Copyhype

Colour grading: the unsung hero of film — Whether it involves balancing color tones over different scenes to make a consistent look or more aggressive techniques to create a specific tone or mood, film colorists are just another of the countless behind-the-scenes technicians who contribute to the films and television programs that audiences enjoy.

Online Piracy Grows, Reflecting Consumer Trends — A study from NetNames was released this week that gave an empirical look at the size and shape of online infringement. Among the study’s revelations is that “Successful pay-for-play subscription plans, such as Netflix and Amazon, have not curbed widespread piracy of copyrighted content.” The full report is available here.

Congress: Restore Our Rightful Privacy Ownership — An interesting piece arguing for more meaningful privacy protections. The overlap between privacy and copyright is not always obvious, but no less tangible. “In the not too distant past, people enjoyed substantial privacy because practically it was inefficient, difficult, and expensive to collect, store, and disseminate private information. In stark contrast, Internet technology now makes it hyper-efficient, easy and near-free incrementally to collect, store, and disseminate private information. As we have learned, Internet technology can serve as a universal tracking and recording device, copy machine, and surveillance system for those who want it to serve those functions.”

Rene Summer gets it Wrong about Piracy and Payment… The Internet Time Machine Strikes Again — The arguments favoring piracy have been wrong for over a decade, yet they are still being recycled. “So Kim Dotcom’s five suggestions have been fulfilled and yet, I don’t think we’ll see an end to piracy anytime soon. There is still one thing piracy offers that legal, licensed and legitimate services do not, and that is compensation to the artists, musicians, filmmakers and creators which requires that consumers actually do pay the fair price asked.”

MPAA report says Google, other search engines a major gateway to piracy — “The survey found that 74% of consumers surveyed cited using a search engine as a navigational tool the first time they arrived at a site with infringing content, even when the consumer was not looking for pirated movies or TV shows.”

Practical Lessons from the MPAA’s Search Engine Study — PlagiarismToday’s Jonathan Bailey offers some practical advice, especially for independent creators and artists, in the wake of the MPAA study that shows a significant amount of traffic for infringing works comes from search.

Google’s Eric Schmidt says government spying is ‘the nature of our society’ — Schmidt also says that protecting citizens from government surveillance will “break the way the internet works.” If this is Google’s vision for the internet, do we really want to keep it from breaking?

UnSound : New Film Explores Artists Rights in The Digital Age (Video Clip) — UnSound looks to be a promising romp through the past decade or two and how it has reshaped the music industry. Here is a clip from the documentary featuring Bad Religion guitarist and Epitaph Records founder Brett Gurewitz.