MUSIC TANK:
* Follow The Money: Can The Business Of Ad-Funded Piracy Be Throttled?

Piracy is not some romantic fantasy of rebellious teenagers sharing music and sticking it to the man; it is brand-sponsored – with advertisements for major blue chip FTSE and Fortune 500 corporations being served systematically to the most nefarious corners of the Web on an industrial scale – keeping the likes of MP3Ape and 4Shared in business, while diverting much-needed revenues from the pockets of creators.

We are delighted to announce that David Lowery (Artist & Commentator ) and Theo Bertram (UK Policy Manager, Google ) will both be key speakers at this event.

WIRED:
* The Real Danger of Copying Music (It’s Not What You Think)

It is one thing to sing for your supper occasionally, but to have to do so for every meal forces you into a peasant’s dilemma: The peasant’s dilemma is that there’s no buffer.

ADLAND:
* David Lowery’s UGA study compiles Top 40 list of brands supporting piracy

But isn’t it strange that Dodge Dart, Victoria’s Secret, AT&T and the like are advertising in illegal places. But I guess they figure why not, because money. Right? Maybe. But the more Taplin and Lowery (and Adland, for that matter) calls you out on it, the greater the chances your reputation, and your brand will take a hit.

DIGITAL MUSIC NEWS:
* Dear Congress: Please Consider These Points for Your Massive Copyright Overhaul…
* The RIAA Just Made It Easier to Earn a Gold Plaque Than to Pay Rent…
* Pandora Tries to Convince a Musician That He Isn’t Getting Screwed…

From: Blake Morgan
To: Tim Westergren @ Pandora

Without us, you don’t have a business.

The idea of “allowing” us to “participate” in a business that is built solely on distributing and circulating our copyrighted work is like a grocery store saying it has an idea to “allow” the manufacturers of the goods it carries to get paid. The store isn’t “allowing” Del Monte to get paid for their cans of green beans, right? Of course not.

COPYHYPE:
* Do Kim Dotcom’s lawyers think he’s guilty? The answer may shock you.

Taking your case to the court of public opinion could be a sign that your case in a court of law is not going well.

THE TELEGRAPH:
* Ads for Australia’s big brands on-sold to piracy websites

The companies were unaware their ads were running on a piracy website before being alerted by news.com.au. And the list of those affected is long, with Westpac, Telstra, ING Direct, Allianz Insurance, The Iconic, ANZ, The Good Guys, Commonwealth Bank, AustralianSuper and Medibank included.

JUNKEE:
* Combating The Cost Of The Free Economy

You can see where this is going: paying little for digital goods, which make up the majority of all goods sold, means that profit margins drop dramatically. So even when we are using these legal alternatives like Spotify, iTunes and Amazon, the goods they are selling are vastly undervalued – are ebooks really worth only $0.99? We need to get used to paying more for digital goods than we have been, because they are worth a lot more than what we have been paying. They aren’t just files and bytes of information — they are the goods now. For the incredible convenience alone, what we pay should be a lot more than we do.

We also need to stop thinking in terms of physical objects, and thinking in terms of the man hours that went into creating what we are consuming – ultimately, the medium through which we consume it does not dull our engagement with or enjoyment of those works.

TONEDEF:
* The Campaign To Stop The World’s Major Brands From Funding Music Piracy

“Whenever we talk to a brand about the fact that their ads are all over the pirate sites, they’re like, ‘Oh, how did that happen?’” says Taplin. “We thought it would be easier if they knew what ad networks were putting ads on pirate sites — so they could avoid them.”

MUSIC TECH POLICY:
* From EFF to Obstruction of Justice
* The Copyright Principles Project: The Arrogant Thimblerig of Contrived Consensus
* The Copyright Principles Project Misses the Point on Copyright Registration–we have registration now, where is the benefit?
* YouTube Beats TV With 1 Billion Watching….TV, and loves them some payola, escorts and drugs

THE STREET:
* The Digital Skeptic: Here’s All the Music Money Lost to the Web

I could model, sample and tinker with the numbers, as long as I gave the association credit. But now, taxiing for takeoff flying to the once-and-future monument of decay — Venice, Italy — all I can say is, it’s stunning how sad a song these numbers sing.

MUSIC WEEK:
* Google and Trichordist to debate piracy profits in London

In 2013, it seems somewhat amazing that advertising from major corporations is still being served to unlicensed music services – especially when, in theory, creative and tech businesses could pragmatically and constructively tackle the practice.

HOME MEDIA MAGAZINE:
* Report: Copyright Enforcement Needed Outside U.S.

Although copyright law and other remedies under the [Digital Millennium Copyright Act] remain an effective tool against infringing services located in the United States, most, if not all illegal services have moved off shore to territories that lack effective enforcement mechanisms making it nearly impossible to slow the proliferation of infringing download and streaming services,” the report reads.

VOX INDIE:
* Kim Dotcom’s Truth = Nothing but Lies (mega lies)
* Steven Soderbergh Speaks out Against Online Piracy in his “State of Cinema” Address at SFIFF
* MacKeeper Software Ads Blanket Pirate Websites, Providing Profits to Thieves
* Google’s Hypocrisy-Seeing the World Through Green Colored Glasses

THE JAKARTA POST:
* Piracy may cost record firms $1.65m a day

The illegal download of Indonesian songs through the Internet has also caused a sharp decline in the sale of music CDs in the country. Last year, the sales of original music CDs totaled only 11 million copies, far lower than the average 90 million copies a year several years ago.

THE TIMES OF INDIA:
* International film piracy gang busted in Indore

For an year now, the duo were capturing full-length new Bollywood and Hollywood releases, first day-first show from major cine-plexes, Velocity and Sky Lounge section of Satyam Cineplex, and then sharing high-quality products via the internet with operators of pirated movie markets across the globe.

The duo was charging prices ranging between Rs 25,000 to Rs 3 lakh from the buyers, depending on the product quality.

MUSIC ALLY:
* Devo’s Kickstarter-funded DevoBots synthesizer iOS app goes live
* Event report: ‘Copyright in Crisis’ ft. PRS for Music and Pirate Party
* Hoping for Apple iRadio launch in June? Dealmaking continues…
* Music Dealers: ‘Brands are picking up the pieces of the music industry’

PRIVACY.NET:
* Why is Video Piracy Still Called A “Censorship” Problem?

Why is video piracy still called a censorship issue? And when did it become a threat to privacy? What I continue to find amazing is the fact that supporters of video piracy continue to refer to the attempts to block illegal access as “censorship.”

TORRENT FREAK:
* Pirate Bay Takes Over Distribution of Censored 3D Printable Gun
* Game Pirates Whine About Piracy in Game Dev Simulator
* Police Flex Muscles Again, Arrest Admin of Sweden’s #2 BitTorrent Site
* FileServe Hit With $1,000,000 Movie Piracy Lawsuit

THE WOMB:
* I Just Signed Copyright Alliance Petition Against Brand Sponsored Piracy