This site lists some of the societies that are in charge to collect the fees for the rights owners in the music industry. I suppose that each country has its own way to collect the fee and the method of calculations. The list seems limited to societies that have a Internet site.
Funnily, some countries, such as France, have more than one!
Interesting pointer if you need such information.
How much does piracy and counterfeiting cost to the industry? This is an extremely valuable question. Depending whom you are listening the data change in incredible ratio.
Are their any reliable figures? This was teh question that the United States Government Accountability Office (GAO) tried to answer following a request of the Congress. Last month GAO published its 41 page answer.
What is the answer? I will quote an excerpt of the executive summary.
We determined that the U.S.
government did not systematically collect data and perform analysis on the impacts of counterfeiting and piracy on the U.S. economy and, based on our review of literature and interviews with experts, we concluded that it was not feasible to develop our own estimates or attempt to quantify the economic impact of counterfeiting and piracy on the U.S. economy.
In other words, according to GAO, it is not possible to have reliable data. Nevertheless, the report makes an exhaustive review and analysis of the numerous reports proposing data. Each time, GAO explains the weaknesses in the methodology. The report offers an interesting exhaustive bibliography of existing reports on piracy.
At no moment does GAO take a position if the data are under estimating or over estimating the real data. it just states that there is no reliable way to estimate it. Which is totally logic. How can estimate something that you cannot measure, that you do not know, … Would the institutions have precise knowledge, they would then be in capacity to stop it.
In addition, the report gives a good qualitative analysis of the consequences of pîracy. The “positive” effect is rather anecdotic, although the argument that IT and telco industry did benefit from digital piracy was already claimed by Olivier BOMSEL.
Conclusion: Piracy and counterfeiting arereal. They have negative effects but nobody can give a reliable estimation of the real impact.
Last week, I reported that Nintendo succeeded to sue an Australian retailer of R4.
Unfortunately, for Nintendo, it is not always as straight forward for other countries. Recently, Nintendo experienced a reversal in France. In 2009, Nintendo prosecuted six French retailers among which Assentek. On 3rd December 2009, the Parisian Tribunal de Grande Instance (TGI) nonsuited Nintendo. Thus, this sets a legal precedent making legal the sales of linkers, such as R4.
On 9th December, both Nintendo and the state prosecutor appealed against this decision. Thus, we will have to wait for the final decision.
Assentek provides an interesting press review.
It is always surprising that two countries do not perceive piracy in the same way. One of the difficulties is that there is no harmonization of copyright and trademark laws.
In my old times (end 70s), the first programmable calculators appeared: HP34 with inverted Polish notation (A twisted mindset needed!), and the TI57, TI 58 and overall the mythic TI59. It was the first programmable calculator with 1K RAM! And recordable magnetic strip, printer… The competitor was HP41C.
But one of the most funny part of these calculators was to discover their secrets, i.e., find ways to do things that they were not suppose to do or find hidden features. We exchanged and searched feverishly these tips.
The recent episode of Texas Instruments (TI) reminded me these glory days. (sniff). Hobbyists succeeded to install different OS on TI’s latest graphical calculators. The applications are normally signed. Hobbyists succeeded to reverse engineer the signing keys and published them on blogs. Thus, TI issued letters demanding the bloggers to remove the information due to DMCA violation.
Mid October 2009, Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) represented three persons who received such notifications. EFF claimed that DMCA allowed reverse engineering to create interoperable custom software like the program.
End of October, TI has dropped the threats against these persons. Nevertheless, it seems that TI continues to issue such letters to other bloggers.
I believe that some people have the compulsory need to “hack” in the Noble sense a system that they own. It is a intellectual challenge. It is usual in the game console domain and even in the mobile phone. Sometimes they have the blessing of the manufacturer (Sony and the PS3). More often, they do not have it (XBOX, Wii, DS, iPhone, …) The hobbyists are not driven by greed, they are driven by intellectual challenge. Unfortunately, sometimes their work is reused by pirates who are money driven.
Should a manufacturer fight back hobbyists? If their work endangers the business model of the manufacturer, then the answer is yes. Else, the answer is not Manichean. Many other parameters may be analyzed: safety, liability,…
The live streaming site Ustream has been sued by Black Ring Inc, the company owned by boxer Roy Jones Jr. Black Ring claims that Ustream allowed about 2,377 person to view a boxing event free of charge. The event was available in live as pay per view event. Furthermore, Black Ring complains that Ustream did not collaborate to collect information about claimed infringement.
According to Techcruch, Ustream believes that it makes the right effort to comply to copyright rules.
Detecting in real time, live rebroadcast of live events is a tough work. To be efficient, it requires several elements:
Element 2 is a tough issue. Watermarking may be a solution if the watermark is unique for the event. But you cannot expect to pass the detector on all currently streaming events. You have to make a first selection.
Element 4 is also tough. As an operator you’d rather be sure not to take down legitimate streams.
But the worst is that what prevents the pirate to start a new stream once the first one has been took down and notify the viewers of the new “coordinates”. For instance, Indian pirates play that cat and mouse game during broadcast of cricket games. Pirates have several Set Top Boxes ready. They use a first one to illegally rebroadcast. Once the broadcaster identified the box, displaying the ID of every box and blacklisting the infringing one, the pirates switch to a new set top box. It is a nice business.
Thus, stopping in real time, rebroadcast of live events may be a tough challenge.
In July, Amazon erased some instances of Orwell’s books for copyright issues. Immediately after, the CEO apologized. One step further in mea culpa, Amazon is offering to download a new version of the erased books (which this time proper copyrights) or refund 30$. The people who had their book erased received the following mail:
As you were one of the customers impacted by the removal of ‘Nineteen Eighty Four’ from your Kindle device in July of this year, we would like to offer you the option to have us re-deliver this book to your Kindle along with any annotations you made,” read an e-mail letter to affected Kindle users late last week. “You will not be charged for the book. If you do not wish to have us re-deliver the book to your Kindle, you can instead choose to receive an Amazon.com electronic gift certificate or check for $30.
Two persons are already suing Amazon for this deletion. They claimed that they will not drop the case.
Amazon has just done the right smart thing. Nevertheless, I have no doubts that this event will often illustrate the grievances of DRM opponents.
The story continues. Here are some news since last report in August.
On 24th, a Swedish Court ordered Black Internet, one of FAIs of The Pirate Bay (TPB), to cut the connection, which it did. Nevertheless, TPB uses many FAIs.
On 27th August, the shareholders of Global gaming factory approved the purchase of TPB. Now, the company has just to provide the money (which seems not as obvious)
Meanwhile the obvious next move occurred. Somebody packaged the list of more than 800,000 torrents as a torrent. BTARENA has put on line this list, thus cloning TPB.
My favorite Anti Virus (at least the one I use at home), Avast! did also strike. For some time, it declared TPB site has a malicious site. Avast! has removed this categorization claiming it was a human error.
The Pirate Bay is still online and offering trackers.