US entertainment industry calls for use of rootkits against Internet pirates

So, if going after Internet piracy with DMCA takedowns and ISP throttling of Net connections aren’t enough, the music and movie industries in the US are looking to take their Internet piracy fight to the next level with legalizing the use of malware, such as spyware and rootkits, to go up against Internet pirates on the web.

One of many measures looked at, is the ability to lock your PC with a notice saying for example, that you broke a law and need to pay a fine (known as ransomware).

Such as measure like this takes the fight directly to the user.

Source: Boing Boing

Top ISPs Six Strikes Anti-Piracy measures may apply to free Wi-Fi

For those that think the six strikes copyright enforcement blitz only applies to residential customers and not in public areas, think again.

The top ISPs - AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, and others may expand the six strikes copyright rule to their Wi-Fi hotspots, and go after businesses that are providing patrons their Wi-Fi access and throttling down their Net speed if used for infringement purposes.

It shows even if you use public Wi-Fi, you may be subject to an unexpected decrease in Net speed.

Source: TechDirt

If you're looking to petition Verizon not to pursue businesses that provide their Wi-Fi access, sign the petition here.

U.S. ISPs begin six strike anti-piracy program in November

In November 2012, Internet providers such as AT&T, Comcast, Verizon, Cablevision, and a few others will start up their six strikes anti-piracy program. The program is meant to educate Net users about online piracy, and prevents them from downloading materials that may infringe copyright, including the monitoring of peer-to-peer communications.

July 12th was the said date for the program, not sure if this was related to the program, or perhaps rescheduled.

This is made possible thanks to an agreement between the ISPs and the entertainment industry (Hollywood) such as the MPAA and the RIAA, and their associates.

As it stands, the mitigation measures will be used on your sixth strike and beyond, such as the temporary block of Internet traffic, and throttling down of Net speed, that is, after you’ve been warned by your ISP many times.

Source: TorrentFreak

SOPA-supporting Hollywood wants to go after resellers

First, the entertainment industry wants to stump out piracy on the web, and now, they want to go after those who resell their products or works – such as Amazon, Ebay, Craigslist, and others.

To put it simply, your right to resell products you own is in jeopardy. These people claim that if you sell your used i-Pad to someone for example, they say it’s infringing, and leaves the intellectual owners in the dust, with no intervention in the reselling process.

Seems the intellectual owners want some percentage of the take in resales, or want to leave the reselling of their products and works to themselves.

Sign the petition from Demand Progress if you oppose the intervention of intellectual property owners in reselling what you own.

Google plans to de-rank sites suspected of piracy from search engine

Score one for Hollywood and other intellectual property owners putting more pressure on Google to handle websites in their search engine that promote piracy online – Google is now planning to decrease the ranking of websites based on valid DMCA takedown requests on suspected infringing sites, such as file-sharing sites, and blogs, forums, and others that link to pirated materials, by changing their search algorithm.

It’s been said that YouTube may not get caught in the search algorithm change, since the site already has the Content ID system, which is still active in spotting and blocking video and audio material being used by other people.

As of this post, the RIAA and their associates are leading the copyright battle on Google search with over 800,000 links queued to be de-listed, with Microsoft coming in second with about 400,000 links. Based on Google’s Transparency report, the links to infringing sites to be removed tops over a million, with about 1,500 copyright owners leading the copyright fight. The obvious main targets in the report were mainly file-sharing networks.

This may cause legitimate websites to get caught in the mix, so take note of many trusted websites as you can.

Source: ZDNet

Japan: Download a pirated file, and it’s a two-year jail sentence

We love Japan and their entertainment industry -  the anime, manga, J-pop, etc. But this seems to be the Orwellian approach to copyright enforcement on the Internet.

It doesn’t seem to involve any strikes approach of warning Net users of downloading questionable materials. Japan recently amended their copyright law that will jail illegal downloaders for up to two years and a fine up to two million yen ($20,000). The uploading of copyright materials still stands at a 10-year jail sentence.

For the folks in Japan, start protesting on this if this concerns you the most – because to make this possible, the Internet providers along with copyright owners will have to track your Internet usage in a effort to catch the infringers.

Japan Makes Unauthorized Downloading a Criminal Offense - TorrentFreak

UK Internet Copyright Police to Mail Out Notices by 2014

In their latest updated plans to deal with P2P file sharing networks that host copyrighted materials belonging to intellectual owners, it is said that ISPs in the country will mail out via post office copyright infringement notices to subscribers instead of email/pop-up notices over the Internet.

Perhaps they learned that email/in-screen copyright strikes notices are useless and can easily be ignored? Putting out the copyright alerts by regular post mail maybe the best effective way of tacking those alerts to the subscribers. Then there’s a chance the subscribers may have to acknowledge the copyright notice by mail in writing.

Check out the link to the article below for more.

New Details of UK Piracy Monitoring Plan Made Public - TorrentFreak

Internet Copyright war in India? Pirate Bay and Vimeo censored

Huge news for Internet users in India, the Pirate Bay and Vimeo have become inaccessible in the country.  It's hard to say whether this was done under the direction of the Indian government, or the ISPs acted alone.  The reason may be obvious here, that the Indian regime is seeking to block out sites that infringe the intellectual properties of others, such as the entertainment industry.  This may have come after a British court told its ISPs to block out the Pirate Bay, and possibly others similar to it.

It appears the Internet copyright/piracy fight is already underway for the Indian people - Are they're prepared?

Source: The Pirate Bay, Vimeo blocked in India - Information Policy Blog

Could The Pirate Bay be next after MegaUpload?

A British court is telling its ISPs to block out the Pirate Bay, but could this happen in the US? Also it comes recently after its ISPs are told to provide customers with services that will restrict Internet porn, such as software or services they can subscribe to or download.

Video from RT America

Embed 2012: MPAA says embedding videos may be copyright infringing

The MPAA claims that users who embed copyrighted videos may be as guilty as the person who posted them - one of many still engaging in a Internet copyright war.

If the US appeals court hears this case and goes in favor of the MPAA, embedding content could soon come to an end, the ability known to make content go viral.

From Russia Today America

ACTA in UK: 10 years in jail for a download?

Remember RnBxclusive got shut down by the UK's SOCA weeks ago and posted a warning to the site's users about downloading materials off the site? Russia Today finally did a report on it here:

UK's SOCA seized RnBXclusive music website

Britain's Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) seized the domain name of the music website and blog RnBXclusive and arrested the site's operatives. After the seizure, a warning was posted for those who used the site to download any music.

SOCA claimed the music files on the site was stolen from elsewhere, according to TorrentFreak and had links to copyrighted songs.

Perhaps the first time the world has seen site seizure notices from the UK, and probably more to time. For many of us, the Internet copyright battle continues.

See video for more on this: