Displaying items by tag: MPAA

Over the last couple of days we have talked about the expected push from the copyright lobby for harsher laws and longer copyright periods (not to mention more control over the internet). This is a campaign that has been going on since the days of affordable internet (56kbps) and is one that will never really stop. However during this long battle there have been some highlights that make us all wonder at the motives and sanity of the key players involved. We are talking about the many domain seizures (for sites that are operating legally) and also some of the highly publicized threats that the MPAA (the leading group in this war) have made over the course of the last year.

Although the war for a free and open internet has fallen out of the front page news there are still rumblings about it going on in the background as the MPAA, RIAA BSA and other organizations gear up for another round of attacks on the internet as we know it. We expect to see Chris Dodd come back to “the hill” and catch up with his old buddies that are still in active service with the US government. His goal this time will be to get bills like SOPA and PIPA reborn and pushed through in back room deals instead of trying to get things done openly and honestly. What we find interesting is that the MPAA, RIAA and BSA have been using the same old arguments and logic for almost 10 years to no avail, what arguments are they going to us this time, or will they simply make promises to get what they want…

You know you have to love the way the US Government acts in some of their dealings. There are times when they simply do not understand the implications of what they are doing… well either that or they have no respect for the intelligence of the common person. We are talking about a “new” development in the US DOJ’s case against Megaupload and Kim Dotcom. This trial has already become famous simply due to its timing and also for the inappropriate raid on the Dotcom mansion. Although the case has slipped out of the mainstream media many are still watching with great interest due to the siege tactics and the way the US has violated the laws in New Zealand (and possibly in the US).

The election is over and nothing much has changed as far as the balance of power in the US, which makes us wonder if we should be concerned about a free and open internet more than ever. We know that the head of the MPAA Chris Dodd has close ties to the Whitehouse and also to many members of Congress. To make things worse Dodd will be free to openly interact with all of his former buddies sometime in February of 2013. We know that he has, and still is, pushing for laws to monitor and control the internet to protect the interests of the other members of his cartel. However, there is more to this dynamic than we first saw last year during the barrage of ignorant and oppressive laws trying to limit communication (and technological advances) and it has to do with a particular mindset.

The new site from Kim Dotcom made for file sharing will be called Mega and I will be located at the web address me.ga. The service should start around January 19th of the following year and Dotcom has tried to completely separate it from anything that has to do with the U.S. This means that the hosting company, domain, and partners will not be from the U.S. making it impossible, or at least the extremely hard, to shut down the service if someone tried...

There is something interesting happening in the US; ok several something’s actually and we are not sure if they are good or bad at this point. The first is that there appear to be more judges actually looking into the claims that the copyright lobby are trying to claim when they go after individuals and even corporations for copyright infringement. We have watched as precedent has been set in the form of very unusual verdicts such as one handed down recently that states Web Sites are not responsible for links posted by their members which might violate copyright. This nice ruling means that the MPAA and RIAA must prove that the links were placed on a site by the owner or that they encouraged the posting of these links. Of course we have seen that the MPAA, RIAA and other copyright holders rarely stand on ceremony and will claim a site is encouraging piracy right out of the gate (we don’t need no stinking proof).  So while the ruling was rather monumental it did not stop the unsubstantiated take down requests and certainly is not going to help Megaupload or any other site in reality.

Fredrik Neij won his appeal against the Swedish embassy in Bangkok after they took his passport from him a year ago. He is now free to travel from Laos because the authorities did not present a proper reason for the longer revocation to the Appeals Court. This is just one of the legal cases that the Pirate Bay founders are involved; authorities are really giving them a hard time ever since they were established. The verdict against Neij was made final in the February but he didn’t want to leave it just the way it is so he appealed to the Courts decision.

There is an old (very old saying); “don’t poke the bear”. It is one of those saying that people toss out to remind us that there are some things that you should just not do. It is a saying that the gang over at the MPAA, RIAA, BSA and even members of the US Government should listen to (maybe we should tell them). Unfortunately for them they have not only poked the bear, but have kicked it too. This group of people is so out of touch with the way the world works that they actually think they can control technological progress. We are talking about the constant attempts to control the internet, communications and anything that travels over it; all in the name of maintaining a broken and outdated business model.

With all of the hype going on around recent news conferences from big companies (like Intel, Microsoft and Apple), not so many people noticed that Demonoid’s domain name servers were updated.  Even though that doesn’t mean they are coming back it is still a small sign that they are not completely dead. Demonoid's tech admin said that they are “not looking into putting the site back up at the moment.” The Site was taken down last month after they were DDoS-ed. Demonoid was hosted in the Ukraine and local authorities stated that Interpol asked them to take action against the site owners that were in Mexico.

Gottfrid Svartholm has been imprisoned in Cambodia for over a week and now it looks like authorities have finally arranged his transfer to Sweden. Bertil Olofsson, Head of the International Section of the National Police said that Svartholm is indeed coming back. The problem is that there are no direct flights from Cambodia's capital Penh to Sweden. Because of this they will first have to travel to Bangkok, Thailand and then fly to Sweden. During the flight he will be escorted by a police officer and official from the prison service.