Facebook v. The Pirate Bay Demonstrates Futility of the Fight

Recently, the much-discussed torrent-discovery site The Pirate Bay, added a “post to Facebook” button that allowed users of the social media site to quickly share links to torrents with their friends.

It didn’t take long for Facebook to act to block this ability since many corporate entities (i.e. MPAA, RIAA, et. al.) do not look kindly on the fact that The Pirate Bay facilitates the distribution of links to contents that might be copyrighted.  Of course, Facebook isn’t just blocking links that might infringe on copyright but any and all links to The Pirate Bay including those linking to completely legal torrents.

While it is disappointing that Facebook has taken such a drastic action against a single specific site it is some consolation that the efforts are likely in vain.

The Pirate Bay’s Peter Sunde told TorrentFreak that this is plain censorship and said he will try to come up with a workaround so people can continue to share. “I’ll fix it later today so it will have a link to a redirect site or something,” he said.

Much like the Hulu / Boxee battle that has Boxee easily working around Hulu’s unreasonable blockage time after time.

Considering I can easily link to potentially illegal torrents with, say Google, it seems a bit silly for Facebook to block The Pirate Bay.

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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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Great Rebuttal of Idea that Pirates Killing Music Industry

TorrentFreak is a great resource for those interested in the world of copyright, P2P, “piracy” and the future of digital content.

Recently, in response to claim in the Swedish court case against popular torrent tracker The Pirate Bay that piracy was the primary cause for the decline in music sales for the major labels, TF’s Jens Roland has written a brilliant 8-point rebuttal that ends with these thoughts:

The fact is that the music industry’s revenues have been artificially inflated for decades because of limited consumer options. The last 15 years of innovation have lifted those limitations, effectively leaving the music industry with an obsolete, defective business model of monopolized production technology, forced album bundling, and almost nonexistent competition in the realm of home entertainment. What is happening now – the decline of music profits and the piracy witch hunt by the music industry – is merely the panicked struggle of a dying business model, a complacent industry’s refusal to accept its diminishing role in a digital world. The pirates are not the reason, and the decline is the not the disease. It is the cure.

I highly recommend reading his entire post.  While it is important for artists to have ways to be compensated for their efforts, there is no reason it should be done the same way in the face of massive innovations and there is also no reason that the artists’ work needs to support a vast network of middlemen who provide less and less service to the artists or the fans.

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Data Indicates Women are Pirates, Too

Probably due to my own prejudices, I have always assumed that men were more likely than women to be downloading pirated materal.

However, according to TorrentFreak, the top two TV shows downloaded last week were “Desperate Housewives” and “Gossip Girl.”  Now it is completely possible that these numbers are due to men who don’t want to admit they watch these shows but I don’t think so.

Instead, I think this indicates that women are quickly becoming just as active in pirating video as men.  More and more, I believe that the generation growing up right now will be the first to demonstrate little gender difference when it comes to the use of technology.

None of this explains why “Prison Break” remains one of the top pirated shows every single week…

UK Makes Pointless Show of Force Against DVD Piracy

TorrentFreak has word on a big plan to rid London of a horrible scourge:

“Touted as the biggest ever anti-piracy collaboration, the MPA and several major anti-piracy groups have announced that by the time the 2012 Olympics begin, they will have made London “a fake-free zone”. This impossible mission to stamp out DVD piracy was launched by Intellectual Property Minister, David Lammy.”

Is it just me, or does this sound like an enormous waste of time and resources? Isn’t there real crime in London?  How about making the city murder-free by 2012? Or how about a “felony-free zone?”

It upsets me to see how much of our tax money (both here in the US and around the world) is wasted on “stamping out DVD piracy” – not only is it completely ineffective but any small benefit achieved is only enjoyed by the major movie studios who will continue to use it all as an excuse to raise ticket prices.

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DMCA Shuts Down Fansite Run By Preschool Teacher

Image via Wikipedia

On of the many super-cool niches out there on the web is the world of “fanedits.”

As defined by TorrentFreak:

“Taking famous movies as a base, faneditors spend huge amounts of time editing with sophisticated software in order to create improved or just plain different versions of existing movies. Most of the time, faneditors try to improve what is wrong or bad with a movie, using advanced techniques to create a new piece of art based on the original. Of course, faneditors love to share their work with others in the community, something the movie industry wants to bring to an end.”

Now comes word that one of the most popular sites for fans to share their edits is being shut down due to DMCA takedown requests.

Not only is it yet another absurd example of the major motion picture studios attacking the core fans they rely on for ticket sales, but, in this case, it exposed one of the horrible pirates they are trying to stop.

“I am boon23, faneditor and administrator of the biggest fanedits website in the world. I’m a preschool teacher from Europe and as faneditor I post under the name CBB (created by boon) and have so far created 29 fanedits, which is quite a lot. It is my hobby, my art, the thing I really love to do and will continue to do.”

Yup.  A preschool teacher.  Nice work, guys.  Go get ‘em!

BitTorrent – The Other Web Video

There is a very interesting post over on TorrentFreak about the incredibly high number of TV shows illegally (though I have yet to hear of any prosecution for this in the vein of what RIAA has been doing in the music industry) being downloaded and viewed via BitTorrent.

“It is safe to say that BitTorrent is slowly replacing Tivo. Some episodes of popular TV-shows such as “Lost”, “Prison Break” and “Heroes” get up to 10 million downloads per episode, spread over hundreds of sites. This number is getting awfully close to the average number of viewers on TV in the US. However, the major difference is that the BitTorrent “viewers” come from all over the world.”

While Neilsen’s numbers I posted yesterday are interesting, they simply don’t account for the massive amount of TV that is being watched in this manner.  Aside from confirming that far more people are watching extensive amounts of content from the web than is being generally reported, it is also serving as a wake-up call to some of the more established players:

“Anne Sweeney -the president of the Disney-ABC television group- admitted that she was “inspired” after seeing a pirated copy of the hit-show “Desperate Housewives”. The pirated copy of this popular TV show was the main reason (besides the money) for Disney to sell their shows online. “Coming ‘face to face’ with the high-quality, commercial-free pirated version (of Desperate Housewives) told Disney that it was not just competing with other broadcasters, but with digital pirates and as such was an experience that prompted us to do the iTunes deal with Apple.” Sweeney said at the time.”

This is something Mason talks about in The Pirate’s Dilemma – the fact that legitimate players MUST find a way to compete with Pirates if they want to remain in business.  The only way to do that is to change their practices to better serve the consumer.  All the Pirates are doing is giving people what they want – a completely open copy of the show they can watch on any device.