piracy

MPAA: Linking college funding, piracy is 'perfectly legitimate'

WASHINGTON--What's wrong with Congress being a little stingy about doling out taxpayer dollars to universities if they let peer-to-peer file-sharing pirates run amok on campus networks?

Not a thing, says the Motion Picture Association of America's top lawyer in the nation's capital.

On the heels of a House of Representatives committee's passage of a higher-education funding bill that includes new antipiracy obligations for universities that participate in federal financial aid programs, MPAA Washington general counsel Fritz Attaway suggested it's reasonable to condition federal education funding on copyright enforcement efforts.

"When the government is subsidizing … Read more

Politicos poised to pass anti-P2P rules for universities

Eds. note: This story was updated at 8:07 p.m. PST to give an update on the expected committee vote time.

WASHINGTON--So far, a U.S. House of Representatives panel hasn't done anything to alter part of a bill that would deprive colleges and universities of financial aid for their students unless they make a plan to provide "alternatives" and deterrents to illicit peer-to-peer downloading.

Debate on a massive Democratic-sponsored higher education spending bill (PDF) began around 1:30 a.m. ET and continued late into the evening on Wednesday. But no amendments were expected to … Read more

Politicos near vote on anti-P2P rules for universities

WASHINGTON--A U.S. House of Representatives committee plans to vote Wednesday afternoon on a Hollywood-backed higher education bill that would deprive colleges and universities of their financial aid funding if they don't agree to provide deterrents and "alternatives" to peer-to-peer piracy.

A provision buried in the 747-page College Opportunity and Affordability Act (PDF) requires schools to devise a plan for providing "alternatives" to unlawful downloading--as well as "a plan to explore technology-based deterrents to prevent such illegal activity." Those requirements would be added to an existing list of conditions for receiving federal student … Read more

P2P downloaders tend to buy more music

Are peer-to-peer music thieves the music industry's best customers? In an ironic twist to the music industry's woes, a new study suggests that P2P downloaders may buy more music than their straight-laced, non-P2P brethren. The results are non-conclusive one way or the other, but the researchers conclude:

However, our analysis of the Canadian P2P file-sharing subpopulation suggests that there is a strong positive relationship between P2P file-sharing and CD purchasing. That is, among Canadians actually engaged in it, P2P file-sharing increases CD purchasing.… Read more

Pirate attacks rise 14% year over year

Pirates, aaargh. A new report from the International Maritime Bureau says that piracy and armed robbery attacks against ships rose 14% year over year.

From the report: In the first nine months of the year, 198 attacks were reported versus 174 attacks reported in 2006 during the same time frame. A total of 15 vessels were hijacked, 172 crewmembers were taken hostage, 63 were kidnapped, and 21 were assaulted. If this trend continues, the decline in piracy attacks begun in 2004 will have bottomed out. Crew assaults, kidnapping and ransom rose dramatically from 2006.

If you want to freak yourself … Read more

Studios unveil their copyright protection guidelines

Updated 12:30 p.m. PT

A coalition of major media and technology companies that notably does not include Google appears to be getting serious about copyright on the Internet.

A who's who of media companies--CBS, News Corp.'s Fox Entertainment Group, NBC Universal, Viacom, and Disney--as well as Microsoft and the News Corp.-owned MySpace, along with video-sharing sites Dailymotion and Veoh Networks released a set of guidelines Thursday designed to halt online piracy.

Notably absent from the list is Google, which unveiled filtering technology for its YouTube video-sharing site on Monday. Sources familiar with the coalition plan … Read more

Does software piracy lead to monopoly?

In a piece reminiscent of Tim O'Reilly's excellent "Piracy Is Progressive Taxation," Dagens Politik has written a provocative article arguing that "the actions of the pirates have merged with the interest of Microsoft to create a near monopoly in the operating systems market for the PC."

In other words, no piracy, no Microsoft monopoly.

The author suggests that piracy does the industry more harm (in sustaining Microsoft's monopoly) than it does to Microsoft (in any number of millions or billions of profits lost):… Read more

Pirates in the kitchen: Recipe copying 'rampant' online

Editors' note: The report cited in this article originally misstated the name of one of the Web sites studied. The correct Web site is RachaelRayMag.com.

The next big copyright battle may be fought in the kitchen.

Content tracking company Attributor recently conducted a study to get an idea of how frequently online recipes are copied and reposted to other sites. What it found might concern some recipe publishers.

Attributor collected all the original recipes that appear on Epicurious.com, Allrecipes.com and RachaelRayMag.com. The software then checked those recipes against what was available elsewhere on the Web, looking … Read more

Pro-copyright lobbyists storm Capitol Hill

WASHINGTON--Prominent champions of tougher copyright enforcement from the entertainment, media and publishing industries took over a stately Capitol Hill caucus room on Thursday, staging an expo aimed at playing up the legal protections' importance to their livelihood.

The event was put on by the Copyright Alliance, which formed earlier this year to promote the "vital role" of copyright in the U.S. economy and job market, encourage inclusion of copyright protection requirements in trade agreements, urge tougher civil and criminal penalties for piracy, and dissuade any weakening of copyright law. Its 42 members include heavy hitters like the Recording Industry Association of America, the Association of American Publishers, the Motion Picture Association of America, Microsoft, Viacom, NBC Universal and Walt Disney.

Most of the major players had booths at Thursday's shindig, and some of their messages were hardly subtle.

The RIAA hung wrinkled T-shirts that read in bold print: "feed a musician, download legally."

NBC: Nothing But Copyright violators

As anyone who has been following the NBC saga knows, the media company has laid down some heavy fire over purported copyright violations on the part of "bastions of piracy" and has even gone to Congress to ask lawmakers to pass laws that make copyright enforcement even more stringent.

But with the recent news of NBC violating copyrights by not asking for rights to play the song featured on Andy Samberg's latest viral video, "I Ran So Far," isn't it ironic that this company that supports such draconian laws has violated those laws itself? Because the company did not ask for permission to use the Aphex Twin sample used in the video, will it gloss over it like so many have before or will it put its money where its mouth is and admit that it's a pirate? Either way, I'm going to love watching this one unfold.… Read more