Ad Sponsored Piracy – Page 21

Kim Dotcom Parody Video Appears on YouTube

We have been alerted to the video below as reported by AdLand. The video is a parody spoof of Dotcom’s own propaganda clip released last week. This one is aptly titled the “Permissionless Innovation Remix – Lessig Edition”. Enjoy, and pass it on.

The war for my stolen fortune has begun
Artists are fighting for their rights
Any sane person would see I’m a piece of shit
But don’t let them take away my Ferraris

Can you believe
I think I’m like Dr King
When I steal from artists and they try to fight?
They work their whole lives
To express what’s inside
But I don’t understand the word copyright

Keep my thievery going
Keep my ego growing
Keep the truth from showing
My pursuit of money
Money
Money

I won’t give up, without a fight
My Rolls Royce is a pretty white
Oh never mind I have more than one
Because of all the stealing I have done

I’ve made half a billion I am Kim.com
By stealing money and costing jobs
I sail on a yacht I am Kim.com
And ask the poor to sing my song

We must oppose those who really know
and want to take all that is mine
We must not expose to kids who don’t know
I made a fortune from doing crime

I won’t give up, without a fight
My Rolls Royce is a pretty white
Oh never mind I have more than one
Because of all the stealing I have done

Entertainment industry
I stole from them endlessly
Can I get away with it
Can I get away with it

I won’t give up, without a fight
My Rolls Royce is a pretty white
Oh never mind I have more than one
Because of all the stealing I have done

It starts with you and me
And all of my money
It starts with you and me
And all of my money

I’ve made half a billion I am Kim.com
By stealing money and costing jobs
I sail on a yacht I am Kim.com
And ask the poor to sing my song

July 30, 2012 by trichordist

PayPal to Pirates “No Cash For You” Score Another One for an Ethical Internet!

PayPal should be celebrated as a company who supports artists rights and an ethical internet. We were pleased to find this report on TorrentFreak this week stating that the online payment processing company has banned “Major File Hosting Services Over Piracy Concerns.”

In reviewing the User Agreement for PayPal™ Service we see what appears to be the operative language:

4. Prohibited Transactions. You agree that you will not use PayPal to accept payment for illegal products or services, including but not limited to materials that infringe the intellectual property rights of third parties. You will not use the Service, the PayPal website or any of the services offered therein for any unlawful or fraudulent activity. If PayPal (or Wells Fargo, in connection with processing credit card transactions) has reason to believe that you may be engaging in or have engaged in fraudulent, unlawful, or improper activity, including without limitation any violation of any terms and conditions of this Agreement, your access to the Service may be suspended or terminated. Further, if such behavior involved a MasterCard or VISA credit card transaction, it may result in you/your business being prevented from registering for payment acceptance through any payment provider or directly with any bank acquirer operating under license to either the MasterCard or VISA card associations. You will cooperate fully with PayPal Wells Fargo, MasterCard or VISA to investigate any suspected unlawful, fraudulent or improper activity, including but not limited to granting authorized PayPal representatives “guest” or “member” access to any password-protected portions of your website.

It seems to us that such a provision should be standard policy and best practices for many more companies operating online to ensure legal operations. We hope many more will adopt PayPal’s ethical standards.

It appears the message being sent by PayPal is resonating in the file hosting and cyber locker communities as Torrent Freak reports:

“This has a paralyzing effect on the file-hosting industry where 90% of the users of some sites pay using PayPal,” he added.

Previously most file-hosting sites relied heavily on PayPal, but they will now have to switch to alternatives. The next question is whether PayPal’s example will be followed by others such as Visa and Mastercard.

Well done PayPal. For those about to rock, we salute you!

July 25, 2012 by trichordist

Eyesight to the Willfully Blind: Five Things That ISPs Can Do Today to Stop Ripping Off Artists

We are still waiting for the launch of the vaunted “Copyright Alert System” which was supposed to be up and running this month (July 2012). Now we are hearing October. You know what we think? We think the ISPs have bullshitted their way through another year of profiting from human misery.

We have heard just about enough from ISPs who perpetuate blatant theft online hiding behind a variety of hollow excuses—when ISPs clearly know that they profit more from theft and are in a better position to stop it than anyone else with their snout in the digital trough. This started with ISPs benefiting from broadband penetration largely stoked by massive digital theft, willfully ignoring repeat infringers and now using the public mobile spectrum to snort down unlicensed works.

Here’s a few ideas for ISPs—but it starts with a basic suggestion. Go to the mirror. However you want to try to slither out of responsibility this time, take a good look at your lying face and ask yourself if you are proud of what you are doing.

1. Stop marketing your services to encourage theft from artists. Fast download speeds don’t have to be measured in how many movies or recordings your users can download—they can figure that out, too.

2. Respond to repeat infringer requests quickly—you know that the DMCA you love so much does not require a full blown federal jury trial on a link by link basis before a track is infringing.

3. Stop bullying artists who send you notices. Your lawyers try to scare artists by threatening to bring your big boy litigation budget down on the head of an artist who’s doing good to make the poverty line when they complain about being ripped off. And you’re surprised that we have a problem with you?

4. Get serious about piracy. Stop advertising on pirate sites and commit to reducing piracy by 10% a year on your networks. We don’t need to follow the money through some black box designed to make it hard. We know why your ads never seem to appear on porn sites—someone will get fired if they do. But obviously, no one gets fired when your ads appear on pirate sites because more traffic helps you sell broadband.

5. We’re going to give you the same advice we give others who profit themselves by screwing artists—give some back. You could put 1% of your profits into arts education and health services for artists, you’ve definitely made way more than that in the biggest income transfer of all time. You want our music, movies, books, newspapers, photographs and illustrations for your “legitimate” services? Do the right thing.

July 24, 2012 by trichordist

Wall Of Shame : BMW Willing to “Drive” Without License

In our ongoing series the Wall of Shame showing advertising by major brands appearing on sites hosting unlicensed music and illegally exploiting the rights of artists, this one really spoke to us.

BMW advertising appears on the site mp3crank for the unlicensed album download of the critically acclaimed “Drive” Soundtrack. Given that BMW is the maker of “The Ultimate Driving Machine” this really make us wonder about the sophistication of context based advertising. As such, the DMCA protection for dumb pipes would seem to not apply in this circumstance. Of course it completely makes sense to us why BMW would want to associate itself with an album of music that has entered the pop culture zeitgeist with references coming recently from the front page of the LA Times and in the season premier of the TV show Workaholics.

But we also wonder if the brand and/or its ad agency (or its online advertising affiliates) know that they are supporting the systematic exploitation of artists and creators. It would seem in very poor taste for such a highly respected luxury automobile maker as BMW to do so.

As a point of interest it should be noted that most of the artists on this album are themselves independent or signed to small indie labels. These are not “millionaire rock stars” being exploited. They are regular, hard working musicians who caught a lucky break. That break unfortunately is not for the profit of the artists, but rather this site who is contributing nothing to the artists themselves.

So how does this happen?

Who from these brands is responsible for making sure their ads don’t end up in the wrong places?

Is there any accountability at all with online ad networks?

And here’s where it gets even weirder. The link to the site above was delisted from Google by the UK’s BPI. We assume they would have also issued a take down notice to mp3crank as well, if the site had a take down policy provision (it appears they don’t).

However the link reappears when Google forwards the DMCA notice to Chilling Effects, which itself then requires a DMCA notice to take down the report of the original DMCA notice. Kinda defeats the purpose of having the link delisted in the first place, huh? (And notice that Chilling Effects has not registered a DMCA agent, so they may not even qualify for the safe harbor in the first place.)

For those who want to support the artists on the album legally, here’s a link to Apple’s iTunes:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/drive-original-motion-picture/id455448129

Artists, ask BMW to stop propping up unlicensed businesses that are illegally exploiting creators! Here’s how you can contact BMW to ask them to stop exploiting artists, include the link to this post in your email.

BMW GROUP CORPORATE COMMUNICATIONS – NORTH AMERICA

Dirk Arnold Vice President, Corporate Communications Tel: 201-307-3954 Email: Dirk.Arnold@bmwna.com

Amanda Thomas-Henke Corporate Communications Coordinator Tel: 201-307-3724 Email: Amanda.Henke@bmwna.com

July 23, 2012July 25, 2012 by trichordist

The Pirate Bay – Top Google Search, No Really…

We can’t make this up. Google started promoting their “Hot Searches” list this week. They rolled it out with a screen shot showing The Pirate Bay at the top of the list of “Hot Searches”. It don’t get no more simple than this folks.

The Wall of Shame Continues: Tell Them If You Do Not Want Your Records and Tours Advertised on Pirate Sites–no @mcdonalds for you

We’ve been posting about advertising on illegal lyric sites and it has become apparent that these sites are pretty clearly direct infringers–meaning they don’t get safe harbors. This is because all seem to directly copy the lyrics themselves.

It’s also very apparent that the sites are based in China and other locations outside of US law. Yet–of course–they all prattle on about how they respect the “DMCA” as though US law applied to them wherever they are located and that they are entitled to the “DMCA” safe harbors, which they pretty clearly are not.

Plus, these sites sell a ton of advertising, have referrals for spyware and illegal ring tones, link to artist videos on YouTube,and both the sites and the advertisers free ride off of the brand identity of artists and songwriters whose lyrics are stolen. This advertising is not only from US companies, but is mostly from Fortune 500 companies like McDonalds, Macy’s, Levi’s and CVS Pharmacies. Do these companies care so little about artists and songwriters that they are willing to associate their brands with unlicensed lyric sites?

Unfortunately, we have also seen several instances of legitimate artist ads being served to pirate sites such as this Brandi Carlisle ad (below on the right) served to an the Lyrics007.com illegal lyric site. This ad for Brandi Carlisle’s new album is served next to Maroon 5 lyrics and a click through ad to a spyware toolbar that attracts users with the hope of acquiring more “free” mp3s–and we all know what “free” means.

The Brandi Carlisle ad is served by Google’s “AdChoices” adserving network and we saw many that were served by Doubleclick. (In case you missed it, “AdChoices” used to be called “Ads by Google” but was changed during the SOPA debate for some unknown reason.)

And the answer to how in the world does a record company’s ad show up on an illegal lyric site probably lies with the adserving network. That ad network–Google in this case–knows where the ad inventory exists, but won’t tell the advertiser where their brand is being promoted. So you get these incongruous pairings.

And then there is another legitimate ad for the Warped Tour served next to illegal lyrics for Arcade Fire as well as Google AdChoices sponsored links for Google Chrome and what appears to be a pirate mp3 download application (more likely spyware but we didn’t want to find out) as well as some other bogus looking stuff.

So what can you do as the artist or the artist’s negotiator? Tell your lawyer or manager that you require in your record deal or tour contract that your name and brand cannot be used in advertising served to illegal sites. You can even list examples of the sites. In your tour contract, require that the tour not advertise on pirate sites and give examples. There may be some advertising networks that are so corrupt that they shouldn’t be used at all.

Don’t stop there–also require that the tour obligate sponsors (or their ad agencies) to not advertise on pirate sites.

Before you throw up your hands and say “forget it, they’ll never agree to that” remember–artists didn’t used to get approval over singles, approval over the use of their music in commercials, or in political ads. Now it’s pretty routine.

You don’t get if you don’t ask.

[ WHY ARENT MORE MUSICIANS WORKING ] [ ARTISTS FOR AN ETHICAL INTERNET ]

June 11, 2012June 12, 2012 by thetrichordist

The Trichordist

Category: Ad Sponsored Piracy