MegaUpload is currently being portrayed by the MPAA and RIAA as one of the world’s leading rogue sites. But top music stars including P Diddy, Will.i.am, Alicia Keys, Snoop Dogg and Kanye West disagree and are giving the site their full support
in a brand new song. TorrentFreak
caught up with the elusive founder of MegaUpload, Kim Dotcom, who shrugged off “this rogue nonsense” and told us he wants content owners to get paid. “
It works like an ad blocker but instead of blocking ads we show ads coming from Megaclick, our ad network,” says Kim. “
This way we will generate enough ad revenue to provide free premium services and licensed content so that our users can have it for free.”
posted by finite
on Dec 9, 2011 -
73 comments
The U.S. House of Representatives has
drafted their version of Senator
Leahy's Protect IP Act,
renaming the bill the
E-Parasites Act. Among other changes discussed
previ
ously, the bill
now makes internet service providers and websites liable for activities of their users that infringe upon copyrights, effectively overturning parts of the 13-year-old Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
posted by jeffburdges
on Oct 27, 2011 -
120 comments
Senator Leahy's
Protect IP Act would require that U.S. ISPs impose an 'internet death penalty' upon domain after merely a preliminary injunction from a U.S. court that suspects the site of being 'dedicated to infringing activities', even if the domain's owner had never been notified and was not subject to U.S. jurisdiction. There is concern that the legislation would fragment the DNS system and
facilitate DNS spoofing by
obstructing DNSSEC (
pdf). There is also an
open letter opposing the bill signed by 108 Law Professors who study intellectual property law.
[more inside]
posted by jeffburdges
on Jul 24, 2011 -
29 comments
Ars Technica reports on the US Copyright Group (website:
SAVECINEMA.ORG), an entity that
has sent out over 14,000 subpoenas in the past 5 months to P2P users who have downloaded smaller independent movies such as
Uwe Boll's Far Cry and
best picture Oscar winner The Hurt Locker. To put that in perspective,
the RIAA sued 18,000 P2P users during their multi-year anti-file sharing campaign. The law firm takes the moviemakers cases on for free, splitting with them the money the defendants pay to settle the case ($1,500 to $2,500 per subpoena) on a site that will conveniently take your credit card. The law firm and the filmmakers could end up splitting $19.7 million, and it's likely that this kind of approach will be tried with more movies. As you might expect,
some targeted individuals have been wrongly accused.
posted by The Devil Tesla
on Jun 3, 2010 -
166 comments
Killing the music Who is the real enemy here? Mefites argue on whether downloading the latest eminem is theft or merely copyright infringement. RIAA says this activity is killing CD sales and wants to slap a lawsuit on everyone with a cable modem. Everyone seems to be missing the real culprit here. [via
Ars-technica]
posted by Nauip
on Aug 5, 2003 -
128 comments
MJ pro-tech, anti-jail: "I am speechless about the idea of putting music fans -- mostly teenagers -- in jail for downloading music," he said in a statement from his Neverland Ranch in the western state of California.
"It is wrong to illegally download, but the answer cannot be jail. Here in America we create new opportunities out of adversity, not punitive laws, and we should look to new technologies ... for solutions. This way, innovation continues to be the hallmark of America. It is the fans that drive the success of the music."
posted by allaboutgeorge
on Jul 22, 2003 -
23 comments
European music copyrights from the '50s due to expire this year, and to grossly oversimplify things, RIAA is on the warpath, saying that imports from there would be acts of piracy. Considering that there's a gold mine's worth of material begging to be shown the light again (the Maria Callas material mentioned in the article, for example), no doubt there will be some great releases...but will EMI's actions be more the exception than the rule? (NYT link, yadayada)
posted by PeteyStock
on Jan 2, 2003 -
17 comments
Not 421 CD burners but "the equivalent of 421 burners". Now, most agree the RIAA is grasping at straws trying to control something they clearly can't, but this seems to be the most amusing yet.
This article offers a suggestion or two concerning the possible music industry slump.
posted by robotrock
on Dec 15, 2002 -
22 comments
Learning from the RIAA's mistakes?
"Seeking to protect movies from the rampant online piracy that afflicts the music industry, five major film studios plan to begin offering today rental feature films that consumers can download from a
Web site for a fee." Sounds like at least a step in the right direction, but I still wonder: who watches movies on their computer anyway? Would you rather wait for your 90 minute feature film to download, or just get off your butt and go rent one?
(first link is to the NYT)
posted by Gilbert
on Nov 11, 2002 -
25 comments
Finally, a Fair Fight with Big Music From a Business Week Online column...
"Telecom giant Verizon is battling the industry's bid to make it name a file-sharing subscriber. It's also defending your right to privacy. On July 24, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) made an unprecedented request of Verizon Communications (VZ). The music industry's trade association served the telecom with a subpoena, seeking the identity of a Verizon subscriber who had allegedly illegally traded digital songs by artists including Britney Spears, Jennifer Lopez, and "boy band" N'Sync. The RIAA didn't specify why it wanted to know who the user was or what it would do with the information."
posted by fpatrick
on Sep 12, 2002 -
22 comments
Hosting Provider Bans RIAA - According to this press release, Information Wave Technologies will actively block all RIAA IP space because RIAA is intentionally seeking to invade customer networks / hosts to check for copyright violations. Additionally, they are going to deploy a "honeypot" system (simulates a GNUtella client sharing copyrighted material) in order to log requests for the files and correlate them with attempts to invade the host -- RIAA's stated plan to combate music piracy.
posted by Irontom
on Aug 19, 2002 -
24 comments
Interesting article from The Guardian discussing the fact that people seem willing to pay for annoying ringtones, but seem unwilling to pay for near-CD-quality music. Unfortunately it doesn't really address the question of "why?"
posted by jedro
on Jan 11, 2002 -
15 comments
Copy protection for CDs does not have future says
Philips. Philips spokesperson Klaus Petri, speaking to Reuters, says its company counts on the fact that the refusal of consumers will convince the music industry to step back from copy-protected CD's. Petri said that Philips could sue the manufacturers of CD's with copy protection (as managers of the world-wide CD patents), because they would not correspond to the standards. "those are silver disks with music on them, but which do not resemble CD's". [via
Neowin.net]
posted by riffola
on Jan 9, 2002 -
16 comments
The RIAA wants to hack your computer (via
Fark ) The RIAA tried to attach a rider to the anti-terrorism bill currently in Congress that would have allowed them to hack anyone's computer without consequence. One more reason why the RIAA is evil.
posted by Maxor
on Oct 15, 2001 -
34 comments
Music biz wants tougher DMCA "If the RIAA gets its way, ISPs will be as guilty of copyright violation as their subscribers. "Because of the magnitude of the problem, ISPs can no longer be shielded from the wrath of the law," shrieked Rosen righteously."
posted by Mick
on Oct 8, 2001 -
23 comments
the shame of the music industry The industry seems ut to foil any attempt to allow known methods of foiling guards against making copies of music. Is this ethical and right or an imposition of monopolistic control over technology?
posted by Postroad
on Apr 30, 2001 -
16 comments
Napster takes first steps in trying to appease the RIAA, and specifically BMG. To me this approach is the stupidest thing Napster could have done. Who would want to pay a membership fee to use Napster if one can't even burn the files onto a cd?
posted by JFunk2800
on Feb 21, 2001 -
1 comment
DivX +
filenavigator = headaches for
MPAA. Of course the
SPA and
RIAA can't be too pleased about filenavigator either. I've checked and the DivX of Castaway is on the net already.
posted by john
on Jan 17, 2001 -
3 comments
If you haven't already read "The Heavenly Jukebox", you should really check it out. The Atlantic Monthly recently posted this great article subtitled "Rampant music piracy may hurt musicians less than they fear. The real threat -- to listeners and, conceivably, democracy itself -- is the music industry's reaction to it". While somewhat long, it's a very interesting read, going into the original copyright lawsuits in England over a hundred years ago to today's ordeal pitting the RIAA against the millions of people downloading Metallica mp3s off of Napster. Well worth reading.
posted by ookamaka
on Aug 18, 2000 -
1 comment
