Comcast Screws Up And Targets Innocent Customer In P2P Dragnet

from the cut-'em-off dept

Davis Freeberg writes "As if the prospect of having the big telcos looking over your shoulder wasn’t bad enough, we’re already seeing reports of Comcast targeting innocent customers in DRM stings.

After receiving a takedown notice from Comcast’s DRM squad, John Aprigliano had to spend an hour dealing with them, in order to prove his innocence. Apparently, Comcast wasn’t able to tell that one of his old modems was really being used by someone else. Lucky for him, he’s a network engineer and knew the right questions to ask, but sooner or later someone will end up losing their internet access over this kind of screw up. If Comcast wants to be the top P2P cop, shouldn’t they be able to accurately identify between copyright infringers and their customers. So far they aren’t off to a very good start.”

Doesn’t that make you feel comfortable now that Comcast has indicated its willingness to cut off internet access for file sharers? Once again, it would be great if we could implement a reverse three strikes policy, where three false accusations by the entertainment industry or an ISP leads to them losing their internet access.

Filed Under: false accusations, file sharing, three strikes
Companies: comcast

Digital Britain Report: Blank Promises, Vague Statements And Everything Is Hedged…

from the politics-today dept

The long awaited (and somewhat delayed) Digital Britain interim report has been released, and, like the Gowers Report on intellectual property before it, this one seems way too “balanced” for its own good. That is, it seems to avoid taking a really significant stand on anything. For example, it says that the country should have universal broadband (of at least 2 Mbps), but doesn’t explain how. It just offers up some vague statements about hoping that private sector ISPs reach that goal, and urging the BBC to promote the wonders of broadband to those who haven’t signed up yet.

The same sort of vague uselessness is found in the part on copyright and file sharing. While there were early fears that the report would urge the government to force ISPs to become copyright cops, that turns out not to be the case… sort of. Instead, the report seems to take both sides of the issue. First it seems to admonish the Big Content industries for failing to adapt to new markets and new technologies: “The core ethos, and success, of the internet to date lies in its ability to stimulate shared ideas and content,” and suggests that rather than relying on copyright and lawsuits, they should be exploring new business models that allow “for innovation in platforms, devices and applications that make use of content and that respond to consumers’ desire to access content in the time and manner they want, allowing them to use it how they want, and at a price they are willing to pay.”

That sounds good… but then in a nod to those companies it just told need to figure out another business model, it says: “counter-piracy measures and effective rights enforcement are an ‘important element’ of upholding creative copyright and content ownership,” and then promises to eventually force ISPs to be copyright cops, anyway. In other words, look at new business models, but if you don’t, the government is still going to protect your old business model.

Basically, it’s hard to feel too much one way or another about this report. It seems to promise everything and nothing, and insist that changes need to be made, while promising to protect those who don’t change. It’s perhaps not surprising in a political document, but it’s hard to see the document as being anything more than fluffy nothingness at this point.

Filed Under: digital britain, file sharing, isps, uk, universal broadband

UK Gov't Insists That File Sharers Won't Be Kicked Off The Internet

from the well,-it's-a-start dept

While there are still some concern about what the UK gov’t is planning concerning ISPs in relation to the recording industry, reports are coming out that kicking file sharers off the internet with a “3 strikes” policy is off the table — at least according to David Lammy, the Intellectual Property Minister in the UK. That’s a good sign, and fits with what the EU Parliament has said. The full government report is expected later this week, though no one has yet explained to us why the government is stepping in to what is effectively a business model issue, and trying to force a different industry (ISPs) to help deal with a problem created by an industry (the recording industry) that has spent a decade trying to hold back new business models that would solve any “problem” it faces.

Meanwhile, of course, Lammy’s comments have (not surprisingly) upset the recording industry. Folks at BPI are particularly pissed off that Lammy compared file sharing to swiping a bar of soap in a hotel room you rented (i.e., a minor issue, not something to arrest someone over). BPI’s representative claims he’s “appalled” that the IP minister would say such a thing, and even says it shows a lack of understanding about intellectual property. Generally, if you’re pissing off the established recording industry folks, you’re probably doing something right these days.

Filed Under: business models, copyright, david lammy, file sharing, isps, p2p, uk
Companies: bpi

Sweden Considering Law To Allow Police To Go After File Sharers

from the moving-in-the-wrong-direction dept

One of the most enjoyable parts of attending MidemNet was talking with various people in the industry who have learned how to embrace new business models and adapt to the changing market place. I ended up hanging out a lot with Martin Thornkvist, of the Swedish record label Songs I Wish I Had Written (some of that time spent wandering slightly lost through French villages post-midnight, after we discovered that there was no transportation back to the town where both of us were staying, but only a train that would drop us a few towns over, where the promised taxi cabs were found to not exist). We talked a lot about what’s going on in Sweden, where there seems to be an unfortunate dichotomy. There are those who have learned to embrace the new market place and look for the opportunities, such as Martin’s label, and a variety of other labels there. And, of course, there are folks like The Pirate Bay and the political Pirate Party, which actually has received some level of recognition in Sweden.

But there is also the other side. And they still appear to be in power. Apparently, Sweden’s Justice Minister is reviewing a report that will recommend giving police the ability to go after file sharers. This still makes little sense to me. Copyright should be, for the most part, a civil issue. It usually makes little to no sense to ever get police or law enforcement involved — especially when we’re seeing plenty of folks in the recording industry — such as Martin and other Swedish indie labels — not only learn to live with things like file sharing, but to embrace it and actively encourage it. Of course, I have to admit that, while highly amusing, the Swedish Pirate Party’s response to such a plan is a bit over the top:

“These laws are written by digital illiterates who behave like blindfolded, drunken elephants trumpeting about in an egg packaging facility. They have no idea how much damage they’re causing, because they lack today’s literacy: an understanding of how the Internet is reshaping the power structures at their core.”

Of course, when you combine plans to have law enforcement go after file sharers with recently approved legislation to effectively tap all forms of communication in the country, things get pretty worrisome pretty fast.

Filed Under: file sharing, law enforcement, sweden

Did Amazon Force Takedown Of Firefox Pirate Extension?

from the why-bother? dept

Earlier this week, we skipped on writing about the rather silly release of a Firefox user script that would add links to popular torrent trackers for unauthorized downloads of products as you surfed Amazon.com. The whole thing just seemed likely to get folks (on all sides of the debate) riled up. In fact, if anything, I thought the rather amusing response was a separate user script that did the reverse. If you were surfing torrent sites, it would link to Amazon for purchase.

However, now there are reports that Amazon.com has sent its lawyers after the original. It’s possible that they have a trademark claim, as the folks behind it used the name “Pirates of the Amazon,” and the overly aggressive trademark lawyers will (incorrectly) claim that Amazon needs to send a cease and desist to protect its trademark. In reality, that’s only true if the name is being used in a way that’s likely to cause confusion, where people might actually think that Amazon supports this. That seems quite difficult to believe.

The end result, though, is that this silly little script is now getting extra attention, and is (of course) still widely available for download at a variety of other sites. If Amazon had just let it be, this would have probably been an amusing little bit of nothing. Sure, some hardcore file sharers would use it, but they’re not going to pay for content anyway, so what difference does it make? Update: The folks behind it are now claiming it was an art project to see how people would react. Not sure I believe that, but okay…

Filed Under: file sharing, firefox extension, pirates of the amazon, trademark
Companies: amazon, pirate bay

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.

Filed Under: file sharing, france, lawsuits, liability
Companies: limewire, morpheus, sourceforge, sppf, vuze

Reputation Matters Among File Sharers

from the it-still-matters dept

Slate has an interesting article about someone (or a group of folks) under the name aXXo who is the “biggest name” in BitTorrent and consistently offers up high quality movies on a variety of BitTorrent platforms. Apparently, when aXXo uploads something, it’s likely to become one of the top BitTorrent downloads on various sites. Since I don’t use BitTorrent (or any file sharing system), I wasn’t aware of this, but find the situation to be quite interesting. The fact that reputation “matters” in the file sharing world, definitely seems like something that moviemakers can use to their advantage.

If you have a somewhat obscure movie, and want more people to see it, rather than just putting it up for download, you’re probably better off getting a “trusted party” to put it up for you. As the article notes, even the obscure movies that aXXo uploads become top downloads, because people trust aXXo, and trust is a valuable quality — even in unauthorized file sharing. In some ways, this is similar to the whole “mixtape” phenomenon, where DJs put out unauthorized mixtapes that often are, technically, copyright infringement. Yet, the top DJs are so valuable that many record labels actively push their songs on them, knowing that if they include a song on a mixtape, it increases the popularity (and marketability) of the musicians. You could easily see the same thing happening with movies and other content as well.

Filed Under: axxo, file sharing, pirace, reputation

Students Dropping Out Of School To Pay RIAA Settlement Fees?

from the educational-campaign,-huh? dept

You may recall a couple years ago that an RIAA representative suggested that an MIT student should drop out of school and get a job in order to pay the fine it was demanding she pay for sharing some music. Now, according to the associate dean of student development at the University of Wisconsin, some students are doing exactly that: “Some students have had to drop out of school in order to pay for their legal fees.” No examples or proof is given, so I’m wondering if this is just a throw-away line.

However, if it is true, it would be interesting to hear from some of those students, and to see how the RIAA responds to the situation. No matter how much you might think the RIAA is right to enforce copyright law against students, I’m curious to see if anyone can reasonably defend encouraging a student to drop out of college just to pay off such a fine. The punishment seems way out of line with the “crime.”

Filed Under: file sharing, fines, students
Companies: riaa

China Says: If You Must Infringe On Copyrights, Use Baidu

from the interesting-strategy dept

Many people have noted over the years that with all of the effort that China has put into its Great Firewall, the country hasn’t done much of anything to crack down on unauthorized file sharing. In fact, at times, it’s almost seemed to encourage it. So some people were a bit surprised to find out that China’s censors tried blocking traffic to various well known BitTorrent sites, such as Mininova, isoHunt and The Pirate Bay. However, what may be most interesting is that rather than blocking them outright, it appears that the system just redirects all that traffic to popular Chinese search engine Baidu.

This would be the same Baidu that first became really popular when China shifted all Google traffic to its site, and also the site that stayed popular because it made it easy to download unauthorized music. This would be the same Baidu that was also recently exposed to be fairly complicit in the music downloads it offers, potentially hosting the content itself through a revolving series of ever-changing domains. So, this hardly seems like an attempt by the Chinese government to crack down on unauthorized file sharing — but an attempt to drive it all to a local company. It looks like the redirects only lasted for a few days, and are no longer in place — but if the past is any indication, those redirects may come back at any time.

Filed Under: bittorrent, china, file sharing, great firewall
Companies: baidu, isohunt, mininova, pirate bay

MTV Bleeps File Sharing Software Out Of Music Videos

from the you-can't-make-this-stuff-up dept

Reader Matthew Muro writes in to let us know of a rather insane bit of news. MTV’s new video hosting site is apparently bleeping out the names of file sharing sites in Weird Al Yankovic’s famous 2006 song “Don’t Download This Song.” The opening verse to the song goes as follows:

Once in a while maybe you will feel the urge
To break international copyright law
By downloading MP3s from file-sharing sites
Like Morpheus or Grokster or Limewire or KaZaA

Yet, in that new MTV version, the last line is “Like BLEEP or BLEEP or BLEEP or BLEEP” rather than naming the four file sharing programs. Watch it here:

You can see the original (unbleeped) video on Weird Al’s own YouTube site, which (again, inexplicably) has embedding disabled, or we’d put it here for comparison purposes.

MTV’s actions really have me scratching my head. Do they think that the names of file sharing programs are the equivalent of curse words? Or do they really think that, by bleeping them out, people won’t be able to figure out what’s in the song? Seems like yet another sign of how out of touch MTV has become from today’s musically-inclined youth.

Filed Under: file sharing, mtv, music videos, weird al yankovic