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The MPAA has a stated hard line stance against infringement of copyright. “pirates are thieves, plain and simple” and has vigorously prosecuted both direct infringers and producers of DRM breaking software.

In their website targeted at teaching kids about copyright (understandable by any kid with a law degree) they rigorously define the terms that apply to copyright, including this one about permission granted by a copyright holder.

The GPL gives permission for derivative works to be created as long as the GPL applies to the whole work. To enable the freedom of further derivatives, the GPL specifies that any software covered by that license must have source code available.

Ubuntu Linux is highly committed to open source and in their license explains clearly what is required of anyone creating applications or distributions based on Ubuntu, including the following line

Must allow these rights to be passed on along with the software. You should be able to have exactly the same rights to the software as we do.

The MPAA released a University Toolkit designed to help universities detect copyright infringement on their networks, which included Ubuntu and Apache amongst other applications covered under the GPL. This toolkit included custom traffic monitoring software. The source code for this component was not included or otherwise available, no doubt to prevent easy subversion.

Given this violates the permissions for reuse specified in the license for Ubuntu, the technical director asked them to either include the source code or stop distributing the package. The MPAA essentially ignored the request until their ISP was served with a DMCA takedown notice.

Irony is indeed delicious.

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A study in Canada has been released that proves what many (myself included) have known for years, that on average people that pirate music are more likely to buy CD’s rather than less. The study was sponsored by the Canadian government and is a bit of a slog to read, but there is already some very good analysis of it on the Web.While I have seen (and helped conduct) a number of studies on this topic in recent years, this one is by far the most conclusive and the most reliable one I have seen. Spanning nearly a year and with over 2000 participants this study has a very low margin for error. From what I have seen so far, there also doesn’t seem to be any inherent bias in the conducters of this study, although this is something I will be researching further.

The study is exclusively conducted among Canadian citizens, and the cultural and environmental similarities make this almost directly applicable to the majority of the English speaking first world. The first key finding was that the net effect of illegal downloads on CD purchases in Canada was zero. That’s right, zero, zilch, nada, nil, the big donut. Amongst those that did download though, there was a direct, positive correlation between the number of songs downloaded and the number of CD’s purchased. The more people got for free, the more they paid for.

I have long known that the RIAA’s tactic of suing big downloaders meant they were also targeting their biggest customers. Ironically the money they win from their lawsuits is money that would probably have been spent on music.

With piracy enforcement becoming a major issue worldwide, and the focus being on frightening the living daylights out of anyone with a p2p client, a reasonable person might assume that the number of illegal downloads would be decreasing. Apparently the Brits aren’t reasonable people.

According to Torrent Freak, the British are downloading music at an unprecedented pace, and show no signs of slowing down. “Asked to look into the future to predict next year’s downloading habits, 18% of those asked said they were likely to download more often, up from 8% in 2006 and just 6% in 2005. 41% said they would download the same next year while an identical number said they would download less.”

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Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) withdrew a controversial new amendment from the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act Monday afternoon. Reid’s amendment would have required the Department of Education to compile an annual list of 25 colleges that were considered the worst culprits in file-sharing, based on the volume of letters received from RIAA and MPAA enforcers–letters that are not subject to judicial oversight, and are considered opinions of the RIAA and MPAA.

Universities appearing on the list would have been put “on probation” with unknown consequences and forced to demonstrate a plan of action detailing how they planned to stop piracy on their networks using technological means.

While Reid withdrew the amendment without comment, it would seem the withdrawal was the result of a fierce outcry from concerned individuals and groups such as the university coalition EDUCAUSE. EDUCAUSE last week issued an urgent call to action to its members: “CALL, not write, your state’s U.S. senators’ staff members … and tell them how much higher education opposes this amendment.”

The Reid Amendment was just one amongst a flurry of others added on to the Higher Education Act of 1965, a process that Inside Higher Ed described as “fast and furious” and those close to the situation described as “fluid.”

Moments after Reid announced the withdrawal, an e-mail circulated around the senate floor saying the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass), had agreed to incorporate a modified version of the Reid amendment. Under the new version, universities would be required to warn students of the penalties of illegal file sharing, outline campus policies on file sharing and describe what is being doing to stop it on campus networks.

Trey Harrison, a young independent software developer, was faced with a problem. The application he developed — an advanced video mixer used in live performance — showed up on warez sites, complete with a crack, before he’d secured his second customer. Many developers in his situation would have gotten mad, but Trey took a different stance.

He wrote the warez group who’d released his application into the wild and asked nicely that they stop. At the same time he also wrote the company from whom he’d purchased his copy-protection library used in his application. Who wrote back first? The warez group. Apparently appreciative of Trey’s direct approach, they replied within hours, complimented Trey and promised not to leak future versions of the software.

Granted, this might not be a solution that works for everyone but, we can’t help but wonder if the RIAA could have saved millions in legal fees by simply opening a dialog rather than filing thousands of lawsuits.

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Stanford University, the birth place of Yahoo! and Google, has come up with a lucrative way to deal with DMCA complaints from the MPAA and RIAA against its students: terminate their Internet service and charge a reconnection fee. First time offenders will be charged $100, a second offense will cost $500, and a third DMCA means paying $1000 and signing a letter indemnifying the school.

The school claims they get so many complaints that it takes three full time employees to sort through them all, and the fees will help pay for those resources. Schools fingered by the RIAA and MPAA as top havens of piracy have taken divergent approaches toward dealing with the problem. Some have banned P2P traffic outright, some have simply ignored the complaints from the industry associations, and others, like the University of Wisconsin-Madison, are demanding a formal subpoena before handing over any student information. But Stanford might be the only school that has tried to turn a profit out of it.

The RIAA has been more aggressive at targeting students for copyright infringement. Sending “pre-litigation” settlement notices to students, which threaten lawsuits and offer a settlement for a nominal fee (usually around $3000). Some have pointed out that these settlements are generally small enough that it is not worth it for students to go to court. Some people, however, suspect that US and international courts will soon find that the IP gathering and monitoring techniques used by the RIAA in order to get information about users to send out its “pre-litigation” notices are not legal.

Scientist have broken the internet speed record, previously set at 7.67 Gbps, they were able to send data at 9.8 Gbps over a 20,000 miles distance at a constant rate. For an example of how fast this is, a high-def movie that typically takes 40 hours on a typical broadband connection would only take a few seconds if this connection was open for public use.

Tokyo (Japan) Scientist are the ones that broke the record at the Internet2 consortium. With this break through they have not only given further proof of what internet speed holds for us in the future, but have laid a path for other scientist to follow in bringing us a better online experience. If an internet at this speed is released in the future, you can rest assured knowing that piracy of downloaded contest will raise at a rate never seen before.

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eDonkey and BitTorrent users caught up in the latest Logistep anti-piracy sweep haven’t got much to smile about, facing threats, legal action and for many, accusations that are simply untrue. For those who would prefer not to have their privacy invaded by Logistep in the future, this anti-piracy cloud has a silver lining. Indications are, this system can be defeated.

Ever since the initial assault on UK file-sharers, questions have been asked about the functioning of the Logistep ‘File-Sharing Monitor’ snooping software. Many people simply do not wish to allow their file-sharing software to connect to this system, preferring to maintaintheir privacy. But how can this be achieved?

The secret lies in Logistep’s own description of how their system operates;

The “File Sharing Monitor” program version 1.3 is a modified version of the client of the eDonkey and Gnutella networks of the program “Shareaza” version 2.1.0. All program functions responsible for communication with the servers and the clients are identical with those in the original version.

The Shareaza client Logistep are using doesn’t support a feature built into eMule (ver 0.47b onwards) known as ‘protocol obfuscation’ (PO) or Protocol encryption (PE) in BitTorrent clients like uTorrent and Azureus. From the eMule-Project introduction;

Microsoft has always seemed to be of two minds when it comes to its business in China. At times, the company has admitted that it actually benefits from piracy, since it helps it fend off rivals and grow its installed base, while at other times, it’s urged a hardline stance against the practice. Whichever way the company feels at this point, it looks like it’s at least recognizing that under the current economic climate, it’s not realistic to sell much full price software in China. Speaking in Beijing, Bill Gates announced that the company would begin selling a range of software in the country for just $3. At these prices, Microsoft isn’t going to make much money, but it’s better than having people buy pirated versions, because this will allow the company to establish some sort of connection to its users. Then, in the future, it may be able to sell its customers on more expensive software or services. Meanwhile, a report out of China indicates that Microsoft has only sold 244 legitimate copies of Vista so far across the country. This seems a little hard to believe, but it’s possible that it’s been a total flop. This new discount pricing initiative probably isn’t directly related to the poor sales, though it is an acknowledgment that the current business model isn’t working.

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In March, TorrentFreak published an article which aimed to answer the question ‘Are Private BitTorrent Trackers Safe?’ Now, an internet piracy investigator has admitted that his organisation has successfully infiltrated private BitTorrent trackers and is actively collecting information.

Speaking with Guardian Unlimited primarily regarding piracy counter-measures, Peter Anaman, a senior internet investigator for legal firm Covington and Burling has admitted that his organisation has infiltrated unnamed private BitTorrent tracker sites and shares their method of gaining access;

“Many groups didn’t start off as private. They became private because they felt threatened, so we were able to get in when they were open” he said.

Anaman indicated that his company maintains a network of contacts who help it gain access to additional private sites, although he isn’t forthcoming about what happens while they’re there, other than information gathering.