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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."
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.
Or Freenet. I got it here: http://torrentfreak.com/files/piratesoftheamazon.xpi
93rd rule of Slashdot: No matter how obvious my sarcasm is, my comment will be taken seriously by someone.
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.
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
Put identity in the browser.
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.
Last I checked the DMCA didn't apply in the Netherlands...
93rd rule of Slashdot: No matter how obvious my sarcasm is, my comment will be taken seriously by someone.