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| 3 Strikes Still On Agenda, But Only If Kiwis Keep On Pirating Posted: 03 Nov 2010 03:15 AM PDT New Zealand's Parliament Commerce Committee has reported back on the Copyright Infringing File Sharing Bill and it will now move to parliament for its second reading. The controversial 3 strikes provision is still included, but will now only be implemented if a letter writing scheme to educate citizens fails, and people continue to share illicit files during the next two years. Following a review, New Zealand’s Commerce Select Committee has recommended changes to the Copyright (infringing File Sharing) Amendment Bill, the proposed legislation aimed squarely at reducing instances of online infringement. The Bill, which unanimously passed its first reading in Parliament in April and repeals section 92A of the Copyright Act, will put in place a 3 strikes-style regime, whereby Internet service providers will initially be required to send warning letters to alleged infringers at the behest of rights holders. The Copyright Tribunal, which will be empowered to rule on cases of alleged infringement, will be given control over a streamlined, lost-cost system for dealing with cases and will be empowered to hand down fines up to $15,000 ($11,500 USD). In a statement, Commerce Minister Simon Power welcomed the changes to the Bill. "The Commerce Select Committee's recommended changes to the bill will help it be more workable and effective," said Mr Power. The power for District Courts to disconnect Internet users for a period of up to 6 months remains in the Bill, but the Committee is recommending that the measure is not activated unless citizens fail to respond to the warning letters sent out by rightsholders and ISPs. “This will enable the Government to work with stakeholders to monitor and review the situation and determine when a further deterrent may be needed,” notes Powers’ office. That review is expected to come late 2012, which gives file-sharers around 2 years to mend their ways. Failure to do so would hand the decision to implement disconnections directly to Minister Power, who will be able to do so without further discussion. "I am pleased that the Committee has recommended that account suspension not be introduced now," says InternetNZ Chief Executive Vikram Kumar. "We would have preferred no remedy of account suspension being included in the legislation. The decision to leave it in but not commence its application is a second best option, but is far better than the current law, and better than the initial draft,” he added. However, Kumar was still critical of elements of the Bill, noting that it “still leaves account holders entirely responsible for another person's use of their account even where they have no control over them." While critics remain skeptical that the warnings letters will have the desired effect, some feel that infringements could be reduced significantly. “If done right, the Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment Bill will go a long way towards reducing the level of online copyright infringement, as research has shown that seven in ten people will stop upon receiving the first notice from their ISP,” said NZFACT executive director Tony Eaton. In common with the UK, warning letters will not be sent out to users of cellular networks in the first instance and in New Zealand not until August 2013. "This position is likely to change in the near future as technology advances and mobile broadband prices go down,” said Mr Power. An additional recommendation by the government is to enable the District Court to refuse to implement an Internet disconnection “where it would be manifestly unjust to the account holder” to do so. Article from: TorrentFreak. |
| Anti-Piracy Tool For Cinemas Will Recognize Emotions Posted: 02 Nov 2010 11:36 AM PDT For most people going to a cinema is a good night out. Only a few realize that they are often subjecting themselves to extreme and privacy invading security measures that most airports could only dream of. Filmgoers are already being carefully watched for suspicious behavior by Big Brother's cameras, but soon this technology will be upgraded with sophisticated emotion recognition software.
Despite the invasive ramifications for the movie going public, the efforts are paying off nicely for the theater owners. Night vision goggles helped to spot Batman and Bond ‘camcording’ pirates among others, but not surprisingly the movie industry continues to look for new ways to protect their movies from piracy. One of the available anti-camcorder solutions is offered by Aralia Systems, an Orwellian company that specializes in monitoring services and technologies. Besides traditional CCTV cameras, Aralia Systems offers elaborate piracy tracking devices. One of their products is an anti-camcorder system that projects infrared light beams onto a cinema audience. These beams are reflected back off camcorders and will trigger several alarm bells. In order for their technologies to further benefit the movie industry, Aralia Systems has been awarded a Knowledge Transfer Partnership with Machine Vision Lab of the University of the West of England (UWE). The grant is good for more than £215,000, and will be used to build new capabilities into existing piracy tracking instruments. TorrentFreak spoke with project leader Dr. Abdul Farooq from Machine Vision Lab, who told us that their main goal is to extend the functionalities of the current anti-piracy systems. Basically, it comes down to extracting as much information from movie goers as possible, by adding analytics software that can read people’s physical reactions as well as their emotions. "We want to devise instruments that will be capable of collecting data that can be used by cinemas to monitor audience reactions to films and adverts and also to gather data about attention and audience movement,” Dr. Farooq said. "Using 2D and 3D imaging technology we aim to do this in two ways. Obviously cinema audiences are spread out in large theatre settings so we need to build instruments that can capture data for different purposes. We will use 2D cameras to detect emotion but will also collect movement data through a 3D data measurement that will capture the audience as a whole as a texture,” Dr. Farooq further explained. According to Dr. Farooq the project should make it possible to record and analyze the public’s emotions. These emotions will not be used to track down camcording pirates, but will serve as a market research tool for the movie industry and advertisers. "Within the cinema industry this tool will feed powerful marketing data that will inform film directors, cinema advertisers and cinemas with useful data about what audiences enjoy and what adverts capture the most attention. By measuring emotion and movement film companies and cinema advertising agencies can learn so much from their audiences that will help to inform creativity and strategy,” Dr. Farooq noted. Although the new project doesn’t focus specifically on anti-piracy efforts, it will be built into the existing anti-piracy tracking systems that are used in several theaters. The main question that comes to mind is how far these systems can go without specifically asking for consent from theater visitors. What was once a relaxing evening out might be turning into an interactive consumer research lab, with cameras carefully analyzing, recording and storing your every move – while you’re being charged for the privilege. Article from: TorrentFreak. |
Hindering piracy is priority number one for movie theaters nowadays. In dealing with a tiny minority, theater owners are slowly alienating their customers by employing measures such as | You are subscribed to email updates from TorrentFreak To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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