TorrentFreak Email Update |
- Flappy Bird Piracy Surge: Ok to Download it off The Pirate Bay Now?
- Top 10 Most Pirated Movies of The Week – 02/10/14
- Because Of DRM, The Entire Copyright Monopoly Legislation Is A Lie
| Flappy Bird Piracy Surge: Ok to Download it off The Pirate Bay Now? Posted: 10 Feb 2014 03:41 AM PST
However, while millions of apps are sold with a price tag of a few cents to a few dollars, the real beauty of the market is that countless games and utilities are completely (or at least initially) free of charge. These apps make their revenue from advertising or in-app purchases, reducing the barrier to entry to the lowest possible level and elevating user-bases to previously unimagined levels. One such app that has done incredibly well is Flappy Bird. The game was introduced in May 2013 but in just over six months has turned into a giant, clocking up 50 million downloads on iOS and Android. The game is a social media phenomenon but now the dream is coming to an end. Over the weekend Dong Nguyen, the creator of Flappy Bird, announced that he would be removing the game from sale, claiming it had ruined his life. While some gamers reacted with relief that they could reclaim some of their lives back, others late to the game are bitterly disappointed that it’s no longer available. But of course, it is. Torrents for both the iOS and Android versions of Flappy Bird are currently doing very well indeed on The Pirate Bay and other torrent sites. So-called DDL (Direct Download) sites, forums and associated file-hosting sites are also doing a roaring trade on the game’s withdrawal, and posts have been appearing around the web on where to get a copy of the game and how to install it. But to have people bending over backwards to pirate what was until recently a free game is a huge opportunity lost. There are reports that Nguyen had been making $50K a day from Flappy’s in-game advertising, which is money that dozens of charities would happily fight over. Still, it’s Nguyen’s game to do with as he likes. Which raises an interesting point. The introduction of ad-supported models have removed a significant incentive for many people to pirate and have allowed free products like Flappy Bird to thrive and generate revenue for their creators. But what happens when their creators decide they’ve had enough? Someone illegally downloading Flappy Bird today is definitely not depriving Nguyen of any revenue and he’s on record as refusing to sell the game and has stated that he’s not interested in its future. Does that make it completely Ok then, morally and by any other barometer, to snag a ‘pirate’ copy of a piece of gaming history and help stop it drift into oblivion? With the Internet Archive now proudly and openly offering a torrent containing thousands of MAME arcade games from the 70s, 80s and 90s for free download, there is definitely a feeling that much-loved, abandoned (but probably still copyrighted) games should be kept alive. Whether a game that died just 48 hours ago qualifies for resurrection is something up for debate but one thing is certain. The press this game has got will ensure that Nguyen’s next creation is a huge hit from the second it lands, even if it did take the needless death of a bird to achieve that. Or maybe its sacrificial slaughter had been on the viral marketing agenda for some time…. Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and VPN services. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Top 10 Most Pirated Movies of The Week – 02/10/14 Posted: 09 Feb 2014 11:57 PM PST
Thor: The Dark World is the most downloaded movie for the second week in a row. The data for our weekly download chart is estimated by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only. All the movies in the list are BD/DVDrips unless stated otherwise. RSS feed for the weekly movie download chart.
Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and VPN services. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Because Of DRM, The Entire Copyright Monopoly Legislation Is A Lie Posted: 09 Feb 2014 01:52 PM PST Cory Doctorow had a brilliant column in The Guardian, which was very long and went into quite a bit of legislative history, but the key takeaway hit the nail right on the head. The entire copyright legislation is a lie, a façade, a mirage. There are no exceptions, there are no expiries, there is no fair use. The reason the situation has been allowed to degrade to this point is a small but important detail called DRM (Digital Restriction Measures). Since the turn of the century publishers are allowed to embed technical obstacles called Digital Restriction Measures in anything they publish, and these measures set and enforce a vastly expanded set of restrictions over and above ordinary copyright monopoly law. The original law loses its effect in the clause that says that any disabling of such Digital Restriction Measures is illegal in the US and EU. The net effect of this is that the DRM portion of copyright law, as it stands today, is permitting publishers to dictate whatever terms they like and call it “copyright”, overriding the rest of that law. Ordinary copyright monopoly law says that the monopoly eventually expires. That’s just not true, because mostly everything published today has DRM, which says the monopoly does not expire. Ordinary copyright monopoly law says you have a right to enjoy your purchased works in various formats, places, and ways (in your car, in your home, on your bike, when you like). DRM has made sure that’s not in the lawbooks anymore, because publishers didn’t want it that way.
Publishers don’t want you to buy stories in another country and enjoy them at home? At odds with ordinary copyright law, but with DRM, publishers can totally override that. Publishers want the copyright law to say that purchased books can’t even be shared between family members? Perfectly doable with DRM-fabricated copyright law, even if the ordinary copyright law would have dropped a ton of bricks on those publishers. Publishers want the ability to remotely remove a book you’ve bought from your bookshelf, even as you have it in your home? Say, “1984″? Just fine with DRM. Digital Restriction Measures were never – never – supposed to prevent copying. If you wanted to copy a DRM-ridden work, you could do so without problem; the DRM would follow along to the copy just fine. DRM is a usage restriction, not a copy restriction, and most importantly, as Doctorow puts it: DRM is the right for publishers to make up their own copyright law. And legislators have decided to have that made-up law enforceable just as if it were ordinary copyright monopoly law. That’s a disaster. This mess is not very flattering for legislators, who should realize that banning DRM completely is the only way ahead from this situation. It’s the publishers and the copyright industry, and nobody else, who have been breaking the social contract here. Writing law is Parliament’s job, and certainly not that of the publishers and the copyright industry.  About The Author Rick Falkvinge is a regular columnist on TorrentFreak, sharing his thoughts every other week. He is the founder of the Swedish and first Pirate Party, a whisky aficionado, and a low-altitude motorcycle pilot. His blog at falkvinge.net focuses on information policy. Book Falkvinge as speaker? Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and VPN services. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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