The setting of the fictional book is a realistic scenario according to activists, and on a small scale the book itself has now become the center of a censorship row.

Published by Tor Books, Homeland is available for sale in most book stores, but because of its Creative Commons license people are also free to share the book online. After all, obscurity is a much bigger problem than piracy for most authors.

As a result copies of the novel are shared for free on hundreds of sites, and this attracted the attention of a Hollywood studio. For a few weeks none other than 20th Century Fox has been sending DMCA takedown requests to Google for Doctorow’s novel.

Fox’s idea is to make pirated copies of the TV-series Homeland harder to find, but as collateral damage they’re also taking down the novel. Shown below is an example of a typical notice ^{1, 2, 3, 4, 5} being sent out, and here’s an even bigger list.

TorrentFreak confronted Cory Doctorow with these dystopian findings and the author was outraged by the gross abuse of his rights. Without hesitation he called for drastic action to be taken against the head honcho of the content empire.

“I think you can safely say I’m incandescent with rage. BRING ME THE SEVERED HEAD OF RUPERT MURDOCH!” Doctorow says.

To make matters even worse, Fox is not the only party going after Doctorow’s books. His own publisher Tor Books has also sent DMCA takedown notices to Google, in this case for the book “The Rapture of Nerds”.

When we made this discovery back in February, Doctorow was more understanding. He told us that Tor Books sends out DMCA notices with his authorization, but only in instances where the book is wrapped in DRM, or when there’s another violation.

But, where DMCA notices are sent out mistakes happen.

“I think what I’d like is for Tor to be perfect in only sending out takedowns when there’s a genuine violation, but perfection is a pretty high bar. I’m sorta OK with settling for one mistake in 10 years, especially if it doesn’t happen again,” Doctorow said.

Around the same time Tor Books told TorrentFreak that the takedown was an honest mistake, and that they would tell Google to reinstate the links so that the books could be accessed again.

“Those takedown notices were simply a bureaucratic/administrative mistake. We’re withdrawing them as quickly as possible.,” Tor’s senior editor Patrick Nielsen Hayden said.

However, more than two months later the links in question remain censored on Google, and Tor Books have been unreachable since. All our follow-up questions remained unanswered, most likely swallowed by some overactive spam filter or intercepted by a local spy agency.

Get out the pitchforks!

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Author, blogger, journalist and activist Cory Doctorow is talking about digital rights management software (DRM), something he passionately opposes.

He believes digital content should be shared freely, and that copyright laws should be liberalised to reflect this. Because in his view it doesn’t only benefit the consumer – this is the only way that media businesses can survive in the digital age.

DRM, according to Mr Doctorow, not only limits the sharing of material, but causes problems for people that have bought that content legally, stopping them moving their purchases to other platforms and often devices.

The above is taken from this excellent BBC article on Cory Doctorow.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Cory Doctorow, blogger, author and columnist, is not shy of technology or the Internet. His last book, Little Brother, covered the internet, RFID, terrorism and even the Pirate Party. Doctorow also served as the European Director for the EFF and co-founded the ORG. When it comes to DRM, he knows his stuff, and he also knows that DRM doesn’t work

So, when he wanted to release an audio version of his new book ‘Makers’ without DRM, it seemed a fairly simple prospect. The publishers, Random House Audio, were amenable to it. The problem was one of distribution. There are two major players in this area, Audible and Apple. Unlike the publishers, they are not so keen on the ‘no DRM’ position.

Audible, writes Doctorow in Publishers Weekly, turned them down flat when it came to a DRM-free version of Little Brother last year. Since they’re the only retailer on the iTunes music store, that locked out an huge market. When it came time for ‘Makers,’ this time they said yes. Apple, however, said No. audiobooks have to have DRM.

Doesn’t matter what the author or publisher wants, Apple wants DRM, so it’s DRM or nothing.

The backup plan then was just to sell via Audible. The problem then, writes Doctorow, is that while the files might not contain DRM, they come with an End User Licensing Agreement (EULA), which effectively does the same thing – DRM by contract.

DRM might be be gone from music as apple proudly proclaimed early this year, but it’s still alive and kicking. Often not because of the artist or the publisher wants it, but because it’s a store requirement. Indeed, Mr Doctorow is very happy with his publisher, telling TorrentFreak “Random House Audio has been remarkably flexible and committed to letting me sell my audiobooks without DRM and I’m incredibly grateful to them and to my editor, Amy Metsch, for all their hard work.”

Now for Apple and Audible to similarly be flexible and hard working, after all, they didn’t create the work, they’re just selling it.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Considering the aggressiveness shown by some elements of the aforementioned groups – who would have infringers permanently kicked off the Internet if they could have their way – it is very rare indeed for influential people traditionally placed in the pro-copyright camp to make statements that are in harmony with their supposed opposition. Tomorrow, therefore, should prove a very interesting day.

After moving on from her position as Vice President of Digital Content for BBC Worldwide, Alice Taylor became Commissioning Editor for Education at the UK’s Channel 4. She is also the significant other of copyfighter, journalist, sci-fi writer and Boing Boing editor, Cory Doctorow.

Taylor will publish an essay tomorrow, commissioned by Perspectives, a government-funded website created to engage with Scotland’s creative industries. If the taster published today is anything to go by, it should prove explosive.

The Digital Britain report along with proposals for disconnecting Internet users for copyright infringements is quite the hot topic at the moment, but Taylor isn’t having any of it, and is scathing of those pushing for such action.

“We must not let these dying behemoths take away someone’s internet access – and connection to the world – for some accusatory, unprovable ‘piracy’ claim, ever,” she will write, probably accompanied by the unified rapturous applause of the entire online community.

Taylor will also take on Feargal Sharkey’s UK Music, calling them “copyright maximalists” and criticizing them for asking consumers to “respect copyright.”

In a further display of downright common sense, Taylor notes that piracy is “simply demand where supply does not exist,” and that the use of “pointless protection mechanisms” simply “restricts a person’s ability, as a creator, to be discovered.”

It’s been said a million times before, but the entertainment industries simply must find a way to compete with free. Services like Spotify are a step in the right direction, but their over-protective structures have the turning circle of a supertanker and unfortunately for them, something needs to be done right now. That “something” is not new legislation either.

With pragmatic individuals like Alice Taylor speaking up for common sense and telling it how it is without all the usual corporate waffle, hopefully we can get there sooner rather than later.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Johan Pauwelse (tribler) and William Valkenburg (omroep.nl) shaking hands

Johan Pauwelse, one of Triblers developers said that IPTV should move away from the old fashioned way of distributing files and embrace BitTorrent. William Valkenburg manager of omroep.nl said that the “social” aspect of tribler was essential for the deal. Tribler allows people to maintain buddy lists, and recommend files to friends. Tribler also gives recommendation based on your personal downloading history.

The Dutch public seems to be ready for P2P TV. On the Dutch site uitzendinggemist.nl that currently lists streams of nearly all shows of the public broadcasting channels, 4 million tv-shows were requested in December, compared to 250.000 at the January 2005. The site lists 400.000 shows good for 15 terabyte.

Boing Boing’s Cory Doctorow was also present at the workshop. He praised the Dutch Public Broadcasting Channel and the Tech People for discussing the legal opportunities of P2P technology. “He said: In the US half of the people would have left the room”.

thx R-win

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.