Australian Government Announces Broken Anti-Piracy Legislation

There's A Massive Government-Led Australian Piracy Crackdown On The Way - Gizmodo Australia

Today in a speech to the Australian Digital Alliance our current Attorney General, George Brandis, revealed the government's plan to tackle the scourge of online piracy. How does he plan to do this I hear you ask. Well through the old fallbacks of graduated response (the old three strikes rule), having ISPs take down sites that share copyrighted content and blocking access to websites like the infamous Pirate Bay.

Similar plans have been attempted overseas and have been hugely unsuccessful and previous attempts to introduce them to Australia failed before they even started.  Should these laws actually go through this time then I predict the following:

1. A distraught mother with sad looking children on her lap will appear on Today Tonight in tears saying that her vital internet was cut because "people were hacking it."

2. Precisely zero websites will be taken down by ISPs because no pirate sites are hosted in Australia, mainly because the ISPs are already well versed in taking down such sites for violating their own terms and conditions.

3. There will be a plethora of incorrectly blocked websites and most Australian tech publications will publish guides about how to easily bypass the artificial blockade.

4. The laws will be removed within an 18 to 24 month period due to the cost of enforcement outweighing any actual (or perceived) benefits.

But I have already covered the problems with this type of enforcement, and possible alternatives in depth (here is a selection of stories relating to piracy).  What I really want to do is delve into the remarkable timing of this announcement in line with recent events.

First up there is Foxtel obtaining exclusive rights to the next season of Game Of Thrones, a move that has most people anticipating Australia setting new records for pirated downloads of the popular show.  Previously it has been available within hours through iTunes and last year QuickFlix joined the club giving those fans who didn't have top tier Foxtel access an alternative to piracy.  It isn't much of a stretch to believe that the owners of Foxtel have been pushing hard to try to make sure that those who previously used alternate means have no other choices to signing up to $100+ pay TV package or be forced to wait for local DVD release.

The other development is the Australian Law Reform Commission's recommendation that the principles of fair use under Australian copyright law be broadened which would allow greater flexibility for personal, nonprofit use of purchased content. The mere suggestion of letting people use content they own in any way other than the specific versions they paid for must have had many rights holders in a panic at the thought of not being able to resell content in new formats to people who had bought previous versions. There is solid evidence of just how much entertainment "lobbyists" can pressure politicians so I dare say that George has been fielding many outraged phone calls since this report came down.

Unfortunately there will be no change to this status quo while rights holders hold on to the mistaken belief that every download is a lost sale.  There are multiple studies showing those who download more actually buy more content, there are studies showing how relaxing of DRM policies have led to increased sales and most importantly countries, including France and Great Britain, are in the process of dismantling these broken laws that our government seems hell bent on introducing.

So, in summary, the Australian government has just announced they intend to waste a whole heap of time and money.

Google Glass Gets Theatre Goer In Very Hot Water

FBI Drags Google Glass Man From Theater on Piracy Fears - TorrentFreak

(This story has since been updated to state that it was Homeland Security that dragged this guy out of the cinema)

Google Glass is gradually building up steam worldwide.  For those of you who don't know, Google Glass is wearable technology that displays images and information directly on to the lens of a pair of glasses worn by the user.

The reception to this tech has been mixed to say the least particularly with privacy concerns regarding the devices inbuilt camera.  There are already establishments banning the wearing of Google Glass on the premises and a lady in San Diego was arrested and fined after she wore a pair whilst driving.  But now the big guns have come out!

Last week, a Google Glass user and his wife decided to take a trip to their local AMC to check out Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit.  The man, who had attended the cinema a number of times while wearing the glasses, fitted with prescription lenses by the way, dutifully ensured the device was switched off before the screening commenced.

Approximately an hour into the film he was suddenly confronted by a kind gentleman who courteously shoved a badge into his face, pulled the Google Glasses off his face and demanded that he follow the gent outside.  There he met a number of police and mall security officers and was escorted off to a little room for a quiet chat about being caught illegally taping a movie with the "federal service" agent he met in the cinema who refused to identify exactly where he was from.

This chat consisted of demands of who he was working for, who he was going to give the recording too and how much was Google paying him to wear the allegedly infringing device.  When the man offered to show the agent that nothing had been recorded he was refused for fear that he would erase the evidence.

About three hours into this process some bright spark had the grand idea of bringing in a laptop and downloading the contents of the Google Glass's memory to preserve the evidence.  At this point the "federal service" agents spent a short time viewing some family photos before finally letting the man go.

Don't feel too bad, he did get a couple of free tickets so he could return to the cinema another time to finish watching the movie.

I assume that someone who actually knew what Google Glass looked like took it upon themselves to report that a potential cam job could be happening upon sighting this man entering a cinema but can it really be said the response was anything other than woefully excessive.  First up they did not give this guy the benefit of the doubt.  Secondly, a reasonable response would have been for the manager to quietly approach the man during the pre-movie waffle and ask him to take off the glasses, right?  Anyone?

*sigh*

Nope, obviously this potential, totally unproven, act of copyright infringement must be reported to the highest available authorities as soon as possible to ensure an aggressive, definitive response.  Seriously, Homeland Security?  I had a look on the About DHS page and they are very clear that their "vital mission" is "to secure the nation from the many threats we face".  Yep, so vital that they divert agents and resources to descend on a man like a truckload of bricks for the slightest possibility that he is recording an apparently mediocre movie.

I really wanted to put a snappy little joke at the end of this story, or even save it for review as a potential Clever Geek of The Week award but I am afraid it is just too far beyond the realms of any reasonable expectations!

Hold on people, this whole copyright debacle is going to get a lot worse before it gets better.

Iron Maiden Tracks Down Pirates, Rakes In The Profits Without Suing Anyone

Iron Maiden's Chasing Down Pirates And Making Bank Off Them - Gizmodo Australia

In a refreshing take on the battle against music piracy the classic rock band Iron Maiden has stepped up to the plate and taken a very refreshing approach.

After studying analytics about where their music was most downloaded (South America incidentally) instead of calling the lawyers the band instead got in touch with their tour manager.

Iron Maiden played a series of concerts where the copyright infringing downloaders were most prevalent and proceeded to rake in millions (yes, millions) of dollars including a take of $US2.5 million for one concert in Sao Paulo.

Given the rather small amount that makes it to the artist from CD and digital music sales I'd say this move has more than made up for any potential losses from illicit downloads and has also cemented the band's ongoing popularity in Brazil and its Latin American neighbours.

Now, if a band that has been around for almost 40 years can work out how to make music piracy work for them why the hell is it so hard for the major record labels?

Arrrr-stralians. Are We Now Hooked On Piracy?

Cheap, legal options wouldn’t stop Australians pirating - Delimiter

A new survey by Essential Research has been conducted on Australians and our filthy downloading habits.  The results, which I am surprised haven't been grabbed by the anti-piracy lobby and waved from the nearest mountain top, show that if given cheap and equal access to content 20% of respondents who currently pirate would still continue to download copyright infringing content.

Just think about that for a moment.  Look past the attention grabbing headline of the source story and consider that from the sample group 80% would consider using cheaper paid services if they were available.  That is impressive and certainly shows quite a shift from what has long been assumed as the norm.

There is no way to guarantee 0% piracy.  Even in the USA, home of Netflix, Hulu, HBO Go and a plethora of inexpensive cable TV channels and streaming services there still exists a contingent of dedicated downloaders who will NEVER pay for content.  And if they were never going to pay then there is no lost sale because of them.

Another interesting little snippet in the survey is one sentence stating "Downloading from the internet has dropped somewhat since it was last measured in May 2012".  A sizeable chunk of this would be because music and games now have the sort of services that can compete with piracy with convenience.  iTunes started it all when the music industry was bemoaning lost sales due to services like Napster and Kazaa.  Services like Rdio and Spotify now offer millions of songs on demand through free, advertising supported, models.  Steam has revolutionised how PC games are sold and helped push acceptance of purchasing of digital content through other services such as Xbox Live and the Playstation Network.

All this has evolved after someone stood up and decided to change the status quo, who decided to provide something to the consumer that offers convenience.  If the movie and TV rights holders expect people to stop downloading illicitly then they need someone to step up and provide the services, and then support it!

If you build it, they will come.  Just don't expect everyone.

The MPAA Finally Found Real Pirates

MPAA: 'Notorious' Melbourne Market One Of World's Worst Piracy Blackspots - Gizmodo Australia

When the word "piracy" is thrown around it is generally used as a general term for downloading stuff for free.  It's one of those terms that has become general use while not being entirely accurate.  Sharing content on the internet comes under the banner of "copyright infringement".  The piracy aspect is only really comes in when someone is profiting from the sale of copyright infringing content.

Now that we have the lesson out of the way let's get to the actual story.  The MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) has apparently had investigators scouring the world looking for the dark alleys and seedy dives that are selling pirated movies.  So who is right up there amongst the biggest offenders?  That's right, Australians!

The Caribbean Gardens and Markets in Melbourne is a 10,000 square covered market and one of the biggest in Australia.  Allegedly in among the 1,000 plus stalls you can find 10 to 20 individuals selling pirated DVDs including recently released titles.  Wow this place really is a wretched hive of scum and villainy.

But it gets better.  Since the Trans Pacific Partnership talks (which started in 2010 and are still going) put copyright piracy in the same category as full scale counterfeiting the MPAA and associated organisations have been touting the line that copyright infringement supports terrorism.  While this current report doesn't take it to that extreme they still take the opportunity to point out that since some of the locations on the list are associated with underground criminal organisations that must mean ALL the places are associated with underground criminal organisations.  We don't have a handful of people with access to a multi DVD burner and an inkjet printer, no, we have gangsters running the face paint stall, mini golf and train rides!

It does seem a bit odd that this rather excessive report comes out at the same time the Australian Government announced they were looking into an anti-piracy plan.  This, along with talk  promising to allow greater involvement of industry groups in trade negotiations, does not bode well for the digital freedom that Australians have enjoyed while other countries have been laboured with everything from "three strikes" through to enforced blocking of websites.

Getting back to the original subject I am utterly amazed that an industry that is losing so much money year after year can afford to pay for investigators to travel the world and discover terrible, yet family friendly, places like the Carribean Gardens and Market.  And somehow they still manage to scrape together a measly $200,000,000 for a movie such as Iron Man 3 (which incidentally has grossed at least $1.2 billion so far).

English Study States What We All Know But Aren't Meant To Believe

Digital piracy not harming entertainment industries - CBC

Yep, a fresh study by the London School of Economics has shown that, despite music and movie industry claims, revenue for music and movies have increased and, in fact, 2012 was one of the best years for the entertainment industry.

So how has this magic happened?  Well a large part of it is the adoption and growth of online distribution methods.  After being considered the violator of content and a den of iniquity frequented by digital freeloaders the internet is finally showing that it is a massive marketing and sales tool.  This alongside the fact that digital piracy continues to grow each year as well means that the entertainment industry has a good thing going, and a lot of it they don't even have to pay for.

It's not just music and movies though, books and videogames are also having a digital resurgence.  Actual physical media such as DVDs, CDs and actual paper books are down, but the drop in sales is well and truly exceeded by the digital sales boom across the board.

This isn't the first study to show that the internet is a useful, and profitable, tool and it won't be the last.  But this one is English so I guess it's a little more classy.

Does this mean the entertainment industries hardline stance on unauthorised copying and its insistence that piracy is causing billions (yes, billions) of dollars in lost revenue?  Somehow I doubt it.

Maybe If Kids Tell Kids To Not Copy Then Kids Won't Copy... Sure!

The Content Industry Is Designing Anti-Piracy Lesson Plans For Kids - Gizmodo Australia

Yet again a wonderfully acronym named group that obviously and blatantly has nothing to do with any of the major copyright enforcers has decided to release an "educational" video about the dangers of copyright infringement.

The rather horrifically named "iKeepSafe" or the Internet Keep Safe Coalition (seriously, I mean... seriously) has produced a rather wonderful video aimed at sixth graders where everyday normal kids, whose parents are apparently successful songwriters and game programmers, very sincerely and earnestly talk about the importance of copyright.

I was going to embed the video for your convenience, but apparently copyright presents this important message about copyright being easily shared across the internet.  Wow.  It's at the link above.

Now this is not the first time something like this has been tried.  I have seen web comics, pamphlets, wonderfully creative statistics and lets not forget the unskippable anti-piracy warnings on every DVD/Blu-ray that is legitimately purchased!

Seriously though, why are they wasting their time.  The fact is that this will have practically no effect on piracy rates.  The fact is that research has shown that people who pirate are more likely to spend more money on music, movies and games.  The fact is that iKeepSafe is really throwing their money away, but not just for the reasons listed in this paragraph.

I'm sure they can get this guy pretty cheap...

He's gotta be down with the cool kids.

I will leave you with the following important message:

Netflix Is More Popular Than Piracy Because Piracy

In The US, Netflix Checks With Pirates To Decide Which Shows To Buy - Gizmodo Australia

For a while now Netflix traffic has been exceeding bittorrent traffic in North America and showing it is possible to compete with free. A principle reason is that it provides a service at a decent price that is easier than piracy, but could there be something else.

At the launch of Netflix Netherlands the head of content acquisition Kelly Merryman has come right out and said they look at the most popular targets for piracy and then see if they can acquire the rights. Obviously there are some shows that the current right holders don't want to share with anybody else *cough* Game Of Thrones *\cough * but the sheer popularity of the service and its impact on piracy on its home turf shows they are onto something.

Of course for markets where Netflix is not available it really is a moot point, hence why shows like the aforementioned Game Of Thrones and Breaking Bad are downloaded mercilessly in Australia.

With content for Australia being either locked up in exclusivity deals or simply not being made available what can you do?

I'll just leave this here.

Telstra Wants To Filter Out Pirates, Needs Pirates To Test It's System

Telstra Kicking Off Voluntary Filter Trials, Seeking Volunteers - Gizmodo Australia

Telstra is kicking off trials of its new deep packet inspection set up aimed at throttling bittorrent traffic through its network to combat piracy.  I guess it sounds great to commercial partners however there may just be a few points they haven't fully considered...

Not all bittorrent style traffic is piracy.

Bittorrent uses a peer to peer (p2p) network which means that large files can be shared with a large number of people in such a way that you can download parts of the file from anybody else connected to it.  The knock on effect means that money can be saved by reducing, or even eliminating, the need to have a large server setup to host files and send them out on demand.  While this makes it a very efficient way to share the latest hollywood blockbuster it also means that a number of companies use this same technique to send out large updates and even to communicate between clients.  Prime examples include Blizzard with World of Warcraft and the Call of Duty franchise.

The Humble Indie Bundle, a very popular charity service, also prefers users to make use of bittorrent links since that saves them considerable amounts of server space meaning more money can go to charity.

Open source and freeware programs are also big on p2p distribution.  Alternative operating system Linux is arguably the most shared legal download via bittorrent and there are many other applications and games where the developer is not getting any income from their work for the pure reason that they want to share their software with the world.  Does Telstra expect these developers to pay for server space so they can continue to distribute their software?

Most bittorrent clients have an option to encrypt traffic.

Simply this means with a click of a tick box the p2p traffic being sent by your client looks like normal internet data.  You see this isn't the first time an ISP has tried to limit bittorrent traffic so, funnily enough, there are quite sophisticated methods that can get around this kind of filtering which ultimately make this kind of restriction a pointless exercise and a waste of money.

Not all piracy is via bittorrent.

With all the focus bittorrent receives you'd be hard pressed to think anything else existed.  The ease of use has made it a very popular method for piracy, but it has also made it the biggest target.  It is also the easiest to monitor.  Of course prior to the rise of p2p there were private networks, TOR, cloud storage, direct downloads and usenet and, guess what, these options are still in use and, much like p2p, they also have legitimate legal uses.

The only way to effectively test this system is to encourage piracy.

To see if their fancy deep packet inspection will effectively limit p2p traffic on their network Telstra needs a large number of volunteers to actively use p2p and as the aim is to stop piracy then, by extension, they need people who will try to pirate as much as possible.  Now if you are a heavy p2p user on the Telstra network, whether for legitimate or copyright infringing purposes, it seems very unlikely that you would actively volunteer to have your internet experience crippled.  And if Telstra does manage to get a large contingent of merry pirates testing the limits then they may get in trouble with copyright holders for "encouraging illicit activity" during the trial.

It won't make any difference.

Ultimately should the trial be considered a success and all Telstra users get their packets deeply inspected those who want to download will still download.  Any filtering can be bypassed and a quick Google search will give even inexperienced users easy to follow step by step instructions.  Data encryption, Virtual Private Networks, even swapping to the freely available Google DNS service can bypass all sorts of restrictions and that is just the tip of the iceberg.

So what can be done?

The fact that the focus of this trial is anti-piracy can easily lead us to the conclusion that it has come at the insistence of copyright owners.  These companies need to stop expecting everyone else to police their content and actually have a look at the real problem.  The fact that Netflix now accounts for more traffic in North America than bittorrent while other areas without access to cheap content filled services (such as the Asia-Pacific region) show three times as much p2p traffic should be a pretty strong indication of where they should be focusing their efforts.  Instead they continue to try to lock content away to maximise profit in multiple markets and expect the consumer to pay hugely varied prices depending on where in the world they live.

Instead of trying to limit the internet try making the content accessible and affordable.  It won't stop piracy but it will significantly reduce it.

Australian/Canadian Study Disputes Cost Of Piracy

Downloads make little mark on box office - Sydney Morning Herald

Academics for the University of Sydney and the University of Calgary have cast doubt over the long held claims of the movie industry that they are losing significant amounts of money due to the evils of digital piracy.  In fact AFACT (now the Australian Screen Association) once claimed the Australian Film Industry loses $1.3 billion a year, a figure somehow determined from a two month survey of a whole 3,500 adults.

These shocking figures are usually based on an assumption that every download is a lost sale.  The amount of assumed downloads is usually based on how many IP addresses that monitoring companies see attached to a particular torrent file.  I've always seen this as a very... loose translation of data.

This recent study looked at 166 films released in Australia between January 2010 and August 2011 and found that while there was some indication that piracy led to reduced sales it usually happened shortly after the films release and it took at least 6 to 8 downloads to equate to a lost sale.

Groups, such as the Intellectual Property Awareness Foundation, have already expressed cynicism over the results of the study even though it does, at least partly, agree with their claims!

Unfortunately the above story didn't delve too deep into the nitty gritty.  There are many factors beyond pure box office takings that can affect the profitability of a movie.  Movie budgets can run into incredible amounts of money and the marketing of a movie as well can add up to pretty astronomical figures all before a single ticket is able to be sold.  Plus there is ongoing revenue from licensing the movie for public broadcast through to distribution to disc and streaming services.  There has been many a box office flop predating the modern digital "free for all" that have gone on to do big business in the home and cult screening markets.

The results of this study may be getting closer to the real picture of the impact of digital piracy, but I still believe there are many more points that should be considered.  In order to take ongoing earnings from the home market into account the scope of the study needs to encompass a much broader period of time.  This is simply not possible with more recent blockbusters (or even box office flops) and since the anti-piracy focus is on "we need all the money now" it is very unlikely that we will ever see a fully comprehensive review.

As for the figures that are normally quoted, I'll just leave this here...

Australia Has The Highest Percentage Of Breaking Bad Piracy... YAY!

Australians Pirate Breaking Bad More Than Any Other Country - The Escapist

Well now that the latest season of Game of Thrones is over it looks like us Aussies need to find another televisual outlet to shamelessly obtain using questionable methods.

Yep, a recent data mining exercise by TorrentFreak showed Australian's were responsible for 16.1% of downloads for Breaking Bad's final season.  The US is only slightly behind us at 16% but when you consider the difference in population between us and the United States (approx 303.8 million vs 20.6 million in 2008) that means by applying some dodgy maths we are talking around a 15% higher proportion of Australians.

Why would this be the case?  Well I'm so glad you asked.

Now the distributors would be quick to point out that within hours of Breaking Bad screening in America it is available in Australia, but when you check the fine print that is only if you are a Foxtel subscriber or use iTunes.  That would be okay but not everyone wants to pay $100 a month for the Foxtel package that includes the channel that let's you watch this fine drama or you have the appropriate iSetup to watch your iEpisodes on your iTV!

Of course the distributors will see this as an excuse to try to lock content down more securely and stop this torrent of torrenting instead of a wake up call and a great opportunity.  Many heavy TV downloaders are doing this because they love the show and season box sets of TV shows are big business in Australia.  By offering an online subscription service at a reasonable price that is compatible with most TV connected media devices then they will make a mint and people will still buy the box sets when they are released.

Australia is no longer geographically isolated thanks to the internet.  Drip feeding us content at premium prices with restricted distribution just doesn't work anymore.

I know this will not eliminate piracy but it will damn well reduce it!

GOG Talks Sense

Part 1 - “There’s a very persuasive argument we have, which is MONEY” - games.on.net

Part 2 - "“We see pirates as our competition, we don’t see Steam as our competition” - games.on.net

Recently Trevor Longino, head of marketing and PR for digital games store GOG sat down with Tim Colwill of games.on.net (an Australian site affiliated with Internode) to talk about how the company has become such a huge success selling DRM free games in a market seemingly petrified of pirating and letting the customer actually own their purchases.  The full interview is linked above and it makes great reading.  If however you want a summary of some of the highlights then read on (and then read the full interview).

First up, there is the fact that GOG (originally known as Good Old Games) started very small with a selection of out of print titles that they managed to score permission sell DRM free.  A lot of these titles were available for free download on "abandonware" sites so how did they compete with free?  By modding and making custom installations of the games to easily run on modern hardware and including bundled extras like manual pdfs, avatars, soundtracks and wallpaper.  They quickly became a success and (as discussed in part 1 of the interview) managed to sign up bigger publishers by showing them that they actually made money off these older titles.

The biggest statement that game publishers should take note of is about piracy.  Trevor actually discusses a torrent site that put up a number of GOG releases and then linked directly to the GOG store page for the description.  This turned out to be a boon for GOG as it increased traffic and showed a corresponding increase in sales.  Their aim is for the store to be as easy, if not easier, than downloading the game via bittorrent and also to provide a better service.  It seems to be going well for them since they independently publish a number of indie games as well as big blockbusters like The Witcher 2 (admittedly CD Projekt, the developers of that game are part of the same group that GOG belongs to) still DRM free.  He goes on to say that should GOG ever go under and you are suddenly unable to access your library then you should have no guilt going and downloading a copy of the game you purchased by any means available.

I'm sure you can guess that I am a big fan of GOG and I may or may not have near 70 games in my GOG collection.  This interview has only strengthened that.  I urge you to read the interview then head over to GOG and have a browse.  I bet you'll find something you like.  If we ever want to see any of the big publishers take notice of just how horrible their DRM and restrictions have become we need to show them that the alternatives are viable.  This can only be done by supporting those who are willing to try something different.

Now, go read that interview then go and buy Fallout or something just as cool!