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Tag: riaa

  • Lady Gaga Goes Diamond Again with Poker Face

    Add another prestigious honor to the incredible career of Lady Gaga.

    The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has announced that Lady Gaga’s 2008 smash hit “Poker Face” has gone diamond, meaning it’s surpassed 10 million in sales and streams.

    This is the second time that Lady Gaga has achieved diamond status for one of her singles. Last year, she did it with “Bad Romance”.

    Lady Gaga now holds 33% of all the diamond singles.

    “Poker Face” was released in September of 2008 as the second single off Lady Gaga’s album The Fame. That about is 3x platinum, with 4.6 million sold.

  • New Anti-Piracy Plan: Kindergarten Copyright Class?

    The United States’ largest copyright lobbies, the Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry Association of America, have initiated a highly controversial program nudging the educational system to shoulder the burden of teaching kids about how evil piracy really is.

    The LA Times reports that a nonprofit group known as the Center for Copyright Information has commissioned a program to teach kids between kindergarten and sixth grade about intellectual property ownership.

    The program is to be called “Be a Creator,” and the proposed curriculum includes lesson plans, videos, and activities that promote “being creative and protecting creativity” with topics like: Respect the Person: Give Credit; It’s Great to Create; and Copyright Matters.

    The president of a nonprofit organization (iKeepSafe) that focuses on helping keep kids safe on the internet, Marsali Hancock, defended the program by saying “It’s important to prepare children to succeed and thrive and learn how to share and create and move files in a way that’s ethical and responsible.”

    Even though nothing of the plan has even been written yet, the idea of implementing it has come under intense scrutiny. Frank Wells, a spokesman for the California Teachers Association, said “While it’s certainly a worthy topic of discussion with students, I’m sure some teachers would have a concern that adding anything of any real length to an already packed school day would take away from the basic curriculum that they’re trying to get through now.”

    In one curriculum draft acquired by Wired a couple months ago, a property attorney described the information being disseminated as “thinly disguised propaganda” because the program omits any mention of the concept of Fair Usage, such as satire, parody, or commentary.

    Corynne McSherry, the intellectual property director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said “It sends the message that you always have to get permission before you can copy anything and that sharing is always theft and that if you violate copyright law all kinds of bad things will happen to you. It’s a scare tactic.”

    Stephen Smith, a managing partner with Greenberg Glusker and an expert on copyright law, said “The idea that time would be taken out of kids’ days to teach them copyright law, when they ought to be learning reading, writing and arithmetic, I find to be strange… I just don’t think it’s appropriate curriculum for kindergartners to sixth-graders.”

    Meanwhile, in spite of the MPAA’s constant whinging about immense profit losses caused by online piracy, recently conducted economics studies suggested that their “losses” are sensationally inflated and that the music and film industries are fiscally performing better than ever.

    [Image via ThinkStock]

  • The MPAA, RIAA Target Google Again

    By now, it’s pretty clear the governing bodies behind the entertainment industry will not be happy unless Google turns over their search engine index over to the RIAA and the MPAA, allowing them to remove whatever infringing content they see fit. With that in mind, imagine using a search engine that’s been sanitized by these entities. Every first-page result would be geared toward directing users to sites where they can spend money on entertainment content, and YouTube would probably be demoted to results pages that normally go unseen by the public.

    The latest misguided attempt to blame Google for not singlehandedly eliminating piracy from the world, thanks to the power of their infringement enabling search engine. As pointed out by TechDirt, the latest attack comes in the form of a two-pronged approach by the MPAA and the RIAA.

    The MPAA’s salvo comes in the form of a new study, one that appears to have doubters within the study itself. While the results haven’t been made public, TechDirt has apparently seen it, and offers the following criticism:

    Amusingly, even the MPAA’s own “talking points” on the study (which a friendly bird in Congress passed along) more or less admit that the study is incredibly weak.

    Without seeing these statements, confirmation of their intent is impossible, but further data in the study certainly gives that point of view legs to stand on:

    The key number, which the MPAA does its best to bury is that search engines “influenced” only 20% of the times when consumers accessed infringing content.

    So the very search engine the MPAA is railing against only influences 20 percent of Internet piracy? If these are truly the results of the MPAA’s study, one would think they would alter their approach. Alas, no. The MPAA appears as if its prepared to go down with this sinking ship, something the following quote from the aforementioned talking points reveals quite clearly:

    Search engines bear a huge responsibility for introducing people to infringing content.

    The MPAA’s study falls further on its face when it contradicts itself with the following revelation:

    Take Google’s algorithm change as an example — they held this up last summer as a step that would have meaningful impact and unfortunately we see in the data here that it hasn’t.

    So even after Google implemented the changes suggested by these entities, it didn’t completely eliminate infringing sites from Google’s index; and this is somehow Google’s fault, even though they complied with the suggested algorithm alterations? And then there’s the Google transparency report system that removes infringing content on a regular basis. Nevertheless, that’s not enough for the MPAA, and so, they commissioned another “Piracy will destroy everything” study.

    As for the RIAA’s attempt to pin the tale on Google, they went before Congress to seemingly single Google out. The statement that stood out, as highlighted by TechDirt:

    If ISPs can be considered the gateway by users to rogue sites online, search engines may be considered the roadmaps or, more directly, the turn-by-turn directions and door-to-door service to these sites. There can be no doubt that search engines play a considerable role in leading users to illicit services and can be a key part of addressing infringing activity online.

    Actually, as the MPAA study shows, there can be plenty of doubt; unless, of course, 20 percent is really something to waste the public’s time over. In other news, who knew music piracy was still a thing?

    [Lead image courtesy]

  • Spotify Helps Dramatically Reduce Music Piracy In The Netherlands, Norway

    While music piracy may not be the buzzworthy topic it was in the days of Napster and Limewire, an idea given life by the RIAA’s decision to stop suing downloaders, that doesn’t mean it’s a forgotten issue. The RIAA’s vehement support of things like SOPA, ACTA, and CISPA indicates as much. Furthermore, a quick look at the RIAA’s site reveals piracy is still a front-burner issue for the industry.

    That’s why the findings of two studies pointed out by Techdirt are still important, and it would nice if the message from the music industry’s ruling powers reflected them, but that’s another story for another day. The findings of the two studies reveal something of a novel concept: If you offer people legitimate alternatives to stealing digital music–services like Spotify, for instance–it has a dramatic reduction on amount of piracy that goes on. While this lament has been echoed time and again when alternatives to governmental control of the Internet are discussed, the fact that the data supports the stance makes it a much more credible position.

    The Norwegian reduction in piracy was pointed out by Torrent Freak, which referenced a report in Afterposten.no, a Norwegian news site. The report studies piracy habits between 2008 and 2012, and noticed the following:

    …in 2008 almost 1.2 billion songs were copied without permission. However, by 2012 that figure had plummeted to 210 million, just 17.5% of its level four years earlier.

    Even the RIAA would have to acknowledge a reduction of a billion songs is significant. The report also stated the cause for the reduction, based on survey feedback:

    Of those questioned for the survey, 47% (representing around 1.7 million people) said they use a streaming music service such as Spotify. Even more impressively, just over half (corresponding to 920,000 people and 25% of Norwegian Internet users) said that they pay for the premium option.

    While the Spotify suggestion was the Torrent Freak author, a study sponsored by Spotify showed a significant reduction of music piracy in the Netherlands as well:

    Since the turn of the century, both Sweden’s and the Netherlands’ respective music industries followed similar paths. Both saw steep falls in their recorded music revenues since 2001, with ‘rampant’ piracy (and the Pirate Bay especially) taking much of the blame. Yet after halving in size by 2008, Swedish music revenues are now showing clear signs of sustainable growth thanks largely to the success of Spotify… In Italy, piracy occurs on 77 IPs per 100 residential connections but if, like in the Netherlands, this fell to 27 IPs per 100, there would be 7m fewer Italian households using piracy. As a consequence, this would also mean 47m fewer files being taken.

    Now, it should be noted Spotify is using this report to justify its existence in the Italian market, as well as its potential impact, but the fact remains, when the Netherlands received access to Spotify’s service, music piracy decreased. Noticeably.

    Considering the fact that Spotify’s study referenced the Pirate Bay being blocked, the entertainment entities that want to influence the United States government’s attempt to legislate the Internet will probably chalk it up to a successful display of law enforcement. If, however, law enforcement is being praised, the next question is, if blocking the Pirate Bay was so effective, why didn’t it eliminate piracy altogether? Is it because by blocking such services has little impact on the amount of piracy? Like, next to none?

  • SOPA And PIPA Are Not Coming Back

    SOPA And PIPA Are Not Coming Back

    SOPA and PIPA were a major threat to the Internet. Only those in the entertainment industry denied the claim as they pushed for stricter control of the Internet. The two bills eventually spurred the single largest Internet protest as countless Web sites, including Wikipedia, went dark. The bills were soundly defeated, but do they ever have a chance of coming back?

    MPAA CEO Chris Dodd was a speaker at San Francisco’s Commonwealth Club on Tuesday night where he spoke at length about SOPA, PIPA, and what Hollywood’s doing to help combat piracy. He also spoke at length with Wired after the talk to further clarify what he thought about the Internet movement against the two anti-piracy bills from earlier this year, and other subjects.

    First of all, Dodd was adamant that SOPA and PIPA are dead. During his interview with Wired, he said that the “legislation is gone. It’s over.” He did say this was his own opinion though. Lawmakers could introduce a similar bill next year.

    As for the Internet’s reaction and subsequent protest, he said that he’s never seen a bigger protest to proposed bills in his life. He also said that the protest “changed forever how people are going to address their elected representatives.” He even went on to call it a “transformative event.”

    After the talk, Dodd provided some more details on the secretive six-strike policy that the MPAA and ISPs are implementing across the country. He says that Internet users will not receive any kind of punishment for the first three offenses, but will be subject to various “mitigation measures” after their fourth offense. These include speed throttling and redirects, but it’s still unclear if ISPs can cut off service altogether for repeat offenders.

    On a final note, it seems that Dodd is ready to start working with the tech sector instead of pushing through ill-conceived legislation. He said that he’s not interested in pursuing a legislative solution, but rather teaming up with the tech industry to educate consumers about piracy and its effects on the marketplace. The fruits of Dodd’s labor can already be seen in Google’s recent algorithm update that adds copyright removal notices to their ranking signals.

  • Don’t Expect To Get Your Megaupload Data Back Anytime Soon

    Collateral damage is unavoidable in war. A good general tries to keep this to a minimum, however, as the people who have no stake in the fight can only suffer. It seems that those waging the war on piracy didn’t get that memo when they took down Megaupload in January.

    The curious case of Megaupload has seen its ups and downs since the beginning, but one thing has remained constant. Users have been repeatedly screwed over in regards to getting their data back. The MPAA, RIAA and the U.S. government all believe that Megaupload was only used for nefarious purposes, and use that line whenever Megaupload argues to have its user’s data returned. The MPAA was actually fine with users getting their data back, but they wanted everybody to play by their own restrictive rules.

    The EFF has been fighting this whole time to have users’ data returned to them after the case of Kyle Goodwin came to light. Goodwin lost his entire business when Megaupload was taken down. There are others who have similar stories. That’s why the judge in the case, Liam O’Grady, wanted all interested parties to work out a deal. No such deal has been struck and users are still stuck without having any access to the data that, in some cases, they may desperately need.

    The only option now is to take the case back to Judge O’Grady. EFF attorney Julie Samuels told TorrentFreak that O’Grady has been slow with a response to their request. In the past, O’Grady has proven that he doesn’t want to make a ruling on the case, but rather favors all parties coming to an agreement. If Apple and Samsung can’t come to an agreement on patents; there’s little to no chance of the MPAA agreeing with the EFF.

    It’s hard to say when O’Grady will come to a decision. He may just send everybody back to the drawing room again to come up with an agreement. Here’s hoping that he actually makes a definitive statement on this case instead of leaving it up to the separate parties to agree on a deal.

    As for Kim Dotcom, here’s his feelings on the matter:

  • Are 30 Songs Really Worth $675,000? The Justice System Thinks So

    We brought you the story of Joel Tenenbaum back in May. He was facing massive statutory damages at the hands of the RIAA for sharing 30 songs via the file sharing service, Kazaa. Unfortunately, he was denied an appeal with the Supreme Court which means that his previous sentence stands.

    The previous sentence sees Tenenbaum having to pay the RIAA a total of $675,000. That comes out to a little below $22,000 per song. The songs themselves are obviously not worth that much, but statutory damages are never about the worth of a product. It’s meant to be a message sent to those who would also pirate music.

    Those same statutory damages were why Tenenbaum tried to appeal to the Supreme Court in the first place. It’s ridiculous to think that the law in this land would award that much money for simply sharing music over file sharing. Regardless of whether or not you think it’s a crime, the amount awarded was simply too ridiculous.

    US District Court Judge Rya Zobel obviously doesn’t think that way. In fact, he thinks that the jury’s award was maybe a little too lenient. Here’s what he had to say:

    “In spite of the overwhelming evidence from which the jury could conclude that Tenenbaum’s activities were willful, the award of $22,500 per infringement not only was at the low end of the range – only 15% of the statutory maximum – for willful infringement, but was below the statutory maximum for non-willful infringement. Considering all of the aforementioned evidence, the jury’s damage award was not so excessive as to merit remittitur.”

    Zobel also says that the $22,000 per song is not “obviously unreasonable.” It seems that the judge and the jury in this case both bought the RIAA’s exaggerated claims of losing oh so much money whenever a song is shared via P2P networks. As it turns out, the RIAA isn’t losing money on piracy, but rather legal procedures trying to combat piracy.

    For now, Tenenbaum is stuck with a massive $675,000 fine that’s now set in stone. Despite not even being 30 yet, he’s pretty much ruined for life. It’s a case of a man who refused to settle during the RIAA file sharing witch hunt and lost. At least we can rest easy knowing that the RIAA finally learned their lesson about suing their customers.

    You can read the judge’s final thought below:

    Sony BMG v Tenenbaum Order August 23 2012

    [h/t: Torrent Freak]

  • Kim Dotcom’s Megabox Will Launch This Year

    Everybody knows about Kim Dotcom by now. The millionaire owner of Megaupload and all its related domains is under fire from the U.S. government. What you may not know is that he was working on a project before Megaupload was taken down by the feds. He is now wanting to get that project back on its feet before the end of the year.

    The project is called Megabox and it has the potential to change how artists sell their music to fans forever. Some conspiracy theory types even suggest the U.S. government took down Megaupload because the record companies were scared of it. If that was the case, why would they be so scared of Megabox?

    In a guest post from Dotcom on TorrentFreak, he describes Megabox as “a site that will soon allow artists to sell their creations direct to consumers and allowing artists to keep 90 percent of their earnings.” It uses a service called Megakey that pays artists even for free downloads. It’s probably similar to what you see BitTorrent doing now with free music downloads that still pay the artist involved through software advertisements.

    Will Megabox actually be as revolutionary as Dotcom thinks it will? We’ll find out by the end of the year as he Tweeted out last night that Megabox and Megaupload will be back by the end of the year.

    It will be interesting to see the U.S. response to Dotcom starting Megaupload and Megabox back up before his extradition trial starts. The FBI and federal lawyers have been doing everything in their power to stop Dotcom. I can’t even begin to imagine what they would do next if he were to start up a new Megaupload.

    [h/t: TNW]

  • YouTube Users File Petition To Allow For The Use Of Third-Party Recording Tools

    Should YouTube users be allowed to rip the content they like to their hard drive, much like a person would use a DVR to record a television show of interest? Some users believe they should have such capabilities, and so, they’ve started a petition essentially asking for DVR rights when using YouTube.

    The petition comes on the heels of the announcement that Google is going after the video-to-mp3 conversion site with the obvious title, YouTube-MP3.com, something that’s reflected in the petition’s introduction:

    For decades people were allowed to take a private copy of a public broadcast. You could record the radio program with a cassette recorder or make a copy of your favorite movie by using a video recorder. All these techniques have been opposed heavily in its early years by the big media companies who didn’t want the public to have such technology. They did describe such technology as criminal and as a threat to their business.

    Several years later history is about to repeat: Google has teamed up with the RIAA to make the same claims against all sorts of online recording tools for their 21th century broadcasting service: YouTube (“Broadcast yourself”). Google is taking action against nearly every service that enables its users to create a private copy of a public YouTube broadcast while the RIAA is threatening news media like CNet for promoting such a software.

    I hereby ask Google to break their silence and participate in an open and fair discussion with the intention to find a solution that suits the needs of the users.

    It should be noted that while consumers could tape music from the radio or make duplicates of other tapes with a dual-cassette setup, it wasn’t necessarily smiled upon by the powers that were. In fact, the MPAA went all out against the technology that was videocassette recorders (VCRs). The difference being, media consumption in the 80s was very much a one-way process, with the consumer having little recourse regarding feedback. Sure, an occasional letter might have made capitalism work in your favor, but there certainly weren’t multiple avenues of communication like those offered by Facebook and Twitter.

    With that in mind, should users be able to make copies of YouTube content, be it in the form of third part video recording software or through sites that rip the video’s soundtrack out, converting it to an MP3? While the comparison between DVRs and Internet broadcasts are based in logic, it’s impossible to see the current powers that be siding with the user here, especially when you consider the massive fuss these content providers have made about YouTube in the past. Perhaps a balance could be struck allowing users who upload their own self-created content to give their viewers the option of downloading the file.

    Other than that, it’s hard to see a day that the RIAA says “sure, you can download any of the music you like from YouTube’s VEVO service, unless the song was purchased by the viewer first. As pointed out by GigaOm, the petition has over 180,000 signatures since it was put up three days prior. While the support is admirable, it’s hard to see this working out in their favor.

  • UK ISP Comes Out Against The Pirate Bay Blockade

    It’s been a little over a month since the The Pirate Bay was blocked in the UK due to a court order. The block was meant to cut down on the amount of file-sharing happening across the Internet, but it seems to have had the reverse effect for now. Now a UK ISP has come out against the court order.

    According to ISPreview, business ISP Fluidata is not a big fan of the The Pirate Bay IP blockade. Back when the court order was originally issued, Virgin Media expressed their disappointment, but only said that there were better ways to combat piracy. Fluidata on the other hand comes out swinging by pointing out the outdated business model that runs the music industry. Andi Soric, account manager for Fluidata had this to say:

    “That the record label business model is ‘out of date’ is a point that scarcely needs to be made. The twin pillars that upheld it; the reliance of artists on record labels to produce music, and consumer demand for cassettes/CD’s, have crumbled at alarming speed under the weight of file sharing and distribution of content, and although efforts have been made by these companies to embrace the internet age and find ways to charge for digital music, the industry still rests on precarious foundations.

    While the internet has disadvantaged record labels, it is important to remember it hasn’t necessarily been a negative to the music industry. To the contrary, British artists such as Ed Sheeran, Jessie J and even American superstars such as Justin Bieber (my personal favorite) can be thankful to the internet for their current career success.

    Self-made artists can now upload audio and use media platforms such as YouTube and MySpace to broadcast their talent to millions of people at virtually no cost. In my view, this can only be positive for music and society as a whole and makes you wonder how many stars have been missed in the last 50 years due to the costs attached to recording and distributing music.”

    Ignoring that Soric is a fan of Justin Bieber for a minute, he has a point. The Internet has completely changed the game of how we create and consume music. I have found so many new artists that would have only been possible thanks to the Internet. That doesn’t mean that we as music consumers want to stop listening to the music produced by the industry. I love the major pop stars just like everybody else who isn’t a hipster. The point is that the music industry, like the television and movie industry, must provide alternative methods for us to enjoy music.

    That being said, I will say the efforts of services like Spotify have definitely helped to modernize the music industry. Compared to movies and television, the music industry is already way ahead thanks to free streaming services. Here’s hoping the MPAA and television industries can work out a deal to have their content available via all major video streaming services.

  • The Pirate Bay Wants To Thank The RIAA For Censorship

    It’s no secret that the RIAA and the MPAA want Google and other search engines to stop listing sites like The Pirate Bay in their search results. The main problem is that Google makes it super easy to find pirated content online. Sure, just typing in a band name will return legitimate sources, but just add on The Pirate Bay to the search and BAM! – instant piracy.

    It’s that problem that has the RIAA so angry about Google and other search engines. People can still use Google to find this content and it’s just so infuriating for content owners. Well, the RIAA has an ally in wanting to censor search engines – The Pirate Bay. Wait, what?

    You heard that right, folks. The Pirate Bay would love nothing more than for Google, Bing and others to filter out their search results so that The Pirate Bay would never be listed again. Isn’t that a bad thing for the torrent tracker though? According to The Pirate Bay, only 10 percent of their traffic comes from these “competing search engines.” That’s not a lot, but why are they competing?

    The Pirate Bay fancies itself as being the most comprehensive media search engine on the Web. If Google and others were forced to remove The Pirate Bay from their results, that would leave only The Pirate Bay getting all that search traffic for media. Ten percent of 30 million users is still a lot and they would now be providing The Pirate Bay with direct searches.

    It’s pretty hard to argue with that kind of logic. Countless people numbering in the millions probably have The Pirate Bay bookmarked and visit it frequently. Policies that the copyright industries tries to push through only serves to help sites like The Pirate Bay.

    The Pirate Bay as they are wont to do issued their thanks to the RIAA in their own special way:

    So from the bottom of our hearts, THANK YOU RIAA, this is great news for us! For once, we support your efforts in something! Let’s make sure that TPB keeps on growing together!

    Hugs’n’kisses from your pals at The Pirate Bay – soon to be the biggest media search engine in the world!

    This is just the latest string in cases that finds attempts against The Pirate Bay to only prove futile, but extremely profitable for The Torrent Tracker. After being banned in the United Kingdom, The Pirate Bay saw its daily user count jump by over 10 million. The tracker also recently revealed that they have numerous IP addresses at their disposal to circumvent any and all attempts at censoring them.

    It’s moments like these that The Pirate Bay truly lives up to its mantra as “The galaxy’s most resilient BitTorrent site.”

  • RIAA Inaccurately Criticizes Google’s Transparency

    When organizations like the MPAA and the RIAA want to complain about the tech industry not helping with the fight against piracy, inevitably, their focus turns to Google. Bing? Not so much, but if you’re going to rattle cages, make sure it’s the one with the biggest lion inside, I suppose. Take the latest blog post from the RIAA, which questions the accuracy of Google’s transparency report, with a misguided approach, which is bolded below:

    Knowing the total number of links to infringing material available and the limitations Google imposes on rights owners to search for infringements reveals how meager the number of notices is relative to the vast amount of infringement. After all, as recently highlighted here, search for any major recording artist’s track and the term “mp3,” and you’ll find that most of the very first results offered by Google direct people to infringing material. Unfortunately, one sees similar results when one searches for any popular creative content followed by the words “free download.”

    The bolded section would indicate that Google limits the amount of searches RIAA officials can when looking for infringing material, which an interesting way of twisting something to fit your needs. As SearchEngineLand points out:

    Google will occasionally throttle suspicious search activity; this may happen, for example, at conferences or events where several hundred people (or more) are searching Google all from the same IP address.

    But that’s not the same as “limitations Google imposes on rights owners to search for infringement” now is it? Apparently, the key to a successful RIAA career is all in how you twist the meaning of something. Yes, Google will throttle suspicious search activity, but a couple of RIAA interns searching for infringement is not the same thing, unless the RIAA is using automated queries. It should come as no surprise that Google is quite clear about their postion:

    Google’s Terms of Service do not allow the sending of automated queries of any sort to our system without express permission in advance from Google. Sending automated queries absorbs resources and includes using any software (such as WebPosition Gold™) to send automated queries to Google to determine how a website or webpage ranks in Google search results for various queries.

    …But who cares about accuracy matter when bombast is your goal? Case in point: the blog post also mentions Google limits the amount of infringement notices an entity can file:

    But Google places artificial limits on the number of queries that can be made by a copyright owner to identify infringements. These limits significantly decrease the utility of Google’s take down tool given the vast nature of the piracy problem today and the number of titles we are trying to protect. The number of queries they allow is miniscule, especially when you consider that Google handles more than 3 billion searches per day. Yet Google has denied requests to remove this barrier to finding the infringements.

    Don’t tell Microsoft that. Who knows, maybe Google likes Microsoft more than it does the RIAA. Truth be told, it’s surprising this kind of argument wasn’t issued on the blog post in question. Furthermore, Google denies restricting the amount of takedown notices one can file in SearchEngineLand’s post:

    We have never imposed any limit on the number of DMCA notices that a copyright owner or reporting organization may send us, although we do have some technical safeguards in our trusted partner program (where submitters may be using automated mechanisms to send large volumes) as a safeguard against accidental flooding of the system.

    In other words, Google has some anti-spam measures in place, which indicates perhaps the RIAA should reexamine their method of submission. That, or perhaps follow Microsoft’s strategy and outsource such tasks. SearchEngineLand also points out that the RIAA is not as active with their requests as Microsoft is, meaning the problem still lies on the RIAA’s end.

    Considering Google’s willingness to takedown infringing results–they boast a 97 percent removal rate–the RIAA’s approach is confusing and misguided. Perhaps if they included other search engines in their slash-and-burn posts, it would be easier to take them seriously. As it stands, trying to single out Google with half-truths and misplaced accusations rings hollow, or at least it should. One hopes the average reader takes a look at both sides of the argument before choosing a side.

  • RIAA Lawsuit Against LimeWire for $72 Trillion Shot Down

    It was reported last May that now-defunct P2P file-sharing program LimeWire had settled with the Recording Industry Association of America for $105 million, though the RIAA wasn’t satisfied, and still demanded that the platform owed it $72 trillion in damages for copyright infringement. Judge Kimba Wood of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York denied the ridiculous claim, which was just shy of all the money in the world.

    Judge Wood rightly called the claim “absurd,” and the $72 trillion number was derived from $150,000 for each time one of 11,000 songs were downloaded. Judge Wood added that the RIAA’s request “offends the canon that we should avoid endorsing statutory interpretations that would lead to absurd results,” adding, “If Plaintiffs were able to pursue a statutory damage theory based on the number of direct infringers per work, Defendants’ damages could reach into the trillions.”

    The RIAA, obviously somehow enchanted, required “more money than the entire music recording industry has made since Edison’s invention of the phonograph in 1877,” according to Kimba. It’s not clear what the all-the-money-in-the-world number might’ve signified – it’s evident that the RIAA wanted everyone to stop all the downloading. And perhaps pirated content-downloading youths might come to fear a warning of perhaps owing a “trillie” some day for their misgivings?

  • Supreme Court Refuses To Hear Tenenbaum File-Sharing Case

    We reported last week on the efforts of Charles Nesson to have the Supreme Court hear his client’s (Joel Tenenbaum) case. The Supreme Court has denied Nesson’s petition. It’s unfortunate since a Supreme Court verdict would go a long way in clearing up the mess we’re in right now.

    As we explained on Friday, the problem came in the form of the original jury award in Tenenbaum’s case. The judge overturned the jury’s decision, however, saying that the award was unconstitutional. When the case went to the appellate level, the judge said that the trial judge couldn’t denounce the award as unconstitutional without first using remittitur.

    That funky word – remittitur – is the main problem here though. Remittitur is a process that the judge can use to slash the award before reaching any kind of constitutional question. As Ars Technica points out, judges must try to resolve processes using “lower-order issues” before they can even approach any questions of constitutionality.

    So what does the refusal of the Supreme Court mean? Tenenbaum will be heading back to the trial level where the judge will more than likely apply remittitur. Unfortunately, remittitur has a drawback – the RIAA can accept the lesser amount or they can force Tenenbaum through the legislative process again. The goal, according to Nesson, is to get Tenenbaum to settle so they can send a message to other would be file-sharers.

    The message according to Nesson is that the RIAA controls the Internet. He says that the RIAA is creating an “urban legend” of sorts that will scare people away from using the Internet. He says their goal is to “reverse the tide of the digital future.”

    While I regret that the Supreme Court didn’t choose to hear this case, I think that Nesson may have played a part in their refusal. I agree that the RIAA was trying to create this “urban legend” during the last decade, but they have cleaned their act up in the last few years. While their tactics may still seem awful and draconian to us, they probably appear far less offensive to the Justices.

    Nesson’s argument that Tenenbaum wasn’t responsible because the songs would have been pirated anyway probably didn’t win over any of the Justices either. The fact of the matter is that Tenenbaum was caught and he admitted to the file-sharing. While we may agree that the music would have been pirated either way, Tenenbaum has already submitted himself to the courts with his admission.

    The only thing we can hope for now is that the Supreme Court will hear a similar case someday, but it looks like it won’t be Tenenbaum. The only thing he can do is keep on fighting or just settle. Considering that the RIAA seems to spare no expense when it comes to court battles, I’m putting my money on a settlement happening anytime soon.

    We’ve reached out to Nesson for comment and we’ll update this story if we hear anything back.

    UPDATE

    Nesson got back to us and provided this short comment:

    “Back to the district court for judge to consider remitting the verdict to a reasonable amount.”

  • New Center For Copyright Info Set To Start Sinking Pirates Soon

    Remember when Google defended itself from any culpability due to “safe-harbor” protection from hosting copyright-infringing material and, instead, argued that the responsibility of policing those infringements should rest with the copyright holders themselves? It appears as that several entertainment companies have begrudgingly taken Google’s advice and now, with the help of several internet service providers, are preparing to roll out the Center for Copyright Information, you’re one-stop shopping center for all things anti-piracy.

    According to Greg Sandoval over at CNET, the new foreboding-sounding organization will be opening its doors for business very soon and will basically be the hub with which ISPs, film studios, and music labels will work to curb the scrouge of online copyright infringement. According to a document from last July wherein the CCI was proposed, the center will multitask the effort against online privacy by educating the public on the dos and don’ts of online privacy while assisting in the handling of “subscribers engaged in persistent peer-to-peer online infringement.”

    Regarding that last part, the CCI will be involved in the overseeing of the graduate-response program that you may have heard of if you’re familiar with the ongoing piracy saga. Last month, RIAA CEO Cary Sherman told the Association of American Publishers that ISPs would be tightening the grip on online piracy as soon as July 12. The graduated response essentially represents a hierarchy of offenses that contain an escalation of punitive measures for repeat offenders including, among other things, something that sounds oddly like internet traffic school. One imagines that, eventually, you might even win a suspension of service although it doesn’t appear ISPs will outright terminate a user’s internet service.

    Sandoval reports that the CCI has tapped Jill Lesser, the managing director of lobbying and public policy firm Glover Park Group, to head the center.

  • Head Of The RIAA Says ISPs To Implement Anti-Piracy Measures By July 12

    Internet service providers are set to start clamping down on illegal file sharing this summer, according to the head of the RIAA. Speaking at the annual meating of the Association of American Publishers, RIAA CEO Cary Sherman said that ISPs that are partcipating in the program will begin implementing their new policies by July 12th.

    The new policy was unveiled last year when AT&T, Comcast, Time Warner, and other ISPs announced their participation in a new “graduated response” program for dealing with illegal file sharing. Under the program those caught downloading would receive a series of escalating warnings. The first notices are “education,” informing users that downloading copyrighted material without paying for it is illegal, and warning of negative consequences to come. After these education notices come confirmation notices, where the customer is required to acknowledge receipt of the warnings. If the customer continues downloading, ISPs have a range of “mitigation measures” available to discourage or prevent future file sharing. Such measures include connection throttling and suspension of access.

    According to CNet, ISPs who will implement the “graduated response” measures include Cablevision, Time Warner, Comcast, and others. Sherman says that participating ISPs should have their policies in place by July 12th. Each ISP will be responsible for establishing a system for catching downloaders and keeping track of their offenses. The number of warnings at each level is also at the ISPs’ discretion, as is the specific nature of the consequences. No participating ISP has agreed to cut off a customer’s internet service permanently.

    All things considered, this graduated response method is a far more reasonable measure than the ill-conceived and ill-fated SOPA and PIPA laws that effectively died in Congress earlier this year after massive protests.

    What do you think of this “graduated response” policy? Will it actually curb file sharing? Should ISPs be in charge of policing what people do on the internet? Let us know in the comments.

  • Kim Dotcom Says Many MegaUpload Users Are From US Government

    When MegaUpload went down in January, there were complaints from many legitimate users of the site saying that their personal files, including files for work, were gone. One of the solutions has been in the form of a lawsuit being brought against the FBI by the Pirate Party.

    Kit Dotcom, finally out on bail, has told TorrentFreak that he is now also working with the Department of Justice to get legitimate users their files back. The deal described by Dotcom would have Megaupload users being allowed temporary access to their files to retrieve them.

    The most interesting news, however, comes from the revelation that many users of MegaUpload included government officials from the DoJ and US Senate.

    This isn’t the first time that the very people who are trying to stop copyright infringement have been caught with their hands in the proverbial cookie jar. It was revealed in December that employees at the RIAA and Department of Homeland Security were found to be downloading illegal copies of files. In our original report for example, it was found that people at the RIAA had been downloading all five seasons of Dexter over BitTorrent.

    This is just another case of government officials’ hypocrisy. They push for stricter anti-file sharing laws while their own employees use the benefit of their office’s high speed Internet connection to download all the illegal files they want.

    Going back to Kim Dotcom’s attempt at getting users their files back, the revelation that government officials use the service as well probably won’t help him in his upcoming extradition case. It will, however, make people more aware of the hypocrisy in government which could have an effect on other proceedings and the push for new laws like H.R. 1981.

    We’ll keep you updated on any and all developments in the continuing MegaUpload saga.

  • Spotify and Artists Still Disagree Over Royalties

    Spotify and Artists Still Disagree Over Royalties

    Spotify and artists are in the midst of a battle of sorts over royalties that each feel is deserved. The thing in question is, how much? How much is a digital stream worth? Some services pay more than others, some charge more to play than others.

    If the record companies are to be believed, then as of right now, the average artist has to have their song streamed anywhere between 80 and 200 times for them to equal the amount of money earned from 1 digital download. When the numbers do not add up, and the artists and record labels refuse to move forward with their business model, things like Napster and Limewire happen. So how does the mold of the business model that the music industry runs on get changed?

    All most labels see is the sheer numbers of streams vs. digital downloads. 200 streams equals $1, while 1 digital download equals $1. The void between these 2 needs to be closed. With a more dynamic paying system between up and coming services such as Spotify, and behemoths like iTunes, the industry will move forward more fluidly. Unless services that dominate the digital download service (iTunes) stop charging Coldplay rates for garage band tunes, the void will never be broached. Beacuse all the Labels will see is the all mighty dollar sign, not what was done to get there.

    Because the digital music era is still in its infancy, the ability to look forward 20 years is way harder than to look back 20 years to see a new 10 track Michael Jackson album earn $20 a pop. As the industry pushes forward, and the digital age fully takes hold of the music industry, changes will happen and bands like Coldplay and Rihanna will show up on services like Spotify on day 1. Until then, the fight goes on.

    @RobertAndrews
    Robert Andrews    EMI’s @cosmolush to me on Coldplay streaming blackout: No comment. Spotify’s @britenation: We won’t play out rates debate in press 3 days ago via Mobile Web ·  Reply ·  Retweet ·  Favorite · powered by @socialditto

  • The Pirate Bay: RIAA Is Kid Screaming For Candy

    The RIAA and The Pirate Bay are at it again. Both groups have fired at each other over blogs that paint each other in a negative light. Let’s watch the fireworks, shall we?

    Mitch Glazier, Senior Executive VP of the RIAA wrote a blog post titled, “The Pirate Bay: Exhibit A For Why Foreign Rogue Websites Must Be Effectively Addressed.” In the blog post, he details the recent convictions of the founders of The Pirate Bay that we reported on. He also says that the Web site’s move to an .se domain name clearly demonstrates why there needs to be new laws to address “foreign rogue Web sites” – laws like SOPA and PIPA.

    The Pirate Bay isn’t one to stand for it and published a piece on TorrentFreak in response to the RIAA. “Winston” comes out swinging fast and hard by saying that Glazier’s use of the term “copyright theft” is incorrect.

    Winston is about to jump into semantics, so be prepared:

    A small lesson to Mr Glazier: If someone steals something, you don’t have it anymore. If you copy it, both have it. This means: If someone steals your copyright (aka “copyright theft”) you don’t have the copyright anymore. I’m having a hard time to see that happening though, since copyright isn’t really physical.

    As for the argument that piracy is leading to lost jobs, Winston say to blame technology, not them:

    The jobs that you say are being stolen in the US are somewhat physical though. And if someone steals them where do they go? Maybe they just aren’t needed anymore! That’s what technology does! Sorry, it’s 2012 not 1912 – do you want to forbid robots as well, since they steal jobs?

    As for the RIAA pushing for stricter copyright laws in global treaties like ACTA and TPP, Winston draws upon their recent move from a .org domain to a .se:

    Yes, Glazier is upset that TPB moved away from a US-controlled domain name. He doesn’t seem to understand that there is a worldwide problem when one single country tries to take control over a global infrastructure. TPB has no connections to the US so why should the US be able to control it?

    It’s a very undemocratic procedure which obviously the RIAA is supportive of. Apparently “escaping US laws” means not being born in the US, not living there, not working there or not wanting to kiss your ass.

    The RIAA does have a point when it says that several European ISPs are now blocking The Pirate Bay due to court orders. The only problem is that said blocking may now be illegal with the recent ruling that said social networks are not required to filter their users’ Internet. The same goes for ISPs as well.

    Winston ends with a criticism on the RIAA that I think is important enough to include in its entirety:

    The RIAA wants the tech industry to sit down and talk to them. Fuck that. You’re not in charge. If you want the help of the tech industry, ask for it. You’ll probably get it since most tech people are nice. You’re not in charge anymore and that’s probably why you’re pissed off.

    Plz stop calling yourself “the creative community”. You’re not a community, you’re a coalition of some of the richest companies in the world. And the only thing you seem to be creative with is your accounting procedures.

    The recording industry is like a kid screaming for candy. The problem is that the kid has diabetes.

    The RIAA has not yet responded to The Pirate Bay’s response. When they do, we’ll be sure to update you.

    Do you think that the RIAA or The Pirate Bay has the better argument? Is file sharing equatable to theft, or is it just that – sharing? Let us know in the comments.

  • Google May One Day Face Lawsuit From Music Industry

    Google May One Day Face Lawsuit From Music Industry

    The entertainment industry doesn’t like search engines. They may take that dislike to the next level soon.

    TorrentFreak is reporting that IFPI wants Google to play nice with the entertainment industries by removing “pirate” Web sites from search results and giving preference to legal options.

    We reported last month that Google and other search engines met behind closed doors with the entertainment industry. The meeting provided the entertainment industry a chance to lay out what they felt search engines should be doing to better combat piracy.

    There’s a document being shared among those in the music industry that details IFPI’s option to sue Google if the search engine doesn’t step up its game on enforcing copyright. The document, with bits and pieces obtained by TorrentFreak, detail the continuing efforts by IFPI and the RIAA to negotiate better anti-piracy practices with Google. It’s interesting to note that Google has apparently provided IFPI with tools that allow them to mark search terms as infringing.

    Using the tool, IFPI marked 460,000 search results between August and December of last year. They also requested the shut down of Blogger sites that contained infringing content.

    It already seems like Google is bending over backward to provide IFPI with the tools to stop piracy, but it just is never enough. IFPI is considering bringing a lawsuit against Google because they fail to prioritize legal links over infringing links.

    To play devil’s advocate for a moment, IFPI does have a legitimate complaint. Searching “Adele download” on Google returns only two legitimate links with the rest being links to The Pirate Bay, filestube and other free MP3 sites.

    (image)

    Notice how the search was not for “Free Adele download” which funny enough returns the same links that only replaces iTunes with an Amazon link to a free Adele track that was given out as a promotion.

    (image)

    Of course, I guess IFPI doesn’t care that the bottom half of the search page is just plastered with DMCA takedown notices. It’s also worth noting that there are two more takedown notices under “Adele download” for whatever reason.

    (image)

    If Google doesn’t filter their search results to give priority to legal music sites, IFPI may file an antitrust lawsuit against the search engine. The document details this option:

    “With a view to addressing this failure, IFPI obtained a highly confidential and preliminary legal opinion in July 2011 on the possibility of bringing a competition law complaint against Google for abuse of its dominant position, given the distortion of the market for legitimate online music that is likely to result from Google’s prioritizing of illegal sites.”

    It’s hard to say whether a lawsuit will happen, but big things will happen if it does. How big? Let’s imagine a David and Goliath scenario except there is no underdog. They will both have tactical lawyers just waiting to rip each other a new one in a court of law. There’s been fights between the technology and entertainment industries before, but going against Google would be something new.

    Let’s hope nothing comes out of it, but bust out the Michael Jackson eating popcorn gif if it does.

  • Government Introducing “Six Strike” System To Combat P2P Piracy

    It used to be that if you were found to be downloading something off of a P2P network, you were sent a letter demanding that you pay a settlement or go to court. The RIAA found out later that suing their customers didn’t exactly have the intended results. More people pirated music and much hatred for the trade group emanated from the masses.

    That back story sets up the current “six strike” system that the RIAA proposed in July 2011. They signed on AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, Cablevision and Time Warner Cable to implement a “graduated response system.”

    What would this “six strike” system entail? Well, a P2P user would be give warnings until their fifth or sixth alert. The ISPs at this point would implement more strict measures such as throttling the user’s Internet or redirect them to a warning page until they call their ISP to discuss copyright matters. They could also deem it necessary to permanently disconnect the user from the Internet.

    The group put in charge of this is the new Center for Copyright Information. CCI’s Web site and Twitter account were created on July 7, but neither have been updated since. The group said that ISPs would be implementing copyright alerts in 2011 and 2012 and that the center would be formally opened in 2011.

    It’s now February 2012 and there’s no sign of the CCI. Ars Technica found this odd and went digging. They found a couple of sources who would comment on the group off the record. They confirmed that the CCI is still continuing onward and will launch shortly. They have hired an executive director and are waiting for the director to get caught up to speed before they announce anything.

    As Ars Technica rightly points out, the Internet has changed since the RIAA first formulated this plan. More people are sharing content through streaming sites and file lockers. Going after people on P2P networks isn’t going to be as effective as it would have been a few years ago.