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RIAA Google takedown requests near 10 million
Posted by John Kilhefner Categories: Corporate News, Google, Internet, Music,
Thanks to Google's Transparency Report, we can see just how many copyright takedown requests it gets, and who issues such requests. The RIAA tops the list with nearly 10 million takedown requests issued. The RIAA issues hundreds of thousands of notices every week in regards to piracy sites, and has topped the most recent monthly requests. This goes to show just how severe the piracy network is, or even perhaps, how futile the RIAA's attempts are at squashing it.
Read More 
| Google Transparency Report via Engadget
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Hacker group Anonymous organizes biggest cyber-attack in history in protest of SOPA
Posted by John Ball Categories: Corporate News, Internet, Mods / Hacks,
The hacktivist group ‘Anonymous’ launched its biggest cyber-attack ever last Thursday on a bunch of governmane and corporate Web sites after the FBI shut down the ever-popular file sharing destination Megaupload. The sites attacked include The Department of Justice, Universal Music Group, and the Recording Industry Association of America. Later, CBS and Universal were targeted and taken down. Just this morning, Anonymous attacked the UFC site. These attacks started the day after the SOPA and PIPA blackouts which, according to some, could not have come at a worse time.
Anonymous is taking responsibility for the attacks, however no individual persons have come out and claimed that they took part in the operation, which is to be expected. As of right now, the government sites that were attacked are now back up and functioning.
Google’s censorship of BitTorrent, Rapidshare, and MegaUpload has begun
Posted by Reza Malayeri Categories: Corporate News, Google, Internet,
The age of Google censorship is finally here. Google announced several weeks ago that they planned on rolling out censorship of "piracy related" keywords. Pressure from the RIAA and MPAA has resulted in keyword censorship by Google. Phrases that are currently being censored include: BitTorrent, torrent, utorrent, RapidShare and Megaupload. Interestingly, the censorship does not apply to Google's full search results, and the questionable keywords are only being filtered out of Google's "Autocomplete", and "Instant" services.
Reports are coming in that Google's censorship is arbitrary. "What is most surprising about the new filter is that the keywords appear to be picked arbitrarily. It includes BitTorrent clients such as uTorrent and Xunlei, but not BitComet and Vuze. While cyberlockers such as RapidShare and Megaupload are banned, prominent sites such as 4shared, HotFile and MediaFire are not."
This has created an interesting situation for Google. Are they becoming the very thing they despised when they left China? China's censorship of Google was a major factor in the company leaving that country, and now the shoe is on the other foot.
What do you think about Google's censorship? is broad censorship of arbitrary keywords the answer to stopping piracy? What about the large number of honest BiTtorrent users that will be affected?
Read More | TorrentFreak
Woman Charged Heavily for Downloads
Posted by Sheila Franklin Categories: Editorial, Internet, Music,
Back in October of 2007, Jammie Thomas-Rasset was charged with copyright infringement of 24 songs and decided to fight the Recording Industry Association of America and Capitol Records instead of settling. But now a jury has decided that she is guilty and must pay 1.92 million dollars, which comes out to about $80,000 per tune. While it is possible that the RIAA may still settle for less, Ms. Thomas-Rasset is only the first of 20,000 that may be brought to court and is certainly being used to tell us all that her action was a no-no bigtime.
Read More | Mashable
Superfrothco Record Label to Release Solely in USB Flash Drive
Posted by Sheila Franklin Categories: Corporate News, Music, Storage, USB,
Superfrothco appears to be the first independent record label to switch its format to USB Flash Drive alone. Its debut album will be from Jeffrey Scott Holland in September, who performs a combination of modern jazz, cabaret, dixieland and show tunes. The company will also be releasing the back-catalogued Hasil Adkins “Night Life” and the soon to be released Grillo the Clown, a Kentucky street performer whose thing leans mostly towards the Weird Al variety. We are thinking that if more record companies begin to do the same, they might want to start including a package deal that would include a hub with every few purchases.
Read More | Superfrothco
Digital Music Sales Continue to Outpace Albums
Posted by Lolita Beckwith Categories: Music,
It’s a frightening thought, but we’re wondering if there’s going to be a day when CDs will just fade away, like it’s predecessors the cassette, album, 45, 78 and 8-track. Judging by the latest Nielsen SoundScan figures this seems to be the case, as sales of digital music are up—almost 50% higher—than this time last year. Not surprisingly, CDs are decreasing in sales, down 15% over the same period (Jan 1- July 1). The main reason seems to be that the people are buying only the hit songs they like online, as opposed to the whole album, which makes complete sense to us. Unfortunately, this also means fans will miss out on some truly terrific music, because if you only buy Amy Winehouse’s hit “Rehab”, you may never experience just how amazing the rest of her “Back to Black” truly is.
Read More | New York Times
GamerAndy Live! Episode 79: Sony Happy Goat Time
Posted by Edie Sellers Categories: Corporate News, Culture, E3, Editorial, First Person Shooters, Nintendo, PC, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Role Playing Games, Rumors, Square Enix, Take2, Third Person Shooters, Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox Live, Xbox Live Arcade, Xbox Live Marketplace, GamerAndy,
We are back with another episode of GamerAndy Live! This week GamerAndy, GamerEdie, and Gear Live‘s Andru Edwards are behind the mic, bringing you a fresh dose of this week’s gaming news. Be sure to hit us up on the forums and let us know what you think.
SHOW NOTES FOR EPISODE 79:
- A recent ruling by the Copyright Royalty Board threatens Internet radio and independent musicians by increasing costs to webcasters by 1,200 percent retroactively…and even for non-RIAA music. Please send a letter to your representatives to help reevaluate this Draconian and dangerous decision!
- Sony throws party to celebrate God of War II. Great. The centerpiece of this event? A partially decapitated goat—and guests are invited to reach into the still-warm body, grab handfuls of offal and eat it. Good lord, what were they thinking?!? (Warning: Photo slightly NSFW in the United States for slight nippleage.)
- Edie discusses the relative difference of “titties,” “boobies,” “boobs,” and “tits.” Andy defines “gazongas.”
- The Xbox 360 Elite: Does Andru care? Does Edie?
- Hironobu Sakaguchi (Red Racer, Final Fantasy) + Ken Kutaragi = BFF? Apparently not.
- Speaking of Krazy Ken: He’s gone. Sony doesn’t want him, and neither does Nintendo, apparently. Sayonara, Sony! Konnichiwa, Mickey-Dees!
- Andy goes into more detail about his recent PS3 purchase… and it’s not pretty. Andru and Edie also discuss the possibilities for Playstation Home, both pros and cons.
- Edie still hearts her PS2, and Bully.
- Andy rails about Kotaku’s recent habit of using countless internal search links in their stories—frustrating as hell, he says.
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