plans
3-D Films Safe from Pirates. For How Long?
Beyond their magnetism towards audience, the highly impressive special effects of James Cameron's 3-D epic “Avatar”, are giving movie studios hope for a different type of special effect – an anti-piracy one. Michael Peyser, a University of Southern California (USC) professor of production and executive producer of 2007's “U2 3D”, thinks 3-D films will enjoy a peaceful and fruitful period, away from the danger of being pirated since “there's no commodity to it, nor can the files, even if they're copied, be viewed.” Avatar: The Movie that Has Changed the Face of Movies Camcorders(allegedly accountable for up to 90 % of pirated new releases) are rather useless when it comes to illegaly recording 3-D films in the theatres because the images on such films consist of two projections of differently polarized light. Polarization lines up light waves so that they all vibrate at the same angle – “If you record a 3-D image with a handheld [camcorder], then you're just going to end up with a blurry image,” pointed out Rick Heineman, a spokesman for 3-D technology company RealD, according to msnbc.com.
Continue reading »Australia leaves the internet
Invasion Australia Day censorship protest It’s Australia Day tomorrow, and the country’s subjects are using it to mark a week of protests against government plans for compulsory internet censorship.…
Continue reading »Men Charged With Hijacking DOD Paychecks
A federal grand jury is indicting two Southern California men accused of using peer-to-peer file sharing software to hijack unsuspecting victims’ money, including paychecks from five Department of Defense employees. The defendants, San Diego federal prosecutors say, from 2005 and 2006 accessed the passwords and repeatedly logged into a DOD online payroll system known as “DFAS MyPay” to redirect paychecks to prepaid credit cards – about $20,000 in all. The accused obtained the passwords after the victims erroneously made them available on peer-to-peer networks, including Limewire and Bearshare.
Continue reading »Was the Digital Economy Bill Consultation a Whitewash?
Last week, details finally emerged concerning the Digital Economy Bill. In a nutshell, the bill aims to turn elements of Lord Carter’s Digital Britain report into law. Internet users will face being monitored by the music and movie industries, and their ISPs forced to pass on infringement notices based on rights holder supplied evidence alone.
Continue reading »Britain changes 3 strikes to 2 strikes
p2pnet news view P2P | Politics:- “Legal framework for tackling copyright infringement via education and technical measure.” This innocuous looking sentence is the lead item in the BBC ’s summation of UK government plans to gain control of the Internet on behalf of Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony Music, with trumped up allegations against P2P file sharers as the linchpin, and the Queen’s speech as the excuse. “Plans for tackling pirates will be a two-stage process, according to the Bill,” says the Telegraph . “Initially the Government will aim to educate and those identified as downloading unlawfully, will be sent letters.
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