Music industry spokesman loves child porn

There. Now that I've got your attention, you shouldn't be surprised that music industry hit men are watching out for you watching out for your children by watching little children... you know. Hey, I've seen some of those videos Hollywood makes! Who's watching those guys??

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50,000 sued over "Hurt Locker" piracy

"Voltage Pictures, which produced the film, is suing upwards of 50,000 individuals who allegedly pirated the film online, according to the Hollywood Reporter's media-law blog."

"As of 2008, after five long years of litigation efforts, the Recording Industry Association of America had threatened legal action against just 30,000 individuals, a drop in the bucket compared to the action Voltage is taking over a single pirated film, all at once."

ISPs are busy getting your ip to hand over right now. It appears that telecoms, not the government, are really Big Bro. We already know they can/do listen in. I'm happy to report that I'm personally so boring they asked me to stop making ANY phone calls.

There used to be a thing called "privacy" in the US. How would we all feel about the post office opening any packages just because they have the feeling that we might be mailing a cd or dvd, even if it's only a home movie?

The other point to be made here is that the film was uploaded illegally 5 months before its theatrical release. Yo ho, matey! There be a pirate in the studio! And THAT should be the one being persecuted AND prosecuted.

One other thought-- what happened to the supposition that it was the sharing, making it available for download, not the downloading itself, that was illegal? I guess the Thomas case changed the dynamics a bit. This appears to be another case of shock and awe, an attempt to extort money from people who can't afford to be sued. Pitiful, Voltage Pictures, just pitiful.

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Time Warner Cable tries to put brakes on massive piracy case

"Time Warner Cable has no intention of complying with thousands of requests asking it to identify copyright infringers."

Huh??

"Yesterday, Time Warner Cable told a federal court overseeing a massive 2,094-person lawsuit targeting the poor folks who downloaded (and, what's worse, apparently watched) Uwe Boll's Far Cry that the US Copyright Group's subpoenas were out of control.

"Copyright cases involving third-party discovery of Internet service providers have typically related to a plaintiff's efforts to identify anonymous defendants whose numbers rank in the single or low double digits," wrote the cable company. "By contrast, plaintiff in this case alone seeks identifying information about 2,049 anonymous defendants, and seeks identifying information about 809 Internet Protocol addresses from TWC."

"Time Warner Cable does not have enough employees to respond to these requests. In a typical month, the company receives an average of 567 IP lookup requests, nearly all of them coming from law enforcement. These lookup requests involve everything from suicide threats to child abduction to terrorist activity, and the company says that such cases take "immediate priority." "

TWC needs to get their priorities straight. Oh, wait. They already do. And they're not being altruistic, they're being realistic. Eat it, USCG.

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Real Copyright Law And File Sharing Copyright Law

"We already wrote about the Limewire decision, which didn't seem particularly surprising at all, given that LimeWire was basically doing the exact same things as Grokster. However, some people are noticing a few problematic parts to the ruling."

Just a few interesting points, but really -- what's done is done. Be careful not to "induce infringement" like ohhhhh.... libraries? After all, they have all those books, and those copy machines, and hmmmm... I'm not worried, though. Those tough old birds in the stacks can obviously handle themselves.

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Solicitor General Kagan did a good job in Cartoon Networks v. CSC Holdings case

Not only Ray Beckerman; Lawrence Lessig also supports Obama's nominee. And while one issue is not a deal-maker or a deal-breaker for such an important post, it most assuredly should be one of the deciding factors.

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MPAA Worries About Pirating U.S. Soldiers in Iraq

"Less known are the movie industry�s efforts to clamp down on copyright infringers who are defending their country�s interests on foreign soil. Because the availability of legal movies and TV-shows is limited in countries such as Iraq, soldiers sometimes use BitTorrent to get their fix, or buy pirated DVDs from local sellers."

"On a daily basis, the MPAA and RIAA send copyright notices to military personnel via their base ISPs. In turn, the personnel are threatened with account suspension and in serious cases, disconnection."

How low can you go? Sometimes even a pound of flesh is not enough to satisfy. And yes, the entertainment industry really will eat your babies.

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