Amazon Fights Piracy Tool, Creators Call It a Parody

jamie points out an interesting story which started a few days ago, when a pair of students from the Netherlands released a Firefox add-on which integrated links to the Pirate Bay on Amazon product pages. Customers who had the add-on would see a large "Download 4 Free" button next to items which were also available on the Pirate Bay. The add-on quickly drew notice, and the creators were hit with a take-down notice and threats of litigation from Amazon. Now, the students have removed the add-on, and they are claiming an unusual defense: "'Pirates of the Amazon' was an artistic parody, part of our media research and education at the Media Design M.A. course at the Piet Zwart Institute of the Willem de Kooning Academy Hogeschool Rotterdam, the Netherlands. It was a practical experiment on interface design, information access and currently debated issues in media culture. We were surprised by the attentions and the strong reactions this project received. Ultimately, the value of the project lies in these reactions. It is a ready-made and social sculpture of contemporary internet user culture."

Comments

Social Acceptability

[fibrewire]

It's creepy that i posted exactly about this a minute before this story appeared in the previous listing about "RIAA Vs. Web 2.0? Social Media and Litigation"

So Where is it Now?

[Nom du Keyboard]

So where is the plug-in hiding now? The Pirate Bay??

Be interesting if the source was published to Wikileaks.

Re:So Where is it Now?

[calmofthestorm]

Or Freenet. I got it here: http://torrentfreak.com/files/piratesoftheamazon.xpi

Re:So Where is it Now?

[RockMFR]

http://torrentfreak.com/files/piratesoftheamazon.xpi

The original part of the extension is actually just a fairly short Greasemonkey script. For some reason, they packaged it with a bunch of other stuff from Greasemonkey. It's pretty poor quality code, to be honest.

Re:So Where is it Now?

[Daengbo]

Greasemonkey has a ton of these kinds of add-ons for FF. I don't see how they are any different. Visit IMDB, find a movie, click on the Mininova link, and get a torrent search for it (by imdb number, even).

You can also get them for LastFM searches and MusicBrainz searches

Re:So Where is it Now?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://torrentfreak.com/files/piratesoftheamazon.xpi

The original part of the extension is actually just a fairly short Greasemonkey script. For some reason, they packaged it with a bunch of other stuff from Greasemonkey. It's pretty poor quality code, to be honest.

The Piet Zwart Institute is an art school (a pretty renowned one, too). I don't find it very strange that the code is poor. Unusual as the defense might be, it makes sense to me.

Re:So Where is it Now?

[ZWoz_new]

Greasemonkey? You say Greasemonkey? A-ha, now i see social experiment!

Re:So Where is it Now?

[ThePhilips]

1. Install Google Toolbar
2. Google Toolbar > Settings > Options > Buttons > Add Button > Enter in search field "Pirate Bay" > pick one of the buttons to add to your google tool bar.
3. Go to Amazon
4. Select the name of product
5. Right mouse click to call pop up menu > More Search Types > middle mouse click on added in step #2 button.

That's what I use for anime and mininova.

Re:So Where is it Now?

[stephanruby]

You have to select, and then click. I'm sorry, but that's just way too much work.

I just use a greasemonkey script (probably the same one those students probably used, that they probably just compiled with the greasemonkey-firefox extension compiler). With it, you can check if the book/audiobook/movie is on bittorrent, but you can also check if it's at your local public library, at your local competing bookstore (assuming they display their local inventory online -- like Borders does), in your local friends personal library (assuming you have a friend or two who display their personal inventory of books on a web page), and once set up -- you don't have to do any of that selecting middle-clicking BS.

Re:So Where is it Now?

[theaveng]

Crap. I just downloaded that Amazon/piratebay malware. I thought I could trust slashdot authors to not post links to dangerous code but I guess not.

Defense for what?

[RockMFR]

What do they have to defend? What is illegal about this?

Re:Defense for what?

[QuantumG]

Indeed. What exactly are they threatening to sue them for? Contributory copyright infringement? Guess what? Amazon isn't the copyright holder of many (any?) of these works. They have no standing.

Of course, there is that trademark issue ;)

Re:Defense for what?

[Joe U]

Conspiracy to commit contributory copyright infringement.

So, yeah, it's a death penalty case.

Re:Defense for what?

[Alsee]

What is illegal about this?

I believe that would be the crime of pissing off a corporation with enough money to rape your pathetic ass in court.

-

Re:Defense for what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Conspiracy to commit contributory copyright infringement.

There's already a new word for it: financial terrorism!

Re:Defense for what?

[DustyShadow]

Amazon would probably claim some type of derivate work infringement of its website. Not sure it would fly in court though. But winning isn't usually the goal in this type of situation. Getting it to just go away is the main goal.

Re:Defense for what?

[martin-boundary]

Amazon: "Your honour, these kids are guilty of financial terrorism!"
Judge: "Kids, you're guilty, and I sentence you to receive 700 million dollars from Amazon"
Kids: "Woohoo!"
Amazon: "That's no fair!"
Judge: "Oh oh, it's not working. 800 million!"
Kids: "Woohoo!"
Amazon: "Gaah!"

Re:Defense for what?

[Dan541]

Nothing, but you don't have to break the law to be punished.

Re:Defense for what?

[hellwig]

Looks like it worked. Oh wait... no it didn't.

p.s. I don't use FireFox, so I can't verify the link torrent is anything useful.

Re:Defense for what?

[Hadlock]

You have to post this the day after my slashdot mod points expire. If my keyboard didn't have drain holes I'd say you owe me a new keyboard.

Re:Defense for what?

[Anonymous Coward]

p.s. I don't use FireFox

Get off my Slashdot.

Re:Defense for what?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the funniest thing I've read all year. :-)

I immediately pasted it to all my friends, and we're still in stitches.

You're at +5 already so no need for more ... but well done. :-)

Re:Defense for what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Konspiracy to kommit kontributory kopyright infringement would be better.

Re:Defense for what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh wait... no it didn't.

*hovers link* Pirate Amazons with furry hard-on? Man, the porn is getting too freaky even for me these days. :P

Re:Defense for what?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is beautiful!

Think of it: If Amazon wins, they are establishing a precedent against ISPs inserting adds into html as it goes to the browser.

If (and I hope this happens), Amazon loses or drops it, then what you do with your own downloaded html is your own business.

Re:Defense for what?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's as illegal as, say, putting up a sign in front of your local bookstore indicating which books are also available at your local library, used book store, or fence.

Re:Defense for what?

[dword]

Great, now /. is guilty of conspiracy to copyright infringement by offering a link to a web page offering a link to a .torrent file offering links to trackers offering addresses of people that offer to share an application that offers links to web pages offering links to torrents offering links to trackers offering addresses of people that offer to share copyrighted content with you.

There, I said it!

Re:Defense for what?

[geekmux]

What do they have to defend? What is illegal about this?

The threat of litigation or the act of a lawsuit has gone way beyond "knee-jerk reaction" to "standard corporate policy" these days.

Armies of Attorneys used to be an risk expense that had to be mitigated and controlled. Nowadays, it's a budgeted line item with it's own department number and P&L statements.

The world price tag for almost everything is controlled by litigation history, which much like Moores Law, seems to double in size every 18 months. What does that affect you ask? Grab one of your old pay stubs from 10 years ago and tell me how much you were paying for better medical and dental coverage and compare it to your 2009 rates. (Try not to make yourself violently ill over the figures either, and certainly don't start calculating what they'll be 10 years from now, remember your emergency room co-pay ain't cheap...)

Re:Defense for what?

[MightyYar]

If my keyboard didn't have drain holes

Ugh. They guy at Circuit City told me they were speed holes.

Re:Defense for what?

[maxume]

Ah, but they disclaim responsibility for the content of comments.

Clearly, this is airtight protection from any action.

Re:Defense for what?

[McGiraf]

This the user himself inserting things on it's own computer from it's own computer. Not the same as ISPs inserting adds at all.

The precedent it would create would not be good at all. It would be like making it illegal to write stuff on a store catalog that you got in in you mail box while sitting on the can in you own house.

Re:Defense for what?

[X0563511]

What does that make us? ... "Nothing!"

Re:Defense for what?

[aminorex]

You drool methamphetamine?

Re:Defense for what?

[aminorex]

Think of Al Gore's responsibility in all of this!

Re:Defense for what?

[aminorex]

Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed ... whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness

Re:Defense for what?

[orangesquid]

Yes, yes, but you could be more precise. Here, let me help:
Since slashdot (in the US) has nonspecifically allowed a user (who appears to be in the US) to post a link to thepiratebay (in the netherlands) providing a mirror of a tool created (by students in the netherlands seemingly otherwise unaffiliated with thepiratebay) for the alleged purpose of allowing a user to automatically alter the appearance of the online catalog of (US) media vendor amazon to include links to thepiratebay, a website that offers a service which tracks data sets (torrents) that allow said user to obtain, in whole or in part, providing said user has the appropriate third-party software, a copyrighted work for which the user may not have this sort of reproduction right, via an international, dynamic, online peering network whose members are represented in the aforementioned torrents, ... (wait for it) ... then the slashdot editors could be served with a second-degree charge (first-degree is elsewhere) of Conspiracy to Piss Off Amazon.

And, they could get a count of conspiracy to contribute to patent infringement as well as their own count of patent infringement, since the offending comment allows any firefox user (what about us poor dillo users?) to download the plug-in with only One-Click (TM).

[You know how you can get Windows Explorer to open things with a single-click instead of a double-click? Shouldn't web browsers have the reverse of that as the default (you have to double-click to do anything) just to be safe? And, hey, does anybody know any mechanics who can mod my car so I have to turn the ignition twice to start the car? I don't want Amazon to come after me for having a car that starts with just one turn of the key! I mean, I just have to turn the key once, and my car automatically starts the engine and chooses my last credit card, errr, last radio station, and my default shipping address, I mean, um, my default gear ratio for starting from a dead stop. *g*]

Re:Defense for what?

[hellwig]

Hey, I'm not some bandwagon fanboi, "oooh look, shiney new browser!" I've been using Opera for years now, well before FireFox ever came out.

Re:Defense for what?

[FredFredrickson]

Yay opera users represent! We're not very popular it seems. I loooove opera, I'm just not usually very vocal and proud like ..*ehem* firefox fanbois.

<Holy Flamewar>

Re:Defense for what?

[stanjam]

Interesting. I don't think it would be copyright infringement exactly. They did develop a tool that essentially helps you steal things, though, I am not so sure if that is illegal either. I know if I had a store and I sold items, and someone wrote all over my advertisements where people could get the same stuff cheaper (or free) I would be very upset, and I imagine I would have some form of recourse, though I am not sure that recourse would be in the area of copyright infringement. If it is, then any add-on or program that alters the display of a web page could be guilty of the same copyright infringement! I am no legal expert, but I would love a lawyer's perspective on what law is violated here. I am pretty sure that there is one.

Re:Defense for what?

[QuantumG]

That was a long way of saying that you don't know what you are talking about. There's another way you can say that:

Re:Defense for what?

[Erikderzweite]

I plead not guilty -- he didn't said what he is using. What about Konqueror? Arora? Epiphany? Galeon? Dillo? HV3? Lynx?

Re:Defense for what?

[stanjam]

Yeah, I am tired, and the ideas kind of formed while I was typing. You know, I thought one thing and while I was typing was able to answer my own question, but other ones arose at the same time. I know a bit about what I am talking about, but I sure as heck am not a lawyer. I am very curious though, to know just what laws a good lawyer could claim are being violated.

Re:Defense for what?

[Kindaian]

Does not apply. They aren't using any trademark. The user of the browser is the only one responsable for the plug-ins that run on their browser. There is nothing to see here...

Note to artists:

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't want to be part of your "social commentary." If your art project involves the participation of a lot of people, and you fail to inform them going in that they're part of some kind of demonstration, you're an ass.

Re:Note to artists:

[Aranykai]

If you chose to join it of your own volition, that's your problem. No one put a gun to your head and made you download it.

Re:Note to artists:

[Anonymous Coward]

Read the GP again. He's not blaming anything on the "artists". He's merely commenting on their character.

Re:Note to artists:

[olesaltyballs]

I guess it's time to get rid of double blind scientific studies then. Or is science not an art?

Re:Note to artists:

[wisty]

But, Postmodernism was just an art project, with lots of unwitting participants (for example, most of the academics involved), and the instigators failed to inform anyone...

Re:Note to artists:

[Ihmhi]

I always thought "Postmodernism" was a misnomer. Modern means "Pertaining to the current time and style" - i.e. "now". Post- means "After".

Alls I'm sayin' is where the Hell is my goddamned time machine you lying bastards?!

Re:Note to artists:

[ciderVisor]

where the Hell is my goddamned time machine ?

In the museum area over by Costco. But the ride sucks.

Re:Note to artists:

[jabithew]

Er? As far as I know no medical studies anywhere in the world conducted under even the slightest ethical supervision don't give patients an opt-in to clinical trials. They don't know that they're receiving a drug, but they do know they're being experimented on and have consented to it in advance (itself an interesting, but ethically necessary complication to testing).

Not that I agree with GP either, but parent obviously doesn't understand clinical testing practices.

Re:Note to artists:

[spazdor]

You are totally, 100% right, and I vow to only ever produce artistic chaos with people's informed consent from now on.

-A. Kaufman

Re:Note to artists:

[spazdor]

Problem is, someone went and named their damn movement "Modernism" which, given that said movement couldn't remain popular forever, more or less doomed it to inaccuracy (or is that anachron-acy?)

And the point being?

[Whiteox]

Ok. So what's new here? Nothing?

art mash-up

[retech]

Following that logic, google and it's info tracking is perhaps the greatest art project in history!

Chin deep

[Anonymous Coward]

From the summary: It was a practical experiment on interface design, information access and currently debated issues in media culture. We were surprised by the attentions and the strong reactions this project received. Ultimately, the value of the project lies in these reactions. It is a ready-made and social sculpture of contemporary internet user culture.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

What an utter load of hot steamy horse shit!

Best laugh I have had all day.

Re:Chin deep

[calmofthestorm]

So how is this more illegal than what tpb already does? All they're doing is /linking/ to a torrent. Whether that should be legal or not is a whole 'nother can of worms.

Re:Chin deep

[Anonymous Coward]

The Pirate Bay is not just linking to a .torrent though, they're a BitTorrent tracker. Given a torrent hash ID, you can get a list of IPs seeding and downloading using the torrent.

Arguably that's also legal, but it's more than just linking.

Re:Chin deep

[MrMr]

You seem to assume that not being guilty is somehow going to protect a student from a big company that sees a threat to its bottom line?
You must be new here (on planet Earth, that is).

Re:Chin deep

[calmofthestorm]

Last I checked the DMCA didn't apply in the Netherlands...

Re:Chin deep

[Anonymous Coward]

True, but I get the feeling these students shouldn't have travel plans to the US the coming years.

Re:Chin deep

[theaveng]

There's probably some draconian EU law that says modifying Amazon's presentation of pages violates their copyright. That means my "image zoom" tool would also be illegal, but amazon doesn't care about that. They only care about attacking pirates.

Well whatever. My first stop is ALWAYS isohunt.com and demonoid.com - I only use amazon as a last resort and/or if it's something I really want to buy (like Stargate SG1). I like to try things before I buy them.

Re:Chin deep

[theaveng]

Just once I'd like to see one of these companies or RIAA make the mistake of suing someone with lots of power or money:

- like one of Obama's kids
- or Paris Hilston

It would be funny to see the RIAA/amazon battling it out in court against someone with billion dollar pockets and/or the U.S. army to back them up. It might be similar to Custer's last stand with RIAA playing the part of Custer.

Re:Chin deep

[Bandman]

You have to admit, it's a good set of lines though ;-)

Maybe in a few years, Fox News will come out with the same exact phrasing regarding The O'Reilly Factor.

Re:Chin deep

[Miseph]

I think that is solid advice whether they tangle with Amazon or not.

Re:Chin deep

[davolfman]

That's only because they haven't "harmonized" yet.

Re:Chin deep

[loopkin]

Unfortunately, the Netherlands are part of the EU, and EU has its (in)famous DMCA counterpart, aka EUCD .

Re:Chin deep

[p0tat03]

Note: I have not had a chance to play with this extension, but if the description from summary is right, it seems like they inserted a button that looks like any old Amazon button directly into the HTML of the page. This is questionable - as it is now potentially misrepresenting Amazon to the consumer. Impersonation, if you will.

I don't necessarily agree with Amazon - people should get to do whatever they want to their browser. But their "parody" excuse is a load of hogwash, and continual use of parody to defend obvious illegal acts simply dilutes and damages REAL parodies' ability to gain protection.

Re:Chin deep

[spazdor]

It's not an impersonation because by installing the add-on, the owner of the browser explicitly consents to having his browsing modified in this way.

I dunno if the parody argument is hogwash though. Think about it really hard. Is there anyone who's actually going to have an easier time pirating with this tool than without? Is there anyone in the world who knows how to install a TPB-linked browser addon, but is too dumb to look up a product on TPB themselves?

The point of this addon is clearly that:
a) it's cheeky
b) it has a clever pop-culture-referential name.

Do you really think that their motive was to make it easier for Amazon users to pirate, rather than to make a point and ruffle some feathers?

Re:Chin deep

[tsm_sf]

I think the catch would be that it's the owner of the browser who's modifying the way it displays Amazon's pages. These guys just made it slightly easier to set up.

Not that logic ever kept a company from spooging lawyers all over some random person.

Re:Chin deep

[Rayban]

I'd wager "contributory copyright infringement" or "accomplice to copyright infringement on a gross level". Those sound like nice, scary terms to charge someone with. If they aren't a crime yet, they will be.

Re:Chin deep

[ineedbettername]

New law in 3. 2. 1.

Re:Chin deep

[MrMr]

The present Dutch government has a habit of handing over suspects to the US without due process, or even in violation of a court decision.
(To give you an idea of their level of thinking: They are also the only government on the planet that still maintains that there were WMD's in Iraq).
Counting on this paricular European province for protection would be extremely ill-advised.

Re:Chin deep

[ProfFalcon]

No, this is Amazon, the one-click people. New law in 1.

Re:Chin deep

[calmofthestorm]

Eh it's not so bad, the mind control chips they implanted us with last week as part of the PATRIOT act harmonization with UK law don't even work.

Re:Chin deep

[Shotgun]

Thank you for pointing out our omission. We'll send someone over to fix that.

Re:Chin deep

[DaVince21]

What he meant is that the extension devs are only linking to it, TPB naturally does more than that.

I know It sounds silly

[rm999]

It sounds silly, but I see how this was a parody, and perhaps even some sort of statement. First off, anyone who installed this already knew how to install a bit torrent client, and probably knew how to go to piratebay and search for what they wanted. I think what the creators of this extension were commenting on is the ease of getting anything for free online; pretty much every mainstream downloadable product on Amazon is probably online somewhere.

Honestly, what serious extension has adds big "'Download 4 free,' 'Not Downloadable,' or 'Not Available'" buttons to your browser? Any way, there's no way to sue an extension out of existence - if people really want it, they'll get it. This extension is probably pretty useless, so I think Amazon should just let it die.

Re:I know It sounds silly

[VinylRecords]

This extension is probably pretty useless, so I think Amazon should just let it die.

Instead of letting it die Amazon.com brings everyone's full attention to it instead, brilliant PR move.

I use Amazon.com and Pirate Bay all of them. If I had known the companies were merging I would have purchased more stock in both of them.

Re:I know It sounds silly

[rm999]

Classic example of this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect

Re:I know It sounds silly

[bahstid]

What might have made a nice further comment would have been to code an extension that would show e.g. "available on Amazon for $2.00" on the pirate bay site, and see what kind of traffic would go in the other direction. ...or maybe the comment was that more insightful media corporations would have thought this up for themselves a while back.
 

Re:I know It sounds silly

[Anonymous Coward]

It sounds silly, but I see how this was a parody, and perhaps even some sort of statement. First off, anyone who installed this already knew how to install a bit torrent client, and probably knew how to go to piratebay and search for what they wanted. I think what the creators of this extension were commenting on is the ease of getting anything for free online; pretty much every mainstream downloadable product on Amazon is probably online somewhere.

Honestly, what serious extension has adds big "'Download 4 free,' 'Not Downloadable,' or 'Not Available'" buttons to your browser? Any way, there's no way to sue an extension out of existence - if people really want it, they'll get it. This extension is probably pretty useless, so I think Amazon should just let it die.

Fair enough it isn't much use to me personally, but I'm going to install it on my wife's browser and it'll be a big help for her. She's a bit of a technophobe. Come to think of it, it would be quite useful for my mum as well. And my sister. And my wife's friend.

Re:I know It sounds silly

[Anonymous Coward]

Now that is a good point.

This indicates that the media corporations in general do really care more about scare tactics to combat filesharing than exposing their products to the customers, possibly selling something now and then.

Re:I know It sounds silly

[Dogtanian]

It sounds silly, but I see how this was a parody

I suppose if Michael Stone can claim that forcing his way into the Stormont parliament and attempting to kill Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness was "an act of performance art" then one can claim anything :)

Re:I know It sounds silly

[Aladrin]

I would actually install that plugin, too. Take it a step further and link to a shop aggregator (to get multiple prices and pick the best) and it's even better.

I must admit, though... If I'm willing to buy and I'm at a torrent site, I've already failed to find it anywhere that I would shop at.

Re:I know It sounds silly

[bondsbw]

Sure, and I wonder why Amazon didn't just make a tiny change to the page source to break the add-on? They might chase each other for a while, but people will eventually get rid of the add-on if it causes problems every few days.

Re:I know It sounds silly

[X0563511]

You know... that's not a half-bad idea. It's a shame the torrent posters just say "like it, buy it" instead of linking.

Re:I know It sounds silly

[BigGerman]

because any tiny change would cost them 100K in dev and deployment time? Especially this time of year.

Re:I know It sounds silly

[aminorex]

Indeed, perhaps this "art project" is actually a patent troll.

Re:I know It sounds silly

[jc42]

Sure, and I wonder why Amazon didn't just make a tiny change to the page source to break the add-on?

A related "I wonder ..." topic of mine is that there must be a growing battle between the various price-comparison sites and the sites that they are mining for their data. Thus, I'd expect that Amazon already has a project going to study these sites' actions and find ways of defeating them. Technically speaking, this FF addon is just another example of price comparison, with the extra feature that it looks for sites offering a product for a price of zero.

And it does seem that, if they can get the courts to agree that this addon is illegal, they'll have won their battle. They can next order takedowns of all price-comparison information, on the grounds that it's the same thing as what Pirates of the Amazon was doing.

Is there actually some legal difference (other than the zero price) between this addon and what all of the price-comparison sites are doing? Is telling customers that they can get what they want for free at another store a serious crime, while telling them that the same thing is available elsewhere for $0.01 is legal? If so, the law is even weirder than I've ever imagined.

Re:I know It sounds silly

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's another example.

http://tinyurl.com/55czzt

Got it although I don't really need this.

[Erikderzweite]

I have just downloaded and installed this extention. Not that I would ever use it -- if I need a torrent, I'd go to thepiratebay.org in the first place.
But as amason tries to forbid this thing, I think I'll give it a try. Somehow it feels really good browsing amazon with this add-on knowing that this is exactly the thing they don't want you to be able to do.

Re:Got it although I don't really need this.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd have used it if it had Amazon links on Pirate Bay too. I know I'm a member of dying spieces but I still don't keep pirated stuff for longer then 24 hours which ends either with a purchase or uninstalling.

Re:Got it although I don't really need this.

[Anonymous Coward]

That sounds a bit juvenile really.

Re:Got it although I don't really need this.

[LaskoVortex]

That sounds a bit juvenile really.

So does calling someone a name and posting anonymously. I say go for it dude! Look, he's not collapsing the economy by doing it, some greedy bankers and a lot of irresponsible lenders already did that. Some college kid getting some free songs is not something you really need to get all huffy and righteous about. What you need to get huffy and righteous about is all of the powerful people who have destroyed the economy and your parents' retirement. But wait! Downloading a song is sooooo much more important, right?

To all of the righteous "downloading is a crime" types: get some priorities and complain about things that really matter, children.

Re:Got it although I don't really need this.

[TheLink]

But juveniles are the target market, and a fair sized one :).

Re:Got it although I don't really need this.

[Creepy Crawler]

Lets just say I wish I had a private corporate jet and could fly to DC and ask for large billions of dollars because "I made Bad Business Decisions".

Re:Got it although I don't really need this.

[Anonymous Coward]

"To all of the righteous "downloading is a crime" types: get some priorities and complain about things that really matter, children."
Okay, I'm not exactly one of the 'righteous' types... for one: it's actually not a crime where I live (uploading is, which still makes bittorrent a nono for these sorts of things), for two: I think the old business model is failing and they're fighting it too hard instead of working with it. That said, I don't 'pirate'.

But regardless, statements such as yours are troubling. Ignoring the condescending tone, stating that someone should not complain about X because Y is supposedly worse making X insignificant is a Bad Thing(tm).
Take, for example, 't Zandt - a small town somewhere in The Netherlands where a serial arsonist was having a little fun. It's also the place where a motorcycle was stolen. Guy spent 2 weeks with no news on the motorcycle - not even a report, so no insurance bits - because police told him that in the grand scheme of things (that would be 'zomg people's houses are burning down!'), his loss of a mere motorcycle was worth ignoring until a later time.
It's like telling a guy who just lost a finger in a freak accident that he shouldn't complain as at least he's not a quadriplegic.

Moreover, "who are you to tell me" what things really matter?
Heck, if I listened to you about what matters, then maybe I'd be just as bitter as you are*... so I prefer not to.

* "I hope someone of a race you are not knocks up your daughter and then disappears leaving you to care for the kid." - http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1051833&cid=26000043

Re:Got it although I don't really need this.

[maxume]

Having their top decision makers travel by public means (so that they can't discuss things with their staff for large chunks of time) probably costs them just as much, if not more.

The juxtaposition was poetic, but it was still the idiotic grandstanding that is typical of congress.

Re:Got it although I don't really need this.

[wwahammy]

Uh they drove cars. They can have at 4 other members of the staff and they could even use these wild inventions called "cell phones" to teleconference with the rest. So ya that is cheaper than 20K round trip flight.

Re:Got it although I don't really need this.

[maxume]

BUT TALKING ON A CELL PHONE WHILE DRIVING IS DANGEROUS!!!

It really depends on how many people they each drag around. If they are dragging 10 people around, the cars aren't going to be all that wonderful (10 people lose a day each way, and realistically, driving a car 1,500 miles costs about $700, ask the IRS, so that's $2,000 for 3 cars and 10 days of lost work for each leg of the trip; if they each drag around a single assistant, that's a lot less work and 1/3 the travel cost).

Re:Got it although I don't really need this.

[TheGratefulNet]

he's not collapsing the economy by doing it, some greedy bankers and a lot of irresponsible lenders already did that. Some college kid getting some free songs is not something you really need to get all huffy and righteous about.

context does matter.

it makes little sense to worry about pennies when the big big money (clockwork ref?) is being stolen left and right by the 'responsible money people'.

its almost comical to 'worry' about such small BS when it is true that the econ has much more pressing issues to deal with than kids copying digital bit patterns stored as electrical pulses.

here's an idea, amazon: make music affordable and people will start buying it. its all about hassle factor and if you can make it cheaper and easier for them to buy, you'll 'win' in sheer numbers.

my price is closer to the a*mp3.com price; 10 or 20 cents a song. I won't pay more than that and I've been 'conditioned' to think that that's the correct value for songs. amazon still wants 5x that price. sorry charlie, but TPB it will still be for so many kids today - when you price your 'goods' out of buying range of your target market.

Re:Got it although I don't really need this.

[mamer-retrogamer]

To all of the righteous "downloading is a crime" types: get some priorities and complain about things that really matter, children.

Wait. What about how illegal downloading effects the children of the intellectual "property" owners (who, by the way are hardly ever the intellectual property creators). My god, at this rate they will only be able to afford 1 italian sports car and not 2 or more!

Re:Got it although I don't really need this.

[Anonymous Coward]

i agree, we should all be complaining about children

Re:Got it although I don't really need this.

[stanjam]

Well, to tell you the truth, I have always had a problem with this argument. Basically you are saying that there are much bigger problems and crimes out there, so don't worry about the small problems/crimes. Should we not care about the mom and pop grocery store that was robbed last week because the bank was also robbed? Should we not bother about the child who was molested because there are so many unsolved murders? Where do you draw the line? If it is illegal then it is illegal. The severity of the crime comes out in the punishment (well, in an ideal world anyways). If you truly think that it is a meaningless crime, then work on decriminalizing it, but to argue that a small problem is not a problem at all because there are larger problems to worry about is silly.

Re:Got it although I don't really need this.

[Kindaian]

No it is not a crime, it is a copyright infringement and it's a CIVIL case. Or at least was, until some morons decided that prosecuting a kid downloading a song is more important then arresting some violent bank robbers (or even some terrorists as it is trendy now)... Go figure!

Re:Got it although I don't really need this.

[atraintocry]

Hey, why don't you get your priorities straight, so that you don't end up wasting time posting comments on slashdot about other comments on slashdot?

See how I did that? That's why you leave that one at the door, because anyone can say it and it doesn't add to the discussion.

Not that you're wrong. But if you're right it's for the wrong reason.

Re:Got it although I don't really need this.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but he got mod points, yo.

Re:And a billboard giving detailed instructions on

[Joe U]

But I bet this "art work" is in direct violation of a number of laws

Can you name any?

God damn Nazi assholes

[Anonymous Coward]

Joseph Mengele gave the same assinine reasoning.

Re:And a billboard giving detailed instructions on

[DriedClexler]

Yeah, agreed. This is like those professors who were found with a bunch of issues of Playboy in their office and they claimed it was part of their research into the correlation of economic conditions with contemporary playmate body types, as a study of evolutionary psychology.

Re:And a billboard giving detailed instructions on

[SmokeyTheBalrog]

But I bet this "art work" is in direct violation of a number of laws

Can you name any?

Does, "Getting a date." qualify?

Re:And a billboard giving detailed instructions on

[glwtta]

... running a confidence scam, successfully robbing banks, the finer points of mugging, or the detailed design of a botnet/phishing/money laundering operation could be similarly defended as "art". B-)

Doesn't need defending - everything you mention is perfectly legal (at least in the US). Why would simply describing some illegal activity be against the law?

Not that I have anything against freedom of speech.

Yes you do. You are suggesting that sharing of information should be restricted if it's conceivable that someone could potentially use that information for some illegal purpose; that's pretty far into the "not for" freedom of speech end of the spectrum.

But I bet this "art work" is in direct violation of a number of laws and is about to get the "artists" into a lot of legal difficulty.

Is it? TFA is pretty light on details, but I'd be very surprised if Amazon's complaint was about anything other than their trademark being used in the name of the plugin. Even if it is possible to sue people for linking to links to torrents in the US (which I'm not sure it is), Amazon are not the copyright holder here.

Ahem

[Anonymous Coward]

Students from the Netherlands develop and post an addon to Firefox that links to torrents on a Swedish torrent tracker site, and has to take it down because of the American DMCA?

Since when does American law apply universally?

Re:Ahem

[Anonymous Coward]

Even TPB get a lot of DMCA takedown requests, but maybe this Firefox Addon was hosted in the States?

Re:Ahem

[Futile Rhetoric]

Where did the article say anything about DMCA? You can threaten to sue no matter where you are.

Re:Ahem

[hellwig]

We're America bitch! That's since when!

Re:Ahem

[geniice]

Most European systems are something of a mess in this area but a DMCA style take down notice would probably be considered due notice and ignoring it unless you are ready to go to court would be a bad idea.

Re:And a billboard giving detailed instructions on

[TerranFury]

were found with a bunch of issues of Playboy in their office

In the year 2008, soon to be 2009, is that really that scandalous? ;-)

(Believe it or not, I actually once did cite Playboy in a literary analysis paper while at school: They carried an interview with Kurt Vonnegut and Joe Heller. No joke.)

Re:And a billboard giving detailed instructions on

[calmofthestorm]

I'd read that research, even if it had no pictures in it. It actually sounds interesting, assuming they can find such a correlation.

Phew!

[quag7]

Well thank God, because now people won't download shit for free anymore and instead buy it on amazon.com.

Re:Phew!

[Anonymous Coward]

Well thank God, because now people won't download shit for free anymore and instead buy it on amazon.com.

Yet that would be a great tool. Imagine you are struggling with a torrent or the quality is crap. Wouldn't it be nice if a clean, crisp, DRM-free copy were available for $15 delivered?

Re:Phew!

[Koiu Lpoi]

...actually, very much so. Especially on older, out-of-print games. The only way to play Radiant Silvergun, for example, is to pirate it off of torrents with almost no seeders... or buy a copy used for at least $170 USD.

Re:Phew!

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately piracy does not work to bring down hollywood. So I decided just to watch something else.

Re:Phew!

[Dan541]

Or get it from
http://tinyurl.com/55czzt

It can be a little inconvenient at times but at least it does the job.

Re:Phew!

[Dan541]

You got it all wrong!!!!

Imagine you are struggling with some DRM on the media you just paid for. Wouldn't it be nice if a clean, crisp, DRM-free copy were available for free download?

Re:Phew!

[gevantry]

You mean people still buy stuff on Amazon? I stopped buying stuff there when they dragooned small press POD publishers into using their in-house POD printing division to produce books.

As for music, not only have I stopped downloading any of it from any store because of DRM crap and other problems, I've stopped buying CDs. I'm music free, haven't bought or downloaded a new tune in over two years.

Next to go will be videos, cable, and DVD. Once you clear all of that shite from your consciousness, you really start to realize just how much of it IS shite, and what a waste of time it all is.

Re:And a billboard giving detailed instructions on

[Alsee]

And a billboard giving detailed instructions on... running a confidence scam, successfully robbing banks, the finer points of mugging, or the detailed design of a botnet/phishing/money laundering operation

I know these people are in the Netherlands, but just a general FYI to this discussion, in the US all of those things are not only legal but it would be unconstitutional for congress to create any law criminalizing it.

If you want to blow up some building, and someone else says they are willing to do it if you give them the explosive formula, that is conspiracy to commit a crime, and that is a crime.

If you are working the register at a store, and you have actual knowledge that some particular person intends to murder someone by forcing a rubber duck down their throat, it is criminal aiding and abetting to sell that rubber ducky to that particular person.

However if you merely publish something and you don't commit any other actual crime, the fact that some generic person might use the information to commit some unknown crime does not make it criminal for you to publish that information - even on a billboard.

-

Hmmm...

[trickotomy]

Bullshit... Keep up the good work.

Parody

[Catil]

Amazon is kind of doing the opposite for years now - placing ads on torrent-sites and the like, where you can buy the same item from Amazon you are about to download for free. Therefore 'parody' is indeed the right term to use for this plugin.

Ah, I get it.

[Aerynvala]

A social experiment done for the lulz!

Re:Ah, I get it.

[compro01]

Actually, they did write a paper on it, though it doesn't seem to be publicly available free ($20 to get it, and it isn't on TPB (yet)).

Re:Ah, I get it.

[Aerynvala]

Charging for access to the paper is fricking hilarious!

This social project is not over...

[madhatter256]

Nope. Apparently, this tool created for this school project is not over. The second half of the experiment, after they take down the software, should be to see what kind of punishment they would receive if this were to happen in the real world.

Then they will really know, not just by the reactions of Amazon and their take down notice, but through the legal system about the social feedback such a software will receive...

Re:This social project is not over...

[Anonymous Coward]

What exactly is illegal about what they've done?

Piracy tool? PUBLIC DOMAIN TOOL!

[Alsee]

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
The 2007 CIA World Factbook by United States. Central Intelligence Agency
The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce
Dracula by Bram Stoker
Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
Ulysses by James Joyce
Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli
Paradise Lost by John Milton
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
Grimm's Fairy Tales by Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
The Marvelous Land Of Oz by L. Frank Baum
Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells

Amazon.com has all or nearly all of those books, some as DRM-Kindle ebooks.

Now... what idiot here wants explain to me why the hell I SHOULDN'T have this convenient Download-torrent-from-ThePirateBay button show up on the page in my Firefox browser? And offer me their brilliant rant on how this browser extension is or shoud-be illegal?

-

Re:Piracy tool? PUBLIC DOMAIN TOOL!

[93 Escort Wagon]

Because the artist doesn't get paid if you make a copy yourself.

There.... HAPPY????

Thought #1: Is someone actually attempting to pay L. Frank Baum at this late date?

Thought #2: How was that post a "Troll"? Other than the usual juvenile Slashdot user's logic "This person doesn't have the same value system as I do (or lack thereof), so anything he posts is a troll"?

Re:Piracy tool? PUBLIC DOMAIN TOOL!

[Anonymous Coward]

Thought #2: How was that post a "Troll"? Other than the usual juvenile Slashdot user's logic "This person doesn't have the same value system as I do (or lack thereof), so anything he posts is a troll"?

1) Because I believe it's a "late date" for all of those authors, CIA excepted. Dead authors don't need money.

2) Because, as implied by the title of the post, all of those works are in the public domain, and it is therefore perfectly legal for anyone to copy or distribute them for any purpose. (Radical thought, isn't it? With the current privatization of culture, I can't blame you for not thinking of that right away.) Even if a publisher publishes a new edition of these works, they're not going to be giving any of the proceeds to the author or their estate or their great-great-great-granddaughter who has twenty-five sick children and is dying of cancer.

Re:Piracy tool? PUBLIC DOMAIN TOOL!

[Anonymous Coward]

Now... what idiot here wants explain to me why the hell I SHOULDN'T have this convenient Download-torrent-from-ThePirateBay button show up on the page in my Firefox browser?

I guess I'll be that idiot (hey, arguing on the internet is like competing in the special Olympics; win or lose, you're still retarded!).

1. Not directly related to your point, but do you really think that largest use of this device is going to be downloading public-domain books with this thing? Be honest.
2. There is already a wonderful site that already has these books available for download. If a greasemonkey user script was written that would pull the book from gutenberg.org, I don't think anyone would be complaining, and you can get all those books that I'm sure you've never read (I mean, seriously. Frankenstein? Mary Shelley took a bad-ass idea and totally ruined it).
3. Downloading from gutenberg pretty much guarantees that you aren't downloading a virus. That might not matter to the population on this site, but maybe to users in general it would help.
4. Now, I haven't seen this plugin. If all it does is a PirateBay search, I don't see how it saves you all that much time, particularly if PB isn't your torrent aggregator/tracker of choice. It may also give the impression that there is no torrent available for a particular item, when in fact there is, it just isn't indexed by PB. If it goes to PB and loads the first link, then it has the problem where the first link might not be the one you want. So if you are looking for Great Expectations by Dickens, and wind up with "Great Expectations," then your innocuous search for something in the public domain has turn you into a pirate.

I would wager that most people on this board engage in piracy. But at least I admit it (anonymously).

Re:Piracy tool? PUBLIC DOMAIN TOOL!

[Curmudgeonlyoldbloke]

The "official" answer is that a current version of something like Ulysses is going to have lots of notes at the back trying to explain what on earth the author was on about, and that the text of these notes will have been added recently.

If you want to read the pre-1923 version of e.g. Ulysses, feel free:

http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/4300

Re:Piracy tool? PUBLIC DOMAIN TOOL!

[Anonymous Coward]

won't someone PLEASE think of victor hugo?

Re:Piracy tool? PUBLIC DOMAIN TOOL!

[Anonymous Coward]

Because you can have a Download-html-from-ProjectGutenberg button that's less likely to include spyware or hostile code?

Re:Piracy tool? PUBLIC DOMAIN TOOL!

[vdorie]

If the original is in a language you can read, of course you're right. If not, you might find years of scholarship paying dividends in the quality of translation. DRM aside, hopefully that's worth a few bucks.

Re:Piracy tool? PUBLIC DOMAIN TOOL!

[cffrost]

Amazon.com has all or nearly all of those books, some as DRM-Kindle ebooks.

Absolutely, burning-for-fuel is the only suitable application for DRM-encumbered garbage.

Re:Piracy tool? PUBLIC DOMAIN TOOL!

[LihTox]

This leads to the obvious question: when are they (or somebody) going to rewrite the extension to point to Gutenberg and other legal sources (e.g. authors and bands who put their works up for free on the Internet, or have released them under CC licenses)?

Re:Piracy tool? PUBLIC DOMAIN TOOL!

[Alsee]

Because the artist doesn't get paid if you make a copy yourself.

(1) None of them have any right to get paid.
(2) None of them would get paid if you buy from amazon.com.

There.... HAPPY????

Your failure to read the subject of my post, your failure to grasp the point of the list written in my post, and your comically wrong answer, they managed to give me a brief half-chuckle. But no, it did not provide me with any happiness.

-

Re:Piracy tool? PUBLIC DOMAIN TOOL!

[Alsee]

The "official" answer is that a current version of something like Ulysses is going to have lots of notes at the back

Publishers do often add some "co-author" text in order to slap a renewed copyright on the edition, however as I said amazon.com carries all or nearly all of the texts I listed - editions listing the original author and only the original author. So while you are raising a significant and valid aspect of copyright law, it doesn't really alter the issue at hand.

-

Re:Piracy tool? PUBLIC DOMAIN TOOL!

[Alsee]

burning-for-fuel is the only suitable application for DRM-encumbered garbage.

[SarcasticTone]
Oh, that's just Great.
[/SarcasticTone]

So now DRM causes global warming, too.

-

Re:Piracy tool? PUBLIC DOMAIN TOOL!

[Alsee]

translation

Yeah, that's potentially a valid issue. In fact I did think of it myself while I was making the list. I deleted a few items with the intent to make it into an English-only list, but as you noticed I didn't completely follow through on that thought. However I bet for at least some of those foreign language titles Amazon.com does carry editions that are either (1) original language texts or (2) non-copyright-covered translations.

In the beginning I was actually searching Amazon.com for pages selling exact public domain edition books and I was going to linky them, but it was getting to be messy with all those tabs open and it was becoming way too much work. Much easier to just make the point like I did and then deal with the nitpickers later :)

-

Re:Piracy tool? PUBLIC DOMAIN TOOL!

[Dan541]

I'm sorry,

I will try to improve my trolling in future.

Re:Piracy tool? PUBLIC DOMAIN TOOL!

[Alsee]

Not directly related to your point, but do you really think that largest use of this device is going to be downloading public-domain books with this thing? Be honest.

Firstly, your use of the word "device" there really irks me.
It's a bit of a pet peeve of mine. The DMCA use the word "device" to cover software and math and text. Very wrong and very very annoying. A "device" is a physical object. A Firefox extension is not a device.

But to answer your question, I honestly believe the actual meaningful usage of this extension will be pretty well nill. This extension is hysterical, and it makes an excellent point, but its usability value is nearly nonexistent or even negative value. Anyone with this sort of interest in general future searing of torrents would be much better off simply adding thepiratebay to the Firefox search box. Installing an extension just to munge up every amazon page and fire off a zillion largely worthless piratebay searches is silly.

pull the book from gutenberg.org

Yes, as someone else noted this extension could trivially be tweaked to fire off gutenberg searches instead. And that really only serves to highlight the issue here. The authors wrote a legitimate extension that could work on amazon.com or on any other site, and that could search piratebay or gutenberg or any of countless other sites, and the authors have no ability and no responsibility to sort out what might or might not be copyright infringement.

Even downloading from gutenberg, some people downloading some of the books would be copyright infringement!
For example England passed a law granting Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children an eternal copyright on Peter Pan. Many of the books in gutenberg are legal in one country and not in some other.

-

Re:Piracy tool? PUBLIC DOMAIN TOOL!

[anyGould]

Not directly related to your point, but do you really think that largest use of this device is going to be downloading public-domain books with this thing? Be honest.

Not the point - just because I can use a shovel to kill you and bury your body, doesn't mean it doesn't have a legitimate use.

There is already a wonderful site that already has these books available for download. If a greasemonkey user script was written that would pull the book from gutenberg.org, I don't think anyone would be complaining, and you can get all those books that I'm sure you've never read (I mean, seriously. Frankenstein? Mary Shelley took a bad-ass idea and totally ruined it).

Downloading from gutenberg pretty much guarantees that you aren't downloading a virus. That might not matter to the population on this site, but maybe to users in general it would help.

If they'd linked it to Gutenberg, I wouldn't matter from Amazon's perspective - you're still drawing business away. Also, it would lose some of it's "honeypot" factor. TPB is a nice easy target, who has shown a remarkable ability to fight the law. Gutenberg would be far more likely to cave.

Now, I haven't seen this plugin. If all it does is a PirateBay search, I don't see how it saves you all that much time, particularly if PB isn't your torrent aggregator/tracker of choice. It may also give the impression that there is no torrent available for a particular item, when in fact there is, it just isn't indexed by PB. If it goes to PB and loads the first link, then it has the problem where the first link might not be the one you want. So if you are looking for Great Expectations by Dickens, and wind up with "Great Expectations," then your innocuous search for something in the public domain has turn you into a pirate.

I would wager that most people on this board engage in piracy. But at least I admit it (anonymously).

I think "piracy" has the wrong connotations (well, the right ones if you're a media creator). I wager most people on this board haven't boarded a ship and ransacked a village lately. But "IP embezzlement" doesn't have the same sexiness.

To anyone that doesn't get it

[1s44c]

Piet Zwart Institute of the Willem de Kooning Academy.

That sounds just like a joke name but this place does seem to exist. 'Zwarte Piet' is dutch for santas helper.

I don't think courts normally allow the 'My school has a stupid name' defense.

Re:To anyone that doesn't get it

[compro01]

Piet Zwart was a famous designer, photographer, and typographer, especially in the 20s and 30s.

Re:To anyone that doesn't get it

[Gordonjcp]

There's a thing, I went to uni with someone called Pete Black. Doesn't sound so funny now, does it?

Re:To anyone that doesn't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

First Google hit: http://pzwart.wdka.hro.nl/

It's real.

Re:To anyone that doesn't get it

[dingen]

Piet Zwart has absolutely nothing to do with Zwarte Piet you insensitive clod.

Re:To anyone that doesn't get it

[1s44c]

First Google hit: http://pzwart.wdka.hro.nl/

That must be an art school, the website is UGLY.

Re:To anyone that doesn't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a thing, I went to uni with someone called Pete Black. Doesn't sound so funny now, does it?

It sounds mildly racist.

Pete rudolph-the-red-nosed-reindeer would be a better non-literal translation.

Re:To anyone that doesn't get it

[multipartmixed]

Pete Black?

I know him! In Germany, they call him Schwartz Pater. Every year, him and St. Nick gather in the village square. Nick gives the good kids presents; Pete beats the hell out of the bad ones.

You should ask him if you can tag along some time. It's awesome.

Please don't tell me this surprises you.

[dacut]

Amazon has inked distribution deals with a bunch of record companies -- deals which are certainly not permanent. If anything, given that Amazon is the first major seller of non-DRM-encumbered MP3s, these deals are probably subject to renewal in a short period of time (so that the record companies could pull the plug if need be).

Now a way of circumventing sales -- however obvious and silly -- which places links on Amazon's pages is featured on Slashdot, a fairly well read site. You're Amazon's legal department. Do you decide to:
(a) Exert pressure on the authors of this tool to remove it, thus demonstrating to the record companies that you are serious about your agreement with them and make the next round of negotiations easier? If so, turn to page 72.
(b) Do nothing. If so, turn to page 93 -- and prepare to get reamed in the ass when the record labels demand $2.50 per download.

This has nothing to do with public relations and everything to do with vendor relations.

Re:Please don't tell me this surprises you.

[93 Escort Wagon]

If anything, given that Amazon is the first major seller of non-DRM-encumbered MP3s, these deals are probably subject to renewal in a short period of time (so that the record companies could pull the plug if need be).

This being Slashdot, I feel free to be pedantic - but this is a serious question as well.

Is there such a thing as a DRM-encumbered MP3?

Some of the AAC files iTunes sells are DRM-encumbered, and I imagine Sony has (at least in the past) sold it's own DRM-encumbered Sony format (whatever it was called) - bot does anyone put DRM on MP3 files and sell them?

Re:Please don't tell me this surprises you.

[someone1234]

Yes, probably Amazon was obliged to do this, still, if they don't, i would have missed this 'great' add-on.

Re:Please don't tell me this surprises you.

[dacut]

Is there such a thing as a DRM-encumbered MP3?

Touché. :-) You're right, I was being redundant; my intent was to call out the non-DRM-ness of the offering.

Indeed, no, at least that I'm aware of. It is possible to watermark them, but such marks are easily removed by re-encoding the MP3 file. Now, it's possible to use MPEG 1 Layer 3 encoding technologies and layer DRM on top of it, but the result would not be what anyone would consider to be an MP3 file.

Re:Please don't tell me this surprises you.

[Tweenk]

Have I missed something? The point is that the only reason this is on Slashdot is because they decided to exert pressure on the authors. If they left it alone, this extension would fade into obscurity, but now thousands of people are going to use it, probably even lowering their sales. That's almost a definition of "shooting oneself in the foot".

Obviously, Amazon still believes the failed doctrine of "action is better than inaction".

Re:Please don't tell me this surprises you.

[dacut]

It was on Slashdot (and a few other widely read blogs) previously. That forces Amazon's hand: do nothing, and your vendor (the record companies) will make your life miserable -- far more miserable than the loss in sales you're describing.

It's a no-win situation.

Re:And a billboard giving detailed instructions on

[DriedClexler]

Oh ... my ... god. Apparently, I got it wrong. It wasn't some off-the-cuff excuse. They actually wrote up the paper!

More links.

Warning: Known sockpuppet/troll

[Anonymous Coward]

User maintains more than a dozen accounts

I wouldn't have even heard of this...

[Anonymous Coward]

If it weren't for Amazon trying to get rid of this add-on, I probably wouldn't have even heard of it existing. Thank you Amazon for give the "PiratesOfTheAmazon" extension the publicity it needed for me (and many others) to find out about it.

Pirates Of The Bay

[biocute]

Amazon should instead create another Firefox add-on, when users are browsing through TPB torrents, a large "Buy Genuine 4 Cheap" button next to those torrent listings would appear and link back to Amazon.com.

Re:Pirates Of The Bay

[Daengbo]

The already have. They're called "contextual ads."

Re:Pirates Of The Bay

[Sigma 7]

Contextual ads aren't that contextual. If a given site indicates that they don't want adult-rated material, you can be damn sure that you'll see undressed woman models posing as individuals from your local area, regardless of what else you can find.

Re:Pirates Of The Bay

[kaizokuace]

I was about to post exactly this and then I saw your post. This would be much better for PR if they just did this back as a joke. Corporations just have no sense of humor. They are definitely not from the internets.

Re:It's just a convenience

[Daengbo]

Anyone who puts all of his posts in tags when he could make his posts readable is a tool, anyway.

Re:And a billboard giving detailed instructions on

[Repossessed]

And the paper is 20 dollars to read :(

On the plus side, I'm apparently going to be quite the looker next year.

Huh?

[frank_adrian314159]

I guess the OJ break-in was simply a work of "performance art", too.

Yes, I know that these folks didn't do anything illegal, but the "I'm an artiste" defense has got to be one of the dumber ones I've heard. Damn, if you are an artist, stand up for your art and have Amazon really come after you before you cave. Especially if you are actually an artist.

Re:Huh?

[compro01]

The "experiment" stuff wasn't just an off-the-cuff excuse. They did write a paper on it.

regardless of legality this is stupid

[cliffski]

Regardless of its legality this is truly self-destructive and silly. I can understand how people want to get stuff for free, even though I fundamnetally disagree with piracy. What I do NOT understand is why those peole cannot see that if everyone does what they do, no new content will be produced. (Mainly thats why piracy is unethical, because it relys on you leeching off everyone else).
So where you may have an economic incentive to pirate stuff, there is also a clear incentive not to let anyone else know how to do it.
So why as so many hardcore pirates such evangelists for piracy?
They are making it easier to get caught (by always seeding and promoting it), inviting much heavier penalties, and ultimately destroying the income of the exact content producers they like.
The rational pirate would keep a low profile, or at most, only distribute links to really poor content. It just goes to reinforce my belief that its mainly immature kids who do this kind of thing.

Re:regardless of legality this is stupid

[eddy]

>What I do NOT understand is why those peole cannot see that if everyone does what they do, no new content will be produced.

Well, I don't think I have ever seen an explanation of how the imperative/compulsion to create gets overridden by the need to make money doing it.

I mean, our oldest paintings are something on the order of 30000 years old, are you trying to tell me they only got painted because the painter got paid and hade copyright protection?

Re:regardless of legality this is stupid

[loonycyborg]

The rational pirate would keep a low profile, or at most, only distribute links to really poor content.

Currently all 'content' is indeed poor. That's because commercial consideration override artistic ones. In order to produce art that doesn't suck, commercial stuff must be decoupled from artistic stuff.

Re:regardless of legality this is stupid

[srussia]

Mainly thats why piracy is unethical, because it relys on you leeching off everyone else.

That reminds me of Bastiat's "The state is the great fiction by which everybody seeks to live at the expense of everybody else."

The big difference of course is that you are talking about non-rivalrous goods (copies of works), while Bastiat was referring to scarce, rivalrous goods.

Re:regardless of legality this is stupid

[wild_quinine]

Regardless of its legality this is truly self-destructive and silly. I can understand how people want to get stuff for free, even though I fundamnetally disagree with piracy. What I do NOT understand is why those peole cannot see that if everyone does what they do, no new content will be produced.

What browser are you using? The way I see it, either you're using Firefox, and therefore wrong, Q.E.D.

Or you're using I.E., and therefore of inconsequential opinion.

Re:regardless of legality this is stupid

[Intrinsic]

More Musicians Recognizing The Power Of Free

Re:regardless of legality this is stupid

[maxume]

There are two types of hardcore pirates. There are the ones who are sharing, and there are the ones who are selling. The motivation of the second group is obvious. If you assume that the motivation of the first group is to obtain free content, their evangelism doesn't make any sense; if you assume that their motivation is to undermine a copyright system that they disagree with...

Re:regardless of legality this is stupid

[jmorris42]

> That reminds me of Bastiat's "The state is the great fiction by which everybody seeks to live at the expense of everybody else."

Except the dude was just a little pessimestic. It appears MOST seek to live at the expense of everybody else through the power of socialism. Some of us though, still vote for limited government as envisioned by the US Founders. The US Constituition. That would be Change I can Believe in. Doubt I'll ever see it practiced again, but I can keep trying for a little while longer at the voting booth and then go for watering the Tree of Liberty.

Re:regardless of legality this is stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently, those who buy stuff all the time (and thus pay for new content) obviously can afford to do so. If everybody had tons of cash to spend on stuff each month then I don't think piracy would be as widespread as it is now.
Sure, there's probably people pirating stuff for other reasons than because the can't afford to buy them, but most people probably don't have the cash.

And "everybody doing it" will never happen, because a lot of people thinks it's wrong. The people who can afford to think it's wrong, mostly.
Then theres the people who don't download things but can't afford them either and go on "living" anyways. And what about pirating software? MS Office is pretty expensive but you can get OpenOffice for free. Now "if everybody did it" MS would lose a ton of cash.

The thing with most things available for download though, is that they are "better" than the original in some way or the other. A few ways I can think of right now:

* Cost no money (duh)
* DRM-free
* Easy to get (don't even have to leave the house / waste money on gas, etc.)

When piracy no longer gives you better content than buying it, and when people have loads of cash to spare and can afford to pay for their current content intake, THEN you can expect people to stop downloading things for free.
Before that, I think piracy will become more popular since the economy is becoming not-so-popular.

Re:regardless of legality this is stupid

[JSBiff]

Your argument is, to some extent, self-contradictory:

"When piracy no longer gives you better content than buying it, and when people have loads of cash to spare and can afford to pay for their current content intake, THEN you can expect people to stop downloading things for free."

People who pay for stuff which they *could* pirate, largely do it because they realize the necessity of it. I *could* go to a restaraunt, and not give my waiter/waitress any tip, but that'd make me a dick. They need that income, and they *did* provide me with something of value, namely, service. Same thing with artistic works. I don't pay because I'm rich (I'm not), I pay because the investors and creators of that artistic work deserve to be paid.

Nobody has 'infinite' income, so the idea that people will stop pirating when they have more money isn't really true. Because there is *always* something else they could use the money for if they didn't spend it on music/movies/software/whatever. Someone who justifies pirating stuff when they make $20k/yr, will probably still justify it when they make $80k/yr.

As for Free Software - that is a different story; the copyright holders have chosen to give it away for free, and that's their business. I salute anyone who gives their software away, and I've even begun making donations to free software projects, on the basis that they do still need money, even if they don't demand it from everyone. Sort of a 'tip' for the software developers.

As for the DRM issue - yes, that is somewhat valid. If someone buys the DRM version, then downloads the DRM-free 'hacked' version, personally I have no problem with that. I'm sure RIAA/MPAA/software publishers do, but in that case the person did pay for it, so I don't really see the harm. Also, I would like to point out that Amazon.com, Walmart.com, and iTMS are all selling DRM-free versions of music (ok, in the iTMS case, the DRM-free catalog is somewhat limited), but that hasn't put an end to piracy of those tracks.

Art and entertainment will still be made, because there are people like me who think it's worth paying for stuff we enjoy. Other's will mooch. The one thing RIAA et. al. need to learn is that they'll never really be able to stop piracy, and trying to convince people to pay by 'scaring them straight' just isn't going to work. They need to instead convince people to pay because it enables the creators to keep creating art full time, and keeps investors putting down money to enable stuff to be made. Sometimes people justify their piracy by saying that the money isn't going to artists, it's going to publishers. I'm not saying that publishers don't ever exploit artists, but, particularly for movies and software, it takes a lot of 'up front' money to get a project completed, and those projects often couldn't *ever* be done without investors fronting the money. Movies often cost $50-$100 Million to create. So, we need to make sure investors get a return on their investment, if we want to see them continue investing in those things.

Re:regardless of legality this is stupid

[TheGratefulNet]

What I do NOT understand is why those people cannot see that if everyone does what they do, no new content will be produced.

faulty thinking. nature hates a vacuum. if 'we' don't make things, 'they' will start. its already begin, many things come out of india and china now, instead of the US.

same with acting, music, movies, all that. if our primadonnas 'refuse' to create new works of art, well, OTHERS in the world will.

you can bet on it - there will NEVER be a shortage of creative works since mankind wants to 'do that stuff' regardless. yes, its nice to get paid for it, but how many software projects have you seen that were done even in the fact of 'no profit'? by your reasoning, no one would ever contribute free software. but they do.

I say, let our 'entertainment' industry FULLY FULLY fail. and no bailout, either.

unfortunately, entertainment will NEVER go out of business. its human nature. paid or underpaid, people will ALWAYS create!

Re:regardless of legality this is stupid

[aminorex]

A very large number of people hold that "piracy" is not only ethically permissible, it is ethically obligatory. Often the contention is that supporting the established regime of intellectual property is destructive to good ends and constructive to evil ends.

In general, this means either that most people disagree with your theory about the consequences of "piracy", or that they hold that other positive benefits of "piracy" outweigh any negative consequences such as you describe.

Using the world "piracy" for copyright infringement is like using the word "rape" for violating the speed limit. It's not a respectable use of language.

Re:regardless of legality this is stupid

[Belial6]

I have large quantities of art right here in my home that proves you wrong beyond a shadow of a doubt. My 4 year old produces art on a daily basis. He has absolutely no expectation of getting paid for any of it. Heck, billions of pieces of content are produced every year by 'immature kids' who do not even know what money is, much less base their decision to produce content on whether they get paid or not.

Whether you agree with copyright or not, the argument that no content will be created if there is no copyright is so obviously flawed that it always becomes an argument against copyright, as it always appears dishonest.

Re:regardless of legality this is stupid

[cliffski]

sometimes these paintings were done as a hobby. GTA IV and Spore are not done in free time by hobbyists.
Other times those paintings were paid for by wealthy patrons.
You want billionaires to decide what games get made?

If not, what point were you attempting to make? That game devs by definition should work for free?
Why?

Re:regardless of legality this is stupid

[cliffski]

cool.
but one minute...
if you 4 year olds drawings are better than Spore, Spiderman 3 and Adobe photoshop as content, why the fuck arent they the #1 downloaded item at torrent sites?
because 99.99999999% of the population think that your kids 'content' is crap in comparison. Nobody puts a gun to peoples head and forces them to buy big budget content, they do it freely, despite it being pirated. So to suggest that eliminating the content that 99.99999999% of people prefer over your kids sketch will not reduce the sum of human happiness is frankly silly.

But hey, people will trot out all kinds of crap it it makes them feel good about taking stuff for free, as slashdot comments prove time and time again...

Re:regardless of legality this is stupid

[cliffski]

Those kids need to move to North Korea. It is run along similar lines.
Or they can stay here, and grow up.

Re:regardless of legality this is stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

Totally agree with your points.
 
To add, the parody explanation is baseless, and the concept behind the FF extension is even more immature in light of Amazon's drm-free mp3 sales on behalf of record companies.
 
At a time when corporations start to offer buying options which start to respect customers - and to counter piracy with convenience, quality and price - to try and subvert that so directly is childish and unproductive.

Re:regardless of legality this is stupid

[cdrguru]

The point is to remove revenue from digital goods. This will succeed at some point, mostly because we are training up an entire generation with the idea that "stuff on the Internet is free." They are going to utilize the Internet and the tools given to them to find free stuff and take advantage of it.

The "pay" sites, like Amazon, are going to suffer because of it. There isn't any two ways about it.

Sure, every now and then you get some guilt-ridden person saying that piracy just makes them want to spend more money. That may in fact be the way it works for some people. Unfortunately for content creators it is not the way it works for people with limited funds and limited time. If I watch a movie for free I may never watch it again, ever. The idea of running down to the store to buy it now that I have seen it is completely foreign to me and most of the rest of humanity. There are limits to how this applies to music but for most of the iPod generation the idea is "having" and even having a crappy MP3 is indeed "having". Buying a CD to rip it into an equally crappy MP3 is a lot of work - and I "have" it already, right?

I firmly believe that most of the hardcore pirates really believe they can "win". Once the majority of people have high-speed Internet and know how to use it they will have "free" stuff available. If they take advantage of it - as the pirates presume is the case - then there is no more revenue for digital goods. They are all free, forever. This is the goal, the Star Trek world where money no longer has any meaning and everything is free. It is difficult to put into effect at the grocery store, but it is perfectly possible at the music or movie store.

Re:regardless of legality this is stupid

[skeeto]

What I do NOT understand is why those peole cannot see that if everyone does what they do, no new content will be produced.

You're right. It will be just like the thousands of years before copyright, when no one ever wrote or created anything.

Re:regardless of legality this is stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

Or we can stay here, and reshape the culture to match our ideals.

And then watch fogies like you scream in impotent rage.

Re:regardless of legality this is stupid

[Jurily]

What I do NOT understand is why those peole cannot see that if everyone does what they do, no new content will be produced.

Of course not. Everyone knows that only big corporations can be artistic.

P2P isn't based on "leeching". It's based on sharing. Re-read until you understand the difference.

Re:regardless of legality this is stupid

[jc42]

A very large number of people hold that "piracy" is not only ethically permissible, it is ethically obligatory. Often the contention is that supporting the established regime of intellectual property is destructive to good ends and constructive to evil ends.

Indeed. And here in the USA, there is a well-established (unpatented ;-) method for reform of evil laws. The technical term is "judicial review". What it means is that the court can decide that a law itself is illegal, and can declare the law invalid rather than enforcing it.

But there is a problem with the implementation: Unless you have "standing", you can't challenge a law. The judge will just say that the law doesn't affect you, and reject your case. Sometimes a judge will accept a challenge to a law, but this is rare unless you are rich and powerful. For the other 99% of us, the only way to challenge a law is to violate it, and hope that some authority arrests you and charges you with a violation.

This is a major part of the argument why, if you think that current copyright law is wrong, you are morally obligated to violate it by "pirating" copyrighted material, making infringing "derivative" works, etc. Unless some of us do this and are taken to court for the violations, there is no practical way to get the laws changed. The big-money publishers have the legislatures in their pockets, so we can't get a change that way. Our only recourse is to get the courts to toss out the laws. And we can only do that by being victims of the copyright laws, and persuading the judges that it's the laws that are the violations.

You'd think this would be fairly easy. After all, the US Constitution says that copyright and patent laws exist to promote progress in the sciences and useful arts. It's fairly obvious that copyright and patent are now primarily tools to block progress. This should be good grounds for judicial invalidation of the laws.

But it turns out to be not all that easy. And it's expensive. But in the long run, doing nothing is even more expensive, as the progress promised by the Constitution is slowly choked off as "standing on the shoulders of giants" is made illegal.

Re:regardless of legality this is stupid

[eddy]

>If not, what point were you attempting to make?

I'm pointing out that the "argument" of 'no new content will be produced' is a lie. All manner of content would and has been produced regardless of monetary incentives.

>GTA IV and Spore are not done in free time by hobbyists.

If anything I'm wondering what point you are trying to make. That GTA IV wouldn't get produced does not imply that 'no new content will be produced'. If you have special requirements for what kind of new content is produced, then please rephrase.

>You want billionaires to decide what games get made?

Well, that's pretty much the order of things these days, though maybe saying millionaires suffice, or do you think Spore and GTA IV were greenlit by anything but the 'wealthy patrons' of our time?

If on the other hand you're saying that worthwhile games are in fact produced by hobbyists, say like Jonathan Blow's Braid, then I'm winning the argument for sure.

Re:regardless of legality this is stupid

[rohan972]

Yeah, those against copyright are unamerican communists. Like Thomas Jefferson:

If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.

That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation.

Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property.

Society may give an exclusive right to the profits arising from them, as an encouragement to men to pursue ideas which may produce utility, but this may or may not be done, according to the will and convenience of the society, without claim or complaint from any body.

Accordingly, it is a fact, as far as I am informed, that England was, until we copied her, the only country on earth which ever, by a general law, gave a legal right to the exclusive use of an idea. In some other countries it is sometimes done, in a great case, and by a special and personal act, but, generally speaking, other nations have thought that these monopolies produce more embarrassment than advantage to society; and it may be observed that the nations which refuse monopolies of invention, are as fruitful as England in new and useful devices.

Re:regardless of legality this is stupid

[Belial6]

What I do NOT understand is why those peole cannot see that if everyone does what they do, no new content will be produced.

You made a stupid untrue statement. Clearly what you meant was "I prefer the content that gets made for money." Unfortunately, that statement doesn't make you feel as self righteous. The fact is that content WOULD be created even if there was no copyright. To say otherwise is either stupid or lying.

But hey, people will trot out all kinds of crap it it makes them feel good about taking stuff for free, as slashdot comments prove time and time again...

Of course, you use other peoples ideas every day without compensating them. No doubt you rationalize that YOUR use of other peoples ideas are OK.

Re:regardless of legality this is stupid

[cliffski]

enjoy your ideals, because there will be fuck all else to watch or listen to under such a delusional system kid.
Us fogies actually appreciate other peoples hard work. You kiddies haven't learned that bit yet have you?

Re:regardless of legality this is stupid

[cliffski]

I respect copyright and patent and trademark law. what's your problem? nice attempt at a pathetic straw man there, I notice you didn't even pretend to defend your silly argument that your infants scrawl is as worthy in cultural terms as the stuff people pay for.

Re:regardless of legality this is stupid

[cliffski]

wow. so shall I email Jonathan and tell him he should work for free? the guy spent a quarter of a million dollars of his own money to make a game that he hoped would make enough to pay him back. Sounds like you reckon he should have just done that for nothing, and lived on food stamps.
What an asshole.

If you really think we would be better off having only hobbyist content (check out youtube dude!!!!) and stuff patronised by billionaires, then you are fucking delusional.

Re:regardless of legality this is stupid

[Belial6]

I respect copyright and patent and trademark law. what's your problem? nice attempt at a pathetic straw man there,

That statement is self proving that you either are ignorant of what a stawman argument is, or you are totally dishonest.

I notice you didn't even pretend to defend your silly argument that your infants scrawl is as worthy in cultural terms as the stuff people pay for.

That's because you didn't say "The quality of content would go down." You said that content would not be made. You made a stupid untrue statement, and I called you on it. Changing the subject does not make you right.

Re:regardless of legality this is stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

Regardless of its legality this is truly self-destructive and silly. I can understand how people want to get stuff for free, even though I fundamnetally disagree with piracy. What I do NOT understand is why those peole cannot see that if everyone does what they do, no new content will be produced.

I pirate most of my content. I also use somewhere in excess of $100 per month on buying media; that's over 20 times the average consumption on media.

If everybody did what I do, everybody would have a lot more content and there would be 20x more money flowing into content production.

The average pirate probably doesn't use quite that much, but from what I've read, the average pirate *does* spend more than the average non-pirate - they just consume much more.

Re:regardless of legality this is stupid

[cliffski]

lol

So who actually keeps the content creators in business? the people who share the copy they shared of someone who shared it from someone?

People who make stuff have bills to pay. Those bills are paid by selling content to people who actually buy it. Without those buyers, you cannot 'share' fuck all.

Re-read until you comprehend this basic fucking economics.

Re:regardless of legality this is stupid

[cliffski]

what laughable drivel.

so you accept that the happy clappy bullshit world of piracy means the only content we get is the childish scrawl of kids.
I agree with you.

Re:regardless of legality this is stupid

[eddy]

Seems like you're unable to follow a well formed argument. Over and out.

I believe it

[Anonymous Coward]

I know a couple of people who go to school. This is exactly the type of art they make. They're totally insane there, but in a way where I'm pretty certain it's because they're the next generation of artistic geniuses stuck together in a feedback loop of creativity.

Would people have even used it?

[Smuttley]

Seriously? Anyone who uses Pirate Bay regularly is going to go there to look for their movie/book/warez before they think of buying it on Amazon.

All Amazon have done is publicise something that most people wouldn't have used in the first place.

Top Marks!

Re:Would people have even used it?

[MooUK]

That is, unless we want a paper copy of a book, in which case I'll look on amazon (or more likely, in my local brick-and-mortar bookshop to browse what's available).

Shame...

[nigel999]

Before it was taken down, I managed to download a pair of wool slippers, a Brompton folding bike and a sweet KitchenAid stand mixer. Thanks, piratebay!

Re:Shame...

[noidentity]

Before it was taken down, I managed to download a pair of wool slippers, a Brompton folding bike and a sweet KitchenAid stand mixer. Thanks, piratebay!

Haha, that's nothing. I was able to have an entire Internet sent to me via email on Friday! (though it wasn't until Tuesday that I finally received it)

You're missing the point... (was: Re:Chin deep)

[Anonymous Coward]

All it takes to trigger the download is One-Click (TM)...

The plugin authors did not obtain a license to use Amazon's One-Click patent, now did they? ;-)

Got that ass-backwards

[CarpetShark]

Actually, no. If you participate in a society, that society is entitled to comment on your participation.

Contributory infringement, I think, in the USA.

[Anonymous Coward]

In the USA, recent decisions (i.e. Grokster, if memory serves) say that you can be held liable for contributory copyright infringement for inducing someone to commit an infringing act.

I think there are other means of vicarious liability, but IANAL. You'd have to ask an RIAA lawyer if you want to know which laws they'd twist to wring someone out to dry for something like that.

Re:And a billboard giving detailed instructions on

[ConanG]

Well, yeah. Of course they wrote it! Once they made the excuse they had to follow through by actually writing the paper.

Not writing the paper would be like telling a cop you were speeding to get to the hospital. Then when he lets you go, you drive to the movies while he follows you.

Re:And a billboard giving detailed instructions on

[Anonymous Coward]

But I bet this "art work" is in direct violation of a number of laws

You know, betting is illegal in some places...

Re:And a billboard giving detailed instructions on

[A Life in Hell]

But I bet this "art work" is in direct violation of a number of laws

Can you name any?

Does, "Getting a date." qualify?

Unfortunately for you, no, there is in fact no law which says that I have to go on a date with you.

Re:And a billboard giving detailed instructions on

[Anonymous Coward]

"The results of the current investigation provide additional support for the Environmental Security Hypothesis and extend support from facial feature preferences to include body feature preferences. These findings are intriguing and suggest our preferences are shaped by our environmental perceptions of security. Additional work considering how personality preferences are influenced by environmental security may be useful. Alternative replications in various cultures or using different samples, such as models, beauty contestants, or other highly visible representations of societal preferences of attraction, would increase reliability of these findings. But perhaps the most essential line of future research includes experimental manipulations of facial and body features presented under varying degrees of environmental threat."

The Nigerian version.....

[Anonymous Coward]

allows you once you've logged into your bank to transfer your 20 million directly into your account. Don't worry about the 20 grand fee deducted from your account just wait until the 20 million pending clears!

Are they stupid ?

[smoker2]

I really don't see how Amazon have any claim to make here. The Amazon site is not being changed in any way whatsoever. The Firefox addon only modifies the way the page appears to the user of the browser where that addon is installed. They can't claim breach of copyright as no unlicensed distribution has taken place, and it has nothing to do with trademark law as there is nothing claiming to be Amazons property. The domain name (Pirates-of-the-Amazon.com) they chose to distribute the addon was the only possible flaw. The addon itself doesn't capitalise the word amazon so cannot be considered breach of trademarking, and *the* amazon is a natural feature. Nobody buys stuff from The Amazon - The Amazon.com website sure, but the latter statement has been qualified.

Amazon may as well make it a condition of using their site that you may NOT maximise your browser. Mind your own f*kin business. Whatever I choose to do with information legally obtained, after it gets to my machine, is my business, and my business alone. They should go after Opera the browser too. After all, you can make Amazons websites text be rendered in any font you like using CSS preferences. And Opera is a commercial venture, so they may be able to pay.

It's pretty poor quality code, to be honest.

[jotaeleemeese]

They claim to be *media* students.

What about copyright infringement?

[jotaeleemeese]

(of Amazon's website, not of the products they sell, the media conglomerates can defend themselves if they so wish).

Or Fraud?

Or Misrepresentation?

100% Correct.

[Joe U]

You are 100% correct.

The ability to make money over and over on creations like this is a relatively recent idea. People, in general, are not going to stop writing, painting, or making music because of a lack of copyright.

The only change is the other people who make money off of the artists are not going to get paid. Those people have made a lot of money over many years and will do almost anything to keep that money coming in.

Re:100% Correct.

[mr_matticus]

The ability to make money over and over on creations like this is a relatively recent idea.

So, too, is general public access to the creations. If you really want to talk about it honestly, then what's also very recent is the ability to reproduce it. The idea that the legal protections in place on the creation of works in the more distant past doesn't make sense is troubled by the simple fact that copyright-like systems have developed in every major geopolitical power as technology improved.

In the past, copyright was replaced by a natural bar to reproduction--inadequate technology to serve as a replacement for the works. As technology improved, protections improved for artists' rights. As tastes improved, cost of creation improved as well, creating an industry of financiers. In no case has a different model been implemented; in no society has the right of an owner to dispose of his work been declared a non-right.

You're talking about striking a balance that removes essentially all power from the creator, providing nothing in exchange. That is historically unprecedented, despite ill-formed conceits about copyright being a modern creation. Copying is a modern creation, too. And if it made sense to permit it freely, someone would have declined to extend existing legal protections to copying. Yet no one did so.

People, in general, are not going to stop writing, painting, or making music because of a lack of copyright.

No, but they're going to stop distributing it publicly on such a scale and at such cheap prices. If you want to go back to patronage, that's fine, but with it comes a concentration of high art in the hands of the wealthy, relying solely on generous benefactors to provide public access at all.

The category of works created by local artists will still be available, but with it goes the variety and the idea of a national culture.

Re:100% Correct.

[Joe U]

No, but they're going to stop distributing it publicly on such a scale and at such cheap prices.

Yes, absolutely. But the argument was "if everyone does what they do, no new content will be produced", which is obviously false.

I'm not arguing against copyright, I believe we need a reasonable copyright system, not some infinite length disaster that we're heading towards.

Parody

[jotaeleemeese]

" a feeble or ridiculous imitation " ( http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/parody )

Imitation.

If would have been hugely parodyc to build a similar website, that could have got feeds from Amazon itself mind you, and to prominently put the button there.

That is parody.

To do so on top of the website itself is not parody, is naked provocation, almost trolling, which seems to be working nicely.

Blantant copyright infringement

[jotaeleemeese]

Not of Amazon wares mind you, but of Amazon's website itself, and that is just for starters.

Re:Blantant copyright infringement

[Joe U]

They don't re-distribute the Amazon.com website, they just render it differently. That's not copyright infringement, there's no copying.

Re:Blantant copyright infringement

[Belial6]

That makes me think that someone should sue a crappy web browser's make and lose spectacularly so that a precedent can be made that using software that displays a page differently than intended is not copyright infringement.

I am against piracy, but also against copyright.

[jotaeleemeese]

Piracy is illegal (by which I mean copyright infringement is illegal in most localities), period.

But copyright in its current form is immoral, so I am not surprised many folks are prepared to brake a law that is clearly flawed.

Your argument that without copyright there would be no artistic output is easily debunkable, many great advances of humanity were achieved before copyright arrived to the scene, and actually lack of copyright is demonstrably better for the spreading of ideas and science.

Please sort yourself out.

[jotaeleemeese]

You either believe this:

"The Amazon site is not being changed in any way whatsoever"

or this

"The Firefox addon only modifies the way the page appears to the user of the browser where that addon is installed"

The mental gymnastics that some people perform are worthy of an Olympic gold medal...

Re:Please sort yourself out.

[maxume]

I don't think that is mental gymnastics. If the script was quietly distributed by default in Firefox, I would think Amazon had a legitimate beef with Mozilla, but it is pretty hard to say that a user can't look at instructions on the internet that show them how to translate information on a given Amazon page into a search on TPB (that the instructions happen to be interpretable by a browser, in addition to users, might be a little gymnastic, but I think it makes more sense to treat code as information, rather than as a tool).

Re:Please sort yourself out.

[couchslug]

""The Amazon site is not being changed in any way whatsoever"

or this

"The Firefox addon only modifies the way the page appears to the user of the browser where that addon is installed"

The two are not mutually exclusive.
The site was not defaced or altered, and the viewer can choose to view it with software that changes what was presented on the viewers machine. This isn't much different from using NoScript or Adblock, except that it adds content instead of blocking content.

If someone puts up a sign, I am free to wear a plastic face shield with additional info between my eyes and the sign.

Re:Please sort yourself out.

[mdmkolbe]

Your comment is not insightful. The *site* isn't changed. The presentation of the site is the only thing that is being changed.

(Off topic: How did "mental gymnastics" become considered a bad thing? Being mentally adept at navigating complex concepts should be a good thing, no?)

just excuses

[SuperDre]

If it was purely for research and education then they shouldn't have published the plugin.. IMHO if it was a project initiated by school they should punish the school, if it was initiated by the students themselves the school should punish them.. this was just unacceptable behaviour.. It seems morale is at it lowest point these days, as long as people can steal games/movies/music/software this easy they bolster at the idea of some authority or company trying to prevent them from doing this illegal thing, but if someone steals those peoples stuff they start screaming..

Re:I am against piracy, but also against copyright

[the eric conspiracy]

The claim that copying does not affect content generation because much content was authored before the advent of copyright fails badly on two accounts.

1. The rate of content generation today dwarfs pre-copyright law historic rates. There is a reason we have multiple large industries engaged in content generation. It's called the profit motive.

2. Copyright was a reaction to the reduction in cost of making copies engendered by printing press technologies. Prior to this copyright was not needed because the cost of copying was not scalable and there was no economic gain from making your own copy.

Re:And a billboard giving detailed instructions on

[X0563511]

The irony is that the freedom of speech and expression... grants Ungrounded Lightning the right to state his/her opposition of free speech and expression.

Re:And a billboard giving detailed instructions on

[X0563511]

Playboy is a publication. There's nothing wrong with it. Someone's moral code might find it's subject matter objectionable, but that doesn't have anything to do with it being a publication.

Just make it open source and post the code....

[foniksonik]

They could simply post the source code now if they want to continue their 'experiment'.

Simple word for it...

[Puffy Director Pants]

Vandalism.

At least from Amazon's point of view, that's what this amounts to, and I'm not surprised they're working to shut it down. They need good relationships with the companies that produce the media content, and rightly or wrongly, those companies do believe piracy is a problem for them.

So Amazon was going to do something to put a stop to this, as best they can. It may be the equivalent in futility to putting a finger in a dike, but that's another matter.

Re:You're missing the point... (was: Re:Chin deep)

[aminorex]

Which also doesn't apply in the Netherlands.

Re:National Health Care.

[arthurpaliden]

That is why I pay taxes so that I do not have to worry about such things when I go the the emerg.

By the way, the people that complain about national healthcare systems are usually the ones that have never used them.

Unbalanced app

[gmuslera]

What if they did 2-way links there? Visiting Amazon you get the torrents link, and visiting thepiratebay you get the buy links. That way you do what you choose to do, and probably all will have something to win with it.

Re:Unbalanced app

[cdrguru]

Why would anyone other than a complete idiot choose "buy" when "take free" is offered?

Are you suggesting we support idiocy? Should idiots get a tax break for being stupid?

Re:Unbalanced app

[gmuslera]

Is not the same a printed book than an ebook, a full quality cd than a mp3 rip.

But even taking away the different/better quality(?) medium, is a way to paying back to the author that gave you something you enjoyed.

Is keeping that ecosystem alive. In the world you want, idiocy will be to work in anything that anyway, will be taken for free. I prefer that authors still get reward from satisfied readers, even if they didnt got their work from "official" channels.

Re:Unbalanced app

[rohan972]

Why would anyone other than a complete idiot choose "buy" when "take free" is offered?

Christmas presents for family or friends that won't be as impressed by freely downloaded content as they will by purchased content on physical media. To reward creators as an incentive for them to do it again. As a way of thanking creators.

It is wise to look for long term benefits as well as immediate ones. "More money in my pocket right now" is not the only thing that governs some of our decisions. That doesn't make us idiots.

Amazon continues on winning streak

[baomike]

I sent an email to Amazon thanking them for bringing the FF plugin (Download 4 free) to my attention. I would have never noticed
without their help. I mentioned that they might want to investigate the "Streisand effect" on wikipedia.

Got back a nice note advising me that it is safe to enter credit card numbers on their site and my privacy will be protected.
I wonder what the reply would be if I inquired about the sky colour on their planet?

Re:Amazon continues on winning streak

[Dan541]

It's great when tools like this get such great free publicity.

Re:I am against piracy, but also against copyright

[slashqwerty]

Copyright was a reaction to the reduction in cost of making copies engendered by printing press technologies. Prior to this copyright was not needed because the cost of copying was not scalable and there was no economic gain from making your own copy.

This is correct up until you mention economic gain. Copyright started as a form of censorship. In 1557, after failing to stop the spread of the printing press, Queen Mary Tudor granted copyrights exclusively to the Stationers' Company. The Stationers' Company only printed books approved by the Crown and they did not pay royalties to authors. That act was repeatedly renewed until resentment over abuse of the monopoly privilege eventually lead to the act expiring in 1694.

With the loss of their monopoly privileges the Stationers' Company pushed for a new law. A balance was eventually struck with the Statue of Anne which forms the basis of modern copyright. That was in 1710 (or 1709 depending on your calendar). That's 271 years after Gutenberg invented the printing press in 1439.

Interestingly, despite the balance struck in the Statute of Anne, publishers managed to convince the courts they must abide by common law established under the previous copyrights. That lasted until 1774 when the House of Lords overturned that reasoning.

You're mistaken

[Mr2001]

I can understand how people want to get stuff for free, even though I fundamnetally disagree with piracy. What I do NOT understand is why those peole cannot see that if everyone does what they do, no new content will be produced.

Simple: because that's not true.

As long as there are people who have money and want new content, and other people who want money and have the ability to produce new content, content will continue to be produced. Even if evangelical pirates manage to convince everyone to download content for free, that'll just mean that people who want new content will have to pool their money and hire artists to produce it, paying directly for labor instead of paying for copies after the fact.

It just goes to reinforce my belief that its mainly immature kids who do this kind of thing.

That's unfortunate. The misunderstanding is yours, not theirs.

Yerg!

[zooblethorpe]

Not that logic ever kept a company from spooging lawyers all over some random person.

Lovely image, thank you!

(reaches for large bottle of whiskey to blot out the very idea...)

Cheers,

Absolutely nothing!

[Chmcginn]

Which is what you are about to become.

Re:You're missing the point... (was: Re:Chin deep)

[Kindaian]

One Click doesn't apply... There is no transaction buy/sell involved. (not to mention the unenforceability of it but that is another case...)

Re:And a billboard giving detailed instructions on

[Kindaian]

And even with that, they have to surpass the "good faith" and "fair use" of it's name. Because, trademark is for "commerce/trade", and they did use it for "art/social theory study", which i believe are opposed as black and white... Also by be in a school and included in the current projects of it, they will have much more protections then Amazon can use against... and yes, I'm using Amazon without their authorization, because, yup, i do can refer to them when i need to refer to them (a trademark doesn't preclude the use of the name, only the exploitation of it for commercial uses by others without authorization). ;)

yes, what about about copyright infringement?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Amazon website is no more defaced than if someone changes the font size of their browser because they have bad eyesight. Or someone viewing the page at 640x480 on their own computer rather than 1024x768.

The VIEW of the website ON THE OWNERS COMPUTER is changed. Amazon's website is untouched.

Fraud? They aren't taking money.

Misrepresentation? They aren't saying they're amazon OR that they are the copyright owner/distributor of the works.

So, what about them?

Not to mention -

[Geminii]

"...It is a ready-made and social sculpture of contemporary internet user culture."

"P.S. - thanks for all the free worldwide publicity for this software, Amazon!"

Chin Up

[rusl]

How is it BS? Do you think the creators of the plugin were making money from it? Sure they are using flowery conceptualist language and that is funny... but they aren't being deceptive, just descriptive. If it was a business model and they used this as an excuse I could agree with your BS call. But as it stands "ready-made and social sculpture of contemporary internet user culture" is a pretty bang on description.

More to the point, where can I get this plugin now? I assume it was GPL so will live forever and can be forked if need be?

Re:National Health Care.

[geekmux]

...By the way, the people that complain about national healthcare systems are usually the ones that have never used them.

Ah, no, the complaints have more to do with the millions of illegal immigrants we taxpayers would be supporting in yet another way with our hard-earned money. Thinking of it that way, it's doubtful national healthcare would be any cheaper(at least for those of us who actually pay taxes)

You don't solve problems stemming from massive loopholes by instituting yet another plan with massive loopholes.

GPL?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is the extension GPLed?