U.S. companies help piracy websites evade the law
U.S. based companies assist pirate websites by providing cover for their illegal piracy business while pocketing their own dirty money in the process.
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Category: Film
YouTube’s Content ID Easily Fooled
When people talk about effective ways to mitigate the impact of online piracy, YouTube’s Content ID is often used as an example of what works. Unfortunately, despite its role as poster boy for anti-piracy tech, in reality it falls flat as a gatekeeper against online piracy.
Aside from a labyrinth-like user interface that seems likely to have been designed–not to help– but to discourage rights holders from using Content ID, the actual fingerprinting technology behind it can be easily fooled.
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BOGUS fair use claims hurt creators already victimized by piracy
YouTube users claim Fair Use as a defense for uploading full copies of pirated movies
There was a lot of talk about fair use and takedown abuse at last week’s the U.S. Copyright Office’s Section 512 roundtables in San Francisco. Many of those who spoke, bemoaned how poor, innocent uploaders were victimized, time after time, by malicious DMCA takedowns.
It’s a tried and true talking point, convenient, but disingenuous all the same. Some of us, myself included, tried to make the point that creators, whose work is routinely (and massively stolen), are often (doubly) victimized by malicious fair use claims.
I thought I’d share an example of this that occurred just this week on YouTube. On Tuesday a full-copy of the Swedish indie film “Kyss Mig” (all 147 minutes of it) was uploaded to YouTube by a user aptly named “Free Movies.” As an added flourish, the user-name included the notation, “free movies bitches.”
Is pirating a movie worth the malware risk? Most say “No.”
The threat of malware could turn people away from piracy Last week the Digital Citizens Alliance...
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MUSO piracy report spots some new global trends
A report in today’s Torrent Freak noted that content protection firm (anti-piracy) firm Muso recently released its annual Global Piracy Insights Report for 2016 so I was prompted to take a look to see what what’s new on the piracy landscape. According to the report there’s been a, “massive shift towards direct downloads for music content – growing by 31% in 2015” In addition the report found that “28% of all visits to piracy sites in 2015 were through mobile devises, up 8% during the year.”
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First Look, Facebook’s New Rights Manager Tools
Facebook finally joins YouTube in offering anti-piracy content detection tools
Facebook has been promising for some time to introduce tools that would allow rights holders to automatically detect and remove pirated content from its pages.
The company has endured a lot of bad publicity around the freebooting of viral YouTube videos on its pages, but Facebook’s also long been a place where pirated movies and music found a cozy habitat. That is–until now. I’ve recently begun to utilize this tool to manage Facebook DMCA takedowns and wanted to share my first impressions, but first a bit of background.
First of all, I’m thrilled that Facebook, with all its resources, has finally begun to take copyright infringement seriously. In introducing the new tool last month the Facebook development team explained why the company had finally stepped up:
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New study shows bias against women in film continues
Yet again, women in Hollywood find themselves on the short end of the stick
A new infographic by Slated (an organization that filmmakers with talent, financing & distribution) first published in The Hollywood Reporter exposes a “a systemic lack of trust on the part of the film industry when it comes to collaborating with women in the workplace.”
The infographic’s authors used statistical analysis to look at 1,591 feature films released (theatrically) between 2010 and 2015 and published findings via an infographic.
Bias was documented not only by the woefully low numbers of female directors, but even in categories like supporting actors where only 41% of the roles were filled by women. While such inequality has been highlighted in previous studies like the Celluloid Ceiling Report published by researchers at San Diego State, Slated’s data analysis looks took another approach by asking, “how data science can best be harnessed to offset what is evidently a pattern of institutionalized bias at play in the marketplace.”
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Update to Digital Millennium Copyright Act Long Overdue
Momentum is building for changes to the DMCA that will better protect creators
Content creators from all walks of life are coalescing around the need to update copyright law to protect their work against theft in digital age. A piece in yesterday’s NY Times, Music World Bands Together Against YouTube, Seeking Change to Law, is the latest to highlight growing calls by the creative community to update a woefully antiquated Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998.
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Box Office Profits NOT Proof Piracy Doesn’t Hurt
Piracy erodes audience options-forces studios to make fewer films
The movie industry makes record profits so piracy doesn’t matter after all.…that’s the gist of many headlines following MPAA Chief Chris Dodd’s recent speech at Cinemacon’s Las Vegas convention last week where he said, “the state of our industry has never been stronger.” We’ve seen this phenomenon before. Positive news about record global box office revenue is twisted into justification for the pro-piracy mantra that piracy doesn’t hurt filmmakers.
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Google’s “safe browsing” initiative is more bark than bite
Despite headlines, it’s still business as usual for Google — Piracy sites full of malware and deceptive ads top Google search
Last fall Google introduced a series of steps to strengthen its Safe Browsing initiative announcing it would include protection against, “social engineering attacks – deceptive tactics that try to trick you into doing something dangerous, like installing unwanted software or revealing your personal information (for example, passwords, phone numbers, or credit cards).
Sounds like a positive step against online piracy since malware and deceptive advertising is online piracy’s bread and butter right? WRONG…
Piracy apologists’ convenient lie (of omission) that Hollywood profits means piracy doesn’t matter
Yes Virginia, piracy damages both the film industry and its audience
It’s that time of year again, when the piracy apologists pull out their annual canard that Hollywood’s profits provide proof that online piracy doesn’t hurt the film industry. The fact is piracy leads to fewer films being made, fewer people being employed in the film industry, and fewer options for audiences at the movie theaters. Piracy comes with a price — and we all pay.
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Copyright Au Courant – Piracy, Popcorn Time and Privacy
Lots of news in the copyright, piracy and privacy world of late. Here’s some worth a look:
First up, this thoughtful piece by Nelson Granados on Forbes.com “How Piracy Is Still Hurting The Filmmakers And Artists You Admire.” Granados takes direct aim at the fallacy that piracy doesn’t cause damage to Hollywood studios.
“Many think naively that studios cannot be hurt too much, because after all, you hear mostly about the movies that make hundreds of millions of dollars. But the reality for many filmmakers is that they often live on the edge, seeking financing to produce quality content, and enduring high uncertainty about whether they will be able to pay off debt and have any profit left. Given the high fixed cost of producing a quality movie, losses from piracy can be the difference between making a profit or not.”
He notes that a number of “peer-reviewed” studies quantify this damage. Bottom line, like any industry, Hollywood depends on making a return on its investment in order to stay alive. No matter what piracy apologists allege, that’s a basic economic fact. Granados also touches on the particular vulnerability faced by independent filmmakers.
Most artists struggle to make ends meet as they pursue their creative work with passion and dedication. Piracy may be tipping the next Quentin Tarantino over the financial edge into bankruptcy, and we will all lose.
As I’ve often said, we (consumers) won’t be aware of what we are missing if it isn’t made. Piracy’s damage can be insidious and, to the public, somewhat invisible, but ultimately it diminishes the quantity (and quality) of film offerings we have to choose from.
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