Peer-meme, a daily gathering of news and commentary on the copyright wars and the file-sharing world.
Thomas Mennecke / Slyck
23,322 John Does for The Expendables case? Not so fast, says Judge to US Copyright Group
Tom from Slyck does a great job of digging into the most recent court decisions surrounding the effort by the US Copyright Group to get their mass infringement lawsuits through the judicial process. At the present it doesn’t look to good for the USCG, but it’s hard to know when or if they will ever just give up, as seems to be the case with similar efforts on the UK.
Ernesto / Torrentfreak
Google Expands Piracy-Related Keyword Filter
Bending to pressure from the content industries Google has agreed to censor certain “offending” words from its Instant and Autocomplete features, particularly terms like “torrent” and “Rapidshare.” The move is a dangerous one from a precedent standpoint, and will likely lead to more groups trying to force Google to edit terms they do not approve of, to the detriment of all Google users.
Jeff Steele / The Wrap
The Upside of Digital Piracy: Or How I Learned to Quit Worrying and Love the Free Feedback
Somewhat surprising to see a somewhat open-minded piece in an industry publication like The Wrap, but Steele, a noted film financier actually puts forth the notion that the early feedback provided by the users of pirate sites may have real value. Steele sees a possibility in using these “reviews” to help craft films and their promotional campaigns. It might seem far-fetched, but at least Steele is trying to recognize that the down-loaders are, to some extent, the real fans filmmakers are trying to reach, and that it would be foolish to dismiss their insights just because of the provenance.
Ben Sisario / New York Times Media Decoder
Interview With the U.S. Copyright Czar
A rather depressing interview with the new head government copyright official, Victoria Espinel. Sadly, all she offers are the Hollywood standard talking points, promising to somehow frighten the Internet to stop its pirating ways. I’m sure she will be about as effective as her predecessors.
Tom Cheshire / Wired UK
Q&A with ‘Go The Fuck To Sleep’ author Adam Mansbach
The author of the Internet (and now Amazon sales charts) phenom ‘children’s’ book responds to the massive piracy of his book ambivalently. The key take-away, however, should be that piracy clearly helps in this case, because it brings interest and attention to something that cannot be copied digitally, a hands-on read aloud book. The lesson should be clear, use the infinite to publicize the scarce.
If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!
