ISPreview UK
TThe European Parliament has, in its FINAL vote (there have been five so far) on the matter, chosen to retain amendment 46 (138) of the new Telecoms Package
by a majority of 407 to 57. Amendment 46 states that restrictions to
the fundamental rights and freedoms of Internet users can only be put
in place after a decision by judicial authorities, which protects ISPs
from having to disconnect customers suspected of involvement with
illegal broadband file-sharing (P2P) downloads.
La Quadrature du Net
confirms that the European Parliament has nevertheless adopted a soft
compromise on issues of network equity: no strong protection against “net discrimination” was adopted.
“A
formidable campaign from the citizens put the issues of freedoms on the
Internet at the center of the debates of the Telecoms Package. This is
a victory by itself. It started with the declaration of commissioner
Viviane Reding considering access to Internet as a fundamental right.
The massive re-adoption of amendment 138/46 rather than the softer
compromise negotiated by rapporteur Trautmann with the Council is an
even stronger statement. These two elements alone confirm that the
French ‘three strikes‘ scheme, HADOPI, is dead already.” explains Jérémie Zimmermann, co-founder of La Quadrature du Net.
However
it’s not all good news as the changes do not prevent similar schemes
from being introduced by individual member states. Likewise nothing
will forbid ISPs from turning the Internet away from a neutral zone where people have equal access to all content applications and services. [geek]We doubt the Romulans would approve.[/geek]
“The
strong statement for the access to the Internet as a fundamental right
demonstrates that the Parliament can be courageous and reject the
pressure to compromise when essential values are at stake.
Unfortunately, on issues that appear more technical such as the absence
of discrimination of services and contents on the Internet, the
Parliament did not take the full measure of what it is at stake yet.
Citizens must remain mobilized on these crucial questions,” concludes Gérald Sédrati-Dinet, analyst for La Quadrature.
Mercifully
we’re unlikely to see Three-Strikes style legislation in the UK,
although some rights holders are still privately pushing for it. To
date the industry as a whole has failed to agree a concrete way forward
on the matter, although it’s expected that Lord Carter’s final Digital
Britain report (due in another month or so) may present one. See our ‘To Ban or Not to Ban (Illegal File Sharers)‘ – article for more background to all this.he European Parliament has, in its FINAL vote (there have been five so far) on the matter, chosen to retain amendment 46 (138) of the new Telecoms Package by a majority of 407 to 57. Amendment 46 states that restrictions to the fundamental rights and freedoms of Internet users can only be put in place after a decision by judicial authorities, which protects ISPs from having to disconnect customers suspected of involvement with illegal broadband file-sharing (P2P) downloads.
La Quadrature du Net confirms that the European Parliament has nevertheless adopted a soft compromise on issues of network equity: no strong protection against “net discrimination” was adopted.
“A formidable campaign from the citizens put the issues of freedoms on the Internet at the center of the debates of the Telecoms Package. This is a victory by itself. It started with the declaration of commissioner Viviane Reding considering access to Internet as a fundamental right. The massive re-adoption of amendment 138/46 rather than the softer compromise negotiated by rapporteur Trautmann with the Council is an even stronger statement. These two elements alone confirm that the French ‘three strikes’ scheme, HADOPI, is dead already.” explains Jérémie Zimmermann, co-founder of La Quadrature du Net.
However it’s not all good news as the changes do not prevent similar schemes from being introduced by individual member states. Likewise nothing will forbid ISPs from turning the Internet away from a neutral zone where people have equal access to all content applications and services. [geek]We doubt the Romulans would approve.[/geek]
“The strong statement for the access to the Internet as a fundamental right demonstrates that the Parliament can be courageous and reject the pressure to compromise when essential values are at stake. Unfortunately, on issues that appear more technical such as the absence of discrimination of services and contents on the Internet, the Parliament did not take the full measure of what it is at stake yet. Citizens must remain mobilized on these crucial questions,” concludes Gérald Sédrati-Dinet, analyst for La Quadrature.
Mercifully we’re unlikely to see Three-Strikes style legislation in the UK, although some rights holders are still privately pushing for it. To date the industry as a whole has failed to agree a concrete way forward on the matter, although it’s expected that Lord Carter’s final Digital Britain report (due in another month or so) may present one. See our ‘To Ban or Not to Ban (Illegal File Sharers)’ – article for more background to all this.
BBC NEWS | Technology
Each April, the US releases the Special 301 Report, which examines the intellectual property laws of its main trading partners.
The release generated international headlines last week as countries such as Canada and Israel found themselves on the “Priority Watch List” of countries that the US claims are the world’s worst piracy offenders.
In all, the US targeted 46 countries. In addition to the usual suspects such as China and Russia, Europe came in for heavy criticism with Finland, Norway, Spain, Italy, Greece, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland all on the Watch list.
Unrecognised
The Report yielded predictable lobbyist support from groups such as the International Intellectual Property Alliance and the Motion Picture Association of America, who used the opportunity to chastise the countries on the list for failing to address their concerns.
Yet the lobby group victory may ultimately prove illusory. By wildly overstating its claims on many countries, the US has undermined its credibility and confirmed criticisms that the report lacks reliability or objective analysis.
Rather than increasing the pressure for reforms, it seems more likely to be characterised as little more than a lobbyist document that is best ignored.
For example, in previous years, Canadian officials have done little more than express disappointment with the US findings. According to government documents obtained under the Access to Information Act, the Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs has been repeatedly advised that “Canada does not recognise the Special 301 process due to its lacking of reliable and objective analysis, and we have raised this issue regularly with the US in our bilateral discussions.”
Frustration
Canada may move beyond behind-the-scenes discussions now that it finds itself on the Priority Watch List alongside China, Russia, and Indonesia. If so, it would likely remind the US that it is compliant with its international copyright obligations. In recent years, it responded to US pressure by becoming one of the few countries to enact anti-camcording legislation. Law enforcement has prioritised intellectual property cases and the law contains tough statutory damages provisions that are regularly used by rights holders to obtain significant judgments.
Moreover, grouping Canada together with high-piracy nations does not stand up to even mild scrutiny. The Business Software Alliance’s 2008 statistics show that among the 11 other countries on this year’s Priority Watch List for which data is available, the lowest rate of software piracy is 66%. By comparison, Canada stands at 32%, not remotely close to any other country on the list. In fact, Canada’s software piracy rate is lower than all 46 countries named in the Special 301 report.
Similarly, 2008 data from the US Customs and Border Protection Agency on intellectual property seizures reports that Taiwan and South Korea rank fourth and fifth as sources of seized goods (China is number one), yet both were dropped this year from the Watch List. By comparison, Canada does not even appear in the rankings.
Frustration with the list is not limited to Canada. Israel was one of twenty countries to submit briefs to the US defending their laws and policies. The Israeli brief anticipated the criticism over the absence of anti-circumvention legislation, rules that provide legal protection for technological protection measures (TPMs).
It argued that “given the industry objections to TPM, lack of uniform implementation worldwide and its nascent obsolescence, non implementation of TPM can not be the basis for determining that a country, as in the words of the Trade Act of 1974 (19 USC 2242) ‘denies adequate and effective protection of intellectual property rights or deny fair and equitable market access to US persons who rely on intellectual property protection.’”
Questionable findings
The US ignored the argument (and its own law) and placed Israel on the Priority Watch list.
US officials similarly dismissed Finland’s and Italy’s brief.
Given the US relies heavily on the IIPA report in compiling its list, the lobby group’s claims were also heavily criticised by many countries including Poland, Spain, and South Korea. For example, Spain stated that the “arbitrary conclusions are drawn in this report which on numerous occasions offends Spanish Government action.”
The Special 301 Report does more than just anger US allies. It also calls into question their ongoing support for US international intellectual property policies such as the negotiation of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement and the proceedings at the World Trade Organisation against China over its copyright rules.
In targeting so many countries with questionable findings, the US has now sent a message that this support is not good enough. Copyright law may be in need of reform in many countries, but new laws should come on their terms and in their national interest, not as a result of misleading and inaccurate bully tactics.
USTR – USTR Releases 2009 Special 301 Report
Hungary will remain on the Watch List in 2009. Hungary’s National Board Against Counterfeiting and Piracy, established in January 2008, has promoted collaboration on IPR issues between the Government and the private sector, and issued a two-year IPR strategy to combat counterfeiting and piracy. The United States urges Hungary to take concrete steps to implement its IPR strategy and to improve its IPR enforcement regime. Further improvements are needed to ensure that prosecutors follow through with cases against IP infringers, and that judges are encouraged to impose deterrent-level sentences for civil and criminal IP infringement.
U.S. copyright industries also report that Internet piracy in Hungary is a major problem, and note that the Hungarian Government should provide adequate resources to its law enforcement authorities to combat IPR crime, especially on the Internet. The United States will continue to work with the Hungarian Government to address these IPR concerns.
Yahoo! Finance
A defense lawyer in the Pirate Bay file-sharing case said Thursday he will demand a retrial after the judge admitted he was a member of copyright protection organizations.
A Stockholm court last week convicted four men behind the notorious Web site of helping others commit copyright violations and gave them one-year prison sentences.
They also were ordered to pay damages of 30 million kronor ($3.6 million) to entertainment companies, including Warner Bros., Sony Music Entertainment, EMI and Columbia Pictures.
Peter Althin, who represented Pirate Bay spokesman Peter Sunde in the case, said he would request a retrial after Judge Tomas Norstrom confirmed Swedish Radio reports that he was a member of two Swedish copyright groups.
Althin said that constituted a conflict of interest, especially considering that three people who represented the entertainment industry during the trial also held membership in one of the organizations.
Technet
A Svédországban megalakult, önmagát Kalóz Pártnak nevező csoport elsősorban azok támogatására számíthat, akik a szellemi termékek megosztása, letöltése és másolása ellen kiszabott szigorú büntetések ellen tiltakoznak.
Mint az EUobserver írja, a svédek több mint 10 százaléka vesz részt valamilyen hálózati fájlcserélő tevékenységben, a 26-35 éves férfi korosztály esetében az arány eléri az 56 százalékot. Ez azt jelenti, hogy akár 1,3 millió is lehet azoknak a száma, akiket a bűnözővé nyilvánítás fenyeget.
A hobbikalózok a legkülönfélébb foglalkozási, képzettségi és korcsoportból kerülnek ki, ezért rendszeresen figyelik a szerzői jogok szabályozása terén történő változásokat, és várhatóan támogatni fogják a „hálózati radikálisokként” ismert jelölteket a júniusi európai parlamenti választásokon.
A Kalóz Párt fő célja az on-line kultúra vívmányainak díjtalan használata. Ennek részeként a párt követeli a copyright szabályozás alapvető megreformálását, a szabadalmi rendszer eltörlését, valamint az állampolgárok magánéletének és adatainak háboríthatatlanságát. A KP szerint ezek a célok megvalósíthatóak a mai Európában.
A Kalóz Párt növekvő népszerűségét jelzi, hogy támogatói és aktivistái száma messze meghaladja a Svédországban hagyományosan népszerű környezetvédő szervezetekét. A kalózjelöltek azt is remélik, hogy az EP-választásokon nagy létszámban tudnak mozgósítani olyan választókat is, akik egyébként passzívan viszonyulnak az uniós ügyekhez.
Newswise Business News
Abolishing patent and copyright law sounds radical, but two economists at Washington University in St. Louis say it’s an idea whose time has come. Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine see innovation as a key to reviving the economy. They believe the current patent/copyright system discourages and prevents inventions from entering the marketplace. The two professors have published their views in a new book, Against Intellectual Monopoly, from Cambridge University Press.
“From a public policy view, we’d ideally like to eliminate patent and copyright laws altogether,” says Levine, John H. Biggs Distinguished Professor of Economics. “There’s plenty of protection for inventors and plenty of protection and opportunities to make money for creators. It’s not that we see this as some sort of charitable act that people are going to invent and create things without earning money. Evidence shows very strongly there are lots of ways to make money without patents and copyright.”
Levine and Boldrin point to students being sued for ‘pirating’ music on the internet and AIDS patients in Africa dying because they cannot afford expensive drugs produced by patent holders as examples of the failure of the current system. Boldrin, the Joseph Gibson Hoyt Distinguished Professor in Arts & Sciences and Chair of the economics department says, “Intellectual property is in fact an intellectual monopoly that hinders rather than helps the competitive free market regime that has delivered wealth and innovation to our doorsteps.”
The authors argue that license fees, regulations and patents are now so misused that they drive up the cost of creation and slow down the rate of diffusion of new ideas. Levine explains, “Most patents are not acquired by innovators hoping to protect their innovations from competitors in order to get a short term edge over the rest of the market. Most patents are obtained by large corporations who have built portfolios of patents for defense purposes, to prevent other people from suing them over patent violations.”
Boldrin and Levine promote a drastic reform of the patent system in their book. They propose the law should be restored to match the intent of the U.S. Constitution which states: Congress may “promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writing and discoveries.”
They call on Congress to reverse the burden of the proof on patent seekers by granting patents only to those capable of proving that:
• their invention has social value
• a patent is not likely to block even more valuable innovations
• the innovation would not be cost-effective absent a patent
The authors acknowledge that such drastic reform is unlikely and outline an incremental approach for Congress to gradually reduce the scope of patents, regulation and licensing.
Nevertheless, their call for changing the system is urgent. The economists compare intellectual monopoly (patents) to medieval trade monopolies which were proven to be economically detrimental. They write, “For centuries, the cause of economic progress has identified with that of free trade. In the decades to come, sustaining economic progress will depend, more and more, on our ability to progressively reduce and eventually eliminate intellectual monopoly.”
Professors Boldrin and Levine maintain a blog on this topic: www.Againstmonopoly.org.
TorrentFreak
The global amount used by IFPI on lobbying and fighting piracy is £75 million.
O’Reilly Radar
That’s pretty much my view, too. DVDs (mentioned in the note at the start) became a big boon for the studios, once their crazy ideas about self-destructing Divx discs went the way of the Dodo. The studios have a very long history of betting against technology people want, and on technology people don’t want. This is just another such case. The technology people want always wins in the end — no duh — and usually benefits the businesses who fought that technology to the death. Here’s hoping the technology people want — Boxee — doesn’t wind up benefiting the studios fighting it now.
Ars Technica
Have you ever wondered how many people around the globe are seeding
and leeching torrents? The Pirate Bay, one of the most popular torrent
trackers, has published an interactive map
with data for each country, both in terms of an exact percentage of
users and how many connections are going through that country at any
given time. The statistics may not give a complete picture of P2P
activity across the globe, but they do offer some insights into habits
of different users.
The data points, laid over a Google Map, are shaped and colored
depending on how many connections are coming out of each location. For
example, as of publication time, about 5.515 percent of all TPB
connections are coming from the US, while Canada sits at 2.949 percent
and Japan at 6.553 percent. China, which is the only country that gets
the little bonfire icon, represents a whopping 34.822 percent of all
TPB connections at the moment.
Have you ever wondered how many people around the globe are seeding and leeching torrents? The Pirate Bay, one of the most popular torrent trackers, has published an interactive map with data for each country, both in terms of an exact percentage of users and how many connections are going through that country at any given time. The statistics may not give a complete picture of P2P activity across the globe, but they do offer some insights into habits of different users.
The data points, laid over a Google Map, are shaped and colored depending on how many connections are coming out of each location. For example, as of publication time, about 5.515 percent of all TPB connections are coming from the US, while Canada sits at 2.949 percent and Japan at 6.553 percent. China, which is the only country that gets the little bonfire icon, represents a whopping 34.822 percent of all TPB connections at the moment.
Recording Industry vs. The People
According to a report on Wired.com, the RIAA spokesman claims that the RIAA has not filed any new lawsuits “for months”; according to the Wall Street Journal report
the RIAA stopped filing mass lawsuits “early this fall”; and the
Associated Press was apparently told that the RIAA had stopped bringing
new lawsuits in August.
Being very familiar with the RIAA’s penchant for “misspeaking”,
even when under oath, I investigated the matter a bit, and learned that
a large number of suits have been brought by the RIAA quite recently,
one as recently as this Monday. Here are just a few. Those marked green were contributed by some of our great readers:
Intellectual Property Watch
By David Cronin for Intellectual Property Watch
BRUSSELS – Europe’s copyright rules are ill-suited to an age when millions of music files can be accessed at the click of a mouse, a Brussels conference has been told.
About eight million tracks by musicians from a wide variety of genres can now be listened to via the internet, a figure that is projected to rise to 12 million by 2012. With the entertainment industry estimating that 90 percent of music downloads are illegal and sales of CDs having declined sharply over the past few years, some technology firms are urging that the whole basis of copyright law needs to be rethought.
Kurt Einzinger, president of the Internet Service Providers Association (EuroISPA), believes that attitudes to music have changed so fundamentally that the “established copyright regime is not fit for the internet.”
“I personally have LPs [records] of The Rolling Stones and Cream at home,” he said. “But my kids get a piece of music and they listen to [it] and that’s it. They don’t keep it. They wouldn’t pay one euro or one dollar for listening one time to a piece of music.”
While acknowledging that there is a “culture of disrespect for copyright rules,” he added that “when downloading, people don’t feel they are illegal, they don’t feel they are doing something wrong.”
Einzinger was speaking at a conference organised by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) that took place in Brussels on November 24 and 25.
A markedly different view was offered by Feargal Sharkey, former singer with Irish punk-rock band The Undertones.
Now chief executive of UK Music, which represents artists, record companies, managers and royalty collecting societies, Sharkey contended that the “voice of the creator is frequently overlooked” in the debate about the internet.
The proliferation of free downloading, he said, is a contributory factor to the often meagre income of artists, citing estimates that more than 80 percent of musicians in Britain earn less than €15,000 euros per year.
“The copyright system was introduced to protect true originality,” he added, stating that freedom of expression does not confer “a freedom to steal and plagiarise.”
A ‘memorandum of understanding’ between the British government, the recording industry and technology firms signed during July aims to set up new business models, which allow listeners access to music using whichever means they prefer but in a way that “the creator gets paid,” according to Sharkey.
Jean Bergevin, a European Commission official handling single market issues, suggested there is considerable confusion about how copyright legislation applies.
Many internet service providers have claimed that they merely host data and should not be held responsible for whether its content violates copyright law. But Bergevin stressed that the European Union’s directive on electronic commerce, which dates from 2000, does not make such firms “fully exempt from liability.” Once they receive knowledge that copyright is not being respected, they are supposed to take action. Yet he said that the issue of how courts should interpret what constitutes knowledge in such cases is “an issue that might require some clarification.”
His colleague Jean-Eric de Cockborne, an official dealing with audiovisual policy, described internet piracy as “a massive problem.” While he insisted that “doing nothing is not an option,” he argued that it would be premature to introduce fresh laws.
“It is unlikely that new punitive legislation will be adopted,” he added. “There is a very strong political view on the need to balance the protection of intellectual property rights with other fundamental rights, in particular data protection and the right to information.”
Jürgen Becker, vice-president of GEMA (the society for musical performing and mechanical reproduction rights in Germany), complained that “copyright is not being adequately protected online” and that a “crisis of copyright” has been taking place for the past two decades. His organisation, he noted, has initiated legal action in Germany in a bid to pressurise internet firms into blocking access to websites which breach copyright rules.
“All rights-owners agree that they do not wish to put up with this any longer,” he said. “But the options open to them in this respect are limited. Only lawmakers – both national and European – are in a position to remedy the situation.”
Zeropiad
Kevin Bermeister who, along with Nikki Hemming, created the KaZaA file-sharing software and was sued for millions by the RIAA from 2004 to 2006, has now partnered with Michael Speck who ran the RIAA’s case as the head of its anti-piracy arm, Music Industry Piracy Investigations, have teamed up at Brilliant Digital Entertainment to fight online piracy.
The company has developed software which will run on an ISPs network
and enable the “instantaneous conversion of infringing activity into
legitimate content transactions.” In other words, instead of seeing
search results for illegally free copyrighted material users will
instead see legal copies available for instant purchase.
The incentive for the ISPs to run the software is that they are
promised a share of the revenue. The legal download is delivered by the
ISP which then simply adds a charge for it to the customer’s monthly
Internet bill.
“When the architecture of the internet that has our technology
recognises one of those proven illicit files, it blocks it, disconnects
the link to it and adds to the search results the opportunity to
purchase the legitimate material,” said Mr. Speck.
“At that point there is no other information collected – the entire
action revolves around the identification of the content and action
taken against illicit content; there’s an absolute protection of
privacy.”
Ars Technica
If you pay any attention to the endless debates over intellectual property policy in the United States, you’ll hear two numbers invoked over and over again, like the stuttering chorus of some Philip Glass opera: 750,000 and $200 to $250 billion. The first is the number of U.S. jobs supposedly lost to intellectual property theft; the second is the annual dollar cost of IP infringement to the U.S. economy. These statistics are brandished like a talisman each time Congress is asked to step up enforcement to protect the ever-beleaguered U.S. content industry. And both, as far as an extended investigation by Ars Technica has been able to determine, are utterly bogus.
Kosmopolit
What happened with the “Telecoms Package” (that I have mentioned here and here)? It seems that most of the worrying amendments regarding copyright issues (especially the three strikes approach) were not adopted by the European Parliament. A detailed analysis by La Quadrature du Net will be published in the next days. However, it was an impressive example of digital citizen lobbyism. If you read German head over to netzpolitik.org and heise.de. EurActiv has a long and rather general article on the whole initiative. But it is true: the Internet is rather quiet about this success in the European Parliament as A Fistful of Euros notes. Bashing the EU is much easier, I guess.
PC Magazine
A bipartisan group of senators introduced a bill in the U.S. Senate on Thursday that would allow the U.S. Attorney General to bring civil actions against Americans that violate copyrights.
The bill, the “Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Act of 2008″, was scheduled to be introduced on Thursday, according to Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), who authored the bill along with Arlen Specter (R-Pa.). The bill’s co-sponsors include Senators Evan Bayh (D-Ind.), George Voinovich (R-Ohio), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and John Cornyn (R-Texas).
The bill is similar to the “Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Act” of the 2007 Congress, which set out to establish a so-called Intellectual Property Enforcement Network (IPEN) made up of the deputy secretaries of the Department of Homeland Security, Justice, the Treasury, Commerce, and State, plus the Deputy Attorney General and other senior government members.
However, the current bill would pair the IPEN with a designated Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator, an advisor who would report directly to the President. Enforcement would be left to the FBI, who would be authorized to form an operational task force to fight copyright crime. An organized crime task force would also be created at the Department of Justice to link copyright violations to organized crime, such as DVD piracy. Five “intellectual property law enforcement coordinators” could be sent overseas to work with local law enforcement.
“The time has come to bolster the Federal effort to protect this most valuable and vulnerable property, to give law enforcement the resources and the tools it needs to combat piracy and counterfeiting, and to make sure that the many agencies that deal with intellectual property enforcement have the opportunity and the incentive to talk with each other, to coordinate their efforts, and to achieve the maximum effects for their efforts,” Sen. Leahy said in a statement. “The Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Act of 2008 does just that.”
The proposed bill would also tighten civil IP laws, requiring that an actual copyright be filed before a criminal case can be brought. However, according to the text of the bill, no actual copyright would need to be filed in the case of a civil suit brought by the Attorney General or another individual or company.
The bill would also explicitly allow documents and records to be seized in the course of a civil copyright-infringement suit. And a “harmless error” provision would allow prosecutors to gloss over minor errors in copyright filings that would otherwise provide defendants a loophole.
Reactions split across industry lines
Unsurprisingly, the bill was welcomed by software groups, including the Business Software Alliance. “”BSA and its members commend Senators Patrick Leahy (D-VT), Diane Feinstein (D-CA), Evan Bayh (D-IN), John Cornyn (R-TX), George Voinovich (R-OH) and others for their leadership on intellectual property issues, as further illustrated today, with the introduction of the Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Act of 2008,” the BSA said in a statement. “This important legislation will go a long way to curbing software piracy which cost more than $48 billion around the globe. The bill will provide US law enforcement with new legal tools to combat software piracy and counterfeiting. It will also provide much needed resources to investigate and prosecute IP crimes and expand the successful program of placing IP attaches in key US embassies around the globe.”
“American innovators and creators are driving our nation’s economy. Whether they are born of research, technological innovation or the strum of a guitar, creative expression of ideas are the backbone of job creation, growth and surplus trade,” executive director Patrick Ross of the Copyright Alliance added.
“We urge Congress to act quickly so that copyright owners can see new enforcement measures on the President’s desk this Congress,” Ross said in a statement.
Public interest group Public Knowledge said it was concerned, however. “We are concerned that several provisions in this bill could have harmful, if unintended, consequences that would harm consumers,” Gigi Sohn, president and co-founder of the organization, said in a statement. “The bill rightly targets enforcement of copyright law against commercial infringers, but some of these same enforcement provisions are likely to hurt ordinary consumers.
“The provisions allowing seizure of equipment may be harmful to consumers,” Sohn added. “Seizing expensive manufacturing equipment used for large-scale infringement from a commercial pirate may be appropriate. Seizing a family’s general-purpose computer in a download case, as this bill would allow, is not appropriate. This bill goes even farther, expanding the penalties under the flawed Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to create new grounds for allowing a family’s computer to be seized if used to circumvent digital rights management, even if for fair uses.
“In addition, this bill would turn the Justice Department into an arm of the legal departments of the entertainment companies by authorizing DoJ to file civil lawsuits for infringement, forcing taxpayers to foot the bill,” Sohn concluded.
Yahoo! Finance
A recommendation to punish Comcast Corp. for blocking subscribers’ Internet traffic should serve as a warning to other service providers, the nation’s top telecommunications regulator said Friday.
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin said he hopes his action will make network operators sensitive about putting “arbitrary limits on the way consumers can access information on the Internet.”
The Associated Press reported Thursday night that Martin will recommend to his fellow commissioners that Comcast, the nation’s largest cable company, be punished for violating agency principles that guarantee customers open access to the Internet.
Martin provided more details of his proposed disciplinary action in a meeting with reporters Friday.
Comcast was accused by consumer groups of blocking “peer-to-peer” Internet traffic, where users share large data files using special software. The complaint followed an AP investigation in October.
Comcast denies it blocks content, but says it uses “carefully limited measures” to manage traffic on its broadband network to ensure all customers receive quality service.
Martin wants Comcast to stop using its current practice, to tell commissioners where it has used it in the past, and to disclose to the agency and consumers what limitations will be placed on customers under its new traffic management plan, which it hopes to have in place by the end of the year.
Martin said he is not recommending a fine against Comcast because he wants to use the case as a means of laying out agency policy.
TorrentFreak
Jesse Alexander has co-produced and written for both ‘Heroes’ and ‘Lost’, two of the most successful TV-series today. In addition to millions of viewers on TV, both shows are are also extremely popular on BitTorrent. In fact, millions of people share a single episode and this can go on to 10 million downloads per episode.
One could argue that their availability on BitTorrent actually helped ‘Lost’ and ‘Heroes’ to build a stronger fanbase. With torrents, no-one has to miss an episode anymore which keeps the fans more engaged. So called “pirates” advertise the shows to their friends, or write about it on their blogs. Accordingly, when we asked Jesse Alexander whether he thinks that BitTorrent might have helped to reach a broader audience, he answered with a clear cut “Yes”.
Not that Jesse wants everybody to get the shows off BitTorrent, but he said that it certainly signals that there is a market for on-demand and interactive TV. “People watching shows such as Lost and Heroes on BitTorrent is the present world reality,” Jesse told TorrentFreak. TV networks have to recognize this, give their viewers more ways to interact with the shows, and find ways to generate revenue from every member of the global audience.”
“It’s the same for music artists. The reality is, people share music. Artist now make money by driving people to concerts, through community websites, and by offering exclusive events. TV networks are focusing too much on one exclusive product, instead of building a community. This is a mistake I think.”
The success of Heroes on BitTorrent didn’t pass by the cast of the show unnoticed either. “The cast and the people behind the scenes have all been talking about it,” Jesse said. As an example he mentioned last year’s promotional tour in France, where the actors were recognized by hundreds of fans, even though the show had not even premiered on TV yet.
Alexander has hit the nail on the head. This is in fact one of the main reasons why shows like ‘Heroes’ are so popular on filesharing networks. It can take up to six months after the US premiere before these shows are aired in Europe, Australia and other parts of the world. Jesse agreed that this is indeed one of the major causes of piracy. “This gap is something that is certainly going to change in the future,” he added.
Jesse went on to say that in the near future, thanks to the Internet, the viewers of TV-shows will see more interactive components and alternate realities they can participate in. The future of TV will be more international, with real interaction, and shows will be more and more integrated into the core part of an online community.
When we asked Jesse if he has ever downloaded TV-shows off BitTorrent, he told us: “I can’t confirm or deny, but I’m familiar with all kind of new technologies.” I guess we all know what he’s trying to say.
It is no surprise that Jesse is more positive towards new technologies than some others in the entertainment industry. Last week we reported on the upcoming “Pirate TV” show that he is working on, together with Matt Mason, the author of ‘The Pirate’s Dilemma’.
“Matt’s book needs to get a broader audience,” said Jesse. “We want to discuss the negative and the positive side of piracy, and place things in a broader historical context. We want to start a real conversation about the future of intellectual property.”
We’re happy to join the debate, what about you?
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Szeretnék pár szót szólni, és ezzel a figyelmet kicsit felkelteni, a torrent világban egyre durvábban működtetett új pénzszerzési módszerről amit „etikus mert nem kötelező” felkiáltással próbálnak beadni nekünk.
Egészen pontosan az sms-sel vagy bármi más módon vásárolt előnyökre gondolok. Néhány torrent oldal előnyöket kínál nyíltan pénz, vagy burkoltan támogatás fejében, és ezt azzal próbálják kifehéríteni, hogy az nem kötelező.
Nem igaz az, hogy minden ami nem kötelező az emiatt már etikus is. Nézzük egy példán keresztül. Tegyük fel, hogy én kezelem egy csoportnak a kasszáját. A csoport tagjai tesznek bele pénzt és vesznek ki belőle. Persze hosszútávon csak annyit vehetnek ki amennyit beleraknak, én erre vigyázok. Na most ha én azt mondom az embereknek – ha valaki ad nekem x forintot akkor kétszer annyit vehet ki a kasszából – akkor ez etikus vagy sem? Ez annak ellenére sem etikus, hogy nem kötelező. Az előnyt nem a magam „kárára” hanem másokéra adtam.
Jó lenne ha mindenki felfogná – minden olyan előny ami a le/fel töltési arányt befolyásolja (áttételesen a regisztráció biztosítása is ide tartozik), az a többi felhasználó kárára történik és ezért nem etikus ilyet adni, különösen nem pénzért.
Entertainment News, Technology News, Media – Variety
For the first time, Spain and Greece join usual suspects Russia, China, Canada and Mexico on a congressional list of countries with the highest levels of piracy.
The Intl. Antipiracy Caucus issued Thursday its annual list of countries “based on levels of piracy and the need for government intervention in lawmaking, enforcement and prosecution of intellectual property theft,” according to the Motion Picture Assn. of America, which supports the caucus.
The list is essentially Congress’ smaller-scale version of the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative’s annual 301 Report. But unlike the 301 Report, the caucus list does not carry with it the authority directly to affect trade relations with any countries.
Still, the MPAA and the Recording Industry Assn. of America hailed the list, and Hollywood particularly emphasized the inclusion of Spain.
“The Spanish government’s persistent failure to address Spain’s epidemic Internet piracy problem, which is wreaking havoc on the legitimate market, has caused Spain to appear on the list,” the MPAA said.
The RIAA said: “Joining China and Russia in ‘the ignominious three’ is Canada, which, notwithstanding numerous public announcements, has failed to join the rest of its partners in the developed world in modernizing its copyright laws to address the challenges — and to seize the opportunities — of the digital age.”
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