[syndicate] Amazon Noir - The Big Book Crime - Out of court settlement

[Hans Bernhard]

To properly communicate this project, we would like you to have this
press-release, dealing with the core technology and the story around
our Amazon Noir project.  If you have questions or comments, pls mail
them to us: crime at amazon-noir.com

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - PR Squared / Panikbluete
Vienna, Torino, Bari, Oldenburg, Nov/Dez, 2006





Amazon Noir – The Big Book Crime

Out of court settlement

UBERMORGEN.COM, PAOLO CIRIO, ALESSANDRO LUDOVICO





http://www.amazon-noir.com






THE PLOT

The Bad Guys (The Amazon Noir Crew: Cirio, Ludovico, Lizvlx, Bernhard)
stole copyrighted books from Amazon by using sophisticated
robot-perversion-technology coded by supervillain Paolo Cirio. A
subliminal media fight and a covert legal dispute escalated into an  
online
showdown with the heist of over 3000 books at the center of the story.
Lizvlx from UBERMORGEN.COM had daily shoot outs with the global  
massmedia,
Cirio continuously pushed the boundaries of copyright (books are just
pixels on a screen or just ink on paper), Ludovico and Bernhard resisted
kickback-bribes from powerful Amazon.com until they finally gave in and
sold the technology for an undisclosed sum to Amazon. Betrayal,  
blasphemy
and pessimism finally split the gang of bad guys. The good guys
(Amazon.com) won the showdown and drove off into the blistering sun with
the beautiful femme fatale, the seductive and erotic massmedia.

Thieves of the invisible Text
http://www.amazon-noir.com/thieves.html

Dialogue
http://www.amazon-noir.com/dialogue.html



THE TECHNOLOGY

The Amazon Noir Robots (Sucker01-12) used the frontdoor to access the  
huge
digital library of Amazon.com. They tricked around with Amazon.coms
"Search Inside the Book" function until it gave away the complete  
volumes
of copyright protected books. This was carried out by sending 5.000 -
10.000 requests per book. After this process the data was logically
reassembled into pdf-format by the SIB-Book-Generator.

Diagram
http://www.amazon-noir.com/diagram.html


THE TRUTH

All our work is done in the open. Our matter is accurate. Amazon Noir  
was
scripted as an auto-generated internet-movie. The whole digital action
(media hack) was carried out in the global massmedia, within the art  
world
and on a highly sophisticated technical level in the clandestine  
matrix of
our global networks.

Amazon USA, Amazon U.K., Amazon Germany and Amazon France were  
vulnerable
targets.  During the attack they transformed part of the „Search Inside
the Book“ technology to defend the rights of the copyright holders -
without actually solving the problem. Over 3000 Books were downloaded  
and
distributed through p2p (Peer-to-peer networks: Gnutella/G2, BitTorrent,
FastTrack, ed2k) between April - October 2006.

In July 2006 Amazon France and Amazon USA threatend to litigate. The
matter was resolved out of court October 30th, 2006. Amazon (USA/France)
bought the Amazon Noir software for an undisclosed sum - both parties
signed a non-disclosure agreement.


Media Coverage (before settlement)

WMMNA (E): http://we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/008920.php
Heise.de (E): http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/76240
Turbulence (E): http://www.turbulence.org/blog/archives/002947.html
La Liberation (F): http://ecrans.fr/spip.php?article574
Der Spiegel (D): http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/web/ 
0,1518,435195,00.html
ORF (D): http://futurezone.orf.at/it/stories/138531/
Die Zeit (D):
http://zuender.zeit.de/2006/42/netz-kunst-amazon-noir-ubermorgen
ORF (D): http://futurezone.orf.at/it/stories/151370/
Telepolis Interview (D): http://www.heise.de/tp/r4/artikel/ 
24/24034/1.html



THE AUTHORS

UBERMORGEN.COM (Lizvlx/Hans Bernhard) [A/CH/USA, *1999]
UBERMORGEN.COM is an artist duo created in Vienna, Austria, by Lizvlx  
and
Hans Bernhard, founder of etoy ( http://www.etoy.com ). Behind
UBERMORGEN.COM we can find one of the most unmatchable identities –
controversial and iconoclast – of the contemporary European
techno-fine-art avant-garde. Their open circuit of conceptual art,
software art, net.art and digital activism (media hacking)  transforms
their brand into a hybrid Gesamtkunstwerk. The permanent amalgamation of
fact and fiction points toward an extremely expanded concept of one’s
working materials, that for UBERMORGEN.COM also include (international)
rights, democracy and global communication (input-feedback loops).
“Ubermorgen” is the German word both for “the day after tomorrow” or
“super-tomorrow”. http://www.ubermorgen.com

Paolo Cirio, AKA bidibid, (I, 1979)

As agitprop he organizes illegal events, from net-strikes to  
happenings on
the street and various radical culture jamming actions. He works with
video-art, street-art, body-art, public-art and interaction-design,
especially in the field of illegal-art. He is an activist against the  
NATO
militarism (he curated a international anti-NATO web portal). He was  
part
of the software-art collective [epidemiC] and collaborated with many  
other
historical Net.Art groups. Currently he works freelance as web designer
and web developer. http://www.paolocirio.net

Alessandro Ludovico (I)

Alessandro Ludovico is a media critic and editor in chief of Neural
magazine from 1993 (http://english.neural.it),  Honorary Mention,  
Prix Ars
Electronica 2004). He has written: 'Virtual Reality Handbook' (1992),
'Internet Underground.Guide' (1995), 'Suoni Futuri Digitali' (Future
Digital Sounds, 2000). He's one of the founding contributor of the  
Nettime
community and one of the founders of the 'Mag.Net (Electronic Cultural
Publishers)' organization. He's also an advisor for the Documenta 12's
Magazine Project, and has lectured all over Europe and Canada. He  
teaches
Computer Art and Interface Aesthetics at the Academy of Art in Carrara.
 From 2005 he collaborates with Ubermorgen and P.Cirio with which he  
made
the 'Google Will Eat Itself' (Honorary Mention Prix Ars Electronica  
2005,
Rhizome Commission 2005, nomination Prix Transmediale 2006) and 'Amazon
Noir' projects.




PRESS-CONTACT

crime at amazon-noir.com
0043 650 930 00 61

Press-Materials (Links, High-Res Images):
http://www.amazon-noir.com/press.html
Selected Photos: http://www.flickr.com/gp/13957941@N00/puT2c4






"Amazon Noir" is sponsored by the the Edith Russ Site for Media Art,
Oldenburg (D), the City of Vienna/MA7 (AT), Mana/Netznetz.net, Vienna
(AT),  the BKA - Bundeskanzleramt (AT)







---

Hans Bernhard
UBERMORGEN.COM / etoy.holding

Skype Hans_Bernhard
Email hans at ubermorgen.com
http://www.ubermorgen.com

MISH - MASH - MESH
BRAND NEW: http://www.amazon-noir.com


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