Author: Digital Digest | Latest News

From hordes of copyright protesters to tons of Nintendo rumours, read the news roundup for the week ending 17 April 2016

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The latest rumors surrounding Nintendo's next console seems to suggest it may be more powerful than the PS4, and that a slate of the most popular Wii U games are already being ported over to the new console.

A person that claims to have insider knowledge posted on the development of the NX shared the information on the gaming forum NeoGAF. The poster, which has been verified by moderators as someone who is potentially a source of reliable information, says the NX will be a real powerhouse.

"The NX will be more powerful than the PS4. 'By a noticeable amount'. From the CPU, to GPU, to RAM. Sources don't know the clock speeds, or memory type or amount of memory. But if the CPU is 15-30% stronger than PS4 as alluded to by LCGeek, than the GPU would need to match that bump in order to not bottleneck (Nintendo hates their bottlenecks)," the post read.

In a separately posted rumor on Twitter by another inside, it appears Nintendo is already working on porting some of the most popular Wii U games to the NX. The tweets, posted by Emily Rogers, an insider with a proven track record in delivering Nintendo leaks, lists the games that are already in development for the NX.

"The following Wii U ports in development for NX: Zelda, Smash Bros, Mario Maker, Splatoon. But...and yes there's a But"," Rogers tweeted. "Just because something is in development doesn't mean it'll be released. So either all four of these ports will come...or only two of them," and "I spoke with at least 10 people regarding these four ports. Splatoon is up in the air. Zelda/Smash Bros sound like guarantees."

With the industry's biggest trade show, E3, being staged in June, Nintendo could very well use that opportunity to officially unveil the NX.

The results and analysis for DVD, Blu-ray and Ultra HD Blu-ray sales for the week ending 2nd April 2016 are in. The top seller for the week, and also a new release, was The Hateful Eight as the poste Easter lull descends upon us and revenue takes a major hit.

Read the rest of the stats and analysis to find out how DVD, Blu-ray, Ultra HD Blu-ray did.

The head of a pro copyright lobby group has likened protesters of DMCA abuse to zombies in the popular TV show The Walking Dead, and says their protest lacks "effort and brainpower".

With the US Copyright Office currently seeking public consultation on changes to the DMCA laws, there has been an increased focus on the problems associated with the process, with many pointing out the high number of invalid DMCA takedown requests, while others have called for new penalties to be introduced for this type of DMCA abuse.

Joining the chorus of disapproval were non profit Internet activist group Fight for the Future (FFTF) and popular YouTube channel ChannelAwesome, who joined forces to launch an anti DMCA abuse campaign. The campaign and its website allowed users to send messages of protest to the US Copyright Office, and users took up the opportunity to express their anger, with a surge of 90,000 messages flooding and eventually crashing the US Copyright Office's servers.

But Keith Kupferschmid, head of the Copyright Alliance, says the mass protest means very little because not much effort was needed by the protesters to make their voices heard. In fact, Kupferschmid compares the protest movement to hordes of zombies from the hit TV show (and target of mass piracy) The Walking Dead. 

"Well, in case you were unconscious and left for dead in a hospital last week, the copyright community experienced its own zombie apocalypse", writes Kupferschmid. "These 90,000 comments are all identical submissions generated merely by clicking on the 'I’m in' button at takedownabuse.org. Like the zombies in The Walking Dead, there was not a lot of effort or brainpower that went into the 90,000 plus submissions."

Kupferschmid derided these "zombie comments", adding "as we've learned from The Walking Dead, those zombies are rather easily disposed of."

Interestingly, the Copyright Alliance frequently runs similar "pre-written" campaigns. And it's worth pointing out that the TakedownAbuse campaign does allow users to add their own comments (and many users choose to do so), while many of Copyright Alliance's campaigns do not allow user editing.

Those interested in becoming the newest member of the "walker" horde can still take part as the TakedownAbuse campaign still has 36 days to run.

From sensible copyright ideas to the ridiculous, read the news roundup for the week ending 10 April 2016

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In the latest non binding interpretation of EU copyright law, as advised by European Court of Justice's advocate general, linking to pirated content in itself may not constitute copyright infringement.

Making an advisory opinion in case involving Dutch website GeenStijl.nl and Playboy, EU Advocate General Melchior Wathelet says that linking to pirated works, even directly linking to it, is not necessarily the same as "making them available".

The case involves the linking to of pictures taken originally by Playboy and published without authorization on a third party website. GeenStijl.nl linked to these, although the site did not directly host or upload them.

While Wathelet does agree that such linking would be helping users to find pirated content, to "facilitate their discovery", such linking cannot be considered copyright infringement because the content is already available publicly, with or without intervention from GeenStijl.nl.

"... hyperlinks which lead, even directly, to protected works are not 'making them available' to the public when they are already freely accessible on another website, and only serve to facilitate their discovery," the advisory reads.

"The actual act of 'making available' is the action of the person who effected the initial communication. Consequently, hyperlinks which are placed on a website and which link to protected works that are freely accessible on another site cannot be classified as an 'act of communication' within the meaning of the Directive."

The Court was also at pains to note that the advisory opinion only affects this particular case, and that the nature and main purpose of the website (that is, whether the site's main purpose is to provide pirated content) will need to be taken into affect when considering the legal status of the hyperlinking.

Tired of having to deal with invalid DMCA takedown requests, Automattic, the makers of WordPress, wants changes made to the law that punishes those that repeatedly submit bad requests.

As part of public consultation on changes to the DMCA, Automattic has submitted their take on the issue, and based on their experiences, it appears that invalid DMCA requests are a big problem for service providers like Automattic.

The problem, Automattic says, is with the overuse of automated bots in identifying potential copyright infringement. These bots often fail to take into account fair use, which can be a much more common occurrence on personal blogs.

"While we recognize that the use of automated tools may be necessary with respect to some types of infringement on some types of websites, personal blogs are not the proper targets for enforcement robots," writes Automattic's General counsel Paul Sieminski.

"Copyright holders have an obligation to consider fair use before sending a takedown notice, and robots simply cannot tell fair use from foul in any but the most obvious circumstances," Sieminski explains.

Invalid takedown requests are not just a problem being faced by Automattic, it's a much larger problem that affects almost all medium to large Internet businesses. A recent study found that almost a third of submitted takedown requests may be invalid, or at the very least, questionable.

But while Companies like Automattic face serious consequences if they do not comply with DMCA takedown requests, there is currently no punishment for those that habitually submit invalid requests. This, Automattic says, should change and that statutory damages would be the best way to address this issue.

"Damages from abusive notices of claimed infringement can sometimes be difficult to quantify. Thus, in order to further the goals of compensation and deterrence, statutory damages for abusive notices of claimed infringement and abusive counter notifications could be added either to section 504 or to section 1203," writes Sieminski.

Automattic also feels that the use of bonds should be extended to copyright holders seeking to use the DMCA takedown regime.

"Such a bond may be the only way to ensure that those who cause damage via misrepresentations are called to account for their misdeeds," says Sieminski.

The results and analysis for DVD, Blu-ray and Ultra HD Blu-ray sales for the week ending 26th March 2016 are in. The big new release of the week was The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2, the final Hunger Games movie was also the top selling title on Blu-ray and DVD, and helped push weekly Blu-ray revenue surpass the $50 million mark for the first time in 2016.

Read the rest of the stats and analysis to find out how DVD, Blu-ray, Ultra HD Blu-ray did.

Controversial anti-piracy firm Rightscorp have come up with a new audacious plan that includes hijacking the user's browser until they pay a copyright fine.

Rightscorp wants to enlist ISPs in the fight against (and monetization of) piracy by delivering infringement and settlement notices directly to the user's browser.

Rightscorp's business model relies on identifying potential copyright infringers, and then asking them to pay a settlement "fine" to make the matter go away. 

Settlement notices are currently delivered via email, which are often ignored by users. But with Rightscorp's new "Scalable Copyright" technology, there will be severe consequences if the user choose to continue ignoring the settlement notices. After a set number of notices has been viewed, the Scalable Copyright system will then lock up the user's browser and won't let them continue past the settlement payment screen until they pay up.

The Scalable Copyright system requires cooperation with ISPs, and Rightscorp is confident that some ISPs will find the system useful in minimizing their third party liability when it comes to copyright infringement.

"We provide the data at no charge to the ISPs. With Scalable Copyright, ISPs will be able to greatly reduce their third-party liability and the music and home video industries will be able to return to growth along with the internet advertising and broadband subscriber industries," says Rightscorp.

But many ISPs may also baulk at the idea of hijacking their paying customer's browser, with the tactic too similar to the ones deployed by sketchy ransomware operators for comfort.

From ineffective anti-piracy efforts to wanting more of it, read the news roundup for the week ending 3 April 2016

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