A security hole in Adobe Systems Inc software has enabled users free access to record and copy from Amazon.com Inc’s video streaming service.
According to Reuters, the Replay Media Catcher from Applian Technologies, recorded movies from Amazon and other sites that use Adobe’s encryption technology.
If you’re so inclined, instructions can be found at tvadfree.com
Hole in Adobe Security Opens Amazon FloodgatesA federal judge granted a new trial to Jammie Thomas, the Minnesota woman who was the first to fight the RIAA over file-sharing in court.
In an interesting twist of events, the judge determined that he gave the jury bad instructions that could have “substantially prejudiced” the outcome.
The judge has now put the burden of proof back on the RIAA and record companies to show that Ms. Thomas actually “distributed” the copyrighted material, not just made them available. How they will trace back any P2P connections at this point is beyond me, but I suspect somewhere, somehow, someone knows how to do it.
What continues to amaze me more, however, is that people are still using Kazaa and leaving the “share” function on. While I agree with the judge and hope for the best for Ms. Thomas, I still maintain that if you are too stupid to protect yourself, you deserve to get fucked. Just not this royally.
Minn. Woman and RIAA Back to CourtKids – Watch out. If you think you are just downloading “to try it out before you buy it,” think again. Activision has been suing pirates of its most popular games. Kotaku has a nice, profane version of the story, and Edge Online has some deets too.
These folks a just the latest to find themselves in some hot water. When are people going to smarten up?
Activision taking RIAA-style Approach to Piracy# awn Guse of Federal Way, Washington. Guse, unrepresented by counsel, agreed to pay Activision $100,000 (CoD 3 Wii, CoD 3 Xbox 360) to settle the case.
# Chris Hyman of Abbeville, South Carolina. Hyman, also unrepresented, agreed to pay Activision $25,000 to settle the case. (CoD3 Wii, Tony Hawk’s Project 8, Xbox 360).
# George Laflin of New Jersey. Laflin, apparently the only defendant who had an attorney, agreed to pay Activision $100,000 (CoD 3 Xbox 360).
# Maryanne Leach of Northome, Minnesota. Leach, with no attorney, agreed to pay Activision $1,000.
# Kenneth Madden of York, South Carolina agreed to pay Activision $100,000 (CoD 3 Wii, Cod 2 The Big Red One PS2, Tony Hawk’s Project 8, Xbox 360). He too was unrepresented.
# James R. Strickland, aka Ryan Strickland of New York State; case is still active (CoD3 Xbox 360).
Once again, Mediapost’s Cathy Taylor misses the point. Shame to see a social media columnist, who works for a media company with its own intellectual property, so blatantly misunderstand the state of IP, fair use, copyright law and jump to ridiculous conclusions like:
…let’s contemplate how severely Hasbro doesn’t get it. The company actually thinks it owns the game, when consumers actually own the game, no matter how many legal documents Hasbro can throw at the situation.
Un-fucking-believable.
Update: The creators of Scrabulous have launched a new Facebook application, Wordscraper.
Hasbro, Scrabulous, and Fair Usehttp://www.dantynan.com/2008/07/21/the-riaa-vs-the-mothers-of-prevention/ includes great mini-anecdotes and the full resolution to the “baby dancing to Prince song” fiasco.
Great RIAA Post from Dan TynanReuters reportS: Canadians will be allowed to copy legally acquired music to their iPods and computers but would be banned from getting around any digital locks that companies might apply.
Legislation protects Internet service providers from liability for copyright violations by their subscribers, requiring them only to pass on notices of violations.
University of Ottawa professor Michael Geist complains “All these rights force consumers to read the fine print — you can shift a song or a television show, but once it’s locked down, your rights disappear and your potential liability skyrockets.”
Awwww…..they’d have to readi the fine print. Hey, read the f’in fine print and keep your ass out of jail.
Legislation doesn’t specify how the government would monitor whether people had built up personal libraries of recordings. Liberal Party member Dan McTeague criticized the bill as being incomplete. “How are you going to enforce this when existing jurisprudence doesn’t allow you to walk into someone’s home?” he pointed out.
Looks like business as usual for digital rights legislation. They just don’t get it.
Canada Clarifies CopyrightsThe video of a 13-month old dancing to a Prince tune – 13 months, not a teenager – has opened the debate once again on what constitutes “Fair Use,” Mediapost reports.
Prince has been notorious for protecting his copyrights, but this is one video that couldn’t be a clearer example of when to leave well enough alone.
Whats your call?
Prince Snippet Stirs Fair Use DebateThe Recording Industry Association of America has sued music search engine Project Playlist, claiming that the service infringes copyright by making it easy for users to find and play pirated tracks.
The company does not host files on its site, but rather provides a player that can be embedded on social networking sites.
RIAA Sues Project PlaylistMore details to emerge, I’m sure, but this time DVD Jon, known for cracking the DVD copyright encryption, has cracked Apple’s DRM, enabling people to play their iTunes purchased music on non-Apple devices. San Francisco-based doubleTwist, co-founded by DVD Jon, is releasing the software.
Beyond computer-to-computer media-sharing, doubleTwist lets users synchronize media sitting on their computers to mobile devices they or their friends own, simply by “dragging and dropping” media files into a desktop folder that then drops copies of the media files onto the mobile devices over the Web.
This is similar functionality provided by Red Chair Software’s Anapod, which the Hobo’s Mom uses for dragging and dropping to her iPod. It also seems to mimic the functionality of Tunebite, which plays back songs in fast forward and re-records them as unprotected files.
While there appears to be little hope for DRM when users are determined to get around it, I still maintain that there is very little that people can’t do under “Fair Use” with DRM protected files.
DVD Jon Liberates Tunes from iTunesAh, good stuff. Never hurts to trump up some numbers when trying to emphasize the size and scope of a problem.
In 2005, the MPAA said 44% of piracy came from college students. Now, three years later – oops! – we were wrong. It was only 15%. The blame? “Human Error.”
It took three years for the MPAA to find a math mistake that was 200% higher than the actual number? Solid.
MPAA Admits “human error”