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Tracking Oscar screener piracy, the 2013 edition

Xeni Jardin — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 20:01:21 +0000

Since 2003, Waxy.org's Andy Baio has been documenting evidence of pirated/leaked Oscars screeners— in other words, copies of nominated films sent to Academy Awards voters which then make their way on to filesharing networks. The 2013 edition of his spreadsheet is out. He'll post analysis tomorrow. "Most shocking find so far," he tweets, "The Les Misérables screener hasn't leaked online yet. Everyone knows pirates love musicals!"

Thoughts from a Japanese Media Pirate

Japanese Media Pirate — Wed, 17 Oct 2012 05:34:58 +0000

The following was submitted for publication by a reader who asked to remain anonymous — Rob

I just finished Pirate Cinema and felt the need to write something about it, because it concerns a cause that's near to my heart. I saw myself in protagonist Trent McCauley, who makes new movies by chopping up footage from popular films, despite the consequences of getting his Internet taken away or being fined or imprisoned in the book's near-future scenario.

This is because I do the same thing. I'm one of those people who remixes different media and posts the finished pieces online. I combine Japanese television dramas, films, PVs, and clips from variety shows with mostly American songs, however, because I like the contrast of Japanese visual media with American music.

When Trent talks about seeing a film in your head and needing to make it and put it out there, I know exactly what he means. I recognize the same need in myself. Once, for a two-year period, I had a music video in my head for the Japanese drama Honey and Clover, set to The Swell Season's Falling Slowly. I created what I envisioned, and to this day, I still love watching it because I'm proud of what I created. It's something I made to convey a certain feeling, and even after making it with that feeling in mind, what resulted was a layered piece with unexpected themes running through it.

The way I obtain Japanese media is through the net and through sharing with other fans. I'm not clear on international copyright law, but I know that some kind of law is being broken when we download these videos. For now, with us fans and our fandoms, it's a very gray area. The Japanese companies know that we share videos, but they don't do much to stop it. The worst they usually do is shut down a streaming video site where these shows are hosted.

For those that do English subtitles for Japanese media, there is always a battle between those creating the videos, who offer the work for download free-of-charge, and the streaming sites who take the files without permission, post them to their own websites, and receive revenue through advertising. It's not that subbers want a cut of the profits; they simply don't want for-profit streaming sites to draw corporate attention to their work. By posting the videos to a streaming site, Japanese companies can see the encoded logos on the videos and then order those groups to shut down their operations even though those groups do not make any money from their works.

When MegaUpload was shut down, the Japanese media fan community was in an uproa, as it was our main way to directly share our sources and creations. Patchy torrents are now all that remains, along with a handful of somewhat reliable cloud servers. Those aren't even guaranteed, and in the bleakest of moments we worry that we'll have to resort to the days of recording to video or DVD and sharing videos that way.

We're slowly rebuilding, but we've been hit hard. All of our archives are gone. Communities that had thrived for years—places you might find a long-forgotted drama from 1987—are gone. The videos that I had made and hosted on MegaVideo are gone. All of the files I'd hosted and provided for people are gone. Even the ones I had created myself, for classwork and without any copyrighted material, are gone. They exist only offline, in random external drives, where they cannot be shared.

This isn't to oppose copyright. I agree that we need copyright law, but also that we should have access to everything. I'm all for supporting artists and buying their work, but is anyone suffering for the existence of mashups? Personally, I feel for my parents, who live week-to-week on my Dad's garment factory paycheck (where he makes jeans for less than $10 a pair, which end up priced at $300 in the store) supplemented by odd jobs my mom takes up. They're suffering too. Can you say the suffering of media companies is equivalent? I don't think so. I think we should be able to use these things the way we want to.

I know a lot of people who would be happy to have an all-inclusive Japanese media archive and wouldn't mind paying a small fee for access to everything. Wouldn't it be great to see Japanese dramas and films licensed in much the same way as anime site Crunchyroll? It started out hosting media without permission from any rightsholders, but went on to build good relationships with them. They used to be a streaming site for Asian dramas, films, and anime, but after going legit, the focus is now on anime. They have some dramas, but few popular or well-known dramas that are in high demand.

I plan to support this stance and hope that, in the near future, we can make it a reality.

Better services, less piracy

Rob Beschizza — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 14:06:58 +0000

John Brownlee on why he stopped pirating music:

It’s clear to me, in retrospect, that my piracy was mostly mere collecting, and like the most fetishistic of collectors, it was conducted with mindless voracity. A good collection is supposed to be made up of relics, items that conjure up memories, feelings and ideas for the owner so strongly that he gets pleasure in simply being in close contact with them. A tended garden. My collection was nothing like this: it was just a red weed, swallowing up and corroding anything I did care about within its indiscriminating mass.

tl;dr newer streaming/subscription services, such as Spotify and Rdio, have nailed it.

92 year old WWII vet is DVD bootlegger who sent 300,000 pirated discs to US troops

Xeni Jardin — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 20:30:54 +0000

photo: Todd Heisler/The New York Times

The New York Times has a profile of Long Island resident Hyman Strachman, "a 92-year-old, 5-foot-5 World War II veteran trying to stay busy after the death of his wife."

He is one of the world's most prolific movie bootleggers, and has shipped hundreds of thousands of discs to US troops stationed overseas, at great personal expense. The man doesn't exactly fit the MPAA's pirate stereotype, in age, appearance, or motivation. Better still, who helped him distribute the copied DVDs to soldiers? Army chaplains.

Snip:

“It’s not the right thing to do, but I did it,” Mr. Strachman said, acknowledging that his actions violated copyright law. “If I were younger,” he added, “maybe I’d be spending time in the hoosegow.”

And of course you want to know what the MPAA says about the nonagenarian widower megapirate!

Howard Gantman, a spokesman for the Motion Picture Association of America, said he did not believe its member studios were aware of Mr. Strachman’s operation. His sole comment dripped with the difficulty of going after a 92-year-old widower supporting the troops.
“We are grateful that the entertainment we produce can bring some enjoyment to them while they are away from home,” Mr. Gantman said.

..through clenched jaw, no doubt.

It's a terrific piece, and you'll want to click through to see the wonderful accompanying photos, and hear audio of "Big Hy" speaking.

Creative Suite 6 subscription plans announced

Rob Beschizza — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 14:44:43 +0000

Adobe's Creative Suite is to become an $80-a-month subscription service, with discounts for people who accept annual contracts: just like cellphones! Thankfully, you can still buy the retail version of the suite in various pre-set bundles: just like cable television!

... the company expects that most of its users will slowly migrate to the subscription service over time. In Adobe’s view, this gives users more flexibility to use apps when they need them ... while Morris stressed that the subscription service shouldn’t be seen solely as a way to combat piracy, he did acknowledge that it has the potential to help Adobe with its piracy problem.

If we have to ruin our product to stop people pirating it, by God we will do just that. [Frederic Lardinois at TechCrunch]

Infringe-a-licious Tokyo tee: best Star Wars shirt ever?

Xeni Jardin — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 02:03:16 +0000

Writer and comics creator Brian Michael Bendis (Twitter) is in Tokyo, and tweeted a series of infringment-spotting snapshots today. The Stormtrooper/Star Wars shirt he found and photographed, above, makes me weep with desire.

British admin for download links database may be first extradited to US for copyright charges

Xeni Jardin — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 06:54:35 +0000

No British citizen has ever been extradited to the United States for a copyright offense. But Richard O'Dwyer, the 23-year-old college student who ran TV Shack, may become the first.

As I understand it, the charges aren't that his (very popular) site actually hosted the copyrighted content, but that it served as a directory of links to other servers online where those downloads could be found.

Torrentfreak has more on the legal battle. The lawyer for accused hacker Gary McKinnon, whom the US would also like to extradite for prosecution, is representing O'Dwyer. They lost their first round in the extradition case today, and have 14 days to appeal.

Here is a copy of Friday's ruling (PDF).

In this BBC video of a press briefing outside of court today, a reporter asks O'Dwyer if he believes he's done anything wrong by linking people to sites where there is infringing content. "I think you should ask Google the same question," he replies. "[They're doing what I'm doing] on a much grander scale."

I admire his taste in t-shirts to wear to one's day in court.

If you visit any of the domains previously used to host TV Shack, you'll see the US Government notice above, which gives way after a click to this cheesy PSA.

Update: Boing Boing reader Keith Irwin has a great comment in the thread below, with an astute point I neglected to make in the original post:

[T]his sets a terrible precedent. If a UK citizen can be extradited to the US because of the content of their web pages hosted in the UK, why wouldn't US citizens be able to be extradited to Thailand on charges of disrespecting the king or to China for undermining the government by being critical of it? To even press this case at all shows either a fundamental undervaluing of the freedom of speech of everyone, including US citizens, or, more likely, a belief in the most fundamental of American hypocrisies: the idea that the rules that the US applies to the rest of the world shouldn't be applied to the US.

Invincible scorpion punishes Serious Sam pirates

Rob Beschizza — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 16:43:49 +0000

Those who pirate Croteam's Serious Sam 3 are in for a surprise. Instead of shutting you down with DRM, the game forces you to do battle with an invincible giant scorpion, dual-wielding assault rifles.

FBI Anti-Piracy warning may now be used by just anyone

Rob Beschizza — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 17:34:03 +0000

You know that unskippable government warning on DVDs, which only big media corporations may use? The FBI's anti-piracy imprimatur may now be used by any copyright holder, not just members of trade associations such as the RIAA and MPAA. It is currently a violation of federal law to use the anti-piracy insignia if you are not one of them. [Wired]