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Amazon Fights Piracy Tool, Creators Call It a Parody
Posted by
Soulskill
on Sat Dec 06, 2008 12:13 AM
from the it-was-uh-uh-art-yeah-that's-the-ticket dept.
from the it-was-uh-uh-art-yeah-that's-the-ticket dept.
jamie points out an interesting story which started a few days ago, when a pair of students from the Netherlands released a Firefox add-on which integrated links to the Pirate Bay on Amazon product pages. Customers who had the add-on would see a large "Download 4 Free" button next to items which were also available on the Pirate Bay. The add-on quickly drew notice, and the creators were hit with a take-down notice and threats of litigation from Amazon. Now, the students have removed the add-on, and they are claiming an unusual defense: "'Pirates of the Amazon' was an artistic parody, part of our media research and education at the Media Design M.A. course at the Piet Zwart Institute of the Willem de Kooning Academy Hogeschool Rotterdam, the Netherlands. It was a practical experiment on interface design, information access and currently debated issues in media culture. We were surprised by the attentions and the strong reactions this project received. Ultimately, the value of the project lies in these reactions. It is a ready-made and social sculpture of contemporary internet user culture."
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So Where is it Now? (Score:3, Interesting)
Be interesting if the source was published to Wikileaks.
Re:So Where is it Now? (Score:5, Informative)
Or Freenet. I got it here: http://torrentfreak.com/files/piratesoftheamazon.xpi [torrentfreak.com]
Parent
Re:So Where is it Now? (Score:5, Informative)
The original part of the extension is actually just a fairly short Greasemonkey script. For some reason, they packaged it with a bunch of other stuff from Greasemonkey. It's pretty poor quality code, to be honest.
Parent
Re:So Where is it Now? (Score:4, Informative)
http://torrentfreak.com/files/piratesoftheamazon.xpi [torrentfreak.com]
The original part of the extension is actually just a fairly short Greasemonkey script. For some reason, they packaged it with a bunch of other stuff from Greasemonkey. It's pretty poor quality code, to be honest.
The Piet Zwart Institute is an art school (a pretty renowned one, too). I don't find it very strange that the code is poor. Unusual as the defense might be, it makes sense to me.
Parent
Re:So Where is it Now? (Score:5, Informative)
You can also get them for LastFM searches [userscripts.org] and MusicBrainz searches [userscripts.org]
Parent
Re:So Where is it Now? (Score:4, Informative)
1. Install Google Toolbar
2. Google Toolbar > Settings > Options > Buttons > Add Button > Enter in search field "Pirate Bay" > pick one of the buttons to add to your google tool bar.
3. Go to Amazon
4. Select the name of product
5. Right mouse click to call pop up menu > More Search Types > middle mouse click on added in step #2 button.
That's what I use for anime and mininova.
Parent
Defense for what? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Defense for what? (Score:5, Interesting)
Indeed. What exactly are they threatening to sue them for? Contributory copyright infringement? Guess what? Amazon isn't the copyright holder of many (any?) of these works. They have no standing.
Of course, there is that trademark issue ;)
Parent
Re:Defense for what? (Score:5, Funny)
Conspiracy to commit contributory copyright infringement.
So, yeah, it's a death penalty case.
Parent
Re:Defense for what? (Score:5, Funny)
Judge: "Kids, you're guilty, and I sentence you to receive 700 million dollars from Amazon"
Kids: "Woohoo!"
Amazon: "That's no fair!"
Judge: "Oh oh, it's not working. 800 million!"
Kids: "Woohoo!"
Amazon: "Gaah!"
Parent
Re:Defense for what? (Score:5, Funny)
If my keyboard didn't have drain holes
Ugh. They guy at Circuit City told me they were speed holes.
Parent
Re:Defense for what? (Score:5, Funny)
What is illegal about this?
I believe that would be the crime of pissing off a corporation with enough money to rape your pathetic ass in court.
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Parent
Re:Defense for what? (Score:4, Insightful)
What do they have to defend? What is illegal about this?
The threat of litigation or the act of a lawsuit has gone way beyond "knee-jerk reaction" to "standard corporate policy" these days.
Armies of Attorneys used to be an risk expense that had to be mitigated and controlled. Nowadays, it's a budgeted line item with it's own department number and P&L statements.
The world price tag for almost everything is controlled by litigation history, which much like Moores Law, seems to double in size every 18 months. What does that affect you ask? Grab one of your old pay stubs from 10 years ago and tell me how much you were paying for better medical and dental coverage and compare it to your 2009 rates. (Try not to make yourself violently ill over the figures either, and certainly don't start calculating what they'll be 10 years from now, remember your emergency room co-pay ain't cheap...)
Parent
Re:Defense for what? (Score:4, Insightful)
Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed ... whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness
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Re:Defense for what? (Score:4, Funny)
p.s. I don't use FireFox, so I can't verify the link torrent is anything useful.
Parent
Re:Defense for what? (Score:5, Funny)
There, I said it!
Parent
I know It sounds silly (Score:4, Informative)
It sounds silly, but I see how this was a parody, and perhaps even some sort of statement. First off, anyone who installed this already knew how to install a bit torrent client, and probably knew how to go to piratebay and search for what they wanted. I think what the creators of this extension were commenting on is the ease of getting anything for free online; pretty much every mainstream downloadable product on Amazon is probably online somewhere.
Honestly, what serious extension has adds big "'Download 4 free,' 'Not Downloadable,' or 'Not Available'" buttons to your browser? Any way, there's no way to sue an extension out of existence - if people really want it, they'll get it. This extension is probably pretty useless, so I think Amazon should just let it die.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
This extension is probably pretty useless, so I think Amazon should just let it die.
Instead of letting it die Amazon.com brings everyone's full attention to it instead, brilliant PR move.
I use Amazon.com and Pirate Bay all of them. If I had known the companies were merging I would have purchased more stock in both of them.
Re:I know It sounds silly (Score:5, Informative)
Classic example of this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect [wikipedia.org]
Parent
Please don't tell me this surprises you. (Score:5, Insightful)
Amazon has inked distribution deals with a bunch of record companies -- deals which are certainly not permanent. If anything, given that Amazon is the first major seller of non-DRM-encumbered MP3s, these deals are probably subject to renewal in a short period of time (so that the record companies could pull the plug if need be).
Now a way of circumventing sales -- however obvious and silly -- which places links on Amazon's pages is featured on Slashdot, a fairly well read site. You're Amazon's legal department. Do you decide to:
(a) Exert pressure on the authors of this tool to remove it, thus demonstrating to the record companies that you are serious about your agreement with them and make the next round of negotiations easier? If so, turn to page 72.
(b) Do nothing. If so, turn to page 93 -- and prepare to get reamed in the ass when the record labels demand $2.50 per download.
This has nothing to do with public relations and everything to do with vendor relations.
Parent
Re:I know It sounds silly (Score:5, Interesting)
What might have made a nice further comment would have been to code an extension that would show e.g. "available on Amazon for $2.00" on the pirate bay site, and see what kind of traffic would go in the other direction. ...or maybe the comment was that more insightful media corporations would have thought this up for themselves a while back.
Parent
Got it although I don't really need this. (Score:4, Interesting)
I have just downloaded and installed this extention. Not that I would ever use it -- if I need a torrent, I'd go to thepiratebay.org in the first place.
But as amason tries to forbid this thing, I think I'll give it a try. Somehow it feels really good browsing amazon with this add-on knowing that this is exactly the thing they don't want you to be able to do.
Re:Got it although I don't really need this. (Score:4, Insightful)
That sounds a bit juvenile really.
Parent
Re:Got it although I don't really need this. (Score:5, Insightful)
That sounds a bit juvenile really.
So does calling someone a name and posting anonymously. I say go for it dude! Look, he's not collapsing the economy by doing it, some greedy bankers and a lot of irresponsible lenders already did that. Some college kid getting some free songs is not something you really need to get all huffy and righteous about. What you need to get huffy and righteous about is all of the powerful people who have destroyed the economy and your parents' retirement. But wait! Downloading a song is sooooo much more important, right?
To all of the righteous "downloading is a crime" types: get some priorities and complain about things that really matter, children.
Parent
Phew! (Score:5, Funny)
Well thank God, because now people won't download shit for free anymore and instead buy it on amazon.com.
Parody (Score:5, Insightful)
Piracy tool? PUBLIC DOMAIN TOOL! (Score:5, Insightful)
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
The 2007 CIA World Factbook by United States. Central Intelligence Agency
The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce
Dracula by Bram Stoker
Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
Ulysses by James Joyce
Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli
Paradise Lost by John Milton
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
Grimm's Fairy Tales by Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
The Marvelous Land Of Oz by L. Frank Baum
Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells
Amazon.com has all or nearly all of those books, some as DRM-Kindle ebooks.
Now... what idiot here wants explain to me why the hell I SHOULDN'T have this convenient Download-torrent-from-ThePirateBay button show up on the page in my Firefox browser? And offer me their brilliant rant on how this browser extension is or shoud-be illegal?
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Re:Piracy tool? PUBLIC DOMAIN TOOL! (Score:4, Informative)
The "official" answer is that a current version of something like Ulysses is going to have lots of notes at the back trying to explain what on earth the author was on about, and that the text of these notes will have been added recently.
If you want to read the pre-1923 version of e.g. Ulysses, feel free:
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/4300 [gutenberg.org]
Parent
Pirates Of The Bay (Score:5, Interesting)
Amazon should instead create another Firefox add-on, when users are browsing through TPB torrents, a large "Buy Genuine 4 Cheap" button next to those torrent listings would appear and link back to Amazon.com.
regardless of legality this is stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
Regardless of its legality this is truly self-destructive and silly. I can understand how people want to get stuff for free, even though I fundamnetally disagree with piracy. What I do NOT understand is why those peole cannot see that if everyone does what they do, no new content will be produced. (Mainly thats why piracy is unethical, because it relys on you leeching off everyone else).
So where you may have an economic incentive to pirate stuff, there is also a clear incentive not to let anyone else know how to do it.
So why as so many hardcore pirates such evangelists for piracy?
They are making it easier to get caught (by always seeding and promoting it), inviting much heavier penalties, and ultimately destroying the income of the exact content producers they like.
The rational pirate would keep a low profile, or at most, only distribute links to really poor content. It just goes to reinforce my belief that its mainly immature kids who do this kind of thing.
Re:regardless of legality this is stupid (Score:4, Interesting)
>What I do NOT understand is why those peole cannot see that if everyone does what they do, no new content will be produced.
Well, I don't think I have ever seen an explanation of how the imperative/compulsion to create gets overridden by the need to make money doing it.
I mean, our oldest paintings are something on the order of 30000 years old, are you trying to tell me they only got painted because the painter got paid and hade copyright protection?
Parent
100% Correct. (Score:5, Insightful)
You are 100% correct.
The ability to make money over and over on creations like this is a relatively recent idea. People, in general, are not going to stop writing, painting, or making music because of a lack of copyright.
The only change is the other people who make money off of the artists are not going to get paid. Those people have made a lot of money over many years and will do almost anything to keep that money coming in.
Parent
Re:regardless of legality this is stupid (Score:4, Insightful)
Mainly thats why piracy is unethical, because it relys on you leeching off everyone else.
That reminds me of Bastiat's "The state is the great fiction by which everybody seeks to live at the expense of everybody else."
The big difference of course is that you are talking about non-rivalrous goods (copies of works), while Bastiat was referring to scarce, rivalrous goods.
Parent
Shame... (Score:5, Funny)
Are they stupid ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Amazon may as well make it a condition of using their site that you may NOT maximise your browser. Mind your own f*kin business. Whatever I choose to do with information legally obtained, after it gets to my machine, is my business, and my business alone. They should go after Opera the browser too. After all, you can make Amazons websites text be rendered in any font you like using CSS preferences. And Opera is a commercial venture, so they may be able to pay.
Re:Note to artists: (Score:4, Interesting)
If you chose to join it of your own volition, that's your problem. No one put a gun to your head and made you download it.
Parent
Re:Chin deep (Score:4, Interesting)
So how is this more illegal than what tpb already does? All they're doing is /linking/ to a torrent. Whether that should be legal or not is a whole 'nother can of worms.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The Pirate Bay is not just linking to a .torrent though, they're a BitTorrent tracker. Given a torrent hash ID, you can get a list of IPs seeding and downloading using the torrent.
Arguably that's also legal, but it's more than just linking.
Re:Chin deep (Score:5, Funny)
You must be new here (on planet Earth, that is).
Parent
Re:Chin deep (Score:5, Informative)
Last I checked the DMCA didn't apply in the Netherlands...
Parent
Re:Chin deep (Score:4, Insightful)
I think that is solid advice whether they tangle with Amazon or not.
Parent
You're missing the point... (was: Re:Chin deep) (Score:5, Funny)
All it takes to trigger the download is One-Click (TM)...
The plugin authors did not obtain a license to use Amazon's One-Click patent, now did they? ;-)
Parent
Re:And a billboard giving detailed instructions on (Score:4, Insightful)
But I bet this "art work" is in direct violation of a number of laws
Can you name any?
Parent
Re:Blantant copyright infringement (Score:4, Informative)
They don't re-distribute the Amazon.com website, they just render it differently. That's not copyright infringement, there's no copying.
Parent
Re:And a billboard giving detailed instructions on (Score:5, Interesting)
Doesn't need defending - everything you mention is perfectly legal (at least in the US). Why would simply describing some illegal activity be against the law?
Not that I have anything against freedom of speech.
Yes you do. You are suggesting that sharing of information should be restricted if it's conceivable that someone could potentially use that information for some illegal purpose; that's pretty far into the "not for" freedom of speech end of the spectrum.
But I bet this "art work" is in direct violation of a number of laws and is about to get the "artists" into a lot of legal difficulty.
Is it? TFA is pretty light on details, but I'd be very surprised if Amazon's complaint was about anything other than their trademark being used in the name of the plugin. Even if it is possible to sue people for linking to links to torrents in the US (which I'm not sure it is), Amazon are not the copyright holder here.
Parent
Re:And a billboard giving detailed instructions on (Score:4, Informative)
And a billboard giving detailed instructions on... running a confidence scam, successfully robbing banks, the finer points of mugging, or the detailed design of a botnet/phishing/money laundering operation
I know these people are in the Netherlands, but just a general FYI to this discussion, in the US all of those things are not only legal but it would be unconstitutional for congress to create any law criminalizing it.
If you want to blow up some building, and someone else says they are willing to do it if you give them the explosive formula, that is conspiracy to commit a crime, and that is a crime.
If you are working the register at a store, and you have actual knowledge that some particular person intends to murder someone by forcing a rubber duck down their throat, it is criminal aiding and abetting to sell that rubber ducky to that particular person.
However if you merely publish something and you don't commit any other actual crime, the fact that some generic person might use the information to commit some unknown crime does not make it criminal for you to publish that information - even on a billboard.
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Parent
Re:And a billboard giving detailed instructions on (Score:4, Interesting)
were found with a bunch of issues of Playboy in their office
In the year 2008, soon to be 2009, is that really that scandalous? ;-)
(Believe it or not, I actually once did cite Playboy in a literary analysis paper while at school: They carried an interview with Kurt Vonnegut and Joe Heller. No joke.)
Parent
Re:And a billboard giving detailed instructions on (Score:4, Funny)
Oh ... my ... god. Apparently, I got it wrong. It wasn't some off-the-cuff excuse. They actually wrote up the paper [sagepub.com]!
More [marginalrevolution.com] links [nytimes.com].
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Re:And a billboard giving detailed instructions on (Score:4, Funny)
Not writing the paper would be like telling a cop you were speeding to get to the hospital. Then when he lets you go, you drive to the movies while he follows you.
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Re:Ahem (Score:4, Interesting)
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