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Displaying items by tag: Copyright

Google is an odd company. They have used the personal vs corporate data ownership line like a jump rope over the years. We have watched them for a long time and all we can say is that their track record on protecting personal information and privacy has been both good and bad with them being on the bad side for most of recent history. After being a vehement opposer of bills like SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect our Intellectual Property Act) they quickly dropped those stances and started facilitating blanket takedown noticed from the MPAA (now the MPA) and RIAA. The blanket notices often came from law firms that provided little more than links to Google which Google then removed from their search engine and YouTube.

Published in Security Talk

There is a twisted and flawed logic to the copyright industry. They seem to think that they can hold anyone they want accountable for breaking laws. It does not matter if that person is responsible or not, they want to be able to get money from them in the hopes that they will be able to blackmail them into joining their campaign. We have seen copyright groups go after internet service providers (ISPs) content service providers (YouTube) and even force massive takedowns to get what they want. Now, we are seeing a new level of Hubris. A Copyright group is going after a government.

Published in News

YouTube and copyright has been a controversial subject since they first hit the internet. The problem is who is liable for copyright infringement. Is it the poster or the service? The copyright gang would love to tell you it is both. They want the chance to go after the individuals and also to be sure to get financially compensated by the service provider. Sadly in the US the courts are siding with the copyright cartels for a multitude of reasons (none are based on how technology works though). In EMEA, well things are a tad different over there.

Published in News

The world of copyright and patents is one of ignorance, greed and just plain stupidity. This is, sadly, on just about all sides of the game. From the people complaining all the way to the judges asked to decide these cases. We have already talked (at length) about the fantasy math the copyright holders use in determining damage and the massive impacts on privacy that they want to further their causes, but now we area in a situation where they have “won” something that no one every should have even considered.

Published in Editorials
Tuesday, 29 December 2015 14:39

Hive-CM8 Screener Dump goes offline...

Remember the Hive-CM8 group we told you about the other day? Well it seems that they have pulled their dump servers down. The reason is not clear, but it could be related to information that has gotten out to the web tied with a few articles about how the copyright groups caught some movie pirates in the UK. I guess we should fill in some gaps in the story now. Hive-CM8 is a group that has been tied to 11 public DVD screener releases and promised to push 29 more out to the world.

Published in News

As 2015 comes to a close the advanced copies of movies are in transit to different groups and agencies. Many of these are for awards or accolades of some sort and almost without exception, copies of these (called screeners) end up on the internet available for download. This year has seen a bonanza of screener news including tracking one copy of the Hateful Eight to the Co-CEO of a production finance company, Andrew Kosove. As you might imagine things got more than a little interesting after this was uncovered.

Published in News
Wednesday, 23 December 2015 09:34

Dotcom loses the first round of the extradition battle

After a long and complicated battle Kim Dotcom and the other Megaupload employees (Mathias Ortmann, Finn Batato, and Bram van der Kolk) might have lost an important battle. A district judge, Judge Nevin Dawson, has ruled that the US can present an extradition request for the four. Further Judge Dawson feels that none of the legal arguments brought forth by Dotcom and the others is sufficient to deny the request.

Published in News

The Google-Oracle fight has been going on for a long time now and has had a few ups and downs in the course of the case. The original premise of the case is that Google was able to speed up development through the reuse of nine (9) lines of code that Oracle claims are protected by copyright. One judge agreed that this was absurd, but his decision was thrown out on appeal. Now, the Department of Justice is throwing their two cents into the mix at the request of the Supreme Court. Their commentary is quite interesting…

Published in News

The idea of copyright was and is a good thing. Being able to temporarily protect your artistic investment is never wrong. The problem comes when the copyright holders get greedy or feel that their copyright grants them special rights and powers. This is the situation we have with the current copyright cartel… I mean groups. They feel that they have powers that are not, in any way, part of the copyright laws and legal protections. They also feel like they exist in a special world that grants them more rights than anyone else.

Published in News

If you have been following news about piracy, copyright, or indeed almost anything you will know that the copyright industry often employs some rather shady methods to get their way. One of the shadiest methods is the demand letter. If you are not familiar with this term let us explain (if you are bear with us): a demand letter is when a legal firm tries to tie IP addresses they have identified to actual ISP subscribers. They send large numbers of subpoenas to ISPs asking that they put the two together so that they (the law firm) can then send a settlement letter demanding money from the alleged pirate.

Published in News
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