Pirates have a long history of adapting and evolving to respond to new threats and challenges. Whether it’s a matter of adapting an existing system or creating an entirely new one, where there has been a will to obtain illegal copies of files, there’s been a way.

But while the old means haven’t truly died off, people still buy bootleg DVDs and trade files on Usenet after all, the new methods become more popular and become the focus of both pirates and anti-pirates alike. But these changes do more than provide new ways to access the same files, they actually change the nature of piracy and how people approach it. This, in turn, changes how it affects content creators and how, if they choose, they fight it.

While the potential impacts are literally too many to count, here are five of the bigger changes in piracy and what they likely mean for you.

1. Long Tail Piracy is Growing

With traditional P2P networks and Bittorrent trackers, one of the limitations was that there had to be some pretty significant interest in a work before piracy of it was practical. If there wasn’t at least a certain number of people interested in sharing the file, you probably couldn’t find it. As such, for a creator, piracy was almost a good problem to have as it was a sign of popularity.

However, with the shift to cyberlockers, it’s practical to share fies with much less interest. A link on a cyberlocker site can just as easily be downloaded by one person as a million.

The Impact: Niche content that often escaped being traded illegally online is now being swapped freely. Smaller and niche content creators need to look harder at piracy issues and decide if and how they want to respond.

2. Moving Away from the U.S.

Though the U.S. certainly hasn’t had the most piracy-friendly laws for services hosted in it, it’s domains (.com, .net and .org) have been popular among pirates and U.S. hosts, noted for being cheap, reliable and close to the bulk of the target audience, have been favorites among such sites.

However, the recent domain seizures and the shuttering of Megaupload has pirates rethinking this. Not only has The Pirate Bay moved to a .se domain, but other sites are bailing out of the country. New ones are less likely to start up within it.

The Impact: Most of the world has a reasonably strong notice and takedown system and, as the recent seizure of ex.ua in Ukraine shows, there aren’t too many true safe havens for pirates in the world. However, enforcing copyright may become more difficult, especially with sites that move into unfriendly territory. Regardless, it’s going to require becoming more familiar with working within a greater number of countries.

3. Appearance of Legitimacy

Pirate-friendly sites have routinely made claims that they are “just like Google” or other legitimate services. However, such sites have made a greater effort in recent months and years to promote this image, claiming to comply with DMCA notices, even when they don’t (as with Megaupload) and put on a more “corporate” face.

Much of this is in hopes of keeping law enforcement and attorneys at bay, but it’s also part of an effort to appeal to other businesses and consumers to secure advertisers and direct payments.

The Impact: This can create a sense of confusion among some consumers, who at least at times, think that the services are legitimate. Though someone who visits The Pirate Bay isn’t likely a lost customer, someone who Googles for a product and forks money over to a cyberlocker site for an illegal download may well be.

4. Spam, Spam and More Spam

Though spammers have always targeted pirate-related keywords and continue to do so, those efforts seem to have been accelerated in recent months or years as various services use spam keywords to target almost any work you would want to download.

If you search for a work in Google the results are going to be cluttered with fake “download” results that do any number of unscrupulous things including tricking customers to pay for a file that isn’t there, obtain information for identity theft or simply cram more spam advertisements at the viewer.

The Impact: This, in some part, mitigates the first and third changes. Finding pirated content is harder, especially on long tail items, because of these spam results. While the unethical and illegal things they do certainly don’t justify it, this is possibly the only time spammers have ever helped legitimate content creators.

5. Mirrored Uploading/Multiuploading

Finally, one trend that has been growing in recent years is the increased use of tools that automatically upload one file to multiple services. With these tools, one user can upload one file and have it appear on a dozen or more cyberlocker services.

While these tools aren’t new and have been popular in some circles for a long time, many hubs are starting to demand their usage to improve reliable access to files and their use among pirates is likely to grow.

The Impact: Obviously, this is going to make it much more difficult to remove works from the Web. Rather than dealing with one infringing copy, you may be dealing with a dozen or more. This means more work and, in some cases, more expense.

Bottom Line

On one hand, the future when dealing with piracy seems pretty bleak. Pirates are targeting different types of works and doing so in ways that is more difficult to stop. However, there are also reasons to be hopeful. Not only do the techniques for removing content remain, overall, fairly effective but new business models are being created by legitimate companies that may help compete with piracy and deal it a stronger blow.

All in all, these steps are just the next evolution in piracy and it’s an evolution that’s been going on for a long as there have been copyrighted works.

Piracy has been a part of being a content creator since day one and it isn’t going to go away. However, with time and effort, it may become more of a nuisance than a major concern and that, in the long run, should be the end goal. Not the elimination of piracy, but the mitigation of it.

Pirate Flag Photo Credit: BigStockPhoto.com

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

1: Google mulls divorcing U.S. Chamber of Commerce

First off today, Google is mulling leaving the Chamber of Commerce, one of the nation’s largest lobbying and trade groups, after the chamber came out in support of PROTECT IP and Stopping Online Piracy Act (SOPA), both of which are acts Google opposes and say threatens the Web due t their inclusion of Web filtering as a possible solution to copyright infringement. Also, the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) is also mulling parting ways with the Chamber of Commerce for the same reason. The threats of departure follow on the heels of Yahoo!, which quietly dropped its membership last month.

2: Major Usenet Provider Shuts Down Following Court Order

Next up today, Usenet provider News-Service.com is shutting down following a court order from Dutch court ordering the company to remove all infringing content from their servers. Unable to comply with the order, the company has ceased operation as it attempts to appeal the ruling. Though not a well-known company, News-Service.com is Europe’s largest Usenet provider and has many better-known resellers. The company was sued by the Dutch anti-piracy outfit BREIN for allegedly hosting infringing material and enabling piracy.

3: Sixth Judge Rules Against Righthaven

Finally today, in the Righthaven cases, a sixth judge has now ruled against the controversial Las Vegas company saying that they lacked the right to sue in their case, this one against NewsBlaze LLC, and have had the case dismissed. Righthaven came to prominence for suing bloggers and forum admins for illegally posting content from the Las Vegas Review-Journal and the Denver Post. Righthaven claimed that rights to the work were assigned to them but that was later found to be untrue, thus prompting the string of, at times costly, defeats.

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: Google Gets Involved in BitTorrent Search Engine Lawsuit

First off today, Google has filed an amicus brief in the ISOHunt case, which is on appeal after the MPAA won in the district court against the Bittorrent tracker, claiming that the district court was right to rule against ISOHunt, but that it did so for the wrong reasons. According to Google, the lower court’s finding that ISOHunt was not eligible for safe harbor protection as it had ignored warnings that there was infringing material. However, Google worries that such a ruling could impact their business and, instead, believes that ISOHunt is liable because it induced copyright infringement, not because it ignored warnings. Google had sought permission from both sides to file the brief but the MPAA declined, though the court permitted the filing over their objections.

2: Google Must Continue to Fight Oracle’s Copyright Claims

Next up today, Google’s ongoing lawsuit with Oracle, which has Oracle accusing Google of inappropriately using JAVA code in Google’s Android operating system, must continue as the judge in the case denied Google’s request for a summary judgement. The judge said that there was not enough evidence for granting such a judgment at this time but denied it without prejudice, meaning that Google will be able to refile after discovery has been completed and additional evidence has been found.

3: BREIN Uses Court Win As Leverage To Wipe Out Usenet Sites

Finally today, the Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN has used its recent court victory over the Usenet site FTD to shut down another 11 such sites, these with a combined total of 900,000 members. BREIN, which won its case against FTD earlier this month, has been busy using the ruling to pressure other sites into closure and, according to their announcement, has been successful. However, there are significant questions about the applicability of the FTD ruling to these cases, which found FTD to be infringing because 13 members of the site also uploaded content to Usenet, and not merely point to it as the site was designed for.

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.

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: 50 Cent Named in NY Copyright Infringement Lawsuit

First off today, rapper 50 Cents, along with his label, producer and others involved with him have been sued by Atlanta rapper Tyrone Simmons, who goes by “Caliber,” saying that Simmons is the exclusive copyright holder to the instrumental track used in 50 Cent’s 2007 song “I Get Money.” Little else is known about the lawsuit other than it is seeking damages and that Simmons is not the creator of the track but instead purchased the rights to it. (Thanks to @saving4someday for the link!)

2: MPAA Takes Legal Action To Force ISP to Block Newzbin

Next up today, in the UK the MPAA is beginning legal proceedings in the country to have local ISP BT block access to NZB search site Newsbin2. According to Torrentfreak, the MPA is seeking to use a little-used law to force the ISP to block the site and, according BT, they have already received the paperwork for a request to do so. No action has been confirmed at this time but MPA did confirm the strategy in a response to the site.

3: The Nine-Word Copyright Opinion: Costco v. Omega

Finally today, the U.S. Supreme Court opinion in the Costco case may, literally, be the shortest opinion in the court’s long history. The opinion simply read, “The judgment is affirmed by an equally divided Court.” Nine words, nothing more. No opinion. No precedent. Nothing else to say.

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.

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: US Trade Agency Releases Final Text of ACTA

First off today the U.S. Trade Agency has released the final draft of the controversial ACTA treaty, which made only minor changes from the previous draft to put to rest a disagreement between EU and U.S. negotiators. The treaty will require nations to do border checks for copyright infringing works, provide means for protecting works online and include injunctions and fines as part of their enforcement measures. The U.S. has announced its intention to sign the agreement as an executive order, meaning without the approval of Congress, though constitutional scholars are questioning if that is possible.

2: Usenet Community Not Guilty Of Copyright Infringement

Next up today, the Usenet community site FTD won at least part of its appeal to Europe’s highest court. The court of the Hague ruled that the service was not liable for copyright infringement for making available copies of a movie by the studio Eyeworks, which had sued the Usenet service provider and won in the lower courts. The court found that FTD was not responsible for “spotting” where users notify each other of the availability of illegal files. However, the court did rule that FTD was liable for “stimulating” illegal uploads via its service. The court also reaffirmed that downloading content is not illegal for personal use in the Netherlands, the home country of FTD, but did say that such a law may violate EU law.

3: South Park Sued for Infringing on Hit Viral Video

Finally today, South Park’s creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker were sued for copyright infringement over a 2007 episode entitled “Canada on Strike” where one of the characters Butters sang a song from the hit viral video “What What (In the Butt)”. The creator of the viral video, the singer Samwell, and the producers of the film, Brownmark Films, have sued South Park for “willful, intentional, and purposeful” copyright infringement and is seeking both an injunction and statutory damages.

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.

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

1: RIAA Asks Court to Close Down LimeWire

First off today, in a move that should surprise no one, the RIAA has filed for an injunction against LimeWire, asking that the service be closed immediately. This comes after the RIAA received a summary judgement in their favor against the file sharing service. The court has the option of either issuing the injunction immediately, giving the two sides a chance to work out the issue, modifying the injunction to keep LimeWire open (though likely with filters in place) or, less likely, determine that an injunction is not necessary. However, given the probably of significant damages, it seems very likely the judge will grant the injunction.

2: Publishing Locations Of Pirate Movies Is The Same As Hosting Them

Next up today, a ruling by the Dutch Supreme Court says that simply linking to pirated materials is the same from a liability standpoint as hosting them on your own servers. The case was between a Dutch movie studio, Eyeworks, and a Dutch Usenet community, FTD, in a long court battle over FTD’s providing of links to NZB files that enable the illegal download of their movie their movie Komt een vrouw bij de dokter (A Woman At The Doctor). According to the court, FTD was liable for “making available” under Dutch law, even though the company did not host the files in question. This comes as the Dutch anti-piracy outfit BREIN is also pursuing a similar case against FTD and is seeking the closure of the whole site.

3: Shouldn’t the MPAA Crack Down on Ashton Kutcher for Promoting Piracy?

Finally today, Ashton Kutcher, the star in the upcoming film Killers, has announced that he is going to “pirate” the first 13 minutes of the film and put it on the Web for free. This has many industry insiders wondering if the studio or the MPAA itself might take action against Kutcher. The studio, Lionsgate, it not a part of the MPAA but Kutcher’s actions do seem to fly in the face of recent MPAA campaigns against piracy, which seek to have it treated as a serious crime.

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.

1: ConDems Won’t Repeal UK’s Digital Economy Act

First off today, even though a new government has been elected to power in the UK, don’t expect it to repeal the recently passed Digital Economy Act. The government has gone on record saying that they have no plans on repealing it though a controversial provision that would have given ISPs the obligation of blocking some Web sites, which was removed from the bill to be reintroduced as a separate measure, doesn’t seem likely to pass. Still, the move seems to be cheered by copyright holders who fought hard for the act only to feel that it was threatened with the changing of the guard.

2: Google Offered Viacom $592 Million for Content

Next up today, according to recently unsealed documents in the Viacom v. Google case, which has the two companies arguing over YouTube’s use of Viacom’s content, especially during the early days of the site’s history, Google offered over half a billion dollars to Viacom for use of the company’s content on the site. Another email exchange showed that Viacom actually defended YouTube at one point, saying that the site was driving a lot of traffic to them but yet other emails showed the two sides at each other’s throats, with obscenity-laden emails from both companies being made public.

3: Newzbin Code Leak Could Lead to Return of Usenet Indexer

Finally today, Newzbin, the Usenet indexer recently forced to close following legal action from the Motion Picture Association, may be due for a rebirth. The code used to build the service has been leaked and at least one site appears to be trying to piece together a replacement service. In an email sent to a newsgroup for the service, the group claims to be putting together and that it should be available “soon”. Obviously, we’ll have updates if the site is relaunched.

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.

It is Monday again and that means that it is time for another episode of the Copyright 2.0 Show.

It was a busy week for copyright news as we have two major legal decisions this week, one that could bring an end to one of the longest-running ongoing copyright cases, and another that could be a major blow to Usenet readers, especially those in the UK. However, as one case closes 50,000 more begin as a mass of lawsuits are filed against alleged file sharers.

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

This week’s stories include:

• Novell Owns Unix Copyright
• Newzbin Loses in a UK Court
• Tens of Thousands Sued for Alleged File Sharing in the U.S.
• An Artist Sues Green Day Over Their Stage Set
• Filmmakers Fake Piracy Threat to Stir Up Attention
• 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

About the Hosts

Jonathan Bailey

Jonathan Bailey (@plagiarismtoday) is the Webmaster and author of Plagiarism Today (Hint: You’re there now) and works as a copyright and plagiarism consultant. Though not an attorney, he has resolved over 700 cases of plagiarism involving his own work and has helped countless others protect their work and develop strategies for making their content work as hard as possible toward their goals.

Patrick O’Keefe

Patrick O’Keefe (@iFroggy) is the owner of the iFroggy Network, a network of websites covering various interests. He’s the author of the book “Managing Online Forums,” a practical guide to managing online communities and social spaces. He maintains a blog about online community management at ManagingCommunities.com and a personal blog at patrickokeefe.com.

1: High Court Finds Newzbin Liable For Copyright Infringement

First off today, Usenet search service Newzbin was found liable for copyright infringement in a London courtroom yesterday. The company, which had brought in over £1 million ($1.5 million) in 2009, did not actually host infringing content but enabled users to find and download NZB files, the Usenet equivalent to torrent files. The judge ruled that the site did not take adequate steps to prevent infringing uses and even encouraged the behavior by the way it presented results. No word on damages at this time though an injunction is widely expected.

2: SCO Novell Jury Decision Pending

Next up today, the jury is out on the SCO/Novell case, which aims to decide who the copyright holder in the Unix operating system is. A loss in this case for SCO could spell a death kneel for the company as the company has claimed that Linux is an unlawful derivative of Unix and has sued IBM and other companies to that end. However, if Novell turns out to be the copyright holder, those cases come to an end and the company is widely expected to go bankrupt.

3: Warner Bros. Recruits Students to Spy on Pirates

Finally today, a job posting on the Warner Bros. site has caught the eye of those in the copyright field as the company seeks to hire an intern for copyright enforcement, including scanning the Web for infringing material, issuing takedown notices and making trap purchases. The position pays £17,500 ($26,000) but the deadline for application is tomorrow.

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: RIAA triumphs in Usenet copyright case

First off today, the RIAA scored a big win over Usenet.com. Usenet is an online network that is over two decades old and predates the Web. It was, and still remains, one of the most popular ways to share files and content online and Usenet.com is a service that charges a monthly fee for easy access to that network, including the files.

The fact Usenet.com lost may not be as important as why it lost. The company was accused of massive amounts of misconduct during the discovery process including, allegedly, destroying seven hard drives, sending witnesses to Europe so they can’t be deposed and otherwise obstructing the RIAA from gathering information.

In the end, the judge ruled that Usenet.com can not use the Betamax ruling in its defense, which said that the creator of a product can not be held liable if it has significant non-infringing use, due to the fact that Usenet.com’s relationship with the customer continued after the sale. Also, due to the misconduct, the judge barred the company from raising a defense under the DMCA, which protects Web hosts from liability if they expeditiously remove infringing material following notification.

In the end, it seems as if Usenet.com had a better chance at success before the alleged misconduct and only narrowly escaped a judgment against them on those grounds alone.

2: The Pirate Bay’s Revolt

Next up today, The Pirate Bay users, in a move that was pretty predictable, have revolted in a significant way against their former favorite Bittorrent tracker following its recent sale to a Swedish software company.

Though no one is really sure what will happen to the site, users have been asking for the ability to delete their account, while others have been calling for attacks against the site to bring it down.

However, even if The Pirate Bay is able to complete itself and survive this revolt, its odds of becoming a successful, legitimate business (if that is indeed the plan) are slim. Grokster, Napster and other services have shown have difficult it is to “go legit”.

3: Music copyright lawsuit targets Microsoft, Yahoo, Real

Finally today, Microsoft, Yahoo! and Real (though not Apple) are all being sued by Music Copyright Solutions (MCS) for allegedly not obtaining all of the correct rights to some of the songs in their catalogs. At odds specifically are the rights to some 200 compositions that MSC claims the companies correctly licensed the performance rights to, but not the composition ones. It is the composers that they are representing.

The case would be fairly dull but MCS is suing for each copy of every recording. So if a song is on four different albums, it is listed four times and MCS is seeking the maximum damages possible, $150,000 per infringement, putting the potential liability into the billions.

Now the odds of the judgment/settlement reaching anywhere near that is slim to none, but the numbers are eyeball-popping. Still, it will most likely be settled for a tiny fraction of the requested amount.

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.