Record Labels Suing Porn Websites For Using Their Songs

Music Industry

from the sue-everyone dept

Michael Scott points us to the news that a bunch of big record labels have found their latest target for copyright infringement lawsuits: porn websites. Apparently, some of the websites that make their own videos have been including popular songs — and some (gasp!) even show the actors lip-syncing along. It seems that the porn sites chose songs with… descriptive titles: Justin Timberlake’s SexyBack, Michael Jackson’s Don’t Stop (Til You Get Enough) and Katy Perry’s I Kissed a Girl. Assuming this ever gets to court, you have to imagine it will make for an interesting day in the courtroom when the “evidence” is shown.

Filed Under: copyright, music, porn

Strange Bedfellows: IsoHunt And Andrew Cuomo?

News

from the didn't-see-that-coming dept

This one is a bit odd and unexpected. We recently reported on how grandstanding New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo had kicked off a new project that would create a database of child porn, and offer up hashes to any website that wanted to use it to block such content from being uploaded. While the general concept seemed good, it wasn’t clear how this database was being generated, or if there were safeguards in place to make sure that the list really only included illegal images. Either way, it appears that Cuomo has welcomed with open arms a surprising company who wants to use the database: IsoHunt. Yes, the torrent search engine in the midst of a legal battle for its survival has agreed to use the hash database to prevent access to such images via its system.

Considering that Cuomo thrust himself in the middle of the file sharing debate by supposedly trying (and failing) to broker backroom deals with ISPs to get them to embrace three strikes policies, it seems a bit surprising that he would embrace a site like IsoHunt. That said, it seems that he appears a lot more interested in getting publicity over child porn issues rather than copyright. As for IsoHunt, this also appears to be a pretty calculated move. Part of the site’s legal argument is that the judge’s demand to filter by keyword is way too broad, and it has argued that a similar hash database would make more sense. So, it’s no surprise that IsoHunt wasted little time in letting the judge know about this new deal.

Filed Under: andrew cuomo, copyright, hash database, porn
Companies: isohunt

Parents Television Council Demands Details Of Comcast's Porn Revenue

Overhype

from the of-all-the-complaints... dept

I still think those opposed to the Comcast/NBC Universal merger are overreacting, but I have to admit the most amusing effort to deal with the merger may come from the Parents Television Council, the group famous for flooding the FCC with complaints every time it hears about something it doesn’t believe belongs on TV. Apparently, PTC is now demanding that Comcast reveal how much money it makes from porn. Honestly, I’m wondering if it got the idea from a recent episode of 30 Rock, which has been using the “fictional” ongoing merger between NBC (in the show) and Kabletown to mock the proposed real-life merger. In one episode, a Kabletown exec claims that the entire business is funded on porn, and execs don’t have to do anything, because the money just rolls in.

“Comcast is one of the most far-reaching distributors of pornography in the communities it serves, raising serious questions about whether the company meets the character and public interest obligations required,” said PTC President Tim Winter.

Interesting. I didn’t realize that “character” was part of how the FCC reviewed mergers. Good luck with that one, PTC.

Filed Under: parents television council, porn, revenue
Companies: comcast, nbc universal

South African Politicians Want To Ban All Porn Online

Politics

from the how-do-you-define-porn dept

What is it with politicians who don’t understand basic concepts? Apparently, the Deputy Minister of Home Affairs in South Africa, Malusi Gigaba, thinks that it’s possible to ban online porn. When people pointed out that it’s just not that easy, he responded thusly:

“Cars are already provided with brakes and seatbelts… There is no reason why the internet should be provided without the necessary restrictive mechanisms built into it….”

Well, actually, Mr. Gigaba, there are plenty of perfectly legitimate reasons. Brakes and seatbelts have pretty easily defined tasks: slowing a car down and preventing you from flying forward in the event of a sudden stop. You can engineer that easily. What you can’t engineer is a definition of porn that works. What is pornography? To each person it might be entirely different. How do you build a system that knows?

Furthermore, of course, there’s a question of why you would even want to do so. That’s not made at all clear in the article, but if you’re talking about consenting adults trying to find some porn online, what’s the problem with that?

Filed Under: ban, malusi gigaba, porn, south africa

Federal Agencies May Lose Funding For R&D Projects Because The NSF Didn't Fire An Employee Who Saw Porn

Politics

from the there-goes-the-sec dept

Washington DC can be a funny place when it comes to negotiating legislation. Apparently, an effort to renew a program that provides billions in funding for important long term research efforts (you know, the kind of programs the government should be funding) may get held up over some amendments added to the bill… including one that would ban federal money going to any gov’t employees disciplined for viewing porn on their computers. Effectively, the amendment means if you view porn on your computer as a gov’t employee, you are fired. Actually, you don’t even have to view the porn. The language says no federal funding can go:

“to salaries to those officially disciplined for violations regarding the viewing, downloading, or exchanging of pornography…”

Want to get a federal employee fired? Send them an email with a pornographic picture as an attachment. What does this particular amendment have to do with federal funding for research? Apparently, the guy who wrote the amendment says he’s upset about giving money to the NSF, because it merely “disciplined” and suspended rather than fired an employee found with porn on his computer. Of course, give the recent revelations about porn web surfing at the SEC, if this goes through, say goodbye to the SEC.

Because no one wants to be seen as supporting government employees viewing porn, this particular amendment passed easily. We’re coming up on election season, and you can bet no Congressional reps wanted to hand their opponents this line in a commercial: “While in Congress, Rep. X voted in favor of letting federal employees view porn on their computers…” or something along those lines.

Of course, that same amendment also pulls funding for a number of programs and may cause the entire bill to be withdrawn, leaving the status of funding for a lot of research in limbo. Now, I’m all for making sure that the funding is used in a reasonable manner, and if certain programs are ineffective, it’s worth looking to see if they should be removed from the bill. But, to lump in decisions on funding with a program about firing employees who view porn just seems like a crass political ploy during a debate on a particularly important issue. It may be par for the course in Congress, but to those of us who actually care about innovation, it’s stories like this that make us so cynical about the US government.

Filed Under: federal funding, nsf, porn, r&d

New Ransomware Targets Porn Pirates, Makes Copyright Threats

(Mis)Uses of Technology

from the hey-that's-a-good-idea dept

Ransomware viruses that hijack a a user’s computer and demand payment for snake-oil anti-virus software are nothing new, but there’s a new twist on it in Japan. A new virus targets people downloading hentai (an explicit form of anime cartoons) from P2P networks, and poses as an installation screen for a game that asks for users’ personal info. Once this is entered, it starts taking screengrabs of users’ web activity, which it posts online under their name, and asks for payment of 1500 yen (about $16) to “settle your violation of copyright law” and take down the page. There’s a similar scam running in Europe, says a security firm, in which a virus scans a computer’s hard drive, and regardless of what it finds, demands payment of $400 for a “pretrial settlement” of copyright infringement claims. Essentially these scams are just online versions of what firms like Digiprotect, ACS:Law and Davenport Lyons do through the mail — send out thousands of letters demanding people pay up for supposedly downloading copyrighted content. That scheme (which manages to ensnare plenty of innocent users) is quite profitable for the firms that run it — so it shouldn’t be too surprising to see malware scammers move in. It’s an interesting question, though: really, what’s the fundamental difference between what the malware peddlers and these supposedly legitimate companies are doing?

Filed Under: copyright, porn, ransomware

Japanese Porn Actress Entices Chinese Net Users To Scale Great Firewall

Surprises

from the motivation dept

It’s no secret that porn can be a tremendous driver for the adoption of new technologies: VCRs, DVD players, cable and satellite TV, and the internet. But apparently it’s also helping teach Chinese folks how to scale the country’s Great Firewall. A few days ago, the Twitter name of a Japanese porn actress got “discovered” in China, and thanks to her apparent popularity, tons of people started trying to access her Twitter page. Twitter, though, is blocked in China, and since the woman is a porn actress, information on her is blocked as it “could cause harm to youngsters’ mental and physical well-being”. These blocks are apparently driving people to learn how to use software to get around the Great Firewall (via Jan Chipchase) so they can follow the actress on Twitter. Perhaps the best way to deal with China’s internet censorship isn’t technical tricks, but to point Chinese surfers to porn so they’ll learn about how to get around the wall on their own?

Filed Under: china, great firewall, porn

Is Everyone Who Received Monday's Metro Toronto Guilty Of Child Porn Possession?

Legal Issues

from the certainly-seems-that-way dept

We were just talking about how current child porn laws that make you a criminal based on incidental possession alone can be quite problematic. Reader Jesse highlights an example of this. If you happen to have been in Toronto on Monday, and received a copy of Metro Toronto, a popular commuter paper, buried a few pages in was a “featured picture” of some kids celebrating at an annual parade by jumping around in a hot tub. The only problem? The male in the photo appears to be, well… having a wardrobe malfunction. Not unexpectedly, a bunch of sites were having some fun with this… until some realized that these were high school students. At that point, even Gawker — who will post almost anything — removed the photo realizing that under current laws, it was likely child pornography. Jesse points out that this would appear to make a bunch of people at the Metro, all the recipients of the paper on Monday, many people who visited blogs like Torontoist and Gawker while they had those photos displayed… potentially at risk for possessing child porn (and in the case of Metro employees and these blogs, for distributing it as well) — making them all potential felons who could be required to sign up to be on sex offender lists for the rest of their lives. Isn’t something wrong with the law when that happens?

Filed Under: accidents, photos, porn, possession, toronto