Category: Copyright

Will Betamax stand in the P2P world…?

P2P Companies Set Stage for Supreme Court Appearance
From the article:
The U.S. Supreme Court to review its 20-year-old landmark Sony Betamax decision. On Tuesday, peer-to-peer (P2P) networks and their supporters filed briefs for the March 29 high court date. The entertainment industry filed its final briefs in January in a case that pits content owners against technological innovation.

File those briefs.. March 29 is coming quick..

MovieLink Doesn’t want customers who will actually use their service

Site Entry
From the site:
Sorry, but in order to enjoy the Movielink service you must have Windows 98/SE, ME, 2000 or XP, which support certain technologies we utilize for downloading movies. We do not support Mac or Linux.

Pushing me to BitTorrent with all of these stupid DRM and Windows only requirements.

decrypt iTunes and iPod music / unprotect AAC files

m4a)” href=”http://www.hymn-project.org/”>hymn — decrypt iTunes and iPod music / unprotect AAC files
(m4p –> m4a)

  • To decrypt your iTunes protected AAC files so that they can be played on operating systems for which no official version of iTunes exists, such as Linux.
  • To use non-Apple AAC-capable hardware to play your music.
  • To eliminate the five computer limit imposed by iTunes.
  • To make archival backups of your music.
  • As the first step in converting your music from protected AAC to MP3, Ogg, or your other favorite audio file format, for use with your non-iPod portable audio player.
  • To demonstrate your belief in the principles of fair-use under copyright law.

    • BitTorrent based distribution services under fire


    MPAA to serve lawsuits on BitTorrent servers | The Register
    The title is a bit misleading. These aren’t BitTorrent servers but websites hosting Torrents to illegal (copyrighted) material. It is good news that the MPAA is differentiating the technology used from the content. In some strange twisted way I think that this will be a boost for independent media bittorrent distribution as the popular content just won’t be available. Perhaps people might even open their eyes.

    Archive.org – Movies

    Internet Archive: Moving Image Archive
    Everything from the Prelinger Archives to Open Source Movies (created and uploaded by the community).
    From the site:
    About the Movie Archive
    This collection is free and open for everyone to use.
    Our goal in digitizing these movies and putting them online is to provide easy access to a rich and fascinating core collection of archival films.
    By providing near-unrestricted access to these films, we hope to encourage widespread use of moving images in new contexts by people who might not have used them before.