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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."
Conspiracy to commit contributory copyright infringement.
So, yeah, it's a death penalty case.
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.
Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
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.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
But I bet this "art work" is in direct violation of a number of laws
Can you name any?
Does, "Getting a date." qualify?
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!"
Well thank God, because now people won't download shit for free anymore and instead buy it on amazon.com.
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.
Eggs
Milk
Bread
Cat Litter
Soda
Oh ... my ... god. Apparently, I got it wrong. It wasn't some off-the-cuff excuse. They actually wrote up the paper!
More links.
Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
p.s. I don't use FireFox
Get off my Slashdot.
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!
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).
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? ;-)
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.
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.
You know, betting is illegal in some places...
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!
If my keyboard didn't have drain holes
Ugh. They guy at Circuit City told me they were speed holes.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
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.
FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
Think of Al Gore's responsibility in all of this!
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
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.
Literalism isn't a form of humor, it's you being irritating.
Lovely image, thank you!
(reaches for large bottle of whiskey to blot out the very idea...)
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."