Canadian music mogul takes on China, pirates welcome

Terry McBride, the Canadian best known as the manager of pop megastar Avril Lavigne said the music industry's obsession with stemming the flow of illegally downloaded material is futile and short-sighted.

"I do not believe that the record label owns the song, the publisher does not own the song, even the artist does not own the song," McBride told AFP in an interview.

"It is the emotion that a fan attaches to that song, to that lyric that makes it popular. What the record business needs to do is to monetise the behaviour of that fan."

McBride said record companies need an alternative to what he sees as an outmoded business model that relies on a few mega-selling artists and copyright protection.

In almost every global market record sales are plummetting as people turn to the Internet for music, increasingly downloading it for free.

A recent survey by MTV of consumers in 12 Asian countries found that 77 percent of people aged between 15 and 24 had illegally downloaded music in the past month, while 59 percent had also made legitimate purchases.

The rampant piracy -- particularly serious in China where the rate of illegal downloading was put at more than 80 percent, which some see as conservative -- has led to aggressive legal action.

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Apple Struggles to Win Fans in China

Yang Weiguo, a 20-year-old university student in Beijing, is a committed Apple (AAPL) fan. Given the American company's limited presence in China, that's no small achievement. In April, for instance, Yang bought a new Macbook through MacX.cn, a fan site for Mac users in China that operates an online store unaffiliated with the company. The online store had someone buy a computer for Yang in Hong Kong and courier it up to Beijing, saving him $293, or roughly 17%, on his Macbook purchase. 

So when Yang, who is spending his summer as a volunteer for the Olympics next month, found out through the Mac community that Apple would open its first store in China on July 19, he knew he had to be there from the beginning. He arrived at the shop, located in a swank shopping mall in the Sanlitun area of Beijing, 22 hours before it was scheduled to open. He was among more than 100 others who camped overnight -- even though he already had his Macbook and wasn't interested in a new iPod. "I don't have anything I need to buy," he says. Still, because he wanted to be there, Yang spent $26 for an adapter cable he could have easily purchased elsewhere. 

Smuggling Challenge Apple executives want to make it easier to convert more people like Yang from the cult of Mao to the cult of Mac. Apple plans to open a second store in Beijing in 2009 and another in Shanghai later. "We expect to be successful here in China because the entire economy is growing," says Ron Johnson, Apple's senior vice-president for retail.

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Videogame creator calls for ‘free games’ to beat piracy

According to renowned game designer Dave Perry, the best way to beat piracy within the videogame industry is to not cram masses of software protection on each and every disc… but to give the games to consumers for free. 

Speaking in Belfast after receiving an honorary doctorate from Queen’s University for his pioneering contribution to computer and videogame development, the creator of ‘Earthworm Jim’, ‘MDK’ and ‘Enter the Matrix pointed to the Asian market as proof that such an approach can work.

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Four GTA businesses nabbed in anti-piracy software sting

You can try to run illegal software, but according to the Business Software Alliance, you can't hide.

The BSA announced that four GTA-based companies have paid a combined total of $95,000 in fines after it was discovered they had unlicensed software from Adobe, Autodesk and Microsoft running on its computers.

“Companies should establish proper software asset management policies and procedures in the first place rather than to risk paying damages for unlicensed software use down the road,” said BSA chariman Michael Murphy.

“These settlements demonstrate that even well-managed organizations need to pay careful attention to software licensing requirements. The cost of doing otherwise may be very high.”

read more here...

Microsoft Renews Anti-Piracy Drive, Launches New Web Site

Washington (AHN) - A new web site providing information on how customers can tell whether a software is genuine or not underscores a renewed drive by Microsoft to stop pirated versions of its Windows products.

The web site, launched Wednesday, tell consumers about suspicious packaging and other signs of a pirated or fake copies of Windows or other Microsoft software.

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An open letter to the RIAA

Posted by Don Reisinger

Dear RIAA,

As the watchdog for the so-called "recording industry," I expect you to preserve and protect the viability and future growth of the recording industry. In fact, I don't even have a problem with you doing that. But sad as it as, your tactics have come under attack by those on both sides of the "piracy" fence imploring you to find something better to do with your time. Isn't it time you listen to your critics and realize that your tactics are making you one of the most hated organizations in the world?


read the rest here

How can you stop it

when it seems to be their way of life, rip the rest of the world off:

Semiconductor maker Microchip Technology sues Chinese company for alleged piracy

SHANGHAI, China: Semiconductor maker Microchip Technology Inc. said Wednesday that it is suing a Chinese manufacturer for alleged illegal copying of its microcode and other proproprietary information.

Chandler, Arizona-based Microchip said it filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Shanghai Haier Integrated Circuit Co. in Shanghai's No. 1 Intermediate People's Court.

Details about the lawsuit or any damages sought were not immediately available

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Piracy Crippling Burma’s Music Industry

Piracy in Burma has brought the country’s music industry to its knees, according to performers and music producers, who say they can no longer compete with the stream of cheap copies of CDs and VCDs.

“Piracy drives the industry into absolute paralysis,” well-known songwriter Maung Thit Min told The Irrawaddy. “We used to discuss intellectual property laws under the World Intellectual Property Organization, but nothing has been done to follow these guidelines.”


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Extradited piracy leader sentenced to 51 months

Hew Raymond Griffiths, a 44-year-old British national living in Australia and leader of one of the oldest and most widely recognized Internet software piracy groups in the 90s called DrinkOrDie, was extradited to the U.S. in February and sentenced this past Friday to 51 months in prison on one count of conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement.

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More about drink or die

Hostel II director blames piracy for poor box office sales

Director Eli Roth is speaking out about the lackluster box-office for his latest film, Hostel: Part II, and he's blaming everyone but himself. Roth puts piracy front and center as the reason for the film's performance. "Piracy has become worse than ever now, and a stolen workprint (with unfinished music, no sound effects, and no VFX) leaked out on online before the release, and is really hurting us, especially internationally," he says, before going on to specifically tear into critics who reviewed a leaked copy of the film.

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Weapon against piracy

One of the most ubiquitous scenes that you will observe outside many railway stations in Mumbai is of people selling pirated CDs and DVDs. Nowadays, it's become very easy for anybody to create such multiple copies (and sell them) even without having any appropriate right to do so. It's illegal and it is causing huge losses to the companies producing the original versions.

Yes, there are copyright laws. But, these laws are inadequate to stop or control the distribution of digital content through media devices or the Internet. This is where Software Digital Rights Management (DRM) comes into the picture. "The only way to stop software piracy is to protect software from unauthorised use. And this can be done through DRM," says Shailendra Sahasrabudhe, Country Manager, Aladdin Knowledge Systems – a global major in this industry.

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NBC wants government crackdown on piracy

NBC Universal has told America's communications regulator, the FCC, that the US government needs to do more to encourage the removal of pirated content from the internet.

The FCC is currently taking comments in relation to net neutrality over fears that ISPs and telecom providers could seek to block or downgrade the delivery to subscribers of certain applications and or content from competitors. NBC used its filing on the topic to address the issue of the piracy of intellectual property.

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Piracy more dangerous than bank robbing

NBC'S top lawyer, Rick Cotton, has said that too much money was spent defending society from bank robbers, fraud and burglary.
Cotton said that policing money should be spent doing more about piracy instead.

He said that law enforcement resources were "seriously misaligned". If you add up all the various kinds of property crimes in this country, everything from theft, to fraud, to burglary, bank-robbing, it only costs the country $16 billion a year.

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Sounds a little far-fetched to me...ed.

China, US to step up anti-piracy work

China has promised to pursue product pirates identified by US authorities in a new effort to stamp out counterfeit products, the head of the US customs agency said Friday.

Under a memorandum of cooperation signed this week, US Customs will provide China with information on the source of seized goods, and Beijing will report back within 90 days on the status of efforts to track down the counterfeiters, Basham told reporters.

"We've got to start dealing with the source of the problem. We can't expect to rely upon interdiction to be our tool in order to stop these products," Basham said.

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Software piracy widespread in Azerbaijan, says ICT minister

“Software piracy is widespread in Azerbaijan. The piracy is around 21-23% in the United States while the level is 93-95% in our country. We have therefore decided to frame legal framework for intellectual property and software use,” said Ali Abbasov, the country’s communications and information technologies minister.

He added that the first move will come to license software used in computers of the government bodies.

“The government will control the process. The schools are provided with licensed software at present within the scope of the government program to computerize education institutions,” he underscored.

Hey, what and where the heck is Azerbaijan?

Hitachi, Oracle jointly fight piracy in China

Japanese electronics group Hitachi and U.S. software firm Oracle Corp. plan to jointly market wireless tags that help to identify counterfeit goods in China, the Nikkei business daily said on Sunday.

Hitachi and Oracle will market the IC, or integrated circuit, tags for a wide range of products, including cash vouchers, luxury items and home appliances, the Nikkei said. IC tags are tiny chips that can store basic information about a product such as where it was produced and by which company.

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Pirated products valued at $200 billion

The value of global counterfeited goods traded in 2005 was at least 200 billion dollars (148 billion euros) and could be several hundred billion dollars more, the Paris-based OECD estimated on Monday.

The multilateral economics body, which has 30 member countries, released details of an 18-month probe into counterfeiting and piracy worldwide that aimed to shed light on the shadowy business of bootlegs and fakes.

The figure of 200 billion dollars, based on international customs data, did not include counterfeit and pirated products that were produced and consumed in the same country, the OECD said

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CD Wow to pay labels $81 million

p2pnet.net news:-CD Wow has been ordered to pay a Big 4 music cartel 'trade' company some £41 million (today about $80,994,655) for breaking UK import rules.


And downloading wasn't an issue.

"The High Court in London ruled in March that the site's owners, Music Trading Online, were 'in substantial breach' of a 2004 agreement to stop importing CDs," ordering the company to pay "£37m plus interest to the British Phonographic Industry (BPI)," says the BBC.


The story has ceo Henrik Wesslen declaring, "We are the little guys selling CDs to the UK market and they (the BPI) have picked on us for that reason. Other bigger sites doing the same thing have been left alone."


According to The Times Online, CD Wow imported cheap CDs from Hong Kong, "but promised as long ago as 2004 to stop the practice." But earlier in the year it was found guilty of continuing the trade.


"Yesterday CD Wow - a privately held company with little-known British and European founders - said that the BPI was able to cite only 39 instances of the rules being breached, a fraction of the 10,000 CDs it ships a day," says the story.

But, "CD-Wow is no consumer champion," stated the BPI's Geoff Taylor, says the BBC.

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Lobbyist Urges Income From Karaoke

HONG KONG — The music industry needs to obtain more revenue from karaoke royalties and radio stations in China to offset losses to piracy, the head of an industry association said Wednesday.

"The new business model is built on the diversification of revenue streams," IFPI chief executive John Kennedy said at a music industry conference in Hong Kong.

Revenue from CD sales still represents a big chunk of the industry's overall earnings, but its share is decreasing, and record companies need to branch out into digital music, radio and karaoke royalties, especially in China, Kennedy said.

London-based IFPI, which represents the recording industry worldwide, estimates that sales of pirated music products worldwide were worth $4.5 billion in 2005 and that nearly 20 billion songs were illegally downloaded that year.

China is a serious offender, with pirated CDs or tapes accounting for more than 85 percent of the market, according to IFPI.

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Microsoft signs software deal with Vietnam

HANOI -- US software giant Microsoft Monday signed an agreement with communist Vietnam to use its licensed programs in government desktop computers in a bid to reduce rampant software piracy.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer met Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung on a one-day visit during which both witnessed the signing of the agreement with the post and telematics ministry to use genuine Microsoft software.

Under the deal, Microsoft Office Systems software will be loaded onto 300,000 central and rural government desktops and computers in educational institutions, said a spokesman for Microsoft.

The deal aims to make Vietnam's government compliant with intellectual property (IP) protection rules and to foster a vibrant information and communication technology (ICT) industry, both sides said in a statement.


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