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

EA Actually Understands How to Compete with Pirates

EA had the potentially dubious distinction of releasing the most pirated game in 2008, The Sims 3, an early release of which was downloaded (primarily in Poland and China) over 200,000 times.

Instead of trying to track down, sue and/or imprison anyone who had anything to do with this nefarious crime, EA CEO John Riccitiello understands that this was actually a whole lot of free promotion for a game that can only be fully enjoyed by purchasing a  full copy and gaining access to all the game’s add-ons availabe online.

Here, Riccitiello, lays out everything you need to know to fight and win when it comes to pirates:

And here’s the trick: it’s not the answer because this foils a pirate, but it’s the answer because it makes the service so valuable that in comparison the packaged good is not. So you can only deliver these added services to a consumer you recognize and know; people don’t pirate servers very often, but it has happened. So I think the truth is we’ve out-serviced the pirate. … By the way, if there are any pirates you’re writing for, please encourage them to pirate FIFA Online, NBA Street Online, Battleforge, Battlefield Heroes… if they would just pirate lots of it I’d love them. [laughs] Because what’s in the middle of the game is an opportunity to buy stuff.    LINK

Got that? Don’t sue potential customers.  Earn them back instead.

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.

Is Kevin Rose Guilty of Theft for Pirating iPhone v3.0?

Kevin Rose posted the following tweet:

So, here’s the question: Did Kevin Rose just admit to a legally punishable crime?  We all know how easy it is to go to a bittorrent site and download anything from the latest U2 album to Sims3 and many take it for granted that, while it is technically illegal it just isn’t that big a deal. Everyone does it.  It’s like smoking pot.

However, the fact remains that smoking pot is illegal and one would be foolish to puff a blunt in front of a police station.  In fact, if one did that and was arrested there would be little public sympathy.

Now, here comes Kevin Rose bragging about what is, unless the laws have changed, the illegal posession of software that he could not have acquired with violating copyright laws at the very least.  Technically, this could be seen as simple larceny.  And if Kevin has shared his ilegal copy of the sotware with friends he is now an illegal distributor – a far more grave crime.

My point is not that Kevin Rose should be arrested.  Instead, I think this is a clear sign that, much like the growing support for marjuana legalization, it is time for a major overhaul of the law as it relates to the posession and distribution of digital content.

That, or the jails will soon be full of kids who just couldn’t wait to hear the latest Jonas Brothers album.

Is NYT’s Micki Maynard an Internet Scofflaw?

Gawker likes to post the tweets of various semi-known people for the edification of the masses.  One in particular just caught my eye.  It was posted by Micheline Maynard, New York Times Senior Business Correspondent in Detroit.

It read:

Listening to the new remixes of U2’s Magnificent on iTunes UK, since iTunes US doesn’t offer yet. Song already good, mixes spice it up.

I already wrote today about how absurd it is for companies to attempt to limit access to online content based on a user’s geography but it is interesting to note that the only way I know of that Maynard could have connected to iTunes UK is via a proxy server of some kind.  While not expressly illegal, it is certainly a step into grey-law.

It’s also a great example of why companies are wasting a lot of time and energy trying to limit access to content when they could be profiting and expanding by providing greater access to content.

Time to Stop Calling Everyone a Pirate

Unless you happen to be discussing Johnny Depp or Blackbeard, I think it is time for the overuse of the word pirate to describe both people who engage in the sharing of copyrighted content and people who use violent force to hijack ships at sea.

As a description of file-sharers, the term “pirate” just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.  Not only does it imply a higher level of criminality than tends to be the case, but there aren’t a whole lot of similarities between downloading Wolverine via BitTorrent and boarding a ship with the help of guns.

Now, the people hijacking ships off the coast of Somalia are technically pirates but I think the constant use of the term in the media makes them seem a whole lot more cool and intriguing than actually are – in fact, they’re just gangsters in speedboats.  Ok, that sounds kind of cool, too… Still, pirates is worse.

Labels are a powerful tool and in the case of “pirates” I fear the label is doing little to either resolve the complex issues surrounding copyright law or make the high seas safer.

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Fox Fires Friedman, Friedman Pleads Innocent

It has been officially confirmed by all parties that Robert Friedman has been fired by NewsCorp for posting an article about viewing the leaked work print of X-Men Origens: Wolverine.

While it stikes me as a major over-reaction from NewsCorps, since there is little question that the leak itself is news, what I found more intriguing was a correction request that Friedman has released:

I did not download anything. I found Wolverine on the internet by accident on Wednesday night. I was looking for something else—info on another movie, which had a link to this site. I simply pressed “play” and when I realized it really was Wolverine, I skipped watching Lost and watched this instead. Afterwards I discovered that the Times had written about it earlier that evening. I guess what I did was called streaming. But there was no downloading. I am fervently anti-piracy, have written extensively about this, and spent too much money at amazon’s mp3 site. Please let’s clear up this misconception.

What a load of crap.

First of all, I am skeptical that a stream of Wolverine was available so quickly, but the internet is cool like that so I will give Roger the benefit of the doubt here.  The bigger fallacy is that someone by simply streaming the film and not actually downloading it to his personal computer that he is not guilty of some sort of piracy.

As far as I understand it, this is a pretty fine line to draw.  For instance, there is no such distinction made in child pornography cases.  If Roger Friedman had simply gone to a site (by accident, of course) and clicked on a link (totally by accident of course) and he then saw child pornography he would be open to criminal prosecution.

Friedman, ostensibly a movie professional, had to know that the footage he was watching was not an authorized release and so claiming he did nothing wrong by watching it just rings false.

Instead of trying to claim what a defender of copyright he is, Friedman would be better off making an argument for how absurd and impossible to follow the current laws are for copyright.

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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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RIAA’s Battle Against Pirates HURTS Music Sales

It seems that a day doesn’t go by that more evidence emerges that RIAA’s battle against music piracy is both ineffective and ill-advised.

Today’s bit of news is the sort of data that just leaves me scratching my head.  According to a new study conducted by Angus Reid Strategies on Canadian music habits:

While the survey found that downloading still exceeds paid downloads, those downloading were also more likely to buy a CD (41 percent to 34 percent for non-downloaders) and more likely to have attended a concert in the past year (65 percent to 52 percent for non-downloaders).

That’s right.  The very same people RIAA wants fined and potentially jailed are their industry’s best customers!

Honestly, it makes my head hurt to think about how completely misguided RIAA and the music industry have become.

(via)

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MPAA Claims Piracy Supports Terrorism and Other Fantasies

There is a new report out sponsored by the MPAA that claims that there is a significant link between film piracy and terrorism and that terrorist groups fund efforts via piracy.

TorrentFreak does a great job debunking this study. The biggest problem they find is that “piracy” is lumped in with “counterfeiting” and they are just not the same thing:

‘Piracy’ in this context tends to refer mostly to digitally representable items, while counterfeit goods can run the gamut from aircraft parts, to cigarettes. In France, you can’t sell certain brands of handbag on eBay easily, because they might be counterfeit. Fake aircraft parts (which don’t meet specs) are a major problem for the airline industry (also counterfeiting) and fake cigarettes are a commonly seized item at international borders. If you want another example, just look no further than your spam folder – count the number of Viagra, and other medications you are offered – all counterfeit.

It is also disheartening to see that the movie industry would still rather fund reactionary, one-sided studies that support their mythical claims than to help develop new business models that will allow them to compete and flourish in the digital age.

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