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[Meho Krljic]

The Battle over C-11 Concludes: How Thousands of Canadians Changed The Copyright Debate 

Monday June 18, 2012

Nearly 15 years of debate over digital copyright reform will come to an end today as Bill C-11, the fourth legislative attempt at Canadian copyright reform, passes in the House of Commons. Although the bill must still receive Senate approval, that is likely to be a formality that could happen very quickly. Many participants in the copyright debate view the bill with great disappointment, pointing to the government's decision to adopt restrictive digital lock rules as a signal that their views were ignored. There is no sugar-coating the loss on digital locks. While other countries have been willing to stand up to U.S. pressure and adopt a more flexible approach, the government, led by Canadian Heritage Minister James Moore on the issue, was unwilling to compromise despite near-universal criticism of its approach. It appears that once Prime Minister Stephen Harper made the call for a DMCA-style approach in early May 2010, the digital lock issue was lost. The government heard that the bill will hurt IP enforcement, restrict access for the blind, disadvantage Canadian creators, and harm consumer rights. It received tens of thousands of comments from Canadians opposed to the approach and ran a full consultation in which digital locks were the leading concern. The NDP, Liberals, and Green Party proposed balanced amendments to the digital lock rules that were consistent with international requirements and would have maintained protection for companies that use them, but all were rejected. Yet with an eye to the Trans Pacific Partnership as well as pressure from the U.S. government and U.S. backed lobby groups, seemingly no amount of evidence or public pressure would shift its approach. The net result is incredibly disappointing with even Conservative MPs assuring constituents that digital lock enforcement against individuals is unlikely (there are no statutory damages for non-commercial circumvention). Despite the loss on digital locks, however, the passage of Bill C-11 features some important wins for Canadians who spoke out on copyright. I delivered a talk at NXNE last week in Toronto in which I made the case that the "Canadian copyfight" had resulted in dramatic changes to Canadian copyright. While not everyone was convinced (others have expressed similar skepticism), I think the evidence speaks for itself. Since the Conservatives took power in 2006, there were effectively four bills: the Pre-Bill C-61 bill that was to have been introduced by Jim Prentice in December 2007 but was delayed following public pressure, Bill C-61 introduced in June 2008, and Bill C-32/C-11, which was introduced in June 2010 (and later reintroduced in September 2011). The contents of December 2007 bill was never released, but documents obtained under the Access to Information Act provide a good sense of what it contained (a call was even scheduled on the planned day of introduction between Prentice and U.S. Ambassador David Wilkins to assure the U.S. that digital locks were the key issue and would not be altered).  This chart highlights many of the key issues and their progression over the years as the public became increasingly vocal on copyright:     Issue [/t] Pre-Bill C-61 (2007) [/q][/t][/t] Bill C-61 (2008) Bill C-11 (2012) Fair Dealing Expansion [/t] No No Yes (education, parody, satire) Format Shifting [/t] No Limited (only photographs, book, newspaper, periodical, or videocassette) Yes (technology neutral, no limit on number of copies, includes network storage, and no reference to contractual overrides) Time Shifting [/t] No Limited (no network PVRs, Internet communications) Yes (C-61 limitations removed) Backup Copies [/t] No No Yes User Generated Content Exception [/t] No No Yes Statutory Damages Cap [/t] No Limited ($500 cap for downloading) Yes (Max of $5000 for all non-commercial infringement) Enabler enforcement provision [/t] No No Yes Internet Publicly Available Materials Exception for Education [/t] Yes Yes Yes Public Performance in Schools[/t] No No Yes Technology Neutral Display Exception in Schools [/t] No No Yes Limited Distance Learning Exception [/t] Yes Yes Yes Limited Digital Inter-Library Loans [/t] Yes Yes Yes Notice-and-Notice [/t] Yes Yes Yes Notice-and-Takedown [/t] No No No Three Strikes//Website Blocking [/t] No No No Internet Location Tool Provider Safe Harbour [/t] Yes Yes Yes Broadcaster Ephemeral Change [/t] No No Yes Expanded Private Copying Levy [/t] No No No Commissioned Photograph Change [/t] Yes Yes Yes Alternate Format Reproduction [/t] No No Yes The first five issues - fair dealing, time shifting, format shifting, backup copies, and user generated content - are all user-focused reforms. None were the source of serious interest from the major lobby groups (even education groups were initially more interested in an Internet exception than fair dealing reform). None were included as part of the pre-Bill C-61 approach and just two appeared in limited form in Bill C-61 itself. Yet as the public became increasingly engaged on copyright, the government shifted its approach and added these provisions in an effort to address their concerns. The importance of these provisions should not underestimated. For example, the non-commercial user generated content provision contains broad protections for individuals and websites that host the content. The next two issues on the chart - statutory damages and enforcement - were not part of the 2007 bill either. The goverment eventually arrived a trade-off that most Canadians would make: a tougher provision to target sites that facilitate infringement (the law already allows rights holders to do this) in return for a full cap on liability for non-commercial infringement. This applies not only to individuals (likely bringing to an end the prospect of file sharing lawsuits in Canada) but to any non-commercial entity including educational institutions and libraries (who may adopt more aggressive interpretations of the law with less risk of liability). The success of individual Canadians is also found in what did not make its way into the bill. Despite some other countries caving to pressure on increase Internet provider liability by adopting notice-and-takedown, three strikes, or website blocking, all those measures were rejected by the Canadian government. The pressure for website blocking during the SOPA debates was particularly intense but it generated tens of thousands of emails earlier this year that seemingly put a stop to the prospect for their inclusion in the bill. Instead, C-11 kept the more balanced notice-and-notice system with the benefits of effectiveness and preservation of free speech and subscriber privacy. Similarly, efforts to expand the private copying levy were rejected, replaced by the backup copy and format shifting provisions that allow Canadians to make personal copies with no additional fees or liability. These are all issues that respond to public voices on copyright. The government gradually did more for education as well. The exception for publicly available materials on the Internet was there from the beginning, but the expansion of fair dealing and the new exceptions for display (which could prove very valuable) and public performance (which should save significant money in licence fees) which only arrived in 2010 are useful. The digital lock rules and the restrictive distance learning provisions (with destruction of lessons) hurt, but the education provisions unquestionably improved since 2007. This is not to suggest that the changes are due solely to Canadians speaking out on copyright. They clearly are not: the broadcaster reforms reflect the strength of that lobby and the retention of notice-and-notice certainly owes much to the influence of Canada's telecom companies. Moreover, the identity of the government ministers makes an enormous difference, with former Industry Minister Tony Clement clearly focusing on the importance of a technology-neutral, forward looking approach that led to important changes in Bill C-32. Yet it can be argued that the two most important forces shaping the evolution of Canadian copyright policy since the Conservatives took power in 2006 have been U.S. pressure on digital locks matched against public pressure for greater flexibility and balance. The U.S. pressure was relentless, particularly in the aftermath of Canada caving on an anti-camcording provision that sent the message that high level pressure worked. The result were digital lock rules mandated at the very highest level in the Canadian government. Public engagement on copyright continuously grew in strength - from the Bulte battle in 2006 to the Facebook activism in 2007 to the immediate response to the 2008 bill to the 2009 copyright consultation to the 2010 response to Bill C-32. While many dismissed the role of digital activism on copyright, the reality is that it had a huge impact on the shape of Canadian copyright. The public voice influenced not only the contents of the bill, but the debate as well with digital locks the dominant topic of House of Commons debate and media coverage until the very end. Bill C-11 remains a "flawed but fixable" bill that the government refused to fix, but that it is a significantly better bill than seemed possible a few years ago owes much to the hundreds of thousands of Canadians that spoke out on copyright.

[Meho Krljic]

E, sad, zanimljivo sučeljavanje mišljenja. Prvo je Emily White, dvadesetjednogodišnji koledž radio didžej koja veli da je u životu kupila jedva 15 CDova a ima 11000 pesama na iPodu, te da je boli da umetnici nisu kompenzovani ali da ne veruje da će njena generacija ikada plaćati za muziku. Odgovara joj na ovom topiku već ekstenzivno citirani David Lowery i... kao  uvek daje dobre argumente (in a natšel: to da smo spremni da platimo svima: i hosting sajtu, i onome ko proizvodi tehnologiju i onome ko daje distributivnu mrežu, ali samo kad treba da platimo autoru muzike tu kažemo "Jedi gomna, pohlepna spodobo"). Evo:

I Never Owned Any Music To Begin With 

   by Emily White      A few days before my internship at All Songs Considered started, Bob Boilen posted an article titled "I Just Deleted All My Music" on this blog. The post is about entrusting his huge personal music library to the cloud. Though this seemed like a bold step to many people who responded to the article, to me, it didn't seem so bold at all. I never went through the transition from physical to digital. I'm almost 21, and since I first began to love music I've been spoiled by the Internet.
I am an avid music listener, concertgoer, and college radio DJ. My world is music-centric. I've only bought 15 CDs in my lifetime. Yet, my entire iTunes library exceeds 11,000 songs.
I wish I could say I miss album packaging and liner notes and rue the decline in album sales the digital world has caused. But the truth is, I've never supported physical music as a consumer. As monumental a role as musicians and albums have played in my life, I've never invested money in them aside from concert tickets and T-shirts.
But I didn't illegally download (most) of my songs. A few are, admittedly, from a stint in the 5th grade with the file-sharing program Kazaa. Some are from my family. I've swapped hundreds of mix CDs with friends. My senior prom date took my iPod home once and returned it to me with 15 gigs of Big Star, The Velvet Underground and Yo La Tengo (I owe him one).
During my first semester at college, my music library more than tripled. I spent hours sitting on the floor of my college radio station, ripping music onto my laptop. The walls were lined with hundreds of albums sent by promo companies and labels to our station over the years.
All of those CDs are gone. My station's library is completely digital now, and so is my listening experience.
If my laptop died and my hard-drive disappeared tomorrow, I would certainly mourn the loss of my 100-plus playlists, particularly the archives of all of my college radio shows. But I'd also be able to rebuild my "library" fairly easily. If I wanted to listen to something I didn't already have in my patchwork collection, I could stream it on Spotify.
As I've grown up, I've come to realize the gravity of what file-sharing means to the musicians I love. I can't support them with concert tickets and T-shirts alone. But I honestly don't think my peers and I will ever pay for albums. I do think we will pay for convenience.
What I want is one massive Spotify-like catalog of music that will sync to my phone and various home entertainment devices. With this new universal database, everyone would have convenient access to everything that has ever been recorded, and performance royalties would be distributed based on play counts (hopefully with more money going back to the artist than the present model). All I require is the ability to listen to what I want, when I want and how I want it. Is that too much to ask?
Emily White is this summer's All Songs Considered intern. She is a senior at American University in Washington, D.C. and the general manager of WVAU 

Letter to Emily White at NPR All Songs Considered. 

Recently Emily White, an intern at NPR All Songs Considered and GM of what appears to be her college radio station, wrote a post on the NPR blog in which she acknowledged that while she had 11,000 songs in her music library, she's only paid for 15 CDs in her life. Our intention is not to embarrass or shame her. We believe young people like Emily White who are fully engaged in the music scene are the artist's biggest allies. We also believe–for reasons we'll get into–that she has been been badly misinformed by the Free Culture movement. We only ask the opportunity to present a countervailing viewpoint.
Emily:
My intention here is not to shame you or embarrass you. I believe you are already on the side of musicians and artists and you are just grappling with how to do the right thing. I applaud your courage in admitting you do not pay for music, and that you do not want to but you are grappling with the moral implications. I just think that you have been presented with some false choices by what sounds a lot like what we hear from the "Free Culture" adherents.
I must disagree with the underlying premise of what you have written. Fairly compensating musicians is not a problem that is up to governments and large corporations to solve. It is not up to them to make it "convenient" so you don't behave unethically. (Besides–is it really that inconvenient to download a song from iTunes into your iPhone? Is it that hard to type in your password? I think millions would disagree.)
Rather, fairness for musicians is a problem that requires each of us to individually look at our own actions, values and choices and try to anticipate the consequences of our choices. I would suggest to you that, like so many other policies in our society, it is up to us individually to put pressure on our governments and private corporations to act ethically and fairly when it comes to artists rights. Not the other way around. We cannot wait for these entities to act in the myriad little transactions that make up an ethical life. I'd suggest to you that, as a 21-year old adult who wants to work in the music business, it is especially important for you to come to grips with these very personal ethical issues.
I've been teaching college students about the economics of the music business at the University of Georgia for the last two years. Unfortunately for artists, most of them share your attitude about purchasing music. There is a disconnect between their personal behavior and a greater social injustice that is occurring. You seem to have internalized that ripping 11,000 tracks in your iPod compared to your purchase of 15 CDs in your lifetime feels pretty disproportionate. You also seem to recognize that you are not just ripping off the record labels but you are directly ripping off the artist and songwriters whose music you "don't buy". It doesn't really matter that you didn't take these tracks from a file-sharing site. That may seem like a neat dodge, but I'd suggest to you that from the artist's point of view, it's kind of irrelevant.
Now, my students typically justify their own disproportionate choices in one of two ways. I'm not trying to set up a "strawman", but I do have a lot of  anecdotal experience with this.
"It's OK not to pay for music because record companies rip off artists and do not pay artists anything." In the vast majority of cases, this is not true. There have been some highly publicized abuses by record labels. But most record contracts specify royalties and advances to artists. Advances are important to understand–a prepayment of unearned royalties. Not a debt, more like a bet. The artist only has to "repay" (or "recoup") the advance from record sales. If there are no or insufficient record sales, the advance is written off by the record company. So it's false to say that record companies don't pay artists. Most of the time they not only pay artists, but they make bets on artists.  And it should go without saying that the bets will get smaller and fewer the more unrecouped advances are paid by labels.
Secondly, by law the record label must pay songwriters (who may also be artists) something called a "mechanical royalty" for sales of CDs or downloads of the song. This is paid regardless of whether a record is recouped or not. The rate is predetermined, and the license is compulsory. Meaning that the file sharing sites could get the same license if they wanted to, at least for the songs. They don't. They don't wanna pay artists.
Also, you must consider the fact that the vast majority of artists are releasing albums independently and there is not a "real" record company. Usually just an imprint owned by the artist. In the vast majority of cases you are taking money directly from the artist. How does one know which labels are artist owned? It's not always clear. But even in the case of corporate record labels, shouldn't they be rewarded for the bets they make that provides you with recordings you enjoy? It's not like the money goes into a giant bonfire in the middle of the woods while satanic priests conduct black masses and animal sacrifices. Usually some of that money flows back to artists, engineers and people like you who graduate from college and get jobs in the industry. And record labels also give your college radio stations all those CDs you play.
Artists can make money on the road (or its variant "Artists are rich"). The average income of a musician that files taxes is something like 35k a year w/o benefits. The vast majority of artists do not make significant money on the road. Until recently, most touring activity was a money losing operation. The idea was the artists would make up the loss through recorded music sales. This has been reversed by the financial logic of file-sharing and streaming. You now tour to support making albums if you are very, very lucky. Otherwise, you pay for making albums out of your own pocket. Only the very top tier of musicians make ANY money on the road. And only the 1% of the 1% makes significant money on the road. (For now.)
Over the last 12 years I've watched revenue flowing to artists collapse.

Recorded music revenue is down 64% since 1999.
Per capita spending on music is 47% lower than it was in 1973!!
The number of professional musicians has fallen 25% since 2000.
Of the 75,000 albums released in 2010 only 2,000 sold more than 5,000 copies. Only 1,000 sold more than 10,000 copies. Without going into details, 10,000 albums is about the point where independent artists begin to go into the black on professional album production, marketing and promotion.

On a personal level, I have witnessed the impoverishment of many critically acclaimed but marginally commercial artists. In particular, two dear friends: Mark Linkous (Sparklehorse) and Vic Chesnutt. Both of these artists, despite growing global popularity, saw their total  incomes fall in the last decade. There is no other explanation except for the fact that "fans" made the unethical choice to take their music without compensating these artists.
Shortly before Christmas 2009, Vic took his life. He was my neighbor, and I was there as they put him in the ambulance. On March 6th, 2010, Mark Linkous shot himself in the heart. Anybody who knew either of these musicians will tell you that the pair suffered depression. They will also tell you their situation was worsened by their financial situation. Vic was deeply in debt to hospitals and, at the time, was publicly complaining about losing his home. Mark was living in abject squalor in his remote studio in the Smokey Mountains without adequate access to the mental health care he so desperately needed.
I present these two stories to you not because I'm pointing fingers or want to shame you. I just want to illustrate that "small" personal decisions have very real consequences, particularly when millions of people make the decision not to compensate artists they supposedly "love". And it is up to us individually to examine the consequences of our actions. It is not up to governments or corporations to make us choose to behave ethically. We have to do that ourselves.
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Now, having said all that, I also deeply empathize with your generation. You have grown up in a time when technological and commercial interests are attempting to change our principles and morality. Rather than using our morality and principles to guide us through technological change, there are those asking us to change our morality and principles to fit the technological change–if a machine can do something, it ought to be done. Although it is the premise of every "machines gone wild" story since Jules Verne or Fritz Lang, this is exactly backwards. Sadly, I see the effects of this thinking with many of my students.
These technological and commercial interests have largely exerted this pressure through the Free Culture movement, which is funded by a handful of large tech corporations and their foundations in the US, Canada, Europe and other countries.* Your letter clearly shows that you sense that something is deeply wrong, but you don't put your finger on it. I want to commend you for doing this. I also want to enlist you in the fight to correct this outrage. Let me try to to show you exactly what is wrong. What it is you can't put your finger on.
The fundamental shift in principals and morality is about who gets to control and exploit the work of an artist. The accepted norm for hudreds of years of western civilization is the artist exclusively has the right to exploit and control his/her work for a period of time. (Since the works that are are almost invariably the subject of these discussions are popular culture of one type or another, the duration of the copyright term is pretty much irrelevant for an ethical discussion.) By allowing the artist to treat his/her work as actual property, the artist can decide how to monetize his or her work. This system has worked very well for fans and artists. Now we are being asked to undo this not because we think this is a bad or unfair way to compensate artists but simply because it is technologically possible for corporations or individuals to exploit artists work without their permission on a massive scale and globally. We are being asked to continue to let these companies violate the law without being punished or prosecuted. We are being asked to change our morality and principals to match what I think are immoral and unethical business models.
Who are these companies? They are sites like The Pirate Bay, or Kim Dotcom and Megaupload. They are "legitimate" companies like Google that serve ads to these sites through AdChoices and Doubleclick. They are companies like Grooveshark that operate streaming sites without permission from artists and over the objections of the artist, much less payment of royalties lawfully set by the artist. They are the venture capitalists that raise money for these sites. They are the hardware makers that sell racks of servers to these companies. And so on and  so on.
What the corporate backed Free Culture movement is asking us to do is analogous to changing our morality and principles to allow the equivalent of looting. Say there is a neighborhood in your local big city. Let's call it The 'Net. In this neighborhood there are record stores. Because of some antiquated laws, The 'Net was never assigned a police force. So in this neighborhood people simply loot all the products from the shelves of the record store. People know it's wrong, but they do it because they know they will rarely be punished for doing so. What the commercial Free Culture movement (see the "hybrid economy") is saying is that instead of putting a police force in this neighborhood we should simply change our values and morality to accept this behavior. We should change our morality and ethics to accept looting because it is simply possible to get away with it.  And nothing says freedom like getting away with it, right?
But it's worse than that. It turns out that Verizon, AT&T, Charter etc etc are charging a toll to get into this neighborhood to get the free stuff. Further, companies like Google are selling maps (search results) that tell you where the stuff is that you want to loot. Companies like Megavideo are charging for a high speed looting service (premium accounts for faster downloads). Google is also selling ads in this neighborhood and sharing the revenue with everyone except the people who make the stuff being looted. Further, in order to loot you need to have a $1,000 dollar laptop, a $500 dollar iPhone or $400 Samsumg tablet. It turns out the supposedly "free" stuff really isn't free. In fact it's an expensive way to get "free" music. (Like most claimed "disruptive innovations"it turns out expensive subsidies exist elsewhere.) Companies are actually making money from this looting activity. These companies only make money if you change your principles and morality! And none of that money goes to the artists!
And believe it or not this is where the problem with Spotify starts. The internet is full of stories from artists detailing just how little they receive from Spotify. I shan't repeat them here. They are epic. Spotify does not exist in a vacuum. The reason they can get away with paying so little to artists is because the alternative is The 'Net where people have already purchased all the gear they need to loot those songs for free. Now while something like Spotify may be a solution for how to compensate artists fairly in the future, it is not a fair system now. As long as the consumer makes the unethical choice to support the looters, Spotify will not have to compensate artists fairly. There is simply no market pressure. Yet Spotify's CEO is the 10th richest man in the UK music industry ahead of all but one artist on his service.
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So let's go back and look at what it would have cost you to ethically and legally support the artists.
And I'm gonna give you a break. I'm not gonna even factor in the record company share. Let's just pretend for your sake the record company isnt simply the artists imprint and  all record labels are evil and don't deserve any money. Let's just make the calculation based on exactly what the artist should make. First, the mechanical royalty to the songwriters. This is generally the artist. The royalty that is supposed to be paid by law is 9.1 cents a song for every download or copy. So that is $1,001 for all 11,000 of your songs. Now let's suppose the artist has an average 15% royalty rate. This is calculated at wholesale value. Trust me, but this comes to 10.35 cents a song or $1,138.50. So to ethically and morally "get right" with the artists you would need to pay $2,139.50.
As a college student I'm sure this seems like a staggering sum of money. And in a way, it is. At least until you consider that you probably accumulated all these songs over a period of 10 years (5th grade). Sot that's $17.82 dollars a month. Considering you are in your prime music buying years, you admit your life is "music centric" and you are a DJ, that $18 dollars a month sounds like a bargain. Certainly much much less than what I spent each month on music  during the 4 years I was a college radio DJ.
Let's look at other things you (or your parents) might pay for each month and compare.
Smart phone with data plan: $40-100 a month.
High speed internet access: $30-60 dollars a month. Wait, but you use the university network? Well, buried in your student fees or tuition you are being charged a fee on the upper end of that scale.
Tuition at American University, Washington DC (excluding fees, room and board and books): $2,086 a month.
Car insurance or Metro card?  $100 a month?
Or simply look at the  value of the web appliances you use to enjoy music:
$2,139.50 = 1 smart phone + 1 full size ipod + 1 macbook.
Why do you pay real money for this other stuff but not music?
++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The existential questions that your generation gets to answer are these:
Why do we value the network and hardware that delivers music but not the music itself?
Why are we willing to pay for computers, iPods, smartphones, data plans, and high speed internet access but not the music itself?
Why do we gladly give our money to some of the largest richest corporations in the world but not the companies and individuals who create and sell music?
This is a bit of hyperbole to emphasize the point. But it's as if:
Networks: Giant mega corporations. Cool! have some money!
Hardware: Giant mega corporations.Cool! have some money!
Artists: 99.9 % lower middle class.Screw you, you greedy bastards!
Congratulations, your generation is the first generation in history to rebel by unsticking it to the man and instead sticking it to the weirdo freak musicians!
I am genuinely stunned by this. Since you appear to love first generation Indie Rock, and as a founding member of a first generation Indie Rock band I am now legally obligated to issue this order: kids, lawn, vacate.
You are doing it wrong.
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Emily, I know you are not exactly saying what I've illustrated above. You've unfortunately stumbled into the middle of a giant philosophical fight between artists and powerful commercial interests. To your benefit, it is clear you are trying to answer those existential questions posed to your generation. And in your heart, you grasp the contradiction. But I have to take issue with the following statement:
As I've grown up, I've come to realize the gravity of what file-sharing means to the musicians I love. I can't support them with concert tickets and t-shirts alone. But I honestly don't think my peers and I will ever pay for albums. I do think we will pay for convenience.
I'm sorry, but what is inconvenient about iTunes and, say, iTunes match (that let's you stream all your music to all your devices) aside from having to pay? Same with Pandora premium, MOG and a host of other legitimate services. I can't imagine that any other legal music service that is gonna be simpler than these to use. Isn't convenience already here!
Ultimately there are three "inconvenient" things that MUST happen for any legal service:
1.create an account and provide a payment method (once)
2.enter your password.
3. Pay for music.
So what you are really saying is that you won't do these three things. This is too inconvenient.  And I would guess that the most inconvenient part is....step 3.
That's fine. But then you must live with the moral and ethical choice that you are making to not pay artists. And artists won't be paid. And it won't be the fault of some far away evil corporation. You "and your peers" ultimately bear this responsibility.
You may also find that this ultimately hinders your hopes of finding a job in the music industry.  Unless you're planning on working for free.  Or unless you think Google is in the music industry–which it is not.
I also find this all this sort of sad.  Many in your generation are willing to pay a little extra to buy "fair trade" coffee that insures the workers that harvested the coffee were paid fairly.  Many in your generation will pay a little more to buy clothing and shoes from manufacturers that  certify they don't use  sweatshops.  Many in your generation pressured Apple to examine working conditions at Foxconn in China.  Your generation is largely responsible for the recent cultural changes that has given more equality to same sex couples.  On nearly every count your generation is much more ethical and fair than my generation.   Except for one thing.  Artist rights.
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At the start of this I did say that I hoped to convert you to actively helping musicians and artists. That ultimately someone like you, someone so passionately involved in music is the best ally that musicians could have. Let me humbly suggest a few things:
First, you could legally buy music from artists. The best way to insure the money goes to artists? Buy it directly from their website or at their live shows. But if you can't do that, there is a wide range of services and sites that will allow you to do this conveniently. Encourage your "peers" to also do this.
Second, actively "call out" those that profit by exploiting artists without compensation. File sharing sites are supported by corporate web advertising. Call corporations out by giving specific examples. For instance, say your favorite artist is Yo La Tengo. If you search at Google "free mp3 download Yo La Tengo" you will come up with various sites that offer illegal downloads of Yo La Tengo songs. I clicked on a link to the site www.beemp3.com where I found You La Tengo's entire masterpiece album I Am Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass.
I also found an ad for Geico Insurance which appeared to have been serviced to the site by "Ads by Google". You won't get any response by writing a file sharing site. They already know what they are doing is wrong. However Geico might be interested in this. And technically, Google's policy is to not support piracy sites, however it seems to be rarely enforced. The best way to write any large corporation is to search for the "investor's relations" page. For some reason there is always a human being on the other end of that contact form. You could also write your Congressman and Senator and suggest they come up with some way to divert the flow of advertising money back to the artists.
And on that matter of the $2,139.50 you owe to artists? Why not donate something to a charity that helps artists. Consider this your penance. In fact I'll make a deal with you. For every dollar you personally donate I'll match it up to the $500. Here are some suggestions.
Nuci's Space.   This is Athens Georgia's home grown musician health and mental health charity.  This would be a nice place to donate money if you were a fan of Vic Chesnutt.
http://www.nuci.org/
Music Cares. You can also donate to this charity run by the NARAS (the Grammys). http://www.grammy.org/musicares/donate
Health Alliance for Austin Musicians. Friends speak highly of this organization.
American Heart Association Memorial Donation. Or since you loved Big Star and Alex Chilton, why not make a donation to The American Heart Association in Alex Chilton's name? (Alex died of a heart attack) https://donate.americanheart.org/ecommerce/donation/acknowledgement_info.jsp?campaignId=&site=Heart&itemId=prod20007
I'm open to suggestions on this.
I sincerely wish you luck in your career in the music business and hope this has been enlightening in some small way.
David Lowery

Vrlo poučna razmena!!!

[Meho Krljic]

I kome još nije dosta, evo i ove zanimljive priče:

Capitalists Who Fear Change 

Digital technology is reinventing our whole world, in service of you and me. It's free enterprise on steroids. It's bypassing the gatekeepers and empowering each of us to invent our own civilization for ourselves, according to our own specifications.
The promise of the future is nothing short of spectacular — provided that those who lack the imagination to see the potential here don't get their way. Sadly but predictably, some of the biggest barriers to a bright future are capitalists themselves who fear the future.
A good example is the current hysteria over 3-dimensional printing. This technology has moved with incredible speed from the realm of science fiction to the real world, seemingly in a matter of months. You can get such printers today for as low as $400. These printers allow objects to be transported digitally, and literally printed into existence right before your very eyes.
It's like a miracle! It could change everything we think we know about the transport of physical objects. Rather than sending crates and boats around the world, in the future we will only send lightweight digits. The potential for bypassing monopolies and entrenched interests is spectacular
But here is what Andrew Myers reported in Wired Magazine last week:

Last winter, Thomas Valenty bought a MakerBot — an inexpensive 3-D printer that lets you quickly create plastic objects. His brother had some Imperial Guards from the tabletop game Warhammer, so Valenty decided to design a couple of his own Warhammer-style figurines: a two-legged war mecha and a tank.
He tweaked the designs for a week until he was happy. "I put a lot of work into them," he says. Then he posted the files for free downloading on Thingiverse, a site that lets you share instructions for printing 3-D objects. Soon other fans were outputting their own copies.
Until the lawyers showed up.
Games Workshop, the UK-based firm that makes Warhammer, noticed Valenty's work and sent Thingiverse a takedown notice, citing the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Thingiverse removed the files, and Valenty suddenly became an unwilling combatant in the next digital war: the fight over copying physical objects.

There we have it. The American Chamber of Commerce — the supposed defender of free enterprise — is in a meltdown panic, determined to either crush 3-D printing in its crib or, at least, to make sure it doesn't grow past its toddler period.
In the 1940s, Joseph Schumpeter said that the capitalists would ultimately destroy capitalism by insisting that their existing profitability models perpetuate themselves in the face of change. He said that the capitalist class would eventually lose its taste for innovation and insist on government rules that brought it to an end, in the interest of protecting business elites.
An example: when music and books starting going digital, there was a outcry. How will authors and musicians survive this onslaught?
The truth is that there was no onslaught. It was a windfall for consumers that turned into the greatest boon for music and literature ever. Today we see how this is working, and not only working but there are more authors and musicians making money today than ever before. My best example: the Laissez Faire Club.

The methods could never have been anticipated in advance. Some give away their content and sell their performances. Some have found interesting new methods of distributing content behind pay walls that are affordable and convenient. Authors are starting to self publish through fantastic numbers of venues.
I've been touring museums lately, and I've begun to realize something important about the long process of technological improvement. Through our long history of improvement, every upgrade and every shift from old to new inspired panic. The biggest panic typically comes from the producers themselves who resent the way the market process destabilizes their business model.
It was said that the radio would end live performance. No one would learn music anymore. Everything would be performed one time, and recorded for all time, and that would be the end.
Of course that didn't happen. Then there was another panic when records came out, on the belief that this would destroy radio. Then tapes were next and everyone predicted doom for recorded music since music could be so easily duplicated ("Home Taping is Killing Music"). It was the same with digital music: surely this would be the death of all music!
And think back to the mass ownership of books in the 19th century. Many people predicted that these would destroy new authors because people would just buy books by old authors that were cheap and affordable. New authors would starve and no one would write anymore.
There is a pattern here. Every new technology that becomes profitable causes people to scream about the plight of existing producers. Then it turns out over time that the sector itself thrives as never before but in ways that no one really expected.
The great secret of the market economy is that it embodies a long-run tendency to dissipate profits under existing production and distribution methods. This is how competition works. This is how competition not only inspires improvement but makes it unavoidable. And this is one reason that so many capitalists hate capitalism.
The process goes like this. The new thing comes along and it earns high profits. Then the copycats come along and do the same thing cheaper and better, robbing the first producer of the monopoly status. Profits eventually fall to zero and then something even better has to come along to attract new business, earn new profits, elicit new copycats, and the whole thing starts all over again.
I've never understood why leftists complain about profits going to capitalists. In a vibrant market economy, profits are the temporary exception to the rule. They accrue only to the most innovative and efficient firms, the ones that serve the consumer best, and the gains are never permanent. As soon as the company loses its edge, entrepreneurial profit vanishes.
Under free market competition, writes Ludwig von Mises, the trajectory of existing production and distribution models is always to reduce profits to zero. For those who want to hang on to profits, there can be no rest. New and improved must be an everyday experience. There must be a ceaseless striving to serve consumers in ways that are ever more excellent.
This is why business is always running to government for protection. Kill this crazy new technology! Stop these imports! Raise the costs on the competition! Give us a patent so that we can clobber the other guys! Impose antitrust law! Protect me with a copyright! Regulate the newcomers out of existence! Give us a bailout!
Aside from this, there is a public fear of the new. Otherwise, people would not find the self-interested protests of the existing establishment to be persuasive.
Here is a striking fact about the human mind: we have great difficulty imagining solutions that have yet to present themselves. It doesn't matter how often the market resolves seemingly intractable problems, we still can't become accustomed to this reality. Our minds think in terms of existing conditions, and then we predict all kinds of doom. We too often fail to consistently expect the unexpected.
This poses a serious problem for the market economy, which is all about the ability of the system to inspire discovery of new ideas and new solutions to prevailing the problems. The problems posed by change are obvious enough; but the solutions are "crowd sourced" and emerge from places, people, and institutions that cannot be seen in advance.
Capitalism is not for wimps who don't want to improve. If you want guaranteed profits for the few rather than prosperity and abundance for the many, socialism and fascism really are better systems.
The push to stop market progress won't work in the end, of course. Technology eventually mows down its forces of resistance. The mercantilists can only delay but never finally suppress the human longing for a better life.

[Meho Krljic]

Oh, RIAA ne propušta ni jednu priliku da nas zadivi svojom agresivnom agresivnošću:

Days after Google blocked a site that converts songs from YouTube music videos into MP3s, the RIAA again asks CNET to remove conversion software from Download.com.

Mislim.... stvarno. Jebala ih ta logika. Samo zato što softver konvertuje JuTjub video u MP3, to ne znači da je svaki video na JuTjubu kopirajtovan i da spada pod RIAA jurisdikciju. Mislim, idioti.

[Джон Рейнольдс]

Мислим да би следећи корак могао бити у правцу забрањивања емпетројке као формата.

[Meho Krljic]

Gary Kovacs: Tracking the trackers

I dodatno štivo:

http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/track-trackers-collusion-interview-mozillas-ryan-merkley

[Meho Krljic]

Britanija na ivici propasti:

UK Govt: suspected pirates will have to pay to prove themselves innocent

   Guilty until you pay to prove yourself innocent - suspected eye-patch wearing internet pirates will soon face a £20 fee if they want to appeal against copyright infringement allegations.
Those alleged rum drinkers will have 20 days to appeal.
It's all part of revised plans to uphold and enforce the Digital Economy Act in the UK, the BBC reported. The new scheme is expected to begin in 2014.
If you're suspected of uploading or accessing illegally copied files - movies, games, music, etc. - your internet service provider will write you a letter. A serious letter with no jokes in.
You'll be told you're suspected of copyright infringement. And if you want to dispute it, you'll need to cough up £20.
Why dispute? If you receive three letters within a year, copyright owners can request details of accusations made against you - the account holder. But not your name - those kind of details will only be given after a court order is obtained. It's deliberately obtuse, so as to ensure only the "the most persistent alleged infringers" are hunted down.
Sounds like a lot of extra work for the ISPs.
Not only that, but ISPs also have to contribute to the cost of running the scheme. And they're expected to punish repeat offenders by throttling broadband speeds or by suspending accounts.
Will this affect broadband pricing?
The notion of making "suspected" - and still innocent - people pay to defend themselves has, understandably, gone down like a lead balloon with campaign group Consumer Focus.
"Copyright infringement is not to be condoned," CEO Mike O'Connor said, "but people who are innocent should not have to pay a fee to challenge accusations.
"Twenty pounds may sound like a small sum, but it could deter those living on low-incomes from challenging unfair allegations."
Tory bloke Ed Vaizey, Creative Industries Minister, said, "We must ensure our creative industries can protect their investment.
"They have the right to charge people to access their content if they wish, whether in the physical world or on the internet."   

[taurus-jor]

A sta moze da radi RIAA kad joj drakonski zakoni nisu prosli nego da divlja.

Mogu da naprave stetu, ali sat ne mogu da vrate unazad.


A sto se tice britanskog Digital Economy Acta, s njim postoji veliki problem - toliko je drakonski i besmislen da se njegova primena stalno odlaze, a i u suprotnosti je sa kljucnim aktima UN i Evropske unije o ljudskim pravima.


Postoje dobre sanse da taj nesrecni zakon ostane mrtvo slovo na papiru. Po njemu, prezumpcija nevinosti je ukinuta, samo zato sto tako zele vlasnici kopirajta?!


ACTA, Digital Economy Act, SOPA i francuski HADOPI dele mnoga resenja iz oblasti krvnicke zastite kopirajta. Da je ACTA dobila podrsku, takva resenja bi bila na snazi u celoj EU.

[Meho Krljic]

Da ne pominjemo da Novi Zeland, u liku svojih sudija vrhovnog suda, odlučuje da su Kimu Dotkomu imovinu zaplijenili nelegitimno:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/digital-living/7188234/Dotcom-search-warrants-ruled-illegal

A High Court judge has ruled that police search warrants used to seize property from Kim Dotcom were illegal.
Justice Helen Winkelmann found that the warrants used did not properly describe the offences to which they were related.
The FBI agents had been accused of underhanded behaviour by Dotcom's lawyers in the High Court after they secretly copied data from his computers and took it overseas.



Read the full judgment here



Justice Winkelmann has also ruled it was unlawful for copies of Dotcom's computer data to be taken offshore.
Police said they were considering the judgment and were in discussions with Crown Law "to determine what further action might be required".
Police would not make any further comment on the judgement until then.
Dotcom spoke at a meeting at his local Coatesville Settlers Hall tonight, but entered through a back door and would not speak to reporters.
A spokesman for Dotcom said the internet millionaire was "pleased" with the ruling, but he would not be making any further comment on the decision as appeals are likely, TVNZ reported.
Justice Winkelmann ordered that no more items taken in the raids could be removed from New Zealand, and instructed the attorney-general to return clones of the hard drives held by New Zealand police.
She said the search warrants were invalid because they were general warrants which lacked specificity about the offence and the scope of the items to be searched for.
Without a valid warrant, police were trespassing and exceeded what they were lawfully authorised to do.
Justice Winkelmann said no one had addressed whether police conduct also amounted to unreasonable search and seizure, but her preliminary view was that it did.
Detective Inspector Grant Wormald said that although police were able to decide what documents and digital storage devices should be seized, they had no request from the Central Authority to proceed on that basis. His understanding was that the attorney-general would direct that the items seized would immediately be sent to the US to be examined there.
The judge said the domestic courts were the best place to determine compliance with domestic laws.

There were deficiencies in the description of the offences in the case. The warrants did not stipulate that the offences of breach of copyright and money laundering were offences under the law of the United States. They do not refer to any law that would allow the subject of the warrant to understand the offences.
This "would no doubt cause confusion to the subjects of the searches...they would likely read the warrants as  authorising a search for evidence of offences as defined by New Zealand law".
The Megaupload founder's lawyer, Paul Davison QC, said the warrant provided inadequate definition of the offence. This meant that there was an inadequate definition of what was being searched for.
"Copyright can exist in many things," Justice Winkelmann said.
Police had said they had no intention of sorting items seized in the raid from the "relevant" to the "irrelevant" and would leave that to the FBI. However, the judge said that approach was not available to them. The law stated that only applicable items in the investigation could be sent to a foreign authority.
Dotcom had earlier questioned the legality of the search warrants police used to raid his mansion in January.
Davison told the High Court at Auckland last month that police carried out a sweep of electronic equipment. He alleged 135 data storage devices were taken during the police raid.
Dotcom, 38, is on bail awaiting an extradition hearing.
US authorities say he and his three co-accused - Mathias Ortmann, Fin Batato and Bram van der Kolk - used Megaupload and its affiliated sites to knowingly make money from pirated movies and games.
Dotcom is charged with multiple copyright offences.
Megaupload's lawyer, Willie Akel, last month told Auckland High Court that two FBI analysts flew to New Zealand on March 20 and reviewed seven hard drives of information.
The analysts cloned the computers in Manukau.

Cvrc.

[taurus-jor]

Neko je nešto pokušao na silu.

Uvek sam se pitao kako to da je ova akcija prošla samo dan posle propasti glasanja o SOPA i PIPA zakonima.
Ispade da ta dva zakona nisu bila potrebna da se ujuri neki veliki prekršilac (budimo iskreni, Dotkom nije jagnješce).
Pa, neko na Novom Zelandu je ipak mućnuo glavom.

Kad pogledaš prepisku Pirate Bay i zastupnika američkih vlasnika prava, postane ti jasno da bi SAD najviše volele da širom zemljine kugle sude po svojim zakonima. Jer, najomiljenija odbrana Pirate Baya je doskora glasila: "Ne možeš mi ništa, ovo nije tvoja jurisdikcija, ovo je Švedska, uta-ta!"

Sa ACTA su Amerikanci bili jako blizu ostvarenje svog sna. Ali, SOPA i PIPA su bili vrlo netaktični potezi, i ni dva-tri dana nije prošlo od sprečavanja tih zakona u Kongresu kada se pojavila vest da su tamo neki likovi iz 22 zemlje potpisali nekakav papir čije su pojedine odredbe... vrlo slične onima iz SOPA-e, vrlo slične onim iz Digital Economy Acta, vrlo slične onim iz HADOPI-ja. I vratilo se kao bumerang.

I sada ovo sa vernog Novog Zelanda, takođe potpisnika ACTA. Šefovi RIAA i MPAA mora da pene od besa.

[Meho Krljic]

Kad smo već kod sile i silovanja:

Apple wins court order blocking U.S. sale of Samsung Galaxy Nexus 

By Salvador Rodriguez This post has been corrected and updated. See notes below. June 29, 2012, 4:25 p.m.   A U.S. District Court has handed Apple a victory against one of its biggest competitors in the smartphone market by blocking U.S. sales of the Samsung Galaxy Nexus.
U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh granted Apple a preliminary injunction against the Galaxy Nexus phone, which went on sale in the United States in mid-December.
This is the second Samsung Galaxy product blocked by Koh this week: On Tuesday, she granted Apple a preliminary injunction against U.S. sales of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet computer.
Koh granted the injunction after Apple argued that the Galaxy Nexus phone caused it irreparable harm due to long-term market-share loss and "losses of downstream sales," according to The Next Web.
Reuters reporter Dan Levine described the scene in the courtroom after the injunction was granted: The lawyer representing Samsung, John Quinn, had a long face, and Apple's attorney Mike Jacobs was smiling.
"It's no coincidence that Samsung's latest products look a lot like the iPhone and iPad, from the shape of the hardware to the user interface and even the packaging," an Apple spokeswoman said in an email. "This kind of blatant copying is wrong and, as we've said many times before, we need to protect Apple's intellectual property when companies steal our ideas."
Neither Samsung nor Google responded to a request for comment.
[Updated, June 29, 5:20 p.m.: Google emailed a response regarding the preliminary injunction. "We're disappointed with this decision, but we believe the correct result will be reached as more evidence comes to light," the company said.]
[For the record, June 29, 5:15 p.m.: An earlier version of this post incorrectly said the Galaxy Nexus phone began selling in the U.S. in late April. In fact, it went on sale in the U.S. in mid-December through Verizon. The Google Play store began selling it in late April.]
 

A da ne pominjemo ovo:

ISP 'Six Strikes' to Begin This Weekend Throttling, Filters, 'Education' Warnings, and Fun!   

Last summer major ISPs including Comcast, AT&T, Verizon and Cablevision signed off on a new plan by the RIAA and MPAA taking aim at copyright infringers on their networks. According to the plan, after four warnings ISPs are to begin taking "mitigation measures," which range from throttling a user connection to filtering access to websites until users acknowledge receipt of "educational material." As you might expect, that educational material's chapter on fair use rights likely won't exist.

The plan, as with most plans of this type, was hashed out privately with the government's help -- but with no consumer or independent expert insight. As a result groups like the EFF say the plan has massive problems, like relying on the IP address as proof of guilt, placing the burden of proof on the consumer, while forcing users to pay a $35 fee if they'd like to try and protest their innocence.

While it has taken some time, it now appears that the project is poised to officially begin July 1. According to RIAA boss Cary Sherman, most of the involved ISPs are ready to implement their piracy counter-attack this weekend, though different ISPs will again take different approaches in handling "repeat offenders":  "Each ISP has to develop their infrastructure for automating the system," Sherman said. They need this "for establishing the database so they can keep track of repeat infringers, so they know that this is the first notice or the third notice. Every ISP has to do it differently depending on the architecture of its particular network. Some are nearing completion and others are a little further from completion."Granted the lion's share of pirates will simply switch to VPNs and proxies, with the end result being no real dent on piracy -- but even higher broadband rates as ISPs pass on the cost of these countermeasures to all consumers -- pirates or not.

[Meho Krljic]

Oh, kakve su šaljivdžije ovi iz Verizona:

Verizon: net neutrality violates our free speech rights

[Meho Krljic]

  Europski parlament je glasao protiv usvajanja ACTA sa impresivnih 478 prema 39.    ACTA Is DEAD After European Parliament Vote 

[Meho Krljic]

Međutim:

ACTA Lives: How the EU & Canada Are Using CETA as Backdoor Mechanism To Revive ACTA da ne lepim ceo tekst jer ima vrlo velika tabela u njemu.

[Meho Krljic]

Takođe:

Kim Dotcom se busa u prsa i veli da Amerika zna da nema šase na sudu protiv njega i daje spreman da i ode u Ameriku pod uslovom da to ne bude ekstradicija:

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/kim-dotcom-megaupload-extradition-hearing-346676

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/7258256/Dotcom-offers-US-a-deal

[Gaff]

http://torrentfreak.com/cyberlocker-offered-to-help-prosecute-users-to-settle-34-8m-copyright-suit-120706/

[Meho Krljic]

Evo, ako niste imali dovoljno razloga da mrzite Apple:

When Art, Apple and the Secret Service Collide: 'People Staring at Computers'

[Lord Kufer]

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57474505-93/megaupload-judge-quits-case-following-enemy-comments/?part=rss&subj=news&tag=title

After making remarks critical of the U.S. government's attempts to strengthen international copyright law, the judge at the center of MegaUpload founder Kim Dotcom's extradition proceedings has stepped down from the case.

Judge David Harvey called the U.S. government "the enemy" at a conference this week. He has now made the decision to remove himself from the case, according to the New Zealand Herald.

[zakk]

bar da je to rekao -.-

[Lord Kufer]

 

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/358749/apple-ordered-to-run-samsung-didnt-copy-ipad-ads/

In a bizarre turn of fortunes, a UK judge has ordered Apple to run 'advertisements' declaring that Samsung did not copy the design of iPad.

[Rasher]

Izgleda da Rapidserbia više ne postoji. 

[Lord Kufer]

Ni Bane prevoz. Al zato na Limundu rasprodaja 

[Rasher]

Izvinjavam se, rapidserbia radi.

[Meho Krljic]

Ovi Japanci su gori Amerikanci i od samih Amerikanaca:

Japan: Police arrest "anti DRM" journalists... 

Last week a friend came to visit me at hospital and after a couple of hours he has been arrested by the Japanese Police.

He is one of the 4 journalists from SANSAI BOOKS arrested for selling, through the company website, a copy of a magazine published last year (with a free cover mounted disc) focused on how to backup/rip DVDs.

They violated Japan's Unfair Competition Prevention Law that recently has been revised to make illegal the sale of any DRM circumvention device or software.

It's interesting to note that Japanese cyber Police could arrest the Amazon Japan CEO too as the online giant is selling a lot of magazines, books and software packages for DVD copy and ripping: exactly what put in trouble Sansai Books staff. But I bet Amazon Japan offices will not get any visit from the local police...

The Japanese entertainment industry is getting full support from politicians for laws that make SOPA looks like a liberal legislation (from this October downloading a single illegal MP3 could land a Japanese p2p user in jail for 2 years).

Among other things this law makes illegal all the Linux distributions which come pre-installed with libdvdcss like BackTrack, CrunchBang Linux, LinuxMCE, Linux Mint, PCLinuxOS, Puppy Linux 4.2.1, Recovery Is Possible, Slax, Super OS, Pardus, and XBMC Live.

Looks like the entertainment industry wants to attack Sansai Books and make it an example for everyone because it is a publishing company focused on digital backup freedom.

There is virtually no discussion among journalists and technology experts about 4 colleagues arrested. This makes me wonder how a country so advanced like Japan can progess without developing a cultural background about these issues.

[Tex Murphy]

Лони, реагуј!!! 

[Meho Krljic]

A, evo kako ima i lepih primera kad firma, koja mora da zaštiti svoj trejdmark krene jednim civilizovanim i pristojnim tonom:

  Jack Daniel's Sends the Most Polite Cease-and-Desist Letter Ever 

When Patrick Wensink was commissioning the cover for his book, Broken Piano For President, he probably wasn't expecting a cease-and-desist letter from Jack Daniel's Properties — the owner of the Jack Daniel's trademarks.
Looking at the cover for the book, it's easy to see why the Jack Daniel's people might take issue with the design. The typeface isn't exactly the same, but the border and presentation is a dead-ringer for the classic black label of that sweet, sweet Tennessee whiskey.
Usually when we write about trademark disputes, one party claims that another party is using its size to "bully" to get its way.
Not this time.
In what might just be the nicest cease-and-desist letter we've ever seen, the people at Jack Daniel's Properties not only politely explained the situation to Wensink, the company even offered to help pay for the cost of designing a new cover.
Jack Daniel's Properties isn't even forcing Wensink to take his book off the shelf. Instead, the company just wants him to change the cover when it's reprinted.
   

Even better, the publicity around this rare act of lawyerly kindness might end up helping sales for Wensink's book.
On his blog, the author says that Powell's is already sold out of the paperback, but Amazon still has some copies in stock. In his own words, "that baby's going to be a collector's item." Hey, you never know.
All we know is that if more trademark complaints were handled like this, the world might be a better place.

[Meho Krljic]

Američka vlada smatra da Kima Dotkoma drži za jaja čak i ako sud misli drugačije:

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/07/government-we-can-freeze-mega-assets-even-if-case-is-dismissed/

The United States government said today that even if the indictment of the Megaupload corporation is dismissed, it can continue its indefinite freeze on the corporation's assets while it awaits the extradition of founder Kim Dotcom and his associates.
Judge Liam O'Grady is weighing a request to dismiss the indictment against Megaupload because (in Megaupload's view) the federal rules of criminal procedure provide no way to serve notice on corporations with no US address. At a hearing in Alexandria, VA, he grilled both attorneys in the case but did not issue a ruling.
O'Grady speculated, with evident sarcasm, that Congress intended to allow foreign corporations like Megaupload to "be able to violate our laws indiscriminately from an island in the South Pacific."
But Megaupload's attorney insisted that this may not be too far from the truth. Megaupload, they said, is a Hong Kong corporation with no presence in the United States. He argued it was perfectly reasonable for Megaupload to be subject to the criminal laws of Hong Kong, but not the United States.
"It's never had a US address" For its part, the government suggested that it could sidestep the mailing requirement in one of several ways. For example, it could wait for Kim Dotcom to be extradited to the United States and then mail notice to him, as Megaupload's representative, at his address in prison. Or, they suggested, the government could send notice of the indictment to Carpathia Hosting, a Virginia company that has leased hundreds of servers to the locker site.
The government also mentioned the possibility that it could use the provisions of a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty to send notice to Megaupload's Hong Kong address.
But Judge O'Grady seemed skeptical of these argument. He noted that the "plain language" of the law required sending notice to the company's address in the United States. "You don't have a location in the United States to mail it to," he said. "It's never had an address" in the United States.
And Megaupload pointed out that the government hadn't produced a single example in which the government had satisfied the rules of criminal procedure using one of the methods it was suggesting in this case. Most of the precedents the government has produced were in civil cases, which have different rules. And most involved serving a corporate parent via its subsidiary. That's a very different relationship than, for example, the vendor-customer relationship between Megaupload and Carpathia.
The government brought up one new example during the hearing: an instance in which a judge allowed notice to be sent via e-mail to the Columbian guerilla group FARC. But Megaupload's attorneys dismissed this example as well, pointing out that FARC was not a corporation and that the propriety of that service was never tested in court.
The government also argued that it could keep Megaupload in legal limbo indefinitely. "None of the cases impose a time limit on service," the government's attorney told the judge. Therefore, the government believes it can leave the indictment hanging over the company's head, and keep its assets frozen, indefinitely.
Not only that, but the government believes it can continue to freeze Megaupload's assets and paralyze its operations even if the judge grants the motion to dismiss. That's because in the government's view, the assets are the proceeds of criminal activity and the prosecution against founder Kim Dotcom will still be pending. The fact that the assets are in the name of Megaupload rather than its founder is of no consequence, the government claimed.
Hollywood, at least, seems nervous that Judge O'Grady might buy Megaupload's argument. In a conference call held Wednesday in advance of today's hearing, a senior vice president at the Motion Picture Association of America argued that the dismissal of the case against Megaupload would have little practical impact, since the company's principals would still be facing indictment. And he rejected Kim Dotcom's efforts to frame the case as a test of Internet freedom, describing Dotcom as a "career criminal" who had grown wealthy stealing the work of others.

[Nightflier]

Zna li neko šta se dešava sa Demonoidom?

[tomat]

Zna li neko šta se dešava sa Demonoidom?

hmm, juče je radio...

[Nightflier]

Meni već nekoliko dana ne radi. Očajan sam!

[Nightflier]

Evo odgovora:

http://www.zdnet.com/demonoid-hit-by-ddos-attack-7000001732/

[Meho Krljic]

Heh:

http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-loot-with-artists-120728/

Ukratko, iako je Pajrtbej osuđen da plati pola miliona evra kazne za piratovanje konkretnih albuma koji su korišćeni kao dokazni materijal na suđenju, sami autori muzike neće dobiti ni dinara jer sve pare treba da odu u fond za dalje tužakanje prekršilaca autorskih prava.

[Meho Krljic]

Heh 2.0:

RIAA je, sudeći po sopstvenim internim prezentacijama kojih su se dokopali na torentfriku, bila svesna da SOPA neće imati ozbiljnog uticaja na smanjenje piraterije, u vreme kada je svesrdno podržavala ovaj zakonski predlog:

http://www.itworld.com/it-managementstrategy/287788/riaa-knew-sopa-and-pipa-were-useless-against-piracy-and-supported-them-

[Gaff]

http://torrentfreak.com/demonoid-starts-redirecting-to-ads-and-malware-120802/

[Gaff]

http://torrentfreak.com/demonoid-busted-as-a-gift-to-the-united-states-government-120806/

[Lord Kufer]

http://www.rt.com/news/iran-internet-intranet-security-938/

Iran to unplug from Web to escape West's 'Internet monopoly'

[Meho Krljic]

Njujork tajmz piše:

Internet Pirates Will Always Win

STOPPING online piracy is like playing the world's largest game of Whac-A-Mole.


Hit one, countless others appear. Quickly. And the mallet is heavy and slow.
Take as an example YouTube, where the Recording Industry Association of America almost rules with an iron fist, but doesn't, because of deceptions like the one involving a cat.
YouTube, which is owned by Google, offers a free tool to the movie studios and television networks called Content ID. When a studio legitimately uploads a clip from a copyrighted film to YouTube, the Google tool automatically finds and blocks copies of the product.
To get around this roadblock, some YouTube users started placing copyrighted videos inside a still photo of a cat that appears to be watching an old JVC television set. The Content ID algorithm has a difficult time seeing that the video is violating any copyright rules; it just sees a cat watching TV.
Sure, it's annoying for those who want to watch the video, but it works. (Obviously, it's more than annoying for the company whose product is being pirated.)
Then there are those — possibly tens of millions of users, actually — who engage in peer-to-peer file-sharing on the sites using the BitTorrent protocol.
Earlier this year, after months of legal wrangling, authorities in a number of countries won an injunction against the Pirate Bay, probably the largest and most famous BitTorrent piracy site on the Web. The order blocked people from entering the site.
In retaliation, the Pirate Bay wrapped up the code that runs its entire Web site, and offered it as a free downloadable file for anyone to copy and install on their own servers. People began setting up hundreds of new versions of the site, and the piracy continues unabated.
Thus, whacking one big mole created hundreds of smaller ones.
Although the recording industries might believe they're winning the fight, the Pirate Bay and others are continually one step ahead. In March, a Pirate Bay collaborator, who goes by the online name Mr. Spock, announced in a blog post that the team hoped to build drones that would float in the air and allow people to download movies and music through wireless radio transmitters.
"This way our machines will have to be shut down with aeroplanes in order to shut down the system," Mr. Spock posted on the site. "A real act of war." Some BitTorrent sites have also discussed storing servers in secure bank vaults. Message boards on the Web devoted to piracy have in the past raised the idea that the Pirate Bay has Web servers stored underwater.
"Piracy won't go away," said Ernesto Van Der Sar, editor of Torrent Freak, a site that reports on copyright and piracy news. "They've tried for years and they'll keep on trying, but it won't go away." Mr. Van Der Sar said companies should stop trying to fight piracy and start experimenting with new ways to distribute content that is inevitably going to be pirated anyway.
According to Torrent Freak, the top pirated TV shows are downloaded several million times a week. Unauthorized movies, music, e-books, software, pornography, comics, photos and video games are watched, read and listened to via these piracy sites millions of times a day.
The copyright holders believe new laws will stop this type of piracy. But many others believe any laws will just push people to find creative new ways of getting the content they want.
"There's a clearly established relationship between the legal availability of material online and copyright infringement; it's an inverse relationship," said Holmes Wilson, co-director of Fight for the Future, a nonprofit technology organization that is trying to stop new piracy laws from disrupting the Internet. "The most downloaded television shows on the Pirate Bay are the ones that are not legally available online."
The hit HBO show "Game of Thrones" is a quintessential example of this. The show is sometimes downloaded illegally more times each week than it is watched on cable television. But even if HBO put the shows online, the price it could charge would still pale in comparison to the money it makes through cable operators. Mr. Wilson believes that the big media companies don't really want to solve the piracy problem.
"If every TV show was offered at a fair price to everyone in the world, there would definitely be much less copyright infringement," he said. "But because of the monopoly power of the cable companies and content creators, they might actually make less money."
The way people download unauthorized content is changing. In the early days of music piracy, people transferred songs to their home or work computers. Now, with cloud-based sites, like Wuala, uTorrent and Tribler, people stream movies and music from third-party storage facilities, often to mobile devices and TV's. Some of these cloud-based Web sites allow people to set up automatic downloads of new shows the moment they are uploaded to piracy sites. It's like piracy-on-demand. And it will be much harder to trace and to stop.
It is only going to get worse. Piracy has started to move beyond the Internet and media and into the physical world. People on the fringes of tech, often early adopters of new devices and gadgets, are now working with 3-D printers that can churn out actual physical objects. Say you need a wall hook or want to replace a bit of hardware that fell off your luggage. You can download a file and "print" these objects with printers that spray layers of plastic, metal or ceramics into shapes.
And people are beginning to share files that contain the schematics for physical objects on these BitTorrent sites. Although 3-D printing is still in its infancy, it is soon expected to become as pervasive as illegal music downloading was in the late 1990s.
Content owners will find themselves stuck behind ancient legal walls when trying to stop people from downloading objects online as copyright laws do not apply to standard physical objects deemed "noncreative."
In the arcade version of Whac-A-Mole, the game eventually ends — often when the player loses. In the piracy arms-race version, there doesn't seem to be a conclusion. Sooner or later, the people who still believe they can hit the moles with their slow mallets might realize that their time would be better spent playing an entirely different game.   Nick Bilton is a technology columnist for The New York Times.

[Meho Krljic]

A Stiv Voznijak samo kaže ono što svi mislimo: kada sve bude u klaudu, stradali smo:

Apple co-founder Wozniak sees trouble in the cloud   

WASHINGTON — Steve Wozniak, who co-founded Apple with the late Steve Jobs, predicted "horrible problems" in the coming years as cloud-based computing takes hold.
Wozniak, 61, was the star turn at the penultimate performance in Washington of "The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs," monologist Mike Daisey's controversial two-hour expose of Apple's labor conditions in China.
In a post-performance dialogue with Daisey and audience members, Wozniak held forth on topics as varied as public education (he once did a stint as a school teacher) and reality TV (having appeared on "Dancing with the Stars").
But the engineering wizard behind the progenitor of today's personal computer, the Apple II, was most outspoken on the shift away from hard disks towards uploading data into remote servers, known as cloud computing.
"I really worry about everything going to the cloud," he said. "I think it's going to be horrendous. I think there are going to be a lot of horrible problems in the next five years."
He added: "With the cloud, you don't own anything. You already signed it away" through the legalistic terms of service with a cloud provider that computer users must agree to.
"I want to feel that I own things," Wozniak said. "A lot of people feel, 'Oh, everything is really on my computer,' but I say the more we transfer everything onto the web, onto the cloud, the less we're going to have control over it."
Prior to Saturday at the Woolly Mammoth theater in Washington, Daisey and Wozniak had met once before, in California after a performance of "The Agony and the Ecstasy" in its original version in February 2011.
Wozniak was moved to tears, but a year later Daisey came under fire when it emerged that sections of his one-man show dealing with the Foxconn plant in China where iPhones and iPads are assembled had been fabricated.
Public radio show "This American Life," which had broadcast portions of "The Agony and the Ecstasy," went so far as to issue a retraction. Daisey meanwhile reworked his script, albeit without toning down his powerful delivery.
On the minimalist stage Saturday, seated on plain wooden chairs, Daisey and Wozniak came across as a geek version of Tweedledum and Tweedledee in their baggy black clothes and matching beer bellies.
The bearded, fast-talking Wozniak sported running shoes and a massive wrist watch. In the theater lobby, for Saturday only, one of the very first Apple I computers ever built -- assembled in Jobs' garage -- was on display.
"Everything I designed was purely out of my head, never out of a book," recalled Wozniak, who quit Apple in 1987 after 12 years, taught fifth-graders, hit the lecture circuit and gave away some of his fortune to good causes.
Many in the audience echoed Daisey's concern about Foxconn's work force, but Wozniak said he expected labor conditions in China to evolve as the nation grows richer. He also commended Apple for its oversight of its factories.
"We know we (citizens and consumers) have a voice. We can speak (about labor conditions), but we can't act like, oh, Foxconn is bad or Apple is bad," he said.
Daisey begged to differ: "I hear what you're saying about that fact that everyone goes through an evolution, but it's not as if the evolution was natural in the sense that we are the ones who brought the jobs there."
While Apple designs its products in the United States, all its manufacturing takes place in China -- a sore point in an election year in which unemployment and a long-term exodus of manufacturing jobs overseas have been campaign issues. Copyright © 2012 AFP. All rights reserved

[Meho Krljic]

Heh... Dakle, imate TOR, sistem zamišljen tako da obezbedi potpunu anonimnost na Internetu - prevashodno da osigura političkim disidentima bezbedno operisanje - i imate bitcoin, digitalnu valutu opet zamišljenu da izbaci iz igre treća lica (banke, vlade itd.) i obezbedi slobodnim ljudima slobodnu trgovinu putem Interneta. Sigurno vidite kuda ovo ide: iskombinujemo ove dve stvari i dobijamo Silk Road, sajt za prodaju narkotika čiji je godišnji promet vrednosti 22 milijuna dolara a rejting prodavaca, koje ocenjuju kupci je u 98% slučajeva pozitivan. 

Forbes članak o studiji koja se ovim pozabavila.

Sama studija u PDF fajlu.

[Gaff]

Anonymous attacks Ukrainian government after Demonoid bust


www.zdnet.com/anonymous-attacks-ukrainian-government-after-demonoid-bust-7000002348/

[Gaff]

"So what did this kid do?"
"Copyright infringement!"
"No, really, what did he do?"
"Copyright. Infringement."


Are Your Politicians For Sale? on Vimeo

[Meho Krljic]

Dakle, evo šta se dešava kada imate zakon koji teret dokazivanja nevinosti svaljuje na okrivljenog, to jest DMCA. Naime, sajt koji je omogućavao ljudima da koriste LEGITIMAN kindleov servis za pozajmljivanje knjiga je ugašen jer su se neki vlasnici kopirajta požalili na njega, misleći (pogrešno) da krši kopirajt. Iako DMCA ima paragraf koji se bavo obeštećenjem nedužno oštećenih, vlasnik sajta izgleda da je izgubio volju da nastavi:

What happened to LendInk? The owner responds.  

The site, which matched up people who wanted to loan or borrow e-books, featured an easy-to-use interface (see screenshot, below). When a match was made, the parties were sent to Amazon or BarnesAndNoble.com to complete the e-book loan.

Loaning certain Kindle books in this manner is allowed per the Amazon lending terms and the rights outlined by the publisher. Here's how the Amazon help page describes the arrangement:

Kindle books can be loaned to another reader for a period of 14 days. The borrower does not need to own a Kindle -- Kindle books can also be read using our free Kindle reading applications for PC, Mac, iPad, iPhone, BlackBerry, and Android devices. Not all books are lendable -- it is up to the publisher or rights holder to determine which titles are eligible for lending. The lender will not be able to read the book during the loan period. Books can only be loaned once, and subscription content is not currently available for lending.

As an author (I wrote an unofficial manual to Dropbox for the Kindle and Nook), I don't have any problem with this type of lending service as long as it's not abused.

However, there are many publishers and independent KDP authors who did not understand loaning and lending on Amazon's Kindle platform. Others wrongly assumed that the titles appearing on LendInk were pirated. Here's how one angry KDP author reacted:

I noticed my work there and sent the site a Cease and Desist Notice, giving them 48 hours to remove my work or face prosecution. They were in breech of copyright and deserved to be shut down. Am I proud they have been shut down? Am I proud to have stood up for my legal rights as author? You betcha! If they were a legitimate site and had written consent from each and every author to display their work for free (forfeiting their royalty income as a result) then I doubt very much that the site would have suddenly disappeared overnight. I am tired of plagiarism, book piracy and cheap-*ss scum bags who won't part with a measly $2.99 or $4.99 to support authors and show respect for their hard work, not to mention the graphic artists, editors, photographers who also contributed to the birth of an author's ebook.

Although not legitimate, hundreds of C&D letters and other complaints helped kill LendInk, according to LendInk's Dale Porter (see my interview with him at the bottom of the page). Dale also posted the following explanation of what happened on several forums:

My name is Dale Porter and I am the owner of Lendink (or what's left of it). I can say without hesitation that Lendink was not a pirate site, we did not store, transfer, lend or publish any ebooks, period! All we did was attempt to provide a means for people that enjoy their ebooks to meet other like minded people and share their "lend" enabled ebooks. The lending process was completely handled on the Amazon or Barnes and Noble websites.

Lendink was operated solely by myself and operated the last couple of years with absolutely no income.

There is a lot of misinformation on the internet claiming that we hosted ebooks illegally, that Amazon did not allow us to lend ebooks, etc. Let me try to address some of those here.

>Amazon did not allow us to lend ebooks. This is a 100% true statement and the fact of the matter is, Lendink did not nor did it ever attempt to lend ebooks. All we did was put person A in touch with person B and redirected A and B back to Amazon or Barnes and Nobles where the actual lending took place.

Lendink was hosting ebooks illegally. This statement is 100% false. We never hosted any ebooks on our servers. We attempted to dispell this rumor on our FAQ page and for those that actually read the page, it usually cleared up the misunderstanding. For those that did not read the page, all I can assume is that is simply doesn't matter at this point. No amount of explaination would have satisfied the vultures looming over head.

The Lendink website is down, this is proof they were pirating ebooks. Really, this is proof that we were pirating ebooks? The fact of the matter is that our host company was so overwhelmed with hate mail and threats of lawsuits that they felt they had no choice but to suspend the site. These hatefull people did nothing but harass and threaten Lendink and our host company to the point that it just didn't make sense to keep the site online. For those of you on this site that are patting yourself on the back for bringing Lendink down, shame on you. I only hope at this point that you see the same results with your books and your writing career.

Amazon dropped Lendink as an Affiliate due to digital rights violations or new digital rights laws in California. This is 100% false. Lendink is a California based company and as such, was cut off from earning money from sales when Amazon and the State of California disagreed over the collection of State Sales Tax. Amazon cut off all of their California affiliates from earning money via their affiliate program. It was not just Lendink. This only prevented us from earning money via Amazon. It did not however stop use from matching people for book lending.

I am simply a hard working guy that was trying to provide a legit service. Let me ask you all this, if I truley intended to use Lendink as a pirate site would I keep my contact information clearly associated with the site? Would I form an LLC and run the site as a business? Would I actually take the time to file for and receive a Federal Trademark for the site? These are not the actions of a person bent on stealing other persons intellectual property. The site had been negelected the past year or so and this was due to health issues related to my service connected injuries. Working a fulltime job to pay the bills and health issues just took their toll on me and unfortunately the site suffered. My plan was to ride out the Amazon vs. California Sales Tax dispute and then pick up when I was able to make some income from the sale of books. Sadly, it appears that my American Dream has been left as road kill at the hands of misguided individuals.

I contacted Dale with some follow-up questions, and he sent the following replies:

Who was threatening lawsuits? Was it authors, publishers, Amazon, other rights holders?

Dale: "At this time, the host company is only advising that they have received hundreds of threats regarding possible lawsuits if they did not take Lendink.com down immediately. I do not know personally if it was a result of authors, publishers, Amazon or other rights holders. I have not personally been in contact with anyone other thaan the host company. I do however have a certified letter awaiting my pickup at the post office which is from a company called Noble Romance."

How many people were using the site per month before it was shut down?

Dale: "At the time the site was suspended, Lendink had 15,000+ register users. Not bad considering the site has been on auto pilot for a year or so due to my health issues."

How did you make money from the site?

Dale: "When I purchased the site, I was an Amazon Affiliate and the hopes were that I could make extra income selling books as an affiliate and then earn a little extra from advertising. Unfortunately, shortly after I purchased the site, Amazon and the State of California had a large dispute over the collection of Sales Tax and in response, Amazon cancelled all California Affiliates. This meant I could not make money from selling the books but it did not prevent me from matching people that wanted to lend their books according to the terms set forth by Amazon and Barnes and Nobles. Since that time, I have not made any income from Lendink.com. It was kept alive in the hopes that Amazon would some day open up the affiliate program to California businesses again."

What other communities/sites are offering similar matching services for loaners/borrowers of ebooks?

Dale: "I know of a few sites such as Lendle.me, the Kindle Book Club and a few others. Many of the site owners contacted me when I first purchased Lendink to wish me best of luck. We never really consider each other as compteitors or business rivals. We all enjoyed ebooks and simply wanted to provide a service to others."

Dale also offered this comment:

"The hosting company has offered to reinstate Lendink.com on the condition that I personally respond to all of the complaints individually. I have to say, I really do not know if it is worth the effort at this point. I have read the comments many of these people have posted and I don't think any form of communication will resolve the issues in their eyes. Most are only interested in getting money from me and others are only in in for the kill. They have no intentions of talking to me or working this out. So much for trying to start a business and live the American Dream."

Note: Lots of people would like to contact or help Dale. I would suggest doing so through the LendInk Facebook page, which contains additional discussion about what happened.

[Meho Krljic]

A, evo kako je izgledao policijski upad na imanje Kima Dotcoma (na linku ima i video):

  VIDEO: What really happened in the Dotcom raid? 

   By John Campbell
The police raid on the mansion of Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom has been discussed for so many months and now the footage of that morning has begun to emerge.
It generally shows what was always said to have happened, but it sheds little light on why it happened.
The FBI is charging Dotcom with internet piracy on a massive scale.
He and his lawyers, both here and in America, assert no helicopters were needed to arrest him, no police officers with semi-automatic weapons with the FBI not too far in the background.
As the legal battle continues over a High Court finding that the search warrants used in the raid were invalid, the raid itself is coming under scrutiny in the High Court.

   
• World exclusive interview with Dotcom after arrest
• Take a tour through the Dotcom mansion

An elite police office with identity suppression has given evidence in court about what happened.
Those involved are protected for their own safety in future operations unrelated to this case.
At 6.46am on January 20, the raid was underway. The helicopter carrying members of the elite special tactics group flew into the Coatesville home of Dotcom.
"Ground units, Gates are open," someone says into the radio.
Dotcom's pregnant wife their three children, some guests and about a dozen staff were also there.
All is quiet below.
Within seconds four armed members of the special tactics group ran towards the main door.
The helicopter immediately took off. The main justification for using it at all was that Doctom's security staff could have stopped police vehicles at the gates. But as the chopper flew out, ground forces were already arriving just seconds behind.
In court today Dotcom explained his experience of the officers arriving.
"First of all it was not unusual for me to hear helicopter noise, because we were expecting guests to arrive and it's usual that sometimes guests arrive early in the morning, especially if they've come from the US and are being picked up by helicopter. So the noise of the helicopter wasn't really a surprise, but then I heard pinging of stones of rocks to my bedroom window. My shields were down so I couldn't see outside what was happening. Then shortly after within a few seconds I heard heavy banging on my door."
The helicopter then circled the property and recorded the police radio conversation.
"I need two guards working, one at the gate and one roaming," it said.
"Main entry into the bedroom of the target, door's closed, slammed and had a security lock on it, we've breached it. Moved through, he's done a runner, can't find him in either the studio or bedroom."
Dotcom then told the court what he was doing at that point.
"I was on my bed, once the banging started, I pressed an alarm button that is situated right at my bed which was installed in case of an emergency. When I press that it automatically sends a signal to all security guards including Mr [Wayne] Tempero's room including SMSs to everybody informing them there is an alert. Then I stood up from the bed and made my way to the red room."
The red room is a secret emergency room inside the mansion.   Despite knowing of the room's existence, having the plans and the door to the room not being locked, it still took police 13 minutes to find Dotcom there.
"I was sitting in front of that pillar in the room and heard loud banging noises, I was scared and worried."
Meanwhile the house was being closed down, everyone present was being accounted for and contained.
"We have five Philippine females and three children," the police radio said.
By 7:10am armed officers were on the roof and Dotcom had been found and detained.
Dotcom had stayed in the red room until police found him.
"I thought I better wait for them to come to me rather than me popping out of that secret door maybe scaring someone who might shoot me. So I waited in the red room. I knew the door wasn't locked, there was a button I could have engaged to lock the door but I haven't done that. So I waited in the room upstairs for them to come. Once they came up the stairs I had my hands like this [in the air]. And then very quickly they approached me and within two seconds they were there and all over me."
He then described what the police did to him.
"I had a punch to the face, I had boots kicking me down to the floor, I had a knee into the ribs, then my hands were on the floor, one man was standing on my hand."
At 7.11am police told each other they had got Dotcom.
"For the log, Mr Dotcom has been shown the warrant to search the property, he acknowledges it."
Two helicopters had been used, dogs deployed along with four police vehicles. There were armed offenders squad and the special tactics squad.
The elite police officer who has identity suppression described to the court what weapons he was carrying.
"A gun belt which had my secondary weapon, a police issued glock pistol on the right hand side, and additional magazines on the left and my primary weapon which is a Colt CommandoM4 556 weapon."
The FBI were there and during the planning period for the raid.
CCTV footage taken from a tree near the property recorded a helicopter arriving, men and dogs. The house was surrounded.
But the officers were not dressed in full combat gear.
"We wanted to match the threat level, in this case a low threat with our dress," the elite officer says. "We made that conscious decision not to wear full tactical kit."
Dotcom's lawyer asked him if he had seen anything deliberate done to Dotcom.
"Yes there was deliberate force applied," he said.
So what was behind such a large and pointed operation?
"Primary objective: secure suspect as soon as possible to prevent destruction of evidence," the elite officer said.
But Dotcom could not have destroyed evidence because the FBI had allegedly seized the Megaupload servers before the raid.
"All of that is so invalid and really angers me because you know the FBI was already in the data centre disabling access to the data they feared we would manipulate. So primary to you arriving there was no chance for anyone to do anything with that evidence," Dotcom said.
Watch the video to see footage of the raid.

 

[Meho Krljic]

Gugl dodaje novi element svom algoritmu za pretragu koji sada uzima u obzir i broj prijava za kršenje autorskih prava podnesenih protiv konkretnog sajta pa veći broj ovakvih prijava znači nižu rangiranost u rezultatima. Dakle, uprošćeno, sajtovi sa piratskim sadržajem će sada biti plasirani niže u listama rezultata, pa kada budete tražili Buttman's Stretch Class sledećeg puta, PornBB više neće biti prvi rezultat na spisku i umesto toga će gore biti neki od sajtova sa kojih možete legalno strimovati ili naručiti DVD sa željenim sadržajem.

Sa Guglovog bloga:

An update to our search algorithms
8/10/12 | 10:30:00 AM

  We aim to provide a great experience for our users and have developed over 200 signals to ensure our search algorithms deliver the best possible results. Starting next week, we will begin taking into account a new signal in our rankings: the number of valid copyright removal notices we receive for any given site. Sites with high numbers of removal notices may appear lower in our results. This ranking change should help users find legitimate, quality sources of content more easily—whether it's a song previewed on NPR's music website, a TV show on Hulu or new music streamed from Spotify.

Since we re-booted our copyright removals over two years ago, we've been given much more data by copyright owners about infringing content online. In fact, we're now receiving and processing more copyright removal notices every day than we did in all of 2009—more than 4.3 million URLs in the last 30 days alone. We will now be using this data as a signal in our search rankings.

Only copyright holders know if something is authorized, and only courts can decide if a copyright has been infringed; Google cannot determine whether a particular webpage does or does not violate copyright law. So while this new signal will influence the ranking of some search results, we won't be removing any pages from search results unless we receive a valid copyright removal notice from the rights owner. And we'll continue to provide "counter-notice" tools so that those who believe their content has been wrongly removed can get it reinstated. We'll also continue to be transparent about copyright removals.

Posted by Amit Singhal, SVP, Engineering   

Naravno, ovo je jedan od 200 kriterijuma u algoritmu, kako i piše u tekstu, što znači da je njegov uticaj verovatno manji nego što smo za trenutak pomislili, ali ipak, tu je. Internet vrišti u užasu:

Google to begin punishing pirate sites in search results 

Google constantly tweaks how its search engine delivers results to people, but it's rolling out a major new change next week: it'll start generally downranking sites that receive a high volume of copyright infringement notices from copyright holders. Google says the move is designed to "help users find legitimate, quality sources of content more easily" — meaning that it's trying to direct people who search for movies, TV shows, and music to sites like Hulu and Spotify, not torrent sites or data lockers like the infamous MegaUpload. It's a clear concession to the movie and music industries, who have long complained that Google facilitates piracy — and Google needs to curry favor with media companies as it tries to build an ecosystem around Google Play.
Google says it feels confident making the change because because its existing copyright infringement reporting system generates a massive amount of data about which sites are most frequently reported — the company received and processed over 4.3 million URL removal requests in the past 30 days alone, more than all of 2009 combined. Importantly, Google says the search tweaks will not remove sites from search results entirely, just rank them lower in listings. Removal of a listing will still require a formal request under the existing copyright infringement reporting system — and Google is quick to point out that those unfairly targeted can still file counter-notices to get their content reinstated into search listings.
"Google cannot determine whether a particular webpage does or does not violate copyright law."
Of course, Google's existing copyright system has long had its critics, who claim the system disproportionally favors big companies who abuse it to block legitimate speech. Allowing past abuse to affect future search results is far from ideal, but Google isn't planning to make judgement calls. "Only copyright holders know if something is authorized, and only courts can decide if a copyright has been infringed; Google cannot determine whether a particular webpage does or does not violate copyright law." What Google can do is remain transparent about copyright removals — in May the company began reporting all listing removal requests it's received in the past 30 days, which companies have complained, and which sites they target. The most-targeted domains? filestube.com, downloads.nl, isohunt.com, and torrenthound.com. We'll have to see where they land on search results when Google flips the switch on the new rankings next week.

Naravno, sumorne prognoze pesimista su da će ovo podsticati korporacije da plaćaju programere za kreiranje robota koji će automatski kreirati stotine & hiljade prijava (nebitno je da li su legitimne, guglov algoritam to ne uzima u obzir) protiv sajtova koje žele da gurnu naniže u listama rezultata, bez obzira što možda ne hostuju problematičan materijal.

Sumorno to izgleda, međutim, ako biramo da gledamo stvari sa vedrije strane, ovo jeste neki kompromis koji će korporacije učiniti srećnijim a pirate neće učiniti mnogo nesrećnijim. Kao i većina razumnijih antipiratskih taktika, ova obeshrabruje "casual" pirate, dakle, sredovečne domaćice koje će kad ne vide piratebay  u prva tri rezultata odustati od torentovanja i (možda?) početi da razmišljaju o kupovini/ odnosno neće im pasti na pamet torentovanje jer piratebayja nema u prvim nekoliko rezultata - dok će posvećeni pirati i dalje nesmetano raditi.

[Tex Murphy]

Па зар има неко осим тих поменутих домаћица ко уопште користи Гугл за потрагу за пиратеријом?

[Meho Krljic]

Pa, ako nema, tim bolje.

[Meho Krljic]

Eh... Pajrtbej je barem dobio visokoprofilan topik na Sagiti i bučno suđenje i nekako je još onlajn, Demonoid, međutim, je zatvoren bez mnogo ceremonije, prvo serijom DDoS napada a zatim otvorenom akcijom ukrajinskih vlasti. Dakle, vlada jedne države je koristila ilegalne metode na nagovor vlade druge države za račun korporacija koje proizvode zabavni materijal. Čisto da znamo na čemu smo.

Međutim, ako ovde postoji pozitivna strana, to je da su Demonoid domeni sad na prodaju. Pojurite i VI možete biti sledeći vlasnik demonoid.me domena!!!

Demonoid Domain Names Up for Grabs

One of the most famous Torrent tracking sites, Demonoid, was shut recently by Ukrainian authorities is at the receiving end of one more blow as the domain names for the site are up for grabs.  Initially thought of as being under a series of DDoS attacks, the torrent tracking site was out for a prolonged duration following which it started serving malware laden ads. Last week Ukrainian authorities got the best of Demonoid and stopped the site completely after it raided ColoCall, which was the hosting service provider for the site. The Demonoid admin is believed to be still at large.


As it stands, three Demonoid domains: Demonoid.me, Demonoid.com and Demonoid.ph are up for sale on Sedo. The time is ripe as of now for the sale of the domain names as it has caught the attention of many on and off the web. The traffic that Demonoid used to attract was huge and internet marketers would definitely want to bank on this.


Anonymous has taken a vow to avenge the closure of Demonoid and is going to revive the torrent tracker through mirror sites and by creating a group called "open-source Demonoid".
 

[Nightflier]

A mogli bi i da postave servere u Rusiji, pa da vidimo...

[Meho Krljic]

Čovek u Britaniji dobio četiri godine zatvora zbog toga što je držao sajt koji je olakšavao pristup piratskom materijalu. Dakle, da ne bude zabune, sajt surfthechannel nije sam hostovao nikakav kopirajtovan materijal ali je korisnike podsticao da ostavljaju linkove do sajtova gde bi sporni materijal bio hostovan. Čovek čak i nije osuđen za pirateriju (gde je mogao da dobije maksimalno dve godine zatvora) nego je optužen i osuđen za zaveru gde je maksimalna kazna mogla da bude i deset godina. Deluje užasno, mora se priznati, mada s druge strane, vele da je ovaj sajt zarađivao 35 hiljada funti mesečno na ime reklama pošto je imao veliki promet. I da je novac išao na račun u Latviji... Priznajem da se tu logika malčice namršti i mora da razmisli.

[Meho Krljic]

Šta se događa sa vašom elektronskom bibliotekom knjiga ili kolekcijom digitalne muzike ili igara, kad umrete? Za sada, svi mi koji ove stvari kupujemo legalno, to radimo pod uslovima da su prava koja imamo spram materijala (licenca za njihovo korišćenje, ne i vlasništvo nad materijalom u bilo kom obliku) netransferabilna.

Who inherits your iTunes library? Why your digital books and music may go to the grave 

Many of us will accumulate vast libraries of digital books and music over the course of our lifetimes. But when we die, our collections of words and music may expire with us.
Someone who owned 10,000 hardcover books and the same number of vinyl records could bequeath them to descendants, but legal experts say passing on iTunes and Kindle libraries would be much more complicated.
And one's heirs stand to lose huge sums of money. "I find it hard to imagine a situation where a family would be OK with losing a collection of 10,000 books and songs," says Evan Carroll, co-author of "Your Digital Afterlife." "Legally dividing one account among several heirs would also be extremely difficult."
Part of the problem is that with digital content, one doesn't have the same rights as with print books and CDs. Customers own a license to use the digital files—but they don't actually own them.
Apple /quotes/zigman/68270/quotes/nls/aapl AAPL +0.09%   and Amazon.com /quotes/zigman/63011/quotes/nls/amzn AMZN +1.88%   grant "nontransferable" rights to use content, so if you buy the complete works of the Beatles on iTunes, you cannot give the White Album to your son and Abbey Road to your daughter.
According to Amazon's terms of use, "You do not acquire any ownership rights in the software or music content." Apple limits the use of digital files to Apple devices used by the account holder.
"That account is an asset and something of value," says Deirdre R. Wheatley-Liss, an estate planning attorney at Fein, Such, Kahn & Shepard in Parsippany, N.J.
But can it be passed on to one's heirs?
Most digital content exists in a legal black hole. "The law is light years away from catching up with the types of assets we have in the 21st Century," says Wheatley-Liss. In recent years, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Indiana, Oklahoma and Idaho passed laws to allow executors and relatives access to email and social networking accounts of those who've died, but the regulations don't cover digital files purchased.
Apple and Amazon did not respond to requests for comment.
There are still few legal and practical ways to inherit e-books and digital music, experts say. And at least one lawyer has a plan to capitalize on what may become be a burgeoning market. David Goldman, a lawyer in Jacksonville, says he will next month launch software, DapTrust, to help estate planners create a legal trust for their clients' online accounts that hold music, e-books and movies. "With traditional estate planning and wills, there's no way to give the right to someone to access this kind of information after you're gone," he says.
Here's how it works: Goldman will sell his software for $150 directly to estate planners to store and manage digital accounts and passwords. And, while there are other online safe-deposit boxes like AssetLock and ExecutorSource that already do that, Goldman says his software contains instructions to create a legal trust for accounts. "Having access to digital content and having the legal right to use it are two totally different things," he says.
The simpler alternative is to just use your loved one's devices and accounts after they're gone—as long as you have the right passwords.
Chester Jankowski, a New York-based technology consultant, says he'd look for a way to get around the licensing code written into his 15,000 digital files. "Anyone who was tech-savvy could probably find a way to transfer those files onto their computer—without ending up in Guantanamo," he says. But experts say there should be an easier solution, and a way such content can be transferred to another's account or divided between several people."We need to reform and update intellectual-property law," says Dazza Greenwood, lecturer and researcher at Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab.
Technology pros say the need for such reform is only going to become more pressing. "A significant portion of our assets is now digital," Carroll says. U.S. consumers spend nearly $30 on e-books and MP3 files every month, or $360 a year, according to e-commerce company Bango. Apple alone has sold 300 million iPods and 84 million iPads since their launches. Amazon doesn't release sales figures for the Kindle Fire, but analysts estimate it has nearly a quarter of the U.S. tablet market.