61–70 of 111 posts
It's time to decentralize source repositories.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can't say where the line is, but popcorn time seems to be in a different category than torrent clients, etc. in that popcorn time just gives you a list of copyright protected movies in its interface. With a torrent, you have to get a seed file elsewhere which could potentially be anything. It could be dangerous though, to start banning tools like this without defining a difference. That's why this is troubling, bec…
I'll extend my hypothetical. Lets say there are two groups. One group builds a generic media client - under the guise of better delivery of free educational videos (MIT lectures etc.) The other group sets up "Movie Copyright Watch" and publishes an up-to-date list of movie torrents - under the guise of occasionally reporting this list back to MPAA and the like. Now lets say team A decide to adopt the same configurati…
> Attached as Exhibit A is a series of screenshots taken from within the applications of each Project that includes images of copyrighted works available through the Projects. The representative titles shown in Exhibit A consist of only some of the motion pictures and television programs that are owned or controlled by the MPAA Member Studios and that are being infringed via the Projects. Exhibit A is provided as a r…
>Maybe we can skirt by with the general purpose nature of the above tools...so what about tools used to facilitate penetration testing (which can also be used for computer crime) - should we get rid of that source code too? Germany made all "hacker tools" illegal to posses in 2007. http://makezine.com/2007/08/11/the-hacker-tool-law-in-ef/
It is also illegal to create (or obtain) a computer program that is intended for performing a such crime.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'll extend my hypothetical. Lets say there are two groups. One group builds a generic media client - under the guise of better delivery of free educational videos (MIT lectures etc.) The other group sets up "Movie Copyright Watch" and publishes an up-to-date list of movie torrents - under the guise of occasionally reporting this list back to MPAA and the like. Now lets say team A decide to adopt the same configurati…
"it is crazy to ban knives because you can stab people with them." That's true when looking at kitchen knifes, but to stretch your analogy: popcorn time is to other media applications as GI Joe's Combat knife is to other knives. It's not made to butter your bread: it's made to stab people. Popcorn time was made specifically to infringe, that's not to say that the copyright system is not hopelessly broken, but imo thi…
The reason I said a DCMA takedown doesn't make sense is because they are usually to take down actual media, like a youtube video, not the source code to a tool. But I think they didn't really have options and wanted it done quickly.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"So by this logic...the source code for any web browser, torrent client, media player etc. etc. should be subject to these notices because they can be used to infringe copyright?" No. And as the complaint makes clear, it is not being filed in response to potential infringement, but clearly demonstrable instances of actual infringement. Big, big difference.
Please tell me what part of the source code infringed copyright? The statement calls out instances of the running application infringing copyright. Nowhere does it say the source code was infringing copyright (and I am not sure how source code could unless it was either stolen or had the lyrics to "A Whole New World" in one of the comments.) Which means the DCMA notice was targeting a tool of potential infringement n…
> Attached as Exhibit A is a series of screenshots taken from within the applications of each Project that includes images of copyrighted works available through the Projects. The representative titles shown in Exhibit A consist of only some of the motion pictures and television programs that are owned or controlled by the MPAA Member Studios and that are being infringed via the Projects. Exhibit A is provided as a r…
The screenshots provided basically show that Popcorn Time is not just an app for legally playing content. It would be very difficult to argue to a judge "This app was not designed for the purpose of pirating movies" when these screenshots are right next to him/her.
Now let's say Popcorn Time has a configuration file that, by default, just happens to point to sources with illegal content. The question (which I don't have the answer to) is is Popcorn Time responsible for that configuration file? Would Google be responsible if a button on Chrome just happened to point to child porn which they don't control? Would, "It is the responsibility of our users not to download illegal content. If they don't want to view child pornography they can disable the clearly marked button in their settings or just not click it" suffice? I'm not a lawyer so I don't have the answer.
> Making distinctions like this is dangerous, and allowing speech to be suppressed by corporate interests is a worrying trend.
Why does everything have to be a free speech issue nowadays? If you think not being able to share copyrighted content without the permission of the copyright holder violates the first ammendment then you should be working towards repealing The Digital Millenium Copyright Act, not stopping it from being enforced.
EDIT:
From the DMCA:
> No person shall manufacture, import, offer to the public, provide, or otherwise traffic in any technology, product, service, device, component, or part thereof, that- (A) is primarily designed or produced for the purpose of circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title; (B) has only limited commercially significant purpose or use other than to circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title; or (C) is marketed by that person or another acting in concert with that person with that person’s knowledge for use in circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.
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Right. This is the money sentence: > Indeed, copyright infringement is so prevalent within the Projects that infringement plainly is their predominant use and purpose. "Predominant use and purpose" is one of the tests for whether software is copyright-infringing under DMCA. IANAL but this looks pretty open-and-shut to me.
You're on the money here. Of course "predominant use and purpose" eventually boils down to "I know it when I see it" [1] 1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it
In this case, that wouldn't be necessary. There may be a fine line somewhere where you could argue that a piece of software does or does not have infringement as its primary purpose. PopcornTime is not close to that line.
> Attached as Exhibit A is a series of screenshots taken from within the applications of each Project that includes images of copyrighted works available through the Projects. The representative titles shown in Exhibit A consist of only some of the motion pictures and television programs that are owned or controlled by the MPAA Member Studios and that are being infringed via the Projects. Exhibit A is provided as a r…
The Big Difference between Popcorn Time and Chrome or Bit torrent is that while Chrome and Bit torrent are can be made to do illegal things such as pirate movies, Popcorn Time is explicitly made with the intention of illegally pirating movies. The screenshots provided basically show that Popcorn Time is not just an app for legally playing content. It would be very difficult to argue to a judge "This app was not desig…
> Attached as Exhibit A is a series of screenshots taken from within the applications of each Project that includes images of copyrighted works available through the Projects. The representative titles shown in Exhibit A consist of only some of the motion pictures and television programs that are owned or controlled by the MPAA Member Studios and that are being infringed via the Projects. Exhibit A is provided as a r…
> So by this logic That's just it. The IP system (and more generally, the entire legal system) isn't based on logic. If you upset the people with political power, you'll find that your actions are "illegal." That's the real spirit of IP law: it's illegal to upset powerful IP lobbies.
Whether it accomplishes that is debatable at times, and it's certainly misused, but that's why it exists.
"Information wants to be free" is a terrible argument from the naturalistic fallacy. Cars want to break down, your body wants to get cancer, and ebola wants to spread.
The question is whether information having to be free is good for us. If your profession is at all related to the production of information -- art, code, anything -- then you should be very skeptical of this meme. If all information is free, your salary is $0 unless you are making content for indirect monetization -- which means propaganda, surveillance based marketing, etc. A world where information is free is a world where only content with an indirect manipulative agenda gets financed and where the value of intellectual labor is subject to extreme downward pressure.
Piracy isn't a liberal, liberating thing... it's akin to union-busting and other forms of aggressive labor devaluation. It benefits ultra-capitalists who own large channels of communication and want to be able to monetize content and user behavior without paying for its creation.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> With those applications you can get from clean install to playing a copyrighted movie in three clicks. You don't do that with a web browser. Sure you can. Click 1: https://www.reddit.com/r/fullmoviesonyoutube/ Click 2: Select a movie. Copyright infringement in two easy clicks!
There is no mainstream browser that automatically directs the user to a list like /r/fullmoviesonyoutube. A browser is a generic tool that can be made to visit infringing content, but does not itself encourage the user to do so. If there really were no difference between Popcorn Time and a browser, nobody would have used Popcorn Time, because 100% of its users already had browsers.