[edit] otherwise, an excellent piece.

http://also.dylanreeve.com/2013/10/a-mega-scandal/

The claim about Key's office being involved with the Brown fiasco doesn't tally with the previously polished performances…

Seems at least as relevant in this thread as in the Len Brown one.

See also item 7 here.

Certainly unfair on Jerry. I'm sure Faux News would consider it a compliment.

http://www.discourse.co.nz/2013/10/episode-4-32-mega-controversy/

https://twitter.com/DFisherJourno/status/393480379518038016/photo/1

In answer to the attached pic: no, it won’t be this obvious.

A new PAS tshirt?

Is that what is required?

This requires that staff of…

It might pay to dial back the persecution complex somewhat and wait till demands are issued before refusing them. It’s a bit of a give away otherwise.

But then the problem with most bullies is they tend to make the mistake of picking on people for being…

Right you are – oddly, I thought that’s what I’d done.…

I'm sorry but charging "only" $20 bucks for an ebook doesn't cut it. Whilst I continue to pay exorbitant prices for real books which I value…

Maybe he equates the Internet with Google. There are people who do, you know.

Ah – not Google, then: FilesTube.

But I still couldn’t replicate that search, even when I narrowed it down to Mega files only. The first few pages of a general search for ebook on Mega were fairly obscure results –…

Nah, Dylan’s [[https://buy.louisck.net/help|in the clear…

No, me neither, even when I include "mega" in the search string.

Elworthy claims that a Google search for any book and "free download" will see "mega.co.nz in the top results"…

Does "neo-McCarthyist" come to mind?

This story, as lame as it is, fills me with amusement.

I'm not talking about circumvention. I'm talking about a file that I have a legal right to possess that's not encumbered with any…

oh wait .... after that long that's probably about all of us ....

When I do want an ebook I go to Project Gutenberg. Sooo much good reading.

http://www.gutenberg.org/

Also, Calculus Made Easy.…

DRMs/TPMs. It's illegal to provide the means of circumvention and TPP will make…

Please don’t, Mike, it’s been a pleasure being sorta-kinda-not-really disagreed with by you. Complicated stuff is complicated, and just because we're not coming…

I'm sure publishers won't be angsting over that bit of obfuscation

It's been interesting to see just how few people do actually use the book.

Unfortunately I can't tell you who my source is ,but it's true I have proof!

Right, that should be good enough for the bulk of New Zealand media to report on in the morning. ( at least tv3)

Seriously I don't understand…

Actually, you probably waived your rights under Russell's terms and conditions of site use. And good luck arguing that the…

Just wait, the Americans are sure to wind it back, because innovation.

+1

#peskykids

thank goodness for that, since the whole interweb is a giant copying machine

NZ's Copyright Act provides exceptions…

And countries around the world have attempted to address this concern by implementing safe…

:-). I’d suggest Plato to anyone starting Philosophy. It’s two philosophers for the price of one. Or even more, if you count some of the other folk who show up.

*Oh, and it's all free.

NB: that tip came from Lownes Jordan partner Rick Shera, who is advising Mega. (Otoh, the fact that Rick is advising Mega further suggests that Mega is staying…

At the risk of a massive derail, Calculus Made Easy has been a top seller since 1910. And it really is very good.

Well, you could actually quite adequately learn elementary calculus from a 50 year old text book, you know. I have one in front of me right now – it's the same stuff as the new one, and…

In your face, copper!

At the moment these things are not infringing uses, our legislators having heard the arguments and decided that making such transient…

– it's illegal to make any copies of a file that isn't audio or a computer program
– it's illegal to have more copies of your…

Fair enough. The point I'm trying to make is that talking in terms of what the law actually allows might be pointless because there is a very good…

Unfortunately not when it's an international publisher doing this kind of stuff....

Yes, but this again gets to the fundamental problem. There are ways to use a cloud service (or a blank DVD for that matter) in both infringing and non-infringing ways.

It's impossible for the service in question to know whether the hosting or distribution…

Check the terms of the licence.

Google has a market cap of around $280 billion, 5% of the NASDAQ. That's big enough to give it immunity – if the FBI raided Google, there'd be a whole lot of California congressmen and senators on their case.

An…

Sorry Dylan my badly made point was actually that cloud services are less prone to copying because they don't get lost and when encrypted by default they…

And we are back to the same old argument in Pead's press release.
“Educational texts are being illegally shared at an alarming rate and it’s hurting New Zealand authors, publishers and distributors to the…

If you copy a file onto a USB stick then you may well be infringing copyright unless…

And?

Utilising simply tools to strengthen privacy is a bad thing?

Regardless is makes no difference at all. Dropbox, Google Drive etc all offer no client-side encryption and operate in exactly…

And of course we all encrypt our USB drives so no-one can open them when we lose them...don't we?

@Ben Wilson

Expensive texts…

I doubt that in does in the sense that I doubt the law expresses the concept of…

How? Like I'm genuinely curious. I have content in my Mega (and Dropbox, and Google Drive) account that is absolutely copyright protected. I can't see how that's any…

Providing a cloud system that allows people to upload files can potentially be an infringing act. Both uploading and downloading involve copying.

I could upload my entire…

I suppose Mega could (and I think did at…

So it seems. But it keeps being singled out in press statements from local rights owners.

A wrong conclusion...as you often are.

Bear in mind, though, that that would not have been local in the case of music from CDs before the law was changed to allowed format shifting. And that right still does not apply to video…

The guy's not allowed to be his own source now? What are you, the schizophrenia police?

The two claims don't exactly…

Yup – no de-duping on Mega. Lucky drives are cheap these days :)

More relevant: they're the longtime PR reps for Recorded Music NZ (formerly Rianz) and, more recently, the Publishers Association of New Zealand.

They don't do lobbying or government relations — they're mostly consumer PR (they have Samsung and L'Oreal) and…

Yes, but that's a feature. One of the arguments against Megaupload was that when an infringement notice was issued against a particular file, Megaupload failed to delete duplicate copies (although without a notice I…

Yes, I've read his comments on the stuff (and downloaded some of his free ebooks, and paid for some paperbacks) but I originally encountered the concept from Eric Flint in the Baen.com free ebook library ( http://www.baenebooks.com/c-1-free-library.aspx )…

I assume that Mega have sacrificed the ability to save disk storage by de-duping for end-end encryption. I don't know if their disk usage limits allow for this.

Pead are the guys who do the free food, right?

One way to do it…

NZ'ers really need to get over this attitude. Just because you're less likely to run in to the copyright holder down at the local…

They seem very keen indeed (possibly a little desperate?) to demonstrate some value to society. Especially given that they are currently in litigation with New Zealand Universities over what existing licensing is worth. Given that their tax on education…

CLNZ filed a takedown notice on our behalf, and we alerted the Luminaries' international publishers, who have legal departments who deal with this sort of thing.

The conclusion I would reach is that Cameron Slater uploaded the file, then downloaded it, in order to make up a story that would score a hit against one…

Vikram wasn't specific about whether it was same IP address or same user account. Either way...

I'm genuinely curious, having working in PR in the past,…

That's brilliant. You should post it in the next Friday music thread!

This was the case for a math textbook I bought on Amazon this year. The Kindle reader is not designed for text books, that's for sure. You want fast scrolling, topic drilldown, and page numbers. The…

You'll find a few copyright maximalists who'll argue that with you.

Credit where due, etc. Good on them.

If I recall correctly, David Weber included a CD with one of his hard back "Honor Harrington" books that included…

Sure but Macmillan imprint Tor Books (and it’s UK sister) seem to be doing just fine without DRM, and it would be a safe bet Stefan von Holtzbrinck wouldn’t be…

Alternatively, if the rights holder…

I do think it's unfortunate that small publishers have to put time and resource into fighting piracy and…

My very first email address was actually jimbob@, and I was born in 1974, so hey, maybe that's my secret throwaway email address...

I saw a tweet that pointed to the blog post on Whaleoil. There were screenshots of the two files, partially obscured. MEGA URLs have two parts- the first points to the…

I don't know if they can, around here that's a question way…

One would assume they found…

Samuel Scott's idea of having a digital version…

Slater definitely did obtain the links in some way. They're the basis of his story.

Fergus is a smart guy. He can see that publishers are in danger of being captured by the big online…

There are many other sites who are hosting copies of Catton's magnificent work (which I…

Then Mr Slater either:
* trusted his source about what the file was, and ran his story without bothering to check it actually was The Luminaries there, OR
* uploaded it himself so didn’t need to check.

The first is simply unbelievable.…

Well you might want to drop VUP and meBooks a line if that’s the case with The Luminaries because when they launched they made [[http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/BU1006/S00657.htm|quite a noise about being…

Given that ISPs in NZ still charge based on volume they clearly do. So why are Cam Slater and publishers not railing against the ISPs?

However there are forums dedicated to people uploading and sharing full movies and television shows on YouTube, which are updated often as the companies who own the copyright get the videos withdrawn.

So…

Isn't that kind of the issue? Person who made his fortune by helping people share files they had no right to upload (and I'm passing no judgment on what kind of social ill that may or may not represent) creates service that makes…

The Publishers Association release was pretty strong stuff though — it accused…

If you make books deliberately awkward to use with DRM that has side-effects ranging from not being able to copy and paste code snippets to [[http://www.theguardian.com/money/2012/oct/22/amazon-wipes-customers-kindle-deletes-account|Amazon deleting people's whole…

What was laughable about it? You are aware, right, that PANZ president Sam Elworthy is also the publisher of Auckland University Press, not some…

It's not the same thing. Virtually all music and most other video material is identified by YouTube, which notifies registered owners. Any original master recordings…

So one person uploaded the copy, didn't share it with anyone (except possibly WhaleOil if his claims that he didn't upload it are to…

Yet Cam, I'm sure you understand the legal and technical impossibilities of Mega actually pro-actively preventing copyright infringement?

Unless you're suggesting that Dotcom…

To be fair Russell, I don’t think your fur would be easily unruffled if it was your signature on the invoices for the rather substantial reprint of The Luminaries arriving this week instead of VUP publisher Fergus Barrowman.

And for the record there’s a…

It's impossible for content providers to beat this technically. It's been happening as long as companies have allowed users to store files. There were BBSes I regularly accessed in the early 90s where users could share files they'd uploaded with others -…

Ah, thanks. Hopefully they've ditched the ad-substitution idea. It's a complete non-starter.

From the linked story it appears that Baboom users will only be able to upload works in which they…

I'm demanding nothing. I am observing that the story doesn't appear to be as it originally seemed.

I'll repeat again Russell for your benefit since you seem slow on the uptake. I don not upload the book to Mega.

And again for your benefit and for all the enablers of Dotcom...I will not be revealing my source or details…

Ban throwaway addresses for registrants? Problem is, one man's throwaway address is another, well, email address. One appeal of the Mega service, which our house used to transfer some raw video files, is how seamless it is to start using the service…