Bugging Out: How rampant online piracy squashed one insect photographer — Ars Technica presents this story from Alex Wild, telling the far too common tale of the difficulties of earning a living as a photographer. An absolute must-read.
Vast Majority of Top Films, TV Shows are Available Legally Online — You often hear that piracy is caused by a lack of legal options, but a study released this week shows that nearly all recent popular and critically acclaimed television shows and films are available online, legally. The study, by KPMG, found that 94% of 808 top films and 85% of 724 top TV shows were available through at least one of 34 competing legal online video-on-demand services like Netflix or iTunes.
Seventh Circuit Criticizes Second Circuit’s ‘Transformative Use’ Approach to Fair Use — “Kienitz is not the first critique of Cariou‘s interpretation of the fair use doctrine or, in particular, the significance of a work’s ‘transformative use’ on the fair use analysis. … However, as Kienitz is the first Circuit-level critique of Cariou, the opinion represents the genesis of a noteworthy Circuit split on the correct application and significance of a work’s ‘transformative use’ on the fair use inquiry.”
Stanford Promises Not to Use Google Money for Privacy Research — The search giant is essentially paying academic institutions to not study privacy. “Stanford’s Center for Internet and Society has long been generously funded by Google, but the center’s privacy research has proved damaging to the search giant in the past two years. Two years ago a researcher at the center helped uncover Google privacy violations that led to the company paying a record $22.5 million fine. Stanford and Google both said that the change in funding was unrelated to the previous research.”
The Various Views of Volitional Conduct — Devlin Hartline takes a look at responses to a recent Copyright Office inquiry on “volitional conduct” in direct copyright liability.
Dotcom’s Internet Party Fails to Enter New Zealand Parliament — After nearly a year of bluster, the Dotcom founded Internet Party only managed to secure 1.26% of the vote in the New Zealand Parliamentary elections, which, coincidentally, is roughly the same percentage of content on his former MegaUpload service that was non-infringing (joke).
The Little-Known Story of How The Shawshank Redemption Became One of the Most Beloved Films of All Time — A fascinating recap of how the box office dud, released twenty years ago, steadily moved to the top of many people’s list of favorite movies.
Building the Sensational Sets of the Maze Runner — From The Credits, this a-maze-ing behind the scenes look at all the hard work that went into creating the maze landscape of the current box office film. “Fisichella and his team built the Maze walls sixteen feet tall to allow room for lighting above. Visual effects then extended those walls to a hundred feet in post. One of the art department’s biggest engineering tasks was creating a set of practical gates for the Maze. ‘The doors themselves were each 20 feet deep and 20 feet tall, with a 20 foot opening,’ Fisichella said. ‘They were mechanical, so they actually opened and closed on cue and we could have the actors running through them, which makes the film more dynamic than shooting it on blue screen.’ The gates weighed seven thousands pounds each, and the doors were moved by the set’s visual effects crew. ‘It was a challenging installation, to say the least, since we did it out in a field far from our home base,’ he adds.”