the Australian state of New South Wales (NSW), where the police are pushing for new powers:

It's safe to say no domestic surveillance program will be escaping legislators' attention in the post-Snowden era -- at least not for the forseeable future. It's only been a couple of weeks since news of the FBI's secret spy plane fleet made national headlines and there's already legislation in the works aimed at setting some… um… ground rules.

As I'm sure I've mentioned in the past, I've worked most of my professional life in the tech industry, specifically working for a managed services consultant in Chicago. One of the things we do is advise our clients on hardware rotations. Client machines, like desktops and laptops for instance, are typically recommended on a four to five year rotation. Because, let's face it, a five year old computer is either functionally worthless or is probably hanging onto a single strand of twisted copper before crapping out entirely, amirite?

We've mentioned some wind power projects before, but wind is still a relatively small contributor to total energy production in the US. Sure, there are some problems with not having wind available 24/7 -- as well as people complaining about bird deaths and a ruined view. Still, there are some solutions to some of these problems, and it might be nice to generate more electricity without burning fossil fuels.

If we accept the premise that law enforcement and intelligence agencies encroach on personal freedoms and rights in "the public interest" -- i.e., to ensure the safety of non-criminals -- then we have to ask ourselves how this raid of a medical marijuana dispensary fits into this thought process. [via CJ Ciaramella]

As we just mentioned, it looks like there aren't enough votes in Congress to give the President and the US Trade Rep the "fast track" authority they want to cram massive trade agreements down the throats of the American public. Nancy Pelosi, whose statement last week helped signal that it was a real possibility that support for fast track would no longer be likely, has now penned an op-ed for USA Today claiming that fast track is on its last legs, highlighting that Congress (not the executive branch) has the power to regulate commerce with foreign countries. Meanwhile, supporters of trade have put into motion an attempt to salvage fast track, which may lead to a vote as soon as tomorrow -- but seems like a risky gambit that may not succeed.

The ACLU has received another document dump from the government as a result of its FOIA lawsuits, with this bundle dealing with the CIA's activities. This isn't directly related to the late Friday evening doc dump announced by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which dealt more with the CIA's counterterrorism activities leading up to the 9/11 attacks, but there is some overlap.

This new FCC is really quite interesting. After years and years of never actually doing anything to push back against anti-consumer policies by the big telcos, in the last few months it seems like that's all the FCC does. Today's move? Proposing a $100 million fine against AT&T for its bogus practice of throttling "unlimited" customers. As you may recall, AT&T offered "unlimited" mobile data connections, but eventually killed off that offering. To avoid getting in trouble for bait and switch, AT&T grandfathered in those who previously had the unlimited plan... but then started throttling those accounts to try to pressure people into moving to a different plan. The FTC is already suing AT&T over this, and just last month we noted that AT&T had made some changes in response to FCC pressure.

For the last few months, we've been discussing a few different legal disputes over the nature of drivers for services like Lyft and Uber, and whether or not they should be classified as "employees" or "contractors" (or W-2's or 1099s -- based on what kind of tax forms they get). Florida's Department of Economic Opportunity has said such drivers are employees and a judge in California appears to be leaning that way as well. However, leapfrogging that process, California's Labor Commission has now declared an Uber driver an employee, rather than a contractor.

Given all the fuss over the ridiculous article this past weekend -- which has since been confirmed as government stenography rather than actual reporting -- security maven Bruce Schneier has written up an article making a key point. It's quite likely that the underlying point in the article -- that Russian and Chinese intelligence agencies have access to the documents that Snowden originally handed over to reporters -- is absolutely true. But, much more importantly, he argues, the reason likely has almost nothing to do with Snowden.

If you are looking to take your programming skills to the next level, check out the 90% off deal on the Learn Node.js course. This practical course got its start on Kickstarter this year and features 18+ hours of training through instructive videos and building 10 real-life applications. You’ll learn just about all you need to know about this open source, cross-platform runtime environment for server-side and networking applications.

Eva Knox runs a site dedicated to the discussion of knockoff designer goods. This is probably not the best launching pad for infringement accusations, but whatever. Knox is a very prolific issuer of DMCA takedown notices. She issued 276 notices over a two-week period in May, targeting (used only in the vaguest sense) over 8,500 URLs.

Stewart Baker, former NSA General Counsel and unofficial apologist for the DHS, CIA and NSA, is still trying to pin the blame for everythingon everyonethat isn't a member of these fine American agencies. Privacy activists are to blame for TSA groping. Civil libertarians are to blame for the 9/11 attacks. FISA minimization procedures arealso to blame for the 9/11 attacks. Encryption is to blame for the Blackberry's disappearance from the cellphone market. And so on.

Comcast is currently trying to negotiate a new franchise agreement in its hometown of Philadelphia, but is running into the kind of fierce consumer disgust for the company that ultimately helped derail its failed acquisition of Time Warner Cable. Back in April, the city was criticized for refusing to publicize a city survey on Comcast that took two years to conduct, but only Comcast executives were allowed to see. When the 571-page report (pdf) was finally released, the results weren't surprising: Philadelphia locals by and large loathe Comcast and its documentably atrocious customer service.

Earlier this month Google announced that the company's self-driving cars have had just thirteen accidents since it began testing the technology back in 2009, none the fault of Google. The company has also started releasing monthly reports, which note Google's currently testing 23 Lexus RX450h SUVs on public streets, predominately around the company's hometown of Mountain View, California. According to the company, these vehicles have logged about 1,011,338 "autonomous" (the software is doing the driving) miles since 2009, averaging about 10,000 autonomous miles per week on public streets.

On Wednesday, the European Parliament Legal Affairs Committee (JURI) adopted a copyright reform proposal based on the report that Pirate Party MEP Julia Reda released earlier this year. There were tons of amendments and some of the important ideas in the original report were taken out or watered down -- something that Reda readily admits. Former Pirate Party MEP Amelia Andersdotter, who had complained about Reda's report from the start, is vocally upset about the outcome, arguing that accomplishing a plan with only moderate ambitions is not what the Pirate Party should be supporting.

Another week, another John Oliver report that covers topics we talk about on Techdirt. This time, it's the CIA torture report, put together by the Senate Intelligence Committee. The 6,000+ page document is still classified, but the 500+ page executive summary (still with lots of redactions) was released last December as you may recall. There were plenty of interesting revelations in it -- and we're sure the full report has many more. The "true believers" in torture took the fingers-in-ears-"we're-not-listening" approach to dealing with it. The DOJ announced that it had not opened the report. Apparently, the former CIA boss Porter Goss claimed he hadn't read the executive summary either -- even though he mocked John McCain for not having read it either.

If you're looking forward to watching The Martian movie, you probably enjoy watching rockets blast off into space and seeing big explosions. However, really long distance space travel could be much less entertaining without rockets unless you like looking at the glow of an ion thruster. Spacecraft using the momentum of light won't even glow, but they could be part of more and more space ships. Check out a few of these projects.

I've always suspected that most famous people have outside groups managing their social media engagements for them. That is why I almost never follow celebrities on social media sites. What's the point? At the same time, with the importance of self-branding in the media today, I understand why these outside groups are used. What I don't understand, however, is why a famous person might entrust his or her social media brand to a group that might just end up making a client look foolish.

Last week, the House rejected the President's desired "fast track" authority for trade bills that would have smoothed the way to signing onto trade agreements like the TPP, TTIP and TISA. Technically, "fast track" was voted for, but a related issue around Trade Adjustment Authority (TAA) was rejected (overwhelmingly: 302 to 126). Because the Senate had linked those two, the House needed to as well. Following this, House leadership invoked a procedural move that basically set up a revote for today. Given the massive margin by which TAA failed, I wondered aloud how they would flip so many votes. However, in the back of my head, I worried that the approval of the actual fast track bill meant that the TAA rejection was something of a theatrical production, allowing people to "vote against" it and then let it pass a week later. Turns out my original thought was the correct one.

If you're a baseball fan, as all good Americans are, and you have never lived in St. Louis, you probably hate the Cardinals. Don't feel bad if you do, they're quite easy to hate. No other fanbase has managed to coax platitudes out of the team and local media like the common refrain that Cards fans are "the best fans in baseball." Groan. Few other teams outside of college football programs tend to go on and on about "the Cardinal way" and how they "do things the right way" like the redbirds do. The problem is that the Cardinals have been an excellent baseball team for pretty much ever, always managing success with a minimal number of lean years.

Last week, we were joined by Upshift founder Ezra Goldman to discuss the future of mobility in a world of on-demand services like Uber. This week, Ezra is back to help us fill in the other big piece of the transportation puzzle: autonomous vehicles, and their potential to change just about everything. Follow the Techdirt Podcast on Soundcloud, subscribe via iTunes, or grab the RSS feed. You can also keep up with all the latest episodes right here on Techdirt.

Last year we wrote about a very dangerous case going to the European Court of Human Rights: Delfi AS v. Estonia, which threatened free expression across Europe. Today, the ruling came out and it's a disaster. In short, websites can be declared liable for things people post in comments. As we explained last year, the details of the case were absolutely crazy. The court had found that even if a website took down comments after people complained, it could still be held liable because it should have anticipated bad comments in the first place. Seriously. In this case, the website had published what everyone agrees was a "balanced" article about "a matter of public interest" but that the website publisher should have known that people would post nasty comments, and therefore, even though it automated a system to remove comments that people complained about, it was still liable for the complaints.

Last week, the Wikimedia Foundation announced that it was moving to encrypting access to all Wikipedia sites via HTTPS. This was really big news, and a long time coming. Wikipedia had been trying to move in this direction for years with fairly slow progress -- in part because some in the Wikimedia community had an irrational dislike of HTTPS. Thankfully, the Wikimedia Foundation pushed forward anyway, recognizing that the privacy of what you're browsing can be quite important.

Speech-to-text software has come a long way over the years and, while it's not perfect, it can still a great tool for increasing productivity. For 50% off, we're offering Dragon NaturallySpeaking 13 PC Home from Nuance. This latest update of Dragon sets up easily and now works with most built-in laptop and some Bluetooth mics for greater flexibility. You can create custom word lists and use an audio playback option to help with proofreading. The license allows you to download Dragon to two computers, and it's offered in American English, UK English, French or German. We're offering Dragon Dictate 4 for Mac at 50% off as well.

As we continue to build The Copia Institute, we'll be writing a weekly column & newsletter discussing bigger issues around innovation and abundance. These pieces will be cross-posted here on Techdirt, but we invite you to check them out on the new Copia website as well.

Never content to simply let America take a bad idea and run with it alone, these past few years have seen our friends in the UK slowly start to lose their collective minds concerning terrorism and radical Islam. It's hard to be too terribly snarky about it, considering here in America we've done our best to perfect overreacting to terrorism, but when the UK decided to institute something like Orwellian "thought crime," it was still worth noting how dumb of an idea it was. But our British friends weren't done. Now, schools throughout the country are being offered some very special software that will allow teachers to spy on student activities to try to weed out the eventually-maybe-might-be-radicalized.

As we've been exploring for some time, both AT&T and Verizon have been turning their backs on traditional copper-based phone service and DSL users they're unwilling to upgrade. Both of the companies' next-gen fixed-line broadband deployment plans (U-Verse and FiOS, respectively) have been all but frozen as the ISPs focus on notably more profitable wireless service. The shift is understandable: wireless tends to be cheaper to deploy, less unionized, and relatively less regulated, and the fact that it's usage capped in the face of soaring mobile video growth means future revenue projections are very handsome indeed.

The California Senate has passed a bill that creates a warrant requirement for searches of cellphones, tablets and electronic devices. This would be slightly different than the recent Supreme Court decision, which only creates a warrant requirement for searches incident to arrest. In terms of this legislation, the proposed law would forbid warrantless access to personal electronic devices (whether or not "incident to arrest"), as well as data stored at third-parties but accessible through these devices. (via Boing Boing)

Last year, Techdirt wrote about Boston Police performing a test run of its facial recognition software on those attending a local music festival. Perhaps unsurprisingly, in the UK, land of a million CCTV cameras, the police have taken things even further. As this story in Noisey explains, drawing on a report on the Police Oracle site (registration required):

Facebook has long made the silly argument that it has some kind of untoward iron-clad trademark on all things "book." Hell, even the site's user agreement contains a provision that by signing it, you agree that Facebook has a trademark on "book", as though such agreements actually meant anything. And, throughout time immemorial (or at least as long as the site has been popular), Facebook has aggressively pursued trademark claims on anyone who dares to use "book" within their sites' names or company names.

Every service wants you to create a username and password... and it all begins to pile up after a while. Users try to make things easier for themselves by re-using passwords, but you're really not supposed to do that. What are you supposed to do? Well, password management software exists, but only the truly paranoid folks spend the time to figure out which one of those is the one that works best for particular use cases and then actually set it up. (And then shit happens anyway.) Some companies are trying to figure out other solutions -- here are a few of them.

Earlier this year, we noted that Amazon was alone among the giant internet companies in refusing to publish a transparency report providing details on government requests for information. Amazon was also absent from the legal fight that many big tech companies filed against the government over the right to disclose such information (a fight that only Twitter is still fighting).

For a few years now AT&T has taken heat for its "Sponsored Data" program, which lets certain companies pay AT&T an extra fee to let consumers access their content without it impacting their wireless data usage allotment. Critics have repeatedly charged that the program immediately creates an uneven playing field for small companies, independent and non-profits, who may not be able to afford the toll. While it's clear the plan violates net neutrality, consumers have been fortunate in that corporate interest in the idea so far appears to be minimal.

Anyone remember Ray Niro? He's the lawyer who so perfected patent trolling that the term "patent trolling" was first used (by future patent troll Peter Detkin) back in the 1990s to describe... Ray Niro for his lawsuits. Niro was the original uber patent troll, demanding settlements and suing all sorts of people. Perhaps his most famous move was that he had control over a patent that he argued covered any use of a JPEG image -- and would use it to go after basically anyone who displeased him (if they had any JPEGs on their websites). This included the Green Bay Packers and a resort in Florida. When noted patent system critic Greg Aharonian described that patent as "crap," Niro sued him for infringing on it as well. Niro also put a bounty on the identify of an (at the time) anonymous blogger who called himself the "Patent Troll Tracker."

So we've already written about the massive problems with the Sunday Times' big report claiming that the Russians and Chinese had "cracked" the encryption on the Snowden files (or possibly just been handed those files by Snowden) and that he had "blood on his hands" even though no one has come to any harm. It also argued that David Miranda was detained after he got documents from Snowden in Moscow, despite the fact that he was neither in Moscow, nor had met Snowden (a claim the article quietly deleted). That same report also claimed that UK intelligence agency MI6 had to remove "agents" from Moscow because of this leak, despite the fact that they're not called "agents" and there's no evidence of any actual risk. So far, the only official response from News Corp. the publisher of The Sunday Times (through a variety of subsidiaries) was to try to censor the criticism of the story with a DMCA takedown request.

As you might have heard, the FCC's new net neutrality rules went live on Friday and, contrary to ISP and friend prognostications, the internet did not explode into a fiery cacophony of Armageddon-esque proportions (surely that happens later). With the courts refusing a stay of the rules, the FCC's neutrality protections will remain intact until either the ISPs are victorious in court, or there's a 2016 party (and associated FCC leadership) shift. Until then, consumers can file their complaints with the FCC in a variety of ways, including snail mail.

We already wrote this morning about the ridiculous claims by The Sunday Times that Snowden's documents had been either given to the Russians and Chinese or that they had cracked the encryption to get them -- and that, because of this, the UK had to move intelligence "agents" out of Moscow for their safety. We pointed to numerous problems with the article, including many direct factual mistakes. One of the links we pointed to was Glenn Greenwald himself challenging many of the claims in the Sunday Times. This included highlighting the flat out lie that David Miranda was detained in Heathrow after visiting Snowden in Moscow (a claim the Sunday Times later simply deleted, with no correction or retraction).

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Who could have possibly thought that something of interest would actually come out of something called BroBible? As it turns out, the site that calls itself the best place for all the world's bros to gather on the internet -- which sounds horrible -- has created a bit of interest after BroBible editor David Covucci filed an FOIA request with the CIA for a listing of the pornography the government has long claimed it found in the Pakistani compound where the Osama bin Laden raid occurred.

It's been just over a year since the ridiculous and dangerous ruling in the EU that said that there was a form of a "right to be forgotten" for individuals who don't like the Google results on their names. We've spent plenty of time discussing why this is such a bad ruling, so we won't necessarily repeat them now. With no other recourse, Google began implementing it, but for Europe only. Since then, there's been an ongoing push by some to say Google needs to enforce it globally, even in the US where such an interpretation of the law is clearly unconstitutional. Last July, soon after the initial ruling, there were rumblings that EU regulators wanted Google to expand the enforcement globally (and to stop telling publications that their links had been flushed down the memory hole). And, in December, the EU's "data protection" group made a similar argument.

Let's start with this. Soon after Daniel Ellsberg was revealed as the source behind the Pentagon Papers, White House officials started spreading rumors that Ellsberg was actually a Soviet spy and that he'd passed on important secrets to the Russians: None of it was true, but it was part of a concerted effort by administration officials to smear Ellsberg as a "Soviet spy" and a "traitor" when all he really did was blow the whistle on things by sharing documents with reporters.

After the first wave of Snowden revelations two years ago, one of the most dramatic later claims was that the NSA had been monitoring the calls of Germany's Chancellor, Angela Merkel. As Techdirt reported at the time, the US government made things worse by emphasizing that it was not presently monitoring her calls, and promised not to monitor them in the future, while leaving the obvious question about past activity glaringly unanswered. Matters were not improved when President Obama then claimed that he had known nothing about the spying. No wonder, then, that a formal investigation into the allegations was launched by Germany in June 2014. Since then, things went rather quiet, which makes news that Germany’s chief federal prosecutor is dropping the case because of lack of evidence rather surprising. As Reuters reports:

Recently, Bell seems to have woken up to the fact that lots of people use VPNs to access Netflix in other markets — and has decided that's a terrible thing. This week, they urged the public to shame such users, prompting both our first and second place comments for insightful this week. First, it's an anonymous commenter pointing out just how absurd this whole thing has gotten:

Five Years Ago There was a whole lot of copyright news this week in 2010. The organizers of a Bulgarian chess tournament were suing over a copyright on chess moves, copyright was holding back research, and a top public school was seeking to copyright and sell its curriculum. Armenia decided it needed incredibly strict copyright laws while the IFPI was complaining that Canada's new copyright laws weren't strict enough, and a Spanish court (not the first) found file-sharing to be legal. One US court smacked down a lawyer for bad faith pursuit of copyright infringement, while another was expressing skepticism over US Copyright Group's lumping together of cases (while many of the targets claimed innocence). We considered a key question about whether the RIAA's lawsuits had been a "success" while some took a closer look at the association's rise and fall (debunking the idea that it was all about Napster), and Thom Yorke was pinning the lifespan of record labels in the months, not years. Also in need of debunking was the claim that unauthorized handheld games cost the economy tens of billions, not to mention Authors Guild president Scott Turow's freakout about book piracy. Amidst all this, we asked a simple question: is intellectual property immoral? Ten Years Ago Five years earlier, press in the UK was happily parroting the recording industry's spin on everything while the country's new creative minister was trying to increase the copyright term for pop songs lest Elvis hit the public domain. Apple's iTunes store was taking on the file-sharing networks (though it wasn't clear to what extent) and people were beginning to notice the curious copyright questions surrounding wedding photography. The Apple-Intel rumours finally graduated to an official announcement (and some wondered if Apple might sue CNET over the early leak). Journalists at the WSJ got a taste of working without email when their system went down, and AOL finally dipped its toes into the web with a free email service and portal. Firefox was gaining ground in the browser wars, United became the first domestic airline to offer in-flight Wi-Fi, and the FCC bumped up the deadline for TV broadcasts to go digital. Also this week in 2005, Congress was moving forward with a patent reform bill that was mostly bad with a little good thrown in, while we highlighted an economic analysis of why patents are inefficient in emerging markets. Fifteen Years Ago All eyes were on the dot-com world this week in 2000. With a sudden emphasis on actually making money ruining a lot of people's fun, startups were furiously racing to profitability while still advertising on every surface they could find (the latest: shopping bags). But not everything works out — sometimes acquisitions fail, and sometimes dot-coms collapse and are tough to liquidate. A judge handed down the first ruling that Microsoft must be broken up this week in 2000, while IBM was trying to revive its PC business. CBS, meanwhile, laid off a quarter of its internet staff.The UK government was losing track of its laptops and struggling to understand what meta-tags were. The first major mobile phone worm appeared in the wild, leading antivirus companies to immediately start peddling protection (not that they ever blow anything out of proportion or anything like that). More and more men were seeking wives online, while at least one internet dater found himself victim of a carjacking scheme. Thirty-Eight Years Ago I know many Techdirt readers have fond memories of the Apple II, one of the first truly successful personal computers. Well, it was on June 10th, 1977 that the very first Apple II computers went on sale. The machine's number one hook was its color graphics, which were practically unheard of at its price-point and attracted a lot of consumer attention.

A couple weeks ago, I discussed how some bad implementation choices raised serious questions about an otherwise-cool digital crossfader for DJs. This week, we're looking at OWOW, a set of digital music controllers that are far more robust and actually make a lot of smart, musician-friendly choices in their design. The Good The OWOW devices all look pretty cool, even if they aren't all revolutionary. One essentially serves as a theremin, one as a tiny drum pad, two as neat handheld motion controllers, and the most innovative of the lot: a scanner that converts lines you draw freehand on paper into music. All of them are extremely compact, and the scanner is (to my knowledge) entirely unique. None are standalone instruments, though — they serve as controllers for digital music software. But unlike the aforementioned crossfader, these devices are designed for maximum compatibility with everything in that world (they appear to use MIDI-over-USB) rather than being tied down to a proprietary, platform-specific app. When combined with studio software like Reason or Ableton, these might be very powerful and would at least be a lot of fun. But perhaps the most interesting thing about OWOW is the choice to offer two versions of the devices: one full formed with a sleek aluminum casing, and one at a lower price that is just the raw circuit board on its own. The open circuit will work just fine by itself (and many aficionados of synthesizers and other gear are happy to work with some exposed boards around), and the designers are also supplying free schematics for 3D printing your own casing. The OWOW instruments, like all such devices, aren't cheap — and the DIY offering is a great way to help out musicians operating on a budget and support the maker-musician community. The Bad Funky-looking little high-tech MIDI controllers actually come along quite often, and only a handful turn out to be truly useful. Based on the video and the norm for such controllers, there's a good chance there will be some responsiveness issues, but whether these will be "occasionally annoying" or "crippling" is uncertain. With a new digital music device like this, you can never be entirely sure whether it's a tool or a toy until you've tried it out yourself. It remains to be seen whether some or all of the OWOW instruments are really worth the price — but, so far, they are ticking all the boxes and then some. The Clever There's one other thing worth noting about the OWOW: a creative approach to Kickstarter fundraising that I've never seen before. While most projects for higher-price devices like this fill out their lower backer tiers with stickers and T-shirts and other secondary gear for people who want to support but not buy, OWOW is offering up a five-euro mobile game for iOS and Android. The hook? The player with the top score in the mobile game at the end of the campaign will get a complete set of all five instruments for free. That strikes me as a fantastic way to engage backers and offer low-budget supporters a good reason to buy, and I won't be surprised if that tactic starts to catch on in the world of crowdfunding.