ACTA, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, is a punishing, secretly negotiated copyright treaty that could send ordinary people to jail for copyright infringement. ACTA would establish a new international legal framework that countries can join on a voluntary basis and would create its own governing body outside existing international institution. ACTA has been negotiated in secret during the past few years.
Sounds somewhat worrying to me. ACTA has several features that raise significant potential concerns for consumers’ privacy and civil liberties for innovation and the free flow of information on the Internet legitimate commerce. What is ACTA? document gives details on the agreement. The EU will soon vote on ACTA.
La Quadrature ACTA web page says that ACTA would impose new criminal sanctions forcing Internet actors to monitor and censor online communications. It is seen as a major threat to freedom of expression online and creates legal uncertainty for Internet companies. For some details read La Quadrature’s analysis of ACTA’s digital chapter.
La Quadrature du Net – NO to ACTA video (one side of the view):
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) has published “Speak out against ACTA“, stating that the ACTA threatens free software by creating a culture “in which the freedom that is required to produce free software is seen as dangerous and threatening rather than creative, innovative, and exciting.
ACTA has been negotiated in secret during the past few years. It seem that nobody can objectively tell us what ACTA is going to do. You should oppose it for this exact reason. What exactly it will do is so multi-faceted and so deeply buried in legal speak it requires a book or two to explain.
If you don’t like this you need to do something on that quick. The European Parliament will soon decide whether to give its consent to ACTA, or to reject it once and for all. Based on the information (maybe biased view) I have read I hope the result will be rejection.
Another worrying related thing is Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). The bill expands the ability of U.S. law enforcement and copyright holders to fight online trafficking in copyrighted intellectual property and counterfeit goods. The bill would authorize the U.S. Department of Justice to seek court orders against websites in U.S. and outside U.S. jurisdiction accused of infringing on copyrights, or of enabling or facilitating copyright infringement. Proponents of the bill say it protects the intellectual property market. Opponents say it is censorship, that it will “break the internet”, cost jobs, and will threaten whistleblowing and other free speech.
I don’t like this SOPA plan at all, because the language of SOPA is so broad, the rules so unconnected to the reality of Internet technology and the penalties so disconnected from the alleged crimes. In this form according what I have read this bill could effectively kill lots of e-commerce or even normal Internet use in it’s current form. Trying to put a man-in-the-middle into an end-to-end protocol is a dumb idea. This bill affects us all with the threat to seize foreign domains. It is frankly typical of the arrogance of the US to think we should all be subject their authority.
749 Comments
Tomi Engdahl says:
Which one is counterfeit?
Identifying phony electrical products can save lives and profits
http://www.controleng.com/single-article/which-one-is-counterfeit/318a11f82622cf3b7c67e5b32bed1237.html
By definition, a counterfeit is a product, service, or package for a product that uses, without authorization, the trademark, service mark, or copyright of another intended to deceive prospective customers into believing that the product or service is genuine. This makes detecting the difference between a counterfeit and authentic product difficult.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Comcast Developing Anti-Piracy Alternative to ‘Six Strikes’ (Exclusive)
http://variety.com/2013/digital/news/comcast-developing-anti-piracy-alternative-to-six-strikes-exclusive-1200572790/
Cable operator pitching TV industry on plan to convert illegal downloads to legal transaction opportunities
Comcast Corp. is developing a new approach to fighting piracy in the U.S., and wants other major content companies and distributors on board.
The owner of the nation’s largest cable operator has begun preliminary discussions with both film and TV studios and other leading Internet service providers about employing technology, according to sources, that would provide offending users with transactional opportunities to access legal versions of copyright-infringing videos as they’re being downloaded.
Comcast is said to be keen on getting content owners and ISPs from outside the conglomerate to join the effort, even for a beta trial that would be concentrated to a limited selection of programs and Internet subscribers. No timetable has been set, however.
As sources described the new system, a consumer illegally downloading a film or movie from a peer-to-peer system would be quickly pushed a pop-up message with links to purchase or rent the same content, whether the title in question exists on the VOD library of a participating distributor’s own broadband network or on a third-party seller like Amazon.
While that may keep Comcast from deriving incremental economic benefit, the new system would still help combat congestion on its broadband network and help drive usage to Xfinity, the MSO’s vast collection of VOD titles available on digital platforms.
Comcast has nearly 40% share of the broadband market among cable operators, totaling approximately 20 million subscribers.
Comcast comes to the piracy problem with a vested interest in more ways than one. In addition to being one of the leading providers of broadband Internet in the U.S., the company also owns a movie studio, Universal Pictures, and myriad broadcast and cable TV channels from NBC to E!. Programmers have long complained that the value of their content has been undermined by copyright infringement.
Tomi says:
US feds: ‘Let’s make streaming copyrighted content a FELONY’
SOPA zombie may creep, undead, out of its deservéd grave
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/08/07/us_government_considering_making_streaming_a_felony/
A report by the US Department of Commerce’s Internet Policy Task Force recommends that the government make the streaming of copyrighted material a felony.
Currently, streaming content is a simple misdemeanor that breaches rules on violation of the public-performance right, but the report recommends upping the penalty to felony status for those who push out audio and video material for which they haven’t paid royalties.
prior call for increased penalties was contained in the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)
Tomi Engdahl says:
SOPA died in 2012, but Obama administration wants to revive part of it
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/08/05/sopa-died-in-2012-but-obama-administration-wants-to-revive-part-of-it/
You probably remember the online outrage over the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) copyright enforcement proposal. Last week, the Department of Commerce’s Internet Policy Task Force released a report on digital copyright policy that endorsed one piece of the controversial proposal: making the streaming of copyrighted works a felony.
As it stands now, streaming a copyrighted work over the Internet is considered a violation of the public performance right. The violation is only punishable as a misdemeanor, rather than the felony charges that accompany the reproduction and distribution of copyrighted material.
Tomi says:
The Pirate Bay Launches Browser To Evade ISP Blockades
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/13/08/10/1519211/the-pirate-bay-launches-browser-to-evade-isp-blockades
“According to the Pirate Browser website, the browser is basically a bundled package consisting of the Tor client and Firefox Portable browser.”
Tomi says:
France’s $16M Anti-Piracy Agency Has Sent Two Million Warnings, But Only Fined Two People
http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/08/frances-anti-piracy-agency-has-sent-2-million-warnings-following-three-strikes-law/
Anti-piracy agency Hadopi just broke a record. In less than three years, it has sent more than 2 million warning emails for copyright infringement. Warning emails are just the first strike in the “three strike” scheme. After that, it sends you registered snail mail, and finally it takes you to court. Yet, only four people were convicted.
With a budget of $16 million (€12 million) for 2012 alone, the agency managed to fine two people for a grand total of $1,000.
Back in 2012, then presidential candidate François Hollande was reluctant to say that the Hadopi would end with his presidency.
the government put Pierre Lescure in charge to find an alternative
Quincy Laudadio says:
I can’t imagine a protagonist darker than Walter White
Tomi Engdahl says:
Copyright Troll Ran Pirate Bay Honeypot, Comcast Confirms
http://torrentfreak.com/copyright-troll-ran-pirate-bay-honeypot-comcast-confirms-130815/
Evidence is stacking up that Prenda Law has been operating a honeypot in order to lure Internet users into downloading copyrighted material. A subpoena just returned by Comcast confirms that a Pirate Bay user called “Sharkmp4″ is directly linked to the infamous anti-piracy law firm. The case is controversial in many ways, not least because The Pirate Bay actively helped to expose the copyright troll in question.
Prenda Law has been running into all sorts of trouble lately.
The report hinted that the law firm was seeding the very files they claimed to protect, and found that many of the torrents detailed in Prenda lawsuits originate from a user on The Pirate Bay called ‘Sharkmp4′.
In an effort to expose the alleged honeypot, The Pirate Bay then jumped in and revealed the IP-addresses that ‘Sharkmp4′used to upload the torrent files.
The revelations above are the first solid proof of copyright trolls operating a honeypot scheme on The Pirate Bay, or any other BitTorrent site for that matter.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Site blocked for legal reasons
http://www.451unavailable.org/
Courts can order your Internet Service Provider to block certain websites.
ISPs often don’t say why a website is blocked and court orders are rarely voluntarily published. So when sites are blocked, it’s really hard to find out why.
451 Unavailable is here to help ISPs make it clear why websites are blocked and to encourage courts to publish blocking orders.
Can you help to shine light on Internet censorship?
Tomi Engdahl says:
Microsoft DMCA takedown requests targeting OpenOffice
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/08/16/microsoft_dmca_takedown_requests_targeting_openoffice/
The vigilant folk at TorrentFreak think they’ve found something odd: among the hundreds of thousands of sites Microsoft has recently asked Google not to index are requests to remove references to sites that in no way infringe Microsoft’s rights but instead mention the the free OpenOffice suite.
TorrentFreak’s report on the matter links to several documents that chillingefects.org says are actual requests from Microsoft to Google.
Tomi says:
Syrian Electronic Army ‘Hack’ Of The NYTimes Was The Exact Remedy MPAA Demanded With SOPA
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130828/15432924343/syrian-electronic-army-hack-nytimes-was-exact-remedy-mpaa-demanded-with-sopa.shtml
There were many, many concerns related to SOPA and PIPA when they were proposed, but the absolute biggest was the use of DNS blocking as a “remedy” against sites where it was alleged that infringement was a primary purpose. Of course, as tons of technology experts points out, any form of DNS filtering or redirecting would be a security nightmare and would do almost nothing to actually stop infringement.
As you may have heard, this week the Syrian Electronic Army was effectively able to “take down” nytimes.com by engaging in a bit of DNS hacking, which was really nothing more than a DNS redirect. As Rob Pegoraro points out, this is the same basic remedy that the MPAA wanted so badly with SOPA.
So it’s somewhat ineffective for blocking (though, very effective for drawing much more attention to what you want blocked). It was a dumb idea by the technologically illiterate folks at the MPAA to suggest a form of DNS hacking as any kind of remedy to copyright infringement, and the NY Times redirect hack just made that even clearer.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Research Shows “Three Strikes” Anti-piracy Laws Don’t Work
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/13/09/09/2316211/research-shows-three-strikes-anti-piracy-laws-dont-work
“Graduated response regimes that warn and then penalize users for infringing file sharing do not appear to work, new research from Monash University in Australia has found. “
Tomi Engdahl says:
Evaluating Graduated Response
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2322516
Abstract:
It has been more than three years since the first countries began implementing ‘graduated responses’, requiring ISPs to take a range of measures to police their users’ copyright infringements. Graduated responses now exist in a range of forms in seven jurisdictions. Right-holders describe them as ‘successful’ and ‘effective’ and are agitating for their further international roll-out. But what is the evidence in support of these claims?
After providing a detailed snapshot of the structure and application of graduated response schemes in France, New Zealand, Taiwan, South Korea, the U.K., Ireland and the U.S., the paper synthesizes the available evidence regarding the efficacy of the various arrangements, and then evaluates the extent to which they are actually achieving the copyright law’s aims.
The analysis demonstrates that, judged against these measures, there is little to no evidence that that graduated responses are either ‘successful’ or ‘effective’. The analysis casts into doubt the case for their future international roll-out and suggests that existing schemes should be reconsidered.
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Tomi Engdahl says:
RIAA Wants Web Browsers to Block Pirate Sites, And More
http://torrentfreak.com/riaa-wants-web-browsers-to-block-pirate-sites-and-more-130918/
Later today RIAA CEO Cary Sherman will outline his organization’s vision for increased cooperation between copyright holders and service providers. Sherman will seek agreements with user-generated content sites and promote a new understanding of the DMCA. File-hosting sites should be required to scan incoming links for piracy and search engines such as Google will be expected to do more, including fitting Chrome with systems to block infringing sites and divert users to official sources.
After more than a decade of aggressive anti-piracy actions directed through the courts, the world’s largest entertainment companies are now looking to forge less confrontational partnerships with companies in the technology sector.
“The CAS is still in the initial implementation stages and proper metrics are being determined. But feedback so far has been positive and it is worth noting that P2P content protection programs in other countries have been found to have an impact on either the amount of unauthorized P2P activity or on sales,” Sherman will note.
Another area of cooperation highlighted are agreements with payment processors including Visa, Mastercard, Amex, Discover and PayPal, which sees processors terminate their relationship with a website if it continually offers illegitimate content.
After highlighting progress in restricting advertising revenue to “rogue sites” and cautiously welcoming anti-piracy provisions relating to the rolling out of new Top Level Domains, Sherman will move on to the issue of User Generated Content.
The RIAA hopes that it can breathe new life into the six-year-old deal which will see parties:
- Implement fingerprinting technology to filter out unauthorized video and audio
- Provide copyright holders with “enhanced searching and identification means.”
- Work to identify “predominantly infringing” sites and block their links
- Track, identify and ban repeat infringers while “accommodating fair use”
Perhaps unsurprisingly the RIAA still has plenty of criticism for search engines such as Google, who it accuses of doing little to help with infringement. The music group says it wants engines to look at whether sites are “authorized” or not when it determines how they are placed in results.
“Google has tools in its Chrome browser to warn users if they are going to sites that may be malicious. Shouldn’t that technology be used to warn users of rogue sites?” Sherman will ask.
“Or better yet, can Google use similar technology to highlight or identify sites that are authorized?”
It’s no secret that the RIAA is disappointed with how the DMCA has panned out. The music group feels that scanning millions of websites and sending notices is an unfair burden for rightsholders and a position that needs to improve.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sizing the piracy universe
http://www.netnames.com/sizing_the_piracy_universe
Worldwide, 432.0m unique internet users explicitly sought infringing content during January 2013.
Internet usage continues to grow at a rapid pace; and with it, so does internet-based infringement.
The practise of infringement is tenacious and persistent. Despite some discrete instances of success in limiting infringement, the piracy universe not only persists in attracting more users year on year but hungrily consumes increasing amounts of bandwidth.
Across North America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific, 327.0m unique internet users explicitly sought infringing content during January 2013. This figure represents 25.9% of the total internet user population in these three regions.
In the same three regions, 23.8% of the total bandwidth used by all internet users was consumed by infringing content.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Online piracy of entertainment content keeps soaring
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-fi-ct-piracy-bandwith-20130917,0,1550997.story
The amount of Internet bandwidth used to illegally download movies, TV shows, music, books and video games has jumped 160% since 2010, a study says.
Despite the growth of Netflix, Amazon.com and other legal channels for watching entertainment online, the volume of pirated movies, TV shows, music, books and video games online continues to grow at a rapid pace.
The amount of bandwidth used for copyright infringement in North America, Europe and Asia Pacific has grown nearly 160% from 2010 to 2012, accounting for 24% of total Internet bandwidth, according to a study from NetNames, the British brand protection firm.
At the same time, the number of people engaged in copyright infringement has grown dramatically too. In January2013, 327 million unique users illegally sought copyrighted content, generating 14 billion page views on websites focused on piracy, up 10% from November 2011, according to the report.
Titled “Sizing the Piracy Universe,” the study was commissioned by NBCUniversal, owned by Comcast Corp., and is a similar to one NetNames (formerly Envisional) conducted in 2011.
“While legitimate services have come along like Netflix, the piracy world hasn’t stood still,” said David Price, director of piracy analysis at NetNames. “People are infringing all kinds of content, including films, television, music and games. Over 300 million people infringed copyright at least once. That’s an enormous number of people. It just shows how embedded this particular activity has become in people’s lives.”
The results underscore the challenges Hollywood studios, music companies and other industries face in their long-standing efforts to combat piracy, which has spread rapidly along with the growth of Internet usage.
The Motion Picture Assn. of America, which represents the major production companies in Hollywood, mounted an ill-fated effort to crack down on illegal websites through legislation in Congress. But the bills they backed — known as SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect IP Act) — died in Congress in 2012 after a massive opposition campaign led by Google Inc., Wikipedia and other Internet giants that viewed the laws as an unwarranted intrusion on Internet freedom.
Payment processors — including PayPal, Visa and American Express — agreed in 2011 to a set of best practices to investigate complaints and stop processing transactions for sites that distribute counterfeit and pirated goods. And last year, Google said it was modifying its search engine to penalize websites suspected of hosting pirated movies, music, video games and other copyrighted material.
But such actions have done little to slow the spread of online piracy, which has accelerated as Internet bandwidth has grown worldwide and as illegal sites improve their customer experience, Price said.
“At the moment it hasn’t had a major effect at all in terms of how easy it is to locate infringed content,” Price said.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Understanding the Role of Search in Online Piracy
Prepared by Millward Brown Digital for the MPAA
http://www.mpaa.org/Resources/38bc8dba-fe31-4a93-a867-97955ab8a357.pdf
The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) commissioned Compete to assess the role search plays in how US and UK consumers find copyright infringing copies of TV and film content on the internet.
The study identifies that:
•
Overall, search engines influenced 20% of the sessions in which consumers accessed infringing TV or
film content online between 2010 and 2012.
1
•
Search is an important resource for consumers when they seek new content online, especially for
the first time. 74% of consumers surveyed cited using a search engine as either a discovery or
navigational tool in their initial viewing sessions on domains with infringing content.
•
Consumers who view infringing TV or film content for the first time online are more than twice as likely
to use a search engine in their navigation path as repeat visitors.
•
The majority of search queries that lead to consumers viewing infringing film or TV content do not
contain keywords that indicate specific intent to view this content illegally. 58% of queries that
consumers use prior to viewing infringing content contain generic or title-specific keywords only,
indicating that consumers who may not explicitly intend to watch the content illegally ultimately do so
online. Additionally, searchers are more likely to rely on generic or title-specific keywords in their first
visit than on subsequent visits.
•
For the infringing film and TV content URLs measured, the largest share of search queries that lead to
these URLs (82%) came from the largest search engine, Google.
•
The share of referral traffic from Google to sites included in the Google Transparency Report remained
flat in the three months following the implementation of Google’s “signal demotion” algorithm in August
2012.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Downloading Is Mean! Content Industry Drafts Anti-Piracy Curriculum for Elementary Schools
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/09/mpaa-school-propaganda/
Listen up children: Cheating on your homework or cribbing notes from another student is bad, but not as bad as sharing a music track with a friend, or otherwise depriving the content-industry of its well-earned profits.
That’s one of the messages in a new-school curriculum being developed with the Motion Picture Association of America, the Recording Industry Association of America and the nation’s top ISPs, in a pilot project to be tested in California elementary schools later this year.
A near-final draft of the curriculum, obtained by WIRED, shows that it comes in different flavors for every grade from kindergarten through sixth, to keep pace with your developing child’s ability to understand that copying is theft, period.
“This thinly disguised corporate propaganda is inaccurate and inappropriate,” says Mitch Stoltz, an intellectual property attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, who reviewed the material at WIRED’s request.
“It suggests, falsely, that ideas are property and that building on others’ ideas always requires permission,” Stoltz says. “The overriding message of this curriculum is that students’ time should be consumed not in creating but in worrying about their impact on corporate profits.”
The material was prepared by the California School Library Association and the Internet Keep Safe Coalition in conjunction with the Center For Copyright Infringement, whose board members include executives from the MPAA, RIAA, Verizon, Comcast and AT&T.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google Removes ‘BitTorrent’ From Piracy Search Filter
http://torrentfreak.com/google-removes-bittorrent-from-piracy-search-filter-130924/
To reduce online piracy Google has implemented several changes to its search engine in recent years. Among other things, the search engine blacklisted dozens of piracy-related terms from appearing in its Autocomplete and Instant services. Both ‘BitTorrent’ and ‘uTorrent’ were included from the start, but TorrentFreak has learned that Google recently unbanned these keywords, resulting in a sharp increase in search traffic.
For two years Google has been filtering “piracy-related” terms from its ‘Autocomplete‘ and ‘Instant‘ services.
While no webpages are removed from Google’s index, there is sharp decrease in searches for these terms.
The full list of banned words also remains secret, but we do know that the search terms BitTorrent and uTorrent were included from the start. Both words are trademarks of San Francisco-based BitTorrent Inc. and the company was rather disappointed that Google labeled them as “piracy related.”
Over the past several months BitTorrent Inc. has continuously emphasized that BitTorrent does not equal piracy, and a recent upgrade to Google’s search filter show that this effort has paid off. Both BitTorrent and uTorrent are now absent from Google’s piracy filter and as a result searches for both terms spiked, resulting in an increase in visitors to the respective sites.
“This is almost certainly a result of that improving understanding helped by products like BitTorrent Bundle and BitTorrent Sync. They help those who are confused about BitTorrent understand that it is not a piracy website,” a BitTorrent Inc. spokesperson told TorrentFreak.
As far as we’re aware this is the first time that Google has removed terms from its search filter. Interestingly, Megaupload still remains blocked even though the site has been offline for nearly two years.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Research: piracy to help the creative industries
http://www.tietoviikko.fi/kaikki_uutiset/selvitys+piratismi+auttaa+luovia+aloja/a935783
Consumers copyright violations do not impair the creative sector, such as the music and entertainment industry claim, it turns out fresh at The London School of Economics and Political Science report .
According to the report the creative industry’s turnover is not squeezed consumers’ individual copyright violations.
In addition, private illegal to copy the actions taken have not brought the benefits that music and entertainment industry has claimed.
According to the report sharing culture the other hand, there are several benefits of creative industries.
Consumer habits are changing
Traditional recording media, such as CDs, are now even less inclined to sell. Cutout of net sales, however, eliminate the digital sales, subscription and streaming services as well as concerts.
The report shows that the entertainment industry is doing really well
Concerts popularity has definitely increased at the very time when the recorded sales have fallen. The sale in 1998 was nearly $ 35 billion worldwide. In 2011, records were sold in just slightly over 16 billion dollars. But at the same time, concerts, sales have increased by 10 billion dollars to more than $ 25 billion.
Since 1998, the music industry’s total turnover has increased by up to 49 billion dollars in 2011 to almost 60 billion dollars.
Report:
LSE MPP Policy Brief 9 Copyright and Creation
http://www.scribd.com/doc/172985274/LSE-MPP-Policy-Brief-9-Copyright-and-Creation
KEY MESSAGES
The creative industries are innovating to adapt to a changing digitalculture and evidence does not support claims about overall revenuereduction due to individual copyright infringement.
The experiences of other countries that have implemented punitivemeasures against individual online copyright infringers indicate that theapproach does not have the impacts claimed by some in the creativeindustries.
A review of the UK Digital Economy Act 2010 is needed based onindependent analysis of the social, cultural and political impacts of punitive copyright infringement measures against citizens, and theoverall experience of the creative industries
Tomi Engdahl says:
Piracy Isn’t Killing The Entertainment Industry, Scholars Show
http://torrentfreak.com/piracy-isnt-hurting-the-entertainment-industry-121003/
The London School of Economics and Political Science has released a new policy brief urging the UK Government to look beyond the lobbying efforts of the entertainment industry when it comes to future copyright policy. According to the report there is ample evidence that file-sharing is helping, rather than hurting the creative industries. The scholars call on the Government to look at more objective data when deciding on future copyright enforcement policies.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Many of the most-pirated movies aren’t available for legitimate online purchase
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2013/10/15/people-pirate-movies-because-they-cant-get-legitimate-copies/
Why does movie piracy persist after years of efforts to stamp it out? A new website called PiracyData.org suggests a simple explanation: people pirate movies because they don’t have the option of paying for a legitimate copy online.
Every week, the file-sharing news site TorrentFreak publishes a list of the 10 most pirated movies.
The results are striking. In last week’s results, not a single film was available from streaming from services like Netflix or Amazon Prime. Only three of the top 10 films, The Lone Ranger, After Earth, and This is the End, were available for online rental.
And just six of the top 10 movies were available for online purchase.
Last week’s results were not an anomaly. The PiracyData team has been collecting data for three weeks, and during that period, not a single highly pirated film has been available to stream. And many highly-pirated movies have not been available for rental or download.
“The MPAA is complaining that Google leads people to infringing links,” Brito argues. “But what’s the alternative?” The movies that are available on file-sharing sites, he says, are “very rarely available for legal acquisition.”
Unsurprisingly, MPAA spokesperson Kate Bedingfield disagrees. “Today there are more ways than ever to watch movies and TV shows legally online, and more are constantly being added,” she said in an e-mailed statement. “If a particular film isn’t available for stream or purchase at a given moment, however, it does not justify stealing it from the creators and makers who worked hard to make it.”
Brito insists he’s not trying to excuse piracy. But, he argues, “I don’t understand how the industry is making a big show about Google not taking voluntary measures to help with piracy.”
Hollywood, he says, could “change its business model to take their own voluntary measures to deal with piracy,” by making movies more readily available through legal online channels. If it chooses not to do that, he believes, they have no business complaining that tech companies aren’t doing enough to combat the problem.
Tomi Engdahl says:
isoHunt to Shut Down as Part of Settlement With Studios
http://variety.com/2013/biz/news/isohunt-to-shut-down-as-part-of-settlement-with-studios-1200734509/
The website isoHunt will shut down as part of a settlement in a massive piracy suit filed by Hollywood studios, agreeing to pay $110 million for claims that the site induced the pirating of movies and TV shows.
The settlement terms include a $110 million judgment against isoHunt and its owner, Gary Fung, ending a seven-year legal battle over its operations.
The settlement also prohibits Fung from “further profiting from the infringement of MPAA member studio content.”
Tomi says:
Megaupload Raid ‘Destroyed’ (Way) More Than 10,000,000 Legal Files
http://torrentfreak.com/megaupload-raid-destroyed-more-than-10000000-legal-files-131018/
New research from Boston’s Northeastern University shows that with the shutdown of Megaupload, the U.S. Government took down at least 10.75 million legitimate files. The researchers examined the percentage of legal and copyright-infringing content on six file-hosting services. While infringing content outnumbers legitimate files on all sites, the volume of non-infringing content casts doubt on the drastic seizure that took place early last year.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Piracy site IsoHunt to shut down and pay $110m
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24580130
IsoHunt, a popular website offering BitTorrents of mostly pirated material, is to shut down following a court settlement.
The site’s owner, Canadian Gary Fung, has agreed to pay $110m (£68m) to the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA).
MPAA chairman Chris Dodd said the move was a “major step forward” for legitimate commerce online.
A group of companies, including Disney, Paramount and Twentieth Century Fox, accused the site of wilfully infringing copyright by listing millions of popular movies and TV programmes – in a court battle that has lasted for more than seven years.
Now Mr Fung has agreed to settle. He added: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race and I have remained faithful. 10.5 years of IsoHunt has been a long journey by any business definition and forever in internet start-up time.
He said he did not hold a disregard for the law, and acted upon requests to remove links to pirated content when the company was made aware.
He also said the industry could render sites like IsoHunt obsolete if it offered simultaneous releases worldwide, as well as digital offerings that were cheaper than physical copies.
Their site piracydata.org has been collating the weekly top 10 most-pirated films and investigating whether legal digital methods were available.
They found that half of the movies in the list were not available to access legally online. Furthermore, none of the 10 titles could be streamed – arguably the most straightforward way to consume media online.
Tomi Engdahl says:
MPAA backs anti-piracy curriculum for elementary school students
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-piracy-education-20131111,0,4733402,full.story#axzz2kQBqpZmU
Groups representing Hollywood studios, music labels and Internet service providers are supporting a push to educate elementary school students about the evils of piracy and the value of copyrights.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Google tots up latest tally of takedown requests
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2306506/google-tots-up-latest-tally-of-takedown-requests
That number represents 26,651,973 URL removal requests. This applies to 34,838 domains, and come from 2,030 reporting organisations that represent 3,757 copyright owners.
Degban is the busiest reporting organisation, and working on behalf of 10 companies. It asked that 5,707,198 URLs be taken down. Next is the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), with its 5,418,298 requests, and third is the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), with its 2,938,071 long list of bad URLs.
Google does its best to advise operators about a search deranking, but says its acts quickly on approved takedowns.
“We remove search results that link to infringing content in Search when it is brought to our attention, and we do it quickly. As of December 2012, our average processing time across all removal requests submitted via our web form for Search is approximately 6 hours,” it said.
Some requests are misfires, and Google has listed a few of those.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Wikileaks leaks SECRET copyright treaty: The Trans-Pacific Partnership
DMCA robocops link arms with Monsanto triffids to take over the world in revealed docs
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/11/13/wikileaks_posts_tpp_text/
The text of the secretive Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) isn’t as bad as we thought. It’s worse.
A draft, published by Wikileaks, offers a patent-and-copyright wish-list that would see the infamous DMCA automatic take-downs spread throughout the Pacific, plants and animals become patentable with few restrictions, and pharmaceutical companies empowered to tax citizens by way of patent evergreening.
With political candidacy off the table for now, Wikileaks has returned to the business of publishing leaked documents with a bang: it has posted the current negotiating text of the proposed Trans Pacific Partnership treaty.
The TPP is a document supposed to harmonise intellectual property protections in participating nations – America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Malaysia, Vietnam, Brunei, Singapore, Chile and Peru. Instead, it looks like a an Australia-US-Japan club force-marching the treaty into America’s favoured position on nearly everything, from criminalisation of copyright infringements through to a blank cheque for pharmaceutical companies.
some of the key items include:
Criminalisation of copyright infringement by all signatories;
Stronger DRM and “technological protection measure” regimes;
ISPs to be made liable for copyright infringement on their networks;
A “take it down first, argue later” DMCA-like process for notifying copyright infringements;
Patentable plants and animals;
The evergreening of patents – this has become particularly notorious in the pharmaceutical business, where the repackaging of an out-of-patent medication is used to keep common compounds out of the public domain.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Secret Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP)
https://wikileaks.org/tpp/
Today, 13 November 2013, WikiLeaks released the secret negotiated draft text for the entire TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) Intellectual Property Rights Chapter. The TPP is the largest-ever economic treaty, encompassing nations representing more than 40 per cent of the world’s GDP.
The TPP is the forerunner to the equally secret US-EU pact TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership), for which President Obama initiated US-EU negotiations in January 2013. Together, the TPP and TTIP will cover more than 60 per cent of global GDP.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Think NSA Snooping Is Bad? Check Out MPAA Theater Security
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/11/mpaa-theater-security/
Hollywood studios are urging theater operators to crack down on in-theater camcording with the deployment of night-vision goggles, low-light binoculars and security cameras.
The latest version of the Motion Picture Association of America’s “Best Practices to Prevent Film Theft” (.pdf) also suggests old-school surveillance, like “random bag and jacket checks for prohibited items” and to “observe patrons” when entering the theater.
Camcording and industry leaks are the top methods of choice for movies to find their way to file-sharing sites like The Pirate Bay and on unauthorized DVDs. Camcording is a federal felony carrying a maximum 3 year penalty.
The document also asserts a top rule practiced by all the world’s spy agencies: Trust no one.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The United States is isolated in the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2013/11/18/the-united-states-is-isolated-in-the-trans-pacific-partnership-negotiations/
Last Thursday, WikiLeaks released a draft text of the intellectual property (IP) chapter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement. The TPP is a free-trade agreement currently being negotiated between 12 countries: the United States, Canada, Mexico, Peru, Chile, New Zealand, Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei, Vietnam, and Japan. Like many such trade agreements, the TPP has been negotiated secretly, with access to draft texts provided only to lobbyists and the like. Even Congress feels like it’s been left out. WikiLeaks’s release thus provides an opportunity for academics, public interest groups, and citizens to examine what is being negotiated in their name.
There are a number of excellent analyses of the leaked text
Tomi Engdahl says:
Warner Bros. Admits To Issuing Bogus Takedowns; Gloats To Court How There’s Nothing Anyone Can Do About That
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131118/02152325272/warner-bros-admits-to-issuing-bogus-takedowns-gloats-to-court-how-theres-nothing-anyone-can-do-about-that.shtml
One of the bizarre side notes to Hollywood’s big lawsuit against the cyberlocker Hotfile was a countersuit against Warner Bros. by Hotfile, for using the easy takedown tool that Hotfile had provided, to take down a variety of content that was (a) non-infringing and (b) had nothing to do with Warner Bros. at all (i.e., the company did not hold the copyright on those files). In that case, WB admitted that it filed a bunch of false takedowns, but said it was no big deal because it was all done by a computer. Of course, it then came out that at least one work was taken down by a WB employee, and that employee had done so on purpose, annoyed that JDownloader could help possible infringers download more quickly.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Warner Bros: Our False DMCA Takedowns Are Not a Crime
http://torrentfreak.com/warner-bros-our-false-dmca-takedowns-are-not-a-crime-131115/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
In a few weeks movie studio Warner Bros. will have to defend itself against DMCA fraud and abuse allegations from file-hosting service Hotfile. The two parties are currently preparing for this clash, and in recent filings Warner asks the court to exclude Hotfile’s “perjury” accusation. The movie studio admits that mistakes were made but insists that they’ve committed no crime.
Tomi Engdahl says:
You can’t beat politics with technology, says Pirate Bay cofounder Peter Sunde
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-11/18/peter-sunde-hemlis-political-apathy
Pirate Bay cofounder Peter Sunde spoke to Wired.co.uk about the problems with the file-sharing website in its current form, the “imminent death” of peer-to-peer and the centralised services that leave us open to NSA surveillance. He also urges people to dispel their political apathy to prevent the emergence of a new Stasi-style era of oppression.
“You can’t beat politics with new technology all the time. Sometimes you have to actually make sure that politics are in line with what people want. A lot of people are giving up on politics and thinking they can solve issues with technology. These kind of arrogant behaviours towards the rest of the society are a bit disgusting,” Sunde told Wired.co.uk in a Skype interview.
“We are a community of people, we have politicians that we elect, we can demand that they do things,” he says, “but we are way too lazy to do that today”.
“The distrust of the political system is unhealthy,” he says. Instead of building tools such as Bitcoin, which he believes give “a carte blanche” to politicians and bankers, we should be forcing them to change — in Sunde’s view we should be aiming towards community-owned banks. “We need a revolution instead of a technology evolution.”
The EU isn’t the only grotesque monster. A major looming threat is TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership), another secretly-negotiated trade agreement in the ilk of Acta and Sopa. Instead of taking a whack-a-mole approach to fighting these treaties, we should be more aggressive in enshrining our digital rights in “some sort of internet human rights bill” to prevent TPP from simply reemerging under another guise.
He suggests that people might be apathetic towards politics because “we’ve already given up”. People complained about the NSA surveillance revelations, but “nothing is really happening” — there’s no one storming American embassies. “I worry that we don’t really care about our digital rights any more and we are not fighting for them.”
The Pirate Bay (which Sunde cofounded back in 2003). “I don’t know the people left and I don’t like what I see,” he says, adding that he wishes it had closed down on its tenth birthday in August this year. He said that the lack of new development in the BitTorrent file sharing scene symbolises the “imminent death” of peer-to-peer.
“Sometimes it’s good to burn things so something else comes out of the ashes. Otherwise you get to this stale position.”
“A lot of people say that BitTorrent is good enough, but it doesn’t really matter because the scene itself is dying,” he adds, explaining that there are “no alternatives” to Spotify or Netflix
Tomi Engdahl says:
Telcos can be forced to turn copyright cop, block websites – EU law man
Pirates can be choked… ‘in principle’, advocate general advises
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/11/27/isps_may_be_forced_to_police_copyright_by_blocking_website_says_eu_advocate_general/
ISPs across Europe can be instructed to block websites that provide access to pirated material, an EU advocate general said in a non-binding court opinion published yesterday.
Pedro Cruz Villalón said that telcos can be ordered to, in effect, operate as buffers between their subscribers and site operators who infringe copyright laws in Europe by policing access to that content over their networks.
The Court of Justice opinion in Luxembourg came after Austria’s Supreme Court sought guidance from the EU to determine what role ISPs should play in helping to enforce copyright regulations, following a legal dispute between telco UPC Austria and two film companies in the country.
The advocate general agreed that a telco could be viewed as an intermediary in such a case and said that its services are, in turn, used by copyright infringers.
“A specific blocking measure concerning a specific website is not disproportionate, in principle,” the advocate general added.
Judges in the Court of Justice are not required to be bound by the advocate general’s views. They will deliberate the case before passing judgment over the course of the next few months.
It’s rare for the EU’s highest court to dismiss such opinions, however.
Tomi Engdahl says:
U.S. Government Caught Pirating Military Software, Settles For $50 Million
http://torrentfreak.com/u-s-caught-pirating-military-software-pays-50-million-to-settle-131127/
For years the U.S. military operated pirated copies of logistics software that was used to protect soldiers and shipments in critical missions. Apptricity, the makers of the software, accused the military of willful copyright infringement and sued the Government for nearly a quarter of a billion dollars in unpaid licenses. In a settlement just announced, the Obama administration has agreed to pay $50 million to settle the dispute.
In recent years the U.S. Government has taken an aggressive stance towards copyright infringement, both at home and abroad.
“Piracy is theft, clean and simple,” Vice President Joe Biden said when he announced the Joint Strategic Plan to combat intellectual property theft.
However, at the same time the Vice President was launching the new anti-piracy strategy, software company Apptricity was involved in a multi-million dollar piracy dispute with the Government.
Tomi Engdahl says:
EC trade secrets plans: Infringing kit may be DESTROYED by order
Draft laws: Reverse-engineering still broadly OK, though
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/12/02/eu_plans_to_protect_trade_secrets_unveiled/
Courts could order companies that infringe rivals’ trade secrets to destroy goods developed using that know-how and pay damages under new laws proposed by the European Commission.
The Commission has published a draft Directive on trade secrets in a bid to harmonise the legal framework around the unlawful acquisition, disclosure and use of trade secrets across the EU.
“The existing national rules offer an uneven level of protection across the EU of trade secrets against misappropriation, which jeopardises the smooth functioning of the Internal Market for information and know-how.”
To qualify for protection under the regime, information would have to be secret, have commercial value because of its secrecy and been the subject of “reasonable steps under the circumstances, by the person lawfully in control of the information, to keep it secret”.
Information would be said to be “secret” if “it is not, as a body or in the precise configuration and assembly of its components, generally known among or readily accessible to persons within the circles that normally deal with the kind of information in question”.
Under the framework, businesses would not be said to have unlawfully acquired a rivals’ trade secrets if it obtains that information through “independent discovery or creation” or through “observation, study, disassembly or test of a product or object that has been made available to the public” or that is lawfully in its possession. In addition, other “honest commercial practices” that result in businesses uncovering trade secrets of rivals will be legitimate.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Copyright Takedown Requests to Google Doubled In 2013http://yro.slashdot.org/story/13/12/02/2318244/copyright-takedown-requests-to-google-doubled-in-2013
“Google’s transparency reports show that requests to remove links to copyrighted material rose steadily in 2013. The search giant received 6.5 million requests during the week of November 18, 2013, which is over twice as many as the same week a year ago. Google said it complies with 97 percent of requests.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Judge: MPAA can’t call Hotfile founders “pirates” or “thieves” at trial
MPAA’s first trial against a “cyberlocker” site is scheduled for next week.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/12/judge-mpaa-cant-call-hotfile-founders-pirates-or-thieves-at-trial/
In years past, the Motion Picture Association of America has had success in shutting down peer-to-peer file-sharing sites like Napster, Grokster Kazaa, and recently, Isohunt.
Then the MPAA turned its attention to so-called “cyberlocker” sites that allow for easy sharing of large files, including copyrighted files. In 2011, the group filed a lawsuit against Hotfile and its alleged manager Anton Titov, saying the site had encouraged its users to infringe copyright on a “massive” scale.
“Their files are indeed ‘hot,’ as in ‘stolen,’” said MPAA’s general counsel at the time.
During the Hotfile jury trial, scheduled to begin Monday Dec. 9, MPAA lawyers won’t be allowed to use the terms “piracy,” “theft,” “stealing,” or any derivatives of those words.
“In the present case, there is no evidence that the Defendants (or Hotfile’s founders) are ‘pirates’ or ‘thieves,’ nor is there evidence that they were ‘stealing’ or engaged in ‘piracy’ or ‘theft,’” wrote Hotfile lawyers in arguing for the ban.
MPAA lawyers countered that it would be inappropriate and practically impossible to keep the word “piracy” out of the trial.
A second silver lining for Hotfile is that the company will be allowed to pursue a counterclaim against Warner for certain improper DMCA takedown notices.
If the case doesn’t settle in the next week, it will be an interesting trial.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hotfile settles MPAA copyright case, agrees to $80 million in damages
Hotfile users made more than 2.9 billion downloads during the site’s lifetime.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/12/hotfile-settles-copyright-case-will-accept-80-million-judgment/
Six days before movie studios were set to begin a jury trial over alleged copyright violations by the “cyberlocker” site Hotfile, the case has settled. Hotfile has agreed to pay $80 million and to stop operating “unless it employs copyright filtering technologies that prevent infringement,” according to a press release sent out today by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA).
The MPAA represents America’s major movie studios, which sued Hotfile over copyright violations in 2011. The case was finally teed up for a trial that was to begin next Monday, December 9. A Friday order by US District Judge Kathleen Williams settled a variety of pre-trial issues, including a ban on MPAA lawyers using “pejorative” terms like “piracy” or “theft.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Public Consultation on the review of the EU copyright rules
http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/consultations/2013/copyright-rules/index_en.htm
All stakeholders are welcome to contribute to this consultation. Contributions are particularly sought from consumers, users, authors, performers, publishers, producers, broadcasters, intermediaries, distributors and other service providers, Collective Management Organisations, public authorities and Member States.
Tomi says:
Dancing Baby Files Opening Brief in DMCA Abuse Appeal
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/12/dancing-baby-files-opening-brief-dmca-abuse-appeal
Tomi Engdahl says:
One European copyright law-to-rule-them-all? EU launches review
Commish seeks ‘industry views’ on harmonising IP laws across Europe
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/12/10/_review_into_eu_copyright_laws_launched/
The European Commission is seeking industry views on whether to completely harmonise copyright laws across the EU.
The Commission has launched a consultation in an effort to gather views on how to modernise the existing EU copyright framework
Respondents are being asked for views on matters ranging from the accessibility of digital content across the trading bloc, limitations and exceptions to copyright protection and remuneration for rights holders.
However, it is also consulting on whether to set copyright rules that apply consistently across the whole of the EU. At the moment there are a number of EU laws governing copyright but which each EU member state have implemented differently.
“Some see this as the only manner in which a truly Single Market for content protected by copyright can be ensured, while others believe that the same objective can better be achieved by establishing a higher level of harmonisation while allowing for a certain degree of flexibility and specificity in Member States’ legal systems,”
The Commission has also asked whether the act of linking to copyrighted material should require the permission of rights-holders. A number of cases are due to be ruled on by the Court of Justice of the EU on this developing area of law, but the Commission has asked whether it should set rules out around linking within new legislation.
“Should the provision of a hyperlink leading to a work or other subject matter protected under copyright, either in general or under specific circumstances, be subject to the authorisation of the right holder?” the Commission has asked.
Respondents are also being asked if EU member states should be required to implement certain limitations or exceptions to copyright rules within national laws.
Tomi Engdahl says:
PIPCU goes global in its pursuit of illegal websites
http://www.cityoflondon.police.uk/CityPolice/Media/News/091213-pipcu-goes-global.htm
A ground-breaking initiative led by the new Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU) to target websites providing unauthorised access to copyrighted content has shown an immediate global impact. Many of the websites generate substantial revenues from advertising.
The work of Operation Creative, designed to tackle internet-enabled crime, has seen 40 national and international websites suspended by domain name registrars.
Operation Creative began in the summer with a partnership between the City of London Police, the UK advertising industry (represented by the Internet Advertising Bureau UK (IAB UK), the Incorporated Society of British Advertisers (ISBA) and the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA)) and rights holders (represented by FACT (Federation Against Copyright Theft), BPI (British Recorded Music Industry), IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry) and The Publishers Association).
Rights holders identified the 61 websites that were providing unauthorised access to copyrighted content. Once illegal activity was confirmed by analysts from the City of London Police, a formal ‘prevention and deterrent’ process began to encourage infringing websites to engage with the Police, to correct their behaviour and to begin to operate legitimately.
Details of those failing to respond to this approach were then passed to a group of 60 brands, agencies and advertising technology businesses with a request to stop advertising on these websites.
“Together we have created a process that first and foremost encourages offenders to change their behaviour so they are operating within the law. However, if they refuse to comply we now have the means to persuade businesses to move their advertising to different platforms and, if offending continues, for registrars to suspend the websites.
“The success of Creative thus far is evidence of a growing international consensus that people should not be allowed to illegally profiteer from the honest endeavours of legitimate business enterprises.”
The UK’s creative sector is a vital driver of the economy, employing over 1.5 million people and driving £36 billion pounds of GVA (gross value added) to the UK economy. Film and TV production in the UK is looked upon as the best in the world and FACT continues to work on behalf of its members to protect jobs and future investment.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
TPP leak: US babies following bathwater down the drain
America has overplayed its hand
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/12/10/leaked_docs_intransigent_america_is_derailing_tpp_process/
America is pushing too hard on too many fronts in the Trans Pacific Partnership treaty negotiations, making it unlikely the treaty will be finalised this year, according to a new round of leaked documents from the recent Salt Lake City meetings.
The latest leaks, posted at Wikileaks, reveal how deeply unpopular some of America’s most treasured TPP positions are.
For example, the US position on Technological Protection Measures (TPMs) is rejected by most of the countries involved in the treaty negotiations: only Australia, Peru, Mexico and Singapore are willing to stand with America.
America is completely isolated on the idea that its “Mickey Mouse law” of copyright terms should be the standard for the TPP treaty.
It appears the US also offered up the idea that signatories should establish “criminal offenses for unintentional infringements of copyright”, something that’s been universally smacked down.
the commentary says there are “serious doubts as to what will happen in Singapore … it will not be possible to conclude this issue in Singapore”.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Is Streaming or Watching Movies Illegal?
By Stephanie Rabiner, Esq. on April 23, 2012 5:02 AM
http://blogs.findlaw.com/law_and_life/2012/04/is-streaming-or-watching-movies-illegal.html
Online streaming is gaining in popularity, and for some, it’s replaced illegal (and legal) downloading altogether. The entertainment industry is undoubtedly annoyed
The answer to this question hinges on whether or not streaming songs — and streaming movies — is illegal for both the viewer and the poster. And as explained below, current law is a bit of a mixed bag.
Is watching streaming movies illegal?
There is currently no definitive answer to this question. Depending on the site and file type, online streaming may create a full-length temporary copy of the movie on your computer. Alternatively, the program may delete the data as you watch.
Some courts have held that even temporary copies may violate the law. However, the Copyright Office contends there is no violation when “a reproduction manifests itself so fleetingly that it cannot be copied, perceived or communicated.”
Though the law is unclear, it is useful to note that owners, such as the MPAA, rarely go after individuals who watch streaming movies. Illegal or not, it’s much more difficult to track these users down. Unlike BitTorrent downloads, the MPAA can’t just sign into a program and snag IP addresses.
Is posting streaming movies illegal?
If you upload a movie and stream it without permission, you’re probably breaking the law. You’re hosting an unauthorized public performance of the film, which violates the owner’s rights. If you make money off of the streaming, the owner can go after you for damages and profits.
Prosecutors can go after you, too. It’s a misdemeanor, punishable by a fine and up to 1 year in jail, to “publicly perform” a copyrighted work without permission.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Panic as Thousands Receive ‘Fines’ For Streaming RedTube Videos
http://torrentfreak.com/panic-as-thousands-receive-fines-for-streaming-redtube-videos-131210/
In recent days thousands of Internet users have received letters demanding 250 euros to settle online copyright infringement allegations. What is particularly strange about this case, however, is that the targets are all said to be users of RedTube, a site that streams video in a way not dissimilar to YouTube. But as panicking users unintentionally DDoS a lawfirm’s website while looking for advice, the mysterious plot continues to thicken.
In countries across Europe and in the United States, copyright holders have targeted hundreds of thousands of Internet users said to have shared their content online without permission.
Often referred to as copyright trolls, these companies place themselves in file-sharing networks and masquerade as regular users, but instead they’re collecting evidence of infringement.
So how did the lawfirm acquire the identities of so many individuals? That question has become the subject of many theories, from IP address-grabbing adverts to malware, to a huge lawsuit forcing RedTube to comply.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Copyright Strikes Again: No Online Access To UK Internet Archive
from the you’re-doing-it-wrong dept
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131217/07042225586/copyright-strikes-again-no-online-access-to-uk-internet-archive.shtml
Last week we wrote about how Norway had come up with a way to provide online access to all books in Norwegian, including the most recent ones, available to anyone in the country. Here, by contrast, is how not to do it, courtesy of publishers in the UK:
The UK is preparing to launch its official internet archive without internet access, after the publishing industry put restrictions on its release.
The archive was held up by a decade of negotiations between publishers and the British Library, meaning that regulations permitting the library to perform its first archive copy of every UK website were not passed until April this year, more than 20 years since the World Wide Web took off and 10 years since Parliament passed a law making it possible.
The British Library gave the first demonstration of the UK internet archive to publishers last week, to demonstrate how it would meet their restrictions that the only people who could see it were those privileged few people eligible for readers’ passes at one of the UK’s six major academic libraries — and only then one at a time, in person, at a terminal in the library.
What’s particularly tragic here is that the ten years of foot-dragging and obstructionism by the British publishers has resulted in a loss of countless millions of older Web pages that are now probably gone for ever — and with them, a key part of the UK’s early digital heritage.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Why the Beatles’ bootleg 1963 album is coming to iTunes Tuesday
http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2013/12/15/apple-itunes-beatles-bootleg/
Two words: Copyright expiration. And then there’s the money.
To Mathis, it’s all about what he sees as the losing battle Apple (AAPL), still wedded to Steve Jobs’ theory that people want to own their music, is waging with Pandora, Spotify, Google Play and the rest of streaming music services.
The truth is both simpler and more cynical. Copyright protection on the 59 hitherto unreleased songs — two hours of outtakes, BBC recordings and demos (track list below) — expires at the end of the December, 50 years after they were recorded.
But thanks to a November revision of European Union intellectual property laws, copyright protection of released songs is extended to 70 years. If Apple Corps, which owns the copyrights, didn’t make these recordings available for sale, every Beatles collector with bootleg MP3 files could legally put out their own album.
As the BBC reported:
Bob Dylan’s record label rushed out 100 copies of an album last year containing early TV performances
Officially called The 50th Anniversary Collection, it carried a subtitle which explained its true purpose: The Copyright Extension Collection, Vol. 1.