February 2012
1 post
8 tags
BandCamp: Fans Are Buying Music That They...
from Bandcamp’s blog:
Cheaper Than Free
“…just this morning someone paid $10 for an album after Googling “lelia broussard torrent.” A bit later, a fan plunked down $17 after searching for “murder by death, skeletons in the closet, mediafire.” Then a $15 sale came in from the search “maimouna youssef the blooming hulkshare.” Then a fan made a $12 purchase after clicking a...
January 2012
1 post
2 tags
Ugh, Our Thought Police Are, Like, The Lamest...
In the ten years since MINORITY REPORT was released, the FBI has come up with … Twitter.
Telegraph:
FBI To Use Twitter To Predict Crimes, Bieber’s Next Girlfriend
“Although the police, including in Britain, already use Facebook routinely to ascertain the whereabouts of criminals, automatically filtering out irrelevant information remains challenging. The new FBI application...
December 2011
4 posts
7 tags
Copyright troll Righthaven's domain name now up...
Fire-sale dept:
Current highest bid = $1,250. 9 days left. Time to crack open your piggy bank if you want to own RightHaven.com and, uh, start the re-branding process?
From ARS Technica -
Righthaven’s domain name went up for auction on Monday in order to satisfy court judgements against the copyright trolling firm.
2 tags
Pro-SOPA study on DNS filtering cites censorship... →
A recent paper written by Daniel Castro of the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation and promoted by the MPAA on Capitol Hill argues in favor of DNS filtering to block access to copyright-infringing sites. In an effort to argue the effectiveness of DNS filtering, Castro cites research from Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society that suggests that “no more...
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August 2011
2 posts
5 tags
Fark settles with patent troll for $0
via BoingBoing -
Drew Sez:
The patent troll realized we were going to fight them instead of settle, so they asked for our best offer. I said how about you get nothing and drop the lawsuit? They accepted.
The patent covered a method for inputting news releases into a web form, which would then compile the news release and email it to media outlets. Now, aside from the fact that a ton of...
5 tags
SWEEPING INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY REFORMS TO BOOST...
The Government today announced plans to support economic growth by modernising UK intellectual property laws. Ministers have accepted the recommendations made in an independent review which estimate a potential benefit to the UK economy of up to £7.9 billion.
Among the recommendations [from the Hargreaves Report] that have been accepted are:
The UK should have a Digital Copyright...
July 2011
2 posts
10 tags
Watch
60 Minutes, 2009: Stealing A Movie
November 1, 2009 5:00 PM
John Malcolm, formerly the Director of Worldwide Anti-Piracy Operations for the MPAA, [baffles] Lesley Stahl [while trying to explain] how easy it is to steal movies on the web, using what is called “peer-to-peer” technology.
Consider this an open call for remixes. And also watch the entire piece to discover that...
4 tags
"Perhaps anti-piracy messages are better expressed... →
Your New IFPI Chairman? Placido Domingo…
An idea so zany it just might work!
June 2011
1 post
10 tags
"Family Movie Night Enforcement" Law Passed In...
“Guess who got their mom’s paaaassswoooordd??”
The Tennessean -
While those who share their subscriptions with a spouse or other family members under the same roof almost certainly have nothing to fear, blatant offenders — say, college students who give their logins to everyone on their dormitory floor — could get in trouble.
This is not anti-family legislation. Land...
May 2011
2 posts
6 tags
Hoping To See A Counter-suit by A Millennia of...
The Hollywood Reporter - Mike Tyson Tattoo Artist Sues Warner Bros. to Stop Release of ‘Hangover 2’
6 tags
CNET Sued For Offering Perfectly Legal Software....
“Let’s take this copyright-trolling thing to the next level. And call the Ying Yang Twins & Uncle Luke, too - it’s not like they got anything else going on.”
…2 Live Crew and Ying Yang Twins to press the case that CBS subsidiary CNET contributed to the growth of the copyright-disrespecting file-sharing era.
Here’s the sleazy justification:
[Aliki]...
April 2011
1 post
13 tags
March 2011
4 posts
5 tags
4 tags
The US Trade Representative Publishes Handy Guide...
Out of Cycle Review
Plan your next vacation! (More below)
Physical Markets (in alphabetical order)
Bahia Market (Guayaquil, Ecuador)
China Small Commodities Market (Yiwu, China)
Ciudad del Este (Paraguay)
Harco Glodok (Jakarta, Indonesia)
La Salada (Buenos Aires, Argentina)
Ladies Market (Mongkok, Hong Kong)
Luowu Market (Shenzhen, China)
Nehru Place (New Delhi, India)
...
5 tags
What TuneSecure forgets is that, “Human beings are complex creatures who are going to do whatever it takes to make themselves as well off as possible,” writer Charles Wheelan explains in his book Naked Economics. “Sometimes it is easy to predict how that will unfold; sometimes it is enormously complex.” This is what economists call the law of unintended consequences. Steven Levitt, author of...
made-up m3m0ries: Madonna promotes her song on the... →
Hello, all you Cyberheads! Welcome to the 90’s version of intimacy. You can hear me… You can even see me… But you can’t touch me… do you recognize my voice?… It’s Madonna. Often imitated, but never duplicated. Or, should I say, often irritated?
If you feel like it, you can download the sound…
February 2011
6 posts
4 tags
Digital Music Consumption 2010 - A Map
Clicky-Clicky for more (and the bigger picture)!
1 tag
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““Twenty-five years ago, no one in our industry could have imagined that...”
– - Álex de la Iglesia, in his farewell address to the Spanish Academy at the 2011 Goya Awards.
(Alt Film Guide, via TorrentFreak)
7 tags
ACS:Law and MediaCAT Completely Shut Down Both... →
No more “speculation” — The. End.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
7 tags
Where have all the music pirates gone? →
More on this to come soon, but to begin with, it’s interesting to compare with TorrentFreak’s recent analysis:
January 2011
5 posts
5 tags
"The PirateBox is designed to facilitate sharing...
Hypebot -
David Darts, a professor from NYU Steinhardt, has created a wireless network that users can connect to and anonymously share digital files with. PirateBox doesn’t connect to the Internet. Users simply launch their web browser and start uploading or downloading files. This network can be built for $100, and Darts has even shared the instructions online for anyone to use.
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"Without a public notice Google has compiled a...
Torrentfreak:
Google Starts Censoring BitTorrent, RapidShare and More
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
But, wait….
_______________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________
Oops.
What about more...
5 tags
Bye-bye ASC:Law. Sorry Your Predatory Buisiness...
Wow! ASC:Law turned out to be even sleazier than we imagined:
BBC:
The judge was keen to find out what the relationship was between GCB and ACS: Law, something Mr Crossley sought to clarify in his statement.
He said that he had no connection with GCB Ltd beyond the fact that the founders of the firm had previously been employed at ACS:Law.
The case has raised some serious questions about...
3 tags
WatchWho Says The Internet Is The Problem?
December 2010
5 posts
5 tags
Your DMCA Take-Down Notice Review For 2010!
From Chilling Effects:
Repeat Senders (or Those Who Probably Seek To Make Cease and Desist A Viable Business Model*):
In that mix, we see some frequent users of the DMCA takedown process, companies and individuals who have sent multiple notices requesting removal of content — or links to content — they allege infringes their copyrights. We have also seen the rise of takedown...
2 tags
santa anna gif
1 tag
Incompetent BitTorrent Researchers Strike Again →
7 tags
Onesie Saves Music Industry, Erases Last Decade of...
Digital Music News: If Only a T-Shirt Could Reverse 10 Years of Disruptive Media Upheaval…
Iris Distribution is the latest to spread the message of buying-not-swapping, and charging $14.99 for the lesson. The threads can be purchased at shareshirts.com, or through the Iris Facebook page.
Or, you can purchase them with a bundled album, also at a nice markup. Just like the good old...
3 tags
My Next Site Will Be www.google.p2p*
TorrentFreak -
This [new] system will exchange DNS information through peer-to-peer transfers and will work with a new .p2p domain extension.
In a direct response to the domain seizures by US authorities during the last few days, a group of established enthusiasts have started working on a DNS system that can’t be touched by any governmental institution.
Here’s the project:...
November 2010
3 posts
5 tags
Valdosta State U promises prison sentences for...
Go, Georgia! From Torrent Freak by way of Boing Boing:
Georgia’s Valdosta State University has a new policy on P2P use: if their network spyware detects a student using P2P software, that student will be turned over to the police. The student newspaper promises felony punishments of up to five years imprisonment and fines up to $250,000 “per offense.”
[…]
The new...
3 tags
LimeWire Demanding the Takedown of... Pirated...
Paul Resnikoff at Digital Music News -
We wish we could make up stuff like this. After a group of underground programmers created the ‘LimeWire Pirate Edition’ and plopped it onto places like the Pirate Bay, LimeWire itself is demanding its takedown.
Actually, the warning is in CAPS, and even CAPS combined with italics and bold at one point. Sort of like yelling, jumping...
3 tags
Amazon's Kindle 3G e-reader is being snapped up on... →
October 2010
7 posts
5 tags
2 tags
“It may have been forgotten in this age of 160GB iPods and cloud-based streaming,...”
– RIP Sony Cassette Walkman: 1979-2010
UPDATE: This is, apparently, NOT TRUE. My apologies.
7 tags
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“Pirate Parties International reportedly discussing plans for a high-altitude...”
– Reported by Zeropaid.
2 tags
An Inside Look at Hacker Business Models →
So much for taking down the system…*
*See also: SoManyMP3s.
5 tags
Porn: Always the First Crack in The Dyke.
Foreign Porn Flows into N.Korea
Foreign pornography is spreading in North Korean market, Radio Free Asia in the U.S. reported Friday. Quoting a North Korean source, the radio station said the regime is trying to clamp down by distributing players that will only play North Korean-made DVDs and replacing parts of foreign players to stop them from being compatible, but an increasing number of...
6 tags
☠ Home Schooling Is Killing Music ☠
September 2010
5 posts
4 tags
$30 for a new release movie at home? Studios think...
ARS Technica:
As noted by Bloomberg BusinessWeek, movie studios are hesitant to shorten the typical 120-day post-theater-debut window, but they’re also looking for new ways to make up for the decline in DVD sales.
Well, I can’t imagine what the problem is….
5 tags
"Anti-piracy lawyers ACS:Law, one of the most... →
Torrent Freak -
So while the attacks are being attributed to 4chan users, is ‘Anonymous’ really to blame? We were told that they are.
“The vast majority of our users are recruited from 4chan, and all of the targets are posted on 4chan with their corresponding posters,” TorrentFreak was told. “Once an operation of this scale has been established, the central base of operation is never...
7 tags
Jean-Luc Godard Aids Photographer in File-Sharing...
(To be read aloud in Alphaville computer voice….)
New York Times -
While Mr. Godard’s views on intellectual property are widely shared on the libertarian fringes of the Internet, they might seem surprising coming from a director who, under French law, retains editorial control over his work, and derives financial benefit from it.
Yet Mr. Godard, a pioneer of the New Wave of French...
5 tags
"Police in up to 14 countries carried out raids... →
More from TorrentFreak:
Police in up to 14 European countries are said to be involved in an operation, said to be in the planning for two years, targeting the Warez Scene, the network of individuals and servers at the top of the so-called ‘Piracy Pyramid’.
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"It's almost as if folks in Brazil have actually...
from Tech Dirt
Huge Push In Brazil To Legalize File Sharing
Last month, Brazil allowed public comment submissions on copyright, and apparently at the last minute, a large group of artists groups and consumer rights groups put together a proposal to “end” the “war on copying” (found via IP Watch).
The Great Brazilian File Sharing Trade Routes of Aught ‘10:
6 tags
Music Software Piracy: Listening to The People Who...
IMSTA “LET’S TALK PIRACY” SURVEY
” IMSTA [International Music Software Association] will not be taking part in lawsuits or any other destructive measures in facing software piracy. Therefore, please be honest with your responses as we will not use them against you at any time.[…] You do not have to provide your name and e-mail address if you do not wish to do...