Slashdot Mirror

They probably have all the rights that Righthaven had.

And look at Righthaven today.

"As of November 2011, the company's assets are subject to confiscation by the US Marshals Service due to expired debts from legal fees to a successful defendant.[6] In January 2012, its domain name, righthaven.com, was sold at auction to an undisclosed purchaser to help satisfy its debts.[7]" h/t Wikipedia

It gets better.

Until there's a reasonable alternative, people aren't going to "stop posting new videos".

That would almost be a good point if it weren't for the fact that Hollywood keeps
suing them all into bankruptcy, which pretty well leads back to them being the bad guys.

This story, about Rumblefish claiming to represent the owner of the rights to a birdsong makes me sick. I think the target of our anger should be Rumblefish entirely. They're the bullies. They're the bad guys.

I think everyone agrees that they're the bad guys. But they're not the only bad guys. Somebody else insisted that the system be set up in a way that allows them to do what they're doing.

That said, I agree with your general sentiment. It's past time that little piggies in brick houses stop taunting the big bad wolf before we get out the wrecking ball and have us some bacon.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120222/01562717837/how-new-internet-spying-laws-will-actually-enable-stalkers-spammers-phishers-yes-pedophiles-terrorists.shtml

Well...apparently somebody put some of his personal info online...and ... guess what?

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120220/03451617810/vic-toews-apparently-not-fan-others-seeing-his-personal-data.shtml

Good luck with that. One patent stunted steam engine research for years. A patent pool on sewing machines stopped any improvement in the art for 14 years.

Those were before the modern, "rounded rectangles" state of patent trolling. I doubt it's possible to implement a non-trivial standard without stepping on someone's patents.

So, next best thing to pretending everyone else's patents don't exist is having everyone offer them up on FRAND terms.

Good luck with that. One patent stunted steam engine research for years. A patent pool on sewing machines stopped any improvement in the art for 14 years.

Those were before the modern, "rounded rectangles" state of patent trolling. I doubt it's possible to implement a non-trivial standard without stepping on someone's patents.

So, next best thing to pretending everyone else's patents don't exist is having everyone offer them up on FRAND terms.

Here's another example to add to your list:

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100923/01464111127/more-stories-of-people-arrested-for-making-joke-threats-on-social-networks.shtml

The "This American Life" episode featuring comedian Joe Lipari linked in the article is well worth listening to. What happened was that he had a bad customer service experience at an Apple store, got home and was watching Fight Club, and made a joke on Facebook obviously derived from one of the most famous quotes in the movie. An hour later, SWAT is busting down his door and he faced terrorism charges that were only dismissed two years later -- the government wanted to prosecute even knowing it was a joke by a comedian. Probably would have if he couldn't have gotten positive media exposure, something that not all people can get.

The FCC loves bribes. Of course Lightsquared's threat to the telecoms was going to fail. Any idiot could see that from the start.

Anyone who threatens incumbent telecoms will be demonized as puppy kickers and grandmother harassers, guaranteed.

I don't know where you live, but police and other officials are "public organs"

LOL! Too easy.

so none of the privacy protection laws/rights apply.

Well I don't know where "around here" is, maybe Europe it's better. Here in Gitmo Nation West, people are routinely arrested for filming police. There have been many egregious cases. Unless there are specific exemptions in the policy, I have no doubt that police and public officials will use this to keep their dealing secret. It will be especially easy for public officials, since their nefarious activities are usually "out-of-the-office" or "after-hours" (so arguably not "acting officially"), even when it will affect the public.

Nahhhhh..... the EU? Sneaking anything about ACTA past the public? Never! Totally unfounded accusations!

Besides, ACTA is only there to ahhhh BENEFIT the public!

There's a reason the Rapporteur Kader Arif resigned, and his unprecedented open clarification as to the why.

in the new digital distribution of the internet why is ... http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100712/23482610186.shtml

That's essentially the point of a patent system. We can argue about the evils of it, but it does have some good. Without such a system, if you or I were to invent something tomorrow, there'd be nothing to stop big corporation X from "independently" developing their own similar product and crushing all newcomers. As broken as the current system may be, I don't think that things would be better off if it were entirely removed.

No. The system doesn't work:

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101008/09595411336/why-this-year-s-physics-nobel-winner-never-patented-graphene.shtml

The guy told me, "We are looking at graphene, and it might have a future in the long term. If after ten years we find it's really as good as it promises, we will put a hundred patent lawyers on it to write a hundred patents a day, and you will spend the rest of your life, and the gross domestic product of your little island, suing us." That's a direct quote.

Here's an article for you

example 1 of the public:

SOPA/PIPA protests
example 2:

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120203/01072617645/watch-out-widespread-protests-against-acta-spreading-across-europe.shtml

The government may be lazy and try to just stick behind what makes them money, but going after the internet is not going to simply pass by with passive aggressiveness nor has it.

What I was responding to was your argument that the money shouldn't be flowing to the creator/owner, but rather some undefined "somebody else" for the benefit of society.

Then you misunderstood my point. I didn't say the money would flow to 'someone else' I said the 'benefits' would go to society as a whole. Benefit does not have to equal money. Moreover, the artist can make plenty of money without selling 'copies' of his work. If he goes this route there can be no money flowing to other people because copies of his work can be freely available and infinite - in the digital world. And this actual 'work' can't be pirated at all. It's a scarce resource unlike infinite digital copies.

The musician actually plays music for a living.
The photographer actually takes pictures for a living.
The artist paints works of art people commission.
Writers can get their works widely known with little to no monetary investment. See xkcd.com as one example of moving from free to making money.

ThePirateBay site recently offered to freely advertise for artists. How much is being publicly shown on the tpb home page to a millions of people a day worth? That kind of advertising normally costs real serious money. It no longer does.

When did I mention them? You are aware that one can copyright works without being involved in the RIAA/MPAA cartels, right?

You mentioned that siphoning off money does not enrich society and I simply pointed out that the 2 biggest proponents of copyright maximalism themselves siphon massive amounts of money out of the system. When the 'defenders' of copyright completely meet your definition of the bad things that would happen if copyright didn't exist, it sort of makes you wonder whether they are actually helping. Sort of like how the LucasFilms literally claims Star Wars - Return of the Jedi was not a profitable movie. Seriously they claim it 'lost' money based on their accounting tricks.

Copyright has been extended to a permanent monopoly. Literally *no* works entered the public domain this year. That's not benefiting society. Heck they are retroactively removing works currently in the public and putting them back under copyright.

Copyright is fundamentally broken. It has been broken by greedy corporations Disney chief among them. The idea of copyright is reasonable. What we have for copyright today is a perversion of what it is supposed to be.

What I was responding to was your argument that the money shouldn't be flowing to the creator/owner, but rather some undefined "somebody else" for the benefit of society.

Then you misunderstood my point. I didn't say the money would flow to 'someone else' I said the 'benefits' would go to society as a whole. Benefit does not have to equal money. Moreover, the artist can make plenty of money without selling 'copies' of his work. If he goes this route there can be no money flowing to other people because copies of his work can be freely available and infinite - in the digital world. And this actual 'work' can't be pirated at all. It's a scarce resource unlike infinite digital copies.

The musician actually plays music for a living.
The photographer actually takes pictures for a living.
The artist paints works of art people commission.
Writers can get their works widely known with little to no monetary investment. See xkcd.com as one example of moving from free to making money.

ThePirateBay site recently offered to freely advertise for artists. How much is being publicly shown on the tpb home page to a millions of people a day worth? That kind of advertising normally costs real serious money. It no longer does.

When did I mention them? You are aware that one can copyright works without being involved in the RIAA/MPAA cartels, right?

You mentioned that siphoning off money does not enrich society and I simply pointed out that the 2 biggest proponents of copyright maximalism themselves siphon massive amounts of money out of the system. When the 'defenders' of copyright completely meet your definition of the bad things that would happen if copyright didn't exist, it sort of makes you wonder whether they are actually helping. Sort of like how the LucasFilms literally claims Star Wars - Return of the Jedi was not a profitable movie. Seriously they claim it 'lost' money based on their accounting tricks.

Copyright has been extended to a permanent monopoly. Literally *no* works entered the public domain this year. That's not benefiting society. Heck they are retroactively removing works currently in the public and putting them back under copyright.

Copyright is fundamentally broken. It has been broken by greedy corporations Disney chief among them. The idea of copyright is reasonable. What we have for copyright today is a perversion of what it is supposed to be.

What I was responding to was your argument that the money shouldn't be flowing to the creator/owner, but rather some undefined "somebody else" for the benefit of society.

Then you misunderstood my point. I didn't say the money would flow to 'someone else' I said the 'benefits' would go to society as a whole. Benefit does not have to equal money. Moreover, the artist can make plenty of money without selling 'copies' of his work. If he goes this route there can be no money flowing to other people because copies of his work can be freely available and infinite - in the digital world. And this actual 'work' can't be pirated at all. It's a scarce resource unlike infinite digital copies.

The musician actually plays music for a living.
The photographer actually takes pictures for a living.
The artist paints works of art people commission.
Writers can get their works widely known with little to no monetary investment. See xkcd.com as one example of moving from free to making money.

ThePirateBay site recently offered to freely advertise for artists. How much is being publicly shown on the tpb home page to a millions of people a day worth? That kind of advertising normally costs real serious money. It no longer does.

When did I mention them? You are aware that one can copyright works without being involved in the RIAA/MPAA cartels, right?

You mentioned that siphoning off money does not enrich society and I simply pointed out that the 2 biggest proponents of copyright maximalism themselves siphon massive amounts of money out of the system. When the 'defenders' of copyright completely meet your definition of the bad things that would happen if copyright didn't exist, it sort of makes you wonder whether they are actually helping. Sort of like how the LucasFilms literally claims Star Wars - Return of the Jedi was not a profitable movie. Seriously they claim it 'lost' money based on their accounting tricks.

Copyright has been extended to a permanent monopoly. Literally *no* works entered the public domain this year. That's not benefiting society. Heck they are retroactively removing works currently in the public and putting them back under copyright.

Copyright is fundamentally broken. It has been broken by greedy corporations Disney chief among them. The idea of copyright is reasonable. What we have for copyright today is a perversion of what it is supposed to be.

I thought there was an arrangement where if an artist published a song under the aegis of ASCAP or BMI that anyone was free to play that song, provided they payed the tithe to ASCAP or BMI to play songs in a public venue.

You are correct

Even more, they performer doesn't have to pay anything to ASCAP if the venue itself pays for a blanket license.

Why would they need to change the laws? They probably aren't breaking them, musicians just don't like their music being used by politicians they disdain. That doesn't make it illegal.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110705/03482614973/dear-musicians-once-again-politicians-can-probably-play-your-songs-events-without-your-permission.shtml

If you accept their nonsense logic, sure. Or we could actually think for ourselves and realize this.

Public opinion: priceless.

What good would public opinion do in this case? Those who would boycott Universal have done so for years. At most a real outcry might prod someone in Washington to act, but I'd argue that if that were going to happen, it would have happened after the Dajaz1.com incident.

They had *no* license to use the work. linky

The summary also makes it look like YouTube did this. In fact, Youtube allows the music labels themselves to add songs to filter on. So UMG saw their artist play a song then someone else play the song (the true author) and so uploaded the song as a violation...even though their artist was in fact the violator.

Wha? Ron Wyden is already seeking answers quite appropriately about the question of "does the president even have authority to call this an executive agreement" - it seems the president has defined it as one himself.

Where are you getting treaties from? It's defined as a trade agreement, and the president is calling it an executive agreement.

In this new fangled hypertext thing, you can actually post that as links to TechDirt and The Register instead of making us type it in the address bar

But thanks for pointing is to some helpful information

News sites usually answer on port 80, or 443, you know. 82 is highly unusual, so much that my corporate proxy won't let me connect. Who are these guys, whose site is on 82? Are they serious? I don't know, and couldn't read TFA, but this port does ring a bell in the "amateur news site" section.

See, they called Kader Arif a "Chief" when he's only the "rapporteur". From Techdirt on this subject, 'A rapporteur is a person "appointed by a deliberative body to investigate an issue."', far from a "Chief".

And for US citizens, you can sign a petition to challenge ACTA after being signed into law as an executive agreement -- which doesn't require approval -- when it covers intellectual property, which requires ratification in Congress. Techdirt has more information.

If you want to go further, you can contact Senator Ron Wyden, who also questions the constitutionality of ACTA.

Canada = Overseas? I know the USA education system has myopic geography but putting an ocean between Canada and the USA......wow.

MAFIAA pushing ACTA in the European Union

Yea, but Dodd and his biddies

Excuse me, the Vice-President's name is Biden. Joe Biden .

What could possibly be more incriminating than the chief lobbyist for the MPAA openly threatening politicians who don't vote the way he would prefer? Let's face it, no amount of damning evidence is going to get the general populace to care.

This is the first I'm reading the link fro the last Slashdot story
Seriously ...

"Those who count on quote 'Hollywood' for support need to understand that this industry is watching very carefully who's going to stand up for them when their job is at stake. Don't ask me to write a check for you when you think your job is at risk and then don't pay any attention to me when my job is at stake,"

I didn't think any of these guys went so far as to acknowledge that they've been bought and paid for. Usually they try to couch it in nicer terms, but this pretty much says if you're gonna take the bribe, you gotta do what they tell you.

Holy crap, does that sound illegal. Not that they'd over pass laws that actually limit the money from the lobbyists ... that's too big of a chunk of their income.

And people wonder why everyone thinks politicians are corrupt.

+1 AC. There is a reason other file sharing companies are worried about being attacked. Just because the government went after one which appears to have made missteps does not mean they will continue exercising the same restraint. It is baffling anyone would think so when PIPA and SOPA are an express declaration they wish to do away with as much restrain on the matter as they can get away with. But here is a citation anyway of a draconian action with regards to copyright infringement.

This sanctimonious misdirection about private property gets a "Insightful" mod?

This has been demonstrated to be a bullshit, strawman argument. This is just the "zero sum" thinking of cancerous, middle-man industries which produce nothing of value themselves, while claiming "sacred property rights" over the art of others. This is corporate-leech-lawyer logic. And you are guilty of the lowest, pseudo-moral posturing, in rushing to enforce their deception.

The fact is, "file sharers" are the VERY BEST customers of film and music industries.

Media Cos.' Best Customers: Those Who Steal Their Content

File-sharers are content industry's "largest customers"

The situation we have today is the mis-application of an exploitative economic model, poorly adapting to change, when confrofronted by the essentially non-tangible value of their wares.

Give enough support like yours, Sony BMI and GE will be able to soon charge us for access to the Gettysburg Address, Shakespere's First Folio and the very music of J.S. Bach.

I guess the bit about kiddie porn is a response to the grandparent post, as to my post your argument seems to be stretched.

That's correct, but I also wanted to make the general point that, apart from something like child pornography, there is no such thing as an illegal file. A music track, on the other hand, isn't inherently legal or illegal. That depends on who has it and what they're doing with it.

I suppose it could happen but really down any of those artists using MegaUpload to distribute their stuff were the ones sending DMCA take down requests and if they were I would expect they would note that they were okay with MegaUpload distributing the file on another part of the site.

Generally speaking, it's not artists who send DMCA takedown requests. Ever heard of Righthaven? Or UMG trying to take down the Megaupload song?

Of course, copyright trolls aren't that common; it's usually the middle men, labels and studios, who send DMCA takedowns, sometimes against the wishes of artists. There's also the inter-jurisdictional issue that a work may be under copyright in the USA but not in the country of the user or Megaupload's servers. There is precedent for this sort of thing happening. It's reasonable to assume that Megaupload got its fair share of bogus DMCA requests as well as legitimate ones.

However, I should reiterate my point: By itself, I consider this practice to be arguably reasonable, but the feds are painting this as one part of a pattern of deliberate bending and breaking of the law. It can and should be understood in the context of everything else that Megaupload may have done.

A link in this article goes to a rather thoughtful discussion of the MegaUpload indictment. To tell it short, although the indictment sounds bad, almost none of the alleged activities are in fact illegal. The few that are require "state of mind" which is a rather difficult thing to prove, and harder to get a jury to convict on.

Since in America we have trial by jury, if it goes to court it seems unlikely there will be able to find a jury willing to convict.

Together that seems to make the whole thing very scary.

What makes this particularly interesting is that Chris Dodd is a former US Senator. Shortly before he left the senate, he vowed not to lobby congress, a vow that now appears questionable. Within a few months of leaving the senate, he was hired as the head of MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America), causing some controversy in the process.

Even so, the five honest people have paid twice an equal share for the work and the five freeloaders have paid no share.

This falls directly into the 1 pirated copy = 1 lost sale fallacy. It isn't a case of there being ten copies made no matter what and the existence of piracy determining whether the breakdown is $10 for everyone or $20 for some and $0 for the others. Repeated studies have shown that people who pirate the most material also buy the most. If those people are already spending substantially all of their disposable income buying media, they don't somehow get more disposable income that can be diverted into the pockets of artists just by preventing them from engaging in piracy. They just don't watch as many movies.

The fact that not everyone here is paying their fair share is a concept any five year old can understand.

This makes the assumption that "people who pay" and "people who pirate" are not overlapping sets. If everyone buys one album for every four they pirate, clearly none of the customers can have been cheated on net since they're engaged in symmetrical activities. And as long as there is diversity in the albums that each person buys (rather than they all buying the same ones and pirating the same ones), all the artists still get paid. The difference is that with piracy everybody gets five times as many albums given the same amount of disposable income.

That fact that if everyone behaved as the freeloaders did then there would be no way for the artists to make money is a concept any five year old can understand.

But they don't -- otherwise there would be a 100% piracy rate, and there isn't.

However, once anyone has performed that work for the first time, the cat is out of the bag.

Again, you're making the "what happens if there is a 100% piracy rate" argument. Why is that relevant when there isn't?

If you want to see what effect this is having on entire industries, just look at PC gaming... what's left of it, that is. Most of the gaming market today is on consoles.

That hardly proves that the reason for that is piracy. There are a laundry list of reasons why developers and users might prefer consoles to PCs: Guaranteed consistent hardware specs, promotion by console makers, the fact that the primary PC gaming OS maker also makes consoles and has no reason to promote Windows over XBOX, that consoles are better adapted to certain games (bigger screens and standardized game controllers), etc. The network effects thing is also big: A console is much cheaper than a PC fast enough to play games with "high production values", so games like that will always be made for at least consoles to reach the customers whose PCs aren't fast enough. But if almost all demanding games are available for the console then customers lose a large incentive to upgrade their PCs to be fast enough to play them, which snowballs into exactly what you're describing: The most demanding games aren't made for the PC because the minority of PC owners with PCs fast enough to play the game also have consoles and the bulk of them will buy the console version if no PC version exists, so there is insufficient ROI in making a PC port that will primarily just convert sales of the console version to sales of the PC version.

It was clear to everyone that Lightsquared had no chance. I think everyone knew what the outcome of this "study" was going to be. Incumbent telecoms have too much pull with regulators.

A useful link [techdirt] to send to anyone defending or even ambivalent about SOPA. It's legislation designed by a lobby group to service their agenda, and damn any unforeseen consequences. If you think the RIAA and MPAA give a shit about the free speech and due process of *others* balanced against their desire to maximize profits, you've been asleep for the last twenty years.

Actually there is another group who stand to benefit enormously from both these bills: The legal services industry.

You can be damn sure the lawyers who drafted this crap are not worried about any "unforeseen consequences" as they have long since foreseen them and are looking forward to them as it generates them more business. Companies like Google and Facebook who have deep pockets but not very litigious will be forced to defend themselves from ever more lawsuits. That means more money spent on defence lawyers and that in turn benefits the whole legal industry as it pushes up demand.

Like how the proposed DNS filtering system breaks DNSSEC, despite the fact DNS resolvers would use the response code REFUSED

REFUSED won't work. Paul Vixie himself has come out criticising that proposal. http://www.circleid.com/posts/20120111_refusing_refused_for_sopa_pipa/

Or how people completely misrepresent the purpose of the DNS filter, which is to stop copyright infringing websites from posing as legitimate sites and charging customers for advertising time or trick them into paying for a product that isn't actually genuine.

Sorry, but I don't give a FUCK about what it's "intended" to be used for, just what it WILL be used for. Just like the DMCA before it, it will be abused to give the copyright industry more control over the internet economy -- and worse.

The only additionally area (talking about the scope in take downs) that the DMCA does not particularly cover where SOPA and PIPA are intended to deal with is a loop hole that sites like the pirate bay exploit.

Funnily enough, TPB is immune to the provisions of this bill as it's currently written. You claim you've read the bill, right? Here's the short version: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120109/04205617341/if-sopas-main-target-is-pirate-bay-its-worth-pointing-out-that-thepiratebayorg-is-immune-sopa.shtml

Now, there are definitely issues with SOPA and PIPA, mainly the lack of evidence requirement before a judge should be a changed (although I expect that many judges will want to see some evidence regardless - They didn't get into their position by screwing people, despite what people think).

Sounds like you have no problem making streaming, DNS anti-circumvention and and linking criminal offenses... which this bill would do.

And before someone makes the argument that they can make a website poof, if you actually read the legislation, that is a last measure when there has been no cooperation with the people involved in the matter.

Yeah, just like ICE has been doing for the past year.

It pisses me off so many people get their information from a 3rd party sources and don't even bother verifying the information.

Were you referring to someone in particular? The person you were replying to, perhaps? Or was that a moment of self-reflection?

People are lying worse than the politicians right now. I am appalled by so many people who represent themselves as someone knowledgeable in the tech industry.

No they aren't, you're just wrong.

FYI: I am against SOPA and PIPA as I feel that the legislation should require more evidence on the copyright holder before they can get a judge to issue a take down request, but a lot of the other crap people are talking about is just complete utter bullshit to me.

Here's an idea about "evidence": how about those exalted "copyright holders" show some evidence that their already draconian monopoly needs more draconian measures. Let's see them show even a modicum of proof that more of ANY aspect of copyright is a good thing for the economy or for culture.

I don't want to associate with the anti SOPA and PIPA crowd.

They love you too.

A useful link [techdirt] to send to anyone defending or even ambivalent about SOPA. It's legislation designed by a lobby group to service their agenda, and damn any unforeseen consequences. If you think the RIAA and MPAA give a shit about the free speech and due process of *others* balanced against their desire to maximize profits, you've been asleep for the last twenty years.

Song : Artist writes song sells it to musician (unless it is themselves) makes money

Wrong. More like:

Song: Artist/band writes song, is loaned a large amount of money to record song/album, pennies on the dollar go toward paying back the loan, record company makes money while artist/band goes into debt.

Song : Artist writes song sells it to musician (unless it is themselves) makes money

Wrong. More like:

Song: Artist/band writes song, is loaned a large amount of money to record song/album, pennies on the dollar go toward paying back the loan, record company makes money while artist/band goes into debt.

SOPA IS DELAYED not cancelled they didn't kill it they are posturing and trying to figure out what to change about the bill before they have hearings on the bill

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120113/23560217407/sopa-delayed-cantor-promises-it-wont-be-brought-to-floor-until-issues-are-addressed.shtml

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111005/10082416208/monster-cable-claims-ebay-craigslist-costco-sears-are-rogue-sites.shtml

monster cable may even try to take down monoprice as well.

Wait - you mean HBGary, whose clock was cleaned by Anonymous? Why would I ask them anything?

Doesn't anybody here know how to use a search engine?

More HBGary Federal Fallout: The Government Wants To Buy Software To Fake Online Grassroots Social Media Campaigns
The latest in the long line of revelations from the HBGary Federal email leak, is that HBGary Federal wanted to create software that could make it easy for staffers to create and maintain a massive number of fake online social network personas, allowing them to control virtual armies of totally fake people, whose only mission is to spy on others and spew paid-for propaganda.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110218/02143213163/more-hbgary-federal-fallout-government-wants-to-buy-software-to-fake-online-grassroots-social-media-campaigns.shtml

Does that give you some hint as to why Ethanol-fueled's posting might be relevant?

If this law would only combat copyright infringement, I would be all for it. But it doesn't. This law is based on blocking from vague accusations just like the DMCA, and look how that law has been abused. Takedown requests generated by bots who select files which have the same words as the title of a movie/song or whatever. Takedown requests for things they don't even own. And of course, religious organizations abused the DMCA to silence critics.

Then there are the lawsuits. Suing Veoh which destroyed them, even though they won the lawsuit. Then there is Viacom v. YouTube where viacom sued YouTube, even though Viacom was uploading the videos for promotion. Then there is this video which I am not sure I agree with, but he has a point.

Then there is what happened in Denmark.

It all seems to me that the big media companies main goal is to turn the Internet into a one way TV medium which doesn't allow user content, not protect their copyrights.

If this law would only combat copyright infringement, I would be all for it. But it doesn't. This law is based on blocking from vague accusations just like the DMCA, and look how that law has been abused. Takedown requests generated by bots who select files which have the same words as the title of a movie/song or whatever. Takedown requests for things they don't even own. And of course, religious organizations abused the DMCA to silence critics.

Then there are the lawsuits. Suing Veoh which destroyed them, even though they won the lawsuit. Then there is Viacom v. YouTube where viacom sued YouTube, even though Viacom was uploading the videos for promotion. Then there is this video which I am not sure I agree with, but he has a point.

Then there is what happened in Denmark.

It all seems to me that the big media companies main goal is to turn the Internet into a one way TV medium which doesn't allow user content, not protect their copyrights.

There is tons wrong with anti-piracy efforts, starting with "how congress defines antipiracy is flat out dishonest".

If I call antipiracy "you making more money than me", then no matter how you try to explain it away, the entire situation is both intellectually and factually dishonest. Considering that's not a stretch from what the RIAA is doing (they see it as their $$ streams are simply not going to them which they feel entitled to).

The RIAA and MPAA have been proven to be the cancer of our society's success - numerous studies by their own sources prove this. They can't even make sure they don't break the laws they push for, and instead

There should not be an attempt to "hinder piracy" in any way, because doing so will contradict your very second sentence:

Those efforts, however, shouldn't undermine technological infrastructure

.
There is no way around that, and thus your entire point is not only misleading and contradictory, but entirely moot. In fact, acting like piracy is something you can fight, treating piracy like a zero sum game is the exact definition of not understanding anything technology, piracy, copyright, or freedom of speech. Please go away.

There is tons wrong with anti-piracy efforts, starting with "how congress defines antipiracy is flat out dishonest".

If I call antipiracy "you making more money than me", then no matter how you try to explain it away, the entire situation is both intellectually and factually dishonest. Considering that's not a stretch from what the RIAA is doing (they see it as their $$ streams are simply not going to them which they feel entitled to).

The RIAA and MPAA have been proven to be the cancer of our society's success - numerous studies by their own sources prove this. They can't even make sure they don't break the laws they push for, and instead

There should not be an attempt to "hinder piracy" in any way, because doing so will contradict your very second sentence:

Those efforts, however, shouldn't undermine technological infrastructure

.
There is no way around that, and thus your entire point is not only misleading and contradictory, but entirely moot. In fact, acting like piracy is something you can fight, treating piracy like a zero sum game is the exact definition of not understanding anything technology, piracy, copyright, or freedom of speech. Please go away.

HHJ Ticehurst (@ para 71) in Rock & Overton held "make available should bear its ordinary and natural meaning". He distinguished between providing money "directly to" another as opposed to a financial adviser who may "point" another to a bank meaning the bank alone "makes available the money".

I have endeavoured to weigh these subtle distinctions. The diagrams of how as a matter of electronic mechanics (if I may term it) the TVShack websites actually operated favour HHJ Ticehurstâ(TM)s restrictive construction. To my mind there is much in the distinction factually...

In copyright law terms, O'Dwyer wasn't making the films "available". The person that made them available was the person who uploaded them to a download site. What O'Dwyer was doing was pointing to those sites, and (allegedly) thus encouraging people to download from them. In civil law, that is known as indirect or contributory infringement, as opposed to direct infringement which is the actual making available of copies. It is "making available" that can be a criminal offence under s.107(2A), not the encouragement or inducement of people to go ahead and download from such sites. Thus, for example, a briefing for UK Trading Standards officers, compiled by the Federation Against Copyright Theft, and hosted on the UK Intellectual Property Office's website, advises them that:

The offence in s107(2A) is now available as a tool to trading standards officers to prosecute uploading file sharers of digital product, such as film and music, whether or not they do so in the course of a business. [Emphasis added].

Interestingly, this may also be the position in the United States, where the law on contributory infringement is said to be civil law that has been developed by judges, but not reflected in any provisions of the criminal law. However this point appears not to have been argued by O'Dwyer's lawyers. What should have happened here is that the extradition proceedings should have been thrown out, on the basis that O'Dwyer's actions are not in fact covered by s.107(2A). But he should then have faced a full-on civil action in the UK courts from a consortium of content owners for the alleged indirect infringement. It is also about time that UK judges in extradition cases were directed to consider where a case should best be heard under conflict-of-laws provisions: the so-called "forum clause". In this case, with the alleged infringer being UK-based, and the alleged infringement being worldwide in scope, if this is supposed to be a crime under UK law it should have been tried under UK law.