RIAA: 20 Million Piracy Takedowns Sent to Google, Still No End in Sight

RIAA: 20 Million Piracy Takedowns Sent to Google, Still No End in Sight
22nd May 2013

To mark the occasion of 20 million DMCA takedown notices sent to Google by RIAA member companies, the organization has complained that search engines still aren’t doing enough to reduce the piracy problem. The RIAA says it is using a bucket to deal with “an ocean of illegal downloading”, one in which content is replaced and re-indexed in a never-ending loop. Notice and takedown procedures aren’t fit for today’s reality and must be revised, the music group argues.

Kim Dotcom Wrote “The United States vs. You”

Kim Dotcom Wrote “The United States vs. You”
21st May 2013

The 48-pages long white paper titled “The United States vs. You”, signed and written by Kim Dotcom, is breaking the MegaUpload case into small pieces, once again. The paper is Dotcom’s story on how the US decided to seize his file-sharing service MegaUpload. Kim claims that the story represents one of the clearest examples of prosecutorial overreach in recent history.

The white paper reminds everyone about the failure of SOPA, and how the American government chose MegaUpload as a target. It tells about a legal precedent, when a month ago a court ruled that YouTube holds no responsibility for what its users upload, and for some reason the same clemency hasn’t been given to MegaUpload last year.

Dotcom points out that the government’s prosecution of MegaUpload shows the implications of the government acting as a proxy for large corporations. He says that the government is using its enforcement powers to accomplish what rights-holders haven’t been willing to do in civil court (for example, sue MegaUpload for copyright violation). Kim Dotcom admits he made a terrible mistake when deciding to collaborate with American authorities in another case. It later turned out that the US investigators were collecting incriminating data on Kim’s file-sharing service, ultimately leading to the controversial seizure of the domain.

“The United States vs. You” contains a lot of interesting details about the whole fiasco and suggests a number of really wild ideas about why MegaUpload was targeted by the US authorities and not Rapidshare instead. In addition, the paper reminds everyone about Aaron Swartz, a young genius who killed himself under US authorities’ pressure.

Aaron was a young online entrepreneur, he was known worldwide as a founder of Infogami, co-founder of Reddit and RSS co-developer, as well as an activist for government reform, digital rights and civil liberties. The young man was indicted back in 2011 for allegedly stealing MIT’s articles from an archive of academic journals.

Tragically, Aaron took his own life this past January, about a fortnight before a significant evidence suppression hearing in his case. It turned out that the investigators offered Aaron Swartz 4 to 6 months in prison for a guilty plea and threatened to seek more than 7 years jail time if he chose to go to trial.

Spotify Fixed a Free Downloading Flaw

Spotify Fixed a Free Downloading Flaw
20th May 2013

Spotify at the moment can boast over 24 million registered users and remains the largest music streaming service out there. However, the security system of the service appeared vulnerable to a Google Chrome extension dubbed “Downloadify”, because the latter allowed people to download songs for free.

Google had to remove the extension from its “extensions list”, but the software was still available on other sources. Of course, Internet users were happy to get such a tool and listen to their favorite music offline. In the meanwhile, Spotify announced that the flaw had been fixed and everything is ok.

Even after the flaw was fixed, the online community was curious enough to wonder who could come up with the idea of such an extension, and it received the answer – it was a Dutch developer named Robin Aldenhoven. He tweeted: “I could not believe it myself that they did so little to protect their library”. Regardless of his finding, Aldenhoven later admitted that he had no intention of compromising Spotify. He called the service “awesome” and said he didn’t want to damage it.

In the meantime, it turned out that Spotify wasn’t the only one that had been a subject to such exploits. For instance, YouTube appears to have the same problem: today there are a lot of services out there which enable any user to download or turn YouTube videos into mp3s. The lawyers point out that these users are all committing an infringement, as they are not authorized to download the songs. Indeed, YouTube never gave such permission. Still, nobody knows and won’t probably know how much damage Downloadify did, but the entertainment industry keeps complaining that infringers hurt the content creators.

Music Label Won Appeal Against Grooveshark

Music Label Won Appeal Against Grooveshark
7th May 2013

Last month, a New York court of appeals ruled against the well-known file-sharing service Grooveshark. Almost two years ago, Universal Music launched a lawsuit against the portal, blaming it of copyright infringement. Worse still, Sony Music and Warner joined the suit the next month.
Grooveshark hoped that the DMCA will provide the service with safe harbor, but in April 2013 a New York court of appeals decided that thanks to an “anomaly” in the copyright legislation, the music service is responsible for copyright violation. The matter is that the DMCA stated “safe harbor” couldn’t be applied for works that were licensed before February 15, 1972.

Indeed, in 1971, the Congress mended the copyright legislation by turning it into a federal matter. Nevertheless, works, which were licensed before 1972, should be regarded under the grasp of the common legislation and statues of individual states. This is why Universal Music pointed to the fact that the file-sharing portal is liable for copyright infringement.

Despite the fact that a previous court ruled in favor of the online portal, the New York court of appeals reversed the ruling. Indeed, Grooveshark had difficulties with distinguishing which user-submitted sound recordings were covered by federal copyright and which by state copyright, while its legal liability depended on that difference. As a result, without universal protection from the DMCA’s safe harbor scheme, the file-sharing service may be required to pre-screen user uploads to figure out whether the file is a pre-1972 sound recording or not, and handle those files differently.

Anyway, the judges in charge with the case claimed that it is not unreasonable, based on the statutory language and the context in which the legislation was enacted, to conclude that Congress intended for the DMCA only to apply to the works created after 1972. Therefore, they rejected Grooveshark’s argument that the very purpose of the DMCA will be thwarted if it’s deemed not to apply to the pre-1972 recordings.

Thus far, it is unclear whether YouTube, which is based on the same business model, will share the same fate. The industry experts claim that it’s not likely, because Google’s video service had signed a private contract which stipulates that the music label is able to take down its own copyrighted works at any point.

Italy Started Anti-Piracy Domain Seizing Campaign

Italy Started Anti-Piracy Domain Seizing Campaign
2nd May 2013

As you may remember, the U.S. Homeland Security seized more than 70 domain names a couple years ago, and now Italy takes the second largest action against file-sharing and cyberlocking services.

According to media reports, the Public Prosecutor of Rome has set the weapons on at least 27 file-sharing portals. Moreover, the domain-seizing campaign, which has been dubbed “A monster from Rome”, is expected to go beyond the country’s own borders.

The statements published in press claimed that the domains of websites providing links to torrent files, allowing to download unauthorized copies of music and films, have been seized under the order by Preliminary investigation of the Judge of Rome, at the request of the public prosecutor, following an investigation of the Italian Cybercrime Police.

In the meantime, local attorneys specialized in copyright laws believe that operations like those might jeopardize freedom of speech as well as endanger legal sites. Moreover, they present a risk for the civil liberties. Copyright cannot be considered as a more essential right than freedom of expression, nor can it be regarded as a more important matter than a free and open Internet.

They also point out that the order of the seizure of the portals has been given at the request of a tiny local distributor for one single cartoon movie. Therefore, it’s clear that there isn’t any proportion between the seizure of entire portals and their domains, which contain millions of legitimate files, and the potential violation of the copyright of a single work.

At the moment, 27 domain names targeted by the Italian authorities are blocked at a DNS level.

RIP AOL Music

RIP AOL Music
30th April 2013
by Jennifer Lane

AOL Music announced, or at least its laid off employees announced on friday afternoon that it will shut down. Shortly after that, AOL Radio’s twitter account explained that the streaming service operated by Slacker would not be shutting down. The shut down encompasses the main site that offers free music videos, song lyrics,  downloads, and music news and includes sites Noisecreep (hard rock and heavy metal); The Boot (country); The Boombox (hip hop/R&B); as well as Spinner and AOL Music.

AOL Radio and reportedly Shoutcast will survive the cuts. In June of 2011 AOL Radio paired up with Slacker in a deal that moved their channels into Slacker’s portal of offerings. Slacker picked up the traffic and also the costs of streaming those channels.

Shoutcast, which AOL acquired back in the late 90s, is another story entirely. That portal gives bandwidth to more than 50,000 global stations. They have a very large audience and are quite possibly the biggest streaming portal online. (It’s never been clear to me what the business model is for Shoutcast, but that’s another story.)

AOL has certainly been through changes in recent years, struggling to retain or regain brand prominence in recent years. In 2011 they bought Huffington Post and have placed more emphasis on becoming a top notch news portal. AOL Music is likely a victim of that transition.

Universal Music Publishing hit with drugs lawsuit in US

Universal Music Publishing hit with drugs lawsuit in US
29th April 2013

A lawsuit has been filed against Universal Music Publishing Group claiming that the company’s Santa Monica offices have been “infiltrated with pervasive drug use”. It also describes sexual activity culminating in a hostile work environment.

The complaint from an anonymous security guard at the Universal office in question and states, “You could smell marijuana seeping from various offices and openly used in common areas and lounges.” The security guard is suing UMPG, her employer Universal Protection Services, the building’s management and others over alleged violations including a hostile work environment, according to Billboard. She says that artists and high-profile celebrities began visiting the premises with drugs in hand and often offered her drugs, which she refused. When she complained to superiors, the Plaintiff says the building’s management “turned a blind eye”. A Universal Music spokesperson has said that “the allegations as they relate to Universal Music Group are absurd”. The security guard names a number of high profile artists in the lawsuit who she claims to have personally witnessed using drug paraphernalia including Macy Gray, guests of Jamie Foxx, MC Ren and rapper T.I.’s entourage. On one occasion, when she complained about a smell of marijuana and asked who was in the studio, a UMPG manager replied “It’s Adam Levine. You know from Maroon 5. He can do whatever he wants. If he wants to come to the lobby and do a line of cocaine on the floor, it’s OK.” The Plaintiff also alleges that, on another occasion, she was told to expect Interscope/Geffen’s Jimmy Iovine. She escorted Iovine to a lounge where she witnessed “blazers” (slang for marijuana smokers) and American Idol participants. She also claims to have been subjected to racial slurs from artists and called her workplace sexually charged. “UMPG employees were complaining about finding bras hanging in the studio and people being found passed out in the showers after partying and drug use,” states the lawsuit. “Plaintiff found condoms plastered in the men’s bathroom while on patrol. She began witnessing UMPG employees engaged in intimate touching and grinding, involving buttocks and genitalia.” The security guard eventually received a call from the operations manager at her security company who told her that he was aware of her written complaints and that she was suspended. The lawsuit says that she was, in effect, constructively terminated.

A spokesperson for Universal Music responded, “While we cannot comment on the allegations between the plaintiff and her employer, we can say that the allegations as they relate to Universal Music Group are absurd.