The battle for the living room has kicked of in full force. Almost a week after Apple announced the new Apple TV, Google’s Eric Schmidt reveals plans to bring the web to to the living room via Google TV.
The free Google TV service will allow couch potatoes full internet access. The search engine giant plans to partner up with other technology and media companies in order to provide easy access to the new service and to make sure that there is worthwhile content to connect to through the portal. Schmidt said that Google will not produce their own content as that is not in line with Google’s way of doing business and that it mainly wants to open the channels to start partnerships with content producers.
Sony brings streaming music service to her living room devices
Sony had some good news to share at the international consumer electronics fair IFA in Berlin. Users of Sony devices such as Bravia TVs, Vaio laptop computers and the Paystation 3 console will soon get access to the streaming music service Music Unlimited Powered by Qriocity.
Owners of Sony devices will get one account that provides access to millions of songs, promises the Sony spokesperson, as long as they use a Sony device.
An online portal is going to provide access to all Dutch movies and TV series ever produced. To realise this goal, a new organisation has been established recently under the name of Filmotech. The plan was developed and initiated by the Dutch Association for Movie Producers, the Netherlands Institute for Image and Sound and the EYE Movie Institute Netherlands.
At the end of the month, the project will be officially announced during the Netherlands Film Festival. Within the frame of a year, “many thousands of hours worth of material should be posted online,” a spokesperson of Filmotech states on nu.nl. Some time later, all approximately 1200 movies and hundreds of series should be accessible through the portal.
Game studio Amanita managed to sell 20.000 copies of Machinarium at a 75% discount in a bid to stem piracy. The studio is very pleased with the results.
A few weeks ago, we posted on the pirate amnesty action initiated by game developer Amanita. The studio noticed that the number of pirated copies of their prize horse Machinarium circulating outnumbered the copies sold by about 9 to 1. As a way to entice these pirates to come in and buy a copy instead, Amanita drastically reduced the price for their star game.
And it worked: after one week 17.000 copies were sold. The folks at Amanita were so pleased with the result that they decided to prolong the action with another weekend. When the amnesty action finally concluded, the tally was 20.000 copies sold in 10 days. Not bad at all. The vast majority of copies, about 80%, was sold in the US and the EU.
Swedish police cracks down on shared folder with 6000 songs
In the land of The Pirate Bay, it is not using torrents that file-sharers get into legal trouble in Sweden. Instead, Swedish police and prosecutors tend to target people who share a large quantity of files all at once using a shared folder.
Torrentfreak reports that last Friday, the Prosecutors Office in Stockholm, acting on a tip from IFPI, seized the computers of someone who they suspected illegally shared around 6000 songs.
The owner of the computer used Direct Connect to share media. Direct Connect is less accessible than torrent platforms, but users tend to share their entire collections with each other.
One of the constants in the online environment is that consumers are sceptical towards the veracity of the download speeds the ISPs advertise with. In Britain, Virgin has plans to address this situation by publishing the average attained speeds every month.
According to a poll conducted for Virgin Media, only 9% of the respondents feel that ISPs deliver the promised bandwidth. 98% indicate that they believe there is a clearer way to advertise than with the normal “up to 20 mbps” slogans. A recent study by Ofcom, the British telecoms authority, shows that on average, ISPs only deliver 46% of their promised bandwidth.
Virgin Media now propose that ISPs should use terms like ‘typical’ or ‘average’ when advertising download speeds, using data received from independent experts. BT has indicated not to support this proposal, as it fears that it disadvantages the larger network operators operating in rural areas. Longer copper lines negatively influence internet speeds.
Piracy of DS leads to new piracy measures for 3DS says Nintendo
According to Alain Corre, Ubisoft's managing director EMEA "the last 24 months the market for DS has collapsed for software, but people are still buying the hardware." The collapse would partly be a result of the increase in piracy on the platform. "On the DS it was really the very first time that Nintendo software was pirated, so it took us all by surprise very quickly," Corre told GamesIndustry.
German GEMA lacks urgent interest to obtain a blocking order for YouTube content
Earlier this week the Court of Hamburg ruled in the case between GEMA (the German collective management organization for related rights) and YouTube (Google). The court found that GEMA’s claim for an emergency order to block access to infringing material on YouTube lacked urgent interest. GEMA had long known that the contested songs were available on YouTube.
Vodafone to provide (almost) free access to TV in Germany
Vodafone is planning to provide free iptv services in Germany before the end of the year. When you opt to make use of this offer, you will need to either buy or rent a decoder. The services only applies to people who are connected to the internet via Vodafone’s DSL network.
The telco/ISP can provide this service so cheaply because no expensive upgrades have to be made to the network, reports tweakers. Iptv requires a 2 mbit data connection.
Users of the new service can at the same time maintain their cable or satellite connection. All incoming TV signals are routed through Vodafone’s settopbox. The signals are compared for strength and the strongest is forwarded to the TV.
In addition to the iptv services, Vodafone will provide an on-demand service for movies. The company is now making deals with the movie studios to do so.
The UK division of YouTube has struck deals with movie studios such as Sony Pictures and even some from Bollywood as well as with the British online movie rental service Blinkbox and will provide free access to around 400 feature films.
Blinkbox normally charges 2 pounds for on demand access to its movie catalogue, but will allow free access to 165 movies through YouTube. It receives a part of the advertising revenue generated around its movies and hopes to reach new audiences by pairing up with YouTube.
Donagh O’Malley says in The Guardian: "This is one of many efforts to ensure that people can find all the different kinds of video they want to see, from bedroom vlogs and citizen journalism reports to full-length films and TV shows."
For moderate to heavy readers, e-reading reduces your ecological footprint
A company called Cleantech, an environmental consultancy, has calculated which is the greener: reading on your e-reader or doing it the old fashioned way.
Although often associated with green causes (paper bags for groceries), paper is quite the opposite of a green material. Its production requires large amounts of water and often toxic chemicals as well.
Information technology, however, doesn’t score that well either. The semiconductor industry has passed the airline industry in the ranking of most polluting industries.
Furthermore, sustainability analyses are notoriously complicated and depend on many factors and the weight you attribute to them. How do you offset the use of water against greenhouse gas emissions and the use of chemicals? One way is to just separate each topic and make the comparison for each factor apart.
Dick van Engelen comments on Dutch Authors' Contract Rights Bill
"A non-transferable copyright? The collective guardianship of creative minds ". Thus is the title of an article by intellectual property lawyer Dick van Engelen on the proposed Authors' Contract Rights bill that would amend the Dutch Copyright Act.
Since June 21st 2010, the Dutch Ministries of Economic Affairs, Finance, Justice and Development have received 60 responses to the negotiating text of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). Of these responses, 38 are public, including those of TNO ICT, Philips, Bits of Freedom, the Dutch Association of Producers and Importers of Picture and Sound carriers (NVPI), KPN and the Dutch Association of Film Distributors (NVF). Below is a brief summary of their submissions and the reaction of the Dutch Minster of Economic Affairs.
Dutch Green Left party has concerns about the ACTA Treaty
Dutch political party Green Left (Groen Links) is completely fed up with the ACTA Treaty’s haziness, reports Webwereld. One of Webwereld’s readers tipped off Mariko Peters (GL) about ACTA's continuing secret negotiations and contradictions in communications about possible changes in Dutch law as a result of the Treaty. Maria van der Hoeven, Dutch Minister of Economic Affairs replied.
Cheerleaders apparently not always have their way. This week the case of then teenaged cheerleader Whitney Harper appears before the U.S. Supreme Court. Starting point for the case is that several record companies had discovered that Harper illegally downloaded 37 songs through a P2P network. The record companies are now demanding compensation from Harper.
Music industry professionals interviewed about their thoughts on own future
An interesting post on the Music Network blog interviews music biz officials about what they think the music industry and consumer landscape will look like in five years. Of course, five years isn’t all that long, so the interviewees do not expect any major landslides. However, they do see their business changing.
All still see a significant part played by the traditional labels. Artists, is the general opinion, will still need the recording, marketing and distribution expertise that labels have to offer. Some, however, predict a shift in the nature of the relationship between artists and labels, predicting that deals will be made more on the basis of partnership rather than control.
As the place where investment in movies is highest, Hollywood is the most expressive in denouncing movie piracy. However, Hollywood’s more productive Indian cousin Bollywood is now getting more and more vocal in its own concerns about this topic. I say more productive because Bollywood manages to churn out more movies each year than Hollywood does. The movie Mecca in India produces around 900 movies per year.
Bollywood movies shoot notoriously fast and cheap, so in terms of money, Hollywood still leads. The entire Bollywood turnover of 2009 equals the turnover of Avatar at around 2 billion dollar. American movies may still attract more investment, but budgets for Bollywood movies are rising, too. Rising investment also means that there is more attention to pirates eating away return on that investment.
The Dutch Board of Appeal for commerce has ruled that cablers Ziggo and UPC do not have to offer competitors access to their infrastructure. Recently, the telecoms authority OPTA stated that the market for cable television needed to be opened for competition. According to the Board, OPTA has been careless in her judgement and has defined the market wrong. Therefore, the cablers do not have to open up their cable to competitors.
Tele2, that has been advertising for months with cheap analogue cable television, reacted initially by reassuring their customers that the ink on the contracts between them, Ziggo and UPC had dried already and that consumers could still watch television through Tele2.
Mubi offers quality movies as streams, also for the PS3
Following yesterday's news - that many people prefer streaming media over illegal downloading - today comes the news that acclaimed movie streaming website Mubi is now also accessible with the PS3.
Director BREIN personally hands over Amsterdam verdict to Pirate Bay founder
The Director of Dutch anti-piracy organization BREIN yesterday personally explained and handed over the verdict of the Amsterdam District Court to Peter Sunde of The Pirate Bay.
After Wolverine yet another Fox film appears on BitTorrent before release
An unfinished version of the movie 'Vampire Sucks' has been circulating on BitTorrent for over a month already. It is the second time in a short while that movie studio 20th Century Fox finds one of their much anticipated movies available on BitTorrent before the planned cinema release.
According to Norwegian research exactly one third of the Norwegian population has streamed music. Just over half of them (18% of the total population) say they no longer illegally download music because of streaming services.
The Business Software Alliance has given out a clear signal about the illegal use of software in Asia. The Business Software Alliance recently setteled with an Asian company for a record sum of 3.6 million U.S dollar over software infringements. It is BSA’s largest settlement to date.
Torrent platforms endorse artists, bundle their album with downloads
Torrent site uTorrents has started to backing an artist called PAZ and is bundling every download with his album. It is not the first site to do so. The Pirate Bay, Frostwire and Vodo have all started small scale promotional work. TPB, for example, regularly promotes artists on their homepage.
More and more artists conduct in experiments using torrent platforms to get exposure for their products. Torrent portals can be a good way for bands without the backing of a label to spread their music and make their claim to fame.
Pink Floyd wants their entire CD’s online, no separate tracks
All Pink Floyd albums - except for the first "Dark Side Of The Moon" - were taken offline. This is due to the expiration of Pink Floyd's licensing agreement with EMI on June 30 and the bands having trouble finding a new licensing deal that meet their stringent requirements.
Judge awards whopping $89 million for infringement on World of Warcraft copyright
World of Warcraft is an immensely popular online game. Millions of people worldwide log on to the online world to conduct in some fantasy adventuring and questing.
Over the last few years, Blizzard has taken a tough stance on third parties developing private servers to log on to the World of Warcraft world or create software mods that operate in the WoW environment. When these cases end up in court, as they usually do when the private hosts do not take them down when so requested by Blizzard, the WoW developer most often comes out on top.
Still, some people find it a risk worth taking. One such company, Scapegaming, developed private servers offering access to the World of Warcraft universe, including a micropayment system.
Yesterday the European Commission invited all interested parties to provide feedback through a online public consultation on the European Directive that regulates internet services.
Who is not familiar with the "Hitler rants..." parodies on that famous bunker scene from the German movie Downfall? Constantin Film, the film’s German producer, recently took down a few of the popular "Hitler rants..." parodies on YouTube... which has in turn led to a new "Hitler rants..." parody.
KickassTorrents moves servers abroad after visit from Ukrainian authorities
KickassTorrents, one of the fastest growing and most visited torrent sites on the internet, was taken offline by the owner after inquiries from the Ukrainian authorities, reports TorrentFreak.
Digital sales threaten supreme reign of large bookstores
Sales in e-books have almost tripled in one year. In the first five months of 2009, 2,9% of the book trade turnover came from e-books. A year later, this was 8,5%. This shift can be explained to originate from two causes. The first is a question of economy. E-books are generally cheaper than their printed brethren. The second cause is one of convenience: to purchase an e-book, one never has to leave the house.
Welove-music has interviewed a number of dj’s and label owners on Ibiza this summer. They explain how the internet has caused a revolution in the world of music and what their thoughts are on downloading and music piracy.
Love for the music
Independent dance labels aren’t run under tight business models to capitalize on music, but rather come from love for music and are run by friends and family. Running an independent music label nowadays is not enough to make ends meet. A lot of private money goes into the label. Even if you are creatively successful that does not automatically mean that you are successful commercially. Jesse Rose doesn’t have a business plan behind his music, he just wants his music to be heard. "If you can distribute music for free and find a way to earn some money to pay the people in the office, that’s fine," says Rose.
The fun is over for American students: unis take action against file-sharing
American universities that receive federal funding are, from this academic year on, required by law to act against file-sharing over their networks. The Higher Education Opportunity Act that was adopted in 2008 went in to effect last July. To prepare for this event, the Department of Education has created implementation rules that universities need to adhere to.
In a letter sent to all unis, the DoE has stipulated four rules that need to be followed in order to comply with the Act.
In June of this year, YouTube (Google) made quite a victory in the legal proceedings with Viacom, one of the world's largest media conglomerates. Now, not unexpectedly, comes the news that Viacom is appealing the verdict.
Frenchman wants to frustrate Hadopi Act with trademark
The Frenchman Renaud Veeckman filed for the ‘HADOPI’ trademark six months earlier than the French government, reports the French newspaper La Provence according Zero Paid. Veeckman happens to be an opponent of the French Hadopi Act, aiming to tackle online copyright infringement.
Scanlation, comic piracy and the future of comic distribution
An interesting discussion about piracy in the world of comics and the manga comic in particular took place at the San Diego Comic-Con 2010 last July. The "scanlation" plays a special role.
Similarities and differences between music and comic piracy
Jake Forbes (manga editor and publicist) believes that the comics industry is “slow to realize that it's no longer about picking and choosing individual items, or heading to bookstores and pulling a specific book off the shelf as a destination item. It's about access to these kind of channels, and the ability to for readers to satisfy their demand for volume. They're saying 'I want lots of stuff. I don't necessarily care about each individual movie/song/book, but want to be able to just browse and have background noise. It's always about having access to lots of content. But I just think that the ability to have content channels and the ability to browse and consume without having to know what you want, then be able to buy that item after sampling it is going to be key to making it work.”
Telenet, a Belgian ISP, has released a table detailing the amount of data downloaded by its most active users. The largest volume downloaded in the month of July is almost 2,7 Terabyte, which equals more than 570 DVDs worth of data. The 25th largest volume still was just under 700 GB per month. A lot less than the top downloader, but still a considerable amount for a month of downloading.
Telenet has recently dropped her data caps and instead adopted a fair use policy, stating that anybody with a certain type of subscription can download as much as they like, although when one exceeds a certain amount of data during the peak hours, the bandwidth is throttled from 30, 50 or 100 Mbps to 512 kbps.
The critically acclaimed game developer studio Amanita, based in the Czech Republic, explores a new way to combat piracy: offering them amnesty. The studio’s latest title, Machinarium, has fallen victim to widespread piracy. It is estimated that for this title, pirated distribution outnumbers legal sales by about 9 to 1.
In a bid to reverse this trend, Amanita offers pirates a change at redemption. Amnesty, they call it. For a limited number of days, you can buy the game that normally sells for 20 dollar with a 75% discount. The offer stands until 12 August. While the offer stands for all, it is targeted especially at pirates.
New Zealand author society pleads for internet levy
New Zealand is preparing an amendment to its copyright legislation to introduce a three strikes regime. The NZ Society of Authors has suggested an amendment to the bill for introducing an internet levy.
According to the Society, the bill would not help to turn the tide on the majority of file-sharing. In order to recoup some of the lost income, the Society proposes an internet levy to be paid by all internet users.
While the Society seeks to be reimbursed for missed income through undetected file-sharing, it also notices, in the proposal filed with the NZ government, that implementing a blanket licence online would not be easy.
Electronic Frontier Foundation lends alleged file-sharers a hand
We have previously discussed the actions of some law firms in the UK and the US that have built a business case out of suing alleged file-sharers. Digital rights organisation Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), that sees these legal actions as problematic as they infringe on the liberties of internet users and fail to observe legal safeguards for protecting individuals’ rights, has created an online knowledge database to assist the targets of such subpoenas.
The Japanese Masato Nakatsuji is arrested and suspected of having destroyed computer property through the "tako-ika (squid-octopus) virus. The virus changes computer’s media files icons with the image of a cartoon-like squid-octopus. Reportedly, the ika-tako virus had infected 50,000 computers in 2009.
New Zealand’s Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment Bill, has unanimously passed its first reading in Parliament last April. Now parties that have made submissions to the bill are being heard.
The proposed three strikes regime would enables repeating copyright infringers to be disconnected by their internet provider for up to six months, plus a possibility for the rights owners to claim damages. This controversial copyright enforcement strategy is found to be either too soft or too harsh.
Hollywood is positive about young consumers' willingness to pay for digital content
Hollywood has more confidence in the future, now children are growing up with the idea that you have to pay for content. Studies suggest that the current generation of children is growing up paying for content, reports Reuters and the Hollywood Reporter.
"You have a whole generation whose attitude toward interactive content is completely different," said Patrick Russo, a principal at the Salter Group advisory firm. "That generation is growing up paying for content. It may be their parents who are actually paying for it right now, but they do recognize that they are paying for content instead of stealing it."
Dutch neighbouring rights collector SENA loses 35 million euro’s
SENA, the Dutch foundation that collects fees for playing music from companies, has missed out on 35 million euro’s in the year 2009.
For some of SENA’s outstanding invoices the payment term of five years expired in 2009. SENA has outsourced its fee collecting to a company called Intrum Justitia. The monitoring of these invoices was not very successful. Two attendees at SENA’s last meeting confirmed this to Quote magazine.
French CPD will send first warnings to downloaders by late September
The final decree necessary to apply the controversial French law against internet piracy (also known as the Hadopi Act) has gone into force last Tuesday, reports France's La Tribune. The decree specifies the applicable procedures after receiving a 'request for referral’ from copyright owners about illegal downloading conduct by French internet users. The CPD - the French Author's Rights Protection Board - expects to send the first warning messages by e-mail in late September.
US Government seeks societal input on balancing cybersecurity and innovation
One can describe the internet in many different ways. On the one hand, as Wired’s Kevin Kelly once put it, it is socialism come to life without state intervention. People share, co-create and form structured collaboration. The free flow of information and the boundless, borderless and limitless nature of the internet promote economic activity, innovation, civil liberties and the diffusion of knowledge.
On the other hand, one may describe the internet as a network that allows creepy men to chat up young daughters, provide fraudsters with all kinds of opportunities and facilitates global terrorism with only a small change of repercussions.
The same traits of the internet that makes it a boon, also makes it a threat. The big question is: how can one maximise the beneficial aspects of the internet and minimise the averse effects? How can liberty, trust and the flow of knowledge be safeguarded while freedom and security are enforced?
The latest edition of eJournal USA (a freely accessible eJournal of the U.S. government) features the theme 'Defining Internet Freedom'. It contains a variety of substantive legal, scientific articles on the intersection of freedom on the Internet and copyright. In one of the introductory articles 'Promoting Internet Freedom Through the Copyright System' Peter K. Yu (Drake University) describes how copyright can in fact strengthen freedom on the internet and what it takes for a copyright system to do so.
Late last month was announced that Dutch games developer Playlogic from Amsterdam and its studio in Breda failed to attract new investments. Now on Tuesday the company has filed for bankruptcy for both Playlogic and the studio. With the bankruptcy yet another mayor Dutch games developing business will disappear after Streamline Studios.
The high costs and disappointing results of Playlogic's latest game 'Fairytale Fights’ probably pushed the company over the edge. In 2009 the studio made a loss of 16 million euros. This year new titles that could bring in money to get Playlogic out of the deteriorating financial situation did not come out.
Creative battle: Creative Commons versus traditional copyright
Recently, ASCAP, the American Society for Composers, Authors and Publishers announced a fundraiser to undertake legal action against the influences of the Copyleft movement, in particular against Creative Commons, think tank Public Knowledge and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. According to ASCAP, these organisations and initiatives threaten copyright and takes away the income of authors.
ccMixters, a creative community that operates under cc licences, has mounted a counter initiative. They argue that it is because of the alternative licenses that they are able to develop their creative skills and make new works while maintaining a measure of authorship and control over the future of their works.
Christian Louboutin: zero tolerance to counterfeiting
Futureofcopyright has a female blogger on the team and you’ll know. Today news came out that Christian Louboutin is really tired that his beloved works are imitated by copycats in poor quality. For who has no idea what this is all about: Louboutin is the designer of exclusive ladies stiletto-heeled shoes with distinctive red soles.
Board Dutch Pirate Party pressured to leave by member council
An internal power struggle has cost theboard of the Pirate Party in The Netherlands its head. De president of the council has asked the board in no uncertain terms to clear the field. President Wesley Schwengle says to Tweakers: “The council has held the opinion for some time that the previous board was not functioning well. We (the council, ed.) have indicated this several times. Time and again, the board proved unable to lead the party. They are unclear and do not show leadership.”
According to Schwengle, the board was insufficiently involved with leading the party and failed to meet deadlines and agreements on a regular basis. “This isn’t the first time. Last weekend, only one member of the board was present. The other four again let us down.”
Schwengle, already president of the council, has now assumed presidency of the board, on an interim basis. As a result of which, he writes in an internal mail, he withdraws from his post in the council.
New Zealand telcos aim for a mobile exemption in three strikes bill
New Zealand has got three strikes legislation in preparation, the Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment Bill. Three major mobile carriers, Vodafone, Telecom and 2degrees have joined forces to try and bring about an exemption for mobile networks.
The bill will require of network providers to monitor whether their clients share copyrighted works. Infringers receive a number of warnings. When they refuse to change their behaviour, their details are forwarded to the Copyright Tribunal. This Tribunal handles the cases and can fine offenders up to 15.000 NZ dollar, about 8.300 euro. Furthermore, the bill enables rights holders to file for a temporary suspension of offenders’ internet accounts via the district court.
Court bans Peter Sunde from running The Pirate Bay
The Stockholm district court has ruled that Peter Sunde, one of the founders of the Pirate Bay, is banned from running that torrent portal. Failing to comply will net Sunde a 500.000 Swedish kronor (almost 53.000 euro) fine.
Two of the other founders, Fredrik Neij and Gotfrid Svartholm Warg, had already received such a ban. The reason that Sunde had espaced the court’s attention was that no writ summons could be delivered to him in court.
It is now possible to upload videos with a length of 15 minutes to YouTube, reports Tweakers. Previously, the maximum length of a YouTube video was 10 minutes. Google's YouTube would have been reluctant to allow longer movies, fearing an increase in uploads with copyrighted works. Now, while all major and many smaller entertainment companies support YouTube's Content ID program, YouTube feels certain enough to expand the length of uploads to its site.
Nintendo wins (again): R4 modchips banned in the UK
A British High Court has ruled in the case between Playables Limited and Wai Dat Chan, sellers of R4 emulator cards (a type of memory card). The High Court concluded that it is illegal to import, advertise or sell R4 memory cards in the United Kingdom.
R4 Memory cards are also known as ‘modchips’. Without a modchip a Nintendo DS console only accespts official Nintendo DS games, of games that Nintendo has approved of. The modchips enable other games, like homebrew or pirated games to be played as well. The British Hight Court concluded that that modchips are illegal, because they circumvent Nintendo’s technical protection measures.
Dutch draft bill aims to expand cybercrime enforcement
Dutch Justice Minister Ernst Hirsch Ballin published a draft bill to strengthen the government’s fight against cybercrime yesterday. The bill is aimed at three changes:
The public prosecutor will be independently entitled to order an ISP to remove certain information if that is necessary to terminate or prevent a criminal offence taking place. This way approval by the investigation judge will no longer be required, as is now still the case (art. 54a Sr. jo. art. 125p Sv). The Public Prosecutor’s order may be aggravated by a penalty (Article 1258q Sv.)
According to given explanation, the bill intends to give the public prosecutor these new powers to use in case an ISP refuses to voluntarily remove clearly unlawful or criminal information, following a Notice and Takedown request.
It will be an offense to secretly eavesdrop or record public conversations with technical means. This implies a widening of the current ban on tapping or eavesdropping, since that is only limited to calls between other people. The new ban also includes conversations where the people themselves participate (art. 139b Sr.).
The taping, duplicating or interception of non-public information or non-public data transmission, is prohibited (art. 139c Sr.). Owning, providing or disclosing such data, is also prohibited (Art. 139th Sr) These changes very likely come from the Manon Thomas case, where private photo’s and movies of the Dutch known television presenter were her neighbour had taken from her home computer and published online on YouTube and MSN.
Update: Infringing files outnumber legitimate content 297 to 1 on torrent sites
Following yesterday's post, both Torrentfreak and MiniNova have sent us a reaction.
Ernesto, one of the editors of Torrentfreak, has a good point raising questions about the study’s sampling and methodology. The number of torrents that the researchers find, one million, seems odd as the biggest torrent portals host several million torrents. Furthermore, the researchers identify torrents with over a million seeders. As some of these torrents have been uploaded years ago, there is a good possibility that these no longer work.
Furthermore, he rightly points out that by looking only at the most popular torrents, the view may be skewed. Perhaps the fraction of legal files is larger, but they are less often shared. Concerning the census of infringing content, it had probably been better to rephrase the research question. If the researchers had wondered how many of the most popular torrents were infringing, the validity had not been contested that much. This research question would maybe be more informative as well, as it better reflects the use of the torrent sites.
Since the Times’ introduction of a paywall on the second of July, the number of visitors has decreased by 66%. This is considerably less than what the sites expected. The newspaper’s own forecast was a drop of 90% in the visitor’s rates.
So it seems not to be so bad. However, these figures need to be placed in a context. Five weeks prior to launching the paywall, these sites started requiring visitors to register. Registering was free, but for 58% of the sites’ visitors, this was enough to seek news elsewhere, reveals a study by Experian Hitwise.
Furthermore, the drop may continue as visitors could make use of an introductory offer of paying one pound for 30 days access. After this initial period, the price will increased to a pound a day or two for a week of access. This will likely cause the number of visitors to further decline.
Newspapers worldwide are struggling with getting people to pay for their information. The future of the online section of the Times and the Sunday Times is carefully monitored by papers from all over the globe. The Wall Street Journal recently successfully adopted a similar matter. However, the WSJ delivers specialised content that readers may be more willing to pay for than the more general content delivered by the Times.
Infringing files outnumber legitimate content 297 to 1 on torrent sites
Does file-sharing contribute to the culture of remixes, mash-ups and innovation through the free flow of information? Hardly. A study by the Australian University of Ballarat shows that only 0,3% of files downloadable on torrent sites is confirmed legal. 89% is confirmed infringing and the majority of the remaining 10,7% is likely infringing.
That means that, looking only at the confirmed files, infringing files outnumber non-infringing files (e.g. work published under a Creative Commons licence) by 297 to 1.
The researchers looked at torrent aggregator-site Torrentz.com to find the most popular torrent trackers and scraped them for information. The researchers found, amongst the 17 trackers that yielded results, over one million different files with over 117 million seeders. These files were automatically categorised, showing that movies are the favourite category for sharing with 43,3% of the files. 29,1% are TV shows and 16,5% music. The other few percent are shared between adult content, software (including games), books and pictures.
From pillar to post, enforcing copyright online in the Netherlands
On Monday (19th July) the Amsterdam District Court’s judge rejected Dutch intellectual property rights holder organization and anti-piracy fighter BREIN’s claim to impose on provider Ziggo a blockage of internet access to the illegal Pirate Bay website for all it’s subscribers. For The Netherlands, the blockage of an illegal website on access provider level would have been a new tool in the enforcement of copyright on the internet. The latter currently seems to be under heavy pressure, especially since The Pirate Bay, unlike Dutch Mininova earlier, refuses to comply with the Amsterdam judge's earlier order to cease its infringing activities.
German court of appeal: RapidShare does not have to filter content
Cyberlocker RapidShare does not have to use a word filter to help remove copyrighted content that is offered through it’s site, ruled Düsseldorf’s Higher Regional Court of Appeal. A filter would encumber users that want to make a private copy, a legal act in Germany.
A lower court ruled last year RapidShare did not do enough to fight the distribution of copyrighted content through its site. The High Court turned this verdict around. Movie distributor Capelight Pictures challenged RapidShare last year because the download site hosted a number of Capelight’s movies, like ‘The Fall’ and ‘Insomnia’. The court initially ruled that RapidShare had not done enough to combat the distribution of copyrighted content because it had not used a word filter. RapidShare –successfully- appealed this verdict.
CEO Codemasters philosophises about alternative to DRM
DRM plays a considerable part in the games industry. But not a popular part. Gamers are not keen on the technology that limits the enjoyment that paying customers get from their games. Publishers acknowledge the problem, but claim it is the best they’ve got in the fight against privacy.
CEO Rod Cousens of Codemasters, one of Europe’s largest game publishers, understands why gamers are no fan of DRM and philosophises about finding another solution to piracy.
In a post on games blog CVG, Cousens explains that he prefers a system where one buys the basis of a game in retail and one expands their game by getting additional content online. It appears to be an extreme form of downloadable content, where one doesn’t just buy add-ons, but access to part of the main package. Cousens: “My answer is for us as publishers is to actually sell unfinished games - and to offer the consumer multiple micro-payments to buy elements of the full experience.”
US representatives unsatisfied with results of fighting piracy abroad
The administration of US president Obama doesn’t look kindly on piracy and counterfeiting. Last week, it became apparent that the fight against piracy can count on bipartisan support. A hearing in the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives resulted in several congressmen of both parties to emphasise the importance of copyright enforcement in an international setting in order to serve US economic interests.
During the committee meeting, the US intellectual property enforcement coordinator Victoria Espinel was heard about the mixed success she has with enforcing American property rights in other countries. According to a post on CNET, she did not always manage to impress the committee members.
Representatives of not only the music and movie industries, but also car part manufacturers, the fashion industry and medical equipment makers argue to lose billions of dollars and thousands of jobs as a result of piracy and counterfeiting. US administrations are always sensitive to arguments involving the economy.
Nintendo wins case against Dutch mod-chips sellers
The court of The Hague has ordered eleven Dutch online retailers to stop selling mod-chips and flashcards used to mod Nintendo consoles. Some of these web shops even sold modded Nintendo Wiis off the shelves. The judge ruled that the companies are stimulating copyright infringement by doing so.
According to article 29a of the Dutch copyright law, a user is not allowed to circumvent anti copying technology. The mod-chips and flashcards are developed to do just that and are thus unlawful, said the judge.
Recorded music: if you don’t want to pay, it may go away
With the revenue for recorded music ever declining under the stress of file-sharing, the image of the recorded music industry as an industry in dire crisis becomes evermore apparent. More and more people are consuming their products for free, rationalising their behaviour with arguments like: “it’s the industry’s fault for not innovating” or “all the profits end up in the big corporations, not with the artists, anyway”, or “it’s not stealing because it don’t take anything away”.
While we sometimes think that a sizeable portion of the population refusing to pay is something new, it has happened many times before. Throughout the last centuries of European histories, a wave of left-winged revolution swept across Europe. Starting with the French Revolution and ending in Russia, tension arose between the consuming ‘masses’ and producing ‘bourgeoisie’, with the former clamouring for free access to goods.
“It suddenly struck me,” Fred Goodman, author of the upcoming book ‘Fortune’s Fool: Edgar Bronfman Jr., Warner Music and an Industry in Crisis’ and former senior editor for Rolling Stone says in an interview with Wired. “This is nothing new. Of course people want things for free. What they really have to ask is what is the consequence of not paying for it.”
HollandDoc abandons community site because of costs
HollandDoc, one of the themed channels of Dutch public broadcaster VPRO abandons the Privacy Project, an online information portal and Ning-based community site. HollandDoc, that created the Privacy Project together with several art schools, hasn’t contributed to the site since the start of 2009, but kept the site online as a service to users.
On the community site, users could communicate on forums and blogs, as well as share pictures and videos. Last April, the number of users appeared to rise rapidly. However, it turned out that the forum was being showered with spam. To make matters worse, Ning announced to stop offering free use of their community platform.
Today BREIN lost their case against Ziggo and XS4ALL, but they remain determined to block access to the Pirate Bay and will appeal the verdict. BREIN stated that that the verdicts against the Pirate Bay in both the Netherlands and Sweden must be upheld to stop the situation of lawlessness on the Internet. BREIN feels strengthened by the fact that the judge held that ISPs are not exempt from legal action on the basis of the ‘mere conduit’ provisions from the e-commerce directive (2000/31/EC).
BREIN was surprised by the view of the court that going after individual subscribers was less far-reaching than obtaining a block for all Ziggo subscribers. BREIN has never targeted individuals in the past, and while it is not clear whether BREIN will change this policy, BREIN’s director Tim Kuik at least hinted at the possibility. Kuik called Ziggo’s admission that they are willing to hand over the contact details of their users at BREIN’s request “interesting”.
BREAKING: Dutch BREIN loses trial over Pirate Bay block
Dutch anti-piracy outfit BREIN has lost its trial against ISPs Ziggo and XS4ALL. BREIN's claim that Ziggo, the biggest broadband provider in the Netherlands, had to block access to the Pirate Bay was denied. BREIN went to court because it felt it needed clarity on the issue whether an ISP can be asked to block access or take other measures against infringing users.
According to the judge it was not clear that the majority of Ziggo subcribers used the Pirate Bay to structurally infringe copyright. As such, a claim based on the articles 26d of the Dutch Copyright Act and 15e of the Neighbouring Rights Act to block access to the Pirate Bay could not be held. The interpretation of the judge was that an order to cease providing access to a website could only be aimed at those directly involved in the infringement. In other words, Ziggo would only have to block access to the Pirate Bay for those subscribers that actually used the site to commit copyright infringement.
Furthermore, the judge held that the order did not meet the criterion of subsidiarity. According to the judge BREIN could also have filed claims against the infringing subscribers. Targeted action against these subscribers would be less far-reaching than a complete block of the site and therefore BREIN’s claim was denied. It is unclear whether BREIN will actually persue individual infringers.
The claim of XS4all (who joined Ziggo as a party in the trial) that an ISPs can never be asked to block a site on the basis of the fact that they are a ‘mere conduit’ was dismissed by the judge.
British label threatens file sharers with legal action
British law firm Gallant Macmillan has sent out a mailing of two thousand letters to alleged file sharers, accusing them with illegally downloading music. The letter threatens the recipient with legal action in which considerable damages are at stake, unless he is willing to settle, typically for an amount of around 350 pounds.
The letters are sent on behalf of dance music label Ministry of Sound. It is not the first time such a thing plays out in the UK. The firm ACS:Law started this strategy about a year ago and has now sent thousands of letters, sometimes charging up to a thousand pounds.
The BPI, representing the British music industry, does not favour such an approach. Although it does have a high interest in fighting file sharing, it states that: "Our view is that legal action is best reserved for the most persistent or serious offenders, rather than widely used as a first response."
Music industry veteran Tom SIlverman knows his business. He owns his own label and is a board member of representatives for the indie labels Merlin and A2IM, as well as board member of the RIAA. So it’s safe to say Silverman knows his business. And that business, he says, has to change.
Surprisingly, however, his view on change does not revolve around the internet, either as a distribution or marketing channel. Despite the promises of engineers and futurists, Silverman states in an elaborate interview with Wired, technology is not the great democratiser. It has not made it easier for talent to be spotted or for small bands to break through. There are fewer artists breaking through on their own now, than in the eighties, before the cell phone started the personal communications revolution.
Especially social networks, Silverman points out, are a big disappointment as a means for artists to generate a paying fan base.
Amsterdam court verdict confirms interlocutory injunction against The Pirate Bay
Yesterday the Amsterdam District Court confirmed the interlocutory injunction in the case between BREIN and The Pirate Bay of late 2009. This verdict makes clear that The Pirate Bay acts unlawful by enabling its users to infringing copyrighted works on a large scale.
Who doesn’t know it? ‘Popcorn’, the synthesizer hit from the sixties and later on sampled many times into the 21st century. Doesn’t ring a bell? Unless you've been living under a rock, you simply can’t have missed this tune:
Peter Jenner: filesharing can’t be stopped, perhaps blanket licenses by ISPs?
Peter Jenner, former manager of Pink Floyd and Secretary General (!) of the International Music Managers Forum (IMMF) is known as an impassioned advocate for artist rights and the importance of protecting musicians' revenue streams. In the past, Jenner has been very critical of illegal file sharing. Although he is no fan of big music labels, he is also a fierce opponent of so-called 'free riders' (as in this radio interviewy, including some pretty British versions of the f-word).
Nowadays Jenner seems to be coming to terms with the fact that file sharing should not be feared, but should rather be embraced, according to an interview with MusicAlly.
Belgian publishers: taking copyright enforcement to the next level
Belgian publishers plan to enforce copyright on online newspaper articles even stricter. This is the message told by a full-page ad campaign (PDF) published in several Flemish newspapers.
The Flemish newspapers (in their own words) already had ‘pretty strict copyright rules’, but apparently these are not sufficient ‘in the digital world’. The recently drawn up new rules for digital reuse of online content state that only non-commercial parties may deeplink to a newspaper article on condition that:
French politicians not completely satisfied with three-strikes legislation
It was notably the support of the ruling party UMP that ensured that the controversial three strikes legislation was adopted in France. This has cost the party the vote of confidence of a lot of young voters. They now have the idea that the UMP hates the digital era.
To stem the tide and to emphasise that the party does indeed embrace the digital future, the UMP has established a working group to study the online environment. This working party recently published a report, with the resounding title “Vive internet” in which the viewpoints of the party on different digital issues is clarified.
The report established that the internet community is sceptical about the government. "In order to avoid this negative logic, the responsible politician should express confidence in digital progress and engagement in the development of new technologies."
Brazil: technical protection measures may not restrict copyright exceptions
Two days ago in one of our blog posts the question raised whether or not statutory copyright exceptions could (and should) be limited by contract law. A Brazilian bill to amend copyright law takes a clear statement in the matter.
Australian filtering law to be adjusted after consultation
An Australian law that requires internet access providers to filter and block websites that are on a 'Refused Classification-Content' list (RCC-list) is postponed. In the meantime, the three largest Australian access providers already decided to block the websites of the RCC-list that contain child abuse on a voluntary basis. Together, these providers serve about 70 percent of the Australian market.
Rapid restaurant innovation despite lack of copyright
Restaurants worldwide innovate their cuisine in a rapid pace. New dishes are springing up, are copied, adapted and twisted into something new. All this happens without any kind of intellectual property. So, how is this possible, when the main argument for copyright is that if ideas are not protected, innovation will grind to a halt?
In an amusing post on the site of the New York Times, the authors of the Freakonomics blog explore why the lack of IP apparently does not reflect badly on the innovative nature the restaurant business.
The first argument is that copying in a restaurant is a completely different kind of copying than downloading Transformers 3. In the food context, copying is an incredibly analogue affair. When a chef copies a dish, he does not create perfect carbon copies and furthermore, still has put in the effort to realise every dish.
The second argument is that the dish is only part of the product a restaurant offers. People hardly choose a restaurant for one particular dish, but also factor in atmosphere, service, proximity etc. Dish copying only counts for so much.
Judge decimates Tenenbaum damages, cuts them by 90%
Judge Nancy Gertner has literally decimated the damages awarded to the RIAA in the case against file-sharer Joel Tenenbaum. The judge determined that the amount of the damages that the jury ordered Tenenbaum to pay, 675.000 dollar, was “unconstitutionally excessive’’. Therefore, she slashed it by 90% to 67.500 dollar.
In her order, judge Gertner wrote: “There is no question that this reduced award is still severe, even harsh. It not only adequately compensates the plaintiffs for the relatively minor harm that Tenenbaum caused them; it sends a strong message that those who exploit peer-to-peer networks to unlawfully download and distribute copyrighted works run the risk of incurring substantial damages awards.’’
Furthermore, she argued that the US Congress did not envision the 1999 Digital Theft Deterrence Act to be used to burden “ordinary people like Joel Tenenbaum” with huge damages.
Journalists increasingly positive about digital future
The confidence of journalists in the future of their profession is on the rise again. The last few years, the economic crisis and the digitisation of media have made journalists somewhat insecure. This year, the confidence was once again on the rise.
This information follows from the Digital Journalism Study, performed by the Oriella PR Network. For this survey, 770 journalists from 15 countries were interviewed about the developments in their profession.
The more positive attitude is partly caused by the continuing growth in the income through online advertisements. This boosts the confidence that journalists have that there is money to be made with journalistic content, also in the online environment.
Belgian access providers not obliged to block Pirate Bay
Belgian providers Telenet and Belgacom, according to the Antwerp judge, not required to block access to The Pirate Bay.
Although the interlocutory injuction isn’t published yet Tweakers reports that the Antwerp judge found the requirement of the Belgian Anti-Piracy Federation (BAF), the Belgian equivalent of the Dutch BREIN "disproportionate".
Copyright exceptions and fair use vs. contract law and CC licenses
Can copyright restrictions be circumvented by contract law? At the moment there is an interesting legal case pending on the matter in America. It concerns the relationships between the U.S. fair-use copyright doctrine and the limits set by a Creative Commons license (CC license).
Pirate Bay hacked, 4 million upload accounts exposed
Argentine 'researcher' (read: hacker) Russo claims to have hacked the Pirate Bay. Russo was able to obtain the account information of 4 million Pirate Bay users. This would include user names, email addresses and IP addresses, he told KrebsOnSecurity.
Research by Ipsos mediaCT shows that 64 percent of people prefer physical copies of console games over digital copies. This percentage is higher for games than for newspapers (63%), movies (51%) or music (45%), said Bramley, director of the pollsters.
How artists earn money in the download era: monitising friendships
A frequently heard comment in the download debate is that copyright does not actually benefit creative people, but rather the business entrepreneurs in the entertainment industry. For instance, record companies would receive the bulk of sales revenues from music sales, while bands receive but a marginal share. If this is the case, how can artists earn a living when downloading music for free has become mainstream? Music Marketer Chris Cox answers this question in a video tutorial.
Newspaper publishers are better off not to hide their daily newspaper articles behind a paywall, but rather use their ‘regular’ articles to attract readers who are willing to pay for special content. This is one of the conclusions of a study (PDF, Dutch) by PriceWaterhouseCoopers on behalf of the The Netherlands Press Fund (Stimuleringsfonds voor de Pers).
ISPs and Hollywood: natural partners for new business models?
Despite the enduring call for new business models for improving access to movies, games and music over the internet, these new models are slow to arise. At first glance, the entertainment industries and ISPs seem natural partners: the one creates the content and the other distributes it. However, these two parties have quite a hard time to find each other in practice.
Two economists of ParisTech have studied this question. Their research shows that ISPs and the entertainment industries have conflicting interests in the current state of the market. File sharing contributes to the profits of ISPs as downloading makes investing in a better, more expensive internet connection more attractive to consumers.
The roll-out of broadband networks has been significantly enabled by file-sharing. Furthermore, ISPs, as well as every other actor in the online chain between contentproducer and consumer, stands to benefit from further exploiting and enhancing this situation. In other words: ISPs have the illegal distribution of copyrighted content to thank for generating business en find themselves in a situation where the incentives for innovation lie primarily in furthering this situation, that will further undermine the position of rights holders.
In the old days, my grandfather used to tell me, an ice cream cost one cent. What a time that must have been, I thought when he took me by the hand to get an ice cream for a guilder, I could have bought 100! That was back in the day when I had not yet made the acquaintance with the big monster called inflation, the fattener of global prices.
Website walletpop.com has created an overview of products that, since 2010, instead of having increased in price, have become cheaper. The reason why this piqued the interest of futureofcopyright has nothing to do with the Big Mac or domestic airfares becoming cheaper. Our interest was triggered by the silver disc, the music CD. That product has, in the United States at least, become 27% cheaper than in the year 2000.
The post does not go so far as to provide an explanation for the significant negative price hike. Without a doubt, the increased competition with online trade (both in CDs and in digital files) and widespread file sharing play a part.
It is an American study, so the figures may differ in other countries.
Finnish people now by law have right to access the ‘net
On the first of July, a new law has entered into effect in Finland that guarantees its citizens the right to access the internet with a connection of at least 1 Mbps. The Finnish minister of communications speaks to the BBC about the philosophy behind the new law: “We considered the role of the internet in Finns everyday life. Internet services are no longer just for entertainment. Finland has worked hard to develop an information society and a couple of years ago we realised not everyone had access."
Still, the internet penetration rate is very high in Finland. The official estimate is that 96% of the population spend time online and that only 4000 houses need to be connected for the law to be complied with.
The Finnish government further promises that by 2015, everyone will be connected to the internet with at least a 100 Mbps connection.
Finnish Supreme Court: BitTorrent admins assist in copyright infringement
After sever years of litigation, the Finnish High Court has now sentenced seven Finnish BitTorrent admins for fines amounting to a total of 680,000 euros for their assisting role in the illegal distribution of copyrighted material on Finreactor.
These are interesting times for those interested or specialised in internet and law. Following the sensational verdict in the case between FTD and Eyeworks, already another potentially groundbreaking lawsuit is on the way.
Last Monday, June 28, the hearing for the interim proceedings between BREIN and internet access provider Ziggo took place at The Hague. Reason for the dispute is Ziggo’s refusal to follow Dutch anti-piracy fighter BREIN’s request to cease providing access to The Pirate Bay website. The Friday before the proceeding, access provider XS4All announced it joined in the fundamental dispute alongside Ziggo. Ever since the dispute started, claims are being made in the media that BREIN’s request is legally unfounded and undemocratic, that it would lead to censorship, curtailment of freedom of expression and that the entertainment industry should better lick its own wounds for holding on to old business models.
EU’s consultation on netneutrality and open internet
Following Canada and England, the European Commission is now also holding a consultation (PDF) on the subject of netneutrality and open internet. The Commission invites to give written comments, particularly in the following 15 questions:
Prince's ‘innovative’ model for music distribution
Prince won’t release his newest album ‘20Ten’ through physical stores. Internet distribution is also a thing of the past for Prince. No, Prince prefers to distribute his latest album through paper (ie non-digital) journals and magazines.
Dutch Public Broadcasting starts pilot with P2P distribution
The Dutch Public Broadcasting organization (NPO) is experimenting with the distribution of high quality TV programs via P2P technology for its rerun-channel ‘Uitzending Gemist’ (‘Missed Broadcast’). The reason for the experiment is the possibility to relieve the servers, thereby saving costs for the NPO.
'This TV Program Will Self Destruct in 10 Days'
Participants can download the necessary software from the NPO’s test lab website. With the software, users can fully download some of the programs from ‘Uitzending gemist’ to their own computer. 'After ten days the downloaded files will disappear from the computer," says Van den Wijngaarden of the NPO.
American music magazine ‘Rolling Stone’ speaks out on the illegal copying of music with a few telling images.
The images show repeatedly re-photocopied and almost unrecognizable album covers of world-famous music groups such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Nirvana, The Who en Pink Floyd. The images all have the following message stamped on:
“Copy on, and one day all these legendary albums will disappear. And the great bands. And all the gifted young musicians. How are they supposed to make a living when everyone downloads their work for free?”.
Click here for more examples of copied album covers.
End in sight for the guerrilla between Big Entertainment and pirates?
Enter text...There is no shortage of news coverage about the illegal character and, at the same time, the attraction of file-sharing. The Pirate Bay is in serious legal trouble but is still used by millions each day. Rights holders and the content industries lobby with governments to better enforce copyright. In France and Britain, for example, laws have been instituted that allow the suspension of Internet connections of frequent copyright violators who refuse to change their behaviour.
In public opinion, the entertainment industry often receives the short end of the stick. File-sharing networks are seen as modern day Robin Hoods that take from evil rich companies and give to us. For free. Copyright holders meanwhile face blame for stifling innovation and clinging to outdated business models.
If the debate has yielded anything, it is a guerrilla between Big Entertainment and the pirates. Are the pirates right? Do copyright holders stifle innovation? My answer is that no, they don’t. However, they do slow them down. And so do we all when faced with innovation. Were you the first to embrace the Internet? Did you stun your peers with buying a mobile phone in the early nineties? Do you own an electric car already? Well, neither do I. Innovations need time to be adopted.
Following the 'Expertmeeting Cybercrime 2010', the Dutch Pubic Prosecution has made available online an interesting presentation with facts & figures on cybercrime.
Dutch government requests citizens to comment on ACTA texts
The Dutch government has asked for public comments on the published draft version of ACTA. On the site www.internetconsultatie.nl/acta, people and organisations with a stake or interest in the proceedings can comment on the text. Comments are accepted until August 15th.
Late in 2010, the next round of negotiations will take place. When the results of that round will be made public, the resulting draft will again be put up for comments.
The role of The Netherlands in these negotiations is not too big, by the way. The EU member states are mostly represented by the European Commission.
The reactions to the text will be made public after the consultation round closes, unless the commenter objects to that.
Pirated live broadcasts grow as a threat to sports business
With the World Cup well under way, the global audience is tuning in to follow their favourite nation’s finest. However, an increasing fraction of that audience is tuning in to a pirated stream rather than the official broadcast.
More of a tennis type of guy/gal? Wimbledon’s official site offers the possibility to buy a digital “day pass”, allowing one to watch the matches online that day, for the rather significant sum of 6,50 pond (8 euros). Why, however, pay that fee when the same content can be viewed for free in a high quality pirated online stream?
Sports piracy is nothing new, to be sure. Watching the game with an illegal satellite hook up or an un-paid for cable connection has happened for decades. However, as with music, games and movies before, Internet put the piracy problem on a completely different scale.
Marketshare Times websites plunge after compulsory registration
Already research demonstrates the impact of the first two steps towards introducing a paywall for the online versions of the British newspaper The Times. Since the Times requests its visitors to register, the sites’ market share has dropped from 4.37 to 2.67 percent.
Russian DVD copy-circuit cleaned out, St. Petersburg was next
For those who thought the market for copied DVDs was dominated by Asian countries: Russia apparently also knows its way around. After the raids at various warehouses of pirated DVDs in Moscow last week, two days ago Russia’s second largest city St. Petersburg had the dubious honour.
3.5 million pirated DVDs seized from Russian storages
Last week specialized teams formed out of several Russian enforcement authorities conducted a coordinated raid at seven premises in the Moscow region. A total of 3.5 million pirated DVDs were seized. The range of DVDs included a large number of films that were recently released and are still shown in movie theatres, like 'Prince of Persia' and 'Sex and the City 2'.
YouTube qualifies for Safe Harbor provisions and has no general monitoring obligation
Yesterday a US federal judge ruled in the lingering lawsuit between YouTube (Google) and Viacom. The core of the dispute between both parties is whether YouTube qualifies as a service provider under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), the American forerunner of the European e-Commerce Directive. If that is the case, YouTube can address the DMCA regime for exemption from liability for user generated content.
IFPI demands that Google no longer links to Pirate Bay website
In an e-mail to the legal department of Google, the IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry) demands that Google’s search engine service shall no longer link or provides access to The Pirate Bay website, referring to Swedish, Danish and Italian case law that sentences The Pirate Bay for structurally facilitating copyright infringement.
U.S. IP enforcement coordinator Espinel publishes plan against IP theft
The U.S. has a special "Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator", Victoria Espinel. Her office shall coordinate the activities of various other government departments that are "working hard to stop intellectual property theft".
The conclusions of a study commissioned by the Culture and Education Committee (CULT), summarise the state of implementation of the UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions. The research team adopted a critical approach to the idea of enhancing copyright.
Research says game industry revenues will rise significantly in the next five years
According to a global survey by PriceWaterhouseCoopers, the game industry’s revenues will grow significantly over the next five years, supposedly rising from 52.5 billion U.S. dollars in 2009 to 86.8 billion U.S. dollars in 2014, an average increase of 10.6 percent per year.
Yesterday we reported that the English quality newspaper The Times will start to charge customers for reading articles on its site. While the move is criticized by many for being old fashioned, the fact is that the quality newspaper business is ailing and in need of a new, working businessmodel.
Part of the solution may be in teaming up with an unlikely partner: Starbucks. Coffee giant Starbucks has started to offer free access to quality newspapers such as the Wall Street Journal via its WiFi service. The idea is to recreate the old feeling of reading a newspaper with your cup of coffee. By offering this extra service Starbucks hopes to attract more customers and keep them at Starbucks longer.
Perhaps this innovative take on new business models will help the ailing newspaper business.
The Times will no longer offer the online version of her newspaper articles for free. Falling revenues (about 7 million euros per month) force the newspaper to take serious financial measures. Not only is the editorial budget reduced, the newspaper articles will soon only be accessible to readers who register and pay.
The Netherlands counts 6.1 million broadband connections (83.6 percent of households)
The Dutch market for broadband connections has risen to a total of 6.126 million connections in the first quarter of this year. Of these connections, approximately 194.400 (3 percent) is via Fiber to the Home (FTTH). The broadband penetration per household in the Netherlands has thus grown to 83.6 percent by May this year. This means an increase of 2.4 percentage points compared to last year.
Internet access is one of the spearheads of Neelie Kroes’ European Digital Agenda. The Digital Agenda sets the goal of having 50% of all European households connected to internet of 100 Mbps or higher by 2020.
Lady Gaga has no problem with fans downloading her music, according to a recent interview with Times Online.
Gaga even used the free distribution of her music to build her popularity. This popularity ultimately paid off in sold out tours and corporate sponsorships.
The latter apparently works very well for Gaga: corporate sponsorships are fairly obvious in her latest video clip, usefully called “Telephone”. Coca Cola (2.59min), Virgin and LG (see 4.17min) and Polaroid (5.44min) are in clear view.
While the three-strikes-out method is still under fierce attack, Armenia is making plans to tighten penalties for copyright violation even further.
A bill proposing to oblige hologram labels on audio and video media carriers was introduced in the Armenian Parliament on April 26, 2010. The bill provides for a fine of 2.030 euro for the first violation of law and a prison sentence of up to 12 months for a subsequent offense.
According to reports by the Business Software Alliance (BSA) 93 percent of computer software in Armenia is illegal.
KPN cancels its all-you-can-eat internet for smartphones
T-Mobile is not the only carrier for mobile internet that suffers from network congestion and outages. Webwereld reports that Robbert Bakker, director of KPN's mobile division for the consumer market last week announced that KPN will stop offering the so-called ‘flat-fee’ rates for smart phones. Unlimited mobile Internet for a flat rate is no longer workable:
"You have casual consumers who occasionally use the mobile Internet, business users and media junkies. The last group imposes a huge burden on the capacity of the mobile network, while they pay the same as the casual consumer. This means that the first group is paying for the use of the latter group."
EFF writes amicus brief about thousands of individual copyright lawsuits
Earlier we reported on some interesting legal developments across the ocean. In short, the U.S. producers of a few recently released movies, assisted by the lawyers of the U.S. Copyright Group, are attempting to obtain compensation from a large group of people who supposedly downloaded their films without permission via BitTorrent platforms.
Currently, the U.S. Copyright Group has already, through different ISPs, formally presented 5000 downloaders with a settlement proposal. Last week a list with 700 IP addresses of the alleged downloaders was made public.
Pirate Party: no seat, most popular in college towns
At the moment approximately 96.6 percent of the votes for the Dutch Elections for 2010 are counted. As a political party specifically focused on copyright, it is interesting to see how the Pirate Party has done in the recent elections.
To be honest, they haven’t done very well. With 0.1% of the votes, the Pirate Party has thus received no seat in the house of representatives. Assuming that this year approximately 12 million people were able to vote and there was a turnout of 75%, this would mean that the Pirate Party has received approximately 10500 votes.
The highest percentages Pirate Party voters are residents of Zandvoort (0.301%), Vaals (0.27%) Delft (0.248%), Ten Boer (0.223%), Eindhoven (0.208%), Groningen (0.206%) and Leiden ( 0.194%).
Remarkably, four out of seven are typical college towns...
According to The London Evening Standard, Tom Yorke of Radiohead warns young musicians not to chase the dream of signing with a major label. The mainstream music industry is dying and that this will be "no great loss to the world". Aspiring musicians should not to tie themselves to a "sinking ship". Yorke suggests it will be "only a matter of time -- months rather than years -- before the music business establishment completely folds". Talented young musicians should find their own road to success rather than focus on a contract deal with a big label.
Radiohead left their label EMI after six albums, because they could not agree on new terms. It is not unlikely that the dispute between Radiohead and Emi concerned included the way the band wished to release its music. After the break Radiohead released their seventh album 'In Rainbows' as a free download from their own website. Like with the ‘Humble Indie Bundle' games, downloaders could decide for themselves how much they were willing to pay for the brand new album. This unusual release method gave Radiohead a lot of publicity. It is a pity though that the band has not yet released any exact sales statistics.
Yorke shared his views in a rare interview for a new school textbook. He was asked to give young people advice on how to make a difference with their music.
According to Olivier Comte, vice president of sales, marketing and distribution at Namco Bandai the market for Nintendo’s Wii and DS has collapsed. As one of the main reasons Comte cites the rampant piracy on the platforms, especially on the DS.
“It’s a tough market. DS is the most successful platform ever, but all my kids’ friends at school have a DS with an R4. They have 100 games for no money.”
The R4 is a device that let’s people play pirated games on their DS. The industry has won numerous cases against manufacturers, importers and resellers of these devices, buts o far has been unable to discourage their use.
Apart from piracy Comte also cites the large number of mediocre games for both systems. The release of a large number of crappy titles has dented consumer trust in the platforms according to Comte.
All copyright-loving legal experts in the Netherlands have an opinion on the recent verdict of judge Hensen in the case between Eyeworks and FTD of June 2nd. The verdict differs significantly from previous case law on the qualification of certain acts of internet intermediaries and as such can have major consequences for the enforcement of copyright in the current internet era.
Exchange of copyrighted material via internet platforms
Nowadays copyrighted works like movies, music, games and television are exchanged widely amongst internet users. In this exchange, Peer to Peer (P2P) sites like Napster, BitTorrent sites like The Pirate Bay and Mininova, and now also Usenet sites like FTD play a key role. It is not so much that visitors download the copyright-protected material directly from the servers of these websites without permission of the creators, but rather that these sites offer a sea of hyperlinks to locations elsewhere on the internet where that copyright protected material can be downloaded directly from the computers of one or more users.
IronMan comic simultaneously launched on paper and digital?
IronMan comic simultaneously launched on paper and digital. In the debate conserning the tougher enforcement of copyright or developing new business models, Marvel Comix, well-known American comic book publisher, turned to the latter strategy.
For the first time on June 30th, the comic "Invincible Iron Man Annual" will be simultaneously released in both a paper book and a digital iPhone and iPad version. Especially the iPad should be very suitable for the digital reading of comics, since the format matches the traditional comic page.
The NRC Next reports that comic fans find the simultaneous release ‘historic' and 'a Big Deal’. These reactions seem deserved, since the monthly (paper) series usually appear online with a delay of at least half a year. Some comic fans are not satisfied with the delay and use free, pirated, scanned versions that are available online instead.
British Treasury publishes public spending data via BitTorrent
The British government acknowledges that BitTorrent is a beautiful and efficient technology for sharing data. That is why it uses this protocol to share financial reports on the last two years.
The new Prime Minister, David Cameron, has set a goal of transparency when it comes to public spending. The British Treasury answers the call by publishing torrents for data that reveals just where the tax pounds were spent on.
BitTorrent is not just a fast way of distributing data. As in this case, the data is about public spending, it is fitting that BitTorrent is much more cost effective than central distribution.
Future of Copyright debates with Dutch Pirate Party
Future of Copyright’s own Bart Schermer entered a debate with Samir Allioui, the leader of the Dutch Pirate Party last week in Utrecht. After the debate, in which Allioui defended the claim that sharing copyrighted works for non-commercial purposes must be allowed, Schermer was chosen the winner.
Both voiced criticism about how copyright now functions in the online environment. But each had a dramatically different solution. The pirate party has lost confidence in copyright and strives towards a future in which cultural products can be freely shared, while Schermer’s core assumption was that creativity should be protected.
Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs discusses User Generated Content
Two weeks ago during the WCIT2010 Dutch Minister of Economic Affairs Maria van der Hoeven announced that her Ministry will look into the possibilities of a copyright exception for user generated content. The Ministry wants to stimulate the development of user generated content by taking away any unecessary barriers.
Dutch professionals and stakeholders have been invited by the Ministry to discuss the possibilities of such an exception via Twitter (hashtag #exUGC) and a Linkedin discussion group.
It will not be possible to introduce an exception at the national level since copyright law is governed by the European Union. Therefore, the results of the discussion will be used by the Ministry to lobby in Europe.
Ad firms lose control over online business due to bad quality and lack of technical know-how
Many traditionally offline sectors moved into the digital era with a sense of high-handed complacency. They were the experts in their own businesses and they would handle this new digital channel as they saw fit. This attitude has brought many of these industries, e.g. the music industry and the news media, nothing but trouble. According to an article ran by the Washington Post, the advertising sector is another good example of this.
The rule of thumb with newspapers is that a reader of the old print edition bring 15 to 20 times more advertising revenue than an online reader. While media do have their responsibility in this matter, the editor makes a compelling argument that advertising agencies carry much of the blame, too.
Preliminary draft to amend Dutch Copyright Act: authors' contract rights and copyright transfer after authors' death
The preliminary draft to the adaptation of the Dutch Copyright Act (Auteurswet, or Aw) was presented online yesterday. The proposed changes will surely affect the exploitation of copyrighted works and contracts in this regard.
Transferral of copyright only after author’s death
The preliminary draft proposes an amendment of Article 2 Aw. The amendment states that copyright will no longer be transferable at any time, but instead only after the death of the author. The consultation document explains the rationale behind the prooposed modification of Article 2, paragraph 1, Aw:
"Having ‘non-transferableness’ as a starting point emphasizes the special bond between an author and his work. This draft thus reasons from a so-called monistic concept of copyright. (...) Since a transfer of copyright is now no longer possible during the author’s life, he will have to exploit his copyright by means of licensing. (...)"
Usenet portal FTD acts unlawfully by publication of movies, says judge
The court of The Hague has, for the second time in a row, ruled that Usenet portal unlawfully publishes the Dutch movie ‘Komt een vrouw bij de dokter’. According to the judge, FTD plays a key role in retrieving and downloading the movie.
Usenet is a service that is almost as old as the Internet. Originally, it was a discussion forum. In the last few years, however, it has mainly developed as a platform for the distribution of copyrighted content such as movies and games.
Users place ‘spots’ on FTD, which contain information about such content. A spot, for example, can state where a movie can be downloaded, what the quality or filetype is and whether it contains subtitles. FTD moderates these contributions and ensures that only relevant spots remain online.
New American business model: demand a settlement to prevent copyright infringement lawsuit
While the American entertainment industry is no longer suing individual downloaders, but rather going for the uploaders, an American law firm seems to have turned settling lawsuits against individual downloaders into a lucrative business model.
Wired and ArsTechnica have done some interesting research into the number of lawsuits on copyright infringement in the United States between 1993 and May 2010. This shows some interesting developments in the enforcement of copyright.
Between 1993 and 2003 on average 2500 lawsuits concerning copyright infringement served in the U.S.
The period 2004-2008 however, shows a remarkable increase in lawsuits, climbing up from 3000 infringement cases per year in 2004 to 6000, 5000, 4500 and 4000 in 2008. Wired calls this the "RIAA bump".
Wired claims this bump is due to changes in the RIAA’s enforcement policy. The focus shifted from addressing file sharing services only, to the prosecution of individual downloaders. According to Wired, the RIAA aimed to scare would-be downloaders. Most of these cases were supposedly settled for a few thousand dollars, to avoid lawsuits with statutory damages going up to $ 150,000 per infringement. Of the 18.0000 cases 11.000 were settled, according to ArsTechnica. Seven thousand either refused to settle or never responded to the settlement letter, but after the RIAA subpoenaed their identities and filed "named" lawsuits against them, nearly every one settled. (Note: In the Netherlands, it is not possible to initiate a so-called 'John Doe' procedure: suing an anonymous internet user via his ISP.)
European ministers approve of Kroes’ Digital Agenda
The Digital Agenda, that was recently presented by Euro commissioner Neelie Kroes, has been approved yesterday by the European council of telecoms ministers. The plan consists of seven key points that should lead to better use of IT and internet in the European Union. These points “should lead to more jobs, more prosperity and a better quality of life for citizens and companies,” said Kroes.
An important element in Kroes’ plans is the single digital market, which should enhance the opportunities for international trade and should counter piracy. Kroes wants to make it easier for internet users to sign up for, for example, streaming music services that are hosted in other European countries. In the supply of digital content, the EU is far behind the US. That is largely due to copyright and licensing models differing from member state to member state. When a company wants to launch a new service, it needs to make individual deals with governments and collecting societies of every country. This is expensive and time-consuming. Kroes plans to change this situation by facilitating the international management and licensing for copyright easier.
Out of the now 6 million dollar fines the Pirate Bay team owes, the Swedish enforcement authorities have not been able to collect more than 30,000 dollar.
A year ago, the four Pirate Bay members were each condemned to paying a fine of nearly one million U.S. dollars. Although the four have gone on appeal against the verdict, the Swedish law enforcement authorities have proceeded to collect the fine, which has since been increased to 6 million dollar.??
Lars Grimby of the Swedish enforcement authority explained to the Swedish radio the reason for this meagre outcome. Problematic is that all the Pirate Bay associates have all emigrated from Sweden, either before or right after the verdict. Since the debt collector’s jurisdiction ends at the Swedish border, it is unable to seize any of the assets abroad. The funds that have been recovered were collected from Carl Lundstrom, the wealthy Pirate Bay member that actually has the least to do with the sites operations.
The infamous director Uwe Boll, who has specialised in creating movies on the basis of video games, has enlisted the help of the law firm Dunlap, Grubb, & Weaver as he claims to have lost substantial income to piracy after the release of his latest movie, Far Cry.
This firm, states Ars Technica, has built a business on p2p settlements. Rights holders can bring cases at no cost. The proceeds of the settlements are subsequently shared between the firm and the rights owners.
In total letters have been sent to 4577 people who allegedly shared Far Cry. The addressee is invited to settle for 1500 dollars. When he or she chooses not to cooperate, the letter warns, the case will be brought to court with a claim for 150.000 dollar in damages. This is the maximum amount that rights holders can claim in damages for a single infringement, according to American law.
Ofcom presents concept code of conduct for tackling file-sharing
Ofcom, the British telecoms regulator, has recently published a draft code of conduct to institute measures for dealing with file sharing. The code is part of the Digital Economy Act’s plan to stimulate the creative industries’ online presence. If implementation goes according to plan, ISPs will have to forward the personal data of file-sharers to rights holders.
Internet users that receive three letters of warning within a one-year period, run the chance of being summoned to court by the rights holders. Rights holders check who share their content. This information is passed to ISPs that in turn send a letter to the alleged infringer.
When the file sharer does not change his behaviour, a second letter is sent after at least one month, and after that, another. When even after the third letter, the file sharer has refused to mend his ways, the ISP needs to forward the personal data of the offender to the right holder. After one year, the ISP needs to delete the letter.
Four centuries of newspaper searchable via Royal Library portal
Earlier on this blog we reported the Dutch Royal Library’s (Koninklijke Bibliotheek) plans to digitize a great deal of its newspaper archives and make them available via an online portal.
Now it's there. The Royal Library has made available online 1 million old newspaper pages from 70 different newspapers dating back as far as 1618. The collection will later on be further extended to include 7 million pages. The scanned newspapers are searchable by word.
"The web service is the largest, freely accessible online newspaper database in the world", claims the Royal Library to Webwereld. The Royal Library has made agreements with rightowners on the accessibility of newspaper publications which are still copyright protected.
The methods of the Royal Library are in contrast with the plans of the British Library to offer the same online newspaper service, but instead of a free service, users wille have to pay for access. Also, the British Library is reportedly planning to put all their newspapers online without any consultations with copyright holders or a system of for compensation.
The Dutch Download Debate: a glass of water, toilet breaks, squatting and the (nonexistent) download ban
Yesterday the Great Download debate took place in Amsterdam. First on the floor were Bits of Freedom (civil rights), the Consumer Union, Entertainment Industry Rights Protection Netherlands (BREIN), the Creators Platform (Platform Makers), information law professor Hugenholtz and (former) marketing manager of the popular artist Kyteman.
Ot van Daalen (Bits of Freedom) proposed a "right to internet', instead of a download ban. A download ban will not be enforceable without an extensive monitoring of all internet traffic, he stated. To find out what internet traffic is infringing copyright and what is not, the entire internet traffic will have to be scanned. That would propose a disproportionate infringement of the privacy of citizens. The entertainment industry has had 13 years since Napster was banned to come with a legal alternative to illegal file sharing. In the absence of legal, user-friendly, online distribution methods citizens are forced to use other channels that do offer this kind of service level. With Spotify being introduced only a week ago, it is BREINs own fault that there is so much content being downloaded now. The industry should therefore focus on updating its old distribution channels instead of pursuing the criminalisation of their biggest fans.
French anti-piracy association attacked by BitTorrent site supporters
One can disagree on the scope and enforcement of copyright. If you can’t work it out together, you may decide to take it to court, or as was the case yesterday, debate about ways to bring about some useful changes. This reportedly went down in a less peaceful way in France yesterday.
According to a press release, ALPA (the French anti-piracy association) was raided yesterday. Ten people claiming to be associated with ATILD (Association for Internet Downloading and Free Diffusion) forced their way into ALPA’s offices in order to hang banners from its balconies in support of internet site Wawa-mania and of its admin Dimitri Mader, nicknamed Zac. There is currently a lawsuit going on between ALPA and the admin of the French platform BitTorrent Wawa-Mania. An employee would have been mistreated.
Danish Supreme Court: access provider has to block access to Pirate Bay
The Danish Supreme Court decided that access providers Telenor has to block access to The Pirate Bay site, thereby confirming earlier decisions of two lower courts in the lawsuit between the IFPI and Tele2 (now Telenor).
There is criticism on the Danish verdict from the Pirate Party. According to Ole Husgaard from the Danish Pirate Party, the verdict is based on an erroneous implementation of Article 5 of the European Information Society Directive, Torrentfreak reports.
Article 5, paragraph 1, of the InfoSoc Directive provides that “temporary acts of reproduction referred, which are transient or incidental [and] an integral and essential part of a technological process and whose sole purpose is to enable a transmission in a network between third parties by an intermediary, of a work or other subject-matter to be made, and which have no independent economic significance, shall be exempted from the reproduction right.”
Downloading: right or infringement? The Big Download debate!
This afternoon the Download Debate will take place at De Balie in Amsterdam. Bits of Freedom, BREIN, Creator's Platform and the agent of Dutch performer Kyteman will defend their thoughts on downloading. Professor of Information Law Bernt Hugenholtz will set out the legal framework. Politicians of the VVD, Groen Links, SP, D66, PvdA and the Pirate Party will debate each other on their views on downloading. It promises to be an interesting afternoon! Will we find out what the future of copyright is?
Follow the entire Download Debate via the livestreams of Boek9.nl, Webwereld.nl, VPRO 3voor12 and De Balie (Dutch).
Tomorrow, we will post a short review of the Download Debate.
iTunes Store subject of U.S. antitrust investigation
The American Department of Justice has started an antitrust investigation into Apple's iTunes Music Store, reports Webwereld. According to Billboard Magazine Amazon asked music labels to obtain the exclusive right to sell new songs one day before the sceduled release date, in exchange for promotion of the songs on their MP3 Daily Deal site. The iTunes Store threatened these labels to cease marketing of their songs if they accept Amazon’s offer.
Besides the investigation into the iTunes Store, there are more ongoing investigations into Apple’s services. The Federal Trade Commission is investigating the strict rules that Apple would impose on developers of iPhone apps.
In America, the Sherman Act is the basis for competition legislation. Article 81 and 82 of the EC Treaty form the basis of European competition law.
France and The Netherlands initiate plans for code of conduct to prevent internet censorship
The Netherlands and France are working on a code of conduct to safeguard civil liberties on the internet and to counter censorship on the web. Dutch Secretary of foreign affairs Maxime Verhagen: “Freedom of expression applies everywhere, including the internet. (…)in many countries people are persecuted for expressing their opinion online. We want concrete measures against internet censorship.’ Verhagen and his French colleague Bernard Kouchner invite other countries, ICT firms, acadmics and ngo’s to participate in developing the code, come summer in Paris.
Digital rights organisation Bits of Freedom claims the plans are hypocritical, as The Netherlands are currently working on an internet filter that is being implemented and forced onto ISPs via back doors. It is unclear whether an independent body will supervise the blacklist. The filter is to be used to make fighting child pornography easier, but it is unclear if it will just be used for that. BoF fears that when an initial filtering system is in place, it will be too tempting for the government to resist filtering other types of unwanted behaviour.
Rupert Murdoch has previously indicated to start experimenting with new payment models for News Corp’s newspapers. News International, the News Corp department that operates outside of the US, will start implementing such paywalls.
The plans concern the website for the Times and the Sunday Times. These two papers had a joint website, timesonline.co.uk. This site will now be split in two and the contents will be partly shielded from both visitors and Google spiders.
Visitors can choose to pay for access for either a week (2 pounds) or a day (1 pound). This will provide access to both sites. The papers will combine the paywall with a new online strategy. The Times will post less articles, but instead choose to post more in-depth articles. The Sunday Times will focus more on multimedia content and will emulate a magazine-like style.
The US published their annual ‘piracy watch list’ last month, a list of countries ordered by the amount of piracy. China tops the list, followed by Russia and, probably surprising, Canada.
The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs states that the piracy claims are unfounded. A spokesperson of that Ministry says, in a statement published by the Chinese official news agency Xinhua, that the Chinese government has implemented anti piracy measures and that piracy receives the state’s full attention. "The involved U.S. Congress members should respect the fact and stop making groundless accusations against China.”
This statement came just before the arrival of US Secretary of State Clinton and the Treasure Secretary Greithner in China. During the visit, intellectual property, besides the artifiaclly low exchange rate for the Yuan and the Chinese trade policies, will play an important part.
Three strikes against The Pirate Bay and OpenBittorrent
Last week The Pirate Bay and OpenBittorrent took three significant legal hits in court. The Swedish appeals court handed down a number of injunctions against the Pirate Bay and the related OpenBittorrent tracker.
First of all, the Court ordered ISP Black Internet to cease providing access to the The Pirate Bay web site.
Second, the Court ordered the two admins of the Pirate Bay, Fredrik Neij and Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, to cease operating or assisting the Pirate Bay web site and trackers. While both claim they have nothing to do with the Pirate Bay anymore, it is likely that they still play an important role in operating the Pirate Bay. In this sense it is also interesting to see who is behind the Pirate Bay ‘tracker clone’ OpenBittorrent. We will find out soon, because the Court has also ordered ISP Portlane to turnover the contact details of the operaters of Openbittorrent.
The third strike was that the Court ordered ISP Portlane to cease providing access to the Openbittorrent tracker.
While it is unclear what the actual effect of the injunctions on the operation of the Pirate Bay and OpenBittorent will be, from a legal perspective it will become very difficult for providers to keep supporting the activities of the Pirate Bay.
Swedish ISP turns to Supreme Court to protect identity of BitTorrent admin
Swedish ISP TeliaSonera is ordered to disclose the identity of the admin of BitTorrent site SweTorrents to the Antipiratbyrån (the Swedish BREIN), Torrentfreak reports. Earlier this week the Swedish Court of Appeal confirmed the order of the District Court of Södertörn from December last year.
Not wanting to breach customer privacy, TeliaSonera appealed the first verdict. A few days ago, the Court.of Appeal confirmed that TeliaSonera, based on the Implementation of Directive 2004/48/EC (the Enforcement Directive or IPRED) must hand over customer identifying data in cases of copyright infringement as a result of file-sharing.
TeliaSonera immediately after te verdict, announced that it would appeal the decision at the Supreme Court, when it in fact had until June 6 to do so. The ISP feels that it has a fundamental obligation to protect the privacy of its customers, which precedes IPRED.
Each year, members of the Congressional International Anti-Piracy Caucus (congressional member organization focused on anti-piracy), together with the heads of the RIAA and MPAA, publish a list of the "Top Priority Countries," aka "Piracy Watch List" which they claim lack intellectual property enforcement.
For the first time ever they added a list of the world’s top 6 most “notorious” illegal websites that are “overwhelmingly used for the global exchange of illegal movies, music and other copyrighted works.” According to Zeropaid.com, these websites are, in no particular order: Baidu (China), IsoHunt (Canada), Mp3fiesta (Ukraine’s), RapidShare (Germany), RMX4U.com (Luxembourg) and The Pirate Bay (Sweden).
Newspaper publishers not happy with British Library’s exploitation plans
?James Murdoch, Rupert's son and chairman of the News Corporation, criticized the British Library at a lecture in honor of the 300th anniversary of the Statute of Anne (British law that created copyright).?
News Corporation, publisher of several newspapers, has a legal obligation to a deliver a copy of her papers to the British Library. The British Library is now planning to digitize all newspapers in her possession. The use and digitization of their newspapers by the British Library is not so much Murdoch’s problem, but rather the Library’s plans to make the digitized newspapers available online in return for a fee. Murdoch believes that what the British Library is planning to do, is in fact an exploitation the intellectual property of News Corp. This exploitation right belongs exclusively to News Corporation, says Murdoch.
UPC director Diederik Karsten has clearly expressed himself in an interview with Webwereld yesterday: downloading copyrighted material without permission is theft. He was aware of the fact that this statement will make him unpopular with the public. "In the Netherlands we have some divergent laws which permit downloading for personal use. The UPC-director doesn’t seem opposed to any international laws against (free) downloading of copyrighted materials. ??
Karsten distinguishes between two types of pirates.
Firstly there are the tough guys who prefer downloading as much music and movies over the internet as possible, 24 hours a day, 30 days a month. Such use puts a heavy burden on the bandwidth and is also contrary to the UPC principles of fair use. This type of pirate gives UPC the most concerns, although caused by only a fraction of the total UPC subscribers. ??
Digital Agenda: Kroes presents action plan to boost Europe's prosperity and well-being
Neelie Kroes presented her actionplan to implement the Digital Agenda yesterday. Kroes' first goal is adapting copyright law to the digital era.
The implementation of the ambitious Digital Agenda for Europe should contribute significantly to the EU's economic growth and spread the benefits of the digital era to all sections of society.
As a result of a court order from the German court earlier this week the German hosting provider could no longer be the host to The Pirate Bay website. As a result, the Pirate Bay's website has been offline for several hours today.
Now the site is back online. And the new hosting provider of The Pirate Bay is …. The Pirate Party! That's right, the Swedish political party. Following a comment on Torrentfreak.com Rick Falkvinge, leader of the Pirate Party, is hanging on to the idea that Pirate Bay is nothing more than a search engine and therefore not responsible for the content that its users exchange.
Hurt Locker producer will sue thousands of downloaders: furious about comments
A producer of the Oscar-winning film The Hurt Locker, plans to sue 20.000 downloaders with the help of the aforementioned U.S. Copyright Group. A critic disagreeing with this action, announces to boycot the producer and gets a fiery responce.??
The producers are particularly crossed about the disappointing grosses of the film: 16.4 million U.S. dollars in the U.S. and 40 million dollars worldwide. The film was already available on BitTorrent six months before the release of the movie in the U.S. movie theaters. Many potential moviegoers will have downloaded the film for free, instead of paying for a movie ticket. ??
These grosses make The Hurt Locker the lowest-grossing movie ever to win an Oscar for Best Picture. It reportedly cost 15 million U.S. dollars to make the film. This means a profit of 1.4 million dollar, of which a section is usually already reserved for investors. Seeing these figures, makes the rage of the producers al lot more understandable. ??
Cyberbunker CEO predicts: “Pirate Bay only down for a few hours”
The Pirate Bay is only down for a short while, says Cyberbunker (CB3Rob) CEO Sven Kamphuis. In Webwereld, he voices his criticism on the verdict of a German judge in favour of the MPA, last week: “Look here, Disney only produces stupid little movies and we deliver critical infrastructure.”
A German court imposed an injunction upon CB3Rob and its CEO Sven Kamphuis. The carrier is no longer allowed to provide services to The Pirate Bay, on pains of a hefty fine and a potential jail sentence.
Kamphuis feels treated unfairly and mounts a counter attack. He demands damages from the MPA. “Providers have rights. It’s all very nice that John and Pete come bitching that they may have lost something because of Fred’s behaviour, but all we do is provide Internet.” According to Kamphuis, TPB is also just a neutral conduit for Internet traffic.
YouTube has supposedly come with a new feature over the weekend: users can now post videos to YouTube that will not appear in the lists. User can still link to their uploaded videos though and send the link to as many people as they link: the video is online as usual in the YouTube-network.
Such a service offers many advantages. Users can now also upload videos that won’t appear in the list, but remain private, and decide with whom they want to share the material with. This can be useful for many purposes, from home movies and family events to corporate videos only meant for employees and more.
Content providers stick to what they know with publishing for iPad
The expectations surrounding the iPad are highly strung indeed. Apple’s new gadget will bring the way we consume media one step further in the digital era by allowing us to navigate the online environment with a touch screen, a good internet connection and Apple’s usual ease-of-use.
But we’re not there yet, warns American research firm Nielsen Norman Group. The company studied the design and usability of some 40 apps and websites for the iPad. The conclusions are not too optimistic.
The researchers, who studied how people use the iPad, found that there is little clarity and structure in the interaction design. More often than not, it is unclear which gestures can be used and what the result of a touch or swipe will be. The same kind of touch (for example touching a picture) yields, different results in different apps. With some, nothing happens. In others, a large version of the picture appears and with yet others, a caption with some info on the picture opens.
Furthermore, the report concludes that application builders are sticking to outdated concepts. Especially the mental model they call the “just like print metaphor” is persistent.
An American federal court ruled that the owners of file-sharing platform LimeWire are personally liable for copyright infringements.
LimeWire is, in the US, a popular piece of software for file sharing. With it, users can search each others music catalogues looking for files they would like to share. According to LimeWire, the platform has 50 million unique users per month. The program has been downloaded over 200 million times since its inception in 2000, says CNET, of which 340.000 times in the last week. The judge stated that the site’s revenue was 6 million dollar in 2004 and 20 million two years later.
The owners have always maintained not to be responsible for users sharing protected works. The RIAA thought differently on the matter and brought the matter to court in 2006.
U.S. cable operator Time Warner Cable (TWC) can’t handle the number of requests for identifying internet users anymore. TWC normally receives 567 IP identification requests per month, especially from law enforcement agencies. These requests relate to issues ranging from suicide threats to child abductions to terrorist activities. TWC believes that this kind of cases take "immediate priority.".
Recently, the U.S. Copyright Group, a U.S. law firm apparently specializing in download cases, received 2094 requests to identify downloaders within one month. These requests are the result of three cases in which the U.S. Copyright Group has obtained a court order to identify the downloaders.
Judge orders Cyber Bunker to stop internet access to Pirate Bay website
The Hamburg Regional Court has imposed an injunction against CB3Rob Ltd. & Co. KG (Cyberbunker) and the operator thereof, Mr. Sven Olaf Kamphuis, which includes a prohibition against the provision of internet access for the Pirate Bay website. The ban was requested by members of the Motion Picture Association, the international equivalent of the U.S. MPAA.
If Cyberbunker fails to live up to the injunction, they forfeit a penalty of up to € 250,000 for each case of infringement or, if this can not be enforced, up to two years imprisonment for the operators of Cyberbunker.
It is the first time that a German court rules that a provider of internet hosting services is liable for copyright infringement.
Judge bans FTD to name copyrighted works on usenet forum
In an ex-parte proceeding yesterday, the Dutch court of The Hague held that listing the name of a copyrighted work, is a distribution of the work and thereby a copyright infringing act. The court reached this conclusion in the case between the production company Eyeworks and usenet community FTD. On an FTD forum, the description of an uploaded file contains a reference to the name " Komt een vrouw bij de dokter".
The verdict shows that the court followed the reasoning of Eyeworks lawyer. "In any event FTD, by enabling spots that provide access to “Komt een vrouw bij de dokter” files on the usenet of its FTD Application, creates an entirely new distribution channel for these files, making her co-publisher, at least co-responsible for the distribution, regardless of who exactly sends the files."
The small independent game developers of Wolfire Games have found an innovative and sympathetic way to make money on their new games. Since a few days, Wolfire offers a completely DRM-free bundle of five games on their website. What’s so special about it, is that people who want to download the Humble Indie Bundle can decide for themselves how much money they want to donate for downloading the game package. Even donations of 1 dollarcent are possible. Meanwhile the (fantastic!) game Samorost 2 is also added to the bundle.
What is also special about the way the bundle Wolfire Games offers is that not all the revenue is necessarily going to Wolfire itself. Donors can decide how they distribute their donation between Wolfire, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Child's Play Charity.
Conclusion A-G: only levies on data carriers when private copy use is presumable
According to Advocate General Verica Trstenjak, Member States of the EU should not indiscriminately raise a private copy levy on all data carriers. The Advocate General came to this conclusion in the case between SGAE, the Spanish organization for managing intellectual property rights, and Padawan, a manufacturer of electronic media memory.
Based on the European Copyright Directive in the Information Society, authors, performers, music and film producers and broadcasters have the right to authorize or prohibit the reproduction of their works, performances, music, films and broadcasts (article 2). This reproduction right gives rights owners the possibility to demand a fee for reproduction of their work. That basically means that everyone should first contact the right holder before reproducing copyrighted material. Member States may however make an exception to the reproduction right for the benefit of private copies. A natural person may reproduce copyrighted material for private use and for ends that are neither directly nor indirectly commercial, on the condition that the right holders receive a ‘fair compensation’.
SABAM wants a collective agreement with internet providers over copyright fees
Sabam, the Belgian copyright management organization, finds the Belgian copyright law immensely outdated. It isn’t adapted to the use of the internet.
Sabam claims an annual loss of 13.8 million euro’s by the online exchange of music, money that actually belongs to artists. "The problem is that dissemination over the Internet is hardly regulated, and that the traditional market, which mainly consists of CDs and DVDs, has collapsed in recent years. Large sums of money that are due for artists now flow into the bank accounts of the providers."
"There is a serious imbalance created between the giant revenues of providers and the ever decreasing revenue in the classic movie and music market," said the director of Sabam. Sabam therefore calls for a law that requires internet access providers to come to an agreement with the collective management societies. "We call for a collective agreement with a provider," said Sabam. "This has been the case with cable operators for years. It’s actually the same principle. The cable media also inject creative content in a network. Why would there be a difference between cable companies and providers?
The amount of pirated software is increasing worldwide. This is mainly due to more people using computers in emerging countries such as China, India and Brazil. Globally, in 2009, 43% of software in use were illegal copies.
This is revealed by a study by the Business Software Alliance. The fraction of illegal software is steadily increasing, the BSA reports. In 2008, it was 41% and in 2007, 38%. The use of illegal software represents a value of around 40 billion euro.
Although pirated software is on the rise, the BSA was happy with its results of countering the pirate threat. The economic recession did not lead to an expected spike in the use of pirated software and in most countries the fraction of illegal software declined rather than increased. In the Netherlands, around 28% of software is acquired from an illegal source, a figure that has remained steady. The value of this fraction declined with 8% over the last year to 408 million euro.
The copyfight is mostly covered from two perspectives. Pirates claim to represent consumers, urging Big Content to embrace the endless possibilities of Internet distribution. The content industries, at the same time, try to maintain a hold over their IP in a context of widespread file-sharing.
There is one side of the discussion, however, that is less than often present in the debate: that of the actual artists. The creators whose creativity copyright is meant to protect and enable.
In a witty and informed post, TV-writer Dennis Grath contributes his two cents to the discussion. Grath explains the complexity of the creator’s struggle to earn a decent living, and in doing so, he points to the shortcomings in the debate in both the pirates’ and the content industries’ point of view.
The Haitian photojournalist Daniel Morel took pictures of the devastations soon after the earthquake in Haiti and posted them on Twitter. News agency Agence France Presse (AFP) took the pictures of Morels Twitter page and spread them amongst their associated media. Morel now demands a substantial compensation of AFP before a U.S. court, because AFP should have asked permission to Morel first. Morel claims 150,000 USD for each copyright infringement. The total amount for compensation could become quite significant, because Morels photos were published by various media worldwide.
AFP states that permission is not necessary because the terms of use of Twitter would allow reuse of materials posted on Twitter. According to the AFP’s lawyer Twitter is designed to spread text and images as soon and widely as possible.
Following the results of the Australian research mentioned earlier, showing downloaders are willing to pay for easy accessible and affordable media content, a ‘chicken or egg’ debate has arisen.
The boss of the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT) claims that the media industry won’t offer such a service until the rampant online offer of music is greatly reduced. People must first stop file sharing before the industry is prepared to compete, says boss Neil Gane of FACT. "Movie industries obviously want to make their content available online, but they can’t compete currently with a free alternative that’s perpetrated through theft. Once there is a level playing field, I think you’ll begin to see a lot more flexible, innovative business models."
‘Copyright for Creativity' declaration calls for a balanced European copyright
Yesterday, several European social, creative and educational organizations and technology companies issued a declaration calling for a European copyright law that equally balances the right to protect creation through the granting of exclusive rights, with legal exceptions to that protection. Among the signatories of "Copyright for Creativity" are several European consumers, libraries and research institutions.
Exclusive rights stimulate investment and production of cultural goods and knowledge related goods, states the declaration. Simultaneously, exceptions to those rights create a balanced system that allows for the use of creative works to support innovation, creation, competition and the public interest.
Especially with the current focus on enforcement of copyright (probably referring to the ACTA), the signatories find it important to get attention for the to the necessary exceptions to copyright. The signatories of the ‘Copyright for Creativity' declaration need these exceptions to be able to keep on innovating, making creative reuse and continue to build on the work of others.
Downloaders are willing to pay for easy accessible, legal content
Most internet users are willing to pay for downloading music, movies and television if there would be a cheap and legal service such as BitTorrent available. Thus is the main conclusion of an Australian survey conducted under more than 7000 downloaders of music, movies and TV shows.
It is equally or more important for downloaders that such a service is easy accessible, than the costs of downloading, say the researchers. Most respondents indicated using BitTorrent sites, not because they offer free content, but because of the convenience. Also more than two-thirds stated they would pay for downloads from a legitimate service that was just as convenient if it existed.
Equally interesting is the fact that the respondents also indicated how much they are willing to pay for the otherwise free downloaded content. Converted to euros, a large proportion of respondents were willing to pay 0.35 euro for music (48.9%), 1.40 euro for films (45.6%) and 0.70 euro for TV shows (39,3%) when offered by a legal music service.
Germanic anti-piracy groups jointly call for more attention for piracy
The European Green Paper about internet and the creative industries states that politicians often hardly realise how important this sector is for innovation and industrial change.
In a reaction to this, anti-piracy groups from Germany, Austria and Switzerland state that the same innovations also enable large scale fraud and illegal activities, thus weakening the creative industries. Worldwide, product piracy is a multibillion business, thriving mainly on the internet. Law enforcers pay little attention, state the three groups.
“We observe with great concern that offers of illegal content on the internet which systematically violate consumer rights, copyrights, e-commerce laws, tax laws and youth protection laws have so far hardly been prevented or penalized by lawmakers in Germany, Austria and Switzerland,” the three write, pointing to the negative economic effects for the entertainment industries. “The establishment or meaningful development of legal, consumer-friendly content platforms for film, music, software and books are threatened and undermined in their entirety as business models by commercially active freeloaders. (…) Freedom of information is not a carte blanche for violating rights."
Research: downloading generates more revenue for entertainment industry
A joint study by IViR, TNO and SEO suggests that downloading music is not detrimental to the entertainment industries’ revenues. Rather, the opposite is the case: downloaders are the entertainment industries’ best customers.
The study shows that in the end, music downloaders even pay more for music than non-downloaders do, for example by attending expensive concerts. The study also concludes that a ban on downloading music will not lead to increased sales. In fact, downloading by itself generates more buyers, because relatively unknown or little known artists reach a larger audience.
Nevertheless, it is not clear whether a downloader of music is not per definition a music fan who will therefore automatically spend more money on music than a non-music fan/downloader.
Downloading has had an equalising effect on the income of different types of artists. Especially lesser known artists gain more revenue by the online sharing of their music. Their concerts get better attended and the proceeds of t-shirts and concert tickets rise. Famous artists on the other hand experience a decline in income as a result of their music being downloaded.
Technollama ran a very interesting story about why ACTA is being negotiated the way it is, as a multilateral trade agreement and not through existing channels for IP negotiation such as the WTO and WIPO.
To begin answering that question, one first should take a quick glance at the economic side of IP. The driving forces behind ACTA are mostly countries with strong industrial innovation and creative industries that contribute to the trade balance. They are net IP exporters. First and foremost, this goes for the US and the UK. If these countries want to maintain their IP export surpluses, they need to ensure that their works are subject to protection in the countries to which they will be exported. That their patents are respected, that trademarks aren’t counterfeited and that their copyrighted works are not copied and distributed illegally.
According to Spotify manager Tobias Edström, online music service Spotify will be released in the Netherlands on May 18th. Through Spotify users can get access to the catalogue of the four big labels (EMI, Universal, Sony and Warner) as well as access to those of many independent labels. Spotify users can stream ad-supported music streams for free, or opt to pay a small monthly fee to receive the streams without ads and in higher quality.
Employees of a French government research institute have recently presented a number of reports showing BitTorrents users privacy is in a bad state. Without much effort the institute managed to monitor the IP-addresses of new seeders (uploaders of content). And with result: after one month 70% of seeders IP addresses were traced.
The results show a large portion of The Pirate Bay content derives from a small part of the users. Of all the millions of Pirate Bay users, 100 IP addresses are responsible for 30% of the offered content. More than half (60%) of the content comes from 1000 IP addresses.
These research results offer new possibilities for identifying and pursuing internet users infringing copyright on a large scale. Using the IP address of a particular infringing internet user, a Dutch provider can be requested to provide the associated name, address and residence. These data are needed to start up a civil procedure in which compensation and a ban can be demanded.
European Union: how to boost the cultural and creative industries?
Cultural and creative industries contribute to European societies in many ways. They provide 5 million Europeans with jobs, add 2,7% to EU GDP and have a high growth potential. But their effects go further. The cultural and creative industries (which we’ll call CCIs from now on, for the sake of brevity) drive innovation in many other industries and branches of society. They enhance cultural diversity and social cohesion.
As cultural content is increasingly consumed through digital channels, CCIs are a driver for investments in new and faster data network, contributing to the information society.
For all the reasons stated above, the EU has recently published a green paper to stimulate the discussion about how to create the best conditions for the CCIs to thrive. In the Green Paper’s own words: “Europe's CCIs offer a path towards a more imaginative,
more cohesive, greener and more prosperous future.”
Sales through digital channels increase worldwide, The Netherlands show lag
Globally, music sales through digital channels increased with 9% to 27 per cent. In The Netherlands, the digital sales grew to contribute 6% to total turnover. The sales of physical carriers decreased with 13% worldwide. Overall, the music industry faced losses, show IFPI figures.
All over the world, people bought music for the total sum of 12,8 million dollar. 4,2 billion came from digital channels. The total turnover for 2009 is 8% lower than 2008. According to figures from the NVPI, the Dutch industry representative, Dutch turnover has declined too, although not as much. Here, the turnover was 4,6% lower than the year before and totalled 258 million euro. One of the reasons that digital distribution only contributes 6% to total turnover, according to the NVPI, is that the illegal offering is so big.
Brein has sent the Dutch ISP Ziggo a letter in which it urges the ISP to block access to The Pirate Bay. Sources report this to Dutch news service NOS. Ziggo is The Netherland’s largest ISP.
Ziggo has reacted negatively to the request and states that only a judge can force it to comply with Brein’s request. Brein has not yet given its reaction to this statement.
Other Internet providers, such as KPN, UPC and XS4ALL have not yet received any letters. It is likely that Brein will first test the matter with one ISP.
According to ICT-laywer Arnoud Engelfriet, it is not unlikely that Brein will bring the matter to court. “A foundation like BREIN is obliged to negotiate first, before they can go to court.” He doesn’t think much of Brein’s chances. “ISPs are legally protected. This protection is provided to prevent ISPs from having to block more and more sites.”
Dutch online rights group Bits of Freedom disagrees with govt plans on Net Neutrality
The Dutch government has recently opened a public consultation on the proposal for a bill governing net neutrality. The gist of the bill is that for the time being, the Dutch government will allow ISPs to set their own traffic shaping policies, as long as they are transparent about them and explain their policies to their customers.
The opinion of the Ministry of Economic Affairs is that a requirement for transparent shaping rules coupled with a competitive market provides enough stimuli to ISPs to provide services that Internet users want.
EU regulations on the matter of net neutrality allow member states to set minimum service requirements for ISPs in case their services degrade as a result of traffic shaping. The bill states that such requirements will not be set initially, but that they may follow if ISP services do indeed degrade.
Frequency auction for mobile broadband networks yield 2,6 million Euro in The Netherlands
The Ministry for Economic Affairs has collected 2,6 million Euro with an auction for frequencies in the 2,6 GHz band. Besides the three mobile networks operators KPN, Vodafone en T-Mobile, also newcomers Tele2 and the jointly operating cable companies UPC and Ziggo have acquired bands in the spectrum.
The specific goal of the auction was to provide newcomers with a good opportunity to enter the mobile broadband market. The three incumbents could only acquire a percentage of the available bands.
Especially the paired frequencies that can be used for 4G networks, were popular. Almost 70 MHz of unpaired spectrum remained unsold. This spectrum is suited for WiMax services, not for 4G. The ministry now thinks about ways to sell these bands too.
Dutch ISP XS4ALL proposes to break stalemate copyright discussion by putting everything online
Dutch Internet provider XS4ALL takes position in the debate about the future of copyright in the online environment. The ISP is not pleased with its sector facing constant proposals by rights holders for solving what the ISPs see as the rights holders’ problems. XS4ALL now presents their own solution: put all movies and music instantly online. Rights holders, in the proposal, receive a “reasonable remuneration”.
XS4ALL, that has called the plan “music and movies 4ALL”, proposes to make it obligatory to put movies and music online, simultaneous with the international release and in a quality that is equal to other types of releases. The ISP imagines an iTunes-like portal where consumers can go for their media needs. There, they can select and pay for the media they wish.
Apple and Rhapsody have released an updated version of the Rhapsody iPhone app. That is to say, Rhapsody put in the hours and Apple has approved the distribution of the app. The best new feature about the app is that it allows users to store songs on the iPhone, not requiring a constant data link with Rhapsody’s servers. The service will become available to Android users too, later this year. Spotify already has such a feature in Europe.
With the iPhone’s 3G, WiFi or Edge connection, users can download playlists associated with their Rhapsody account.
This feature was already available for the more expensive Rhapsody packages, but thanks to new licensing deals offered by the labels, Rhapsody offers iPhone users storage of their favourite tunes on one device for 10 dollars/month, the same price as the subscription rate that previously only allowed streaming access. The company revealed to Wired that it will soon allow downloading complete albums.
The awakening giant India has recently given its copyright law an overhaul that needs to bring it in line with the digital era and with international treaties. India’s copyright policies have so far ignored the 1996 WIPO Internet Treaties. This bill, which has been in preparation since 2005, is expressly designed for compliance "with the provisions of the two WIPO Internet Treaties, to the extent considered necessary and desirable." It also contains articles on banning DRM circumvention.
There is good cause to improve on the current copyright law, as piracy is rampant in India. According to the International Intellectual Property Alliance, in a report to the US government that was quoted by Ars Technica: "The piracy rate for music in the online space is estimated at 99% (...) India was among the top 10 countries in the world for illegal filesharing (P2P) activities (...) In one case, pamphlets were being distributed with the morning newspaper offering pirated software and referring readers to the website www.cd75dvd150.20m.com to place orders (...) It is estimated that India's cable companies declare only 20% of their subscribers and that the piracy level in this market is at 80% with significant losses."
Fibre grows fast in The Netherlands, despite fierce competition
The deployment of fibreglass networks increases in speed in The Netherlands. In 50 municipalities, people can connect to the Internet through fibre. 5,7 per cent of Dutch households has an FttH-connection, of which almost half makes use: the number of households with a subscription to fibre services is 2,4%. The yearly Telecompaper report on fibre deployment predicts that at the end of this year, the number of municipalities in which fibre is available, will have risen to 70. Furthermore, the authors expect that in 2014, 19% of households will access the Internet through a fibre line.
The fast growth is remarkable, as we are still in the midst of an economic crisis and the competition, Internet through phone lines or through the cable, is developing quickly too. Thanks to VDSL 2 (phone line) and Docsis 3.0 (cable), the alternatives to fibre offer increasingly fast connections. And the end is not is sight with the “traditional” networks. Bell Labs recently revealed that DSL lines can transfer data with a speed of 300 Mbps.
e-Reader manufacturers feel the iPad heat and spring into action
The iPad launch has urged some manufacturers of e-readers to enhance their platforms. They see Apple’s tablet as a major competitor. Both Amazon and the U.S.’ largest chain of bookstores Barnes & Noble have recently made updates available.
Amazon created a simple web-browser for its Kindle. Barnes & Noble is somewhat more ambitious. Besides a browser, their e-reader, the Nook, gets an update that enables gaming, better WiFi connection and a faster saving feature. In addition, Nook owners can browse the content of Barnes & Nobles online bookstore with free access to all content for one hour daily.
Google’s transparency: a good start, but could be better
In an effort to highlight the issue of government censorship Google has put on an online tool that lists the number of government requests for content to be removed from Google’s services. While it is admirable that Google sheds more light on online censorship, its tool would be even better if it also included more information on how and why removal requests were granted or denied. It would also be interesting to see how many private sector requests for content removal were made to Google.
Including private sector requests for the removal of content from Google’s services would give us a valuable look into the Notice and Takedown system of Google. It would shed more light on the actual scope of Google’s NTD efforts and its motivations for removing or not removing content. Information from the world’s biggest information society service provider could prove to be valuable in the debate about the liability of ISPs.
On a different note: an unfortunate side effect of Google’s tool is that by releasing it, Google is informing unwitting government officials about the possibilities for removing content, which might put additional pressure on the freedom of speech.
Irish High Court: voluntary graduated response is allowed
The high judge in Ireland has ruled that ISPs are allowed to adopt a graduated response policy towards file sharing clients. The Data Protection Commissioner objected and put the matter to the High Court for a legal check.
In April 2008, Ireland’s largest ISP, Eircom, was approached by IRMA, the Irish Recorded Music Association. IRMA requested that Eircom participated in IRMA’s goal of tackling file sharing amongst Eircom’s clients. Eircom initially refused. It argued that it had no legal obligation to check the traffic of it’s network. But as IRMA took the matter to court, Eircom turned around and the two organisations agreed on a modus operandi. Eircom introduced a three strikes policy to counter piracy on IRMA’s behalf.
Ireland’s High Court has now decided that such a construction is in fact legal, as long as IRMA also involves other ISPs. Otherwise, the judge ruled, Eircom’s competitors would have unfair advantage in the market.
Yesterday, the negotiating partners have published the concept text for ACTA. The proposal deals, besides counterfeit goods and medicines, with online piracy. But, as the European Commission already revealed, the proposed text is less adamant about terminating the internet connection of file sharers as was widely feared.
Instead of the controversial footnote that would require countries to adopt a three strikes policy, the concept treaty provides this action as a possibility to its signatories, rather than as an obligation. According to Ars Technica, that provides an elaborate comment on the treaty and its predecessors, this option is mainly targeted at the European context, where policies and attitudes towards downloading without the consent of rights holders varies strongly. France’s and the UK’s respective governments, for example, are quite active in wishing to stem file sharing. Countries such as Spain, on the other hand, treat the issue much differently.
The Pirate Bay has recently celebrated a dubious anniversary: it is now one year ago that the admins of the file-sharing platform was convicted by a Swedish court. The four owners of The Pirate Bay were found guilty of ‘assisting in making copyrighted content available’. Each received a suspended prison sentence of one year and a 2,7 million euro fine. The four admins filed for a retrial when one of the judges was reported to have ties with the content industries, but this was denied.
The TPB four subsequently appealed the verdict. The appeal trial will start late this summer.
Hopes amongst the entertainment industries that this trial would turn the tide on file sharing proved void. The site remained active and has significantly grown. According to Torrentfreak, TPB now has 4,349,457 registered members, that is about three million more than when the legal train was set in motion.
Pre-acquisition internal Google documents: YouTube “rogue enabler of content theft”
In May 2006, an internal memo circulated within the Google corporation called the then independent video sharing platform YouTube a “rogue enabler of content theft”. In another document, the search engine giant’s video division stated that YouTube’s business model was “completely sustained by pirated content”.
These documents were brought forward by Viacom, one of the large cable/media corporation of the US. Viacom and Google have locked their horns in a lawsuit as Viacom feels Google has played a role in enabling sharing of Viacom’s copyrighted content from channels such as MTV, Nickelodeon and Comedy Central. At stake is a one billion dollar claim from Viacom. It would seem that Viacom’s obtaining and releasing these documents will do Google’s defence not much good.
In spite of classifying YouTube as a somewhat shade platform, Google went on to buy YouTube for no less than 1,76 billion dollars.
The report of the Dutch copyright working party chaired by MP Arda Gerkens has put some more fuel on an already heated discussion about a ban on downloading in the Netherlands. Social democrat party D66 introduced the idea of an Internet levy system for downloading in their election programme, but luckily this was revoked during the party congress.
Opponents of a ban on downloading often cite an Internet levy system as an alternative. By charging a little extra on top of the ISP subscription, a source of income is generated to compensate rights holders.
Such a solution is music in the ears of politicians. It is easy to explain and looks nicer to the electorate than banning the favourite hobby of Dutch Internet users. However, it remains to be seen whether a downloading fee is a reasonable and fair solution. As far as I’m concerned, there are big drawbacks to such a fee, both from a moral and a practical viewpoint.
European Commission: ACTA does not target Internet piracy
Next Wednesday, April 21st, the draft text of ACTA will, in all likeliness, be presented to the public. The text will not contain clauses on an obligatory termination of the Internet connection of file sharers. Furthermore, there is no question of checking the contents of data carriers at a border control. This information was released by the European Commission last Friday.
"No participant (in the negotiations, ed.) is proposing to require governments to mandate a 'graduated response' or 'three strikes' approach to copyright infringement on the internet," states the press release. “ACTA will not interfere with a signatory’s ability to respect its citizens’ fundamental rights and liberties.”
Commissioner Kroes plans public consultation on net neutrality
In a speech last week in Paris, Neelie Kroes, EU Commissioner for the Digital Agenda announced that she plans to consult the public on net neutrality, in order to progress the debate.
In the speech, Kroes observed that net neutrality elicits emotional responses from a wide range of actors. And that so far, this has led to little consensus on what net neutrality exactly means, let alone to what sensible policies would entail.
The passionate nature of the debate suggests that there is a consensus that the Internet is not an inherently neutral platform, but that choices need to be made about issues such as traffic shaping and filtering. This brings underlying questions to the fore about government censorship and who has the mandate to set policies for the World Wide Web.
Internet security firm F-Secure has found a trojan that tries to con people in a peculiar way. The trojan, that targets file sharers, opens a dialogue window in which it states: “Warning, piracy detected”. The program then indicates that it has found illegal material on the user’s hard drive.
It is suspected that the scareware, to function more accurately, scans the infected hard drive for the presence of .torrent files to present them as ‘evidence’.
The program announces to be issued by the non-existing organisation the ICPP-Foundation and pretends to act on behalf of the entertainment industry. In the window, the logos of the MPAA and the RIAA are portrayed.
More than half of American teens willing to pay for downloadable games
A new study on teen preferences and behaviour has revealed that 53% of them is willing to pay for downloadable games and downloadable game content. According to the survey, teens make up around a third of the gamer population and spend about 8% of their budget on games.
38% of the surveyed teens said that they would buy games for mobile phones.
The results come from PiperJaffray’s half yearly survey amongst 6000 US teens with an average age of 16,7 in the US.
An often-heard issue in the debate on the future of copyright is the skewed distribution of income between artists versus the income for record labels and other links in the distribution chain.
Informationisbeautiful.net has mapped the income of artists and how much that artist should sell to earn the (American) minimum wage. Additionally, the distribution of turnover between artists and labels has been charted. Informationisbeautiful.net warns readers that the data is incomplete and very likely inaccurate because it is hard to discover the true distribution codes. Nonetheless, it provides a good basis for discussions.
As is well known, labels receive the major part of the turnover. For example, an artist receives 30 cents an album in a (low end) royalty deal, while the label gets two dollars.
Copyright working party discusses advice with parliamentary committee for Justice
Yesterday evening, the Dutch parliamentary Justice committee discussed that advice of the copyright working party, supervised by Arda Gerkens of the Socialist Party.
Especially the proposed ban on downloading was discussed in detail. Green party GroenLinks bared its teeth in striving to prevent criminalising Internet users. The party fears that enforcement will come with big privacy breaches. Gerkens emphasises that enforcement of the ban is meant purely as a last resort, that it is a means to achieve the goal of behavioural change, not making criminals of Internet users.
Both the Socialists and GroenLinks favour abolishing fees on data carriers as well as legalised downloading. However, this proves contradictory to EU regulations. These prescribe that member states need to make a choice: either a system of fees or a ban on downloading.
Japanese newspaper only allows incoming links after approval
The world’s largest business newspaper, the Nikkei from Japan, adopts a stricter policy to sharing news on its website. When sites want to link to an article on the Nikkei’s site, they need to fill out a detailed application, stating among others the reasons they wish to link to the Nikkei. The Nikkei then decides whether an incoming link is allowed or not.
The Nikkei has a long tradition (in Internet terms) of allowing free access only to news and headlines while shielding background information and news archives behind a paywall. This is a common strategy for Japanese newspapers, and it seems to have spared them the problems that papers in the Western hemisphere face.
The goal of the Nikkei’s latest action is to prevent their paywall being breached and to prevent that “inappropriate” sites link to their content. “In some cases, links to individual stories could lead to stories being manipulated for a purpose other than journalism, for example to promote a certain stock,” the Nikkei states in the New York Times. “There is a danger this could inaccurately affect financial markets.”
Dutch publishers to cooperate with Brein to counter e-book piracy
With the rising star of e-readers, e-book piracy is also increasing. Dutch publishing association GAU has approached Brein to be able to better counter piracy in the e-book market.
According to GAU, the time to step up the enforcement of copyright is now. “With effective enforcement of copyright, we can sustainably stimulate creativity and ensure an ample and varied supply of e-books.”
Webwereld reports that online marketplaces are widely used to market illegal copies. On Marktplaats.nl, the leading Dutch classifieds site, CDs that contain 800 e-books with works of noted Dutch authors are sold for ten euros.
GAU has initiated the cooperation because of Brein’s extensive experience.
Dutch Usenet indexer MasterNZB has terminated its service at the request of BREIN. The Dutch anti-piracy group threatened to take MasterNZB to court if it continued its service. Though MasterNZB admin Stefan M was unwilling at first, he eventually yielded to BREIN.
It is likely that the decision of Stefan M was influenced by last weeks ruling in the Newzbin case. The London High Court held Newzbin liable for facilitating copyright infringement. Moreover, in similar cases brought against websites and p2p services, Dutch judges have held the filesharing platforms liable for facilitating copyright infringement. An important factor in determining whether a site is liable, is whether it profits from the coypright infringements. Oftentimes this is the case because the platforms have a subscription fee, charge money for their client software, or have substantial revenues from advertising.
So far, this is the fifteenth indexer that BREIN has shut down. BREIN is currently in litigation against FTD. It is expected that BREIN will win its case against FTD.
The Netherlands has one more political party. This morning, the Pirate Party presented its list of candidates for the upcoming national elections. On the list are fourteen names, amongst which one woman.
The list is led by the 27-year-old Samir Allioui. Until that moment, he was the chair of the party. The majority of the party’s members, during the general meeting yesterday, reported not to be happy with the chair of the party also wishing to lead the list. Upon this call, Allioui announced to step back as chair. Vice-president Thijs Markus steps up to fill that position.
In a late night session, the British House of Commons has passed the controversial Digital Economy Bill (DEB). The Bill was carried by a strong majority of 189 to 47 votes and was passed after two mere hours of debate, reports The Guardian. The bill was supported widely by both the ruling Labour Party and the Conservatives. Opposition came mostly the Liberal Democrats.
Over the course of the last half-year, the DEB has received a lot of publicity as it proposes some far reaching changes in how copyright is enforced in the online environment. However, the bill deals with a lot more than just copyright enforcement. It covers a wide range of topics such as television, digital radio, domain names and gaming, for which it proposes a unified rating system and an education campaign directed at parents.
On the subject of copyright, the DEB institutes three major changes targeted at maintaining a thriving digital economy.
The term piracy, to describe the practice of distributing copyrighted material without the owners’ consent, is viewed more and more as a term to be proud of. The Pirate Bay forms a good example.
It is now so cool to be a ‘pirate’, that rights holders take offence.
The head of the International Actors Federation showcased her dissatisfaction with the name. "To me, piracy is something adventurous, it makes you think about Johnny Depp. We all want to be a bit like Johnny Depp. But we're talking about a criminal act. We're talking about making it impossible to make a living from what you do.”
James Murdoch, son of media mogul Rupert Murdoch and head of the European department of his News Corp., also has had it with the free-for-all, adventurous connotation.
Dutch social liberals want to reimburse rights holders through an Internet fee
The Dutch social liberal fraction D66 has released its concept election programme in which it states: “the Internet is an infrastructure for communication and interaction”. This includes, says the party, that information should on the whole be freely accessible.
In order to safeguard the open nature of the Internet, D66 proposes not to ban illegal downloading, but to reimburse rights holders through an Internet charge. Collection agencies Buma/Stemra and Sena should become responsible for this.
In the vision of the social liberals, Buma and Sena will closely cooperate “so that large (groups of) users will have a clear point where licenses are made on the basis of clear, preferably joint criteria.”
Furthermore, D66 emphasises the importance of a European approach and plans to give more attention to the subject on the European level.
Hollywood studios ponder abandoning Spanish DVD market because of piracy
Movie piracy is common practice in Spain. Well, it is common practice throughout countries where a high percentage of the population has broad banded connections to the Internet. But Spain is especially notorious for it. Against a European average of 15% of people sharing files without the consent of rights holders, the statistic for Spain is 30%.
In an interview with the LA Times, Sony’s Picture Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton said: "People are downloading movies in such large quantities that Spain is on the brink of no longer being a viable home entertainment market for us."
According to a report on Internet piracy by the French firm TERA, quoted by The Guardian, DVD sales in Spain have plummeted six times as fast as in the United Kingdom. The size of the market, as a result, is only about ten per cent that of Germany or the UK.
Chair of RIAA positive about the future, sees a world with ubiquitous music
The music industry is positive about the future again. After years of declining sales, industry representative RIAA sees a light at the end of the tunnel.
“We are halfway through a rough age, a transition from a world dominated by physical units to a world that will be dominated by enjoying music through listening models. It's a tricky time, and we're probably at our low point,” says RIAA CEO Mitch Bainwol in an interview with the Tennesean.
In 1999, the year in which Napster put piracy squarely on the map, the American music industry had a turnover of about 15 billion dollar. Now, says Bainwol, the figure has almost halved to 8 billion.
Income from online advertising shrinks 12% for newspapers
In 2009, the income American newspapers had from advertisements on their sites, was 12% lower than the previous year. In 2008 they reported a decline in revenue too, but a much smaller one: 1,8%.
The Newspaper Association of America has published these figures. Offline, in print, the income from ads declined even faster. Hardest hit were classifieds. There, turnover shrunk by 38,1%. This decline is related to the enormous success of sites for classifieds such as Craigslist. Especially the sub categories real estate, motors and employment are suffering. In total, the print editions lost 28,6% of their advertising income.
Counting from the moment online ads were first included in statistics, last year scored worst. Offline and online together lost 27,7% in 2009, compared to 2008. That corresponds to lost income of 10 billion dollars.
Webshops had rather publishers didn’t use DRM on e-books
Publishers of e-books have embraced DRM. They see it not only as a means to counter piracy, but also a way to tie people to their ecosystem. Web shops do not favour this trend. They fear to lose out when people object to the copy protection.
Through the ubiquitous use of DRM, many e-books are incompatible with readers of other manufacturers. An Amazon e-book can only be read on a Kindle. Whoever buys an e-book in another shop, will likely not be able to read it on that same Kindle.
Yesterday, the London High Court handed down the verdict in the case of Twentieth Century Fox, Universal, Warner Brothers, Paramount, Disney and Columbia Pictures versus Newzbin. The Court held that Usenet indexer Newzbin is liable for copyright infringement and ordered it to remove all links to the content of the claimants. The verdict is the next in a row of recent court victories for the entertainment industry that shed more light on the liability of information society service providers.
The main function of Newzbin is to index and organize content on Usenet, so in a sense it is a ‘search engine’ for Usenet. The Hollywood studios argued that Newzbin is a service focused on piracy because it “locates and categorises unlawful copies of movies and displays the titles of these copies in its indices; provides a facility for its users to search for particular unlawful copies and displays the results; and provides a simple one-click mechanism whereby users can acquire unlawful copies of their choice”. Newzbin on the other hand argued that it is merely a search engine like Google and that it is “content agnostic”. Newzbin stated that any illicit filetrading that takes place between users with the help of Newzbin is solely the responsibility of those users.
This ‘Google defence’ is oftentimes heard when it comes to filesharing platforms, but as with the Pirate Bay and Mininova, it is once again unsuccessful. Why is this?
Until recently, ebooks were ‘just’ digital copies of printed books. But with the increasing popularity of the Apple platforms iPhone and the coming iPad, that can do much more than just show text, a new form of eBook emerges, the ‘enhanced’ ebook. In enhanced ebooks, the texts are enriched with multimedia content. This has raised an issue between publishers and literary agents. Should the rights to enhanced ebooks be treated differently from normal eBooks? How many pieces of additional content may an ebook contain and still count as a book? Should a new category be created to which the rights should be acquired independently?
Almost two years ago, in the summer of 2008, Italian police raided the premises of Colombo-BT, then one of the largest Italian torrent platforms. The servers were confiscated and the site taken offline, but no arrests were made at the time.
Now, after a long investigation, six arrests heave been made, reports torrentfreak. Of the six suspects, two are believed to be admins and four, including one German, are considered associates. All six are charged with crimes in relation to copyright infringement and could hear sentences demanded of several years in prison.
The investigation revealed that Colombo-BT hosted over 36.000 torrent files that were downloaded over 580 million times.
US entertainment sectors jointly files petition with gov’t stressing the importance of copyright enforcement
A group of seven representatives and unions of the entertainment industry have created a joint letter to the US Federal government. In doing so, it answers the call for public comments from the American Office of Intellectual Property Enforcement.
As can be expected from an American lobby document, the filing is filled with resounding phrases like “Online copyright theft undermines our economy, steals our jobs and threatens our national interest.”
When you succeed in reading past these terms, it is an interesting document. To begin with, the filing was written not just by the usual suspects, the representatives of the big movie and music production firms, but also by the unions for actors, directors and television and radio artists.
It is not just the big, faceless money making machines that suffer from piracy, as pirates like to portray. File sharing also affects the tough secret agent and the handsome doctors from our favourite series.
Exploring the future of news media, an interview with prof. Robert Picard
The written news media have a hard time maintaining their solvability in this era of free online news. The number of subscribers dwindles, as well as the number of advertisers. News media have enhanced this trend themselves, by offering all the news that’s fit to click on their sites. For free. Adding news aggregators like Google News or Yahoo News and you’ve got a recipe for educating users that access to news is worth exactly, well, nothing.
Lately, some news media try to reverse this trend by limiting the amount of freely accessible news on their sites, allowing full access only to paying subscribers. Rupert Murdoch, owner of the News Corporation, especially favours this approach. Wall Street Journal, one of the News Corp’s stable, already uses such a model.
In this interview, we ask prof. Robert Picard, leading academic expert on the economics of media and advisor to many governments dealing with media policy issues, about his thoughts on the future of news media and copyright in online environments. Before starting with exploring the issues that the media are facing, a brief glance at the historical context sets the stage.
MiniNova users leave the site on a massive scale after ‘big cleanup’
After Bittorrent portal Mininova removed links to copyrighted material from her site, visitors have left the site en masse. This is revealed by an Envisional study that monitored traffic on Mininova before and after removal of infringing content.
On November 26th 2009, Mininova removed from her popular portal all links to infringing content. In doing so, Mininova followed the verdict of the court of Utrecht of July 2009. The judge ruled that Mininova was responsible for the infringing behaviour of its users and ordered the site to remove the infringing content.
The effects of the ruling and Mininova’s actions were immediately clear:
Before the removal of the links, Mininova was the most used torrent site in the world. The site was visited by four million unique users every day. These visitors together ordered almost nine million searches. After removal of the infringing links, the number of visitors declined until less than an million a day. The number of searches decreased to around two million.
The shady side of the web: ddos attacks on banks, card fraud and bulletproof hosting of file-sharing
At last week’s e-Crime Congress, Verisign’s iDefense intelligence unit distributed an interesting report on the dark side of the Internet. The report consisted of case studies on different subjects: ddos attacks on banks as part of a strategy for plundering online accounts, forums and online marketplaces for card fraud and bulletproof hosting for illegal material.
The first case takes us to the Russian domain. Verisign describes a criminal practice of online bank robbery, often originating from the .ru domain. Techniques for breaking into accounts are first tested on domestic banks. If successful, less well-secured banks in the Middle East are raided, or even branches of Western Banks, who generally have secured their online services better. Often, ddos-attacks are part of the strategy of targeting banks. The attack functions as a decoy: all the attention of security is directed at the ddos attack, providing the criminals with more time to empty accounts. The ddos attack is generally carried out from foreign, often Chinese command and control (C&C) servers. This adds an extra layer of complexity for law enforcers, who need to trace back the Chinese attacks to their Russian controllers. It also creates a jurisdictional barrier.
Commissioner Kroes emphasises importance of single digital market
Eurocommissioner for the Information Society Neelie Kroes held the keynote speech yesterday at ICTDelta2010. In that speech, she emphasised the importance of a single digital market for a healthy information society.
In the lecture, Kroes spoke elaborately about the necessity for the EU to create the conditions so that IT firms can function properly. As a liberal, Kroes sees as her most important task to set the stage for a healthy market. Harmonising copyright to create licences for distributing digital content that are valid throughout the EU is an important part of that, said Kroes.
In April, the Directorate General for the Information Society, chaired by Kroes, publishes its plans in the form of the Digital Agenda.
The UK’s House of Lords approved the much-debated Digital Economy Bill this week. The most controversial clause in the Bill, that would grant the government the ability to introduce strong anti-piracy measures without consulting Parliament, did not survive the voting.
However, there are plenty more topics of concern for digital rights campaigners. The Liberal Democrats proposed an amendment that allows rightholders start legal action against sites that host a “substantial” amount of infringing material and move to have them blocked.
The head of Digital Rights Group, Jim Killock, fears that sites will be forced offline for fear of expensive legal action, reports the Telegraph. "This would open the door to a massive imbalance of power in favour of large copyright holding companies, Individuals and small businesses would be open to massive 'copyright attacks' that could shut them down, just by the threat of action."
In a reaction to the recent turmoil about the lack of transparency in the ACTA negotiations, Dutch ministers Van der Hoeven and Hirsch Ballin, of Economic Affairs and Justice respectively, have indicated not to support an ACTA-wide three-strikes policy, should such a proposal come to the table.
“The negotiations about the ACTA treaty to act against counterfeit and piracy need to be more transparent and a ‘three-strikes-out approach’ to downloading is unacceptable for The Netherlands,” the ministers write in a letter to Parliament.
Tackling downloading from illegal sources, say the ministers, is a responsibility of member states, not of an international society.
Net neutrality is a much-debated topic. Should everyone be able to use the Internet in full anonymity and freedom? “Yes” is an enticing answer. After all, we are all fair and rational human beings, right? Discussions on net neutrality often focus on who’s in favour and who is against. But is it really that simple?
Net neutrality is a term that is used with different purposes in different discussions. At the one side, it is about filtering unsuitable/forbidden content. At the other side, it a term used in the discussion about ISPs shaping traffic.
Internet users don’t want governments and big businesses looking over their shoulders taking notes at their Internet behaviour. They want a neutral net, a net that doesn’t make distinctions based on what you do online. ISPs aren’t thrilled with the idea that they have to police the web and point to the privacy of users and at to the technical complexities of filtering. On the other hand, we all want to be able to make the most of available bandwidth and would rather not be disturbed by those lads one block away that are continuously downloading while we want to watch the game on digital TV.
OnLive, the platform for playing high-end games in the ‘cloud’, has moved its launch date to June 21st 2010. At that date, the service starts operating via a browser plug-in for both PC and Mac. The microconsole for playing games on a TV, will be launched later, at a currently unspecified date. Currently, the launch is planned for the US only.
OnLive CEO Steve Perlman announced at the GDC last week that players will subscribe to games for 15$ per month, eliminating the need to acquire both games and hardware. As all processing for the game is done on OnLive’s servers, players only need a very basic computer. As long as it has a mouse and keyboard, a screen and a broad band connection to the Internet, it will do.
This radically new approach was greeted with much wonder and scepticism when it was announced. The biggest challenge for separating the gaming station and the processing power was to minimise lag: the time difference between giving a command and seeing it executed on the screen. For shooters and action games in general, lag rapidly reduces the experience.
The Dutch Parliament has stated that the copyright debate is controversial. Until a new administration has been elected, the actions proposed by the Parliamentary working group chaired by Arda Gerkens of the socialist party, will not be further developed into policy.
The most debated conclusion of the working group was that downloading from illegal sources should become a criminal offence. The ban on downloading would replace the home copy exception that now allows downloading for private use.
After the government fell, all permanent committees in Parliament have created a list with subjects that they deem too hot to handle for the administration under resignation. Yesterday, the list was adopted in Parliament.
The European Parliament seems to have had enough of the shroud of mystery surrounding the ACTA negotiations. The Parliament, with an overwhelming majority, adopted a resolution that calls for transparency. Of the roughly 700 Parliamentarians, only 13 voted against the resolution reports webwereld.
Besides the call for transparency, the resolution is critical about the potential for a three strikes regime. Such a regime should not be obligatory. In the case such a regime would be adopted, sanctions should always be imposed by a court. The document furthermore opposes the leaked clause that enables searching data carriers without being suspect and is critical of the fact that many countries are not included in the negotiations and the talks are held outside of the established institutions for international negotiations such as the G20 and the WTO.
GroenLinks launches campaign against making downloading illegal
The Dutch green party GroenLinks has started a campaign against the plans of Secretary of Justice Hirsch Ballin to make the downloading of copyrighted work illegal. The parliamentary working group on copyright, lead by Arda Gerkens of the socialist party also found that in time, file-sharing should be made illegal.
GroenLinks has turned against this judgment as it will criminalise millions of people and cannot be enforced without severe implications for the privacy of Internet users. With the campaign, GroenLinks wants to emphasise that it deems access to Internet a fundamental right that cannot just be taken away.
Even though GroenLinks acts against making downloading illegal, it states to find protection of creative industries very important. However, the party states that making downloading illegal primarily serves to maintain the status quo and does little to contribute to innovation. The party prefers to look in the direction of innovation to find a way forward.
The address of the Internet campaign is http://wanted.groenlinks.nl
Access to ‘Net is human right, say 79% of respondents in BBC study
Internet is becoming such a vital part of daily life that more and more people are feeling that access to the Internet is a ‘human right’. Worldwide, 79% of respondents in a recent study felt this is indeed the case. Amongst Internet users, this figure is higher: 87%. Of non-users, 71% reported to feel left in the cold and state that they should have ‘Net access, too.
These figures emerge from a recent survey conducted for BBC World Services, in which over 27.000 adults in 26 countries were polled.
These feelings reverberate amongst policy makers, with more and more countries adopting rules that promote the Internet to a vital infrastructure, or even, in the cases of Estonia and Finland, for example, stating that Internet should be universally accessible.
Pirate Party prepares for Dutch Parliamentary elections
The pirates approach! This Saturday, the Dutch pirate party held her first public meeting. The goal is to prepare the party for the coming parliamentary elections on the ninth of June.
The pirate party is part of the international network of likeminded parties. In Sweden, the piratenpartiet obtained two seats in the European Parliament. In Germany, the pirates hold two municipal seats. One in Aachen and one in Munich.
The party aims to limit the reach of intellectual property rights. They support the idea of shortening the validity of copyright to a period of five years and want to develop an alternative patent system, which they deem “deadly” for innovation. Furthermore, the party aims to legalise non-commercial copying.
Not just targeting intellectual property, the pirate party intends to fight for civil rights in the digital environment, notably privacy.
Commerce minister Simon Power has proposed an amendment to New-Zealand’s copyright law that would provide enforcers more means to act against repeating file sharers. The bill, entitled Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment, proposes a three strikes regime where file sharers are warned three times and, when refusing to change their behaviour, will be sanctioned with a fine of up to 15.000 New Zealand dollars or a temporary suspension of their Internet connection.
The bill suggests the creation of a Tribunal in case of fines. When rights holders petition for suspension of Internet connections, the case will be tried by a District court.
In a press release, Power says: “This amendment puts in place a fair and balanced process to deal with online copyright infringements occurring via file sharing. The major feature is the three-notice process, which educates the public about illegal file sharing and provides effective methods for copyright owners to enforce their copyright. It ensures that file sharers are given adequate warnings that unauthorized sharing of copyright works is illegal.”
GamesRadar ran a very amusing story recently, diving into the history of copy prevention and finding some particularly inventive or annoying means to do so.
In the days before rapid distribution of illegal copies via the Internet, game piracy, of course, existed too. Who doesn’t remember the bloke in the schoolyard that “knew someone who knew someone” that could provide you with the newest games like Doom, Command and Conquer or Day of the Tentacle?
So, how did studios try to counter that basic urge of its customers to play their games for free? I strongly suggest reading the GamesRadar article. Here are a few of the highlights.
In the 1980s, one means to prevent piracy was the Lenslok. A special prism was shipped with the game. Upon starting it, a garbled two-letter code appeared on screen. Using the prism, it became readable and the correct code could be entered. This system suffered from scalability issues on larger and smaller TVs, however, and proved very easy to hack with basic coding knowledge.
At the end of 2009, a Dutch court rules that file sharing platform The Pirate Bay must cease its activities in The Netherlands. The site has to remove links to infringing copyright on pains of a 5000 Euro fine, with a maximum of three million Euro.
After consulting with both BREIN and The Pirate Bay, the judge ruled that infringing content needs to be made inaccessible from The Netherlands by the first of March. The admins of TPB have not complied: both the site and tracker of TPB are freely accessible from The Netherlands.
Tim Kuik, head of BREIN, said Tuesday in AD that it is unclear how high the fine will be. According to Kuik, the judge has not decided whether he will fine TPB 5000 Euro per torrent or per day that the torrent is available.
Interesting article about the nature of property and intellectual property
Kirill Alferov, alias Louigi Verona, has published an interesting article on the concept of property in relation to scarcity, or in the case of intellectual property of artificial scarcity. Read his article here.
Unconventional response to taking down Torrents.ru
One of Russia’s main BitTorrent platforms, Torrents.ru was recently taken down on the order of the authorities. It quickly found a new host, registered in the Bahamas. The enraged pirate community, meanwhile, is taking matters into its own hands.
Torrentfreak reports on the affairs surrounding RU-Center’s taking down of Torrents.ru, a site with one million torrents and four million users. Following the orders of the Moscow public prosecutor’s office, the site was taken offline on Februari 18th, 2010. The charges: violation of Article 146 of the Criminal Code: “Illegal use of objects of copyright or related rights, as well as acquisition, storage, transportation of counterfeit copies of works or phonograms for sale, committed on a large scale”.
More Americans read news online than in the papers
Internet is viewed, more than newspapers, as primary source of news in the US. The Web thus end up third in the list of dominant news channels, after TV and radio. This emerges from a study by Pew Internet and the American Life Project.
Internet users generally access two to five sites daily to keep themselves informed. A large fraction of these online news consumers treats the news interactively. They spread it via social networks and contribute to it by commenting.
Almost two in every three respondents consults news sources in both the online and the offline environments to keep abreast of current affairs.
According to the Pew study, only 17% of Americans reads a national paper and 50% reads local papers. The largest category of paper readers was people over 50 without a mobile phone.
Dutch ACTA documents leak; European Parliament critical
Webwereld has obtained two Dutch documents about the international negotiations for a new treaty to protect intellectual property.
The leaked documents contain a report on the progress during the meetings that are otherwise shrouded in mystery. EU Member States have pushed for transparency during the meetings, but the European Commission has not been forthcoming in that respect.
The liberal fraction of the European Parliament takes a very dim view of the prolonged secrecy and has requested the issue be debated in the Parliament. Parlementarian Sophie in ‘t Veld also speaks badly of how the negotiations are treated by the Dutch Parliament. In an interview with Webwereld she says: “They haven’t got a clue as to what is being discussed. Worse: I think most parliamentarians don’t rightly know what it is.” She views the attitude of the Dutch Parliament as naïve and wonders why it hasn’t insisted on openness.
Court orders RapidShare to stop facilitating the distribution of book titles
Swiss ‘cyberlocker’ RapidShare has received an injunction from the court of Hamburg to host a list of 148 book titles. The injunction entails that the company needs to pro-actively filter the uploading behaviour of its users on the pains of a 250.000-euro fine or even a jail sentence for the admins.
Six publishers filed a joined lawsuit against RapidShare to order the cyberlocker to prevent the uploading and distribution of 148 book titles, mainly textbooks. The publishers, Freeman & Worth, Macmillan, Cengage Learning, Pearson, The McGraw-Hill Companies, Bedford, and Elsevier together hold a large part of the market for textbooks.
Even if digital copies manage to slip through RapidShare’s filter, the company remains liable, urging RapidShare to take good care its monitoring efforts are effective.
A day after the announcement that Sellaband had filed for bankruptcy, the crowdfunded label published a press release that a new owner has been found. Sellaband has been acquired by German investors and will be continued from Munchen. Click here for the releases.
The court of Amsterdam has declared the bankruptcy of music site Sellaband. On the site, music fans could co finance new albums. There is every hope of a restart, said the court.
According to founder Pim Betist, who left Sellaband after a disagreement with investors, the bankruptcy was to be foreseen. The biggest failings, says Betist to nu.nl, were a lack of quality control and printing all albums on (expensive) CDs. Sellaband’s management may have had a bit too much confidence in “the wisdom of the crowds”.
Sellaband released albums of over 30 artists. For each album, more than 50.000 dollar was raised.
It is a shame that Sellaband didn’t make it. The entertainment industries need all the innovative business models they can get their hands on. Experimentation is key. Of course, some experiments will fail. Let’s hope that this doesn’t discourage the new generation of innovations.
File sharing is morally justifiable, says winning essay
The annual winner of the Glassen Ethics competition, Kamal Dhillon, a Grade 12 student at Balmoral Hall School, argues that file-sharing may be illegal, it is morally defensible.
The main point in the essay, which can be read in its entirety here, is that copyright law is outdated and untenable in the digital environment and that it conflicts with what people want: to share. Creative industries, in their stupidity, cling to business models that are sooo 20th century. Rather than trying to maintain the status quo, the author suggests, they should accept the changes and move on.
The alternative proposed by the author is to raise a general levy that pays the artists for their work.
While an essay on ethics and morality, it doesn’t contain much ethical debate, other than repeatedly stating that young people find file sharing morally acceptable.
New publishing initiative TenPages and bookstore Selexyz are going to work together. TenPages invites visitors to it’s website to invest a small amount in a manuscript of choice. Books that receive enough support will be published and receive are promoted by the Selexyz chain of bookstores. This way, the mass of small investors takes on the role of literary agent.
Writers can upload the first ten pages of their manuscripts to TenPages.com. Visitors can judge the manuscripts and can invest a small amount. When these crowdfunders have bought a total of 2000 shares, for five euro each, within a period of 4 months, TenPages has the manuscript published. This is done by existing publishers, rather than done by TenPages itself. The crowdfunders receive a share in the profits.
Distributor of mod chips needs to pay Nintendo damages, says Australian judge
Nintendo and an Australian distributor of a mod chip for the DS have settled out of court, but with a binding verdict from a federal judge, reports ITnews. The distributor needs to cease its activities directly and pay Nintendo damages of over half a million Australian dollars. Individual users that wish to sell their chip, can look forward to a 100.000 dollar fine.
At stake is selling the R4 chip for the Nintendo DS. With this chip, that fits the console’s game cartridge slot, users can copy their own content (saved games, UGC, etc) directly to the DS memory. In practice, the chip is used to a large extent for distributing illegal copies of games.
TV-links’ admins acquitted of all charges, linking deemed mere conduit
The administrators of British-based site TV-links, which provided links to movies and shows hosted on video-platforms like YouTube, Dailymotion and MySpace Video, have been acquitted of all charges brought against them. In 2007, the site’s admins were indicted by FACT, an anti-piracy organisation in Britain. Fact accused TV-links operators, David Rock and David Overton of “facilitating copyright infringement”. After two years, in January 2010, the case finally went to court and a verdict was issued last week. The court acquitted both defendants of all charges.
Most interesting about this case is that the Court held that linking can be seen as a form of ‘mere conduit’. The judge based his ruling on Section 17 of the 2002 Electronic Commerce Directive Regulations (the British implementation of the e-Commerce Directive (2000/31/EC), stating that if a site acts only as an indiscriminate conduit to content searched by users, it cannot be held liable.
The French National Assembly has agreed with a controversial Internet filter, reports Webwereld. The filter is designed as a weapon in the fight against child pornography. Critics fear that the means do not fit the end and that the filter makes society vulnerable for extravagant surveillance.
The filter is part of the Loppsi 2 bill, that aims to better enable French police to fight serious crime in the online environment.
If the bill is passed, French police can more easily tap Internet connections in a child porn investigation. Furthermore, they get the authority to order ISPs to filter suspicious content.
The bill modernises French law with respect to the Internet. Online identity theft becomes an offence and punishment on credit card theft or cloning becomes more severe.
Norwegian court of appeal: Telenor not an accomplice in file sharing
The Norwegian appellate court of Borgarting ruled that ISP Telenor, can’t be deemed liable for its customers using The Pirate Bay. The court argues that such a verdict has little basis in Norwegian law.
"All [legal] sources do indeed keep the possibility open for claim and preliminary injunction against technical intermediaries, but they say little about how far the accomplice liability reaches.”
While the court underlined that file sharing is a serious problem for rights holders and acknowledge that The Pirate Bay plays a key role providing a platform for illegal downloading, it ruled against obliging Telenor to block access to TPB for its users.
Studios experiment with earlier DVD release, cinemas enraged
Warner and Disney have both announced to intend to shorten the gap between theatrical release and DVD release of the movies 'Guardians of Ga'hoole' and ‘Alice’ respectively. Movies are normally shown in theatres for a period of at least four months exclusively before they are released on other formats. With customers pushing for rapid release for on-demand services and piracy looming, the traditional windowed distribution is under pressure. Disney and Warner now plan to release the movies above on DVD and for on demand channels three months after the theatrical premier.
Cinemas have cried out against the plans voiced by Disney and Warner. They fear that earlier availability of DVDs will cost them customers. The business model of movie theatres is based on sharing revenue with the studios. As a movie is shown in theatres longer, the percentage of revenue to go to the cinema goes up. This was devised to create an incentive for cinemas to show movies as long as long as possible.
Little data on effectiveness of regulation against counterfeit goods and piracy
The Dutch Court of Audit has voiced criticism about the way that customs measure how effective they are in enforcing intellectual property.
The European Union is a popular destination for counterfeit. Although reliable data on the size of the market is unknown, the annual turnover in counterfeit goods is estimated to be hundreds of millions or possible even billions of Euros. Although only a small portion is meant for the Dutch market, the port of Rotterdam and Schiphol Airport play a key role in its transit.
Dutch customs works professionally while tracking counterfeit goods, write the authors, but are often less than perfectly aware of the degree of which they attain the goals of the enforcement policies. That is mainly due to limited insight into the scope of the problem and working with incomplete data.
Spanish judges repeatedly rule against file sharing platforms
The criminal court in Vigo (Galicia) ruled earlier this month that the admin of three sites that offered streaming access to movies and TV series be convicted to a jail sentence of one year and a fine of 1825 Euro for infringing copyright. If the operator refuses to pay the fine, the jail sentence will be prolonged by twelve months.
The sites, www.maxivideos.tv, www.simonfilms.tv, and www.siglox.com, offered streaming services of newly released movies and series to users who had to pay one Euro per movie, with a minimum consumption of ten movies. Despite the payment model, no copyright fees were paid.
At the end of January, another ruling opened the way up for further prosecution of the admins of divxonline.info. An appeal by rights holders group FAP was upheld. The defendant argued that the site only provided links and that there was no direct commercial goal connected to the site. The judge accepted evidence brought forward by the FAP that, indeed, there was such a commercial end to the site.
Study samples files available on torrent sites, find 1% of files to be non-infringing
A census carried out by Princeton senior Sauhard Sahi, revealed that it is very likely that only one in a hundred available files on BitTorrent platforms does not contravene copyright.
The goal of the study was to provide some figures on what kind of files are available on torrent platforms. To do so, the researcher took a random, uniform sample of 1021 files using the trackerless system Mainline DHT. He then categorised the findings according to file type, language and copyright status.
The Australian ISP iiNet was in the news last week because of a court ruling that the provider does not have to terminate the connection of users that download from illegal sources.
The judge’s verdict contains more interesting information on another topic, reports Ars Technica. The judge writes extensively about iiNet’s services and modus operandi. The ISP caps and shapes their users’ traffic. "When an iiNet user exceeds this quota they are ‘shaped’ which means the speed of their connection is slowed to reduce their ability to download”.
That is not the whole story. The judge goes on to describe how the ISP cuts deals with media companies and doesn’t count the traffic they generate towards the cap. "However, any data downloaded from the Freezone is not included in the monthly quota of a subscriber. In this sense, an iiNet user can consume unlimited amounts of data from the Freezone per month. Further, an iiNet user is still able to use as much data at maximum speed as is desired per month in the Freezone, even if that subscriber is otherwise shaped for that month.”
Bioware uses exclusive content against piracy and used games
Bioware, the studio that recently brought us Dragon Age: Origins and Mass Effect 2, has developed a strategy to encourage gamers to buy new games rather than play pirated versions or buy the games second hand.
Buyers of a new game are rewarded with a code that provides free access to downloadable content such as extra missions, weapons or team mates.
This extra content is also for sale, but is quite expensive. The idea behind it being that the price difference between new and second hand virtually disappears if one wants access to the extra content.
According to the federal court of Sydney iiNet, Australia’s second largest ISP, did not have the power to stop their clients from infringing copyright, reports nu.nl.
The case was brought to court by 34 media companies from Australia and the US, amongst which the major studios Disney, Warner, Twentieth Century Fox and Paramount. The corporations had notified iiNet of the misconduct of their clients. iiNet refused to take action, much to the chagrin of the studios, who took iiNet to court. The judge ruled in favour of the ISP. According to him, iiNet was not responsible for copyright infringements made by their clients.
Over the course of last week, p2pnet’s admin Jon Newton wrote several emotional posts in which he announced to quit his blog, as he ran out of money.
That p2pnet quits is a shame. Critical blogs like Newton’s play an important part in the transition process that the entertainment sector goes through while getting to grips with the finesses of online environments. It’s the blogs like p2pnet that point producers and distributers of content to their weak spots, enabling them to improve their services, even if that doesn’t happen at the speed that many would want. In that sense, these blogs pose a threat more to file-sharing than the entertainment industry.
Newton doesn’t adhere to that view, as one of his last posts testifies. “As I’ve just said in emails, I believe p2pnet going down is significant at a time when government and corporate corruption is bad and getting worse, and when voices speaking out in the name of freedom are few and getting fewer.”
Nu.nl reports that media mogul Rupert Murdoch spoke positively about the opportunities for media businesses to make money online, at the presentation of the annual accounts of News Corp. News Corp holds titles such as influential news papers New York Times and Wall Street Journal, as well as television station Fox. Murdoch said that: “Content isn’t just King anymore but rather the emperor of all things electronic
A recent study by GfK, commissioned by the Wall Street Journal, reveals that amongst Internet users, there is a significant user base that is willing to pay for that imperial content. The survey, held in de US and 16 European countries, questioned people on their Internet use and their willingness to pay for online content.
In spite of the stereotypical Dutch stinginess, The Netherlands score very high in their willingness to pay. 19% of the respondents would pay for content. The European average is 11%. Sweden scores highest. There, one of four Internet users thinks it is ok to pay for content.
British music industry critical of mass file sharing lawsuits
The law firm ACS:Law announced last November to sue alleged file sharers on a massive scale. Initially, it would bring forth around 15.000 cases. BPI, representing the music industry, criticises this approach.
BPI doesn’t think legal action is a good form of first contact with alleged file-sharers. It feels this means should only be used for repeating file-sharers that refuse to change their behaviour. In a statement, spokesperson Adam Liversage said: “We don’t favour the approach taken by ACS:Law to tackle illegal file-sharing, which is at odds with the proportionate and graduated response advocated by BPI and proposed in the Digital Economy Bill.”
ACS:Law has dropped a number of cases en reports to direct its efforts at cases that are “beneficial to our clients”. People who receive a letter from ACS:Law are generally offered to settle for an amount of 300-500 pounds.
Second version of Google Books settlement met with storm of criticism
In November 2009, on Friday the 13th, Google and group of authors and publishers submitted a second concept version of the Books settlement. Until last Friday, one could submit criticism with the court.
Earlier in 2009, the first version was met with much criticism by writers, publishers and governments from all over the world. Furthermore, the American Department of Justice hinted that the settlement would likely conflict with the law. Google and associates reacted by withdrawing the proposal and working on a new one.
In this second version, Google has succeeded in gaining the support of more writers and publishers from the UK, Canada and Australia, writes Ars Technica. But there is a considerable list of documents with criticism, tracked by the public index.
Chinese search engine cleared of copyright infringement charges
Baidu, a Chinese search engine, has been cleared of copyright infringement charges brought by the IFPI, reports Ars Technica. Displaying search results does not constitute copyright infringement, ruled the court.
Baidu may provide deep links to MP3s as part of search results. Amongst those may be copyrighted songs. The Beijing No.1 Intermediate People’s Court has found that this in itself is not a violation of copyright law.
While China does have a somewhat dubious reputation regarding intellectual property rights in general, this verdict reflects other ruling worldwide.
HP and major labels open online music service for Europe
Owners of new HP computers may soon be able to access as much music as they want. The world largest manufacturer of personal computers has struck a deal with the four major music labels and Omnifone, a British firm specialised in online music distribution.
The service, called MusicStation, promises to offer unlimited downloads for a fixed price of 8,99 Pound or 9,99 Euros and will be accessible in most countries in Western Europe, as long as users have a new HP laptop or PC. The service has been pre-installed on 16 new models of HP computers.
Musicstation subscribers can download songs that can be shared amongst one’s devices. These songs are accessible as long as the subscription lasts. In addition to this “leasing” of access, one may download ten DRM-free songs each month that will truly become the user’s property.
Belgian senator Phillipe Monfils has announced plans to propose legislation in the style of the French Hadopi law, reports daily Le Soir. “The idea is to change the behaviour of Internet users by working on prevention,” said Monfils.
He envisages a system of graduated response. File-sharers get a warning, followed by another warning. If the file-sharer does not alter his behaviour, an intervening judge may order to throttle the Internet connection of that user. “So it’s not about terminating someone’s connection, but about limiting their bandwidth.”
Geohot strikes again! Claims to have made a complete PS3 hack
Infamous George Hotz, jailbreaker of the iPhone, claims to have made a complete hack of Sony’s Playstation 3. On his blog, he writes that he pulled it off using "very simple hardware cleverly applied, and some not so simple software."
Hotz claims to be one of the first to be able to write directly into the system’s memory. “I have read/write access to the entire system memory, and HV level access to the processor. In other words, I have hacked the PS3.”
In a reaction, a Sony spokesperson said the company is looking into it. “We are investigating the report and will clarify the situation once we have more information."
If the claims prove true and Sony can’t find a remedy, this is dire news for Sony. Both Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and Nintendo’s Wii were hacked rather more easily. Both platforms suffer from illegal copies making the rounds. Sony has, so far, been spared game piracy.
An American judge has surprised friend and foe by drastically slashing the amount of 1,92 million dollars that Jammie Thomas, the first to be convicted for file-sharing, needs to pay in damages. The judge said that “statutory damages must still bear some relation to actual damages” and lowered the amount to 54.000 dollars.
In June 2009, Jammie Thomas was convicted to paying 1,92 million dollars for downloading and distributing 24 songs using Kazaa. That amounts to damages of 80.000 dollars per song. The music industry, represented by the RIAA, pleaded for high damages as they would create deterring effect. The jury followed this line of arguments and convicted Thomas to paying exceedingly high damages in order to deter other file sharers.
French Supreme Court finds ISP Tiscali liable for copyright infringement
In the case of Dargaud vs. Tiscali, Tiscali has been found liable for infringing copyright on a site, hosted by the ISP.
In France, Tiscali provided users with free home pages. In exchange, Tiscali placed advertisements on these sites. One user had uploaded, without consent of the publishers, complete copies of French comics on his personal site, hosted by Tiscali. The content owners (Dargaud and Lucky Comics) took legal action against Tiscali and the court ruled in their favour in 2005. Tiscali appealed, but also the Paris court of appeal considered Tiscali liable in June 2006.
Cassation at the Supreme Court proved to no avail either for Tiscali. On Janaury 14th, France’s Supreme Court verdict followed that of the Paris court of appeal.
The advertisements on the personal sites are a key element in the ruling. By advertising on the personal sites, Tiscali did more than just providing online storage. The Supreme Court confirmed in the ruling that an ISP, in some cases, does not only provide access and hosting services, but also may be considered a publisher (editeur). As such, they cannot use the safe harbour provisions provided by the limited liability regime of article 14 of the e-Commerce Directive. Therefore, by placing and managing ads on these sites, Tiscali is liable for the copyright infringements.
With more and more people worldwide gaining broadband access to the Internet, file sharing is a tempting habit. What is striking though is that people do it not only from home, but increasingly from work, reports a study by web security firm ScanSafe.
Over the last three months, the number of MP3s and software illegally shared has increased by 55% on the corporate networks that ScanSafe tracks. This can harm employers not only through prosecution for copyright infringement: software downloaded from illegal sources is often infected with malware that might then spread across the corporation’s network.
Italian High Court: public prosecutor may order ISPs to block The Pirate Bay
The Italian High Court has cleared the way for blocking the Pirate Bay for Italian users. Earlier, the court of Bergamo ruled that the public prosecutor cannot oblige ISPs to deny users access to the TPB.
This ruling has now been overturned by the High Court after the public prosecutor appealed.
Although the judge in Bergamo acknowledged that via TPB, copyrights were infringed on a large scale, the judge called the plans of the public prosecutor to require of ISP’s that they block access to TPB, unlawful.
Swedish ISP TeliaSonera has appealed a court order to provide the court with the identity of the owner of torrentsite SweTorrents. It argues that the IPRED law, on which the order is based, violates the EU data retention directive and contradicts the court’s claim that SweTorrents host infringing material.
Last year, Sweden adopted the IPRED law that should make it easier for rights holders to track down alleged file-sharers. The law obliges ISPs to provide rights holders with the identity of copyright infringers, after intervention of a court of law.
Three movie studios, cooperating with anti piracy bureau Antipiratbyrån, started a case last year against the owner of SweTorrents. In December, the court ruled that TeliaSonera must provide the claimants with the identity of SweTorrents’ owner.
Commissioner-designate Kroes heard on ACTA-standpoint
Commissioner-designate for the Digital Agenda, Neelie Kroes, was heard last Thursday by the European Parliament.
One of the issues discussed was Kroes’ attitude on copyright in the digital environment.
On the issue of the publication of digital works, which has pitted European publishers and Member States against the likes of Google, Kroes said she feared "the other ones would pass Europe by". She said she would cooperate with the new Commissioner for the internal market Michael Barnier, to create a framework that focuses consumer rights.
In a related discussion, the highly sensitive issue of terminating internet connections without intervention of a court of law was brought to the fore. Last summer, this was a much-debate point in the discussions on the telecoms package.
In a column in the New York Times, Bono has lashed out against downloading from illegal sources. In the column, U2’s lead singer has compiled a top ten list of ideas that could make the coming decade more interesting. In the list, which includes quantum teleportation and the democratising effects of new media, the copyright issue.
After ten years of p2p networks, artists have been victimised by file-sharing, Bono states. Especially starting songwriters that sell few t-shrits and concert tickets are duped.
He warns that the movie industry will face the same fate when bandwidth will allow near-instantaneous downloading of movies or series.
Bono points to ISPs as the big winners. According to him, they sanctimoniously claim the need for net neutrality while they make fortunes on the extra data traffic.
President Sarkozy on stimulating legal online offer of entertainment
France should stimulate the legal online offer of cultural goods, said President Nicolas Sarkozy in a new year’s speech last week.
In the light of the mandate of the Hadopi agency, that was established last week, Sarkozy named an “abundant and accessible” legal offer the best way to fight piracy.
Concerning movies, Sarkozy mentioned his intention to create a portal that catalogues the libraries of all video-on-demand service, so that users have a good overview of the availability.
Sarkozy proposed the extension of collective remuneration regime from terrestrial broadcasting to online environments in an effort to stimulate supply and compensate artists and producers for their work. He faced the music industry with an ultimatum to negotiate releasing the rights to their works on all platforms within one year. Failing that, the state would create an obligatory collective management system.
Dutch Royal Library to digitise the Dutch books, magazines and newspapers
The Royal Library (RL) plans to make digital copies of all Dutch publications from 1470 onwards in its collection. Furthermore, the Library will archive some 10.000 Dutch web sites. To make these works accessible to as many people as possible, the RL also develops a portal that should function as an online library. The Royal Library’s CEO Bas Savenije states that “Now, the supply of information in The Netherlands is strongly fragmented.”
To make sure that also works that are copyrighted remain accessible, the RL confers with rights holders. To a reporter of Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad, Savenije says: “In close cooperation with all parties concerned, we aim to create a joint national infrastructure that fully exploits the possibilities of the digital world.”
Crytek: piracy is a problem for PC exclusive games
Crytek, developer of acclaimed PC games like Far Cry and Crysis and the CryEngine, cries out against piracy of PC games. Crysis 2, the game that the studio is working on now and that is based on the latest incarnation of the CryEngine, will be released on PC, Xbox360 and Playstation 3. Crysis was a PC exclusive.
An important reason for this choice is of course that more platforms means a bigger potential audience. But there is another urgent reason to embrace consoles.
Crytek’s Director of Business Development, Carl Jones, elaborated on this in an interview in PC Play: "Licensing a PC-only engine was made difficult in the last few years due to the changing nature of the games market itself. Piracy hurt PC-only games in terms of sales figures, so publishers and developers moved away from making such titles. As a result, console middleware was more widespread than PC focused technology such as CryEngine 1 and 2 (…) but circumstances limited the quantity of licensees we signed up."
Italian High Court clears the way for dealing with foreign torrent sites
The highest court in Italy has ruled that violating copyright is enough of a justification to be permitted to block access to sites in that country, even if the site is hosted elsewhere. Italian ISPs can be obliged to respond to a call to block torrent sites, reports tweakers.net.
With this conclusion, the High Court overturned a ruling by a lower judge. The court of Bergamo asserted that foreign sites could not be blocked for infringing copyright. The High Court did not comment on whether access to TPB ought to be blocked.
In a recently published clarification of the ruling, the High Court states that torrent sites are more than a search engine that only passes on links. Even though torrent sites do not host copyrighted material themselves, these sites are a central hub in the spread of protected content.
Today five of the six big studios, together with various technology partners, announced a new standard for digital movies: the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE). The standard will allow movies to be played on different devices and exchanged between them.
Being unable to play movies on the devices they want is one of the main complaints of consumers worldwide. With the new standard this issue should be remedied. Under the new standard, consumers will store a digital ‘receipt’ of their movie purchase online. In this way the rights to a movie are not bound to the carrier or device, but rather to the consumer. This will makei to possible to play a single movie on any device that supports DECE. It also opens up new possibilities for media consumption. For instance, a consumer could access his or her movie collection on the go, by tapping into the internet cloud.
Unfortunately, Disney and Apple are not participating in the new standard. They are expected to unveil their own standard by the end of January, likely coinciding with the launch of Apple’s rumoured tablet device.
According to Amazon itself, the online bookstore has sold more e-books than traditional paper books this Christmas. The firm does not comment on specific numbers. So far, it has not spoken out on the number of Kindles, Amazon’s own e-reader, it has sold. ZDNet recently estimated that Amazon would by now have sold around 1,5 million Kindles.
In The Netherlands, sales of the Kindle are less than spectacular. Amazon does sell them here, but is not actively marketing Kindle sales in this country. Bol.com, the biggest online bookstore in The Netherlands, on the contrary, is quite active in promoting Sony’s e-reader. Recently, the company reported that it had sold “many tens of thousands of digital books”.
The trade in e-books is not yet very profitable, though. Amazon loses about two dollars on every title sold. The publishers charge around 12 dollars for most current e-book titles, while Amazon sells them for around ten dollar. Amazon is willing to take this loss in order to claim a big market share.
The Japanese Masato Nakatsuji is arrested and 
Peter Jenner, former manager of Pink Floyd and Secretary General (!) of the International Music Managers Forum (
