Author: Digital Digest | Latest News

Multi Grammy Award winner Maria Schneider has called out Google for profiting from music piracy, in a submission to the US Copyright Office for changes to the existing DMCA regime.

Schneider, who most recently won three Grammys for her album 'Winter Morning Walks', not only feels that Google hasn't done enough to prevent piracy, a view shared by many in the music industry, but also believes that Google is actively and purposefully profiting from piracy. 

In her submission, Schneider states that "YouTube is guilty of criminal racketeering", and that the company is abusing the "outdated" DMCA for their own gains.

"YouTube has thoroughly twisted, contorted, and abused the original meaning of the outdated DMCA ‘safe harbor’ to create a massive income redistribution scheme, where income is continually transferred from the pockets of musicians and creators of all types, and siphoned directly into their own pockets," Schneider writes in heropen letter.

Using strongly loaded language, Schneider continues to state reasons why she thinks YouTube is deliberately profiting from piracy. Most of Schneider's argument relates to YouTube's upload system and the company's fair use and take-down policy, which Schneider believes is biased towards uploaders, not rights-holders. Schneider is also concerned about the entry requirements into YouTube's anti-piracy Content ID system, as not everyone can be accepted into the program.

And Schneider says none of these actions by YouTube and its parent company Google/Alphabet, is accidental, but rather a "scheme" to siphon revenue from rights-holders into their own pockets, and actually encourages users to behave badly to further their aim.

"The sweeping influence of their scam has succeeded in dismantling copyright from the inside, like a flesh-eating virus, influencing citizens to destroy themselves. Any company influencing behavior like this, especially for the purposes of eroding Constitutional rights, should lose their safe harbor," she adds.

As for a solution, Schneider shares the same talking point that have increasingly been heard from the copyright lobby, that is for Google to implement a "take down, stay down" regime, as well as actively checking and preventing uploads of copyright content, disregarding fair use if necessary.

Schneider also believes rights-holder's identities should remain private when they submit a take-down requests, even if said request is invalid to prevent "intimidation" from the general Internet public.

The results and analysis for DVD, Blu-ray and Ultra HD Blu-ray sales for the week ending 7thj May 2016 are in. The week's top seller was Star Wars again, but the best selling new release was The 5th Wave.

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

From futile anti-piracy attempts to one man's answer to Game of Thrones piracy, read the news roundup for the week ending 15 May 2016

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A court has ordered The Pirate Bay's Swedish domains to be confiscated in a decision that will most likely be appealed again.

The Svea Court of Appeal upheld a ruling by the Stockholm District Court in 2015 that ordered to seizure of both of The Pirate Bay's .se domain names. The earlier ruling established that both domains needed to be seized due to violations of the country's copyright laws, but that IIS.se, the organization responsible for managing .se domain names, was held not responsible for any offences. The prosecutor in that case, Fredrik Ingblad, appealed the decision, but the original verdict was upheld this week.

This means that while IIS is not legally liable, it still has to seize and suspend the Pirate Bay domains, something both ISS and Ingblad agree need to occur.

But even this relatively straight forward court order could turn out to be more complicated than it seems, as according to one of the Pirate Bay's founders, the court has yet to establish the ownership of the domain names.

Both domains are held in the name of Fredrik Neij, one of the piracy site's co-founders, but speaking to TorrentFreak, Neik denies ownership of the domain names, and categorically denies having any more involvement in the website.

"I will appeal on the grounds that I do not own the domain and that I did not commit copyright infringement as I am not involved with the site anymore," Neij told TorrentFreak.

Despite the court order, both .se domains remain active, and thepiratebay.se domain name is still pointing to the main Pirate Bay website.

HBO has started removing torrents and notifying downloaders, as the premium cable network ramps up efforts to curb piracy of its hugely popular 'Game of Thrones' TV show.

Piracy of the hit TV show hit another peak as the new season premiered in late April.

HBO's official attitude towards piracy has always been a bit more relaxed compared to other rights-holders, but it appears that behind the talk of not caring about piracy, the cable network is actually trying hard to stop the rapid flow of pirated downloads.

The company has started sending out warning notices to ISPs to ask them to take action against downloaders. HBO is also asking ISPs to inform users of the legal ways in which they can watch HBO programming.

"As the owner of the IP address, HBO requests that [ISP] immediately contact the subscriber who was assigned the IP address at the date and time below with the details of this notice, and take the proper steps to prevent further downloading or sharing of unauthorized content and additional infringement notices," reads the notice.

ISPs are not obligated to take any action, although most choose to at least forward the warning notice to users.

HBO's more direct actions may be having more of an effect. The company has started sending DMCA notices to torrent download sites like KickassTorrents and Torrentz to remove torrent links. HBO's anti-piracy partners have been working overtime to remove torrent links to hit shows, sometimes minutes after they appear online. The most popular torrents for the latest episodes of Game of Thrones have already been removed from sites like KickassTorrents and Torrentz. 

But The Pirate Bay has an official policy of ignoring takedown requests, as do other sites, which means these popular torrents are still widely available online.

The results and analysis for DVD, Blu-ray and Ultra HD Blu-ray sales for the week ending 30th April 2016 are in. A quiet week in which Ride Along 2 was the top selling new release.

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

From the common sense to undeniable greed, read the news roundup for the week ending 8 May 2016

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The Australian's government's independent Productivity Commission has given advice to the government that calls for the introduction of fair use rights, formally legalize geo-dodging and calls on more limits to copyright protection.

The Productivity Commission is tasked with providing the government with independent advice, advice that isn't always in line with the current conservative (and pro copyright) government's policy directions.

A draft report on copyright by the commission was released this week, providing guidance in several key areas - advice that some rights-holders have already criticized.

The report has once again highlighted the lack of fair use rights in Australia, and urged the government to take action in this area. Fair use rights would reduce uncertainty, and would benefit consumers, educational institution and would help to foster innovation by enabling follow-on creators to innovate without being constrained by copyright law.

The report goes into detail how such an exemption can be implemented based on existing case law, both here in Australia and overseas, and goes to length to dispel some of the arguments against fair use, arguments that right-holders often like to make in public.

The commission also calls for copyright protection to be terminated for works that are no longer being actively supplied to the marketplace, the so called "use it or lose it" clause.

"The lack of any requirement for rights holders to actively supply the Australian market reduces the efficiency of Australia’s copyright regime. Demand for works that have been created, but are not being supplied, reduces consumer welfare and the profits of intermediaries and original rights holders. Where a rights holder has made a choice not to supply their works to the market (or refuses to supply a market), granting consumers access to that work, such as through a fair use exception, improves consumer wellbeing without reducing incentives to create copyright works," the report read.

Most controversially, the report clearly states that not only should the government not take action against geo-unblocking, the government should take action in stopping the practice of geoblocking in a bid to increase competition and make sure Australians are paying a fair price for services.

"The use of geoblocking technology is pervasive, and frequently results in Australian consumers being offered a lower level of digital service (such as a more limited music or TV streaming catalogue) at a higher price than in overseas markets. Studies show Australian consumers systematically pay higher prices for professional software, music, games and e-books than consumers in comparable overseas markets. While some digital savvy consumers are able to avoid these costs (such as through the use of proxy servers and virtual private networks), many are relegated to paying inflated prices for lower standard services," the report explains.

"The Australian Government should make clear that it is not an infringement of Australia’s copyright system for consumers to circumvent geoblocking technology and should seek to avoid international obligations that would preclude such practices," the commission recommends.

Local pay TV operator Foxtel are among the first of the influential right-holders that have come out against the report. Specifically on the issue of geo-unblocking, a Foxtel spokesperson was at pains to point out the potential economic damage caused by a ban on geoblocking.

On geo-unblocking, according to Foxtel, "Economic and cultural activity would be curtailed in Australia and money would flow offshore to companies which would have no reason to make a contribution to Australia."

A final inquiry report by the Productivity Commission is due out in August. You can read the draft report here.

The results and analysis for DVD, Blu-ray and Ultra HD Blu-ray sales for the week ending 23rd April 2016 are in. New release The Revenant was the best selling title on both Blu-ray and DVD for the week, a title that was also available on the new Ultra HD Blu-ray format. 

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

Hulu's head of content acquisitions has admitted to using piracy data in deciding what content the streaming company will purchase.

Hulu's Lisa Holme says piracy data often points to which shows people are really passionate about. "They are passionate enough about it to break the law," says Holmes.

These are the shows that Holme says Hulu would be interested in licensing, as she believes that many of these users would gladly pay if things are made easier, and more affordable, for them.

Netflix has already admitted to using piracy data to determine which country they planned to expand to next and at what price, so Hulu's admissions are not too surprising.

Piracy tracking and intelligence firm MUSO says this type of use of piracy data is now the norm.

"Rights owners are starting to use piracy insights effectively to help support their digital strategy, and we’re seeing huge benefit now across the TV and live broadcast industry in particular, which has such geographic-specific rights," says MUSO's Chief Commercial Officer Christopher Elkins.

"For us, it's incredibly encouraging to see the creative ways the content industry are using data to ultimately serve a better experience for audiences," added Elkins.