By Eric Pettifor Q: How difficult would it be for the copyright holder of a film to get the IP addresses of people sharing that film over bittorrent? A: Easy as pie. Here’s a portion of a screen capture from my bittorrent client, ktorrent, showing the ip addresses of people sharing a popular file […]
Nasty Old People Nice
By Eric Pettifor I just finished watching a new film out of Sweden titled Nasty Old People. I downloaded it off the internet with my trusty bittorrent client. Very rarely will I see a film in a cinema that I haven’t previewed this way. Would I shell out to see Nasty Old People on the […]
First strike
isoHunt, a Canadian bittorrent site akin to The Pirate Bay, is making a preemptive strike against the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA), our own little Canadian version of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). From TorrentFreak: As an act of self-defense, isoHunt has decided to sue the CRIA instead, and today Fung will file […]
The Fraud of “Intellectual Property”
There is no such thing as “intellectual property.” Take copyright: if we are to look at creative works as property, then it is the property of the commons (that is, public domain), and copyright is simply a limited duration monopoly on works extended to creators as an incentive and reward. Patents likewise are of limited […]
Canada: Rise up and defeat the Norwegians!
The World Economic Forum (WEF) recently released their annual Global Information Technology Report. The newsy aspect of this year’s report is the slippage of the United States from first place position to seventh. Cold northern countries seem to do very well, with Denmark and Sweden in first and second places respectively, Finland in fourth place, […]
Be Your Own Robin Hood
Recently Slashdot posted a story about the RIAA suing a disabled man living on social security. For the most part, the Slashdot crowd is rabidly anti-RIAA, but one fellow commented that just because a person is disabled, it doesn’t mean that he can’t infringe copyright. I found this defense of the RIAA vs. a poor, […]
Avast ye, eh?
Avast ye, and listen well. Ol’ Joe Biden has turned his guns to North and is taking aim at our Great White Land o’ the Pirates, aye. Seems he and his Congressional International Anti-Piracy Caucus gave fair warning three years ago when they put us on a watch list, but e’en so we did not […]
Let the multiplexes die
Film distribution in Canada is in trouble, at least if you believe the Globe. Seems Canada is one of the top pirating countries in the world. Hollywood execs are threatening to delay — or even halt — distribution of their films here. So there’s a chance that future hits like The Hills Have Eyes 2 […]
