The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) continues its effort to protect thousands of file-sharers accused of copyright infringement by asking judge to split up mass lawsuits so that the defenders can be ensured to have fair right to individual justice, claiming that each case has no connection with the others.
A federal D.C. court is about to hear oral argument from the EFF about splitting up the mass lawsuits on copyright violation brought up by the USCG (US Copyright Group), arguing that it’s inappropriate and unfairly to target so many BitTorrent users at once.

Over three months ago, the USCG began its mass litigation by targeting over 20,000 BitTorrent file-sharers that are accused of distributing an unauthorized copy of either of the indie movies “Call of the Wild 3D,” “Far Cry,” “Steam Experiment,” or the others. In addition, last month the USCG succeeded in convincing the creators of the Academy Award-winning film “The Hurt Locker,” who were very sad about dismal box office ticket sales, to enter the same type of litigation, offering the accused quick settlements worth up to $2500 if they preferred to avoid much larger penalties for copyright violation that could occur at the court.

Since then the EFF and ACLU joined their forces to fight these mass lawsuits. The ventures argue that D.C. courts even have no right to hear such mass violation cases, as the plaintiffs has yet to prove the fact that the courts have jurisdiction over the unknown defendants, whose identities are only determined by IPs. On this issue even the US Copyright Group admits that IPs can only provide a general geographic area for targeted users, but yet still wants to gather them all in one D.C. courtroom. The reason they name for it is the BitTorrent’s architecture, due to which each BitTorrent user is a part of a swarm, or a single transaction liable for exchanging copyrighted content.

Nevertheless, the EFF and ACLU still think it is unfair to demand thousands of users from all over the U.S. to bear the cost in money and time to arrive to a D.C. courtroom just for answering charges for a crime which most likely took place far away. Meanwhile, that might be the main reason for the USCG to hope that most of the accused will decide to settle out of the court instead of spending the same money for travelling. Not so fair either, is it?



By:
SaM
July 5th, 2010

The hot topic for discussion is now the ASCAP’s letters with accusations against outfits like Public Knowledge, Creative Commons and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) of undermining copyright. Of course, this action set off a firestorm in all the circles of creative industry, including ASCAP members. Creative Commons was the first company to comment on the letter campaign, now the EFF has entered the field.
It was last week that ASCAP launched its letter campaign asking its members to donate a special lobbying fund in order to fight organizations like EFF, Public Knowledge, Creative Commons and technology companies. If ASCAP just asked its members to donate to their fund without specifying on what purpose, it would get more return, actually.

The letter sent out to the members said that forces of the companies mentioned above are now mobilizing to undermine the copyright while promoting “copyleft” by spreading the word that the copyrighted music should be free. Then it pointed out to the future for digital music: the performers would find it harder to earn any money, causing the music dry up, and leaving the music consumers as the final losers.

Right after Creative Commons, the EFF hurried to comment on the campaign. The spokesperson for the outfit doesn’t believe that ASCAP characterized its work and mission properly. On the contrary to what ASCAP says, the EFF thinks musicians should be compensated for their work, and that’s why it has such interesting proposals for that as Voluntary Collective Licensing. Its concept is quite simple: the entertaining industry creates a few collecting societies, offering file-sharers the opportunity to become legal for some reasonable payment, for example $5-10 a month. Well, actually, the rate should be below that, because even such services as Rhapsody offer you any music for the same money. Anyway, so long as they pay, people are free to share their favorite music, like they are doing now – using any software on any platform – but without fear of being sued. The proceeds get then divided among copyright owners according to the popularity of their works.

It can be clearly seen that the main goal of the EFF is to keep a balance and ensure that the technologies go on empowering people as users and creators. The EFF would be gratified if ASCAP understood that like many of its members.



By:
SaM
July 5th, 2010

The RIAA went the as far as to launch “Music Rights Now” campaign aimed at making the public lobby their elected officials for introducing a stronger protection measures for copyright. In this regard the RIAA holds up countries like France, New Zealand, the UK and South Korea as a model, i.e. all countries having “three-strikes” regimes.


It seems to be a really tough time for the RIAA trying to convince the domestic ISPs to disconnect formerly loyal, paying users, arguing that it would only be in the providers’ best interests. It might be the group’s desperate effort to create “Music Rights Now” campaign targeted at the individual who are asked to petition their elected officials in order to force them to introduce a “three-strikes” legislation and allow to disconnect repeat accused infringers.

It took about a decade of suing individual infringers for RIAA to admit it failed to stand in the way of peer-to-peer services. Then the RIAA announced about 2 years ago that it felt that despite the fact that the litigation succeeded in increasing the awareness of the public on the issue of the consequences of unauthorized file-sharing, the group still wanted to try another strategy that might be more successful.

That new strategy was about forcing service providers to enter the voluntary agreements allowing to disconnect unauthorized file-sharers (in other words, to implement voluntary “three-strikes” regime). Unsurprisingly, the strategy has failed at once, because ISPs were aware that there’s nothing in it they can benefit from. They also seemed to understand that the plan served only to protect the failed business model of the entertainment industry at their own expense.

Now the RIAA launched another bold-faced effort to get what it wants. In its call to the individuals it says: “if you believe music has value, please ask your elected officials in Congress to do their best in order to protect music from online infringement”. As if it was the pipe dream of the music fans to ask for a “three-strikes” regime for themselves.

In addition, the RIAA fails even to provide the grounds for enhancing the protection of copyright owners. As a Harvard Business School’s last year research found out, the number of albums produced has increased twice since the arrival of P2P.



By:
SaM
July 3rd, 2010

 
The pilot episode of the non-TV “Pioneer One”, a donation-funded series, is made available on the BitTorrent tracker website site VODO specializing on indie movies. 6 more parts of the “Pioneer One” are expected to follow later. The project releases some hints at the future of.
                                                                                    
The best thing about peer-to-peer networks and services is that they provide the creative artists so many ways to target the audiences that have never been possible before. Both moviemakers and performers can release their works to fans in those parts of the globe where the traditional physical distribution may be financially impractical or just impossible.

Here the sci-fi drama called “Pioneer One” goes. This peer-to-peer TV-series was produced for as much as $6,000 and released via the indie movie BitTorrent website Vodo.net.

Once made available, a week ago it managed to become the most popular series on the BitTorrent accounting for more than a quarter million counting and downloads, thus leaving much more well-known shows from the likes of HBO and the BBC far behind.

The producer of the show, Josh Bernhard, said he’s just ecstatic that the pilot version has already reached so many people throughout the globe. Well, BitTorrent is no less exciting on this issue, as it shows perspectives: performers are able to directly target fans, as there aren’t any material gatekeepers in this scheme that would determine what work will or won’t be released.

Jamie King, the creator of the VODO network, announced that the success of this series was really great news for the entire peer-to-peer community, because now they have the possibility to distribute content that rivals and is going to soon surpass the amount of the mainstream media. In addition, the community is handed out a new working business models benefiting creators.

They were the fans who sponsored “Pioneer One”. They have donated over $10,000 to the creator of the series in order to make it possible for him to film more future episodes. The sponsorship deal of VODO, created for the show, shares profit with producers too, assuming that their target of gathering $30,000 for new episodes will undoubtedly be met.

The plot of the series is the investigation of an object fallen out of space, discovering a forgotten relic of the Russian space program, coming back to our planet to influence the whole world.



By:
SaM
July 1st, 2010

Unauthorized file-sharing keep increasingly spreading from the desk computers now to smart phones with Google’s Android OS, thus reducing the entertaining industry’s efforts to fight piracy almost to zero.

It actually was only a matter of time that downloading illegal music became available on the powerful smart phones made today. The first devices providing a possibility to get this feat are smart phones running Android OS from Google, considering Apple’s Nazi-like grip on programs. Since it only started, it is sure to be this way for at least some time.

Such applications as MP3 Music, Tunee Music or Music Junk enable users to download music the same way as when using any other common peer-to-peer software. The smart phones bring in the only difference: the user isn’t able to share files, while those downloaded are grabbed from some anonymous place or a third-party server that can be identified.

The users’ comments on these applications prove that the one called Music Junk seems like the best of them. One user-tester was delighted to say that the program managed to find anything he was looking for, with another noting that the application provides much better search results than its online twin.

In fact, Google has developed a policy stipulating the removing of application from the Google Android Market only provided that the software breaks one of the list of conditions, including the following: contains malware; it’s unauthorized; pornographic, obscene; or copyright infringement.

Talking about the P2P software, one should admit it obviously violates the last condition. However, it actually doesn’t matter after the program has been developed and made available online beyond the Android Market.

Once the RIAA was aware of this, it asked Google to delete the application immediately when they emerge. The representative for the RIAA said they are aware of existing of such applications and the similar stuff. He also announced the industry has made Google also aware of software violating their own policy and facilitating unauthorized activity.

In return, Google said that it can’t actively control what kind of software is posted to make the Android Market remains an open channel for promoting mobile programs. So far most of the users chose from those available the Music Junk.



By:
SaM
July 1st, 2010