Archive for the 'MPAA' Category

Friday, December 15th, 2006Friday, December 15th, 2006

5V ≠ 12V

A couple weeks ago my network router at home finally died (it was a Linksys WRT54G), but I certainly got my money out of it (I got it when it first came out which was probably 4 or 5 years ago). Every light on it flashed, which couldn’t be good… so I replaced it.
Long […]

Wednesday, November 1st, 2006Wednesday, November 1st, 2006

Oh Wait… We Don’t Own The Copyright

This is something I’ve known about for a few months (obviously), but now that I ran across the information on other sites, I don’t see any issue with posting about it now…
Universal City Studios Productions (the entity suing me [more or less] on behalf of the MPAA) doesn’t actually have a legal right to sue […]

Sunday, October 29th, 2006Sunday, October 29th, 2006

Don’t Be A Douche… Stop Piracy

Jack Black is pretty funny sometimes…

Monday, October 23rd, 2006Monday, October 23rd, 2006

White And Nerdy

I have to thank my old roommate Tracy for this… she apparently thinks of me whenever she hears this song. haha Great.

The RIAA/MPAA should take a note here… I never heard of this song until Tracy told me to go find it on YouTube… and I just purchased the whole album via iTunes […]

Wednesday, October 11th, 2006Wednesday, October 11th, 2006

New Business Model For Catching Movie Pirates

Well first of all, I was just checking this site out because this is probably the most amazing homemade halloween costume ever made, but it gave me a really good marketing idea for the MPAA…
They should just setup an affiliate program and pay affiliate marketers 25% of the fees they collect from the lawsuits/threats. […]

Friday, October 6th, 2006Friday, October 6th, 2006

How The MPAA Launched My Blog

Someone pointed out something kind of funny/ironic… Since the MPAA decided to sue me, they have actually made my blog a few times more popular than their own site (mpaa.org). If you look look at the Alexa graph below, the green line is the old URL for this blog, the blue line is […]

Monday, September 25th, 2006Monday, September 25th, 2006

Another MPAA Partner On The Pyramid Of Piracy

So back in June, I made a post that helps people understand the MPAA’s “Pyramid of Piracy”. As I pointed out last month, BitTorrent.com (the company, not the software), which is one of the MPAA’s partners is actually one of the biggest “facilitators” by their own definition.
Well now the MPAA has at least one […]

Monday, September 4th, 2006Monday, September 4th, 2006

The Film Is Not Yet Rated: Unsuitable For Minors

I wonder if the MPAA is just pissed off they were busted for illegal movie copying when this movie was submitted to them or what?
The documentary that is critical of the MPAA was given an NC-17 rating by the MPAA. In their own words, it means this:
This rating declares that the Rating Board believes […]

Saturday, August 5th, 2006Saturday, August 5th, 2006

Download Meet The Fockers Via BitTorrent

You may or may not know, the MPAA and BitTorrent “joined forces to protect film copyrights” (the MPAA’s words, not mine) last November (see press release).

Search for Torrent Files
  

From Bram Cohen (BitTorrent CEO):
“BitTorrent, Inc. discourages the use of its technology for distributing films without a license to do so. As such, we […]

Wednesday, August 2nd, 2006Wednesday, August 2nd, 2006

Funding A Movie

Here’s something kind of funny/ironic with the whole MPAA thing going on…
I got a proposal in the mail today from a film production company that wants me to invest/fund their movie for a 14% return on the investment plus title of “Executive Producer” on the movie.
“Based on those factors, it should receive a PG-13 rating […]

Wednesday, July 26th, 2006Wednesday, July 26th, 2006

Wow… Crazy Traffic.

First I got wired, then someone came along and slashed me, then someone dugg me, then I was farked by someone I hardly know. After basking in the afterglow, a vampire came by and slashed me (again!) and told me I was delicious.
The last 24 hours saw more traffic to my blog than any […]

Tuesday, July 25th, 2006Tuesday, July 25th, 2006

Wired Magazine Article

Okay, okay… I’ve had the issue for a couple days now, and I was a bit torn if I was going to post anything about it on my blog or not. I didn’t like a few things about it… For one thing, I’m not a “hero” (I’m a pretty normal guy), but they […]

Tuesday, June 13th, 2006Tuesday, June 13th, 2006

I Figured Out Where My Car Is

Okay, so you know how my car got stolen a few weeks ago? I just had an epiphany and realized what really happened to it…
The MPAA/Universal Studios hired someone to steal my car. They didn’t do it because just want to annoy me or because they thought it had anything cool in it […]

Wednesday, June 7th, 2006Wednesday, June 7th, 2006

I’m Destroying The Movie Industry

One of the allegations of the whole MPAA lawsuit is that I’m more or less destroying the movie industry because I allegedly downloaded a movie that I own.
So here’s two pictures of some DVDs I own in my living room. I don’t even feel like counting how many movies I have (maybe someone reading […]

Saturday, June 3rd, 2006Saturday, June 3rd, 2006

Top Sites

I saw the MPAA’s “Pyramid of Internet Piracy” on Digg this morning, and I’m curious if anyone knows what a “Top Site” is (without reading the PDF file below I mean)? I’ve spent countless hours educating myself on everything related to my MPAA case, and this one is new to me.
…clusters of high speed […]

BitTorrent.com Needs To Clean Up Their Act

So apparently the MPAA and BitTorrent, Inc. are working together to clean up piracy (specifically film piracy in this case [of course since they are the MPAA]).
From Dan Glickman (MPAA Chairman and CEO):
“We are glad that Bram Cohen and his company are working with us to limit access to infringing files on the BitTorrent.com website,” […]

Friday, June 2nd, 2006Friday, June 2nd, 2006

I’m Not Trying To Save The World

This is just more blah, blah about the whole MPAA vs. me thing.
One thing that I think people are not understanding here is that I’m not trying to change the world with this. I’m not trying to “take down the MPAA”, change any copyright or file sharing laws or anything else as grandiose as […]

Tuesday, May 30th, 2006Tuesday, May 30th, 2006

Zeropaid Interview

I did an interview with Zeropaid.com a week or two ago, and it was just posted in case anyone wants to read more about the MPAA stuff going on…
http://www.zeropaid.com/news/6466/MPAA+v+Shawn+Hogan%3A+The+Zeropaid+Interview

Tuesday, May 23rd, 2006Tuesday, May 23rd, 2006

Early Neutral Evaluation Conference

Just got back from the Early Neutral Evaluation Conference with Judge William McCurine, Jr. (who was a remarkably nice and likable guy). Overall it was a waste of time (as expected) though because they really just want the two opposing sides to figure out a way they can settle without going to a full […]

Thursday, May 18th, 2006Thursday, May 18th, 2006

Tanya Andersen vs. RIAA

I know this is old news for people that have been following the RIAA and MPAA lawsuits, but it’s new to me (now that I’ve been dragged into it, I’ve been reading all I can find). This entry is more of a bookmark entry for myself.
http://p2pnet.net/story/8273
Some interesting stuff that I may find useful for […]

Tuesday, May 16th, 2006Tuesday, May 16th, 2006

Preparing For Early Neutral Evaluation Conference

It’s amazing how no matter how many times you tell someone something, they don’t seem to “get it”. Someone called me letting me know they are preparing whatever paperwork they have to file for next weeks Early Neutral Evaluation Conference. They keep letting me know they are working on getting the issue settled.
But […]

Thursday, April 27th, 2006Thursday, April 27th, 2006

MPAA Offers To Settle (Again)

There is an “Early Neutral Evaluation Conference” on May 23, 2006 to determine if this matter can be settled. Personally, it seems like an utter waste of time because at this point about the only thing I would settle for is if they dropped the case, paid my attorney fees and then dissolve their […]

Tuesday, March 21st, 2006Tuesday, March 21st, 2006

MPAA Suing Me

I’ve been waiting for this lawsuit for a few months now, and yesterday I finally got served the official complaint filed in the US District Court (San Diego).
Now we can finally get this show on the road… I’m sure it will give me all sorts of interesting stuff to blog about in the coming months. […]

Wednesday, January 25th, 2006Wednesday, January 25th, 2006

MPAA Admits To Unauthorized Movie Copying

An interesting read… all things considered.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060124-6036.html
If that digital version turns out to be a DVD, the MPAA could also find itself in hot water for violating the DMCA. Oh, the irony! Either way, the MPAA can’t be happy about being put into a position where they are forced to justify the same actions they decry […]

Friday, November 11th, 2005Friday, November 11th, 2005

Loeb and Loeb/MPAA Extortion

Got an interesting call from a law firm (Loeb & Loeb) representing the MPAA today. They want me to settle out of court and pay $2,500 for some movie I never downloaded (and ironically enough I actually own the DVD). Of course, I declined their settlement offer and told them I would rather […]