What a surprise ;-)

A prestigious economics think-tank of the Japanese Government has published a study which concludes that online piracy of anime shows actually increases sales of DVDs. The conclusion stands in sharp contrast with the entertainment industry’s claims that ‘illicit’ downloading is leading to billions of dollars in losses worldwide. It also puts the increased anti-piracy efforts of the anime industry in doubt.

Well, we'll never get reports out of the US government uninfluenced by big media's cries of woe while the govt. is too busy hiring them to run our legal system.

This is a very sensible view on why not to use digital rights management. Ars Technica reports on one video game company who does not believe in including DRM copy protection on their video games because the pirates are not part of their customer base and likely will never buy the product:

It's about time a university stood up to the RIAA. From Slashdot:

"The University of Oregon has filed a motion to quash the RIAA's subpoena for information on student identities in what is believed to be the first such motion made by a university with support from the state Attorney General. The motion (pdf) explains that it is impossible to identify the alleged infringers from the information the RIAA has presented. . . ."

Maybe now some other universities will finally put their students first.

Ars Technica reports that the RIAA has won their trial in a P2P piracy case, Capitol Records v. Jammie Thomas. The jury awarded the record company $220,000 in damages. I'm guessing that now the RIAA will become more emboldened and aggressive in their efforts to harass students.