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The global software piracy rate rose to 41% in 2008 from 38% in 2007, costing rights owners an exchange-rate adjusted $50 billion, according to a joint study between the Business Software Alliance (BSA) and IDC released last week. One of the factors driving greater piracy is increased high-speed Internet access, particularly in emerging markets where piracy rates are the highest. Software piracy is rampant on many Internet channels, including peer-to-peer (P2P) networks, auctions sites and websites. On auction sites alone, software piracy is estimated to be between 50% and 90%, according to an earlier BSA report. Other key findings from the May 2009 joint study include: * Even though global software piracy increased overall in 2008, the piracy rate actually dropped in 52% of the 110 countries studied and stayed the same in 35% of them * The impact of the global economic recession on software piracy is so far mixed, as reduced buying power is just one of many factors affecting piracy * Sites offering access to pirated software also spread malware. According to a 2006 IDC study, 29% of websites and 61% of P2P sites offering pirated software attempt to distribute malware. * While the US has the lowest piracy rate in the world-20%-it suffered the largest revenue loss in 2008 due to piracy given its leadership position in the global software industry

"While appreciating the need for stopping "Software Piracy", the attention of the Government should however be drawn to long term strategies to make Piracy un economical to both the "Pirate" and the "Consumer". The industry has seen a dramatic reduction of pirated copies of Windows since its prices were brought down. The continuation of piracy in other software is to a large extent a result of unreasonable pricing by manufactures. Prices are being determined by them based on their costs and profit requirements rather than the utility value of the software. For example, how many home users can justify the need to buy a Office 2000 paying say around Rs 20,000 which is the cost of the entire hardware system they have bought?. Most offices would find it uneconomical to buy software at such costs. "

Along with alarmist predictions of the death of film, "She added that the industry is moving away from the anti-piracy campaigns based around social stigma, such as "Knockoff Nigel", with a more positive campaign called "You make the Movies" launched earlier this month emphasising that DVD sales and cinema tickets are part of the funding process for high quality content."

Google has banned subscribers to its Korean blogging platform, Textcube (www.textcube.org), from uploading songs onto their blogs, citing the country's new anti-file sharing provisions aimed at thwarting online piracy. This is the first time that the U.S. giant has disabled its bloggers from posting music files on their personal Web pages. Last month, Google blocked users from posting videos and comments on the Korean site of YouTube (kr.youtube.com), its online video service. This was to avoid the new regulations that mandate Internet users to make verifiable real-name registrations on all Web sites with more than 100,000 daily visitors, which means they have to submit their resident registration codes, the Korean equivalent of social security numbers.

In a new tack against piracy, Microsoft Corp. will make a series of investments in the Chinese city of Hangzhou, which has promised to clamp down on illegitimate software. Microsoft will build two new technology centers and make other investments in the wealthy city on China's east coast, with the aim to establish a model city where intellectual-property rights have greater protections than elsewhere in China. In October, Microsoft started sending out software updates that turned users' computer wallpapers black if they had a pirated Windows operating system, a move that sparked anger among some Chinese users.

"I think the trend is now clear. There have been a number of cases in the last five years and if you look at the way they have been decided - the Kazaa case in Australia clearly referred to the American [Grokster] decision and just tweaked the law in a way that suited the rights holders. In Belgium, an ISP [Scarlet] was forced to implement filtering [June 2007, Belgian Society of Authors Composers and Publishers (SABAM) v Scarlet, Brussels Court of First Instance, currently under appeal]; there was a case in Finland [June 2008, Finnish Court of Appeal, where administrators of P2P site Finreactor were sued on an individual basis and 21 people were jointly fined €500,000 ($647,284) for copyright infringement and assisting copyright infringement; 14 are appealing] where the BitTorrent super-users were found guilty and they pleaded they were only linking. So I do see that trend." [...] "The big frustration is that we act for all these legal services who pay lots of money to the rights holders, and it's almost impossible to get licenses. They are so expensive and the process is so slow. Two or three years can go by and you can throw millions at trying to get a compelling service launched, and there are obstacles in the way all the time. Pandora is a great example, it's just not possible [to operate it in Europe]. We also advise Last.fm and MySpace, it's just so much hard work. This is the irony: they [labels] complain about piracy and then you walk in the door with a new service with some VC funding and an amazing bit of software that is essentially promoting and selling their content. But they say 'we are not moving unless you give us an advance of $5 million plus equity."

"How to make money from online content, even after it gets loose on third-party websites." We don't know yet seems to be the conclusion. But content creators are already changing their attitudes toward the piracy they discover. Matt Robinson, Attributor's vice president of business development and partnerships and a speaker at South by Southwest Interactive, noted that, two years ago, most of Attributor's customers used the technology to serve takedown notices. Today, he said, most are using it to gather statistics on where their content is appearing.

"The internet was created to share and distribute data. It's the whole reason the world wide web exists. Of course some of that data is going to be copyright-protected work. If it can be digitized, it can, and will, be shared. What continues to amaze me is how freaked-out authors are by this. The thought that someone is sharing their work--without paying for it--seems to evoke the same reaction as having someone hack your bank account and drain your life savings."

Bangalore: The long-pending Bill to curb piracy of Kannada cinemas and songs is likely to become a reality during the budget session of the State Legislature, according to sources in Kannada cinema industry.

EU Council conclusions on the development of legal offers of online cultural and creative content and the prevention and combating of piracy in the digital environment.

Excellent collection of articles on the public conciousness of the law (the Tamil Nadu Goondas Act) and its interactions with everyday affairs (video piracy).

A new report in a Swedish news site, IDG, recently reported (Google translation) that officials from the BSA are now admitting that their own statistics shouldn't be treated seriously or should be treated like a pinch of salt. From the report:

Anti-piracy groups and lawyers across Europe are unmovable - they say that since they logged a copyright infringement from a particular IP address, the bill payer is responsible. Now a court in Rome has decided that on the contrary, an IP address does not identify an infringer, only a particular connection.

When the Pirate Bay verdict came in last Friday, many feared that the copyright holders would use it as ammunition against other sites. Indeed, Antipiratbyrån - the Swedish anti-piracy office - is now going after BitTorrent trackers with that verdict in hand. They demand that the trackers stop their activities, threatening them with legal action.

"Since then downloads have come to dominate the top 40. About 98% of all single sales are now from downloads, with about 100,000 needed every week to get to the top spot."

China's largest Internet search engine, Baidu, was said to be "responsible for the vast majority of illegal downloading of music in China, deriving significant advertising revenue." But last month China issued an IPR protection plan involving 28 ministries and organizations that had 170 concrete measures to fight copyright infringement. Also, the Supreme People's Court raised compensation for victims from 500,000 yuan ($73,000) to more than 1 million yuan ($146,000). Last year, China closed 192 websites that profited from copyright infringement and uncovered 5719 cases of copyright infringement, Commissioner of the State Intellectual Property Office Tian Lipu said.

"I guess spending $350 for the lowest-capacity Meizu M8 can put too much strain on on our bank accounts in this economic environment, which is what the good people of MeiLi must be thinking when they made their own version of the M8 Apple iPhone clone. The MeiLi M8 is undeniably a lookalike of the Meizu M8, a phone generally acknowledged as the finest iPhone clone there ever was. The question is if the MeiLi M8 is a Meizu M8 clone and the latter is a clone of the iPhone, then theoretically Apple can sue MeiLi for copyright infringement, too. Right?"

From Thimpu: We have our own Pirate Bay: the Indian city of Jaigoan, where Bhutanese films and music are rampantly pirated by Indian vendors. Local film and music producers would like to see similar action taking place against these pirates, but the problem is they are not operating on Bhutanese territory. Therefore, being outside the copyright law enforcement abilities of our government, our authorities have not taken any legal action, nor are there any plans to do so.

"Stephen Fry, a highly respected actor, comedian, writer, presenter and author yesterday admitted to downloading TV shows for free using BitTorrent. Speaking at the iTunes Festival in London last night, Fry told the audience that he's grabbed episodes of 24 and the series finale of House, starring his former comedy partner Hugh Laurie." And he admits that he feels a bit guilty about it, but the reason is that he can't really get that content elsewhere. The fault is with the industry, and yet the gov't is trying to protect that industry, rather than recognize that the real problem is the industry not giving people what it wants. Having the gov't come up with a plan to try to stomp out file sharing misses the point. The problem isn't the file sharing -- it's the industry not responding to the market.