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| Foul!!! Sony Orders Google to Censor The World Cup Posted: 22 Jun 2014 02:26 AM PDT
While England basked in its somewhat traditional World Cup disappointment Thursday, viewing records were being broken, but amazingly while Brazil sizzles, some want to pour cold water on the excitement. Allow us to introduce MarkScan, a self-described “consulting boutique dedicated to your IP requirements”. The anti-piracy company is based in India and boasts a wide range of clients including the BBC, HBO, Nokia, and other prestigious brands. Just recently MarkScan has been doing some work for Multi Screen Media Pvt. Ltd, a Sony Entertainment Television subsidiary in India. In June, Multi Screen Media launched LIV Sports, a digital sports entertainment site that was chosen by FIFA to be the official mobile and Internet broadcaster for the 2014 World Cup. This week, MarkScan set off on an inevitable DMCA takedown spree to protect its clients’ and FIFA’s rights. What a disaster it’s been. Much like FIFA, MarkScan began by sending its first batch of copyright complaints to Google several days before a ball had even been kicked. The notice, which covered 46 domains allegedly streaming the World Cup, was 100% rejected by Google. One of the complaints targeted a great article by GigaOM which helpfully offered “Where to watch the 2014 FIFA World Cup live online, and how to stream it without cable.” The article listed all legal sources, including ESPN, across several countries. Several subsequent takedown notices targeting more than 700 other URLs saw between 90% and 100% of URLs rejected by Google. One of them was nothing short of a disaster. 
In the article titled “World Cup 2014: How to watch across BBC TV, radio and online”, the BBC attempted to inform its millions of readers how to legitimately access the World Cup. However, as can be seen from the image below, MarkScan had other ideas.  Sadly, this attempted takedown of a purely informational and entirely legal article wasn’t the only casualty of this notice. An article published by Variety informing its readership that ESPN would be streaming all 64 matches was deemed to be copyright-infringing too, as was a similar attempt by Canada’s CBC.ca. Other catastrophes would be amusing if they weren’t so awful, such as the attempt to censor this article on Bleacher Report which advised how to watch Uruguay versus Germany – a match from FIFA World Cup 2010 four years ago.  Also targeted was this 2013 article from Hollywood Reporter which detailed plans by Sony (ironically) and FIFA to broadcast the World Cup 2014 in Ultra HD. FoxSports’ interactive World Cup Schedule was also marked as infringing. Both are shown below.  Even legitimate traditional broadcasters couldn’t get the word out unhindered. Communications company Cox wanted to let its residential customers know they could “Watch the World’s Biggest Soccer Games. Any Way You Want” but MarkScan told Google the page was illegal. The whole notice, which can be read here, has many more examples than those listed above, including the attempted censorship of EA Sports’ Twitter account and FIFA’s very own site – for FIFA Futsal World Cup Thailand 2012. Brilliant. But, in its own unique way, one takedown is more disappointing than most. In a post dated June 9, before the World Cup had even begun, Symantec tried to inform its readers on how to avoid various World Cup related scams. We don’t need to tell you what happened to it. TorrentFreak contacted MarkScan whose Internet Enforcement Team told us they take care to avoid mistakes. “We want to assure you that we deploy technology, in addition to best efforts of our teams, to ensure that we do not impact legal content on yours, or any other website,” they explained. We suspect someone could be seeing at least a yellow card, possibly worse, in the days to come. Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.    |
| Dotcom’s Disruptive Music Service First to Support FLAC Streaming Posted: 21 Jun 2014 12:12 PM PDT
The latter had its 'soft launch' in January featuring only one album, that of Kim Dotcom himself. A few months have passed since and Baboom is now gearing up for a full release. Dotcom has been clear about his goal for the music service ever since it was first teased in 2011. By providing free music and compensating artists through advertising revenue, Dotcom believes he can decrease music piracy while giving artists proper compensation for their work. But is that really doable? This week two of Baboom’s top executives spoke out on Baboom’s mission and some of the unrivaled features through which it hopes to disrupt the music industry. Chief Technology Officer Marco Oliveira stresses that closing the gap between artists and fans is one of the main goals. One way to do this is by providing the best quality music possible, through lossless streaming of FLAC music files. “Baboom is the first music streaming platform to support FLAC streaming, which delivers lossless audio. What this means, is that fans get to listen to music exactly how the artist intended. No degraded audio experience, you get an exact replica of what the artist recorded,” Oliveira says. Streaming FLAC files will require a decent Internet connection, as a full music album can easily take up more than half a gigabyte. In addition to lossless streams, users will also be able to download tracks in FLAC format to listen to offline. But the music quality is only part of the offer. For artists, Baboom wants to make it as simple as possible to share their work with the public and make a decent living while doing so. No strings attached. “Artists should be in charge of their careers, instead of being locked in unfair agreements. Neither artists or fans care for this. All they care about is the music, and that’s what should matter,” Oliveira. This vision is shared by Mikee Tucker, Baboom’s Head of Content and Platform, who has worked with independent artists for over a decade. Tucker believes that Baboom can give artists full control over their music, and earn more than they would do through any of the major labels. “For me there are two driving factors behind Baboom’s vision. Firstly, the spirit of true independence and artist freedom which inspires our vision to empower the artist and give control back to the creator. Secondly, the need for a solution to tackle declining revenues and outdated business models which inspires our vision innovate and disrupt,” Tucker says. It may sound too good to be true, but Baboom believes it can generate enough revenue through its advertisement tool. This application works like an ad blocker, but instead of blocking ads it replaces a small percentage with Baboom's own ads. Those who prefer not to install the app have the option to buy the music instead. Most of the revenue will then flow directly to the artists with Baboom keeping a small share, 10 percent. This fraction pales in comparison to the amounts held back by the major labels. While this may work in theory, in the end Baboom’s success will greatly depend on the content. Dotcom previously said that there are several "top artists" lined up for the launch, but who they are remains a mystery for now. It’s no secret that Dotcom has several prominent connections in the music industry and it will be interesting to see which artists join him. In any case, there will definitely be plenty of attention for Baboom's launch later this year.  Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.   |
Soccer fever has been spreading across the globe this week, with dozens of millions tuning in to watch the World Cup via regular TV and an abundance of online services.
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