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Old 06-05-20, 06:36 AM   #1
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Default Peer-To-Peer News - The Week In Review - May 9th, ’20

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"We strongly disagree with the characterization. This purely political act is another example of the administration using the U.S. government to advance a personal vendetta." – Amazon






































May 9th, 2020




“Charter Communications” Bound to Share IDs of Pirating Subscribers
Bill Toulas

• A US court has ordered the ISP to hand over the identification details of 628 pirating subscribers.
• The order comes as a result of a lawsuit filed by Warner Bros against “Charter Communications.”
• The plaintiffs initially targeted 11,000 subscribers, but the court decided this number was way too large to handle.

The American telecommunications provider “Charter Communications” has been ordered by the Colorado Federal Court to share the identification details of pirating subscribers. The decision came after a legal action initiated by Warner Bros Records Inc. against the ISP, who previously denied having anything that the plaintiff could use to identify the infringing subscribers. The copyright holders were interested in targeting a large number of active infringers who were using Charter’s internet services, asking for the DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol), logs, and documents that can be used to match subscribers with their IP address.

Charter responded by claiming that DHCP logs cannot be correlated with specific identities. They also claimed they have already sent warnings to the subscribers who were confirmed to have been involved in copyright infringement acts. But Warner Bros wasn’t satisfied by this response and knew very well that the subscribers would ignore these warnings, as they come with no consequences whatsoever. Thus, they decided to sue Charter Communications and force them to hand over the data that would make it possible to match subscriber IPs with IDs. Last year, Sony, Universal, and Warner Bros sued Charter on similar grounds, so this is the second time the controversy is brought into a US court for resolution.

So, according to the most recent court order, Charter Communications is obliged to hand over the personal information of 628 subscribers. The plaintiffs targeted roughly 11,000 subscribers, but the court decided that this number would make things way too burdensome for the involved parties to handle. Hence, the number had to go down to a more manageable figure. The information that is to be shared must be sufficient for plaintiffs to match the IP addresses with the identities of the subscribers, so there can be no more “hide and seek.”

We are not proponents of piracy, but privacy is taking a hit with these legal actions. Also, the stance of ISPs that want to stay clear from having to enforce copyright infringement laws is understandable. If Charter’s clients were using a VPN during their pirating acts, then the plaintiffs won’t be able to identify them no matter what the ISP provides. If that happens, legal cases like this one will fade into non-existence since nothing useful can derive from them.
https://www.technadu.com/charter-com...ribers/100880/





Amazon and the MPA Request Github to Shut Down Kodi Add-on Developer
Troypoint

It was recently reported that both Amazon and the Motion Picture Association (MPA) have requested Github to shut down a Kodi add-on developer’s account due to a copyright case.

The Kodi add-on developer known as “Mr. Blamo” is reportedly the developer being targeted by copyright authorities.

The MPA’s complaint to Github regarding Mr. Blamo’s developer account reads the following:

“We therefore request that GitHub immediately suspends the Account to preserve our clients’ rights and ensure that the letter and spirit of the final Judgment of the Federal Court are respected.”

You can find more information and the MPA’s full complaint by Clicking Here.

The interesting part here is that Github has declined to delete Mr. Blamo’s entire account as requested by the MPA. Instead, they just removed the first two URLs listed within the MPA’s complaint.

You will notice this when viewing Mr.Blamo’s Github Account.

Although the repository is currently inactive, “Mr. Blamo” is known for developing several addons such as Uranus, Shows Motion, Aragon Live, and others.

The “Mr. Blamo” Kodi add-on developer released a statement on social media highlight the situation:

So far I'm still short of a cardboard box lol or a place, means alot that people are willing to help me with my situation, at the end when I'm settled I will post to show it all went to a great cause, if anyone has thought of a way they could help another way it'd mean alot to me

— MR. Blamo (@Daddy_Blamo) May 3, 2020

Kodi by itself is 100% legal to use, as it is a free, open-source media player. The legality issues behind Kodi involve the 3rd party add-on/repository developers and the end-user of the software.

What Does This Mean?

With this recent news, it’s hard to say if other 3rd party Kodi add-on developers will receive similar legal issues.

Being involved in the development of 3rd party Kodi add-ons and builds can be a risky endeavor.

We saw a similar situation in late 2019 regarding the popular OneNation and KodiUKTV repositories being shut down by the Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT).

This activity is always attracting copyright authorities, as many of these 3rd party Kodi add-ons and builds contain Movies and TV Shows outside of the public domain.

If you are looking for the best and most up to date Kodi options, we recommend checking out these Kodi lists below:

Best Kodi Add-ons
Best Kodi Builds
Best Kodi Repositories

For more information on Kodi and all things Kodi related, we suggest viewing our complete Kodi guide below.

What is Kodi? Everything You Need to Know
https://troypoint.com/amazon-and-mpa...-on-developer/





Amazon Sued For Saying You've 'Bought' Movies That It Can Take Away From You
Mike Masnick

For well over a decade we've talked about the many problems that arise when copyright is compared to "property" -- and people try to simply move over concepts from physical, tangible property into the world of digital. A key aspect of this: when you "purchase" something digital online, is it really a "purchase" or is it a "license" (especially a license that could be revoked)? If it was a true "purchase" then you should own it and the seller shouldn't be able to take it back. But in practice, over and over and over again, we've seen stories of people having things they supposedly "bought" disappear. The situation is so crazy that we've referred to it as Schrödinger's Download, in that many copyright holders and retailers would like the very same thing to be a "sale" some of the time, and a "license" some of the time (the "times" for each tend to be when it hurts the consumers the most). This has, at times, seeped into physical goods, where they've tried to add "license agreements" to physical products. Or, worse, when some copyright folks claimed that buying a DVD means you don't actually own what you bought, but rather are merely "purchasing access" to the content, and that could be revoked.

Anyway, I'm amazed that we don't see more lawsuits about this kind of thing -- but one was recently filed in California. Someone named Amanda Caudel is suing Amazon for saying that you've "purchased" a video download, which Amazon might disappear from your library whenever it wants. As the lawsuit makes clear, Amazon directly says that you are buying the movie (as opposed to renting it). From the lawsuit filing itself:

And, they point out, in your account there's a listing of "Your Video Purchases & Rentals." But, the lawsuit claims, what you purchase doesn't seem to behave like a real purchase:

Reasonable consumers will expect that the use of a “Buy” button and the representation that their Video Content is a “Purchase” means that the consumer has paid for full access to the Video Content and, like any bought product, that access cannot be revoked.

Unfortunately for consumers who chose the “Buy” option, this is deceptive and untrue. Rather, the ugly truth is that Defendant secretly reserves the right to terminate the consumers’ access and use of the Video Content at any time, and has done so on numerous occasions, leaving the consumer without the ability to enjoy their already-bought Video Content.

Defendant’s representations are misleading because they give the impression that the Video Content is purchased – i.e. the person owns it - when in fact that is not true because Defendant or others may revoke access to the Video Content at any time and for any reason.

In so representing the “Purchase” of Video Content as true ownership of the content, Defendant took advantage of the (1) cognitive shortcuts made at the point-of-sale, e.g. Rent v. Buy and (2) price of the Video Content, which is akin to an outright purchase versus a rental.

Though some consumers may get lucky and never lose access to any of their paid-for media, others may one day find that their Video Content is now completely inaccessible. Regardless, all consumers have overpaid for the Video Content because they are not in fact owners of the Video Content, despite have paid extra money to “Buy” the product.


The plaintiff (or rather, her lawyers) are trying to make this a class action lawsuit, and are arguing that (among other things) this is false advertising. I am, not surprisingly, sympathetic to the plaintiff -- and remain disappointed at how copyright and similar restrictions are being used to chip away at ownership and actual property rights. That said... I'm not that optimistic the case will get very far. In the past, companies have been able to wiggle out of similar claims, and I'm pretty sure that Amazon tries to push disputes like this to binding arbitration, meaning that the lawsuit may be dead on arrival.

Still, it's yet another reminder of how copyright is chipping away at real property.
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20...away-you.shtml





Pirated Movies could get Harder to Find after Next Year’s Oscars
Hannah Davies

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced a ban on DVD and Blu-ray screeners in 2021 after the next Oscars event – a move that could make pirating movies a bit more difficult.

DVD screeners are promotional copies of movies and TV shows that are mailed to critics and industry professionals ahead of a movie’s release or a major event, such as an award show. Every year, thousands of DVD screeners are distributed among Academy members before voting commences, and many of those screeners quickly fall into the hands of pirates (via TorrentFreak).

These movies – often labelled DVDScr – can end up gathering millions of views online. Needless to say, screeners are a popular source for torrents. Which is why it is surprising that pirates are not the official reason DVD screeners are getting banned.

While there is certainly an argument to be made that prohibiting DVD screeners would cut down on the number of torrented movies available online, the main reason behind this change is to encourage sustainability.

The Academy outlined the new rules for the 93rd annual Oscars ceremony last week:

“As part of the Academy’s sustainability effort, the 93rd Awards season will be the final year DVD screeners will be allowed to be distributed; these mailings will be discontinued starting in 2021 for the 94th Academy Awards,” wrote the Academy.

“Access to the Academy Screening Room will continue to be made available for all eligible releases. The distribution of physical music CDs, screenplays and hardcopy mailings, including but not limited to paper invites and screening schedules, will also be discontinued next year. Digital links to materials will be permitted”.

The Oscars isn’t the first event to ban physical screeners – the Emmys made the leap from physical to digital screeners earlier this year.

The Academy will continue to allow physical copies to be distributed ahead of the 2021 event, meaning we’re unlikely to see a decrease in pirated DVD screener files until the new rule kicks in for 2022.
https://www.trustedreviews.com/news/...s-2021-4027874





Studios Bypass Cinemas with Lucrative Lockdown Premieres

Universal’s latest on-demand hit, kept out of theatres by Covid-19, has made more profit in three weeks than its predecessor did in five months on the big screen
Mark Sweney

An animated musical extravaganza about a group of pop-loving trolls may turn out to be the most important film in recent Hollywood history. Trolls World Tour, which has become a lockdown hit, notching up digital sales of $100m (£80m) in three weeks, has become the focal point of a battle that could forever change moviegoing habits in the Netflix era.

With cinemas closed, Hollywood studios are challenging the sacrosanct tradition that multiplexes air films first for up to three months, before their release on other platforms such as pay-TV, DVD and streaming. Instead, they are pushing new films straight to fans at home.

Universal Pictures has been the most aggressive of the Hollywood studios with its strategy for Trolls World Tour. The film had been due for a global cinema release on 10 April, but instead became the most high-profile movie to be made available solely on digital services such as Amazon’s Prime Video at £15.99 ($19.99).

Universal gets a greater cut of revenue from digital services than at the box office, which means the film has made the same amount of profit in its first three weeks as the first Trolls film did during its entire five-month run in US cinemas.

Emboldened by its success, last week the company indicated that it would collapse the cinema release window by releasing films digitally at the same time. “As soon as theatres reopen, we expect to release movies on both formats,” said Jeff Shell, the chief executive of parent company NBCUniversal.

Those comments immediately prompted the world’s two biggest cinema operators – AMC, which owns the Odeon chain in the UK, and Cineworld – to issue a global ban on screenings of all films from the maker of the Fast & Furious and Jurassic World franchises when business restarts. The operators accused Universal of “breaking the business model” that has underpinned the Hollywood movie system for generations.

“Universal has cast the first stone,” said Jeff Bock, an analyst at research firm Exhibitor Relations. “This is exactly what the theatrical exhibition world had always feared – proof that bypassing theatres could be a viable model of distribution for studios. Like it or not, the floodgates have opened. This is just the beginning, and the longer it takes for theatres to open on a worldwide scale, we’re going to see the PVOD [premium video on demand] schedule become more and more populated.”

That schedule is now filling up. Universal announced last week that Judd Apatow’s new comedy The King of Staten Island would scrap its planned cinema release on 19 June and premiere on-demand instead. And Warner Bros is doing the same with Scoob!, the first full-length animated Scooby-Doo film, which was meant to hit cinemas on 15 May.

However, when it comes to true blockbusters, Hollywood studios, including Universal, are so far choosing to keep them in cinemas and reschedule their releases. The straight-to-digital strategy is only considered to be viable for mid- and lower-budget films forecast to earn at most a few hundred million at the global box office. The first Trolls film made $346m worldwide.

Disney’s Mulan and Black Widow, the James Bond film No Time To Die, Warner Bros’s Wonder Woman 1984 and Universal’s Minions sequel – all potential $1bn-plus hits – are just some of the titles that have been shifted to later this year with a cinema release still firmly in mind.

Global box-office revenues hit an all-time record of $42bn last year, dominated by blockbusters including Avengers: Endgame. Theatrical release represents a huge slice of income that is difficult for studios to ignore. When a film’s big-screen run is finished, there is a second wave of income from digital and on-demand services; this double-window revenue stream would disappear if multiplexes were taken out of the equation.

“Studios are not releasing ‘tier one’ titles on PVOD,” said Richard Broughton, analyst at research firm Ampere. “It’s unlikely that PVOD will be able to replace theatrical revenues for these titles. PVOD releases would also likely cannibalise secondary windows. If you rent a film for £15.99, you’re not then going to rent it again for £5.99 a few months later. But you might do that if you had seen it at the cinema first.”

There are also other issues making a total shift away from cinemas unlikely, for now at least. China, for example, along with many developing countries, has a tiny digital-video rental market, which would severely limit income from direct digital releases, whereas it boasts the world’s second-biggest cinema box office market, at $9bn a year.

And with PVOD releases such as Trolls priced at $19.99, it is unlikely that the strategy will work outside high-income markets such as the US and the UK.

However, coronavirus has sideswiped cinema chains, which means direct-to-digital successes such as Trolls give studios more leverage. “Trolls is operating under optimal conditions – lockdown, kids at home and limited competing media,” says Broughton. “Having said this, the success of Trolls does offer studios leverage with cinema owners for a greater share of box office income for secondary titles. The option of the PVOD window improves their positioning.”

Unless Covid-19 causes longer-term closures or serious attendance issues in cinemas, the chains remain confident they will return to the top of the pecking order for film releases.

“These circumstances will not persist and should not be taken by anyone as a sign of lasting change,” said Phil Clapp, chief executive of the UK Cinema Association, the national trade body for cinema operators.

“We are absolutely confident that when cinemas are able to reopen safely, the public will once again respond to the unsurpassable big-screen experience. After people have been required to spend weeks and sometimes months in lockdown, it seems unlikely, to say the least, that the first response of many will be ‘let’s stay in and watch a film.’”

But if audiences do decide to bypass cinemas and stay in, Hollywood studios will have to follow them.
https://www.theguardian.com/film/202...mieres-the-end





Court Overturns Quincy Jones' Win in Michael Jackson Lawsuit
Andrew Dalton

A California appeals court on Tuesday overturned most of a 2017 jury verdict awarding Quincy Jones $9.4 million in royalties and fees from the Michael Jackson estate over the use of Jones-produced Jackson hits in the concert film “This Is It” and two Cirque du Soleil shows.

The state's 2nd District Court of Appeal ruled that the jury misinterpreted a contract that was the judge's job to interpret anyway. It took away $6.9 million that jurors had said MJJ Productions owed Jones for his work on “Billie Jean,” “Thriller,” and more of Jackson's biggest hits.

The appeals court found that the jury wrongly granted Jones money from licensing fees, wrongly went beyond the 10% royalty rate Jones was owed for record sales, and incorrectly granted Jones money for remixes of Jackson's master recordings.

The court kept intact $2.5 million of the award, which Jones said he was owed for the use of his masters in “This Is It” and other fees.

The court also rejected a counter-appeal from the 87-year-old Jones arguing that the trial court should have allowed him to make a claim of financial elder abuse.

“While we disagree with portions of the Court’s decision and are evaluating our options going forward, we are pleased that the Court affirmed the jury’s determination that MJJP failed to pay Quincy Jones more than $2.5M that it owed him,” Jones' attorney J. Michael Hennigan said in a statement.

Jones, who was already a music business giant when he produced the classic Jackson albums “Off the Wall,” “Thriller” and “Bad,” had sought $30 million from the estate when he first filed the lawsuit in 2013.

“Quincy Jones was the last person we thought would try to take advantage of Michael Jackson by filing a lawsuit three years after he died asking for tens of millions of dollars he wasn’t entitled to,” Jackson attorney Howard Weitzman said in a statement. “We knew the verdict was wrong when we heard it, and the court of appeal has completely vindicated us.”

On the stand during the trial, Jones was asked by Weitzman whether he realized he was essentially suing Jackson himself.

Jones angrily disagreed.

“I’m not suing Michael,” he said. “I’m suing you all.”

The trial centered on the definitions of terms in the two contracts Jackson and Jones signed in 1978 and 1985.

Under the deals, for example, Jones is entitled to a share of net receipts from a “videoshow” of the songs. The Jackson attorneys argued that the term was meant to apply to music videos and not feature films like “This Is It.”

The film was created from rehearsal footage for a comeback tour that Jackson was working toward when he died in 2009 at age 50.

“So many people have tried to take advantage of Michael and mischaracterize him since his death," Jackson estate co-executor John Branca said in a statement Tuesday. “It’s gratifying that in this case the court in an overwhelmingly favorable and just decision, recognizes that Michael Jackson was both an enormous talent and an extremely fair business executive.”
https://www.newstimes.com/news/artic...hp?src=nthpent





Apple’s Copyright Lawsuit Has Created a ‘Chilling Effect’ on Security Research

Security researchers are scared to buy, use, or even talk about the controversial iPhone emulation software Corellium, whose makers are in a legal battle with Apple.
Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai

Last year, Apple accused a cybersecurity startup based in Florida of infringing its copyright by developing and selling software that allows customers to create virtual iPhone replicas. Critics have called the Apple's lawsuit against the company, called Corellium, “dangerous” as it may shape how security researchers and software makers can tinker with Apple’s products and code.

The lawsuit, however, has already produced a tangible outcome: very few people, especially current and former customers and users, want to talk about Corellium, which sells the eponymous software that virtualizes iPhones and Android devices. During the lawsuit's proceedings, Apple has sought information from companies that have used the tool, which emulates iOS on a computer, allowing researchers to probe potential iPhone vulnerabilities in a forgiving and easy-to-use environment.

“Apple has created a chilling effect,” a security researcher familiar with Corellium's product, who asked to remain anonymous because he wasn’t allowed to talk to the press, told Motherboard.

“I don’t know if they intended it but when they name individuals at companies that have spoken in favor [of Corellium], I definitely believe retribution is possible,” the researcher added, referring to Apple’s subpoena to the spanish finance giant Santander Bank, which named an employee who had Tweeted about Corellium.

Several other cybersecurity researchers expressed fear of retribution from Apple for using Corellium.

A security researcher, who specializes in offensive security and asked to remain anonymous, said that he would definitely “have legal look into it beforehand if I needed [Corellium’s] stuff,” arguing that he’d be wary of Apple getting involved.

Three other researchers who specialize in hacking Apple software declined to comment citing the risk of some sort of retaliation from Apple.

Ivan Rodriguez, a security researcher who tried Corellium for free in the past, said that he “would have to get some legal advice before” purchasing it.

Do you work at Corellium? Or have you used Corellium for your work? We’d love to hear from you. You can contact Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai securely on Signal at +1 917 257 1382, OTR chat at lorenzofb@jabber.ccc.de, or email lorenzofb@vice.com

In January, Apple subpoenaed the defense contractor L3Harris and Santander Bank, requesting information on how they use Corellium, all communications they've had with the startup, internal communications about their products, and any contracts they've signed with the company, among other information.

Mark Dowd, the founder of Azimuth Security, a cybersecurity startup that specializes in developing hacking tools for governments that’s now part of L3Harris, said last year that he couldn’t comment about Corellium “because [Apple] mention[ed] us in the original filing.” (Dowd did not respond to a request for comment this week.)

Apple declined to comment and referred to its court filings against Corellium. In one of them, Apple wrote that “the purpose of this lawsuit is not to encumber good-faith security research, but to bring an end to Corellium’s unlawful commercialization of Apple’s valuable copyrighted works.”

Corellium obviously disagrees.

“This litigation presents an existential threat to an open and healthy security research community not only for Apple products but for consumer devices in general,” the company said in a statement sent by its lawyer. “Apple is using its lawsuit against Corellium to force a dangerous expansion of its dominance, including its ability to pick and choose who performs research and how.”

Some researchers, however, are not afraid of Apple. Elias Naur uses Corellium to test code written in the Go language for mobile operating systems. Before Corellium, Naur said he had to test code on two busted old phones plugged in under his couch. Naur said he’s “not worried Apple will come after Corellium’s customers” and is still using the software.

According to cybersecurity experts, Apple legal battle against Corellium is not really about copyright, but trying to control and restrain researchers and companies that develop hacking tools to break into Apple devices, which make up a profitable and ballooning market.

“Apple v Corellium isn't about jailbreaking, it's about Apple wanting control over Apple research and the bugs that come with it,” Marcus Hutchins, a security researcher best known as MalwareTech, said on Twitter. “Their intention is probably to prevent researchers selling bugs to brokers, but you'd be insane to think they'd sanction jailbreaking either.”

In its legal defense, Corellium has argued that its products help researchers find vulnerabilities and ultimately help Apple make safer devices.

On April 20, Apple revealed in a filing that it asked Chris Wade, Corellium’s founder, for all documents and communications relating to him obtaining dev-fused iPhones. As Motherboard reported last year, dev-fused or prototype iPhones are special Apple devices in early stages of development that allow researchers to more easily hack and analyze iOS, as they have some security features disabled. These are “highly confidential” iPhones that “are intended for Apple’s internal testing and development purposes only,” Apple lawyers wrote in the filing.

According to multiple sources who spoke to Motherboard last year, Wade was among several researchers that acquired dev-fused iPhones. Wade has denied this claim.

In this David v. Goliath battle, as Forbes called it, many people are choosing to stay away from David even before seeing who wins.
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/w...urity-research





USPTO Says This Is the Way to Tackle Online Piracy
Bill Toulas

• The US Patent and Trademark Office says getting the carrot and stick out to fight pirates is the best approach.
• That would be to make legal content more readily available while bashing pirating platforms harder.
• There’s a combination of factors that are pushing the world towards piracy right now, and this won’t turn around easily.

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has published a paper where it details the best possible approach to fighting piracy. After reviewing a large number of academic studies, law enforcement cases, piracy statistics, trends, etc., the USPTO has concluded that the best approach would be that of the “carrot and stick.” More specifically, the paper suggests that legal content should be made more openly and readily available (carrot). At the same time, pirating platforms should be bashed hard in every possible technical and practical way, and pirates themselves should face stringent punishment (stick).

By combining the two, internet users will just get what they can, which would be the legal content. Making more content available on legal services, especially streaming platforms, has shown positive results in the recent past. However, this is not always the case, as there are way too many streaming platforms out there right now, paying a subscription for so many of them has become impossible. Especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, this aspect has gotten even harder, as the number of people who can’t afford to pay for legitimate platforms is growing, and so does piracy.

On the other side, bashing pirating platforms, especially on the higher level, has been connected with momentary drops due to the sudden loss of availability. Still, the pirating ecosystem is known to have the ability to heal quickly, with new websites, platforms, and CDN (content distribution network) services being set up to cover the demand. This problem is identified in the USPTO paper, calling for more effective and permanent blocking measures. The office calls for the coordinated action of the government and the private sector to achieve the above. As they say, the goal should not be to wipe piracy from the face of the Earth, but instead to try and make it appear more costly, inconvenient, and risky. This should be enough to deter a large number of people from reverting to pirating platforms, and the more that these platforms will be deprived of income, the fewer they will get.

The way we see it, nobody can compel the streaming businesses to offer cheaper plans to their subscribers, and we live in a free market after all. However, there’s a real, practical problem with market fragmentation right now, and a real possibility of the global economic recession pushing more people to both seeking and offering pirated content. If the rates get out of hand, enforcing anything concerning copyright infringement will be next to impossible. If something doesn’t change fundamentally, we may soon enter an age where all legal proceedings against pirating platforms will look like a drop in the ocean.
https://www.technadu.com/uspto-way-t...piracy/100421/





U.S. Puts Amazon on Pirating List

The United States for the first time added five of Amazon's overseas operations to its list of "notorious markets" where pirated goods are sold. The e-commerce giant dismissed the move as part of the Trump administration's "personal vendetta" against it.

The office of the U.S. trade representative on Wednesday added the Amazon.com Inc. domains in Canada, France, Germany, India and the United Kingdom to its annual blacklist.

The office cited complaints from U.S. businesses that consumers can't easily tell who is selling items on the Amazon platforms and that the e-commerce company's procedures for removing counterfeit goods "can be lengthy and burdensome."

Amazon fired back with a statement Wednesday: The Seattle company said it "strictly prohibits counterfeit products" and that 99% of pages viewed worldwide by customers on Amazon have never had a report of counterfeit.

"We strongly disagree with the characterization of Amazon in this ... report. This purely political act is another example of the administration using the U.S. government to advance a personal vendetta against Amazon." The company said that it has taken aggressive steps to combat counterfeiting and to vet sellers. The company said that last year that it weeded out 2.5 million potential bad actors before they could start selling.

President Donald Trump has clashed repeatedly with Amazon. The company's founder, Jeff Bezos, also owns The Washington Post, which has written critical stories about Trump and his business dealings.

Amazon sued the U.S. Defense Department last year after losing a lucrative cloud computing contract to rival Microsoft. Trump has also said he won't approve a $10 billion loan to the U.S. Postal Service unless it dramatically increases the rates it charges Amazon and other big shipping companies.

Last October, the American Apparel & Footwear Association urged the trade representative to add Amazon operations in those five countries to the notorious markets list. The association praised the trade office's decision in a statement Wednesday but did not mention Amazon.

It is essential that both domestic and worldwide marketplaces, and the countries that house them, implement effective and proactive measures to safeguard intellectual property to protect consumers, workers, and their families," the association's president and CEO, Steve Lamar, said in a statement Wednesday. "This is especially the case during the covid-19 crisis, when more Americans than ever have made online purchases, which can unknowingly expose them to counterfeits sold on unsafe marketplaces."

Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba Group's Taobao.com online marketplace also remained on the list.

The trade representative's office also said Wednesday that Algeria, Argentina, Chile, China, India, Indonesia, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Ukraine and Venezuela remained on its "priority watch list" of countries that do not adequately protect intellectual property. It removed Kuwait from the priority list, saying the country is updating its intellectual property laws and stepping up enforcement against piracy.

While trade representative's office said it was encouraged by changes China is making to its intellectual property-rights system -- including under the first phase of a trade deal the nations signed in January -- India remains one of the most challenging countries when it comes to intellectual property rights enforcement, the official said.

The Trump administration also continues to assess potential actions to enforce the so-called import de minimis value threshold of $800, which allows goods below that amount to enter the U.S. without duties. The administration and some U.S. stakeholders allege that e-commerce platforms are exploiting this threshold as a loophole to get around tariffs Trump has imposed.

Changing the threshold would require congressional action, the U.S. trade official said, and the administration is therefore discussing steps of what could be done to apply the level without having to change the law.

Information for this article was contributed by Paul Wiseman of The Associated Press and by Jenny Leonard of Bloomberg News.
https://www.nwaonline.com/news/2020/...g-list-202004/





I Gave Away My Books for Free, and Sales Increased 4x

In March, I made my DevOps books free to help anyone who wanted to learn new skills during the global pandemic lockdown. In April, Device42 generously extended that offer for another month.

I originally had the idea to give the books away on a whim on a Sunday night, thinking I'd give up a fair chunk of revenue, but nothing too substantial. The response I did get was overwhelming, to say the least!

As with many other metrics during these unprecedented times, book sales shot through the roof while they were free. The top chart is Ansible for DevOps, and the bottom is Ansible for Kubernetes:

Ansible for DevOps - Cumulative Sales over Time

Ansible for Kubernetes - Cumulative Sales over Time

The response was much greater than I'd expected—to the point that I helped LeanPub uncover a couple bugs in their book sales notification system 🤪

I sold, on average, 541 copies of both books per month prior to March. In the months of March and April, that average shot up to 32,450, or a 60x increase in cumulative sales. I was able to give away almost 65,000 copies of my books—and not only that, they are full LeanPub copies, entitling the new readers to free updates to the books, forever.

What amazed me most, though, was that in contrast to the maxim No good deed goes unpunished, paid book sales almost quadrupled!

Here's a graph of royalties per month for Ansible for DevOps (the Ansible for Kubernetes graph doesn't have as much meaningful data to spot trends):

Ansible for DevOps - Revenue over time

I averaged 328 paid book sales per month in all months prior to March, and then sold 1,910 copies in March and April (almost a 4x increase!).

The book surprises me with its sticking power over time, but most of the reason for that is that by self-publishing, I've been able to update the book over 22 times so far (and counting!), giving ebook purchasers free updates to the book forever, and keeping the text relevant through 12 (and counting) Ansible versions.

The fear of giving something away free is whether it will damage future prospects. For a subscription service, you can convert free customers to paying customers (if you ever plan on having revenue, at least). But for books, it's more of a one-and-done situation. Nobody who bought my book will buy it again—my only hope is they recommend it to others or support me via GitHub or Patreon. So far May sales (without the free book promotion) have settled back down to pre-promotion rates, but it's too early to spot any long-term effect of giving the books away free.

In the end, this whole sequence of events couldn't have come at a better time:

• I was slightly nervous about income and stability during the lockdown, and this boost in revenue completely put that insecurity to rest.
• My 2016 MacBook Pro's battery started ballooning, requiring a $350 repair. I was able to make the decision to upgrade to a much faster 2019 MacBook Pro that has helped me work on projects like my Ansible 101 live stream series.
• I was able to increase the amount I donated to the Drupal Association as part of the #DrupalCares campaign substantially.
• I was able to donate a large portion of the extra book revenues to a local food pantry and two other local nonprofits, who have been struggling the past couple months.

In closing, I'd like to thank two groups in particular:

• Device42, for sponsoring giving the books away in the month of April, so more of those affected by furloughs would be able to get free copies of these books.
• All those who purchased the book, or donated to me via GitHub or Patreon; a decision I thought would include some amount of risk (losing a large portion of revenue for a couple months) ended up having the opposite effect.

So thank you, and if you have any questions about the books, about self-publishing, or anything else, ask away in the comments below!
https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/20...s-increased-4x





ANALYSIS: The Average Household Will Surpass ISP’s 1TB Data Caps Within 3 Years
Rob Toledo's

Fast facts:

• Our most recent analysis tracking the growth of home internet usage has found that the average broadband-connected U.S. household will surpass current 1TB ISP data caps before 2024.
• Escalation in data usage in recent months due to stay-at-home orders has caused a spike that might decline in the near future, but home internet usage will remain notably higher than pre-outbreak usage for the foreseeable future.
• ISPs will face pressure from consumers to increase data caps like they did in the late 2010s. It is unclear at this time if any major ISPs will do so.

When many ISPs increased their data caps from 300GB per month to 1TB per month, it felt like a cap that would never be reached. At the time, the average household had two or three connected devices and would stream Netflix or watch YouTube a few hours a day.

But four short years after the data caps from most major ISPs increased, some home internet customers are rapidly approaching the new limit. These increases are coming from a wider range of high-bandwidth usage including services like Netflix streaming movies in 4K UHD, YouTube on multiple devices, family video conferencing, more people working from home, and more broadband-intensive web browsing.

As we reported this month, the average home internet customer is now using close to 400GB of data a month, a number that would have surpassed the original ISP data caps from 2016 by over 50-100GB. At current fee structures for overages (which vary by provider), this would add between $200-$250 a year to the average household cable bill.

Our newest analysis of historical FCC data and trending usage data predicts that within the next three years, or before the year 2024, the average household will use over 1TB of broadband data a month, putting them above the current caps. The mean will likely remain below current cap numbers, but as more households turn into power users, the average will continue to spike.
2020-2024 estimations based on FCC data and consumer trend analysis.

Interestingly, we started conducting research on this trend prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Toward the end of our research and as self-isolation policy started peaking, we are now seeing the largest spikes in home internet usage in history, far beyond what we could have previously predicted or analyzed. ISPs have properly responded by placing temporary holds on their overage fees for breaching data caps, which reflect that many more consumers have reached or exceeded the 1TB monthly data cap during the pandemic.

While we believe this spike will mellow as people return to a more normal life in the next 12 months, it will still settle considerably above pre-outbreak levels. As policy gravitates toward more generalized self-isolation and work-from-home, we expect a substantial overall increase of demand on home internet to remain.

While it is possible that ISPs will respond similarly to previous usage increases by raising the caps again, there will be lag time. Pressure from consumers who see the overage fees will hopefully guide ISPs in the right direction when it comes to setting data usage limits.

We will continue to follow this trend, especially in light of recent increases in home broadband demand and report on this development.
https://decisiondata.org/internet/an...ithin-3-years/





Vermont Proposes Providing Broadband Internet Service to All State Residents
AP

The Vermont Department of Public Service is proposing a plan to provide broadband internet service to everyone in the state.

About 23% of the state, or 70,000 homes and businesses, doesn’t have access to high-speed internet services. That’s defined as speeds of 25 megabits per second for download and 3 megabits per second for upload.

“The internet is necessary infrastructure that is essential for Vermonters to stay safe when they shelter at home during a crisis, such as the COVID-19 emergency,” June Tierney, the commissioner of the Department of Public Service, said in a statement announcing the plan.

The cost estimate is approximately $300 million. The plan assumes that Vermont will receive an additional infusion of federal aid to support recovery from the pandemic.

The estimated amount of public funding ranges from $122 million to $293 million, depending on the method used to disburse the funding.
https://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/...ts/5177598002/

















Until next week,

- js.



















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