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Archive for the 'Copyright' Category

Piracy is theft? No it’s not…

Published on July 5, 2007 in Copyright. 0 Comments

I found this nugget of information at the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) web site while trying to find a way to pay royalties separately from obtaining the media.

Downloading a movie without paying for it is no different than walking into a store and stealing a DVD off the shelf.

http://www.mpaa.org/piracy_whoAre.asp

Erm, “no different”? I’m not a lawyer, but I think it’s very different.

Downloading a movie without paying for it is copyright infringement if you use the movie in a way not intended or authorised by the copyright holder. Walking into a store and stealing a DVD off the shelf is theft of material goods.

Downloading a movie without paying for it does not cause a financial loss to the owner. Walking into a store and stealing a DVD off the shelf does cause financial loss to the owner.

While I fully understand that copyright holders, rightfully, expect to be paid, or at least asked for permission, before their property is used, the use of FUD to distort the truth and control, confuse and scare people is not the right way to go about it.

I’m not the first to suggest this, but rather than trying desperately to stop movie distribution over the Internet, the MPAA and movie studios should be embracing this technology and using it to their benefit. People who download movies don’t require pretty packaging, DVD media or shipping. What I’d like to be able to do is to download a movie legally.

Imagine I’m at work, and decide I want to watch Epic Movie tonight. I could simply download the movie to my computer at home using bittorrent and nip over to a web site to pay the royalties. When I get home, the movie’s ready for me to watch and paid for. I can stream it to my TV or burn it onto a CD or DVD and watch it with my DVD player.
The (legal) options right now are to buy the movie, rent it, wait for it to come on TV or download movies that use some form of digital restrictions management (DRM) to stop me from using the media in the way I choose. Examples of DRM include only allowing you to watch the movie from the computer you downloaded it with, only watching it 3 times, having to run Microsoft Windows to view the movie, etc.
There are a few services that provide DRM free content, but the media can only be downloaded from their server, which means I don’t get the higher speeds and availability associated with distributed, peer-to-peer downloading.
Opponents might suggest that people will download movies and not pay for them, but that’s already happening. If you give people the choice to do the right thing, those that want to, will. Those that want it for free wouldn’t buy the DVD in the store anyway.

So tell me – anyone know how I can pay royalties for movies?

File sharing

Published on March 15, 2007 in Copyright, Patents, Politics and Security. 0 Comments

The USPTO’s Office of International relations released a report in November 2006 titled Filesharing Programs and “Technological Features to Induce Users to Share”.

Their view is that many peer-to-peer file sharing applications include technological features that make it easy for people to inadvertently share files they might not want to, such as copyrighted material and last years tax returns. Consequences included the sharing of government and military secrets and putting children and unsophisticated users into a position where they were breaking laws.

In other news, gun manufacturers have been found to intentionally allow people to inadvertently shoot people. One gunman, whose identity cannot be divulged, said

“I don’t know what happened. I just wanted to rob the bank, but then I pulled the trigger and shot this guy. I didn’t bother reading the manual, but who would have thought that pulling the trigger would actually make the bullet come out. I thought I’d have to enable it or something! These gun manufacturers are simply irresponsible!”.

Would you like some FUD with that?

Published on September 26, 2006 in Copyright, Politics and Security. 0 Comments

Politicians do it; CEOs do it; Even educated MPAA officials do it; Let’s do it; Let’s spread the FUD!

Can you spot the oxymoron?

Anyhow – digg just pointed me at this highly amusing poster that is meant to teach kids not to upload copyrighted media.

Q: Why shouldn’t you upload copyrighted media?

A: Because you risk:

  • breaking the law
  • getting exposed to pornographic materials
  • downloading a serious computer virus
  • sharing your personal data, which can lead to identity theft

A “free” movie might actually cost you. It may be free, but it could be illicit material cna come with a virus as well.

Some Peer-2-Peer file-sharing services could put your family’s financial records on the screen – to be seen across the entire Internet.

Well I’m glad to know that I’m only risking breaking the law – not actually breaking the law.

And who in their right mind keeps financial records on a computer that’s linked to the Internet? Given that most people still use Windows and a lot of those still use Internet Explorer and Outlook Express, I’d be more worried about the spyware and viruses that this software combination exposes you to.

And just to be a little anal about this – why would uploading copyrighted material put you at the risk of downloading a serious computer virus? Which part of this upload process involves the download of another file. Unless they mean the peer-to-peer file sharing application, of course.

It’s a slow news day for me. Need another coffee.

Spain legalise copyright infringement!

Published on June 28, 2006 in Copyright and Politics. 0 Comments

Maybe they don’t think so, but as one person commented in the slashdot article, it’s pretty damn close to it!

Essentially, they’re adding a copyright licence in the form of a tax on blank media “including flash memory sticks, blank cd and dvd-rs, even mobile phones and printers”, which will be given to the copyright holder.

I wonder how they know what I’m going to burn on to the CD. If it is copyrighted music, then who gets the royalty? If I’m just backing up my personal files, can I apply for a refund? As making backups for personal use is still legal in Span, will people who have already paid royalties by purchasing the original CD/DVD be able to apply for a refund?

ZeroPaid story via Slashdot article.