One of the biggest problems being faced by all parts of the entertainment industry is the leaking of their products before release date.  It seems more of a miracle these days when a product can actually be released on street date and not suffer from an earlier “pirate release.” The question is how can developers secure their products from a pirated release before an actual street date release? We will look at some of the various strategies available to content producers over the next couple of entries and we will look at protections available during content production, manufacturing, and finally shipping of the product. What steps can be taken during these various stages to protect the intellectual property of content developers? We will look at this very question in our next three entries.

A new documentary entitled Copyright Criminals is premiering at film festivals and on PBS that asks what is the difference between a sample and infringement, if any.

Is sampling and scratching theft or merely traditional cultural appropriation? That’s the central question of the new documentary Copyright Criminals, premiering Tuesday at the Toronto Film Festival as well as on PBS’ Independent Lens series.

When Public Enemy’s legendary 1988 release It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back and De La Soul’s epochal 1989 effort 3 Feet High and Rising exploded the possibilities of sample-based sound collage, no one had a clue that hip-hop would become a multibillion-dollar global industry and spark lasting, devastating copyfights.

Were those copyfights legitimate, or simply ruthless attempts to cash in on a zeitgeist that knows no limit? Benjamin Franzen’s Copyright Criminals explores the subject through in-depth interviews with hip-hop’s finest talents, from De La Soul and Public Enemy to DJ Spooky, Jeff Chang, El-P, Mix Master Mike and many more.

The documentary makers even tracked down Clyde Stubblefield — James Brown’s original funky drummer, whose beats have been extensively borrowed to form the backbone of many hip-hop songs. Stubblefield says he has yet to see a dime from all the sampling, as he explains in the Copyright Criminals trailer.

Read More at http://www.wired.com/underwire/2010/01/copyright-criminals/#ixzz0d7ceSYQN

Copyright Criminals – Trailer from IndiePix on Vimeo.

KenSingTon Vii- The one, the only, the Vii… which incidentally has its own infomercial too!

Apparently the device isn’t horrible, but then again it’s not really striving to be much. Devices like these cause numerous problems for Nintendo in their attempt to penetrate the PRC’s growing middle class with legitimate Nintendo products.

PolyStation 3- If you ever wondered what happened to the technology used in Tiger Handheld games, here is your answer. The product copies the PS3 look in miniature form for no real reason, and honestly would function better as a piggy bank.