Tag Archives: enforcement

Meganomics: The Future of ???Follow-the-Money??? Copyright Enforcement

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Addendum: Regarding the monetary harm of Megaupload???s activities, the Justice Department characterized it, without explanation, as ???well in excess of $500,000,000??? since 2006. And although that number is probably meant to impress, it???s somewhat baffling. Even without a per annum breakdown, it comes nowhere near the annual piracy losses claimed by the major industry groups???whether the BSA???s $58 billion loss claims for software losses in 2010 or the ???conservative??? $26 billion estimate for movie, music, and software piracy from 2007, which lazy journalists still allow to circulate. This for the site that MPAA called ???By all estimates??? the largest and most active criminally operated website targeting creative content in the world.???

Since we???re using made up numbers here, let???s make up some more???and for the sake of argument, some extremely favorable ones for the Justice Department???s effort to paint Megaupload as the big bad. Posit that all $500 million in losses came in 2011. Posit the $26 billion loss number. Megaupload???s contribution to the pirate economy tops out at 2%.

via torrentfreak.com

“meant to impress” with little other value.

Two lessons from the Megaupload seizure

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But just as the celebrations began over the saving of Internet Freedom, something else happened: the U.S. Justice Department not only indicted the owners of one of the world???s largest websites, the file-sharing site Megaupload, but also seized and shut down that site, and also seized or froze millions of dollars of its assets ??? all based on the unproved accusations, set forth in an indictment, that the site deliberately aided copyright infringement.

In other words, many SOPA opponents were confused and even shocked when they learned that the very power they feared the most in that bill ??? the power of the U.S. Government to seize and shut down websites based solely on accusations, with no trial ??? is a power the U.S. Government already possesses and, obviously, is willing and able to exercise even against the world???s largest sites (they have this power thanks to the the 2008  PRO-IP Act pushed by the same industry servants in Congress behind SOPA as well as by forfeiture laws used to seize the property of accused-but-not-convicted drug dealers).

via salon.com

MEGAUPLOAD IS BACK, NEW MEGAUPLOAD SITE – The leading online storage and file delivery service –

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WE DON’T HAVE ANY DOMAIN NAME FOR NOW
ONLY THIS IP ADDRESS (http://109.236.83.66) BEWARE TO THE PISHING SITES!
This is the NEW MEGAUPLOAD SITE! we are working to be back full again
Bookmark the site and share the new address in facebook and twitter!

via 109.236.83.66

Yeah, right.

But it does illustrate the vulnerabilities that can be introduced. After all, innocent until proven guilty, but not in these prior restraint cases of course, one must stop that US$500,000,000 pain to the Cartel.

My Letter to the Internet – Senator Ron Wyden

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The Internet has become an integral part of everyday life precisely because it has been an open-to-all land of opportunity where entrepreneurs, thinkers and innovators are free to try, fail and then try again.  The Internet has changed the way we communicate with each other, the way we learn about the world and the way we conduct business.  It has done this by eliminating the tollgates, middle men, and other barriers to entry that have so often predetermined winners and losers in the marketplace.  It has created a world where ideas, products and creative expression have an opportunity regardless of who offers them or where they originate.

Protect IP (PIPA) and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) are a step towards a different kind of Internet.  They are a step towards an Internet in which those with money and lawyers and access to power have a greater voice than those who don???t.  They are a step towards an Internet in which online innovators need lawyers as much or more than they need good ideas.  And they are a step towards a world in which Americans have less of a voice to argue for a free and open Internet around the world.

via wyden.senate.gov

Not all bad.

SOPA on the ropes? Bipartisan alternative to ‘Net censorship emerges

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One promising alternative was unveiled today by a bipartisan group of 10 senators and representatives. It ditches the ???law and order??? approach to piracy and replaces it with a more limited, trade-based system. 

And the legislators behind it have put out a draft of the idea for public comment before they even begin drawing up actual legislation. (Does the Smoky Back Room industry know about this threatening behavior?)

via arstechnica.com

Alternative, or the pre-planned fall back. A comparative voice of sweet reason after the extreme first position was advanced as a stalking horse?

The $500,000,000 Cost of Google???s Five Million DMCA Notices

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If I told you that the DMCA notice system at Google alone was taking $500,000,000 a year out of the already beaten down global creative community, would you say that is such a staggering sum it can???t be right?  I think you???ll find that number is actually a low estimate based on Google???s own figures.  It makes a $100 million advance for licensing to Google Music look like chump change because it is.

via musictechpolicy.wordpress.com