Matthew Lasar, ArsTechnica.com; Watch out Big Content—RapidShare has hired a lobbying firm:
"The registration form that RapidShare filed with the government makes it pretty clear what the three lobbyists the company has hired will be focusing on: "Develop and implement a coordinated government affairs/public relations program for RapidShare targeted at Congress, the Administration and the media to help counter negative attacks on the company from US copyright interests.""
Showing posts with label Rapidshare. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rapidshare. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Axis of P2P Evil? Congress, RIAA call out six worst websites in the world; Ars Technica, 5/19/10
Nate Anderson, Ars Technica; Axis of P2P Evil? Congress, RIAA call out six worst websites in the world:
"This morning, the Congressional International Anti-Piracy Caucus held a press conference along with RIAA CEO Mitch Bainwol to call out the six worst websites in the world. Think of them as an "Axis of P2P Evil."
Who made the cut? The Pirate Bay, naturally. Canada's IsoHunt was no surprise. One-click download service RapidShare was less expected, as a German court ruled only two weeks ago that the site was not responsible for infringement by its users and that it had no duty to preemptively censor uploaded content.
More surprising were the last three sites: Ukraine's MP3fiesta, which operates like the now-shuttered allofmp3.com; Luxembourg's RMX4U.com, which bills itself as "the biggest community for black music in world!"; and Baidu, the Chinese search engine so popular, Google couldn't even make a dent in its ratings.
The IAPC is a bipartisan group of 11 senators and a huge number of representatives, and they are concerned that America's copyright industries are suffering at the hands of "lax or nonexistent enforcement by many foreign governments." That's why, they wrote in a recent letter (PDF), the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is so important.
But look at that list of websites and services for a moment. What's missing? Grokster, Demonoid, Oink, Allofmp3, LimeWire, Napster, Newzbin, Mininova...
That's because the copyright industries have in fact been remarkably successful in court within the existing legal frameworks of both the US and foreign countries over the last few years.
Newzbin announced its own closure this week after a long legal fight, while LimeWire lost in a US federal court last week. Even the Pirate Bay's ISP had to stop hosting the site this week, and a Swedish court has already ruled against The Pirate Bay's administrators.
Hold your children close
Still, even with such tremendous victories behind it, the RIAA can't resist a spot of over-the-top rhetoric.
"The global challenge in the years to come will be to win the battle for a civilized Internet that respects property, privacy and security," said Bainwol. "An Internet of chaos may meet a utopian vision but surely undermines the societal values of safe and secure families and job and revenue-creating commerce. Shining the spotlight on these websites sends a vital message to users, advertisers, payment processors and governments around the world."
Yes, that's right: a Ukrainian website called "mp3fiesta" is threatening the safety and security of your family. And a good chunk of Congress wants to do something about it."
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/05/axis-of-p2p-evil-congress-riaa-call-out-six-worst-websites-in-the-world.ars
"This morning, the Congressional International Anti-Piracy Caucus held a press conference along with RIAA CEO Mitch Bainwol to call out the six worst websites in the world. Think of them as an "Axis of P2P Evil."
Who made the cut? The Pirate Bay, naturally. Canada's IsoHunt was no surprise. One-click download service RapidShare was less expected, as a German court ruled only two weeks ago that the site was not responsible for infringement by its users and that it had no duty to preemptively censor uploaded content.
More surprising were the last three sites: Ukraine's MP3fiesta, which operates like the now-shuttered allofmp3.com; Luxembourg's RMX4U.com, which bills itself as "the biggest community for black music in world!"; and Baidu, the Chinese search engine so popular, Google couldn't even make a dent in its ratings.
The IAPC is a bipartisan group of 11 senators and a huge number of representatives, and they are concerned that America's copyright industries are suffering at the hands of "lax or nonexistent enforcement by many foreign governments." That's why, they wrote in a recent letter (PDF), the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is so important.
But look at that list of websites and services for a moment. What's missing? Grokster, Demonoid, Oink, Allofmp3, LimeWire, Napster, Newzbin, Mininova...
That's because the copyright industries have in fact been remarkably successful in court within the existing legal frameworks of both the US and foreign countries over the last few years.
Newzbin announced its own closure this week after a long legal fight, while LimeWire lost in a US federal court last week. Even the Pirate Bay's ISP had to stop hosting the site this week, and a Swedish court has already ruled against The Pirate Bay's administrators.
Hold your children close
Still, even with such tremendous victories behind it, the RIAA can't resist a spot of over-the-top rhetoric.
"The global challenge in the years to come will be to win the battle for a civilized Internet that respects property, privacy and security," said Bainwol. "An Internet of chaos may meet a utopian vision but surely undermines the societal values of safe and secure families and job and revenue-creating commerce. Shining the spotlight on these websites sends a vital message to users, advertisers, payment processors and governments around the world."
Yes, that's right: a Ukrainian website called "mp3fiesta" is threatening the safety and security of your family. And a good chunk of Congress wants to do something about it."
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/05/axis-of-p2p-evil-congress-riaa-call-out-six-worst-websites-in-the-world.ars
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Pirates find easy new pickings in open waters of e-book publishing; London Times, 11/21/09
Mike Harvey, London Times; Pirates find easy new pickings in open waters of e-book publishing:
"Digital pirates, who for years have tormented the music and film industries, have found a new source of plunder in e-book publishing.
With the words “dan brown lost symbol torrent” and a few clicks, anyone can download the American author’s latest bestseller free via any of hundreds of web links.
This Christmas, e-book reading devices such as Amazon’s Kindle and Sony’s Reader will be among the most popular gadgets. But there are fears that as consumers get used to reading digital books they will look for a free download rather than pay.
In the US, where the Kindle has been available for two years, digital book piracy is booming. The web has enabled thousands of sites to distribute pirated book content free. American publishers are estimated to have lost more than $600 million (£363 million) last year to piracy...
British publishers are taking action to stop the pirates. The Publishers Association has released a web tool that allows publishers to log the details of an infringement of copyright. It then sends a demand to the offending website for the link to be removed. The portal has been alerted to more than 4,000 cases of online piracy by more than 40 publishers and has succeeded in taking down 2,638 illegal copies of books.
Alicia Wise, digital consultant to the association, said: “There are a lot of holes in the dyke. We are surprised by the scale and spectrum of authors that are being pirated. We need to get to grips quickly with practical ways of tackling copyright infringement.”
Book publishers are determined to prevent their business from being undermined in the same way as the music and film industries have. The relatively small digital file sizes for e-books provide an added incentive for filesharers. A film can be up to 1.5GB whereas the typical e-book is no more than 3MB, making it much easier to download...
Until recently publishers thought that books were relatively safe because it was so labour intensive to scan each page to convert a book to a digital file. But they have discovered thousands of cases of piracy on hosting websites such as Rapidshare. Users can upload any file and then share it by posting the link on blogs, forums or in e-mails with their friends.
Ms Wise said that publishers needed to come up with better ways for readers to buy digital books. “We are at a delicate moment. We have a chance to get our distribution models right against a difficult backdrop of piracy. We have to encourage book lovers to make ethical choices. We would hope that people who love books would make supportive decisions about how they acquire them.”"
http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article6925926.ece
"Digital pirates, who for years have tormented the music and film industries, have found a new source of plunder in e-book publishing.
With the words “dan brown lost symbol torrent” and a few clicks, anyone can download the American author’s latest bestseller free via any of hundreds of web links.
This Christmas, e-book reading devices such as Amazon’s Kindle and Sony’s Reader will be among the most popular gadgets. But there are fears that as consumers get used to reading digital books they will look for a free download rather than pay.
In the US, where the Kindle has been available for two years, digital book piracy is booming. The web has enabled thousands of sites to distribute pirated book content free. American publishers are estimated to have lost more than $600 million (£363 million) last year to piracy...
British publishers are taking action to stop the pirates. The Publishers Association has released a web tool that allows publishers to log the details of an infringement of copyright. It then sends a demand to the offending website for the link to be removed. The portal has been alerted to more than 4,000 cases of online piracy by more than 40 publishers and has succeeded in taking down 2,638 illegal copies of books.
Alicia Wise, digital consultant to the association, said: “There are a lot of holes in the dyke. We are surprised by the scale and spectrum of authors that are being pirated. We need to get to grips quickly with practical ways of tackling copyright infringement.”
Book publishers are determined to prevent their business from being undermined in the same way as the music and film industries have. The relatively small digital file sizes for e-books provide an added incentive for filesharers. A film can be up to 1.5GB whereas the typical e-book is no more than 3MB, making it much easier to download...
Until recently publishers thought that books were relatively safe because it was so labour intensive to scan each page to convert a book to a digital file. But they have discovered thousands of cases of piracy on hosting websites such as Rapidshare. Users can upload any file and then share it by posting the link on blogs, forums or in e-mails with their friends.
Ms Wise said that publishers needed to come up with better ways for readers to buy digital books. “We are at a delicate moment. We have a chance to get our distribution models right against a difficult backdrop of piracy. We have to encourage book lovers to make ethical choices. We would hope that people who love books would make supportive decisions about how they acquire them.”"
http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article6925926.ece
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