Peer-meme, a daily gathering of news and commentary on the copyright wars and the file-sharing world.
Gautham Nagesh / The Hill
Leahy praises administration officials for domain seizures
Frustrating reading that Sen. Patrick Leahy continues to praise the work of the Department of Justice in their “”Operation In Our Sites” domain seizure campaign. ICE officials proclaim that the operation has had a deterrent effect, but it’s hard to believe it, and of course, they offer no real evidence to prove it. And there is no mention of the serious due process and First Amendment problems of the Justice Department’s actions, which is sadly not surprising.
Enigmax / Torrentfreak
MPAA Anti-Piracy Lobbying Targets FBI, DOJ, ICE, DHS and Biden
The movie industry trade association continues to pour money into pressuring both lawmakers, and increasingly, administration and law enforcement agencies to support the enforcement agenda. It would seem they prefer to spend money this way, rather than putting own resources behind developing new business models that might actually win customers to their products. In the absence of any counter-balancing financial efforts by consumer and civil libertarian groups, we can expect most politicians to fall in line behind the corporate interests that work so hard to influence lawmakers.
Mike Masnick / Techdirt
Collateral Damage: In The Hunt For LulzSec, FBI Takes Down A Bunch Of Websites
First reported by Nick Bilton in the NYTimes, the FBI seized a number of servers in their search for the hackers behind the recent surge of LulzSec activity. Not surprisingly, the seizures have also taken down a number of websites that had nothing whatsoever to do with the hacking, but just happened to be hosted on the servers that the authorities grabbed. Needless to say, the lack of concern by the FBI about this “collateral damage” is alarming, and shows just how scatter-shot they are in their enforcement efforts.
Gautham Nagesh / The Hill
Leahy praises administration officials for domain seizures
Frustrating reading that Sen. Patrick Leahy continues to praise the work of the Department of Justice in their “”Operation In Our Sites” domain seizure campaign. ICE officials proclaim that the operation has had a deterrent effect, but it’s hard to believe it, and of course, they offer no real evidence to prove it. And there is no mention of the serious due process and First Amendment problems of the Justice Department’s actions, which is sadly not surprising.
Cory Doctorow / Boing Boing
LEAKED: UK copyright lobby holds closed-door meetings with gov’t to discuss national Web-censorship regime
Uncovered documents show the British content-owning industries trying to push their government towards a censorship regime. Similar to efforts in other countries, public oversight and consumer concerns seem to be missing from the agenda and explicitly shut out from the discussions. After the recent passage of the Digital Economy Act these discussions have a more ominous quality since the UK government does now have more authority to meddle with the Internet.
Stew Shearer / GamePro
Grassroots Game Preservation Through Abandonware
A fascinating look at how fans often need to take things into their own hands to preserve older games at “Abandonware” sites, because the ostensible owners of the games do not see any commercial potential for older titles. Not surprisingly, and similar to the situation with old book titles and sound recordings, the companies want it both ways, they want to maintain copyright control, in case new business models emerge, while at the same time the abdicate any preservation responsibility. Sad, and short-sighted, but understandable from a short-term profit standpoint.
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