NY Times Op-Ed

An excellent piece in the New York Times about the impact of online piracy has had, and will have, on content creators of all stripes:

Op-Ed Contributors

Published: February 14, 2011

Would the Bard Have Survived the Web?

By SCOTT TUROW, PAUL AIKEN and JAMES SHAPIRO

ARCHAEOLOGISTS finished a remarkable dig last summer in East London. Among their finds were seven earthenware knobs, physical evidence of a near perfect 16th-century experiment into the link between commerce and culture.    To read full Op-Ed piece in the NY Times go here.

Obama Admin to Offer New Anti-Piracy Proposal

A new federal report on intellectual property enforcement says that the Obama administration has drafted new proposals to fight Internet piracy and soon will submit the proposals to lawmakers.

“… We committed to reviewing existing laws to determine if legislative changes were needed to improve enforcement,” the 2010 Annual Report on Intellectual Property reads. “As a result of this review, in the near future, we expect to submit to Congress a white paper of legislative proposals to improve intellectual property enforcement.”

To READ story in Home Media Magazine go here.

MPAA Takes Action Against Hotfile

One of the major “Cyber-lockers” that actively offers anonymous hosting of pirated films, music, and e-books is being sued by the MPAA.  Hopefully this is the first of many lawsuits that will be directed toward these cloud-based storage sites where file-sharing has morphed into an illicit economy for stolen content.

After successfully suing peer-to-peer companies like Napster, Grokster and IsoHunt, the entertainment industry is turning its attention to digital storage sites. The Motion Picture Association of America filed a copyright infringement complaint against Hotfile and its operator, Anton Titov, for allegedly encouraging people to distribute pirated videos.

“Defendants are responsible — every single day — for the infringement of thousands of plaintiffs’ copyrighted works, including movies still playing in theaters,” the MPAA says in its complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in Miami.   To READ story on Media Post go here.