Former 'Anti-Piracy Investigator' Explains How He Fed Police Cases, Inflated 'Piracy' Stats

from the but-of-course dept

None of this will come as much of a surprise, but a former "anti-piracy" private investigator who worked for the MPAA's anti-piracy shell operation in Australia, AFACT, has explained to Torrentfreak how he helped inflate "piracy" numbers, was used to imply a non-existent link between infringement and drug trafficking, and how he basically handed police targets for raids. The guy was focused on physical counterfeiting of movies, and actually lost his job as the MPAA/AFACT started focusing more on online, rather than physical. But, still there are some tidbits that highlight pretty much how the MPAA twists things:

"He was adamant that we needed to boost our statistics to make the media sit up and take notice and that the large numbers would make it easier to get the local Police interested. This was especially difficult to do as local police had no jurisdiction over copyright infringing product and the AFP were desperately short on manpower. We were encouraged to find links to drugs and stolen goods wherever possible."

"We discussed the formula for extrapolating the potential street value earnings of 'laboratories' and we were instructed to count all blank discs in our seizure figures as they were potential product. Mr Gane also explained that the increased loss approximation figures were derived from all forms of impacts on decreasing cinema patronage right through to the farmer who grows the corn for popping."

[....]

"Funded solely by MPAA, AFACT lobbies hard for changes to Australian law and enhance the sexiness of their case by making vague references to links to terrorism. Sometimes not so vague. I was instructed to tell police officers that the profit margins were greater than dealing heroin. It was bizarre. A twisted logic that AFACT spewed out with monotonous regularity," Warren says.

One of the examples Warren gives is that they assumed that all burners and DVD replicators would run 24/7, making these operations appear very lucrative.

"Each burner cranking out ten discs an hour, multiplied by ten dollars per disc is potentially a hundred dollars an hour, multiplied by number of burners by hours in a year gives a yearly potential…. Very pumped up statistics."

There's a lot more in the story -- none of which is particularly surprising, but just interesting to see someone who was there come out and admit what most people knew already.

Filed Under: anti-piracy, australia, stats
Companies: afact, mpaa

Once Again NY Expands 'Anti-Piracy' Laws Based On No Evidence

from the but-of-course dept

You may recall a few years ago that the MPAA totally made up numbers about how big a "problem" camcording was in New York (if you added up their percentages, it came out that significantly more than 100% of all worldwide camcorded movies came from NY and Canada). But, it's not like New York politicians pay attention to the actual facts. After all, we're talking about the same folks who basically took an NBC Universal propaganda video and pretended it was their own. So, of course, the "anti-camcording" law passed.

As always, however, stricter laws are never enough for the folks at the MPAA and the RIAA. When those laws fail to change anything, rather than realizing that maybe (just maybe) they should be helping their member studios & labels adapt to the changing times, they instead focus on ratcheting up the laws even more. So, the news that New York has "expanded" its anti-bootlegging law to now include other forms of storage, including hard drives, flash drives and memory cards, is not surprising. It seems that bootleggers in New York were actually changing with the times (while the labels were not), and had moved on from selling bootlegs on discs.

Still, I really have to wonder if the "bootleg" trade is as big a problem as the industry likes to make it out to be. Considering all of this stuff is available online, who's really walking down Canal Street buying a hard drive of bootleg music these days?

Filed Under: anti-piracy, bootlegs, new york

Indian Filmmakers Plan To Battle Piracy -- By Using Pirates' Own Computers Against Them

from the all-your-applications-and-services-are-belong-to-us dept

Alarming news comes our way via TorrentFreak, who detail some brand new (and rather frightening) tactics being deployed by filmmakers in India, where piracy is such a huge problem that the industry was limited to releasing only 1,288 feature films in 2009:

According to Rakshitha, the producer of a new movie called Jogaiah, her company has hired an anti-piracy outfit called Shree Technologies to protect the movie’s soundtrack due to be released later this month.

“The software that we’ve used will help us track each person down, so that we can take action against them. It is much-needed in the film industry,” Rakshitha said this week.

Then, and without explaining exactly how the anti-piracy system will achieve its most extraordinary feat, Prem – the director of the film – drops the bombshell.

“All it requires is for someone to search for the keywords ‘Jogaiah music download’ and it automatically tracks them down,” he said. “If they have a webcam on their system and it’s switched on, it will also capture the photo of the offender.”

While this itself would seem threatening enough, Shree Technologie's as-of-yet unnamed anti-piracy software has many more features:

ADDITIONAL SERVICES/PROGRAMS USED

• In addition (if their webcam is switched on), the user will be logged on to Chatroulette (Penises Only Rotation*). Their full name, phone number and estimated penis length/openness to random sexual encounters will be displayed below their face.
  
  * Syncs with Hotmail account (if applicable) to turn every third word of outgoing mail to "penis."

• If the user has MS Paint open, their photo will then be pasted onto the body of a stick figure who will be drawn violating random farm animals.* The resulting graphic will then be uploaded to the 4chan /b/ board for further mockery and captions.
  
  * Stick figures and farm animal drawings will be outsourced to Mechanical Turk.

• If the user has MS Word or WordPad open, an angry and threatening letter will be drafted and emailed to the editorial section of the nearest paper of record* via Outlook.** Users of OpenOffice will receive an emailed warning that the Business Software Alliance (BSA) has shown that the use of open source software is surprisingly expensive, along with a rebate certificate good towards the purchase of a more hackable product.
  
  *If the nearest paper of record is the Denver Post, all personal information will be turned over immediately to Righthaven and the user's name inserted into the byline of the nearest violating article.
  
  **If the user has Outlook fully functional, everyone will be duly surprised and the information will be passed on to the nearest Microsoft marketing team for further study.

• Those with Windows Media Player installed will be blasted with a repeated 8-bar loop of whatever shrill Indian pop song is currently sitting at number one on the pop charts, followed by an equally shrill voice loudly informing them that they should purchase a licensed version to avoid "further embarassment" and a stay at the "Police guest house."

• Those using other free media players (WinAmp, SongBird, etc.) will be hounded into installing some sort of extraneous toolbar. I mean, more so than usual.

• If the user is a member of "The Facebook," his/her status will be immediately set to "I STEAL FROM FILMMAKERS AND MUSICIANS WITHOUT REGARD TO OTHERS AND AM EMBARASSED. If you agree with this, post this as your status, only using my name instead of "I" and report me to your local authorities. ("Me" meaning the original poster and not yourself, the re-poster.)"

• If the user is a member of MySpace, Friendster, etc., the same posting will be made, but nobody will see it. Shree Technologies considers this to be punishment enough.

• If the user has so far refused to join Failbook, Failspace or Failster at this point, he/she shall continue to feel pointlessly superior to the people around them, most of whom have forgotten he/she exists.

ADDITIONAL SEARCH TERMS:

• "Jogiah iTunes download" - User will be berated by various musicians* as accomplices to Apple's industry killing mechanism.
  *Basically just Jon Bon Jovi and Garth Brooks, who have sold a combined eleventy billion albums.

• "Jogiah musick download" - Will redirect to a variety of sketchy Soundcloud pages for the witch house community, swamping the user in montone dirges and abused Unicode.

• "Jogiah megaupload rapidshare mediafire" - Will redirect to "Did you mean: I want to go to jail".

• "Shrill Indian pop music" - Will redirect to this page.

• "Shrill American pop music" - User will be assaulted by the latest shrill pop chart topper from America, followed by a guest rap from Snoop Dogg.

• "Shree Technologies" - Will give you the Indian phone book, metaphorically speaking, but none of the answers you're looking for.

• "ChatRoulette -penis" - Will redirect to:
  
  Your search - ChatRoulette -penis - did not match any documents.
  
  Suggestions:
  
  Make sure all words are spelled correctly.
  Try different keywords.
  Try +penis.

Filed Under: anti-piracy

Irony Alert: NYC's Anti-Piracy Propaganda Campaign Using 'Free' YouTube

from the free-free-free dept

A few weeks back, we wrote about the anti-piracy propaganda campaign that NYC has been running, paid for by taxpayer dollars, which spreads typical MPAA FUD, and concludes with the line: "There's no such thing as a free movie." However, in looking over the campaign, I just realized that the videos are hosted on YouTube... for free. In other words, while NYC and its Hollywood friends are claiming that if you get something for free, it must be illegal, they're making use of free online services themselves. Without YouTube, they'd have to pay for the hosting, bandwidth, streaming software, etc. themselves. But this way, they get it for free.

Now, it's absolutely true that YouTube could monetize the videos with ads (though, I don't see any on that video right now), but that sort of reinforces the point. There are all sorts of business models that allow you to offer something for "free" to the end user, but are monetized elsewhere. YouTube does exactly that. It offers what would otherwise be quite expensive (hosting, bandwidth, streaming software, etc.) and gives it all away for free, and has built a whole business around that. There's nothing saying that the movie industry can't do the same thing. Rather than falsely stating that there's no such thing as a "free" (to the consumer) movie, there are certainly plenty of ways that the movie industry could monetize movies that were offered free to consumers. It's just that the legacy players choose not to. And then complain. And get politicians to waste taxpayer money...

Filed Under: anti-piracy, business models, free, hosting, nyc, propaganda
Companies: youtube

Microsoft's Anti-Piracy Efforts: Millions Spent Driving People To Open Source Software

from the surely-that's-not-the-best-use-of-money? dept

In the past, Microsoft used to be willing to admit that unauthorized copies helped the company, as it helped establish its software as a near-monopoly in certain areas, and kept competitors out. But, in the past few years, the company has become more adamant, not just about denying any possible "benefits" to unauthorized copies, but in trying to crack down on them at any cost. The NY Times has an article highlighting Microsoft's "fight" against unauthorized copies, and does so with dramatic (and cinematic) claims about how organized crime groups are turning to software copying, as an alternative to drugs.

Of course, this ignores the fact that such organized crime groups have actually discovered that it's harder and harder to make money with counterfeit software -- because more and more such software is just available for free online, leaving little reason to pay anything for it, especially from counterfeiters. But, what strikes me as most interesting through the blatantly ridiculous claims throughout the article from Microsoft's folks and its stand-ins at the BSA, is that all the company is really doing here is spending a ton of money to convince people to look at cheaper (or free) alternatives.

Filed Under: anti-piracy, piracy, software
Companies: bsa, microsoft

Russian Officials Abusing Copyright Law -- With Microsoft's Help -- To Intimidate Gov't Critics

from the well,-look-at-that dept

Almost exactly three years ago, we wrote about how the Russian gov't (after years of diplomatic pressure from the US), was suddenly cracking down on organizations for using unauthorized software -- but, that such "anti-piracy raids" only seemed to target government critics. We've suggested in the past that the US should know better than to pressure countries like Russia and China to be more proactive when it comes to copyright issues, because those efforts will backfire when such tools are used solely to further the political ambitions of those in power, not the business prospects of American companies.

It looks like the Russian government's misuse of copyright law in this manner has continued, and the NY Times (who also had that original article three years ago, though they don't point back to it, like we do) is noting that Microsoft appears to be helping the Russian government suppress dissent in this manner, because even when organizations claim they legally licensed Microsoft products, Microsoft keeps its hardline "down with pirates" line and supports the Russian raids and prosecutions. Despite the fact that these sorts of stories have appeared for at least three years, and despite claims from the groups targeted that they've requested Microsoft's help in not being involved in frivolous attacks, Microsoft only seems to have taken notice of the issue once the NY Times came calling.

And, before people say that the best way to avoid these things is to either not use Microsoft software at all, or to properly license it, it should be made clear that there's evidence that Russian officials don't care:

But the review of these cases indicates that the security services often seize computers whether or not they contain illegal software. The police immediately filed reports saying they had discovered such programs, before even examining the computers in detail. The police claims have in numerous instances been successfully discredited by defendants when the cases go before judges.

Given the suspicions that these investigations are politically motivated, the police and prosecutors have turned to Microsoft to lend weight to their cases. In southwestern Russia, the Interior Ministry declared in an official document that its investigation of a human rights advocate for software piracy was begun "based on an application" from a lawyer for Microsoft.

In other cases, organizations that were raided had compliance stickers on the computers, and had all the receipts and documentation ready to show police. However, police refused to look at the documentation and removed the stickers that showed compliance.

Microsoft execs should be ashamed of how their ridiculous anti-piracy stance is being abused to put down political dissent. Shameful.

Filed Under: anti-piracy, censorship, copyright, dissent, russia
Companies: microsoft

Bizarre Indian Anti-Piracy Group Says It Does DoS Attacks On File Sharing Operations

from the oh-really? dept

This one's just a bit strange. TorrentFreak alerts us to the news of an Indian company called AiPlex, which (according to its website) seems to do a bit of medical transcription, a bit of SEO and... just for fun, a bit of anti-piracy work. Apparently AiPlex's CEO explains that one of their anti-piracy methods is to hit non-cooperative sites with a denial of service attack:

"In such cases, we flood the website with requests, which results in database error, causing denial of service as each server has a fixed bandwidth capacity," Kumar reveals. And it doesn't stop there.

"At times, we have to go an extra mile and attack the site and destroy the data to stop the movie from circulating further," he adds.

TorrentFreak also notes that this firm seems a bit confused over how BitTorrent works, in that it lists "Bram Cohen" as a type of BitTorrent client, which I'm sure amuses Bram). Watch out, Bram, or a medical transcription SEO company might try to flood you with requests, resulting in a database error.

Filed Under: anti-piracy, denial of service
Companies: aiplex

Revolving Door: Administration's ACTA Defender Jumps Ship To US Chamber Of Commerce

from the lobbyists-in-and-out dept

You may remember Steven Tepp, from the US Copyright Office, who just recently defended the administration's position on ACTA by mocking the very legitimate concerns of many people about ACTA's exporting of stronger copyright laws, without any corresponding exceptions, combined with the fact that it would lock in currently in-flux US caselaw with no chance for Congress to fix mistakes by the courts. James Love alerts us to the news that Tepp has left the employment of the government to become the "Senior Director of Internet Piracy and Counterfeiting" for the US Chamber of Commerce.

The Chamber of Commerce of course (a private organization, not to be confused -- as some people do -- with the government's Commerce Department) is famous for its anti-fact position on IP laws, where it always believes greater protectionism is better, despite the evidence. Of course, when all of the evidence is against the Chamber of Commerce, it came out with its own laughable study that confuses correlation with a causal relationship, and bases its conclusions on lumping together various companies and assigning their success or failure entirely to intellectual property laws. It sounds like Tepp should fit right in, though it again highlights the revolving door between the folks who make the policies and those who lobby for the policies.

Filed Under: anti-piracy, copyright, steve tepp
Companies: us chamber of commerce

Anti-Piracy Campaign Shows You 'Killing' Look Alike Pop Stars

from the that's-convincing dept

There have been some really ridiculous "anti-piracy" campaigns out there, but this one is really quite impressive. TorrentFreak has the details on a site, called FreemusicHK.com, that pretends to be a site for downloading unauthorized music. However, when you actually do go to download it, instead you get to play a little flash game where you get to "kill" look alike pop stars on the cover of their albums. Of course, the pop-stars aren't just lookalikes, but name-alikes, too. So, it's Any Winehouse, instead of Amy. It's Madownload, instead of Madonna. It's Biur, instead of Blur. Copy Play instead of Cold Play Moby's "Play" album... etc. If this really is some sort of anti-piracy campaign, they're doing it wrong. As multiple people are pointing out, they've made the whole thing so silly and ridiculous that's it's kind of fun to play. It's really quite incredible how tone deaf various "anti-piracy" campaigns have been to what consumers are actually thinking.

Filed Under: anti-piracy, education campaign, propaganda

Swedish Police Say Anti-Piracy Law Has Harmed Ability To Catch Criminals

from the consequences dept

We've pointed out many times in the past the "unintended" consequences of certain activities, and it looks like the entertainment industry's worldwide effort to push for more and more industry-favorable copyright laws is causing serious problems elsewhere. Apparently, Anders Ahlqvist, who runs the Swedish IT crime unit is noting that the response to the IPRED law in Sweden (pushed by the entertainment industry to crack down on unauthorized file sharing) means that it's now more difficult for him to do his job. Part of the issue, of course, is that various ISPs responded to the law by seeking to protect their users' privacy by deleting log files. Of course, that probably means it's only a matter of time before the industry pushes for new data retention laws, despite evidence that more data retention can actually make life trickier for law enforcement as well. Still, at some point people need to recognize that the entertainment industry's single-minded focus on "stomping out file sharing" rather than adding value through new business models has some serious costs elsewhere.

Filed Under: anti-piracy, encryption, log files, sweden, unintended consequences