Privacy Digest

Movie Theater Pirate Sentenced to 21 Months - Via Threat Level:

A Maryland man was sentenced Tuesday to 21 months behind bars for using a camcorder to pirate movies at a theater.

Michael Dwayne Logan pleaded guilty in July to two felony counts(.pdf) of filming 28 Weeks Laterand Enchantedin a District of Columbia theater last year.

Logan was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Richard Roberts of the District of Columbia under the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act, Title 18, United States Code, Section 2319B. The 2005 law makes it a federal felony to record movies at the theater without the copyright owners' consent. Scofflaws face a maximum three-year prison term and $250,000 fine.  read more »

Why Hollywood Hates RealDVD - Via EFF.org Updates:

Why does Hollywood hate RealDVD so much? Here's a hint: it has nothing to do with piracy and everything to do with controlling innovation.

Earlier this week, a district court in San Francisco extended the temporary restraining order (TRO) blocking RealNetworks' distribution of its RealDVD software, at least until a full-dress preliminary injunction hearing can be held sometime in late November. Although reporters have done a good job reporting on the hearing, they have not answered a more basic question: why does Hollywood care so much about RealDVD in the first place?

It's not about piracy. After all, those who want to copy DVDs have plenty of free, widely available, easy-to-use software to choose from (e.g., Handbrake, DVD Shrink, Mac The Ripper). And those who want to skip the tedium of DVD ripping altogether can easily download movies from unauthorized sources like The Pirate Bay. In short, Hollywood can't possibly believe that the $30, DRM-hobbled RealDVD software represents a piracy threat in an environment rife with easier options.

So why unleash all the expensive lawyers to kill RealDVD? Answer: to send a message about what happens to those who innovate without permission in a post-DMCA world.  read more »

Wink Wink: RealNetworks Says Don't Copy Rented DVDs - Via Threat Level:

While urging a federal judge not to pull the plug on its DVD-copying software, RealNetworks told a federal judge there's no harm to the movie studios because consumers are only supposed to reproduce their personal movies, not rented ones.

The argument was taking a page right out of head shops that warn consumers that the colorful glass bongs and pipes on display are for tobacco use, not "illegal substances." 

RealNetworks' made the statement at the tail end of a three-hour federal court hearing Tuesday to U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel. She was hearing last-ditch arguments on why she should not bar the sale of RealNetworks' $30 DVD copying software.  read more »

Why MPAA Should Lose Against RealDVD - Via EFF.org Updates:

Earlier this week, the motion picture industry sued RealNetworks over its RealDVD software. The MPAA companies also asked for an immediate temporary restraining order (TRO) to block Real from distributing the product, which allows consumers to copy their DVDs onto their personal computers for later playback.

There are many obvious reasons why this is a short-sighted and futile gesture by the studios (as Jon Healey of the L.A. Times points out), but let's focus just on the fatal flaws in their legal theory. (We've posted the key legal documents, including TRO briefs, for those who want to read them and form their own opinions.)  read more »

Bush Administration Opposing Expanded Justice Department Copyright Enforcement Powers - Via Threat Level:

The Bush administration is opposing sweeping legislation granting it the ability to prosecute civil cases of copyright infringement.

The legislation, backed by Hollywood, labor unions and manufacturers, sailed through the Senate Judiciary Committee, 14-4, on Sept. 11.

In a letter (.pdf) to Sens. Patrick Leahy and Arlen Specter, who were among the sponsors of the legislation, the Justice Department wrote Tuesday it "strongly" opposes expanding its powers. Doing so, the letter said, could undermine the department's prosecution of criminal cases and transform it into an office "serving as pro bono lawyers for private copyright holders."

The Justice Department said the private sector should remain responsible for enforcing its copyrights in federal civil lawsuits.  read more »

PC World - EFF, Public Knowledge sue US gov't over secret IP pact - Via PC World :

Two digital rights advocacy groups have filed a lawsuit against the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) in an attempt to get the office to turn over information about a secret international treaty being negotiated to step up cross-border enforcement of copyright and piracy laws.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and Public Knowledge filed the lawsuit Wednesday after USTR ignored their repeated requests to turn over information about the proposed Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA).

ACTA could include an agreement for the US, Canada, the European Commission and other nations that are part of the talks to enforce each other's intellectual-property (IP) laws, with residents of each country subject to criminal charges when violating the IP laws of another country, according to a supposed ACTA discussion paper posted on Wikileaks.org in May.  read more »

Hollywood Control of DVD-Copying at Crossroads - Via Threat Level:

RealNetworks caught Hollywood by surprise when it privately informed the studios two weeks ago that it was releasing, by month's end, a $30 application called RealDVD allowing movie fans to easily make copies of their DVDs with their computer.

As expected, heads spun as executives began to wonder whether the studios were losing even more control of the coveted DVD and its $16 billion in annual sales.

Hollywood is already reeling from open source DVD decryption software that is free on the internet. It also says it's losing billions in sales because of BitTorrent tracking services like The Pirate Bay that allow users to upload and download decrypted movies and other content for free.

With RealDVD, Kaleidescape and other mainstream services, Hollywood's already loosening grip on the DVD is at a crossroads.  read more »

Mythbusters Gagged: Credit Card Companies Kill Episode Exposing RFID Security Flaws - Via Consumerist:

Credit card companies successfully nixed a Mythbusters segment exposing RFID's security flaws, according to Arbiter of Truth and Mythbusters co-host, Adam Savage.

Texas Instruments comes on along with chief legal counsel for American Express, Visa, Discover, and everybody else... They were way, way outgunned and they absolutely made it really clear to Discovery that they were not going to air this episode talking about how hackable this stuff was, and Discovery backed way down being a large corporation that depends upon the revenue of the advertisers. Now it's on Discovery's radar and they won't let us go near it.

Editor: Interesting video with the article. Go to original site for that [...]

(Read Original Article - Via Consumerist .)

MPAA Waffling on Piracy Costs; RIAA Says Illicit CDs Worth $13.74 Each - Via Threat Level:

A federal judge is handing a Louisiana man a year in prison for pirating thousands of DVDs and CDs in a case highlighting the Motion Picture Association of America's wildly varying valuation of pirated discs.

In the case of Tanner Hills of Louisiana, according to court records, (.pdf) an MPAA expert concluded that the 3,557 bootleg DVDs seized from the defendant's Jefferson Parish apartment outside New Orleans was valued at $67,583. That's $19 a disc for such films as Borat, Bambi, 300 and Premium.

And if you think those numbers are high, consider last year when the MPAA said 200,000 illicit DVDs seized in Australia were worth $83 per movie disc. Some 6,200 pirated discs were also found in Hong Kong that year, and the MPAA affixed value at $20 million, meaning each disc was worth $3,225.80. We're not kidding.  read more »

MPAA Helped Cops Nab Hundreds of Movie Pirates - Via Threat Level:

The Motion Picture Association of America announced Monday the arrest of 461 alleged movie pirates – 56 caught using a camcorder in a theater – during a three-month period ending in July.

The announcement, which also said 1,000 optical disc burners were seized, could not be independently verified in what the MPAA is calling "Operation Takedown" – a law enforcement effort conducted jointly with local authorities and MPAA investigators.

The operation included the countries of China, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand and Korea.  read more »

EFF Battles Dangerous Attempts to Circumvent Electronic Privacy Law - Via Electronic Frontier Foundation:

Email and Cell Phone Privacy Threatened in Two Separate Court Cases
San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has filed friend-of-the-court briefs in two key electronic privacy cases that threaten to expand the government's spying authority.

In the first case, Bunnell v. Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), EFF filed a brief with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals arguing that federal wiretapping law protects emails from unauthorized interception while they are temporarily stored on the email servers that transmit them. This case was brought against the MPAA by the owners and operators of TorrentSpy  read more »

MPAA Seeks Internet Removal of Two "Infringing" Sites - Via Threat Level:

The Motion Picture Association of America is suing two websites accused of acting as a for-profit, "one-stop shop" for allegedly infringing copies of Hollywood's copyrighted works.

The sites, fomd.com, known as "Free Online Movie DataBase," and movierumor.com, post, organize, search for, identify, collect and index links to infringing material that is available on third-party websites.  read more »

EFF Battles Dangerous Attempts to Circumvent Electronic Privacy Law - Via EFF.org Updates:

San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has filed friend-of-the-court briefs in two key electronic privacy cases that threaten to expand the government's spying authority.

In the first case, Bunnell v. Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), EFF filed a brief with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals arguing that federal wiretapping law protects emails from unauthorized interception while they are temporarily stored on the email servers that transmit them. This case was brought against the MPAA by the owners and operators of TorrentSpy, a search engine that let Internet users locate files on the BitTorrent peer-to-peer network. After a business dispute, one of TorrentSpy's independent contractors hacked into the company email server and configured it to copy and forward all incoming and outgoing email to his personal account and then sold the information to the MPAA. However, the federal district court ruled that because the emails were stored on the mail server for several milliseconds during transmission, they were not technically "intercepted" under the federal Wiretap Act. In its amicus brief filed Friday, EFF argues that this dangerous ruling is incorrect as a matter of law and must be overturned in order to prevent the government from engaging in similar surveillance without a court order.  read more »

EFF Opposes MPAA's Selectable Output Control FCC Petition - Via EFF.org Updates:

Public Knowledge, joined by EFF as well as the Consumer Federation of America, the Digital Freedom Campaign, the Media Access Project, the New America Foundation and U.S. PIRG, yesterday filed an opposition [PDF] to the MPAA's FCC petition seeking a waiver of the ban against selectable output controls (SOC) (we have an explanation of what a "selectable output control" is on our Digital Video issue page).

EFF has long opposed selectable output controls. The basic premise of those who back SOC is that content owners should be able to decide not just who can watch their content, but how they can watch it.  read more »

Senators Announce New Intellectual Property Enforcement Bill - Via EFF.org Updates:

Last week, members of the Senate Judiciary Committee introduced the "Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Act of 2008," a bill that proposes a number of alarming changes to copyright law. The bill is the Senate's gift to big content owners, creating new and powerful tools -- many of which will be paid for by your tax dollars -- for the entertainment industry to go after infringers. But it doesn’t offer a lick of protection for legitimate innovators and technology users that may be buried by the copyright juggernaut.

One of the bill's most disturbing changes would give the Attorney General new powers to sue individuals on behalf of rightsholders like the MPAA and the RIAA. Bill proponents claim that these new powers, which would allow the AG to bring "milder" civil as well as criminal actions, are necessary because some offenses don’t rise to the level of criminal conduct. This justification just doesn’t make sense. If it’s a low-level offense, why should our top cops pursue it?  read more »

Inside the Motion Picture Industry's Cuddliest Anti-Piracy Operation: the DVD-Sniffing Dogs - Via Threat Level:

A few years back, John Malcolm, the Motion Picture Association of America's anti-piracy director, was brainstorming new ways to combat piracy. Fresh on the job after serving as a federal prosecutor and a Justice Department attorney, Malcolm wanted to expand the group's efforts beyond public relations campaigns and federal lawsuits.

That's when it occurred to him: Why not enlist man's best friend in the war on piracy?  read more »