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BitTorrent Bundle Provides New Options for Content Creators

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May 9, 2013

BitTorrent announced the BitTorrent Bundle earlier this week, a new format that provides access to free content in addition to a gateway to other material. It offers content creators a new means of distributing and monetizing their work outside the confines of traditional methods. BitTorrent continues its efforts to transform the file-sharing software into a legitimate platform for movies and music. Continue reading BitTorrent Bundle Provides New Options for Content Creators

Adobe Intros Subscription-Only Model with Creative Cloud

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May 8, 2013

Adobe’s flagship Creative Suite has evolved into Adobe Creative Cloud, with new features and a switch to a subscription-only model. Instead of individual Adobe apps being available for a flat rate, users will pay a monthly subscription to access all the products. Last year, the company introduced its Creative Cloud subscription service, through which users could access one product each month for $29.99 or all the products within Creative Suite 6 for $49.99. More than 500,000 premium members signed up in the first nine months, on top of 2 million free members. Continue reading Adobe Intros Subscription-Only Model with Creative Cloud

Developer Conducts P2P Experiment: Piracy or Entrapment?

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May 2, 2013

Greenheart Games pulled a switch on gamers this week by providing a crippled version of a game on BitTorrent. The illegal version of “Game Dev Tycoon” will stop at a certain point, indicating that the product has been pirated. While this strategy was initiated as an experiment to draw attention to software piracy, and not to seek out and prosecute offenders, it has raised some interesting and complex legal issues. Continue reading Developer Conducts P2P Experiment: Piracy or Entrapment?

Game of Thrones: Most Pirated Show Remains Lucrative

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April 2, 2013

HBO’s “Game of Thrones” is the most pirated show on television. How does the cable network feel about that? Not bad, actually. The show’s second season recently experienced record-setting DVD sales for the network, even as it was 2012’s most illegally downloaded show. According to HBO programming president Michael Lombardo, this is viewed as a positive, especially since it doesn’t seem to adversely affect sales. Continue reading Game of Thrones: Most Pirated Show Remains Lucrative

The Pirate Bay Moves Out of Sweden Under Legal Threat

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March 6, 2013

The Pirate Bay, which has been using bandwidth provided to the site by Sweden’s Pirate Party, is no longer in Sweden, according to Torrent Freak. Following threats of legal action from a local anti-piracy group Rights Alliance in its home country, the pirating site packed up and left last week, handing over responsibilities to pirate parties in Norway and Spain. Continue reading The Pirate Bay Moves Out of Sweden Under Legal Threat

Annual Music Study Shows Illegal Activity Decline in 2012

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February 28, 2013

According to numbers from global information company The NPD Group, illegal music file sharing declined in 2012, quite significantly when compared to peer-to-peer sharing’s height in 2005. This year the number of consumers using P2P services to download music declined by 17 percent compared to one year earlier. In 2005, a total of 33 million people used these services, while 21 million used P2P in 2012. Continue reading Annual Music Study Shows Illegal Activity Decline in 2012

Pirate Bay Documentary Filmmaker on Politics of File-Sharing

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February 11, 2013

Filmmaker Simon Klose released his documentary on the founders of The Pirate Bay last week. “TPB AFK: The Pirate Bay Away From Keyboard” follows the founders over a four year period of time, through their ongoing legal struggles, technical issues and battles with large corporations. In an interview with The Verge, Klose shares his thoughts about online piracy, file-sharing, Kim Dotcom, politics and international copyright laws. Continue reading Pirate Bay Documentary Filmmaker on Politics of File-Sharing

Digital Future: Tsujihara Named Chief Exec of Warner Bros.

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January 29, 2013

Time Warner Inc. has selected Kevin Tsujihara as the new chief executive of Warner Bros. Entertainment. As president of Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group since 2005, Tsujihara has been responsible for the studio’s home video, digital distribution, video game and anti-piracy efforts. The selection was made by Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes and Barry Meyer, chairman of Warner Bros. Entertainment. Continue reading Digital Future: Tsujihara Named Chief Exec of Warner Bros.

Convicted File Sharer Recieves Record 5-Year Prison Term

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January 6, 2013

Jeramiah Perkins of the IMAGiNE Group was handed a record prison term for illegal file-sharing. The 40-year old Perkins, who is the reported leader of the in-theater camcording gang, was ordered to serve a 60-month prison term. The sentence surpasses that of IMAGiNE co-defendant Gregory Cherwonik of New York, who received 40 months in November. “In all, five IMAGiNE members have pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit copyright infringement for operating what prosecutors described as the world’s most prolific piracy release group between 2009 and 2011,” reports Wired. Continue reading Convicted File Sharer Recieves Record 5-Year Prison Term

MPA Unveils New Mobile App Designed to Combat Piracy in Theaters

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December 14, 2012

Movie theater personnel in the Asia-Pacific region can now quickly report illegal video recording to the Motion Picture Association with a new app available for tablets and smartphones.

“Using the mobile app, called MAD4 — abbreviated from ‘Make A Difference’ — theater managers and their teams will be able to type in information about camcording incidents through an online reporting platform,” explains The Hollywood Reporter. “The data will then be available to MPA officials for follow-up action or investigation.”

The MPA announced the new app this week at the CineAsia trade fair in Hong Kong. Also included in the app are training videos and resources to express the impact of piracy on the film industry and inform employees what to do when they witness illegal recording.

“We have been given to understand that more than 90 percent of newly released movies that appear illegally on the Internet and on the streets around the world originate from illegal copies being made in cinemas,” Ashish Saksena, CEO of Indian exhibitor Big Cinemas. “The MAD4 application is a great new tool ensuring that all staff will know what needs to be done to prevent illegal recordings being made in cinemas.”

MPAA Chief: Hollywood and Silicon Valley Can Fight Piracy Together

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December 10, 2012

MPAA Chairman and CEO Chris Dodd is calling for Hollywood and Silicon Valley to join together against piracy. Dodd spoke at the Content Protection Summit in Los Angeles and criticized the idea that piracy debate is just a two-sided choice between free speech or copyright protection.

“Hollywood and Silicon Valley have more in common than most people realize or are willing to acknowledge,” he said. “Not only does Hollywood work closely with Silicon Valley to create and promote films; Hollywood film and television creators are tech companies.”

“They celebrate innovation through the world’s most cutting-edge content, and they embrace technology as imperative to the success of the creators in their community,” he added.

With the Protect IP Act and Stop Online Piracy Act, Hollywood and Silicon Valley were pitted against each other, but Dodd emphasized the need “to present a united front to deal with preventing theft of intellectual property,” Variety reports. He did not, however, advocate for any new legislation.

“We can have it both ways,” he said. “We can have an Internet that works for everyone. And in order to continue providing the world’s greatest content, we must protect the rights of our creators so they can produce for their audiences and also profit from their work.”

Editorials Respond to Proposed Legislation Regarding Online Piracy

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November 30, 2011
  • According to an editorial in The New York Times, the House’s proposed Stop Online Piracy Act is too broad as it has provisions to cut off payments from providers such as Visa and ad networks like Google simply by filing a notice of infringement.
  • While the legislation is aimed at foreign websites like Pirate Bay, it could also be used against domestic websites covered by the Digital Milennium Copyright Act that has safe harbor provisions.
  • The editorial asserts that safe harbor provisions should be made available to foreign websites that abide by the DMCA. And a court order should be required before action is taken.
  • A related Los Angeles Times editorial suggests that the Stop Online Piracy Act and the PROTECT IP Act both go to extremes in an effort to protect intellectual property.
  • The legislation could force companies to monitor their users’ behavior “turning them into a private security force for copyright and trademark owners.”
  • Infringement on popular sites like Facebook, Dropbox and YouTube are certainly opening them up to action in spite of safe harbor provisions now in force. The result would be less innovation to create the next YouTube and would have a potentially chilling effect on free speech.

Online Piracy: Controversial House Bill Proposed to Block Pirate Sites

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October 31, 2011
  • The Stop Online Piracy Act was introduced in the House of Representatives last week.
  • “While sites that host and distribute pirated content continue to operate around the world, members of the House of Representatives are seeking a new legal method to shutting down access to copyrighted content,” reports Digital Trends.
  • The proposed bill would provide the U.S. Attorney General with the power to order search engines and ISPs to block sites that feature pirated content.
  • The Act is the House’s version of the PROTECT-IP Act introduced in the Senate that if passed, would enable the government or courts to monitor users and remove infringing websites from the global network, even without hearings.
  • Critics have used labels such as the “Internet Death Penalty” and “Great Firewall of America” to describe the proposal.
  • “The bottom line is that if it passes and becomes law, the new act would give the government and copyright holders a giant stick — if not an automatic weapon — with which to pursue websites and services they believe are infringing on their content,” suggests GigaOM. “That might make for the kind of Internet that media and entertainment conglomerates would prefer, but it would clearly be a much diminished version of the Internet we take for granted.”

DRM Effectiveness: Is Piracy a Pricing Issue or a Service Issue?

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October 27, 2011
  • Valve co-founder and managing director Gabe Newell has reiterated his take on the issue of piracy. Valve is the creator of game platform Steam that distributes games to a global community of 35 million players.
  • Newell believes that DRM does not work and pirates are not necessarily always seeking free content.
  • “One thing that we have learned is that piracy is not a pricing issue. It’s a service issue,” he says. “The easiest way to stop piracy is not by putting antipiracy technology to work. It’s by giving those people a service that’s better than what they’re receiving from the pirates.”
  • “Most games available on Steam are easily found in pirated form on the torrent sites,” writes ETCentric contributor Nick Nero. “Even if you buy the game, many users download the torrent because most DRM requires the disc to be present which slows down the game startup and level load/access times.”
  • “What keeps me as a Steam customer is their cloud service,” adds Nick. “I can download any of my games to another PC, I can backup my games to encrypted physical media, my game saves are stored in the cloud, and I can easily find my friends for mulitplayer. The service layer is what brings in the customers.”

Could Removal of DRM Restrictions Actually Decrease Music Piracy?

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October 13, 2011
  • New research from Rice and Duke universities challenges conventional wisdom by suggesting that the removal of digital rights management restrictions can actually decrease music piracy.
  • “Marketing professors Dinah Vernik of Rice and Devavrat Purohit and Preyas Desai of Duke used analytical modeling to examine how piracy is influenced by the presence or absence of DRM restrictions,” explains the press release. “They found that while these restrictions make piracy more costly and difficult, the restrictions also have a negative impact on legal users who have no intention of doing anything illegal.”
  • “In many cases, DRM restrictions prevent legal users from doing something as normal as making backup copies of their music,” said Vernik, assistant professor of marketing at Rice. “Because of these inconveniences, some consumers choose to pirate.”
  • According to the research paper, copyright owners don’t necessarily benefit from less piracy. “Decreased piracy doesn’t guarantee increased profits,” Purohit said. “In fact, our analysis demonstrates that under some conditions, one can observe lower levels of piracy and lower profits.”
  • The press release includes a compelling statement from the late Steve Jobs: “Why would the big four music companies agree to let Apple and others distribute their music without using DRM systems to protect it? The simplest answer is because DRMs haven’t worked, and may never work, to halt music piracy.”

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