Group items tagged

"Music and movie industries, you're well-known for being incredibly short-sighted, greedy and stupid. I'm not going to argue with that, because you really are."  A post explaining why piracy happens in simple terms.

The movie industry uses someone's music without authorisation in an anti-piracy video.  They first refuse to deal with it then try and cream money from any deal. The irony weeps from every pore!

Piracy allows the spread of music & culture and increases sales of goods.

Course it's not piracy - that's something that happens on the high seas. And it's also not p2p either, which is used as a measure by RIANZ for copyright infringement.

Looks interesting if anyone wants to catch up on piracy, brandjacking and the sophistication and wars behind this stuff.

The rationale behind online 'piracy' in a comic. 

The government of Switzerland has issued a statement declaring that it will not take action to alter current copyright laws allowing the downloading of music and movies for personal use. The statement is the result of a lengthy study conducted by the Swiss government into the impact of so-called "piracy" on the entertainment industry. Despite the industry's claims that downloading undermines their business, this study shows that the effect of unauthorized downloading on the industry's bottom line is negligible. One key finding of the study is that downloaders spend as much if not more to acquire content legally as those who do not download. Researchers found no change in amount of disposable income spent on music and movies, despite the fact that roughly one third of Swiss people engage in some form of downloading. The government concluded, then, that no change to the current legal structure was necessary, and urged the entertainment industry to grow and adapt with the changes in technology and in consumer habits, rather than trying to suppress progress.

Is piracy really killing the entertainment industry? Not according to US figures.

Excellent piece on how piracy is not destroying the music/film industries. They're managing that perfectly fine by themselves!

Brian Lamb on the links between radio development and ds106radio, the rise of a business whose sole job is to create business by pushing copyright and the danger of an anodyne future for the Internet

Op-ed on why DRM and anti-piracy movements are doomed to fail and the invasion of privacy and reduction of human rights that legislation allows, and why people should accept that the times they have a changed ...

Short post detailing frustration at DRM and the 'anti-piracy' propaganda that is spewed forth.

Interesting article by Cory Doctorow on why the anti-piracy drive is harming the Internet. 

Guardian Article. "As the demise of the Sopa anti-piracy act showed, established arguments for protecting the rights of content creators are almost impossible to apply to a digital world"

"Musical instruments produce sounds. Composers produce music. Musical instruments reproduce music. Tape recorders, radios, disc players, etc., reproduce sound. A device such as a wind-up music box produces sound and reproduces music. A phonograph in the hands of a hip hop/scratch artist who plays a record like an electronic washboard with a phonographic needle as a plectrum, produces sounds which are unique and not reproduced - the record player becomes a musical instrument. A sampler, in essence a recording, transforming instrument, is simultaneously a documenting device and a creative device, in effect reducing a distinction manifested by copyright."

This controversial anti-piracy legislation is all about studios and other corporations making excuses for their technological backwardness and looking out for their short-term profit

"So you buy the hardcover and then pirate a homebrew e-book ...the interesting question isn't one of law, it's one of ethics"

Some backstory to new copyright law in NZ, the file-sharing amendment.

Report on copyright 'infringement'. It doesn't mention that many of its 'hits' relate to material used under US Fair Use legislation, therefore not infringing copyright.