Dean Garfield works as a ‘hit man’ for the Motion Picture Associate of America (MPAA), the Hollywood enforcement group responsible for monitoring and preventing misuse of copyrighted material.
In an interview Garfield told reporters that his aversion to new technology – specifically technology that assists in the recording and distributing of Hollywood material – is not based on paranoia of that technology, but rather a mistrust of the people that are going to be using it:
If you look at the list of movies that have broken new ground, from Star Wars to Polar Express, nobody would look at those movies and suggest that our industry is afraid of technology. The truth is quite the opposite.
His job is to find ways to limit the copying and distribution of the feature films and ‘help the film industry not to end up like the music industry’. The music industry, Garfield reckons, is losing the battle against ‘piracy’. Movie and music downloads are blamed for fueling the opposition force. And he should know all about it: before joining the MPAA Garfield held the post of vice president of Legal Affairs for the RIAA. This wealth of experience means that Garfield is now known as the ‘face of copyright enforcement’.
Users of file sharing programs such as Ares sometimes fear to use the P2P file sharing to its full potential because of people like Garfield and organizations like the MPAA and RIAA. Whether this means they are wrong to use the software is an entirely different question, however.
The scare mongering and threats from the industry to its users shows no sign of abating.
TorrentSpy has formulated a novel way to get around the federal court ruling that ordered it to track users’ usage of the site: it simply banned all US usage of the search features. Hmmm. This was decided as the best course of action to ‘protect user privacy’.
A notice on the website stated:
Torrentspy.com, an International search engine that provides links to torrent files, has decided to stop accepting visitors from the United States. … Torrentspy.com has a strong privacy policy protecting site users against the linking of personal identifying information to searches absent user consent.
Reportedly more than 15% of visitors to the site, mainly filesharers looking for movie and music torrents for download with a software client like Ares, are based in the US. Residents are far from happy with the move which, as one comment put it, feels like Torrentspy has turned its back on its user base.
But it’s not entirely the fault of TorrentSpy, we say. Instead it’s the US courts and the RIAA’s crusade of righteousness that should be blame: without these there would not need to be any ban. It’s easy to understand TorrentSpy’s position and at the end of the day it is protecting its own interests.
Until this is resolved in the US courts – which may not be for some time – the only real option is to find somewhere else from which to source your torrents.
The Big Four Cartel – Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG’s – collectively the RIAA, is “battling 1.000 when it comes to the ‘making available’ argument”. In an argument reaching new heights of ludicrously the Big 4 cartel claims that merely having a shared files folder means that files are available for distribution and, therefore, constitutes a breach of copyright. Filesharering is defined not by what users they download or uploading, then, but instead by what they’ve got available to share.
The EFF point out the flaw in this argument: the entire ‘net is nothing more than a giant network of hyperlinks and shared folders, making files eminently available to anyone with access. Is the next headline going to be “RIAA causes internet to be banned”?
Test cases abound and RIAA have been trying to elicit a ruling from the judges on this point. Six cases so far and the judges have refused to rule, but have allowed the RIAA to move along with its cases because of ‘continuing infringement’.
Atlantic v Howell represents the seventh case in the series. The Howells used an Ares-like set up to download and share music files. Just having the files on their download constituted an infringement of copyright, the judge said. The RIAA of course lost no time in claiming this as a victory and using the ruling in a host of other cases.
Franz Ferdinand’s Alex Kapranos, quoted in a Playboy interview last year, scored a hit for proponents of the digital music downloads movement:
“I like the idea that, because of downloading, people are going to buy songs only if they are good,”
he continued:
“I think that’s a positive thing. It means lazy bands aren’t going to get away with giving you one hit single and an album full of filler. We like the idea that every song should stand up in its own right so you don’t have to listen to a song in the context of an album to understand it.”
The band, from Glasgow, Scotland, is encouraging fans to illegally download its latest recording, say Aversion.
“Franz isn’t too keen on greasing the wheels of capitalism [sic], and encourages fans to pirate the song from peer-to-peer networks,”
Colombia Records were incensed in 2000 when The Offspring tried to make its record ‘Conspiracy of One’ a 100% free download.
It’s truly interesting how differently producers, record companies and artists see differently on the subject of free downloads and ‘pirated’ music – those that make the music just want to get it out and heard, while those just in it for the money can’t seem to understand this position. It’s a natural effect of a capitalist market, true, but nonetheless it does stink of record companies and corporations inability to accept that downloads (free, pirated, or otherwise) are here to stay.
Wal-Mart is joining other large organisations in offering DRM-free music downloads from its online store. Joining Viacom’s MTV Networks and RealNetwork joint effort, along with LimeWire’s proposed online music store, Wal-Mart is the latest in a line of corporations wishing to cash in on what is clearly a very lucrative market. Unlike many of the bigger corporations, though, Wal-Mart do not intend on lacing the tracks with privacy-infringing DRM.
Apple attempted to do the same with iTunes, but there is a price to pay. Literally. The iTunes catalogue markup amounts to an almost 30% increase over standard rates. Also, as we reported earlier, it’s arguable that iTunes tracks do in fact contain DRM since they include users’ names and passwords. Apple’s justification is that DRM-free tracks are higher quality at 256kbps, rather than the 128kbps iTunes that are ‘polluted’ with DRM.
Wal-Mart’s prices are looking to be around 94 cents per track – less than the going rate – and these are also at 256kbps quality. Files including Microsoft’s DRM ‘feature’ are cheaper at around 88 cents per track.
Hopefully this will offer some healthy compeition to the corporations and especially to iTunes, all of whom seem to be sitting on their laurels as far as accepting music downloads as a legitimate market (rather than the monopoly that Apple seem to be viewing it as).
A man in Sydney has been asked to appear at a Sydney court in October: he is accused of recording the entire “The Simpsons” movie on his telephone and uploading to the a number of P2P sites such as Ares. His home was raided recently by police after the upload was tracked to his home. The likely punishment or charges have not yet been made public.Twentieth Century Fox (News Corp), Australian police, and the Australian Federation Against Copyright (AFACT) have acted together to locate and presumably charge the culprit with the strictest available punishment.
The copy of the movie was, the MPAA said, the first illegal copy on the internet – it was recorded on a cell phone in a Sydney movie theater on July 26 – before its public release to most of the world.
The recording was placed online quickly, but AFACT had quickly tracked it, as Adrianne Pecotic explained:
“Within 72 hours of making and uploading this unauthorized recording, AFACT had tracked it to other streaming sites and P2P (peer-to-peer) systems, where it had been illegally downloaded in excess of 110,000 times, and in all probability, copied and sold as a pirate DVD all over the world“.
We wonder whether the phrasing “illegally downloaded” infers that there was some illegal uploading occurring. Unlikely…
Illegally recording movies must really be getting easier: while in the past bulky recording equipment was needed inside the theater, now a simple cell phone will do the trick. Is it only a matter of time before theaters ban telephones, too? How else can they get around this?
The Pirate Party (or more formally the Pirate Party of the United States), a new ‘political’ organization, has taken steps to become an officially recognized political party. The group is currently gathering statements of support from at least 2000 registered voters in the state. It has until February 2008 to collect this support, which will form its first step in becoming registered as a political body.Ray Jenson, the interim Administrator for the Pirate Party of Utah, says:
“This is a big step forward for our party. Utah is a perfect place to start. With the right people, we actually stand a chance at turning around the civil liberties situation by working on issues such as legal P2P filesharing.”
Well why Utah? Andrew Norton, a spokesperson of the Pirate Party, responded to say
“We feel that Utah is an ideal state to begin registration of the Pirate Party as a political body, Utah has a strong history of political diversity, and technological progress. … voters in Utah are now one step closer to being able to voice their opinions on the key issues our party stands for.”
This is perhaps the ideal opportunity for like-minded people to join together and discuss issues that they actually care about – perhaps a world apart from the politics of modern-day America where main aim is to garner votes and play ‘Politik’ rather than dealing with important issues. This could mean the Pirate Party gaining more votes than could be expected from a similar independent party.
Will they succeed in making a difference? Probably not. But then that probably isn’t their aim; simply getting ‘on the map’ and showing that groups people supporting this kind of ‘different’ movement do exist. It is vitally important that political groups recognize the existence of significant minorities and give them a voice. Rebellion might not be the correct word, but it’s clear the people want a voice.
The largest U.S. Broadband Internet provider – AT&T – will begin to deploy anti-piracy technology that might be used to monitor its 13 million customers.
The ISP is deploying fiber optic cable to homes in the US, meaning the company can expand its offerings and provide customers with a cable service. While developing and marketing this service they’re working with the MPAA, Viacom and other content providers. They recently announced that they’ll also be monitoring users’ connections with new anti-piracy technology. Perhaps their associates matter more to them than their customer base? Who knows.
It is unclear to what extent the new anti-piracy technology will affect P2P file sharing and the like, nor to what extent it will effect existing customers (or if it will just effect those that take up the cable offering) but it’s another step from a well known company towards the side of the Big 4 Cartel and their lackeys.
No doubt AT&T have an excellent reason to install the anti-piracy measures, and perhaps it has nothing to do with pandering to the whims of the big companies that they’re now associated with, but it smells of another company being influenced by the might of the Cartel.
Naturally they’re welcome to take whatever steps they feel necessary to protect and further their business, and maybe battling against copyright violations is something that they really do need to do. At the end of the day, though, if its customers start to vote with their feet then the financial repercussions may come back to haunt them.
Vivendi’s Universal Music Group, based in France, has joined Britain’s EMI in selling music downloads that are not tightly protected by DRM. That leaves only Song BMG (based in Japan and Germany) and Warner Music (based in the US) to be using the outdated protection on their music downloads.“Universal Music Group said Thursday that it would begin selling current and back albums - from a collection of stars as diverse as 50 Cent, Maroon 5, Amy Winehouse and Johnny Cash - without anti-piracy software that restricts their use”
The Los Angeles Times chalks up Vivendi’s reversal as a way in which to “blunt Apple Inc.’s growing power by bypassing the iPod maker to sell thousands of songs in an unrestricted digital format through many other online music stores”.
Hmmm.
It’s clear that the big corporations are having very little success in the download sector – the ‘free’ competition being virtually insurmountable, with reasonably priced independent download services coming second – and it might just be that the corporations are finally becoming aware of the massive mistakes that they’ve made in the past. Overpriced over-protected formulaic downloads are evidently not the way forward; consumers realised (and acted on this) quite some time ago and it’s refreshing to finally see the corporations follow suit.
Recognizing that consumers have had a choice – and a rather favourable one, at that – in getting their music fix has taken the corporations a surprisingly long time. For organizations that boast massive marketing departments and huge consumer survey budgets, they’re obviously not utilizing their resources in the right way.
Now they may just be starting to recognized that their ‘customers’ aren’t the stupid ‘ cash cows’ that they thought they’d trained.
An industry security expert pointed out recently that:
“Many computers can be connected to the Internet with identical IP addresses as long as they remain behind control points such as routers, firewalls, proxy servers, or similar technologies.”
This might not surprise many people, but certainly it detracts from what may have been viewed as ’scare mongering’ by the RIAA in their recent “sue’em all” campaign.
The RIAA’s recent attempts in cases such as the one where the former employer of a suspected file sharer was asked to try and identify everyone that had used his computer in the previous 3 years have been laughable. Unfortunately, though, they’re certainly not to be laughed at since many P2P file sharers and P2P file sharing groups have been subject to what might be tantamount to harassment from them.
A recent highlight was Capitol v Foster, where the RIAA lawyers’ motives were described as ‘questionable’ and the RIAA ordered to pay costs to the defendant. But this is a small victory in what has been a determined onslaught from the RIAA and the ‘big 4′ cartel of music companies.
Recently brought to court is Arista v Does 1-11, where the RIAA is trying to subpoena the names of 11 University Students accused of copyright infringement. The students are arguing that the RIAA’s assumptions that IP addresses are the a means of unique identification are invalid and false. A 15 page expert witness report, submitted by security expert Jayson E Street, attacks the RIAA’s premise that IP address can be used to identify individuals, and calls the assertion “factually erroneous” and “misleading”
The RIAA argues that “Users of P2P networks can be identified by their IP addresses because each computer or network device(such as a router) that connects to a P2P network must have a unique IP address within the internet to deliver files from one computer or network to another.”
Jayson responds to the above, along with many other ‘dubious’ statements made in the RIAA’s case against the student, stating that “In my opinion, the above statement is factually erroneous.”
The RIAA’s most important relied upon method of identifying what it considers to be people taking part in copyright infringement is being shown, slowly but surely, to be misleading and downright wrong. Proving that those individuals that the RIAA identifies are responsible is more difficult that it may have first thought.
Where will this end? Perhaps with another small victory for the file sharers. Who knows?