I think the MPAA made a handful of decent points in its complaint regarding features of Hotfile that probably have no legitimate use except for facilitating piracy. IIRC, they noted that Hotfile lets you duplicate a file you store on it up to six times, which seems tailored to work around DMCA takedowns [Copy #1 removed? Copy #2 is already waiting in the wings!] -- but other than that, yeah, it seems like they're trying really hard to twist a platform that's merely useful for (and circumstantially rewards) infringement into one that actively induces infringement. Grokster was a hell of a lot closer to that than Hotfile [search function and applicability of DMCA takedowns as prime examples]. But there are those few questionable features of Hotfile that dip the service's toe ever so slightly into eyebrow-raising territory. The MPAA has their job cut out for them to spin those straws into Grokster gold, though.
(Apologies if any of these points have been addressed in Hotfile's response; haven't gotten a chance to read it just yet.)
Penny Arcade's "Automata" delves into this issue, actually. It's a hardboiled sci-fi series where Prohibition has been enacted against artificial intelligence, with the existing stock of robots entering into the workforce as second class citizens. Very interesting stuff.
Yes, you can lose fair use rights via contract law. That's the essence of an end user license agreement. Check out the 2004 case of Davidson & Associates v. Internet Gateway. Defendants reverse-engineered Blizzard products to emulate its Battle.net services, violating its EULAs/TOSs. The defendants claimed the EULA (which is a valid clickwrap/shrinkwrap contract under the ProCD case another commenter mentioned before me) was preempted by the Copyright Act, and the court shut them down. Preemption only occurs when a state law "infringes one of the exclusive rights provided by the Copyright Act" – and a right to restrict certain otherwise lawful fair use activities (like reverse engineering) is one that wouldn't exist without the EULA, so it wasn't preempted.
I'm taking a copyright law course right now [after having self-studied the field for years], and this post encapsulates much of what I wish we could have a frank class discussion of [but I don't want to knock my professor off track -- he's got enough on his plate just trying to cover all the substantive material]. Still, I feel like it'll be a disservice to all the other students if they leave the course without having really engaged the question as to why we grant *every* work a copyright *automatically* -- as though the only goal of copyright is to protect all artistic expression with an inherent and immediate monopoly that lasts beyond the lifespan of most anyone who enjoys its first impression. I'm almost sure nobody in the class has given much thought to the importance of the public domain, and I'm hoping like hell it comes up before the semester is out. Otherwise, we'll have another 60 potential lawyers operating under the assumption that anything that can be copyrighted, should be.
Exactly. An acquaintance of mine made the same point the other day:
If you pirate one shitty quality DVD in Divx format, you are downloading about 1500 novels (estimating a novel to about 300 pages). Now imagine how much text is in a novel, and imagine how much text do you possibly read in a day on the Internet. Most sites are optimized to not waste your bandwidth. Movies and music are simply exponentially larger than text. Even apps -- how many apps do you have installed on your laptop/desktop? Even at 1GB per app (huge!), you probably pirate more movies in a month than you install apps in year.
Library of Congress = 5.6 TB. I've got about that much in hard drives sitting around my room. I only use about 2TB, but when you count old internal drives, I've got enough room to store the entire Library of Congress in my room. If I filled that same space with Blu-Rays (I'll be conservative and go single layer only, ignoring the high capacity Blu-Rays) I wouldn't be able to even fill up the IMDB Top 250.
I could have the entire Library of Congress, but not the IMDB Top 250.
How is it shocking, at all, that 1/4 of the web's traffic goes to movies/music?
StrikeGently was essentially a repository of music leaks, movie/TV rips, and porn. The guy behind it had a really dickish personality and a tendency to lash out at other blogs. He also claimed none of the content was actually uploaded by him; that he was merely linking to it. But he was fully aware that his entire site was predicated on infringing content. Not that this in any way justifies a lack of due process by ICE. It's worth knowing exactly who the players in the takedown are, though.
EVR is one of the most respectable independent labels out there, at least in the genres of music I traffic in. Their offerings have gotten a little "scene" in the last few years [See: We Came As Romans, Pierce The Veil, Chiodos], but those are all bands that at least straddle the upper-crust of trendy post-hardcore music. And they've got some fantastic alum who are still making it big on majors [see: Circa Survive, Coheed and Cambria]. All in all, definitely a label to support if you dig the stuff they trade in.
I've been repping OCR for something like eight years now -- some of my favorite pieces of music, EVER, have come out of that community. It highlights the bastion of artistic talent in even the earliest days of videogaming, and how viable those old tunes still are when given a sonic upgrade. I highly, highly encourage the curious to dive in and explore some of their library - and if you don't want to bother downloading MP3s, just browse their YouTube channel. As a starting point, I recommend Vigilante's "Beneath the Surface" mix from Donkey Kong Country.
But unless the law violates a fundamental right, it's not the court's place to subvert the legislature. I'm no fan of the DMCA, but I also think the federal circuit overstepped its bounds in interpreting the law so contrary to its intent.
Inspired by the entertainment industry's keen logic, I am writing letters to my local television news programs objecting to their coverage of prostitution rings and drug cartels. Obviously the only reason they're running those stories is to encourage their viewership to pay for sex and get high.
I'm not sure it's fair to lay the death of the rhythm game genre at the feet of the record labels. They certainly could have been more amenable at the start, but most rhythm game manufacturers have no problems procuring master track licenses from labels nowadays. The real problem is that the developers, primarily Activision, absolutely flooded the market with lackluster installments and spin-offs over the last few years, eroding the goodwill of the consumer base. Nobody gives a damn about the new Guitar Hero games now, and it's a shame. Rock Band is pretty much the only series still doing the genre any justice.
Victory Records is synonymous with band mistreatment in the alternative music community. They sign tons of groups, but give them no promotion unless they break out, then proceed to screw them on the financials. Hawthorne Heights left on the worst of terms, being told they owed the label a million bucks after selling hundreds of thousands of records. Atreyu phoned in a Greatest Hits album just to finish out their contract with the label and bail. Alumni like Thursday, Bayside, and Taking Back Sunday all have choice words about Brummel. One of the label's biggest remaining moneymakers (Silverstein) just left, and I wouldn't be surprised if their latest cash cow (A Day To Remember) ends up leaving in a year or two as well. Bizarrely, Brummel's new strategy seems to be picking up random nu-metal bands who lost relevance years ago [Ill Nino, Taproot, etc]. We'll see how that works out for him, I guess.
On the post: Cyberlocker Responds To MPAA Lawsuit Which Tries To Give Hollywood A Veto On Tech It Doesn't Like
(Apologies if any of these points have been addressed in Hotfile's response; haven't gotten a chance to read it just yet.)
On the post: When Will We Have To Grant Artificial Intelligence Personhood?
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2010/7/23/
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2010/7/26/
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2010/7/28/
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2010/7/30/
http:/ /www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2010/8/2/
On the post: Massive Research Report On 'Piracy' In Emerging Economies Released; Debunks Entire Foundation Of US Foreign IP Policy
On the post: Can A Contract Remove Fair Use Rights?
On the post: If Artists Don't Value Copyright On Their Works, Why Do We Force It On Them?
On the post: NBC Universal Study Shows That It's Hollywood's Own Damn Fault So Much Content Is 'Pirated'
Re:
If you pirate one shitty quality DVD in Divx format, you are downloading about 1500 novels (estimating a novel to about 300 pages). Now imagine how much text is in a novel, and imagine how much text do you possibly read in a day on the Internet. Most sites are optimized to not waste your bandwidth. Movies and music are simply exponentially larger than text. Even apps -- how many apps do you have installed on your laptop/desktop? Even at 1GB per app (huge!), you probably pirate more movies in a month than you install apps in year.
Library of Congress = 5.6 TB. I've got about that much in hard drives sitting around my room. I only use about 2TB, but when you count old internal drives, I've got enough room to store the entire Library of Congress in my room. If I filled that same space with Blu-Rays (I'll be conservative and go single layer only, ignoring the high capacity Blu-Rays) I wouldn't be able to even fill up the IMDB Top 250.
I could have the entire Library of Congress, but not the IMDB Top 250.
How is it shocking, at all, that 1/4 of the web's traffic goes to movies/music?
On the post: Homeland Security Seizes Spanish Domain Name That Had Already Been Declared Legal
StrikeGently
On the post: Band Discovers Leaked Song... And Its Response Is To Release A Better Version For Free
Re: EVR
On the post: OC ReMix: From Fans To Game Maestros
Warms my heart.
On the post: Some Good, Some Bad In New Ruling On Whether Or Not WoW Bot Infringes Copyright
Re: Re: What do you find "troubling"?
On the post: PC Mag Responds To Legacy Recording Industry's 'Complaint' Letter
I have seen the light.
On the post: TSA Claims You Need To Be Naked Scanned Or Groped After A Flight?
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/140797
On the post: Oh Look, It Appears Music Video Games Were A Bit Of A Fad Too
On the post: Death Of ACTA
My heart skipped a beat at the subject line.
On the post: How Not To Connect With Fans: Have Gilbert Gottfried Tell Them To 'Go F Yourself' For Listening To Music
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