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| Distributor Offers To ‘Purify’ and Monetize Pirate Files Posted: 11 Apr 2011 12:59 PM PDT
While there are ultra-aggressive approaches – such as the pay-up-or-else schemes flooding Europe and the United States – occasionally individuals come up with more creative approach worthy of attention. One such individual is manga creator Ken Akamatsu, who today announced that he will start an ambitious scheme to monetize illicit copies of out-of-print manga currently residing in huge volumes on file-sharing networks. Akamatsu will launch the “Illegal Manga File Purification Project” tomorrow via his J-Comi site. While noting that all fans have obtained illicit out-of-print manga via file-sharing networks “at least once”, Akamatsu is offering to ‘purify’ these files so that the creators can be paid for their work and subsequent downloaders can do so legally. According to AnimeNewsNetwork, the scheme will work as follows. Manga fans with illicit files on their hard drive will be asked to upload them (or links to them on file-sharing networks) to the J-Comi site. Whilst keeping uploader identities private, J-Comi will contact the original creators of the files and obtain permission to monetize the content. Once they have agreement, J-Comi will bundle advertising into the manga releases and reintroduce them back onto file-sharing networks. For this service there will be no charge and the original creators will receive 100% of the advertising revenue. If agreement with the creators cannot be reached “the files will be abandoned and the files will continue to drift through hell [file-sharing networks]. Perhaps forever…,” Akamatsu predicts. While this attempt at returning some revenue to the creators of these files is to be applauded, Ken Akamatsu could find himself an extremely busy man indeed, and maybe one with a rather large headache. Nevertheless, we wish him good luck for trying something positive. It has to be better than the alternative. |
| Dutch Government To Outlaw File-Sharing and Block The Pirate Bay Posted: 11 Apr 2011 05:37 AM PDT
The group was responsible for the demise of the once largest torrent site Mininova, achieved a conviction against the Pirate Bay founders, and more recently expanded its track record with a victory against one of the largest Usenet communities on the Internet. All the above was accomplished even though the actual downloading of copyrighted movies and music for personal use is completely legal in BREIN’s home country. In the Netherlands only the uploading part of file-sharing is punishable by law, but if new plans from the Government are adopted this may soon change. Today, State Secretary of Security and Justice Fred Teeven announced that the Government wants to modernize current copyright law. One of the most drastic changes put forward in the new plans is that in addition to uploading, downloading of all copyrighted material will also be outlawed. In addition to a complete ban on the sharing of copyrighted material, the new copyright plans will also get rid of the “copy-levy” on blank CDs and DVDs. This levy, ranging from $0.20 to $0.87 per piece, was put in place to compensate rights holders for the films and music that were copied for personal use. The State Secretary notes that the changes related to file-sharing will not mean that the Government will actively prosecute individual downloaders, but stresses that they are needed to get “pirate websites” blocked by Internet service providers. At the moment this is impossible. Last year BREIN sued two of the largest Dutch ISPs, requesting that they should block their customers’ access to The Pirate Bay, but the attempt failed. State Secretary Teeven emphasizes that The Pirate Bay is one of the main targets, although he misspells the website url in his official letter, pointing to piratebay.org instead. According to the State Secretary, The Pirate Bay is “a major resource of illegal material” which should be blocked by ISPs. Although applicable to all citizens, the new law is specifically aimed at the blocking of illegal websites. There will be no three-strikes rules as proposed in other countries, and the Government will not chase individual file-sharers. In a response to the news, BREIN confirmed that it will not go after individual file-sharers in the future either. Their prime targets are the websites that facilitate copyright infringement, not their users. Aside from toughening the law, the new plans also include ‘protections’ for the privacy of file-sharers. One of the key points is that the rights holders can only claim the personal details of an alleged infringer if that person shared copyrighted material on a massive scale. This would prevent the pay-up-or-else settlement schemes that are currently ongoing in the United States. |
Turning Internet piracy into profit is the holy grail for many content creators and distributors. Whether it be music, movies or software, people have been looking for ways to monetize media on file-sharing networks for as long as they’ve been around.
Through the actions of anti-piracy outfit BREIN, The Netherlands has been in the news regularly in connection with file-sharing and copyright related cases. | 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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