As 2011 concluded, problems with unpaid bills continued to pile up for copyright lawsuit filer Righthaven LLC of Las Vegas.
Records Saturday showed Righthaven has been sued by its own process server and also faces a request by defense attorneys that it be found in contempt of court.
Righthaven is the copyright enforcement partner of the Las Vegas Review-Journal and formerly of the Denver Post.
Righthaven is half owned by the family of billionaire Arkansas investment banker Warren Stephens, who owns the Las Vegas Review-Journal through his Stephens Media LLC company.
Stephens made headlines this week when his majority-owned Halifax Media Holdings LLC agreed to buy 16 newspapers around the country from the New York Times Co. for about $143 million.
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Global software piracy reached a record figure of $59 billion last year, a new study from the Business Software Alliance has found.
That figure represents a 14 percent increase compared with 2009 and a doubling since 2003, the trade group said today. Forty-two percent of PC software was pirated worldwide last year, the group added, down one point from the previous year.
“The software industry is being robbed blind,” BSA CEO Robert Holleyman said in a statement. “Nearly $59 billion worth of products were stolen last year–and the rates of theft are completely out of control in the world’s fastest-growing markets.”
The Business Software Alliance operates on behalf of the software industry. Its members include Adobe Systems, Apple, Microsoft, and Symantec.
Emerging markets are the most troublesome for software makers, with the majority of all software piracy–$32 billion worth–occurring in those markets. In 2010, the BSA said, 50 percent of all PCs shipped around the world went to emerging markets. However, less than 20 percent of all paid software license revenue came from those areas.
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The Department of Homeland Security has requested that Mozilla, the maker of the Firefox browser, remove an add-on that allows web surfers to access websites whose domain names were seized by the government for copyright infringement, Mozilla’s lawyer said Thursday.
But Mozilla did not remove the MafiaaFire add-on, and instead has demanded the government explain why it should. Two weeks have passed, and the government has not responded to Mozilla’s questions, including whether the government considers the add-on unlawful and whether Mozilla is “legally obligated” to remove it. The DHS has also not provided the organization with a court order requiring its removal, the lawyer said.
“One of the fundamental issues here is under what conditions do intermediaries accede to government requests that have a censorship effect and which may threaten the open internet,” Harvey Anderson, Mozilla’s lawyer, wrote Thursday on his blog.
Neither Homeland Security nor Anderson immediately responded for comment.
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A possible landmark ruling in one of the mass-BitTorrent lawsuits in the U.S. may spell the end of the “pay-up-or-else-schemes” that have targeted over 100,000 Internet users in the last year. District Court Judge Harold Baker has denied a copyright holder the right to subpoena the ISPs of alleged copyright infringers, because an IP-address does not equal a person.
In the last year various copyright holders have sued well over 100,000 alleged file-sharers in the United States alone. The purpose of these lawsuits is to obtain the personal details of the alleged infringers, and use this information to negotiate a settlement offer ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars.
Lawyers, the public and consumer advocacy groups have compared these practices to extortion, but nonetheless new cases are still being filed every month. This week, however, an interesting ruling was handed down by District Court Judge Harold Baker that, if adopted by other judges, may become a major roadblock for similar mass-lawsuits.
In the case VPR Internationale v. Does 1-1017, the judge denied the Canadian adult film company access to subpoena ISPs for the personal information connected to the IP-addresses of their subscribers. The reason? IP-addresses do not equal persons, and especially in ‘adult entertainment’ cases this could obstruct a ‘fair’ legal process.
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The Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) recently released the results of its review of “notorious markets.” The results identify marketplaces both online and in various locations associated with counterfeiting and piracy enforcement actions.
The notorious markets include the Web site Baidu, which was recently ranked the number one most visited site in China and is among the top ten sites in the world. The site contains links to online locations that contain counterfeit or copyright-infringed items.
According to the press release that accompanied the release of the report:
“Piracy and counterfeiting undermine the innovation and creativity that is vital to our global competitiveness. These notorious markets not only hurt American workers and businesses, but are threats to entrepreneurs and industries around the world,” said United States Trade Representative Ron Kirk. “The review we are announcing today shines a light on examples of many offending markets, and highlights an opportunity to work together with our trading partners to curb illicit trade and expand legitimate commerce in creative and innovative industries.”
Among the notorious markets that have brick and mortar locations is the Silk Market in Beijing.
The USTR and the U.S. government are consulting U.S. trading partners to crack down on counterfeiting and piracy. One such plan with the government of Ukraine was recently announced with the intention of acting against mp3 sites.
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New York City has almost anything you could want; delicious food, amazing arts, and….knockoff handbags? For those of us who have lived in a big city, there is usually a place in town where fake Gucci or Louis Vutton bags are sold. Creating and selling these fake items are not only morally wrong, but are likely to bring criminal charges. The people who buy these bags are generally left alone; however, New York City’s council member Margaret Chin wants to put a real stop to this practice. Chin wants to criminalize the purchase of fake and trademarked items by charging those who purchase these items with up to a year in jail or a $1,000 fine. The caveat to this law is that it only targets those who know that the goods they are purchasing are counterfeit. (from WSJ)
The reasoning behind this law is clear, roughly $1billion is lost in taxes alone every year because of the counterfeit goods. In a 2004 report, the city Comptroller found that 8% of the $287billion counterfeit goods sold in the United States were sold in New York City alone.
Why Are Counterfeit Items Illegal?
The crux of this new law is punishing those who know they are buying a counterfeit bag, but continue to purchase the bag anyway. This raises the simple question: Why are counterfeit items illegal? Most people would prefer to have the real thing, especially if it is of better quality, but yet, they’re illegal. The reason for this is somewhat simple, the government wants to promote creative endeavors and allow people to protect their creations. Generally, when you create a new product or idea, you either patent it or trademark it (depending on what it is). This patent or trademark gives you the sole right to produce, sell, or license your item (it basically gives you a monopoly for a certain amount of time). However, anytime someone creates a counterfeit, it is considered either patent infringement or trademark infringement.
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This country has a deep and rich history of developing innovative products and groundbreaking inventions that have helped to shape our world. Intellectual property is one of America’s greatest assets and protection of these assets is vital to our economy, our health, and our legacy.
Today, as we recognize the 11th Annual World Intellectual Property Day, we celebrate the creativity and innovation of American music, literature, film, art and the inventive spirit that have set this country apart. The growth of new technologies, increased broadband access to the Internet and global manufacturing distribution channels provide increasing opportunities to market American products and creative content around the world.
Yet, on this day we must also recognize that there are those who exploit these same technological advances to profit illegally from the hard work of American authors, artists and inventors through criminal copyright infringement, trademark counterfeiting, trade secret theft, economic espionage, and other intellectual property (IP) offenses.
Unfortunately, criminals rely upon American consumers to buy their counterfeit goods. According to recent research from the National Crime Prevention Council, most Americans do not fully understand the scope or consequences of intellectual property crime and are susceptible to being swayed by the lure of a bargain, especially in these tough economic times.
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The White House’s top intellectual property official wants stiffer prison sentences for those found guilty of crimes such as selling counterfeit goods for military or law enforcement use, and she also wants illegal streaming of online content to be made a felony level crime when appropriate.
The recommendations were among a set of 20 suggestions Victoria Espinel made to Congress on Tuesday.
Espinel called on lawmakers to pass legislation requiring tougher sentences for organized crime groups and gangs that deal in counterfeit goods or commit other IP crimes, as well as for repeat offenders.
“Because of the high profit margin and shorter prison sentence for intellectual property crimes compared to other offenses, piracy and counterfeiting are a strong lure to organized criminal enterprises, which can use infringement as a revenue source to fund their other unlawful activities,” Espinel wrote in a blog post Tuesday.
She also wants lawmakers to enact longer sentences for people who transfer trade secrets outside of the U.S. or peddle counterfeit drugs.
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Falling DVD sales and piracy of movies is leading to renewed calls by Hollywood for new technologies to prevent unauthorised distribution of their intellectual properties.
A recent study by Adams Media Research found that DVD sales declined by 27 per cent since the heady days in 2004 when sales reached $12 billion worldwide.
To boost falling revenues and protect content, studios are “exploring on-demand delivery of theatre movies direct to consumers’ homes, confident that the service will not impact traditional theatre movies and DVD releases — that is, unless the business model is disrupted by piracy,” says global security software security firm Irdeto.
To prevent illegal viewing of pirated satellite signals around the globe, Irdeto has patented new “watermarking technology for set-top boxes.”
The company said that “studios are requiring additional security measures to mitigate potential threats of piracy and new software must be deployed to every set-top box offering early release entertainment.”
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Piracy worries and BitTorrent lawsuits have made their way into the generally very liberal anime industry. Last week, the producers of the new anime series Fractale told distributor Funimation to stop the online broadcast of the their show in the United States over piracy concerns, and a few days later Funimation announced a lawsuit against 1337 alleged BitTorrent downloaders.
Piracy is an issue that is troubling many content publishers worldwide, but the responses to copyright infringement differ from company to company. A great example of how not to stop piracy was made by the the producers of the new Anime series Fractale last week.
In an attempt to stop the illicit distribution of the series, the American anime distributor Funimation was ordered by Fractale’s production company to stop the online broadcast of the series on Hulu. The producers wanted Funimation to get rid of all pirated copies online before the broadcast could continue.
An interesting take on how piracy should be dealt with, and arguably one of the worst things a company can do to stop illicit copies from appearing online. Since the broadcast ban was limited to the US but not Europe, it only created an increased demand for pirated copies, while it did little to stop illegal copies from showing up online.
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If there was ever any doubt that the war on piracy was going to escalate this year, just look at how a new study out last week from research firm MonitorMark was received.
Sponsored by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the study found that 21 billion of the 53 billion visits per year that come to sites identified as sources of copyright-infringing content were concentrated among just three companies: Rapidshare(), Megavideo and MegaUpload(). Not long after the Motion Picture Association of America issued a press release hailing the study, Rapidshare threatened to sue MonitorMark for defamation, while MegaUpload dismissed it as “overblown allegations.”
The dueling rhetoric underscores the sensitivity over a very distinct shift away from the Bittorrent sites where the rate of piracy has leveled off, to a new breed of file-hosting websites that are seeing explosive growth. That shift has necessitated a redrawing of content owners’ battle plans. Here’s a look at the likeliest new fronts in the war on piracy in 2011.
File hosting sites come in a few different flavors. There are cyberlockers, which provide cloud-based storage to consumers who pay monthly fees to store what the studios claim is an ungodly trove of copyrighted content. Companies like Rapidshare would beg to differ, depicting themselves as legitimate companies that are working on ridding their sites of what little pirated content they host.
There are also linking sites, which provide users with links to either stream or download content but don’t actually host that content. And then there are storefronts, which essentially provide both hosting and linking, sometimes with interfaces so slick they can fool unsuspecting customers into thinking they are legit.
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My wife and I sat cross-legged on the floor of a local Barnes & Noble store recently, surrounded by several large piles of books. We were searching for interior design ideas for a new home that we are planning to buy.
As we lobbed the books back and forth, sharing kitchen layouts and hardwood floor textures, we snapped a dozen pictures of book pages with our iPhones. We wanted to share them later with our contractor.
After a couple of hours of this, we placed the books back on the shelf and went home, without buying a thing. But the digital images came home with us in our smartphones.
Later that evening, I felt a few pangs of guilt. I asked my wife: Did we do anything wrong? And, I wondered, had we broken any laws by photographing those pages?
It’s not as if we had destroyed anything: We didn’t rip out any pages. But if we had wheeled a copier machine into the store, you can be sure the management would have soon wheeled us and the machine out of there.
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