Another one bites the dust... Oops, I hope I didn't just violate copyright infringement.

After the shutdown of Megaupload, other popular file-sharing websites have been cracking down and finding any legal loophole than can to stay in business, but it isn’t looking too good… The next one seemingly on the downfall is Hotfile, an equal competitor of Megaupload. But, Hotfile claims they remove copyright infringement files upon request, which is the same route YouTube is taking.

According to a news post, “Hotfile uses fingerprinting technology to block the uploading of files identified as infringing on copyright holders’ rights. Hotfile has recently upgraded its fingerprint technology to vCloud9, the latest, state-of-the-art fingerprint technology provided by Vobile,” which sounds just lovely. I just hope all of this nonsense doesn’t grow so monstrous and become big enough to take on the big-dogs, like Google and Microsoft.

Over seas the same kind of media business is going on. The ever so popular Pirate Bay is facing troubles in the copyright infringement area again, probably brought up by recent hype. The decision to block the site in Britain will be made in June. I will miss you, Internet full of joy and excitement.

Seriously? Comparing Pinterest to Napster?!

All of these copyright infringement laws need to take a major step back and allow people to see how crazy with power the government has become. I read an article titled “Could Pinterest become the next Napster?” and laughed immediately at the title alone. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Pinterest, which I was, people basically “pin” items and images that they found on the Internet to their virtual bulletin board. They “pin up” anything from recipes, workouts, or even craft projects. The issue here is that the law states you cannot “pin” anything that doesn’t belong to you, but the website’s intention led users to believe otherwise and use their site as a way to bookmark and share fascinating items that are floating around random cyber space. Napster, on the complete other side of the spectrum, was strictly for sharing copyrighted music and movies for free, not to share fun and interesting items! Sites like Pinterest are giving odd-blogs the hits they need to feel like someone out there is reading the posts. And I would personally be flattered if someone “pinned” one of my recipes to their bulletin board for all to see. I don’t see the harm of this one at all…

Where did all the music go?

I’m not sure how many of you out there find music on the Internet in random places, not saying I do…but someone has mad it a lot harder to achieve this recently. Even though the SOPA and PIPA laws are in remission for the time being, it seems that other laws already in place are taking action on some file-sharing sites. On January 19, 2012, the multi-million dollar file-sharing site Megaupload.com was shut down. Along with the site being shut down, the United States went all the way to New Zealand to arrest it’s founder Kim Dotcom and three other employees. The loophole that made these arrests possible is that, even though the company was based out of Hong Kong, some of the pirated content was hosted on leased servers in Virginia. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, which defends free speech and digital rights online, said in a statement that the arrests set "a terrifying precedent. If the United States can seize a Dutch citizen in New Zealand over a copyright claim, what is next?"

While reading an article in the USA Today, I came across some information I didn’t know before. Apparently there are celebrities out there who endorse websites such as Megaupload, and I always believed they were the ones who contested them the most. “Megaupload was unique not only because of its massive size and the volume of downloaded content, but also because it had high-profile support from celebrities, musicians and other content producers who are most often the victims of copyright infringement and piracy. Before the website was taken down, it contained endorsements from Kim Kardashian, Alicia Keys and Kanye West, among others.” The article also stated, “the company listed Swizz Beatz, a musician who married Keys in 2010, as its CEO. He was not named in the indictment and declined to comment through a representative.” 

Another aspect that caused the downfall of this site was that users could receive cash bonuses if they uploaded content that was popular, and generated massive amounts of downloads to the site. This, in the government’s eyes appears to be conspiracy to commit money laundering on top of the copyright infringement each user was committing. Luckily for the viewers and downloaders out there, the Justice department said that even though it is illegal for anyone to download pirated content, their investigations are focused more so on the leaders of the company. 

This whole situation is ridiculous, I understand that illegal is illegal, but there are so many worse things happening in the world. The fact that Kim Dotcom kept being denied bail because he is viewed as a flight risk is silly; they seized millions of dollars from him including luxury cars, guns, and artwork. But, Dotcom is still claiming his innocence, so we shall see.

Déjà vu?

Thanks to all of the protests and complaints, the SOPA and PIPA laws were not even voted upon, and should definitely be kept quiet for another year or so. But, does that mean we are all in the clear? I don’t think so, at least not if history repeats it self, which it tends to do. Back in 1998 the Digital Millennium Copyright Act was passed, it imposed rules that prohibited the circumvention of technological protection measures, set limitations on copyright infringement liability for online service providers, and expanded an existing exemption for making copies of computer programs. Soon though, this law became out of date and too many loopholes were popping up. In 2002 they came up with a new law, the “Consumer Broadband Digital Television Act of 2002,” which attempted to prevent digital distribution by protecting copyrights. Then in 2004 came the “Inducing Infringement of Copyrights Act of 2004” claiming certain technologies were equivalent to producing infringement, but was criticized for focusing on the technology involved instead of the behavior behind it. A different act was passed in 2004, the “Protecting Intellectual Rights Against Theft and Expropriation (PIRATE) Act,” which allowed “the entertainment industry to use the Justice Department as its private law firm to enforce copyright law in civil, as opposed to criminal, cases.  PIRATE was one of eight intellectual property bills grouped into one omnibus that year alone.”

Unfortunate for the Senate, but fortunate for the rest of us, the grouped package never passed. Until 2007 when the Senate came up with the “Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act of 2008” (Pro-IP Act), this has harsher consequences often resulting in the seizure of computers, if there was suspected infringement. According to an article in the Huffington Post, “Industry leaders lauded the bill, saying it would create thousands of jobs and even help curb terrorism.” I don’t exactly see how terrorism plays into this, other than a lot of the pirated music comes from over sea sites.

Anyways, back to my point, the senate and congress are going to keep trying their little games to pass more acts and band all that is fun and interesting on the Internet. No matter how many times they fail or succeed it seems like, since technology keeps changing, they will continue to fight against online material. Luckily they need to overcome some serious obstacles before passing anything, as seen in the past and more recent past. We are all innovators, so we will find ways around whatever the government throws our way, unless it is a good idea…but who are we kidding? It wasn’t that long ago people were using P2P sharing programs to download music off the Internet, then it evolved into torrent sites and even simpler as file-host and file-sharing sites that have individual downloads available. So, lets keep the ball rolling world. 

The beginning of the end...

Hello fellow bloggers and other Internet enthusiasts, welcome to my first blog post ever! Since this is all a little new to me, I shall just let it flow and see what comes out of my fingers. First of all, there has been a lot of hype in the media about the Internet and the new acts out there that wish to censor it further. Well, maybe that isn't how they would prefer to phrase it, but bluntly that is what will happen if the acts are passed. The acts I speak of are the SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect IP Act); they are causing uproar in every online community because they are all potentially being put in to danger. 

While reading an article from the CBS news website, who are in favor of the SOPA and PIPA bills, acknowledge the fact that "there are already laws that protect copyrighted material, including the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). But while the DMCA focuses on removing specific, unauthorized content from the Internet, SOPA and PIPA instead target the platform -- that is, the site hosting the unauthorized content." The truth in that statement is what bothers me most about the news laws that are trying to be pushed through. I believe it is wrong to prosecute an entire website because a user, who had to agree to certain terms and conditions before joining the website, posted copyrighted material. The worst punishment I feel suitable for the situation is to simply block the user from the site, or even fine them, because it was their idea.
A lot of musicians out there who are up-and-coming use the Internet and its many resources to get their music heard by the world; but these bands usually make their music free anyways to promote their sound and reel in fans. Also, the "house" and "techno" music scenes are blowing up recently and so are DJs as well. What better way to get your mix-tape heard than by streaming it on the web for free?
I just believe that in this modern day society the Internet plays too much of a role in the lives of America to be censored in the way these laws could change it. Other major believers of my previous statement and other anti-SOPA/PIPA decided to blackout for 24 hours, showing just a page saying “the U.S. Congress is considering legislation that could fatally damage the free and open Internet” in order to protest. Other participants in the blackout protest included a popular link-sharing site Reddit, along with BoingBoing, Mozilla, WordPress, TwitPic, MoveOn.org and the ICanHasCheezBurger network. Google supported the blackout with a protest doodle and message: "Tell Congress: Please don't censor the web," but the search engine didn’t actually black itself out.