Yesterday, an international alliance of 17 publishing companies, with support of Copyright Alliance member AAP, took legal action against two rogue websites peddling pirated e-books.  The operators of the sites www.library.nu and ww.ifile.it were served after an over seven-month effort spanning seven countries to identify and locate the perpetrators.  The website operators, who went to [...]

Earlier today, The Paley Center for Media hosted a discussion on Protecting Content and Promoting Innovation in the Digital World.  Guest speakers included Richard Cotton, Executive Vice President and General Counsel of NBCUniversal, and Fred Wilson, venture capitalist and principal at Union Square Ventures. The discussion focused on how the content and tech industries can work together in eliminating the [...]

Chris Castle has a new post up on the Music Technology Policy blog: The Future for Television or Google Wants to Burn Your Remote: More Google Union-Busting. In it he writes: “It is particularly galling that Google is using its EFF surrogate to try to appeal to entertainment industry union members to abandon their unions, while [...]

Cary Sherman of the Recording Industry Association of America has an oped in today’s New York Times: What Wikipedia Won’t Tell You.  In it he calls out the most vocal opponents of recent rogue sites legislation for using their platform to spread misinformation: “The hyperbolic mistruths, presented on the home pages of some of the [...]

The RIAA announced yesterday that they awarded more Gold and Platinum download honors in 2011 than ever in the program’s history, and awarded 25 percent more than in 2010. The year’s top certified digital singles are the 6 time multi-Platinum “Low” by Flo Rida, “I’m Yours” by Jason Mraz and “Just Dance” by Lady Gaga.  [...]

Today’s Wall Street Journal opinion page features an oped by economist Stan Liebowitz.  In it he refutes the oft-cited claim that some how piracy promotes sales and stresses that maintaining the status quo would continue to put content industries at risk while enabling for-profit pirates.  He writes:   “A balancing of competing legitimate interests is always [...]

According to reports, two popular file-sharing sites have scaled back access to files on their servers.  FileSonic and Uploaded.to have altered their operations, with Uploaded.to suspending service in the U.S. and FileSonic suspending all file sharing on its site, as well as its affiliate program that pays cash rewards to users’ who upload highly downloaded files. [...]

On Thursday, federal prosecutors shut down one of the world’s largest file-sharing sites.  According to the AP, Megaupload.com is charged with violating piracy laws, costing copyright holders over $500 million in lost revenue from pirated films and other content. Read more about the takedown at the Washington Post.  Additionally, sources report that hacking group Anonymous [...]

Independent filmmaker and grassroots member David Newhoff has a piece on The Hill today highlighting the long-term consequences of overblown rhetoric on thoughtful policymaking and progress. He writes: “If SOPA and PIPA fail, or fail to pass in substantive form, it will indeed be a shame for American content creators and consumers, but the real [...]

Kathy Wolfe, Founder and CEO of Wolfe Video and Wolfe Releasing –the oldest and largest exclusive distributor of LGBT films in the world– has a piece on the Huffington Post today.  In it she writes that while the Internet is essential to her business and the independent filmmakers she represents, and they “have readily embraced [...]