Survey reveals social TV's unexpected impact on live TV viewing

A recent survey by TV Guide Digital found an unexpected impact of social TV. Live television viewing has increased because of the potential for real-time spoilers to appear on social media sites. [via bizreport]

The findings of TV Guide Digital's February 2012 survey reveal that less people are watching television content on time-delay or streaming to avoid spoilers they might encounter when using their social networks. Just over a quarter (27%) of respondents said they're watching more live television for that reason, up from 20% in 2010.

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Oscars 2012: A hit in social media

Although the 84th Annual Academy Awards came across decidedly old school in its television broadcast, the event delivered high marks in new media. The LA Times reports.

Sunday's Oscar ceremony generated 3.8 million comments on Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites, according to data generated by Cambridge, Mass.-based Bluefin Labs. That made this year's awards show the second most talked-about entertainment event on TV since the company began measuring and analyzing social media traffic several years ago.

CBS' telecast of the Grammy Awards this month was the undisputed champ with 13 million social media comments. The third most popular awards event was last year's MTV Video Music Awards with 3.1 million comments, according to Bluefin Labs.

Comments on social media sites surrounding Sunday's ceremony and red carpet arrivals surged nearly 300% over last year's gala. In 2011, there were fewer than 1 million comments. The trend suggests that more people are turning to social media outlets while watching TV by using a "second screen" -- a tablet, smartphone or laptop computer -- to stay connected to their friends and followers who are also watching TV.

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Anonymous targets lawmakers for defeat

Hacker group Anonymous on Monday released a list of lawmakers that it hopes to defeat this year, reports The Hill.

The list includes all members of Congress who supported the defense spending bill or two anti-piracy measures, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA). The list is a mix of Democrats and Republicans.

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Twitter and Facebook coming to TV screens

According to The Sydney Morning Herald, Facebook and Twitter will soon be a prominent part of television viewing as well thanks to new technology capable of integrating social media sites with any show on any channel.

The technology, developed by the Australian Centre for Broadband Innovation, displays tweets about a show overlaid on top of the television image along with recommending shows based on the viewers behaviour and what their Facebook friends are watching.

Government researchers have formed a partnership with the ABC to introduce trials in June.

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Piracy push planned in Hollywood

It's been just over a month since an Internet blackout called attention to the legislation, and an accompanying protest forced congressional leaders to put it on hold. Although emotions have been somewhat diffused, frustrated lobbyists and skittish lawmakers don't seem in a hurry to jump back into the fray to try and craft a compromise. Variety reports.

The election year makes it even less likely that Congress will act on something if it appears the legislation could become a liability.

But that doesn't mean that the problem of piracy will be off the radar of the average consumer. In fact, this spring, consumers will start to get a very clear message from the entertainment industry as it tries to curb online copyright infringement.

Following a landmark agreement finalized last year with the studios and record labels, the country's major Internet service providers, including AT&T, Cablevision, Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Verizon, will start sending out "copyright alerts" to users who illegally download copyrighted movies, music and TV shows. If users continue to access pirated content, they would face possible sanctions at a certain point that could include slower Internet speeds.

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Acta approval stalled by European commission

According to The Guardian, approval of the controversial international anti-counterfeiting treaty ACTA has been stalled by the European commission, which is to ask Europe's highest court whether implementing it would violate any fundamental EU rights.

... EU trade commissioner Karel De Gucht said on Wednesday that an opinion from the European court of justice would clear what he called the "fog of misinformation" surrounding the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement.

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Music industry considers lawsuit against Google over piracy search results

The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) are considering a lawsuit against Google for providing links to file-sharing sites in its search results, according to a leaked internal IFPI document.

[via DigitalTrends]

Megaupload's Kim Dotcom. a criminal mastermind, or the world's most entertaining scapegoat?

A file-sharing wizard's ridiculous rise and fall. A must read 5 page article on Megaupload and Kim Dotcom in Business Week.

ACTA is Useless… and a Threat, says Kader Arif in WSJ interview

Kader Arif is the former EU official who served as rapporteur on ACTA (the secretive copyright treaty pushed by the US Trade Rep) who resigned following it's signature, explains in a WSJ interview, how the treaty will result in invasive border searches of personal devices, privacy-invading dissemination of public's personal information.

[via boingboing]

How Hollywood Promotes Piracy

The movie industry's inability to adapt drives viewers to piracy, experts say, as consumers move toward mobile and streaming technology for entertainment. Mobiledia reports.

The movie industry seems reluctant to alter its entrenched system of "windowing," a sequential release pattern that staggers movie release dates on various platforms, resulting in some viewers waiting months to see a movie already released in other locales.

Studios have long profited off each release window via licensing deals, using each window to build marketing power for the next. But this distribution strategy, analysts say, breeds piracy, and leads to more loss than gain in the long-term.

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Pictures from Berlin's anti-ACTA protest

Walt74 sez, "Today about 10.000 people protested the ACTA treaty in Berlin, people in whole Germany went on the streets, 50.000 altogether. Here are my pics from the protests in Berlin.

[via boingboing]

Germany Puts Off Signing Global Anti-Piracy Agreement

Germany is putting off signing an international anti-piracy accord known as the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. npr reports.

Germany was fully expected to agree to the treaty, but according to the BBC, it delayed signing to "give us time to carry out further discussions." The BBC adds that Latvia, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia have also delayed ratification.

Forbes reports that Germany's balk is a big deal.

"Germany is Europe's biggest economy, and if they refuse to sign this could spell the end for the international agreement, which touches on everything from online piracy to seed patents," reports Forbes.

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Copyright body recommends ‘Priority Watch List’ countries

US copyright-based industries private sector coalition the International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA) has submitted recommendations to the US Trade Representative (USTR) in its annual ‘Special 301’ review.

According to the IIPA, the US core copyright industries – those that produce and provide business software, entertainment software, motion picture, television and home video entertainment, music, and book and journal publishing – remain important drivers of the US economy, contributing mightily to domestic growth and employment, including roughly 6.4 per cent to the US economy, nearly 5.1 million workers or five per cent of all US private sector jobs, and $134 billion annually in revenue from foreign sales and exports. “Increasing exports by reducing trade barriers like piracy and market access barriers is essential to our country’s economic well-being and long term growth,” argues IIPA Counsel.

IIPA recommends that 10 countries be placed on the Priority Watch List in 2012: Argentina, Canada, Chile, China, Costa Rica, India, Indonesia, Russia, Thailand, and Ukraine.

Read full article. IIPA press release.

Tribler’ software makes Internet piracy impossible to stop

New software called “Tribler” is the new weapon in the battle for Internet liberty and does not need a website to track users sharing torrent files. RT reports.

According to The Raw Story, it is a “peer-to-peer network protocol that enables computers to share files with thousands of others.”

For many this could be the solution movie and music pirates have been waiting for. Essentially it leaves no accountability for website owners.

While lawmakers are dreaming of a censored web, many believe Tribler will be a true nightmare for them.

According to Torrent Freak, the attempt to disconnect users from the Internet for “illegal” purposes will be foiled by the software that has been in the works for the past five years and will make it nearly “impossible” to stop file sharing. “The only way to take it down is to take the Internet down,” stated Doctor Pouwelse of Delft University of Technology to the Daily Mail.

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The New Water Cooler Is a TV Show

AMC's apocalyptic zombie drama "The Walking Dead" and Bravo's "Real Housewives" reality franchise have something in common: Their fans love post-episode analysis.

Both shows have spawned "after shows," a growing television phenomenon dedicated to deconstructing that night's program, with tweets, Facebook posts and old-fashioned call-in questions from the audience. The Wall Street Journal reports.

After shows are an old-media solution to a new-media problem: they keep audiences and sponsors engaged with a network by joining in the online conversation, rather than competing with it for viewers' attention. The fact that the after shows are live adds another element of unscripted excitement.

... After shows are cheap to make and capitalize on the fact that more and more television watchers are what Nielsen calls "simultaneous users," 44% of whom look up information on the show they're watching. During the Super Bowl broadcast on Feb. 5, there were more than 12.2 million comments on the game posted to social-networking sites, a 578% increase over last year, according to Bluefin Labs, a research firm. Mobile apps like GetGlue, which now has two million users, allow people to "check in" to a television show, interact with other people who are watching, and accrue rewards from advertisers.

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Acta opposition grows as Pirate Party UK joins day of action

According to The Guardian, The Pirate Party UK will join an international day of action against controversial copyright agreement ACTA on Saturday with protests planned for London, Glasgow and Nottingham.

Pirate Party UK leader Loz Kaye said: "We saw what the combination of protest and political pressure achieved with the dropping of SOPA [the Stop Online Piracy Act].

"But the threats to digital rights and civil liberties aren't over. It's vital that we send a clear message that the people of Europe don't want ACTA."

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ACTA. A New Question of Internet Freedom

European activists who participated in American Internet protests last month learned that there was political power to be harnessed on the Web. Now they are putting that knowledge to use in an effort to defeat new global rules for intellectual property. The New York Times reports.

In the U.S. protests , Web sites including Wikipedia went dark Jan. 18, and more than seven million people signed Google’s online petition opposing the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect Intellectual Property Act. Ultimately, even the bills’ sponsors in the U.S. Congress backed down under the onslaught of public criticism.

The European activists are hoping to use similar pressure to stop the international Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement , or ACTA, which is meant to clamp down on illegal commerce in copyrighted and trademarked goods. Opponents say that it will erode Internet freedom and stifle innovation. About 1.5 million people have signed a Web petition calling for the European Parliament to reject ACTA, which some say is merely SOPA and PIPA on an international level. Thousands of people have turned out for demonstrations across Europe, with more scheduled for next Saturday.

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Ads get social at Super Bowl

Super Bowl ad campaigns are going beyond the field- tapping into social media to leverage the millions of dollars spent on the 30-second or 60-second ads aired during the big game. Bobbi Rebell reports for Reuters video (2:17).

11 February: A day of protest in Europe against ACTA

Access, an organisation that says it is a “new global movement for digital freedom”, has organised an international day against ACTA on February 11, hoping the world comes out in “an unprecedented showing of solidarity” against the treaty. TheNextWeb reports.

Access already seen 331,976 people sign its Anti-ACTA petition and has gone one step further to assist in notifying its website visitors of protest events in their local area. The organization has begun listing Facebook events for each protest around the world, motioning for individuals to create their own and request for them to be added to the list.

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Pirate Bay Founders Lose Supreme Court Appeal, Going to Jail

Sweden’s Supreme Court just announced it won’t agree to hear an appeal by The Pirate Bay’s founders, meaning the jail sentences and fines imposed by the Swedish Court of Appeals will stand.

In other words, Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm and Carl Lundström, who started file-sharing site The Pirate Bay in September 2003, face jail time and have to collectively pony up a fine of 46 million Swedish kronor (US$6.7 million). TIME Techland reports.

In April 2009, The Pirate Bay’s founders were found guilty of abetting copyright infringement and sentenced to a year in prison, plus a fine of 30 million SEK (about US$4.2 million at the time). All four appealed, but the Swedish Appeals Court upheld the verdict in November 2010, decreasing the sentence’s jail times, but increasing the fine to 46 million SEK.

The group then attempted to bring the case before Sweden’s Supreme Court, but found themselves rudderless this morning after the Supreme Court effectively waved the case off.

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Wall Street Journal Launches Video Channel for YouTube

The Wall Street Journal joins Reuters in launching dedicated YouTube channels.

... In conjunction with the launch, the channel will showcase "Off Duty," a daily lifestyle show debuting today based on the eponymous section of WSJ Weekend, the Journal's Saturday paper.

Hosted by Wall Street Journal reporter Wendy Bounds, "Off Duty" will bring to life many of its namesake's features, as well as other culture coverage from the Journal – from food to fashion, music and movies, travel to tech.

Full WSJ press release. via Mediabistro