Piracy

The music industry has sputtered its way into the Internet Age, with technological innovation sidetracked by the battle between major labels and youthful geeks over free music. Now, two music-loving programmers -- alumni of the company that created the groundbreaking Gnutella file-sharing network -- are trying to chart a path to peace between the labels and the geeks. Their company, Santa Cruz-based Mediacode Inc.

Everyone knows Apple is popular in China -- so popular that people riot outside Apple's stores, or set up fake stores, or just crank out fake iPhones. On a recent trip to an electronics bazaar in Shanghai, we spotted a few of the most blatant of these knockoffs. Amusingly, the phones on display didn't look anything like actual iPhones -- instead, the manufacturers concentrated their piracy efforts on attempting to replicate the spelling of the names of popular devices and brands.

What would the world be like without the Internet? Fire up your browser and see what you can't do. In the first strike of its kind, hundreds of popular sites such as Wikipedia, Reddit and Boing Boing were scheduled to temporarily shut down Wednesday to protest a pair of anti-piracy bills that they say essentially amount to censorship of the Internet. The prospect of a day without the websites set off a frenzy in the hours leading up to the strike, which was slated to begin Tuesday night, with parents urging their children to do their homework early and tech-savvy users posting instructions for how to access cached Wikipedia pages during the blackout.

If there's a brawl between Silicon Valley and Hollywood to be California's marquee industry, it looks like the geeks have come out on top. More than 65% of those surveyed in the latest USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll said the technology industry was more important to the state's economy than entertainment, perhaps showing that SoCal's famous vixens and heartthrobs are losing the battle for screen time to NorCal's search engines and social networks....

While much of the nation's capital has been engrossed in the debate over unemployment, taxes and spending, lobbyists representing a huge swath of the U.S. economy have been battling over proposals to combat foreign websites dedicated to piracy. The Senate plans to take up its version soon, despite the lack of consensus about how to rein in pirate sites without censoring legitimate speech or stifling innovation. That would be a mistake. The bills - the PROTECT IP Act (S 968) in the Senate, the Stop Online Piracy Act (HR 3261)

Wikipedia went dark for a day. Google hid its logo under a black shroud. And hundreds of other websites darkened their pages temporarily in a massive, coordinated protest against a pair of bills that would step up enforcement of copyrights and trademarks. Wednesday's demonstration provoked such an intense backlash against the Protect IP Act and the Stop Online Piracy Act (better known as PIPA and SOPA) that by the end of the week, more than 100 lawmakers had declared their opposition and both bills had been placed on hold.

Re "Pirates show range and daring," Nov. 18 It is obvious that Adm. Michael G. Mullen's Navy can't handle the pirates in the Indian Ocean. As much as the U.S. is mostly unwelcome as a world policeman, here is an excellent example of where we might do some good. It makes no difference whose ship is pirated. Piracy is an offense against all on the high seas. Maybe with the new administration, we will get a military that doesn't make excuses for why taxpayers carry the burden of fleets capable of destroying life on Earth many times over but are impotent to track and destroy perhaps several hundred criminals, in light boats with small arms, on the open sea. Ron Sydney Anaheim

The World Trade Organization has largely sided with the United States in a dispute with China over product piracy, according to official documents released Monday. The ruling, which confirms an interim decision in October, takes Washington one step closer to being able to seek compensation from China for the billions of dollars that U.S. companies say they lose through piracy each year.

A federal judge in Virginia threw out piracy charges against six Somali nationals Tuesday, saying prosecutors had failed to prove that an April attack on a Navy ship off Africa was piracy "as defined by the law of nations. " But U.S. District Judge Raymond Jackson allowed the prosecution to go forward against the men on seven lesser charges. Convictions on the piracy allegations could have brought mandatory life sentences without parole. Defense attorneys had argued that their clients were not guilty of piracy because they had made no attempt to rob or board the ship.

Microsoft Corp. estimates it lost about $14 billion last year to software piracy -- and those may prove to be the most lucrative sales never made. Although the world's largest software maker spends millions of dollars annually to combat illegal copying and distribution of its products, critics allege -- and Microsoft acknowledges -- that piracy sometimes helps the company establish itself in emerging markets and fend off threats from free open-source programs.

Hollywood loves comeback stories. Will SOPA/PIPA be one of them? The anti-piracy bills that were working their way through Congress with Hollywood's blessing got tanked by a massive online campaign - petitions, website blackouts, even T-shirts. From 1981 until 2010, Christopher J. Dodd was a Democratic senator from Connecticut. A year later, as head of the Motion Picture Assn. of America, he was dealing with SOPA/PIPA fallout. Showing up at the Oscars - which he will do - is just the tip of the MPAA job. Dodd has arranged matinees for veterans at MPAA's theater in D.C., worked on film trade matters, and postelection, he'll try out an anti-piracy law sequel.

Despite complaints about his failure to support Hollywood's position on online piracy, President Obama does not appear to have lost his fundraising base in the entertainment community. As Obama arrives in Los Angeles on Wednesday, local campaign fundraisers said there has been no drop-off in Hollywood donations to his reelection bid since the D.C. demise of long-sought anti-piracy legislation. Hollywood's chief lobbyist Chris Dodd suggested last month that Obama and his fellow Democrats could pay a price for not representing the industry's interests in Washington.

  Washington's political gridlock has had at least one advantage: It allowed businesses and interest groups to reduce their lobbying expenses last year, the first time that's happened in more than a decade. Overall, the amount spent on lobbying was nearly $3.3 billion last year, down from $3.5 billion the year before, according to a preliminary analysis of disclosure forms by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. It marked the first time since 1999 that spending on lobbying, year-over-year, dropped in Washington.

After a week in which their anti-piracy legislation got derailed by the full force of the Internet lobby, the mood in Hollywood was one of anger, frustration and a growing resignation that the entertainment industry will be forced to accept a much weaker law than originally envisioned. A full-on counterattack by a tech industry opposed to the toughest elements in the congressional bills, including a well-publicized Wednesday shutdown by key Internet sites, halted the legislation.

The Justice Department has conducted a major action to shut down MegaUpload, a popular file-sharing site widely used for free downloads of movies and television shows. After receiving indictments from a grand jury in Virginia for racketeering conspiracy, conspiracy to commit copyright infringement and other charges Jan. 5, federal authorities Thursday arrested four people and executed more than 20 search warrants in the U.S. and eight foreign countries. Authorities also seized 18 domain names and an estimated $50 million in assets, including servers run in Virginia and Washington, D.C. MegaUpload is a "digital locker" that allows users to store files that can be streamed or downloaded by others.

  Chinese Internet users are applauding the U.S. tech industry's Web "strike" this week to protest federal anti-piracy bills that would give Uncle Sam greater control of cyberspace. As websites including Wikipedia shut down and millions of Americans complained to lawmakers about the potential for government censorship, Chinese netizens spoke admiringly of the public rebellion. Such a display in China would be nearly impossible right now, given Beijing's tight grip on citizens' online activities.

Adding some swashbuckling to its tough talk on fighting piracy, the federal government on Wednesday seized several websites that had offered downloads of pirated movies such as "Toy Story 3" and "Iron Man 2" within hours of their release in theaters. Federal authorities announced that they had seized domain names from nine websites engaged in the "criminal theft of American movies and television." The websites include TVShack.net, PlanetMoviez.com, ThePirateCity.org and Ninjavideo.

About a week before Christmas, I took a stroll around the Los Angeles Toy District and bought a pirated DVD. As I wrote on Dec. 21, curious about the quality of the merchandise for sale on the street, I shelled out five bucks for a copy of the movie "District 9," which was still days away from being available in your local retail store. As I've been informed, quite properly, by readers in and around the movie industry, that casual act made me part of a global problem that is killing jobs and eliminating opportunities for creative people everywhere.

The derailing of long-sought legislation to combat digital piracy is a troubling sign for the entertainment industry, whose insider lobbyists were routed by technology companies armed with the brute-force power of the Internet. Tech still lags behind Hollywood in campaign contributions, but its leaders showed this week that they could mobilize opposition against bills that threatened the Web's wide-open borders. Lawmakers' ears were still ringing Thursday from the thousands of calls and emails that flooded Capitol Hill on Wednesday, the day Wikipedia led about 10,000 websites in a blackout to protest the legislation.

Wikipedia went dark for a day. Google hid its logo under a black shroud. And hundreds of other websites darkened their pages temporarily in a massive, coordinated protest against a pair of bills that would step up enforcement of copyrights and trademarks. Wednesday's demonstration provoked such an intense backlash against the Protect IP Act and the Stop Online Piracy Act (better known as PIPA and SOPA) that by the end of the week, more than 100 lawmakers had declared their opposition and both bills had been placed on hold.