Gawker
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copyfight
If You Steal His Books, Stephen King Will Mock You
Writers are getting mad as hell about digital versions of their books getting pirated online. Ursula K. Le Guin and Harlan Ellison will sue you. But we like horror mogul Stephen King's approach: insults! More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by bayktdin: My brother let me read his copy of Cujo when I was in Jr. High, was that piracy? 8 Responses | Other threads
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movies
Oscar Screener Piracy Less Of A Problem, Thanks To Regular Piracy
Since the MPAA tried to ban screeners of Oscar-nominated films over piracy fears in 2003, the risk of those screeners leaking to the Internet has actually fallen, according to research by journalist/programmer/dot-com founder Andy Baio. But a month before the ceremony, all but six of this year's 34 nominated films have been leaked online. Below, how movie studios' fear of piracy (okay, "stealing") was the best thing that happened to pirates. Plus, how a studio's fear of piracy kills a movie's Oscar chances. More »
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By Nick DouglasComment by X on the MTA: i use handbrake to rip every movie netflix sends to me so i can watch them later. Sometimes i download... more » | Other threads
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digital music
Does EMI no longer believe in suing its customers?
Reuters is reporting that EMI, one of the world's four big music-label groups, wants to cut its funding to industry lobby groups, including the RIAA and the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. EMI's "looking at ways to 'substantially' reduce the amount it pays trade groups," as a source puts it to the wire service. This is exactly the kick in the seat of its pants that the music industry needs. More » -
piracy
MPAA learns to pay illegal spies more
The Motion Picture Association of America claims it lost $2.3 billion worldwide to Internet piracy in 2005. So you'd think they'd be willing to spend a couple extra grand to keep some of its more unsavory antipiracy methods quiet. But you'd be wrong. According to a Wired News story, the MPAA signed a $15,000 contract with hacker Mark Anderson to obtain the names, addresses and phone numbers of the owners of P2P site Torrentspy.com. More » -
web 2.0 summit
Google missing from Microsoft's antipiracy announcement
Microsoft and several large media companies — Disney, CBS, NBC Universal, Fox and MySpace, Viacom and Dailymotion — will announce plans this morning to use technology "to eliminate copyright-infringing content uploaded by users to Web sites, and block any infringing material before it is publicly accessible," according to a Wall Street Journal report. The Journal says Google, which separately announced its own automated piracy detector yesterday, isn't part of the group. -
modern and awkward
A Justin.tv "lifecaster," who sports a head-mounted camera wherever he goes, is a huge jerk to a very polite movie-theater manager who asks him to remove his camera when he enters the theatre. Then he gets worked up and defensive when people call him out for his rude behavior. Ah yes, this must be what Al Gore envisioned when he invented the Internet. [TechCrunch]
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Comment by pseudonym: I mean -- She sees a guy wearing a camera, why would she assume that he'd turn it off and... more » | Other threads
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copyfight
The RIAA wins a round
Jammie Thomas, the woman who file-sharers and legitimate music purchasers alike hoped would end the tirades of the Recording Industry Association of America was found guilty of copyright infringement and slapped with a $222,000 fine. Capitol Records v. Jammie Thomas, the first file-sharing case to actually go to trial, was a rallying point for anyone wishing to listen to music without automatically being deemed a criminal. The case revealed that the industry's lawsuits were, for the most part, a big, costly, unsubstantiated waste of time. But, alas for Thomas, not in this case. The victory will no doubt help the RIAA scare more people it accuses of file sharing into settling out of court. (Photo by Martin Belam) -
copyfight
File-sharing lawsuits are mere shock and awe
The record industry, according to a Sony executive testifying in the court case of Capitol Records v. Jammie Thomas, is losing millions taking alleged file sharers to court for crimes whose damage it can't assess. So, let's review: The record industry can't identify who's sharing files, can't account for how much an incident of piracy costs them, and can't explain to its customers why it's suing them. Is this any way to run a business — by bluffing?(Photo by P.B. Rage)
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Comment by macbeach: If I ran Sony, I'd just fire everyone and start over. It's like an entire company composed of Steve... more » | Other threads
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file-sharing
If you keep stealing movies, you'll never be a star
The Motion Picture Association of America has, for years, attempted to stop rampant piracy through cheesy, guilt-inducing public service announcements. "You're not just stealing from the rich, you're stealing from the janitors too" — that sort of thing. Well, the Brits have decided its film industry can only tackle its $18 billion piracy problem by targeting the young. Film Education, as the project is called, infiltrates classrooms to convince kids that piracy is evil by preying on their future hopes and dreams. The message: All those small, independent films that might launch your career in show biz won't get made because of your thieving ways.
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Comment by GrayBird: so it's like DARE only with piracy? thats a good idea considering DARE is proven to work sooooo well.... more » | Other threads
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file-sharing
The Pirate Bay takes on corporate raiders
Amidst all the hubbub about MediaDefender — the file-sharing policing agency whose private email files were recently spewed across the Internet, revealing unsavory antipiracy plans — one particularly interesting tidbit has bubbled to the surface. The Pirate Bay, a major file-sharing site, says it now has proof from those files that the music and movie industries have been paying hackers to attack the site. It is now taking this information to the police and charging the Swedish arms of Fox, EMI Music, Universal, Paramount, Atari, Activision, Ubisoft and Sony with technical sabotage, denial-of-service attacks, hacking, and spamming. -
digital music
Too lazy to do research, Canada looks up piracy stats on Wikipedia
Apparently digital-music piracy isn't as prevalent as we thought. Canada's Royal Mounted Police simply made up the fact that the country loses $30 billion to software piracy. We thought only gossip blogs did that kind of thing. The figure, a jumble of Internet research and corporate propaganda from the International Anti-Counterfeiting Coalition (members include the Recording Industry Association of America, the Motion Picture Association of America, and the Software & Information Industry Association), has helped shore up Canada's anti-piracy laws. Let this be a lesson to you kids: Don't always believe what you read on the Internet. Even if the Mounties wrote it. -
quotable
"That's Jeff Gaspin, the president of the NBC Universal Television Group. So his number-one priority is piracy. Not making high-quality shows. Not forging a sponsorship or advertising model that is less annoying and distracting to viewers, such that they (the viewers) would be less likely to want to fast-forward the advertising messages. No, piracy, that's his top priority." — Blogger John Gruber, reacting to Gaspin's statement that "priacy was and is our no. 1 priority." [Daring Fireball]
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By Owen ThomasComment by fatbastard: This guy runs the TV group right? He's worried about people "stealing" stuff that's broadcast over the air for free? I... more » | Other threads
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Comment by Acererak: If you check Media Defender's e-mail logs, you'll find that Reznor's latest album, "Year Zero," and its accompanying ARG marketing... more » | Other threads
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porn
The porn industry is hard up for solutions to the piracy problem
This may be the best headline ever written. In the history of the world. Enough said. [Ars Technica]
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Comment by World of Warcraft Map Guy: link to the article: [arstechnica.com] more » | Other threads
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piracy
Almost 100 percent of digital music downloads in China are illegally acquired, reports BusinessWeek. Search engines Baidu and Yahoo China both offer MP3-specific searches alongside traditional image and video queries. [BusinessWeek] -
digital music
AllofMP3 rises from the grave to haunt record labels
You've got to applaud those wily Russians behind music download site AllofMP3. They're clearly not afraid to spit in the faces of American copyright lawyers. Shut down by the Russian government so the country could enter the World Trade Organization, AllofMP3 has reportedly continued under the new name MP3sparks.com. But now that the site's owner Denis Kvasov was ruled not guilty of copyright infringement in Russian courts, AllofMP3 is getting ballsy. The site has reopened, and although no downloads are yet available, it's promising to be back in operation soon. -
file sharing
Comcast cracks down on actual use of its broadband
Update below. Cable-TV and Internet provider Comcast is fighting back against customers who are rampant file sharers, TorrentFreak says. Reportedly the broadband Internet service provider has slowly ramped up monitoring of peer-to-peer network traffic, and now, using traffic-management services, it's preventing BitTorrent users from connecting to anyone outside the Comcast network. This would almost be commendable if its motivation was to crack down on piracy, but TorrentFreak suggests that Comcast is just being cheap. One anonymous Internet engineer says that just because you pay for a connection, doesn't mean you actually get to abuse it. Or, some might say, actually get to use it. What's next? Policing online-video sites, or bandwidth-intensive real-time videogames? You get what you pay for — except when you don't. More »
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Comment by sample032: Throttling isn't quite the same as blocking packets of a certain type. more » | Other threads
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digital music
The Recording Industry Association of America just sent out a batch of letters to universities offering to let their students admit to music piracy and settle claims before record labels start suing them. But the RIAA's not the only one capable of mass legal action. A former defendant in a music-copyright lawsuit is hoping to turn her case into a class action lawsuit for all wrongly sued or threatened by the RIAA, claiming that it "conducts illegal, flawed and negligent investigations." [Ars Technica] -
hires
Can a Yahoo rescue Veoh from its pirate founder?
Veoh, the overhyped, piracy-riddled online-video site, has hired Steve Mitgang, a former SVP at Yahoo. Mitgang, one of the myriad of Yahoos who's taking credit for its Project Panama online-ad system, may be a suit well-suited to make Veoh friendlier to advertisers. Not an easy task. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by devotee: All the Veoh haters should remember that it is not easy to blow through $40 million, have pirated content and... more » | Other threads
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deathwatch
Veoh still beneath Viacom's notice
Though video sharing site Veoh would desperately love to get some Youtube-level attention, they can't even get it via copyright infringement. CNET darkly titles this Veoh article "A new copyright battlefield," based primarily on Veoh's offer to host long-form video (like whole TV shows and movies!). All they can find is a straight-to-video Disney movie (since removed) and a soccer match. However, searching on "daily show" or "colbert report" reveals a few dozen clips, all undisturbed on Veoh for months. But even the most popular of these clips has been viewed less than 50,000 times — a pittance in Youtube views. A telling remark from Viacom spokesman: "We allocate our resources based on where we think the most harm is being done ... We haven't focused on Veoh at this point." Veoh isn't doing any harm, but that means they're also not doing much doog. -
vista
Steve Ballmer vs. Vista pirates
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer warned analysts about overly "optimistic" sales projections for Windows Vista last week, causing an immediate slump in Microsoft stock prices. More interesting was Ballmer's claim that software piracy was to blame for slow(er) sales, particularly in highly buccaneered markets like China and India. Ballmer predicts stronger numbers in those markets due to Vista's impregnable new anti-piracy defenses, which will no doubt cause pirates to reluctantly hang up their cutlasses and start purchasing site licenses en masse. Just like DRM has eradicated music piracy and gotten everyone to start buying CDs again. More » -
pcs
How to Piss off Balmer and Steal Vista
Steve Ballmer is trying to find something to blame Vista's slow sales on besides Microsoft. His scapegoat for Vista looks to be pirates. Not the scourge of the seven seas, but the scourge of software developers. [Gizmodo] -
intellectual property
Swedish pirates ascendant, Belgians spank Google
Someday Vanity Fair will hire feature writers who don't feel compelled to frontload their articles with 1,000-word ledes. In the meantime, The Pirate Bay — the Swedish-based torrent tracker that's currently sponsoring a collection of Oscar-film download links — gets a longform VF spotlight. Interesting timing, given today's decision by a Belgian court to punish Google for linking to copyrighted material. Despite the successes of the Swedish pirates, the rest of Fortress Europe may be closing their portcullises on intellectual property.
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By Chris MohneyComment by I'm Waitin' for Dolemite: ere the sun ever shines in that Pirate Bay? my what a pasty pair more » | Other threads
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piracy
Download all the Oscar contenders
Boing Boing points out Oscartorrents, a tracker of Oscar nominee BitTorrents from the folks at The Pirate Bay. Leech all the ostensibly Oscar-worthy fare you want, then judge for yourself (voting enabled). Will Oscartorrents strike a conciliatory note with movie studios? Not exactly: "Face it: your membrane has burst, and it wasn't us who burst it. Your precious bodily fluids are escaping." Juicy! -
bill gates
Bill Gates steals movies
Almost missed this, until another blog pointed it out: Bill Gates watches illegal movies. Yes, the Microsoft chairman, whose company cracks down on software pirates, entertains himself with arguably pirated video on YouTube. He admitted it in the Wall Street Journal: More »
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By Nick DouglasComment by Philipp Lenssen: Bill Gates: Stolen's a strong word. I mean, for example, a lot of people in Asian markets steal our software,... more » | Other threads
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microsoft
Fake anti-piracy campaign proves Microsoft haters lifeless, friendless
"You get a letter with an unbranded CD," shouts a writer at Scaryideas.com about a supposed Microsoft entrapment campaign. The story's making the rounds again on social bookmark sites like Reddit. More » -
youtube
YouTube: totally not about piracy
The latest profile of YouTube says the video sharing site hosts "everything from amateur videos made by teenagers goofing off to slick productions posted by the likes of Nike Inc, MC Hammer and the director of the upcoming movie Superman Returns." Yep, lots of video producers have put their own work on YouTube. More »
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1-27 of 27 for "Valleywag, Piracy"
