Aston Kutcher Film Premier Cammed… by Kutcher

13 minutes of new film Killers was broadcast on the Internet during it’s premier. It’s no ordinary case of camming though, as the person responsible, the films star Aston Kutcher, is the one behind it.


Film star and Hollywood ‘Punkd master’ Aston Kutcher is in the spotlight again. While some might consider it one of his stunts, this one could land him in jail. At the premier of his latest movie, Killers, Kutcher broadcast the first 13 minutes of the premier online.

This has caused a storm of outrage from many in the industry that say he’s not “treating the issue of piracy seriously”. However, the issue of piracy hurting the industry still has little evidence to back it up. In fact the movie industry is doing better than ever, with the MPAA reporting just 3 months ago, that “global box office receipts reached an all time high of $29.9 billion” in 2009.

Kutcher was unapologetic about the act. “Everybody calls people airing stuff on the web piracy,” he told Access Hollywood, “just because they’re not making money off of it yet. If they (executives) can figure out how to make money off of it, they won’t call it piracy anymore.” He is also adamant that he hasn’t broken any laws.

If only that were so. Under the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act of 2005, he did indeed commit an offense, unless he had the permission of the copyright holders (Kutcher, while a Producer on the film, is almost certainly not the copyright holder), and means that he can be imprisoned for up to 3 years, or fined, or both.

While it’s unlikely that he will be prosecuted, it does underscore the film industry’s determination to stick to the status-quo of the last few decades.
Article from: FreakBits.com Originally published June 4 2010

BERR consultation responses - “Audible Magic”

In reference to BERR response “p2p – Audible Magic – FOI.PDF”

Audible Magic is a company that manufactures and sells network based equipment and software, which aim to reduce copyright infringement. Their business model is based around the idea of technological enforcement of copyright, and this should be kept in mind when reading any such company documents.  

Their observations on channeling may be true, however it's arguable that 'at the time of infringement' is the most successful. 'Before infringement is considered' may be a more effective time, by removing thoughts of infringement before it is considered and lodged in the mind. Secondly, there is ample case-evidence that what rights holders consider infringement is often not considered such under the law. Prohibition and 'channeling', whenever a rights holder decides a use may be infringement, regardless of the actuality of any infringement, is not logical, is not brought up. Additionally, 'timeliness', as the submission calls it, is hardly critically important, except for an intimidation method – an insinuation of a technological 'Big Brother' spying on a user with no regard for the reason.

There are also more analogies to car-metaphors, with speeding tickets. Yet the comparison of speed traps lacks one qualifier; it lacks the mention of circumstances. It equates an automated speed trap, with a manual copyright enforcement system, and a manual speed trap, with an automated copyright enforcement system. What Audible fails to mention, is that their system, were it a radar trap, would stop a vehicle legitimately breaking the speed limit (such as an ambulance, police car or fire engine) just as an automated speed trap would photograph the cars. This is why an automated system requires human intervention to make a judgement call. An automated enforcement system has no understanding of circumstances, and wouldn't work even on criminal cases, let alone whole area where there are substantial non-infringing uses of work.

Accuracies of their systems are also overstated. While the system may be 100% accurate in identifying a work (although no proof is given, and no independent tests have been published that could be found); that doesn't mean that the owner of the work is identified accurately in their systems, or that the circumstances of identification (and thus of use) have been identified accurately. In short, the best that can be said is that the Audible Magic system may be able to identify a song or work out of a list of registered works, but beyond that, there is nothing more than can be said. The comparison to Antivirus software is disingenuous, because such software is generally run at the behest of the end user, and virii give no benefit to the end user, and produce actual, demonstrative harm. No such harm has ever been proven for copyright infringement.

Finally, by page 5, or question 14, it comes to the meat of the response. It becomes a sales pitch for Audible Magic, and its products. What it fails to mention is that their systems do not guarantee any accuracy in their back-end data (who owns what), and does not work for the major P2P system (bittorrent). Similarly they don't work for encrypted connections (VPNs) or people using seed boxes, or even if the 'fingerprint' is changed using something as simple as an archive file (.zip or .rar). They also recommend a graduated response (or 3 strikes) system, presumably using their automated systems to administer each strike. Not only does this remove any judicial oversight, but any human oversight at all.

There is also an interesting interpretation of copyright law. They make the assertion that the way they can differentiate between an infringing and non-infringing use, is by the format used. If it uses bit torrent, it is an infringing use, if it's the BBC iPlayer, it's acceptable. This is at odds with case law, where it's the circumstances of use that matter, not the matter of transfer. This was reiterated in the Lenz youtube case. Youtube is, incidentally, an Audible Magic customer.

They also completely ignore the question of redress for legitimate material being blocked, deflecting instead to a graduated response system. It would seem that they are well aware of the limitations of their systems in dealing with context, and wished to avoid answering the question. Regardless, if multiple accusations are made falsely, due to automated systems (or poorly orchestrated manual ones) that are not actually infringement, then 3-strikes is just as bad, if not worse.

Most egregiously, they claim no false positives. The article on this site, “How P2P Reporting Exposes Media's Ignorance” contains a video, which Audible Magic's own system flagged as infringing. While it contained a segment from a US TV show (Comedy Central's The Colbert Report) the segment was using in accordance with US fair use laws when dealing with copyright (in this particular instance, for the purpose of comment and critique of a statement made by the interviewed guest). The references to the law was even included in the clip. Thus, to claim there are no false positives are grossly misleading. There was also the case recently of Edwyn Collins, who wanted to upload a song he owned the copyright on to MySpace. MySpace refused citing copyright infringement. MySpace uses Audible's system, as their submission testifies.

The overall gist of their submission is that people should use their technology because it's automated and fast. However, the accuracy is questionable, several important and relevant questions were dodged, which shows the companies awareness of their systems limitations. Finally, the lies at the end about the quality of their system and its accuracy put the whole submission into a negative light.

Italian Pirate Preps for EU election

Alessandro Bottoni (english) is the Secretary of the Italian Pirate Party. However, unlike Pirate Parties in other countries, due to the nature of Italian politics, the Italian Partito Pirata is not a political organisation,but a pressure group. Because of this, Mr Bottoni is running under the Sinistra e Liberta (left and freedom) party in the EU elections. The Swedish Pirate Party's declaration that “it is impossible to put the Pirate Party on the left-right axis” is exemplified here, and shows that it can appeal to people on all sides of the spectrum, as the party is a coalition of left-wing parties.

Why are you running with the "Sinistra e Libertà"(Left and Free) party, and not the Pirate Party?

The Italian Pirate Party is, despite its name, a simple "free association of people" (an NGO), not a party. We decided to create an association, not a party, in order to avoid adding yet another party to the already complex Italian political scenario.

I have been asked to run with Sinistra e Libertà by one of its leaders, Gennaro Migliore, and I accepted both to give some media visibility to our ideas and to help Sinistra e Libertà in going over the 4% threshold required to enter the EU parliament.

How do you see your chances for success?

Very near to zero, unfortunately. Italy is a almost fascist country now and I'm facing a strong opposition as a left-wing representative.

What is the method for election in Italy, and what are your targets?

I have been presented in just one of the five electoral districts (north/east: Emilia Romagna, Veneto, Friuli and Trentino) and I'm the seventh in the list.

Sinistra e Libertà (SeL) must pass over the 4% barrier to get its first MEP. Once passed this barrier, the exceeding votes are used to get others MEPs. In order to reach my position (seventh) Sinistra e Libertà must collect something like 55.000 votes. As far as I can see, this result cannot be reached in my area. Last time, all of the "far left" area went just over 40.000 votes.

This scenario can be altered by the voters. In Italy is still possible to vote for a Party and select a specific candidate as well (only for EU elections). In this case, I could collect some more vote. Still, I think it is impossible to get elected.

What's your opinion of Commissioner McCreevy's attempts to extend copyright terms in the EU?

Frankly, I consider such a proposal obsolete and absurd. The current copyright terms are much more protective than what can be logically justified. Said this, I have also to say that the terms of the copyright law are what concern me the least. My main concerns are about the mechanism of the EU copyright law. At the moment, the author can sell /exclusive/ rights to make copies and distribute them. This exclusiveness can be exploited by a malevolent distributor to actually censor the author.

For example: in Italy we have a movie about Silvio Berlusconi (a satirical movie) called "Buonanotte Topolino" ("have a good night, mickey mouse). One of the corporations headed by Berlusconi bought the distribution rights and... did nothing! They did not make copies and did not distributed them.

The movie was actually censured. It disappeared from the market (against the will of its authors). It was a "technical" or "economical" censorship but it was nevertheless an actual censorship.

What about copyright law in general, what would you like to see changed?

Copyright law is an important topic in EU (Just look what just happened with the "telecoms package", for example) but it is not the sole topic. We have very strong concerns about the right of the citizen to express his/her opinion and about half a dozen other rights that are threatened by many different attempts to cancel them. For this reason, our "political agenda" is much wider than what an external observer could expect.

What do you see as your 3 main priorities when you get elected?

a) To create an "observatory" on the EU parliament. Using my right to enter the parliament and the committees, I want to collect as much info as I can and, using the Internet, I want to distribute it worldwide. My main target is to lift the veil of silence that covers much of the EU parliament real activity. Of course, my main interest is on Internet, digital technologies and the like.

b) To create a (small or large) lobby of MEPs interested in technology and science and use it to face the activity of corporation lobbies.

c) To vote for the "net neutrality" of Internet and a few other similar topics. I'm formally committed to defend the "digital right" of the EU citizens.

What sort of support are you expecting from the SeL party, and how well does the party fit with the Pirate Party philosophy?

Actually, quite little support. SeL is a very young and very poor party so it cannot help me very much. I just hope they will organize some public events to present our political proposals.

SeL endorsed the philosophy of the PP completely, as a whole. As a matter of fact, SeL adopted the PP as its "technological wing". From a personal point of view, I'm a communist (since 1976) and I fit very well with the SeL philosophy.

What is the current status of the Pirate Party in Italy?

Quite sad. There is a very small group of activists that still try to organize events and present political proposals but we suffer of a large lack of interest from the general population. We count something like 300 members but we do not have enough volunteers and money to do anything useful.

What activities have you, and the Pirate Party been up to recently?

In 2007, we represented the Internet citizens at the board that Romano Prodi created to assemble a reform proposal regarding our copyright law. The proposal was written and presented to the minister of industry but... the Prodi government crashed and the proposal was abandoned.

Recently, we tried to fire some interest on our activity with a "Pirate Feast" in Rome. We had many journalist and gave a lot of interview. It was almost a success.

The European elections take place early June. With the blocking of the Pirate Bay being debated again in Italy, these elections come at a very interesting time for Italians.

Discussing the EU Election with PiratPartiet

Say “Pirate Party” to someone, and the majority of the time, they'll think of one country – Sweden. The first Pirate Party was founded there January 1st 2006, and in just three short years has risen to become the third biggest party, by membership, in the country. Their youth movement is the biggest of all the political youth groups, with a membership around double that of the next biggest, the Moderate Party's youth group. Sweden is also home to the most popular file-sharing site in the world, with a world-leading internet infrastructure. For these reasons and many others, they have been predicted to gain at least one seat in these elections.



Their primary candidate(english), Vice-Chairman Christian Engstrom, took some time to talk about their election campaign.

The party is on a high after gaining tens of thousands of members over the last few weeks. Why do you think is the biggest reason all these people flocked to the Pirate Party now?

The verdict in the Pirate Bay case came a shock to everybody, and the membership of the Pirate Party tripled in a week. This took us from 14.000 members to 43.000, making us the third largest political party in Sweden in terms of members.

The Pirate Bay verdict came as yet another blow to everybody who likes the free and open internet. Earlier this year, first the FRA law came into effect, which gives the green light for massive surveillance of the net, and the IPRED, which gives the big film- and record companies the legal means to start hunting file sharers en masse. In addition there have been other issues, like the secret ACTA negotiations and the fight around the EU telecom package.

More and more people are coming to realize that the freedom and our civil rights on the internet are under threat, and are deciding to vote Pirate to help turn the tide.

What is the party goal for this election, and how achievable do you think it will be?

Our goal it to take one seat, to get into the parliament. To do that, we need 4% of the votes. Recent polls give us around 5%, but the numbers are very uncertain because of the low turnout that we have seen in the EU elections up until now. However, I feel quite confident we will take at least one seat.

The really big issue is mobilizing our supporters to go and vote. If everybody that agrees with us actually votes for us, we'll get in, and we'll get in big. But I am confident that we can bring the turnout for the election up quite dramatically, especially among younger voters. If we succeed in that, we win.

What sort of result will you be happy with?

I'll be very happy if we take one seat, but if get more, that is of course even better. Not only will it give us more people in Brussels to carry out the work there. It would also send a strong signal to our own government will be that it is on the wrong track and risks losing votes in the 2010 national election as well. But I will consider even one seat a major victory.

If elected, what are your three priorities?

- Respect for our civil liberties on the internet. Postal secrecy, information freedom and freedom of speech should apply on the internet as well as in the rest of society. It is totally unacceptable when politicians (like French president Sarkozy) treat the internet as if it were a toy that can be taken away from the children if they have been naughty, instead of as an important piece of our common infrastructure.

- Reform of copyright law. We want to keep copyright for commercial use, but limit the protection term to maybe 5 years from publication. Non-commercial sharing and use should be legalized completely. Today's copyright legislation has become an obstacle to creativity and innovation, and need to be scaled back.

- A more transparent and democratic EU. Having been a political activist for five years now, I have seen a lot of how controversial points are sneaked through the system in a very undemocratic way. We need to reform the decision making process in Brussels to make it open, predictable and democratic. A first step is to say No to the Lisbon treaty.

At best, there will only be a handful of 'pirates' - what can you hope to accomplish with so few?

I am confident we'll have a great impact, once we get in. There is tremendous interest in all of Europe in what is happening in Sweden right now. I have been giving interviews to the BBC on a number of occasions, to Le Monde, Die Zeit, La Republica, as well as numerous other European news outlets. According to a journalist who phoned me from Brussels to interview me, we are more or less the only subject that is being discussed in political circles there right now.

The politicians from the other parties are beginning to realize that net politics is an important area, and they know that we understand it much better than they do. I am quite sure that they will be very interested in talking to us to learn about the issue.

What's the election procedure in Sweden?

You can vote at any time from May 20 up to election day June 7. You go to a polling station and bring an id and a letter you have received saying that you are allowed to vote. You take a ballot paper marked Piratpartiet, mark one of the candidates with and X (preferably me, of course ;) ), put it in an envelope and hand it to the election officer. That's all.

The ballots are then counted the same evening, and all parties that have received more than 4% take part in the distribution of the seats, in proportion to their votes. Sweden has 18 seats in the European parliament (but 4% is still enough to get the first seat in most cases.

What changes do you think having a 'pirate party' member elected will make to how the world sees the Pirate Party?

This is where the fun part starts! I can admit that our provocative name maybe is a slight disadvantage at exactly the point we are at now (although we would never have gotten to this point without it). Once we're in, however, it becomes one of our greatest assets.

Because we have a name that can't be explained away as "business as usual", the other politicians will have to listen to us. Otherwise they will run the risk of losing seats themselves, which is more or less the only thing that never fails to raise their interest.