Nobody who lives in Boston actually wants the city to win its bid for the 2024 Olympic games. And yet, in a joinder agreement between the city and the United States Olympic Committee, mayor Marty Walsh has signed a contract that forbids city employees from speaking negatively about the bid, the IOC, or the Olympic games. It’s a great day for free speech in the cradle of liberty.
DRM Destroys Value: Why Years Old, But DRM Free, Devices Sell For Twice The Price Of New Devices
Back in 2010, I paid $99 for an Apple TV–technically, the Apple TV (2nd generation). Recently, it stopped receiving software updates, so I decided to put it on eBay. I was surprised that I was able to sell a piece of four-year old electronics for $161–it’s not often you make a profit on old devices.
The reason for this is simple–tinkerers have figured out how to jailbreak the 2nd generation Apple TV, but not the 3rd gen one, which is the one Apple currently sells (also for $99).
Illegal File-Sharing In Norway is Virtually Eliminated
Shock and horror, it looks like actually offering a good product makes people want to pay?
A countrywide survey in December 2014 showed that just 4% of Norwegians under 30 years still used illegal file-sharing platforms to get hold of music.
Even better for the worldwide industry, less than 1% of people under 30 years said that file-sharing was their main source of obtaining music.
“We are now offering services that are both better and more user-friendly than illegal platforms… In [the past] five years, we have virtually eliminated illegal file-sharing in the music industry.”
Cable Industry Fights New 25 Mbps Broadband Definition Because The Need For Those Speeds Is ‘Hypothetical’
“…the two parties that specifically urge the Commission to adopt a download speed benchmark of 25 Mbps—Netflix and Public Knowledge—both offer examples of applications that go well beyond the ‘current’ and ‘regular’ uses that ordinarily inform the Commission’s inquiry under Section 706” of the Telecommunications Act. Hypothetical use cases showing the need for 25Mbps/3Mbps “dramatically exaggerate the amount of bandwidth needed by the typical broadband user,” the NCTA said.”
Adult Swim on Piracy
Friday was not a merry day for Keith Lipscomb
MALIBU cannot have it both ways. Thus, if the Court were to find that Plaintiff sufficiently implied commonality in the same transaction or occurrence or joint and several liability (despite the omission of any such language), by pleading same swarm/hash, the remedy is inconsistent with the cause of action, fails to state a cause of action, and must be dismissed because the complaint seeks non-cumulative statutory damages per defendant.
(…)
MALIBU seeks damages above that which would make it whole. Accordingly, Plaintiff may only seek damages per swarm, not per defendant. Moreover, it is not out of the realm of possibilities that Plaintiff may have already been made whole by alleged members of this swarm prior to bringing this action.
Men Tried for Extortion After Porn Download Threats
For more than a decade copyright holders around the world have been doing their best to extract money from those who download content without permission. The RIAA were probably the pioneers but today it’s the adult industry making the most noise.
Porn is a convenient weapon in this landscape. Few people want their adult content viewing habits to be made public so the chances of targets paying up following an unauthorized download are anecdotally higher than for regular entertainment content.
Out to make as much money as possible, this assumption wasn’t lost on a group of adult business ‘entrepreneurs’ based in Sweden.
Operating out of the region of Skåne, two years ago the individuals began sending threatening communications to people they claimed had downloaded pornographic content from sites without permission. The websites in question were all operated by the men.
In total around 4,000 people all over Sweden received ‘invoices’ for alleged illegal downloads. Each were warned that if they failed to pay the amounts stipulated they would be reported to the police and their activities made public.
YOU. Your women are mine. Give them to me. I want to sell them
It’s like this. YouTube provides recognised copyright owners with a tool called Content ID that helps them profile their own content and hunt for unauthorised copies across the YouTube servers. When it finds a match, it flags a message on the user’s YouTube channel to say that it has identified copyright content in the allegedly offending video, giving the user the opportunity to respond or take the video down.
Here’s the first problem: Content ID might be a clever piece of software but it is also thick as shit. Comparing the videos above, the only common feature is that there are gradient colours in the background. Duh, me see pink, me see purple, me see match. Ker-Ching! Content ID, he catch pirate!
Here’s the second problem: when a user responds to the claim, the message isn’t sent to YouTube but to the copyright claimant. This makes sense, of course. YouTube can help claimants hunt down copyright thieves but it does not want to get involved in disputes. If it’s to maintain its position as a platform rather than a publisher, it can’t. So this leaves you at the mercy and integrity of the claimant – as indeed David was about to find out.
With crushing inevitability, the whole thing happened yet again. This time, an international rights management business called INgrooves claimed one of David and Heidi’s ASMR videos was in breach of its copyright customers. This time, it turned nasty.
Getting used to this by now, David fired off his response – “it’s my wife’s voice, it’s Final Cut Pro X generating the visuals” – but this time there was no apology and withdrawal of the claim. Instead, INgrooves simply confirmed the claim by return, whereupon my friends’ YouTube channel automatically got slapped down with a naughty-boy strike. Three strikes and you’re kicked off YouTube.
David tried to complain and received a second automatic rejection by INgrooves. At this stage, there appears to be no appeal. YouTube assumes that if the alleged copyright owner reconfirms the claim after the user’s response, the claim must be valid.
NO WARRANTS NEEDED for metadata access, argues Oz A-G
Australia’s attorney-general has suggested that no warrants should be needed to access the nation’s planned trove of telecommunications metadata, because the data isn’t an invasion of privacy to rank with entering a home.
In a submission to the inquiry into Australia’s Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment (Data Retention) Bill 2014. the attorney-general’s department suggests that the process of obtaining a warrant would slow down investigations and that warrants therefore aren’t warranted.
The submissions contradicts conclusions reached by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights, which last year recommended warrants before acces to the data.
