The End Of The Original Three Strikes Program, And Other Stories About Online Infringement From On The Media

from the listen-up dept

I'm an avid listener of the radio show On the Media, and the latest episode touched on a variety of topics concerning copyright infringement online that may interest some folks here (after their discussion of how the press reported on Anthony Weiner's latest Weinering and the UK porn filter). The section on infringement kicked off with a fantastic segment with our own Glyn Moody discussing the end of the original Hadopi program, which will no longer be kicking people off the internet, and has shut down the costly bureaucracy that ran such a program (moving some of the people into another agency). He also discusses how increasing evidence has shown that having legal alternatives reduces infringement.

The other story that caught my attention was a brief interview with Alex Winter about his new documentary called Downloaded which I've been meaning to watch. From everything I've heard, Winter does a great job telling the story of the original Napster and its battles, while also profiling those who lined up against it. The documentary doesn't "take one side," but shows that the story was a lot more complex and nuanced than many made out at the time. If you enjoy that, you might also like a much longer interview with Winter (who, you might also know as "Bill" alongside Keanu Reeve's "Ted" in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure) that was aired recently on The Nerdist.

Among the other segments is one report on the Joel Tenenbaum case that includes interesting interviews with Tenenbaum himself, his main lawyer Charles Nesson who crafted the disastrous and ill-thought-out strategy of his legal campaign, and also the judge in the original district court trial, Nancy Gertner, talking about how she couldn't believe how frequently the RIAA was taking advantage of clueless kids doing some file sharing. Also, a discussion with author Peter Mountford about helping a Russian translator make an unauthorized translation of his book (a story we covered as well), and finally the show checked with the FBI about how truthful the FBI warning is at the beginning of every DVD you watch (answer: not very).

As always, lots of good stuff.
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Filed Under: alex winter, copyright, downloading, infringement, peter mountford, three strikes


Reader Comments

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  1. identicon
    I'm a pirate., 29 Jul 2013 @ 11:17pm

    Arrrr

    What is the FBI warning?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    AHRoberts, 30 Jul 2013 @ 12:12am

    six-strikes

    I will not be sad to see six-strikes go. It was an inefficient way of trying to catch pirates that gets innocent users in trouble. Check out the article on http://vpnexpress.net. ISP fumble.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. icon
    PaulT (profile), 30 Jul 2013 @ 12:20am

    Nice to see Winter doing something, especially since he seemed to virtually disappear after Freaked (very silly cult comedy that he also directed). I wish he'd done more during the 90s.

    But, he is working steadily behind the camera today, so it's nice to see a balanced documentary from someone with "skin in the game" as the trolls would put it. If it's as balanaced as it's portrayed, it should be a very interesting watch. Rather than the information being divided between insider docs that get rejected by the maximalists due to their source, and woefully inaccurate **AA propaganda, this might actually tell the real story.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  4. icon
    Zakida Paul (profile), 30 Jul 2013 @ 1:21am

    Re: six-strikes

    I should report you just for the sentence "It was an efficient way to catch pirates" ;-P

    link to this | view in thread ]

  5. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 30 Jul 2013 @ 2:01am

    Protip: don't try to censor something with as diverse content as filesharing unless you're willing to go full police state and crack down on the very freedoms that allowed you to get so profitable in the first place

    link to this | view in thread ]

  6. This comment has been flagged by the community. Click here to show it
    identicon
    out_of_the_blue, 30 Jul 2013 @ 3:32am

    Pirate mike again see thieves rewarded. The strikes programme is a fairer way of dealing with this massive problem.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  7. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 30 Jul 2013 @ 4:10am

    Re:

    Fairer than what?

    The fairest way would be to just let people carry on as they are.

    The Film and Music industries are thriving in our current economic climate, even with the threat of 'piracy'.

    The biggest threat to these industries is staying relevant today. And to stay relevant they need to adapt their business models which they refuse to do!

    link to this | view in thread ]

  8. identicon
    RD, 30 Jul 2013 @ 5:42am

    Re:

    "Pirate mike again see thieves rewarded. The strikes programme is a fairer way of dealing with this massive problem."

    The fairest way of dealing with this massive problem is to MAKE THE CONTENT AVAILABLE AT A REASONABLE PRICE.

    Period. Full stop.

    Pray tell, where can I buy legit copies of The John Larroquette Show? Or Mad About You season 6 and 7 (which the studios said flat-out they will never bring out on DVD because they couldnt make enough money from them)? Where can I buy Disney's Song of the South?

    I await your response to this most important question.

    These are all things I, and many, many other people (even if not millions upon millions of dollars worth) very much want to own, but are denied due to shortsighted, greedy studios that will then turn around and sue us for literally all we are ever going to be worth if we turn to other means to acquire them. Who, then, is the true "criminal" here? Is it truly wrong to obtain something that the rightsholders have ABANDONED? Truly?

    link to this | view in thread ]

  9. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 30 Jul 2013 @ 12:24pm

    Re: Arrrr

    The same as unskipable trailers:

    nonexistent

    link to this | view in thread ]

  10. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 30 Jul 2013 @ 1:39pm

    Re: Re: six-strikes

    Reading fail?

    link to this | view in thread ]

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