A MAFIAA CABAL called the International Intellectual Property Alliance, which is an umbrella group for the entertainment cartels such as the MPAA and RIAA, has demanded that Indonesia, Brazil and India should be placed on a special trade watchlist merely because they recommend the use of open source software.
Apparently the outfit has been leaning on the US Trade Representative to consider those nations for its “Special 301 watchlist”, which is supposed to list all those nations who are enemies of capitalism.
The lobbying was uncovered by Andres Guadamuz, a lecturer in law at the University of Edinburgh. Apparently the problem is that the entertainment industry lobbies regard open source as communism, or at least socialism.
Last year the Indonesian government sent around a circular to all government departments and state-owned businesses, recommending that they should adopt open source software.
According to the IIPA, this encouraged government agencies to use Free Open Source Software (FOSS) with a view towards implementation by the end of 2011, which the circular states will result in the use of legitimate open source and free software and a reduction in overall costs of software in the country’s government agencies.
But the IIPA said that that Indonesia deserves Special 301 status because encouraging, yet not forcing, such takeup “weakens the software industry” and “fails to build respect for intellectual property rights.”
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Tag: MPAA
Hollywood laid much of the blame for illegal movie downloading on college students. Now, it says its math was wrong.
In a 2005 study it commissioned, the Motion Picture Association of America claimed that 44 percent of the industry’s domestic losses came from illegal downloading of movies by college students, who often have access to high-bandwidth networks on campus.
The MPAA has used the study to pressure colleges to take tougher steps to prevent illegal file-sharing and to back legislation currently before the House of Representatives that would force them to do so.
But now the MPAA, which represents the U.S. motion picture industry, has told education groups a “human error” in that survey caused it to get the number wrong. It now blames college students for about 15 percent of revenue loss.
The MPAA says that’s still significant, and justifies a major effort by colleges and universities to crack down on illegal file-sharing. But Mark Luker, vice president of campus IT group Educause, says it doesn’t account for the fact that more than 80 percent of college students live off campus and aren’t necessarily using college networks. He says 3 percent is a more reasonable estimate for the percentage of revenue that might be at stake on campus networks.
“The 44 percent figure was used to show that if college campuses could somehow solve this problem on this campus, then it would make a tremendous difference in the business of the motion picture industry,” Luker said. The new figures prove “any solution on campus will have only a small impact on the industry itself.”
The original report, by research firm LEK, claims the U.S. motion picture industry lost $6.1 billion to piracy worldwide, with most of the losses overseas. It identified the typical movie pirate as a male aged 16-24. MPAA said in a statement that no errors had been found in the study besides the percentage of revenue losses that could be attributed to college students, but that it would hire a third party to validate the numbers.
“We take this error very seriously and have taken strong and immediate action to both investigate the root cause of this problem as well as substantiate the accuracy of the latest report,” the group said in a statement.
Terry Hartle, vice president of the American Council on Education, which represents higher education in Washington, said the mistakes showed the entertainment industry has unfairly targeted college campuses.
“Illegal peer-to-peer file-sharing is a society-wide problem. Some of it occurs at college s and universities but it is a small portion of the total,” he said, adding colleges will continue to take the problem seriously, but more regulation isn’t necessary.
Popular BitTorrent search engine TorrentSpy lost a copyright case brought against it in a US cought by the Motion Picture Association of America by default for destroying evidence, reports the BBC. The site’s operator’s apparently ignored an order to keep server logs of the IP addresses of people who facilitated the trading of files via the site.
“They have engaged in widespread and systematic efforts to destroy evidence and have provided false testimony under oath in a effort to hide evidence of such destruction,” wrote Judge Florence-Marie Cooper in her decision.
For their part, the defendants, site operators Justin Bunnell, Forrest Parker, Wes Parker and Valence Media, put forward multiple arguments for why they should not hand over server logs. Initially, they argued that because their servers were located in the Netherlands they were under the jurisdiction of Dutch law and were protected by a US court order to turn them over.
Later they told the judge that they could not comply with an order to turn over certain server logs because it was temporary information and was not able to be retained. The lawyer for the defendants said that they were reluctant to turn over records of IP addresses to protect the privacy of their users.
The BBC reports that TorrentSpy is expected to appeal. The MPAA was predictably pleased by the ruling, calling TorrentSpy a “one-stop shop for copyright infringement” in a statement.
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.
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.â€
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.â€
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.
The bill, more formally known as the Higher Education Amendments of 2007, passed the Senate yesterday and is now currently awaiting a House vote.
Cots, toothbrushes, MP3s… sigh.
We resent writing about the MPAA, simply because every time the organization makes a statement it invariably exposes some aspect of its backwards perspective. This time the Association has made the rather preposterous claim that the efforts of staff and customers in preventing illegal recordings of Spider-Man 3 gave the film “a fair shot at its record-setting opening.” In all, 31 people were caught illegally recording the movie, a figure which is apparently thanks to night vision equipped cinema staff (motivated by a $500 reward for each case) and reporting from the patrons themselves in a few cases. The logic that this in some way helped assure that the film would be a commercial success is shaky at best: it only takes a single recording for the film to become “pirated.” And of course, if the system for detecting illegal recordings of movies is working so well, why do we still have to sit through those patronizing anti-piracy PSAs? [Via TechDirt]
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.
Getting back to Stanford, the text of their policy says that piracy on their network has reached “unacceptable levels,” before mentioning that the MPAA recently named the school as one of “America’s top 25 worst offenders” in terms of piracy. The announcement from Stanford goes on to say that dealing with DMCA notices “is an irresponsible waste of Stanford’s resources.” That seems to imply that the DMCA and PR campaigns by the recording and motion picture associations are having the effect of causing ISPs to expend resources they don’t want to. And some, like Stanford, will pass those costs onto consumers. Do you think it is fair for ISPs (including educational institutions that offer Internet access) to do that?
*This is a mass email to All Faculty & All Academic Professionals & All Civil Service Staff & All Undergrad Students & All Grad Students
*This was sent March 31, 2007 at 1:07 AM
As you may have read in the popular press, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) among others are increasing their copyright enforcement activities. As part of this increased effort, the RIAA has begun to target college students specifically, which means that students who engage in unlawful peer-to-peer file sharing are more likely than ever to be identified and sued by the RIAA.
We think that these increased enforcement activities warrant taking a moment to discuss the relevant policies and practices at the Urbana- Champaign campus of the University of Illinois.
The University does not condone the use of peer-to-peer software for illegal file sharing. Those who engage in it violate U.S. Copyright laws as well as the campus’s own policies, including the Student Code and Policy on the Appropriate Use of the Computer Network. Additionally the University bears significant costs associated with responding to DMCA violation notices and the network capacity absorbed by file sharing reduces its availability for general research, teaching, and administrative purposes. For additional information of University related copyright issues, see continue reading…
The BSA, RIAA and MPAA are all well known for their bogus stats about piracy that are easily disproved. In fact, when it comes to the BSA, the company they contracted to conduct the study has even complained that the BSA is misusing the stats. You would hope that a younger, more dynamic industry wouldn’t fall into the same trap. Unfortunately, though, it looks like the video game industry is going down the same pointless path. Todd Hollenshead from id Software is getting a lot of attention today for trumpeting the ESA’s latest bogus stat numbers that appears to assume all pirated copies are lost sales and not taking into account (at all) the fact that pirated copies can later lead to legit sales. Hollenshead goes on to talk about various annoying means of copy protection to keep anyone from pirating the game. This isn’t a new argument for id. Last year, the company put out a similar statement about how piracy was killing the video game industry (which actually appears to be pretty vibrant). It also ignores id’s own history. The early success of games like Castle Wolfenstein and Doom were, in large part, thanks to pirated copies being widely available and getting people hooked (often resulting in them buying legit copies, or later software products from id). It also ignores the success of other game publishers, such as Stardock, who decided that treating all its customers as if they’re criminals is a bad idea — and releasing their game with no copy protection at all… and having it turn into a best seller.