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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."
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 ;)
How we know is more important than what we know.
Conspiracy to commit contributory copyright infringement.
So, yeah, it's a death penalty case.
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.
... 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.
sic transit gloria mundi
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!"
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.
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?
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
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.
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.
Virtual Betting on Facebook for non-geeks.
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.
Just callin' it like I see it.
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.
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!
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.
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? ;-)
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!