The MPAA, RIAA and other entertainment industry groups want people to believe that piracy is the result of people’s greed and refusal to pay. A recent experiment by Wolfire Games sheds another light on this argument, as they found out that even a penny can be too much.
Two nights ago, LCD Soundsystem played a secret show in New York. On stage, frontman James Murphy said that fans could copy their new album, but pleaded with anyone in the audience who may have an advance copy not to leak it before the release date. Unfortunately the plea either fell on deaf ears, or was just made in the wrong place to the wrong people.
An Italian minister has stirred up controversy by not only criticizing the efforts of the French to disconnect file-sharers from the Internet, but by also admitting he’s a pirate himself. Interior Minister Roberto Maroni, a musician in a band, believes the solution to online file-sharing lies in a compromise, where music is paid for by advertisers and sponsors
Geremi Adam, a member of the movie release group ‘maVen’ who was sentenced to two and a half months in prison recently, has died from a suspected drugs overdose. According to his partner, Adam started taking morphine while trying to cope with the stresses of prison life. The signs are that his habit could have killed him.
As mass file-sharing litigation lawsuits go inter-continental, not everyone is proud to be associated with this type of work. Lawyers Tilly Bailey & Irvine in the UK have been hard at work this month, editing large chunks of their own Wikipedia page in an attempt to hide their involvement and also earning themselves a copyright infringement warning.
The Pirate Party of the UK has released its list of candidates for the forthcoming national elections. The ten candidates, spread across England and Scotland, were announced by the party executives earlier this week, along with a plea for funding to help contest the election.
Warner Bros Entertainment UK is recruiting tech-savvy students to help the company with their anti-piracy efforts. During the 12 month internship the students will have to maintain accounts at private BitTorrent sites, develop link-scanning bots, make trap purchases and perform various other anti-piracy tasks.
In a desperate cry for media attention, the filmmakers behind the flopped Danish movie Winnie & Karina have accused Piratgruppen of stealing their film. In two libelous press releases they fabricated a piracy threat from the local group of copyright critics, hoping to draw attention to the upcoming DVD-release.
After an ISP refused to hand over the identity of a customer to anti-piracy lawyers who claim him to be the first uploader of a pre-release movie, they took the case to court. Shrouded in secrecy the case is heading for the Supreme Court but even if the anti-piracy group wins, they’re going to get the ID of the wrong guy.
The Web-Sheriff has made quite a name for himself, targeting dozens of torrent sites in recent years for clients such as Prince, Michael Jackson and The Village People. This week, however, a painful mistake was made when the anti-pirate tried to take down a torrent from Legit Torrents.
