Lost in the frenzy this week has been that second quarter corporate profits were reported by the BEA. To reiterate, since corporate profits are a long leading indicator for the economy, and stock prices a short leading indicator, it makes sense that the direction of corporate profits leads the direction of stock prices, when averaged over a quarter.
The dollar traded moderately softer, though directional impetus was lacking in forex markets as the stock market rebound flagged in Europe after a second day of gains in Asia. Market participants hunkered down, wary of a potential tape bomb from the Fed's gathering at Jackson Hole given the still open-ended 'to hike, or not to hike' question. EUR-USD firmed after three successive down days, leaving an intraday peak was seen at 1.1309 following an above-forecast ESI economic sentiment survey out of the Eurozone.
The ruling meant that the Pirate Bay founder had no further avenues for appeal, despite continuing to protest his innocence.
However, due to how the appeals process played out, Gottfrid’s jail sentence was close to completion anyway, meaning that the Swede would be up for parole middle to late August.
Yesterday morning and after several long years Gottfrid completed his Danish prison sentence, but freedom didn’t await the Pirate Bay founder. Rather than leaving Denmark a free man, Gottfrid was immediately re-arrested by the police. The disappointment wasn’t entirely unexpected, however.
In June, Gottfrid’s mother, Kristina Svartholm, informed TorrentFreak that the Swedish Prison and Probation service had requested an arrest warrant for her son. The problem was that when Swedish authorities sent Gottfrid to Denmark after serving his earlier sentence, he hadn’t actually completed his sentence back home. Four weeks remained.
“[This was] never communicated properly to Gottfrid, neither from Sweden nor Denmark. We found out about it on our own,” Kristina informs TF.
Making matters worse, Gottfrid was only advised 48 hours before his supposed release date this week that in fact he’d remain in custody.
“Tuesday this week, two days before his release date (which was officially communicated to him only some two weeks ago) Gottfrid was informed that the Danish prosecutor had decided that he should be handed over because of the warrant,” Kristina informs TF.
Always a fighter, Gottfrid is in a Danish court this morning appealing his arrest and the decision to send him to Sweden, but news of the outcome has yet to reach Kristina. Swedish authorities previously filed a request for the remaining sentence to be served in Denmark but that was refused by the Danes.
If successful this morning Gottfrid might be able to serve the sentence in a Danish prison. Should the appeal fail, Gottfrid will be extradited back to Sweden where he is expected to serve around a month before being released.
What happens after his ultimate release will be up to Gottfrid, but he certainly won’t be returning to Denmark. The Pirate Bay founder is banned from the country for life, something that presents travel difficulties for a Scandinavian looking to visit countries elsewhere in Europe by land.
Nevetheless, plenty of other options remain open, including ones that simply require a screen and an Internet connection.
“What Gottfrid wants to do now, more than anything else, is to get back to his developmental work within IT (graphics etc),” Kristina previously told TF.
“And, of course, first of all: to sit by a keyboard again after nearly three years away from one.”
Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.
The dollar majors saw contained trade in pre-Europe trade in Asia as risk-on continued for a second data. A 3.0% closing gain in Japan's Nikkei 225 and 2%-plus gain in China's Shanghai Composite led other Asian bourses higher on renewed optimism about the U.S. economy following yesterday's revised Q2 GDP, along with a slew of above-forecast Japanese data today. The S&P 500 closed with a 2.4% gain on Wall Street, building on Wednesday's solid 3.9% gain. In forex markets, directional impetus was muted.
Most of these requests are legitimate, aimed at disabling access to copyright-infringing material. However, there are also many overbroad and abusive takedown notices which lead to unwarranted censorship.
These abuses are a thorn in the side of major tech companies such as Google, Facebook and Microsoft. These companies face serious legal consequences if they fail to take content down, but copyright holders who don’t play by the rules often walk free.
This problem is one of the main issues highlighted in a new research report (pdf) published by the CCIA, a trade group which lists many prominent tech companies among its members.
The report proposes several changes to copyright legislation that should bring it in line with the current state of the digital landscape. One of the suggestions is to introduce statutory damages for people who abuse the takedown process.
“One shortcoming of the DMCA is that the injunctive-like remedy of a takedown, combined with a lack of due process, encourages abuse by individuals and entities interested in suppressing content,” CCIA writes.
“Although most rightsholders make good faith use of the DMCA, there are numerous well-documented cases of misuse of the DMCA’s extraordinary remedy. In many cases, bad actors have forced the removal of material that did not infringe copyright.”
The report lists several examples, including DMCA notices which are used to chill political speech by demanding the takedown of news clips, suppress consumer reviews, or retaliate against critics.
Many Internet services are hesitant to refuse these type of takedown requests at it may cause them to lose their safe harbor protection, while the abusers themselves don’t face any serious legal risk.
The CCIA proposes to change this by introducing statutory damage awards for abusive takedown requests. This means that the senders would face the same consequences as the copyright infringers.
“To more effectively deter intentional DMCA abuse, Congress should extend Section 512(f) remedies for willful misrepresentations under the DMCA to include statutory awards, as it has for willful infringement under Section 504(c),” CCIA writes.
In addition to tackling DMCA abuse the tech companies propose several other changes to copyright law.
One of the suggestions is to change the minimum and maximum statutory damages for copyright infringement, which are currently $750 and $150,000 per work.
According to the CCIA the minimum should be lowered to suit cases that involve many infringements, such as a user who hosts thousands of infringing works on a cloud storage platform.
The $150,000 maximum, on the other hand, is open to abuse by copyright trolls and rightsholders who may use it as a pressure tool.
The tech companies hopes that U.S. lawmakers will consider these and other suggestions put forward in the research paper, to improve copyright law and make it future proof.
“Since copyright law was written more than 100 years ago, the goal has been to encourage creativity to benefit the overall public good. It’s important as copyright is modernized to ensure that reforms continue to benefit not just rightsholders, but the overall public good,” the CCIA concludes.
Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.
The dollar added to recent gains in N.Y. on Thursday, as an outsized upward revision to U.S. Q2 GDP got the ball rolling. Growth was upgraded to 3.7% from the original print of 2.3%. This was stronger than median forecasts, and good enough to take the greenback higher. Some support came in the form of improved odds for a September Fed rate hike, while a vastly improved risk backdrop support the USD as well. Wall Street rallied despite renewed rate hike concerns, while yields headed higher as well.
After operating his sites for around six years, the prosecution claims that Mahoney made almost 410,000 euros ($471,500) in advertising revenue.
Extrapolating what was probably a good year for viewing numbers on FastPassTV, David Groome QC came to the conclusion that the 30-year-old potentially cost Hollywood around £120 million [$188m].
Following Mahoney’s guilty plea it’s unlikely that those numbers will ever be challenged. As a result, when the authorities and anti-piracy group FACT get their conviction, the public deterrent they’ve been looking for will be home and dry.
But despite looking forward to what is likely to be billed as a historic judgment, it appears that the industry still has work to do to get the man in the street onside. That became evident during an appearance by FACT Director General Kieron Sharp on the local BBC Radio Foyle
After discussing the background to the case, Sharp was confronted with an uncomfortable truth.
“I would imagine the problem for you Kieron in your job is that a lot of people out there – and we’re already seeing it in fact in the [listener] texts to the show this morning – is that [the public] don’t really see the victim in all of this,” the BBC presenter said.
“They see this as Hollywood losing a few pounds – who cares?”
If industry figures are to be believed, around 20% of the populations of several European countries are accessing content from sites such as Mahoney’s, so some lack of sympathy shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise. That being said, Sharp’s response only raises more questions.
“Yes I know, that’s an unfortunate way of looking at things really. The big problem about this is that these people are all film fans. They want to watch films and television programs,” he said.
“The best example I can give you is Game of Thrones which is made in Northern Ireland as you know. Huge success story for Northern Ireland, for the people who are working there and getting employment in the film industry.
“They’re the sort of programs that won’t get made in the future if you think that all this is about is a few quid out of the pockets of those in Hollywood.”
While choosing Game of Thrones as an example makes sense from a local perspective, it’s a confusing selection from a piracy standpoint.
As pointed out here on dozens of occasions, Game of Thrones is the most pirated TV show in history. Yet season after season the show returns, each time bringing in more and more legitimate viewers despite smashing several piracy records. Even the show’s director thinks that piracy doesn’t hurt the production.
Nevertheless, when challenged by the interviewer Sharp maintained his position.
“An ordinary film coming out of Hollywood costs $60m to $100m to make and they have to make a return on that. If these films don’t get made then people won’t have jobs, it’s as simple as that. It’s quite straightforward, absolutely no doubt about it whatsoever,” he said.
Sharp wouldn’t be drawn on whether Mahoney should be sent to prison when he’s sentenced next month, noting that’s for the court to decide. But whatever happens to him, problems persist, not only with the countless other people like Mahoney scattered around the globe, but also with public perception. Still, FACT is hopefully that people can be persuaded to do the right thing.
“They can be [prosecuted] but we’re more interested in converting those people into paying customers,” Sharp said. “They’re film fans, we want them to enjoy the product at its best and not from some cheap ripoff copy.”
Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.
