ZeroPaid.com » Drew Wilson

US Senator Calls For Regulation of 3D Printers

Drew Wilson — Sun, 12 May 2013 18:52:00 +0000

The Liberator may have given gun enthusiasts a huge boost in confidence, but the 3D printable gun may also be attracting unwanted attention for 3D printing enthusiasts as well. Right now, a US Senator is calling for regulating 3D printers. Last Thursday, we reported on the US government censoring content on DEFCAD.org, a website that contains certain kinds of object files for 3D printing. The move was sparked when someone successfully 3D printed a fully functional handgun called the “Liberator”. The successful fabrication and subsequent raid by authorities generated two unprecedented traffic spikes to the website according to Alexa.

US Government Censors DEFCAD Website

Drew Wilson — Fri, 10 May 2013 01:06:23 +0000

3D printing has been around for a while, but with the possibility of printing a gun, there’s been a very contentious debate surrounding the technology. Now, the US government has stepped in and taken down content. The technology can print many interesting things such as human body parts, plastic figurines and even an entire building. Some, such as myself, have already seen the technology and wondered if we’ll witness the same kinds of debates we’ve seen with music and file-sharing all over again. In the last few days, there’s been some controversy over someone creating the blueprints to print an entire fully functional gun. Some say it’s the dawn of a new era where there the government can exert less control over the citizens.

Dutch Government Proposes Bill to Hack Your Computer

Drew Wilson — Sun, 05 May 2013 16:00:29 +0000

The Dutch government is proposing a bill that would allow the government to hack anyone’s computer – including those located outside of the Netherlands. The bill was signed by Ivo Opstelten and published. There has been no shortage of hacking going around in the last few years, but is it right that government officials be allowed to do it? That’s the kind of question that is floating around in the Netherlands right now as the Dutch government has proposed a bill that would allow authorities to do just that – including for those users who are located outside of the country. From ITWorld: Encryption of electronic data is increasingly becoming a problem for the police if they want to place taps, the draft reads.

Rightsholders Sue ISPs for Selling Internet Access

Drew Wilson — Thu, 02 May 2013 16:00:12 +0000

Rightsholders have said for years that the Internet is little more than a vehicle for “stolen” merchandise. Still, few rightsholders these days are willing to take such a direct approach to stop file-sharing as Sabam has recently. The Belgium rightsholder organization is suing ISPs for selling access to the Internet without paying royalties to copyright holders. The report comes from PCWorld which offers the following on the subject: Sabam wants the court to rule that Internet access providers Belgacom, Telenet and Voo should pay 3.4 percent of their turnover in copyright fees, because they profit from offering high speed Internet connections that give users easy access to copyright protected materials, the collecting organization said in a news release Tuesday.

Battle Over CISPA Heads to US Senate

Drew Wilson — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 11:40:47 +0000

CISPA (Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act) is back and battle lines have been drawn once again. After a hard fought battle, internet civil rights took a huge setback after it passed the House of Representatives. Now, the battle is being taken to the US senate. The last time we’ve seen CISPA, there was a hard fought battle between civil rights organizations and advocates and the US government. Opponents to CISPA were successful in delaying the controversial bill back in June of 2011, but it seems that the successes made amounted to moving the next battle to now. Last week, EFF any many others fought hard to take down the controversial legislation. The chorus of opposition included 34 other civil rights organizations.

CFAA Reform to Criminalize Teenagers for Reading News Online?

Drew Wilson — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 16:00:02 +0000

It’s an evolution of habits. Instead of opening a newspaper, many are turning to the Internet to find out what is happening in this world today. Unfortunately, it seems that part of the CFAA (Computer Fraud and Abuse Act) reform could inadvertently make it a criminal offense for teenagers to view many well-read news sites. Picture this scenario: you wake up a little earlier than normal one morning. Rather than head to school early, you decide to check out a few news sites to find out what’s the latest from North Korea. After reading an article or two, you check your watch, brush your teeth and head for classes. If you’re 19 years old, this act is perfectly normal and no one is going to frown upon you for doing so.

New US Bill Would Create a Hollywood Ambassador to the World

Drew Wilson — Sat, 06 Apr 2013 21:37:33 +0000

A recently announced bill in the US would create a “Chief Innovation and Intellectual Property Negotiator”, but critics charge that this is merely a Hollywood ambassador to the world. You can be forgiven if you had to re-check the URL to make sure you weren’t reading an article from The Onion when you saw this headline. The US Senate Senate Committee on Finance has published a press release detailing a bill introduced by Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Orrin Hatch (R-Utah). The position would be created thanks to the introduced legislation Innovation Through Trade Act, S. 660. From the press release: Specifically, the Chief Innovation and Intellectual Property Negotiator would: – Reflect the importance of intellectual property to the U.S.

ISOHunt Loses Appeal in 9th Circuit Court

Drew Wilson — Sun, 24 Mar 2013 16:00:12 +0000

The long process through the court has reached another point in the road. The 9th Circuit court of appeal has reaffirmed a lower courts injunction against Gary Fungs sites including ISOHunt. In 2009, ISOHunt lost a court decision in which the US court found the site liable for copyright infringement. The injunction forced Gary Fung to filter keyword search results from the site. In 2010, word came that Fung appealed the decision saying that there are a number of ways the decision could be appealed. It wasn’t as though the website was a free for all though. In 2007, ISOHunt started blocking US visitors from using their trackers. In addition to this, and in the same year, ISOHunt and TorrentSpy formed a system to block puirated material.

Opinion: Being Against the TPP Doesn’t Mean You’re Against Free Trade

Drew Wilson — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 20:04:16 +0000

There’s been a rise of opinions amongst supporters of the secretive Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) that needs to be addressed. The opinion is that if you are against the TPP for whatever reason, that automatically means you are against free trade. Drew Wilson tackles this assumption head on. We’ve been following the TPP very closely for years now. While it has been extremely secretive in that no draft has ever been officially made public, we are able to gain some insight into the agreement through various leaks that have happened in the past already. We became concerned over the intellectual property chapter which would, among other things, bring in a global three strikes law and put in place SOPA-style censorship on the Internet through ISPs.

ZeroPaid Interviews TorrentLitigation.com

Drew Wilson — Thu, 23 Aug 2012 18:33:26 +0000

We talk a lot about national and international copyright laws a lot, but one of the issues that receives less attention is how individual users can deal with legal threats by rights holders whenever they, say, get caught uploading copyright infringing material. Adam Urbanczyk, Principal Attorney of TorrentLitigation.com wants to be a solution for users who end up getting targeted by rightsholders. We interviewed him. ZeroPaid.com (ZP): Hello and welcome Adam Urbanczyk to ZeroPaid. First, tell us a little about yourself and the general idea about your website. Adam Urbanczyk: Thank you.