So the RIAA didn’t exactly give up its efforts to crack down on piracy, or leave it entirely in the hands of ISPs either.
Shelly Palmer reports:
RIAA & ISPs Partner for Piracy
Archive for the ‘News’ Category
RIAA & ISPs Partner for Piracy
Thursday, January 29th, 2009The Day the Music Industry Died?
Wednesday, January 7th, 2009Yesterday at Macworld, Apple announced that it may have killed the golden goose. Or pulled the ol’ bait-and-switch on the goose. And became a hero to everyone who likes to eat goose.
Enough with the goose reference, and apparently, enough with DRM for Apple. Seems the iEverything people struck a deal with the labels to set the music free…for a small price. 10 million songs from the iTunes store will be available with no DRM.
Apple marketing guy Philip Schiller announced that iTunes song prices will come in three tiers: 69 cents, 99 cents and $1.29. The labels get to choose the prices.
Additionally, Apple announced a “Set My Music Free” tax / fee. For $.30, Apple will replace the DRM tracks you’ve previously purchased with the restrictions for tracks without any. The upside to the charge is that a) you don’t have to pay it, and b) you’ll get a higher bit-rate track in return. Hopefully everyone has done the math and will make this model work.
Personally, as I’ve said before, I’ve never had any problems with music with DRM preventing me from doing anything that falls within “fair use.” Only when you start to do the things you aren’t supposed to do you run into trouble.
Bottom line – the solution to the DRM crisis isn’t to abandon DRM. It is to put a sensible DRM solution in place that works well enough for everyone to stay in business.
The Day the Music Industry Died?RIAA Abandons Pursuit of Pirates
Friday, December 19th, 2008In an early Christmas gift to music “collectors” around the country, the RIAA announced that it will abandon its much maligned effort to sue individual music pirates and instead work with ISPs to curb the practice. ISPs will be sending warnings to alleged pirates.
“We think this is going to be a different form of stick, but we absolutely think this will be a meaningful alternative approach that will have a significant impact,” said Cara Duckworth, a spokeswoman for the RIAA.
Different stick? More like a wet noodle. Stop, or we’ll say stop again. Translation: its mp3 season.
RIAA Abandons Pursuit of PiratesShmuck of the Week
Sunday, November 9th, 2008When are people going to learn to turn off the “Allow Sharing” function in Kazaa? Isn’t this how most of the RIAA’s tarets have been caught?
New shmuck of the week goes to Boston University graduate student Joel Tenenbaum, for getting caught and earning himself a $1 million lawsuit from the RIAA.
Why does Mr. Tenenbaum deserve such notoriaty? Certainly not because he’s just another busted music pirate. No, of course not. It’s because of his mom.
His mom, you say? Yes. According to the article in Boston University’s Daily Free Press, Mr. Tenenbaum’s mother is a lawyer who specializes in copyright and Internet law.
Now he’s being helped by cross-river rival Harvard Law professor Charles Nesson.
Shmuck of the WeekHole in Adobe Security Opens Amazon Floodgates
Friday, September 26th, 2008A 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 FloodgatesMinn. Woman and RIAA Back to Court
Thursday, September 25th, 2008A 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 CourtThe Problem with Social Media
Friday, September 19th, 2008Lots of people know I hate social media. Not as a technology or idea, but for the stupidity of people living their lives out in public and the havoc that is can bring into your life.
For a great example – and, yes, I know, its not a pure social media example – read how Sarah Palin’s email account was hacked, and then think about you are making it easier and easier for people to hack into your life as well.
The Problem with Social MediaOnline Olympic Ridiculousness
Saturday, August 2nd, 2008Taking nothing away from the credentials of Phil Dunkelberger, chief executive of security software firm PGP Corp, his dire warning to people travelling to China for the Olympics seems a little overblown to me.
Travelers carrying smart cell phones, blackberries or laptop computers could unwittingly be offering up sensitive personal or business information to officials who monitor state-controlled telecommunications carriers, Dunkelberger said.
He said that without data encryption, executives could have business plans or designs pilfered, while journalists’ lists of contacts could be exposed, putting sources at risk.
Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but aren’t these the same security concerns that buisiness travellers should have any time they go to China?
In the meantime, the International Olympic Committee is sill waiting for the Chineese government to turn the Web back on.
Online Olympic RidiculousnessHasbro, Scrabulous, and Fair Use
Friday, August 1st, 2008Once 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 UseYahoo Fucks It Up for DRM
Thursday, July 24th, 2008DRM ain’t bad. Dumb DRM is bad. STUPID Yahoo! is going to fuck over all their customers and give people another reason to rally against DRM.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2008/07/yahoo-shutterin.html
So easy for them to have handled this right. Not sure why they couldn’t just transfer a user’s licenses over to the Rhapsody account they are getting. I love Rhapsody. Seriously.
Yahoo Fucks It Up for DRM