| Digital publishers and movie studios often turn to anti-piracy organizations to serve cease and desist letters or even take people to court to collect royalties. Who policies the anti-piracy companies to insure that they are reporting all of the revenue they attain through lawsuits and collection efforts? Over a decade ago the Danish entertainment and publishing industry saw the writing on the wall and formed a coalition that was known as Antipiratgruppen or the (Anti-Piracy Group). Of course, all anti-piracy groups need lawyers and as a result Danish lawfirm Johan Schlüter was hired for the job. The company became deeply entrenched in tracking down pirates and it became their full time job developing tools and collecting money from piracy organizations. Where was the money that was collected going? The Anti-Piracy Group began to wonder when a series of big cases were settled out of court and they were only getting a pittance. An independent study by auditing company Deloitte, has revealed that an owner of the Johan Schlüter Law Firm illegally pocketed at least $15 million dollars and a police investigation is now underway. What makes the case so intriguing is the allegation that the money in question should have been distributed to movie and TV industry associations and their underlying rightsholders. The groups – CAB, Filmkopi and Filmret – hired Johan Schlüter to handle the registration, collection and administration of their rights but it appears the lawfirm hasn't been playing things fair. Pirate websites and for profit operations tend to garner the majority of headlines worldwide. Everyone takes piracy seriously, but who insures that the anti-piracy organizations and their cadre of lawyers aren’t just pocketing the money themselves? Apparently Johan Schlüter was embezzling money from 2011 to 2015. The associations say they are in "shock" that their twenty year collaboration with the lawfirm has ended this way. |
Friday, July 10, 2015
Anti-Piracy Outfit Defrauds Rights Owners out of Millions
Barnes and Noble Puts a Priority on Manga
| Barnes and Noble has announced that they are going to double the amount of manga and graphic novels in each store all across the country. The company said the expansion is due to strong customer demand and the growing popularity of these genres. The expanded section features eye-catching signage on bookshelves that directs customers to series and characters they'll want to know more about, making for easier browsing and discovery. Keys Facts About the Expanded Graphic Novels and Manga Selection at Barnes & Noble: § Barnes & Noble has achieved growth in Graphic Novels and Manga sales over the last 10 years, with a significant surge in customer demand over the last few years. This expansion is a direct result of this rapidly growing demand. § All Barnes & Noble stores across the country have doubled the space dedicated to Graphic Novels and Manga. § This doubling in space gives Barnes & Noble the opportunity to continue to meet the rapidly growing demand for Graphic Novels and Manga by: o Increasing the selection of new releases. o Keeping backlist books on the shelves longer. o Driving sales through eye-catching signage that highlights series and characters for customers to discover, through improved organization of books alphabetically by series for easy browsing and discovery, and through a permanent promotional space to feature top picks in Graphic Novels and Manga, highlighting bestsellers, new releases, can't miss characters, must-read series, and more. Jim Killen, Buyer at Barnes & Noble, added: "As a fan, I'm excited by the dynamic changes in the genres including raised levels of artistic talent reacting to and engendering a shift in the readership and the maturing of the category and its new voices and artists and the stories they tell. As a bookseller, I'm thrilled about the opportunity to introduce new people to the medium of Graphic Novels and Manga." Leading the way in Manga series are Attack on Titan, Naruto, Assassination Classroom, Fairy Tail and Blue Exorcist, with new and hot-selling titles including Tokyo Ghoul, Vol. 1 , Big Hero 6 , Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?, Vol. 1, Assassination Classroom, Vol. 1 and Seraph of the End, Vol. 1. |
Free Kobo Credits: $5 for New Accounts; $10 for Visa Checkout
| Awhile back I posted about Kobo offering a free $10 credit the first time customers use the new Visa Checkout option that Kobo has recently added to their website. Apparently that offer wasn’t active yet even though Kobo said it was, but now it’s back again and this time they are advertising it on their […] |
K2pdfopt Can Convert PDFs for Better Reading on eReaders and Phones
| Several readers have left comments over the years about how K2pdfopt is a helpful tool that can convert PDFs, even multi-column PDFs, to better fit on small screens that ebook readers and smartphones use. K2pdfopt can re-flow PDF text, even with scanned documents, and according to the website it can also be used as a […] |
Asus ZenPad S 8 Has 320 ppi, Android 5.1, 32GB Storage
| Asus has just released a new upper mid-range 8-inch tablet called the Asus ZenPad S 8. It has a good specs to dollars ratio, as well a really high resolution screen great for all forms of ereading. The ZenPad 8 has a similar screen as the Retina iPad Mini. It’s a 4:3 ratio 8-inch screen […] |
Where’s Wally? Find him faster with Wolfram Language
| If you ever want to get back at your sibling for some minor wrongdoing, there is no better way than to borrow all of their “Where’s Wally”** books and use a big red marker pen to give him speech bubbles shouting, “Here I am! Over here!” On every single page. But be prepared for war. (**He might be called “Waldo” where you live. But we all know he’s a Wally at heart.) If all of this sounds like too much work there are several tricks to track down the pesky little chap faster than random searching. Vitaliy Kaurov on the Wolfram blog looks at how to find Wally faster using Wolfram Language and explores the travelling salesman problem, path-finding algorithms and Picasso on the way. And if all of that maths on a Friday afternoon has encouraged you to explore Wolfram Language further then fire up your Raspberry Pi and have a play! The post Where’s Wally? Find him faster with Wolfram Language appeared first on Raspberry Pi. |
