Hasta La Gadget!

Kim Dotcom’s Mega is off to a high-profile start, but today we’re hearing of seemingly inevitable copyright woes for the site. Mega has only been officially up and running for 11 days, but according to ComputerWorld, the website has already received 150 copyright warnings for 250 files. Since Mega lacks a search function and requires users to share links in order to share content (which is encrypted when uploaded), how are these copyright holders finding their content on Mega?

It would seem the problem lies with sites that index the content on Mega, with one site in particular – Mega-search.me – getting some attention today. Users can submit submit links for their Mega files to Mega-search.me, allowing others to access them. Apparently, these copyright holders are finding their content through indexes like Mega-search.me and then issuing takedown requests.

That all appears to add up, but now we run into another problem, as content that’s completely legal is also being taken down. Many of the links on Mega-search.me have gone dead in just a matter of hours, with users seeing their legal content disappearing after receiving a DMCA takedown request. This isn’t very easy to explain, but TorrentFreak suggests that someone out there is filing fake DMCA requests and Mega is complying with most of the copyright warnings.

Another possibility is that Mega itself is targeting these indexes as a way to prevent users from finding and sharing copyrighted content uploaded to the site. Whatever is happening, it’s got some Mega users understandably upset, and the rest of us scratching our heads. We’ll be keeping an ear to the ground for more information, so keep it here at SlashGear for additional details.

Mega search engine listings appear as files get the axe is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Last June, Twitter hopped on the transparency train and released its first report indexing information requests, copyright takedown notices, and removal requests from governments around the globe. Now the second report is out, with its own site and some new details on what the U.S. government in particular is doing. And weirdly enough, copyright takedown requests are actually down from the past six months. More »

It was great while it lasted, but the days of users legally unlocking their own phones is over. Back in October of last year, the Library of Congress added an exemption to the DMCA to allow folks to free their new phones for 90 days. That three month window has now closed. Of course, carriers are still free to offer unlocked handsets themselves, and some will also unlock them for you as long as certain conditions are met. “Legacy” or used handsets purchased before today can still be unlocked without any finger-wagging from federal courts.

So, what does this mean exactly? Well, Electronic Frontier Foundation attorney Mitch Stoltz told us, “What’s happening is not that the Copyright Office is declaring unlocking to be illegal, but rather that they’re taking away a shield that unlockers could use in court if they get sued.” This does make lawsuits much more likely according to him, but it’s still up to the courts to decide the actual legality of phone unlocking. Indeed, it’s a grim day for those who want true freedom over their own devices. Stoltz said to us, “This shows just how absurd the Digital Millennium Copyright Act is: a law that was supposed to stop the breaking of digital locks on copyrighted materials has led to the Librarian of Congress trying to regulate the used cellphone market.”

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile

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Via: Tech News Daily

Source: Library of Congress (Amazon)

One year ago today, Internet users of all ages, races, and political stripes participated in the largest protest in Internet history, flooding Congress with millions of emails and phone calls to demand they drop the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)-a dangerous bill that would have allowed corporations and the govenrment to censor larger parts of the Web. More »

We’ve talked over the past couple months about the impending anti-piracy system that was slated to go into effect across the US. The system is implemented by major Internet service providers, each of which will warn subscribers who engage in copyright infringing activities, ultimately punishing those who continue to do so after being warned. Thanks to Hurricane Sandy and some other unspecified factors, however, the Center for Copyright Information has been forced to extend the launch date to early 2013.

The Center for Copyright Information is a collective of five major Internet service providers, including Verizon, AT&T, and Comcast. Alongside the MPAA and RIAA, the service providers formed an agreement wherein copyright-infringing subscribers will receive some sort of alert, depending on which provider they use. Upon receiving a certain number of alerts, the subscriber will then receive a punishment, which also varies based on which provider the individual uses.

Each service provider has its own system. We first got a peek into what Internet users have in store thanks to a leaked AT&T memo, which detailed a large portion of the anti-piracy system the company will use, which includes several warnings when infringement is detected, followed by an “online education tutorial on copyright.” Verizon users will be given two warnings before being forced to sign an acknowledgement of infringement, followed by severely throttled Internet speeds for a couple of days. Time Warner subscribers will be directed to a landing page rather than having their speeds reduced.

The system was slated for launch today, November 28. However, the Center for Copyright Information has announced that the launch date has been bumped due to Hurricane Sandy, and won’t be implemented until early next year. “Due to unexpected factors largely stemming from Hurricane Sandy which have seriously affected our final testing schedules, CCI anticipates that the participating ISPs will begin sending alerts under the Copyright Alert System in the early part of 2013, rather than by the end of the year.”

[via CCI]

Anti-piracy system launch date bumped to early 2013 is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.