Have any suggestions for the 3 Count? Let me know via Twitter @plagiarismtoday.

1: Poland Signs International Copyright Treaty That Has Sparked Days of Protests

First off today, Poland, along with a series of other EU countries including Finland, France, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Romania and Greece, signed the controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) despite protests in many of the countries. The agreement seeks to harmonize piracy and counterfeit enforcement between various countries and has been previously signed by the United States, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. The protests have been particularly strong in Poland where thousands took to the streets in protests and denial of service attacks shuttered many of the country’s key government sites.

2: Copyright & ‘Piracy’ Measure Published

Next up today, Ireland has introduced its new anti-piracy legislation which is aimed at enabling copyright holders to more strongly enforce their rights against foreign sites. This is done through a legal regime that allows rightsholders to get courts to order ISPs in the country to block access to certain infringing sites. However, the similarities between it and the Stop Online Piracy Act in the U.S., which was recently shelved, has earned it the name “Ireland’s SOPA” and helped spark protests. However, ministers in Ireland say that the law is required by a set of EU directives and that the checks and balances in the law are different than SOPA. Furthermore, according to Ireland, other nations have implemented the same directives without issue.

3: Jailbreaking Exemption to DMCA is About to Expire, EFF Would Rather it Didn’t

Finally today, the exemptions to the DMCA to enable users to jailbreak their phones may expire shortly. Under the DMCA, the breaking of DRM and copyright protection schemes is generally prohibited save under exemptions approved by the U.S. Copyright Office. As part of the U.S. Copyright Office’s anti-circumvention rule making, which takes place every three years, the exemption may expire shortly. However, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and other groups are making a concerted push to both extend and expand the exemption, which they see as valuable for consumer rights.

Suggestions

That’s it for the three count today. We will be back tomorrow with three more copyright links. If you have a link that you want to suggest a link for the column or have any proposals to make it better. Feel free to leave a comment or send me an email. I hope to hear from you.

Want the Full Story?

Tune in every Wednesday evening at 5 PM ET for the live recording of the Copyright 2.0 Show or wait and get the edited version Friday right here on Plagiarism Today.

The 3 Count Logo was created by Justin Goff and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License.

The cyberlocker scene, for the lack of a better word, is a bloodbath and it doesn’t show signs of letting up in the immediate future.

However, for right now, here’s a sample of what’s going on as of today, January 24th.

(Please note that this list is the most complete I can make it, if I don’t provide a particular link for a claim, I got the information from the above Torrentfreak article or the comments. Leave further sites to list in the comments and I will add them to the list.)

Shut Down

• x7.to
• Uploadbox
• PDFCHM
• Enterupload (link)
• Minichan (Disabled upload service)

Stopping 3rd Party Sharing

• Filesonic
• Fileserve
• Filejungle
• Uploadstation

Widespread Banning and/or Deletion (Reported)

• Hotfile
• Mediafire (link)
• Filepost
• Library.nu
• Oron

Ending Affiliate Program (Rewards for Uploaders)

• 4shared
• Filesonic
• Fileserve
• VideoBB
• VideoXer
• FileJungle
• UploadStation
• FilePost

Blocking US IP Addresses

• uploaded.to

What’s clear from this ever-growing list is that the cyberlocker scene is in full-on panic mode. The shuttering of Megaupload and the arrests of its owner and employees has shaken the industry deeply. Only two sites, Mediafire and Rapidshare, have remained truly defiant saying that they are legitimate businesses not built on the backs of piracy (though, as the list above shows, Mediafire has apparently been involved in some mass-deletions).

So what does this shakeup mean for the cyberlocker scene and, more importantly, for you both as a user and a content creator who may have been infringed using one of these services? The answers are still being settled but there are a few things we can be certain of now.

What’s Happening to the Cyberlockers?

Over the past few years, the cyberlocker scene has grown by leaps and bounds. Again, acccording to Torrentfreak, in August of 2011, 7 of the 10 largest file sharing sites were cyberlockers, including four that were larger than The Pirate Bay. However, these were just the tip of the iceberg as the cyberlocker scene had also grown wildly in the number of sites with literally hundreds of smaller and often fly-by-night competitors opening and closing.

This growth was propelled by affiliate programs that rewarded uploaders for files that were downloaded m large number of times. While it didn’t matter what the file was, meaning it could be a legitimate file, the most popular content on these services tended to be infringing content, in particular from major copyright holders. These programs helped not only ensure a steady stream of incoming files to share, but a built-in promotion engine that drew links to these sites.

Though some of these sites have attempted to be as legitimate as possible, many, if not most, attempted to straddle the line between what was legal and illegal. As I pointed out in my previous article on Megauploads DMCA policies, this would often involve deceptive tactics to avoid fully removing infringing work, not banning repeat infringers and more according to the indictment.

However, with the closure of Megaupload, the practices of the industry are under a very intense microscope. After all, Megaupload was not just another file sharing service, it was the leader at the time. This has left many of the other services to wonder if they might be next.

The problem is that, all we have against Megaupload is an indictment, not a court ruling. Without a ruling, there’s no way to know what, if anything, Megaupload did that was actually illegal. As such, the other sites are merely guessing as to what they need to do to stay out of the crosshairs of the FBI and other government agencies.

This, in turn, is causing a period of great turmoil where it seems to be “every man for himself” in the industry and everyone is doing what they think is best for their site and their business.

What This Means for Cyberlocker Users

If you’re a user of cyberlocker sites, whether for legitimate or unlawful purposes, the immediate future is one of great turmoil. Even the services that don’t appear to be affected right now are, almost certainly, paying much closer attention to things behind the scenes and will be working more actively to address copyright issues. Likewise, many others are still likely getting legal advice and may be making decisions over the next week or two.

In short, these are mostly just the sites that made immediate reactions, other changes and shifts are likely to follow.

While the situation will settle down some in the coming weeks, there won’t be any real resolution or stability until the Megaupload case produces some precedent, offering some practical guidance to similar sites.

In the meantime, these sites know they are under the gun of various government agencies around the world and that their file sharing scene is very much vulnerable to government action.

What This Means for Content Creators

For content creators, large and small, who are working to get unlawful content off of cyberlocker and other file sharing sites, you’ll most likely find that the companies behind these sites are a bit more cooperative than usual. Not only are they proactively deleting infringing content in many cases, but I expect most will pay closer attention to their takedown processes.

The longer-term impact is going to depend on what happens with the Megaupload case once it reaches court. Given the resources available to Dotcom and his company, it seems likely that they will put up a good fight. Even if they end up losing, any points they win on could become green lights for the rest of the industry.

However, in the mean time, we are going to see a divide in this industry, or rather, the sharpening of an existing divide. There’s going to be a growing division between the sites that work to remain legal and those that openly flout the law. We are already seeing this somewhat with the building of a cyberlocker by supporters of Anonymous and we’re likely to see others jump in as well.

Simply put, as Dotcom proved, the money is simply too good to stay away and others will inevitably jump in while taking extra precautions to avoid Megaupload’s fate. In that regard, the cyberlocker industry will largely mirror Bittorrent sites, which followed a same pattern following a series of Bittorrent raids and seizures in the early-to-mid 2000s.

In short, if you’re planning a major anti-piracy campaign that involves working with cyberlockers, now is likely the best time to get started.

Bottom Line

To be clear, this is not the death of cyberlockers, not for legitimate uses and not for piracy. While it’s true that methods of swapping files have come in and out of vogue over the years, the old methods are still around. People currently trade files regularly on Usenet and even buy bootleg DVDs, there’s no reason why this method of file sharing will go away.

The only thing that’s going to push it into the background is a different method of sharing content that is designed to address the issues with cyberlockers. While there’s nothing on the immediate horizon, as the Napster shutdown showed, a new solution is never far behind. So, even if cyberlockers are fundamentally weakened to the point of near-uselessness, it will only be the calm before the next storm.

The best thing any content creator can do is not look at what happened yesterday but focus on what’s going on today and what will likely be going on tomorrow. That’s the only way to get even remotely ahead of this never-ending curve.

Panic Button Photo Credit: BigStockPhoto.com

The move’s timing one day after the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) blackout protests have put this takedown in the spotlight, both as alleged evidence that the act, and its sister act Protect IP (PIPA), were unnecessary, but also dangerous.

However, with the 72-page indictment against Megaupload made public, we have a deeper look at the operations of the controversial site and, for many of us, confirmation that Megaupload appeared to be knowingly and deliberately running a operation that supported piracy.

One of the more interesting elements of the indictment, however, looks squarely at Megaupload’s response to DMCA notices and, specifically, the various ways that it would attempt to thwart DMCA takedowns. These methods not only included selective cooperation with DMCA notices, but also a technical workaround that ensured it was almost impossible to completely remove content from the service.

To understand how this worked, you have to look a bit deeper at the internal workings of Megaupload and how the DMCA filing system worked.

Three People, One File

To understand the problem, let’s play out a simplified scenario that happened regularly on the site.

Three people all want to make the same movie available for distribution using Megaupload. Each upload a copy of the movie to the service and receive a separate access link to it. However, Megaupload, not wanting to waste file storage space, takes a hash of each file and realizes that they are identical. So, rather than storing three copies of the file, all three links point to the same file on their servers.

This is a common practice among file storage serves and even Dropbox does something similar to both speed up uploads and avoid storing duplicate files.

The problem, however, is what would happen when a copyright holder would file a DMCA takedown notice. Rather than, as the law says, disabling access to the infringing work, Megaupload would simply disable the link specifically mentioned in the takedown notice.

The result is that, though the infringing work would appear to have been removed, only the specific link mentioned would have been taken down and all other links to the file would remain valid even though Megaupload had been put on notice that the file itself was infringing. Copyright holders, however, would likely be unaware of this and would just assume that the other links were separate uploads of the file.

As such, it was almost impossible for a copyright holder to remove all “instances” of a file on the service and Megaupload worked to keep as much infringing content up on their service as possible.

This, in turn, was likely a big part of why Megaupload was so popular among pirates.

How Other Cyberlockers Handle Takedown Notices

The reason this is a problem for copyright holders is that most don’t file DMCA notices against a link, but against a file. However, Megaupload would not remove the actual file and, instead, just disabled the link. To the filer, it would appear that the takedown notice was successful even though the file still remained, it’s just that the known link was disabled.

Unfortunately, there isn’t much that a copyright holder can do about this, especially a smaller one. Megaupload, before its closure, got to keep files infringing files available to pirates and save on storage costs all the while appearing to be compliant with the DMCA when, in truth, they were not.

This, of course, turns the attention of copyright holders (and the government) to other cyberlocker-style sites that, almost certainly, have a similar hashing system to reduce storage costs and could easily use the same trick to limit the effectiveness of takedown notices.

To find out how they handled DMCA takedown notices, I contacted half a dozen different cyberlocker services to find out if their system was similar to Megaupload’s. However, as of this writing only two responded and neither were very straightforward with their replies.

Rapidshare, in addition to attaching a broader statement about Megaupload, said the following:

RapidShare employs an anti-abuse team which is responsible for obtaining information on illegal files from rights holders or third parties, carries out independent searches for illegal files, deletes from the servers any files which infringe copyright, and if necessary, blocks user accounts. RapidShare has also introduced a registration process which customers have to complete, anonymous uploads are not allowed any more.

Likewise, Depositfiles chimed in and said:

We are highly concerned by the criminalization of otherwise civil offence. We are looking thoroughly into the case as creating a precedent will change the whole nature of internet services including major fields of hosting, billing and advertizing (sic).

At the moment we may state that our technical platform and communication model is completely dissimilar to Megaupload’s. Sadly at the time of unease we cannot disclose any additional details for publication.

I will add other hosts’ response if and when they arrive.

Bottom Line

All in all, what this means is simple. When you file a DMCA takedown notice, even if the notice appears to be complied with, it doesn’t always mean that the content is truly gone. Though Megaupload appears to be the exception in this area, undoubtedly there are others using the same or a similar technique to thwart legitimate notices.

Fixing this problem will not be easy and, in the meantime, the most rightsholders can do is be aware of the problem and be vigilant against it.

Hopefully a more robust solution to this problem can be found soon and both legitimate file hosting sites and rightsholders can rest a bit easier at night.

With copyright playing a bigger and bigger part of our lives, it makes sense that we would be increasingly invested in copyright law and the controversies that surround it. However, 2011 was a year, in many ways, that was defined by divisiveness. New legislation, treaties, trials and other stories did more to divide people than bring them together. However, new services and tools have also come along to open new doors for enjoying creative works and making sure that artists are being paid.

So what were some of the big stories in 2011? Here are just some thoughts and observations I’ve noticed as I looked back over the past year on Plagiarism Today and other copyright-focused sites.

Copyright: Looking Back Over 2011

Looking back over 2011, when it comes to copyright, most are likely going to remember it as the year of Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and its related bills. While it’s true that the debate over these bills have been white-hot in recent months, most of the year was spent debating the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), which was signed by most parties, after several years of negotiations, in early October.

Though SOPA’s predecessor, PROTECT-IP, has been around since the early part of the year, it didn’t garter nearly the attention of its younger cousin, which largely kicked off the online protests.

In the courtrooms, the controversial company Righthaven, which was famous for its “no warning” lawsuits against those who allegedly copied content from the Las Vegas Review-Journal and, for a while, the Denver Post, has had a very rough year. It’s litigation campaign is on the ropes after a string of defeats and now is having its assets, including its domain, auctioned off to pay legal expenses to former defendants.

On the upbeat side, the music industry had a big year with the U.S. launch of Spotify and the launch of iTunes Music Match. Though these launches don’t mean the end of the piracy fight for the record labels (nor have they restored sagging profits yet), they show a shift in direction for the industry that may better position it in the future.

In fact, the record industry is continuing its war on music streaming service Grooveshark, which may be in serious trouble shows clearly that the record labels haven’t quite thrown in the towel on piracy.

However, on the movie side, Netflix faltered in a major way with a botched price increase and proposed name change. However, movie studios and tv networks scored some major legal victories, including the shuttering of DVD streaming service Zediva.

When it comes to consumers, in the U.S., major ISPs and rightsholders agreed voluntarily to a “six strikes” system to address suspected infringement. New Zealand passed a “three strikes” law and France ran into some trouble with their ongoing regime after a data leak.

All in all, 2011 was a very controversial year and one with a lot of divisiveness and bitterness. In it though, there was still some reason to hope and thoughts that may move us forward to a better future.

Plagiarism and Content Theft: Looking Back Over 2011

When looking at the situation for webmasters, bloggers and other smaller content creators, the biggest story of the year likely has been Google’s “Panda” updates, formerly known as “Farmer”. With those updates, Google publicly went to war with content farms, spam sites and scrapers.

The results, however, have been mixed. While many who were victimzed by spam sites earlier have seen relief and the updates may be discouraging new spammers from getting in the business, other sites, which are routinely the victim of spammers, have been gobbled up with the updates along with the copycats.

However, history has shown us that the impact of the changes likely won’t be that great in the long run.

Google also made strides with its DMCA service, accepting form DMCAs (as opposed to faxed ones) for all of their services and greatly improved their response time on DMCA matters.

In non-Google related news, the year began with another round of plagiarism tests by Dr. Weber-Wulff, a professor at the HTW Berlin.

Weber-Wulff gave top honors, this time, to PlagAware, a Germany-based service not well known in the U.S. She also gave high marks to Turnitin, Ephorus, PlagScan and Urkund. Other U.S. favorites such as Copyscape and Plagium fell into either the “Barely Useful” or the “Useless” categories.

Finally, when it comes to detecting image plagiarism and infringement, one of the major players, PicScout, was purchased by the major stock photo company Getty Images, likely in a bid to help continue its legal campaign against infringement.

Bottom Line

All in all though, what 2011 will most likely be remembered for, in the long run, is that it was a “business as usual” kind of year for these matters. When you discount the steep controversies and the ongoing debates, there was little legislation, few major legal victories and little that, by itself, will have a major impact moving forward.

In many ways, this was a year to set the stage for a potentially huge 2012 but even that is debatable as there are many variables at play. With the slow pace of copyright and plagiarism news, it could easily be another year or two before we have any major turning points.

Or, it could be tomorrow.

Still, with no Limewire-sized services being shuttered, Grokster-like rulings, DMCAs being passed and so forth, there probably won’t be that much to remember 2011 for when this time next year rolls around. 2011 may have set the stage, but it didn’t play the lead part.

Have any suggestions for the 3 Count? Let me know via Twitter @plagiarismtoday.

1: SOPA Supporters, Opponents Make Last-Ditch Efforts Ahead of Hearing

First off today, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith has scheduled the controversial Stop Only Piracy Act for a vote in his committee today. As a result, forces both for and against the act are making last-minute pushes to appeal to representatives on the panel. Those against SOPA have ramped up their efforts to flood representatives with letters and phone calls while those in favor have been doing the same but also taking out ads, including a full-page ad taken out by the AFL-CIO in the Washington Post. The bill, which would enable copyright holders to seek orders forcing ISPs, payment processors and ad networks to block or stop doing business with foreign sites primarily aimed at copyright infringement. If the bill passes the committee, it will go to a vote in the full House.

2: Sony and Warner Are Said to Sue Web Music Service

Next up today, even as Universal’s newest lawsuit against Grooveshark begins to ramp up, both Sony and Warner are considering joining in by filing suit against the company as well. Universal, which recently sued the music streaming service claiming that it’s employees had uploaded tracks to the service for others to stream, an allegation Grooveshark denies, is seeking damages for alleged infringement of songs they own. Sony and Warner, two other major labels, are believed to be ready to join in with filings today and will likely make many of the same allegations. Grooveshark claims its service is protected by the DMCA, which holds hosts non-liable for uploads by users if they remove them after receiving a notice. However, if the files were uploaded by Grooveshark employees, then that protection would be lost.

3: Serious Sam 3 Features Giant Pink Scorpion on Illegal Copies of Game

Finally today, thinking about pirating the recently-released Serious Sam 3? It literally could kill you (in game at least). The first person shooting game, which focuses on over-the-top action, has a protection system inside it that detects when a person is playing an illegal copy of the game and, instead of booting them out, generates an immortal scorpion that chases and kills the player early in the game. However, the plan may backfire as some legitimate players are now saying they want to pirate the game just to get the scorpion experience.

Suggestions

That’s it for the three count today. We will be back tomorrow with three more copyright links. If you have a link that you want to suggest a link for the column or have any proposals to make it better. Feel free to leave a comment or send me an email. I hope to hear from you.

Want the Full Story?

Tune in every Wednesday evening at 5 PM ET for the live recording of the Copyright 2.0 Show or wait and get the edited version Friday right here on Plagiarism Today.

The 3 Count Logo was created by Justin Goff and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License.

Have any suggestions for the 3 Count? Let me know via Twitter @plagiarismtoday.

1: Universal Censors Megaupload Song, Gets Branded a “Rogue Label”

First off today, cyberlocker site Megaupload released a music video featuring many of music’s top stars including Diddy, Will.i.am, Snoop Dog and more. Though the video didn’t talk about copyright issues, it showed the artists talking about how much they love or use Megaupload, even as the RIAA and the MPAA seek to classify Megaupload as a “Rogue” website that enables widespread copyright infringement. However, Universal Music has filed several takedown notices against YouTube version of the video, putting Megaupload’s account at risk of being banned even though, according to Megaupload, the label doesn’t own anything in the video. Site founder Kim Dotcom went on to say that Universal was a “Rogue” label and that they had filed a counternotice relating to the video.

2: Yoga Pose Copyright Bid Too Much of a Stretch, U.S. Says in Bikram Battle

Next up today, the U.S. Copyright Office has announced that it is reversing course and no longer accepting registrations for yoga poses and other exercises. The office, in an email that was submitted as evidence in a dispute between two New York-based yoga studios, the Copyright Office said that yoga poses, “Do not constitute the subject matter that Congress intended to protect as choreography,” and, as such, will not provide registration certificates for them. Previously, the Copyright Office had done so, even if the poses were in the public domain, but reached the new conclusion after reviewing the legislative history of copyright law.

3: YouTube acquires RightsFlow

Finally today, Google’s YouTube service has acquired RightsFlow, a licensing service that specializing in streamlining the licensing process for music. The move is, most likely, an effort to simplify and speed up the process of licensing music on YouTube. YouTube, which is currently being sued by Viacom for its practices in its early years, has been working hard to secure licensing and rights to music and videos uploaded to its service and, by acquiring RightsFlow, seeks to simplify that process.

Suggestions

That’s it for the three count today. We will be back tomorrow with three more copyright links. If you have a link that you want to suggest a link for the column or have any proposals to make it better. Feel free to leave a comment or send me an email. I hope to hear from you.

Want the Full Story?

Tune in every Wednesday evening at 5 PM ET for the live recording of the Copyright 2.0 Show or wait and get the edited version Friday right here on Plagiarism Today.

The 3 Count Logo was created by Justin Goff and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License.

Have any suggestions for the 3 Count? Let me know via Twitter @plagiarismtoday.

1: Book, Record Industries Attack Righthaven Fair Use Ruling

First off today, the Association of American Publishers and the Recording Industry Association of America both filed amicus briefs with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in one of Righthaven’s lawsuits. Righthaven, which sued nearly 300 bloggers and webmasters over alleged infringement of content from the Las Vegas Review-Journal and the Denver Post, has had their campaign on hold in recent weeks due to a string of legal defeats. However, the associations aren’t filing briefs in hope of reviving the lawsuits, rather, they are addressing a narrow fair use issue in one of the cases, a ruling that, according to them, could be disastrous for copyright holders. Neither brief addresses the issue of Righthaven’s position to use, the grounds on which it lost the case.

2: Ad Network Not Guilty of Copyright Infringement For Serving Pirate Site

Next up today, the ad network Chitika has come out victorious in a lawsuit that pitted them against publishers Elsevier and John Wiley & Sons. The publishers had claimed that Chitika, which was running ads on Pharmatext, a site that previously offered pirated ebooks. However, according to several industry experts, including attorney Eric Goldman, the ruling leaves the door open for services like Chitika to lose similar fights if copyright holders notify them of the infringement first. If the publishers could have shown that Chitika was aware of the infringement, the result could have been very different and that, in turn, may pave the way for a “notice and takedown” system for ad networks similar to what is proposed in the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).

3: Celeb Photo Agency Sues Gossip Site

Finally today, celebrity photo agency Mavrix has filed a lawsuit against Idontlikeyouinthatway.com as well as related companies CraveOnline Media and AtomicOnline claiming that the site is has unlawfully used photos from the service on “numerous occasions”. The lawsuit is seeking some $3 million in damages as well as an injunction barring the site from using any more of their photos in the future. According to the lawsuit, Mavrix has licensed images for as much as $100,000 a piece, opening the door also to high actual damages as well as statutory ones.

Suggestions

That’s it for the three count today. We will be back tomorrow with three more copyright links. If you have a link that you want to suggest a link for the column or have any proposals to make it better. Feel free to leave a comment or send me an email. I hope to hear from you.

Want the Full Story?

Tune in every Wednesday evening at 5 PM ET for the live recording of the Copyright 2.0 Show or wait and get the edited version Friday right here on Plagiarism Today.

The 3 Count Logo was created by Justin Goff and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License.

This is a problem that grows quickly depending on the number of sites that you’re attempting to monitor. If you’re only dealing with a couple of sites at a time, you can probably monitor for compliance by hand. However, if you start having more than a handful cases open at once it becomes easy to forget about cases and let them drop.

In my DMCA work, I’ve experimented with a variety of cloud-based tools for monitoring compliance and for keeping on top of non-responsive hosts. However, I’ve never been truly happy with any single tool. Some do great at monitoring webpages but can’t monitor images, others do well with multiple file types but don’t track often enough. Others are just flat-out expensive to use.

However, I finally decided to bite the bullet and seek out a local solution. To that end, I found Changes Meter by Intuiware. Changes Meter is a free application for Mac OSX that tracks changes in websites and can alert you almost immediately when a site has been altered or, in the case of DMCA notices, has been taken down.

After just a few weeks of using it, I’m already wondering how I survived without it and am slowly moving all of my takedown work over to it.

What is Changes Meter?

Changes Meter is a simple app that’s designed to run in the background of your computer (most of the time sitting silently in your menubar) and check websites for updates and changes. Though it’s original intent was to track changes in a website to alert you to new content, similar to what RSS does, it can also work to monitor for compliance with cease and desist letters and DMCA takedown notices.

To monitor a new site you simply paste in the URL, tell Changes Meter how often you want to check it and set the sensitivity (the lower the sensitivity, the bigger the change has to be in order to trigger an alert).

Changes Meter will then run in the background and follow your orders, alerting you to changes via the menu icon, which is a pie chart that changes to represent unchanged, changed and failing URLS. Changes Meter also supports Growl notifications and can be set to alert you after a check is completed.

All in all, it is not a very complex piece of software but that isn’t what makes it great. That’s the fact it simply works without interfering needlessly with you.

Reviewing Changes Meter

To be clear, Changes Meter isn’t very feature rich nor is it very precise. However, it gets the job done and stays out of your way to do it. It runs in the background and neither eats up a lot of system resources nor pesters you needlessly. That’s what works best about it.

I’ve never once in my tests as much as noticed Changes Meter running unless it had an alert for me. If anything, it’s too easy to forget about and, sometimes, before I had it opening on login, I would accidentally leave it off for an extended period of time.

Beyond that, it works well with any file type, including images, executables, etc. and alerts equally well on errors (meaning the page is offline) and changes (meaning the content was altered). This means just about anything you can want to track online can be monitored for just about any type of change.

The one gripe I do have about Changes Meter is that it can be very difficult to get the sensitivity setting right. Though “Normal” is fine for most sites, many sites have dynamic elements that will generate false positives at that setting. Since there’s no way to select what content you are tracking or indicate what section of the page to look at for changes, you have to play around with the sensitivity to find what you’re looking for.

Still, that’s a fairly minor gripe for a system that, overall, works almost perfectly. If you have a Mac and need to monitor a lot of webpages for changes, Changes Meter is quite probably your best solutions.

Bottom Line

All in all, Changes Meter is a great app for monitoring websites for changes. It’s simple, efficient and it gets the job done.

Typically, with my work, I strongly favor cloud-based solutions for the purpose of portability and backup. I’m a big fan of Google Docs, Todoist and other Web-based apps. However, with this problem, a local application was simply a better solution and I’m glad I gave Changes Meter a try.

It’s very rare these days to find good, simple apps that do their job without crashes or problems. I’m glad this was one of them. It’s made my life much easier and will help greatly with the organization and maintenance of the DMCA process moving forward.

Have any suggestions for the 3 Count? Let me know via Twitter @plagiarismtoday.

1: High Court Day 2: iiNet Says AFACT Lawsuit Inevitable

First off today, yesterday was day 2 in the Australian High Court trial between AFACT and iiNet. AFACT, a consortium of copyright holders, had sued local ISP iiNet claiming they had not done enough to stop infringement. Though iiNet won in both of the lower courts, the appeals court ruling opened the door to a “three strikes” system in the country. AFACT appealed the case to the High Court. The second day focused more on iiNet’s ability to control its customers actions and on AFACTs demands, with iiNet claiming that nothing short of terminating suspected repeat infringers would have been adequate to avoid a lawsuit. The case enters its third day today and is likely to continue next week.

2: Copyright Corruption Scandal Surrounds Anti-Piracy Campaign

Next up today, the Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN has found itself in the center of a controversy as composer Melchior Rietveldt is claiming that the group used his song without permission on various DVDs for the anti-piracy warnings. According to Rietveldt, he was paid to compose a song for an anti-piracy ad to be played at a film festival. However, BREIN (or another party) went on to use the work for warnings distributed on DVDs without any compensation. To make matters worse, a board member of Buma/Stemra (a royalty collection agency), Jochem Gerrits, offered to help but only if he could collect 33% of the earnings. Gerrits has since said his words were misinterpreted but has offered a temporary resignation. That being said, according to BREIN director Tim Kuik, the contract dispute does not actually involve the organization as it is not the distributor nor the client involved.

3: EFF to Copyright Office: Let my Tablets, Consoles, and Phones Go!

Finally today, the EFF is preparing for the next round of Copyright Office hearings on DMCA exemptions and is hoping to expand on exemptions that it helped fight for in the last round. The DMCA prohibits the circumvention of DRM and other digital locks but provides exemptions where it is acceptable. To determine what exemptions are appropriate, the copyright office holds hearings every three years and rules on what new exemptions should be added. Last year, the EFF and other groups argued for an exemption to jailbreak phones and received it. However, the exemption didn’t cover the trafficking of the software to perform the jailbreak nor did it cover other commonly-jailbroken items such as tablets, video game consoles, etc. The EFF is hoping that, with this round, it can earn those exemptions as well.

Suggestions

That’s it for the three count today. We will be back tomorrow with three more copyright links. If you have a link that you want to suggest a link for the column or have any proposals to make it better. Feel free to leave a comment or send me an email. I hope to hear from you.

Want the Full Story?

Tune in every Wednesday evening at 5 PM ET for the live recording of the Copyright 2.0 Show or wait and get the edited version Friday right here on Plagiarism Today.

The 3 Count Logo was created by Justin Goff and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License.

Have any suggestions for the 3 Count? Let me know via Twitter @plagiarismtoday.

1: Senator Promises To Filibuster Internet Blacklisting Bill

First off today, Senator Ron Wyden has promised to filibuster either the PROTECT-IP act or Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) should they reach the Senate floor. The two bills are similar to each other in that they would allow copyright holders to get court orders to force ISPs to block access to foreign sites dedicated to infringement, or “rogue” sites as they are called, but have been the source of controversy online these past few weeks. Wyden has already blocked PROTECT IP in the Senate but a move to override his block may be coming up, thus prompting his attempt to filibuster the bill. Wyden has said that, if forced, he will read the names of all those who sign the petition against the bill on the floor, rather than reading from the phone book, as is more common.

2: EU Commissioner Slams Copyright Laws

Next up today, European Union Digital Agenda Commissioner Neelie Kroes has said that copyright law, as a whole, needs to go “back to basics and put the artist at the center.” According to Kroes, copyright law has become a “straightjacket” for a single business model and that the rules require an overhaul to encourage “creativity” in business models. However, Kroes also said that the obsession over copyright may not be the most important element of the debat, adding, “”we need to stop obsessing about that.”

3: Photo Attorney Receives a DMCA Take Down Notice

Finally today, photographer and copyright attorney (and at least occasional PT reader) Carolyn Wright had one of her sites shuttered by GoDaddy following a DMCA Notice. Wright was able to quickly restore her site by contacting the filer and having them rescind the notice. Despite the response, her wilidlife photography site, vividwildlife.com, was briefly closed due to a DMCA notice centered on a photo she took herself. Wright did file a counter-notice but got in touch with the filer who apologized for the mistake and got the site restored more quickly. Wright called it an “interesting experience” and said that “all is well” on her end now.

Suggestions

That’s it for the three count today. We will be back tomorrow with three more copyright links. If you have a link that you want to suggest a link for the column or have any proposals to make it better. Feel free to leave a comment or send me an email. I hope to hear from you.

Want the Full Story?

Tune in every Wednesday evening at 5 PM ET for the live recording of the Copyright 2.0 Show or wait and get the edited version Friday right here on Plagiarism Today.

The 3 Count Logo was created by Justin Goff and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License.