Movie Studios Next to Sue Pirate Bay in Latest Act of Futility

A few months ago, one of the larger and better known sites to index torrent files, the Pirate Bay, was successfully sued by a group of music industry types for all sorts of copyright violations resulting in large fines and possible prison sentences.

Of course, this has done nothing to curb music piracy since the Pirate Bay is only one of literally hundreds of sites providing the EXACT SAME links to potentially infringing torrent-files.  In addition to, oh, I dunno, Google and Bing, some of these sites include Mininova, SumoTorrents, Demonoid, Thunderbytes, IsoHunt and, no kidding, hundreds more.

Now comes word that the movie studios are going after the Pirate Bay:

Columbia Pictures, Disney Enterprises, Universal Studios (NYSE:GE) and 10 others are demanding the site’s operators be fined and prevented from distributing TV-series including “Lost” and “Desperate Housewives” and films such as “Batman.”     LINK

Now, a huge percentage of TV piracy is due to FANS of the show living in regions that do not broadcast current episodes.  This piracy is not an act of protest against the show but a major show of love, of a willingness to do whatever it takes to get the latest episode.  You’d think studios would want to figure out how to meet the needs of these super-fans instead of trying to hinder them but that would be far too forward-thinking for this dying Industrial Age model of doing business.

While one might argue that suing the Pirate Bay sends a message to other sites, this same thinking has done nothing to slow the rate of music piracy and force a natural evolution of the industry.  Film and TV is next, whether they like it or not.  In the meantime, they are going to waste millions of dollars and thousands of man-hours trying to shut down the Pirate Bay, after which nothing will have changed but their bank balance.

Are the Fine Arts Exempt from Copyright Lawsuits?

While groups like the RIAA and the MPAA do everything in their power to stamp out creativity in the name of protecting some glorified sense of intellectual property, it looks like painters are having no problem profiting from work that clearly borrows the images of previously copyrighted content.

A great example of this is the Crazy 4 Cult 3-D Artwork show put on by Gallery1988.  All the work in the show was based on a number of cult film favorites including “Edward Scissorhands” and “Pee Wee’s Big Adventure.”  Below is an example of one of many paintings based on “The Big Lebowski”

Now, there is absolutely no question that this is The Dude himself and one highly doubts that the artist, Misha, would have been able to sell the painting for $800.00 if it was just some random guy, instead.

So, here’s the question: why is this work protected but not, say, the work of musical mashup DJs?  Both are creating original work from existing content and both benefit from the public awareness of the underlying works.  Or how about the ridiculous case of J.D. Salinger suing to stop publication of a book that explores the character of Holden Caufield as an old man?

The point is that we’ve truly lost our way in terms of copyright law.  While creativity and technology have come together to allow for an exponential growth in the reach of diversity of new art the lawyers and those paying their wages are doing everything in their power to shut down the whole process.

Meet CinemaCube – An MPAA Nightmare

The device pictured to right is BrightView’s CinemaCube and, if they are aware of it’s existence, it is giving those in the MPAA nightmares.

The device plugs directly into a user’s TV and uses any USB storage device (from thumb drives to external hard drives) to store data. On the surface, that means you could watch your home movies or view photos.

The CinemaCube is also comes with a built-in BitTorrent client, meaning users can access the online file sharing service. It’s also networkable, letting users can grab files (ranging from music to video to photos) from a remote PC to view on their television.

The device, which supports HD content up to 720p and comes with an HDMI port, is on sale now for $89.99.   LINK

I don’t have much to add except that it’s one more reason the MPAA and the major movie studios should be spending more time a new distribution model than on suing sites like The Pirates Bay

MPAA Wonders Why Public Views Them (and RIAA) So Poorly

There is a devestating post in response to comments made by Fritz Attaway, executive vice president and senior policy adviser for the MPAA at the World Copyright Summit, who said:

”The enemies of copyright have really done a good job at creating the false premise that the interest of copyright holders and the interest of society as a whole are antagonistic, and they always talk about the need for balance.”   LINK

ZeroPaid’s Drew Wilson asks, “Gee, why would the public view them as antogonistic?” He then answers with a few possibilities:

…destroying Napster and Audio Galaxy and not creating an alternative for the get-go, raiding people’s homes because they uploaded Star Wars (not necessarily leaking it in the first place), hacking the URN hash and polluting FastTrack, hacking The Pirate Bay, having Viacom serve DMCA notices to people posting video’s of people eating in a restaurant on YouTube, suing tens of thousands of average American’s including fining one individual $222,000 for sharing a couple songs, saying that files in a shared directory is copyright infringement in court, saying that evidence is too hard to get and that the industry shouldn’t be burdened to prove their cases in court, suggesting that iPods are little more than little pirate ships…

And that’s just  a taste of the entire post.  When people of the future look back at how the massive entertainment industries of the late-20th Century crumbled, this post would be a good starting point.

MPAA Teaches Teachers to Pirate with Video Cameras

The MPAA is one of the most revolting associations I can think of (yes, RIAA also comes to mind).  Not only do they do nothing to increase the artistic or creative value of film but they are anti-consumer and anti-viewer.

The lastest example of the MPAA’s wrongheadedness is their advice to school teachers who would like to use pieces of DVDs in their teaching.  Instead of doing the simple, cost-effective and flexible thing – rip the DVD to a usable file format allowing it to be quickly and easily incorporated into the lesson plan – the MPAA is actually telling teachers that they should videotape the monitor showing the DVD and use the resulting tape.

What?!

Not only would that seem to send the message to students that videotaping a copyprotected screening of a movie is ok – something the MPAA goes to nearly criminal lengths to prevent – but it’s incredibly more time-consuming and complicated than simply ripping the file.

We’re not even talking about the rights of a consumer to rip a DVD they have already purchased but the rights of a teacher to create a dynamic lesson plan – a clear example of “fair use.”

The only silver lining is that the more boneheaded the MPAA reveals itself to be the more likely they are to hasten their own extinction.

LINK

The Pirate Bay Loses Battle, Not War

In a small setback for all those who believe in progress and innovation , the Swedish courts have found the four key principles involved in running P2P BitTorrent site, The Pirate Bay, guilts of copyright violations.  The sentence is one year in jail and $3.6M in fines.  All that, officially for:

…having made 33 copyright-protected files accessible for illegal file sharing via the Piratebay.org Web site.

Of course, this case is not about 33 files but about the entertainment industry’s claim that The Pirate Bay was simply a hotbed of illegal file traffic.  The big question was whether or not simply providing links to the protected content was enough to be found guilty of violating copyright law.  It looks to me like the prosecution was unable to make that case and basically got the founders of The Pirate Bay on what amounts to a techicality.

One shudders to think how many people would have to be rounded up and imprisoned for a year if all it took was making 33 protected files available via a common P2P protocol.  And what about the lesser “crime” of downloading a protected file?

An estimated one in 10 people in the Nordic country engaged in file sharing last year.

Are we really ready to lock up 10% of the population because groups like RIAA and MPAA have tragically outdated business models and have thrust their heads into the sand as a response?

While this is a “win” for big media it certainly isn’t going to turn the tide back in their favor.  Not only is it impossible to put Pandora back in her box but the very same links provided by The Pirate Bay are available on Google.

Plus, it sounds like this verdict is only further empowering those who are hungry for change:

The Pirate Party political group–which has been supporting Pirate Bay and thus has gained popularity among the large number of file sharers in Sweden–also sees the verdict as an opportunity. The verdict is the “ticket to get elected to European parliament” in June, the Pirate Party said in a press release.

And don’t worry about the guilty party, they are appealing and it will be years before this thing is settled.

LINK

X-Men Origens: Wolverine Leak Exposes Vast Grey Areas of Copyright Law

Late last week a “work print” of the upcoming 20th Century Fox feature film “Wolverine” was somehow released into the wilds of the internet.

All sides responded quickly and exactly as expected.  The filthy, dirty pirates of the world facilitated this heinous criminal action by seeding torrents of the video file and the obviously freedom-hating people of the world downloaded the video by the thousands.  20th Century Fox and the MPAA responded by unleashing the hounds, swearing they would track down and prosecute every horrible pirate out there and they even got the FBI involved.

In an interesting little twist, a FoxNews.com reporter, Roger Friedman, was either fired or will shortly be fired for writing a review of the contraband “Wolverine.”

This opens up a slew of questions that highlight why copyright law is such a mess and makes it nearly impossible for anyone to safely wander the internet without fear of prosecution.

For instance, is Roger Friedman guilty of a crime?  To answer this question, you must ask how he got his copy of the video.  From his own account it appears that he downloaded it from the internet.  Under a strict reading of copyright law this is clearly a crime and one for which he could be taken to court.

Of course, by the time Friendman got his copy there were litary thousands of links floating around the web.

Let’s say you’re just some kid in Kansas and you see a link that says “Watch the new Wolverine right NOW!  Click here!” Now, let’s say you click that link because you want to see the new Wolverine.  Suddenly, there in front of you is the new Wolverine.  Awesome!  Unfortunately, the MPAA was tracking this link and now they are filing papers to threaten your parents with legal action if they don’t pay up a large sum of money.

Sounds ridiculous, right?  Well, it is no different than what has happened to hundreds of music downloaders across the country thanks to RIAA.

The problem is, how was this kid to know that this was not a “legal” link?  Should he just know that 20th Century Fox would never be so crazy as to, say, raise awareness by “virally” leaking a work print of Wolverine?  Ok, ignorance of the law is not a defense, but in this case, how do you even guage what is acceptable “general knowledge.”

While the studios will try to hold this up as proof that we need stronger laws and harsher penalties for “piracy” I think this demonstrates that the laws simply do not reflect current technology or consumer expectations and trying to legislate against these forces is a losing battle (see the “war on drugs” for similar outcomes).

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• FBI enlisted after incomplete version of Wolverine film leaked (cbc.ca)
• Studio Issues Statement On ‘X-Men Origins: Wolverine’ Movie Leak (splashpage.mtv.com)

PirateBay On Facebook Forces the Issue

Like so many other sites have done, The Pirate Bay is no providing on-click links that allow its users to post directly to their Facebook streams.

As Mashable puts it:

Facebook is the world’s largest social network, with over 150 to 200 million people signed up already. It’s one of the best ways to share links, blog posts, and content. Many websites, including our own, have links for easily sharing content to Facebook. So it makes sense as to why The Pirate Bay would want to encourage people to share torrent links on Facebook. But because many of these files are illegal to download, it also makes sense that copyright infringement organizations are not very happy.

Since Facebook is likely to want to avoid major legal action by the friends folks at the RIAA and MPAA it seems almost definite that Facebook will move to block this feature.

The question is, do they have any real legal reason to do this and are they really helping anyone by blocking their users from posting the links?  For one thing, The Pirate Bay does not actual store or transmit any copyrighted content, they simply provide links to other places that do.  This is, in effect, no different than what Google does, just that The Pirate Bay (and hundreds of other torrent-tracker sites out there) specializes in searching only for torrent links.

While the MPAA et. al. might not like that links to freely available copies of their copyrighted content are being made all-the-more public on Facebook via The Pirate Bay feature, neither of these parties are the reason that piracy exists or that it flourishes in the face of broken business models that treat fans as criminals.

We’ll have to see if Facebook does, in fact, act against The Pirate Bay but you can be certain they’re being asked to do it.

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• Arrr, The Pirate Bay Invades Facebook (blippitt.com)
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Pirates Beat Oscars Again – Suck It MPAA

Every year the MPAA claims to be doing everything in its power to stop pirates from destroying the film industry.  Of course, what they really mean is that they are wasting millions of dollars and work-hours.

Not only does there seem to be little proof that pirated downloads are actually hurting the film industry’s bottomline but the efforts of the MPAA are doing nothing to stop it:

Waxy.org’s Andy Baio has once again published an extensive collection of data about this year’s Oscar nominations and their availability on P2P networks. He’s been doing this for the last seven years, during which the overall picture has remained pretty much the same; almost all Oscar nominated movies are available on file-sharing networks before the annual awards ceremony. In fact of the 26 movies that were nominated this year, 23 are already available in DVD quality on P2P networks. (via NewTeeVee)

While this same article points out that it is taking longer for pirates to get copies to the internet, by a matter of days from year-to-year, it makes it very clear that the major studios are going to have to figure out a new approach to fighting the pirates other than chasing them around the net with “cease and desist” orders and dragging fans into court.

Maybe they should, um, take a few lessons from the pirates and begin releasing usable digital copies themselves without endless forms of DRM that cripple the end-users ability to do what they want with the movie.

Just a thought.

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Inching Closer to Reigning in MPAA/RIAA et. al.

Image via Wikipedia

One of the many incredibly outrageous things that RIAA tries to do is to recoup “statutory damages” from file sharers that massively outweigh the actual financial damages incurred.

Now, at least a few judges are beginning to see the light.  TechDirt points to a recent NY court ruling:

“In a recent case in the Southern District of New York, Yurman Studio, Inc. v. Castaneda, 07 Civ. 1241 (SAS)(S.D.N.Y. November 19, 2008), District Judge Shira A. Scheindlin reminds us of the well settled principle that “At the end of the day, ’statutory damages should bear some relation to actual damages suffered’ [citing RSO Records v. Peri, 596 F.Supp. 849,862 (SDNY 1984); New Line Cinema Corp. v. Russ Berrie & Co., 161 F.Supp.2d 293,303 (SDNY 2001); 4 Nimmer Sec. 14.04[E][1] at 14-90(2005)] and ‘cannot be divorced entirely from economic reality‘” (via)

More people are waking up to the reality that the current manner in which copyright law is being applied to digital content is just plain crazy.  It is an extremely complex problem but it will not be solved unless more individuals stand up to these powerful organizations.