HomeWeekly News Roundup (12 June 2016)
Got lots of other work lined up, despite it being a nice and sunny (but still cold) Sunday for once, so going to have to get through the news roundup stuff pretty quickly today!
Take down, stay down is just censorship by another name, says the Internet Archive
The Internet Archive is the latest to come out against the proposed “take down, stay down” changes to the DMCA, with the non-profit warning that such a regime could spell doom for sites like themselves. The Internet Archive, as its name suggests, archives content on the Internet for posterity, and while it endeavors to only store content with the right licensing terms (ie. public domain), the vast amount of data it archives means that some copyrighted content will get through. But under “take down, stay down”, sites like the Internet Archive will be made responsible for not only taking down such content, but also identifying it in the first place. This puts tremendous strain on the already limited resources of the Internet Archive, and also opens sites like them up to copyright lawsuits if they fail to implement a robust take down and stay down process.
It’s basically just the latest attempt by rights-holders to shift all work and responsibility to others when it comes to copyright enforcement, even though they themselves are the *only* party actually capable of identifying copyrighted content. And such as regime also mean sites must monitor and censor their own users actively, which is a serious privacy risk for users, as well as being a possible danger to freedom of speech on the Internet.
But if the copyright lobby greases the right wheels and “take down, stay down” becomes a reality, sites will have to get used to self-enforcement. But there will always be a group of sites that won’t be very much interested in self-enforcement, not even if you send them pre-piracy warnings. That’s what Sony did last week, in an attempt to preempt Euro 2016 piracy, by sending pre-piracy warnings to torrent and streaming sites before the first match has even been played. The attempt may have backfired, with many of the sites receiving the notices promising to not only ignore the warnings, but to also put extra focus on bringing pirated matches and clips to users. I guess they’re thinking if Sony are so concerned about piracy that they went to the effort to send pre-piracy notices, it must be anticipating a great demand for such content – demand that the piracy sites would love to meet.
The PS4 Neo will include an Ultra HD Blu-ray drive
The worst kept secret ever is no longer a secret – Sony have confirmed that a new, upgraded PS4 is on the way. And the main reason this news story has been placed in this section instead of the gaming section is also the confirmation, for the first time, that the PS4 “Neo” will include a new Ultra HD Blu-ray drive for playing back Ultra HD Blu-ray movies.
If Sony can hurry up and get the Neo out before Christmas, this would mean the new PS4 would be Sony’s first and only Ultra HD Blu-ray player at that time (standalones are not expected to arrive until 2017). This could be an extra selling point for the new PS4, and I’m thinking a bundle offer with Sony’s own 4K TV range might be on the cards.
With E3 just around the corner, you might expect more details to emerge then about the Neo, but don’t hold your breath, Sony have confirmed there won’t be an official unveiling of the Neo there.
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That’s it, nice and short this week. See you in seven!