Topic: COPYRIGHT - on January 23, 2012 at 10:55:00 AM CET
Kim Dotcom erklärt sich für unschuldig
Megaupload-Gründer Kim Dotcom wird der Internetpiraterie und Geldwäsche beschuldigt. Vor einem Gericht in Neuseeland erklärt sich der verhaftete Deutsche für nicht schuldig. Dennoch muss er in Haft bleiben.
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Topic: COPYRIGHT - on January 23, 2012 at 10:52:00 AM CET
Megaupload founder seeks bail in New Zealand court - Megaupload Drops Lawsuit Against Universal Music
The founder of file-sharing website Megaupload has appeared in a New Zealand court seeking bail.
German national Kim Dotcom - also known as Kim Schmitz - was arrested with three others in Auckland on Friday in a raid requested by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Not so long ago, a legal video was taken down by repetitive DMCA requests to YouTube. In response, Megaupload filed a lawsuit against Universal Music.
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Topic: COPYRIGHT - on January 22, 2012 at 1:24:00 PM CET
MegaUpload Fights Shutdown With Former Bill Clinton Attorney
Bennett is best known for defending President Bill Clinton during the Lewinsky scandal.
The New York attorney also represented other big names including Senator John McCain and President of the World Bank Group Paul Wolfowitz
“We intend to vigorously defend against these charges.” was Bennett’s only comment thus far, but fireworks can be expected in the weeks to come.
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Topic: COPYRIGHT - on January 22, 2012 at 1:22:00 PM CET
Two lessons from the Megaupload seizure
Two events this week produced some serious cognitive dissonance. First, Congressional leaders sheepishly announced that they were withdrawing (at least for the time being) two bills heavily backed by the entertainment industry — the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate and Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House – in the wake of vocal online citizen protests (and, more significantly, coordinated opposition from the powerful Silicon Valley industry). Critics insisted that these bills were dangerous because they empowered the U.S. Government, based on mere accusations of piracy and copyright infringement, to shut down websites without any real due process. But just as the celebrations began over the saving of Internet Freedom, something else happened: the U.S. Justice Department not only indicted the owners of one of the world’s largest websites, the file-sharing site Megaupload, but also seized and shut down that site, and also seized or froze millions of dollars of its assets — all based on the unproved accusations, set forth in an indictment, that the site deliberately aided copyright infringement.
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Topic: COPYRIGHT - on January 21, 2012 at 11:15:00 PM CET
MegaUpload case proves we don’t need SOPA or PIPA
It’s ironic that only a day after a massive, coordinated protest against the SOPA and PIPA anti-piracy bills that have been making their way through both houses of Congress, one of the best arguments against these laws was provided by the federal government itself, in a raid on the file-sharing service known as MegaUpload. Not only did the authorities manage to shut down the site and arrest its founders without the need for either SOPA or PIPA, but the facts of the case raise even more red flags about what the government — and private companies — would be able to do to similar services under the proposed legislation.
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Topic: COPYRIGHT - on January 20, 2012 at 5:33:00 PM CET
Endstation Panikraum - Megaupload-Gründer Kim Schmitz
Jetzt wird es eng für Kim Schmitz, alias Kim Dotcom. Ermittler haben den früheren Internet-Star und Betreiber von Megaupload in Neuseeland festgenommen. Zum Schluss verbarrikadierte er sich in seiner Luxusbehausung.
So einfach wollte Kim Schmitz sich nicht geschlagen geben. Als 80 Beamte von neuseeländischer Polizei und FBI seine "Villa Dotcom" in Auckland stürmten, flüchtete der Internetunternehmer in einen Panikraum. Schmitz habe dann eine Reihe elektronischer Schlösser betätigt und sich verbarrikadiert, berichtet der leitende Beamte Grant Wormald. Die Polizisten mussten sich den Weg freischneiden, um Schmitz festnehmen zu können.
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Topic: COPYRIGHT - on January 19, 2012 at 11:11:00 AM CET
“Die GEMA ist schuld”: Grooveshark schließt für Nutzer aus Deutschland – simfy übernimmt
Grooveshark, die “Schurkenseite” unter den Musikstreamingdiensten, ist für Nutzer aus Deutschland nicht mehr zugänglich. Verantwortlich macht der US-Dienst die hiesige Verwertungsgesellschaft GEMA. Eine Partnerschaft mit simfy soll die Nutzer entschädigen.
In den Augen der Musikindustrie ist der US-Dienst Grooveshark seit langem das schwarze Schaf der Streamingdienste und das derzeitige Ziel juristischer Attacken durch die Plattenfirmen. Anders als Konkurrenten wie simfy, Rdio oder Spotify besitzt Grooveshark keine Lizenzverträge mit Labels und Verwertungsgesellschaften, weshalb es der Branche ein Dorn im Auge ist.
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Topic: COPYRIGHT - on January 19, 2012 at 11:08:00 AM CET
Grooveshark Pulls Out Of Germany
Grooveshark’s ride to popularity has abruptly ended, at least in Germany. German users trying to access the website of the popular music streaming service Grooveshark are now greeted with an informational page telling them that the service has ended its operation in the country. According to the information, cost of operation reached a level in Germany that did not allow the company to continue offering their streaming music service.
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Topic: COPYRIGHT - on January 19, 2012 at 11:05:00 AM CET
Internet SOPA/PIPA Revolt: Don’t Declare Victory Yet
There’s a bit of a dancing-in-the-street mentality online Wednesday in response to a widespread internet revolt against anti-piracy legislation that many believe goes too far fighting online copyright and trademark infringement.
Thousands of sites, big and small, went dark or altered themselves to protest the Protect IP Act in the Senate and the Stop Online Piracy Act in the House.
But by no sense of the imagination are these bills scuttled, despite Senate websites reportedly buckling under the weight of constituents weighing in against the measure.
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Topic: COPYRIGHT - on January 18, 2012 at 12:36:00 PM CET
SOPA Resistance Day begins at Ars
Today is SOPA Resistance Day at Ars. Sites across the 'Net, from reddit to the Internet Archive, from Wikipedia to Google, are protesting the excesses of the Stop Online Piracy Act. SOPA remains a flawed bill that treats piracy as an existential threat to the US economy and to a sacred class of rightsholders—and in doing so loses all perspective on appropriate remedies. The discussion is absolutely unbalanced.
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Topic: COPYRIGHT - on January 18, 2012 at 12:34:00 PM CET
Warnstreik für das freie Internet beginnt
Am Mittwoch sind zahlreiche Websites aus Protest gegen US-Gesetzesvorschläge zur Bekämpfung von Urheberrechtsverletzungen offline gegangen. Damit sollen die möglichen Folgen der geplanten gesetzlichen Maßnahmen aufgezeigt werden. Kritiker fürchten um die Zukunft des freien Internets.
"Warnung an alle Studenten und Schüler: Erledigt eure Hausaufgaben bald. Wikipedia protestiert am Mittwoch gegen ein schlechtes Gesetz", twitterte Wikipedia-Gründer Jimmy Wales. Zuvor kündigte er an, dass die englischsprachige Ausgabe der Online-Enzyklopädie am Mittwoch (in Europa ab 6.00 Uhr morgens) für einen Tag abgeschaltet wird. Damit will Wikipedia gegen zwei Gesetzesinitiativen in den USA protestieren, die drakonische Maßnahmen gegen Urheberrechtsverstöße im Netz vorsehen. Zahlreiche weitere Web-Dienste gehen ebenfalls offline.
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Topic: COPYRIGHT - on January 16, 2012 at 9:35:00 PM CET
The Lies Of NBCUniversal's Rick Cotton About SOPA/PIPA
Chris Hayes, over on MSNBC, decided to be the first to seriously break the mainstream cable news' boycott over SOPA/PIPA with a big debate on the bill -- mainly between NBCUniversal's top lawyer, Rick Cotton, and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian. Chris's opening discussion is quite good, and suggests he's certainly sympathetic to all of us who are vehemently opposed to the bill.
Alexis does an excellent job in the brief time he's given to speak (though Cotton gets probably four times the amount of time to speak), but what I wanted to focus on, are the lies of Rick Cotton, because it's simply despicable. He flat-out lies about the bills -- and, even worse -- does so in a manner that implies that it's everyone else who's lying about the bills. He kicks it off by insisting that the bills only apply to sites that are "wholesale devoted to theft." That's simply not true. He actually uses the word "wholesale" maybe two dozen times (at least). The text of PIPA -- the key bill at this point -- says that a site is considered "dedicated to infringing activities" if it "has no significant use other than engaging in, enabling, or facilitating" infringement. That does not mean that the site is "wholesale devoted to theft." Under this definition, of course, a site like a YouTube (if it were based on a foreign domain) would be questionable, given that it has no significant use other than enabling infringement. That doesn't mean that it's always used to infringe, but it's main use absolutely enables or facilitates infringement. Cotton may want to believe the language says otherwise, but it does not.
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