stories about: "vuze"

Thu, Oct 15th 2009 9:00pm

Filed Under:
file sharing, films, p2p, promotion

Companies:
frostwire, isohunt, mininova, miro, the pirate bay, vodo, vuze

File Sharing Sites Team Up To Help Promote Indie Films

from the no-legitimate-purpose? dept

While some continue to insist that there's nothing good or legal that comes from file sharing sites, many content creators who have embraced those sites have found them to be wonderful tools for distribution and promotion. Now, it looks like a bunch of them are teaming up to do even more. Mininova, The Pirate Bay, isoHunt, Miro, Vuze and Frostwire have all agreed to work with a new project called Vodo, which will help promote indie films. Filmmakers can offer their films through Vodo and get promoted on the various file sharing sites -- and the system is designed to let people easily donate. While I'm not a huge fan of a pure "donation" business model, it should be interesting to see how Vodo evolves over time. Certainly, it could be a valuable tool to indie filmmakers who recognize that obscurity is a much bigger threat to their efforts than piracy.

27 Comments

There's No Silver Bullet Strategy For Monetizing Apps, But There Are Lots Of Options To Compare

from the many-ways-to-make-a-buck dept

Post sponsored by

DevsBuild.It, from the Application Developers Alliance

As part of our sponsorship program with the Application Developers Alliance, we're highlighting some of the content on DevsBuild.It, their new resource website, that we think will be most interesting to Techdirt readers.

In the sidebar widget featuring DevsBuild.It content, many of the most-read links have been those dealing with business models for apps, such as the developer who explained how their first game made $28,623 (the most popular post over the past month). For those of you following these kinds of stories, we're highlighting a few new additions to DevsBuild.It that aim to help developers with the task of monetizing an app.

First, there's a comparison tool that helps sort through all the different ad networks and other monetization platforms, filtering them by various criteria to help developers put together a smart business model:

To accompany the tool, there's also a free white paper on app monetization [pdf link] which compares different app stores (including the less-mainstream ones) and breaks the core monetization models down into categories.

Finally, an early announcement: the Application Developers Alliance is hosting a series of events on app monetization, in San Francisco on August 2nd, New York on September 26th and LA on October 18th. More details are on the way.

(In related news: our readers may be interested in checking out the ADA's amicus brief in the Google/Oracle appeal, which urges the court to uphold the ruling that APIs are not copyrightable.)

This post is sponsored by the Application Developers Alliance. Find more info on patents and other issues that affect developers at DevsBuild.It

Studies

by Mike Masnick

Thu, Jun 4th 2009 11:11am

Filed Under:
customers, pirates

Companies:
vuze

Permalink.

Yet Another Study: 'Pirates' Are Actually Industry's Best Customers

from the again-and-again-and-again dept

We've already seen a bunch of nearly identical studies, but it's worth pointing out that there's yet another study coming out this week that says that those involved in file sharing also tend to be the best customers of the entertainment industry. Now, it's worth taking the study with at least some grains of salt, given that it was funded by Vuze, a company trying to sell licensed videos via BitTorrent and has had trouble getting content companies to sign on. However, given how many other studies have said the same thing, can we finally put to rest the idea that those who file share "aren't customers" as many in the entertainment industry insist? They do tend to be customers, and frequent ones as multiple studies have now shown. The issue is just that they also file share, meaning many file share, in part, to find out what's worth buying. So the focus should be (once again) on giving them reasons to buy rather than trying to stomp out file sharing.

31 Comments

Legal Issues

by Mike Masnick

Fri, Nov 14th 2008 7:12pm

Filed Under:
file sharing, france, lawsuits, liability

Companies:
limewire, morpheus, sourceforge, sppf, vuze

Permalink.

French Recording Industry Sues SourceForge For Hosting Open Source P2P

from the yikes dept

It would appear that Société civile des Producteurs de Phonogrammes en France (SPPF), a group that represents French record labels, is now trying to sue a bunch of non-French file sharing applications, as well as SourceForge. This brings up a lot of different issues, so let's break them out one by one.

This lawsuit came about thanks to a ruling in a French court over how to interpret a French law. SPPF contends that French law says that any application that allows unauthorized file sharing is illegal. However, what was unclear, was whether or not this law could be applied to companies outside of France. The recent ruling found that, indeed, it's acceptable to extend French laws beyond its borders. This should be seen as hugely problematic just from a jurisdiction standpoint. It's difficult to see how France can claim that its laws should apply to companies entirely outside of France.
Now that it's been allowed, SPPF is suing three companies who offer software: Vuze, Limewire and Morpheus. What's troubling is that even beyond an "inducement" standard, SPPF seems to be basing the lawsuits on the idea that if your software allows any unauthorized copying, then the software itself is illegal. Say goodbye to FTP and, well, the entire internet next.
Finally, and most bizarrely, SPPF is also suing SourceForge, which is just a hosting platform for open source developers. The problem there (according to SPPF) is that SourceForge hosts the open source Shareaza file sharing app. It would appear that SPPF did so little research in figuring out who to sue, that it seems to think SourceForge is somehow responsible for Shareaza, rather than just hosting it.

Hopefully, the courts will come to their senses and realize, on all three of these issues, that the SPPF is out of line. But given the way some courts (especially in France) have ruled in the past, that seems unlikely.

62 Comments

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File Sharing Sites Team Up To Help Promote Indie Films

from the no-legitimate-purpose? dept

There's No Silver Bullet Strategy For Monetizing Apps, But There Are Lots Of Options To Compare

from the many-ways-to-make-a-buck dept

Yet Another Study: 'Pirates' Are Actually Industry's Best Customers

from the again-and-again-and-again dept

French Recording Industry Sues SourceForge For Hosting Open Source P2P

from the yikes dept

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