Tag Archive for 'copyright'

Harry Potter hits BitTorrent hits TechCrunch hit by Scholastic

wstryder July 23, 2007 0 Comments

Incriminating evidence? Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

In most amazing news this week (last week actually, but I’ve been offline for a week) Scholastic sends TechCrunch a takedown notice for their post “The Latest Harry Potter Book Hits BitTorrent”. According to USA Today Scholastic is contacting every site that has mentioned this story and demanding it be taken down. So to tell people that the torrent for the latest Harry Potter book can be downloaded from The Pirate Bay is now copyright infringement? TechCrunch didn’t even directly link to the torrent, in fact they didn’t link to The Pirate Bay at all.

Copyright – two words combined that don’t make sense.

11:12 am Tags: , .

Taloussanomat adopts Creative Commons

wstryder June 5, 2007 0 Comments

Taloussanomat, a major Finnish financial newspaper, now uses CC BY-NC-ND
license on all their online articles (via Antti Vilpponen). They also have a page clearly explaining the license terms and information on how to use the license, along with a piece of html-code that you can use on your own site. This is pretty significant. It means that you can safely quote an entire article from their news service, or use it as part of another service. I like Taloussanomat every day more and more. Not counting the ad-infested frontpage (Adblock pretty much solves that problem), their website has everything you’d expect from a quality service.

I’m looking forward to the first online news service to use CC-licensed pictures from Flickr. I don’t get why they don’t do that already.

12:03 pm Tags: , , , .

09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0

wstryder May 2, 2007 2 Comments

In Finland you could get arrested for posting this code:

09:F9:11:02:9D:74:E3:5B:D8:41:56:C5:63:56:88:C0

… and face up to two and a half years in prison.

It seems that the MPAA is sending DMCA takedown notices to sites all over the net. These attempts have caused a massive backslash, especially at Digg.com. How long will it take them to figure out that you can’t censor a number? It should be clear to everyone that DRM just doesn’t work, especially when it needs silly laws to protect itself.

8:47 am Tags: , , .

Finnish comedian not amused at P2P

wstryder October 13, 2006 2 Comments

[Heikki Silvennoinen as Mauno Ahonen]Ilta-Sanomat reports that the Tampere police has initiated an investigation into alleged illegal sharing of Kummeli movies over the Internet. The Kummeli actors are pissed off at their latest movie “Kummeli Jackpot” hitting the P2P networks. The DVD is officially released today, but the torrent has apparently been available for quite some time already. “This is so wrong!” cries Kummeli funny-guy Heikki Silvennoinen, “You do all the work, but don’t get the salary you’re supposed to get. That’s like stealing money from someone’s bank account.”

In other news, Universal Pictures releases a special “Imperial edition” DVD of Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning, a movie that was released for anyone to download for free over the internet.

If you don’t know what Kummeli is all about, check out this classic “Meanwhile in Sweden” sketch, on YouTube.

5:32 pm Tags: , .

Mediaviikko comments on YouTube

wstryder October 11, 2006 0 Comments

Mediaviikko’s executive editor Paavo Vasala was kind enough to send me Mediaviikko’s article on YLE&MTV3 vs. YouTube (subscribers only) and even gave me permission to quote it. Awesome! This might be interesting for Finnish readers, so here’s the entire comment from Mediaviikko:

Yleisradion ja MTV3:n tiukka kanta Googlea vastaan on täysin oikea. Ohjelmat ovat televisioyhtiöiden teettämiä ja rahoittamia sekä omistamia. Niitä ei saa kukaan näyttää luvatta. Kun sen tekee taloudellista voittoa tavoitteleva yhtiö, kuten nyt Google, teko on erityisen tuomittavaa laittomana.

TV-yhtiöt ovat maksaneet työntekijöille sovitun palkan ja palkkion ohjelmien tekemisestä. Myös muita kustannuksia on syntynyt. Kun Google käyttää nyt hyväkseen toisen tekemää työtä, sitä voidaan pitää varastamisena. Tällaista ei saa kannattaa. Herättääkin suurta hämmästystä, kuinka varsin moni nettikeskustelija luulee, että kyse on televisioyhtiöiden tahallisesta kiusanteosta, kun kielletään ohjelmien luvaton levitys netissä. Kustannuksien jaosta on kyse lopulta.

Nettimaailma on väärällään erilaisia virityksiä toisten tuotteiden anastamiseksi, mistä Suomessakin esillä olleet tekijänoikeuslain valmistelun aikaiset riidat ovat osoituksena. Luulen, että oikeustaju on kuitenkin tallella suurimmalla osalla kansasta. Eräillä vain oma ahneus iskee niin pahasti päälle, että ohjelmien ja muiden esitettävien tuotteiden tekijänoikeuksista ei paljoa piitata. Onneksi yhä enemmän netissä tapahtuva tuotevälitys on laillista myyntiä ja pelisäännöt ovat tulleet tutuiksi.

I’m sorry I don’t have time to translate the whole comment, but in brief, Vasala agrees with YLE and MTV3. He thinks that now that Google is benefiting financially from the illegal use of copyrighted material on YouTube, it can be called theft and should not be tolerated. He mentions that “The Internet is full of devices whose purpose is to steal the work of others, the row over the new Finnish copyright law demonstrates this well. Some are so greedy, that they don’t care about the copyrights of software or other products.”

To be continued. Vasala does it again – he calls copyright law critics criminals whenever he gets the opportunity. Opponents of the copyright law don’t support piracy, they want more rights for consumers. The Finnish copyright law has various points that need to be corrected. According to the 2006 copyright bill (edited from Afterdawn.com):

  • Circumventing copy protections is illegal, even for personal use.
  • Distributing tools that allow circumventing copy protection mechanisms is illegal.
  • Advertising tools that allow circumventing copy protection mechanisms is illegal.
  • Possession of tools that allow circumventing copy protection mechanisms is illegal, even for personal use.
  • Guides on how to circumvent copy protection mechanisms can be considered as “tools” and thus are also illegal.
  • Worryingly, even “organized discussion” on how to circumvent copy protection mechanisms, is illegal.

So, if you have a portable MP3 player and a copy-protected CD, you can’t legally copy the CD to your MP3 player anymore. Got Linux? Forget about installing libdvdcss to watch DVDs – you’d be breaking the law.

If I want to copy a CD to my MP3 player, does that make me a criminal? Talk about greed. Some are so greedy that they infest their products with copy-protection, just to make sure you won’t be able to use the product. Some are so greedy that they install rootkits on their CDs. Some are so greedy that they sell you DRM products online that could break at anytime. And yes, some hard-bitten evil pirates are so greedy that they download a 2min clip of Kummeli from YouTube for free, instead of bying the 6h DVD-set.

9:48 pm Tags: , , , , , .

Mediaviikko commits suicide

wstryder October 11, 2006 1 Comment

Paavo Vasala, MediaviikkoI used to read Mediaviikko magazine online regularly. My interest was hightened a year ago, when they published a controversal and provocative editorial praising the new copyright law (see also Butt Ugly Weblog’s analysis in English). In brief, the editorial contained numerous mistakes, factual errors and outright lies. The editorial gained many comments in a short time, most just pointing out errors. Mediaviikko abruptly removed all the comments, claiming they were “too profane” and started to moderate all further comments on all their articles and editorials. If that wasn’t bad enough, they revised the original editorial in silence.

Mediaviikko continued to attack proponents of the new copyright law, labelling all critics as “pirates, criminals and propagandists” in their January 2006 editorial. In May 2006 Mediaviikko decided it was time for another PR-stunt. With the help of columnist Tuulikki Ukkola they defended the tabloid magazine Seiska’s decision to publish pictures of Lordi’s band members. That would have been acceptable, had they not likened Lordi fans with the SS-jugend and islamic terrorists.

Today I was eager to read Mediaviikko’s twist on the YouTube copyright infringement story. Their excerpt read “theft must end!” – so I was guessing they were up to no good once again. I wasn’t able to read their article however, because it turned out that only subscribed readers can now view their content. I could subscribe for “only” 99€. Well forget it.

I find it hard to believe that Mediaviikko will benefit from this. I don’t think that anyone will want to pay 99€ for their service, because:

  • Their news coverage is nothing out of the ordinary.
  • All the comments are moderated, so they have no real dialogue with the readers.
  • Their website just isn’t cool enough. There are no features that you would want to pay 99€ per year for.
  • Their reporters don’t blog.
  • Their website is way too dull and just way too ugly.

So, auf wieder sehen und bis bald, Mediaviikko.

6:25 pm Tags: , , .

Finnish TV stations face YouTube

wstryder October 11, 2006 1 Comment

toukoAccording to Taloussanomat the Finnish broadcasting companies YLE and MTV3 now condemn the display of their tv-shows on YouTube. Jussi Tunturi from YLE says that YouTube is clearly breaking the law, because one may not use another’s material on an internet site without permission, and he is certain that no such permission has been given from YLE. The broadcasters say they will not tolerate any copyright infringements and see no option but to start talks with Google. Tunturi also wonders where on earth YouTube got their material from.

My first thought – What a frigging dumbass! I think Tunturi is confused as to the nature of YouTube, perhaps he’s never heard of Web 2.0. You know, It’s not very difficult to upload a video to YouTube, so it’s no wonder YouTube’s full of Kummeli and Studio julmahuvi clips. I find it interesting that it took YLE and MTV3 so long to figure out that their shows “air” also on YouTube. So what’s their next move? I think they should do the obvious thing and sue Google. I bet that would be fun. Or better yet, sue their viewers. Sue everyone who has uploaded YLE’s shows to YouTube. Start a massive anti copyright infringement campaign and sue all Kummeli and Studio Julmahuvi fans. It’s clear that they are losing revenue every second due to YouTube. I mean, who would buy a 4h Kummeli DVD when you can view a 2min clip on YouTube for free?

The television licence fee in Finland is 200.7€ per year. For that much money you get utter crap. Desperate Housewives and Lost are now on their third seasons in the US, in Finland they just started the second season. Any good movies on TV tonight? Let me check… definately no.

In my opinion the best way to enjoy TV-series is by buying the DVD-set. You get hours and hours of your favourite tv-show, with no commercials and zero interruptions. Now I have never had a TV, and I never will. I have better things to do with my time and my money. Who the hell needs television? That’s ancient shit, especially now that we have YouTube (slight pun intended).

P.S. If you’ve never heard of Touko Pouko or Studio Julmahuvi, check out this clip (in Finnish).
Update: The Inquirer now has this story.

11:09 am Tags: , .

MPA attacks guitar players

wstryder August 22, 2006 0 Comments

guitar_cuffedThey used to hunt music listeners. Now they attack musicians. Sites such as Olga.net and Guitartabs.com have removed all tablature from their sites under threats from the NMPA and MPA. This is a real shame, because er… sheet music is so expensive. Although I consider myself a pirate (Arrr!), I have actually bought some Black Sabbath, Metallica and Slayer tablature, for the reason that they are simply superior to the crap you can download from the usual tablature sites. So although they are expensive, you always get good value for your money. However, you can’t get scores for all songs and all bands. So for the rare stuff, you have to download the tabs from the net (at least if you’re half deaf like me and can’t figure out a single note by ear!). Would I download quality tablature if it was available for say, 1$ per song? You bet I would. But it isn’t available. So instead of fighting plummeting sales with legal action, why don’t these people do the obvious – start selling downloadable tablature? They’d probably want to infest that too with DRM though. Sigh.

Update: From the guitartabs.com site: “My site generates interest in playing music, which can only lead to more purchases of licensed sheet music. [...] The notion that a musician serious enough to spend $30 on a sheet music book would instead settle for a by-ear tablature interpretation seems unlikely to me. Whlie highly paid laywers may easily be able to use corrupt, recently-manipulated and poorly-tested copyright law to suggest that I am violating the law, the argument that I have actually damaged their industry in the process seems ludicrous.”

I could not agree more. Thank God I don’t live in USA. Oh wait, our copyright law isn’t any saner[citation needed]. Another *sigh*. (Very late) Update: see The story of Finnish copyright law from CopyFraud blog.

Update: The Register now has this story, like a week late.

10:40 am Tags: , .