by Ellen Seidler | Piracy, Tech
Why aren’t we alarmed by the web giants’ efforts to increase their control of online commerce?
Amazon and Google are 2 of the most influential companies in the U.S., if not the world. Clearly their business models have been hugely successful and their online innovations cannot be denied–but at what cost? Is it a good development if Amazon succeeds in putting bookstores out of business or if Google controls the top-level generic domain .movie?
Today on Salon.com a story by Evan Hughes, “Here’s how Amazon self-destructs” examines the ways Amazon (and we) could suffer if brick and mortar bookstores go out of business:
The brick and mortar outlets that Amazon is imperiling play a huge role in driving book sales and fostering literary culture. Although beaten by the Internet in unit sales, physical stores outpace virtual ones by 3-to-1 in introducing books to buyers. Bookshelves sell books. In a trend that is driving the owner of your neighborhood independent to drink, customers are engaging in “showrooming,” browsing in shops and then buying from Amazon to get a discount. This phenomenon is gradually suffocating stores to death. If you like having a bookseller nearby, think carefully before doing this. Never mind the ethics of showrooming — it’s self-defeating. You’re killing off a local business you like.
Amazon was also made headlines this week because of its quest to secure .amazon as one of the new “generic top level” domain names that will soon be made available (to those who can afford them). ICANN’s (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) Governmental Advisory Committee recommended rejecting the company’s request for control over the domain name in response to complaints by various South American countries who argued “Amazon” was a geographical reference for their region.
Shouldn’t we be concerned with the possibility that control of the top level generic domains such as .music and .movie could go to the highest bidder? According to Bizjournals.com:
It appears Google applied for the most domains, although it did so under a different name, Charleston Road Registry. Charleston Road applied for domains such as .google, .chrome, .gmail and .earth. But it also applied for some more generic words, including .fly, .dad, .home and .love.
This issue has, it seems, slid under the radar until now, but as I wrote in a blog post nearly a year ago, the notion that large corporations could control these generic domain names is troubling. At the time Consumer Watchdog expressed this concern in a letter sent to Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), Chairman of the Senate’s Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation:
We believe the plans by Google and Amazon are extremely problematic and call on you to help prevent their implementation. It is one thing to use a Top Level Domain name that is associated with your brand name. In Google’s case that might be .Google or .YouTube or .Android. Similarly it makes make sense for Amazon to acquire .Amazon or .Kindle. But, that is not what is happening.Google has ponied up $18.7 million to buy 101 domain strings like .eat, .buy, .book, .free, .web, and .family. Amazon is close behind the Internet giant applying for 76 domain strings including such names as .free, .like, .game, and .shop.
If these applications are granted, large parts of the Internet would be privatized. It is one thing to own a domain associated with your brand, but it is a huge problem to take control of generic strings. Both Google and Amazon are already dominant players on the Internet. Allowing them further control by buying generic domain strings would threaten the free and open Internet that consumers rely upon. Consumer Watchdog urges you to do all that you can to thwart these outrageous efforts and ensure that the Internet continues its vibrant growth while serving the interests of all of its users.
According to Bizjournals.com it costs $185,000 application fee per name (chump change for Google and Amazon):
Companies paid a $185,000 application fee per name and will have to pay $25,000 a year to run the registry where other companies will be able to register to use that “top-level” domain.
I don’t know about you, but the thought of Google and Amazon gaining even more control over web commerce sends shivers down my spine. Here’s a graphic of the top level domains that Google has applied for.
Maybe Google should consider going after the .piracy domain while they’re at it? Do we really want Google to control the top level domain name “movie?” I don’t.
Google is one of 8 companies that have applied for control of “movie” domain name
You have to wonder why Google opted to apply under Charleston Road Registry rather than use their brand name, but I suppose that’s a story for another day…
At any rate, speaking of movies and piracy–and since we’re on the subject of Google and Amazon–I thought I’d share a website I came across today. It’s a Google-sponsored Blogspot.com pirate site that offers illegal downloads links for dozens of indie films and, for good measure, there’s a pop-up advertisement for Amazon.com at the bottom of the page….2 peas in a piracy pod.
Wasn’t it just this week the Victoria Espinel, U.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator for the Obama administration announced a new initiative “Coming Together to Combat Online Piracy and Counterfeiting” in which companies would voluntarily support efforts to thwart piracy profiteers? According to her statement:
Today, 24/7 Media, Adtegrity, AOL, Condé Nast, Google, [emphasis added] Microsoft, SpotXchange, and Yahoo!, with the support of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, committed to a set of best practices to address online infringement by reducing the flow of ad revenue to operators of sites engaged in significant piracy and counterfeiting. The Administration strongly supports voluntary efforts by the private sector to reduce infringement and we welcome the initiative brought forward by the companies to establish industry-wide standards to combat online piracy and counterfeiting by reducing financial incentives associated with infringement.
Forgive my cynicism, but until the enablers of piracy put their money where their mouths are when it comes to “best practices” I can’t take this so-called “commitment” too seriously. Advertisers (like Amazon) need to stop engaging in ad-sponsored piracy, take responsibility and demand accountability with regard to where their ads appear. Meanwhile, Google needs stop talking and start doing by aggressively disabling blogger-hosted pirate websites, delisting pirate search results, terminating pirate AdSense accounts, etc.
by Ellen Seidler | Film, TV
Streaming brings viewers quality stories and a cornucopia of great roles for women
I don’t watch a great deal of television, but when I do, more and more I find myself drawn to Netflix. I recently watched two excellent dramas, Jane Campion’s “Top of the Lake” and “The Fall” a BBC production starring Gillian Anderson. The migration for dramatic storytelling from cable TV and movie theaters to streaming services does not diminish the “film industry” but enhances it– demonstrating film’s enduring role in our creative culture and opening up new ways of cinematic storytelling in the process.
Last night I sat down to check out Netflix’s new series “Orange is the New Black.” I hadn’t read anything about it and had intended to watch only the first 55 minute episode….yeah, right. Five hours later I finally turned out the lights and went to bed. In fact, I was so drawn into the show that I had to really force myself to stop watching. I had succumbed to binge viewing in all its obsessive glory.
Jenji Kohan, the creator of Showtime’s “Weeds,” is behind the new comedy/drama that takes place in a women’s prison in upstate New York. Loosely based on a memoir of the same name by Piper Kerman, the series revels in rich multi-cultural characters and their compelling, often poignant, back stories. There is much humor amid the tears, and the show does have moments that are almost shocking in their un sanitized frankness, but it’s all done in service of the story.
Tatiana Maslany plays 6 roles in Orphan Black
I approach the joy of binge-viewing such quality programs with mixed feelings. On the one hand I love experiencing the unfolding narrative over the course of an evening, but at the same time dread when it comes to an end–an experience I recently had with the compelling BBC-America series “Orphan Black” (which I recorded and watched via DirecTV on-demand).
The added bonus of being able to watch these shows on Netflix is having the chance to watch so many talented women display their acting craft in such a variety of rich roles. Whether it be Tatiana Maslany playing multiple versions of her clone or Elisabeth Moss shedding her Mad Men persona for a Kiwi cop, rich female characters are sadly few and far between in most traditional Hollywood fare. In fact, according to a recent USC Annenberg study that reveals women receive less than one third of the speaking roles in 2012.
Across five years (2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2012), 500 top-grossing films at the U.S. box office, and over 21,000 speaking characters, a new study by USC Annenberg found that females represented less than one-third (28.4%) of all speaking characters in 2012 films. When they are on screen, 31% of women in 2012 were shown with at least some exposed skin, and 31.6% were depicted wearing sexually revealing clothing.
Even worse? “There has been no meaningful change in the prevalence of women on screen across the five years studied. In fact, 2012 features the lowest percentage of females in the five years covered in this report,” said Communication Professor Stacy L. Smith, the principal investigator. “The last few years have seen a wealth of great advocacy for more women on screen. Unfortunately, that investment has not yet paid off with an increase in female characters or a decrease in their hypersexualization.”
Streaming has made finding shows featuring diverse female characters a whole lot easier and the good news is that Netflix has already renewed “Orange is the New Black” for a second season. My 8 bucks a month is money well-spent.
by Ellen Seidler | Copyright, Piracy, Tech
MacKeeper ad scam uses fake movie downloads to force download of its software
Talk about sleazy advertising practices. I’ve written before how MacKeeper ads blanket pirate websites. Well, I’ve discovered another unsavory twist to their pirate spam schemes. This time MacKeeper software, a product of Silicon Valley based Zeobit, is appears ensnare web users via clickable links designed to look like (pirated) movie downloads.
I became aware of this scam when a fellow filmmaker sent me a copy of a Google alert she received about a download for her film. When I went to check it out I found (shown below) what looked like a typical pirate “forum” post listing a link (DVDrip) for her film. When I clicked the link to see where it would take me, a MacKeeper ad filled my browser and the software began to download onto my computer.
Now it’s obviously a good thing the link wasn’t an actual pirated copy of her film, but what does it say about a company that disguises its software download as an (illegal) pirated film. I never did find the film, only another weird download “exe” file that was likely more malware or spam.
Oh, and by the way, later the same week I received a Google Alert for my film “And Then Came Lola” and discovered an identical scenario whereby MacKeeper downloaded onto my computer when I clicked the fake pirate link.
Malware downloads linked to pirate sites is nothing new, but to see a Silicon Valley based company rely on such unsavory tactics to promote its product is disappointing and certainly marks a new low in the sleazy world of ad linked piracy.
by Ellen Seidler | Copyright, Piracy, Tech
Facebook is removing ads from offensive and illegal pages. Why not remove the illegal pages too?
Facebook gave in to pressure from advocacy groups and advertisers and announced it will no longer allow ads on sites that include controversial content. Although they’ve not said anything publicly, I’ve also noticed this change in policy also seems to be impacting Facebook pages promoting movie piracy. More on below, but first, from Facebook’s official statement released on June 28th:
Facebook is a place for people to connect and share. It’s also a place where businesses can connect and share content with the people who love their brands. Our goal is to both preserve the freedoms of sharing on Facebook but also protect people and brands from certain types of content.
We know that marketers work hard to promote their brands, and we take their objectives seriously. While we already have rigorous review and removal policies for content against our terms, we recognize we need to do more to prevent situations where ads are displayed alongside controversial Pages and Groups. So we are taking action…
…For example, we will now seek to restrict ads from appearing next to Pages and Groups that contain any violent, graphic or sexual content (content that does not violate our community standards).
Facebook was forced to take this action after women’s groups like WAM (Women, Action & the Media) protested the “representation of rape and domestic violence” on Facebook. Their campaign to publicize the issue included highlighting advertisers whose ads could be found on the controversial pages and group sites. From their campaign:
To this end, we are calling on Facebook users to contact advertisers whose ads on Facebook appear next to content that targets women for violence, to ask these companies to withdraw from advertising on Facebook until you take the above actions to ban gender-based hate speech on your site. (We will be raising awareness and contacting advertisers on Twitter using the hashtag #FBrape.)
Facebook’s decision to change its policies is clearly a step in the right direction, but as I alluded to earlier, it doesn’t seem to be the only ad-related move the social media giant has made. As I pointed out in blog posts earlier this spring “Facebook-A Link in the Piracy Food Chain” and “A ‘Fast and Furious’ Example of Online Piracy at Work” there are numerous Facebook pages, linking to pirated movies, that are deserving of scrutiny. While certainly not as disturbing as pages promoting violence against women, these pirate pages on Facebook openly engage in illegal behavior nonetheless.
After my blog posts, and possibly in conjunction with the negative publicity surrounding ads on misogynistic pages, it appears that Facebook has quietly removed advertising from the illegal movie pages I documented.
This page boasts more than 231k “likes.” When I wrote about last May the page featured ads, now there are none to be found.
It’s an excellent first step, but why not go a step further? Claiming these pages should be protected because they represent “free speech” is a tired false equivalency. Pirating movies isn’t about “free speech” it’s theft and is illegal. How can Facebook defend pirate pages that are in the business of profiting from theft? They can’t.
So, if Facebook screeners are set to review pages for suitability for advertising, why not review pages that are engaged in illegal activities like online piracy? If above pages promoted illegal prescription drugs instead of illegal movies it’s unlikely they’d be allowed to remain on Facebook.
Facebook needs to stop taking the disingenuous position that protecting free speech includes protecting criminal behavior. Now that Facebook has apparently seen fit to get rid of the ads on these pages, isn’t it time to get rid of the pages too?
by Ellen Seidler | Copyright, Film, Law, Music, Piracy, Politics, TV
David Kaplan, head of Warner Brother’s anti-piracy unit made news this week in Los Angeles at the 4th Anti-Piracy and Content Protection Summit. According to a Q & A with Kaplan posted on the event’s website, he characterized the studio’s approach to IP enforcement this way:
Generally speaking, we view piracy as a proxy of consumer demand. Accordingly, enforcement related efforts are balanced with looking at ways to adjust or develop business models to take advantage of that demand by offering fans what they are looking for when they are looking for it.
Of course this makes sense. Piracy apologists often attempt to rationalize the dubious notion that consumers are entitled to have everything available–anytime, anywhere– by charging that obsolete distribution models are a sign that distributors are ignoring audience demand.
However, it’s not as simple as it may seem. The reality is that it takes time to build new business methods–and meanwhile, in the thriving universe of digital theft–as is true with most black markets–the pirate’s model has never been constrained by such “trivial” issues as contracts, licensing, budgets, or the law.
In an ideal world filmmakers would be able to release their films to worldwide audience simultaneously. With models like day and date release finding success, it’s likely such an approach will someday become the norm.
But…even when that day does arrive, the other elephant in the room remains-Will consumers be willing to pay instead of going to pirate sites that offer fast and free options with the click of a mouse? Finding efficient ways to meet audience immediate demand only solves one piece of the piracy puzzle. The other is how to thwart the black market entrepreneurs who compete directly with legit distributors? Remember–profit comes easy when a business has little, to no overhead costs associated with the content it offers.
Kaplan sees this issue as a “top priority.”
I think our top priority would be to remove the financial incentives from
those who would profit by building businesses based on the unauthorized exploitation
of our intellectual property. A close second would be educating consumer about the
importance of IP protection and the availability of legitimate alternatives to piracy.
I’ve said it before –if the financial incentives to run pirate websites disappear, and popular content made readily available through legit channels, piracy’s impact will diminish. The problem remains–how do we get there? At a time where content creators are adapting to online distribution, ad providers, search engines, web hosts, and payment processors continue to drag their feet when it comes to making real inroads against infrastructure and incentives that underpin digital piracy.
n the White House’s just released “2013 Joint Strategic Plan on Intellectual Property Enforcement” the word “voluntary” appears 36 times including this statement:
The U.S. Government is pursuing an innovative and multi-pronged strategy to combat infringing foreign based and foreign-controlled websites by encouraging cooperation by law enforcement, development
of voluntary best practices, and international leadership…
The White House document also offers this carefully worded prescription as one path forward combatting IP theft online:
22. Facilitate Voluntary Initiatives to Reduce Online Intellectual Property Infringement and Illegal Internet Pharmacies
As an Administration, we have adopted the approach of encouraging the private sector to develop and implement cooperative voluntary initiatives to reduce infringement that are practical and effective. It is critical that such efforts be undertaken in a manner that is consistent with all applicable laws and with the Administration’s broader Internet policy principles emphasizing privacy, free speech, competition, and due process. Together with law enforcement efforts, private sector voluntary actions can dramatically reduce online infringement and change the enforcement paradigm. We encourage all participants to continue to work with all interested stakeholders, including consumer advocacy groups, to ensure that voluntary initiatives are as effective and transparent as possible.
It’s great to think that we can all reach a consensus to combat the scourge of piracy through “cooperation.” However, the fact is there’s still a very long way to go. Until ad providers, advertisers and companies like Facebook and Google, whose tentacles reach far and wide throughout piracy’s infrastructure, get serious about cleaning up the act all this talk about “voluntary” initiatives is just talk.
The fact is, when it comes to profiting from online piracy, money speaks louder than words. It may just take a bit more “law enforcement” to make those responsible pay attention and take meaningful action to clean up their acts.
Amazon and Google are 2 of the most influential companies in the U.S., if not the world. Clearly their business models have been hugely successful and their online innovations cannot be denied–but at what cost? Is it a good development if Amazon succeeds in putting bookstores out of business or if Google controls the top-level generic domain .movie?
