tagged w/ Piracy
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In the first few months following the adoption of the three-strikes anti-piracy legislation in France, online piracy has increased significantly. Instead of stopping, file-sharers are seeking alternatives to bypass the new law. Perhaps even more striking is that new research reveals that disconnecting file-sharers will actually hurt the revenues of the music industry.
Keep seeding!
http://torrentfreak.com/piracy-rises-in-france-despite-three-strikes-law-100609/In the first few months following the adoption of the three-strikes anti-piracy... more
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A new study commissioned on behalf of Universal Music reports that if ISPs got involved in the digital music market, they could make millions in the years to come. But one can’t help wondering that this is less about the music biz helping ISPs to make more profit, but more about giving them an incentive to do something about piracy.
Around seven years ago when pressure was first starting to form against the then-fledgling BitTorrent scene, attitudes were pretty much as they are now. “They’ll never stop it, we’ll always find a way,” cried the masses grabbing music, movies and software for free, and few disagreed.
http://torrentfreak.com/music-biz-hopes-to-end-piracy-by-tempting-isps-with-millions-100308/A new study commissioned on behalf of Universal Music reports that if ISPs got... more
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Earlier this month it was celebrations all round for the operators of Aussie ISP iiNet, as they successfully defended a Hollywood movie studio legal onslaught directed by AFACT, the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft.
Village Roadshow, Universal Pictures, Warner Bros Entertainment, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, Disney Enterprises, Inc. and the Seven Network took iiNet to court, claiming that the ISP did nothing to stop its customers from sharing copyright media via BitTorrent and was therefore liable for their infringements.
http://torrentfreak.com/afact-blasts-judge-will-appeal-iinet-isp-liability-decision-100225/Earlier this month it was celebrations all round for the operators of Aussie ISP... more
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A man who was caught by MPAA investigators camcording the hit movie The Dark Knight in a US theater during July 2008 has been sentenced. The 42 year-old from Grandview, Missouri, was ordered to serve 24 months in federal prison and pay $24,738 in fines.A man who was caught by MPAA investigators camcording the hit movie The Dark Knight in... more
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During a press conference for Alice in Wonderland this weekend, Johnny Depp aka The Mad Hatter confirmed that his pals Bloom and Knightley won't be coming back for another Pirates film. There's a new director, and possibly new characters? One thing is for sure, the story won't only be about the drunken pirate Jack Sparrow.
http://www.firstshowing.net/2010/02/21/depp-confirms-knightley-bloom-wont-return-for-pirates-4/During a press conference for Alice in Wonderland this weekend, Johnny Depp aka The... more
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Escapist Fourms - "It's taken me a while to realize, but we're the problem. In a way almost no other medium has to deal with, the target audience for games is such that we're a largely untenable audience now that technology on the back-end has gotten to the point where gamers writ large can go toe-to-toe with any anti-piracy actions the developers engage in. While the argument that "pirates can defeat any DRM software easily, so don't use DRM" holds about as much water for me as "burglars can break into your house even if you lock it, so don't lock it", the attitude of "DRM makes me pirate games" is prevalent enough to truly concern me.
Screw the law for a moment (and anyone who knows me, or has read my posts, knows that I don't write that lightly). And let's ignore any arguments about "fairness" and "what's right". We're helping usher in backward steps in gaming as a whole. And this in a way that movies, television, and music don't struggle with as much. Those forms of media have audiences who don't have the capacity, knowledge, or will to pirate. The pirate-ready population of moviegoers isn't as large a proportion as the pirate-ready population of gamers. We're a unique audience in that our capacity to use games (especially for PC gamers) is directly correlated with our ability to pirate them.
It's still prohibitively difficult to pirate games on consoles, but I believe that's the next step. At that point, game companies will either (a) escalate the DRM war, and alienate people, or (b) accept significant populations of people pirating rather than buying. "But-" I hear you cry "it doesn't cost them anything if I play without paying, if the alternative is that I not play at all, and it gives word of mouth, ect." It's possible, but in a weakened economy, that word of mouth is less likely to inspire "more sales" as "more piracy".
"Ah ha-" you reply "but it doesn't cost that much to make a game. Even if we include all the costs of developing Modern Warfare II, they more than made back their investment, probably twice or three-times over". That's true, but somewhat misleading. For every Modern Warfare, there's a dozen Okami. The profits from MW2 go into offsetting the cost of less-well-selling games. Madden pays for Shadow of the Colossus, Pokemon pays for Trauma Center.
Think of it like a pharmaceutical company. The money they "make" off of the sale of their drugs not only pays for their previous investment (or, more likely, future investments), but also for all of their failed products. So, what if, instead of researching low-profit and high-risk-of-failure drugs like antibiotics, all a company did was develop and sell erectile dysfunction medication? That'd kind of suck for us regular folks, wouldn't it?
It's even worse for us gamers (relatively, at least, since we're not talking about death). We expect new products every year, and there's no real consistency. If Phizer makes a cancer drug, then can expect to make good money on it for fifteen years. If Bioware makes a good game, the best they get is one sales season.
And, not for nothing, but without the ability to make up for investment in Okami with massive success in MW2, Okami doesn't get made. Games will become safer and safer, with companies unwilling to invest in innovative ideas, or do anything that won't appeal to the biggest audience possible.
So they need every penny they can get.
For a more proper analogy, think about what's been happening to the porn industry. Without the means to control distribution, and without a vigorous ability to prevent piracy, the industry is suffering heavily. Many studios are going bankrupt, and what was once considered "recession-proof" isn't really "internet-proof". Gone are the days (largely) of actual big-budget pornographic movies. It's all been brought to the lowest common denominator.
"Wait a second" you scratch your chin "what about all of the tube sites that give things like home-videos? Porn is alive and well". Exactly. Pornography has been relegated more and more to small companies making relatively low-budget productions, and to a lot of amateurs.
Do you want that in gaming? Gaming is hung primarily on a backbone of big-budget blockbusters. We want Halo, we want Mass Effect, MW2, and full 3D everywhere. Do you think that a bedroom programming company can do that? Imagine if all of gaming was Peggle and Steam games (not the big-name ones, the "independent" games); would that sate our thirst for games?
We should be helping to defend game companies from pirates, not trying to justify piracy. We should be trying to ensure that every company gets every dollar due it. Otherwise, we have no one to blame when companies re-release the same generic mainstream crap over and over again. Unless we try to make it feasible for companies to take risks, we're asking to be disappointed."
http://www.splitreason.com/Product_Images/cb992e19ee18-xl.jpg
I dont typicaly pull stories from fourms but I felt this had some insight to it.
C.D.Escapist Fourms - "It's taken me a while to realize, but we're the... more
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The up and coming torrent indexer KickassTorrents has launched a new search trends feature. Users can use it to browse through the most popular search phrases for any given day or month to find out what’s wanted by other BitTorrent users. Some interesting trends and old habits are revealed by the new feature.
http://torrentfreak.com/kickasstorrents-reveals-bittorrent-search-trends-100215/The up and coming torrent indexer KickassTorrents has launched a new search trends... more
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The operators of MooZar, a new service set to launch at the end of February, believe they have the solution to the file-sharing piracy ‘problem’. Illicit downloaders can apparently go to their site, pay some money and feel happy in the knowledge that they’ve supported the artist. Controversially, there are suggestions they won’t get sued either.
http://torrentfreak.com/moozar-aims-to-turn-pirates-into-paying-customers-100214/The operators of MooZar, a new service set to launch at the end of February, believe... more
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Despite efforts to prevent coverage of the Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony from leaking online, the broadcast is widely available on BitTorrent, downloaded by thousands of people. Most of the downloaders are from the host country Canada, closely followed by the United States.
http://torrentfreak.com/olympics-opening-ceremony-hit-on-bittorrent-100213/Despite efforts to prevent coverage of the Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony from... more
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" The film once again was the most-pirated movie on the Internet last week, thanks to a DVD screener that leaked onto file-sharing networks."
Here's the rest of the top ten most pirated films of last week:
1) Avatar
2) Sherlock Holmes
3) Daybreakers
4) The Hurt Locker
5) Zombieland
6) The Men Who Stare at Goats
7) Couples Retreat
8) Nine
9) The Book of Eli
10) The Informant
I don't really see the point of seeing Avatar on your computer screen, because then you'll actually be paying attention to the story..." The film once again was the most-pirated movie on the Internet last week,... more
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Last week the gaming giant Ubisoft announced their latest DRM invention. In order to play purchased games customers have to be connected to the Internet at all times. Game developers are skeptical of this new anti-piracy solution, but could it actually be a step in the right direction?
http://torrentfreak.com/game-developers-skeptical-abou-ubisofts-new-drm-100206/Last week the gaming giant Ubisoft announced their latest DRM invention. In order to... more
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Following a lengthy legal procedure the Court of Bergamo has once again ruled that Italian ISPs have to censor their networks and prevent customer access to The Pirate Bay. Millions of Italian Internet users will be denied access to the popular torrent site in an attempt to prevent copyright infringement.
http://torrentfreak.com/the-pirate-bay-to-be-censored-in-italy-again-100207/Following a lengthy legal procedure the Court of Bergamo has once again ruled that... more
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A human rights watchdog has asked the European Commission to assess the legality of software being used to analyse file-sharing in the UK.
LINK : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8480699.stmA human rights watchdog has asked the European Commission to assess the legality of... more
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More than 150 people have approached consumer publication Which? Computing claiming to have been wrongly targeted in crackdowns on illegal file-sharing.
LINK : http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8481790.stmMore than 150 people have approached consumer publication Which? Computing claiming to... more
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Last year, Radiohead expressed their growing discomfort with record labels that abuse copyrights for their own benefit, while harassing their fans. In a recent interview, Radiohead guitarist Ed O’Brien said that he doesn’t believe piracy is killing the music industry, but that the industry will kill itself if it doesn’t adapt to the digital age.
http://torrentfreak.com/piracy-isnt-killing-music-radioheads-guitarist-says-100124/Last year, Radiohead expressed their growing discomfort with record labels that abuse... more
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Once again the music industry has come out with disappointing results for physical music sales, which they blame entirely on file-sharing. What they failed to mention though, is that their findings show that music pirates are buying more digital music than the average music consumer. Since digital music is the future, pirates are the industry’s most valuable customers.
http://torrentfreak.com/pirates-are-the-music-industrys-most-valuable-customers-100122/Once again the music industry has come out with disappointing results for physical... more
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At age 15, Daniel K. Roberts, better known as Monkey Man, built a radio station in his bedroom at his parents Los Gatos, California home using a 40-watt transmitter, a mixer, a tape deck, a portable CD player, and a microphone. That was 13 years ago. Monkey's pet project eventually became Pirate Cat Radio 87.9 FM, a cafe, community outlet, and unlicensed low-power FM radio station that served San Francisco for more than a decade. In August 2009, the Federal Communications Commission fined Pirate Cat $10,000 and ordered it to either get off the airwaves or face further fees. Here was a subversive station that didn't rely solely on a cool record collection or a standard corporate algorithm to garner street credibility. For now, it's been relegated to Web only, and Monkey has been busy fighting the feds for the right to get back on the air while local music venues host fundraising events to help pay off his fine. I bussed over to the station's not-so-secret heaquarters to ask Monkey about the state of his operation, and whether Hollywood got the pirate radio story right.
http://motherjones.com/riff/2009/12/fight-radio-rightsAt age 15, Daniel K. Roberts, better known as Monkey Man, built a radio station in his... more
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"One of the interesting differences in recent years is the rise of targeted attacks, in which specific organizations are being attacked using malware of different kinds. Mikko Hypoonen, Chief Research Officer of F-Secure, has a useful 9 minute lecture on the topic on YouTube that provides an excellent introduction to the problem.
This article looks at targeted attacks in India, China, the Pacific Rim and Oceania.
India
Corporations and financial institutions operating in India pose a serious cybersecurity threat since many multinational corporations outsource functions such as technical support and customer services to India. This outsourcing makes India an ideal location for learning vulnerabilities specific to a target and for collecting personally identifiable information (PII) and other information that could be used to conduct spear phishing and other attacks.
In India in particular, the insider threat is significant due to the close-knit nature of Indian operations. If employees are not sufficiently vetted prior to hire, an entire insider organization could, in theory, penetrate outsourced operations. According to a July 2009 report from the UK National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA), "?the biggest incentive to work in a call centre [in India] is to be able to hack the bank accounts and illegally withdraw millions from bank customers."
The national Indian government is highly motivated to protect and cultivate its online industry. For example, many major city police departments have cybercrime investigative elements. There are also national initiatives and legislation aimed at reducing cybercrime."
Second part of a two part series by the San Francisco Chronicle on online piracy.
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2010/01/11/urnidgns852573C400693880002576A8002FBBF9.DTL#ixzz0cMHCJ2Tb
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2010/01/11/urnidgns852573C400693880002576A8002FBBF9.DTL"One of the interesting differences in recent years is the rise of targeted... more
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