Former file sharer Kazaa set to return as a legitimate website

Former online peer-to-peer file sharing service Kazaa is set to be relaunched as a legitimate music service.

The site was one of the best known for the swapping of copyrighted music at the beginning of the decade, but will return as a legal subscription download site under the ownership Brilliant Digital Entertainment, reports Cnet.com.

Kazaa follows Napster and more recently Pirate Bay, who have both gone "legitimate" after being accused of infringing copyright by the music industry.

Earlier this year, a number of our users complained about their experience on the receiving end of a DMCA complaint. Much commentary at the time focused on claims that we were removing blog posts at the behest of music labels, that we were not notifying users, and that we weren't providing users with any recourse if they were linking to the music with permission. Though we noted at the time that we hadn't changed anything and were still following our documented policy, we realized that there was room for improvement. Over the next several months, we talked with the Electronic Frontier Foundation and ChillingEffects.org, and reached out to a number of users to find out what they'd like to see in our policy moving forward. We're happy to make those changes our latest birthday present for our users.

First, a quick review: the DMCA is a U.S. law that says that a copyright holder (a music label, for example) can notify services like Blogger if they see cases where their content is being used without permission. Once we're notified by the music label and we believe the claim to be valid, we are then obligated to remove the content—otherwise we could be found liable for its continued use. Up until today, when we received a DMCA complaint, we would send an e-mail to the owner of the blog, forward a copy of the complaint (usually a fax) to ChillingEffects.org (more about Chilling Effects here), and delete the post.

There were several problems: first, some of our bloggers hadn't updated their e-mail addresses in years (Blogger's been around a while!). Second, ChillingEffects.org needed to review the faxes we sent to ensure that they weren't inadvertently publishing personal info, sometimes causing lengthy delays in the publication of the complaint. This meant that the blogger couldn't see the substance of the complaint—often for months. Finally, the post was gone! Posts that contained dozens, even hundreds, of links were removed from the Internet because of one link, and often the blogger didn't know the link wasn't acceptable.

Starting today, we've changed how we handle these situations:

* DMCA Complaints are handled via a web form. This form makes data intake easier, and makes it possible for us to share information with ChillingEffects.org without passing along personally identifiable information. It also allows us to notify affected bloggers more efficiently, as we provide information on not only the blog post in question but also the actual link(s) at issue.

* Complaints are sent to ChillingEffects.org automatically. ChillingEffects.org will have a copy of the complaint soon after Blogger receives it, making it possible for the blogger to find the complaint by searching for their blog's URL at ChillingEffects.org.

* Blogger notifies affected users through their dashboard as well as by e-mail. While we hope all of our users keep their e-mail addresses current so we can notify them in case there's anything important (hint, hint), we also went further by putting a big status message at the top of their dashboard to let them know about the DMCA complaint.

* Blog posts are reset to draft status and are not deleted. Now that users have the info they need to know specifically what the complaint was about, they can edit their post (found in their blog's dashboard status message, as well as by searching for posts in "draft" status) to remove the offending content and republish the post.

We realize this birthday present isn't for everyone—we'd hope most of you never receive a complaint. But music bloggers are a large segment of our users—and we know that for those who've received one or more DMCA complaints in the past, this may have been a frustrating experience. Please take care to remove the offending content once notified of the complaint—once you do, you can republish the original post so your audience will continue to have access to the other content contained in the post.

This was a cross-team collaboration between our legal, policy and engineering groups, and on behalf of everyone who helped make this change possible: happy birthday!

Rick Klau, Blogger Product Manager
Alice Wu, Google Legal Department
Steven Chen, Google Policy Team
Saurav Shah, Blogger Engineering Team

First, a quick review: the DMCA is a U.S. law that says that a copyright holder (a music label, for example) can notify services like Blogger if they see cases where their content is being used without permission. Once we're notified by the music label and we believe the claim to be valid, we are then obligated to remove the content—otherwise we could be found liable for its continued use.

MPAA Warning Leads to County Turning Off Municipal Wi-Fi

The MPAA turned its quest against filesharing from suing individual citizens to taking down a municipal Wi-Fi service. Municipal Wi-Fi services, community maintained telecommunications services, have become a popular trend across the country, as they bring free service or lower prices -- as well as faster connections, sometimes. However they are unpopular among telecoms whose have long enjoyed the benefits of exclusivity to justify expensive service plans and copyright protection organizations that feel municipal Wi-Fi networks create a haven for piracy.

Coshocton, OH had a thriving free municipal Wi-Fi program. Then one user made the mistake of downloading a movie illegally off a torrent site, which Sony Picture's MPAA copyright enforcement team caught wind of. The county’s Internet Service Provider — OneCommunity — was subsequently notified, and Information Technology Department was then notified by OneCommunity that the offender needed to be found or the service would need to be ended.

Elizabeth Kaltman, vice president of corporate communications with the Motion Picture Association of America says municipal Wi-Fi are spreading the evils of piracy across America. She states, "[Piracy on municipal Wi-Fi networks is] a very, very common occurrence all across the U.S., in towns big or small. [Citizens are] used to instant access and instant gratification. They have the philosophy ‘if it’s there, I can take it.’"

She suggests that law-abiding citizens use on-demand services from sources like Netflix and Blockbuster, Disney Video, Fox on Demand, Cartoon Network. She also suggests citizens check out the MPAA website for a full list of legal options.

She says citizens should remember the MPAA will aggressively pursue cases of piracy and that fines can be as high as $150,000 or more. She states, "We target piracy at its source. We really focus on keeping the product out of the market in the first place."

For Coshocton's resident's, though, the MPAA is no friend. The community is now without its Wi-Fi that approximately 100 residents at any given time were relying on. Police no longer can make incident reports as seamlessly, and vendors can't verify customers' credit cards as easy, without an affordable wireless solution.

Mike Lavigne, the city's IT director says that they would love to implement a solution to block piracy, but it would be prohibitively expensive given the program's scant budget. He estimates that the costs would be approximately $2,900 to implement, $2,000 for equipment and then $900 annually for the filtering program. While the MPAA's legal bill for killing the service surely eclipsed this, they appear more content to kill the service rather than fund such protections.

The city is investigating the incident and trying to find out who downloaded the movie, in a last ditch effort to save their now-shuttered network.

Canadian Recording Industry Faces $6 Billion Copyright Infringement Lawsuit
Monday December 07, 2009

Chet Baker was a leading jazz musician in the 1950s, playing trumpet and providing vocals. Baker died in 1988, yet he is about to add a new claim to fame as the lead plaintiff in possibly the largest copyright infringement case in Canadian history. His estate, which still owns the copyright in more than 50 of his works, is part of a massive class-action lawsuit that has been underway for the past year.

As my weekly technology law column (Toronto Star version, homepage version) notes, the infringer has effectively already admitted owing at least $50 million and the full claim could exceed $6 billion. If the dollars don’t shock, the target of the lawsuit undoubtedly will: The defendants in the case are Warner Music Canada, Sony BMG Music Canada, EMI Music Canada, and Universal Music Canada, the four primary members of the Canadian Recording Industry Association.

The CRIA members were hit with the lawsuit [PDF] in October 2008, after artists decided to turn to the courts following decades of frustration with the rampant infringement (I am adviser to the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic, which is co-counsel, but have had no involvement in the case). The claims arise from a longstanding practice of the recording industry in Canada, described in the lawsuit as "exploit now, pay later if at all." It involves the use of works that are often included in compilation CDs (ie. the top dance tracks of 2009) or live recordings. The record labels create, press, distribute, and sell the CDs, but do not obtain the necessary copyright licences.

Instead, the names of the songs on the CDs are placed on a "pending list", which signifies that approval and payment is pending. The pending list dates back to the late 1980s, when Canada changed its copyright law by replacing a compulsory licence with the need for specific authorization for each use. It is perhaps better characterized as a copyright infringement admission list, however, since for each use of the work, the record label openly admits that it has not obtained copyright permission and not paid any royalty or fee.

Over the years, the size of the pending list has grown dramatically, now containing over 300,000 songs. From Beyonce to Bruce Springsteen, the artists waiting for payment are far from obscure, as thousands of Canadian and foreign artists have seen their copyrights used without permission and payment.

It is difficult to understand why the industry has been so reluctant to pay its bills. Some works may be in the public domain or belong to a copyright owner difficult to ascertain or locate, yet the likes of Sarah McLachlan, Bruce Cockburn, Sloan, or the Watchmen are not hidden from view.

The more likely reason is that the record labels have had little motivation to pay up. As the balance has grown to over $50 million (Universal alone owes more than $30 million), David Basskin, the President and CEO of the Canadian Musical Reproduction Rights Agency Ltd., notes in his affidavit that "the record labels have devoted insufficient resources to identifying and paying the owners of musical works on the Pending Lists." Basskin adds that some labels believe addressing the issue would be "an unproductive use of their time."

Having engaged in widespread copyright infringement for over 20 years, the CRIA members now face the prospect of far greater liability. The class action seeks the option of statutory damages for each infringement. At $20,000 per infringement (the amount owed on some songs exceed this amount), potential liability exceeds $6 billion. These numbers may sound outrageous, yet they are based on the same rules that has led the recording industry to claim a single file sharer is liable for millions in damages.

After years of claiming Canadian consumers disrespect copyright, the irony of having the recording industry face a massive lawsuit will not be lost on anyone, least of all the artists still waiting to be paid. Indeed, they are also seeking punitive damages, arguing "the conduct of the defendant record companies is aggravated by their strict and unremitting approach to the enforcement of their copyright interests against consumers."

Update: An earlier version of this post noted that record label liability could exceed $60 billion in this case. A reader helpfully noted the math gremlin - the correct number is $6 billion ($20,000 per infringement X 300,000 songs).

Radiohead's Ed O'Brien 'Piracy isn't killing music'

Radiohead's Ed O'Brien has hit out at claims that piracy is killing the music industry.

Expressing his thoughts on the situation, the guitarist explained that whilst pirates might not purchase music, they are still putting money into the industry.

"I have a problem when people in the industry say 'it's killing the industry, it's the thing that's ripping us apart'," O'Brien said in an interview on Midem. "I don't actually believe it is... [Pirates] might not buy an album, but they're spending their money buying concert tickets, a t-shirt, whatever."

In the interview, O'Brien also added what solutions the industry could be making to remedy the problem.

"It's an analogue business model in a digital era," he explained. "The business model has to change. You've got to license out more music - have more Spotifys, more websites selling more music. You've got to make it slightly cheaper to get music in order to compete with the peer-to-peers."

He added: "I find it staggering that the industry seems to be really dragging its heels on this - this is stuff that you could do in one week. Move quicker!"

LOL at Beachy's avatar!

Warner Bros. hiring undercover anti-pirates

TorrentFreak reports that Warner Brothers UK is hiring college students with an IT background to participate in an internship that will pit them against the world wide pirating web in an effort to crack down on illegal digital distribution.

The posting found at the University of Manchester reads:


The intern will literally be on the front-lines of the epic battle against pirated content, ensnaring users in incriminating transactions, issuing takedown requests, and causing general frustration amongst the file-sharing population on the Internet.

TorrentFreak is actively encouraging members to sign up for the position in an effort to place a double agent inside the copyright infringement department at WB.