However, what most people don’t get about piracy enforcement is that it isn’t aimed at the hardcore pirates, the ones who make it a point to never buy copyrighted works. The entertainment industry, despite what many people claim, is filled with smart people on these issues and they realize that the hardcore pirates both can’t be stopped and, if they can, still will not become customers.

Instead, these efforts, often misguidedly in my opinion, are targeted at casual and accidental pirates, the ones who can be swayed to open up their wallets (and routinely are).

Those who choose, for whatever reason, to not pay for copyrighted works remove themselves from consideration. That, unfortunately, causes their opinions to be discarded in many areas, not just which DRM gets chosen for the next game release.

If you want to have a say in the discussion about copyright, you have to vote with your dollars for anyone to listen, it’s a painful truth that needs to be said and understood.

Money and Piracy

The relationship between money and piracy is very complex. Surveys have found that those who pirate content also spend more on it. This makes sense as heavy consumers of media are more likely to both pirate and buy content in large amounts.

Obviously, these are the entertainment industry’s best customers. However, the question remains: How do you ensure that as much of their media is obtained legally? To do this the entertainment industry has tried a two-pronged approach, a combination of copyright enforcement and improving access to legitimate alternatives.

The truth is that most pirates are fairly casual about it. They download illegally out of convenience, cost, habit, etc, and not for ideological reasons. However, there are a few at the extreme end of the piracy spectrum who do pirate for “stronger” reasons and can’t be swayed to stop.

Those who refuse to open their wallets are often the most passionate and vocal online, but they also cut themselves completely out of debate, even as they often try to dominate it.

In Business, Money Talks

The fact is simple, entertainment is a business and, with a business, money talks.

A good example is the Humble Indie Bundle which, despite being available for just a penny (that could have gone to charity), over 25% of the downloads were illegal.

While the Humble Indie Bundle was still a great financial success and several sequels have followed, many projects using traditional models are also great successes. When major players look at the Humble Indie Bundle, they’re going to see many of the same problems they face now and, most likely, decide it isn’t worth the risk.

Businesses, when making large decisions, focus entirely on the bottom line and they follow where the money is going. If you want to see more efforts like the Humble Indie Bundle or Radiohead’s “In Rainbows”, the solution isn’t just to download and enjoy them, but to reward the creators materially as well.

While “freeloaders” can be useful members of a community and generate revenue other ways, such as by promoting a product or brand, if the money isn’t there at some point, then it doesn’t matter what people think or how much they like an approach.

If you want to cast your vote, you have to make the cash register ring.

Bottom Line

Voting with your dollar does not simply mean taking your money away from those you don’t like, it also means supporting those you do. If the industries, lawmakers and other decision-makers don’t believe that you are a potential customer, they won’t seriously consider your opinions on what kinds of entertainment to produce, how to market it, how to sell it and, perhaps most importantly, how it should be protected.

Of course, opening your wallet in this case could mean a lot of different things, including, most notably, viewing ads (rather than skipping/blocking them), but the end result is the same, content creators and those who support them earn a profit.

In the end, if you don’t support the people and business models you like or want to see succeed, your opinion isn’t going to matter. Creators will continue to target those who are paying and ignore you because, in their eyes, you might as well not exist.

1: Isohunt Not Dead Yet, Attorney Says

Bittorrent search engine ISOHunt is making a last-ditch effort to avoid an injunction filed and approved against it. According to attorneys working for the site, the injunction, granted by the judge and requested by the MPAA, is overly broad in that it requires the site to block searches for specific movie titles. ISOHunt claims that this is a violation of their free speech rights in that not all uses of the title are going to be infringing. The judge has tried to clarify the injunction saying it only applies to works owned by the plaintiffs in the case.

2: Neil Gaiman fights Todd McFarlane over Spawn Characters

Next up today, in a story that has my geek senses tingling, author Neil Gaiman and comic artist Todd McFarlane are in a copyright spat over two characters that are a part of the Spawn series. McFarlane, who created Spawn, asked Gaiman to guest author a comic where he created two characters, “Medieval Spawn” and “Angela” a woman who hunted Spawn. Normally such creations would be a work for hire but Image comics, the publisher of Spawn, is founded on the principle of creator’s rights and doesn’t use such contracts. As a result, Gaiman owned the creations prompting McFarlane, according to Gaiman, to create knock offs for use in later books. This dispute is ongoing at the same time as a related spat between the two over the graphic novel Miracleman, which has been halted pending this copyright litigation.

3: Coldplay Allows ‘Glee’ To Use Its Songs

Finally today, in something of a follow-up to the previous story on Glee and copyright, the group Radiohead, which had originally resisted the shows requests to allow their music to be used has reversed their previous decision and has opened up their entire back catalog to the series. According to the show’s producers, Radiohead and Bryan Adams were the only rejections they had received.

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 6 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.

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

1: The ACTA Internet Chapter: Putting the Pieces Together

First off today, details about the controversial and secretive anti-counterfeiting treaty ACTA have been leaked and and advocates of copyright reform are not pleased. According to the leaks, the treaty, which is being discussed today in South Korea, would require ISPs to take action against those who are accused of copyright infringements, including disconnecting them from the Web. It would also enforce a U.S. and EU-style notice and takedown system for those who host Web content as well as add DMCA-style anti circumvention clauses.

Canadians, who have neither an anti-circumvention clause nor a notice and takedown system are especially upset at the possibility of a “Made in the U.S.” copyright reform being signed in secrecy. However, there is also almost universal outrage about the expanding role of ISPs in copyright enforcement that the treaty as only a small handful of nations have such provisions now and they are relatively new.

The treaty is being discussed today in South Korea and the leaked version, if accurate, is just a draft and it is unclear what the final treaty will look like, though it does seem that there is broad support for the current version.

2: DRM Breaker Reports Himself To Anti-Piracy Group

Denmark man Henrik Andersen has “turned himself in” to the Danish antipiracy outfit Antipiratgruppen, admitting to having violated copyright law on over 100 movies and 10 seasons of various TV shows. However, Andersen is not a file sharer and, in fact, purchased all of the movies legally. What he is admitting to is having broken the DRM on the DVDs to get them into his media center.

Andersen said he filed the confession because he doesn’t want to be a criminal and wants to draw attention to the catch-22 in Danish law that makes personal copying legal but makes breaking DRM, such as the copy protection on DVDs, illegal in all cases. He has given Antipiratgruppen until December 1 to respond though it seems unlikely that they will as they have, in the past, acknowledged the issue and expressed hopes that it will work out shortly.

3: Radiohead Suggests Bandwidth Throttling To Solve Music Pirating

Finally today, Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien has stirred some controversy by agreeing with other artists and many members of the British government that file sharers should have their bandwidth throttled. Though he agreed that disconnecting file sharers would simply drive the activity underground, he didn’t seem to think throttling would have the same effect and joined Lily Allen, among others, who think that this compromise is the best way to go.

Radiohead became a popular band with copyright reformers after they used a “Pay What You Want” business model for their latest release, “In Rainbows”, and have been seen as one of the more forward-thinking bands in the industry. This is seen by many as a huge about face, though O’Brien does say that this is not about the “fat cats” like them, but about smaller, up and coming artists who are struggling to find a footing on the Web.

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 Saturday morning for the live recording of the Copyright 2.0 Show or wait and get the edited version Monday morning right here on Plagiarism Today.

1: Fox News Entertainment Columnist in Hot Water for Column About Pirated “Wolverine”

First off this week, in what is now the second entry on the new Copyright Fail Web site, a freelance reporter for Fox News’ Web site committed both career and copyright suicide by downloading and then reviewing the leaked copy of Wolverine, which is owned by Fox News’ parent company Fox.

Fox has already gotten the FBI involved in the chase for the person who leaked the film, including shutting down at least one datacenter, and was very prompt in firing the reporter. The reporter, Roger Friedman, has not been available for comment but one can only wonder what he was thinking when he gleefully described both how easy piracy was and wonderful it was, all the while committing infringement over a film owned, quite literally, by the people who sign his paycheck.

2: URAA Held Unconstitutional

The Uruguay Round Agreements Act was a rather unusual beast in that it took certain foreign works that were in the public domain int he United States and removed them from it. However, the question was unanswered as to how this affected people who had already exploited works in the public domain but had had that right revoked.

Well, a the District Court in Colorado ruled that the URAA, insofar as it impacted those who had legitimately exploited public domain works previously, was unconstitutional and was a violation of free speech. Though this only directly affects a very small subset of people, namely those who used the works removed from the public domain by the URAA while they were available for use, it is the first time a court has ruled a copyright extension to be unconstitutional and tied copyright term with free speech.

Clearly, those elements could have larger implications in the future, especially if higher courts offer similar opinions.

3: Radiohead to Testify Against the RIAA

Just when you thought that the Tenenbaum case could not get any stranger, Radiohead now plans to testify on behalf of the defense and against the RIAA.

In a case already marked by strange legal theories, personal emails being published and a circus-like atmosphere, it is unclear what Radiohead will bring to this case, other than another strange dimension to it.

Suggestions

That’s it for the three count today, we’ll 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 Saturday morning for the live recording of the Copyright 2.0 Show or wait and get the edited version Monday morning right here on Plagiarism Today.

It is another solo show for me but it is one Chris is going to regret missing as it was an action packed week. We have MediaDefender attacking Revision3, Metallica making up with MP3 and Radiohead duking it out with Prince.

We also have updates to many ongoing copyright stories including the Google/Viacom lawsuit, the Finland CSS decryption lawsuit and the Google News case from Belgium.

All in all, there were sixteen stories this week including news from all over the copyright world including our”Weird Story of the Week”.

This week’s stories include:

• Revision3 Gets DOSed by MediaDefender
• Prince Issues Takedown for Radiohead Song
• Metallica Goes Digital
• iPods may be searched in Canada
• Mikey Mouse Refuses to Join the Public Domain
• And Many more…

You can download the MP3 file here (direct download). Those interested in subscribing to the show can do so via this feed.

Show Notes

[audio:http://media.libsyn.com/media/plagiarismtoday/copyright20eps61.mp3]

However, the headline from the week was Mediadefender allegedly taking down Revision3 in a DOS attack for reasons that are not wholly clear at this time.

In addition to that, we have new developments in the Google/Viacom lawsuit, the AllofMP3 case, the CSS case in Finland and much more.

Remember, as usual, this week’s linkroll is a “raw” link list. Some stories are duplicated, some do not point to their original sources and some may not be accurate. A great deal of refining goes into producing the show notes for the Copyright 2.0 Show.

We also have updates to several cases including Madonna’s new album, the Irate Gamer gets parodied and Hulu comes back to YouTube.

Finally, in weird copyright news, there is a debate about whether or not PostSecret is having their rights violated by NBC, visual evidence why Linux is cooler than Windows and conclusive proof that there is no honor among thieves.

Remember, as usual, this week’s linkroll is a “raw” link list. Some stories are duplicated, some do not point to their original sources and some may not be accurate. A great deal of refining goes into producing the show notes for the Copyright 2.0 Show.

Finally, there was an issue with the feed for this site over the past week. For those of you that are getting this entry along with the previous five or more, I apologize. There is a bug in WordPress 2.5 that causes the feed to break when a site uses fancy permalinks. The fix is easy, but it has to be done by hand. For more information, see this link on the WordPress Forums.

The feed should function normally now. Thank you for your patience.

Remember, the linkroll below is a “raw” link collection. Some stories are repeated and others don’t point to their original source. I have a great deal of massaging and reworking to do in order to craft the show notes for the actual Copyright 2.0 Show.

The next episode should be posted on that site Sunday and will make its usual appearance here first thing Monday morning.

Hope you are having a great weekend!

Credit: Photo from the TotalVOM Show

As usual, I sat down with Chris Matthieu from Numly to discuss the past week in copyright news, views and abuse.

All totaled, the show had sixteen stories, including the following:

• Pirate Bill Enters Congress
• The Pirate Bay Has Some Drama
• Demonoid Goes Black Everywhere
• Radiohead Calls Bull on Comscore
• Baseball DRM Change Throws Fans a Screwball
• And Many more…

You can download the MP3 file here (direct download). Those interested in subscribing to the show can do so via this feed (back up).

Show Notes

All totaled, the show had eighteen stories, including the following:

• Thomas Plans to Appeal her Verdict
• More Artists Abandon their Labels
• Mechanics Get Sued for Listening to Radios
• The Pirates Board an Enemy Site
• Techcrunch Gets Some Outrageous Copyright Threats
• And Many more…

You can download the MP3 file here. Those interested in subscribing to the show can do so via this feed.

New this week, I am using Divshare to host the MP3 files for the show. You can embed the player below into your site by clicking on the bracket symbol or just listen to it live here as always. Also, you can download or listen to past episodes of the show by visiting the Copyright 2.0 Show folder (Note: I am uploading the files now, may be later today before they all make it up.)

Still Very Neat! Show Notes