PS3 Torrents Flow Into Private Trackers As Jailbreak Becomes Popular
Posted on: September 06, 2010For several years since it’s launch, Sony’s Playstation 3 console managed to successfully keep pirates at bay – there were no working modchips or softmods available for the PS3 and illegitimate, pirated or duplicated copies were unplayable on these consoles. However, proving yet again that nothing is uncrackable, a working hack for the PS3 has finally surfaced (although it took a good 4 years since the launch of the console). PSJailBreak (aka PSGroove) is a simple USB Plug and Play solution...
SOS-HADOPI Blasted By HADOPI and Says There’s Currently No Mandatory Spyware
Posted on: September 06, 2010
Top 10 Most Downloaded Movies on BitTorrent
Posted on: September 06, 2010
This week there are four newcomers in the list. Robin Hood is the most downloaded movie on BitTorrent this week.
The data for our weekly download chart is collected by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only. All the movies in the list are DVDrips unless stated otherwise.
| Ranking | (last week) | Movie | Rating / Trailer |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | (…) | Robin Hood | 7.0 / trailer |
| 2 | (…) | Iron Man 2 | 7.4 / trailer |
| 3 | (1) | The Expendables (DVDscr) | 7.4 / trailer |
| 4 | (2) | Salt (R5) | 6.7 / trailer |
| 5 | (3) | Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time | 6.9 / trailer |
| 6 | (4) | Grown Ups | 5.7 / trailer |
| 7 | (…) | MacGruber | 5.8 / trailer |
| 8 | (8) | The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (DVDscr) | 4.6 / trailer |
| 9 | (5) | Sex and the City 2 | 3.9 / trailer |
| 10 | (…) | The Last Seven | 3.7 / trailer |
Brazil Is Considering to Legalize File Sharing
Posted on: September 06, 2010
It looks like Brazil may be the country to watch if you're interested in much more consumer-friendly copyright laws.
As that country goes through a copyright reform process, among the proposals is one that would create fines not just for infringing, but also for hindering fair use and the public domain. Also, there is a big push underway, with widespread support — even from some artists groups — to legalize file sharing in exchange for a small price (~$1.74/month) on your broadband connection.
It seems that one reason why Brazil may be doing it this way is because of the massive success the Brazilian musical genre techno-brega has had by embracing file sharing as a way to promote new works, and making money through other avenues, like live shows.
The idea was advanced by a coalition of 28 academic, educational, consumer, musical and digital cultural organizations who have called on the government to legalize file-sharing through a blanket licensing system.
http://www.p2pon.com/2010/09/06/brazil-is-considering-to-legalize-file-sharing/ Post LinkISP Liability For Infringement Nuked, ACTA Leak Reveals
Posted on: September 06, 2010According to yet another leaked draft of the highly controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), participating countries will no longer be obliged to impose secondary liability on Internet Service Providers for copyright infringements carried out by their customers. Other harsh measures to counter copyright infringement are still in place.
The level of secrecy which surrounds ACTA, the developing international agreement that aims to target piracy and counterfeiting globally, is unprecedented. It took nearly two years for negotiators to release a heavily redacted draft to the public, but by that time citizens were already fairly well informed having gathered information from previously leaked documents.
Bypassing U.S. opposition to the release of an official text, last night yet another draft leaked out, published by Knowledge Ecology International. The draft contains details on the round of ACTA negotiations which took place last month in the United States.
Notable in the 29 page draft titled ‘Consolidated Text, Reflects Changes Made During the August [Washington] DC Round' are changes to Section 4 – Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights in the Digital Environment.
With the relevant texts having been removed from earlier drafts, it appears that countries will no longer be required to impose secondary liability for infringements onto their ISPs. Previously, ISPs would be held liable for the copyright infringements of their customers when they failed to respond swiftly to ‘notice and takedown' requests from copyright holders.
Although dropping the ISP liability paragraphs could be seen as a step in the right direction, there are still various strict ‘anti-infringement' measures in place. The countries that sign up to ACTA are being asked to provide relevant authorities with the power to order ISPs to hand over the identities of customers suspected of infringing copyright to rights holders on the presentation of a “sufficient claim of infringement”.
Countries are also required to provide “remedies to prevent infringement and remedies which constitute a deterrent to further infringement” along with enforcement procedures which address “technologies that can be used to facilitate widespread infringement”. Although the text is open to interpretation, it opens the door to all kinds of filtering systems that may be used to block websites which are deemed illegal, a measure that is high up on the ACTA wish list of anti-piracy groups.
Participants are further encouraged to “promote cooperative efforts within the business community to effectively address infringement” while preserving “legitimate competition”, “freedom of expression, fair process and privacy”.
According to an analysis by Michael Geist, the anti-circumvention (DRM-breaking) provisions are still on the table.
“There is general agreement on a broad provision that largely mirrors the WIPO Internet treaties in calling for ‘adequate legal protection and effective legal remedies against the circumvention of effective technological measures.' If the obligation were to end there, the provision would simply ensure that all ACTA countries establish anti-circumvention rules, with all the flexibility that WIPO allows,” Geist explains.
However, the United States wants to go further – time will tell if they get their way.
Article from: TorrentFreak.
http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/rBSHzgWwpvg/ Post LinkFilmmakers Release Clip from Pirate Bay Documentary
Posted on: September 06, 2010
Su.Per Food – A New BitTorrent Invite, News and Discussion Forum Now Recruiting
Posted on: September 05, 2010Over the last couple of months, we have featured quite a few BitTorrent invite & news forums on this blog. Some of these sites such as VTN have been successful while some others have now disappeared without a trace. Here’s another new BT forum which we hope will become a success – Su.Per Food is a brand new site that’s just entering the file sharing scene. Although it’s new, it appears to be run by a knowledgeable bunch of folks who crave to do something different. The site already features...
300 Alleged BitTorrent Users Targeted By Porn Industry
Posted on: September 05, 2010
Anti-Piracy Outfit Threatens To DoS Uncooperative Torrent Sites
Posted on: September 05, 2010In recent years, technical anti-piracy enforcement has taken a less aggressive approach to that previously demonstrated by the infamous MediaDefender. But now, according to a company being hired to protect Bollywood blockbusters, if BitTorrent sites don't cooperate by taking down torrents when asked, they will have denial of service attacks launched against them and material taken down by force.
While anti-piracy actions had grown steadily more aggressive, it still came as a bit of a surprise when it was revealed in 2008 that a DoS-style attack had been launched against Revision3′s BitTorrent tracker.
Founded by Kevin Rose and Jay Adelson of Digg fame along with David Prager of TechTV, Revision3 serves up around 6 million downloads per month. However, their whole operation was turned upside down two years ago when the now-defunct MediaDefender abused Revision3′s tracker for their own ends and when denied access “threw an epic tantrum” which took down the whole site.
Since the demise of MediaDefender, anti-piracy companies certainly haven't gone away and some have still resorted to DoS-style attacks. Trident Media Guard, the French anti-piracy outfit selected by the music and movie industry to track down French pirates under the new ‘Hadopi’ law, was recently spotted trying to pointlessly smother a user sharing via BitTorrent.
Most groups working in this field keep their techniques private but as we shall see, that's not true for all of them. According to an India-based company working on behalf of Bollywood studios, there are a number of techniques they can use to deal with movie piracy, from the gentle to the particularly aggressive.
According to Girish Kumar, managing director of AiPlex Software – a company recently hired to combat piracy on the movie My Name is Khan (which trended at #1 on KickAssTorrents earlier this year) – they begin with a simple notice and takedown.
“When we detect a website offering a link or a download, we contact the server hosts and intimate them about the illegal activity. They issue a notice to the site owner,” Kumar explains. “If the site owner does not comply, the site is either suspended or dismissed,” he adds optimistically.
When a copy of the movie Peepli Live appeared on the private Desi tracker ICTorrent on August 13th 2010, AiPlex promptly ordered it to take down the torrent.
Although it's reported that the site complied, TorrentFreak checked and the file is still there along with several others added in the past few weeks.
“The problem is with torrent sites, which usually do not oblige,” acknowledges Kumar. But AiPlex, which charges between $4,290 and $8,580 to ‘protect' movies for a four-week period, have other tricks up their sleeve.
“In such cases, we flood the website with requests, which results in database error, causing denial of service as each server has a fixed bandwidth capacity,” Kumar reveals. And it doesn't stop there.
“At times, we have to go an extra mile and attack the site and destroy the data to stop the movie from circulating further,” he adds.
Given the nature of these pretty outlandish admissions, TorrentFreak contacted AiPlex (who confusingly list ‘Bram Cohen' as a type of torrent client on their site) for comment but at time of publication we had received no response. We also contacted the administrators at ICTorrent but they were equally silent.
Although it's long been suspected that ‘dirty tricks' have been employed by anti-piracy groups in the past, it is very unusual for a company to openly admit using these type of techniques against torrent sites. Should AiPlex offer us a statement, we will update this post accordingly.
Article from: TorrentFreak.
http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/UkXrO4lKzcY/ Post LinkMajor Coalition Pushes to Legalize File-Sharing in Brazilian Copyright Consultation
Posted on: September 04, 2010
SceneExpress Open For Signup, Country Bans Lifted
Posted on: September 04, 2010A couple of weeks ago, we posted an article on the launch of SceneExpress (aka SeX) v1. SeX ended its somewhat lengthy beta period recently and launched the first final version of its tracker and web interface with some new features, bug fixes and enhancements. However, the site was not open to the public back when we posted the news – new users who were interested in joining had no way of getting in since even the invites channel remained closed. Good news is that SceneExpress has now opened...
Police Swoop On 6,000 Song File-Sharer
Posted on: September 04, 2010Inspired by their flagship site The Pirate Bay, file-sharers across Sweden continue to share files using the BitTorrent protocol largely unhindered and unconcerned by possible legal action. Those that choose to use certain other methods are not quite so safe, as police arrest yet another man for sharing large quantities of files.
Swedish police have been making relatively small but regular arrests of individuals they can prove are sharing large numbers of tracks all at once. On Friday they targeted yet another.
According to P4 Jämtland who quoted the Prosecuters Office in Stockholm, yesterday police carried out an operation in central Sweden against what they described as a suspected “pirate network”.
Acting on a tipoff from music industry outfit IFPI, police carried out the raid in the Östersund region where they arrested a man who they suspect shared around 6,000 music tracks online.
“We have received a notification from the music industry's association and the data provided pointed us to an address outside Östersund,” said prosecutor Henrik Rasmussen.
“There, we made a seizure of computer media,” he noted, while suggesting that the arrested individual confessed to his activities.
Rasmussen said the offense could result in a prison sentence but going on earlier cases a suspended sentence or fines might be handed down.
In recent years few other countries have generated more news than Sweden when it comes to file-sharing. Through the activities of Piratbyran and The Pirate Bay, this Scandinavian country of less than 10 million people has consistently punched above its weight.
Despite the increased attention of copyright enforcers and the pain they have caused The Pirate Bay, Sweden's file-sharers have largely carried on regardless, even in the face of tighter legislation designed to curb their activities.
The numbers of citizens using BitTorrent has continued to increase and to date the introduction of IPRED has only affected them marginally, but those who choose to use shared-folder type file-sharing methods aren't so lucky.
Like many more before him, the individual arrested in Östersund was using Direct Connect to share files. While Direct Connect hubs are more difficult to access than your average torrent site, once in users tend to share their entire collections, in this case music. The index of all this material is shared between the users of the hub to show what is available and files can be accessed whenever the person sharing them is online.
It is pretty easy to prove large scale infringement against Direct Connect users. Proving the same against BitTorrent users is not, and this is why BitTorrent users are escaping police attention.
Article from: TorrentFreak.
http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/mPTOF7iZI6I/ Post LinkMusic piracy is a ‘growing threat’, says US Commerce Secretary
Posted on: September 03, 2010
Gary Locke, the US Commerce Secretary
Gary Locke, the US Commerce Secretary, said that digital piracy threatened America’s economic competitiveness.
In a speech at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, Mr Locke called on internet service providers and copyright holders to “work collaboratively” to combat digital piracy. He echoed comments made by Joe Biden, the US Vice-President, who said piracy was “unadulterated theft” and should be dealt with accordingly.
“We are trying to figure out how we shut out the pirates, while preserving the internet as an avenue for commerce for music and for other creative industries,” he said.
Mr Locke said the internet was a “double-edged sword” which both threatened traditional business models as well as provided new opportunities.
“On the one hand, online copyright infringement is a growing threat, with cyberlockers as well as peer-to-peer, file sharing, streaming and user generated content sites providing a constant challenge to the music industry,” he said. “But the internet, if used correctly, can be a great growth engine.”
Mr Locke has pledged his support to international efforts to strengthen copyright law, and for the enforcement of existing laws and penalties against digital pirates. He said that it was the artists and songwriters who stood to lose the most from illegal filesharing.
Locke’s statements came a week after Cary Sherman, president of the Recording Industry Association of America, declared that copyright law “isn’t working” because internet service providers are allowed to turn a blind eye to customers’ unlawful activities with impunity. ?Hollywood and recording studios?have been pushing for the?removal of online pirates from the internet in what is largely known as “three strikes” or “graduated response” policy.
http://www.p2pon.com/2010/09/02/music-piracy-is-a-%e2%80%98growing-threat%e2%80%99-says-us-commerce-secretary-2/ Post LinkPirate Bay On Screen
Posted on: September 03, 2010
Pirate Bay will become a documentary subject in the idea of a Swedish filmmaker. ??Simon Klose wants to create a documentary called TPB AFK about the three founders of the site, and their reactions to being found guilty of being accessory to crime against copyright law and fined about $3.6 million.
The director has already begun to record and with the help of Kickstarter in three days, he raised nearly $30,000 on to pay for a professional editor and use of an editing suite in putting together what he described as a “complex story”.
The documentary’s name is a reference to how the site’s founders had to confront reality: “AFK is computer slang for being offline, so TPB AFK is the story about a group of people in a?digital community?who, at times, are forced to leave the internets and deal with life offline — away from keyboard.”
The movie will be released once the appeal is over with the conclusion of the story of the Pirate Bay’s lawsuit, however it ends. Although it’ll be mostly in Swedish, there’ll be subtitles openly available for people who want to translate them. It’ll be available free in Ogg Theora on BitTorrent, and it’ll also be purchasable on DVD for, Klose says, “people who wish to support the filmmakers”.
http://www.p2pon.com/2010/09/01/pirate-bay-on-screen/ Post LinkNetflix Polls BitTorrent Habits of Leaving Customers
Posted on: September 03, 2010With over 10 million customers, Netflix is a huge player in the online DVD rental business in the United States. Aside from sending out DVDs by mail, customers can also stream movies directly to a wide variety of devices. Despite these services, there are still plenty of people who cancel their accounts. Just for the record, Netflix wants to know through a survey if they are perhaps 'pirates'.
Hollywood often blames BitTorrent sites and other file-sharing platform for billions of dollars of annual lost revenue. Perhaps unsurprisingly, this alleged hit is not felt in all sectors of the movie industry. Netflix, the leading online DVD rental company in the United States, is doing very well.
Despite a direct ‘threat' from piracy, including many BitTorrent sites, Netflix's revenue has been growing steadily year after year. In 2006 the company acquired a net income of $49.1 million, which more than doubled to $116 million by 2009. And this growth is not slowing down either. During the second quarter of this year Netflix booked a record-breaking income of $43.5 million.
Although business has been going well for the movie rental company, there will always be customers who decide to cancel their accounts. In common with all self respecting companies, Netflix want to find out why people cancel, and this is the reason why they present leaving customers with an interesting survey.
In the survey, Netflix asks for the reasons why the customer has chosen to leave, the likelihood that he or she will return and what their primary sources for TV-shows and movies will be in the future.
“What will be your primary source for movies and TV episodes after canceling Netflix?” the question reads.
Although this question in itself is nothing out of the ordinary, one of the response options is. Apparently Netflix sees BitTorrent sites as direct competition, and it fears that this may cause some customers to leave.
“Peer-to-peer / bit torrent sites such as Torrentz.com, Demonoid.com, Tvlinks.com, ThePirateBay.org, etc,” is one of the answers that customers can check (see below).
If chosen, the option does not trigger any follow-up questions related to BitTorrent, so the information they gather is not very elaborate. It would be interesting, however, to see how canceling subscribers answer the question above. How many would pick the peer-to-peer option? Perhaps more importantly, how is this information going to change Netflix's business strategy?
Thanks Dylan.
Netflix's cancellation survey
Article from: TorrentFreak.
http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/hHYQgHBKdgg/ Post LinkNetflix loses Customers
Posted on: September 03, 2010
Netflix, the biggest player in the online DVD rental business in the United States seems to be threatened by the piracy, since plenty of people cancelled their accounts. Even if they send out DVDs by mail, or they offer movies streamed directly to a wide variety of devices, there will always be customers who decide to cancel their accounts. ??And just like all self respecting companies, Netflix want to find out why people cancel, and this is the reason why they present leaving customers with an interesting survey.
Despite a direct ‘threat’ from piracy, including many BitTorrent sites, Netflix’s revenue has been growing steadily year after year. In 2006 the company acquired a net income of $49.1 million, which more than doubled to $116 million by 2009. And this growth is not slowing down either. During the second quarter of this year Netflix booked a record-breaking income of $43.5 million.
In the survey, Netflix asks for the reasons why the customer has chosen to leave, the likelihood that he or she will return and what their primary sources for TV-shows and movies will be in the future.
“What will be your primary source for movies and TV episodes after canceling Netflix?” the question reads.
Although this question in itself is nothing out of the ordinary, one of the response options is. “Peer-to-peer / bit torrent sites such as Torrentz.com, Demonoid.com, Tvlinks.com, ThePirateBay.org, etc,” is one of the answers that customers can check (see below).
Apparently Netflix sees BitTorrent sites as direct competition, and it fears that this may cause some customers to leave.
http://www.p2pon.com/2010/09/03/netflix-loses-customer/ Post LinkJohn Mellencamp: “Internet Most Dangerous Thing Since Atomic Bomb”
Posted on: September 03, 2010
File Sharing Notices Used in Scams
Posted on: September 03, 2010
Apparently, the three strikes model is among the latest sources of inspiration for internet crooks. Using the HADOPI’s (France's Haute Autorité pour la diffusion des œuvres et la protection des droits sur Internet ) anti-P2P file-sharing campaign cyber-scammers have tried to perfect a system to trick people into paying fines on account of copyright infringement acts.
Any French file sharer at least knows (or should know) that HADOPI is the government organization to which copyright owners in France forward complaints, with the power to sanction, fine and disconnect people accused of illegal file sharing.
This bad rep HADOPI has gained has helped scammers to exploit internet users who have received e-mails claiming to be sent by HADOPI and accusing the recipients of being involved in file sharing activities. The users were then directed to a malicious website where they were asked to settle the matter rapid;ly and conveniently by making a payment.
HADOPI's Secretary General Éric Walter warned internet users to be careful when something similar happens to them and when asked for personal information.
http://www.p2pon.com/2010/09/03/file-sharing-notices-used-in-scams/ Post LinkHow Any BitTorrent User Can Collect Lawsuit Evidence
Posted on: September 03, 2010The RIAA may have given up on lawsuits targeting P2P users, but other companies have stepped into their shoes. There are many ways to detect P2P users and collect evidence of their behaviors for use in lawsuits. The simplest way needs nothing more than a BitTorrent client.
We've covered some of the more exotic ways people can be tracked or monitored in the past (including some that don't work) but the lawsuits, abandoned by the record industry as bad for business, have been adopted by a group of lawyers who don't let a little hypocrisy stand in their way.
There's a lot of misinformation about which companies and agencies can do what, and how they do it. People claim industry groups or random companies can search and send out letters at random, whereas the reality is the investigator must be authorized or they could be deemed guilty of copyright infringement themselves.
There's also a lot of confusion about exactly how evidence is collected, with people sometimes believing that it can only be collected from corporate networks, or that private trackers are safe because investigators can't share and so would be banned for their ratio. Much of this is untrue and these beliefs can make it easier to collect evidence.
The easiest way of all is to simply collect information from trackers. It's an easy and quick way to do it, although as was revealed 2 years ago, it's often quite inaccurate.
The next simplest way, which provides lots of data, is just to join a swarm and monitor. Some people believe that clients doing this will stand out, as modified clients will behave differently. The reality is that clients don't have to be monitored at all.
Researcher Andrew Norton produced this video explaining how a vanilla ?Torrent client can be used to identify and log peers without any modification or abnormal behavior.
The raw data shown in the video – all that's needed for a lawsuit or allegation under most 3-strikes laws – is nothing more than basic communication data. However, it's critical to note that this data, while it is evidence of activity, is NOT evidence of infringement in many cases.
We can't testify that this is the method used by any company – they're notoriously tight-lipped about their methods – but it's quite possible that it's being used and sold on as a very high priced service to customers. Selling simple and not always accurate or effective methods for thousands of dollars a week was revealed to be a key method of MediaDefender. Anyone reading this and intending to hire such companies would be advised to ask for a demonstration of their detection system first-hand.
It should, however, come as yet another wakeup call to those using blocklist-based software. Without any way to identify a client using this method, there's no way to add its IP to the list. In fact, the public availability of block-list contents means it's extremely easy to avoid being on them.
On the other hand VPNs, proxies and seedboxes will provide some protection, but the only real solution is to press for the peer-review of anti-P2P companies and their methods, but that doesn't look like it will come any time soon.
Article from: TorrentFreak.
http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/STMEh9g9jV4/ Post LinkRIAA: Copyright Holders Make it Difficult to Replicate OiNK, What.CD
Posted on: September 03, 2010
French ISPs and French Government Locking Horns Over HADOPI Costs
Posted on: September 03, 2010
uTorrent Linux Server Released
Posted on: September 02, 2010
BitTorrent Inc. ?just released uTorrent Server for Linux, a daemonizable 32-bit binary of the uTorrent core, suited to those familiar with running programs from the command line. A full Linux client is expected to follow in the coming weeks.
Ever since uTorrent was first released back in 2005, Mac and Linux users have been begging the developers to code a version compatible with their computers. In 2006, when uTorrent was sold to BitTorrent Inc., the company promised that a Mac version was coming, and in 2008 it was finally released. Now, on the massive demand from users, ?a Linux client was impossible to ignore.
“If any group has embraced the possibilities and power of BitTorrent for distribution, it is the Linux community. Virtually every distribution is available via torrent download and many even ship with a BitTorrent client in the default configuration,” ?said the BitTorrent’s VP of Product Management, Simon Morris.
Labeled as an Alpha release, uTorrent Linux Server precedes a client with a full featured UI which is expected to be released in the coming weeks. The server can be managed through an HTTP API or the uTorrent Web UI pictured below, which is included in the release.
http://www.p2pon.com/2010/09/02/utorrent-linux-server-released/ Post Link13 Unlucky Reasons Why Zaptunes is Bullshit
Posted on: September 02, 2010For those keen to avoid raping and pillaging music from the nearest torrent site, a one-stop shop where unlimited DRM-free music can be bought for next to nothing must be a great attraction. Zaptunes, a new site advertising just that, has been making headlines this week. Trouble is, everything about it is a scam.
A few days ago various news outlets reported on the existence of Zaptunes, a new site offering DRM-free MP3 downloads for $25. Zaptunes claimed to have 8 million tracks available from the Big Four labels and untold others. As a nice introductory offer, Zaptunes offered their services free for 30 days. Nice.
Yesterday Hypebot had an email exchange with Zaptune's media spokesperson Anand Patel who said that the site's downloads “had been licensed from the appropriate major and indie labels.” But Zaptunes also says it offers music from The Beatles, an Internet impossibility as we all know.
“We have a contract with Sony Music, who hold the rights to most of the Beatles music,” said Patel. “I am sorry, but right now I can not give you more details about this contract.”
That's because there is no contract and Mr Patel is mistaking people for fools. Here's a short list of 13 unlucky reasons why (be sure to check out number 12 especially) and feel free to add more in the comments, there are dozens.
1. Zaptunes.com claims to be a San Francisco, CA based start-up. “With about $5 million in funding from various Venture Capitalists, we have steadily grown and made a strong foothold in the music industry,” they claim.
In fact, Zaptunes appeared just a few weeks ago on July 19th and despite $5 million in funding still begged people on Twitter to advertise for them with a tempting $10,000 prize due to be paid out August 22nd. No winners yet? We are surprised....
Tip: Try speaking to the press Zaptunes, they advertise your product for free....
2. Zaptunes isn't confident that they'll be around long. They registered their domain on July 19th 2010 – it expires on the same date next year. There's stability for you.
3. Even though TheBeatles Twitter account with 109,000 followers follows the Zaptunes Twitter account, that doesn't mean Zaptunes is legit, it just means people are keeping an eye on them. Zaptunes says it offers Beatles tracks. It does not.
4. Zaptunes promotes the availability of Eminem tracks, even though it has none. Zaptunes copied its entire Eminem fact page from an article they found using Google.
Their latest blog post was ripped from Last.fm and the one below that is ripped from MusicByDay. In fact, none of their posts are their own work.
Last.fm content is very popular on Zaptunes – it seems that much of the album art is ripped from there.
5. Other dodgy domains connect to Zaptunes.com including CaptainSam.com, which was registered by Tarandeep Singh Gill living at the rather official sounding 1 Something Road, Some City, California 94127. Even more reassuring is the Zaptunes.co.tv domain which also links to ZapTunes.com and is registered to ‘person surname' living in ‘londra, GB' – wherever that is.
6. Zaptunes says it offers tracks for free from the major labels. Anyone with any knowledge of the Big Four know full well that they never, ever give their music away en masse.
7. Zaptunes says it has a unique business model which enables it to offer unlimited downloads. None of the big labels together agree to unlimited downloads on a download service at any price.
8. Zaptunes' search engine suggests they offer both unreleased tracks and a selection of bootlegs. The major labels love this kind of thing from their partners.
9. Despite all the claims, Zaptunes doesn't offer ANY music whatsoever. From its own site:
ZapTunes.com does not provide any downloads from its servers. ZapTunes.com just enables its members to find free or paid music available on the Internet. The Artists/Tracks displayed on the home page and other parts of the website are for promotional purposes only and may not be available for free or paid download.
ZapTunes.com has a database of websites that offer free and legal music downloads. Whenever a registered members looks for a song, ZapTunes searches for that song in the database, and if it finds a website offering a legal download of that song, it is displayed it to the user. If not, then ZapTunes looks for that song on Amazon, iTunes and various other paid to download websites, and displays the user their options. ZapTunes is not helping or promoting piracy in any way.
10. ZapTunes says its name is a registered trademark. Our searches with the United States Patent and Trademark Office drew a big blank.
11. Most of the site's Privacy Policy was cut-and-pasted from here and the ‘Terms of Use‘ on ZapTunes should be read very, very closely. Anyone giving over their credit card details could be in for a very nasty surprise. DON'T DO IT!
12. Another URL that redirects to Zaptunes is www.24hfunds.com. Readers of this discussion thread on TalkGold will see that by page 6, the scheme promoted by its owner was deemed to be a scam. A search on Google for '24hfunds and scam' turned up 5,000 results.
13. Those unlucky enough to have given their details over already will see charges on their credit card account from TrackYourPics.com – the following is currently displayed on their site, spelling errors intact:
“Did you see a charge on your credit card with TRACKYOURPICS.COM? It is because you either signed up on trackyourpics.com or ZapTunes.com. All the subscriptions have been cancelled, so you will not see any furher charges on your credit card. Also, we are in the process or reversing the charges already made.”
TrackYourPics is registered to an address in San Francisco, California. Google seems to think that location is a drain cover.
A fitting place for Zaptunes. Stay well away.
Article from: TorrentFreak.
http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/SyBL4S5Dta8/ Post LinkGame Companies Should Play Fair With P2P
Posted on: September 02, 2010Increasingly, game companies are using peer-to-peer powered solutions to deliver games and updates to their customers. While the use of P2P technology could be beneficial for publishers, consumers, and the image of file-sharing in general, the use of P2P by game companies still lacks transparency, privacy and control. A newly published best practices outline aims to change this.
In the past we've praised game companies who adopted P2P-based solution for the distribution of their content. Through the use of P2P, the game companies can save resources and consumers often see improved download times. However, there is also a dark side to this apparent synergy.
Although the use of P2P technology has many benefits, it is not always implemented with the interests of consumers in mind. In fact, quite often gamers are simply abused as cheap bandwidth sources by million dollar corporations, often without their knowledge.
Akamai, one of the largest content delivery companies around, has a P2P-based product called the Netsession Interface which is rather abusive towards customers. The software is installed as a Windows service and it is always running in the background. Even worse, most users wont even know that it's running because it doesn’t show up in task manager. Nothing of the above is mentioned in their EULA.
The NetSession Interface is used by game publishers including Kuma Games, Aeria Games and NetDevil. Customers who play the games have no user controls or visible indicators, while the software uses ‘their' upload bandwidth to deliver content to other users for an indefinite period after the download is completed.
Besides Akamai there are various other P2P-based solutions that lack transparency, control or privacy, such as Pando's Media Booster. Blizzard's BitTorrent Downloader which is used for the distribution of StarCraft 2 and World of Warcraft is one of the more transparent solutions, but that one is not perfect yet either.
From the Akamai example above it is clear that something has to be done to ensure that consumers are not exploited as bandwidth slaves. P2P technology is great, and many consumer would love to donate some, but there has to be a clear set of rules to guarantee that consumers have a choice.
To address this issue, game publisher company Solid State Networks has just released a best practices document (pdf) which emphasizes giving users transparency and control over their resources. According to the company it all boils down to the following directives:
1. Transparency – Make visible and readily accessible information about the presence and operational activity of the P2P technology.
2. Control – Provide the ability to manage, operate and remove the P2P technology in an intuitive and conspicuous manner to the user.
3. Privacy – Ensure the absolute privacy and security of personal information and user originated files.
We think this is a great initiative and sincerely hope that the gaming industry will adopt this, or a similar set of rules, in the interests of the consumer. A quick search on Google shows that most of it is much needed, as there are are many complaints (1,2,3,4,5) from gamers about the lack of transparency and control that most of the current P2P delivery systems offer.
Surprisingly enough, Solid State Networks already offers their very own P2P-based delivery solution for game publishers that adheres to all three directives. However, the other P2P-based solutions that already exist out there can be easily adopted to become ‘fair' as well.
Below you'll find an additional PSA, summarizing how and why game publishers should handle P2P-powered game distribution.
Best Practices P2P Technology in Online Games
Article from: TorrentFreak.
http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/gS52KL0jwNU/ Post LinkHollywood Links Pirate Bay Founding Group To Cyber Attack
Posted on: September 02, 2010A large scale cyber attack which took down cable, telephone, cellular and satellite networks in Washington for around 15 minutes has been blamed on a female Russian hacker. According to the show Covert Affairs, she is a member of Piratbyrån, the founding group behind The Pirate Bay. The group are somewhat unsuccessfully trying to play down any real-life link to the supposedly fictional claims.
Covert Affairs is a spy action/drama from USA Network which premiered in July 2010. The pilot featured young CIA trainee, Annie Walker, who was guided by Auggie Anderson, a agent who was previously blinded on a mission in Iraq. The next few episodes to date follow Annie in her adventures.
In episode 7, which aired last week, events were focused on the visually impaired Auggie Anderson. While in bed with beautiful TV reporter Liza Hearn (Emmanuelle Vaugier), Auggie notices the phones are down. Not only that, but all TV, cable, Internet, cellular and satellite communications too.
Concerned at the shutdown and eager to get back into the field, Auggie puts his theory to his bosses – that a hacker was responsible and he is the man to go in and sort things out.
To his surprise, Auggie was given the mission but at the briefing (6 minutes into the episode) he had quite a surprise. The hacker turns out to be his elegant Russian ex-girlfriend Natasha Petrovna (Liane Balaban), who Auggie had dumped several years earlier.
As with many shows of this type, Covert Affairs blurs reality with real-life events, people and organizations such as the CIA. In this respect, Petrovna's background proves to be of particular interest.
Born and raised in St. Petersburg, Russia, Auggie's old flame has a graduate degree in computer security but according to the CIA is now a member of a particularly sinister group – the Swedish Piracy Bureau Piratbyrån – the founding group behind The Pirate Bay.
“A card carrying anarchist,” remarks an agent in the briefing.
Concerned that there's rarely smoke without fire, TorrentFreak contacted Piratbyrån founder Marcin de Kaminski for comment.
“What I can say is that we do have strong and positive connections with Russian groups and individuals,” Kaminski explained. “We have experienced really good cooperation at more than one time.”
“It is of course always bad for our credibility when information appears to leak. At the same time we know that the MPAA has been making stuff up for years, so we are not surprised.”
So has Piratbyran ever been involved in hacking, or would it consider employing mysterious hackers?
“If we use secret agents like this Natasha? It is impossible for me to say anything specific about our whereabouts and strategies, but let me make this clear: there is still lots of dirty stuff that has to be taken care of,” warned Kaminski.
But wasn't Piratbyrån disbanded recently?
“Piratbyrån is in fact not currently an operational entity, that is correct. But at the same time we are working on other partially related projects. You will hear from us again,” Kaminski concludes.
The next episode of the show, Fool In The Rain, airs September 7th. Who knows what other secrets will be revealed....
Article from: TorrentFreak.
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