Woman to pay $220,000 fine for 24 illegally downloaded songs September 2012

The fines for downloading illegal music has not decreased as the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has sued more than 18,000 people. This article goes through how individuals rather then groups are now being targeted to be sued no matter if you have 5 songs to 15,000. It is hard for the RIAA to crack down on file-storing websites like Mega Upload and Kim Dotcom due to location as the people who run them know how to hide. The problem with the individual is they do not know how to get around the governments online blocks so to say so they get picked out and are made an example of because of there venerability. Christopher Jon Sprigman, co-author of the Knockoff Economy says "The record companies basically bought themselves a huge amount of bad publicity, a few settlements and no real impact on file-sharing." I completely agree with this quote, as it just makes the record company’s look greedy. Sure the artists should get there fair share but at the sametime they are gaining more publicity giving there songs away then trying to go through the old process of selling there music on a CD. I hope new laws come into play as illegal content from music to movies is so readily available and so easy to download. People who don't even know what they are doing essentially are getting penalized and picked out which isn’t right. If anything the RIAA should go after the big file storing websites to control the flow of illegal downloads.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/sep/11/minnesota-woman-songs-illegally-downloaded.com 

Does Online Piracy Really Hurt Music Sales?

“We don’t understand it, therefore we fear it”. Is a typical government answer towards most issues found online. This article goes through how music sales have decreased due to online piracy so to say. Has statistics about how music sales have significantly gone down in terms of music being bought on CDs or in stores. Some of these companies that are selling the hard copy’s of music will undoubtedly go under, but the online sales of music has gone up and also the starting of online music company’s has gone up. The government will most likely always be on the side of the music selling from stores rather then online stores due to the lack of knowledge of online stores. This isn’t fair its like the online stores are getting bullied as the government will always go with a sure positive then looking into something that could be a little risky. I doubt the government will ever understand online/digital sales but if they do it’ll probably be too late and there will have been another shift in the market and they’ll play catchup yet again.

http://www.ghacks.net/2012/01/02/did-online-piracy-really-hurt-music-sales-in-2011/ 

TL;DR Legal: the future of software license's?

Know your meme tells us that the internet term "tl;dr" was first posted on Urban Dictionary in 2003. Almost 10 years later is is the name of a business that allows the visitor to look up an open source license and its "plain English" summary. This is an interesting solution to the issue most consumers have with reading these documents in full. Microsoft computer used to force you to scroll to the bottom of the document to accept the terms. Surely now that this is no longer required there is an even smaller amount of people actually reading them. With service like TL;DR Legal that could potentially be accredited by a council of willing businesses they could summarize commercial software licences like end-user license agreements for programs. This doesn't have anything to do with online piracy but definitely relates to the networked world and building a better understanding of the legal guidelines that most are ignorant towards.

**It would be really cool if somehow TL;DR Legal pitched their service by suggesting a $/actual reads model**

Microsoft's software Pirated Around the World.

" "Microsoft Corp has lodged a complaint with China to stop four state-owned companies from allegedly using pirated and unlicensed versions of its software".

So I was reading through an article on how companies in China are infringing on Microsofts software. In the article there is a whole bunch of facts concerning the percentages of pirated software. The main fact is that the software is so readily available that why wouldn't they to save some money.

Even though this is alarming to the Microsoft corporation the fact that there their software is being used so frequently is a plus. This makes the awareness of the Microsoft corporation not only in North America but around the world. This can allow people to se the software build upon it share it making the software brand more trusted. There is a transition I believe coming in the future from moving away from the physical owned property to more so intellectual property. If someone comes up with a certain property intellectually that is important and people want to protect that which is respectable but I believe Microsoft is taking it to far. Everyone wants to have a technological advantage Microsoft in my opinion is taking it to far.

Canada: the Pirates Homeland

Canada has now been deemed a piracy haven, earning a "a dubious distinction as a world hub for illegitimate file-sharing websites and a leader in Internet piracy." Canada is now also home to five of the top 8 unauthorized BitTorrent sites. One of these sites (number 1), is Isohunt.com. Ranking as one of the top 200 sites in the world, Isohunt was founded in Vancouver and has as "many as 100 million unique visitors every year."

So why is it that Canada can host such sites? Even with the US putting us on the blacklist of “shame” (a priority watch list). It turns out that Canada doesn’t exactly have a framework to put an end to such sites. While the uploader and seeders might be acting unlawfully under Canadian copyright infringement laws, but the site itself does not distribute or reproduce the copyrighted material and therefore is not subject to legal action.

US pushing others around

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“The United States Trade Representative has once again labeled Canada a piracy haven.” Canada has now been put on a priority watch list along with several other countries, as they have not yet enforced harsh enough copyright infringement laws according to the United States.

It turns out the US has been threatening countries to put them on a trade blacklist if they do not enforce stricter, harsher copyright laws. In one instance, the US Ambassador threatened Spain with such actions if they “failed to pass a SOPA-style site blocking law.” Is this fair? Do United State Trade Representatives have a right to do so? Many seem to think not claiming that the US often produces “fact-free report that ignored any point of view except that of the big media companies.” The United States is essentially blackmailing other countries into running legislation the way they do, and that is simply unacceptable.

http://torrentfreak.com/u-s-labels-canada-a-piracy-haven-120430/

Kim Dotcom is back...

Kim Dotcom is back on the internet and getting ready for the launch of MegaBox. This service promises that it will share music in a slightly more ethical way. The millionaire/pirate/best Call of Duty MW3 player in the world said that "(he) created an innovation that could solve the piracy problem". To download music and files from MegaBox the user has two options. First you can pay for the song as you would on the iTunes store or you could download a program called "MegaKey" that replaces about 15% of online ads with their own. This allows the artists to promote new material directly to the people who have downloaded their music. With networks like Facebook this service could make targeted marketing much more effective. As long as Kim doesn't slip up before then.

Undermining Soundcloud's Terms and Conditions

On October 8th I saw this post come up after a few angry posts from a remix artist named Thudner Moose. He had uploaded a remix of Dada Life's "Rolling Stones T-Shirt" which was taken down from Soundcloud a few days after it's upload. He then uploaded the remix to a popular sharing website called Zippy Share. The "zippy" file was subsequently deleted for copyright infringement but the mp3 is now available on various different file share, streaming, and video sites (Google Search: "thundermoose rolling stones t-shirt mp3"). There have been no subsequent posts relating to any fines of problems because of the infringement and now the remix is all over the internet and easy to find. It looks like large artist-targeted sites like Soundcloud are not doing a very good job of punishing those who don't follow the rules. I am 100% guilty of very similar issues but have never been caught. If it happens before the semester ends I'll be writing a post on that process.

Anti-Piracy Patent Stops Students From Sharing Textbooks

  Anti-Piracy Patent Stops Students From Sharing Textbooks : 

There was a new patent that stops students from sharing textbooks both offline and online without having an activation code. If you cant afford to buy the code your grades are clearly going to drop and your going to have to pay that extra 700$ still on books you will only use for 4 months. Surprisingly to me a professor of economics set up this patent as stated in the article, maybe to benefit professors from all Universities to get their name published or because students keep showing up with pages of photocopied work. Even in our class our textbook and readings are available online. In a way it makes sense it saves lugging around a massive book, saves paper, and could spilt the cost. The internet is not just going to go away online sharing is just starting to get around even if we call it ‘piracy’. If professors or publishers are so worried about piracy they should look into online sharing of textbooks or find someway so that students don't have to pay a ton of money for online work so that everyone’s happy. “Isn’t it much better to strive to make knowledge open and accessible, instead of restricting it even further? “

http://torrentfreak.com/anti-piracy-patent-prevents-students-from-sharing-books-120610/

Piracy and My Generation

Many people these days pirate music. To me, it just seems to be how things work with my generation; the simplicity coupled with zero costs is too powerful against outdated companies such as HMV and the purchasing of music CD’s. Not to mention the fact that most of the people in my circles would rather put that money towards a meal at a fast food joint or even more likely a 40 malt liquor (which is actually cheaper than a CD on iTunes or HMV).  But how far does piracy go? Where do the lines end and start? Many of the bands that I listen to, I’ve gone to see them live and supported them in that fashion. More than a few of those bands have also publicly stated that they would rather people download their music illegally to spread the word and then maybe if they can, show up to a concert. Personally, I don’t have an issue with piracy, I’m growing up in a generation that has accepted and trended it. Besides, it’s the large music producing/recording companies that might be losing money, the band’s (at least the ones I listen to) probably don’t see too many of those dollars regardless.

The CPDJA: SOCAN & AVLA licensing

The Canadian Professional Disk Jockey Association (CPDJA) has surely seen an increase revenue in the past 5 years because of the rise of music sharing and online piracy. First, the CPDJA issues licences called SOCAN licenses (Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada). This gives venue owners permission to play live music that has been copyrighted without first contacting the label (this would obviously be a huge pain). A SOCAN license allows types of performance except any performance that requires the use of a hard drive. To be a part of the wave of MIDI DJs playing in todays nightclubs one must acquire a AVLA license (Audio-Video Licensing Agency) at a cost of $300+. AVLA licensing allows the permission to play remixes, bootlegs, edits, mashups and covers that have been downloaded from the internet. These licenses are interesting because they remove those committed DJs from the group of people who must fear the day someone knocks on your door and arrests you simply to make an example of you.

Eric Casey