piracy

Taxing music at the ISP level: Good idea or bad?

Warner Music Group has a proposition for U.S. universities, according to Techdirt: buy a blanket license to music downloads through file-sharing services, or be sued.

Techdirt thinks that this is a bad idea, and I disagree.

Techdirt's criticisms are clear:

It's basically a music tax--allowing the record industry to be lazy. Someone else gets to go out and collect all this money, and hand it over to the industry to distribute (or, actually, not distribute). It effectively sets the business model of the recording industry in stone, and harms better, more innovative business models by inserting the … Read more

Microsoft kicks off the year of the audit

CIO.com offers a sobering reminder as to one potential downside to proprietary licensing: when vendors get desperate for revenue, auditing for "piracy" can help them clean up.

Piracy is illegal and wrong. But sometimes piracy is in the eye of the beholder, and it's a safe bet that if the beholder is Microsoft or some other large enterprise software vendor, it's going to win any dispute over illegitimate licenses. Just ask Ernie Ball, who had the unfortunate pleasure of greeting an unannounced, Business Software Alliance-sponsored raid by U.S. marshals on his office a few years back.… Read more

Online auctions remain piracy problem for Microsoft

Attention, software buyers: there's no such thing as Microsoft Office "Blue Edition."

That's the latest ruse making the rounds on online auctions. It feigns to be some sort of technician version of Microsoft's software that happens not to require a serial number or product activation or any of Microsoft's antipiracy mechanisms. In actuality, Microsoft says, it's just the latest wrapping for a pirated version of the company's software.

"That program is entirely fictitious," said Matt Lundy, a senior attorney for Microsoft. "It's nothing more than a scheme by … Read more

Symantec says Internet underground economy is organized and rich

Did you know that you can buy a keystroke logger for $23 or pay $10 to have someone host your phishing scam? Having a botnet at your fingertips will cost you $225, and a tool that exploits a vulnerability on a banking site averages $740 and runs as high as $3,000.

That's according to the Symantec Report on the Internet Underground Economy due to be released Monday.

Symantec researchers spent a year observing the chat among cybercriminals on IRC channels and forums on the Internet between July 1, 2007 and June 30, 2008 and were able to piece … Read more

'Dark Knight' on its way to becoming 2008's most pirated movie

Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but movie fans like to show their love for a great movie by stealing it, as data from TorrentFreak on The Dark Knight downloads suggests. With over one million downloads in just a week, The Dark Knight is quickly on its way to earning the dubious honor of being the most pirated movie of 2008.

What a perverse message to send to the movie studios: we love your product so much that we refuse to pay for it. How do we expect the industry to invest in more movies like The Dark Knight if we aren't willing to fund that investment?

Microsoft's Thomas Rubin, chief counsel for Intellectual Property Strategy, recently told the UK Association of Online Publishers that "the 'information wants to be free' approach not only does not work, actually it has been a disaster for almost all newspapers." While Rubin's words were somewhat self-serving, designed as they were to position Microsoft as the "safe" technology partner to the industry, to Google's detriment, he still has a point, and one that correlates to online video.

Yes, many people steal online music and video because they simply want a more convenient way to consume it. Rubin suggests that "It turn(s) out that most people do not want to steal music--they just want convenient online access to it," and I agree with that. Back when Fellowship of the Ring came out, I downloaded the movie from an IRC network and watched it for months before it hit retail. However, I also bought both the standard and extended versions, plus I saw the movie three times in the theaters. New Line Cinema made its money from me, and I got to conveniently watch the movie well before its retail release.

Yet my desire for convenience shouldn't have trumped New Line Cinema's desire for control and profit. I had no right--legal or moral--to pirate the movie to satisfy my own whims. I was wrong, and that wrong could well end up ensuring that fewer "Dark Knights" and "Fellowships" get created.

As consumers, whether of movies, software, or other digital goods, we do ourselves a disservice when we steal. I hate to rely on a Microsoft executive to teach this lesson, but Rubin's comments on the newspaper industry are instructive here:… Read more

Buzz Out Loud 847: Don't stand behind the hologram

The U.S. Army prepares to test and deploy ghost soldiers in MMORPGS and possibly also the real world. They may be decoys, folks, but remember: they're still light-based projections that won't stop a bullet. Also, it appears Apple will finally activate over-the-air podcast downloads for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Which, yeah. Ya think? Geez. Listen now: Download today's podcast EPISODE 847

Hey Microsoft, Yahoo’s for sale--for real this time http://www.crn.com/software/212000962

Obama, McCain campaigns both hacked, files compromised (thanks rpcaldiera) http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/11/05/221222… Read more

No more pirated DVDs from China...maybe

If you've been copying DVDs using some made-in-China DVD player, think about taking good care of the device, as you might not be able to buy a replacement.

The Motion Picture Association of America on Friday announced that its member companies have won a breach of contract lawsuit against China-based DVD player manufacturer Gowell Electronics Limited. The U.S. District Court for the Central District of California issued a permanent injunction that prohibits the manufacturer from violating any term of the Content Scramble System license agreement.

The lawsuit started in June of 2008 after an MPAA investigation revealed that … Read more

Will record labels control digital-music lockers?

A fitting anthem for Michael Robertson these days would be The Rolling Stones' hit, Get Off of My Cloud.

For nearly a decade, Robertson, the often controversial cofounder of MP3.com and Linspire, has toiled to store music in the cloud, the term used to describe the seemingly limitless amount of data and services accessible with a Web browser. But in the past, Robertson's efforts have led him into epic legal battles with the music industry. That's where he finds himself once again. In November, EMI filed a copyright suit against him and his music service, MP3tunes.com. … Read more

Microsoft celebrates antipiracy day

Microsoft plans on Tuesday to announce "Global Anti-Piracy Day," an effort to gain attention for the steps the company undertakes in order to thwart those who would profit from illegitimate software.

As part of the event, Microsoft is highlighting recent antipiracy efforts in 49 countries, ranging from the filing of lawsuits in the U.S. to a seminar for journalists in Pakistan.

It's the kind of thing that Microsoft does all the time, although the company is aiming for some added ink by grouping together so many actions at once.

"One of the things we want … Read more