May 02, 2005
Time in the slammer
According to a new US law, those who “pirate” music and movies could end up with three years in jail.
Signed by President Bush on Wednesday, the new bill primarily targets file-sharers who put up new content before its public release. The bill also exempts companies from copyright law that offer “filters” to mute or skip offensive parts of films.
For the full story:
BBC - US law targets online 'pirates'
April 06, 2005
MGM v. Grokster - Important Update
The Supreme Court of the United States began hearing arguments in the MGM v. Grokster case. At the heart of this case is whether Grokster should be held liable for infringing uses of their software if there are also substantial non-infringing uses.
P2P pundits have long cited the 1984 Sony Betamax
As we here at tinfoil.music have stated before, holding Grokster liable for what the users do with the software will have chilling effects on P2P technology as well as the entire tech industry. Photocopy machines have substantial non-infringing uses but can, and are, used to illegally photocopy content from books and other copyrighted material. Should Xerox be on the hook for that?
Judge Antonin Scalia questioned this as well, proving once and for all that there may be a small glimmer of intelligence and good ol' tech knowledge on the bench. He called MGM on it. Here is an observation from someone at the case:
At least some of the Justices, Scalia in particular, seemed troubled by how an inventor would know, at the time of inventing, how its invention might be marketed in the future. How, some of the Justices asked MGM, could the inventors of the iPod (or the VCR, or the photocopier, or even the printing press) know whether they could go ahead with developing their invention? It surely would not be difficult for them to imagine that somebody might hit upon the idea of marketing their device as a tool for infringement.
MGM's answer to this was pretty unsatisfying. They said that at the time the iPod was invented, it was clear that there were many perfectly lawful uses for it, such as ripping one's own CD and storing it in the iPod. This was a very interesting point for them to make, not least because I would wager that there are a substantial number of people on MGM's side of the case who don t think that example is one bit legal. But they've now conceded the contrary in open court, so if they actually win this case they ll be barred from challenging ripping in the future under the doctrine of judicial estoppel. In any event, though, MGM's iPod example did exactly what their proposed standard expressly doesn't do: it evaluated the legality of the invention based on the knowledge available to the inventor at the time, not from a post hoc perspective that asks how the invention is subsequently marketed or what business models later grow up around it.
This is an important question and essentially the crux of the entire case. How can we expect inventors to look into the future for possible infringing uses of their product when not even the industry itself can?
Contributed by:
Tinfoil Music - Digital Media and Music News
P2P Networks Dealt Serious Blow in Japan
The Recording Industry Association of Japan (RIAJ) has done something that the RIAA has thusfar been unable to accomplish: Deal a crippling blow to the P2P networks based in the country. The Supreme Court of Japan has decided that the MMO P2P service is liable for any copyright infringement that occured as a result of their software / network.
The RIAJ is, not surprisingly, happier than pigs in shit about the decision that awards them £183,000 (or 16,770,056.52 Dinars, for our Algerian readers out there) of MMO's money and vows to keep fighting P2P networks.
Allen Dixon, general counsel for the International Federation of Phonographic Industries (IFPI) stressed the significance of the ruling. "This case is important in that it is the first decision world-wide that has found that providing an unauthorised file-sharing service itself constitutes an infringement of record companies' rights to make available their recordings on the Internet."
This couldn't come at a better time for MGM. I predeict that they will bring this up in 5... 4... 3...
Contributed by:
Tinfoil Music - Digital Media and Music News
March 29, 2005
Grokster Gets a Little Help
Grokster is getting some help in the MGM v. Grokster case - from Mark Cuban. Mr. Cuban owns various media interests, movies, television shows, movie distribution networks and other things related. He also owns the Dallas Mavericks, which as I am told is a game involving a ball and a wire hoop that does NOT involve ice or a puck. Huh, imagine that.
Mr. Cuban's blog entry has a more complete listing of items which he owns or has financial interest in. It's a pretty extensive list of entertainment industry companies which caused me to raise an eyebrow. Why would a gentleman such as Mr. Cuban want to help out the pure, uncut evil that is Grokster? Surely he's heard the RIAA/MPAA's claims stating that P2P software will bring about the end of the entertainment industry, leave hundreds of thousands of people in the
industry unemployed. And it makes the baby Jesus cry.
Scroll down past the vastness that is the list of Mr. Cuban's many posessions (can I call you Daddy, by the way?) and he gets to the point. Daddy actually gets it. Outlawing technology in such broad terms that the entertainment industry would like has unknown effects in the future. It's like that episode of Simpsons where Homer somehow kludges together a time machine out of a toaster, goes back in time and does various sundry things that in turn change the timeline in ways that couldn't be known to even Steven Hawking.
The point I was trying to make in the previous run on sentence is that banning technology, ney, anything, also bans the possible benefits of the anything. Stem cell reseach is a perfect example. How can we ban such promising tech when we don't know just how positive an effect it can have on the world? It's tough to argue that P2P is used for primarily legit purposes, but there are most certainly other uses for the technology that we have yet to think up, so why ban it?
Also of interest, there is a link on BITTORRENT for the MGM v.
Grokster briefs. It's a 20 meg file consisting of a large number of
briefs.
Contributed by:
Tinfoil Music - Digital Media and Music News
March 11, 2005
BPI does it again
The British Phonographic Industry was allowed to force six UK internet service providers into disclosing the names and addresses of 31 individuals that have been alleged to uploading a large number of music files on to P-2-P networks.
"Today's result is a blow for illegal uploaders who believe that the law simply does not apply to them," commented BPI general counsel Geoff Taylor
This follows the fact that earlier this month BPI has reached out of court settlements with 23 of its 26 cases that were launched in October of 04.
The previous settlements have amounted up to £4,000 and have included situations where children were sharing music without their parents knowledge or consent.
"We would particularly advise parents to check what their children are doing on the internet and make sure that they are not breaking the law by filesharing illegally".
For the full story:
Macworld UK - BPI launches second wave attack on UK file sharers
March 09, 2005
Pat-rights demands 12% from iTunes
Pat-rights is going to launch a series of legal actions against iTunes. The first one will be a formal notification issued by Pat-rights' Attorney, Mr. Joseph J. Zito, demanding Apple a reasonable license fee, 12% of gross sales of iTunes music tracks and iPods, and Apple will have to accept it in 21 days. Mr. Zito is a
well-experienced patent counsel, and has actively engaged in intellectual property litigation in District and Appellate Courts.
Everyone knows that iTunes allows a user to play purchased music tracks to up to 5 computers, without repeated payment, under the condition that the computers are registered. The computer registration involves a process of identity verification in which a user is required to key in into the computer the correct Apple ID and password he used to purchase the song.
This is certainly a patentable technology. If iTunes does not patent it, there must be a very good reason for them not to do so- someone else has patented this.
Pat-rights named the technology as "Internet/Remote User Identity Verification", earned a US Patent 6,665,797 therefor, and world-wide patents pending. In the end of 2003, Apple indicated in its communication to Pat-rights that Apple had no interested in licensing it and remain silence ever since then.
"We have kept a close watch on every development of iTunes. We believe this is willful infringement", said CEO of Pat-rights, Mr. Philip H.K. Tse,"We lose face. Apple shows no respect to us and our patent rights!"
The US Patent 6,665,797 is written in plain English, even a layman can read and understand it. "They are playing unfair to their customers, not us." Mr. Tse further commented.
According to US Law, any willful infringement found by a court can result in injunction as well as treble damages. If an injunction is granted, then Apple's customer will not be able to enjoy their music tracks as free as they have been.
Å@"We know that other internet music shops are not making money," Mr. Tse further noted, "but we are considering seriously offering one of them an exclusive license."
Pat-rights is going to launch a series of legal actions against iTunes. The first one will be a formal notification issued by Pat-rights' Attorney, Mr. Joseph J. Zito, demanding Apple a reasonable license fee, 12% of gross sales of iTunes music tracks and iPods, and Apple will have to accept it in 21 days. Mr. Zito is a
well-experienced patent counsel, and has actively engaged in intellectual property litigation in District and Appellate Courts.
-----
Abstract of Patent 6.665,797
A central program comprising a EI sub-program for providing identity information of the rightful user thereof for accessing a network central computer to obtain service(s) or software product(s) or alike, in which a secure operation on an account of the rightful user for payment therefor involved; and a AS sub-program for using the existence of the EI sub-program in a computer as a precondition for authorising use of those software products obtained on that computer. The central program is for managing the use of the individual
sub-programs therein so that the AS sub-program can be protected from being copied individually.
-----
Between this and the music industry wanting more of the pie, you can bet that the price of online music will be going up. This patent could also have a serious effect on many other sights, including porn sites, eBay, Amazon and virtually any other site which requires you to log on prior to purchasing something. I'll post more info once I read through the entire patent, but it looks like another one of those patents that could cause some pretty big waves both online and off.
February 23, 2005
AllofMP3.com gets attention
The Russian web site that offers digital music internationally at a fraction of the price is now under scrutiny for copyright violations.
Initiated by local lawmakers, the Moscow City Police Computer Crimes division is now investigating the case of copyright abuse.
AllofMP3.com claims that it is licensed to sell the digital music by the record labels however the labels deny this. The site offers tracks at just 2 cents per MB of downloaded music. With an average song being around 3 to 5 MB that is 6 to 10 cents, which seems to be very low if they are still paying royalties on it. AllofMP3.com is also offering digital music tracks that are harder to find on other services, such as tracks from The Beatles and others, which again makes it hard to believe that the site is 100% legal.
February 08, 2005
RIAA suing the dead
The Recording Industry of America has filed suit against a dead women who supposedly made more then 700 songs available.
The 83-year-old woman died in December and was even rumored to having hated computers according to the deceased daughter.
"I believe that if music companies are going to set examples they need to do it to appropriate people and not dead people," Robin Chianumba told AP. "I am pretty sure she is not going to leave Greenwood Memorial Park to attend the hearing."
Ironically the RIAA had eve received a death certificate even before the suit was filed.
The RIAA has also sued a 12-year-old girl as she had an MP3 file of her favorite TV show on her hard drive. This lead to her working class parents having to pick up the two thousand dollar settlement.
For the full story:
The Register - RIAA sues the dead
January 28, 2005
Another 717 feel the RIAA’s wrath
The Recording Industry of America (RIAA) has filed another round of lawsuits against people using peer-to-peer software to trade music for free which brings the total lawsuits since September of 2003 to a whooping 8,400.
Users from 23 university networks were included in this round of lawsuits, which is over three times more then the last round of lawsuits from the RIAA in mid-December.
Then universities targeted include Georgetown University, Harvard University Medical School, Old Dominion University, Ohio State University, the University of Kentucky, Michigan State University and the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor.
The RIAA said it was stepping up its enforcement on college campuses as. The RIAA has noted that instead of stealing music there are now 230 vendors that sell music and about one million songs available on “legitimate” pay-per-download sites.
For the full story:
Macworld UK - RIAA takes 717 file sharers to court
January 12, 2005
Go Directly To Jail, Do Not Pass Go
American companies are turning to foreign countries in an effort to produce copyright & intellectual property protection that they can then use in an effort to protect their property at home.
Outgoing U.S. Commerce Secretary Don Evans is putting pressure on
China to put in place sweeping reforms to the country's outdated
copyright & IP laws that have little bite. China has "got to start
putting people in jail" to show it is serious about cracking down on widespread counterfeiting and piracy that costs U.S. companies billions of dollars in lost sales every year.
China's highest court issued updated intellectual property laws that sees lowered thresholds for criminal prosecution and increases prison time for the worst offenders.
"We're not sure they've gone far enough," said Evans. "That will be one of the topics of discussion," who will meet with senior Chinese officials while in Beijing this week.
"The bottom line for us is prosecutions, prosecutions, prosecutions," Brilliant said. "That is going to require getting into local provinces and addressing some of the corruption that exists."
Story contributed by:
Tinfoil Music - Digital Media and Music News
January 07, 2005
iTunes user suing Apple
A customer of the iTunes Music Store is suing Apple because the store obliges him to buy an iPod after buying music.
Thomas Slattery, who is suing Apple for anticompetitive behavior, alleges that "Apple has turned an open and interactive standard into an artifice that prevents consumers from using the portable hard drive digital music player of their choice." Slattery also stated that he was “forced” into buying an iPod just to listen to the music he had bought from the iTunes Music Store.
Slattery will have quite the challenge convincing the California District Court of its merits. To leverage the Sherman Act (the act that deals with anticompetitive business activities and monopolies) Slattery must prove that Apple is a monopoly then that it abused its position as the leader in the industry to suppress competition to the detriment of consumers.
Ironically Microsoft, who is a convicted monopolist, has also argued that Apple’s digital music monopoly is too restrictive.
Apple will most likely argue that iTunes doesn’t forclose other distribution channels.
For the full story:
The Register - Apple music store smacked with antitrust suit
January 04, 2005
German Computers Taxed
Recently, Canadian judges declared that the piracy tax applied to devices such as iPods was illegal and, as such, was removed, reducing the price of iPods and other MP3 players. Germany decided that we wacky Canucks were smoking too much of our decriminalized pot.
The German courts have ordered Fujitsu-Siemens to start paying €12 per computer sold as a sort of piracy tax - down from the €30 that VG Wort wanted. Who is VG Wort you ask? VG Wort is, apparently somewhat similar to the RIAA, though I can't say for certain as it's full of very long German words.
Judges were convinced that since computers could be used for piracy that they should be suject to the same tax that is imposed on blank vhs and audio cassettes. It does make some sense, though there is no tax is on blank CDs or DVDs.
VG Wort has been petitioning for two years to get this tax put in place and now plans on taking its fight to other German computer manufacturers.
The manufacturer is considering appealing the case that would see Germany as the first country in the EU to tax PCs in such a way.
Submission by:
Tinfoil Music - Digital Media and Music News
December 23, 2004
iPod prices drop in Canada
Following the ruling made by the Federal Court of Appeal, in regards to Canada’s Board of Copyright, the price of iPods is to drop in Canada.
The 20GB and 40GB iPods will drop $25 and the iPod mini will list for $15 lower.
The law set up by the Canadian Board of Copyright was to tax blank media that included cassettes, MiniDiscs and CD-Rs in order to help compensate artists that lost money because of piracy and home taping.
For the full story:
The Register - Apple Canada cuts iPod prices
December 17, 2004
754 new lawsuits
Just in time for Christmas, the Recording Industry Association of America has filed another 754 lawsuits for alleged file-traders that have used peer-to-peer services.
The new set of lawsuits includes 20 people using university computer networks. These universities include: University of Pennsylvania, Columbia University in New York, Old Dominion University in Virginia and Virginia Commonwealth University.
The remaining 734 people that were not on university connections include residents of Pennsylvania, Virginia, Georgia, Missouri, New York, Connecticut, Illinois and the District of Columbia.
This round of lawsuits brings the RIAA up to 7,700 people that is has sued since September 2003 with over 3,000 of those lawsuits since October of this year.
The RIAA president Cary Sherman believes that his actions through the RIAA are justified. Sherman made this statement: "With legal online retailers still forced to compete against illegal free networks, the playing field remains decidedly unbalanced," Sherman said. "That’s why continued enforcement against individuals stealing and distributing music illegally is essential, as is holding accountable the businesses that intentionally promote and profit from this theft."
For the full story:
Macworld UK - RIAA Christmas cheer: 754 lawsuits
Canada's MP3 fee tossed
Canada's Copyright Act allows the Copyright Board of Canada to apply levies to blank media such as blank CDs, DVDs and cassettes. Unfortunatly, the wording of the act is ambiguous and the board has since included digital devices that could be used to store music, including MP3 players and memory cards often used in digital cameras. That is, until now.
Article compliments of:
Tinfoil Music - Digital Media and Music News
November 22, 2004
RIAA hits students
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has come after another 761 file-swappers and once again a number of students.
These latest lawsuits once again included college students, 25 unnamed students across the nation but a number of them were in Massachusetts this time. Last months flurry of 750 lawsuits seemed to have targeted schools in the Midwest. This geographical distribution might suggest that the RIAA is taking a systematic approach in which campuses they target. This brings the total to just under 7,000 lawsuits total in 18 months.
RIAA president Cary Sherman has not been slowed down by the bad publicity of his groups lawsuits but rather made the ironic remark that, “"The lawsuits are an essential educational tool.”
Schools included in the lawsuit include: American University, Amherst College, Assumption College, Boston College, Boston University, Bridgewater State College, Emerson College, Iowa State University, James Madison University, Mount Holyoke College, Northeastern University, and the University of Massachusetts.
For the full story:
Tech News World - RIAA Files 761 More File-Swapping Lawsuits
October 29, 2004
RIAA gets another 750
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has taken legal action against another 750 people it claimed were illegally downloading music through peer-to-peer (P2P) networks.
The new lawsuits are “John Doe” meaning that the RIAA does not know exactly who they are targeting. However, of the 750, 13 were on university campuses. After these fillings the RIAA is up to 6,200 lawsuits since September of 2003.
The RIAA also filed another 213 lawsuits against defendants that had declines or ignored the RIAA’s efforts to settle their case.
Lawsuits were file in federal district courts in California, Illinois, Arizona, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Delaware, Hawaii, Kansas, Maryland, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Kentucky, Louisiana, North Carolina, New York, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, Indiana, Iowa, Mississippi, Ohio, Illinois, New York, Michigan and Washington.
For the full story:
Macworld UK - RIAA hunts 750 more file-sharers
October 27, 2004
MP3s4free.net in Court. Lawyer Looses Calculator
Stephen Cooper, webmaster of the allegedly illegal music download site, MP3s4free.net, is in court in Sydney, Australia, with the record industry claiming he dished out hundreds of millions of songs illegaly.
MIPI, Australia's Music Industry Piracy Investigation organization, first took notice of the site this year around this time.
According to MIPI, MP3s4free.net racked up some impressive traffic figures: 1.97 terabytes and 191,296,511 hits from November '02 to October '03. The org contends that the bulk of the traffic was illegal MP3s, though according to this writer's rough math, MIPI is way off base. You see, 1.97TB (where 1TB is 1024GB) is 2.166e12 bytes. Now, divide that by the number of hits and you get 11,322 bytes per hit, or 11KB. That is hardly enough to download an MP3 at an average size of 3MB.
"The distribution occurred on a massive scale, which was made possible by the power and reach of the Internet," says John Nicholas, lead council. "The scale of copyright infringement that occurred via the MP34free Web site is unprecedented in Australia for an Internet Web site of this kind."
Anthony Morris, Cooper's lead attorney, says that all Cooper did was link to files available on other websites.
"He has done nothing that Google or Yahoo hasn't… he provided a directory for certain types of content," Morris said. "He only provided a hyperlink."
The basic math shown above that there is no way, with those traffic figures, could MP3s4free.net have distributed 191 million songs. At most he could have distributed 688,565 songs, and that ignores any traffic from the site itself. No, that's just not right. Average size of a webpage and included graphic files is easily 11KB, so the traffic figures quoted by MIPI firmly go against what they allege and pretty much prove Cooper innocent of all charges.
October 22, 2004
Don't Tell the RIAA, but Record Sales are UP!
Despite the RIAA's best efforts, CD sales have gone up for the first time in a number of years. This despite the chest-beating and suing of grandmothers and twelve year-olds.
CD sales in the first half of 2004 are up 10% with revenue up 4% over the same time period in 2003. Not bad, certainly a change from earlier this century when the industry had claimed to be bleeding money all because of Napster.
Alas, while most companies would say that a ten-point uptick would be a very positive thing, it seems that the industry has a way of rain on any parade. "The record industry has experienced some gains so far in 2004, but we are rising out of a deep hole and still have a long way to go," said Mitch Bainwol, Chairman of the RIAA. "Piracy, both online and on the street, continues to hit the music community hard, and thousands have lost their jobs because of it."
One might think that the RIAA's strong-arm tactics are the root cause of this change. Why not? What better way of getting people to buy your product than threaten to sue the bejeezus out of them?
Of course, let's not forget that the econmy was in the crapper for the better part of the decade up until now and is showing some sign of recovery, oh, say, like people buying more records?
October 13, 2004
Supreme Court to RIAA: Bugger Off
Some time ago, the RIAA started sending out nastygrams to various ISP's demanding customer info. This customer info would then be used by the RIAA to send their team of law school monkeys after that customer. As you may recall, Verizon told the RIAA that they wouldn't play that game. The RIAA smacked back.
During the peak of the RIAA's DMCA threats, ISPs were receiving dozens of letters a day which would require them to go digging through large log files. Some ISPs decided to ditch the log files altogether so that they couldn't comply, but some with brass balls decided to take the RIAA on directly.
Verizon, among other large ISPs, took it all the way to the supreme court where the ISPs won their case.
In a move that stunned no one, the RIAA decided to file an appeal earlier this week. In a move that stunned everyone, the Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal, forcing the RIAA to file 'John Doe' lawsuits.
These 'John Doe' lawsuits require significantly more work by the RIAA and their team of drooling Harvard-Law-trained hyenas. They have to actually prove to the courts that there was some infraction of the laws involved to get the names of the people, whereas the DMCA letters did not require court intervention. This is definatly a BIG win for all consumers who give a rats ass about their privacy rights.
October 11, 2004
JetGroove’s DRM Dance
The new digital music service, JetGroove, that opened its webpage just last month and is dedicated to dance music, is already under much scrutiny from the music industry and the associations that govern it.
Complaints have been filed that the site offers music in its catalogue that is not licensed from the labels or artists. However, the company states, in response to the allegations, the music that had not been authorized appears on the site but is not available for download, it is ‘on hold.’
"All it seems to have done is piss off a whole load of artists and labels and give the impression that the site is an extremely dodgy operation," stated a post on the Record of the Day web site.
These shady operations have lead to an investigation from the BPI, the UK music industry trade body. Since JetGroove’s servers are also believed to be located in Russia the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry is also pay attention now.
For the full story:
The Register - MP3 dance music service draws industry fire